theory Classification of Rosharan magic is based on Lights, not Shards

[KandraAllomancer]

I’ve been thinking about the classification of Rosharan magic and its weirdness for quite some time and I believe I’ve finally come up with something useful. I think that all magic systems on Roshar could be understood using three simple rules:

1.We have a magic system (or at least a set of abilities) for each Light, which is typically used as the primary source of power for the magic

2. Full magic systems (i.e. having 10 powers) are only possible for Lights including Honor's Investiture

3. The classification is murky because of several reasons:

• the Light doesn’t need to match the magic’s Shards fully (e.g. original Surgebinding is of H+C, despite using primarily Stormlight)
• Shards and spren can copy the abilities of other magic systems (e.g. the Fused or Yelig-nar and Surgebinding)
• in certain situations the powers of one magic system can be fueled using different Lights (e.g. Venli using Voidlight to Surgebind)

Surgebinding - Stormlight

Not much to add here, Surgebinding (at least the original one) uses Stormlight primarily. The abilities of the Fused mimic it using Odium’s power.

Old Magic and ancient Stoneshaping - Lifelight

The Old Magic is of Cultivation, but there’s more to her magic and Lift’s abilities are apparently a hint:
 

Quote

PrinceDusty

At the Pixel Project event, you talked about a further extent of Cultivation's magic than just the boon and bane? Are there any people alive at the end of Oathbringer who are influenced by that magic?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Lift. Well, I guess that's a boon, isn't it? Yes, there are. But nobody on screen that has Cultivation magic, other than boons or curses from the Nightwatcher. Yes, there is such a thing, no, there's no one else on screen. But what Lift does is a hint.

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

We also know from Venli’s chapters in RoW that the Dawnsingers used to have Stoneshaping abilities that didn’t require Nahel bond and were related to Cultivation’s pure Tone and certain Rhythm or Rhythms. Dawncities, cymatic patterns and maybe even what happened to the Shattered Plains are possibly related to this. Thunderclasts seem to be Odium’s corruption of these powers.

Voidbinding – Voidlight (futuresight) and Warlight (ten Voidbindings)

Voidbinding is extremely mysterious, but I think it could be understood by assuming that it is actually two magic systems: one purely of Odium (core, proper Voidbinding a.k.a. futuresight), the other of both Odium and Honor (ten Surge-like Voidbindings).

Voidbinding is described a cousin of Old Magic and apparently its heart is trying to predict the future. Also, per Taravangian’s word, we know that all of the Unmade (primary source of Voidbinding) have futuresight abilities to some extent. This seems to indicate that seeing the future is not just one of the powers, but the core of the magic itself. The Voidbinding chart possibly hints at that by showing the center two “Orders” not connected to any powers.

On the other hand, the Voidbinding chart also shows ten Surge-like abilities, organized just like in KR Surgebinding, which looks to me like a strong signal that Honor might be involved as well. Additionally, we know from RoW that corrupted Mistspren are of both Honor and Odium. I believe that Renarin’s Progression and Illumination abilities might actually be Voidbindings, different from baseline Surges by providing an access to the Spiritual Realm.

The whole situation actually has a very nice parallel with the state of Allomancy after the recent atium retcon (Mistborn spoilers):

Spoiler

16 Allomantic metals correspond to 10 Surges
Atium corresponds to “core” Voidbinding / futuresight
16 atium alloys correspond to 10 Voidbindings

One obvious problem is that Renarin is the first person bonded to a corrupted Mistspren:

Quote

Wyndlerunner

So Renarin is not a normal Truthwatcher, whether you want to call him Corrupted or Enlightened. Is he the first Truthwatcher of this kind to have existed?

Brandon Sanderson

What an excellent question. Yes he is.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021)

If that is the case, how is it possible that Voidbinding has been studied in the past enough to create the chart with ten abilities? I can see three possibilities:

A. The chart has been predicted using futuresight

B. Sja-anat has corrupted spren of other Orders before

C. Voidbindigs have been observed before without any influence from Sja-anat, for example in Knights Radiant affected by some other Unmade

Fabrials – Towerlight

Navani describes the combined Rhythm of Honor and Cultivation as the Rhythm of science itself, so it makes sense that fabrials would be the magic associated with Towerlight.

A recent WoB sheds some light on the history of Surge fabrial development:
 

Quote

kvancleeff21

What was the fabrial used by Nale to completely revive Szeth at the end of Words of Radiance? That seems like an immensely powerful fabrial, and I don’t think it has been mentioned since.

Brandon Sanderson

During the last days of the heights of the Knights Radiant, they were figuring out how to replicate most Radiant abilities with fabrials. This is where... the Oathgates as a guide for that sort of thing. So you're just seeing a fabrial that can replicate what an Edgedancer does, or a Truthwatcher. There were fabrials created that could do this for all ten Surges. Okay, nine of the ten Surges. Bondsmithing is its own weird thing, as usual. So yes, it's a very valuable fabrial to have, and that is why you haven't seen much more of it because it is in the hands of the Skybreakers, and we aren't spending a lot of time with the Skybreakers. But yeah, it is a thing they have. And there are fabrials that can replicate the other eight as well. You've seen several of them in the books already.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

It seems that portable Surge fabrials (at the very least Progression fabrial from Dalinar’s vision and “universal” Soulcasters capable of any transformation) are a relatively late addition, essentially the KR co-opting fabrials to replicate their own powers. That gives us a lot of space to search for the esoteric abilities that Khriss mentions in Ars Arcanum. What could they be? I can see three interesting clues:

Oathgates: they apparently predate other Surge fabrials and have been the inspiration for them. They have two spren and two powers: transporting to Shadesmar and to other Oathgates. The former is clearly a Surge, but could the latter be a separate power, possibly (Aether of Night spoilers)

Spoiler

cannibalization of the Aether of Light, just like Re-Shephir is cannibalization of the Aether of Night?

Aimia: Aimia used to have some impressive fabrial infrastructure and has been long associated with Soulcasters. Could these be Soulcasters capable of only one transformation? Do they have some additional secrets? I wonder what would happened if such Soulcaster was used with Towerlight – I hope Navani does such experiment in the next book

Suppression fabrials: the corrupted suppression fabrial Lezian uses must have been an H+C spren once, right? It seems to indicate that the Sibling’s power protecting Urithiru can be replicated and given to people

 

Edited February 26, 2022 by KandraAllomancer

[Frustration]

17 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Voidbinding – Voidlight (futuresight) and Warlight (ten Voidbindings)

Voidbinding is extremely mysterious, but I think it could be understood by assuming that it is actually two magic systems: one purely of Odium (core, proper Voidbinding a.k.a. futuresight), the other of both Odium and Honor (ten Surge-like Voidbindings).

Voidbinding is described a cousin of Old Magic and apparently its heart is trying to predict the future. Also, per Taravangian’s word, we know that all of the Unmade (primary source of Voidbinding) have futuresight abilities to some extent. This seems to indicate that seeing the future is not just one of the powers, but the core of the magic itself. The Voidbinding chart possibly hints at that by showing the center two “Orders” not connected to any powers.

On the other hand, the Voidbinding chart also shows ten Surge-like abilities, organized just like in KR Surgebinding, which looks to me like a strong signal that Honor might be involved as well. Additionally, we know from RoW that corrupted Mistspren are of both Honor and Odium. I believe that Renarin’s Progression and Illumination abilities might actually be Voidbindings, different from baseline Surges by providing an access to the Spiritual Realm.

The whole situation actually has a very nice parallel with the state of Allomancy after the recent atium retcon (Mistborn spoilers):

  Reveal hidden contents

16 Allomantic metals correspond to 10 Surges
Atium corresponds to “core” Voidbinding / futuresight
16 atium alloys correspond to 10 Voidbindings

One obvious problem is that Renarin is the first person bonded to a corrupted Mistspren:

If that is the case, how is it possible that Voidbinding has been studied in the past enough to create the chart with ten abilities? I can see three possibilities:

A. The chart has been predicted using futuresight

B. Sja-anat has corrupted spren of other Orders before

C. Voidbindigs have been observed before without any influence from Sja-anat, for example in Knights Radiant affected by some other Unmade

What makes you say Voidbinding is Odium + Honor?

 

Also on clasifying magic system by light, Brandon has said depending on how you count there can be 3 to 30 magic systems

three under your model is easy, Stormlight, Lifelight and Voidlight.

But there aren't enough lights to make thirty, even by really stretching it.

Spoiler

1. Storm
2. Life
3. Void
4. Tower
5. War
6. Void+life
7. Light of Roshar
8. Anti-storm
9. anti-life
10. anti-void
11. ant-tower
12. anti-war
13. anti-void+life
14. anti-Roshar
15. anti storm+ life
16. anti-storm+void
17. Anti-storm+life+void
18. anti-life+storm
19. anti-life+void
20. anti-ife+void+storm
21. anti-void+storm
22. anti-void+life
23. anti-void+life+storm
24. anti-storm+anti-life+void
25. anti-storm+anti-void+life
26. anti-life+anti-void+storm

 

[KandraAllomancer]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Also on clasifying magic system by light, Brandon has said depending on how you count there can be 3 to 30 magic systems

Brandon has made it clear that he sometimes considers individual KR orders separate magic systems:

Quote

Crspu

Is there going to be a magic system for every Shard? 

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, yes, whether there'll be books? We get into a problem here... is... what is a magic system, right? 

So for instance like, would you count all of Surgebinding as one magic system, or is it ten magic systems, right? Is Windrunning a separate magic system from Skybreaking. Right, and is it the Surges? Is it that? What do you call a magic system? Is the system of fabrials a magic system, or is it a subset of what's happening on Roshar? And in that case, it's like I delineated it pretty strongly in Mistborn, but in Stormlight, it's like... kind of Surgebinding is kind of Honor and Cultivation, right? And so is there a magic system for each of them or not?

So the answer is yes and no, in that every one of the Shards will inspire really interesting magic systems. But is there a one to one? What do you call a magic system? And beyond that, will I have time to write books about all of these, I don't know. You could even look at Sel. Sel has how many magic systems, is it one? Is it lots? Is Forging a different magic system from AonDor, or is it two aspects of the same magic system and so... It's tricky. 

YouTube Livestream 32 (June 3, 2021)

 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

What makes you say Voidbinding is Odium + Honor?

Well, part of Voidbinding, really. I see two reasons:

A. Stormlight Ars Arcanum has clearly been written soon after Arc 1 (it mentions anti-Investiture as a recent development) and Khriss seems to be convinced that they are three and only three sets of 10 abilities. Given that 10 is a number associated with Honor, the only explanation I can see is that there's one magic system per Honor's Light, making Voidbinding associated with Warlight to at least some extent

B. Structure of Vodibinding chart doesn't make sense. Why would Odium's magic be 10-centric? Why would it follow the structure of KR Orders if Surgebinding of the Fused doesn't? Also, if Voidbinding is entirely of Odium only, there should be 10 kinds of Voidspren that people could bond. Where are they? The Heralds warned people of the dangers of Voidbinding, but they mentioned futuresight only, entirely explained by the influence of the Unmade. In Oathbringer, Turash is surprised that humans can even bond Voidspren - something apparently never witnessed by a Fused before

 

[Frustration]

3 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Brandon has made it clear that he sometimes considers individual KR orders separate magic systems:

Part of why I asked is that light doesn't work with that.

3 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

A. Stormlight Ars Arcanum has clearly been written soon after Arc 1 (it mentions anti-Investiture as a recent development) and Khriss seems to be convinced that they are three and only three sets of 10 abilities. Given that 10 is a number associated with Honor, the only explanation I can see is that there's one magic system per Honor's Light, making Voidbinding associated with Warlight to at least some extent

B. Structure of Vodibinding chart doesn't make sense. Why would Odium's magic be 10-centric? Why would it follow the structure of KR Orders if Surgebinding of the Fused doesn't? Also, if Voidbinding is entirely of Odium only, there should be 10 kinds of Voidspren that people could bond. Where are they? The Heralds warned people of the dangers of Voidbinding, but they mentioned futuresight only, entirely explained by the influence of the Unmade. In Oathbringer, Turash is surprised that humans can even bond Voidspren - something apparently never witnessed by a Fused before

 

Roshar itself is ten centric, while Braize is nine,

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)

So if Odium had a magic on Roshar it would probably be ten. And as Voidbinding usually arises from the Unamde it's of Roshar.

Why do you think Spren need to bond for Voidbinding to occur?

And why only future sight has been used before, the rest of Voidbinding has yet to be fully explored, much like Cultivations.

[KandraAllomancer]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Part of why I asked is that light doesn't work with that.

Whether we cal it one or ten magic systems is just semantics, so I don't see how it affect anything

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Roshar itself is ten centric, while Braize is nine,

Of three magic systems on Roshar that don't involve Odium (Surgebinding, fabrials and Old Magic), only the ones including Honor have ten powers though

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Why do you think Spren need to bond for Voidbinding to occur?

It literally has "binding" in its name, so some kind of bond seems very likely.

Also, we see ten "Orders" for only nine Unmade, so some other Voidspren seem like a rational explanation

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

So if Odium had a magic on Roshar it would probably be ten. And as Voidbinding usually arises from the Unamde it's of Roshar.

We still have only nine Unmade. The tenth Unmade is theoretically possible, but I also don't see anything prohibiting Odium from creating even more e.g. eleventh Unmade created from Cusicesh

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

And why only future sight has been used before, the rest of Voidbinding has yet to be fully explored, much like Cultivations.

Cultivation won't have ten powers, as far as I can reasonably tell. Futuresight seems to more than just one of the abilities, as all of the Unmade are theoretically capable of it. So we have nine Unmade, each with futuresight and one other power - I don't see how people could create a Voidbinding chart out of that 

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by KandraAllomancer

[mathiau]

I fail to see what it could mean for a magic system to be based on a light and not a Shard, a light is literally the power of a Shard put in fluid form.

On 26/02/2022 at 8:55 PM, KandraAllomancer said:

Surgebinding - Stormlight

 

Not much to add here, Surgebinding (at least the original one) uses Stormlight primarily. The abilities of the Fused mimic it using Odium’s power.

The Fused are not mimicking the Surgebinding, they are using Honour's Surgebinding while using Odium's power as a fuel. Which is why they get red eyes

Spoiler

Chaos

You've recently said that Rosharans call everything Surgebinding. So my question is: does Khriss call what the Fused do "Surgebinding"?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Chaos

Interesting. We still don't know what Voidbinding is, but we'll get there eventually, I'm sure.

Brandon Sanderson

You will.

Shardcast Interview (Jan. 23, 2021)

2 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

We still have only nine Unmade.

Probably because there once were ten Made and Odium only managed to corrupt nine of them.

I mean, it's quite suspicious that there's an Unmade corresponding to each order except the only one connected to the only Truespren that have any chance to have existed before the Shattering.

2 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Cultivation won't have ten powers, as far as I can reasonably tell.

Extraordinary claims require inordinate evidences

[KandraAllomancer]

13 minutes ago, mathiau said:

I fail to see what it could mean for a magic system to be based on a light and not a Shard, a light is literally the power of a Shard put in fluid form.

I didn't say that, technically - only that (for reasons I don't claim to understand) magic systems seem to correspond to Lights, and that their classification can be based on that

15 minutes ago, mathiau said:

The Fused are not mimicking the Surgebinding, they are using Honour's Surgebinding while using Odium's power as a fuel. Which is why they get red eyes

I don't think we have any evidence of that. We know that the Fused didn't have Surges from the start, but learnt them somehow. Could that have included Honor or some H+C spren? I have no idea. Some powers, especially Transportation and Progression, seem very different from KR Surgebinding

16 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Probably because there once were ten Made and Odium only managed to corrupt nine of them.

I mean, it's quite suspicious that there's an Unmade corresponding to each order except the only one connected to the only Truespren that have any chance to have existed before the Shattering.

We don't really know what the used to be, and if they all were on the same level of power before. BAM, for example, seems way more fundamental for Roshar than Nergaoul. We also have no idea if there weren't more spren like that - some huge spren might've supported Aimia's massive fabrial infrastructure, for example.

20 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Extraordinary claims require inordinate evidences

How is that an extraordinary claim?

We know from WoBs and Ars Arcanum that they will be 3/30 magic systems (3 sets of 10 powers):

Quote

Quantumplation (paraphrased)

I haven't read Way of Kings yet, but I've read Warbreaker and Mistborn, and the thing I like most about them is the Magic systems.  Will Way of Kings have multiple magic systems?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Depending on how you count it, Stormlight Archive will have 3 or 30 different magic systems.

Footnote: Part of me wants to say he said "3, 10, or 30 different magic systems", but I can't remember for sure.
Towers of Midnight Cambridge signing (Nov. 7, 2010)

We know that these would be Surgebinding (originally H+C), fabrials (also H+C as far as I can tell), and Voidbinding:

Quote

Questioner

How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archive, and how many of them haven't been seen?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

There's no place for 10 powers purely from Cultivation

[Frustration]

16 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Of three magic systems on Roshar that don't involve Odium (Surgebinding, fabrials and Old Magic), only the ones including Honor have ten powers though

The Old Magic is not one of them.

Spoiler

Questioner

How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archive, and how many of them haven't been seen?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)

 

14 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

here's no place for 10 powers purely from Cultivation

Yes there is.

Quote

"My research suggests that, indeed there should be another series of abilities that is even more esoteric than the Voidbindings. Perhapse the Old Magic fits into those, though I am begining to suspect that it is something entirely different." -Khriss, Ars Arcanum. Found at the end of any Stormlight archive novel.

 

17 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

It literally has "binding" in its name, so some kind of bond seems very likely.

It was surgebinding on Ashyn when they used diseases, it was surgebinding when the Dawnsingers molded stone before the nahel bond had even beem discovred. It's not the spren that are bound, but the surges themselves. Taken to it's logical extension, it's not spren that are bound for Voidbinding, but the "Voids".

17 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Also, we see ten "Orders" for only nine Unmade, so some other Voidspren seem like a rational explanation

It doesn't need to be 1-1, all of the uUmade can give slight amounts of future sight, which is clearly one of the "voids" but the isn't any of them that connect to more than two "Orders".

14 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

I don't think we have any evidence of that. We know that the Fused didn't have Surges from the start, but learnt them somehow. Could that have included Honor or some H+C spren? I have no idea. Some powers, especially Transportation and Progression, seem very different from KR Surgebinding

Spren don't have to be involved, it's possible they were, the initail betrayal, but that does not have to be the case. And Mathiau gave the evidence with it.

[KandraAllomancer]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

The Old Magic is not one of them.

Once again, semantics. We have 3 major systems (Surgebinding, Voidbinding and fabrials) and then some more minor magic from Cultivation

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Yes there is.

Two WoBs from my previous post literally say that the third set of 10 powers is fabrials. All evidence we have (Rosharan spren generally being H+C, Navani's description of the H+C Rhythm, the Sibling's involvement in fabrial creation) points to it being of Honor and Cultivation, not just Cultivation

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

It was surgebinding on Ashyn when they used diseases, it was surgebinding when the Dawnsingers molded stone before the nahel bond had even beem discovred. It's not the spren that are bound, but the surges themselves. Taken to it's logical extension, it's not spren that are bound for Voidbinding, but the "Voids".

Dawnsinger Stoneshaping is compared to a Surge, but as far as I remember never called Surgebinding.

Ashyn's magic wasn't about the diseases before the cataclysm:

Spoiler

Quote

beer_in_an_esky

1) Is Ashyn still operating on a sickness-based magic, as indicated in the readings you've done previously? Or are you not ready to canonise that?

2) Assuming it is, was the use of Investiture on Ashyn always sickness-based?

3) If someone who is sick on Ashyn leaves while still unwell, would they still have powers? How about any people they infect on the new world?

Brandon Sanderson

1) Ashyn still has that magic, though I've gone a lot of directions on how I want the culture to feel, so I wouldn't consider that canon yet.

2) No.

3) The powers come directly via the micro-organisms, similar to other symbiotic relationships in the cosmere.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 4, 2018)

 

They had some form of Surgebinding:

Spoiler

Quote

Shardbound

Were the Surges used by humans, the ones that destroyed their previous home, the same as the ones that the Radiants are using.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, same basic principles. Magic system slightly different. Same basic principles.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

 

We know from Syl's interlude that Surges were bound by Bondsmiths somehow then. Some kind of binding definitely took place.

Also, even disease magic uses some kind of spren bond, although indirectly:

Spoiler

Quote

Vanahian

Brandon has said that the Ashynite Disease-Based Magic was related with the Old Magic. Did he mean it in a direct way? Like this magic from Ashyn was a branch or a variety of the Old Magic system?

Brandon Sanderson

I do have to RAFO this, for the most part. Suffice it to say that the disease magic is related to a symbiotic bond between spren-like investiture and microorganisms.

General Reddit 2020 (Sept. 24, 2020)

 

 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

It doesn't need to be 1-1, all of the uUmade can give slight amounts of future sight, which is clearly one of the "voids" but the isn't any of them that connect to more than two "Orders".

We still don't have any explanation about why would people create a chart (an in-world document) showing ten powers / "Orders" for nine Unmade. And none of the Unmade seems to exhibit two powers, and none powers seem to be shared amongst two Unmade

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Spren don't have to be involved, it's possible they were, the initail betrayal, but that does not have to be the case. And Mathiau gave the evidence with it.

Red eyes only imply corrupted Investiture, which could be the effect of how the Fused were turned into CSs, how they possess Singers etc. Nine brands and effects different from KR Surgebinding seem to indicate that this is a magic from Braize, which hasn't been Invested by Honor

Edited February 28, 2022 by KandraAllomancer

[TheCollector]

The problem with Light being the magic system is that there could be hundreds of thousands of different Lights. This is kind of like with allomantic metals. This thread shows a progression of numbers as people slowly realized there were billions of trillions of metals. The same thing could be done with Lights 

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/95797-the-ultimate-metal-count/

The same thing could be done with Lights 

[KandraAllomancer]

8 minutes ago, TheCollector said:

The same thing could be done with Lights 

I absolutely agree, but I don't see it as a problem. As you've pointed out, metals already work like that.

Also, I assume that each Light would add just one or a few powers, and only create 10 power magic systems when combined with Honor.

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Two WoBs from my previous post literally say that the third set of 10 powers is fabrials. All evidence we have (Rosharan spren generally being H+C, Navani's description of the H+C Rhythm, the Sibling's involvement in fabrial creation) points to it being of Honor and Cultivation, not just Cultivation

Khriss knows about Surgebinding, Voidbinding, Fabrials and the Old Magic, but she says that there is something else. And Khriss knows more about the cosmere than anyone, Hoid include. So if she says there is something else, something that would fit into the same chart as Surgebinding and Voidbinding, we should listen.

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Dawnsinger Stoneshaping is compared to a Surge, but as far as I remember never called Surgebinding.

Khriss calls it surgebinding, specifically a use of Cohesion.

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

We still don't have any explanation about why would people create a chart (an in-world document) showing ten powers / "Orders" for nine Unmade. And none of the Unmade seems to exhibit two powers, and none powers seem to be shared amongst two Unmade

That document could be from centuries in the future for all we know. And the Unmade not exhibiting two powers is only a problem if they are Voidbinders, rather than it's source.

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Red eyes only imply corrupted Investiture, which could be the effect of how the Fused were turned into CSs, how they possess Singers etc. Nine brands and effects different from KR Surgebinding seem to indicate that this is a magic from Braize, which hasn't been Invested by Honor

Becoming a CS is just by an infusion of investiture, not the corruption of the soul, it is Surgebinding, not Voidbinding, so it's not Odium's natural magic. Why would we not assume that it's Honor's magic corrupted?

Edited February 28, 2022 by Frustration

[KandraAllomancer]

1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Khriss knows about Surgebinding, Voidbinding, Fabrials and the Old Magic, but she says that there is something else. And Khriss knows more about the cosmere than anyone Hoid included, so if she says there is something else, something that would fit into the same chart as Surgebinding and Voidbinding, we should listen.

Brandon has clearly stated that fabrials are a part of the third system. Don't get me wrong, I would love Cultivation to have full 10 powers, but as far as I cane tell from current evidence, these esoteric abilities will be fabrial related somehow. We've already seen a suppression fabrial related to some unknown sapient spren, for example

4 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Khriss calls it surgebinding, specifically a use of Cohesion.

Khriss is taking about Radiant Surges in Ars Arcanum, while the Urithiru Stone shows Venli something far earlier. It doesn't need to be Surgebinding, as it seems to be based on Rhythms rather than spren

8 minutes ago, Frustration said:

That document could be from centuries in the future for all we know. And the Unmade not exhibiting two powers is only a problem if they are Voidbinders, rather than it's source.

Possibly, yes. But we still haven't seen any example, historical or modern, of an Unmade granting (in whatever way) any powers whose structure is similar to KR Surgebinding, save for Sja-anat which creates H+O spren

12 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Becoming a CS is just by an infusion of investiture, not the corruption of the soul, it is Surgebinding, not Voidbinding, so it's not Odium's natural magic. Why would we not assume that it's Honor's magic corrupted?

Infusion with Voidlight and using Transformation is how corruption can take place, as shown by Raboniel with the Sibling. Normal CS can't just take over bodies, you need some additional powers like (Cosmere spoilers):

Spoiler

a Divine Breath for the Returned or hemalurgy for Kelsier

It seems possible that something was added to the Fused's souls in the process, making it a corruption in my opinion. Possessing a body with its own spiritweb, Cognitive aspects etc. can potentially be a corruption as well, who knows. If Honor's magic was corrupted, what was corrupted exactly?

[Frustration]

Just now, KandraAllomancer said:

Brandon has clearly stated that fabrials are a part of the third system. Don't get me wrong, I would love Cultivation to have full 10 powers, but as far as I cane tell from current evidence, these esoteric abilities will be fabrial related somehow. We've already seen a suppression fabrial related to some unknown sapient spren, for example

There is evidence for more.

Spoiler

PrinceDusty

At the Pixel Project event, you talked about a further extent of Cultivation's magic than just the boon and bane? Are there any people alive at the end of Oathbringer who are influenced by that magic?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Lift. Well, I guess that's a boon, isn't it? Yes, there are. But nobody on screen that has Cultivation magic, other than boons or curses from the Nightwatcher. Yes, there is such a thing, no, there's no one else on screen. But what Lift does is a hint.

Legion Release Party (Sept. 19, 2018)

 

7 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Khriss is taking about Radiant Surges in Ars Arcanum, while the Urithiru Stone shows Venli something far earlier. It doesn't need to be Surgebinding, as it seems to be based on Rhythms rather than spren

Honorblades aren't spren.

8 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Possibly, yes. But we still haven't seen any example, historical or modern, of an Unmade granting (in whatever way) any powers whose structure is similar to KR Surgebinding, save for Sja-anat which creates H+O spren

Voidbinding has never been fully explored

Spoiler

TheFoxQR (paraphrased)

Is there temporal symmetry in between the Surge-binding and void-binding charts, from the front and back covers of The Way of Kings? As in, Surgebinding is a re-emerging system of the past, vs Voidbinding being a newly emerging system that will fully exist in the future?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You can assume that Voidbinding has not been fully explored, but that parts of it have been looked into in the past. So I wouldn't say that temporal symmetry fully holds.

General Reddit 2019 (Aug. 3, 2019)

 

9 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Infusion with Voidlight and using Transformation is how corruption can take place, as shown by Raboniel with the Sibling. Normal CS can't just take over bodies, you need some additional powers like (Cosmere spoilers):

Corruption is any use of one shards investiture to co-opt another shards investiture.

10 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Normal CS can't just take over bodies, you need some additional powers like (Cosmere spoilers):

  Reveal hidden contents

a Divine Breath for the Returned or hemalurgy for Kelsier

It seems possible that something was added to the Fused's souls in the process, making it a corruption in my opinion. Possessing a body with its own spiritweb, Cognitive aspects etc. can potentially be a corruption as well, who knows. If Honor's magic was corrupted, what was corrupted exactly?

Actually Singers are vulnerable to that sort of thing during storms.

Spoiler

zas678 (paraphrased)

Can Odium influence people the same way that Ruin can?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, you see, the kandra and the koloss have a "hole" in them that allows Ruin to come in and take over. The Parshendi naturally are protected from this, but when they expose themselves to the storms, and the spren come in, many of these spren have that kind of "hole" in them, and that's what allows Odium to take control of them.

zas678 (paraphrased)

No, I'm talking about how Ruin was able to push people, place things in their minds, stuff like that. Can Odium do the same thing?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, Odium wasn't around when those people were created, so it's a little different for him than Ruin. So if he influences people in that way, it's through the Unmade.

Orem signing 2014 (Dec. 6, 2014)

 

[mathiau]

18 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

I didn't say that, technically - only that (for reasons I don't claim to understand) magic systems seem to correspond to Lights, and that their classification can be based on that

Still poses the issues that I don't see how you can meaningfully define "correspond to a Light" as different to "correspond to one/multiple Shard.

Quote

How is that an extraordinary claim?

We know from WoBs and Ars Arcanum that they will be 3/30 magic systems (3 sets of 10 powers):

We know that these would be Surgebinding (originally H+C), fabrials (also H+C as far as I can tell), and Voidbinding:

There's no place for 10 powers purely from Cultivation

That's what you meant? Ok I had misunderstood.

When speaking of Cultivation's magic system, most people mean "a system that's mainly of Cultivation" in the sense that Surgebinding is mainly of Honour.

Also, I don't really where you see Honour in Fabrials (aside from the part where they're made by scientists but that's far from enough)

3 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

They had some form of Surgebinding:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

We know from Syl's interlude that Surges were bound by Bondsmiths somehow then. Some kind of binding definitely took place.

Also, even disease magic uses some kind of spren bond, although indirectly:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

For this discussion we must not conflate "using a Surge" and "Surgebinding". Renarin is using a Surge when he Voidbinds

Quote

We still don't have any explanation about why would people create a chart (an in-world document) showing ten powers / "Orders" for nine Unmade. And none of the Unmade seems to exhibit two powers, and none powers seem to be shared amongst two Unmade

Because they observed there was ten powers? Remember, Voidbinding only comes from the Unmades most of the time.

Quote

Nine brands and effects different from KR Surgebinding seem to indicate that this is a magic from Braize, which hasn't been Invested by Honor

Do we have any evidence Honour never invested Braize and that it was nine centric even before Odium came?

Also

Quote

effects different from KR Surgebinding

Is almost certainly not true. Elsecallers are supposed to be able to teleport, even if Jasnah doesn't know how, and it's very unlikely Edgedancers can't increase muscular mass with Growth.

2 hours ago, TheCollector said:

The problem with Light being the magic system is that there could be hundreds of thousands of different Lights. This is kind of like with allomantic metals. This thread shows a progression of numbers as people slowly realized there were billions of trillions of metals. The same thing could be done with Lights 

https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/95797-the-ultimate-metal-count/

The same thing could be done with Lights 

3^16-1=43 046 720 actually (for each Shard, chose "in", "out" or "anti", remove the case where everyone said "out")

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Khriss calls it surgebinding, specifically a use of Cohesion.

There's always a (tenuous) chance it's actually Micrkinessis

1 hour ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Khriss is taking about Radiant Surges in Ars Arcanum, while the Urithiru Stone shows Venli something far earlier. It doesn't need to be Surgebinding, as it seems to be based on Rhythms rather than spren

That's just Oathless Surgebinding, I don't see the issue.

Quote

Possibly, yes. But we still haven't seen any example, historical or modern, of an Unmade granting (in whatever way) any powers whose structure is similar to KR Surgebinding, save for Sja-anat which creates H+O spren

I don't remember Renarin ever speaking oaths.

Quote

Infusion with Voidlight and using Transformation is how corruption can take place, as shown by Raboniel with the Sibling. Normal CS can't just take over bodies, you need some additional powers like (Cosmere spoilers):

  Reveal hidden contents

a Divine Breath for the Returned or hemalurgy for Kelsier

 

Note that (spoiler)

Spoiler

The only one of these that gives red eyes is Hemalurgy and only when used by Trell

Quote

It seems possible that something was added to the Fused's souls in the process, making it a corruption in my opinion. Possessing a body with its own spiritweb, Cognitive aspects etc. can potentially be a corruption as well, who knows. If Honor's magic was corrupted, what was corrupted exactly?

The deffinition of corrupting a power is "using the power of a Shard to fuel the magic system of another Shard".

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Voidbinding has never been fully explored

Neither was Surgebinding

Edited February 28, 2022 by mathiau

[Frustration]

51 minutes ago, mathiau said:

For this discussion we must not conflate "using a Surge" and "Surgebinding". Renarin is using a Surge when he Voidbinds

I still dispute this.

51 minutes ago, mathiau said:

The 

What came after this?

Edited February 28, 2022 by Frustration

[mathiau]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I still dispute this.

Really? You dispute that Renarin is using illumination?

Quote

What came after thsi?

The same "the definition of corruption is..." that I said latter

[Frustration]

Just now, mathiau said:

Really? You dispute that Renarin is using illumination?

I don't dispute that it's Illumination, I dispute that it is the Surge of Illumination.

[mathiau]

Just now, Frustration said:

I don't dispute that it's Illumination, I dispute that it is the Surge of Illumination.

Semantics. My point was that in universe when people say "X used the Surges" they're not always talking of Surgebinding

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, mathiau said:

Semantics. My point was that in universe when people say "X used the Surges" they're not always talking of Surgebinding

In many ways the differnece between Vessel and Shard is a semantic one, but it's an important distinction to make.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Frustration

[KandraAllomancer]

@Frustration and @mathiau: the discussion has gotten to the point where I don't have time to answer all your points (at least no on a weekday), so let me at least provide some clarification on what I meant:

I think that the existence of a Light gives Shards and/or spren the ability to make some magic system or powers out of it. For example, both KR and fabrial spren are H+C but

A. Modern, KR Surgebinding has started with the Honorblades and is powered by Stormlight - it has grown from Honor's pure Investiture, so to speak

B. Oathgate spren were somehow created/altered by the Sibling (they call them parent), a process most likely powered by Towerlight. Probably as a result, they are resistant to Stormlight suppression - Oathgates were the only fabrials still functioning during Urithiru's occupation, despite being usually powered by Stormlight

As for the Fused, after re-thinking this I need to admit that their Surges are likely the corruption of Honor's powers. I still believe, however, that they might have been corrupted before they got them. Singers have some inherent magical skills - Stoneshaping (tied to Cultivation's tone) and changing forms (tied to Honor's tone, which Eshonai hears when she adopts warform for the first time). I think that the thunderclasts' ability to inhabit stone and the Fused ability to inhabit Singer bodies are corruptions of these respective skills.

When it comes to the Unmade and Voidbinding, I wonder about the questions we could ask Brandon during the next spoiler stream to clarify the issue. For now I have come up with these:

• If Raboniel successfully corrupted the Sibling, could Odium theoretically create an eleventh Unmade, for example out of the Stormfather, the Nightwatcher, or Cusicesh?
• The Voidbinding chart is very similar to the Surgebinding chart in its structure. Are all the powers shown on it purely from Odium?
• Seeing the future seems to have a very special place amongst Odium's magic - all the Unmade have some capacity for it, it's described as the heart of Voidbinding etc. Is it one of the ten abilities with Surge-like glyphs shown on the Voidbinding chart, or something more fundamental?

[mathiau]

25 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

@Frustration and @mathiau: the discussion has gotten to the point where I don't have time to answer all your points (at least no on a weekday),

Honestly it's surprising it's not an issue that comes up more often than that

Quote

I think that the existence of a Light gives Shards and/or spren the ability to make some magic system or powers out of it. For example, both KR and fabrial spren are H+C

Why isn't there four magic system then? There have been four different lights on Roshar for a very long time

Quote

B. Oathgate spren were somehow created/altered by the Sibling (they call them parent), a process most likely powered by Towerlight. Probably as a result, they are resistant to Stormlight suppression - Oathgates were the only fabrials still functioning during Urithiru's occupation, despite being usually powered by Stormlight

Are you sure they didn't Enlighten one of the Sprens so that it works using both lights, like they did in Kholinar?

Quote

When it comes to the Unmade and Voidbinding, I wonder about the questions we could ask Brandon during the next spoiler stream to clarify the issue. For now I have come up with these:

• If Raboniel successfully corrupted the Sibling, could Odium theoretically create an eleventh Unmade, for example out of the Stormfather, the Nightwatcher, or Cusicesh?

The Nightwatcher, definitely. It should be possible to corrupt the Cusicesh but we don't know whether they are big enough that they'd be considered an Unmade (from my understanding, only corrupted Godsprens count as Unmade, it's possible Cusi is just a very big (true?)spren like the oathgate sprens)

The Stormfather could be to big to be corrupted; especially if the theory that Honour was neatly cut in two, one being the SF and the other being the Half-Shard of Unity.

Quote

• The Voidbinding chart is very similar to the Surgebinding chart in its structure. Are all the powers shown on it purely from Odium?

The structure probably comes from the stellar system being created ten-centric by big A

Quote

•  
• Seeing the future seems to have a very special place amongst Odium's magic - all the Unmade have some capacity for it, it's described as the heart of Voidbinding etc. Is it one of the ten abilities with Surge-like glyphs shown on the Voidbinding chart, or something more fundamental?

My hypothesis is that all of the Voids have some temporal effects: visions of other possible current selves for Illumination, visions of other possible future selves for Progression, visions of possible future for the Progression-Illumination hybrid. Frustration's hypothesis that all the temporal stuff is in Illumination.

Edited February 28, 2022 by mathiau

[KandraAllomancer]

25 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Honestly it's surprising it's not an issue that comes up more often than that

25 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Why isn't there four magic system then? There have been four different lights on Roshar for a very long time

As I've said in the initial post, I think that for some reason full magic systems are only possible with Honor's involvement. That's why we only get Old Magic and Stoneshaping for Lifelight. I don't know why that is the case, my approach was kind of inspired by how particle physics discoveries have been historically made: you list all the elements (in this case powers) and search for the simplest set of rules to explain their behavior. That makes it biased towards excluding new, unseen powers, obviously

33 minutes ago, mathiau said:

Are you sure they didn't Enlighten one of the Sprens so that it works using both lights, like they did in Kholinar?

According to this Coppermind article (https://coppermind.net/wiki/Suppression_fabrial) they are resistant, but I would have to check in the book

34 minutes ago, mathiau said:

The Nightwatcher, definitely. It should be possible to corrupt the Cusicesh but we don't know whether they are big enough that they'd be considered an Unmade (from my understanding, only corrupted Godsprens count as Unmade, it's possible Cusi is just a very big (true?)spren like the oathgate sprens)

The Stormfather could be to big to be corrupted; especially if the theory that Honour was neatly cut in two, one being the SF and the other being the Half-Shard of Unity.

I pretty much agree, but I wonder about the implications for Voidbinding. Would the NW get other powers from the Sibling? Probably yes. If that is the case, which powers, if any, are Voidbindings? These issues are part of the reasons why I would consider separating Unamde powers, even futuresight, from ten Voidbindings an elegant solution

38 minutes ago, mathiau said:

The structure probably comes from the stellar system being created ten-centric by big A

Possibly, but I still like my analogy to Allomacy and atium better

39 minutes ago, mathiau said:

My hypothesis is that all of the Voids have some temporal effects: visions of other possible current selves for Illumination, visions of other possible future selves for Progression, visions of possible future for the Progression-Illumination hybrid. Frustration's hypothesis that all the temporal stuff is in Illumination.

I would go with more general, Spiritual effects, but I mostly agree

[Frustration]

4 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

As for the Fused, after re-thinking this I need to admit that their Surges are likely the corruption of Honor's powers. I still believe, however, that they might have been corrupted before they got them. Singers have some inherent magical skills - Stoneshaping (tied to Cultivation's tone) and changing forms (tied to Honor's tone, which Eshonai hears when she adopts warform for the first time). I think that the thunderclasts' ability to inhabit stone and the Fused ability to inhabit Singer bodies are corruptions of these respective skills.

Eshonai hears Honor's Tone upon adopting Warform for the first time in 2,000 years. Others heard Cultivations tone when assuming workform for the first time.

[KandraAllomancer]

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Eshonai hears Honor's Tone upon adopting Warform for the first time in 2,000 years. Others heard Cultivations tone when assuming workform for the first time.

Good to know, I didn't remember that