Why do Regals have red eyes?

[+Oltux72]

They bond a non-sentient voidpsren and are fueled by Voidlight (Ba-Ado-Mishram took over the supply during the False Desolation, so we know that). Red eyes are a sign of a Shard taking over another Shard's system. Why would that be the case if they were voidbinding?
It cannot be explained by the Spren being somehow corrupted, as Renarin does not have red eyes.

So I would draw the conclusion pointing at the missing link: They are not voidbinding. Odium can generate powers that are not Voidbinding (Yelig-Nar and the Fused). What does that leave us with? Regals are using the Old Magic and their eyes are red, because they are bound to Voidspren rather than the original Spren of the Old Magic.

[Karger]

13 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

of the Old Magic.

The Old Magic is of the Nightwatcher.  I don't think singer transformations are the same.  Odium is co-opting that system though.

 

[+Oltux72]

1 minute ago, Karger said:

The Old Magic is of the Nightwatcher.

What exactly is the evidence for this? I mean evidence for it actually being Old Magic, not what has become known as Old Magic.This looks like a bit like a meme that spread on Roshar. What happens in the Valley looks a lot like what

(Scadrial)

Spoiler

Rashek and Sazed did to Scadrial. Or what Sazed did to Spook, only more variable.

Direct Shardic action, if you will.

[Karger]

24 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

What exactly is the evidence for this?

Quote

swamp-spirit

Is the Old Magic in Shinovar, and is this a result of something to do with Cultivation?

Brandon Sanderson

The Old Magic is at The Valley, which is not in Shinovar, which is… If you've got a book, I'll show you where it is.... Let's see where Issac's wonderful map is, the first big one… Right here. So the Valley's right there. So that's where you go in order to visit the Old Magic.

Footnote: From lunarubato's report: "In the mountain range in central Roshar, south of the Purelake."
Steelheart Portland signing (Oct. 8, 2013)

 

[KandraAllomancer]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

It cannot be explained by the Spren being somehow corrupted, as Renarin does not have red eyes.

There are different levels of corruption. What Sja-anat does to spren seems similar to the Old Magic - simply a spiritweb modification. On the other end of the spectrum you have the Unmade, literally unmade and rebuilt using Odium's Investiture. The Voidspren you mentioned seem closer to the latter

Edited May 26, 2020 by KandraAllomancer

[+Oltux72]

OK, I stand corrected. Old Magic is to be found in the Valley.

Yet, then what is coopted in the Regals?

[KandraAllomancer]

15 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Yet, then what is coopted in the Regals?

We really don't know. My personal theory is that they (as well as the Unmade) used to be the spren from Ashyn

[Karger]

27 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

OK, I stand corrected. Old Magic is to be found in the Valley.

Yet, then what is coopted in the Regals?

Perhaps the fact that the magic system used(form changing) is of honor(it usually involves the highstorm) but results and is directed by Odium's proxy(the voidspren).

[+Harrycrapper]

I always figured that the magic system the Singers use to change forms was created by Adonalsium and that's what Odium was corrupting. 

[KandraAllomancer]

46 minutes ago, Karger said:

Perhaps the fact that the magic system used(form changing) is of honor(it usually involves the highstorm) but results and is directed by Odium's proxy(the voidspren).

That's a valid point, but it doesn't seem to explain why Renarin doesn't have red eyes. Neither has Zahel, who uses Stormlight to power his immortality coming from another magic system... and I recall nothing red about Nightblood, even though he contains Ruin Investiture and feeds off pretty much anything.

Also (Mistborn spoilers):

Spoiler

Vin has increased Allomantic ability due to Hemalurgy and Paalm uses Trellium do get Allomancy and Feruchemy. No mention of red eyes in either case, as far as I can remember (I might be wrong about Paalm though)

Red eyes on Roshar (besides Regals) are definitely associated with the Unmade and the Fused, which were both something else before being completely taken over by Odium's Investiture

[Karger]

51 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Also (Mistborn spoilers):

Neither of those are corruption.  While the metallic arts are of the planet as a whole and both shards not just one or the other. 

Spoiler

With compounding for example we also don't get red eyes

53 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

That's a valid point, but it doesn't seem to explain why Renarin doesn't have red eyes. Neither has Zahel, who uses Stormlight to power his immortality coming from another magic system... and I recall nothing red about Nightblood, even though he contains Ruin Investiture and feeds off pretty much anything.

Renarin is a little less clear cut because we don't know as much.  However it is possible that Glys submitted to the transformation voluntarily for some reason.  

Zahel does not coopt he just fuels MB spoilers.

Spoiler

Again like compounding

  And as to Nightblood...

Quote

Blightsong

How does corrupted investiture work, like Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, Nightblood. Again, this is a definition of what somebody feels is a corruption. For instance, there are spren that people would feel are corrupted. But that's corruption where the mixing of different Shards has changed things, and I think a lot of times when people say corruption, what they're meaning is the mixing of Shards' powers.

Blightsong

So is there a mixing of Shards' powers happening with Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

*smirks* RAFO. That's the natural question, I'm glad you asked it.

Blightsong

Ok, uhhh, so something similar is happening with Gavilar's sphere, right?

Brandon Sanderson

*contemplative silence* RAFO.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

 

[KandraAllomancer]

10 minutes ago, Karger said:

Neither of those are corruption.  While the metallic arts are of the planet as a whole and both shards not just one or the other. 

OK, I can mostly agree with that, but there is still a question of

Spoiler

Trellium spikes - they seem like a corruption to me. Also there are red-eyed Faceless Immortals who follow Trell and it's rather hard to pinpoint what exactly separates them from Paalm

 

12 minutes ago, Karger said:

Renarin is a little less clear cut because we don't know as much.  However it is possible that Glys submitted to the transformation voluntarily for some reason.  

I think this case might actually fall under mixing rather than corruption, based on the WoB you cited. That's why I have problems seeing bonding a Voidspren by Singers as full-on corruption, actually. Why isn't it mixing of different Shards' powers? It seems like a natural outgrowth of Singers' biology. If that's corruption, then bonding a seon in a gemheart, for example,  should result in red eyes and that's something I find rather hard to imagine

[Karger]

1 minute ago, KandraAllomancer said:

but there is still a question of

Spoiler

She was a shapechanger.  If her eyes were red she could just change them.

2 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Why isn't it mixing of different Shards' powers? It seems like a natural outgrowth of Singers' biology.

Bonding spren is a natural outgrowth.  However all of the side effects of Voidspren bonding do not seem to be.  I personally think of the red eyes as an "immune response."  The human body contains all sorts of different kinds of bugs.  Some of these bugs are vital to our health life white blood cells.  Some just sit around as benign parasites and some do more then one(some stomach bugs actually seem to give benefits).  Various bugs will set off your immune response.  Which ones depends on your own unique physiology.  Some of us will not react to actually lethal germs while others set off your immune system despite being harmless.  Renarin's spirit does not see Glys as anything dangerous so he does not have red eyes.

[KandraAllomancer]

6 minutes ago, Karger said:

Bonding spren is a natural outgrowth.  However all of the side effects of Voidspren bonding do not seem to be.  I personally think of the red eyes as an "immune response."  The human body contains all sorts of different kinds of bugs.  Some of these bugs are vital to our health life white blood cells.  Some just sit around as benign parasites and some do more then one(some stomach bugs actually seem to give benefits).  Various bugs will set off your immune response.  Which ones depends on your own unique physiology.  Some of us will not react to actually lethal germs while others set off your immune system despite being harmless.  Renarin's spirit does not see Glys as anything dangerous so he does not have red eyes.

I like the analogy, but I don't know if it can be applied to the Fused. After the possession, the original Singer is dead, which would mean that the Fused are (spiritually or cognitively speaking) seeing themselves as something deeply unnatural and somehow reject their own nature. That might be true, but I'm not sure if we have any evidence for it

Just to clarify my position - I think that the Voidspren are themselves corrupted because of two reasons:

A. That seems to be Odium's modus operandi and that's how the Fused and the Unmade came to be

B. It's easy to reclaim Investiture that way. Odium explicitly says to Turash that he can always take away his everlasting life, so after Roshar is destroyed, he can simply get his power back and get rid of his no longer necessary minions. I assume that typical splinters would be much harder to gather back, based on the example of (Mistborn spoilers again)

Spoiler

Ruin and the missing atium

 

[Karger]

Just now, KandraAllomancer said:

I like the analogy, but I don't know if it can be applied to the Fused. After the possession, the original Singer is dead, which would mean that the Fused are (spiritually or cognitively speaking) seeing themselves as something deeply unnatural and somehow reject their own nature. That might be true, but I'm not sure if we have any evidence for it

Not quite.  Only the cognitive aspect is dead the body and possibly part of the spirit sticks around for a while.  As far as they are concerned some kind of zombie virus is reanimating the body.

[KandraAllomancer]

14 minutes ago, Karger said:

Not quite.  Only the cognitive aspect is dead the body and possibly part of the spirit sticks around for a while.  As far as they are concerned some kind of zombie virus is reanimating the body.

Possibly, but we have seen another example of a cognitive shadow possessing a (likely dead) body (it's amazing how useful Mistborn is for this discussion):

Spoiler

and in Kelsier's case the spiritual self image is taken from the cognitive shadow, not the body, as indicated by the scars on his arms

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by KandraAllomancer

[Karger]

51 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Possibly, but we have seen another example of a cognitive shadow possessing a (likely dead) body (it's amazing how useful Mistborn is for this discussion):

We have absolutely know idea what that body is or how the sharing arrangement took place.

[KandraAllomancer]

9 minutes ago, Karger said:

We have absolutely know idea what that body is or how the sharing arrangement took place.

We cannot be 100% sure, that's true, but the options are rather limited:

Spoiler

If that's not a dead body, it's either a living human or a kandra. Both would offer much more cognitive/spiritual resistance than a corpse anyway. As for how, it's confirmed that Hemalurgy was used:

Quote

Questioner

In Bands of Mourning, we learned that the Sovereign, who they confused as being the Lord Ruler, came after the Catacendre. [He] was their god, was their king and god. And then Kelsier looking for a string. Is the spike somehow connecting Kelsier's soul to Spook's body.

Brandon Sanderson

No, good question. It is connecting his soul with his body, his current body, but it is not Spook's body. That's a great theory.

Arcanum Unbounded release party (Nov. 22, 2016)

 

 

[Karger]

Just now, KandraAllomancer said:

If that's not a dead body, it's either a living human

Same spoilers.

Spoiler

Or a Kandra or a manufactured body or a body of a uniquely compatible individual... just too many possibilities.

 

[KandraAllomancer]

10 minutes ago, Karger said:

Same spoilers.

Yeah, but most of them are rather hard to come by, I assume, and therefore not very probable.

The probability argument can be applied to Renarin as well. In order for him not to have red eyes you have to assume that:

A. Glys was willing to undergo his transformation

B. Renarin doesn't reject Glys spiritually, even though he's not very happy about his newly found Voidish powers

C. Sja-anat took a huge risk of revealing her ability to corrupt true spen by Enlightening Glys

Also, based on the gem archive in Urithiru, it seems that Sja-anat might have corrupted Trithwacther spren before. Once again, huge risk and no mention of red eyes whatsoever.

Nothing I mentioned above is impossible, but I wouldn't call these circumstances very probable either

 

[Karger]

2 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

C. Sja-anat took a huge risk of revealing her ability to corrupt true spen by Enlightening Glys

We know she did.

Quote

Sishal (paraphrased)

How was Glys corrupted? Was the process similar to the lesser spren, like painspren?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It is similar, but Glys is self-aware, so slightly different process, but similar. It is through Sja-anat.

Sishal (paraphrased)He

Did Sja-anat have to convince Glys to corrupt him then?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

3 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

B. Renarin doesn't reject Glys spiritually, even though he's not very happy about his newly found Voidish powers

He seems more afraid then unhappy.

4 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

A. Glys was willing to undergo his transformation

This is not necessary to the theory.  It is one of two options.  A or B individually would work as explanations.

[KandraAllomancer]

6 minutes ago, Karger said:

We know she did.

We know she did Enlighten him, but if there was a probable danger of developing red eyes, she took a real risk here. And unless her power to corrupt true spren is something new, she kept it a secret for millenia

10 minutes ago, Karger said:

He seems more afraid then unhappy.

That's even worse, I assume

10 minutes ago, Karger said:

This is not necessary to the theory.  It is one of two options.  A or B individually would work as explanations.

Fair point