Alternative Cryptic Idea

[Shardlet]

So we were having a discussion about the cryptics in the "Symbol Heads" thread and I hit on an idea that I hadn't heard anyone toss out yet.  Now don't scream and fuss about this idea to much.  I know it is thin and the evidence is thin as well.  But, I don't know of anything that particularly speaks against it. 

 

As a preface to this, I have heard people grumble about the fact that it appears that all the Main characters so far (Dalinar, Kaladin, Shallan, and Jasnah) are on the road to radianthood.  I myself personally thought that this was kind of a bit damp.  It seemed like it would be nice if one of these four went astray or was not on the path.  This idea may appeal to those who share this sentiment.

 

So, the prevailing thought about the cryptics is that they are the bonding spren responsible for Shallan's soulcasting ability.  However, by all appearances, the cryptics have different symbols in place of heads.  Now this could simply be individuality, but Brandon indicated that we may recognize these symbols, though they are not glyphs.  What if these symbols indicated separate classifications or orders of cryptics?  Now, clearly, Syl is not a cryptic and she is the right kind of spren to associate Kaladin with the Windrunner order of the KR.  This could mean that the cryptics are not associated with the KR.

 

What orders then would the cryptics be associated with?  What if the cryptics were associated with voidbinding?  Could the symbols be the ones we see in the back cover lining chart?  This may explain Jasnah's concern at seeing the picture of the cryptic.

Edited September 26, 2013 by Shardlet

[Gloom]

Okay, I have no problem speculating about this. I'll agree that their is a possibility that the cryptics are associated with the chart in the back of the book, but, as far as I know, the verdict on what that chart represents is still out. It could be void bringing, or it could be Cultivation.

 

I will be the first to admit that Shallan has some serious character flaws and doesn't always make the best decisions in life, but at the same time, she isn't cruel, violent, or hateful. I'm not sure why she would attract a voidspren unless it was drawn to her by her Shardblade.

 

Brandon said that we saw three different magic systems at work in TWoKs. We saw Honors system with Kaladin. Many think that Szeth is being influenced by Odium, so it's entirely possible that Shallan is using Cultivations system. Then again, it could be Odiums. We have nothing to base our information on other than the artwork itself, the characters, and some rather vague answers from Brandon.

 

There is also the possibility that neither Shallan nor Jasnah are on the path to becoming a Knight Radiant. The Knight Radiant orders may come exclusively from the first chart. Both women have similar abilities. Perhaps they are both treading down the path to darkness. We can assume that Jasnah doesn't have a cryptic, but if she did recognize the symbol as being associated with the void bringers, then why risk continuing her association with Shallan?

[The Count]

 We can assume that Jasnah doesn't have a cryptic,

 

How can we assume this?

 

Shallan and Jasnah are both natural soulcasters

The cryptics facillitate soulcasting

Jasnah recognises the crypics

 

Surly the obvious conclusion is that Jasnah is also bonded to a cryptic...

 

As to weather they are associated with voidbinding...

 

I don't buy it personally. The other examples we have seen linked to voidbinding, such as the midnight essence or the WoR scene seem to be wholly destructive in nature. Beings of Hate and destruction (along with their patron Shard's intent).

 

By contrast, Shallan's power (and the cryptics) seems alignment neutral. It merely provides access to power, which could be used in any way at all. Indeed, this is precicly the point that Jasnah makes after she murders the thugs.

 

Indeed, Shallan obtains access to Shadesmar with the words 'I am a Murderer' hardly likely please / attratc an Honourspren.

 

Suppose Kaladin was to go out of his way to find and kill those thugs in the same manner? I think Syl would not have been happy as his actions would not have been honourble.

 

I would suggest that Soulcasting could therefore be of Cultivation rather than Odium.

 

Indeed, the analogy could even be taken further with the nature of the bonds:

 

Honor - Symbiotic relationships (good alignment), requires honourable actions.

Cultivation - Trading relationships (neutral alignment), requires truth (or other not aligned actions)

Odium - Parasitic / Possession (Evil alignment), cannot say of they can be attracted or they just possess stuff.

 

Just some thoughts...

Edited September 26, 2013 by MadRand

[Bloodfalcon]

It is possible that multiple magic systems are associated with a single Shard, correct? Like in MB?

And I applaud you, Shardlet, on being so well spoken after that rambling mess of a thread, haha. I still want to think that the cyptics are each a representation of the 10 essences, as each metal was used in multiple magic systems in MB.  

Edit: Meh, I may be forcing myself to face the facts here. This quote makes it sound like they are not the Essence symbols:

"Above the stiff, high collars, where the creatures' heads should be, each had a large, floating symbol of twisted design full of impossible angles and geometries.”

I don't think any of them are full of impossible angles and geometries.

Edited September 26, 2013 by bloodfalcon2

[Shardlet]

Gloom, I think you are making a lot of assumptions about voidbinding, its nature, and the nature of the spren it is associated with.  Truth is we know virtually nothing about any of that.  The closest we have is the Dalinar reading and some scattered legends.  I do agree with you, however, that it does not appear that Jasnah interacts with the cryptics.  Her reaction to the drawing of it shows her to be unsettled.  If she had been interacting with a cryptic for her soulcasting or whatever, I would expect her reaction to be one of relief or something similar.

 

As to her taking Shallan back, there could be any number of reasons.  Jasnah could recognize that Shallan does not have ill-intent as yet.  She could be actually attempting to turn her from the dark side, as it were.  There is also keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  That is just two reasonable and possible motivations.

[Gloom]

How can we assume this?

 

Shallan and Jasnah are both natural soulcasters

The cryptics facillitate soulcasting

Jasnah recognises the crypics

 

Surly the obvious conclusion is that Jasnah is also bonded to a cryptic...

 

Jasnah wasn't a viewpoint character in TWoK's. Cryptics are invisible. Jasnah is a scholar. Their are any number of ways that Jasnah could have recognized the symbol. People soulcast without cryptics. Szeth surgebinds without a spren. We have no evidence Jasnah's cryptic exists yet. When the evidence is shaky, and it is, we can assume whatever we want. It doesn't make it true, but we can make the assumption.

 

To be clear I should have said something along the lines of 'lets assume' because I don't know that Jasnah is without a cryptic just because Shallan didn't draw a picture of it.

 

If she does have a cryptic, this just means that she is even more likely to be heading down the same path, or a similar path of power as Shallan. This is what I was trying to get at when you nit picked one sentence out of my post to choose as your starting point. I'm of the opinion that Jasnah and Shallan are both firmly in Cultivations sphere of influence. But, if what they were doing was void bringing, then we can't just point at Shallan. Both of them are using soulcasting, and both of them have the same physical requirements to use their powers. The difference between what they do and what Kaladin does is as clear as the difference between Alomancers and Feromancers.

 

It is also possible that Odium steals. If Szeth is using Odiums system, is it a copy of Honors? Did he copy Cultivations as well? If he did, then we actually have more reason to suspect Jasnah of using Odiums system than we do Shallan. Szaeth doesn't have any spren, Shallan has a spren of some type. We don't know that Jasnah has a spren, we don't know that she doesn't.

 

Gloom, I think you are making a lot of assumptions about voidbinding, its nature, and the nature of the spren it is associated with.

 

As far as I can tell I was speculating broadly. I'm really not sure what you're talking about. Please feel free to list these assumptions of mine individually and I will be happy to address them.

 

As to her taking Shallan back, there could be any number of reasons.  Jasnah could recognize that Shallan does not have ill-intent as yet.  She could be actually attempting to turn her from the dark side, as it were.  There is also keep your friends close and your enemies closer.  That is just two reasonable and possible motivations.

 

Or, she could be using Odiums power and desires to corrupt Shallan. She could be curious. She could have drank too much wine and had faulty judgement at the time, you're right, we don't know.

 

We haven't seen anything from Jasnah's viewpoint at all in TWoK's. We did see Shallan's viewpoint though. She isn't callous, she has a high regard for life, she feels regret for some of the things she has done, she doesn't appear to crave power for the sake of power. This doesn't sound like Odium to me. Not when we have characters like Sadeas that would make a far better subject for Odium. Sadeas is callous, he doesn't have regard for the lives of his peers, he treats his soldiers as tools, and he treated his bridgemen even worse.

 

As I've said, Shallan has faults, but from what we have seen of her character, her personality, she doesn't seem like she would be attracting Odiums spren (If he even has any). This may or may not be true. You yourself pointed out the scarcity of hard facts in this area in the OP. Everything here is speculation based on very limited information.

 

 

Edit: Meh, I may be forcing myself to face the facts here. This quote makes it sound like they are not the Essence symbols:

"Above the stiff, high collars, where the creatures' heads should be, each had a large, floating symbol of twisted design full of impossible angles and geometries.”

I don't think any of them are full of impossible angles and geometries.

 

The symbols on the chart are stylized to some degree. The sword glyph on the cover is different from the glyph on its chart. They have the same basic shape, but if you didn't know it was the same shape it would be easy to miss. Taking a three dimensional symbol that fills the space of a persons head and translating that into a two dimensional symbol would require a simplification of the form. I wouldn't write your theory off entirely based on that quote. A stick figure may represent a person, but it certainly doesn't look like a person.

[Shardlet]

As far as I can tell I was speculating broadly. I'm really not sure what you're talking about. Please feel free to list these assumptions of mine individually and I will be happy to address them.

 

You said, "she isn't cruel, violent, or hateful. I'm not sure why she would attract a voidspren".

 

The underlying assumption here is that these are the characteristics required to attract a voidbinding spren.  They may be.  However, is every spren involved with the KR attracted to traits which are good and happy?  Some are, surely.  I suspect that most could go either way.  Even honor and holding to oaths can go both ways.  Thus, it stands to reason that traits that may attract voidbinding spren may also go both ways or even be many of the same traits.  On top of which, we know absolutely nothing I can think of about the nature of voidspren.

 

As to Jasnah being in the same boat as Shallan, this is of course not necessarily the case.  For starters, there are two radiant orders with soulcasting ability.  On top of which, Szeth has Windrunner abilities without being in the same boat as Kaladin.  On top of that (if Szeth's abilities are not voidbinding), it is entirely possible that voidbinding could include soulcasting abilities. 

[Bloodfalcon]

OK, so let's say each of those cryptics is a representation of one of the Heralds symbols. I'm not sure if this chart is correct b/c i have not gone as in depth as others obviously have, but take a look for a second.

Did Shallan have to give the truth right before she turned the goblet to blood? Because that would fit with Blood ->Shash -> Honesty. It could be that each Herald-based- cryptic requires a display of the attribute they represent to produce the essence they represent. 

I feel like I either unified my personal theory or proving that I need to go read the book again, though I was hoping to wait until we were closer to WoR. And I'm only trying to stay away from reading it again because I'm reading Elantris.

EDIT: Oh, also Shallan is very creative. The other attribute fits too. It would make sense that that is the first Cryptic she draws in or potentially bonds or what have you.

Edited September 26, 2013 by bloodfalcon2

[Gloom]

I'm of the opinion that Honor and Cultivation created the spren. I'm basing that on this quote.

 

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).

 

If Odium has spren at all, rather than simply corrupting existing spren for his purposes, then I believe his spren would be for specific purposes and far more discerning than those that are a combination of Honor and Cultivation. All that we know about spren used by voidbringers is in the Dalinar Reading from WoR. Odium appears to husband his power carefully to ensure he can out match his adversaries. If Odium could not guarantee that any power he invested in spren would not be turned specifically to his purposes, I have deep reservations about whether he would make such an investment.

 

The primary difference between Szeth and Kaladin is that Szeth lacks a spren. The primary difference between Shallan and Jasnah is that we haven't seen Jasnah's spren. Voidbinding could indeed include soulcasting abilities, or it could be a completely different magic system. The only voidbringing magic we've seen is the summoning of Midnight Essence in the TwoKs, and another summoning in the WoR Readings. Neither of these displays of voidbringing conclusively depicted void spren.

 

Now, just because someone becomes a surge binder doesn't necessarily mean they will become a KR. I'm sure that Odium would love to recruit surge binders into his army to fight against the KR. I'm fairly certain that some bonding spren, such as Syl, would abandon a surge binder who made such a transition, but I'm not nearly as certain this would be the case with some of the less discerning spren types.

[Gloom]

Now about the charts.

 

I believe the first chart was the original. This is the chart that showed the combination of Honor and Cultivation and the magic system they shared.

 

I believe that Tanavast was killed shortly after the Recreance. My reasoning for this is simple. Until that time the Radiants were still upholding their part in the Oath Pact. Their participation along with Talns incarceration was enough to keep Odium from gaining the upper hand.

 

"Most of what I show you are scenes I have seen directly," the figure said. "But some, such as this one, are born of my fears. If I fear it, then you should too."

 

Everything that Dalinar was shown before this was highly detailed and included other people. This is the only scene in the book that Dalinar was shown where he was alone in a depopulated world. I believe all the other scenes were seen by Tanavast, including the Recreance.

 

I'm speculating that the Chart at the end of the book is the magic system as it is. Held together by Cultivation with Odiums shadow cast over it. Honor remains because he was splintered on Roshar and his power was distributed into his spren. The Radiants can rise again as they were, because of this.

 

Note: This is pure speculation based on my interpretation of what I've read. You may find things that you agree with and you may find things you don't agree with. I'm not going to defend it because I have very little basis upon which to do so.

[Miyabi]

Remember when trying to see if they are Cryptics that we know Cryptic heads are in the shapes of Aons.

[Shardlet]

Remember when trying to see if they are Cryptics that we know Cryptic heads are in the shapes of Aons.

 

Do what?  Are you suggesting that the cryptic symbols are aons?  To me that doesn't make much sense.  Outside of Arelon and AonDor, I can't see the aons having much meaning.  Perhaps the symbols could function similarly to aons.  But I have a hard time getting on board with them being aons.

[Miyabi]

No their heads are the in the shape of Aons IIRC.

[Shardlet]

No their heads are the in the shape of Aons IIRC.

 

How did you arrive at that?  I haven't seen any description which connects the two.

Edited September 26, 2013 by Shardlet

[Gloom]

I've never seen that quote either.

[Vortaan]

There was some speculation on another thread that Voidbinding is tied to death. If this is the case, Shallan's Cryptics could have been drawn to her after she killed her father, and bonded to her in her search for truth. Truth is, after all, the death of lies, and Shallan consciously  Soulcasts the first time when she tells Jasnah the truth.

[Shardlet]

Shallan soulcasts only once when she is on her own.  She enters Shadesmar a second time when Jasnah comes in too and saves her neck.  But, Shallan does not soulcast at that time.

[Vortaan]

Shallan soulcasts only once when she is on her own.  She enters Shadesmar a second time when Jasnah comes in too and saves her neck.  But, Shallan does not soulcast at that time.

 

Fair enough, although the basic point still stands. 

[Gloom]

There was some speculation on another thread that Voidbinding is tied to death. If this is the case, Shallan's Cryptics could have been drawn to her after she killed her father, and bonded to her in her search for truth. Truth is, after all, the death of lies, and Shallan consciously  Soulcasts the first time when she tells Jasnah the truth.

 

Who was it that Elhokar killed that drew a cryptic to him?

[Vortaan]

Who was it that Elhokar killed that drew a cryptic to him?

 

Good question, we actually don't know a whole lot about Elhokar, do we? Has he been on an plateau runs? Although I imagine it would have to be someone more important to him personally. It's inconceivable to me though that he was raised in Alethi high society without killing someone. The men seem to hold the whole martial violence thing in far too high regard for him to not have done some battling.

[Gloom]

I don't think killing someone would be enough. If it was, than every soldier on the Shattered Plains, and many of the soldiers not on the Shattered Plains would be far better candidates than Shallan. I would assume that it would have more to do with murder than killing. Basically, as far as I'm concerned, for this theory to pan out, we would have to know that Elhokar murdered someone. I think it's reaching to try to make this connection at this point, but I've done this myself so I'm in no position to criticize that.

[Vortaan]

You're also assuming that Elkohar's Cryptics are the same as Shallan's. That's a bit of a reach with what we know too.

[Miyabi]

How did you arrive at that?  I haven't seen any description which connects the two.

I don't remember....... I swear I read it somewhere though. I think it was on the night I spent like 10 hours catching up on 2 years out of the community. lol.

[Sabrina Stormshard]

Is it canon that you need to kill to be able to see Cryptics?

[Vortaan]

Is it canon that you need to kill to be able to see Cryptics?

 

No, just a theory. Probably false, since we don't see evidence that Jasnah can see Shallan's Cryptics, and she has definitely killed, although possibly not anyone important to her