Possible Error in the Midnight Essence Article

[+Harrycrapper]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to report errors or not, apologies if it's not. But someone quoted this to me on Reddit and while I don't think it's strictly untrue, the WoB it used as a source doesn't exactly support it. 

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Midnight_Essence#cite_note-Arcanum-2253-6

All Midnight Essence created exhibits some form of mind, and Midnight Essence may be an example of concentrated Investiture granting sentience.^[6]

The WoB it references is:

Quote

CosmereQuestioner

The background to my question is this:

It was once stated by Mr Sanderson that "Magic in the cosmere needs a guiding force.  If it doesn't have one, the magic itself will gain sentience."  We also have that things like Nightblood that gained sentience because of crazy amounts of investiture.

My question then is:

"Is the reason that investiture has this tendency to lead to sentience caused by the fact that pre-Shattering Adonalsium had a goal/purpose/intent of bringing sentience to his universe."

(I guess this is in a way a 2 part question, because it assumes that Adonalsium actually HAD the intent of bringing sentience to his cosmere)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is part of the reason.  Good question!

General Signed Books 2016 (Oct. 12, 2016)

It's been a bit since I first read Tress and have been meaning to do a reread soon, but I feel like if something is going to support Midnight Essence being an example of Investiture gaining sentience over time, it's going to be something in the Midnight Sea and not this WoB which is just the questioner (correctly)presupposing Investiture gaining sentience. I really feel like this WoB was cited as the source on accident and someone meant to reference Tress instead. 

[CtrlAltDepressed]

On 10/14/2024 at 5:06 PM, Harrycrapper said:

It's been a bit since I first read Tress and have been meaning to do a reread soon, but I feel like if something is going to support Midnight Essence being an example of Investiture gaining sentience over time, it's going to be something in the Midnight Sea and not this WoB which is just the questioner (correctly)presupposing Investiture gaining sentience.

Take my opinion with a grain of salt.

 

I think this works, actually. All of the midnight essence we have seen (Father Machine, Nightblood, Midnight Sea, Midnight Mother) all have some things in common. They are all lacking Identity. (some of this is theory so please forgive me) The midnight creatures in Tress immediately take on the Identity of the person they are bonded with. Nightblood consumes Identity from the investiture he takes in. The Father Machine consumed the Identities of the Komashi residents. 

 

So its clear that black investiture / midnight essence, is Investiture that has either a destroyed or corrupted Identity. 

 

It makes sense to me that a collection of that type of Investiture would develop its own identity faster than normal investiture. Its sort of like radiation. Elements have too many particles, so they shoot them off until they are stable. In a similar way, the midnight essence is missing Identity, so it rapidly develops one. Whereas normal investiture already has that, so the shift to a new Identity will take much much longer. 

 

Normal invesiture has Identity residue from whoever used it last, or even Adonalsium. Black investiture does not. It needs an Identity to be stable, so it starts to create one.

[+Harrycrapper]

On 10/23/2024 at 10:31 AM, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Take my opinion with a grain of salt.

 

I think this works, actually. All of the midnight essence we have seen (Father Machine, Nightblood, Midnight Sea, Midnight Mother) all have some things in common. They are all lacking Identity. (some of this is theory so please forgive me) The midnight creatures in Tress immediately take on the Identity of the person they are bonded with. Nightblood consumes Identity from the investiture he takes in. The Father Machine consumed the Identities of the Komashi residents. 

 

So its clear that black investiture / midnight essence, is Investiture that has either a destroyed or corrupted Identity. 

 

It makes sense to me that a collection of that type of Investiture would develop its own identity faster than normal investiture. Its sort of like radiation. Elements have too many particles, so they shoot them off until they are stable. In a similar way, the midnight essence is missing Identity, so it rapidly develops one. Whereas normal investiture already has that, so the shift to a new Identity will take much much longer. 

 

Normal invesiture has Identity residue from whoever used it last, or even Adonalsium. Black investiture does not. It needs an Identity to be stable, so it starts to create one.

To be clear, I'm not contesting the accuracy of what the Wiki is stating, I'm just not sure why this random WoB is used as a source when it's laid out pretty clearly in the Tress itself. I just got to the end of the book in my reread and the creatures do indeed have some measure of sentience that is independent of the Sorceress. The WoB used as a citation just really doesn't fit, there are more specific ones from Brandon as well as the primary source in Tress.