Why Couldn't Singers Bond Spren, (and what changed)

[MasterK-Bob]

I just wanted to think for a second about why humans had the ability to bond higher spren but singers, who seem to be fully rational creatures like humans, at least in any form besides dullform and slave form. I think the reason for this has to do with evolution on Roshar and what higher spren get from the Nahel bond: sapience in the physical realm. Humans are physical beings--their cognition is a product of biological processes of the physical realm which obviously are manifested in the cognitive realm, and facilitated by innate investiture in the spiritual realm. The Parsh natives of Roshar evolved on a planet where the cognitive-based investiture was all over the place, and from evolutionary terms, the path of least resistance to developing sapience was a symbiotic process between humanoid and spren, rather than a fully physical process. The result is, obviously, that the sapience of singers is less physically grounded than that of humans, and thus a nahel bond is not nearly as firm a grounding in the physical realm as it is for humans, whose sapience is a result of their physical brains, at least on a material level. I think this is correct, but what has changed recently?

 

Are spren bonding singers like Venli or (hopefully) Rlain even though the bond is less secure because they think it's just the right thing to do, and it CAN serve, just less well, or is there some other difference?

[Eternal Khol]

1 hour ago, MasterK-Bob said:

The result is, obviously, that the sapience of singers is less physically grounded than that of humans, and thus a nahel bond is not nearly as firm a grounding in the physical realm as it is for humans, whose sapience is a result of their physical brains, at least on a material level. I think this is correct, but what has changed recently?

I really like this theory and this one epigraph from Words of Radiance kinda backs this up

So the Singers existing party in the Cognitive realm interferes with the Spren getting pulled into to the Physical? Or they just dont get pulled into the physical as much

 

	"The spren betrayed us, it’s often felt. / Our minds are too close to their realm / That gives us our forms, but more is then / Demanded by the smartest spren, / We can’t provide what the humans lend, / Though broth are we, their meat is men."

Edited September 25, 2020 by Eternal Khol

[Honorless]

This has come up before, I don't think that the Nahel Bond capable spren couldn't Bond with Singers but rather that they didn't. Why would they? They were fighting on the opposite sides. When the Nahel Bond was discovered, Honor had long since switched to humanity's side/humanity to Honor's side, the Heralds had accepted the Oathpact, and the Desolations had already started.

Edited September 25, 2020 by Honorless

[+Bzhydack]

1 hour ago, Honorless said:

They were fighting on the opposite sides.

Question is, why Nahel Bond (or equivalent of it for Singers) wasnt discovered earlier by Singers and Spren, why they dont try it? It is natural for Singers bond with Spren.

It is possible that sitting in gemheart of Singer is too similar for True Spren to being traped/enslaved. Also is possible that true spren have more freedom, because if is bond with human, can move around in its form.

[Quantus]

As far as I can tell it came down to spren Politics rather than anything functional.  Presumably the Singers were always able to bond non-sapient spren in their gemheart, which seems a relatively common evolutionary trait on Roshar.  The Nahel Bond came much later, after the Singers had gone over to Odium and Honor had created the Heralds and Honorblades, which the spren on Honor's side then copied to make Radiants.  We dont know a whole lot about that early timeframe when the War began, but my sense is that everyone (human, singer, and Spren) were all pretty racist (a theme that will be overcome as part of the Unite Them drive, methinks).  For Spren, as mostly immortal beings lots of them are still holding grudges from the Recreance and before.  The Honorspren werent willing to Bond anymore at all until both Syl and The Stormfather did.  It was sort of implied that Timbre ran away similar to Syl, which Im guessing is why we havent seen more of her Order pop up, and why she apparently tried something new with Bonding a Singer.  But if anything I think it could be argued that it's More powerful rather than less, since a Singer can apparently have both a Radiant Bond and a Form of Power (as well as both sets of Rhythms, whatever that implies).

2 minutes ago, Bzhydack said:

Question is, why Nahel Bond (or equivalent of it for Singers) wasnt discovered earlier by Singers and Spren, why they dont try it? It is natural for Singers bond with Spren.

Counter argument:  If they already have a natural and functional way to Bond spren, why would they go looking for something else?

[Honorless]

21 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

Question is, why Nahel Bond (or equivalent of it for Singers) wasnt discovered earlier by Singers and Spren, why they dont try it? It is natural for Singers bond with Spren.

It is possible that sitting in gemheart of Singer is too similar for True Spren to being traped/enslaved. Also is possible that true spren have more freedom, because if is bond with human, can move around in its form.

They simply didn't know of it. The Singers seemed to capture non-sapient spren within their Gemhearts to attain their Forms. Why would sapient spren want to do that? There was simply no need. It was only after observing the Honorblades that the spren tried to emulate the powers granted by them, and so the Nahel Bond, and the Knights Radiant came to be, which we were told surprised Honor and the Heralds.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Honorless
typo

[MasterK-Bob]

5 hours ago, Honorless said:

This has come up before, I don't think that the Nahel Bond capable spren couldn't Bond with Singers but rather that they didn't. Why would they? They were fighting on the opposite sides. When the Nahel Bond was discovered, Honor had long since switched to humanity's side/humanity to Honor's side, the Heralds had accepted the Oathpact, and the Desolations had already started.

I don't think we know when the Nahel bond started, but it wasn't honor's doing directly. I always assumed surgebinders were a natural result of humans coming to Roshar and spren being attracted to them, and I think the existence of surgebinders was one of the major reasons humans were such a threat originally. Radiants only came much much later, as Honor maybe reworked the entire surgebinding system. I'm almost certain that the issue was more what humans offered, and how true spren were attracted to that, than a choice on honor's part to side with humans. We're told humans fought on both sides in every desolation anyway.

4 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

Question is, why Nahel Bond (or equivalent of it for Singers) wasnt discovered earlier by Singers and Spren, why they dont try it? It is natural for Singers bond with Spren.

It is possible that sitting in gemheart of Singer is too similar for True Spren to being traped/enslaved. Also is possible that true spren have more freedom, because if is bond with human, can move around in its form.

It's pretty clear Venli's spren is not bound to her gemheart. The one that gives her her form is, but not the one making her a willshaper. I don't think there's any reason to think true spren would be bound to a gemheart, but the only way for singers to function at the same intellectual level as humans involves taking a particular spren into their gemheart and sharing their cognitive aspect, and since it relies on the spren, I think it's pretty obviously less physically grounded than human intelligence, which is almost entirely a product of physical neurological processes. Not that singers don't also have extremely sophisticated brains, but it is clearly less the case than it is with humans.

[Halyo_Alex]

The reason the Singers never discovered "Radiant spren" prior to the desolations is that they simply didn't exist, not in the way we know them currently. The first Radiants were made as a mimicry of the Honorblades, so the Heralds had to be a thing, fighting the Desolations, for at least some amount of time for Honorspren and the others to go "hey, wait a second, I can do that too".

And then after proto-radiants became a thing, Ishar founded the Ideals to keep their power levels in check so their Surgebinding couldn't grow endlessly and become incredibly destructive if wielded by the wrong individual.

[Subvisual Haze]

Could it have to do with the Everstorm healing the Connections of singers all across Roshar?  Maybe the healing process did more than just restore the severed connection, it somehow opened up increased capacity to bond Radiant spren.

[MasterK-Bob]

2 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

The reason the Singers never discovered "Radiant spren" prior to the desolations is that they simply didn't exist, not in the way we know them currently. The first Radiants were made as a mimicry of the Honorblades, so the Heralds had to be a thing, fighting the Desolations, for at least some amount of time for Honorspren and the others to go "hey, wait a second, I can do that too".

And then after proto-radiants became a thing, Ishar founded the Ideals to keep their power levels in check so their Surgebinding couldn't grow endlessly and become incredibly destructive if wielded by the wrong individual.

I think I disagree--I think radiants are stronger, if more controlled, than surgebinders were prior to what Ishar did. It's definitely clear that no truespren were bonding parshendi before humans, but I don't think we have the timeline nailed down for the relative order of the start of the oathpact and the beginning of surgebinding. I feel like the oathpact has to follow humans expanding from Shinovar as the original voidbringers, but I also think that that original expansion probably involved some wicked surgebinders leading the way. What the true-spren never did before the honorblades, I'm sure, is become shardblades. That came with Knights Radiant.

[MasterK-Bob]

1 hour ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Could it have to do with the Everstorm healing the Connections of singers all across Roshar?  Maybe the healing process did more than just restore the severed connection, it somehow opened up increased capacity to bond Radiant spren.

I think this is a possibility, but I don't think the listeners like Venli were changed. The nature of the listeners needing a cognitive being to get a form that can think at the level of humans also seems to be relevant.

[Halyo_Alex]

1 hour ago, MasterK-Bob said:

I also think that that original expansion probably involved some wicked surgebinders leading the way.

But why would those true spren grant Surges to Voidbringer-humans? I suppose Ashspren might like them, but what about Honorspren, Cultivationspren? I can't see those spren agreeing with what those "original surgebinders" were doing and giving them access to a surgepair to facilitate it.

1 hour ago, MasterK-Bob said:

What the true-spren never did before the honorblades, I'm sure, is become shardblades. That came with Knights Radiant.

Alright, that I can certainly agree with.

[MasterK-Bob]

13 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

But why would those true spren grant Surges to Voidbringer-humans? I suppose Ashspren might like them, but what about Honorspren, Cultivationspren? I can't see those spren agreeing with what those "original surgebinders" were doing and giving them access to a surgepair to facilitate it.

Alright, that I can certainly agree with.

I don't think the original Nahel Spren were Honor Spren, certainly. Highspren though, if the humans convinced themselves of some pretty wicked things that they considered to be just. I suspect some of the first Nahel spren might actually have been spren of Odium. I think Tanavast maybe actually reworked the whole system when the oathpact was formed, to give the Heralds surges capable of countering the dark surgebinders, who perhaps only had one surge each, and maybe again when the Radiants were found. I'm not sure surgebinders got two surges back before the radiants, or if the surges were the currently existing ones. Shards clearly can alter the system, like Leras did to add Atium to the list of metals that allomancers can burn when it's not one of the 16. I have no idea what happened, but I think humans had magic when they invaded Roshar, which was one of the reasons they were so terrifying.

Edited September 26, 2020 by MasterK-Bob

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, MasterK-Bob said:

I don't think the original Nahel Spren were Honor Spren, certainly. Highspren though, if the humans convinced themselves of some pretty wicked things that they considered to be just. I suspect some of the first Nahel spren might actually have been spren of Odium. I think Tanavast maybe actually reworked the whole system when the oathpact was formed, to give the Heralds surges capable of countering the dark surgebinders, who perhaps only had one surge each, and maybe again when the Radiants were found. I'm not sure surgebinders got two surges back before the radiants, or if the surges were the currently existing ones. Shards clearly can have the system, like Leras did to add Atium to the list of metals that allomancers can burn when it's not one of the 16. I have no idea what happened, but I think humans had magic when they invaded Roshar, which was one of the reasons they were so terrifying.

Voidbinding only came after surgebinding.

[Honorless]

10 hours ago, MasterK-Bob said:

I don't think we know when the Nahel bond started, but it wasn't honor's doing directly. I always assumed surgebinders were a natural result of humans coming to Roshar and spren being attracted to them, and I think the existence of surgebinders was one of the major reasons humans were such a threat originally. Radiants only came much much later, as Honor maybe reworked the entire surgebinding system. I'm almost certain that the issue was more what humans offered, and how true spren were attracted to that, than a choice on honor's part to side with humans. We're told humans fought on both sides in every desolation anyway.

Surgebinding, in some form, already existed, it was apparently the cause of Ashyn's destruction but the beginning of the Nahel Bond specifically came after the Heralds. Ishar is said to have forced them into an organization, possibly referring to the Knights Radiant (as a social institute of Surgebinders). We also see Taln's reaction to Radiants. Stormfather mentions that the appearance of Surgebinders surprised Honor. We don't know whether Honor reworked anything about Surgebinding, and if he did what did he change. The Surges are natural manifestations on Roshar, so is their arrangement, according to Brandon. He fuelled the magic system anyway and thus could regulate it. We don't how or why Honor/humans switched sides towards one another, some fighting for the other side isn't anything noteworthy, it happened in history all the time.

[MasterK-Bob]

11 hours ago, Frustration said:

Voidbinding only came after surgebinding.

I suspect this is true, but do we know this for sure? I mean, do we even know for sure what voidbinding is? Is it just surgebinding powered by odious investiture? Is it another system, but there are dark surgebinders, like those that use forms of power? I don't think that's all worked out yet. The magic is interchangeable anyway. Vasher is living on stormlight instead of breath right now. A Nahel bond on Roshar seems to facilitate becoming invested, and I'm not sure a Spren being of Odium at any point would have made that not so. Brandon's said we don't fully understand what the bond with nightblood, or what a bond with a Seon, would do on Roshar, but it would have some effects. I tend to think Voidbinding is what the fused and royals do, but I don't think it's what Renarin does, at least not with progression--it might be what's powering whatever else is going on with him. I don't think intent matters without the Radiants though--Radiants are controlled by needing to keep their oaths, but other magic systems in the Cosmere can work against their shards intent. Certainly, Allomancy can be used to be very ruinous, even if it's not meant to be so, without weakening one iota. I suspect without the oaths to bind them, surgebinders could and were potentially very destructive.

[Nae'blis]

It is because surgebinding was prohibited by honor/cultivation. It is stated in elia stlele. So they didnt go for it.

 

They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of spren and Surges.

[+Child of Hodor]

20 minutes ago, Nae'blis said:

It is because surgebinding was prohibited by honor/cultivation. It is stated in elia stlele. So they didnt go for it.

 

They came from another world, using powers that we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers, of spren and Surges.

First, I love the username. Second, I forgot all about this part of it. I guess Honor caved in desperation, giving the Heralds Honorblades that allowed access to the Surges. 

If we go aaallll the way back before Honor and Cultivation, WoB is Adonalsium did not want spren binding others and giving them powers to be a thing, so it was not a thing.  https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402/#e13333

Then Honor and Cultivation viewed the Surges as too dangerous (correctly). Basically the answer was always "God(s) did not want it to happen so it did not"