Digestive Shards

[RawToast225 he/him]

We have two cases of Shards being used in a digestive system. First, we have Allomancy which (I think) let's people control their digestion of metals to "burn" them. Then, we have Lift being able to metabolize stormlight.

 

A tentative connection to this is breathing in stormlight. Kaladin, Moash, Dalinar, and Shallan all breath in the stormlight, freeing them from the need of oxygen.

 

I have two(ish) questions.

 

1. Do the worms in the Aviars gain their power from the different bird meet they eat?

 

2. Does having access to a magic system change the genetic make up of the body to be able to use the magic?

 

(3. If number two is correct and if the tentative connection turns out to be a good one, does stormlight replace air?)

[Blaze1616 he/him]

I do first want to point out that Lift is unique in regards to her digestive capabilities.
 

Source

The "God Surges" you mentioned recently, are they a part of the Way of Kings frontsheet?
You've said that there are three types of Blades in the Stormlight Archive. We've seen "dead" Shardblades, Honorblades—is the third type the "living spren" Shardblades, or is there another type we haven't seen?
Do all Surgebinders breathe Stormlight in, or are there other ways? Is Lift one-of-a-kind in this regard?

BRANDON SANDERSON

All I said regarding this was to tell a fan that it was possible to make an analogy between the god metals on Scadrial and certain powers on Roshar. However, these are not a codified part of the magic system.
Lift is one of a kind.
Nightblood is a very unique kind of Shardblade, but IS a Shardblade.

 
Emphasis added.
 
As for your questions, in regards to the first, I'm not quite sure what you mean. Are you saying the worms eat bird meat? From my reading of Sixth of the Dusk I understood the system in that the Aviar gained their powers because they ate the worms, but the worms only "gave" the birds powers because they had within them a symbiote (it is unknown how the worms acquired this symbiote), and upon being eaten the symbiote passed to the bird. It has been a while since I read the story though, and I only read it once, so I might be way, way off base.
 
As an aside, is symbiote a word? My spell check says it is not, but what would the correct word be then?
 
As for the second question, when you say "genetic makeup" do you mean physical specifically (as in the real world) or realmatically (as in all three realms)? Physically I do not think anything drastic changes. We see that sometimes the system can change physical aspects, such as Kaladin's eye color, but as the Stormlight 3 Kaladin reading points out:
 

His eyes do eventually revert to his original eye color after an extended time of not making use of the system.

 
As far as Realmatic changes go, though, we know that the sDNA of an individual changes. on Scadrial, this occurs when the individuals Snap, and they gain the ability to burn metals. On Nalthis the humans are simply born able to use the magic system. On Sel the sDNA changes when picked by the Shaod. I do not believe we have knowledge of sDNA changes on Roshar as of yet, but there clearly are some kind of changes, as Kaladin can only absorb Stormlight when bonded with Syl.
 
As for Stormlight replacing air, I do not believe that is what's happening. I think the individual does not need to breath because the Stormlight heals them, and so any cells within the body having adverse effects from a lack of oxygen are immediately healed by the Stormlight.

Edited November 26, 2014 by Blaze1616

[Oudeis he/him]

Hrm... Does Snapping actually change your sDNA, or does it simply express a trait that was in your sDNA, but wasn't expressing?

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

If it acts like DNA then it would be the second one.