Foci of Adonalsium

[Dakhor Savant]

So I was looking through the most recent Ars Arcanum and I started to think on the Essence, Focus and Soulcasting. Something stood out to me that I had been thinking for a long while but this chart provides a better base to work from. I theorize that each Shard has their own focus to which they manifest powers. Some have similar traits to the others but one distinct Focus.

 

For example it is plain to see that Preservation prefers metal you burn metal to activate, you store in metal to hold and each power is stolen through a Metal Spikes. But where does that put Ruin.

Ruin has Blood as his focus. It is stated that a blood is needed in Hemalurgy as well as most of the spike need to touch the heart. More than that Ruin and preservation work together provides a reason why all of Preservations powers are past down hereditarily.

 

Next is Sel I believe Skai/ Dominions Focus is Bone that is why the Dakhor monks have their symbols pressed directly on their bones. Also the only power that seems to have nothing to do with the Dor is Bloodsealing. They hunt the adversary down with skeletal warriors/beast. Why not shadow, spirits, or even creatures made of blood? Also Dominion seems to restrict people gain power based on the geological position which match with the Rock/Tallus aspect of the focus

Aona/ Devotion is a little hard to place I am thinking maybe soul/ spark/ fire as their power is to draw symbols in light and they seemed to gain their great power from Elantris which is in the shape of Roa which means Spirit/ Essence.

 

I believe that Cultivation and Endowment are inverses of the other.  At this time I think Endowment is exhalation to breathe out and grant power. Cultivation then is Inhalation breathing in Stormlight to grant the user power.

I think Honor would have Luentia(light)/ eyes/ Quartz as his focus. Light being Storm light Eyes being how one is recognized as his chosen and Quartz in the way the Shardblades look. Not real sure on that but It seems to fit

 

Last and most important is Odium. I believe Odium’s focus is the body and flesh for a multitude of reasons. First the Parshendi are the close thing we have to people of Odium and they have the ability to change their form, mostly their flesh. We have seen that the change can be forced on the parshmen which also shows odium and his ability to control the flesh. I believe he has influences else were such as in the bestial look in the Dakhor after he managed to shatter dominion and devotion.

 

So that is me theory I guess I didn't really have any spoilers in there but I wanted to put that just in case. So someone please comment tell me if you think it is interesting, I missed something, I’m way off, if you have something to add to, or change about what I said.

[Oudeis he/him]

1. Hemalurgy is of Ruin, so his focus is Metal, just like Preservation. I believe, and I believe it's the general consensus, that every world has a focus, not every Shard.

 

2. Why does Bloodsealing have nothing to do with the Dor? Where, then, does it get its power from?

 

3. You ask why not shadow, spirit, or blood... Mr. Sanderson tries to follow the laws of physics when he can. Bones are already a physical object, something constructed in a way to provide bipedal movement and arms for attacking. Animating it would, theoretically, be easier than trying to provide the power to force blood or spirit into a physical, solid, specific shape which could be sharpened and used as a weapon.

 

Everything else you say is even more speculative.

 

All this aside, you may have a good underlying point. There are 10 Shardworlds, and according to the Stormlight Ars Arcana, 10 essenses. We know the focus on Scadrial is metal, and it seems very likely that the focus on Roshar is Crystal, and the case could be made for the Nalthian Focus to be air. I think we don't know enough about Sel to say what the focus is there, though I'm gonna browse this list and get ideas. It would be very, very interesting if the focus on every Shardworld were one of the 10 Essences of Roshar... has this idea been expressed elsewhere?

[Moogle]

2. Why does Bloodsealing have nothing to do with the Dor? Where, then, does it get its power from?

 

Just to back this up, there's this WoB on Selish magic:

Windrunner17 ()

Why does Scadrial, which has two Shards, only have three manifestations of investiture, (Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy) but Sel, also with two Shards, has five manifestations of investiture (AonDor, Dakhor, ChayShan, Forgery, and Bloodsealing)?

Brandon Sanderson

Sel's magics are much more regionalized than Scadrial's. Each area has its own manifestation, but they're all actually the same magic. So really there is one magic on Sel—much as Windrunning and Lightweaving on Roshar are kind of different magics, but also kind of the same.

(source)

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

Don't be so quick to dismiss this. The idea is hardly disproved even if a few details might be off.

 

1. Hemalurgy is of Ruin, so his focus is Metal, just like Preservation. I believe, and I believe it's the general consensus, that every world has a focus, not every Shard.

What he's saying here is that with the Blood focus of Ruin, that the metal spikes are far more likely due to the association of the powers  being stolen than of Hemalurgy itself. We know that Hemalurgy can potentially steal other traits on other worlds but don't know how. Would perhaps a gemstone spike on Roshar not be appropriate? In that case, the common focus between both situations is Blood, not Metal. Hemalurgy is still of Ruin even if it is practiced off of Scadrial without metal necessarily involved.

[Moogle]

I'm not so sure blood is involved entirely - Vin's earring hardly touches her blood, and Wax similarly does not start bleeding every time he sticks his in. WoB is that it's just necessary for it to touch blood in order to reach the soul.
 

Here is the question:
Why are invested objects like metalminds and Hemalurgic spikes able to be Pushed and Pulled on, but Shardblades and Shardplate, which are also invested, are not susceptible to Pushing and Pulling?
His answer was complex, I took notes, but didn't get recorded audio. I am going to try to explain as best as my notes and memory support.

BRANDON SANDERSON (paraphrased)
There were a few concepts that he outlined in answering this question.
1.) The ability to push/pull an invested object is predicated to the amount/power of the investiture
2.) Further, invested objects also gain resistance to pulling/pushing based on proximity to soul possibly via the soul. An example given is that A hemalurgic spike touches the blood of the person, and from there is now part of both the Spiritual Realm and the Physical Realm. This provides what Brandon termed a kind of "soul interference," based on its proximity to the soul.

 

Master_Moridin
1. What is the relationship between blood and the Spiritual Realm? (Since Hemalurgy needs blood to graft the sDNA in a spike into someone else's sDNA)

Brandon Sanderson
The blood being in motion is part of it.

 

Kandra, who do not have blood, can receive spikes. I don't think blood is the focus, necessarily. (And if it was, I would assume it would have something to do with the various metals in the blood.)

[Curiosity he/him]

Well, you must also consider that the blood is crucial in the process of Investing the spike as well, not just the application of it. 

 

 

 

Hemalurgy, it is called, because of the connection to blood. It is not a coincidence, I believe, that death is always involved in the transfer of powers via Hemalurgy. Marsh once described it as a "messy" process. Not the adjective I would have chosen. It's not disturbing enough.

 

HoA Chapter 13 Epigraph

[Oudeis he/him]

Don't be so quick to dismiss this. The idea is hardly disproved even if a few details might be off.

 

 

 

What he's saying here is that with the Blood focus of Ruin, that the metal spikes are far more likely due to the association of the powers  being stolen than of Hemalurgy itself. We know that Hemalurgy can potentially steal other traits on other worlds but don't know how. Would perhaps a gemstone spike on Roshar not be appropriate? In that case, the common focus between both situations is Blood, not Metal. Hemalurgy is still of Ruin even if it is practiced off of Scadrial without metal necessarily involved.

 

The quote, which I will try to find, is that the spike must touch the blood during the act of donation. If the flesh heals around the spike thereafter, that's fine, but the actual act of donation requires blood. When Vin or Wax first had their ear pierced, the spike touched the blood, and the bond was formed. From that point on, mere contact with the bindpoint was enough.

 

The metal is the focus for non-allomantic/feruchemical traits, too. An Iron Spike steals Human Strength. It's possible a "Crystal Spike" would steal a Surge, but I'm reasonably sure hemalurgy, like the other Arts of Scadrial, is and will always be centered on metal.

 

And I'm not dismissing the idea general idea. I think a lot of the details are off, I think that there is one focus per world, rather than one focus per shard (if only because there are ten materials, and ten worlds, but sixteen shards), but I personally am behind the general idea that these are a list of all the foci.

 

 

I'm not so sure blood is involved entirely - Vin's earring hardly touches her blood, and Wax similarly does not start bleeding every time he sticks his in. WoB is that it's just necessary for it to touch blood in order to reach the soul.

 

 

 

Kandra, who do not have blood, can receive spikes. I don't think blood is the focus, necessarily. (And if it was, I would assume it would have something to do with the various metals in the blood.)

 

Why don't you think kandra have blood?

[Moogle]

Why don't you think kandra have blood?

 

TenSoon's description of himself in prison is rather notable:

His body was little more than a grouping of translucent muscles—like a mass of large snails or slugs, all connected, somewhat more malleable than the body of a mollusk. With concentration, he could dissolve one of the muscles and either meld it with another one, or make something new. Yet, without a skeleton to use, he was all but impotent.

...

Hooks came next. They looped around his muscles, grabbing him and ripping his flesh as they pulled him out of the pit. [Mooglenote: no mention of blood]

...

The acid stink grew sharper. Were they stirring it? TenSoon moved quickly, forming around the skull, filling it. He already had some dissolved flesh stored inside of an organ-like pouch. He brought this out, oozing it around the skull, quickly making skin. He left the eyes alone, working on lungs, forming a tongue, ignoring lips for the moment.

...

It hit him. It seared the muscles on one side of his body, washing over his bulk, dissolving it. [Mooglenote: Still no mention of blood, which I'd except there to be. Just strange muscles seems to be their form.

 

They have translucent muscles, but they still have Blessings. Mistwraiths, too, are translucent - blood is red, and thus would show up in a translucent body. Maybe they have something like blood, but I don't think they have blood in the human sense.

 

But this is in their normal form. When they are in human form, they do create blood. When TenSoon is injured:

The Watcher stood for a few more moments—wreathed, as always, in the curling mists. Then he turned, jumping away into the night. Vin let him go; she had to deal with OreSeur.

She stumbled over to him, then paused. His nondescript body—in a servant’s trousers and shirt—had been pelted with coins, and blood seeped from the several wounds.

He looked up at her. “What?” he asked.

“I didn’t expect there to be blood.”

OreSeur snorted. “You probably didn’t expect me to feel pain either.”

 

Still, I don't expect Mistwraiths create blood pre-spiking, and that's the part that's important: there has to be blood initially when a human is spiked. Kandra break this rule.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Moogle

[Oudeis he/him]

None of that is evidence. Blood does not have to be red, it can easily be translucent like the rest of it. Even if it's not chemically the same thing as human blood, it's still a kind of blood.

 

Mentioning an injury without mentioning blood isn't uncommon in the books. Vin is constantly getting cut on arms, cheeks, all over the place, without mention of blood. When half of Kelsier's face is caved in, I don't believe they mention blood.

 

Mistwraiths are biologically viable beings. There is, because there must be, some system for nutrients, oxygen, and waste to be moved around the body to where it has to go. It might be chemically different, but the balance of probability is that mistwraiths and kandra have blood.

[Moogle]

None of that is evidence. Blood does not have to be red, it can easily be translucent like the rest of it. Even if it's not chemically the same thing as human blood, it's still a kind of blood.

 

I agree that this is a strong possibility, hence why I said:

Maybe they have something like blood, but I don't think they have blood in the human sense.

 

Brandon specifically notes that the blood "being in motion" is important. Kandra don't have hearts, so I find it incredibly unlikely that their "blood" is in motion constantly. I think it's quite likely they are relying on some sort of passive diffusal method to get rid of their waste/transfer nutrients - again, this makes Hemalurgy a bit weird for them.  Also possible would be that they do a sort of system of veins, and their muscle movements cause their "blood" to circulate. It's hard to do an actual analysis of the kandra, because they're magical creatures and break regular rules.

Edited October 1, 2014 by Moogle

[Oudeis he/him]

Kandra don't have hearts,

 

...I assume you know what my next question is going to be...

[Moogle]

...I assume you know what my next question is going to be...

 

Description of a mistwraith:

The creature had smoky, translucent skin, and Vin could see its bones. It had dozens upon dozens of limbs, and each one looked as if it had come from a different animal. There were human hands, bovine hooves, canine haunches, and others she couldn’t identify. The mismatched limbs let the creature walk—though it was more of a shamble. It crawled along slowly, moving like an awkward centipede. Many of the limbs, in fact, didn’t even look functional—they jutted from the creature’s flesh in a twisted, unnatural fashion.

...

Its body was bulbous and elongated. It wasn’t just a blob, though…there was a strange logic to its form. It had a distinct skeletal structure, and—squinting through tin-enhanced eyes—she thought she could make out translucent muscles and sinew wrapping the bones. The creature flexed odd jumbles of muscles as it moved, and appeared to have a dozen different ribcages. Along the main body, arms and legs hung at unnerving angles. And heads—she counted six. Despite the translucent skin, she could make out a horse head sitting beside that of a deer. Another head turned toward her, and she could see its human skull. The head sat atop a long spinal cord attached to some kind of animal torso, which was in turn attached to a jumble of strange bones.

 

Vin is studying its anatomy in detail to the point where she can make out sinews and muscles connecting the skeleton. Nowhere is a heart or other organs described.

 

According to WoB, kandra don't even have centralized brains. They have a sort of decentralized nervous system:

zas678 (Reddit.com)

TenSoon wonders, and I wonder too- How can Kandra think and be sentient without Brains? Doesn't the body need a physical coordinator to relay between the Physical and Cognitive realm? Or do the spikes do a good enough job with that?

Brandon Sanderson (Reddit.com)

I imagine Kandra having a non-centralized nervous system, with brain power spread through their bodies. Well, non-centralized is probably the wrong way to say it. They have lobes of thought and memory attached to muscles here and there, and don't have a single 'brain.' They certainly have brain-like material, though.

 

(No, I don't know how this works when acid dissolved half of TenSoon and he didn't lose any mental ability. Magic.)

 

Their organs, at a guess, seem to be distributed evenly around their body - which makes sense, given how malleable and morphable they are.

 

Also as weak evidence: TenSoon never mentions his heart beating faster when he's anxious or anything.

 

Overall, I find it incredibly unlikely that they have hearts. Given how their system of muscles works, a sort of valve system like human veins + motion every once in a while would be a pretty good idea to get their inner fluids flowing, I think.

 

Given that kandra seem wholly unlikely humans in anatomy, I find the claim that kandra would have organs similar to humans to be the position that requires evidence. We should assume they do not unless we find otherwise.

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

Given that kandra seem wholly unlikely humans in anatomy, I find the claim that kandra would have organs similar to humans to be the position that requires evidence. We should assume they do not unless we find otherwise.

Here utterly agreed. I have never bought the argument that Kandra have human-style organs or other bodily systems. It seems incredibly incongruous with their ability to change themselves as well as to absorb and digest food with their entire bodies. If their whole body exudes an acid strong enough to dissolve and digest meat, then it would certainly damage their own internal organs if they were there. Granted they could have incredibly thick protective layers around those organs but it seems far more likely that they simply don't have and don't need them.

[Oudeis he/him]

You're absolutely right, exactly like how the potent hydrochloric acid produced by the human stomach in order to digest food eats its way through a human's entire body, proving that humans don't have internal organs, either.

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

You're absolutely right, exactly like how the potent hydrochloric acid produced by the human stomach in order to digest food eats its way through a human's entire body, proving that humans don't have internal organs, either.

The potent hydrochloric acid produced by the stomach is contained within a single organ specifically designed to produce and contain it. There are several rather serious medical conditions that result in that potent acid escaping that containment and causing a great deal of damage to the other organs, possibly ending in death or serious trauma. 

 

Kandra excrete this acid from their entire bodies as they absorb their food directly. We don't. You're comparing apples to penguins and making my point for me rather nicely.