All Magics use all 3 Realms

[Chromium Compounder]

In my recent rereading of Warbreaker I started thinking about how Awakening works and why it requires color.  The color part always seemed weird to me, but I started thinking about it, and I think it's because all the magics of the Cosmere use something from each of the three realms in order to work.  

 

For Awakening the three things are Breath (Spiritual), Color (Physical), and Commands (Cognitive).  

 

That one's really clear to me now, but I'm still working out how the other magics we know of touch on the three realms.  I'm going to try to work them out here.

 

AonDor is I think another fairly simple one.  Writing is inherently something of both physical and cognitive, so then all that's left is the spiritual.  I think the spiritual part can be represented by the Shaod.  The Elantrians themselves have been touched spiritually, giving them access to the last part required to make AonDor work.

 

Forgery is similar.  It still uses writing, but of course the Shaod isn't involved.  Shai says that anyone can learn Forgery, though that might need to be qualified by place of birth or nationality.  In any case, there doesn't seem to be any kind of spiritual change to a forger akin to the Shaod.  So they must be getting the spiritual aspect from somewhere else.  It could be argued that the spiritual comes from the fact that they're stamping the soul of the object, animal, or person they're forging and that is the spiritual aspect.  That could be where they get it, but it could also be from the ink.  Shai says it has to be organic, and animal ink is better than plant based ink.  It's possible they're somehow drawing on the spiritual aspects of the organic ink.  Either way, it's fairly clear that Forgery also uses all three realms.

 

Dakhor and especially ChayShan I don't think we know enough about how they work for discussion, but Blood Sealing is very similar to Forgery and either the soul of the person being sealed or the soul of their blood would provide the spiritual aspect.

 

That brings us to the Metallic Arts.  

 

Allomancy has a spiritual aspect similar to AonDor with the Shaod.  Allomancers have to Snap, which requires that they have the sDNA for Allomancy, but similar to the Shaod, Snapping could be seen as being touched spiritually.  The metal of course accounts for the physical, and the Allomancer's decision to burn it could account for the cognitive.

 

For Feruchemy there doesn't seem to be anything akin to Snapping or the Shaod.  Maybe there is something, but if there were I think we would have heard something about it by now.  I don't think Feruchemy needs anything like Snapping though because the spiritual aspect comes from the Feruchemists themselves.  Feruchemy requires metal (physical) and the conscious or subconscious (when storing wakefulness) decision of the Feruchemist to store or tap with the metal (cognitive), and the thing they're storing could be seen as primarily spiritual.  That can be hard to see for some of the things they store, particularly strength as it physically changes their bodies, but I still think it's primarily spiritual.  

 

Hemalurgy of course is quite different from Allomancy and Feruchemy, but for this discussion it's fairly simple. The metal is the physical, the spiritual comes from the person killed to make it into a Spike.  The cognitive is a little harder to see, but it's a little easier when you consider the Kandra.  Kandra gain the ability to think and reason like a person no matter what blessing they receive.  This tells me that all Hemalurgic Spikes also steal some cognitive ability from the person killed.

 

That of course brings us to Roshar and its strange myriad of magics.  

There are four magics we know more about than any others on Roshar: Surgebinding, Soulcasting, Fabrials, and Shards.

 

Surgebinding I believe the spiritual comes from the stormlight.  The physical comes from breathing, and the cognitive comes from the surgebinder's mind doing the lashings.  Spren and oaths most likely help the spiritual aspect.

 

Soulcasting I'm not sure where the physical comes in, but the spiritual again is the stormlight and the cognitive comes from the truth revealed.  Perhaps the physical comes from the gem, which is why different gem's are used for different essences, while the type of gem doesn't matter to surgebinding, as surgebinding's physical aspect is breathing.  Also the fact that the cognitive is not really coming from the soulcaster, but from the truth revealed could be part of why it's hard to control the exact results of a soulcasting.  The soulcaster can undoubtedly effect the soulcasting with their thoughts, but it's limited.  Or maybe the cognitive does come from the soulcaster mentally directing the soulcasting whilst in shadesmar, and the truth revealed is akin to oaths for surgebinding.

 

Fabrials are physical devices, but crafting them is a scientific endeavor (cognitive), and they too feed off stormlight (spiritual).

 

Shardplate is like an insanely complicated and powerful Fabrial.  There's probably more to it than that, but I don't think we know enough about them yet to discuss further.

 

Shardblades are summoned mentally, and while they are physical they are also spiritual (as evidenced by how they react when cutting through living things).

 

The old magic, the thrill, and any other things which have been hinted at I'm not going to bother with right now because we don't know enough.

 

So, that's the idea that's been bouncing around my head the last couple days.  Just thought I'd share.  Feel free to rip it to shreds.  

[Windrunner]

I don't want to burst your bubble, but this theory has been put forth before. It's located right here. If it's any consolation, I love the basic idea, I've espoused that same idea myself. It's a great one

 

I do disagree with some of the things you've said about Hemalurgy, Surgebinding and a few others, though. I ran through this concept on featured theories a while back. (Man, I need to start doing those again...)

[Chromium Compounder]

I don't want to burst your bubble, but this theory has been put forth before. It's located right here. If it's any consolation, I love the basic idea, I've espoused that same idea myself. It's a great one

 

I do disagree with some of the things you've said about Hemalurgy, Surgebinding and a few others, though. I ran through this concept on featured theories a while back. (Man, I need to start doing those again...)

No problem.  I'm not surprised it's been posited before.  I rarely have time to search through older posts, and I haven't been in 17th shard that long.

[Odium's_Shard]

I myself (who saw this coming?) made an interesting point (what an ego I have) on the possibility of Foci in all three realms too. Which while the word Foci was discouraged, bears strong resemblance to this and the Three Parts of Magic theory (which was fundamental in the beginning of Realmatics) but links the terms commonly used in regards to this and the Three Part theory.
 
It is located here.