Why does Sel have so many manifestions of investiture?

[SilverShard]

Compared to other places in the Cosmere, Sel seems to be equally the least explored yet have a huge manifesting of investiture. There's at least 4 (arguably 5) types of investiture on Sel while we've really only explored two. 

 

Meanwhile Scadrial and Roshar only have 3 known. It can't be due to shard since each planet has two. 

 

Perhaps it's because we haven't gotten the Elantris sequels yet, if we ever will, but I feel like there needs to be a reason for such a large manifesting of investiture on a planet we've seen relatively so little of. 

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, SilverShard said:

Compared to other places in the Cosmere, Sel seems to be equally the least explored yet have a huge manifesting of investiture. There's at least 4 (arguably 5) types of investiture on Sel while we've really only explored two.

Meanwhile Scadrial and Roshar only have 3 known. It can't be due to shard since each planet has two.

Perhaps it's because we haven't gotten the Elantris sequels yet, if we ever will, but I feel like there needs to be a reason for such a large manifesting of investiture on a planet we've seen relatively so little of. 

It seems, based on your intro post, that you have not yet read Elantris (please see the Sharder FAQ if you need tips on how to edit that post to update it). I will spoiler tag this in case you do not want spoilers for Elantris or the Sel Essay from AU (also slight spoilers for Stormlight Archive and Mistborn).

Spoiler

When Odium visited Sel and Splintered Devotion and Dominion, because Shards will seek a Vessel - and large quantities of Investiture without a Vessel can gain Sapience, Odium took measures.

In order to prevent that, Odium pushed all/most of their investiture into Sel's Shadesmar (Cognitive Realm) so those outcomes would not happen. The unintended side effect is that while the SR has neither time nor location - meaning Shard's power can be accessed from anywhere when they are doing so through the SR (e.g. Hoid burning metals on Roshar in WoR). However, because the CR does have location, the Dor (which is the name for the combined investiture of Devotion and Dominion) is tied to the land it saturates - which is why AonDor is tied to Arelon, ChayShan (Jindo), Dakhor (Fjorden), Forgery (MaiPon), Resealing (Grands), Bloodsealing (Dzhamar), Hrovell's unnamed Alchemy MoI (Forton in Elantris), etc. are each tied to their Country - because the Identity of the People, Language, and Place are Connected to the Dor in that area. We don't even know anything about the third continent/empire yet (other than it exists) so it's likely that there are dozens of ways to Access the Dor.

Brandon has said that, depending on the person and perspective, these could either be considered many different magic systems, or considered one magic system (like Surgebinding) with many different versions. They all will be tied to location, and generally the language and will all access the Dor (just as a Windrunner and Lightweaver access different Surges, but both do so through a Radiant Bond, Oaths (truths), and Stormlight.

References and WoBs:

Spoiler

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Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Odium locked the Selish Shards in the Cognitive Realm to keep them from achieving sentience or someone Ascending.

Footnote: taken from General Q&A
Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing (Dec. 3, 2016)

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Argent

I thought, like, at one of the signings you told me that when Odium was on Sel and Splintered the Shards there, the reason he did the Cognitive Realm hack was because he was not yet experienced in Splintering stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Right. He did not want what happened to happen, but he didn't know that he didn't want what happened to happen.

Argent

What I was getting at is, I could never find a recording of you saying "He was not experienced. He didn't want the power to be taken by anyone, and that's the only solution he could figure out." Does that sound like something you would say?

Brandon Sanderson

That is something I would say, yes... There are better ways to do what he wanted to do, which he later did a better job with. But there's not a lot of experimenting he could do.

Argent

Limited number of subjects, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm.

JordanCon 2018 (April 20, 2018)

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Questioner

Saying that, "Odium did not leave his power behind on Sel. He left several other powers which are now, to a large extent, mindless." So, is another power- did he have some kind of *inaudible* under control or--

Brandon Sanderson

So I dodged that one very easily. I was talking about Dominion and Devotion, which he could have taken up and left behind. It technically answered the question. That was the answer. I even said on a tape later on "I wiggled out of that one real well," but they didn't know how I wiggled out of it. When they said "Did he leave behind any powers?" Those are the powers he left behind.

Questioner

But they weren't his powers?

Brandon Sanderson

No, but they were-- As soon as he killed them, he could have had them, right? So it definitely gave me wiggle room.

Footnote: The initial quote is referencing this WoB
Skyward Denver signing (Nov. 15, 2018)

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Blaze1616

The Dor: Is it gaseous Investiture or is it something else completely?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh that's a great question. People have not been asking enough about the Dor.

Blaze1616

And if it is gaseous—or not gaseous—is it plasma?

Brandon Sanderson

*Long pause*

You got it. *said definitively*

It's super sup-- not plasm-- yeah, it's super-dense to the point that's it's liquefied and dense-- does that make sense? So it's plasma, basically. It's its own weird thing, so yeah. What you can write is that it's its own weird thing that's kind of plasma-like.

Shadows of Self Lansing signing (Oct. 13, 2015)

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<Edited for Length and Relevence>

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, you will see more of that. Elantris-- So what Elantris is very-- is interesting-- is Sel, the planet that is, that each region has basically a way of accessing the magic, and they're all, in my mind, programming languages. And you use different things to program, and call functions basically. And some people etch into bone, some people draw in runes, some people make the soulstamps. You can do it through a tai chi-like thing in one of world-- in one of the lands. So it's like a-- region-based for reasons that cosmere magic experts I think have figured out by now.

Questioner

Well it's like there were two deities, I think, Invested in that planet?

Brandon Sanderson

Yep... The reason is-- and we have announced it-- the reason it is is, so on Sel-- somebody killed the two deities there, right? And then stuffed their corpses, which are just huge magic reservoirs, just *inaudible*. So all their power stuffed up into what we call the Cognitive Realm, the realm of the mind, which is location dependent. So all the magic is getting filtered through that, it does weird things to it, it makes it region-locked. So yeah.

Questioner

Is it the only world that has many different ways that magic is--

Brandon Sanderson

Well a lot of them have different ways. For instance, for-- on Scadrial we've got Feruchemy, and Allomancy, and things like that. So most worlds have different interpretations, and things like that. Sel's the only one you've seen where it's region dependent.

Ad Astra 2017 (May 5, 2017)

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Francis Ocoma

In Elantris, are Forton's "potions" magical, or is he using natural substances?

Brandon Sanderson

They are invested. (Magical.)

General Twitter 2016 (Jan. 17, 2016)

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Odium's_Shard

Can magic systems from one world work in any given other?

Brandon Sanderson

For some, it will take quite a bit of work, but it's possible to get them each to work. Sel's magics are regional, and so they are going to be tough. Scadrial's magics are the easiest.

17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012)

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Windrunner

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.

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 15, 2013)

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Chaos

Is Forgery completely distinct from Bloodsealing?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Chaos

Are they distinct magic systems?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on your definition of a system. For instance, do you call Windrunning its own magic system, or would Surgebinding be the magic system? Or would you break it down further, and say Windrunning is further composed of two different systems...

Chaos

I guess I did just ask earlier if they're all manifestations of the same system.

Questioner

Like, more closely related, to maybe some of the other ones on Sel?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they are definitely more closely related.

SpoCon 2013 (July 10, 2013)

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Questioner

Was the Rose Empire ever under threat from Shu-Dereth? And can you speak a little bit on fitting The Emperor's Soul into a world you'd already created?

Brandon Sanderson

So was the Rose Empire ever in danger from Shu-Dereth and could I speak a little about fitting The Emperor's Soul into a world I'd already written. So when I designed Elantris, I knew where I was going, and I knew a lot about the world. This is how I am in building. So when I wanted to do The Emperor's Soul I already knew where I was going to place it, I knew which magic system I was working toward, and things like that. So it wasn't terribly hard since I already knew what was over there.

The fun about that is that you should go look at the map commissioned, the one Isaac drew, that's done by the Derethi and see how they view the Rose Empire and where they put it on their map. And then you'll eventually get a map of the whole world, and let's just say they don't have a really accurate representation of the world and their place in it. As was very common for a lot of early societies, early European maps are hilarious.

Footnote: The map Brandon is referring can be found on his website here.
Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016)

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Nimrod Rappaport

In Arcanum Unbounded you mentioned that Sel is one of the biggest planets. You also mentioned that there are three empires on that planet. In Elantris 2 two will we get... You also mentioned that they are largely ignorant of each other, will we get a book in which those empires interact? Maybe in Elantris 2? 

Also, can you please specify on their nature and maybe some inspirations you got when writing and thinking about them?

Brandon Sanderson

So, sure. Sel wears its inspirations quite blatantly on its sleeve, right? It's not that obvious for instance in Stormlight that the Alethi are based off of Mongolians, because there's so much more in the mix there, that it's not quite as obvious. But in Sel, it's a little more obvious. You know, basically the idea came to me that what if the vikings had united behind a very hierarchical religion like Catholicism, and we had Catholic vikings, conquering the world. What would the world look like and that is where the entire religion came from.

Actually the truth is it's like, there was this priest, right, and one group became Buddhist and the other became Catholic vikings and, you know, Buddhist Renaissance... Italians is kind of where we got there and of course, the Rose Empire the inspirations are a little bit more Eastern and Middle Eastern. For instance, the Grands are based on Babylonian influences and I'm kind of looking at a lot of Babylonian, a little bit of Syrian. But of course Shai is very very clearly based on East Asian cultures and specifically China.

So, the empires and things like that... for there you might have noticed that we've got a Europe centered one, and an Asia/Eastern centered one, so you might be able to theorize where the third empire's inspirations might be or at least a list of possible candidates.

ICon 2019 (Oct. 17, 2019)

WoR Ch 45:

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Shallan turned back to the newcomer. She caught, with a subtle movement, the man slipping something from his coat pocket and moving it up toward the drinks. A shock coursed through Shallan. She raised a hand. Poison—

The newcomer covertly dumped the pouch’s contents into his own drink, then raised it to his lips, gulping down the powder. What had it been?

Shallan lowered her hand. 

<snip>

“My brother,” she said.

“He is in Alethkar.”

Alethkar? “Why?”

“Because that is where he feels he is needed, of course. If I see him again, I will give him word of you.” The messenger walked away on light feet, his steps smooth, almost like moves in a dance.

It's likely that he burned Zinc, Brass, and Bronze when dealing with Shallan and her Father, but the only real obvious one (since those three are internal) was him burning Pewter when he jumped from the tree and again when he left.

 

Hope that helps.

Edited December 2, 2024 by Treamayne
SPAG