Investiture and Identity

[Moogle]

Long post! Be wary all ye who enter.

 

This is a look at the effects of Investiture. An explanation of how Investiture works is offered. I assert things in this post that are, for the moment, speculation. If I sound certain, I am probably not. Prefixing every single sentence with 'I think' is just not feasible for a post of this length.

 

Brief points on what the post is intended to relate to:

• Why you can't use other people's metalminds, why Kaladin can suck up his own Stormlight (and why Szeth probably won't be able to suck up Kaladin's Lashings), why you can't steal other people's Breath.
• Why things become sentient (and thus gain an identity), including why Nightblood changes in personality when he begins to burn Breath and why Shards have such an overpowering intent (and expanded minds).
• Why metalminds can be burned to produce a Feruchemical effect rather than an Allomantic effect.

 

Investiture Is Identity

We know from Mistborn that Preservation had to give a small bit of his power (Investiture) up in order to grant humans sentience. We have a WoB that sentient humans could also have been made with a little bit of Ruin, too. What's important is that Investiture is required for intelligence/free will.

 

We see this principle in action with Nightblood. One thousand Breaths were gathered and placed into a metal sword, something that never knew life. The result was a sentient sword.

 

Spren, too, share in this. The sentient spren - Nahel-bonding spren, are small Splinters of Honor and Cultivation. Their Investiture became sentient creatures. Other spren are of Honor and Cultivation, too, but they just don't have enough Investiture to become intelligent.

 

It's important to note that while Investiture seems to be required for free will/intelligence, it is not sufficient. Shards, made of pure Investiture, are not sentient, not exactly. What Investiture seems to do is grant identity. A Shard is this overwhelming pure concept. It overpowers your natural identity over time. More Investiture, more identity.

 

As evidence, consider Siri, a strong-willed woman (a stronger identity, as the two go together). She was described as having a 'strong' Breath during an examination. Strong Breath means more Investiture. Would anyone like to bet against the theory that a boring, dull, weak-minded person would have a weak Breath?

 

Look at parshmen and Lifeless. They have no individual identity. They are similar to mistwraiths, actually. All are sentient (in a limited way), but all three are lacking that little bit of Investiture that would grant them enough identity to act of their own volition. When a parshman bonds with a spren, they gain a measure of the spren's Investiture, which grants them enough identity to give them 'intelligence' or a will of their own. When a mistwraith gains Hemalurgic spikes, they gain the Investiture contained within the spikes, which turns a mistwraith (which is sentient like a parshman) into a kandra, which has a will of its own. A Lifeless has just a small portion of the Investiture that a regular person has (the Breath). But you give a lot of Breath to a corpse, and suddenly you've got a Returned, which happens to be free-willed.

 

Now, consider Nightblood. Something interesting happens with Nightblood while he's in his sheath. He has a muted personality. The instant he's drawn though, and starts drawing on the Breaths stored within him to create his rather powerful effects, he becomes entirely different.

 

Destroy! Nightblood’s voice boomed in his head. The evil must be destroyed!
Pain shot up Vasher’s arm, and he felt his Breath being leached away,
sucked into the blade, fueling its hunger. Drawing the weapon had a terrible
cost. At that moment, he didn’t really care. He spun toward the charging
Lifeless and—enraged—attacked.

 

The extra Investiture that Nightblood receives from Vasher (or draws upon from his own inner reserves) changes him. His command ("destroy evil") becomes much more overriding. Where usually Nightblood is rather mild, with the occasional demand to murder people, he completely loses all subtlety with the added Investiture. He also tries to override Vasher's personality, too.

 

With this in mind, it should be no surprise at all that a Shard requires a holder. Nightblood stops thinking with the added Investiture, because the added identity completely overrides and overwhelms everything else. A Shard has many times more Investiture than Nightblood. If Vasher has such a hard time keeping control of himself (Nightblood almost gets Vasher to draw it once), then it must take a man of uncommon strength of mind to keep control of themselves when they take up a Shard. It really is no wonder that Tanavast started referring to himself as Honor before long.

 

It seems like there's a sweet spot with Investiture. You don't want too much, or else you lose yourself, but if you have none you have no will of your own. There's also something more to it - if you just put a thousand Breaths into a piece of cloth, it's not going to become sentient on its own. There has to be something the Breaths hook up to. A form.

 

Furthermore, consider Splinters: when a Shard is Splintered, the pieces that result can apparently gain sentience on their own. Sentience, arising from a Shard that isn't sentient itself? This theory answers why. I believe you could almost consider Nightblood a Splinter. A regular Splinter's 'form' (Nightblood's is 'destroy evil') is going to come from the Intent of the Shard they are Splintered from, though.

 

As further proof that identity comes from Investiture, there's a WoB somewhere that an Awakener with a ton of Breaths from a certain kind of person would have their personality changed slightly. I can't find it though.

 

Here are some musings on spren (which are basically Splinters) based on WoR spoilers:

 

“Nobody knows what spren are,” Shallan said, “though many philosophers have different opinions on—”

“No,” Jasnah said. “What are they?”

“I…” Shallan looked up at a pair of windspren spinning through the air above. They looked like tiny ribbons of light, glowing softly, dancing around one another. “They’re living ideas.”

Jasnah spun on her.

“What?” Shallan said, jumping. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” Jasnah said. “You’re right.” The woman narrowed her eyes. “By my best guess, spren are elements of the Cognitive Realm that have leaked into the physical world. They’re concepts that have gained a fragment of sentience, perhaps because of human intervention.

“Think of a man who gets angry often. Think of how his friends and family might start referring to that anger as a beast, as a thing that possesses him, as something external to him. Humans personify. We speak of the wind as if it has a will of its own.

“Spren are those ideas—the ideas of collective human experience— somehow come alive. Shadesmar is where that first happens, and it is their place. Though we created it, they shaped it. They live there; they rule there, within their own cities.”

...

“We will have to see,” Jasnah said. “It comes down to the nature of spren. What has your research revealed?”

With Jasnah, everything seemed to be a test of scholarship. Shallan smothered a sigh. This was why she had come with Jasnah, rather than returning to her home. Still, she did wish that sometimes Jasnah would just tell her answers rather than making her work so hard to find them. “Alai says that the spren are fragments of the powers of creation. A lot of the scholars I read agreed with that.”

“It is one opinion. What does it mean?”

Shallan tried not to let herself be distracted by the spren on the floor. “There are ten fundamental Surges—forces—by which the world works. Gravitation, pressure, transformation. That sort of thing. You told me spren are fragments of the Cognitive Realm that have somehow gained sentience because of human attention. Well, it stands to reason that they were something before. Like… like a painting was a canvas before being given life.”

“Life?” Jasnah said, raising her eyebrow.

“Of course,” Shallan said. Paintings lived. Not lived like a person or a spren, but… well, it was obvious to her, at least. “So, before the spren were alive, they were something. Power. Energy. Zen-daughter-Vath sketched tiny spren she found sometimes around heavy objects. Gravitationspren—fragments of the power or force that causes us to fall. It stands to reason that every spren was a power before it was a spren. Really, you can divide spren into two general groups. Those that respond to emotions and those that respond to forces like fire or wind pressure.”

 

Spren are about the most common form of 'Splinter' (if you can consider them that) that we know of. These passages contain all the information we need to know. They were once energy (Investiture) which happened to leak a little into the Cognitive realm (thanks to the Shards, which are made of such dense Investiture that they not only leak into the Cognitive, they leak into the Physical).

 

The energy found forms floating about in the Cognitive realm relating to things humanity perceived - flames, anger, etc. and the Investiture attached itself to these ideals. Sentience was the result for particularly Investiture-full ideas (honorspren, Cryptics), but for the vast majority of the spren, the energy was diffuse enough that it made them about as intelligent as fish (thanks to having next to no identity). Flamespren, fearspren, etc. all then found themselves floating around in Shadesmar, attracted to the Physical representation of them. A flamespren would find itself attracted to places where fire was in the Physical and, occasionally, leak into the Physical for particularly pure representations of its ideal (large fires attract more flamespren). Of course, there's not enough Investiture to make the entirety of Shadesmar be covered in spren, so you don't always get a flamespren when you start a fire, and if there's a lot of fires around you're only going to get flamespren at the biggest 'purest' fires.

 

Basically, I'd predict that honorspren like Syl are windspren, or rather, that they both derive themselves from humanity's conception of wind. The difference is that honorspren got way more Investiture than your regular old windspren. Thus, Brandon's WoB saying they are "close cousins".

 

<HUGE SPECULATION>Investiture as identity has an interesting potential consequence: it strengthens your identity if you have more innate Investiture. This should cause you to resist other things, as identity seems to sort of 'repel' other things (see: Preservation and Ruin's different identities being so opposed that it caused physical damage for them to come into contact). We can see this increased identity as resisting the effects of age on the human body, meaning that anyone who holds a lot of Investiture should live longer. And of course a Shard, which is basically pure Investiture/identity, will be immortal. I've speculated that all Investiture slows aging in another thread, but it was not received well. Still, this sort of ties in, so I included it!</HUGE SPECULATION>

 

Investiture Copies Forms and Other Investiture

There's an interesting property in Allomancy. If you burn a Feruchemically charged metal you yourself stored, instead of gaining the regular Allomantic effect, it gives you a burst of the Feruchemical attribute you stored.

 

The mechanism, as described by Brandon, is this:

 

People ask about getting the power from metals and things, but that’s not actually how it works. The power’s not coming from metal. I talked a little about this before, but you are drawing power from some source, and the metal is actually just a gateway. It’s actually the molecular structure of the metal… what’s going on there, the pattern, the resonance of that metal works in the same way as an Aon does in Elantris. It filters the power. So it is just a sign of “this is what power this energy is going to be shaped into and give you.” When you understand that, compounding [in Alloy of Law] makes much more sense.

Compounding is where you are able to kind of draw in more power than you should with feruchemy. What’s going on there is you’re actually charging a piece of metal, and then you are burning that metal as a feruchemical charge. What is happening is that the feruchemical charge overwrites the allomantic charge, and so you actually fuel feruchemy with allomancy, is what you are doing. Then if you just get out another piece of metal and store it in, since you’re not drawing the power from yourself, you’re cheating the system, you’re short-circuiting the system a little bit. So you can actually use the power that usually fuels allomancy, to fuel feruchemy, which you can then store in a metalmind, and basically build up these huge reservoirs of it. So what’s going on there is… imagine there’s like, an imprint, a wavelength, so to speak. A beat for an allomantic thing, that when you burn a metal, it says “ok, this is what power we give.” When it’s got that charge, it changes that beat and says, “now we get this power.” And you access a set of feruchemical power. That’s why compounding is so powerful.

...

All the magic systems in my work are linked because the books all take place in the same universe. In Elantris, magic works by drawing symbols in the air. What actually happens is that when they draw a symbol, energy passes through it from another place (which is my get-out for the laws of thermodynamics) and the effect of that energy is moderated by the symbol. In one case it may become light, in another it may become fire. In Mistborn, the metals have a similar effect. The magic is not coming from the metal (even if some characters think it is). It is being drawn from the same place and moderated by the metal.

In the case of Feruchemy, no energy is being drawn from this other place. So, you spend a week sick and store up the ability to heal. It’s a balanced system, basically obeying the laws of thermodynamics. So, while it’s not real, it’s still rational.

In compounding, when you have the power of both Allomancy and Feruchemy, you draw power from the other place through the metal and it recognizes the power that is already stored—"Oh, this is healing, I know how to do that”—and so you get the power of Feruchemy but boosted by energy from the other place. This is how the Lord Ruler achieved immortality.

(source)

 

The latter half is important. You open a gateway, through which Investiture flows, when you burn a metal. The metal acts as a form which causes the Investiture to do a certain effect. But if there's other Investiture in the metal - say, a Feruchemical charge - the Investiture 'recognizes the power that is already stored—"Oh, this is healing, I know how to do that"' and it mimics that.

 

Investiture seems to come in two types: 'raw' Investiture (which is obtained when a metal is burned), and 'specialized' Investiture (the result of what happens when raw Investiture is filtered through a metal). Raw Investiture mimics specialized Investiture it encounters. Raw Investiture that finds a Feruchemical charge (which is specialized Investiture) becomes the same type of Feruchemical charge.

 

You can also shape the raw Investiture into specialized Investiture by 'filtering' it. You draw an Aon, and this 'creates' some sort of metaphysical form that the Investiture latches onto and becomes. Metals on Scadrial act as this form, unless other Investiture overrides them. It seems to me that spren, which represent the fundamental forces of reality, act as the form for Surgebinding. Notice how Syl ignores the laws of gravity? She partly represents the Gravity Surge, and the raw Stormlight from gems that Kaladin sucks up is filtered through part of her form (or perhaps she's attached this form onto Kaladin's spirit-web?), the part which relates to gravity, and thus Kaladin can create a Basic Lashing. His raw Investiture mimics the form, and becomes specialized Investiture. Lift's spren, Wyndle, grows around to move, and Lift can use the part of him that relates to a fundamental metaphysical form of Growth to heal things, or grow plants.

 

This also explains fabrials. All spren, not just Nahel spren, are made of forms raw Investiture can mimic. You shove a flamespren into a ruby, and provide it with raw Investiture. The Investiture mimics the form of 'heat' that comprises part of a flamespren (spren are ideas, which are multiple forms in one; windspren can be seen as atmospheric pressure and gravity and cold and...), and thus the fabrial begins to produce heat. The trick is that one spren can be used in multiple sorts of forms. You have to cut the gem in a certain way (and the gemtype also matters), which causes a spren to be attracted to the gem and captured within it. (A ruby cut the right way represents a form for 'heat', attracting a flamespren and creating a heating fabrial. An emerald cut the right way represents the form for 'pain', attracting a flamespren and creating a painrial which can enhance pain the target feels.) The gem thus gains the desired form. This is Roshar's equivalent to Elantrian Aons.

 

When you do magic in the Cosmere, channeling raw Investiture through the correct form/specialized Investiture and making it do the desired effect, the Investiture doesn't just mimic the forms it finds. A human in the Cosmere contains specialized Investiture. It provides your identity. The raw Investiture mimics this as well as the form you filter it through, and thus you end up with specialized effects keyed to you.

 

A Surgebinder, like Kaladin, creates a Full Lashing. Raw Investiture from spheres mimics his connection to the form of Pressure found in Syl, and the Investiture makes a vacuum (?) effect. But it was channeled through him, so it's also mimicked some of his fundamental identity. Now he's got the ability to suck it back into him, and only he can suck it back in. It's keyed to his identity, so it won't affect him if he doesn't want it to, and Szeth can't suck it back in.

 

We see this effect in Breath (no one can take Breath from an object you Awakened), and metalminds (no one can tap from your metalmind unless you store your identity while storing in your metalmind).

 

The fact that Kaladin can take his Full Lashings back in suggests that specialized Investiture can also become raw Investiture again. I imagine the way it works is that you can see forms that raw Investiture locks onto as a sort of funnel. Raw Investiture goes in one end, specialized Investiture comes out the other end. You can put it through the end of the funnel and it can come out the front of it as raw Investiture again, though.

 

This provides a mechanism for Feruchemical nicrosil. You can force specialized Investiture (say, stored Feruchemical attributes) into raw Investiture, which is then stored in the nicrosilmind. But this raw Investiture won't do much - Scadrial is a low-Investiture world, so tapping the Feruchemical nicrosil might produce a short-lived effect akin to Stormlight (though maybe different). What you have to do with Feruchemical nicrosil is take your raw Investiture, and mix it with specialized Investiture, which causes the raw Investiture in the Feruchemical nicrosil to mimic that specialized Investiture. This means you can effectively use Feruchemical nicrosil to power every other Feruchemical power, but you have to have some of the attribute you want to mimic with the nicrosilmind stored and you have to tap it at the same time so that the Feruchemical nicrosil's raw Investiture can mimic it. (This almost perfectly explains the MAG rules for Feruchemical nicrosil, incidentally, which is why I am semi-confident of the theory.) Here are the MAG rules:

 

Feruchemists use Nicrosil to store “investiture,” or their
connection to the source of metaphysical power (in Feruchemy,
this means the deepest recesses of the self). Even the most learned
Feruchemical scholars don’t fully understand the nature of this
ability, but some believe stored investiture is the rawest form of
personal potential — the primal root of a Feruchemist’s ability.
In practical terms, this exceedingly rare metal grants a
character the very potent ability to transform a stored characteristic — such as
weight, strength, sight, or the like — into a “generic” source of power called
“ investiture.” The Feruchemist may then tap investiture to augment nearly any
other tapped ability, from physical strength to mental speed and beyond. In this
way investiture is the most potent enhancement available in Feruchemy, a reserve
of pure, universal power that can amplify nearly any Feruchemical effort.
The promise of Nicrosil becomes even more astounding if you consider it in
relation to one of the incredibly powerful sources of power in the Final Empire
(such as the Well of Ascension or the mists). Theoretically, a character exposed to
one of these might be able to transform and store its seemingly limitless power,
putting near-godlike power at his or her disposal. Fortunately, no Feruchemist in
known history has been in this situation, but if ever there was something for the
Lord Ruler to strive for...
Storing in a Nicrosilmind: When storing investiture, you’re essentially
transforming the charges stored in any single metalmind into an indistinct,
universal power that’s kept within your nicrosilmind. The maximum number of
charges you may transform in any hour is equal to your Nicrosil rating, and this
number is halved, rounding down, in the process.

Example: During a trip to the Eastern Dominance, Damosi has racked
up an excess of stored warmth (so he could keep cool in the desert). Seeing an
opportunity, he spends an hour converting that extra warmth into investiture. He
has a Nicrosil rating of 3, so he can only transform two charges of warmth in that
time, and in the process he stores a single charge of investiture in his nicrosilmind.
This process is all-consuming and disrupts communication with other
metalminds, which has a couple effects. First, you may not tap any metalminds
while storing charges in a nicrosilmind, and second, you may only ever transform
charges and store from a single metalmind at any time.
Should you somehow receive a boost of power from an external source, like
the Well of Ascension, the mists, or Duralumin or Nicrosil Allomancy, you can
transform and store it in a nicrosilmind instead of using it immediately. In this case
any gained dice and bonuses to Result and/or Outcome are totaled and halved,
rounding down, to determine how much investiture is stored. Your hourly limit
still applies, however, so it’s unlikely that you would be able to take full advantage
of the awesome force at hand. You could, of course, linger for hours if the power
persists and there aren’t other compelling reasons to leave (unlikely in such impor-
tant places), but you’re still limited to the storage capacity of your nicrosilmind(s).
Tapping a Nicrosilmind: Tapping a nicrosilmind is only useful in concert
with at least one other metalmind. Charges of investiture may be used as any
other Feruchemical charges, and charges from one or more nicrosilminds may
be tapped and added to any number of Feruchemical efforts at the same time.
You may not, however, add more charges of investiture to any effort than you’re
tapping from a metalmind of the appropriate type.
Example: Damosi is tapping a pewtermind during a fight with a Thug, but
has very few charges left. Desperate for an edge over the deadly Misting, he taps
his nicrosilmind to enhance his Pewter-fueled strength for a while longer. Damosi
has tapped 4 charges of Pewter, so he can tap no more than 4 charges of Nicrosil
to boost the original metal. He goes for broke and taps 4 charges of investiture,
increasing his Pewter boost from 4 to 8.

 

Why is specialized Investiture keyed to you not able to be used by others? I could guess that identity provides a 'buffer' between things. The default setting of everything is to attract each other (gravity is Spiritual), but identity repels things. Consider Preservation and Ruin, two fundamentally opposed identities. They repelled each other, causing great pain to the holders when they came into contact.

 

I think if you weakened your own identity with Feruchemy, you would be able to pull in other people's Lashings/use other people's metalminds/whatever because your own identity (which would normally repel Investiture with parts of the user's base identity in it) is now gone. This is however, a guess. We don't have enough Hemalurgist worldhoppers to know this for sure.

 

This has some relation to Forgery. When you stamp a person with a stamp intended to turn them into a different person, the person seems to reject modifications to the soul and the stamp doesn't take, almost as if you can't mix the two identities. But if you stamp a person with an identity really close to theirs, the stamp stays for a longer time before being rejected, as if it's not rejecting it as strongly.

 

I'm not sure how to fit in larkins: they steal Lift's Stormlight, something which should not happen because it should be keyed to her identity. You could argue that raw Stormlight is not specialized to you until you use it, or you could argue that the larkin has a naturally evolved ability to temporarily suppress its own identity. I am unsure of how they work.

 

Thoughts, comments, and evidence that shows this small essay is completely off the mark are all welcome. Apologies for the length, but this seemed like a bundle of ideas that all worked together and I was really not pleased with Kurk's lock theory for metalminds. I wanted a more general, simple mechanism, and the potential mimicking effect of Investiture seemed to provide it.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Moogle

[bartbug]

WOOT!! SO MANY WORDS!

On a more serious note, I looove it. I will almost certainly espouse it.

So what's your take on hemalurgy with this? Or the shaod?

(I think the Shaod could destroy your identity so too fill you with power, which is why most Elantrians were so mopey, with Raoden being the exception, because of his forceful personality. They had to rebuild themselves, and that's why Elantris's identity fell so quickly after the Rheod.)

[QuantumHarmonix]

If this is true wouldn't Drab's and Parshmen be similar? I've not read Warbreaker, but they seem to have some fundamental differences. I think Drab's still have internal motivation, but a Parshman would sit were they were left until they died without outside instructions. 

[Moogle]

So what's your take on hemalurgy with this? Or the shaod?

 

Shaod I can't speak on, but this theory has interesting implications for Hemalurgy. If Investiture is identity, then what happens with Hemalurgy is that you 'staple' some foreign Investiture onto your spirit-web. Thus, we predict that being spiked or receiving a spike should change your personality slightly. We find this to be true, too: the Inquisitors all tended to become rather mean and crafty. Koloss would have had their spiritual identities altered so much that they changed physically into blue monsters. Fedik, believed to have been spiked by a mist spirit, was never quite the same.

 

The effect is fairly small for single spikes (Vin did not change visibly with her earring in), but when you have 5+ spikes like the koloss and Inquisitors, interesting things happen.

 

Edit: About the Elantrian-thing, it seems to me that the AonDor is constantly seeking to push itself into the Physical realm. It is of Devotion partially, and so we find that most Elantrians tend to be devoted to something. This is a trait of their identity, something they share. I don't think it necessarily means much, though. I think that the Dor is akin to the mists of Scadrial and chooses people to 'Snap' and it's just attracted to devoted people.

 

If this is true wouldn't Drab's and Parshmen be similar? I've not read Warbreaker, but they seem to have some fundamental differences. I think Drab's still have internal motivation, but a Parshman would sit were they were left until they died without outside instructions. 

 

Drabs don't give away their entire innate Investiture. They've still got some there, they just become more irritable, less vibrant versions of themselves. Their identity is weakened, but not gone completely. Parshmen however have little-to-no Investiture and so are basically blank slates.

 

An interesting consequence of all this is that a parshman who receives a Breath should become free-willed, like the Parshendi. Someone should ask Brandon how that would work.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Moogle

[PorridgeBrick]

I really, really like this theory. But there's just one unfortunate flaw: if Investiture and Identity are the same thing, why is one stored by Nicrosil and the other by Aluminum?

[Moogle]

I really, really like this theory. But there's just one unfortunate flaw: if Investiture and Identity are the same thing, why is one stored by Nicrosil and the other by Aluminum?

 

Identity is not really raw Investiture, but it does seem to be Investiture at its core. You can't just put a thousand Breaths in a piece of metal and call it Nightblood, there has to be something more for it to latch onto to start the process. It seems that identity is a specialized type of Investiture.

 

This brings up the question of what a Shard is. It's mostly a huge amount of Investiture, but it seems there has to be something of a form to it, like Nightblood has "destroy evil". I suppose it's a bunch of Adonalsium's Investiture attached to one of the 16 Shard names, which also double as forms?

 

Oh, further example for me to add to the original post: Lifeless. They have only a part of regular human's Investiture (a Breath is not all of your Investiture), and they happen to be just like parshmen. Intelligent enough to understand orders, but no personality and no free will.

[PorridgeBrick]

Identity is not really raw Investiture, but it does seem to be Investiture at its core. You can't just put a thousand Breaths in a piece of metal and call it Nightblood, there has to be something more for it to latch onto to start the process. It seems that identity is a specialized type of Investiture.

 

This brings up the question of what a Shard is. It's mostly a huge amount of Investiture, but it seems there has to be something of a form to it, like Nightblood has "destroy evil". I suppose it's a bunch of Adonalsium's Investiture attached to one of the 16 Shard names, which also double as forms?

 

Oh, further example for me to add to the original post: Lifeless. They have only a part of regular human's Investiture (a Breath is not all of your Investiture), and they happen to be just like parshmen. Intelligent enough to understand orders, but no personality and no free will.

So Investiture is more like willpower, then? It's not quite Identity, but it's a major driver of it?

[Moogle]

So Investiture is more like willpower, then? It's not quite Identity, but it's a major driver of it?

 

Right. You could almost say that Investiture acts as an amplifier of the identity that's already there. In the case of Nightblood, you've got "destroy evil". When drawn and absorbing Investiture, the Investiture supercharges this so Nightblood starts screaming "THE EVIL MUST BE DESTROYED". Similar with, say, Preservation. There's this basic form - preserve, and then you've got 1/16th of the Investiture of Adonalsium and it supercharges this into an overwhelming identity, so overwhelming that it has no real sentience.

 

Incidentally, this theory works with the fact that a Splinter is sentient. A Splinter only contains part of the Investiture of a Shard. There's not enough to make it 'stupid', as it were, and so you get sentience from a chunk Investiture (and likely a part of the original Intent of the Shard provides a form for it).

Edited February 4, 2014 by Moogle

[Kurkistan]

An interesting theory. Remind me to throw some quotes at you later.

For now: How do you break this down, Realmatically? Splinters are noted to be a mix of Cognitive/Spiritual: Is Investiture that same mix, or purely Spiritual?

[Moogle]

For now: How do you break this down, Realmatically? Splinters are noted to be a mix of Cognitive/Spiritual: Is Investiture that same mix, or purely Spiritual?

 

Excellent question! I'd guess that Investiture is entirely Spiritual (or close to).

 

I'd argue that Splinters are some kind of idea ('Preservation' or 'destroy evil', which I would fuzzily say are ideas found in the Cognitive realm which are made of up of multiple base Spiritual forms) supercharged with Investiture (Spiritual) which gives them life. You could see sentience/free-will as a leak from of energy the Spiritual into the Cognitive.

 

This could be entirely wrong. This is shaky ground for me. The theory itself doesn't rely on Realmatics, so anything wrong I've said in this post does not mean anything for the truth-value of the original post.

 

Here's some interpretation of WoR spoilers which I think really provide some significant evidence:

 

“Nobody knows what spren are,” Shallan said, “though many philosophers have different opinions on—”

“No,” Jasnah said. “What are they?”

“I…” Shallan looked up at a pair of windspren spinning through the air above. They looked like tiny ribbons of light, glowing softly, dancing around one another. “They’re living ideas.”

Jasnah spun on her.

“What?” Shallan said, jumping. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” Jasnah said. “You’re right.” The woman narrowed her eyes. “By my best guess, spren are elements of the Cognitive Realm that have leaked into the physical world. They’re concepts that have gained a fragment of sentience, perhaps because of human intervention.

“Think of a man who gets angry often. Think of how his friends and family might start referring to that anger as a beast, as a thing that possesses him, as something external to him. Humans personify. We speak of the wind as if it has a will of its own.

“Spren are those ideas—the ideas of collective human experience— somehow come alive. Shadesmar is where that first happens, and it is their place. Though we created it, they shaped it. They live there; they rule there, within their own cities.”

...

“We will have to see,” Jasnah said. “It comes down to the nature of spren. What has your research revealed?”

With Jasnah, everything seemed to be a test of scholarship. Shallan smothered a sigh. This was why she had come with Jasnah, rather than returning to her home. Still, she did wish that sometimes Jasnah would just tell her answers rather than making her work so hard to find them. “Alai says that the spren are fragments of the powers of creation. A lot of the scholars I read agreed with that.”

“It is one opinion. What does it mean?”

Shallan tried not to let herself be distracted by the spren on the floor. “There are ten fundamental Surges—forces—by which the world works. Gravitation, pressure, transformation. That sort of thing. You told me spren are fragments of the Cognitive Realm that have somehow gained sentience because of human attention. Well, it stands to reason that they were something before. Like… like a painting was a canvas before being given life.”

“Life?” Jasnah said, raising her eyebrow.

“Of course,” Shallan said. Paintings lived. Not lived like a person or a spren, but… well, it was obvious to her, at least. “So, before the spren were alive, they were something. Power. Energy. Zen-daughter-Vath sketched tiny spren she found sometimes around heavy objects. Gravitationspren—fragments of the power or force that causes us to fall. It stands to reason that every spren was a power before it was a spren. Really, you can divide spren into two general groups. Those that respond to emotions and those that respond to forces like fire or wind pressure.”

 

Spren are about the most common form of 'Splinter' (if you can consider them that) that we know of. These passages contain all the information we need to know. They were once energy (Investiture) which happened to leak a little into the Cognitive realm (thanks to the Shards, which are made of such dense Investiture that they not only leak into the Cognitive, they leak into the Physical).

 

The energy found forms floating about in the Cognitive realm relating to things humanity perceived - flames, anger, etc. and the Investiture attached itself to these ideas. Sentience was the result for particularly Investiture-full ideas (which made honorspren, Cryptics), but for the vast majority of the spren, the energy was diffuse enough that it made them about as intelligent as fish (thanks to having next to no identity). Flamespren, fearspren, etc. all then found themselves floating around in Shadesmar, attracted to the Physical representation of them. A flamespren would find itself attracted to places where fire was in the Physical and, occasionally, take a jaunt into the Physical for particularly pure representations of its ideal (large fires attract more flamespren). Of course, there's not enough Investiture to make the entirety of Shadesmar be covered in spren, so you don't always get a flamespren when you light a fire.

 

From this, I'd predict that honorspren like Syl are windspren, or rather, that they both derive themselves from humanity's conception of wind. The difference is that honorspren got way more Investiture than your regular old windspren. Honorspren have enough Investiture-identity to be 'people' and have individual personalities and the like, and windspren don't. Thus, Brandon's WoB saying they are "close cousins".

 

This also has some interesting implications for the question of whether "spren cause the wind, or attracted to the wind". The answer is... both and neither. Windspren are the wind, but an abstract version of it in a different realm. Windspren are attracted to wind, but they're the same thing so it's less an attraction and more the barrier between Realms on Roshar being somewhat thin.

 

You know what, I'm just going to go attach this to the main post...

 

Edit: Ooh, and if Nahel spren are made of forms raw Investiture can mimic, naturally all spren can provide similar capabilities. Thus explaining how fabrials work! You shove a flamespren into a ruby, and provide it with raw Investiture. The Investiture mimics the form of 'heat', which you selected out of the many forms comprising a flamespren through carving of the ruby, and thus the fabrial begins to produce heat. It all makes sense now! More stuff to add into the main post. This theory has so many applications!

Edited February 4, 2014 by Moogle

[Kurkistan]

On Spren: Note that the ideals that they seem to latch onto look to be founded in the Spiritual, not the Cognitive. This doesn't have much impact on your theory that I can see, but it's worth keeping in mind.

-This backed up by the analysis in my spren theory cross-applied to some WoB.

--Feel free to challenge me on this if you want some more evidence/detail.

 

Some quotage:

 

On Kandra:

NinjaMeTimbers:

Brandon, I'm a huge fan of yours. Originally I found out about you after you were chosen to finish The Wheel of Time, and since then you've become my favorite author. I have a few questions regarding mistwraiths:

How intelligent is a mistwraith? Could you raise and train mistwraiths like dogs or horses, controlling what forms they take by the bones you give them? Would you be able to train yourself a horsewraith steed by giving it only the bones of a horse?

 

Brandon:

This is feasible. One thing to keep in mind is that mistwraiths are people who have a blockage between the physical and the cognitive realm, messing with their ability to think. Think of them as mentally-stunted people. There's enough there to train, but then you have to dig into the ethics of it...

 

On that vein, I'm curious as to how you intend to address the requirements for sentience of Aons and Nahel spren in the Physical Realm:

 

Syl:

[...]

ZAS

Is that bond the Nahel bond?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

[Nervous grin on Brandon's face] [laughter] There is a certain amount of... It is a symbiotic bond that is gained by Syl. And things gained by the person bonding. And the stronger presence in the physical realm, and the ability to think better in the physical realm is a part of that bond. She is mostly getting [something] of the physical realm. Without the bond, it is very hard for her to think in this world.

 

Aons:

MASTER_MORIDIN

Why aren't Seons affected by the lack of a chasm line in their Aon?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

If they tried to actualize their Aon, it would have an undesirable result. In addition, the chasm broke their bond to the humans they were tied to, and you can see the result of that. So they were affected.

[Moogle]

I've done some edits, notably playing around with the concept of spren being Cognitive ideas comprised of multiple Spiritual forms and the application of this to fabrials. Realmatic theory is not my strength, though I'm working on it.

 

As to your quotes, I don't have an immediate way to address the fact that Cognitive entities (spren, Seons?) need to bond with a Physical mind to think in the Physical, but I do have a stream of consciousness:

 

Brandon describes mistwraiths as "people who have a blockage between the Physical and the Cognitive realm, messing with their ability to think". Hemalurgy is primarily concerned with things of the Spiritual realm (as per AoL Ars Arcanum), and obtaining Hemalurgic spikes 'fixes' a mistwraith. There's multiple spikes that do this, too - the spike type doesn't matter it seems, spikes that increase your strength (Blessing of Potency, as I recall) even act to get rid of this blockage. Something about Investiture allows the Physical and Cognitive to intermix freely.

 

The immediate consequence of this is that my fuzzy internal theory of Realms as a sandwich - the Cognitive acting as a go-between between the Physical and Spiritual seems to be wrong. How could something Spiritual act as a bridge between the Physical and Cognitive if the Cognitive acts as a bridge between the Physical and Spiritual? I will need to re-evaluate my understanding of things here.

 

The answer to why spren and Seons are unable to think properly in the Physical without a bond to a human is getting at some very deep things, I think. Specifically, we need a model of thought itself in the Cosmere. It seems to relate primarily to the Cognitive (unsurprising) - Shallan had no problem thinking in Shadesmar, but Syl had plenty of issues thinking in the Physical. The problem seems to be that things take on different forms when they move between realms. A Shardblade is this thing attached to your spiritweb, but you can bring it into the Physical and it will take on the form of a sword.

 

The issue with Syl, I think, is that the Physical is not very malleable. Shadesmar, equivalently, is incredibly easy to control. Jasnah's will can make a raft of beads. Good luck with that in the Physical. The Physical is "what is before us", a frustratingly vague description on Shai's part. The Physical seems to be how things interact with each other. The Spiritual has to do with the essence of things, and the connection between things, and the Physical acts as a way to modulate the interactions. The only way to change the Physical is to change the Spiritual. You change a spiritweb, and you can make it so someone's physical form changes.

 

Same thing with Soulcasting - you change their essence, using Shadesmar as a way to connect to the object's soul easily. The Cognitive reveals how things see each other, and gives us a hint of their soul. Shallan talks to the soul of a goblet - despite not having enough Investiture to be granted sentience like Nightblood in the Physical, the goblet is still capable of speaking to Shallan in Shadesmar, though she directly has to touch a bead representing it. Spren, with Investiture, seem to be freer.

 

On Kandra: Something about the Physical acts as a barrier to the Cognitive. Investiture seems to break down the barrier between the Physical and the Cognitive, if you look at highstorms. Spren only slip between the Cognitive and the Physical where highstorms have traveled. Highstorms seem to be roaming Investiture, or a rip/explosion in the fabric between realms. This would explain why Investiture from spikes fixes the 'barrier' on mistwraiths.

 

The idea of 'leaks' between the realms seems important. Things always seem to leak from the Spiritual into the Physical and Cognitive, and Kaladin seems to slip into the Cognitive temporarily. Why does nothing leak into the Spiritual?

 

Physical creatures (mistwraiths) need Investiture to link them to the Cognitive so they can think properly. Animals without enough Investiture to be sentient don't have this connection to the Cognitive realm, though they obviously have a spiritweb (since Shardblades fuzz on all living things). Spren are not created from the thoughts of animals, they are created from the thoughts of humans. This suggests that the Cognitive Realm arises from the Spiritual and Physical.

 

Syl also brings up an important point: spren don't get spren of their own. There's no Meta-Cognitive realm.  Why not?

Edited February 4, 2014 by Moogle

[QuantumHarmonix]

Moogle I really like your musings. It seems like there is an importance to having an aspect in all three realms. Kind of like a tripod, if you are missing a leg you are in some way imbalanced. It seems like the Spiritual Realm provides the drive or motivation, the Cognitive Realm provides the will or intent, and the Physical Realm provides the means. So Parshmen and Lifeless, who seem be lacking the connection to the spiritual, can fulfill an intent but need an outside motivator. Spren have the opposite problem they have the drive and intent but need a connection to the physical for it to be realized. Nightblood and the various Shards seem to have an overabundance of drive and intent, which overwhelms them and therefor limits what they can actualize in the physical realm.

[Moogle]

That's an interesting way to think about it, Quantum. Has anyone asked Brandon if humans are primarily Physical, or are they rather balanced, all things considered?

 

I've been thinking on spren and Seons, and why there aren't spren on Sel despite there being a lot of free Investiture floating about. Here are some ideas:

 

I think the answer has to do with the highstorms mixing the Physical and Cognitive. Spren are the ideas of humanity given form. The highstorms 'mix' the realms a little, which allows for the ideas of humanity to have more substance in the Cognitive. We could say that, compared to Sel, humans are more in the Cognitive on Roshar. Humans bundle forms together by interacting with them on the Physical, resulting in Cognitive entities. You add Investiture, which binds tightly to the forms, and you get spren.

 

(Because of there being Adonalsium spren, I anticipate that highstorms have always existed on Roshar, or at least since Adonalsium visited.)

 

Ultimately, though, these forms are maintained by humans. If the humans all die off, the spren all die off.

 

With this in mind, I think we have a decent mechanism to understand why spren cannot think in the Physical: they rely on human minds to provide them with their form, and when they partially enter the Physical, they lose a lot of this connection. Their form starts to unravel. It's no wonder that spren end up close to the Physical things they represent when in the Physical - it provides them with form they rely on to exist. Any flamespren that wander away from flames will die, because their form unravels.

 

And, because intelligence results in spren from their forms being supercharged by Investiture, their 'fuzzy' forms in the Physical means they can't think clearly.

 

But if a spren bonds with a human mind, the human can maintain their form. The Nahel spren attaches themselves partially to the spiritweb of the person they bond with - Syl gives pressure/gravity/honor/wind to Kaladin, and now it's etched on him (unless Syl decides to sever the bond), and he provides for her continued existence. He gains the benefit of her forms (he can get his raw Investiture to mimic them and so Surgebind), giving him a bit of the Cognitive/Spiritual, and she is pulled slightly into the Physical realm. Kaladin maintains her form because now he has a special connection to pressure/gravity/honor/wind, and so Syl can think clearly.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Moogle

[QuantumHarmonix]

Here's another question then, does a human have to observe a fire for firespren to appear? So if there was a fire in the wilderness with no one observing it could a firespren appear? It kind of sounds like you are saying that there would not be enough cognitive pressure around that fire for a spren to manifest. 

[Moogle]

Here's another question then, does a human have to observe a fire for firespren to appear? So if there was a fire in the wilderness with no one observing it could a firespren appear? It kind of sounds like you are saying that there would not be enough cognitive pressure around that fire for a spren to manifest. 

 

It's difficult to say, because there's a sort of spread of different types of spren/Splinters. You've got spren based on human ideas (flamespren), but then you can move up a step and get Nahel spren, which are born mostly of human ideas, but also partially of Shardic intent. You can go another step up to spren made basically entirely of Shardic power - I suspect this is the Stormfather, a really powerful (Investiture-dense) 'spren' that Kaladin sees that just so happened to result from the Splintering of Honor. I could be wrong on that. (On a sidenote: the Stormfather that Kaladin sees seems kind of stupid and focused on storms, further evidence for more Investiture resulting in an overpowering identity.)

 

We also have Adonalsium-spren (Cucicesh?) that seem to exist independent of humans. Unless, of course, Roshar had humans since the days of Adonalsium and Honor/Cultivation didn't create humans. Elantris was built by someone, and there's a definite parallel between Elantris and the ten Dawncities.

 

As to flamespren, though, I think that flamespren won't find their way to Physical flames without a human presence. The spren need humans to solidify their forms under my theory here. If a flamespren did find its way to a Physical fire, there's no human there to think of fire and so there's no fire-idea in the Cognitive that should allow for the flamespren to exist.

 

I could be wrong. Investiture seems to provide a sort of stasis. Spren definitely initially need an idea/collection of forms from humans to occur before they can exist. Perhaps once that idea is formed in the Cognitive, the Investiture can sustain it and so flamespren will have no issues going to Physical fires when there's no humans around.

 

Edit: It occurs to me that the 'perfection' of Stormlight can be explained by the Investiture mimicking the specialized Investiture making up you. It finds your attributes like 'good with spears' and mimicks them, perfecting you.

Edited February 11, 2014 by Moogle