Argent Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 In all fairness, this is not a real theory - because it's kind of been confirmed by Brandon. But when I was searching through the Theoryland database, I found an old WoB I had either missed in the past, or hadn't considered in its due depth: KCHAN How does Snapping work after Sazed changed it? If you don't want to reveal it all right now, are there any hints you can give us? BRANDON SANDERSON He couldn't get rid of this entirely. I don't want to spoil things, but Snapping was built into Allomancy primarily because of larger-scale magical issues. This is getting deep into the issue, but it has to do with a person's spiritual makeup and a 'wounded' spirit being easier to fill with something else, kind of like a cut would let something into the bloodstream. Sazed made this threshold on Scadrial much easier to obtain. Source The part about "wounded" spirits being easier to fill with something else sounded pretty much exactly like the description of Words of Radiance from Brandon's site: A broken soul has cracks into which something else can be fit. Surgebindings, the powers of creation themselves. They can brace a broken soul; but they can also widen its fissures.Source The reason I am so excited about this is because of the scope of the older WoB. In the Words of Radiance bit, we've been (correctly) assuming it refers to the Knights Radiant - a Surgebinder must have a "broken soul" for a spren to bond with him or her. But considering the other quote and how... free of context it sounds (e.g. Brandon says "it has to do with a person's spiritual makeup," not "it has to do with an Allomancer's spiritual makeup"), I am beginning to think that this applies throughout the cosmere. The good news is, Nalthis might be pretty easy to explain in a way that fits the model. This whole "broken soul" thing is essentially a requirement people must meet before they can start doing magic; and since everyone on Nalthis could do magic, then they must all have broken souls. Which, in a way, they do. With all the Breath being passed around, I get the feeling that the spiritual make, the sDNA, of pretty much everyone is all over the place. Changes to the spiritual aspect of things take time to sink in, the soul needs time to adapt - and if people are constantly trading BioChroma and using it to Awaken things, then their spiritual aspects are constantly shifting and changing. The bad news, Sel might be a little more difficult to explain. The Elantrians and AonDor are easy - the Shaod comes and rewrites a person's spiritual aspect, breaking their soul if you will, and now that person can do magic. The requirement doesn't apply to the Shaod because it's external to the future Invester; It works the same way lerasium does - you don't need to be spiritually wounded to eat and burn a piece of lerasium and become an Allomancer, that's a process you personally don't need magic for. The other magic systems on Sel, though... well, we don't know enough about them. And I can't figure out how they fit the model from the little we do know about them. Forging might be the easiest to explain, because of reasons similar to the ones I provided for Nalthis. If you live in MaiPon, where Forging is pretty common and accepted, then there is a good chance you've been stamped or Resealed at one point or another - which, almost by definition, would have wounded your spirit. From this point on, it would've been easier for Brandon's "something else" to find its way in. Something like the Dor, maybe. TL;DR: A person's soul / spirit / Spiritual Aspect must be modified in a way that would live it "wounded" in order for that person to gain access to magic, the ability to Invest. This spiritual damage could be caused by emotional and / or physical trauma (Surgebinders and Allomancers), the simple passing of (spiritual) DNA from parents to child (Feruchemists), an external force that targets the spirit (Hemalurgically created Mistings & Allomancers, Elantrians, Dakhor monks), or high levels of exposure to Investiture that touches the spirit (anyone who has been Forged or Resealed (or Bloodsealed?), or practically everyone on Nalthis). 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senor Feesh Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 This looks like it could have legs. I'm a bit too out-of-practice at thinking Realmatically to offer any meaningful critique at the moment though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 2 points and I'm killing myself not being able to find the relavent WoB for #1... People can "snap", so presumably "wound their spiritual web", with strong good emotions as well as bad ones on Scadrial. If this holds up, then that would apply to Roshar and other worlds as well. Just like the Shaod, the mists in WoA and HoA were running around snapping people "manually" through the external forces as well. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Hmm. I'll need to put some thought into this. One thing to recall is that emotional extremes on either end of the spectrum will do the job for snapping. http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-Mistborn-3-Chapter-Seventy/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Hmm. I'll need to put some thought into this. One thing to recall is that emotional extremes on either end of the spectrum will do the job for snapping. http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-Mistborn-3-Chapter-Seventy/ Hah, that is the WoB I was looking for and I had JUST found it too... literally had just copied the browser link when I saw the notification of your post Thanks Kurkistan! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Re: good feelings Snapping people Err, right. Completely forgot about that. Interesting... I think this could be explained with the deeper reasoning behind the process of "breaking" one's spirit. It's not really about breaking, or wounding, or shattering, it's about change. I kind of hinted at this when I talked about Forgers, but I guess I should've elaborate on it. If you live your entire life without anything interesting happening, your soul (Realmatically speaking) is going to be pretty static. Your Spiritual Aspect won't change because you don't change who you are. But pretty much any event significant enough to make you think about life is going to disturb your soul, shake it up a little - and here you see why "wound" and "break" or not the best words. I believe that it is during this process of your soul... adjusting, changing, restructuring itself that "something else" can hitch a hike. Permanently. So yea, I guess if you experience something really awesome, it's possible that it's going to affect you in a way that can be defined as life-changing). Having lived your entire life as a cold-blooded criminal who never bats an eye in the face of danger or pain, you save a few dozen kittens or puppies from a burning building, and this act fills you with so much joy and sense of self-satisfaction and fulfillment, that it literally changes who you are. Normally, we'd say that this act healed your soul, not broke it - but in Realmatic terms, your soul is now "broken." Your spiritual aspect was changed suddenly enough and dramatically enough to force it to change and adapt - and so now you have a chance of getting a tiny Splinter of a Shard in your own soul, which in turn allows you Invest with that Shard's power. I now wonder if there is a requirement on the type of event that changes your soul... For example, I live on Scadrial during the events of The Well of Ascension. Is it even possible for me be Snapped by the mists if I am thinking destructive thoughts and feeling ruinous feelings? Even if my emotions are strong enough to qualify as trauma, can a piece of Preservation come cuddle with me on my soul couch if my mindset is pretty much diametrically opposite of the idea of preservation (e.g. the mists are torturing me and I am not thinking about saving myself or my friends, but of annihilating those mists). Re: external forces Snapping people As I understand it, the mists were providing the (external) stimulus for the Snapping, but it wasn't they that did the soul-wounding. People experience the mists as a purely physical phenomenon. So while you might get a little extra incentive from them (in the form of excruciating pain), it's your own mental state that needs to change for the Snapping to occur. In other words, I posit that if you could somehow stop feeling pain, both physical and emotional, you can spend your entire life in the mists and never Snap. Compare that to, say, the Shaod - in it you get no choice. The Shaod comes uninvited (not intentionally, at least - you probably have to be pretty devoted) and turns you into an Elantrian - it's a force outside of yourself and you don't get to choose whether you want to change or not. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 I now wonder if there is a requirement on the type of event that changes your soul... For example, I live on Scadrial during the events of The Well of Ascension. Is it even possible for me be Snapped by the mists if I am thinking destructive thoughts and feeling ruinous feelings? Even if my emotions are strong enough to qualify as trauma, can a piece of Preservation come cuddle with me on my soul couch if my mindset is pretty much diametrically opposite of the idea of preservation (e.g. the mists are torturing me and I am not thinking about saving myself or my friends, but of annihilating those mists). Re: external forces Snapping people As I understand it, the mists were providing the (external) stimulus for the Snapping, but it wasn't they that did the soul-wounding. People experience the mists as a purely physical phenomenon. So while you might get a little extra incentive from them (in the form of excruciating pain), it's your own mental state that needs to change for the Snapping to occur. In other words, I posit that if you could somehow stop feeling pain, both physical and emotional, you can spend your entire life in the mists and never Snap. Compare that to, say, the Shaod - in it you get no choice. The Shaod comes uninvited (not intentionally, at least - you probably have to be pretty devoted) and turns you into an Elantrian - it's a force outside of yourself and you don't get to choose whether you want to change or not. I agree that "broken" doesn't necessarily carry the negative connotations for somone like our world would think when they see "broken", that it means changed, or even opened to the point that it can accept something outside of itself. As to attitude and snapping, I see Zane as a very ruinous person who was subjected to very ruinous tortures that broke both his mind and his spirit to snap him, but he was still able to snap... Re: external forces Snapping people For Scadrians, the ability to even use allomancy is genetic and then they have to snap on top of it, which I don't believe is the case for any other world we've seen thus far. I guess I agree in theory about the pain vs. snapping point, though it would be impossible practically without another form of magic which would indicate an already "broken" soul. The second part of your statement though... I wonder if Elantrians have "no choice" in the matter or "no choice that they remember". In the same way that Returned (outside of Lightsong at the end) don't remember Endowment offering them a choice on whether or not to come back, but she(?) evidently does, perhaps pre-splintering Aona was doing that as well, but now it's more mechanical like the mists? I wonder if it could be resisted... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HydrogenAlpha Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 (edited) About Forging: I don't think that this kind of magic even needs snapping. It exists external to the forger. The forger never takes investiture into his body - like stormlight or breath and he doesn't need the ability to draw lines of light into the air. Everything he does could done by a regular person, too. I think everybody could be a forger if he wanted to ( if the power isn't region based ), because you just have to be creative and pretty good with your hands. Forging seems to fuel itself from the outside, by the free 'energy' of its shard. AonDor does this, too, but it requires a changed sDNA for the Aon's to function ( as release-mechanism for the Dor) . Edited March 19, 2014 by HydrogenAlpha 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aonar Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 I like this. It sums up what we know nicely, and is pretty similar to my own feelings on the matter from a while back. The only real place where we differ is that I think a spiritual change isn't necessary in systems where the user never directly interacts with, or never gains, Investiture. (Eg. Forging and Feruchemy.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Yea, I can see how a magic system that manipulates Investiture entirely outside the user's body wouldn't require cracks in the soul. I think I might revise my opinion on the matter and dump Forging into the "you have to have the right sDNA" group - so in it and Feruchemy, you don't need to break your spiritual makeup in order to let the "Shardic genome" in, it's already in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Yeah, I definitely wouldn't say that Forging fits in with this scheme. I think you make a very unwarranted assumption when you say that everyone's going around getting Forged left and right. Especially in the Rose Empire, the only way to get stamped would be through Resealing, and I don't see all the faceless "Rememberers" being of high enough socioeconomic status to have all been Resealed at some point. At the very least it'd have been mentioned in-text if there was such a requirement. Also, it appears that birth is all one needs for get a "connection" to any given region on Sel. Source: NEPENE () In The Emperor's Soul and Elantris the magic systems have very different methods and powers, though both work through symbols. Assuming they adapted the symbols to their local geography could they use each other's methods? Could an Elantrian forge a soulstamp say? BRANDON SANDERSON Birth in a certain location on Sel gives a certain affinity for the local symbols, and their usage. To use the magic of another region, one would need to have a rewritten connection to that area instead. @Hoodie No problem. That particular WoB is bookmarked for me because of how surprised I was when I found it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 So it works. Your sDNA depends not only your parents' sDNA, but on other factors as well - one of which is where you were born. It makes sense - a part of who you are is defined by where you come from. Forgers don't have to go through the whole "soulbreaking" experience, because their spiritual makeups already include the "can Forge" sequence all people from the region get. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 If you'd like to define it that way I suppose it works. Another thing is that I think you might be off with how you justify Awakening. There are 1-Breath Commands, and I don't see why any random Nalthian who's had the same Breath since birth oughtn't to be able to use them. Now in this case you could potentially talk about Endowment being all Endowy in how s/he set it up, but I don't think "they're all just swapping around Breaths all the time!" will cut it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 I wasn't clear, or you are not understand me well enough. It's not the act of adding and removing Breaths that rewrites your soul (though it certainly does that) in the first place. It's the fact that your ancestors have been trading pieces of their souls for such a long time, you've got spiritual pieces from all over the place. Your soul is fragmented to begin with. At least this is the kind of logic I was going through when I was writing the theory. This particular wording seems shaky to me now. I almost want to just say "well, you were born on Nalthis, so your sDNA already comes with the "can give/take Breath, can Awaken" piece attached to it, precisely because it is Endowment's nature to give things, and every time you given Breath to someone or something, you endow them - so the Shard is happy." But I want to think about it some more before I settle on this explanation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 I wasn't clear, or you are not understand me well enough. It's not the act of adding and removing Breaths that rewrites your soul (though it certainly does that) in the first place. It's the fact that your ancestors have been trading pieces of their souls for such a long time, you've got spiritual pieces from all over the place. Your soul is fragmented to begin with. Yup, I totally misread you. My apologies. At least this is the kind of logic I was going through when I was writing the theory. This particular wording seems shaky to me now. I almost want to just say "well, you were born on Nalthis, so your sDNA already comes with the "can give/take Breath, can Awaken" piece attached to it, precisely because it is Endowment's nature to give things, and every time you given Breath to someone or something, you endow them - so the Shard is happy." But I want to think about it some more before I settle on this explanation. Yeah, it does seem that we need to streamline it a bit. I should take another look at Aonar's thread... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROSHtaFARian2.0 Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 This would explain the Unmade, and the Parshendi view of them as spirits of their ancestors who were broken and filled with power (roughly paraphrasing). Also why they seem so powerful compared to other singularly Invested beings. It seems this could give Odium a significant advantage over other Shards, and explain part of why he's so dangerous and feared. Word of Brandon tells us that all the Shards have some say in how they Invest themselves and how their magic systems work, but not total control over it. They have limitations they have to work around, thus Preservation's invention of Snapping and his tricks with the mist doing it externally....but if Odium can just rip apart any soul , traumatize a spiritual web until its full of fissures and fill it back up with his Investiture, then in theory that gives him considerably more flexibility when creating weapons/armies/champions than someone like Honor, who is limited by his warriors needing to be true to his Ideals, etc. That is of course, assuming you don't view the world with the same optimism as Brandon. Could be this is the nature of the Oathpact, and why Honor was able to get Odium to agree to it. It certainly explains the Heralds being tortured between Desolations. If the essence of the Oathpact is that Honor's Heralds, his ten perfect warriors, submit to torture between each Desolation, so that Odium is free to try and break their souls, rip through Honor's Investiture and rip apart their spiritual webs so that he can fill them back up with HIS Investiture and turn them into his warriors instead.....*shrugs* If that's the case, Jezrien and the other Heralds giving up might actually be responsible for Roshar lasting this long after all. If they were each secretly afraid they were weak, they were going to break under Odium's torture and thus be turned into his instrument of the destruction of Roshar and humanity....I could see that being enough to make them abandon the Oathpact and consign Taln to his fate. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Green Hoodie Mistborn Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 I wasn't clear, or you are not understand me well enough. It's not the act of adding and removing Breaths that rewrites your soul (though it certainly does that) in the first place. It's the fact that your ancestors have been trading pieces of their souls for such a long time, you've got spiritual pieces from all over the place. Your soul is fragmented to begin with. At least this is the kind of logic I was going through when I was writing the theory. This particular wording seems shaky to me now. I almost want to just say "well, you were born on Nalthis, so your sDNA already comes with the "can give/take Breath, can Awaken" piece attached to it, precisely because it is Endowment's nature to give things, and every time you given Breath to someone or something, you endow them - so the Shard is happy." But I want to think about it some more before I settle on this explanation. To me this puts Awakening and sharing of Breath into both of the categories a little bit though. Inherently you have a breath that you can use to awaken or give to someone else, so in that way it is base sDNA linked and not requiring brokenness to achieve like other magics, in the vein of Forging and Feruchemy. But I do think that when you give the breath away, it "breaks" you/causes fissures as you go through the Drab to non-Drab transition (potentially) and just the various emotional states that come with giving and taking breath. Every time you see someone given a large amount at once it is almost an ecstatic event for the people. So it is high and low emotionally, which would put it into the "breaking" to use category. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 ... Yea, I definitely thought of all those things when I was putting my theory together, and just completely intentionally left them out so the read doesn't get too long. To me this puts Awakening and sharing of Breath into both of the categories a little bit though. I am not so sure about this one. You can get to 10,000 Breaths one at a time, so you'll never experience that kind of extreme emotion you would if you took, say, 50. Similarly, you can Awaken very small and simple things, so you never experience a drastic loss in sensory perception. Plus, remember, I talk about significant events, not significant emotions - if what you feel doesn't have any sort of lasting impact on you, I posited that your soul wouldn't change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 (edited) This would explain the Unmade, and the Parshendi view of them as spirits of their ancestors who were broken and filled with power (roughly paraphrasing). Also why they seem so powerful compared to other singularly Invested beings. I really like this idea. It makes sense, and explains the Unmade's huge power. Nergaoul puts the Thrill out over a few countries! It's like TLR on steroids, but with Rioting instead of Soothing. They've basically become pure-Odium, and perhaps they have just enough physical ties to actually use their power without being bound by the Oathpact or something. The Heralds didn't have anywhere near that level of influence, or so I am lead to understand. (I was going to give you an upvote, but then I realized I had already done that by reflex and then forgotten. How odd.) Edited March 19, 2014 by Moogle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempus Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Hmm, I think a few things don't quite ring true with some comments above. It seems to me that the important point is, in order to acquire an investiture, one must have a broken spirit web. Spirit webs tear through strong emotional events, good or bad. sDNA causes the form of the power that results. I suspect that spiritweb tearing is only necessary when the form of investiture is 'end-positive', as defined in the Mistborn appendices. In Stormlight Archive, spren wait until a person with the right qualities breaks their spiritweb, and then bonds into the tear. It's possible the 'right qualities' are determined by sDNA, and the spren only offer access to power. Surgebinding is end positive. In Mistborn, a latent sDNA potentiate waits until their spiritweb breaks, and then they have access to power. In Mistborn, the mists forced a sickness which tore the spiritweb - the power was not granted externally as suggested above, anymore than beating a noble was external granting of power. Both methods are indirect. Even when Elend took the Lerasium, he was in the middle of a traumatic event. Also in Mistborn, though, Feruchemy does not seem to require any tearing of the spiritweb. It is described as end-neutral. Hemalurgy (end-negative) obviously does, in the way that you might expect being murdered to cause a spiritweb tearing. It's unknown if the recipient requires a tear as well, but it's likely - Steel Inquisitors would have a tear, as would Vin, and the Lord Ruler, and Wax. We don't have any other good examples. In Elantris, the sDNA of a person which records where a person came from is most important, but I don't believe the Shaod is externally forced either. We are unaware of what triggers it, but it's likely triggered by some tearing of the spiritweb. Also interesting is that it is only triggered at night - the only time specific triggering. Aons are end-positive. In Emperor's Soul, forging is related to the location they were born in. The power seems to correspond to end-neutral, though. In Warbreaker, everyone has a breath. Likely part of their sDNA. Breaths seem to be end-neutral. However, it ALSO occurs to me that being born probably tears the spiritweb. Could being born grant breath? I'm leaning no, but it's a possibility. The one semi-clear example of a Returned had also been through traumatic events, and would have had a spirit-web tear. It's possible that becoming a returned requires a tear at the time of death, along with stated verbal intent (similar to commands, no? Also spren bonds). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 That's a pretty solid summary, but I don't agree with your stance on Elend's transformation. He was undergoing some pretty traumatic events - namely, dying - but it wasn't the pain that turned him into an Allomancer of prodigal strength. It was the lerasium bead. So I maintain that it is a special case of using a tool to modify your spirit web. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempus Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Well, I agree that the spirit web was modified by a tool. However, what I'm trying to suggest is - Lerasium rewrote the sDNA to be compatible with the abilities of a Mistborn, but Elend still needed to 'snap' in order to access the ability. It just so happened that he had a spiritweb tear at exactly the right time, so a separate snapping wasn't necessary. Since we know sDNA is inherited, and that Mistborns did not come auto-snapped, I'm assuming that the original sDNA for allomantic abilities requires the spiritweb tear, and the source for that original sDNA change is the Lerasium, thus Lerasium Elend required a tear to become an 'activated' Mistborn. Also: I can't decide whether to spell it spiritweb or spirit web. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 In Emperor's Soul, forging is related to the location they were born in. The power seems to correspond to end-neutral, though. What makes you say end-neutral? Something rather active and impressive is going on with stamps, I would say, and it seems that Forged objects need a constant infusion of energy from the Dor in order to stay in effect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempus Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 All other end-positive abilities require a specific and limited energy source coming externally through the consumption of some object or thing. Forgery has none of that, instead, the duration of the ability depends solely on the cognitive aspect of an object. In short, with forgery, everything seems to be conserved. It's difficult to pin down, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 (edited) The consumption of some object or thing is not at all necessary for a system to be end-positive. AonDor allows for constant, non-stuff-consuming, and clearly energetic magical effects. See: Aons carved onto surfaces that produce constant light. Recall also that Forgeries of non-living entities can last into perpetuity so long as they're not transported out of Forgery's "area of effect." Edited March 19, 2014 by Kurkistan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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