Foreshadowing tones in WoK

[Kinetus]

I was just rereading WoK, and I found this in the middle, when Shallan is trying to soulcast for the first time:
"However, she’d found a book the day before that had offered what seemed like a useful tip. It claimed that humming, of all things, could make a Soulcasting more effective."

Did anybody catch this at the time, or did it go over all of our heads?

[BoundbyOath]

Nice catch, I haven't seen anybody pick up on that yet.

[Halyo_Alex]

18 hours ago, Kinetus said:

I was just rereading WoK, and I found this in the middle, when Shallan is trying to soulcast for the first time:
"However, she’d found a book the day before that had offered what seemed like a useful tip. It claimed that humming, of all things, could make a Soulcasting more effective."

Did anybody catch this at the time, or did it go over all of our heads?

Mmmmm, secrets...

[mathiau]

It's probably about the pulse of Transformation instead of any Rhythm but yes, very nice catch, I made a reread a few weeks ago and I still missed that

[Honorless]

Damn, nice catch! 

[AquaRegia]

My wife did notice that, and pointed it out to me during her recent reread of tWoK. 

The prominence of Kabsal's cymatics demonstrations made me confident that sound would eventually be very important somehow.

[Zoey]

We also see Tones appear in Mistborn Era 1, with Bronzepulses and the Pulses from the Well of Ascension. Showing how each metal has its own Pulse, as should other Magics have their own Pulses. It also foreshadowed and displayed the idea of Pure Tones. 

[Brgst13]

Also, would the Iridescent Tones be the pulses of Endowment then?

[Honorless]

4 hours ago, Zoey said:

We also see Tones appear in Mistborn Era 1, with Bronzepulses and the Pulses from the Well of Ascension. Showing how each metal has its own Pulse, as should other Magics have their own Pulses. It also foreshadowed and displayed the idea of Pure Tones. 

Yup! And Brandon confirmed the pulses from the Well of Ascension as one of the Pure Tones of Scadrial!

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/408/#e14586

2 hours ago, Brgst13 said:

Also, would the Iridescent Tones be the pulses of Endowment then?

They could be! 

The term refers to the voice that the Returned hear that gives them the option to Return. So Endowment. We thought of "Tones" as shades of colour pre-RoW

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

(on the Pahn Kahl religion) Let's say that it's like the Iridescent Tones, but without the god-worship of the Returned. More worship in the concepts, and more of a focus on the voice itself.

Goodreads Fantasy Book Discussion Warbreaker Q&A (Jan. 18, 2010)

 

[Shaukan-son-Hasweth]

On 13.4.2021 at 11:29 PM, Kinetus said:

I was just rereading WoK, and I found this in the middle, when Shallan is trying to soulcast for the first time:
"However, she’d found a book the day before that had offered what seemed like a useful tip. It claimed that humming, of all things, could make a Soulcasting more effective."

Did anybody catch this at the time, or did it go over all of our heads?

No I did notice it.

Lightweavers can soulcast and one of the cryptics main features is humming. So I figured people heard the spren humming when a radiant soulcast and associated the two.

[Zincmind]

Also, there's the passage even earlier in WoK associating Soulcasting with tones. When Jasnah turns the boulder in Kharbranth into smoke:

Quote

Jasnah closed her eyes, pressing her hand against the fallen boulder. She raised her head, inhaling slowly. The stones on the back of her hand began to glow more fiercely, the smokestone in particular growing so bright it was difficult to look at.

Shallan held her breath. The only thing she dared do was blink, committing the scene to memory. For a long, extended moment, nothing happened.

And then, briefly, Shallan heard a sound. A low thrumming, like a distant group of voices, humming together a single, pure note.

Jasnah’s hand sank into the rock.

The stone vanished.

It's especially interesting since Jasnah is not a typical Soulcaster. Does this tone happen for all Soulcastings, or just those that are done by a Radiant?

Also, there are several questions that get raised since it's from Shallan's POV. Can anyone hear the note, or only some people? If only some people, is that all who are Invested? All Radiants? Just Radiants who can Soulcast? 

 

[Frustration]

7 minutes ago, Zincmind said:

Also, there are several questions that get raised since it's from Shallan's POV. Can anyone hear the note, or only some people? If only some people, is that all who are Invested? All Radiants? Just Radiants who can Soulcast? 

We don't know but we do know two things

1. What Shallan sees is different than what most people would see
2. Taravangian could tell Jasnah was a Radiant because of that.

[Serack]

I suspect this is a parallel to dawnsinging.  

[cometaryorbit]

On 9/22/2021 at 11:24 PM, Honorless said:

The term refers to the voice that the Returned hear that gives them the option to Return. So Endowment. We thought of "Tones" as shades of colour pre-RoW

 

I thought "Iridescent Tones" meant color and sound, the whole perfect pitch/perfect color correspondence thing?

8 hours ago, Serack said:

I suspect this is a parallel to dawnsinging.  

Is dawnsinging an actual magic thing? I thought Dawnsingers was just a term for the pre-Odium/pre-Desolations original singers.

[Honorless]

9 hours ago, Ookla the Cometary said:

I thought "Iridescent Tones" meant color and sound, the whole perfect pitch/perfect color correspondence thing?

I don't know, it's possible it's a religious philosophical term that Lightsong applied to the voice that offered him the choice to Return

[Serack]

23 hours ago, Ookla the Cometary said:

Is dawnsinging an actual magic thing? I thought Dawnsingers was just a term for the pre-Odium/pre-Desolations original singers.

Quoted from RoW chapter 67 “Song of Stones” when Venli discovered her stone shaping powers:

 

Quote

She saw them. Ancient people, the Dawnsingers, working the stone. Creating cities, tools. They didn’t need Soulcasting or forges. They’d dip lengths of wood into the stone, and come out with axes. They’d shape bowls with their fingers. All the while, the stone would sing to them.

 

[cometaryorbit]

Hmm, ok. I guess I hadn't lined that up with "dawnsinging" as an actual specific power name. But it would fit.

The stone shaping kind of sounds like Cohesion, so maybe dawnsinging was an ancient pre-Odium singer means of accessing the Surges? What Venli is doing/becoming might tie into that WoR epigraph about 'it may be possible to blend their Surges to ours in the end'?

 

Hmm do you think those mathematical pattern Dawncities were shaped this way?

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

On 12/16/2021 at 2:46 PM, cometaryorbit said:

I thought "Iridescent Tones" meant color and sound, the whole perfect pitch/perfect color correspondence thing?

There are mental disorders that can confuse the senses, called Synesthesia, letting you hear something and either see a color/shape or smell something. Perhaps this is related, a way to translate between what are essentially just different forms of energy?