Roshar's "Magical History Tour" (Apologies to Sgt. Pepper)

[Confused]

THIS POST CONTAINS LOTS OF SPECULATION. PLEASE READ IT AS SUCH. THANKS!

 

 

Brandon states that Roshar is a heavily-invested planet as compared with Scadrial. Though the aggregate amount of investiture available on Roshar IS greater, I think Brandon refers to the amount of power actually invested in the planet. Harmony touches Scadrial with a light hand.

 

Roshar, in contrast, abounds with “living ideas” – spren – that don’t even belong in the Physical Realm. (See “A Confused Primer on Spren.”) How did that come about? How does Roshar’s magic work? Where does all that investiture come from and where does it go?

 

A. Adonalsium’s “Design.” Roshar bears Adonalsium’s “touch and design.” (WoR, Chapter 66 Epigraph.) Brandon has said that Adonalsium left power on Roshar that developed sentience on its own. We don’t know whether he/she/it left that power there deliberately or as part of the Shattering, or for whatever reason. I speculate that most “natural” spren (defined below) are from Adonalsium, though that’s unconfirmed.

 

1. “Natural” spren are those that carry no imprint of human thought or emotion. Humans are not originally of Roshar. Adonalsium’s spren, therefore, would be the ones listeners are familiar with: windspren, rainspren, angerspren – even the “Rider of the Storms” himself. These spren now may be colored by human thought and Shardic influence, but they must have existed originally in some “natural” (Adonalsium-created) form with which listeners could bond.

 

a. Human experience – emotionally individualistic coupled with an ever-changing material culture – varies far more than the listener experience of communal emotional response (the rhythms) and a static material culture. An individualistic culture will create more, and more varied, spren than a communal one. These are simply differences in temperament and culture, not differences in emotional or intellectual capacity. Eshonai and Venli are a match for any human.

 

b. Temperamental and cultural differences do mean that far fewer kinds of spren existed on Roshar before the human migrations. Spren spawned or modified by human thought or emotion would NOT be “natural” spren left by Adonalsium.

 

2. There’s lots of Forum speculation (with which I agree) that the listeners are the original humanoid life form on Roshar, or at least they migrated there before humans. Brandon hints that Adonalsium created the listeners, but that’s unconfirmed. He also says he modeled the listener chants on Carl Jung’s idea of the “collective unconscious.” That means spren of a commonly-held form – a non-human-inspired form – communicate with one another in the Cognitive Realm and, through them, the listeners do as well.

 

3. Brandon has confirmed that Highstorms started as purely meteorological, non-magical events, presumably before the arrival of the Shards. I’m sure the Highstorms had their share of wind and rain, but Brandon’s statement suggests they did not bear investiture.

 

4. Roshar’s seasons also appear to be magical. Though a Rosharian year is 500 days (20 hours per day), Roshar has multiple seasons during that year, each lasting only a few weeks. These seasons bear no relation to Roshar’s orbit around its sun or the angle of Roshar’s rotation on its axis. Brandon has said that the youth of Roshar’s sun should make its planets incapable of birthing life. We don’t know whether Adonalsium or the Shards caused these magical anomalies.

 

B. Honor and Cultivation’s Arrival. Sometime post-Shattering, Honor and Cultivation arrive on Roshar. Brandon has suggested a romantic involvement between the two. Because Shards retain their “thoughts and personalities” despite their ascension, I speculate that their “romance” continued in Shard form. (I also speculate that Skaize and Aona loved each other and continued to love each other after their ascension as Dominion and Devotion. Wyndle’s lament for “Mother’s” loss of interest in humans following Honor’s death supports these speculations. Wyndle’s “Mother” is generally thought to be Cultivation or, more accurately, her partial spren the Nightwatcher.)

 

C. Odium’s Arrival. Sometime later, after a brief stop on Sel because he apparently doesn’t like couples, Odium arrives.

 

1. I theorize the Highstorms become invested at this time. (Others believe Adonalsium may have invested the Highstorms after first creating them as mere weather events.) It’s unclear whether Honor and/or Cultivation invest them before Odium’s arrival or whether all three do so more or less simultaneously or in response to one another..

 

2. I further speculate that the Shards' investment in Highstorms, particularly Odium’s investment, cause the Highstorms to become more violent. Odium’s Aggression mandate (see “Mandates of the Known Shards”) magnifies the power of the Highstorms and may add the thunder and lightning. Cultivation’s mandate of Survival ensures that life nonetheless continues and even flourishes. (WoB: “Stormlight makes things grow.”) Honor, with his Relationships mandate, binds it all together.

 

3. I believe each Shard creates its own moon. In order of their rising, I believe the purple Salas (the smallest moon) is Odium’s physical body; the larger pale blue Nomon is Honor’s physical body; and the in-between (size-wise) green Mishim is Cultivation’s. Throughout the books, these colors are thematic of each Shard.

 

Example: “When [Kaladin] passed, the grass pulled back in, looking like the fur of some black beast in the night, lit by Salas.” (WoK, Kindle p. 808 (emphasis added).) “Beast” imagery is also associated with Odium. Whenever Dalinar is enthralled by the Thrill, be “bellows,” “roars” and “growls.” That’s consistent with Odium’s Aggression mandate.

 

4. All three moons are much closer to Roshar than our moon is to earth. I baldly speculate when Odium killed Tanavast, a chunk of Nomon representing Tanavast’s body fell (or was propelled) to Roshar at Stormseat, causing the Shattered Plains to shatter.

Edited August 21, 2015 by Confused

[WeiryWriter he/him]

On the seasons it is important to note that when Rosharans refer to seasons it's mostly a translation quirk.  Roshar, as a planet, doesn't have an axial tilt so it wouldn't develop seasons in the same way that Earth would.  So there's an entirely mundane and non-magical reason for the erratic seasons.

 

From Writing Excuses Season 9 Episode 23
 

One of the things that the person brought up is that in the Stormlight Archives, we have a planet without axial tilt and seasons don't happen the way that we imagine them on our planet. To them, when the... A season happens is oh, it got cold for a little while. It's winter now for a few weeks. Then when it's not cold anymore, it is not winter and now we're calling it spring. This is a translation effect that I put... That I said, "How am I going to get this across?" Well, to a person speaking English, they would call winter the cold time. So I'm going to translate what they say as the cold patch as winter. I did this to make it jarring, to... Then I made it incidental. These are the two things. It's mentioned incidentally, I did not make it a plot point. I made it just something that they talk about so when they say, "Oh, it looks like winter is going to be here for a few weeks. I hope that spring comes again in a couple of weeks." When it does, they're like, "Oh, good." When it lapses back in the winter, people who are paying attention are like, "This is bizarre. I don't understand this. But this is how it works." That worked really well in the Stormlight Archives because those people who really know about seasons and weather and things like this say, "oh, I know the astronomy of what's happening with this world. That is cool." For everyone else, is just a bizarre aspect of the world. It doesn't influence the plot in a major way, and you just accept it for what it is.

 
(link to transcript)

[Confused]

Good to know! So the "seasons" are not really "seasons" and couldn't be in any case given the lack of axial tilt. More importantly, they're irrelevant to plot. (Not being an astronomer, does anyone know whether no tilt is unusual for planets?)

 

Thanks, Weiry! I assume the rest is okay?

 

What about the Greater Roshar planets? Any WoB about their astronomical features? (Don't need anything about "Braize is a kind of prison" or "there's a fertile patch on Ashlyn." Something about their creation or other features that I haven't been able to find?)

 

Again, thanks!

[Alfa he/him]

I assume that Braize/Damnation is nearer to the sun than Roshar, giving it more "Damnation-like" heat.
Also, to add to your history line: It is assumed that Honor was killed after the first 99 desolations on the day of Recreance. Noatably during a surprisingly long winter.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Sorry for the late reply.
 

Good to know! So the "seasons" are not really "seasons" and couldn't be in any case given the lack of axial tilt. More importantly, they're irrelevant to plot. (Not being an astronomer, does anyone know whether no tilt is unusual for planets?)

 
I'm also not an astronomer but I don't think it strains credulity for it to not have a tilt.  There's quite a bit of variation in the degrees of tilt in the solar system.  It's also important to remember that there's a lot about Roshar that are... "interesting" astronomically speaking (such as Roshar's sun being too young for life to have arisen naturally or the moons being in astronomically unstable orbits), so whether it is unusual or not that is just how it is.
 

Thanks, Weiry! I assume the rest is okay?

 
Eh, more like that is the one part where I had explicit WoB that I could find relatively quickly.  Here's a more in-depth response:
 
I don't agree with the "natural spren" theory.  Most of the spren we see are the result of Honor and Cultivation's Investiture, not Adonalsium's, I don't even think we've had confirmation from Brandon that we have even seen any of the Adonalsium-Invested spren.  Granted there's still a lot we don't know about spren but your interpretation of how spren work just doesn't feel right to me.  I could very likely be mistaken but at the current time I don't think we know enough to make accurate theories about pre-H+C Roshar.
 
I don't think I would say that the listener's communicate through spren in the Cognitive Realm.  They can attune to the Rhythms, but I wouldn't say that is the same as what you are suggesting.  While I would say it is probable that the Rhythms and the spren are at least somewhat related I'd argue that it is because they are both derived from Spiritual ideals.
 
I wouldn't say "Brandon has suggested a romantic involvement between the two", he explicitly confirmed they were romantically involved (notably the question refers to them as Honor and Cultivation, which would certainly indicate that it continued past their Ascensions, though the fact that they went to Roshar together is another indication of that).
 
At this point I don't think we know enough to accurately guess when the highstorms were Invested.  Is this idea possible?  Sure, but I wouldn't put money on anything at this point.
 
I don't agree with your mandate theory, so I'm disinclined to agree with your interpretation of the highstorms here.
 
Thematically I'm generally in favor of the colors of the moons being representative of the Shards.  I'm skeptical of them actually being the physical bodies of the Shards though, since that doesn't seem to be how shards work?  Not to mention that despite his presence being felt on Roshar, Odium is actually located on Braize.
 
On the part of the moon crashing into Roshar... I think that is something that people would remember.  And I just don't think that would result in what actually happened?  Like that would have caused a fairly sizable crater, not create a cymatic pattern in the rock (which requires some sort of wave, not a single impact).
 

What about the Greater Roshar planets? Any WoB about their astronomical features? (Don't need anything about "Braize is a kind of prison" or "there's a fertile patch on Ashlyn." Something about their creation or other features that I haven't been able to find?

 

Not that I am aware of.

 

Again, thanks!

I assume that Braize/Damnation is nearer to the sun than Roshar, giving it more "Damnation-like" heat.
Also, to add to your history line: It is assumed that Honor was killed after the first 99 desolations on the day of Recreance. Noatably during a surprisingly long winter.

 

One minor note, proximity to the sun wouldn't necessarily make a planet hotter, that has more to do with the make-up of the planet's atmosphere.  After all Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, Venus is actually the hottest planet in our solar system.  (Although Mercury gets quite toasty during the day the temperature plummets to well below freezing, because of its thin atmosphere, whereas Venus has a rather thick atmosphere with an overactive greenhouse effect.)

 

On Honor's death, I believe he died an unknown length of time /after/ the Recreance, since he had time to include a memory from that day in his vision-journal.  (Oh and the 99 Desolations thing is a mostly philosophical thing rather than an accurate count)

 

Also does it mention the long winter thing during the Feverstone Keep vision and I have just forgotten that?

[DreamEternal]

Weiry, I have a question: why do you assume most spren we have seen are of Honor and Cultivation? Is it because of Jasnah's theory, because it was done with very limited knowledge by people who never heard of an "Adonalsium".

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Weiry, I have a question: why do you assume most spren we have seen are of Honor and Cultivation? Is it because of Jasnah's theory, because it was done with very limited knowledge by people who never heard of an "Adonalsium".

 

I'm basing that off this WoB:

 

Zas

A question related to that. There’s an idea going around that all the spren that can Nahel Bond, all Knight Radiant spren are called honorspren, and then Nohadon talks specifically about honorspren. Is that the case? You know, is it just the Windrunner spren, or is it all the spren?

Brandon Sanderson

I’m going to deal with this in the next book. So I’ll just go ahead and let it be a literal RAFO. It is coming.

(interruption, leading Brandon to lose his train of thought)

 

So what we are dealing with here is that all Spren are indeed all pieces of the one who has gone, so those spren are all- except the Windrunner spren, the spren like Syl, have certain umm.

Zas

 

Nohadon mentioned that "All the spren aren’t as discerning as honorspren."

Brandon Sanderson

 

So there has been dissension among them about who gets to call themselves honorspren, if that makes sense, and there is some disagreement among scholars about which ones are really, you know "This is what defines an honorspren".

 

But the spren you are running into are all (something) of either Honor or Cultivation, or some mixture between them. And you can usually tell the ones that are more Honor, and the ones that are more Cultivation. That should be able to be (something).

 

(source)