Origin of Voidbinding: Odium and Honor

[Amaror]

So one thing we know about Odium and that has sortof irked me for a while is that his ability to kill the other shards comes from the fact that he didn't use his power to create something like many of the other shards did. But that seems contradictory with the fact that voidbinding exists. It's clearly something of Odium since it contains so much hatred that is even overpowers the very soul of the voidbinded individual, as we clearly see with Eshonai.

But what if it's just of odium in a very small way? When we look at shard-based magic systems we can see that the shards intention often manifest in the way the system works and/or the way the magic ability is aquired in the first place. We can see this very well in Mistborn:

Allomancy is from Preservation because it gives power without taking it. The power comes form the burned metal and no power is extracted from the person using it. Feruchemy is from both Preservation and Ruin because it takes Power from an Individual but at the same time preserves that power without loss and allows to use it some other time. And Hemalurgy is from Ruin because it takes Power from a Person and while it also allows to give that Power to someone else it only does so at a loss and in the process damages also the receiving persons soul. 

Now if we look at Surgebinding it's very clearly of Honor, with maybe also some Influence of Cultivation in there: The Power comes from binding a spren and a person together. At the same time the person is bound to a set of Ideals because his power grows by following those Ideals and accepting more of them (This is were Cultivation might have a part in it) and he loses his powers and his Bond if the person doesn't follow the Ideals. 

But if we look at Voidbinding there's not that much of a clear connection to Odium. The obvious connection is that voidbinding certain Spren leads to being overpowered by hatred, but the way the system works itself doesn't show much connection to Odium. In fact, and this is where my Theory actually starts, it seems like Voidbinding might actually be more of Honor. In fact more of Honor than Surgebinding is. Because the way it works is that it, again, binds a Spren and an Individual together, but does so much stronger than the bond used in Surgebinding. It binds them so strongly that the Spren change the persons very body and even their ability to think. Additionally the spren even seem to have the ability to overpower the person they are binded to. 

So my Theory is: What if Odium basically tricked Honor into creating Voidbinding. Honor could have created Voidbinding initially and Odium could just have perverted it by somehow changing/influencing the Spren that are used in Voidbinding to contain this intense hatred that they give. That would not only take much less power from Odium himself but also weaken Honor himself, making it easier for Odium to kill Honor. And Honor would actually create a tool for Odium in the process. 

What do you guys think?

[Spoolofwhool]

I don't think we've seen voidbinding yet, at least not explicitly stated as such. What you're talking about is just Listener form-changing, which is a natural process to them, independent of shard, as far as I'm aware, though shards can augment it by providing spren which give more forms. This is what is happening here, as the Listeners are binding to stormspren of Odium, and becoming one of the forms of power which Odium gave them millennia ago. It's probably because they're binding to a piece of Odium that his hatred breaks through to them and controls them.

It's possible however that the stormform Listeners do have voidbinding abilities. That may be how they are able to throw lightning and summon the Everstorm. However, while it is probably true that voidbinding does require the binding of a spren as I believe all of Roshar's manifestations of investiture do, I don't think that that is indicative of it being of Honor.

[Argel]

The listener forms require the use of lesser spren (non-sapient ones). 

[Amaror]

On 1.9.2016 at 3:53 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

I don't think we've seen voidbinding yet, at least not explicitly stated as such. What you're talking about is just Listener form-changing, which is a natural process to them, independent of shard, as far as I'm aware, though shards can augment it by providing spren which give more forms. This is what is happening here, as the Listeners are binding to stormspren of Odium, and becoming one of the forms of power which Odium gave them millennia ago. It's probably because they're binding to a piece of Odium that his hatred breaks through to them and controls them.

It's possible however that the stormform Listeners do have voidbinding abilities. That may be how they are able to throw lightning and summon the Everstorm. However, while it is probably true that voidbinding does require the binding of a spren as I believe all of Roshar's manifestations of investiture do, I don't think that that is indicative of it being of Honor.

Really, you don't think that changing forms for listeners is voidbinding? It seemed obvious to me. We know that listeners are ex-voidbringers, we know that they can change their whole body by binding with a spren, which is something that's clearly magical. VOIDbinding describing the process that creates VOIDbringer just sounds very logical to me.

Additionally we allready know that there are listener-forms that are clearly tied to voidbinding, like the Nightform. It predicts the future, something that's clearly tied to voidbinding.

Yes, not all listener-forms are evil and let them be controlled by odium, but they are part of the same process as forms like the stormform which clearly do just that. Just in the same way that making Kandra with spikes is still clearly Hemalurgy, even if the outcome is not as easily controlled by Ruin as other races created with Hemalurgy.

Having something clearly magical happen, such as changing your body as you wish, and having it not be tied to a shard or magic system in any way would be a first for brandon.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Amaror

[Yata]

Brandon said we didn't see Voidbinding yet...therefore Listeners' Forms of Power are not Voidbinding (Probably it's just a little hack in Listener's Magical Biology)

In another WoB he said that the change of Form for a Listener isn't a Magic System but something tied to his natural and magical biology.

For example: If a Listener discovers a Form with a Radiant Sprean it will not become a Surgebinder with this hypotetical Form.

PS: not all magic is a magic system...or Do you count every greatshells of Roshar as Magic User ?

Edited September 3, 2016 by Yata

[Amaror]

39 minutes ago, Yata said:

Brandon said we didn't see Voidbinding yet...therefore Listeners' Forms of Power are not Voidbinding (Probably it's just a little hack in Listener's Magical Biology)

In another WoB he said that the change of Form for a Listener isn't a Magic System but something tied to his natural and magical biology.

For example: If a Listener discovers a Form with a Radiant Sprean it will not become a Surgebinder with this hypotetical Form.

PS: not all magic is a magic system...or Do you count every greatshells of Roshar as Magic User ?

Ah, ok, interesting. Do you have a source for that by any chance. It's not that I don't believe you, it would just be interesting to read it myself. 

That sortof destroys my theory a bit, but I would just reformulate it to say:

Maybe the Origin of the Listeners has something to do with honor. Maybe they bind Spren so strongly because they have a greater part of Honor in them than humans do.

Though I still disagree with the first reply in that I don't think that the fact that the magic systems requiring binding spren to living beings is something that has nothing to do with Honor. We had magic systems on one world share similarities without a clear connection to the shards they came from, like Allomancy, Feruchemy and Hemalurgy all being based on metals, but I think it's too much of a coincidence for Honor's intention to be to "bind things" and several things on Roshar requiring "binding things" for them to work.

[Yata]

Quote

QUESTION

Are the Parshendi of Odium?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Not originally.

QUESTION

Are the Parshendi of Cultivation?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Not originally.

QUESTION

Are the Parshendi of Honor?

BRANDON SANDERSON

No.

source

This is not requested by it's to say that Listener are not of Honor (if you then ask me the source).

ok now about your actual requests:

Quote

QUESTION

How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archive, and how many of them [have been seen?]

BRANDON SANDERSON

I would see the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing

http://theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt='fabrials'

At the moment I can't find the one who says "Listeners' Forms are not a magic System but I will post here when I find it.

PS: Listener are probably on Roshar before H&C arrive. They as the rest of Roshar's fauna have (probably) a Symbiosis with the Spren from before the Shattering

[Spoolofwhool]

5 hours ago, Amaror said:

Really, you don't think that changing forms for listeners is voidbinding? It seemed obvious to me. We know that listeners are ex-voidbringers, we know that they can change their whole body by binding with a spren, which is something that's clearly magical. VOIDbinding describing the process that creates VOIDbringer just sounds very logical to me.

Additionally we allready know that there are listener-forms that are clearly tied to voidbinding, like the Nightform. It predicts the future, something that's clearly tied to voidbinding.

Yes, not all listener-forms are evil and let them be controlled by odium, but they are part of the same process as forms like the stormform which clearly do just that. Just in the same way that making Kandra with spikes is still clearly Hemalurgy, even if the outcome is not as easily controlled by Ruin as other races created with Hemalurgy.

Having something clearly magical happen, such as changing your body as you wish, and having it not be tied to a shard or magic system in any way would be a first for brandon.

I believe Listeners existed on Roshar before any shards arrived. In addition, if you carefully read the Stanzas of the Listener songs, you would notice that some of the forms are described as forms of gods, while others are not. To me, this implies that the non-god forms come from binding spren which are not of a shard. Also, as Yata said, just because they can bind a spren and change their form does not indicate that they are using a manifestation of investiture. The greatshells of Roshar perform a similar process during their lifetime.

So some Listener forms are related to voidbinding possibly, the ones listed as being forms of power. They are probably the ones given to them by Odium, but the process of binding the spren remains their own.

[nervousnerd]

I agree that the Listeners likely were pre-shattering (or at least pre-H/C arrival). They called it betrayal when spren bonded humans when they previously only bonded to them. 

Non-sentient spren creation would likely mean less need for power investment.

Stormspren were not likely sentient but may just open you up to Odium's control. They also made you angrier and more prone to violence from what I saw. This may have been enough to get them to do what he wanted (I think Eshonai was the only stormform who was really resisting his plan.). All of the Listeners in stormform might not have even needed Odium's control to make them want to call a storm and fight the Alethi.

Also, the Everstorm was a new creation (of old design). It may not be voidbinding at all.

[Douglas7886]

On Saturday, September 03, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Yata said:

PS: Listener are probably on Roshar before H&C arrive. They as the rest of Roshar's fauna have (probably) a Symbiosis with the Spren from before the Shattering

I asked Brandon via email awhile back about the Listeners origin.

Question: Knowing that you have already stated that the Listeners aren't originally of Odium or of Cultivation. Is it possible that they could actually originally be of what opposes Adonalsium?

Answer: I'm going to have to RAFO your question; good question though.