Odium is Responsible for Sensationspren?

[Moogle]

Just a curious thing I noticed. The Ars Arcanum says this:

Augmenters: These fabrials are crafted to enhance something. They can create heat, pain, or even a calm wind, for instance . They are powered— like all fabrials— by Stormlight. They seem to work best with forces, emotions, or sensations.

 

This neatly divides spren into three categories. Jasnah explains that Honor and Cultivation were responsible for emotions and forces respectively:

“Of course,” Shallan said. Paintings lived. Not lived like a person or a spren, but . . . well, it was obvious to her, at least. “So, before the spren were alive, they were something. Power. Energy. Zen-daughter-Vath sketched tiny spren she found sometimes around heavy objects. Gravitationspren— fragments of the power or force that causes us to fall. It stands to reason that every spren was a power before it was a spren. Really, you can divide spren into two general groups. Those that respond to emotions and those that respond to forces like fire or wind pressure.”
“So you believe Namar’s theory on spren categorization?”

“Yes.”
“Good,” Jasnah said. “As do I. I suspect, personally, that these groupings of spren— emotion spren versus nature spren— are where the ideas of mankind’s primeval ‘gods’ came from. Honor, who became Vorinism’s Almighty, was created by men who wanted a representation of ideal human emotions as they saw in emotion spren. Cultivation, the god worshipped in the West, is a female deity that is an embodiment of nature and nature spren. The various Voidspren, with their unseen lord— whose name changes depending on which culture we’re speaking of— evoke an enemy or antagonist. The Stormfather, of course, is a strange offshoot of this, his theoretical nature changing depending on which era of Vorinism is doing the talking. . . .”

 

This suggests to me that the theory of there being two spren categories is wrong. There's a third category for sensationspren, like painspren. Pain isn't an emotion. The Ars Arcanum author, who seems to know what he/she is on about, casually claims there's three categories. This would make sense because there's three Shards Invested on Roshar.

 

This would make things like painspren minor versions of voidspren, because they're both of Odium (painspren would be cousins of voidspren, much like windspren are cousins of honorspren).

 

As a further extension to this theory, this suggests that 'intelligent' spren types will only come about as a mixture of two Shards. Pure Investiture from one Shard makes spren that can only fit one category - forces, emotions, or sensations. But when you combine Honor and Cultivation, you can get more abstract things like honorspren, which are neither a force or emotion but instead a more general concept. This is very speculative, however, and in any case a significant amount of Investiture from one Shard will become sentient, bypassing this possible restriction - but I would argue that things like the Unmade are not really spren. The Stormfather is of course a one-of-a-kind spren, and does not really belong to a type like honorspren. You might argue he's a godspren, but if they don't look the same, I'm not really considering that a spren type.

 

I suspect I might be taking the words of the Ars Arcanum too far, but I thought this was curious. Anyone want to add their opinion?

[DocHoliday]

I can't for the life of me recall any instances of a "sensation spren" that involved a pleasant  sensation to the individual ex:  Smellgoodspren or aromaspren. 

 

I don't know whether this observation provides evidence for or against this idea as I see interpretations going both ways.

• These "sensation spren" don't cover the entire range of sensations and therefore pain spren is an emotion spren.
• These "sensation spren" don't cover the entire range of sensations because they're Odium based or hate based and do not express themselves as anything an individual would not enjoy.
• We simply haven't seen these Smellgoodspren in action yet.

[RShara]

There are musicspren, gloryspren and romancespren, so I would call those good sensations.  It seems like it has to be an emotion that you can immerse yourself in (like during creation of art) in order to attract a spren.

[Moogle]

There are musicspren, gloryspren and romancespren, so I would call those good sensations.  It seems like it has to be an emotion that you can immerse yourself in (like during creation of art) in order to attract a spren.

 

I'd argue that musicspren could be considered as forces (music is sound), gloryspren are more likely emotionspren, and romancespren are also likely emotionspren. I think sensationspren are more... well, physical in nature. Pain, heat, exhaustion, thirst would be sensationspren, and happiness, glory, sadness would be emotionspren.

 

I wonder how specific you could be with sensations. Could there be a silkyspren for the pleasure you get rubbing against silk sheets? Or would that fall under more of a pleasurespren sort of thing? Are pleasurespren emotionspren or sensationspren?

 

I have no idea on what creationspren are, now that I think on it. I'd tentatively place them in the 'forces' category... urgh. Doesn't quite work for me. We need another Axies PoV.

 

Perhaps I'm being too arbitrary here. I think you could conceivably think of sensations as a sort of emotion, though it doesn't feel quite right to me.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Moogle

[RShara]

Would drunkenspren be considered sensationspren?  And would that be a pleasant or unpleasant sensation?

[Moogle]

Would drunkenspren be considered sensationspren?  And would that be a pleasant or unpleasant sensation?

 

Yeah, I'd say intoxicationspren (whatever they're called) count as sensationspren. Being drunk is certainly not an emotion. Whether or not it's pleasant is up to you, I guess.

[melancholy]

The prison spren (dont know what there exact name is) that kaladin sees could also be a sensation spren.

[trendkill]

Edit. Pay no attention to me. Nothing to see here.

Edited March 26, 2014 by trendkill

[Numb]

The prison spren (dont know what there exact name is) that kaladin sees could also be a sensation spren.

 

I think those are more likely emotion spren since Axies didn't see. I assume him being in prison a lot doesn't actually find it as oppressive and Kal did which may be why he hasn't seen them. If they were sensation spren I'd imagine everyone should see them?

[EnaMai]

I like this theory, but I'm having a hard time trying to fit stormspren into it. So far as we know (or think we know), the red lightening stormspren are the only definitive Odiumspren we have seen.

Are storms then a sensation or a force? Or are they not actually stormspren but something else like destruction/"wind blowing really hard" spren? Or maybe some combination of force/sensation like Moogle theorizes?

[Seloun]

I'm not really sure I agree with Jasnah's categorization to start with. For one, she probably has causality backwards, at least; spren aren't the explanation for Cultivation and Honor.

 

Is there any specific reason to think the 'basic' spren are actually associated with one of the three shards, as opposed to existing from the initial Adonalsium seeding? There seems to be a corresponding basic spren associated with the KR-spren (admittedly, it's a short list...) - Windspren => Honorspren, Creationspren => Liespren. Given that the Parshendi seem to require spren to function, and same with many of the natives of Roshar (e.g. greatshells) it seems more likely that some basic set existed before the arrival of the Shards.

 

So maybe the spren in general are native to Roshar, while Honorspren, Liespren, and Stormspren are essentially further Invested spren.