Does Division work on humans?

[AidenTollis he/him]

If it does, that would be a bit OP... like the implications of that would be insane.

[Returned]

Division definitely can be used on humans:

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The Surge she used, Division, caused objects to degrade, burn, or turn to dust. It also worked on people. (Oathbringer, page 1002; emphasis mine)

 

It's not 100% clear what the exact effect would look like (at least, not with what I know), but we do have a description of how it works:

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Questioner

The Division Surge: does it actually split atoms or does it split the bonds of molecules?

Brandon Sanderson

It splits the bonds of molecules, it does not split atoms.

Questioner

That would be completely overpowered.

Brandon Sanderson

I have done an atom splitting magic originally in Dragonsteel. And wooow it was overpowered. So really, this is fiddling... You'll see what it does when I use it, but we'll not be splitting atoms. We're not creating nuclear reactio... or fission, so.

Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017)

So maybe something like the body melting/sublimating away?

Edited April 22, 2022 by Returned

[AidenTollis he/him]

Cool, thanks!!

[Staenbridge]

8 hours ago, Returned said:

Division definitely can be used on humans:

It's not 100% clear what the exact effect would look like (at least, not with what I know), but we do have a description of how it works:

So maybe something like the body melting/sublimating away?

I don't think you're being nearly imaginative enough with how "the Surge of breaking bonds" could affect a human. The way I understand it, the physical effect of Division will be cleaving bonds en masse within a substance.

Doing this with just a small amount of Investiture would probably lead to the mixture of gloopification and surface-level ablation as you describe, as cell membranes, proteins, and all the other stuff in your body falls apart a little. However, if you apply a lot of Investiture, this would surely cause the substance to immediately catch fire at the very least; broken bonds are not going to stay broken, and all of the radicals/ions which have just been created are going to want to immediately react with everything around them, in a process that releases a lot of energy as heat. At high enough Investiture levels, we might perhaps imagine the cool formations that lightning causes when it impacts on sand, except that would happen inside the person's body. Outside the body, depending on the distance with which you're able to apply the Surge within air, Division Radiants might be able to cause sort of Roy Mustang-style explosions by splitting all of the air molecules in an area and letting them reform, but even setting aside that possibility, you could set off fuels at will and cause massive fires or deflagrations easily. Elsecallers probably do this job more effectively, based on what we see with Jasnah, but it's multiple routes to the same goal I suppose. 

[Returned]

1 hour ago, Staenbridge said:

I don't think you're being nearly imaginative enough with how "the Surge of breaking bonds" could affect a human. The way I understand it, the physical effect of Division will be cleaving bonds en masse within a substance.

Doing this with just a small amount of Investiture would probably lead to the mixture of gloopification and surface-level ablation as you describe, as cell membranes, proteins, and all the other stuff in your body falls apart a little. However, if you apply a lot of Investiture, this would surely cause the substance to immediately catch fire at the very least; broken bonds are not going to stay broken, and all of the radicals/ions which have just been created are going to want to immediately react with everything around them, in a process that releases a lot of energy as heat. At high enough Investiture levels, we might perhaps imagine the cool formations that lightning causes when it impacts on sand, except that would happen inside the person's body. Outside the body, depending on the distance with which you're able to apply the Surge within air, Division Radiants might be able to cause sort of Roy Mustang-style explosions by splitting all of the air molecules in an area and letting them reform, but even setting aside that possibility, you could set off fuels at will and cause massive fires or deflagrations easily. Elsecallers probably do this job more effectively, based on what we see with Jasnah, but it's multiple routes to the same goal I suppose. 

 

All of that sounds plausible enough to me, though being magical could always interfere Sanderson generally tries to keep effects consistent with the real world. The key effect is that Division breaks bonds, a process which would likely give off some energy, but not necessarily as directly as in an oxidation/reduction reaction; I'm not chemist enough to think through the energy states of spontaneously breaking molecular bonds and then spontaneously re-binding atoms opportunistically, particularly with magic as the force driving the separations. Clearly they can, as the one example of it we see produces a smoky smell. We don't even really know that atoms aren't splitting off in their lowest-energy states or not. But when we see Malata use it on a wooden table we don't get much fire, and it seems like she has a lot of conscious control over the effect:

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The scent of burning filled the air, but the flames didn't persist if she didn't will them to. (Oathbringer, page 1002).

So depending on how skilled the Surgebinder is, I'll agree with you that some pretty dramatic effects are possible. I wonder how the Surge varies between Releasers and Skybreakers.

[Quantus he/him]

It's no more OP that an elscaller soulcasting a person into flame, to me.  

As far as the actual effect (called Decay), there's apparently some discretion in how it manifests, presumably by the Intent of the user.  It can be used to decay, burn, turn to dust, or other forms of decay and breakdown.  That means a chunk of wood could become a pile of goo, sawdust, or flames depending on how the Dustbringer chooses to Release the stored chemical energy in the molecular Bonds.

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

2 hours ago, Returned said:

So depending on how skilled the Surgebinder is, I'll agree with you that some pretty dramatic effects are possible.

Being the nerd I am, I can't help but wonder if you can make a faux-force-lightning with Division... Not transmitting electrons through the air but ionizing it with Division and transmitting the reach of Division through the air to someone or something.

[StanLemon]

4 minutes ago, Halyo_Alex said:

Being the nerd I am, I can't help but wonder if you can make a faux-force-lightning with Division... Not transmitting electrons through the air but ionizing it with Division and transmitting the reach of Division through the air to someone or something.

This is something I've long thought should be possible. It's one of the reasons I think the Skybreakers are called Skybreakers, shooting lightning from the air down below 

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

It's going to be gross and savage at the same time when we first see it used on a living being. 

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

35 minutes ago, Green Hoodie Mistborn said:

It's going to be gross and savage at the same time when we first see it used on a living being. 

"Tis but a flesh wound."
"Your arm's off!"
"Eh i've had worse."

[+ShardlessVessel]

Brandon has described Division (well, Dustbringers) as "fire magic", so I think at least one of its combat uses will involve setting enemies on fire in some way.

 

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Questioner

Which order of Knights Radiant was hardest for conception?

Brandon Sanderson

It was definitely the Dustbringers, which I'm not even sure yet, because I haven't done a lot with them in the books. But I wanted the Dustbringers to be more than just "generic fire magic." Not that people haven't done great things with generic fire magic that they have individualized, but kind of the whole idea behind the Surges in the Stormlight Archive is that they are using, as the elements of their society and the fundamental forces, things that you wouldn't normally see as magic systems in a fantasy novel. And generic fire magic didn't fit into that schema very well.

YouTube Livestream 25 (Jan. 13, 2021)

 

 

I realize that it may sound like I'm contradicting myself with this WoB, but the way I'm reading it is that Dustbringers are going to be Brandon's take on a Pyromancer, filtered through the mechanics of the Knights Radiant (i.e. more of a paladin/spellblade than a wizard).

Division seems to be associated with decay in general, though, so wilting plants and breaking stones into dust seem like they should be possible with Division.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

37 minutes ago, ShardlessVessel said:

Brandon has described Division (well, Dustbringers) as "fire magic", so I think at least one of its combat uses will involve setting enemies on fire in some way.

I realize that it may sound like I'm contradicting myself with this WoB, but the way I'm reading it is that Dustbringers are going to be Brandon's take on a Pyromancer, filtered through the mechanics of the Knights Radiant (i.e. more of a paladin/spellblade than a wizard).

Division seems to be associated with decay in general, though, so wilting plants and breaking stones into dust seem like they should be possible with Division.

Breaking bonds is endothermic, so colder, not hotter. Though I guess in a fire situation once you add the energy to start the combustion of the fuel, the fire itself provides the energy for further combustion. 

So with Division, you provide the initial energy through investiture and it can start a form of combustion...? Either way, using it on living beings is going to be savage. I'm picturing the old Firestarter movie

[clowncarcrash]

 I have to wonder if there's a spiritual component to division. If you can connect with someone using connection, can you divide bonds, Nahel bonds or otherwise using this aspect? 

 

 

[Brgst13]

Division will almost certainly burn organics.  In our world, breaking atomic bonds requires an input of energy (activation energy) followed by a release of some amount of energy.  If Division is using Investiture to replace the activation energy, now all the energy can be released into the system.  This energy is given off as heat.  This is why we sweat and how mammals can be warm-blooded.  If all these bonds were released at once a tremendous amount of heat would be produced.  This would flash-boil water out of the body and allow the remaining dried tissue to ignite quickly.

[Quantus he/him]

I've long assumed that the Lightning effect we've seen with Stormform is based on the Surge of Division since Lightning is fundamentally all about Charge separation.  Whether is is possible with the "Decay" form of division available to Radiant, or whether any Order has any other distinct Division abilities, remains to be seen.   

Thematically speaking, Lightning as an advanced form of Fire Magic is not uncommon.  Usually it only looses out to a more direct Air and/or Water=Weather Magic setup, in my experience.  

 

[Halyo_Alex he/him]

1 hour ago, Quantus said:

Thematically speaking, Lightning as an advanced form of Fire Magic is not uncommon.

Gestures to Avatar's Lightningbending.

Well you're not wrong. Plus, with Gravitation to throw objects around, Skybreakers could ostensibly be the closest thing we have to actual "sith" if they can make lightning with division, and i mean... The order has turned to the "dark side" in modern days...

[Lunu’anaki he/him]

I don't think it's any more OP or insane than a giant lightweight sword that insta-kills your enemies.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

56 minutes ago, Lunu’anaki said:

I don't think it's any more OP or insane than a giant lightweight sword that insta-kills your enemies.

Or a soul caster who can simply convince your cognitive self to become smoke without you knowing she is doing it... well at least you don't know she is doing it until you suddenly are smoke and have no ability to think or feel anything anymore anyways.