Stormlight Is Forged from the Investiture of All Three Shards

[Confused]

I believe Stormlight consists of the investiture of all three Shards. Evidence:

 

1. “Stormlight makes things grow” (WoB inscribed in a book). That’s the influence of Cultivation’s investiture. We know that the Growth and Regrowth Surges are associated with Cultivation and that Cultivation (through the Nightwatcher) gifted Lift with the ability to transmute food into Stormlight. (That gift, together with Rysn’s larkin, will enable MANY people to Survive after the Everstorm interferes with Stormlight dispersal.)

 

2. Honor’s investiture in Stormlight is evidenced by the Windrunner Surges used by both Kaladin and Szeth.

 

3. Odium’s investiture shows itself in the adrenalin rush Surgebinders feel on inspiring Stormlight. That’s consistent with Odium’s Aggression mandate (intent). (See "Mandates of the Known Shards." Many passages describe infused Stormlight as a “raging tempest” like the Highstorms themselves. “Rage” is Odium’s contribution to the Highstorms. (Others on this Forum have similarly concluded over the years.)

 

In contrast, when the mists rush into Vin, “]S]he felt suddenly warm…Her entire body burned like metal” (HoA, Tor softcover, 2008, p. 638). “She felt as if the bleeding sun itself blazed within her, running molten through her veins” (ibid, p. 642). Vin does NOT feel a “raging tempest” – even when the power within her at that moment is exponentially greater than what Surgebinders infuse – because Preservation is not Odium.

 

I argue elsewhere that forging Stormlight from all three investitures is part of Odium's prison. It absorbs his gaseous form Physical investure, making it difficult to animate Odium's spren.

[A Joe in the Bush]

I don't see the connection between Honour and Stormlight. The Windrunner surges are just uses of Stormlight, not an effect of it.

[Haradion Drogon]

I am still of the Opinion that Stormlight is, to Honour, Odium and Cultivation, what the Mists are to Preservation.

[Moogle]

Preservation and Ruin's Investiture is capable of making things grow as well (Elendel Basin being specially Invested by Harmony) so I'm not sold on the argument that Stormlight helping things grow means it's of Cultivation.

 

The Stormfather, Honor's Cognitive Shadow, handles distributing Stormlight, which may be a sign that Stormlight is mostly of Honor.

 

I strongly disagree with your analysis of Vin vs. Surgebinders. I don't find a significant difference between 'raging tempest' and 'bleeding sun blazing within her'. It seems to be very similar, honestly.

 

As well, I'll point out that Surgebinders resist the Thrill (at least, they apparently do). If Stormlight was of Odium, I would expect taking it in would cause them to be at least partially vulnerable to it.

 

That said, despite the fact that I disagree with many of your points, I do lean in the direction of your conclusion. (I do however assign it roughly equal probability that Stormlight is of Adonalsium.) Here are a few points which are not terribly strong, but I think also make a good case:

• Voidbringers can take in Stormlight. We have strong evidence that taking in physical Investiture requires you to have 'keyed' in to the Shard in some manner. Vin needed to use the Well before she could take in the mists in any kind of permanent fashion. The Nahel bond allows you to take in Stormlight, which is a sign that Honor/Cultivation form a part of Stormlight. However, because Voidbringers can apparently do it (and hold in Stormlight well!) it's a sign that Stormlight is of Odium as well. The main evidence against this point is Nightblood/Vasher not having problems taking in Stormlight, but they seem to be a special case.
• There are three moons on Roshar, and they were placed in orbit artificially. To make a speculative correlation between them and the Shards, they are violet (Odium? - though he's often associated with black/night and red), green (Cultivation), and blue (Honor? - Syl likes blue). Red + green + blue -> white in additive color systems. Stormlight is white. Yes, the violet thing is something of a stretch.
• I disagree with your comparison of the feelings of Stormlight and Preservation's mists, but I will point out that Stormlight urges one to action and makes them want to move and do things. Taking in Investiture of a Shard moves one towards being that Shard (as per WoB, each Breath brings one closer to being Endowment). Neither Honor nor Cultivation seem to be types where their Investiture would do that. (I would argue Adonalsium would also cause a similar effect, though...)
  Edit: Actually, I could totally get behind Cultivation's Investiture wanting to make you move and do things. I am going to leave this point here, but I now consider myself wrong on this.

(Also, this should really be in Cosmere Theories since it spoils the Vin thing. Moved.)

Edited August 19, 2015 by Moogle

[Shardbearer]

I don't remember any voidbinders taking in stormlight. When did that happen?

[Moogle]

I don't remember any voidbinders taking in stormlight. When did that happen?

 

Szeth remarks on it:

Stormlight could be held for only a short time, a few minutes at most. It leaked away, the human body too porous a container. He had heard that the Voidbringers could hold it in perfectly. But, then, did they even exist? His punishment declared that they didn’t. His honor demanded that they did.

A WoB later says that this is wrong - Voidbringers can't hold it perfectly, nothing can, because it's built to leak into the environment and be recycled. I can't find this WoB however. However, it's basically confirmed they can hold Stormlight.

[WeiryWriter]

Szeth remarks on it:

Stormlight could be held for only a short time, a few minutes at most. It leaked away, the human body too porous a container. He had heard that the Voidbringers could hold it in perfectly. But, then, did they even exist? His punishment declared that they didn’t. His honor demanded that they did.

A WoB later says that this is wrong - Voidbringers can't hold it perfectly, nothing can, because it's built to leak into the environment and be recycled. I can't find this WoB however. However, it's basically confirmed they can hold Stormlight.

 

Here is that WoB:

 

 

[signing Line - 01:46:54]

Argent

Awakening and Surgebinding, Stormlight and Breath seem really similar in some aspects--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Argent

--except Breaths seem to stick to things better--

Brandon Sanderson

They do.

Argent

--than Stormlight. So when you are holding the Breath it doesn't expire when you put it in something it doesn't go away. Can you tell me something about why that's happening?

Brandon Sanderson

Part of this is kind of inherent to the Shard and the power it's coming from. I mean the power of Endowment is just going to stick, that's part of the nature of its magic. Does that make sense? But it also kind of has to do with how the ecosystems are working. For instance the Stormlight is essential to the ecosystem of Roshar, it needs to be expended, it needs to get out and-- It's like evaporation, does that make sense?

Argent

Recycling? Not the recycling but the cycle of--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah like the cycle of water. And so just part of the way the nature of it works, it has to get out, it has to leak out, it has to run out. I mean it leaks even from spheres, right?

Argent

And when you lash things it's temporary--

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. And even though Szeth says that he thought Voidbringers could hold it they can't. Like it is just not the way that it works.

Argent

Can they just hold it better?

Brandon Sanderson

They can hold it better. It's not permanent. Now there are things that can do it permanently but--

Argent

Like the black sphere for example?

Brandon Sanderson

Well we are not going to... The black sphere is something different. You guys have guessed what the black sphere is, right?

Argent

Well we have some ideas. I support that it holds an Unmade. Am I wrong?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not going to answer that.

Argent

But you said--

Brandon Sanderson

I'm just curious what the theories are. Book 3 the black sphere is-- Everyone who reads the books will know what the black sphere is by the end of Book 3.

 

(source)

[Moogle]

Thanks a bunch, Weiry!

[Confused]

Moogle, I continue to feel like Hoid, stumbling around in someone else’s workshop (a reference you pointed out to me…) Thanks for the save on Forum placement. (So the rule is, if a post mentions a book other than SLA, the post belongs here?) Thanks also for the reminder about speculation. (I assume that’s a reference to my “Sgt. Pepper’s Magical History Tour” post?) These fragments are parts of larger essays where my speculation is explicit. I’ll try to be more “attuned” to that. (Please consider phrases like “I think” or “I believe” to be specific to my point of view, versus representing an established Cosmere “fact.”)

 

To substance…

 

First, I believe ALL of the Shards are capable of some form of growth/regrowth, consistent with their mandates.

 

That belief is based on my speculation that even Odium can regrow dead greatshells into thunderclasts and dead listeners whose remains have been disturbed into the Unmade (both mindful and mindless variety – sapient and sentient spren.) This view comports with my theory of what happened at the Shattering: “vertical” fractures along the fault lines of the mandates, rather than horizontal schisms across the spectrum of the powers. IOW, the powers are allocated equally among the Shards, subject only to their mandates.

 

It’s good that Stability and Decay together created life on Scadrial. (Brandon wouldn’t have much of a career if they didn’t.) But on Roshar, only Cultivation can make living “objects” “grow.”

 

Second, I agree. The Stormfather is responsible for Stormlight distribution. The reason (I think) is Honor’s “Relationships” mandate. It forges the bond between the other two Shards’ gaseous investiture and his own. Once Honor has forged Stormlight (and you know my theory on how that happens, Mr. Honorblade), the Stormfather picks up the Stormlight at the Origin and redistributes it via the Highstorms.

 

Third…you really don’t see the difference between Death Valley and Hurricane Katrina? “Bleeding sun blazing” versus “raging tempest”? I again emphasize that Vin had exponentially more power within her than any Knight Radiant has (except Dalinar when all is said and done…or so I baldly predict).

 

Fourth, the “Thrill.” I’m also going to broadly address the “color” question from later in your post.

 

• I DO think Stormlight is white because it covers the full spectrum of the three Shards’ investiture.
• Brandon has said that Stormlight and Divine Breath are more like each other than any other mandated investiture we’re aware of. In my view, he means each is based on visible light wavelengths - color. (Maybe “invisible” wavelengths as well.) I don’t believe I’m the first to so speculate.
• I believe the Surgebinding part of the Stormlight spectrum covers at least the ten orders of Knights Radiant (the chart I call the “Round Table.”). The Ars Arcanum suggests each order is associated with a different color. Odium’s part of the light spectrum begins with purple, moves to red and finally to black, as you point out.
• I speculate that the black spheres associated with Odium’s investiture are black because Odium doesn’t bond his investiture. “Void light” is the absence of light (black). (“Stormdark”?)

 

While I think Brandon deliberately associated a specific color with each Shard, he did so as literary imagery – “flavor” (WoB). Blue for Honor (Jezrien, the Windrunners, Kholin blue); green for Cultivation (life, “Lift” – only one letter different from “life”…hummmm - Wyndle); purple/violet for Odium (the amethyst in the chasm pond that makes Syl appear to “phase out,” the scene cited in my “Sgt. Pepper’s” post.) If you search the two books, you will find these colors repeatedly associated with activities or settings that themselves suggest the influence of the Shard of that color. Not all the time and neither cause nor effect, just “flavor,” literary imagery.

 

And that’s true of the moons too. But in their case, I believe (raw speculation) that the colors do signify something. All Shards have solid physical bodies (I assume). We think there is one case where that physical body was a moon – Dominion’s (I speculate). We know of another case – Ruin – where that physical body was atium buried in the Pits of Hathsin on Scadrial itself.

 

Seemingly contrary to my theory, if Roshar is more heavily invested than Scadrial (as Brandon says), wouldn’t Odium’s, Cultivation’s and Honor’s investment be in the planet itself rather than in a moon? (I’m leaving Adonalsium out of this for now.) I think that’s exactly what Stormlight is – the gaseous investiture of one or more of the three Shards. (Extensive Forum debate supports this conclusion). That’s WHY, in part – we can add Adonalsium back in now – Roshar is so heavily invested. Stormlight pervades the planet. I believe the balance of the Shards’ Physical Realm power is in those moons (and, I speculate, perhaps a bit elsewhere…)

 

I assume we agree that the Thrill comes from Odium. It’s certainly consistent with his Aggression mandate. (There may also be WoB, I don’t remember.)

 

Surgebinders don’t feel the Thrill because they operate from a different place on the Stormlight spectrum than Voidbringers. The Honor/Cultivation cognitive investiture mix (their Radiant spren) that “completes” them by patching their Spirit Web (IMO) leaves no room for Odium’s investiture, which operates elsewhere along that spectrum. That may be what gives Surgebinders “Thrill immunity.”

 

Fifth, I think it unlikely that Stormlight is from Adonalsium. We know two things about Roshar: (i) it bears Adonalsium’s “touch and design” (the Second Letter); and (ii) the Highstorms began as meteorological events, not magical events (WoB). This suggests (though doesn’t prove) that Adonalsium did not add Stormlight to the Highstorms, the Shards did. It is possible Adonalsium added Stormlight after he/she/it created the Highstorms, so your theory can’t be dismissed, but unless there’s a really good narrative reason for that about-face, I think the odds of Stormlight being from Adonalsium are considerably less than 50/50.

 

But overall, Moogle, I’m glad you agree with my conclusion if not my reasoning. Sometimes spaghetti sticks even when it’s not properly cooked…(And I await your response to “Why Radiant Spren Are Stupid Until They Bond”)

 

Joe, Honor is the only Shard that can form complex bonds on Roshar. I believe Survivalist Cutlivation can form rudimentary bonds (the kind windspren can create) and Aggressive Odium can't form bonds at all. I've described him elsewhere as a crafty, cunning grizzled lone wolf. Of Roshar's Shards, only Relationships Honor can enable the creation of Stormlight, by forging the necessary bonds among the three investitures. (Those, in my view, are the mandates (intents) of the three Shards.)

 

Drogon: Both I and Brandon share your opinion. (I think there's a WoB on this - I've just arrived from the Cognitive Realm and my memory's weak). Mist is the gaseous form of Preservation's Physical Realm investiture - part of his "body," his "power" (Sazed). Forum consensus, I believe (that memory thing again...), is that Stormlight is the exact same thing - the gaseous form of some Shard(s)' Physical Realm investiture.

 

I speculate in the OP that Stormlight consists of the investiture of all three Shards. I think the weakest case is Odium's, not Honor's, as Moogle points out. The Stormfather is Syl's father, and she enables Kaladin's use of Stormlight. Power's "mind" (Cognitive Realm investiture, in this case Syl) causes Physical Realm effects.

Edited August 20, 2015 by Confused