Spren vs. Seons

[Commander Spoonface]

This theory is based partially on observations from my reading and mostly on my own cognitive (and possibly spiritual) processes.

The central idea of this theory is that Seons are the body of Devotion in much the same way that Atium is the body of Ruin and the mists are the body of Preservation. In order to support this, I propose:

1) Humans make up a small part of the bodies of Preservation and Ruin, as well as being endowed with the majority of Preservation's cognitive aspect.

2) If a shard splits off part of its cognitive aspect, parts of its body can gain sentience.

3) The sentient parts of a shard's body tend to work towards the intent of that shard. If they are endowed with aspects from multiple shards, all bets are off.

4) A shard can consciously choose to break off parts of itself to bestow sentience on specific parts of its body.

5) When a shardholder is killed, all parts of the shards body gain a measure of its sentience.

I'm going to examine how these assumptions hold true in multiple cases. First, in Mistborn:

Most of Preservation's cognitive aspect had already been given away to humans. Humans, however, are not wholly of Preservation and therefore do not necessarily hold to its intent. Preservation still held some sentience, and was able to give this to parts of it body, thus creating the "mist spirit" that Vin sees. Ruin still retains all of its sentience, so Atium remains non sentient.

Elantris:

We know that there were no Seons before Odium came to Sel and killed Aona and Skai (Word of Brandon). I propose that the Seons did exist, though in a wholly different form. What was to become the Seons, Proto-Seons if you will, was the physical aspect of Aona's body. Upon Aona's death, its cognitive aspect was dispersed throughout its body, thus giving sentience to what had become Seons. Seons act toward the intent of their shard, that being Devotion. Seons bond to people and work for them, thus devoting their lives to a person. Though not much is known about the Skaze, I believe they work in a similar way, and that in order to obtain their help a person must be Dominated by them somehow, so that they work in alignment with Domination.

Stormlight Archives:

Spren also act towards their shard's intent. Honor is the power of binding things together. In The Way of Kings, the question is often asked about whether Spren cause various things (such as infection) or are attracted to them. I propose that they bind to things that they have a natural affinity with.

The question of Honorspren and Truthspren (or Symbolspren) is a little bit trickier. We can assume that most spren are non-sentient, merely acting in accordance with the intent of their shard. It is clear, however, that Honorspren can be as sentient as humans, as in the case of Syl, and that Truthspren are also significantly more sentient than regular spren. Why? I hold with the theory proposed in this thread, that Honor is split into ten parts. I propose that these ten parts give power to the ten heralds, and give sentience to the spren that bind with the ten corresponding orders of the Knights Radiant. Now that Honor is dead, it is unclear if regular spren will start to gain sentience (to a lesser degree than Seons as the ten types of Radiant spren have some) or if the ten sentient spren types with hold on to all of Honor's cognitive aspect.

Warbreaker:

I have honestly no idea. We know that there are waffles in the Final Empire (word of Brandon) so perhaps they exist on Nalthis as well. And what endows more deliciousness than waffles?

[Djerf]

Mistborn:

 Preservation used most of it’s cognitive aspect to create the prison for Ruin (if I don’t misremember).

 We’ve seen solid Preservation in the form of Lerasium.

 We’ve seen the gaseous form of Ruin in WoA.

Q. Can you tell me something about the Cosmere that you haven't told anyone before?

A. "There are inhabited planets in the Cosmere that don't have any Shards there. There may be inhabited planets that only have a Splinter of a Shard. There are 10 Core Cosmere planets, which tell the overarching story of the Cosmere."

From here

 This implies to me that there’s no need for a Shard for life (indeed sentience) to evolve.

 The use of allomancy proved critical in Preservations master plan to betray Ruin and therefore it makes sense that she gave humans this ability.

Elantris:

 I get the feeling that the Seons are more like Nightblood, artificial constructs which gained sentience thru a large Investiture ( the Aons in the middle of them supports this).

 The reason Seons are so closely aligned with their shard could be that they have a disproportional amount of Devotion in them compared to their presence in their other two realms, they are insubstantial ( I think) and their sentience is a byproduct of the spiritual Investment.

 We see what happens when a part of the cognitive aspect a Shard have is split of from the rest, it goes dumb (mistspirit) and the Seons seems to be just as thinking as any human.

Stormlight:

 Ale/death/rot and pain spren are all splinters of Honor?

 Tanavast was very much alive when the KR was around so Honor couldn’t have splintered into 10 primary facets.

In conclusion:

1. Humans on Scadrial = 1part Ruin + (1 +X)part Preservation, Yes. Humans have part of Leras mind, No.

2. No, a Shard can not gain sentience by weakening it’s cognitive self, however by splitting away part of it’s spiritual power ( it’s body) that part can gain a separated conscious and thus the total amount of sentience associated with that Shard will be more then before ( eat Lerasium and get a bit Preservation).

3. Yes, relative to it’s two other aspects and any preexisting spiritual self ( if the part of the shard is much less then the combined amount of other stuff it will not be noticeable, if it’s much more it will be defining). If multiple intents are in the picture they will should be treated like vector addition and then be factored in as shardic influence.

4. Perhaps, no evidence either way.

5. No, the death of a shardholder is the death of the Shards cognitive aspect. In mistborn 3 shardsholders died in quick succession and it didn’t change their sentience neither did Atium gain any sentience when Ati died nor did the mists when Leras and Vin died.

However, the Seons might still be splinters.