Search the Community

I had a thought in the bath today (strange how inspiration strikes so often in the bathroom... maybe I should try and spend more of my day there ) Forgive me if this post seems erratic and scatty, I've not got all my thoughts in order yet, so this probably won't flow too well. I'm re-reading Warbreaker, highlighting what I think are important sections re: the larger Cosmere as I go (yay kindle!) and I've just gotten to the point at which Lightsong turns away petitioners and gets into a discussion regarding his own religion with Larimar. Larimar tells him: The wording here I think is important, which I'll come back to, but also: we know when you cross over, your soul makes a stopover in the Cognitive realm. Makes me think this is relevant to future-perception magics generally. Now, Isomere has started a topic http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3286-the-focus-on-roshar-is-waveforms/'>here which I think needs some love. He proposes that magic on Roshar is based around the idea of waveforms. I think this has some mileage. It also has implications for crossovers. Why I hear you ask? Breath. With enough BioChromatic Breath, you can perceive perfect colour and pitch recognition. If magic on Roshar is based on waveforms, this immediately becomes relevant (as colour and sound are both a product of wavelength). I'm not sure exactly what implications this may have, but again, stick with me, I'm going to keep going. We also know, in a mostly unrelated way, that Hemalurgy (what? We're on Scadrial now? Stick with me, I promise this get attempt to get stitched together at the end!) can be used to steal many different magical (and mundane) properties. Why should this be? If Ruin created Hemalurgy, why can it be used to steal powers granted by other shards? Why does sDNA have to be able to be affected by another Shard in the first place? We often talk of 'Preservation's power' or 'Honour's power', as though these are completely removed from each other - as though the shattering of Adonalsium split the power of creation along these lines of intent. I now think differently. I think that whilst each Shard has their own unique Intent, they each have a measure of the exact same, universal, power of creation, but this is filtered through the 'lens' of the Shardic intent it's tied to. And we see the evidence of this in the fact that people all over the Cosmere have Hemalurgic bindpoints which those on Scadrial could never have known of, or that the Waveforms on Roshar could be easily interpreted by an Awakener of sufficient Heightening. I might even go so far as to suggest that an Awakener would have an easier time making sense of Allomantic Bronzepulses, or the 'rhythm' of the Dor. This may also go some way to help describe how Odium was able to alter things on Roshar so that he could influence events there - he doesn't need to change the nature of the inherent magics there, only to change the way in which the magic is interpreted (perhaps through altering sDNA, although I'm loathe to tough the topic of sDNA as I don't think we know enough about it yet). Looking back over this, I don't know that I've necessarily said anything that's not been said before... but it feels like a fresh revelation in my head. Does this sound right or wrong to anyone else? Would anyone like to add to this, tweak it, or contradict it? Go nuts! I'd love to know what you all think.

So we talk a lot about foci here on 17th Shard. We spend a lot of time trying to determine the focus on Shardworlds where we don't have a definitive answer (currently I believe only Roshar). But what is a focus? The Coppermind page simply states I feel that before we can really determine Roshar's focus, we first need to understand exactly what a focus is. What it it's purpose? What does it do? Based on Phantom's post here which quotes the AoL Ars Arcanum, and Skaa's topic here which theorises that the Essences are the foci on Roshar, I would say that although I'm not yet 100% on if Skaa's choice of focus for Roshar is correct, I like his reasoning. Specifically, based on what we know of other foci, I would define a focus as something that enables a magic system, without necessarily being magical itself. The examples we have so far: Forms/symbols on Sel Molecular structures (specifically metals) on Scadrial Word-based commands on Nalthis I'm not going to rule out the possibility that we may see a focus in the future which is also Invested, but so far all the foci are pretty mundane. Atium admittedly is an exception, but unlike other metals, Atium actually powers the Investiture directly. I can't take much credit for this, as Skaa gave me the core of the idea, but I do think it deserves its own topic so we can discuss it. If you agree/disagree with the reasoning, please post why below!

Ok, on the reddit AMA just noticed something I'd not seen before, apologies if it has been mentioned already. Someone asked if Odium would become a metal if he went to Scadrial. The answer was that this was tied to Identity, and that Odium would need to tinker with things on Scadrial to make this work. Most interesting to me however, is that Odium has already done this on Roshar. Forgive my inability to link to a specific reddit post, but here's the quote: