Shards and Aspects of Investiture

[CygnusRising]

Posted in RoW because anti-light.

My curiosity was piqued while thinking about the potential existence of pure tones for other Shards.  This leads to a lot of questions...

• Is there a pure tone for, say, Harmony?  If there is, does that pure tone only exist on Roshar, or does it also exist on Scadrial?
  • Tangential question: would someone invested with Breath to the 2nd heightening be able to perfectly reproduce a pure tone?  Does Intent matter here?
• If there is a pure tone for every shard, does that imply that there's also potentially a light for every shard?  A metal for every shard?

I guess I'm trying to figure out which 'direction' the magic system as we know it goes, and whether we're diving down towards foundational aspects, or deriving up as complexity and variables are introduced.  I currently see three potential foundational possibilities for the aspects of Investment, listed from what I see as least likely to most likely:

• Intrinsic to the Shard itself (Implying that Ruin/Preservation/Harmony have metals because their Investiture drives Hemalurgy/Allomancy, Cultivation and Honor's Investiture drives Light, Endowment's Investiture drives Breath.)
• Intrinsic to the place that the Shard is Investing (eg, Shards on Roshar have pure tones and can Invest Light; implying Harmony would have a pure tone and corresponding Light if present/Invested on Roshar)
• Intrinsic to all Shards (Implying there is always a godmetal for Honor, etc, there is always Light for Harmony, etc.  This would imply that every Shard has many aspects of Investiture.)

The first seems unlikely.  There are too many discrepencies.  While Hemalurgy and Allomancy are distinct although similar arts, and are clearly separate aspects of Investiture for Ruin and Preservation, there is crossover with, for instance, Atium being burnable. Cultivation and Honor clearly have the same aspect of Investiture in Light.  Odium was not native to Roshar, and has a pure tone that can create Light, as well. 

This second is slightly counter pointed due to the presence of Breath on Roshar; Zahel, who we see clearly is Invested with Breath, and is fully capable of using it on Roshar. I recall a mention that the farther you get from the source of Investiture, the harder it is to hold, however, which lends some support to this paradigm at least being relevant, if not absolute.  If nothing else, it clearly suggests that the farther you are from the place a Shard has Invested, the harder it is to hold their Investiture, regardless of its aspect.
  
My current thinking leans to the third.  There are some gaps, however.  Is this a 'sometimes, but not always,' rule? Perhaps only Endowment has Breath, but every Shard has a Light, a pure tone, and a metal?  For instance, are their other kinds of Breaths that we just haven't seen?  A 'sometimes, but not always' rule doesn't add up as much for an otherwise rocksolid magic system.  It seems more likely that we just haven't seen Harmony's Investiture expressed via the aspect of Breath ("BioHarmonic Breath"?)... which may add some reasonable credence to point 2 above suggesting the location somehow being important.

Additionally, it seems likely that Anti-Light is being built as the ultimate Cosmere-wide danger for Investiture as a means for Sanderson to have a 'perma-death' mechanic, which he discussed during a recent signing, so it would follow that there should be some kind of universal aspect of Investiture that is common to all Shards, I'm just not sure how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Granted, I'm new to the wider Cosmere discussion, and am likely missing a ton of details that explain this, so I might just be rehashing existing dogma here.

Thoughts?
 

[Halyo_Alex]

I think you're getting at the right ideas here, so let me offer my two clearchips here.

1. I think all shards do have a metal. Lerasium, Atium, and... Shardbladium/Shardplatium, which is probably 10 different alloy ratios of Honor and Cultivation's metals, and the Honorblades are likely pure Honor/Tanavastium. This implies the existence of Edglium, which may actually exist; as the pigment for the Tears of Edgli flower. Metals are parts of at least a few dye compounds I can think of, so why not?

2. I think we're getting a little hung up on the name of Light. I believe it's been said by brandon that Stormlight is the gaseous state of investiture for Honor. So the Mists would be Preservationlight and Ruinlight, depending on if it's white or black mist. Also, Breaths may be a form of "Light" (gaseous investiture), just... stickier because they're from Nalthis? I'm not sure.

[ScadrianTank]

48 minutes ago, CygnusRising said:

Is there a pure tone for, say, Harmony?  If there is, does that pure tone only exist on Roshar, or does it also exist on Scadrial?

Quote

Menderbug

Is the Well's pulsing a 'pure tone of Scadrial'?

Brandon Sanderson

Yup!

Miscellaneous 2020 (Nov. 30, 2020)

Tones and rhythms are not unique to a planet or a Shard - they are a property of all Investiture. Bronze pulses are rhythms of Allomancy, in a way. 

50 minutes ago, CygnusRising said:

Tangential question: would someone invested with Breath to the 2nd heightening be able to perfectly reproduce a pure tone?  Does Intent matter here?

Quote

Questioner

So the Parshendi Rhythms. They talk a lot about them as like music. So do you imagine them as rhythms where they talk like this or is their a melodic quality to it? 

Brandon Sanderson

That is what they're doing. There's not very much melodic quality to it. They set songs to the Rhythms. The way I have it in the books, in my mind, and the canon, is there is Connection between them and the songs of Roshar. That they can pick up a Rhythm when there's actually not enough of it, even in a sentence, because of the intent of the Rhythm and what the other person's hearing. So they can hear a Rhythm even if it's only a couple words being said, that you couldn't learn, if you were just a human listening. No matter how good you were. Some you wouldn't be able to pick up because there is not enough information there. 

Questioner

So they're just like kind of complex rhythmic things that you could write out musically.

Brandon Sanderson

You could. You definitely could write them out.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

Rhythms are sounds, so you could write them down. Finding a rhythm on your own seems to require either training or supernatural help, so I incline towards it being possible with Perfect Pitch.

1 hour ago, CygnusRising said:

Intrinsic to all Shards (Implying there is always a godmetal for Honor, etc, there is always Light for Harmony, etc.  This would imply that every Shard has many aspects of Investiture.)

All Investiture manifests in three states:

1. Gaseous - the Mist on Scadrial, the Lights on Roshar, and Breath on Nalthis.
2. Liquid - in stationary Perpendicularities.
3. Metal - Atium, Lerasium, Raysium, Trellium, Harmonium, Sharblade metal, and so on. 

They have different properties, but still fit into one of those categories. Apparently, color is also important but the places where it shows are not necessarily numerous.

So congratulations, you have figured out cosmere mechanics on your own!

[CygnusRising]

57 minutes ago, ScadrianTank said:

So congratulations, you have figured out cosmere mechanics on your own!

I feel like that speaks more to consistent worldbuilding and magic systems, more than my own intelligence.