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Mraizes role and the powers of his Aviar


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The Ghostbloods are wierd. They are the most mysterious secret society on Roshar (that we currently know of), and probably the most dangerous too. The Sons of Honor wound up being a non-factor (their one on-screen member is dead) and the Diagram, while competent, is currently being absorbed into the forces of Odium, and hasn´t really had the huge amount of success they expected. But the Ghostbloods are still out there, and hasn´t even made one major play yet, as far as we know. I thought a bit about Mraize recently, and suddenly, I got an idea: what if Mraize is the Head of Information in the organisation?

So, why would Mraize be the Information-boss? Well, first off, he knows a LOT. He knows everything about the Skybreakers, he knows of Shallans family, of the Diagram, of Amarams involvement with the Sons of Honor, of Ashs madness and of Talns location. That is an incredibly extensive list. Second, whenever we see him, he is trying to obtain information of some kind. He is constantly sending Shallan to spy on various people, or, in OB, to find Re-Shepir. He is himself seen spying on Ialai. He is undercover in Dalinars army during the Battle of Narak as well, and interrogates Ash, presumably for some kind of info regarding Heralds or the Oathpact. More or less everything Mraize does is about gaining information. We also know that Mraize is a title, and a title generally comes with some kind of position. What if a Mraize is a master spy/Head of Information?

If Mraize is the Ghostbloods major information guy, the powers of his Aviar would probably relate to information-gathering as well. I believe that the birds powers is either the powers that we see Sak having in Sixth of the Dusk (being able to warn its master of eventual death) or some kind of power relating to sensing danger or emotion. If we look at the birds interaction with Shallan in OB, it chirps at her twice, both times when she appears to be angry at Mraize, or threatening towards him. Having an aviar that works as some sort of warning signal, wether through sensing emotions or warning of general danger, would be of great use for a spy like Mraize. 

I don´t know how reliable this is, or even if it is important, but I felt like posting it, in order to see peoples reaction.  

Edited by Toaster Retribution
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I don't think it could be Sak's power, because Sixth brought Sak, a bird not native to Patji, to the island as a chick and created a new type of Aviar. Sak should be unique, at least in the story's timeline. 

As to what power it has... The only one we saw was the coppercloud type and I think the colors are similar... But I don't know. Aviar are a mystery. I could absolutely see it being some kind o emotion read, but we just don't have a lot to go off of. 

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There are a bunch of types including ones that affect the physical. And its quite right that SA is waaaay before SotD so it wouldn't be the death aviar.

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Argent [PENDING REVIEW]

Are there Aviar who grant Physical abilities?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Technically, yes. 

Argent [PENDING REVIEW]

'Cause we’ve seen Spiritual, we've seen Cognitive...

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes, there are. 

source
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AndrewStirlingMacDonald

So there are many--According to Sixth of the Dusk, there are many commonly known aviar talents, can you give us a couple? Like examples we haven’t seen yet?

Brandon Sanderson

Those are from the notes, I’d have to dig them out. Let’s just say they’ll be very useful for navigation in the future.

source

I'm more interested in how he got one so long before FTL (presumably) and from a planet that Khriss considers so difficult to get to. Perhaps...

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JoyBlu [PENDING REVIEW]

The Patji lake, theoretically, could an Aviar fly into the lake on its own and enter the Cognitive Realm? Like, have a bird catcher on the other side waiting for the bird to fly in and catch it?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Theoretically... I'm going to RAFO that, but it's not a big RAFO. It's more along the lines of, I'm going to get into the mechanics of how things go through Shardpools in future books. Um, what you just described is not outside of reason.

JoyBlue [PENDING REVIEW]

And could also, one of the grubs or one of the parasites or the rotten fruit, whatever, could that have fallen through the lake?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

That is plausible. The question is, once it gets to be a non-sentient thing, how does going through the--- to the Realms work, and that's where it starts to get-- that's where you get your asterisk. Like, just a piece of fruit falling. I'm going to asterisk that one.

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Mraize is probably one of the people in the cosmere most likely to be able to survive on Patji long enough to grab an Aviar and return through the Perpendicularity before one of the many things on the island that can kill you (broadly defined as 'absolutely everything') gets to him. Given how much he loves talking about hunting and he's got a trophy collection, Patji is probably his idea of the best vacation spot in the cosmere.

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13 hours ago, Weltall said:

Mraize is probably one of the people in the cosmere most likely to be able to survive on Patji long enough to grab an Aviar and return through the Perpendicularity before one of the many things on the island that can kill you (broadly defined as 'absolutely everything') gets to him. Given how much he loves talking about hunting and he's got a trophy collection, Patji is probably his idea of the best vacation spot in the cosmere.

The Cognitive side of the Perpendicularity might well be just as dangerous as the Physical side. We already know from Jasnah's deleted scene that Cognitive entities like spren pose a danger to Physical entities visiting the Cognitive Realm. Considering that every lifeform on Patji has a strong enough Cognitive Aspect to sense unshielded minds, it's entirely feasible that they can attack in the Cognitive Realm.

This greatly increases the bar to acquiring an Aviar. You'd need to survive Patji's Cognitive Realm long enough to get close to the Eye, poke through and grab a bird, then get back to safer areas of the Cognitive Realm. Grabbing the Aviar would actually be the safest part of the trip, since the area around the Eye of Patji is automatically shielded.

12 hours ago, Jeffo said:

Weird that Aviars exist this early in the timeline when Autonomy seems like she’s only just got involved with the planet

Autonomy's Investiture was always on First of the Sun, able to produce the various unusual effects observed in the Pantheon. We're still not sure exactly when Bavadin started focusing on First of the Sun, nor what she did there, so it's possible the Aviar have existed for a long time, even perhaps before the Shattering.

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3 minutes ago, harel55 said:

Autonomy's Investiture was always on First of the Sun, able to produce the various unusual effects observed in the Pantheon. We're still not sure exactly when Bavadin started focusing on First of the Sun, nor what she did there, so it's possible the Aviar have existed for a long time, even perhaps before the Shattering.

This. Everything about the magic system could have, and may have, happened without Autonomy's direct involvement. 

I will spoiler the entirety of the WoB for sheer length. 

Spoiler

ReadAndFindOut

In 2014, Brandon said First of the Sun - the planet in Sixth of the Dusk - is a minor Shardworld, in that it does not have a Shard present (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/103-salt-lake-city-comic-con-2014/#e1010). However, we've now gotten a WoB saying that Patji - the Father island - IS a Shard (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8606). Patji was a Shard, but isn't during SotD? Or did we finally get confirmation on that elusive "Survival Shard"? What do you guys think?

Brandon Sanderson

I stand by them. Though, as always, quotes and WoBs at signings aren't always as deliberately thought out as I'd like them to be. Answering questions on the fly can be challenging, and my phrasing can be bad in retrospect.

But no shard was in residence on First of the Sun during the events of that story. The investiture on that planet is residue, normal investiture from Adonalsium. Everything happening there could happen with or without a shard present. Indeed, I would say that no shard was ever "in residence" on First of the Sun.

The being called Patji still exists, and is a shard of Adonalsium. Shards in the past have been interested in First of the Sun, and have meddled in small ways there. (Like they have on a lot of shardworlds.)

Note that I might have been a little misleading in the first quote by bringing up Threnody, which is a real corner case in the cosmere because of uncommon events there.

That said, I'm sure that every story I write about a planet will bring up the quirks and unusual interactions of the magic there, because that's kind of what I do. (First of the Sun has its own oddities, as mentioned in Arcanum Unbounded.) Every planet is likely to end up as a corner case in some way, just like every person is distinctive in their own way, and never fully fits expectations.

I still consider one of the major dividing lines between "major" and "minor" shardworlds (other than Shard residence) to be in strength of access to the magic, and control over it. I intend the minor shard worlds to involve interactions with the magic as setting--coming back to spren, you could have a minor shardworld with people who use, befriend, even bond spren. (Or the local equivalent--Seon, Aviar, etc.) But you'd never see power on the level of the city of Elantris, the actions of a Bondsmith, or even the broad power suite of a mistborn.

But, as ever, the cosmere is a work in progress. The needs of telling a great story trump things I've said about what I'm planning. (I do try as much as I can to avoid having two texts contradict one another. And when they do, that's often a lapse on my part.)

Oversleep

Wait.

I'm confused.

So the Investiture on First of the Sun is associated with a Shard or is it residue, normal investiture from Adonalsium?

Cause the question was a follow up (on this) where you revealed that all Investiture in Cosmere got assigned to a Shard even if it wasn't part of a Shard.

And then you said that the one on First of the Sun is directly associated with one of the Shards (and since later you revealed Patji to be an avatar of Autonomy (also, what are avatars and how do they work?)) we took it to mean that at one point Autonomy Invested in First of the Sun.

But now you're saying it didn't?

If there was no Shard ever on First of the Sun but Patji is a Shard/avatar of a Shard then where is Patji, actually?

Could you please clarify all that?

Brandon Sanderson

So the Investiture on First of the Sun is associated with a Shard or is it residue, normal investiture from Adonalsium?"

The reason I have so much trouble answering these questions (and you'll see me struggling to get an answer in the 10-15 seconds I have when someone asks me in a signing line) is because this isn't an either or. Is this computer I'm using matter associated with Earth, the Big Bang, or such-and-such star that went supernova long ago? Well, it's probably all three.

When people ask, "What shard is this investiture associated with" it gets very complicated. Shards influence and tweak certain investiture, giving it a kind of spin or magnetism, but all investiture ever predates the shattering--and in the cosmere matter, energy, and investiture are one thing.

I always imagine investiture having certain states, certain magnetisms if you will, associated with certain aspects of Adonalsium. So it's all "assigned" to a shard--because it's always been associated with that Shard. To investiture, Adonalsium's shattering meant everything and nothing at the same time.

We generally mean the term "Invested" to mean a Shard has taken permanent residence in a location, a kind of base of operations--but at the same time, this is meaningless, since distance has no meaning on the Spiritual Realm, where most Shards are. So imprisonment of a Shard like Ruin or Odium is a crude expression--but the best we have.

Autonomy never "invested" on First of the Sun. But even answering (as someone else asked) if they created an avatar without visiting is a difficult thing to explain--because even explaining how a shard travels (when motion is irrelevant) is difficult to manage. It's a subject that I intend to be up for debate, discussion, and argument by in-world philosophers and arcanists.

You can see why I have such troubles explaining these things at signings--and why I fail when I try to, considering the time limitations and (often) fatigue limitations placed upon me. These are concepts I intend to spend entire, lengthy epic volumes explaining and exploring.

Let's say you were Autonomy, and you have--through expanding and exploring your understanding--found a gathering of investiture that has always been there, you always knew about, but still didn't actually recognize until the moment you considered and explored it. (Because even though your power is infinite, accessing and using that infinity is beyond your reach.) Were you "invested" there? No, no more than you're invested on Roshar, where parts of what were Adonalsium still exist that are associated with you (in the very fabric of mater and existence.) But suddenly, you have a chance to tweak, influence, and do things that were always possible, but which you never could do because you knew, but didn't know, at the same time.

And...I'm already into WAY more than I want to be typing this out right now. If it's confusing, it's because it's practically impossible for me to explain these things in a short span of time.

I'm going to leave it here, understanding that no, I haven't fully explained your question. (I didn't even get into what avatars are, what Patji was, and what happened to Patji the being--and how that relates to Patji the island.) But hopefully this kind of starts to point the right direction, though I probably should have just left this question alone because I bet this post is going to raise more questions than it answers...

Overlord Jebus

You've confused things so much now. We thought we had a pretty good grasp of this whole Patji situation (Autonomy visited the planet at some point, got themselves all Invested and created an avatar which is called Patji by the locals).

Now you're saying no Shard has ever visited there? And that the pool would have existed if no Shard had ever interfered? But that Patji still exists and is a Shard?

Does that mean Autonomy edited First of the Sun from afar without actually going there? And that the pool would have already existed without any intervention? Does this mean it was associated with Autonomy from the beginning? I'm really confused now.

Brandon Sanderson

I don't believe I said no Shard had visited. I said no Shard was there during the events of the story.

Investiture on First of the Sun predates any shards fiddling with it.

Shards have fiddled with it by the time of the story.

I think fandom might be going down too far a rabbit hole on this one.

Chaos

Are you saying here that Patji is an avatar of Autonomy, or is it a separate Shard and not an avatar of Autonomy?

Brandon Sanderson

When I said Patji was a Shard, I was meaning automony--but it is not quite that simple.

Take this post to mean "no, you should not be looking toward another Shard for Patji's origins. Autonomy is the one relevant." But Autonomy's relationships with entities like this (not sure entity is the right word, even) is complex. I'm not trying to confuse the issue, though.

source

"But no shard was in residence on First of the Sun during the events of that story. The investiture on that planet is residue, normal investiture from Adonalsium. Everything happening there could happen with or without a shard present. Indeed, I would say that no shard was ever "in residence" on First of the Sun."

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It would make sense for Mraize to be Head of Information, or something along that line, as we know, that his power originates mostly from information and knowledge.
Until now he didn't display any signs, that he is able to use magic on his own (without an artefact,...).

Therefore, in a world in which so many people have access to investiture and use it actively, he needs other skills/ knowledge to rely on.

 

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We know by the letter in OB that Bavadin is already messing with First of the Sun during the SA timeframe.

I agree with everyone who said the Aviar could be a phenomenon predating Bavadin's involment. But I don't honestly know if the planet was available to foreign before Bavadin's action or if the perpendicularity was a result of the actions she took on First of the Planet.

The investiture was always there...but Bavadin manipulate and possibly guide it.

On the danger of Fots' CR , I don't think the area is so dangerous... spren and cognitive entities are possible only where the free investiture around is huge. Sure there could be some of the physical beasts that trepassed the perpendicularity for accident. It's interesting to know, if they are able to detect cognitive minds while in the CR itself...

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7 hours ago, Yata said:

On the danger of Fots' CR , I don't think the area is so dangerous... spren and cognitive entities are possible only where the free investiture around is huge. Sure there could be some of the physical beasts that trepassed the perpendicularity for accident. It's interesting to know, if they are able to detect cognitive minds while in the CR itself...

I'm not concerned about spren, or beasts coming to the Cognitive from the Physical. My concern is that the beasts in the Physical will be able to see and attack worldhoppers while they're still in the Cognitive. Just like Lift can touch and physically interact with spren due to her being more in the Cognitive than any other human, it's likely that the beasts' mind-sense comes from strong Cognitive aspects, allowing them to see entities that exist entirely in the Cognitive and perhaps even attack them across Realms.

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12 hours ago, harel55 said:

I'm not concerned about spren, or beasts coming to the Cognitive from the Physical. My concern is that the beasts in the Physical will be able to see and attack worldhoppers while they're still in the Cognitive. Just like Lift can touch and physically interact with spren due to her being more in the Cognitive than any other human, it's likely that the beasts' mind-sense comes from strong Cognitive aspects, allowing them to see entities that exist entirely in the Cognitive and perhaps even attack them across Realms.

Lift is something so odd to be almost unreplicable without a willing design.

I could see the beasts as able to feel the worldhoppers while they are in the CR (if they aren't in a protected area) but for sure they are unable to hurt them. Notice also that even Lift can't touch stuffs in the CR, she is able to touch Spren that transitioned in the PR and if the OB's ending could be use as proof, she can't even touch every spren, as she letherally phased into a Spren's body in a scene

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21 hours ago, Yata said:

I agree with everyone who said the Aviar could be a phenomenon predating Bavadin's involment. But I don't honestly know if the planet was available to foreign before Bavadin's action or if the perpendicularity was a result of the actions she took on First of the Planet.

We know that the concentration of Investiture on Patji was strong enough to invest the grubs before Bavadin arrived, and perpendicularities are just concentrations of investiture. Is the perpendicularity on the first of the sun a willfully created perpendicularity? In my opinion no, it's just a dense enough accumulation of investiture to make a perpendicularity. Investiture is energy (or accreted investiture) but we know that energy is convertible to mass, and I think this simple fact explains Brandon's idea of perpendicularities.

Let's assume that all investiture, irrespective of it's shardic source, has a finite vector that is energy. This is easily expressible in terms of the mass of matter necessary to generate that energy. Energy (investiture) is directly proportional to mass. Investiture is a special type of energy, supposedly, but let's just say, as I think is truly the case, that it's just more concentrated. Then it simply becomes an exercise in visualizing high concentrations of investiture as warps in the space time continuum, like a massive marble placed on a stretched elastic balloon. The more massive the marble (i.e. the higher the concentration of investiture) the greater the distortion in the rubber skein of space time. There undoubtedly is a tipping point at which the concentration of investiture is high enough to create a perpendicularity, but I believe (and I think the patji example is proof of this) that these concentrations of Investiture neither have to be willfully created by a shard nor do they have to be keyed to a specific shard.

The Cosmere existed before the shattering of Adonalsium. It makes sense to me that some of these concentrations of investiture are composite (like the spren on roshar are composites of Honor and Cultivation), and that therefore they are not the domain of any one specific shard. Bavadin, realizing her affinity for first of the sun, might be able to take steps to guard this particular perpendicularity, but that doesn't mean necessarily that it is "of Bavadin". That would be like saying that your loaf of french bread is of "flour" even though you need eggs, salt, and yeast to make it. It would primarily of flour, but it's still a functional composite.

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