Dor's Strength

[Naurock]

Hi, I'm a little versed in the Cosmere by reading this forum some, a bit of the Coppermind, and some WoB threads. I have read Stormlight Archives, Warbreaker and Elantris; I need to read Mistborn to get more versed in the Cosmere.

I'm just curious if anyone knows why Elantris' Dor is so stupendously overpowered compared to the other magic systems? Returned can heal one person, and Awakeners are limited by amount of breath/color on hand. Fabrials are limited by the size of the gem/amount of stormlight contained, and Radiants have a limited amount of abilities and again stormlight is a major limiting factor.

The Dor is an incredible well of power, just waiting to be tapped by Aons and other magic channeling on Sel as long as the user knows the proper Aons, modifiers and has the time to draw it. It has been in use for an unknown amount of time but is just burning to cross over. How is it so powerful?

[WeiryWriter he/him]

The thing to remember is that the Dor is actually the Splintered remains of Devotion and Dominion, two Shards of Adonalsium. So your question is a little like asking why a river is so much better at turning a waterwheel than a cup of water is, it's because there's a lot more raw power involved.

The Returned can heal people by expending their divine Breath, which is a Splinter of Endowment. While the divine Breaths are magnitudes more powerful than individual Breaths, they are still only a drop in the bucket when compared to Endowment herself. The Dor is roughly twice that.

Awakening is an end-neutral magic system, the Investiture involved comes from the person using it in the form of Breath. AonDor is an end-positive magic system, so Investiture is coming from an outside source (the Dor). AonDor is more powerful than Awakening for the same reason that an electric mixer is more powerful than a person using a whisk.

With Stormlight, there's a bit of a middle-man, in the form of the highstorms, which release a finite amount of Stormlight. But Stormlight, once used, will return to the Spiritual Realm where it will eventually be kicked out in another hightstorm. AonDor skips that middle-man, it taps directly into the Dor (which is located in the Cognitive Realm, a fact which may or may not be relevant to this discussion). And when that Investiture is expended it returns to the Dor.

Why are all these things different? There really isn't a reason.

[Stormgate he/him]

The Dor could be more powerful than the other magics because of the difficulty in accessing it. According to Stormgate's First Law of Magic, the power of a magic system should be inversely proportional to the ability to access it effectively.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Don't forget that the Aon Rao Elantris is built upon is a power amplifier, so normally we could expect Elantrians wouldn't be that powerful

[Naurock]

1 hour ago, WeiryWriter said:

The thing to remember is that the Dor is actually the Splintered remains of Devotion and Dominion, two Shards of Adonalsium. So your question is a little like asking why a river is so much better at turning a waterwheel than a cup of water is, it's because there's a lot more raw power involved.

The Returned can heal people by expending their divine Breath, which is a Splinter of Endowment. While the divine Breaths are magnitudes more powerful than individual Breaths, they are still only a drop in the bucket when compared to Endowment herself. The Dor is roughly twice that.

Awakening is an end-neutral magic system, the Investiture involved comes from the person using it in the form of Breath. AonDor is an end-positive magic system, so Investiture is coming from an outside source (the Dor). AonDor is more powerful than Awakening for the same reason that an electric mixer is more powerful than a person using a whisk.

With Stormlight, there's a bit of a middle-man, in the form of the highstorms, which release a finite amount of Stormlight. But Stormlight, once used, will return to the Spiritual Realm where it will eventually be kicked out in another hightstorm. AonDor skips that middle-man, it taps directly into the Dor (which is located in the Cognitive Realm, a fact which may or may not be relevant to this discussion). And when that Investiture is expended it returns to the Dor.

Why are all these things different? There really isn't a reason.

I like the analogies and the diverse magic systems is very intriguing, I think that's pretty awesome. The different ways of channeling Dor is also interesting, but I just find it weird that the power of the Dor seems pretty much infinite. It's limited in the ways it can be used, but this seems to be magic that will never go away.

 

Nalthis has lots of breath, but it's still limited by the amount of people. Most people of Idris will never pass on their breath as well, unless if they take a large theological jump as a country. The amount of gems is the limiting factor to the amount of useable stormlight. I just find the difference of Sel odd, is all. Maybe it really is that there's two shards there.

Edited August 6, 2016 by Naurock

[Yata he/him]

@WeiryWriter already covered perfectly the topic but I want to add my 2 cents.

All the Selish Magic (so far we know) are external magic... They took power from an external Source (the Dor in the case), the user is just the reciver of a Stream of Power who then he Shapes with the right Form, this turn raw power in a actually magical effect.

You will see when you read Mistborn. A Magic System who work with the same principle, the Dor isn't unique to this.

What the Dor is quite strange, is about his real purpose. The Dor-Magic is actually a programmable Investiture. You may probably obtain everything you want with the Dor and the right knowledge.

Another oddiety is about his use. In another Magic Systems you don't actually need to know what are you doing, the simply "I want it" is enough to made the magic work... Just think to the instance of Surges used without knowing by Surgebinder.

Instead on the Dor's Magic (I will keep to use this term because, we know that on Sel there is a Single Magic System who express itself differently with region-base) the precision, skill and knowledge is needed. 

[WeiryWriter he/him]

11 hours ago, Naurock said:

I like the analogies and the diverse magic systems is very intriguing, I think that's pretty awesome. The different ways of channeling Dor is also interesting, but I just find it weird that the power of the Dor seems pretty much infinite. It's limited in the ways it can be used, but this seems to be magic that will never go away.

Nalthis has lots of breath, but it's still limited by the amount of people. Most people of Idris will never pass on their breath as well, unless if they take a large theological jump as a country. The amount of gems is the limiting factor to the amount of useable stormlight. I just find the difference of Sel odd, is all. Maybe it really is that there's two shards there.

I think "seems" is the operative word there. Yes, the Dor is effectively infinite, because it is incredibly unlikely that it could ever be "used up" at any one moment, but in reality there is still a finite amount of energy there (it's just an unimaginably large amount). Nalthis and Roshar also both have artificial limitations that just aren't a factor on Sel. Yes Breaths are limited by the number of people, but people are also continually being born and they are each getting a Breath from Endowment (and consequently if somebody dies with Breath, that Breath returns to Endowment). And yes the amount/size of gems is a limiting factor to the amount of Stormlight that can be used/stored (unless you are flying around in the middle of a highstorm) but there are ways of getting more gems.

Basically let's view things this way (and I fully admit there are some... oddities with the following metaphor) : Invesiture is money, Shards are bank accounts.

On Nalthis, when a person is born they get a single dollar which can be exchanged freely between people. People can use this money power stuff, and when they are done they get the money back. When a person dies any money they are holding returns to the Endowment-bank-account.

On Roshar, periodically a bank teller goes around tossing money all over the place and people can get as much of it as their wallets can hold. Over time the money in their wallets decreases and returns to the Honor-and/or-Cultivation-bank account. People can also use this money to do stuff but when they do the money also returns to the bank account.

On Sel people have debit cards linked directly to the Dor-bank-account. They get as much money as they need whenever they need it and it immediately returns to the bank account.

Why are these planets different? They just are.