Darkness he/him Posted August 2, 2016 Report Share Posted August 2, 2016 Wow, been a while since I wandered the forums... I was re-reading the tor.com re-read of the Way of Kings (that's a hefty amount of re's to work through), when I had a brand new thought! I searched back through the forums and found a delightful conversation in which we finally (more or less) nailed down that spren are pieces of cognitive manifestation for their spiritual ideals, that have an increased ability to enter the physical when they bond with people. They could (I think) also be described as tiny pieces of shardic power that have taken on specific intents (little "i"). In other words, they are - at the most basic level - made of the same stuff that infuses spheres during a Highstorm: little bits of Shard that coalesce and take on identity over time. They are obviously much more substantial and self-aware than the Stormlight that resides in spheres, or even than the single-minded cognitive directive of almighty Stick; to the extent that even the smallest, dopiest spren takes some kind of form in the physical world, and likely is able to move around quite a bit when it resides in the Cognitive world. (I personally attribute their level of self-awareness to their level of connection to humans, but I digress). Anyway... here's my thought, and please feel free to disagree, or better yet disprove, but if I run with the vein that spren are basically souped up nuggets of self-aware Stormlight, then they likely have some ability to power-up their Radiant counterparts in a pinch ( like the mist does with Vin ) once they are sufficiently attuned to each other (i.e. the Radiant accurately reflects the spren's Spiritual ideal, and is able to key into power via the spren as with the conduit made by metal burning on Scadrial ). They would only be able to help out the Radiant they are attuned to, since sDNA is quite finicky unless it's messed with by soul stamping, etc. . Actually, as near as I can figure it, Stormlight can be used by anyone precisely because it doesn't have any sense of identity... or at least beyond being perceived as simply 'Stormlight'. Either it doesn't have any sense of identity (maybe because it's so transient), or it's identity is actually some weird Spiritual ideal of 'power'. It also seems quite diffuse in comparison to the innate power in spren. We should also just make note that perception/identity plays a huge (YUUUUUGE!) role in the Cosmere at large. And here's the application question: If I'm right... would meddling with a spren's sense of identity (i.e. reducing it's identity to 0, either through magic or by everyone simply perceiving it as lacking identity) allow that spren's power to be accessed by anyone/anything? Like a tiny pool of super-Stormlight? Or like the unlocked allomantic spearhead that Kelsier eventually made ? Furthering this thought... if Odium found a way to reduce a spren's identity to 0 (*cough* Feruchemy *cough*)... could he go around depleting the identity, and then power, of spren to get a massive burst of energy? The example that came immediately to my mind was Shardblades being 'dead' spren that have significantly reduced identity... they're really just pools of power waiting to be accessed I guess it helps that messing with Invested stuff (probably including spren) is magically really tough, but I can't help thinking there could be loopholes around that, and the 'Voidbringers" literally bring nothingness to spren... Thoughts? The thought is quite abstract and off the cuff, so there may be someone that can easily dismiss it and I can move on with my life lol 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainRyan he/him Posted August 2, 2016 Report Share Posted August 2, 2016 Sadly, I am out of upvotes at the moment but I think there are some interesting implications in this thought process. I have thought about "unkeyed" Investiture on Scadrial but I have never considered the implications of unkeyed Investiture on other worlds. Perhaps the way Breath is transferred is a process that involves unkeying your Breath and then passing that unkeyed Breath to another? Or, as you are speculating about here, perhaps Stormlight is unkeyed or perhaps Spren can become unkeyed and then be used for fueling magic of some kind. I will eagerly await deeper discussion by those more versed in this stuff but great work @Darkness! This is a cool idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkness he/him Posted August 3, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2016 I wish there was a way to flag @Kurkistan to this post... he's the one that nailed down the spiritual-ideals-represented-by-spren thingy way back when... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeskarKomrk he/him Posted August 3, 2016 Report Share Posted August 3, 2016 28 minutes ago, Darkness said: I wish there was a way to flag @Kurkistan to this post... he's the one that nailed down the spiritual-ideals-represented-by-spren thingy way back when... Uhhhh... there is a way to flag him. I don't know why that didn't already, you just do @Kurkistan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted August 3, 2016 Report Share Posted August 3, 2016 (edited) Hi. The OP is an interesting theory; not sure how much it really ties back into the whole "spren as ideals" thing, but there's definitely been hints/confirmations (sorry, my WoB-finding game is off lately) of spren as little shattered off bits of shardic power, so the concept of "unkeying" them is an interesting and plausible one. The referenced thread, btw. -WoB here, it looks like the links to individual posts in the OP got broken by the site conversion. Edited August 3, 2016 by Kurkistan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+hwiles Posted August 3, 2016 Report Share Posted August 3, 2016 "Unkeying" a dead shardblade to allow it to be revived and bonded by anyone...now there's a thought. Your logic seems sound enough @Darkness, I couldn't possibly imagine that this will come up in this first Stormlight Archive series...however...Roshar is definitely going to need crazy power ups and technological leaps forward if they're going to put up any kind of meaningful defense once the Scadrians start invading other planets (Clarification: Sanderson hasn't stated that they will, I just really hope they do). I'd be a little surprised if at least some of your theory doesn't end up being true in 10 years when the Cosmere is a little more fleshed out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkness he/him Posted August 4, 2016 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2016 thanks all! So... I have a confession to make. I haven't been on the site since flagging was introduced. How to I flag someone? More to the point of the post... Breath transfer and How exactly Vasher survives on Roshar totally engrosses me. I imagine some very closely kept methods exist for converting investiture exist, and I would tend to believe that there are several methods, and some might be quite simple, like 'unkeying' investiture through identity and connection. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeskarKomrk he/him Posted August 4, 2016 Report Share Posted August 4, 2016 6 hours ago, Darkness said: thanks all! So... I have a confession to make. I haven't been on the site since flagging was introduced. How to I flag someone? You use the "@" and the username, similar to how you would on Twitter or Facebook. That's why I was a little surprised that it didn't automatically do it in your post above. 6 hours ago, Darkness said: More to the point of the post... Breath transfer and Hide contents How exactly Vasher survives on Roshar totally engrosses me. I imagine some very closely kept methods exist for converting investiture exist, and I would tend to believe that there are several methods, and some might be quite simple, like 'unkeying' investiture through identity and connection. I'm definitely also interested to see what's going on here. There was a theory going around a week or so ago that Stormlight was unkeyed Investiture already, which would make it easy for him to use. That doesn't particularly answer how he absorbs it (since we've only seen Surgebinders use it from gemstones), but maybe he just stands outside during a highstorm and it automatically works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkness he/him Posted September 3, 2016 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2016 I was going to start a new topic with this, but this one is only a month old and I'm really just adding to it, so... quote: QUESTION If sprens are pieces of the god power, and investiture is the power of the god, then can Nightblood consume spren? BRANDON SANDERSON He could theoret- Yeah, he could totally consume spren. There's not even any “theoretically” to that. Brandon has confirmed that Nightblood is way more powerful than a dead shardblade, but he's been coy about saying the same for living blades. If Nightblood can consume spren though... that could have some scary ramifications for the next Radiants (or even normal shard bearers) Szeth runs into. It also likely means that Nightblood can be fully unsheathed in a highstorm, and probably go full Rambo with the amount of investiture available. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts