Spren formation and types of spren

[CosmereMaths]

So I was wondering about the formation of new types of spren as well as the existing types. I believe it is Hesina in a Kaladin flashback who says that everything has a spren, so I’m curious about a couple things: do new spren form when new ideas are formed. Say for example musicspren exist but then someone invents jazz on roshar, do jazzspren form? With Navanis new fabrials and airship is their an airship spren now and a spren for each of her fabrials. If Tashikk has a revolution could we see the existence of democracyspren or communismspren. Finally, do you think spren have spren. Mainly does the sprenspren exist, the spren of spren, and then obviously there creates a loop where we could see the existence of anticipationsprenspren and so forth with each spren having a spren and continuing. I’m curious to hear peoples thoughts on this I’ve wondered ever since reading WoK but this is my first ever 17thShard post.

[Returned]

Welcome!

I think that the formation of spren is based around ideas and how people think about things, but the specifics are unclear. For example, we know that there are flamespren, but we haven't seen anything like a candlespren or bonfirespren (or similar). So I don't think that there would be jazzspren, since jazz is a kind of music and spren representing music already exist. But if enough people thought of jazz as sufficiently distinct from music in some way, we might see jazzspren form. It's hard to say for certain though, since the only "new" spren we've heard about are spren born of Odium. That suggests that there is an element of fresh Investiture invovled in new types of spren, but it's only a suggestion. There is definitely more governing the nature of spren than has been explicitly revealed to us so far.

Physical objects don't have spren, though they are represented by beads in the Cognitive Realm. So a fabrial might have a bead in Shadesmar but not a spren. We have an example of this in Syl's description of the souls of spears Kaladin has used: they're not spren, but they still have "minds" and traits like gender. That's how I interpret Hesina's comment that "everything has a spren", but we also should accept the possibility that she's just passing on a bit of folklore or superstition and doesn't have much real insight into the topic. She's a clever and intelligent woman but her areas of expertise wouldn't make her an expert on spren (as far as we know).

Spren also seem to be fairly general in what they represent, so while we might see something like a captivityspren for being stuck in one place we don't necessarily also see prisonspren, jailspren, trappedspren, or things like that-- we just see the spren for the general case. So while I wouldn't automatically rule out something like a democracyspren (for example), I think we'd be more likely to see a governmentspren or leadershipspren or something. By the same token, we'd probably see an airship attracting gravityspren, windspren, or luckspren (luckspren due to Chasmfiends being lighter than they ought to be through association with them), or something like that, rather than creating and attracting a new type of spren.

I don't know if spren could generate their own spren or not. From what we've seen spren and people in the Physical Realm seem to have similar ways of thinking about things (maybe not surprising, since the spren themselves are strongly influenced by how people think of the ideas they are associated with). We do have some hints that the spren themselves can change how they think of things, like the honorspren in Lasting Integrity, but it doesn't seem like an honorspren's ideas about honor create honorspren of honorspren. Instead the change is more in how the honorspren behave. It's not yet clear how this interacts with what people in the Physical Realm think.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Returned
Minor punctuation and typo fixes

[cometaryorbit]

I don't think there are really spren of everything, except in the Rosharan sense that all Cognitive aspects are called spren. (Which is totally understandable- Soulcasting is part of their culture and involves interacting with objects' Cognitive, which comes across as talking with them - "I am a stick".)

In-world there's a classification into emotion and nature spren, which seems roughly right for the normal Rosharan non-sapient spren - Radiant spren, voidspren, and a few exceptions like Cusicesh probably exist outside that system (though I guess Cusicesh could be an oceanspren or something - though I doubt it.)

So I don't think you'd get spren for forms of government like democracy, instead some kind of spren relating to the feelings involved with making decisions or something.

[Duxredux he/him]

@Stoneshaper Welcome to the Shard! If you're caught up on the Stormlight Archive, then I'd recommend looking at the Coppermind wiki, particularly Spren and Shadesmar as there's some pretty fascinating information on this topic. Pretty hefty spoilers though, so be warned or use the Time Machine function.

Something relevant I think is that Honorspren were originally created first by Honor and later by the Stormfather. There are also examples of spren families and parentage, notably the Reacher sailor that kept their father locked in a cabin so they wouldn't wander off towards wherever the Shardblade in the physical realm was. However spren biology and ecology works, Shadesmar has it's own flora and fauna, with human emotions or preceptions or thoughts as a necessary resource, somehow there is some way for different spren, truespren and lesser spren to reproduce if they require sustenance and can die. Apparently Honorspren hunt gloomspren in a similar way that chasmfiends are hunted. However this place works as a reflection of the mind, it isn't recursive and has it's own rules. Spren by nature feed off of specific resources, so while Honorspren can lie, I doubt they produce whatever it is that attracts Cryptics.

As for how they change and develop, I'm willing to bet that Creationspren have been around for a very long time, but that they didn't always appear as they do currently, forming contemporary objects familiar to the human observer. As technology progresses, Creationspren may one day look like cars, contemporary furniture, airships, or other items not commonly seen currently in Shadesmar. How this works with all of the various spren, who knows.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Duxredux