Soulcasting's Gem Restriction

[Moogle]

Soulcasting has this weird restriction where you need the proper gem type to Soulcast something into one thing. If you want to transform object X into blood, you need a garnet. Want to turn your enemies into air? Sapphire.

 

Why is this?

 

I have two possible explanations for the Realmatics of the situation (massive speculation):

• The Soulcaster never actually holds the vast majority of the Stormlight (Jasnah never glows, her gems do). If they did, the Stormlight would be tainted by being 'theirs' and having their identity tagged to it - the object couldn't accept and use the Stormlight, since only you can access your own magics without Feruchemical aluminum hijinks. You need to create a link between the object and the Stormlight to be given to it (I imagine Soulcasting is actually just where you create the conduit linking the gem to the object, which is why Shallan sucks in some Stormlight when Soulcasting but not enough to glow). Gem type is important in helping filter the Stormlight into the intended thing, then, since the Soulcaster is not pouring 'intent' directly into the object like you can do with Emotional Allomancy. You can still change the object into what you want, it's just hard to do very specific things, and need gem type to provide an easy 'base' to work off. In fact, based on this, I'd suggest it should be possible to Soulcast things with the wrong gem type, but it should be near-impossible.
• It could be that you need to have some sort of Actual Connection to the thing you want to transform the object into, much like Shallan has to draw the things she wants to Lightweave. In this regard, gem types function the same as Shallan's drawings, giving her/Jasnah a Spiritual connection to the thing that they can 'give' to the object to morph into. I almost suspect Shallan could Soulcast without the proper gem type if she were to draw a picture of what she wanted, suddenly...

Does anyone have suggestions or ideas for this restriction exists? I'm not entirely satisfied with my explanations.

[Kurkistan he/him]

I'd go with the first option, though not allowing for off-type soulcasting in any case.

 

This WoB might be worth having on hand for the discussion:

 

Source:

STORMATLAS

I finally got to ask a question about the Stormlight Archive that Windrunner17 and Chaos helped me with which was: "Why Can Kaladin Surgebind with any gem type but Jasnah and Shallan need specific types?"

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

A lot of that will be explained as the series comes along. It is really the difference between Soulcasting and the other forms of Surgebinding. It's more a quirk of Soulcasting than it is something that is different about about Kaladin. So you've kind of got it reversed a little bit though; Soulcasting has this additional restriction that the other ones don't.

 

Source:

ARSENOPYRITE ()

I have a technical question here re: gemstones in The Stormlight Archive. How are the lines drawn between different types of gems? Emerald and Heliodor are both varieties of the mineral beryl. Emerald can get its color from trace amounts of chromium, vanadium and/or iron. Heliodor gets its color from iron combined with microscopic crystal defects. So, is the line between these two defined by color? If so, would a heliodor lose its usefulness if it were heated (which would turn it colorless or pale blue). Is it defined by trace elements—in which case, how do you deal with emeralds, or with aquamarine (the blue variety of beryl, which can also contain chromium or vanadium in small quantities and is mostly colored by iron)? Sorry for getting so technical, but this gem nerd needs to know!

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

I actually spent a long time working on this while building the world. You'd probably be amused by how long I spent on it. Chemically, many of them are actually very similar, as you pointed out. I tried doing the book originally with them all being different, not using any that were basically the same crystal with different colors, but it didn't work out. There weren't enough, and so I had to stretch to make it all work.

 

So, I went back to the original, and decided that color was enough to differentiate them. Just as steel and iron are very similar in the Mistborn world, emerald and heliodor can be very similar—but produce different effects. The idea here is that the physical items (like the metals or the crystals) provide a key by which magical interaction occurs.

 

So, in a long winded answer, a gemstone with an impure color would be considered like a bad alloy in the Mistborn magic—it either wouldn't work at all, or would work very poorly. The chemical and color signature needs to be of a specific variety to provide the proper key to accessing the power of transformation.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Kurkistan

[11thorderknight]

I think there's a much simpler explanation for the restriction: it doesn't really exist.

 

Almost everything we know about Soulcasting is actually from Way of Kings rather than Words of Radiance, and in Way of Kings it's portrayed as something done with fabrials. It would have been a huge spoiler for Brandon to say anything else during his Q&A's on the topic, so he likely dodged giving a complete answer. 

 

During the hospital room scene where Jasnah secretly soulcasts the bread and the jam, she does so while wearing a diamond, a ruby and a smokestone in her "soulcaster". You could argue that she has an emerald sphere somewhere in her purse, and that's probably true, but how does she specifically access it's Light and not the Light of the rest of her gems? Also, when she needs to Soulcast Shallan's blood, she  calls for a garnet (she'd have to in order to maintain her cover) but the garnet Shallan gives her is already partly dun, and even after several rounds of Soulcasting, it still has some Light in it. I originally thought that this was because Jasnah used it to change microscopically-impure blood to blood, which is such a minor change that only trace bits of Light were used. But the simpler explanation is that the sphere simply wasn't used at all.

 

The really incontrovertible evidence comes from Shallan during the ship sinking. She Soulcasts the entire ship into water, with no mention of garnets being used, and with specific mention that multiple different gemstones all around her cracked from the strain, meaning that she drained Light from multiple different sources to power that transformation. Later, during her conversation with Stick, there was no mention of using a ruby, either by her or by Pattern. You can't say that Shallan doesn't know about the "restriction" because she spent Way of Kings telling us about it.

 

I think the real reason for the "restriction" is that we're introduced to Soulcasting in the context of fabrials, and that fabrials in general have a gemstone/Esssence restriction. Every fabrial we've seen is required to use a gemstone that targets the Essence the fabrial is affecting. For instance, the Regrowth fabrial used topaz/heliodor (bone/flesh), the water-vacuum used a garnet, the conjoiners use rubies (energy). Since Soulcasters can create any Essence, they can use any gem, but the Essence created by the fabrial is limited to the gemstone that powers it.

[Moogle]

During the hospital room scene where Jasnah secretly soulcasts the bread and the jam, she does so while wearing a diamond, a ruby and a smokestone in her "soulcaster". You could argue that she has an emerald sphere somewhere in her purse, and that's probably true, but how does she specifically access it's Light and not the Light of the rest of her gems?

 

Jasnah does the specific-gem-thing with the thugs in the alley:

The other three men began to curse, scrambling away, tripping over one another in their panic. One fell. Jasnah turned casually, brushing his shoulder with her fingers as he struggled to his knees. He became crystal, a figure of pure, flawless quartz—his clothing transformed along with him. The diamond in Jasnah’s Soulcaster faded, but there was still plenty of Stormlight left to send rainbow sparkles through the transformed corpse.

...

Stormlight shot from Jasnah’s hand like twin bolts of lightning, symmetrical. One struck each of the footpads and they popped, puffing into smoke. Their empty clothing dropped to the ground. With a sharp snap, the smokestone crystal on Jasnah’s Soulcaster cracked, its light vanishing, leaving her with just the diamond and the ruby.

 

It's clear that when she turns someone to crystal her diamond fades and when she turns someone to smoke her smokestone snaps.

 

I'm still thinking there's something to the gem type. Shallan's Soulcasting of the boat may fall under what I suggested previously, that she doesn't need a specific gem type if she draws what she wants (and she has surely drawn that ship before!), but it's also quite likely Jasnah just had a lot of garnets in her drawers. Shallan only hears gemstones cracking as she draws out a ridiculous amount of Stormlight, she doesn't see if only garnets are affected.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Moogle

[Green Fire he/him]

I don't think Radiant-Soulcasting needs to use the "correct" stones that a fabrial would for the same effect; as evident in WoR. That being said, intent and perception are important in the cosmere, and if at the time Jasnah believed them necessary, they would have been.

 

Like 11thorderknight,  I think Jasnah was just being careful (Elsecaller attribute) to openly only Soulcast in ways that the current configuration of her Soulcaster would allow.  While performing slight of hand castings, like she did the bread and jam, she chose to ignore the understood Fabrial-Soulcaster restrictions.

 

Of course, I have a large multilayer theory on what Jasnah was going through in WoK that I may someday write up in an essay-ish big-wall-o-text style post as a thread that I espouse but haven't seen posted anywere...  

Edited June 18, 2014 by Green Fire

[11thorderknight]

 

Like 11thorderknight,  I think Jasnah was just being careful (Elsecaller attribute) to openly only Soulcast in ways that the current configuration of her Soulcaster would allow.  While performing slight of hand castings, like she did the bread and jam, she chose to ignore the understood Fabrial-Soulcaster restrictions.

 

 

That's exactly what my point is. Jasnah is practiced enough that she can specifically draw Light from a single large gemstone, and knows the "restrictions" enough to be able to fake staying within them. 

[skaa he/him]

As others (including the OP) have pointed out, the ten Polestones are strongly connected to their Soulcasting properties. I sometimes wonder, though, if it's possible to combine two or more gemstones to produce a result normally associated with a totally different gemstone. Like, what if you can use both ruby and garnet in a single Soulcasting command to turn something into steam (normally a property of smokestone)? In the case of the ship in WoR, perhaps the combination of all the gemstones activated by Shallan's Soulcasting somehow added up to just plain water.

 

Also, Shallan talked of Soulcaster fabrials that are basically universal Soulcasters, capable of turning anything into anything else, and there seems to be an implication that such a Soulcaster only needs three gemstones: a smokestone, a ruby, and a diamond. That would only make sense if there is such a thing as Soulcasting property-mixing.

Edited June 19, 2014 by skaa

[jefftucker0525]

It could be that certain gemstones are more attuned to a certain essence, which makes it easier to use them to Soulcast something, however any stone can be used, just with a larger drain on the Stormlight in that stone which makes it easier for that stone to crack under the strain of Soulcasting.

[11thorderknight]

As others (including the OP) have pointed out, the ten Polestones are strongly connected to their Soulcasting properties. I sometimes wonder, though, if it's possible to combine two or more gemstones to produce a result normally associated with a totally different gemstone. Like, what if you can use both ruby and garnet in a single Soulcasting command to turn something into steam (normally a property of smokestone)? In the case of the ship in WoR, perhaps the combination of all the gemstones activated by Shallan's Soulcasting somehow added up to just plain water.

Also, Shallan talked of Soulcaster fabrials that are basically universal Soulcasters, capable of turning anything into anything else, and there seems to be an implication that such a Soulcaster only needs three gemstones: a smokestone, a ruby, and a diamond. That would only make sense if there is such a thing as Soulcasting property-mixing.

The universal simply accepts any of the ten stones, and will produce the essence those stones represent. Jasnah happens to keep hers loaded with diamond smokestone and ruby, but those are not specifically necessary. Shallan once makes a point of buying the matching stones for her broken/fake Soulcaster. Jasnah simply keeps those three stones in hers because those are the three things she Soulcasts most often (at least publicly).

The other reason the stones are each associated with a Soulcasting property in the Ars Arcanum is probably because Soulcasters are the only fabrials left from the Silver Epoch, and therefore the Essence relationship of each stone is seen as being tied to Soulcasting, rather than to fabrial effects in general. Remember, it's an in-world document.

[name_here]

I'm actually not entirely convinced universal Soulcaster fabrials even exist. For one thing, we're told there are non-universal Soulcasters, and Jasnah's Soulcaster is supposedly particularly attuned to the Essences of the stones installed. Plus, fabrials seem to have very simple interfaces that wouldn't readily permit Soulcasting any material. I suspect that the "universal" fabrials are just three separate specific fabrials welded together and the Ardents just use other Soulcasters to make different transformations and lie about it.

 

I take the garnets as the strongest evidence for specific gem associations. Shallan's first Soulcasting used a garnet to create blood in preference to using the larger gems on the Soulcaster, and Jasnah went looking for a garnet specifically. While concealing her universal Soulcasting ability would be wise, she was also in quite a rush and there were no qualified witnesses. She could have just lied.