theory We were wrong about Voidbinding and here is why

[CephandriusTW]

Disclaimer: This theory is almost a copy paste from a post I made on Reddit, but with some extra things that i recently noticed to support it.

 

Let me go straight to the point and develop from there.

Voidbinding is from both Cultivation and Odium.

So, the basis of this theory is what Fox exposes in this WoB https://wob.coppermind.net/events/379/#e12835

Since there are three Shards in Roshar, there should be hybrid magic systems, like Feruchemy in Scadrial, between pairs of Shards. It has been theorized that voidbinding could be either Honor+Odium system or Honor+Odium+Cultivation system, but I don't agree.

We know some things about voidbinding. It is a cousin of the Old Magic, it is related to see the future and Renarin ability, it usually, but not always, originates with the Unmade... And how does that relate with Cultivation?

Well, first of all, it is related to the Old Magic. There is a connection there. It is also related to see the future and who is one of the best Shards in that field? It's not Odium, but Cultivation. And what about the Unmade? Well, Odium certainly had to cultivate them in order to create them. He did something pretty similar to what Cultivation did with Dalinar, cut some things to make them grow the way he wanted.

Furthermore, if we look at the Unmade that granted Renarin the ability of seeing the future, Sja-anat, we can easily see that Enlightening is some kind of cultivation, like the one Odium did with the Unmade and Cultivation with Dalinar.

You could maybe argue that Voidbinding sounds like Odium's pure magic system, but... Why does it have TEN surges instead of NINE, while when he hacked the Surgebinding system to give powers to his Fused, he created NINE types of Fused? Nine is his number, it wouldn't make sense that in a hacked system he has that number but in his own system he does not. And yes, ten is actually Honor's number, but... We cannot see any other thing that relates Honor to Voidbinding apart from that.

Furthermore, I recently noticed that if you look at Surgebinding and Voidbinding charts, you will see that the glyph for the Windrunners is the only one with a different color in each chart.

Here, in the Surgebinding chart, is blue.

But in the Voidbinding chart... it is violet.

You can see it better here.

 

As we all know, Windrunners are the purest order of Honor, represented by the color of his Light (the Stormlight) and associated to Honorspren. Therefore, since in the Voidbinding chart the "Windrunners" have a violet color, much like the Voidlight color, we could easily afirm that there is no Honor in Voidbinding. Because the purest Honor's order "changed" its colors to match Odium's ones. 

And now, after RoW, we have Odium and Cultivation kind of working together. It would totally makes sense that Voidbinding was their magic system, so we would see it pretty soon, while if it was only from Odium we would have already see it and if it was from Honor and Odium, we probably would never see it or, at least, not soon.

 

I hope you liked my theory and I look forward to read your opinions. See you in the comments ^^

[Frustration]

22 minutes ago, CephandriusTW said:

You could maybe argue that Voidbinding sounds like Odium's pure magic system, but... Why does it have TEN surges instead of NINE, while when he hacked the Surgebinding system to give powers to his Fused, he created NINE types of Fused? Nine is his number, it wouldn't make sense that in a hacked system he has that number but in his own system he does not. And yes, ten is actually Honor's number, but... We cannot see any other thing that relates Honor to Voidbinding apart from that.

well for starters ten is the number of the Roshatan system, not the resident shards, with the exception of Braize, If Odium had a magic system on Roshar it would be ten centric.

[CephandriusTW]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

well for starters ten is the number of the Roshatan system, not the resident shards, with the exception of Braize, If Odium had a magic system on Roshar it would be ten centric.

Not really, since ten is not Odium's number. It is 9. Braize is nine-centric because of Odium being there, we have 9 types of fused, 9 Unmades. And 10 is the number associated with Honor, not only the Rosharan system. 10 honorblades, 10 Heralds, 10 orders and the fact it is such an important number in Vorinism, which praises the Almighty, aka Tanavast, aka Honor.

So I don't think the number depends on the system but on the Shard. 

 

[Frustration]

Well Braize is the only planet in the entire system that is Nine centric, including Ashyn, Odium's old place of habiitation.

He doen't actually confirm whether or not it's the shard or the planet though.

Spoiler

Herald (paraphrased)

Is there more significance to the 10 other planets around the Rosharan star system and them being gaseous? We know that Roshar's moons have unnatural orbits; so there seems to be some astronomical manipulation in the system.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes there is significance of 16 in cosmere and 10 in Rosharan system.

Herald (paraphrased)

The outer 10 gas giants in the Rosharan system suggest a tie to the number 10 that predates the arrival of the current Shards. Is the prominent numerology we see around the cosmere an inherent property of the planets, rather than the Shards who invest them?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Big RAFO.

Herald (paraphrased)

Would Ashyn/Braize share the 10-centric numerology of Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes 10-centric is for the entire Rosharan planetary system...wait Braize is 9-centric.

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

 

[CephandriusTW]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well Braize is the only planet in the entire system that is Nine centric, including Ashyn, Odium's old place of habiitation.

He doen't actually confirm whether or not it's the shard or the planet though.

  Reveal hidden contents

Herald (paraphrased)

Is there more significance to the 10 other planets around the Rosharan star system and them being gaseous? We know that Roshar's moons have unnatural orbits; so there seems to be some astronomical manipulation in the system.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes there is significance of 16 in cosmere and 10 in Rosharan system.

Herald (paraphrased)

The outer 10 gas giants in the Rosharan system suggest a tie to the number 10 that predates the arrival of the current Shards. Is the prominent numerology we see around the cosmere an inherent property of the planets, rather than the Shards who invest them?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Big RAFO.

Herald (paraphrased)

Would Ashyn/Braize share the 10-centric numerology of Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes 10-centric is for the entire Rosharan planetary system...wait Braize is 9-centric.

Arcanum Unbounded San Francisco signing (Nov. 30, 2016)

 

Ashyn is not related to Odium anymore nowadays, so...

In any case, there are enough hints that associate Odium to the number 9. Odium's own magic system and creations should follow that rule. There are not 10 types of Fused or 10 Unmades despite Roshar being ten centric. Also there are other things in Roshar that are not ten centric, like Cultivation's Old Magic or Ashyn's magic system, both being more two centric than ten centric. So, I would not say the system's number determines the number associated with the magic system. 

In any case, even if Odium's own system was ten centric, there are hints pointing towards Cultivation being related to the Voidbinding chart. So it would still not be a pure Odium's system.

[Enter a username]

4 hours ago, CephandriusTW said: [Images removed for length]

Furthermore, I recently noticed that if you look at Surgebinding and Voidbinding charts, you will see that the glyph for the Windrunners is the only one with a different color in each chart.

Here, in the Surgebinding chart, is blue.

But in the Voidbinding chart... it is violet.

You can see it better here.

As we all know, Windrunners are the purest order of Honor, represented by the color of his Light (the Stormlight) and associated to Honorspren. Therefore, since in the Voidbinding chart the "Windrunners" have a violet color, much like the Voidlight color, we could easily afirm that there is no Honor in Voidbinding. Because the purest Honor's order "changed" its colors to match Odium's ones. 

The Voidbinding version seems to be mostly purple, but it looks like there is some blue left. Maybe changing from Stormlight to Warlight?

[LewsTherinTelescope]

4 hours ago, CephandriusTW said:

It is also related to see the future and who is one of the best Shards in that field? It's not Odium, but Cultivation.

Otoh, Ruin somehow makes atium that grants futuresight despite having horrid futuresight himself, so I'm not sure how much I think that's related.

4 hours ago, CephandriusTW said:

Why does it have TEN surges instead of NINE, while when he hacked the Surgebinding system to give powers to his Fused, he created NINE types of Fused? Nine is his number, it wouldn't make sense that in a hacked system he has that number but in his own system he does not. And yes, ten is actually Honor's number

Definitely disagree. Imo, the reason for making nine Fused is simply because he didn't want to give any Fused power over Connection that they could use to free themselves. So he makes up some crap about how Adhesion is fake news and he can't do it, the Fused somehow buy it, and suddenly the inhabitants of Braize only believe in nine Surges, so the planet becomes nine-based rather than ten-based.

As for the Unmade, I'm not really sure, because somehow Mishram sounds suspiciously like a Bondsmith spren and yet there's apparently no Bondsmith equivalent for the Unmade.

4 hours ago, CephandriusTW said:

Furthermore, I recently noticed that if you look at Surgebinding and Voidbinding charts, you will see that the glyph for the Windrunners is the only one with a different color in each chart.

Maybe. Otoh, most of the other colors definitely look noticeably more purple and/or red to me, the Windrunners with their specific shade on the Surgebinding chart are just kind of hard to add much red or purple to while keeping it blue. (I mean, on the Surgebinding chart it already looks slightly purple to me, though definitely a lot more blue, and the Voidbinding chart icon is a very blue purple.)

4 hours ago, CephandriusTW said:

And now, after RoW, we have Odium and Cultivation kind of working together. It would totally makes sense that Voidbinding was their magic system, so we would see it pretty soon, while if it was only from Odium we would have already see it and if it was from Honor and Odium, we probably would never see it or, at least, not soon.

Wasn't the entire theme of RoW Honor + Odium working together, to the point it's literally named after the combined rhythm they produce? I think it's certainly possible it's O+C, with how little we know on it, but I don't buy the specific argument in this paragraph.

 

I think it's an interesting theory. Not sure yet what I think Voidbinding actually is, tbh. It would make some sense for there to be C+O and H+O combos, though.

One thing I'd note: if you look at the top and bottom of the center gem, it has blue, green, and purple light coming off of it.

4 hours ago, CephandriusTW said:

It is a cousin of the Old Magic

A theory I've liked is that it's a "cousin" because just as the Old Magic is generally just the Nightwatcher doing crem, Voidbinding is usually just the Unmade doing crem. We know Voidbinding usually originates with the Unmade, and the mention of Raboniel using the Surge of Transformation to unmake the Sibling is pretty suspicious with Sja-anat specifically comparing her "enlightening" spren to — you guessed it — the Surge of Transformation.

Edited March 29, 2021 by LewsTherinTelescope
phrasing

[Quick Ben]

6 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

As for the Unmade, I'm not really sure, because somehow Mishram sounds suspiciously like a Bondsmith spren and yet there's apparently no Bondsmith equivalent for the Unmade.

My personal theory is BAM used to be a bondsmith spren, and was "unmade" by Odium.

BAM was either a sliver of Cultivation, or a daughter of Cultivation/Honour or Cultivation/Odium imo.

This is based purely on when Dalinar goes to the nightwatcher and Cultivation says something along the lines of the nightwatcher being young and how she leaves him/her play the boon bane things with humans to help him/her understand humans. If nightwatcher was originally a Bondsmith spren then wouldnt need to do that

When BAM gave the parsh forms of power, this could of been what voidbinding was

Edited March 29, 2021 by Quick Ben

[Frustration]

55 minutes ago, Quick Ben said:

This is based purely on when Dalinar goes to the nightwatcher and Cultivation says something along the lines of the nightwatcher being young and how she leaves him/her play the boon bane things with humans to help him/her understand humans. If nightwatcher was originally a Bondsmith spren then wouldnt need to do that

The Stormfather said in RoW that the NIghtwatcher has had Bondsmiths before.

And She's female.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

59 minutes ago, Quick Ben said:

My personal theory is BAM used to be a bondsmith spren, and was "unmade" by Odium.

This is what I've thought, but it's rather odd if so that there's no Bondsmith equivalent in the Unmade.

[Quick Ben]

6 hours ago, Frustration said:

The Stormfather said in RoW that the NIghtwatcher has had Bondsmiths before.

And She's female.

Could of just had one bondsmith when BAM gave the parsh forms of power, or had two after Odium unmade BAM,  so i don't see that fact as an impediment to my theory.

6 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

This is what I've thought, but it's rather odd if so that there's no Bondsmith equivalent in the Unmade.

Well BAM did "bond" with all the parsh in order to give them forms of power.

We have seen enlightened spren manifest different powers in the radiants then normal radiant spren, so easy to see how a unmadd bondsmith spren would have different powers then regular bondsmith spren. BAM did form a connection through all the parsh, which would fit

Edited March 30, 2021 by Quick Ben

[Frustration]

6 hours ago, Quick Ben said:

Could of just had one bondsmith when BAM gave the parsh forms of power, or had two after Odium unmade BAM,  so i don't see that fact as an impediment to my theory

The Bondsmith during the false desolation was bonded to the SIbling, and the Stormfather describes multiple.

[Quick Ben]

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

The Bondsmith during the false desolation was bonded to the SIbling, and the Stormfather describes multiple.

As above the nightwatcher having any number of bondsmiths doesn't negate my theory does it?

[Frustration]

3 hours ago, Quick Ben said:

As above the nightwatcher having any number of bondsmiths doesn't negate my theory does it?

It doesn't make it impossible, but it does remove your evidence almost entierly.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Frustration

[Quick Ben]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

It doesn't make it impossible, but it does remove your evidence almost entierly.

I don't see how. 

Given Cultivation says something along the lines of the nightwatcher being young and needing to experience humans etc, if she had regularily bonded humans she wouldnt need to do this, least that how i see it, clearly you see it differently.

 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

3 hours ago, Quick Ben said:

Given Cultivation says something along the lines of the nightwatcher being young and needing to experience humans etc, if she had regularily bonded humans she wouldnt need to do this, least that how i see it, clearly you see it differently.

I mean, the Stormfather also has difficulty understanding humans at first, despite having bonded in the past. It wouldn't surprise me if given a long enough time after a bond, they change back.

[Quick Ben]

17 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I mean, the Stormfather also has difficulty understanding humans at first, despite having bonded in the past. It wouldn't surprise me if given a long enough time after a bond, they change back.

You could be right, but i assumed the stormfather was like that because of what happened to tanavast, 

[IAmTheStick]

I... don't think voidbinding is of cultivation and odium. We have voidlight, stormlight, and lifelight, right? And voidbinding uses voidlight, not... whatever a combination if the 2 would be called

 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

14 minutes ago, IAmTheStick said:

I... don't think voidbinding is of cultivation and odium. We have voidlight, stormlight, and lifelight, right? And voidbinding uses voidlight, not... whatever a combination if the 2 would be called

 

We don't know what Voidbinding uses, but Surgebinding seems to be able to be fueled by any of the Lights, depending on how you acquired the magic.

Edited April 5, 2021 by LewsTherinTelescope