So...what happened to yellow?

[Werewolff Studios]

After finishing up Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, I remembered this WOB from the livestream last year:

Quote

Kingdaughter613

The hion colors are two of the inks used in printers, magenta and cyan. Was this intentional?

Brandon Sanderson

They are. Yes.

Kingdaughter613

If so, what happened to yellow?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question. RAFO.

Secret Project #3 Reveal and Livestream (March 22, 2022)

As far as I'm aware, we didn't get any real answers to how yellow ties into the hijo or the hion (though feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here).

So, I'm curious: what do you all think happened? 

[RedBlue]

I think what happened is that yellow was never supposed to be prominent in the setting as it doesn’t fit the aesthetic, and sometimes reading too much into off-the-cuff WOBs can give the impression that there’s a mystery somewhere when there actually isn’t.

[Dalinar_Kholin]

On 7/4/2023 at 5:47 AM, RedBlue said:

I think what happened is that yellow was never supposed to be prominent in the setting as it doesn’t fit the aesthetic, and sometimes reading too much into off-the-cuff WOBs can give the impression that there’s a mystery somewhere when there actually isn’t.

I agree that people here read into things a lot, but there definitely is a possibility yellow will come into play later considering there is an entire planet out there he hasn't explored. Wouldn't be crazy if the magic there was somehow connected to the hion lines.

[Pagerunner]

There's yellow on the final cover, in Yumi and Painter's bodies, that wasn't there in the preliminary cover mockup. I'm wondering if the human population of the planet is representative of the missing portion; both the hion and the spirits need humanity to shape them. And humanity also is the black of the shroud, which gives us all four CMYK colors.

Granted, light and ink work completely opposite. Light is additive, ink is subtractive, so cyan and magenta lights aren't actually fundamental the way red/green/blue lights are used. So overall, I'm leaning towards there being no cohesive magical color explanation, and that maybe it was an out-of-universe inspiration (like a printer test sheet that smeared?) of magenta and cyan looking cool together.

I'm actually gonna tweak the transcription a little bit to clarify it. Looking at the quote of how it appears on Arcanum right now, it's a little ambiguous if the "yes" is in response to the first or second sentence of the question. But it's actually more of a back-and-forth, so I'm gonna make sure it accurately portrays that. The "yes" is undeniably in response to "was this intentional?"

[Yumiya]

I believe that yellow plays a part in the magic of Komashi, and not just the UTol system as a whole. The whole tie to color theory and art as a whole is too strong to ignore, when art is a central theme of the book. Throw in the use on the final cover, while not proving anything, enhances the argument that yellow is present. 

If we take a look at how Hion Lines are produced, we can see a possible explanation. The machine is taking in investiture, or soul from spirits. During this process, it is creating lines of energy and powering itself. Two lines plus some power consumed. The lines are energy. So it would be reasonable to assume that the machine is splitting the investiture into three parts, consuming the yellow, and allowing the cyan and magenta lines to flow. This clearly hurts the spirits, though one would assume that having part of yourself used this way against your will would indeed cause pain. 

Now, when yoki-hijo do their art, they are attracting the spirits and asking for assistance. The spirits agree to help and so, don't experience pain. Nor are they trapped. Additionally, this is more effective than the mechanical version because part of the power does not have to be diverted to the machine. Interestingly, yoki-hijo have spirits split in two, but a third force is applied to the stones, the yoki-hijo, strengthening the idea that spirits have three parts. When the spirits recombine, the force holding the rocks in place also vanishes, suggesting that it returns to the spirit as a part of the original whole. 

 

So my theory is that, when yoki-hijos call spirits and makes requests, they supply some investiture to allow the change to take place. The spirit then turns the request into an Intent and split creating twin statues with the desired effect. The potential energy from that split is then applied to the stones, making them stable. When the machine summons spirits, it does not supply any investiture. The investiture is converted into three bands of energy (yellow, cyan and magenta), but the yellow is not seen, as it is used to make the conversion possible. This is also why there is no yellow band even after the machine is destroyed. Some spirits stay hion lines, but there is no yoki-hijo to supply investiture to make this possible, so some of the spirits investiture is used instead. Note that you do see yellow (sorta) when Yumi makes the light. It is a friendly orange and dark blue. There would be yellow in that orange. Notice that when you combine orange and blue lights, you get white light, or light made of all the colors, nothing left out.

[Underwater_Worldhopper]

21 minutes ago, Yumiya said:

I believe that yellow plays a part in the magic of Komashi, and not just the UTol system as a whole. The whole tie to color theory and art as a whole is too strong to ignore, when art is a central theme of the book. Throw in the use on the final cover, while not proving anything, enhances the argument that yellow is present. 

If we take a look at how Hion Lines are produced, we can see a possible explanation. The machine is taking in investiture, or soul from spirits. During this process, it is creating lines of energy and powering itself. Two lines plus some power consumed. The lines are energy. So it would be reasonable to assume that the machine is splitting the investiture into three parts, consuming the yellow, and allowing the cyan and magenta lines to flow. This clearly hurts the spirits, though one would assume that having part of yourself used this way against your will would indeed cause pain. 

Now, when yoki-hijo do their art, they are attracting the spirits and asking for assistance. The spirits agree to help and so, don't experience pain. Nor are they trapped. Additionally, this is more effective than the mechanical version because part of the power does not have to be diverted to the machine. Interestingly, yoki-hijo have spirits split in two, but a third force is applied to the stones, the yoki-hijo, strengthening the idea that spirits have three parts. When the spirits recombine, the force holding the rocks in place also vanishes, suggesting that it returns to the spirit as a part of the original whole. 

 

So my theory is that, when yoki-hijos call spirits and makes requests, they supply some investiture to allow the change to take place. The spirit then turns the request into an Intent and split creating twin statues with the desired effect. The potential energy from that split is then applied to the stones, making them stable. When the machine summons spirits, it does not supply any investiture. The investiture is converted into three bands of energy (yellow, cyan and magenta), but the yellow is not seen, as it is used to make the conversion possible. This is also why there is no yellow band even after the machine is destroyed. Some spirits stay hion lines, but there is no yoki-hijo to supply investiture to make this possible, so some of the spirits investiture is used instead. Note that you do see yellow (sorta) when Yumi makes the light. It is a friendly orange and dark blue. There would be yellow in that orange. Notice that when you combine orange and blue lights, you get white light, or light made of all the colors, nothing left out.

That's a great theory, it makes a lot of sense that the Father Machine would be feeding itself through the third, yellow Hion line. We also see that Yoki-Hijo give up some of their Investiture with each stacking, and need time to rest and recuperate to regenerate that Investiture later, so devices made of Hijo summoned by them are more powerful and last longer, as the Hijo's Investiture is devoted fully to making their device work. Over time, the Yoki-Hijo's Investiture is being used up to maintain a Connection to the Physical Realm allowing the Hijo to manifest, and over time that Connection degrades, making the Hijo devices deteriorate before the Connection eventually degrades away entirely, and the devices stop working. Once the Hijo start manifesting the Hion themselves, there would still be an absence of a Yellow Hion Line, since it's used up to form the Connection. That does mean that if a Yoki-Hijo were to summon Hijo as Hion, there would be a third, yellow Hion Line.

[Werewolff Studios]

1 hour ago, Yumiya said:

So my theory is that, when yoki-hijos call spirits and makes requests, they supply some investiture to allow the change to take place. The spirit then turns the request into an Intent and split creating twin statues with the desired effect. The potential energy from that split is then applied to the stones, making them stable. When the machine summons spirits, it does not supply any investiture. The investiture is converted into three bands of energy (yellow, cyan and magenta), but the yellow is not seen, as it is used to make the conversion possible. This is also why there is no yellow band even after the machine is destroyed. Some spirits stay hion lines, but there is no yoki-hijo to supply investiture to make this possible, so some of the spirits investiture is used instead. Note that you do see yellow (sorta) when Yumi makes the light. It is a friendly orange and dark blue. There would be yellow in that orange. Notice that when you combine orange and blue lights, you get white light, or light made of all the colors, nothing left out.

I really like this theory - that the yellow band of the hijo was being used to power the machine directly, and also ties into the mechanics of the yoki-hijo themselves. Very neat stuff!

[Dwmaster204]

Ok, how do you explain the spirts liking historic dramas?  Where is the investiture or  Connection coming from?

[Firesong]

Just now, Dwmaster204 said:

Ok, how do you explain the spirts liking historic dramas?  Where is the investiture or  Connection coming from?

They are sentient beings, that is about it. Sentient beings like entertainment. Look at Spren, they like doing things to entertain themselves. 

[Dwmaster204]

Well yes, but how are they still some how powering the Hion Lines.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Dwmaster204

[Yumiya]

2 hours ago, Dwmaster204 said:

Ok, how do you explain the spirts liking historic dramas?  Where is the investiture or  Connection coming from?

The same way that spirits like rocks being stacked. They are attracted to the art in both, and agree to perform a service. The investiture is still coming from the spirits like it did when they were being pulled by the machine. The difference is that they agree to do this, so it does not trap them the same way the machine did. They could decide to stop being hion lines, but probably won't as long as the people of the planet keep making tv shows.

[Underwater_Worldhopper]

15 hours ago, Yumiya said:

The same way that spirits like rocks being stacked. They are attracted to the art in both, and agree to perform a service. The investiture is still coming from the spirits like it did when they were being pulled by the machine. The difference is that they agree to do this, so it does not trap them the same way the machine did. They could decide to stop being hion lines, but probably won't as long as the people of the planet keep making tv shows.

I think the question is what's happening to the Yellow Hion Line in the Docudrama-summoned Hijo. With the Father Machine, it's being used to power the Machine itself, but where's the Yellow Hion in the Docudrama Hijo? If it's being used up, what's it doing to the Hion Viewer that requires an entire band of Yellow Hion?

I think they just use the third band to fuel their own Connection to the Physical Realm, anchoring themselves to the Hion-Viewer. 

[Yumiya]

5 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

With the Father Machine, it's being used to power the Machine itself, but where's the Yellow Hion in the Docudrama Hijo? If it's being used up, what's it doing to the Hion Viewer that requires an entire band of Yellow Hion?

I think they just use the third band to fuel their own Connection to the Physical Realm, anchoring themselves to the Hion-Viewer. 

Exactly what I was trying to get at. To split a spirit, it takes investiture. When the yoki-hijo does it, that power comes from the yoki-hijo, which is why Yumi feels drained afterwards. The machine cannot supply that power, so it takes it from the spirit, using the yellow band. Now that there is no machine and the spirits are choosing to be hion lines without any assistance from yoki-hijos, they are also using that yellow band to maintain their form, so still no yellow.  Edit: At this point I think they are choosing the color scheme as that is what they are use to. They probably could choose to use a little of all three or a different pair if they wanted to. End Edit. They are not so much anchoring themselves to the viewers, as becoming the energy that powers the viewers.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Yumiya
Additional information

[digitalbusker]

The idea of a third yellow hion line has some problems:

* The other instances of things being powered by hion are like electricity--powered by the flow of energy between the two lines. The idea of a third line that just goes into the father machine and stops there is qualitatively different.

* The spirits don't split into three parts in other instances.

* The hion lines that we see generated independent of the father machine (priming the prototype, Yumi and Painter almost touching hands at the carnival) are not described as having a third, yellow line.

[theforteminem]

I really like this idea of the yellow as the third, invisible hion line a lot, not just for the reasons already mentioned but also because of how the hion is essentially investiture electricity, and in real life electrical devices there's usually a third wire, not just a positive and a negative one. that third wire is the grounding wire, so to have the investiture version of the grounding wire be the force anchoring the stone towers to the ground, making them incapable of falling over has a certain amount of poetic sense.

[teknopathetic]

I thought the yellow was on the other planet, and the yellow was managing to pierce the shroud (making the planet visible like a star). 

[Brgst13]

 New relevant WoB:

Quote

Cheyenne Sedai

We only know the people of Komashi as having Investiture from Virtuosity, why does their Investiture seem to be split into the two streams of power known as hion? Is this something unique to Virtuosity as a Shard, or just how it happens to manifest on Komashi?

 

Brandon Sanderson

 

Yes. This will be a theme you will see wherever Virtuosity is involved. So yeah. hmmmmm interesting. This will be a theme. There is a sub theme to this in the Cosmere. The Push and Pull. The opposites should be echoing through the magic systems. It is more expressed in Virtuosity than the others but do keep in mind that the Yin Yang sort of thing is there in the Cosmere as well in the general magic system, but more pronounced with Virtuosity, shall we say.

 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/518/#e16165

Seems that yellow was never part of the picture.