Role of Silver in the Cosmere

[Yumiya]

Sanderson has stated that Silver is relevant in the cosmere and has interesting properties unknown of on Scadrial. We know it repels shades, but degrades when doing so. Something silvery is used to anchor silverlight in the cognitive realm. It also apparently can kill spren.

I think to understand that last aspect, we need to know more about what it is actually doing (This is going to be a long post, so sorry in advanced). I think silver creates a connection from the physical realm to the spiritual realm, though there is an extension to this I will mention at the end. I will first list properties of silver in the real world as well as real world myths about silver. Then I will get into how that translates to the effects seen in the cosmere.

Silver is generally associated with purity, protection, and spirituality. I actually found a quote that "Silver represents the perfectly righteous, who funnel divine "light" into the mundane world."  Some cultures believed that wearing silver would help someone live a more spiritual life, some people even believing that the very reflective nature of silver allowed people to see their true selves (little bit of Electrum going on?)

On to actual physical properties and not just folklore. Silver exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. We know investiture is also energy and mass. So silver is the very best at conducting investiture. Silver also has antibiotic properties (hence all the folk lore about protection) and is considered too good of a catalyst at times. Silver is also generally a by-product of mining other metals as silver is usually found in nature combined with other metals (This will be important later on). Additionally, silver tarnishes in the presence of sulfur. Note that sulfur dioxide is generated by lightning strikes, understood as divine punishment by many ancient religions or divine retribution in the bible. The formation of silver chloride due to long term exposure to salt water or oxygen creates a pale yellow color.

On Threnody, shades are mindless cognitive shadows. We know shadows are the spirit, in essence. But they are manifesting slightly in the physical realm. However, as the creation of a cognitive shadow is the replacement of the spirit web with investiture, and the investiture available on Threnody is corrupted, they have no actual cognitive function (well not much, Silence's grandmother seems to remain very slightly aware of Silence.) BTW I am not counting out the very wild theory that the shades are part of some sort of hive mind... 
Well, why does silver stop the shades. The connection between the physical and the spiritual that silver creates does not let corrupted spirits like the shades through. Their corruption (I hate using that word because everyone is going to think I mean corruption like Sja-anat does, but I dont really have a better word for it), prevents being conducted by the metal. The healing power that silver has to reverse withering is based on connecting the physical to the spiritual's baseline, restoring the original form (same as recovering from a shardblade cut, actually that would be a really good question for sanderson. "Would the application of silver powder to a shardblade wound have any healing effects?"). As for how silver degrades, I think we can chalk that up to a) writer's license in making something not too powerful and b ) the fact that the shades are the investiture of a fallen/murdered god, the whole sulfur thing.

On Scadrial, it does nothing when an allomancer burns it. That sounds VERY odd. Burning non-allomantic metals makes allomancers sick. But then, if it is being burned, but just not having an affect, they would not get sick. The way allomancy is fueled is by using the metal as a catalyst to access the shard's power. What if, burning silver IS doing something, just not noticeable, so the allomancer stops trying before there are any real effects. If silver is connecting physical to spiritual, there might be a little bit of spirit web healing going on when burning (think realigning your chakras), but it is done so infrequently no one notices. Alternatively, it is giving them investiture, but no form to express it. 

The chains of silverlight are "silvery". They could be anchoring the physical city directly to the spiritual which allows them to weather the changes in terrain that can happen in the cognitive realm.

So, spren can be killed by silver, but only while they are in the cognitive realm. "Infecting" them there would force them to manifest as they normally would in the cognitive realm, into the physical, which (thanks to Ishar) tends to be fatal.

I might as well start my spin-off theory here. Silver is a catalyst for the natural formation of God Metals. Remember that the natural atium has a bit of impurity, namely silver and gold.I think all the god metals have that impurity, allowing the transfer of the spiritual investiture of the shards to manifest in the physical realm.  A lot of metallic items have been described as silvery. In particular, items made of god metal. Shardblades/shardplate/soulcasters/honorblades are all made of an alloy between Honor and Cultivation, and described as silvery. Atium, The Eleventh Metal, Trellium are all silvery. Even Harmonium burns with a "pure whiteness". Even Raysium can be described as a silver. Well "a bright golden metal, so light it is almost white", but remember that salt water exposure causes a pale yellow color, what would exposure to say corrupted investiture do?
 

[EmulatonStromenkiin he/him]

18 hours ago, Yumiya said:

Sanderson has stated that Silver is relevant in the cosmere and has interesting properties unknown of on Scadrial. We know it repels shades, but degrades when doing so. Something silvery is used to anchor silverlight in the cognitive realm. It also apparently can kill spren.

I think to understand that last aspect, we need to know more about what it is actually doing (This is going to be a long post, so sorry in advanced). I think silver creates a connection from the physical realm to the spiritual realm, though there is an extension to this I will mention at the end. I will first list properties of silver in the real world as well as real world myths about silver. Then I will get into how that translates to the effects seen in the cosmere.

Silver is generally associated with purity, protection, and spirituality. I actually found a quote that "Silver represents the perfectly righteous, who funnel divine "light" into the mundane world."  Some cultures believed that wearing silver would help someone live a more spiritual life, some people even believing that the very reflective nature of silver allowed people to see their true selves (little bit of Electrum going on?)

On to actual physical properties and not just folklore. Silver exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. We know investiture is also energy and mass. So silver is the very best at conducting investiture. Silver also has antibiotic properties (hence all the folk lore about protection) and is considered too good of a catalyst at times. Silver is also generally a by-product of mining other metals as silver is usually found in nature combined with other metals (This will be important later on). Additionally, silver tarnishes in the presence of sulfur. Note that sulfur dioxide is generated by lightning strikes, understood as divine punishment by many ancient religions or divine retribution in the bible. The formation of silver chloride due to long term exposure to salt water or oxygen creates a pale yellow color.

On Threnody, shades are mindless cognitive shadows. We know shadows are the spirit, in essence. But they are manifesting slightly in the physical realm. However, as the creation of a cognitive shadow is the replacement of the spirit web with investiture, and the investiture available on Threnody is corrupted, they have no actual cognitive function (well not much, Silence's grandmother seems to remain very slightly aware of Silence.) BTW I am not counting out the very wild theory that the shades are part of some sort of hive mind... 
Well, why does silver stop the shades. The connection between the physical and the spiritual that silver creates does not let corrupted spirits like the shades through. Their corruption (I hate using that word because everyone is going to think I mean corruption like Sja-anat does, but I dont really have a better word for it), prevents being conducted by the metal. The healing power that silver has to reverse withering is based on connecting the physical to the spiritual's baseline, restoring the original form (same as recovering from a shardblade cut, actually that would be a really good question for sanderson. "Would the application of silver powder to a shardblade wound have any healing effects?"). As for how silver degrades, I think we can chalk that up to a) writer's license in making something not too powerful and b ) the fact that the shades are the investiture of a fallen/murdered god, the whole sulfur thing.

On Scadrial, it does nothing when an allomancer burns it. That sounds VERY odd. Burning non-allomantic metals makes allomancers sick. But then, if it is being burned, but just not having an affect, they would not get sick. The way allomancy is fueled is by using the metal as a catalyst to access the shard's power. What if, burning silver IS doing something, just not noticeable, so the allomancer stops trying before there are any real effects. If silver is connecting physical to spiritual, there might be a little bit of spirit web healing going on when burning (think realigning your chakras), but it is done so infrequently no one notices. Alternatively, it is giving them investiture, but no form to express it. 

The chains of silverlight are "silvery". They could be anchoring the physical city directly to the spiritual which allows them to weather the changes in terrain that can happen in the cognitive realm.

So, spren can be killed by silver, but only while they are in the cognitive realm. "Infecting" them there would force them to manifest as they normally would in the cognitive realm, into the physical, which (thanks to Ishar) tends to be fatal.

I might as well start my spin-off theory here. Silver is a catalyst for the natural formation of God Metals. Remember that the natural atium has a bit of impurity, namely silver and gold.I think all the god metals have that impurity, allowing the transfer of the spiritual investiture of the shards to manifest in the physical realm.  A lot of metallic items have been described as silvery. In particular, items made of god metal. Shardblades/shardplate/soulcasters/honorblades are all made of an alloy between Honor and Cultivation, and described as silvery. Atium, The Eleventh Metal, Trellium are all silvery. Even Harmonium burns with a "pure whiteness". Even Raysium can be described as a silver. Well "a bright golden metal, so light it is almost white", but remember that salt water exposure causes a pale yellow color, what would exposure to say corrupted investiture do?
 

I would like to note that it was originally intended that silver had the affect in allomancy that tin does now, due to brandon being misinformed about pewter's alloy.

[HeWhoDoesn'tQuiet]

On 4/8/2022 at 4:49 AM, Yumiya said:

On Scadrial, it does nothing when an allomancer burns it. That sounds VERY odd. Burning non-allomantic metals makes allomancers sick. But then, if it is being burned, but just not having an affect, they would not get sick. The way allomancy is fueled is by using the metal as a catalyst to access the shard's power. What if, burning silver IS doing something, just not noticeable, so the allomancer stops trying before there are any real effects. 

This is very interesting, because there aren't supposed to be any other metals apart from the sixteen base ones and the sixteen godmetals. An idea that came to mind (and I suppose is completely ridiculous), is that maybe silver IS a god metal, but doesn't do anything noticeable (the only possible god it could come from would be Adonalsium I think, for it to be all over the Cosmere, hence the ridiculousness). But that's pretty weird, because TLR would have known, and it would also have feruchemical and hemalurgic properties, and there isn't a mention of that. 

My other explanation of why silver doesn't make an allomancer sick when burning, is because silver is healing the allomancer at the same time they burn it. So they would get sick, because it is not an allomantic metal, but they don't because silver is just that cool and heals them. This is much more likely than the first thing, of course.