Color on roshar

[Anomaly]

After a re read of RoW I kept noticing more mention of color and it’s effect on the spen or magic system on roshar. There was the talk about Spren and the colors of gemstones which was interesting but the stranger one was about the pursuer and his husk. I noticed how it was mentioned that the color was drained from the husk leaving it dull and grey. 
 

is there a connection or similarity to nalthis magic? To me it read like the color was drained from his body and was needed for his next. 
 

just a thought. Thanks for any input!

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

There's definitely a connection to Nalthian magic. That's part of why it's relatively easy to change between these two systems. I think color is a universal property of cosmere magic, and we see it manifest more easily in these two systems, with the color drainage of awakening and the gemstone colors of surgebinding

[Raven Wilder]

What I'm wondering is, what happens if an Awakener drains the color from a gemstone? Can it still hold stormlight or trap a spren?

[Legobinder]

I feel that the grey coloration has to do with the draining of Investiture and the cutting of the soul.

When a person is killed with a Shardblade or Honorblade their eyes blacken and burn out. When Vivenna's sword is used the body is turned grey and this happens with Nightblood too but it is on such an extreme level that the body disintegrates. I believe that all of these swords are doing the same thing but on different power levels. We know that a shardblade is separating the person's soul and I bet that when the soul leaves it takes the Investiture out to.

In Awakening the color is drained from an object to power whatever is being Awoken. Perhaps when the innate Investiture of an object is removed it becomes grey.

So with Sharblades they cut the soul out of an arm and when the portion of the soul that is in the arm leaves it takes away it's innate Investiture thereby turning it grey. This can be extrapolated to other types of Sharblades we have seen like Vivenna's and Nightblood. The soul leaves the body and takes the investiture which turns the body grey.

In OB Ash says that the red eyes of Amaram's soldiers is due to corrupted Investiture, so if corrupted Investiture is red maybe a lack of Investiture os grey.

I believe that this explains why Lezian's husks turn grey. What is happening is that his soul is leaving his body, in the form of what looks like a red windspren, and as this happens his soul takes the Investiture of his body turning his body grey. And the Investiture of his old body is needed for the new one in order for it to function.

[Karger]

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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.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

[Legobinder]

Nice WOB I was recently thinking if certain colors based on the Ten Essences chart would aid in Awakening but I guess not lol.

[ftl]

7 hours ago, Raven Wilder said:

What I'm wondering is, what happens if an Awakener drains the color from a gemstone? Can it still hold stormlight or trap a spren?

 

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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.

Holiday signing (Dec. 12, 2015)

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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)

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Shadow Guardian

If an Awakener were to go to Roshar and were to bleed the color from a gem would that gem still be able to store Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

Bleed the color from a gem… Um ye-ye-ye-yeah. This would interfere with its function on Roshar. It would probably still be able to hold Stormlight…

Shadow Guardian

Might not be able to be used for Soulcasting?

Brandon Sanderson

Yea-- It's going to… You know what no it would just change it. It would just bleed the color from it and turn it into a dusty quartz or something like that. That's probably what it would end up with, a dusty quartz. Because the molecular structure doesn't matter as much as the color for Roshar. So yeah you would probably still be able to hold Stormlight because a diamond can but I don't know, quartz might cut it. You'd probably end up with something that's not going to work so well.

Questioner 2

What about a fabrial that needs a specific--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah a specific-- A ruby wouldn't work any more, and it would let go whatever is captured inside.

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

So the gemstone would still be a gemstone, kind of like a dusty quartz. You might be able to still hold some stormlight in it. It woudn't keep all its original properties because color is pretty important to it; a "color-drained ruby" wouldn't work for holding flamespren for a heating fabrial anymore.