Speculation: Are fabrials a thing of Odium?

[Andrew C]

Fabrials, including those used in soulcasting (called soulcasters in world) appear to involve trapping a spren into a gem, and putting it to work.

 

In-world, characters do not (with the exception of those with Nahel bonds) treat spren as sentient. Fabrials are seen as science, not as coercing another being into slavery. Those spren we have seen generally sit on a scale from 'mostly Honor' (Syl) through to 'mostly Cultivation' (spren associated with nature), to 'mostly Odium' (voidspren).

 

The Nahel bond appears to me to be Honor's way of interacting with spren. You pledge an oath to the spren, and this forms a symbiotic relationship unless you betray the oath (when the spren suffers or dies depending upon the severity of the betrayal).

 

I am going to guess that the Parshendi's bonding of spren to select forms is a thing of Cultivation. 

 

Fabrials look to me to be Odium's way of interacting with spren. You capture the spren, coerce it into doing your bidding, then discard it until it is needed again.

 

 

Minor Mistborn spoilers ahead:

There has been a Brandon comment (no link sorry) that 'Allomancy was a thing of Preservation, Hemalurgy of Ruin, and Ferruchemistry a thing of both, and on other worlds with multiple shards, similar things would develop.

 

The thoughts of what an honorspren could be forced to do, if it were locked into a fabrial, are quite worrying...

[Kobold King]

This makes quite a lot of sense to me. Three different categories of spren, each interacting with humans in a way fitting with their original Shard's Intent.

 

I'll be sure to upvote later once my quota refills.

[kadolin]

From what I understood Odium is an opposing force to Honor & Cultivation. Not entirely sure if Cultivation is a neutral force but it seems to align itself to Honor.

 

And according to WoB, most sprens are part Honor part Cultivation. And there are sprens that are from Odium, as well as ancient sprens that exist way before the arrival of those 3 forces.

 

Parshendi's bonding of spren are likely of Odium, at least for Stormform. Not too sure about the other forms.

 

Most of the sprens have not commented on Fabrials or expressed any concern of it, which doesn't say much in itself, but at least they do not seem to hate it. The oathgate, an artifact of the KR (opposing forces of Odium), is an ancient fabrial, so perhaps fabrials are more neutral.

[TheBrian]

It's my understanding of the Spren that they aren't really sentient in the physical realm unless they form a Nahel bond with a human.

 

This explains why only those Spren bonded to a Radiant speak.  Per Pattern, the Spren lack something that they can only get from humans.  This also matches with what the Listener epigraph reveals about Spren abandoning them to join with humans instead.  I believe that most, if not all, of what makes Spren into people instead of semi-conscious representations of natural force comes from the humans.

 

So fabrials would be less like enslaving a person and more yoking an ox to a plow.  "Killing" a conscious Spren and then using its sword-shaped corpse would be much more like slavery.

[Edgedancer]

From my understanding Fabrials are less a magic system associated with a Shard but more of a way to access an already established system, similar to how the southern Scardrians apparently

have a way to mechanicaly use Allomancy.

Making them either neutral or associated with the Shard the magic originally belongs to.

[soulcastJam]

I like this idea, but I'm not sure it's supported by the text.

 

 

The Nahel bond appears to me to be Honor's way of interacting with spren. You pledge an oath to the spren, and this forms a symbiotic relationship unless you betray the oath (when the spren suffers or dies depending upon the severity of the betrayal).

Also, is the Nahel bond of Honor?  It seems to be more of the spren since they made it up in response to the heralds.

[Ketek]

Good idea, but I think it's unlikely, since the Radiants themselves have used fabrials to utilize the Regrowth surge. Nalan himself used it on Szeth. In light of that, I don't think it's of Odium, and Edgedancer's likening of it to the southern Scadrians' usage of Allomancy sounds more likely.

 

I like this idea, but I'm not sure it's supported by the text.

 

Also, is the Nahel bond of Honor?  It seems to be more of the spren since they made it up in response to the heralds.

 

The spren are of Honor and Cultivation (the ones that can form a Nahel bond anyway) so it's probably of both; Honor forges bonds, Cultivation nurtures, and symbiotic relationships are pretty common in nature, I think.

[Andrew C]

I like this idea, but I'm not sure it's supported by the text.

 

Also, is the Nahel bond of Honor?  It seems to be more of the spren since they made it up in response to the heralds.

 

Open to being proven wrong, but the centrality of oaths really pushes me to believe that this (along with the Oathpact) are examples of Honor's 'magic'.

[Andrew C]

From what I understood Odium is an opposing force to Honor & Cultivation. Not entirely sure if Cultivation is a neutral force but it seems to align itself to Honor.

 

They are three different Shards of Adonalisium.

 

But the holders of Honor (Tavanast) and Cultivation (a woman many suspect was named Reya of which nothing is known) were romantically linked before they picked up the Shards, and their Shardic Intents are at least somewhat compatible, unlike (Minor Mistborn spoiler)

Preservation and Ruin, who fight all the time because their intents are opposing

. So they can get along reasonably well even if they do not always agree. Odium's Shardic Intent is something along the lines of Hatred - which will often clash with the other two intents.

 

That's not to say that Odium and Honor could not work together at time (forming something like Wrath) or Odium and Cultivation (something like Discord). But any such working together would be (probably) temporary.

 

In short, it's not 'Honor good, Odium evil, Cultivation neutral', although this will often be the case if we view the world through our concepts of morality. At least in my personal morality and with what information I believe about Roshar, I would argue that the Oathpact was not a 'good' act but an 'evil' one (albeit one where the ends justify the 'evil' means). Still sucks for the Heralds.

[WeiryWriter]

Cultivation (a woman many suspect was named Reya of which nothing is known)

Minor note, Brandon has explicitly shot down that theory. Everything else in your post is pretty spot on I would say though.

[kadolin]

But the holders of Honor (Tavanast) and Cultivation (a woman many suspect was named Reya of which nothing is known) were romantically linked before they picked up the Shards, and their Shardic Intents are at least somewhat compatible, unlike (Minor Mistborn spoiler). So they can get along reasonably well even if they do not always agree. Odium's Shardic Intent is something along the lines of Hatred - which will often clash with the other two intents.

That's not to say that Odium and Honor could not work together at time (forming something like Wrath) or Odium and Cultivation (something like Discord). But any such working together would be (probably) temporary.

In short, it's not 'Honor good, Odium evil, Cultivation neutral', although this will often be the case if we view the world through our concepts of morality. At least in my personal morality and with what information I believe about Roshar, I would argue that the Oathpact was not a 'good' act but an 'evil' one (albeit one where the ends justify the 'evil' means). Still sucks for the Heralds.

I know Honor(Tanavast/Almighty), Odium(Rayse) & Cultivation(unknown bearer) are 3 different shards of Adonalisium. I didnt define them to be good/evil but I stated I understood Odium & Honor as opposing forces, which is a fair assumption and similar to the shards in Mistborn.

We know Ruin & Preservation as opposing since it was explicity stated in the story, however Sazed was able to merge them.

If you could link some references regarding how the shards came to their possession or their shardic intent or their relation to one another, would be great, curious to read about those but didn't find much in coppermind/stormlightwiki.

So it is possible for the opposing shards to merge but under very special conditions, would we assume that the conditions are met as far as the story goes? Perhaps it comes down to understanding the intent of the shards or the bearers of the shards.

So back to topic, fabrials being technology created that manipulates the captured spren and stormlight. Does this technology tap into Odium's powers specifically? Or could it simply be the expected actions of the captured spren when it responds to stormlight. As far as I recall, it appears to be just technology or science. Perhaps the ancient fabrials work differently. (Using shardblades with healthy sprens)

Which makes me wonder about soulcasting fabrials, do the non-surgebinder users cross over to shadesmar?

Edited August 8, 2014 by kadolin

[Andrew C]

So back to topic, fabrials being technology created that manipulates the captured spren and stormlight. Does this technology tap into Odium's powers specifically? Or could it simply be the expected actions of the captured spren when it responds to stormlight. As far as I recall, it appears to be just technology or science. Perhaps the ancient fabrials work differently. (Using shardblades with healthy sprens)

Which makes me wonder about soulcasting fabrials, do the non-surgebinder users cross over to shadesmar?

 

 

Mistborn spoilers

Hemalurgy, the power of Ruin, 'just works' without any Shardic intervention. It's a very ruinous way of achieving a goal - sacrificing life and great power to gain smaller amounts of power that is then concentrated into one individual.

Locking a spren into a box strikes me as an 'odious' way to gain power for yourself that does not need direction intervention from Odium either.