Voidbinding

[don_karma_II he/him]

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/1999-writing-for-charity-interview/

 

 

Even though cultivation has some spren that doesn't mean surgebinding has to be from here. Given its association with the knights radiants, people of Honor, I'd assume it's Honor magic. Cultivation presumably has her own magics which her spren may power.

Thanks for producing the interview. 

 

 

 

1.Good call. He said that all the orders of knights radiant are present in the drawings at the front of the book; one big circle (power) plus to little circles (minor powers)= an order of knight radiants. 

2. when you say 'they lost something', do you mean the shards then?

Yes I meant the shardsplates and shardblades..

[hoser he/him]

The simple prescence of a shard seems to start editing the sDNA of people on the planet, giving them a certain kind of magic. Voidbinding sounds like Odium's magic, and he probably has one, but why would his system simply involve seeing the future? Honor mentioned that was more Cultivation's cup of tea. If I had to guess, Voidbinding was a Cultivation system, and Odium gave it a bad name to prevent anybody from stopping him via futuresight.

There are the Voidbringers, Odium's supposed counterparts to the heralds.  Are the Voidbringers servants of Cultivation then?  Do the Voidbringers not do voidbinding? Are the Desolations a struggle between Honor and Cultivation?

 

I thought I had it figured out: Honor and maybe Cultivation fight against Odium's Desolations.  Honor has the Radiants doing surgebinding and the Heralds.   Odium has the Voidbringers doing voidbinding, Midnight Essence, other essences, thunderclasts, possession magic (part of voidbinding?) maybe being used on chasmfiends and maybe Parshendi.

 

Head slowly exploding ... How would it work if voidbinding was a Cultivation system?

 

Edited: wording tweaks

Edited April 2, 2013 by hoser

[Observer]

All I was saying was that if there was a way to stop Odium, namely seeing the future, and there was a shard who happened to be very good at it standing against him that might decide to give humanity it's abilities, Odium would probably use religion to outlaw it. We've seen Preservation use it pretty nicely, and Odium likely knows how powerful it is, so if he could find a way to give it a bad name (Namely, by making it historically named as "his magic") he could avoid the whole seer-fight with Cultivation alltogether.

[Leuthie]

I still think the Desolations, the Oathpact, etc were between Honor and Cultivation.

[Observer]

Possibly, though you may be overthinking it. It's possible Odium corrupted the two to figh tone another, but Honor said Odium killed him, and spoke highly of Cultivation. It just feels a bit farfetched.

[Leuthie]

You're assuming that the Desolations were an unwanted process from the PoV of Shards. What if Cultivation didn't want humans mucking up her world while Honor all but required them? What sort of compromise would they come up with? Killing off a large percentage of the population (possibly leaving the strongest?) every few years while providing an opportunity for heroes to give of themselves in the fighting (quite honorable) seems like a compromise between Honor and Cultivation on an already harsh world. Odium may have been responsible for the Heralds giving up or any number of other things, but the Desolations don't feel like something that Hate would use to kill another Shard. Just seems too...convoluted.

Edited April 2, 2013 by Leuthie

[hoser he/him]

You're assuming that the Desolations were an unwanted process from the PoV of Shards. ... Odium may have been responsible for the Heralds giving up or any number of other things, but the Desolations don't feel like something that Hate would use to kill another Shard. Just seems too...convoluted.

It seems intuitive that hatred is more self and future-oriented than honor.  Honor seems very other and present-oriented.  It makes sense that Honor would want people to interact with.  It also makes sense that Odium would want to destroy those same people.  I can see the Oathpact as a sort of proxy war setup to avoid the Shards coming directly in conflict. 

 

I can imagine Odium having a long game of letting Honor weaken himself by overcommitting to the world, then killing him when he's weak.  The desolations would then be just a convenient mechanism to induce Honor to overcommit. 

 

The mystery to me is why Honor would be surprised that Odium came for him.  The only unlikely scenario that I can imagine is the the Purelaker mythology is true and that Rayse and Tanavast were brothers. 

 

I can't wait to find out how wrong I am when we learn what is really going on. 

[Nepene he/him]

It seems intuitive that hatred is more self and future-oriented than honor.  Honor seems very other and present-oriented.  It makes sense that Honor would want people to interact with.  It also makes sense that Odium would want to destroy those same people.  I can see the Oathpact as a sort of proxy war setup to avoid the Shards coming directly in conflict. 

 

I can imagine Odium having a long game of letting Honor weaken himself by overcommitting to the world, then killing him when he's weak.  The desolations would then be just a convenient mechanism to induce Honor to overcommit. 

 

The mystery to me is why Honor would be surprised that Odium came for him.  The only unlikely scenario that I can imagine is the the Purelaker mythology is true and that Rayse and Tanavast were brothers. 

 

I can't wait to find out how wrong I am when we learn what is really going on. 

 

Maybe the war was between Honor and Cultivation as Leuthie suggested, and Odium came in and told both Cultivation and Honor that he'd be their buddy and he'd help them take the other one out?

[Observer]

So Odium was secretly an alternate version of Elend, one that could actually pull of his plan? Yes, this is mind-blowingly amazing!

 

 

To be honest, I think we may be overthinking this just a little to much. A step back may be in order.

[Nepene he/him]

“It’s about all of them,” the figure said. “I should have realized he’d come for me.”

 

We know that Odium works by turning people against each other.

 

He’s realized that you, given time, will become your own enemies. That he doesn't need to fight you. Not if he can make you forget, make you turn against one another.

 

It's not overthinking to propose he did the same to Honor and Cultivation.

[Leuthie]

If Odium is taking a long view approach to destroying Shards, why would he create something like Desolations that take so much effort? Those two quotes confirm to me that Desolations have nothing to do with Odium. He IS Hate. He can simply turn his enemies against each other and let them use their energy while he keeps his own.

[Vortaan he/him]

If Odium is taking a long view approach to destroying Shards, why would he create something like Desolations that take so much effort? Those two quotes confirm to me that Desolations have nothing to do with Odium. He IS Hate. He can simply turn his enemies against each other and let them use their energy while he keeps his own.

 

Because the Desolations tie down at least two Shards with minimal Investiture, and allow him the freedom to roam the Cosmere and do his thing. Let's keep in mind folks that so far, Odium is the only Shard we know that travels. The rest seem to have found their little niches and settled down. Locking down Honor so that he couldn't come help, for example, Devotion seems like a good use of power.

[Leuthie]

Minimal Investiture? Regularly making enough rock and shadow come to life to kill 9 of 10 humans (or whatever) while you're not there only requires minimal Investiture?

[blari345]

Minimal Investiture? Regularly making enough rock and shadow come to life to kill 9 of 10 humans (or whatever) while you're not there only requires minimal Investiture?

Hey I'm new to the forums here.

 

My idea on this is that maybe everything didn't go Odiums way and that Honor forced him in to this type of conflict. Binding Odium to some sort of rules of battle with equal and opposing forces seems like the sort of way that honor would fight back when attacked. To have a chance at getting to Honor, Odium had to play by the rules and invest some of himself. His desire to destroy Honor is greater than his aversion to investing himself.

[Vortaan he/him]

Minimal Investiture? Regularly making enough rock and shadow come to life to kill 9 of 10 humans (or whatever) while you're not there only requires minimal Investiture?

 

1) We're not sure exactly what the Desolations contained army wise. If Jasnah is right and a major part of them are parshmen, then that leads me to believe that the essences are more like specialist troops, and probably far less. You're also forgetting that enough time seems to have passed between Desolations that most people aren't ready for them, at least pre-Nohadon.

 

2) It looks like Voidbinders work off Stormlight, just like Surgebinders. If Odium is using Honor's own magic against him, then yes, the Investiture is probably minimal.  A good example would be Ruin using Koloss. Koloss are created through Hemalurgy, but really the Investiture that powers them is Preservation's. 

 

3) We know Odium has enough power to do both the Desolations AND splinter two Shards. Obviously we either don't know how much power it takes to Splinter a Shard, or the Desolations are a relatively minor drain on his overall power, or Odium's specific abilities make one or the other much easier to do than you'd think.

 

4) Obviously the Desolation plan worked, since Tanavast is dead. The question is really did it work because the Heralds failed, or was it along the lines of the Preservation/Ruin pact where Odium was going to win without a big sacrifice play from someone?

[Nepene he/him]

If Odium is taking a long view approach to destroying Shards, why would he create something like Desolations that take so much effort? Those two quotes confirm to me that Desolations have nothing to do with Odium. He IS Hate. He can simply turn his enemies against each other and let them use their energy while he keeps his own.

 

That's a question to ask Brandon- does Odium have an aversion to using his power/ leaving it behind on worlds? He may or may not be willing to expend his strength.

[Observer]

Do we know that Honor created humans? They moved in from the TH, and it's not entirely implausible that Cultivation made them first and Honor just joined the fun. I guess what I'm getting at is this: what if Honor hadn't expended very much of himself on humans/Odium spent too much of himself on the Shards, and as a result the two were actually evenly matched? Odium couldn't just bruteforce his way through Honor becauce it would kill him, or at least leave him easy pickings for Cultivation. (It's also possible that, though they were both weak from making humans, together they could match Odium. Same thing though, in the end.)

 

So they did the Ruin/Preservation thing, Honor tries to make people honorable, Odium blocks him. Odium tries to make people hateful, Honor blocks him. They go on like this until the sheer pointlessness sets in. So the two/three of them set up a roundabout way of getting at one another. They create the Oathpact, probably with some Shardic magic we don't really understand. How it worked is anybody's guess. Maybe they fought only with creations, maybe they did something else. Who can say? The important thing seems to be that they left a lot of their battle up to humans, kind of Diablo style I guess.

 

This is where I get back on topic, for those who were fingering the downrate button.

Maybe their shardic prescence had already given people powers ages ago during their push and shove match. In any case, now that they've figured out how stupid directly fighting is, they probably went down and did what they could to perfect the magic systems they had created. Honor got surgebinding, likely an improved and more honor-powered version of whatever people originally being given by him. Then we have Voidbinding. The name sounds pretty obvious, all things considered, and normally we'd just slap this onto Odium and get to work on Cultivation. But we know enough about the natures of Shards like Ruin and Odium to not just take things by their names. The name doesn't match up with what we know. Voidbinding is, as far as we've been told, a way to see the future. The mechanics we've seen for doing so pretty much boil down to people who die. So, for the sake of the theory, we'll say Voidbinding is in some way related to that, like the OP says, and move on. Honor has told us that Cultivation is pretty good at seeing the future, which is a little suspicious since Voidbinding is supposed to be Odium's thing. We also have the problem of Voidbringers supposedly holding stormlight perfectly. If they can hold stormlight, that means surgebidning. Do they have two magic systems? If so, why didn't Surgebinding get lumped in with Voidbinding over time? Nobody speaks evilly of people changing gravity and sending people into the atmosphere.

With what we've seen of Shards, it's not too far of a stretch to say that Odium has changed theology to prevent anybody from stopping him via precognicion, and that either Voidbringers have a system we haven't heard of yet or that they have some form of Hemalurgy that lets them use the other powers alongside their own.

 

Okay, that was a big rambling textwall that may or not have made any sense. Sorry :/

[hoser he/him]

This is where I get back on topic, for those who were fingering the downrate button.

Love this!  Snap uprate!

[Vortaan he/him]

Do we know that Honor created humans? They moved in from the TH, and it's not entirely implausible that Cultivation made them first and Honor just joined the fun. I guess what I'm getting at is this: what if Honor hadn't expended very much of himself on humans/Odium spent too much of himself on the Shards, and as a result the two were actually evenly matched? Odium couldn't just bruteforce his way through Honor becauce it would kill him, or at least leave him easy pickings for Cultivation. (It's also possible that, though they were both weak from making humans, together they could match Odium. Same thing though, in the end.)

 

So they did the Ruin/Preservation thing, Honor tries to make people honorable, Odium blocks him. Odium tries to make people hateful, Honor blocks him. They go on like this until the sheer pointlessness sets in. So the two/three of them set up a roundabout way of getting at one another. They create the Oathpact, probably with some Shardic magic we don't really understand. How it worked is anybody's guess. Maybe they fought only with creations, maybe they did something else. Who can say? The important thing seems to be that they left a lot of their battle up to humans, kind of Diablo style I guess.

 

This is where I get back on topic, for those who were fingering the downrate button.

Maybe their shardic prescence had already given people powers ages ago during their push and shove match. In any case, now that they've figured out how stupid directly fighting is, they probably went down and did what they could to perfect the magic systems they had created. Honor got surgebinding, likely an improved and more honor-powered version of whatever people originally being given by him. Then we have Voidbinding. The name sounds pretty obvious, all things considered, and normally we'd just slap this onto Odium and get to work on Cultivation. But we know enough about the natures of Shards like Ruin and Odium to not just take things by their names. The name doesn't match up with what we know. Voidbinding is, as far as we've been told, a way to see the future. The mechanics we've seen for doing so pretty much boil down to people who die. So, for the sake of the theory, we'll say Voidbinding is in some way related to that, like the OP says, and move on. Honor has told us that Cultivation is pretty good at seeing the future, which is a little suspicious since Voidbinding is supposed to be Odium's thing. We also have the problem of Voidbringers supposedly holding stormlight perfectly. If they can hold stormlight, that means surgebidning. Do they have two magic systems? If so, why didn't Surgebinding get lumped in with Voidbinding over time? Nobody speaks evilly of people changing gravity and sending people into the atmosphere.

With what we've seen of Shards, it's not too far of a stretch to say that Odium has changed theology to prevent anybody from stopping him via precognicion, and that either Voidbringers have a system we haven't heard of yet or that they have some form of Hemalurgy that lets them use the other powers alongside their own.

 

Okay, that was a big rambling textwall that may or not have made any sense. Sorry :/

 

Huh. Random thought: What if the Voidbinding that current Roshar thinks is evil is actually a form of Surgebinding? Is there an order of KR that precognition would possibly fit under? And if so, does that make the Recreance something that had to happen in order to PREVENT the Final Desolation? Maybe a vision shows the KR that the only way to win the future Desolation is to abandon humanity for a couple thousand years.

[Khmauv he/him]

I came across a little nugget found in the prelude when re-reading.

There were so many corpses, and among them walked the living. Men in primitive wraps, carrying spears topped by bronze heads. Juxtaposed between them were others in gleaming plate armor.

I take from this that Knights Radiant and Parshendi were fighting together against the voidbringers. I would like to speculate further that the Parshendi are of cultivation, and Knights Radiant are of Honor. The assassination of King Gavilar was likely perpetrated one under the influence of Odium, in an attempt to get them to weaken one another. More particularly to weaken those of Cultivation for when Odium strikes again. 

 

My additional, and somewhat tenuous evidence, that the Parshendi are of Cultivation is that they live where the highstorms first hit land and are strongest. Given my personal belief that the Stormfather is cultivation, and the storm itself is his physical presence on Rohsar I would think that those who are of cultivation or worship him would live nearest his influence. 

[Vortaan he/him]

I came across a little nugget found in the prelude when re-reading.

I take from this that Knights Radiant and Parshendi were fighting together against the voidbringers. I would like to speculate further that the Parshendi are of cultivation, and Knights Radiant are of Honor. The assassination of King Gavilar was likely perpetrated one under the influence of Odium, in an attempt to get them to weaken one another. More particularly to weaken those of Cultivation for when Odium strikes again. 

 

My additional, and somewhat tenuous evidence, that the Parshendi are of Cultivation is that they live where the highstorms first hit land and are strongest. Given my personal belief that the Stormfather is cultivation, and the storm itself is his physical presence on Rohsar I would think that those who are of cultivation or worship him would live nearest his influence. 

 

Vorin history states that men had to be given Shardblades and Plate because they were nowhere near advanced enough to fight Desolations on their own. I think the men in furs is just a sign of those less advanced times, since the prelude is a good 4 millennia before the rest of the book.

[don_karma_II he/him]

Is it possible that voidbinding is Cultivation's as Surgebinding is Honor's? both get their powers from the storm light? Surgebinding being end positive and voidbinding being end negative?