[OB] Gemhearts and Awakening

[zabracks]

I have a theory that comes with a few core premises that I think we can all mostly agree on.

Premise 1: Spren are bits of Investiture bound to a concept, giving that concept agency within the Cognitive Realm.

Premise 2: Awakening is the process of taking Investiture, in the form of Breaths, and binding it to a concept in the form of the visualized Command. The resulting Invested concept is then bound into an object in the Physical Realm.

We've seen with Nightblood that type IV Awakened entities can be sentient, and appear to be quite enthusiastic about the Command used to Awaken them.

From there, I posit that the Cognitive aspect of an Awakened object is indistinguishable from Rosharan spren for most purposes. Nightblood, then, is effectively a "Destroy Evil"-spren that has been bound into the physical vessel of a sword.

This makes Awakening the easiest and most direct way to create discrete Cognitive entities.

I think most of us are on the same page here, so I'll continue on to the next premise.

Premise 3: Roshar-native faunae possess gemhearts, which allow interactions between all three realms on an individual scale when occupied by a Cognitive entity.

We've seen this so far in the way that the Parsh bind spren and Cognitive Shadows, altering their forms in the Physical Realm, providing a channel for Investiture from the Spiritual Realm, and potentially allowing Physical control from the bound entity in the Cognitive.

Theory: A sufficiently skilled Awakener would be able to attach Investiture to a Command and bind the resulting Cognitive entity into the gemheart of a Roshar-native lifeform.

There are lots and lots of amazing and terrifying implications of this. A few that come to mind immediately:

• Control. As we've seen with the Parsh ancestors, a particularly assertive entity can assume complete control over its host in the Physical Realm. An Awakener could potentially turn an army of chasmfiends toward their enemies, or cause a Ryshadium to throw off its rider.
• Customized Parsh forms or Investiture access. As a poorly thought-out example, imagine Awakening a gemheart with the Command "Be Honorable". Would it result in something generally resembling an Honorspren? How would that manifest when bound into a gemheart?

There is one specific scenario, however, that I believe we have actually seen the effects of already: the mindlessness of the Parshendi slaves. I believe that the gemhearts of these Parshendi were forcefully infused with an entity that put them into their servile state for millennia. I don't necessarily think that this was the result of an Awakener, but I imagine that there are other ways for a third party to bind Cognitive entities into Physical vessels. In fact, I think it may be possible for an order of the Knights Radiant to do so.

The Willshapers are still a bit of a mystery. We know, though, that they possess the Surges of Transportation and Cohesion, and we have been made aware that they have an affinity to the "far realm of spren."

It would make a ton of sense to me if the Resonance of the Willshapers' Surges is to Transport an entity from the Cognitive and bind it into a Physical form. This would explain their name, in that they are shaping the will of a physical object or entity.

As an added bonus, although I'm not entirely sure that it helps the theory, the patron Herald of the Willshapers is Kalak. We don't know much about Kalak, despite having his point of view in the WoK prologue, but we have heard his Vorin name used as profanity in a very peculiar phrase: "Kelek's Breath." Now, I'm not saying that Kalak is an Awakener, but I'm also not not saying that Kalak is an Awakener.

Edited November 28, 2017 by zabracks