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On the Intent of Investiture


TheFoxQR

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I've been banging together this theory in my head for a while now.

WoB says that at the Shattering, each Shard took something with it. The intent of a Shard is a result of this "taking", and while the Vessel can filter this intent somewhat, there is a certain... truth to it. Practically all the intents we know are some sort of aspects of personality - Honor, Preservation, Ruin, Cultivation, Odium, Endowment, Autonomy, Devotion, Dominion, and Ambition. These all come from Adonalsium itself.

Now, this raises the question - What was Adonalsium? My personal suspicion is on Adonalsium being a reaction to the evolving sentience and consciousness in the early cosmere. That as life developed and grew, the mechanics of the cosmere allowed it's perceptions and thoughts and general understanding of it's environment to reflect in the investiture of Yolen, forming a sort of imprint in the Spiritual: a proto-Adonalsium. This created a feedback loop, where as this proto-Adonalsium began to become more capable of affecting things in the cosmere, the more powerful it became - eventually becoming the Adonalsium of Yolen. A primal God of sorts, intertwined with the fundamental nature of the cosmere by the very mechanics of it's creation.

This would imply that at the Shattering, each intent inherited some of his connections to the fundamental forces of the Cosmere - and that each element of his personality that was split off represented some of these forces as understood by those that, for lack of a better phrase, designed the Shattering. Moreover, as each Shard seems like it is some sort of a spiritual epicentre or focal point of all investiture associated with it, I think that investiture associated with each Shard also has a certain fundamental behavior associated with it, not unlike how we in physics define the four fundamental forces of the universe. It is this fundamental nature/behavior that informs the intent of any Shard, and gives it a kind of "Truth" - this is why Odium is fundamentally Odium and not Passion just because Rayse thinks it is Passion.

To inform this, I've been trying to find hints of this across all published work in the Cosmere, and this is what I think is best indicative of each Intent-Investiture combination:

  1. Honor
    • Represents external bonds?
    • I put this first because it is by far the easiest to accept.
    • Honor's investiture behaves as glue - it tries to bind things together.
    • This could explain Unity as a different interpretation of the same fundamental investiture, where Honor was binding cultural rules, Unity is binding people together. The same investiture, the same fundamental force of binding, interpreted through the eyes of a different Vessel.
    • This implies that even among the Spren, it is Honor's investiture that facilitates the Nahel Bond. There could be interesting implications for this in Voidbinding, which might need Honor's investiture to facilitate the bond, and so be replacing Cultivation's investiture with Odium's
  2. Preservation
    • Represent Stillness
    • Investiture seems to be "cold", focused on stillness, is suffusive, and I imagine forms a stabilizing matrix inside whatever it suffuses in its natural form, preserving it.
    • A bit like how we find ancient organisms preserved in Amber, just this is more internal. There is some contrast here to Endowment, which seems to have an external aspect to it's suffusion properties, though they work differently.
    • There isn't much evidence for this one, mostly because Preservation's own system, Allomancy is an odd one out among the other known systems. Practically every system highlights the Intent of their Shard, except Allomancy which only uses Preservation's investiture, and that only as a power source for a wide range of powers.
  3. Ruin
    • Represents Entropy
    • On the opposite end as Preservation, it is "hot" and dynamic
    • Extremely destructive, and just breaks down things in general - I keep thinking of this as vibrations that shatter.
    • The best example I have is Hemalurgy itself.
      • There are two seperate acts in Hemalurgy
      • The first is to steal something with a spike - here you use Ruin's investiture to cut away a piece of somebody's spiritweb. This isn't a clean cut by any means. In cases where the victim survives, it is traumatic and there seems to be damage to the spiritweb. I imagine this cutting process to "vibrate" part of the spiritweb hard enough to break the connections between the spiked part of the spiritweb and the rest of it.
      • You then put this invested spike into somebody else. Because this spike is contains an actual spiritweb, it is invested enough to directly pierce the recipient's spiritweb. Because the placement is important, I suspect this placement is specific enough to automatically connect the two spiritwebs.
  4. Odium
    • Represents Consumption?
    • Odious investiture is not unlike fire - it burns and gives power but seems consumes something as fuel. In this it could be very close to Ruin in nature.
    • Odium is always described as the Void, which while itself is not enough, combined with Odium's philosophy throughout OB is what gave me the idea.
    • I suspect this is how Voidlight differs from Stormlight - Odium's light consumes, and creates a void.
    • I think a good example is what seems to be happening when somebody binds to Yelig-nar
      • Yelig-nar seems to constantly feed, like Nightblood.
      • When a proper connection is made, Odium is directly able to power this Yelig-nar + Person entity with voidlight - staving off the hunger.
      • However, when a proper connection isn't made, Yelig-nar starts burning off all non-essential parts of the person's spiritweb as fuel - I suspect this is what happened to Amaram at the end of OB.
  5. Endowment
    • From here on out, things get harder to nail down. Endowment's investiture seems to bond to internal cognitive aspects (somewhat like Honor's Investiture), but then it also has a suffusing aspect to it, like Preservation's. Divine Breadths are what suffuse a Returned spiritweb and allow them to be cognitive Shadows, and Breadths are classic suffusive investiture.
    • Endowment's magic systems have an external suffusion theme among them, although the name Endowment is probably a hint towards that. When a Returned gives up their Divine Breadth, it suffuses something else and facilitates healing to a spiritual ideal, like regrowth. In awakening, the Breadths carry the Command and suffuse whatever is being Awakened, and then try to interpret said command. As the Command shapes what the breadths try and do, it acts as the focus in this system. Moreover, Breadths seem to have a cognitive aspect to them - as drabs seem a bit "dull" (I do not mean dumb, don't bombard me for this.) And having too many Breadths also comes with cognitive enhancements - like perfect pitch, more nuanced sight, better capability to form Commands (which seems to be a very cognitive process, a cognitive imprint of sorts), etc.
  6. Cultivation, Devotion, Dominion, and Autonomy, Ambition
    • I have no clue
    • The Dor seems to acts as a battery, but that might just be because of the state it was left in. The Aons seem to do two things - one, they form a connection to the Dor (which requires incorporating location in the Aon) and two, tell the Dor what to do (not unlike the molecular structure of metal shaping Preservation's investiture). The Dor however is a mixture of both Devotion and Dominion oriented investiture, in someways not that different from Harmony's ettmetal, where the latter is power in condensed metal form in the physical, the former is plasma-ish in the Cognitive. Philosophies on Sel might indicate to the nature of Devotion and Dominion, but I don't think we have enough to guess on.
    • Cultivation should logically be all about growth, but we've barely seen what she can do. There is the Old Magic, but why that would be attributed solely to her is a question I don't have an answer to. There is also the Nightwatcher, but I suspect just as the Stormfather technically predates Honor's arrival, so would the Nightwatcher and her boon-curse magic predate Cultivation's arrival.
    • As for Autonomy and Ambition, again. I don't have very many guesses.

 

Now I know this has holes in it, and I fully expect some of the experts here to break this. However, I think this explains certain other questions in the Cosmere we've had for a while.

For example, Vasher is capable of living off of Stormlight. This is relatively easy, because the Returned seem to feed on investiture periodically as fuel - any investiture should do here, as the primary use is subsistence. However, powering Awakening with anything other than Breadths would be significantly more difficult, as you'd have to transfer the Cognitive Command through that flavor of investiture, and then make it try and interpret that - things I think can atleast partially be attributed to the very nature of Endowment-oriented investiture that constitutes Breadths.

This also explains Brandon's comments on Odium lying to himself about being Passion. If his investiture was suffusive, and added to something else, maybe that would have been a fairer comment to make. Maybe Odium + Cultivation could actually be Passion. But Odious investiture on it's own seems to consume, and that is what defines him as Odium.

There is also something interesting that comes up in OB - Renarin Voidbinding with Stormlight. The fact that Voidbinding, which seems to be Odium co-opting Surgebinding, can be powered by Stormlight, is telling. Perhaps Renarin's weirdness in Powers comes from this fact. Voidbinding may be Surgebinding modified to work with Voidlight, and Renarin's Illumination futuresight weirdness could be attributed to him Powering a Void surge with Stormlight, and the differences between the investiture constitution of Voidlight vs Stormlight.

And perhaps this explains why Shards... "corrupt" their vessels over time - the Intents are fundamental forces intertwined with personality. Thus, anyone holding Ruin would eventually be dominated by that personality, and try to enforce that fundamental force (not my most well written sentence). I don't know if this is because over time, the Investiture of a Shard completely replaces the original investiture composition of the Vessel's spiritweb, ala Theseus' Ship, but maybe?

The only other thing I'd like to add is, maybe the Shards have a personality associated with them because they hold a slumbering piece of Adonalsium's consciousness? I'm not too sold on this idea, but it could be a thing.

What do people here think?

Edited by TheFoxQR
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Actually, I've been thinking of something similar though I've been connecting Intent with system more than with Investiture itself. 

That goes quite well for Endowment - the Breaths can't be stolen, they must be 'endowed' with free will. If it is not the Intent, I don't know what it can be. But it can be probably the Investiture itself that works this way - I wouldn't be surprised. And than it probably works for you as well.

I had actually hard time getting Preservation and Ruin work and I'm still not sure, so I'll leave them and move to next ones. 

Dominion and Devotion - I might be mistaken but I got the impression that the Investiture from this two Shards is kind of mixed - it works differently based on the proportions but there is no 'pure' Investiture that will fuel magic - only Seons and Skaze and they work along 'their' Shard Intent. 

I like your idea on Odium (I didn't have any) and mostly agree about Honor, so on Cultivation. More than growth I consider her being about adapting to different circumstances. And I believe that is what Old Magic is doing - changes part of your spirit web as a way of 'evolution'. 

And, just like you, I don't have any ideas on Ambition or Autonomy, so I'll leave them too. Maybe just a random thought I had right now - what if Autonomy's Investiture is working differently for each Avatar? 

But I'd like to ask if it makes any sense for you? 

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36 minutes ago, Nnatel said:

Actually, I've been thinking of something similar though I've been connecting Intent with system more than with Investiture itself. 

I do think this works as an extension of what I'm proposing here. If the investiture itself has an intent to it, then systems using that investiture designed by their own vessel would naturally have that intent incorporated in them.

Preservation seems the odd one out, but I think that has more to do with Preservation's plan to beat Ruin. Leras purposefully designed a system capable of processing Ruin's investiture, and hid it in plain sight. Moreover, WoB and published text says that Leras originally was not the best of men, and designed Allomancy before he got to the Intent-fetish stage that most vessels seem to get over time toward their own Shardic Intent.

44 minutes ago, Nnatel said:

Dominion and Devotion - I might be mistaken but I got the impression that the Investiture from this two Shards is kind of mixed - it works differently based on the proportions but there is no 'pure' Investiture that will fuel magic - only Seons and Skaze and they work along 'their' Shard Intent.  

Seons and Skaze are splinters, I don't think they facilitate the magic. Or atleast the Seons don't seem to. I do think there is some automated picking mechanism acting in Arelon that slects people to be Elantrians, I don''t know if it is an effect of the City and it's construction, or something Aona and Skai built before they were splintered. But AonDor, ChayShan, etc. are all powered by the Dor. They work by establishing connection to the raw Dor, and tapping/channeling/shaping it so that it produces the desired effects. This is what makes AonDor powerful - theoretically if you can figure out how to make the connection, it has no range limit in the cosmere, and unlike Allomancy or Surgebinding, doesn't even use something for fuel. Only an intent and the ability to figure out and draw the Aons is required.

43 minutes ago, Nnatel said:

Actually, I've been thinking of something similar though I've been connecting Intent with system more than with Investiture itself. 

I like your idea on Odium (I didn't have any) and mostly agree about Honor, so on Cultivation. More than growth I consider her being about adapting to different circumstances. And I believe that is what Old Magic is doing - changes part of your spirit web as a way of 'evolution'. 

Cultivation could easily have close ties to evolution - what the Nightwatcher is doing could be a form of Realmatic Mutation, like picking parts of your existence in one realm and sticking it somewhere else, or twisting parts of your spiritweb. I can't however figure out what her base investiture behavior would be. There is a suffusion element to it, like Preservation. However, it also seems to affect change like Ruin.

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I agree that my idea is part of yours and actually the longer I think the more interesting it gets. 

I might be completely wrong but I always believed Splinters to be sapient pieces of Investiture. Than the way they act will be also working for whole Investiture.

37 minutes ago, TheFoxQR said:

But AonDor, ChayShan, etc. are all powered by the Dor. They work by establishing connection to the raw Dor, and tapping/channeling/shaping it so that it produces the desired effects.

And what I meant about Dominion and Devotion was that I think the Dor is mixed Investiture - just possibly in different proportions in different places on Sel - so it is hard to say anything about it. 

As for Cultivation I would expand the way Old Magic works. It would totally make sense to me if the Investiture itself was about evolving and adapting. It wants to survive - so it adapts. And also allows others to do so. 

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Okay, I don't know if I should edit previous post or if I can double post with some interesting WoB (again found by accident). Let's do it this way and please tell me if it os OK. 

Quote

Extesian

This is very interesting. Is it possible then in the Cosmere for the 'intent' (spin or however described) of Investiture to be changed? And I mean within reasonable limits (not the powers of six shards or any of that). Can a Shard effectively grow in power in a place (e.g. toward an avatar) through another Shard's Investiture being changed (not just corrupted)? Or is it just making one type ('intent' - you should canonize a word for this :D) of Investiture mimic the properties of another?

 

Brandon Sanderson

Most of the ways of accomplishing what you're talking about would involve either 1) fooling/overwriting your spiritual makeup somehow. (This is what Hemalurgy does, for example.) 2) Refining the power somehow into a more pure form.

 

But there are a lot of variables. The way magic from Nalthis works, for example, the system is just looking for any available Investiture to power itself--and so basically anything will do, regardless of the source. This includes consuming your own soul, in some cases...

 

You'll see terminology coming along eventually that facilitates talking about all of this. I'm not yet decided on some of it.

(https://wob.coppermind.net/events/379/#e12667

Okay, it is only a part of this WoB but here is where it is getting interesting. I bolded the part I'm thinking about. I believe it can support your theory because before you can change something into more pure form it needs to be somehow 'limited' (can't find the right word, hope you get what I'm talking about). Or did I get the WoB completely wrong? :ph34r:

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4 hours ago, Nnatel said:

Okay, I don't know if I should edit previous post or if I can double post with some interesting WoB (again found by accident). Let's do it this way and please tell me if it os OK. 

Double posting is against the site rules.  You should edit your previous post to add additional information.  

 

On 6/15/2019 at 3:04 PM, Nnatel said:

And what I meant about Dominion and Devotion was that I think the Dor is mixed Investiture - just possibly in different proportions in different places on Sel - so it is hard to say anything about it.

The Dor is an even mixture of Dominion and Devotion across Sel's Cognitive Realm (according to a WoB that I can't find).  

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1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Double posting is against the site rules.  You should edit your previous post to add additional information.  

I wasn't sure as the previous one was a few days ago but I'll know for the next time. 

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

The Dor is an even mixture of Dominion and Devotion across Sel's Cognitive Realm (according to a WoB that I can't find).  

Oh, so it even goes further than I thought. Good to know. It actually works even better for what I was trying to say. We have no way to tell anything about Dominion or Devotion, as we haven't seen the 'pure' Investiture of those Shard. Am I right? 

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1 hour ago, Nnatel said:

Oh, so it even goes further than I thought. Good to know. It actually works even better for what I was trying to say. We have no way to tell anything about Dominion or Devotion, as we haven't seen the 'pure' Investiture of those Shard. Am I right? 

We haven't seen a magic system that operates solely from Dominion or Devotion.  However, we have seen Splinters of those Shards: seons and skaze.  

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I think that Endowment represents transference. physically, this manifests as a control over the transfer of energy and matter between objects when the first object releases said energy or matter to the second object. cognitively, this would manifest as giving or endowment. 

I also have a theory that Odium is Endowments opposite in a way. he also represents transference, but the other way around. instead of giving, odium steals. physically, this would manifest as a control over the transfer of energy and matter between objects when the second object "takes" said energy or matter from the first. cognitively, this would manifest as taking emotion. 

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6 hours ago, not an Evil Librarian said:

I think that Endowment represents transference. physically, this manifests as a control over the transfer of energy and matter between objects when the first object releases said energy or matter to the second object. cognitively, this would manifest as giving or endowment. 

I've been oscillating between interpreting Endowment as a verb: "The act of Giving", and as a noun: "What has been given". I think awakening highlights both these in different ways. Breadths are Edgli's Endowment to the people of Nalthis, whereas Awakening requires you to partake in the act of Endowment.

Funnily enough, take a look at what an Endowment Policy is. In the simplest of terms, you pay your company steadily over some fixed period. On your death, the insurance company pays a lump sum to a designated individual. The Returned need Breadth to survive every week. They die when they give up their divine breadth (worth 2000 Breadths) to heal one particular individual.

 

6 hours ago, not an Evil Librarian said:

I also have a theory that Odium is Endowments opposite in a way. he also represents transference, but the other way around. instead of giving, odium steals. physically, this would manifest as a control over the transfer of energy and matter between objects when the second object "takes" said energy or matter from the first. cognitively, this would manifest as taking emotion. 

I don't know. Personally, I think Autonomy or Ambition are closer to being Endowment's opposite than Odium. Endowment is all about empowering others, Autonomy/Ambition are all about empowering one's own self.

Odium is more internal focused, too. However, he's all about consuming what's there, leaving holes. Breaking things apart in just the right way for him to seep in. In that way, he's almost like Endowment + Ruin. Odium is more an exchange, where Endowment is a one way transaction.

Edited by TheFoxQR
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