Theory about the surgebinding chart

[Dofurion]

This is one of the theories that has been on my mind recently, and thanks to the #SayTheWords videos I was able to finish building it (specifically the Skybreakers video)
I also want to say that much of the initial foundation comes from another previous theory that was not my idea, but I could not find references to it in this or other cosmere forums that I follow.

To start, I think we all know that there is something hidden within the graph and how it is organized. And according to Brandon himself, that something does exist, but it is not as momentous as a great revelation [ref] So we are looking for something more or less small. So the first question would be: What information do we have so far?

• The Sprens who belong to the top of the chart seem to identify more with Honor (an example of this is the rivalry that Honorspren and Highspren have over those who are most like him)
• The Spren at the bottom of the chart, on the other hand, seem to have more respect for Cultivation.

Starting from the two previous points, the hypothesis could be postulated that the Sprens at the top of the chart were cultivated by Honor and those at the bottom by Cultivation.

Note: I use the term "cultivated" because according to a WoB it is the most accurate term, at least from the ones that were told to Brandon during the question [Ref]

But at the same time it seems that this was not enough, it seems that there was another secret.
Well then, we can look at something else. Perhaps classifying the Sprens that make up each of the orders according to whether they are emotional or natural?

1. Honorspren (Emotional)
2. Hightspren (Natural)
3. Ashspren (Natural)
4. Cultivationspren (Natural)
5. Mistspren (Natural)
6. Cryptic (Natural)
7. Inkspren (Natural)
8. Ligthspren (Natural)
9. Peakspren (Natural)
10. Godspren (?)

This doesn't seem to say much either, what if we also have the spren that make up the shardplate

1. Windspren (Natural)
2. Gravitationspren (Natural)
3. ?
4. Lifespren (Natural)
5. ?
6. Creationspren (Emotional)
7. Logicspren (Emotional)
8. ?
9. ?
10. ?

Well, this leaves us with nothing either... unless we are interpreting them wrong.
You see, this is the state my theory was in until the Skybreakers video came out and I realized one thing, Highspren are emotional type Sprens, not natural types:

Quote

Dan Wells

Sixth Epoch, Year 31, Palahesah 5.1.5.

Skybreakers

The Skybreakers are all about order. It's not about rules, or laws, or whatever the current or local king declares is right, though some Skybreakers do go too far in that direction if you ask me. It's about higher ideals of rightness, and concepts like justice and fairness, and as I said in the beginning, order. They sought to make the world as it should be, and not as the passing whims of power and money declare that it ought to be. Which, in practical terms, inevitably translates as, "the way that we the Skybreakers think it should be, which is orderly."

#SayTheWords (Jan. 3, 2024)

With this description I realized that this is exactly what the Highspren represent, they represent that feeling that everything must have a reason, the feeling of looking at the sky and feeling small in the world, of not having control and that a higher entity takes the reins. They are an emotional Spren, and also fits more with the theme of the order.

Which moves us from this:

To this:

I think we are already seeing a pattern, we have a symmetry between the Sprens in the upper right corner, with those in the lower left corner. And continuing with the Vorinist maxim that symmetry is sacred, it can be proposed that Lightsprens and Peaksprens are not natural Sprens, but are instead emotional.

And the truth is in the case of the Lightsprens we have something very curious to guide us by. Their insistence that they not be called Lightspren but instead be called Reachers. Could this be because they feel that the name Lightspren does not represent well what they represent? Given the context I am dealing with, Lightsprens may actually represent that feeling of satisfaction at having achieved a goal, or of getting out of a desperate situation. The light at the end of the tunnel so to speak.

As for peaksprens, the concept seems simpler to me but it is difficult to explain (I literally have a meme that could summarize it but in honor of seriousness I will refrain from posting it).
They would be the feeling of being alone and at a disadvantage in the face of adversity but at the same time believing that you can face and overcome it effectively (300 is a good reference for what I mean here).

Having already explained the above, the scheme would look like this:

So if you've gotten to this point you might be wondering, "ok exactly what do you want to tell me with all this?"

Well, my proposal is the following: At the time of cultivating the Radiant Sprens, Cultivation and Honor took a group of 4 emotional sprens and 4 natural sprens and distributed them in half, equal parts so that they would be influenced by their intent. That is what I think the chart reflects, the creation and distribution of said Sprens, therefore if we continue along this line the causal sprens of the Lightsprens and the Peakspren would be emotional sprens and that of the Ashspren would be a natural one.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room, the Mistsprens and the Bondsmiths sprens. In general, talking about these two is a problem for any theory, the first for reasons outside the book and the second for reasons within the book.

The Mistsprens were apparently cononized as radiant sprens after internal reviews at Dragonsteel, it may be because Brando realized that having many groups of sentient sprens without them being radiant is a problem or for other reasons, perhaps one day we will know, The point is that they were not intended to be part of an order.
As for the Bondsmiths sprens, they are too unique, so much so that depending even on their date of "birth" they can alter this theory quite a bit.
In my ideal version of this theory, the Mistsprens cousin sprens would be natural sprens that Cultivation tries to convert into emotional sprens and the Bondsmiths sprens would be emotional sprens that Honor tries to convert into natural sprens, perhaps trying to imitate themselves (Maybe using some Bindsprens as a base.)

Well, I hope you liked it and I would like to read the comments (There is a comment that I am almost sure you are going to make and I have a WoB prepared )

[alder24]

6 hours ago, Dofurion said:

• Honorspren (Emotional)

What emotion does Honorspren represent? Disagree. They are spren of the idea of Honor, spren of binding things together, of promises, oaths and nobility - not emotions. WoK ch 67:

Quote

“Perhaps not. You see, I’ve remembered what kind of spren I am.”
“Is this the time for it, Syl?”
“I bind things, Kaladin,” she said, turning and meeting his eyes. “I am honorspren. Spirit of oaths. Of promises. And of nobility.”

True Spren are Spren of ideas, Spren of fundamental forces of Cosmere. Spren of nature.

Spoiler

Questioner

When you're designing your magic systems, what is it you typically go into?

Brandon Sanderson

At that thing I said, brandonsanderson.com/writing/advice, I've got three essays on magic systems that can cover it way better than talking about it right now. That'll get you really into it. I would suggest those, they're called Sanderson's Laws, because I'm really humble. Asimov has them, and Clarke has them; so I can have them, there's not fantasy guys who have laws. So go read those, and they will talk you through how I develop a magic system.

Questioner

I was wondering about the background behind one of them. Stormlight.

Brandon Sanderson

Background behind the magic system in Stormlight traces back to my early history as a science major. I was a biochemistry major in college, before I jumped ship to English. And I've always been interested in the sciences quite a bit, and you'll see that in writing as a theme through my magics. The magic system of Roshar is based on the idea of the fundamental forces. I love the idea of the fundamental forces. This idea that there are certain interactions between parts of matter and energy that transcend everything else and rule how our entire world works was fascinating. So I wanted to come up with this idea of ten fundamental forces that worked with the magic system of the cosmere. Because there are extra forces, because there's weird stuff in the cosmere. Some of them are one-to-one. Gravitation is just one of the fundamental forces. And the strong and weak forces, I played with and came up with some things for that too, so you'll see that. But on the other hand, we've got things like transcending between the Physical Realm and the Cognitive Realm, which is a very cosmere-type thing. So, I built ten fundamental forces. And then I was playing with the idea (which I have in the cosmere) of pieces of energy becoming sapient. You've seen it happen in Elantris, you've seen it happen in Warbreaker. Way of Kings is one of the places I really wanted to show off how this works. So, the idea of the spren connecting a bond to the force that they're related to in certain ways, that just grew out of that.

Shadows of Self San Jose signing (Oct. 9, 2015)

 

6 hours ago, Dofurion said:

You see, this is the state my theory was in until the Skybreakers video came out and I realized one thing, Highspren are emotional type Sprens, not natural types:

With this description I realized that this is exactly what the Highspren represent, they represent that feeling that everything must have a reason, the feeling of looking at the sky and feeling small in the world, of not having control and that a higher entity takes the reins. They are an emotional Spren, and also fits more with the theme of the order.

The quote doesn't support this statement. First, it's about Skybreakers not Highspren, secondly those aren't emotions, those are abstract concepts.

[Dofurion]

11 hours ago, alder24 said:

What emotion does Honorspren represent? Disagree. They are spren of the idea of Honor, spren of binding things together, of promises, oaths and nobility - not emotions.

Well I think I have to clarify this. I use the differentiation of emotional or natural spren, because it is an in-world classification as reflected in the coppermind.
An emotional spren is any spren that represents an idea/thought that cannot be collected within the physical objects that surround us. (That's why Glorysprens, hungersprens and logicsprens fall into this category despite not being typical emotions)

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

What makes cryptics natural? They're "liespren", that seems very on the emotional side of things to me

[alder24]

9 hours ago, Dofurion said:

Well I think I have to clarify this. I use the differentiation of emotional or natural spren, because it is an in-world classification as reflected in the coppermind.
An emotional spren is any spren that represents an idea/thought that cannot be collected within the physical objects that surround us. (That's why Glorysprens, hungersprens and logicsprens fall into this category despite not being typical emotions)

Which brings you no closer to explaining why Honorspren and Highspren are spren of emotions. Binding things together is a natural phenomena, it's one of the fundamental forces of Cosmere that Honorspren represent - that's fully on the nature side of spren classification. All True Spren represent fundamental forces - Surges.

Edit: This is your definition of emotional spren, with which I disagree. Emotional spren respond to emotions.

 

7 hours ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

What makes cryptics natural? They're "liespren", that seems very on the emotional side of things to me

No, they aren't liespren, they are called liespren, they don't like that name. They like lies because they don’t understand them. Cryptics represent numbers (their names are literally numbers), the mathematics that govern the universe. 100% spren of nature. OB ch 97:

Quote

“We’re each a bit of power made manifest. We honorspren mimic Honor himself. You Cryptics mimic … weird stuff?”
“The fundamental underlying mathematics by which natural phenomena occur. Mmm. Truths that explain the fabric of existence.”

Edited March 10 by alder24

[Trusk'our he/him]

On 3/9/2024 at 12:07 AM, Dofurion said:

Well, I hope you liked it and I would like to read the comments (There is a comment that I am almost sure you are going to make and I have a WoB prepared )

Why not just give the WoB now to help solidify your point?

[Dofurion]

5 hours ago, Trusk'our said:

Why not just give the WoB now to help solidify your point?

Because this way people are more inclined to write down the deficiencies in my theories, it helps me refine them.

[Trusk'our he/him]

44 minutes ago, Dofurion said:

Because this way people are more inclined to write down the deficiencies in my theories, it helps me refine them.

Hmm. Makes sense to me 

[Treach]

I would also add the similarity between the chart and this chart of Yog-Sothoth. Kind of thought the similarly presented visualization may be a little easter egg, which may have more interesting implications since Ba-Ado-Mishram's and Yelig-Nar's names are inspired by Cythulhu Mythos deities. 

[Dofurion]

48 minutes ago, Treach said:

I would also add the similarity between the chart and this chart of Yog-Sothoth. Kind of thought the similarly presented visualization may be a little easter egg, which may have more interesting implications since Ba-Ado-Mishram's and Yelig-Nar's names are inspired by Cythulhu Mythos deities. 

In fact we have WoB about it with its similarity to the tree of life

Quote

Questioner

Is Hoid named after the Sephira of Hod? Like with an Ashkenazi pronunciation? The Kabbalistic thing.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, the Kabbalistic thing. Not consciously, though the Double Eye is based a little bit on the Kabbalah tree of life, consciously. That's the illustration on the front cover of the first Stormlight book. And I have read a bunch of Kabbalah, so it's totally possible that it ended up in there on accident.

ICon 2019 (Oct. 15, 2019)

Edited March 13 by Dofurion