(Theory) The Tanavallah: a Surgebinders Guide to Harmonics

[skaa]

What does it mean for two people without physical bodies to make love?

 

Well, I suppose creating a magic system that incorporates both your powers (e.g. Feruchemy for Ati and Leras) isn't really that romantic (I mean, just look at Ati and Leras!), but I guess it's a start. Especially if the magic system involves creating little spirit-like things that like to play around like little kids.

 

Phantom has a point. If I were to merge with my loved one to become a single entity, I wouldn't be able to love her like before, coz she'll be me. *shudder*

Edited June 10, 2013 by skaa

[ROSHtafARian]

This quote strongly supports Honor and Cultivation merging in some manner. What does it mean for two people without physical bodies to make love? We have been told that Shards inhabit power and energy the way humans inhabit flesh and blood, and I see no more intimate relationship than having these energies merge to create something new.

Edit: here is the source: http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=985/#5

 

I think this is a huge leap.  We know for certain that by the time of the first published cosmere work, all the Shardholders have come to view themselves as the Shards they possess....ie Ruin thinks of himself as Ruin, not Ati.  But that doesn't negate the person or experiences they were and had before they took up the Shards.  So when Brandon says that Cultivation and Honor were romantically involved, that doesn't mean that their bodiless spirits were making love for the past several millennia, all it means is that at some point, the beings who now identify as Honor and Cultivation were romantically linked, which could just as easily have been when they were fully human, before they took up their Shards.

[Isomere]

Being romantically involved could be satisfied by a childhood crush on Yolen that never amounted to anything. It could also mean what I suggest above or anything in between. It certainly is not proof of my theory, just another nudge that these two shards were working very closely together. We know they merged their Investiture when creating Spren, is it such a huge leap to theorize the investiture of the Shards also mixed temporarily while they were creating new splinters together?

[ROSHtafARian]

Being romantically involved could be satisfied by a childhood crush on Yolen that never amounted to anything. It could also mean what I suggest above or anything in between. It certainly is not proof of my theory, just another nudge that these two shards were working very closely together. We know they merged their Investiture when creating Spren, is it such a huge leap to theorize the investiture of the Shards also mixed temporarily while they were creating new splinters together?

 

No offense Isomere, but you're taking way too much for granted.  We DON'T actually know that they merged their Investiture when creating Spren, for all we know spren are just how the Investiture of any Shard manifests when interacting with Roshar.  After all, there's a couple of quotes from Brandon that seem to imply that there may be Odiumspren too, and we know that Odium's dramatically opposed to tainting his Intent with any other Shard, so he certainly didn't merge with the others to create spren.  Similarly, there's no basis for assuming that Honor and Cultivation actively created splinters, or that any of the splinters of Honor were deliberately created rather than occurring naturally after Odium killed him.  And further, we don't even know that there are any splinters of Cultivation at all.

[Isomere]

We actually DO know that some spren were formed by merging pieces of honor and cultivation, but I'll admit that intentionally creating splinters together is speculation.

Brandon: So what we are dealing with here is that all Spren are indeed all pieces of the one who has gone... So there has been dissension among them about who gets to call themselves Honorspren, if that makes sense, and there is some disagreement among scholars about which ones are really [honorspren]... But the spren you are running into are all [pieces?] of either Honor or Cultivation, or some mixture between them. And you can usually tell the ones that are more Honor, and the ones that are more Cultivation. Source

All Spren are pieces of the one who has gone. All spren are pieces of either Honor or Cultivation or some mixture between the two. This spren is more honor, that spren is more cultivation. Seems pretty solid confirmation that at least some spren have part of both shards inside of them.

The spren that appear all over the place are probably a result of Honor's fall, but we know that some Spren existed BEFORE he was splintered.

I went to a Sanderson book signing today and [asked] whether spren existed before Odium killed the Almighty and shattered the Honor shard. His answer was that some of the spren existed, but some were different, and new ones existed after it. Source

I speculate that spren capable of radiant-bonds are splinters that were intentionally created and are all mixtures of both Honor and Cultivation.

 

 

EDIT: Shardlet hasn't posted on this forum, but given his choice of avatar I found a deep need to include this picture. Sooooo creepy. 

 

 

            Shardlet Double Eye                               KR symbol            Double Eye         Double Skull
                                         

Edited July 2, 2013 by Isomere

[Miyabi]

I like a LOT of what you've accomplished here. Though let me add a couple things I have noticed in my readings.

1. It appears that Fabrials were in at least some cases created to mimic abilities of KRs and potentially VBs.

2. The symbols between the two charts for Surges seem to be a twisted, perhaps by the way they are inverted, opposite version of their counterpart. Or perhaps simply a corrupt version of said Surge.

3. We know some KR were able to do Lightweaving.

4. Order 1 is Windrunners

5. Order 6 is where Shallan belongs and are certainly attached to Transformation.

6. Either order 7 or order 5 share Transformation; whereas Jasnah seems much more likely to be attached to 5, it is likely the connection is made there.

7. Jasnah can manipulate Light to form a connection to something in order to Soulcast it; an ability she avoided using, except when to kill the muggers who were running away. Every other time she seemed very careful to hide this ability, even in front of Shallan.

8. Group 9 are the Stonewards and appear to have the ability to Travel.

9. Some "Surges" are associate with Voidbringers (i.e. Seeing the future).

10. Dustbringers are an order of the Voidbringers and use Fire (or heat) in their Bindings.

11. Either Topaz or Heliador is connected to coldness.

12. Voidbringers can bring stone to life.

12. Order 10 are the Skybreakers.

13. Szeth is not a Windrunner, but can use Lashings, which is either a Gravity or Pressure based ability.

So there are a few qualms I have with your list here. Darkness, I feel doesn't belong on the Harmonics table as it would most likely be the counter to Light.

Travel needs to be connected to the Stonewards in one direction or the other.

We also see the relationships on the large scale (i.e. stone + oil + fire could make lava or other such connections.)

I have however, happened to notice another relationship: Air(Zephyr), and Vapor, mixed with Gravity are part of what make up, and create atmospheric pressure. What however is the fourth thing which would connect them together? It's obviously not Darkness.

Now for Transformation you currently have it linked with growth, transportation, blood, and memory. I would be more likely to pair it with Blood, growth, light, and a fourth which I haven't decided on as of yet. I would do this for a few reasons.

1. The idea of a things life whether it be its blood, its growth, or the light which is needed for it to grow are all a part of the transformations we go through naturally. So it seems like a strong connection.

2. This connection would allow Jasnah to be connected to both Transformation and Light. Which she appears to be.

3. This allows for Lightweaving to be the Transformation of Light.... which always seemed like the logical connection to me.

Strength, perception, awareness, and memory all seem like good things, but I'm not sure how well they fit in the long run and I feel it's trying too hard to put Harmonics into an Allomantic type table.

A lot of the time when Szeth uses his abilities our attention is drawn to the fact that it creates frost. I can't remember off the top of my head any time when Kaladin used his abilities it making this same effect. (Though I could just not be remembering.) The fact that our attention is drawn to this when referring to Szeth I feel is important. This would indicate a connection to the Cold between either Pressure or Gravity. I would be inclined to connect this down towards Fire where the lack of such a thing creates the cold. Though I wouldn't be certain about it.

Doesn't the term "Skybreaker" sound like something someone might call thunder or lightning? I'm inclined to think that they are called this due to how they Travel. I would guess they Travel using atmospheric pressure, which would cause them to come from the sky, creating a large boom when they arrive. This would allow them to connect to pressure, which is connected to Windrunners for sure, as well as to Travel which is likely connected to the Stonewards. This also allows gravity to be connected to a Smoke and Cold providing reasons behind the Frost every time Szeth uses his Gravity based powers.

There are also a few things you aren't taking into account. Brandon specifies the four natural forces will be used, those being gravity, strong atomic force, weak atomic force, and electromagnetism. These will in one way or another fill three the four spaces which I haven't filled. Now... where they go? That's another story.

I would like to make a conjecture regarding "Stonewards," since they Travel and seem to appear out of nowhere, I would like to assume they use Electromagnetism in combination with Travel to move through objects and space in a way that most people are restricted. They name perhaps coming from a group of people who seemingly walk out of stones?

I'm going to start at Zephyr and go Order > Surge > Order > Surge as I see them connecting.

Zephyr > gravity > Vapor > Cold > Spark > uknown > Lucentia > Light > Pulp > Transformation > Blood > Unkown > Tallow > unkown > Foil > Electromagnetism > Talus > Travel > Sinew > Pressure

Those are the only connections I can make with reasonable certainty. Everything else would be wild speculation.

I would guess that Shallan's power is connected to one of the Atomic forces, but I couldn't say for sure.

This leaves us with either one or two open spots. Do we keep both strong and weak Atomic Forces on this table? Or do we separate them as we do Light/Dark, Cold/Heat, since Strong Atomic holds things together and Weak Atomic pulls them apart?

I would conjecture that we separate them and that the Strong Atmoic force belongs with the Harmonics.

EDIT:: Perhaps one of the last two has to do with Time Perception(Past). This could explain why Dalinar can see into the past, and could very well relate to a Time Perception(Future) being associated with the Voidbringers?

Edited September 11, 2013 by Miyabi

[Morsk]

Are you sure the "four fundamental forces" wasn't just an inspiration or early idea that evolved into something better? It seems unbalanced. Electromagnetism does almost everything we relate to human life and perception, while the strong and weak powers are very niche.

A lot of stretching could claim that the weak force is Transformation, because it turns particles into different kinds of particles. Or maybe the strong and weak forces together got called Transformation because they turn atoms into different kinds of atoms. Or if not that, something else requiring a lot of stretching to fit the concept.

[WeiryWriter]

Are you sure the "four fundamental forces" wasn't just an inspiration or early idea that evolved into something better? It seems unbalanced. Electromagnetism does almost everything we relate to human life and perception, while the strong and weak powers are very niche.

A lot of stretching could claim that the weak force is Transformation, because it turns particles into different kinds of particles. Or maybe the strong and weak forces together got called Transformation because they turn atoms into different kinds of atoms. Or if not that, something else requiring a lot of stretching to fit the concept.

 

The Transformation= the Strong and Weak forces is a theory I've been toying with over the last few weeks but never got around to posting.  I'm glad it's occurred to someone else as well, means I'm not totally crazy.  I also think electromagnetism will end up a surge at least in part.  Light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum after all.

[Miyabi]

Well Brandon retweeted me saying that Jasnah does not have Electromagnetism or Light as one of her Surges. D:

[Morsk]

The "light" could just be Stormlight then, a visible side-effect like when Szeth lashed the stone block so many times that it glowed. Also the up-side of Jasnah not having Light is that Shallan can have it now. Imagine a Lightweaver with her memory ability.

I also want her smoke-zapping to be a mixed power of Transformation + something else, because it makes Soulcasting too good if it can work at range without having special limitations to go along with it.

[Miyabi]

Right, which is why I so strongly believed she was using it as one of her Surges. It really is quite intriguing. Grr.

[Isomere]

Hey Miyabi, thanks for the input. I’ve got lots to think about from your post.

 

One of the core concepts of this theory is that all the magic systems on all the worlds are just the same Power being used by different Shards. If that premise is right then the surges should bear some resemblance to the magics on Scadrial, but interpreted by the Almighty instead of Harmony.

 

You mentioned the natural forces of gravity, pressure, atomic force and electromagnetism. I haven’t been trying to keep them as distinct powers, but more as foundations for some of the surges.  Light and darkness both deal with electromagnetic radiation, and enhancing memory/perception could be accomplished by manipulating the electric potentials in the brain.   Transformation fits nicely under atomic forces since you need to change the atomic structure to transmute one element to another.  Gravity and pressure we have seen well demonstrated with Kaladin and Szeth.  

 

I bounced back and forth several times on how to group pressure and gravity, and my initial post had gravity shared with Nan. I ended up switching because of the Ars Arcanum table. The Body Focus of Jes is inhalation and fits nicely with gravity. Nan is Exhalation which fits nicely with pressure. Also, you can create fog by creating a pressure gradient in humidified air.  As for Skybreakers, perhaps they flew through the air using gravity and then attacked with superhuman strength to break their foes into tiny bits. I imagine a Dalinar shaped meteor trailed by stormlight launching into the ranks of Voidbringers followed by an impact crater of flying bodies.

 

There are a few views on the transportation surge and most lump it into orders 5 or 9.

-        Jasnah is able to soulcast at a distance, which supposedly is impossible.  Many have suggested she has access to the transportation surge which lets her get around that limitation.

-        A stoneward managed to sneak up behind Dalinar during one of his Visions. This could be hinting at a teleportation ability.  

For now I am in the Jasnah camp. There are a hundred and one ways someone can sneak up on Dalinar, but not as many explanations for soulcasting from 5 paces. I love your theory that she used light beams to transport the soulcasting. During other reads it just seemed the stormlight was visible as it traveled to the thugs, but perhaps there is more to it. I’ve currently put the Light surge between orders 3 and 4. Spark and lucentia both deal with light, and the eyes as a body focus seems to support it. I’m assuming order 4 is Lightweavers and 3 is something that melts rocks (Embersoul or Fireheart or somesuch).

 

Could you tell me where cold is associated with Topaz or Heliador? I must have missed that reference. I definitely could get behind surge 3 being cold.  I talked about creating fog using pressure, but you can also make fog by cooling down warm humidified air. However, smoke seems to be better represented by darkness since it can be hot enough to char the lining of your lungs. 

Edited September 18, 2013 by Isomere

[Moogle]

I am willing to bet quite a lot of money that Jasnah does not have Travel. She's Order 5 or 7, and the Stonewards are Order 9. There's a lot of ways that the Stoneward in Dalinar's vision could have snuck up behind him, but basically none of them explain how she got to the location so fast. There's no way she lived in the village. That leaves Travel, or something to do with the Oathgates - but if the Oathgates can be used like that, why didn't the Windrunner take it at the same time as the Stoneward?

 

I do not think Jasnah's ranged Soulcasting had anything to do with light, besides the fact that she used more Stormlight than she would have had to use at a close range. This is evidenced by the fact that the gem cracked. The Stormlight probably also dissipated as it went through the air, as it was no longer in a good container, and this is the reason for the glow in the air. To clarify: I think that a perfect Stormlight container would be perfectly dark. Gemstones are not perfect, as evidenced by the fact that they glow and slowly leak Stormlight until they become dun.

 

I don't actually know what Jasnah did, nor can I offer many theories that don't feel flimsy. Originally, I felt that the description of how Jasnah's Stormlight-beams were "like twin bolts of lightning, symmetrical" to be significant, but that's likely just how the Stormlight dissipates - exactly the same way electrical charge chooses to dissipate in a real lightning bolt.

 

If I had to offer guesses as to Surges we don't know about, I'd say at least one of these is right:

• Regrowth
• Fire
• Light
• Darkness
• Cold
• True Sight or some kind of flavor of Perception
• Intelligence or some kind of thought-enhancing Surge
• Time
• Growth or some kind of nature-controlling flavor of power

Or really anything from the Aon list.

 

And the worst part is... none of those Surges, to me, explain Jasnah's power at all. The only thing I can think of is that it is simply something you can do with Soulcasting. It's part of the Transformation Surge, in other words, and Shallan will be able to do it as well.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jasnah is a wonderful utilitarian enigma. I hope to have a lot more screentime with her in WoR.

[Morsk]

I just noticed on a reread that Jasnah's smoke-zapping leaves the men's clothing unaffected, while the Soulcastings to Fire and Crystal included the clothes. That's more evidence that it's a separate power, related to Soulcasting as much as the Reverse Lashing is related to the Basic Lashing, but still separate.

It doesn't have to involve a second surge. If the Ars Arcanum is right about the Reverse Lashing just being another use of gravity, then order's "third powers" don't have to combine surges, and can just be a novel use of one of the two surges they had already. It leaves room for her order's second surge to be anything.

[Sabrina Stormshard]

I've attempted to amend the table; have a look:

 

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/4190-theory-the-tanavallah-an-adaptation-of-isomeres-table/