Awakening and gemstones

[Theodore Smedry]

A thought crossed my mind pondering the mechanics of color and Awakening. Since Awakening uses color as fuel, could gemstones (like the ones on Roshar) be used? If so, how would that affect the gemstone's function? I know that a some of the gemstones of Roshar are effectively only different in color and almost identical in chemical structure. Because of this, would a gemstone's ability to hold stormlight and trap spren be affected if its color was drained? If the gemstone that is drained were in a fabrial, how would it affect the fabrial's functionality? Are a gemstone's and a fabrial's magical properties about perception or more about physical properties? 

Also, I think the fact that it is practically impossible to draw from the color of living things suggests that investiture affects the accessibility of color. If this is true, I suppose that infused gemstones would be hard to use as color fuel.

I suppose if someone used the color from spheres (although likely expensive in breath for the Awakening because of the relatively low amount of color) it would prove a headache to anyone who tried to use or trade them.

What are your thoughts?

[Dancer]

A gemstone drained of color will still hold Stormlight but it will effect A Fabriels functions. 

 

 

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zas678

If an Awakener went to Roshar and bled color from a gem, would this gem still hold Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If an Awakener bled-- No it would-- Oh wait yes it would because a colorless gem could still hold Stormlight. It just would not have--

zas678

Would not have the properties of the original color.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, the color is integral to what's going on because molecularly some of these gems are the same except for the different coloring. The coloring is kind of what--

zas678

What defines what magic.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. It has to with fabrials and some of the effects, and that relates directly to the spren and what spren-- anyway.

 

 

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Questioner

With Soulcasting, we know what can be Soulcast based on the color of the gem. Does-- When Awakening, say you have emerald, green, Pulp. If you were Awakening straw or some other form of plant matter, if you used a source of green for the color, would it be, say, more efficient than using red?

Brandon Sanderson

So I haven't built that into the magic system yet. Part of me feels like I should have. But I did not. I want color to be relevant to each of the cosmere magics. It's kind of an essential part of it, and it's part of where we stray more into the magical sense. Like, in my books we treat magic scientifically but they're still magic. And it was a thing when I was building Stormlight, I'm like, "So the difference between these two gemstones is a matter of a slight impurity and chemically they are 99% the same thing. Am I actually going to have them do different things or not?" And my judgement call was yes, because I want color to be relevant in the cosmere.  But by that point, when I was really getting that magic system to work, I had already written Warbreaker. And I had known that I wanted color to start being a big part. I'd already written Mistborn where I worked in color in different ways

But I didn't work that into the Warbreaker magic. I felt like it already had enough restrictions. I would say my worry about the Warbreaker magic is the color feels tacked on. Like, the magic could work without it, narratively, so why is it there? And that's the question I asked myself while I was building; that's the question I continue to ask myself when I continue to work on-- for that magic system, to make sure it works for me. But my instincts say adding restrictions like that, particularly when they weren't covered in the first book, feels like the wrong way to go. It'd be like retconning the magic. It's something I considered.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2019 by Dancer

[Quantus]

9 hours ago, Dancer said:

A gemstone drained of color will still hold Stormlight but it will effect A Fabriels functions. 

Sooo, he decided later in that same sighing that they would not, in fact, still be able to hold stormlight.  He decided that they'd go a sort of dun-grey rather than bleeding out to a clear diamond-type or anything:  

 

 

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Questioner

What would happen if somebody used the color from a Stormlight-infused gem to create a BioChromatic entity?

Brandon Sanderson

So I just had this question actually and what we came up with was that would leave behind something that is like a cloudy quartz and is going to make it work not as well for holding Stormlight. That's our answer right now, I'm going to talk to my scientists and see what they think because draining the color from something doesn't just leave it white, or clear, it kind of ruins it, it's gray-ish, it's dun. It clouds. So I think it would ruin things for Stormlight.

Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016)

 

 

 

For what it's worth, the line about it going grey rather than White or Clear makes me suspect that a 10th Heightening person might be able to drain them to full White/Clear the way they can drain the Grey that lesser Awakeners do not.  

Edited October 24, 2019 by Quantus