Focus of the Rosharan System

[ChickenBonanza]

I’ve browsed other Focus-based posts and come across opinions which I vehemently disagree with. That the Focus of Roshar is not the Surges, but rather something else like the bond or the spren. Here are my thoughts on the subject. Apologies beforehand for any lack of scholarship.

First, we must ask ‘what is a Focus?’ I am unsure on how to word this in a way I am 100% satisfied with academically, but for this post I will define Focus as the object or method that determines how an Investiture behaves.

For example, metal is a Focus on Scadrial. (The Focus, I should say. The one that is tied to Scadrial Spiritually.) Allomancy is the Metallic Art which clearest acts according to the properties of metal, as reflected throughout the Cosmere. Even when taking in external power, like Vin with the Mists and Marasi with Autonomy’s perpendicularity, they can only use that power to power their Allomancy, which derives from the principles of metal. (Barring special cases like the Well of Ascension, but that’s not the topic of this post.)

So, what is metal’s analogue on Roshar? What determines the shapes Surgebinding takes? It’s the spren, right? While I did see an good argument by Confused in “Magic System Components - Focus” that spren align with primordial Focuses like gravity or fire, and that the interplay of Honor and Cultivation within the Truespren creates dual essences they are aligned to, I find this unlikely. Unlike lower spren, these higher spren are quite different in their operation. Being quite sapient and more nuanced. A paltry rebuttal, I know. But, y’know, it feels wrong to call them the Focus in of themselves. Spren are, however, personification of concepts, ideas, the raw powers of creation, as Sylphrena puts it. In that way, spren are Focus by way of being Surges. (Though I would say they aren’t, not exactly.)

Bonds as the Focus, I feel, is simply incorrect. Bonds are a Cosmere-wide phenomenon present in many ways, for a variety of reasons. On Roshar, they are particularly prevalent in the form of the Nahel. Organisms with gemhearts have adapted (or were created) with ease of bonding in mind. The abilities gained through bonds might be affected by Roshar’s Focus, but to identify it as Roshar’s Focus itself is lacking. (On another planet, bonds might be the primary Focus; the Focus tied to the planet’s Spiritual aspect, but this is not the case on Roshar.)

Bonds with spren fulfill the same function as an Allomancer’s inborn spiritual DNA. An Allomancer’s Spiritweb would have a dedicated section which allows them to do Allomancer things. By bonding with a spren, a Surgebinder Spiritweb gains a similar portion of Spiritual DNA which allows them to access Surges. And, just like how there exist different styles of this sDNA for different metals for Allomancers, the composition of the Investiture of the bonded spren determines access to Surges. (Or their alignment to certain concepts and forces.)

Crystals as a Focus applies to Soulcasting, but not the Surge of Transformation, and certainly not Surgebinding as a whole. Crystals might hold stormlight, but that is simply a function of the crystals structure being able to hold gaseous Investiture. Moreover, among the Polestones used in Soulcasting, the color is their biggest differentiator. A Polestone drained of color by Nalthian Awakening would not function properly in Soulcasting.

Even within Surgebinder-derived Soulcasting, it’s possible to ignore this restriction.

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The Forumlurker (paraphrased)

If a Radiant tried to Soulcast directly with the Stormlight from the highstorm, what essences could they create?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

They could basically do whatever they want. There wouldn't be any limitations, but only for Radiant Soulcasters.

Stuttgart signing (May 17, 2019)

So there is an argument that gems are merely a crutch, and is only strictly required when using Fabrial Soulcasters, which perhaps cannot be properly guided by a Surgebinder’s mind. However, this may just be a restriction to Soulcasting as a whole.

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StormAtlas (paraphrased)

Why can Kaladin Surgebind with any gem type but Jasnah and Shallan need specific types?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

A lot of that will be explained as the series comes along. It is really the difference between Soulcasting and the other forms of Surgebinding. It's more a quirk of Soulcasting than it is something that is different about about Kaladin. So you've kind of got it reversed a little bit though; Soulcasting has this additional restriction that the other ones don't.

Rithmatist Albuquerque signing (May 22, 2013)

(A shame these are both paraphrased.)

Raboniel’s access to the Surge of Transformation, and all Fannah-im, as far as I am aware, is not explicitly described as Soulcasting. Raboniel’s usage of the Surge is particularly exotic and immediate. Acidic gas and disintegration, with no mention of Polestones. Unmaking the Sibling is also a significant departure from other uses of Radiant and Fabrial Soulcasting.

Of course, other methods exist to gain access to Surges. Including from different Shards. Honorblades are solely from Honor, yet grant the same ten Surges a bonded Surgebinder could access. Fused gained their Surges from Odium, which could be intepreted as a type of bond, but I would note as much closer to something like Harmony making Spook a Mistborn, a permanent infusion of the soul.

One of the reasons Odium values Roshar is because of the power of the Surges. Rayse believed that other Shards would war when discovering its strength. If Surges are not somehow tied to the planet, why care? Why not simply replicate its efficiency and effects somewhere else? Because he can’t. Much as Scadrial’s Invested Arts always involve metal and take after their properties, Roshar’s Invested Arts take after the properties of Surges.

All Invested Arts in the Rosharan System correspond to the Surges. Including the diseases Invested that were left after Ashyn’s destruction. Floating cities? Flying after getting a cold? An application of Gravitation. Everything you touch gets set on fire? Division. Walking through walls? Cohesion. (Most relevant word is here, but I took those other off-the-cuff examples from other arcanum entries.)

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Shardbound

Were the Surges used by humans, the ones that destroyed their previous home, the same as the ones that the Radiants are using.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, same basic principles. Magic system slightly different. Same basic principles.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

I don’t know much about Voidbindings, but Renarin’s seeing the future and messed up Lightweaving is simply a different application of the Surge of Illumination. He can’t Lightweave as Shallan does because his usage of the Surge is different inherently. Truthwatchers abilities relate naturally to the Cognitive and Spiritual Realms.

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TGJackass

The Truthwatchers and Bondsmiths are depicted separate from the other Orders in that neat little chart. Why is that? I get that the Bondsmiths are special, but why are the Truthwatchers beneath them, in the middle? And is there a reasoning behind how the other Orders are placed, beyond just what surge they share?

Brandon Sanderson

So, yes and originally I had a lot more with this chart that was going to be meaningful for the magic system and things like that. And it turns out this was way too complicated to work into the book. You can maybe see some of it in Way of Kings Prime. I can't remember how much of it's in there, but at the end of the day, when I was building it, I'm like, "I am... this is one of those times where I'm doing a little too much, getting too much into the weeds," so to speak. But you can, you will be able to... See, it's tricky because you're gonna be seeing a lot of Renarin version of Truthwatchers and less of other version of Truthwatchers. But let's say that Truthwatchers have some sort of abilities relating to Cognitive and Spiritual Realm set in a similar way to Bondsmiths, and because of that they were often kind of opposed but aligned, and the chart is a human construction trying to explain things—much as the same way that the Allomantic chart is—and because of that, they're responding to things that have happened, that are partially cultural partially, part of the magic and they built the charts, if that makes sense.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021)

The Truthwatcher Honorblade-wielder uses Illumination to spook Szeth with Spiritual-Realm voice shenanigans. Granted, they were all corrupted by Ishar, but a past focused Illumination for Radiant Surgebinders versus future-focused Illumination for Enlightened Surgebinders seems likely. Not a separate ability, different applications of the same Surge.

That’s all, I think.

[Ashbringer he/him]

I too haven't given a ton of thought into this, but a few things I may want to add in:

Metals may be the key or Focus for Scadrial, but as we've seen in a few places (WoBs about Nightblood being made from Steel, the fabrial metals in RoW, the sprouter's tools in Tress, and Aluminum and God Metals in general) indicate metals may have a more cosmere-versal relevance.

Scadrial also has a few Focuses - Metal is one of them, but the other that comes up so much is that Scadrial's powers are all inherited rather than earned, passed on through generations or Hemalurgy's Spiritual gene splicing.

Roshar's focus may be not the Oaths, but instead Ideals. They take the form of Oaths, but they're also called Ideals, and Ideals can also connect more strongly to things like the Unoathed (an Ideal without Oaths) or Soulcasting (where the default is using a color-based key to make an Ideal material). Perhaps it could even connect to the idea of Surges being an "Ideal" application of Investiture

[ChickenBonanza]

1 hour ago, Ashbringer said:

Scadrial also has a few Focuses - Metal is one of them, but the other that comes up so much is that Scadrial's powers are all inherited rather than earned, passed on through generations or Hemalurgy's Spiritual gene splicing.

Roshar's focus may be not the Oaths, but instead Ideals. They take the form of Oaths, but they're also called Ideals, and Ideals can also connect more strongly to things like the Unoathed (an Ideal without Oaths)

I wouldn’t say Scadrial has any Focuses but metal. The acquisition of powers, after all, is something tied more to the Shard than a planet’s Focus, which determines what the powers actually do. Allomancy’s genetic lineages and Snapping align quite well to Preservation, I think. Oaths fit this for Honor.

There is a question I must ask: what is an Ideal? The Immortal Words are Ideals, but more foremost they are Oaths.

I see Ideals as more of a cultural perception thing rather than something inherent to Surgebinding or Roshar. A human cultural perception. Spren themselves are aligned with the concepts embodied by those Ideals, but that’s because of their creation and the influence of human perception which shifts them towards that Ideal.

The Unoathed are more the result of recovering Deadeye spren taking advantage of their inherent bonding ability and their ability to become Shardblades and Shardplate. Their reasoning for doing so relates to humans embodying the Ideals which they care for, rather than following the Oath system put in place by Honor and Ishar.

If Ideals are the Rosharan System’s Focus, then their influence must inhabit all the system’s Invested Arts. In the age of Alashwa, the Surges used seem independent from the Ideals expressed in spren, do they not? One could say the Honorblades lack Ideals, beyond their limited sentience. The diseases on Ashyn must be quite mindless, by my reckoning.

The Essences of Soulcasting could also be influenced by perception (and thus be an Ideal, of some form), but if they are influenced by something, it’s more likely to more an aspect prevalent throughout the Cosmere rather than something inherent to Roshar. Like maybe color. (The strands of Aether seem to correspond to Polestones. Not perfectly, but that, I believe is more a failure to create everything with everything else in mind, worldbuilding wise.)

Surges being an ‘Ideal application’ of Investiture… I don’t know how to organize my thoughts on that. Perhaps I can say it’s an extra step for no apparent purpose.

A different topic I wanted to express is Fabrials. There are Fabrials which mimic Surges, wherein some form of Truespren seems to go semi-dormant in the Cognitive Realm and manifest a Soulcaster in the physical.

Modern Fabrials involve the trapping of lesser spren in gemstones, afterwards using stormlight to force them to express some attribute relating to themselves, often using the inherent Cosmeric properties of metal to influence the result. Flamespren create heat, for example. Are these not an application of an Ideal? One of fire? I would say they are not.

I would say they are something like an Awakened object. Not an actual one, of course. A jury-rigged one. Essentially, creating a Fabrial is plugging Investiture pre-coded with… let’s say Intent (not much of a Command in the mind of a lesser spren), into a container (the gemstone), and thereafter using that Intent to produce an effect when powered by stormlight. Once more, I’d say this takes advantage of principles not limited to Roshar.

[Heilven he/him]

The key thing that seems to be in common with everything we know about foci is that they have something to do with accessing investiture, with a secondary effect of manipulating how it behaves. For instance, the metals for Scadrial and the Aons are very similar, and they act very similarly. Without the use of metals or Aons, metal born and Elantrians have no access to investiture. I think that a focus isn't actually necessary for Invested Arts, because if it is then we will need to come up with something else to be a focus for scadrial. If a metalborn has access to investiture (such as the mists or unkeyed door) no metals are required. In that sense I would argue that if rosharan invested arts have a focus, it is spren/sprenlike beings.