Lashings and the gravitational spiritual bond

[Cones For Eyes]

So I was thinking about the lashings and I started thinking about the nitty gritty details behind how they actually work, specifically the reverse and basic lashings.

Let's start with the reverse lashing. I don’t have my book right now so I’m just going to quote the wiki instead:

It involves creating an artificial gravitational spiritual bond around an object that will pull other objects to it.

Gravity is associated with the windrunners but I don’t think it can be the same gravity that we’re used to here on Earth that they’re manipulating. It doesn’t feel right to me (gut instinct, no proof whatsoever) that a reverse lashing is just increasing the gravity of a particular object. It would basically amount to massively increasing the mass of that object which from the books just isn’t true e.g. kaladin can still carry his bridge despite inadvertantly using a reverse lashing on it to attract arrows.

And now the basic lashing:

A basic lashing temporarily re-assigns the spiritual gravitational bond to a different object or direction

In this case, using a basic lashing completely negates the "normal" gravity we're used to and instead creates a new direction for "gravity" for the object you're lashing. I think Brandon would have put more thought into it than that.

Here is what I propose:

The key is that they are both described in terms of a gravitational spiritual bond. What if on Roshar (and maybe the cosmere at large?), gravity of the kind we know doesn't exist at all. Instead, forces of attraction depend on how strong your spiritual aspect is or to coin a phrase, your "spiritual mass". If I left it that, there would be all kinds of problems. Things with a lot of spiritual mass e.g. shardblades would attract to each other which we haven't seen any evidence of. So to fix this, I propose that you need a spiritual gravitational bond for the attraction to have any effect. This way, you could have all the spiritual mass you wanted but you wouldn't attract anything unless the bond was there as well.

Implications of this are that Roshar must have a massive spiritual component to keep everything attracted to it. A problem with this theory is that things with a large spiritual component would feel heavier which doesn't seem quite right.

To be honest, I think this theory is full of holes but that there might also be a tiny slither of something to it. I find it interesting at any rate and am curious for other opinions!

[ReaderAt2046]

I have a slightly different angle on that. I think the Basic Lashing works by redefining the directional component of the gravity vector. In other words, ordinary Earth gravity pulls all objects directly towards Earth with an acceleration of 32 ft/sec².

But with a Lashing, Earth's gravity now pulls you directly towards the wall (or whatever) with an acceleration of 32 ft/sec². In other words, the planet is still generating the same gravitional force, it's just the Light alters what direction that force pulls.

[Kurkistan]

I have a slightly different angle on that. I think the Basic Lashing works by redefining the directional component of the gravity vector. In other words, ordinary Earth gravity pulls all objects directly towards Earth with an acceleration of 32 ft/sec².

But with a Lashing, Earth's gravity now pulls you directly towards the wall (or whatever) with an acceleration of 32 ft/sec². In other words, the planet is still generating the same gravitional force, it's just the Light alters what direction that force pulls.

Yeah, that's essentially my conclusion as well. So the Basic and Reverse Lashings mess with the Spiritual aspects of whatever they target, using Stormlight to fuel an abnormal change in how they interact with other objects.

*cough* theory *cough*

Edited September 30, 2012 by Kurkistan