History of Spren and shadesmar

[Mileswasbestcharacter]

HEY ALL,

I'm new to posting, been a long time lurker tho, and I was wondering about the oath pact in relation to the new chapters released for WoR. Jasnah says that the more intelligent spren dislike dealing with humanity after humanity broke its promise, but the spren now fear for their lives and so are more willing to deal with humans because of their desperation. I recognize this is probably a reference to the oathpact and the heralds, however I wonder if spren existed at the time of Adonalsium's shattering.

We are sure the cognitive realm existed during the time of Adonalsium's shattering, given that Hoid has been using the cognitive realm to planet hop. Does that mean spren have existed since that time or are they more connected to odium, cultivation, and honors' conflict on roshar, or even to the latter's splintering?

I'm pressed for time unfortunately, but please respond with any questions on clarity and I shall do my best to summarize my thoughts. Also this may have already been touched upon sorry if repeat.

[Kurkistan he/him]

There were "Adonalsium spren" on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation go there.

 

Source:

Wetlander: Please explain what you will about shards and splintering and slivers.

 

Brandon: An event happened long ago which destroyed something called Adonalsium into 16 pieces.  And 16 people took up that power.

 

Q: People?

 

A: I call all intelligent species people.   If someone takes up the power and lets go of it, it has the effect much like a balloon that’s been stretched and then the air is let out.  I call that a sliver; based off of TLR calling himself the Sliver of Infinity.  TLR is someone who held the power and then released it.  And so, current slivers are TLR, Kelsier, and there may be others around who at one point held the power and let go of it.  A splinter is a term used by certain people in the cosmere for power of Adonalsium which has no person caring for it, no…no person holding it, which has attained self-awareness.

 

Wetlander: So is that like the mists and the Well?  Are they…

 

A: They are not, because they have not attained self-awareness.  But, the Seons are self-aware.  So, any piece, for instance there were some spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation got there.  Those were already splinters of Adonalsium where he had left power which attained sentience on its own.  So, it can be intentional is what I am saying, does that make sense?  You have seen other splinters.

 

Wetlander: Are the highstorms related to the splintering of Honor? (Brandon spoke over the word Honor in starting his response)

 

A: The highstorms are more related to the mist from Mistborn which terminology we have not discussed yet. (also affirmed the well as being similar).  You have seen splinters quite a bit on various planets.

 

EDIT: Welcome to the forums, by the way.

Edited January 10, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Macen he/him]

HEY ALL,

I'm new to posting, been a long time lurker tho, and I was wondering about the oath pact in relation to the new chapters released for WoR. Jasnah says that the more intelligent spren dislike dealing with humanity after humanity broke its promise, but the spren now fear for their lives and so are more willing to deal with humans because of their desperation. I recognize this is probably a reference to the oathpact and the heralds, however I wonder if spren existed at the time of Adonalsium's shattering.

We are sure the cognitive realm existed during the time of Adonalsium's shattering, given that Hoid has been using the cognitive realm to planet hop. Does that mean spren have existed since that time or are they more connected to odium, cultivation, and honors' conflict on roshar, or even to the latter's splintering?

I'm pressed for time unfortunately, but please respond with any questions on clarity and I shall do my best to summarize my thoughts. Also this may have already been touched upon sorry if repeat.

Welcome to the forums!

From the recent reading from Shallan's WoR chapter we establish (or more take Jasnah's word for) the fact that Spren are living ideas/concepts. I got distracted and have no idea where I was going with that thought....

Sorry.

[Shardlet he/him]

While the cognitive realm is a fundamental part of the entire cosmere, spren are a feature of Roshar due to the interaction of Honor's and Cultivation's (and Odium's?) power and the planet Roshar.

[Kurkistan he/him]

While the cognitive realm is a fundamental part of the entire cosmere, spren are a feature of Roshar due to the interaction of Honor's and Cultivation's (and Odium's?) power and the planet Roshar.

 

And Adonalsium's.

[Darkness he/him]

"Wetlander: So is that like the mists and the Well?  Are they…

 

A: They are not, because they have not attained self-awareness.  But, the Seons are self-aware.  So, any piece, for instance there were some spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation got there.  Those were already splinters of Adonalsium where he had left power which attained sentience on its own.  So, it can be intentional is what I am saying, does that make sense?  You have seen other splinters."

 

Two things I never noticed before. Brandon refers to Adonalsium as a 'he'. So there was probably a male holder of Adonalsium. This is intriguing because I've always been a fan of the 'Hoid held Adonalsium before it splintered' theory, and now he's trying to collect pieces of his former glory. In fact, in this same interview, Brandon says that Tanavast did not die when Honor was splintered, so it's theoretically possible.

Second, Shallan describes spren as 'living ideas', but Brandon says that at least some of the spren are splinters of a shard that attained sentience. No point to be made, I just thought it was an interesting perspective.

 

 

Oops! Ninja'd by Kurk!

Edited January 10, 2014 by Darkness

[Shardlet he/him]

And Adonalsium's.

 

For greatest precision, shall we say interaction between Roshar and the power of creation?  I think that it is fairly safe to assume that any shard that releases significant power into/onto Roshar the same way that Adonalsium, Honor, and Cultivation did would likely unltimately result in spren.

 

 

 

Two things I never noticed before. Brandon refers to Adonalsium as a 'he'. So there was probably a male holder of Adonalsium. 

 

Be careful with this conclusion.  There is no gender neutral pronoun in English and 'he' is not uncommonly used to describe something of indeterminate gender.

[Bremen]

 

Second, Shallan describes spren as 'living ideas', but Brandon says that at least some of the spren are splinters of a shard that attained sentience. No point to be made, I just thought it was an interesting perspective.

 

Shardic intents like 'honor' are nothing more than ideas to begin with.  That their self aware splinters are viewed as living ideas should not be surprising.

 

So whats the difference between splinters (ie Syl, Windle) and the host of non-aware spren we have seen?

[DocHoliday he/him]

My pet Theory is the "Great Betrayal" was the creation of Parshmen. Our more specifically, the murdering of their spren.

[Kurkistan he/him]

An interesting thought, Doc...

[don_karma_II he/him]

 A splinter is a term used by certain people in the cosmere for power of Adonalsium which has no person caring for it, no…no person holding it, which has attained self-awareness. - WoB. So is NightBlood a splinter?

[Aether he/him]

No, at least not technically. He's somewhat of an oddball in the Cosmere.

[don_karma_II he/him]

Brandon says we've seen other splinters. Nightblood is odd. It is sentient albeit a bit cuckoo  . It does have Vasher caring for it but he doesn't hold it. It kinda fits the description I guess. Does Brandon say it is not a splinter somewhere specifically?

[Aether he/him]

There is no direct WoB on it as far as I am aware. I did, however, discover one while looking for others that almost makes me want to reconsider my position:

Brandon Sanderson

Objects with almost sentient behavior like Nightblood in Warbreaker share important links with the spren from The Way of Kings. If you understand the spren you will understand a lot about the connection between the books.
<source>

This WoB makes me think that Nightblood is a lot more similar to a Splinter than I originally thought. I still maintain that I do believe he technically isn't one, because Nightblood was constructed from several pieces (a thousand to be exact) of lesser Investiture, rather than being a little but powerful chunk of a Shard.

 

But then again, there things are poorly understood even by the more Cosmere-aware people, so I shall not insist too fiercely upon my interpretation.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Aether

[Moogle]

 A splinter is a term used by certain people in the cosmere for power of Adonalsium which has no person caring for it, no…no person holding it, which has attained self-awareness. - WoB. So is NightBlood a splinter?

 

'Splinter' isn't a thing in the Cosmere that necessarily has an exact definition. It's a vague word, coined by people in-world, like 'Sliver' and 'honorspren'. There's going to be disagreement what exactly it means, because I can't point to someone like I can to an atom while saying 'this is an atom of silver'. (And of course, even atoms are sort of confused concepts, because they don't really exist - they're models that arise from the interactions of subatomic particles, which themselves are models we created from the interactions of amplitude distributions which may or may not be the ultimate basis for all of reality based on my understanding of quantum mechanics.)

 

For a vague definition, I'd say a Splinter is something made of a lot of Investiture that's gained sentience, not that there necessarily has to be sentience involved. And of course, sentience itself isn't binary - a human is more sentient than a dog who is more sentient than a tree who is more sentient than a rock. When you Splinter a Shard of Adonalsium, you get Splinters, because Shards basically are gigantic pools of Investiture.

 

This leads to an issue - why are Shards not Splinters as well? Why don't Shards gain sentience on their own if all it takes for it is to have a lot of Investiture in one place? I don't know! Some people (Aether) thinks it has to do with connecting to something already conscious, but then you get a chicken-and-egg problem with how you started with something conscious.

 

I'd argue it has to do something with forms, where a Shard is such a broad concept and involves so many forms to effectively communicate it's concept that it can't just gain sentience on its own, until you reduce the number to something more manageable. Like, say, if you Splinter it, so it has less Investiture, and thus takes less forms, and I'm really confused on how the forms are supposed to relate here so I'm going to give this up as confused. The fact remains that Nightblood is simple, and hooked up to a rather simple form(s?) (all commands are, or link to forms, in Awakening, from what I understand) - destroy evil. Real world issues of what 'evil' is don't apply, thank God - there's a form for it, and a form for destroying things, and they went together and that's all that was required. Nightblood doesn't understand what evil is, he just knows he has to destroy it.

 

Under the previous definition, I'd argue Nightblood is basically 100% a Splinter, as are the bondable spren, while non-bondable spren are pushing it but could be considered Splinters. It took thousand(s?) of Breath to create Nightblood, much like the Splinters of Endowment given to the Returned give grant thousands of Breath, and this makes me suspicious.

Edited January 11, 2014 by Moogle

[MathEpic he/him]

Assuming I understand the differences between the two words, Nightblood is sentient but not sapient.

 

Sentience is the ability to feel and experience the world in a conscious way.

 

Sapience is the ability to think and reason in abstract ways.

 

Science fiction and fantasy has been really bad about mixing up the two terms.  (I blame Star Trek for this.)  When Brandon says that a shard needs to be sentient I have to wonder if he really means sapient, but is using the term more of his audience is familiar with.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Given the aforementioned muddling of the terms, and other times/ways Brandon has used "sentient", I think it fair to assume that he's using the broader meaning.

Edited January 18, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Swimmingly he/him]

Assuming I understand the differences between the two words, Nightblood is sentient but not sapient.

Sentience is the ability to feel and experience the world in a conscious way.

Sapience is the ability to think and reason in abstract ways.

Science fiction and fantasy has been really bad about mixing up the two terms. (I blame Star Trek for this.) When Brandon says that a shard needs to be sentient I have to wonder if he really means sapient, but is using the term more of his audience is familiar with.

Funny, I always assumed that sapient was just an archaism for sentient. That's nice to know.

[blackmagic3 he/him]

Jasnah says the betrayal was the radiants breaking their oaths.

[Meg]

Assuming I understand the differences between the two words, Nightblood is sentient but not sapient.

 

Sentience is the ability to feel and experience the world in a conscious way.[/size]

 

Sapience is the ability to think and reason in abstract ways.

This is quite interesting for me, too. I looked for "sentience" and found it means "being able to feel" (uhm, very simply said) and that other words would be "sense, sensibility, aesthesia, sensitive faculty". As synonyms for "sapience" I found "wisdom".

I dare say that not each human being is "sapient".

[Satsuoni he/him]

Assuming I understand the differences between the two words, Nightblood is sentient but not sapient.

 

Sentience is the ability to feel and experience the world in a conscious way.

 

Sapience is the ability to think and reason in abstract ways.

 

Science fiction and fantasy has been really bad about mixing up the two terms.  (I blame Star Trek for this.)  When Brandon says that a shard needs to be sentient I have to wonder if he really means sapient, but is using the term more of his audience is familiar with.

Yes, the terms are very muddled these days. Sapience seems to mean wisdom more than ability to reason. There is also self-awareness (which is neither sentience nor sapience) and consciousness, and, to an extent, neither of these is a prerequisite for another, as far as I can tell. I would (as an aside) argue that you cannot separate logic and emotions, at least not cleanly, since emotions provide weights for decision making. Ahem

 

Anyway, as far as I understand the terms, Nightblood is less sentient than human, but as sapient (he can reason quite fine, but his senses are very different from human, in particular, he doesn't perceive time well. By his very nature, he has to work with abstract concept of "evil").

 

Spen as Splinters are self-aware (as per WoB), but many of them are not sapient, and possibly not sentient either. Then again, as Kurk has noted, I doubt Brandon thought about a muddle of philosophical terms when he used them.