Investiture Terms *difference between anti and negative*

[AgentGato]

Hello everyone I am new to this forum board so if I break any customs I apologize but I just wanted to get a discussion started around these terms.

I was rereading Isles of the ember dark and it appears they refer to anti-investiture, and negative-investiture as the same thing, even though these are separate terms implying completely separate concepts, at least when talking about matter

For those who don't know the difference I don't blame you, but at least from what I can tell, and please keep in mind that I am not a physicist. Anti-investiture would be the correct term just like how we have antimatter in real life while negative matter is a theoretical concept. The short of it is negative matter would be exactly that, it has negative mass and negative gravity which has complicated effects and is to much to get into, while antimatter is greatly understood and is basically just normal matter except for it annihilates normal matter and messes with neutrinos a bit.

I understand Brandon probably doesn't know these intricacies but him trying to define negative investiture as self aware naturally accuring anti investiture (and I hope his arcanists can help with this) just makes terminology even terminology used on IotE when they use the term negative for the anti-investiture fired from the intensifier.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/551/#e17040

I hope to be able answer any questions you all may have.

[PanLin they/he]

First up, I believe Emberdark is still recent enough that you should try to use spoiler tags when talking about it. Never mind, cut-off is 9 months! Thanks @Frustration

 

4 hours ago, AgentGato said:

I was rereading Isles of the ember dark and it appears they refer to anti-investiture, and negative-investiture as the same thing, even though these are separate terms implying completely separate concepts, at least when talking about matter

I think this comes back to the idea that in the real world, we just have matter and energy, but in the Cosmere, Investiture sits alongside those two as a third kind of 'thing' that stuff can exist as.

From that, the way I understand it is that negative Investiture (aka the Evil) is a subtype of anti-Investiture, but one that was created through wildly destructive means and that possesses its own kind of self-awareness.

Which is to say, they sort of are the same thing, at least in reference to the Evil. All negative Investiture is anti-Investiture, but not all anti-Investiture is negative Investiture.

 

4 hours ago, AgentGato said:

Hello everyone I am new to this forum board so if I break any customs I apologize but I just wanted to get a discussion started around these terms.

Also, welcome to the Shard! A solid first step would be introducing yourself in the introduction forums 

Edited 5 hours ago by PanLin

[Frustration]

24 minutes ago, PanLin said:

First up, I believe Emberdark is still recent enough that you should try to use spoiler tags when talking about it.

Spoiler period for Cosmere books is only 9 months, it's fine now.

[Treamayne]

Welcome to the Shard. Please consider an Intro Post to let us know what you have or have-not read (whichever list is shorter). Also, please consider checking out the Sharder FAQ for some useful forum info and tips. 

6 hours ago, AgentGato said:

Hello everyone I am new to this forum board so if I break any customs I apologize but I just wanted to get a discussion started around these terms.

I was rereading Isles of the ember dark and it appears they refer to anti-investiture, and negative-investiture as the same thing, even though these are separate terms implying completely separate concepts, at least when talking about matter

For those who don't know the difference I don't blame you, but at least from what I can tell, and please keep in mind that I am not a physicist. Anti-investiture would be the correct term just like how we have antimatter in real life while negative matter is a theoretical concept. The short of it is negative matter would be exactly that, it has negative mass and negative gravity which has complicated effects and is to much to get into, while antimatter is greatly understood and is basically just normal matter except for it annihilates normal matter and messes with neutrinos a bit.

I understand Brandon probably doesn't know these intricacies but him trying to define negative investiture as self aware naturally accuring anti investiture (and I hope his arcanists can help with this) just makes terminology even terminology used on IotE when they use the term negative for the anti-investiture fired from the intensifier.

Spoiler

ReaderWarrior

Brandon: What is the difference between ANTI-Investiture and NEGATIVE Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Let's let the Arcanists-

What we're calling Negative Investiture is almost all exclusively a warping of the death of Ambition. Anti-Investiture is a very, very similar thing, but it is man-made. And they have similar functions. But the Negative Investiture is mostly self-aware in a very weird way. In a non-

The Anti-Investiture built by Navani is functionally the same, but not self-aware, not necessarily from Ambition. And that's the distinction in my mind right now. But we'll let the Arcanists drill down on me- there's Argent flipping out. He might have a different definition for it and he maybe can-

The team of Arcanists might convince me that I should use a different definition . 

YouTube Spoiler Stream 7 (Dec. 19, 2025)

I hope to be able answer any questions you all may have.

One thing to keep in mind is that the terminology in-world is not necessarily standardized yet, and unreliable narrator applies. Starling can just be wrong (or using the wrong term(s)). Also, we do not yet have enough information on Negative Investiture to truly understand the difference (and that term may change/evolve, just as E1Atium was called Atium but was not really Atium - they just did not know that during the Final Empire). 

• Are the Eidoliths really just Anti-Ambition? Unconfirmed (more than one shard was involved, in the event)
• Are there realmatics at play beyond what Navani discovered and used? Unknown
• Is the developing Sapience a firm trait or a recent one? Unknown
  • Somebody who gets to attend events should ask if a Type 1-6 was self-aware when created or only after time
• etc.

In the end, as far as IED is concerned, what they discuss is based on what they know (or think they know) at the time when the story takes place. TWhat the true realmatic difference(s) are remain to be seen/clarified. 

Hope that helps