The powers of voidbinding

[Atlas333]

Voidbinding is a big old question mark and I thought I'd try and share a bit of a unique view on it. I feel like it goes without saying that I'll be making a decent amount of assumptions based on what little information we have.

The goal of this post is not to solve all of voidbinding (such as how the power is accessed); we don't have nearly enough information to do so. Rather, the goal is to figure out what powers a voidbinder might have rather than all the mechanics.

In this theory, I purposely tried to avoid relating these powers to the surges, as it's a popular theory linking voidbinding to surgebinding (potentially as a corrupting of surgebinding). However, I wanted to view voidbinding as a different magic system from surgebinding. I predict it might be more similar to feruchemy and allomancy. They have similar focus (metals) and a few overlapping powers but are for the most part different from each other. 

This brings me to my first and biggest assumption: voidbinding originates with the unmade.

Quote

dvoraen

"To see the future originates with the Unmade..." "Voidbinding is a dark and evil thing, and the soul of it was to try to divine the future." Is it therefore safe to say that Voidbinding, by extension, also originates with the Unmade?

Brandon Sanderson

Not always. But usually.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 22, 2018)

My second assumption: renarin is at least partially voidbinding as his unique ability is to see the future. This easily matches up with one of the unmade, Moelach, who grants vision of the future.

 

Following this line of assumptions, we can look to the unmade to get an idea of what each level of voidbinding is. Most likely, the powers will be similar but more limited. Whether they do this through a connection with the unmade or a spren with similar powers isn't the focus of this theory.

 

Ashertam, the heart of the revel - I would compare this power to Soother's as he lowers people's inhibitions and allows their base desires to take over.

Ba-Ado-Mishram, giver of forms - I imagine that they would have similar connection powers to bondsmiths. Alternatively, they could just grant others access to investiture.

Chemoarish, the dustmother - we don't have enough information about this unmade to guess their powers

Dai-Gonarthis, the black fisher - also not enough information 

Moelach - probably the one we can most confidently say. Binders of this "void" have the ability to see visions of the future.

Nergaul, the thrill - this one would likely be more similar to rioting as they have the ability to enflame emotions. Whether this applies to all emotions or just anger remains to be seen. 

Re-Shephir, the midnight mother - voidbinders of this void would be similar to midnight essence aetherbound and would be able to summon minions. 

Sja-nat, taker of secrets - I'm not sure how corrupting spren would work on a smaller scale. 

Yelig-nar, blightwind - I could see this character being an exception (Brandon says "not always" which to me means that 1 or 2 unmade maybe don't correlate to voidbinding). I could see there not being a voidbinding equivalent to this unmade although maybe it's just the ability to access one surge at a time. 

 

A noticeable hole with this theory is that going off of the nine unmade means we're missing one level of voidbinding. Regardless, I'm interested to hear other's thoughts on the subject. 

[Quantus he/him]

Devil's advocate statement for your Assumption #1: That could just mean that Voidbinding "Usually" comes from Sja-Anat and Enlightening Spren to grant the inverted Voidbinding Surges implied by the Chart So it might not be about associations between the Unmade and individual Surges.  

[bmcclure7]

22 hours ago, Atlas333 said:

Voidbinding is a big old question mark and I thought I'd try and share a bit of a unique view on it. I feel like it goes without saying that I'll be making a decent amount of assumptions based on what little information we have.

The goal of this post is not to solve all of voidbinding (such as how the power is accessed); we don't have nearly enough information to do so. Rather, the goal is to figure out what powers a voidbinder might have rather than all the mechanics.

In this theory, I purposely tried to avoid relating these powers to the surges, as it's a popular theory linking voidbinding to surgebinding (potentially as a corrupting of surgebinding). However, I wanted to view voidbinding as a different magic system from surgebinding. I predict it might be more similar to feruchemy and allomancy. They have similar focus (metals) and a few overlapping powers but are for the most part different from each other. 

This brings me to my first and biggest assumption: voidbinding originates with the unmade.

My second assumption: renarin is at least partially voidbinding as his unique ability is to see the future. This easily matches up with one of the unmade, Moelach, who grants vision of the future.

 

Following this line of assumptions, we can look to the unmade to get an idea of what each level of voidbinding is. Most likely, the powers will be similar but more limited. Whether they do this through a connection with the unmade or a spren with similar powers isn't the focus of this theory.

 

Ashertam, the heart of the revel - I would compare this power to Soother's as he lowers people's inhibitions and allows their base desires to take over.

Ba-Ado-Mishram, giver of forms - I imagine that they would have similar connection powers to bondsmiths. Alternatively, they could just grant others access to investiture.

Chemoarish, the dustmother - we don't have enough information about this unmade to guess their powers

Dai-Gonarthis, the black fisher - also not enough information 

Moelach - probably the one we can most confidently say. Binders of this "void" have the ability to see visions of the future.

Nergaul, the thrill - this one would likely be more similar to rioting as they have the ability to enflame emotions. Whether this applies to all emotions or just anger remains to be seen. 

Re-Shephir, the midnight mother - voidbinders of this void would be similar to midnight essence aetherbound and would be able to summon minions. 

Sja-nat, taker of secrets - I'm not sure how corrupting spren would work on a smaller scale. 

Yelig-nar, blightwind - I could see this character being an exception (Brandon says "not always" which to me means that 1 or 2 unmade maybe don't correlate to voidbinding). I could see there not being a voidbinding equivalent to this unmade although maybe it's just the ability to access one surge at a time. 

 

A noticeable hole with this theory is that going off of the nine unmade means we're missing one level of voidbinding. Regardless, I'm interested to hear other's thoughts on the subject. 

There is some things I would like to point out.

1. I don’t think the thrill is affecting your emotions. Doesn’t seem to make you more angry or anything instead seems to increase your desire for competition and bloodlust. When we see Dalinar in the thrill. He’s rarely angry. He’s more high on his own power. 
2. I would like to suggest another possible possible source for information on void binding abilities. The regal forms. We know already that the regals bond lesser void spren (such as storm spren) And while we don’t know for certain, I think we can guess if the unmade can void bind then void spren can as well. An interesting enough, unlike the fused. The regals seem to have unique abilities that are not surge binding. 
 

Another place to look for details about their abilities might be the void Spren themselves. We know that regulars high spren our living personifications of the surges so it would make sense for the high void spren to be living personifications of (voids?) The way high Spren interact with the physical is often connected to the surge they represent. A similar thing could be happening with void spren.

[The Unsoulcastable Stick He/Him]

On 8/9/2024 at 8:40 AM, bmcclure7 said:

The regals seem to have unique abilities that are not surge binding. 

i would say that this has more nuances than that sentence would imply as envoyform plays with the connection of the person holding it so they can understand all languages (which could be argued is surgebinding as it is playing with natural forces) im sure theres more but im not an expert on all the regal forms

[bmcclure7]

15 hours ago, The Unsoulcastable Stick said:

i would say that this has more nuances than that sentence would imply as envoyform plays with the connection of the person holding it so they can understand all languages (which could be argued is surgebinding as it is playing with natural forces) im sure theres more but im not an expert on all the regal forms

True there is definitely nuanced fact, I suspect it surge binding and void binding will have a lot of overlap based on what we have seen Renren do based on the void binding chart. 
 

That said it does appear that the forms are using something other than surge binding at least what we traditionally think of surge binding . True we got a form seeming to use some form of connection. But there’s also forms that shoot lightning out of their hands,  see the future (a known form of void binding) delete memories, manifest, super strength, manifest super speed. There is certainly overlap between what the Regals are doing and surge binding, nonetheless, it is not identical by any means.