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Theory: The Principle of Intent


Chaos

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Windrunners is an order that controls Gravity (the Basic and Reverse Lashings) and Pressure )the Full Lashing) Soulcasting is the name that modern Rosharias call the manipulating of the Surge that Brandon referenced as Transformation.

It makes me wonder if it's possible for a fabrial to allow somebody to emulate other kinds of Surgebinding.

Anyway, on topic very interesting theory, and an excellent point about how Honor's power seems to manifest, I'd noticed that myself,we have Honor being associated with the Oathpact, the Ideals of the KR, and the nahel bond that allows Surgebinding in the first place, all forms of oath or bond.

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Windrunners is an order that controls Gravity (the Basic and Reverse Lashings) and Pressure )the Full Lashing) Soulcasting is the name that modern Rosharias call the manipulating of the Surge that Brandon referenced as Transformation.

It makes me wonder if it's possible for a fabrial to allow somebody to emulate other kinds of Surgebinding.

I didn't know that about Pressure. I thought it was Transformation, but it wasn't in the Ars Arcanum, so I had gotten confused. Thanks! Do you know of any other Surges>

And yeah, whoa. Emulating other Surgebinding. I'd imagine it's possible. If you need a bond with a spren, and you can imprison a spren in a gemstone in a certain way, you've essentially created a pale comparison to that magical bond. I see no reason why you couldn't have it connected to the other Surges.

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Chaos, here's the citation you need RE: Ruin or Preservation fueling all the metallic arts.

Both gods could, if they wanted, fuel all of the metallic arts. Preservation is stronger at fueling Allomancy, Ruin stronger at fueling Allomancy or Feruchemy when it has been given via a spike. Both are balanced when it comes to Feruchemy. But this rarely comes up in the books, as it required expending power in a way that the gods were hesitant to do.

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Yeah, this is pretty much my favorite pet theory of late. Though I still do think magic use is tied to fragments of the Shards, same as before. I have now given up on the idea that all magic users are splinters, though.

Also, Chaos, those quotes I was going to get you that I thought would help back this by last Tuesday? Yeah, they're still coming. I have most of them now, but my life exploded this week, and I'd prefer to post them all in one block. I'll give you my nitpicks then too.

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Chaos, here's the citation you need RE: Ruin or Preservation fueling all the metallic arts.

Thanks!

Yeah, this is pretty much my favorite pet theory of late. Though I still do think magic use is tide to fragments of the Shards, same as before. I have now given up on the idea that all magic users are splinters, though.

Also, Chaos, those quotes I was going to get you that I thought would help back this by last Tuesday? Yeah, they're still coming. I have most of them now, but my life exploded this week, and I'd prefer to post them all in one block. I'll give you my nitpicks then too.

Ha! I persuaded you away from it, eh?

As I wrote this, I came up with what I think is the distinction between Sliver and Splinter. If you look closely at what Brandon refers to as Splinters, he says "Imagine it as one breath that propels them up through the Heightenings, but it is only a single breath. It's what we speak of in Shard world terminology as a Splinter." and "As Lightsong has a splinter of divine nature inside him, he is able to interpret the paintings—to foresee, using them, and to see into the soul of the person who made them." This signals to me that a Splinter is energy, fragments of a Shard's power. The point is, Brandon never refers to Lightsong as a Splinter. Lightsong has a Splinter. When it comes to Slivers, however, Brandon says "Yeah, the Lord Ruler was a Sliver". An important, yet telling, distinction.

Also note that in the letter, Hoid refers to "and that which they held has been Splintered". Splintering refers to power, not a person. Just my personal thought on the matter.

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  • 1 month later...

I'm bumping this thread, because it's important.

I want your guys' honest opinion: do you accept this theory? Is there any dissent about it? In the upcoming Introduction to Cosmere Guide, I'd like to know if I can legitimately say this is a Commonly Accepted Theory.

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I like it, and I think it's great, but I don't know if we can really accept it or not. We only know about how two world's magic systems work. Until we get one more idependent verification, I say we say "Believed, but not proved" Or something similar.

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This is a little off topic, but why 1024 years for the Well of Ascension to refill? It happens to be the same number as the number of kilobytes to megabytes and so forth.

@doesn't the power of the shards eventually return to where it originally came from after a set amount of time, eg the Atium mines and the Well of Ascension.

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This is a little off topic, but why 1024 years for the Well of Ascension to refill? It happens to be the same number as the number of kilobytes to megabytes and so forth.

@doesn't the power of the shards eventually return to where it originally came from after a set amount of time, eg the Atium mines and the Well of Ascension.

Atium and the Well of Ascension do replenish, but my intent for talking about it in this theory is to try and understand why Shard power replenishes. Brandon's mentioned one instance where Shard power doesn't seem to replenish: when they are powering the Metallic Arts.

Both gods could, if they wanted, fuel all of the metallic arts. Preservation is stronger at fueling Allomancy, Ruin stronger at fueling Allomancy or Feruchemy when it has been given via a spike. Both are balanced when it comes to Feruchemy. But this rarely comes up in the books, as it required expending power in a way that the gods were hesitant to do.

Emphasis mine.

So from that quote, it appears to me that such "expending power" does not return (unlike atium and the Well). Maybe I'm wrong about that, and the power would return. But if I'm right, that's an interesting conundrum. Why would sometimes a Shard's power return, and why wouldn't it?

My theory, as stated in the Principle, was that if you spend power in accordance with the Shard's Intent, it returns. Atium killed (Ruined), so it would replenish. Same with the Well of Ascension. But if I were to use Preservation's power to fuel Hemalurgy, that would expend that power from Preservation permanently. That's my theory, at least.

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The Principle of Intent

You are going to love this theory. I guarantee it.

[url=http://www.17thshard.com/forum/

I do like this theory. My question would be, you have three shards on Roshar in the beginning. Honor, Cultivation and Odium* (I'm not 100% sold there wasn't another shard with Odium as visitor but that's for another day). Honor works by binding things, which I accept. How would Cultivation work? The Principle of Intent works reasonably well with shards like Ruin and Preservation, but Cultivation from what we've seen of it, has a distinct theology that actually doesn't emphasise battle or even magic at all.

Your theory works well with Odium fueling humans through the Thrill.

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I do like this theory. My question would be, you have three shards on Roshar in the beginning. Honor, Cultivation and Odium* (I'm not 100% sold there wasn't another shard with Odium as visitor but that's for another day). Honor works by binding things, which I accept. How would Cultivation work? The Principle of Intent works reasonably well with shards like Ruin and Preservation, but Cultivation from what we've seen of it, has a distinct theology that actually doesn't emphasise battle or even magic at all.

Your theory works well with Odium fueling humans through the Thrill.

You're quite right in that I don't know what Cultivation and Odium do. But then again, we don't have any confirmed instances of either of their magics, and what little we have is not particularly helpful for theorizing. So I'm not worried. It just comes from our lack of understanding.

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I'd say that the Old Magic, with its boons and curses, fits pretty well with Cultivation. Think about it, cultivating something means helping it grow. How do you do that? You give it something to help it grow and take away things that would tear it down or at least are unnecessary/cause it to grow in a way you don't want it to. From what instances we can confirm, those who saw the Old Magic ended up doing well despite their curses. Those who haven't? Well, they didn't end up growing the way they were intended to.

Does that make sense?

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the only person we know of that *didn't* end up regretting going to the Old Magic was that one dude that got cloth to sell to feed his family and ended up seeing the world upside down for the rest of his life. Everybody else we know of has ended up regretting it.

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I too think the old magic kinda fits with cultivation. I mean whats the one thing that is most effective at making humans grow?

Adversety and chanllenges, when make someones life difficult they become that much stronger, those that fall where not strong enough in the first place. Although it is a very cynical way to see it does have paralels to cultivating flowers. A gardener usualy cut away the flowers apear to weak and frail compared to the others.

I don't think it is a farfetched idea to think the sharholder of cultivation will gotten a perspective like that.

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The Almighty also says that Cultivation is better at seeing the future than he, which fits well with the idea of "cultivating" people for their destinies. Perhaps Cultivation can see someone's future and provides them with a curse that nurtures that future purpose.

Also, the Nightwatcher is referred to as female and Cultivation is described by The Almighty as "she."

Lastly, the tale that Szeth hears of someone stealing a sphere that glows black at night from the Nightwatcher sounds distinctly.... Shard-y to me.

Edited by masaru
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I'd say that the Old Magic, with its boons and curses, fits pretty well with Cultivation. Think about it, cultivating something means helping it grow. How do you do that? You give it something to help it grow and take away things that would tear it down or at least are unnecessary/cause it to grow in a way you don't want it to. From what instances we can confirm, those who saw the Old Magic ended up doing well despite their curses. Those who haven't? Well, they didn't end up growing the way they were intended to.

Does that make sense?

It does make a great deal of sense. Three questions, as much to move the conversation further as anything else.

1. In that case is all the business in Vorinism about Heightening and callings and being elevated a Cultivation-influenced development in Vorinism?

2. the specific examples given in the interlude involving Baxil, do you want to take a shot at seeing how your explanation fits with the gifts the Nightwatcher is recorded as giving?

3. I suspect that Dalinar asked for a boon involving his son's health. How does the gift of a boon and a curse work when there are two people involved?

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Just now got around to reading this whole theory and all its replies. I've been to intimidated to do so until now as it is huge. Anyway, I espouse this threory. It makes way to much sense to me so I have to espouse it. I also really like this talk of Cultivation and Old Magic. Sounds very possible to me.

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