The unified theory of Roshar

[Spoolofwhool]

23 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

Maybe fabrials are of Adonalsium. He seemed still pretty invested in Roshar (with Highstorms raging long before Honor and Cultivation arrived) when he was shattered. It just doesn't seem to me like fabrials have an Initiation process in line with the intents of any of the three shards involved.

Possibly. Though I can see fabrials as a combination of Honor and Odium as you are bonding a spren's power, but at the same time rejecting it by imprisoning it in a gem instead. I admit, it is vague. However, since we know that there are three major magics on Roshar, and WoB is that having at least two shards invested in a planet would result in hybrid manifestations of investiture like feruchemy. This therefore more likely gives that two shards are invested in Roshar resulting in a manifestation of investiture each plus a hybrid manifestation of investiture.

[Blightsong he/him]

13 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Possibly. Though I can see fabrials as a combination of Honor and Odium as you are bonding a spren's power, but at the same time rejecting it by imprisoning it in a gem instead. I admit, it is vague. However, since we know that there are three major magics on Roshar, and WoB is that having at least two shards invested in a planet would result in hybrid manifestations of investiture like feruchemy. This therefore more likely gives that two shards are invested in Roshar resulting in a manifestation of investiture each plus a hybrid manifestation of investiture.

But there is no hate between you and the Spren. You are not honoring anything. By this wording you could say that you are endowing the gem or dominating the Spren by trapping it. This is a bit off topic, so I'm gonna just let it drop.

[Djarskublar he/him]

I agree that the Listener forms were already a thing. I said earlier they could probably change form, but it was rare without a shard invested. I don't think that form magic qualifies as a major magic, but it does as a manifestation. It isn't major from an authorial viewpoint, anyway. The void forms will matter, but not Honor's forms.

In the end, your contention is that Cultivation isn't invested enough to have a Manifestation of Investiture. Considering that she is comboing into surgebinding, she is AFAIK involved with the Old Magic, she is affecting the crem and purelake, and there are spren of her, I simply can't agree with that.

[Spoolofwhool]

Actually my main contentions are that forms are a manifestation of investiture of one of the current shards and your opinion that voidbinding is a subset of surgebinding... somehow. Your logic there has become really twisted and paradoxical. 

 

Here's my take on how Listeners change their form, without it being a manifestation of investiture of one of the current shards:

What we know about how the form changing works: A Listener is outside in a highstorm, either bearing a spren in a gem or not. During the highstorm, the Listener bonds with a spren, and changes form. Now we also know that spren are little pieces of cognitive power that represent a concept or thing, and we know that how something appears congnitively can be reflected physically. So when we put these facts together, we get fairly good explanation of how Listeners change form. The spren binds to the Listener, and in the process, changes the Listener's cognitive DNA to reflect the concept of the spren. Then, using the power of the stormlight in the highstorm, the Listener's physical form is changed to matched the cognitive DNA. Now the last question is how they are actually able to this. If I had to theorize, I'd say it was as a result of the power that was originally invested into Roshar and caused the spren. However, it really doesn't matter. All Odium and Honor are doing are creating spren which Listeners can bond to. This most definitely does not make forms a manifestation of their investiture. You talked about piggybacking onto a pre-existing system previously. This is it. Voidbinding is not. 

 

I am going to correct/rephrase myself regarding what I said earlier. By no means is forms not a magic. However, what I don't think it is is a manifestation of investiture of one of the three shards currently on Roshar. While they have certainly added to what form magic can do, by creating new spren that can be used, by no means does this make form magic theirs. Basically akin to Ruin's atium being able to be used by allomancy. 

Honestly, what I'm most curious about at this point is what is your reasoning is for the theory that voidbinding is a subset of surgebinding, so if you could answer, I would be most thankful. I will say now though, if your answer is, "They both have 'binding' in their name and each have 10 levels," I'm going to be really disappointed. Also, what is your reasoning for surgebinding being a hybrid system? As far as I can tell, it seems to be because it wasn't used pre-Oathpact, but I don't see how that actually explains it. 

Kind of late now, so I'm going to add more thoughts tomorrow (maybe).

[Djarskublar he/him]

Okay THAT bit about Listener forms I can fully accept as possible, and while I don't agree it's the case necessarily, I can respect that opinion. It has solid grounding.

My reasoning for it needing to be a Manifestation for void forms at the minimum, and probably for normal forms too, is textual. There is no way the stormforms could have summoned an Everstorm without some Shardic stuff going on with them. It was too... Odious (technically that means something a bit different but hey, it sounds good). I could accept them throwing lightning as 'natural,' but it's a stretch. That's pretty powerful stuff for just being an outflow of natural bonds with spren... Besides that, Odium was influencing Eshonai into doing the things she was doing once she was in stormform. That is very similar to what Ruin does to Hemalurgic constructs. I could accept him influencing her somewhat through his spren that is bonded to her, but unless it's his Manifestation she is using, I don't think he could take control like that. I can see things like Mateform or Workform as natural to the species, but power forms at the least are not in the same weight class. If my guess is right about Honor's manifestation, then perhaps changing forms changes your spirit to a point where you are skilled in a certain thing. Like having your soul Forged, and for Stormform, that skill is summoning Everstorns (and throwing lightning).

Surgebinding is definitely a hybrid system. You Cultivate and then Honor a bond with a spren for access to TWO surges. Accessing two surges isn't really evidence I guess, but still. I don't think it could be one Shard's system if it uses a spectrum of spren like it does. Not when there are Honorspren and spren purely of Cultivation involved. I have considered the possibility that if Kal had bonded a Cultivationspren instead, we could very well be discussing how surgebinding is of Cultivation, and that since Honor is Shattered, he is only tangentially involved. Our thinking has definitely been colored by the characters we have seen.

I don't think voidbinding is a subset of surgebinding, it's more like an amendment. Surgebinding was created when H/C both invested, it's just that the spren didn't bond with anyone because they either felt no inclination to do so, or didn't realize they could, until they saw the Heralds. When Odium invested, the combo system of surgebinding was amended. Since Odium's Intent was not compatible with the existing system, voidbinding was created as a separate yet related and similar system. We don't know anything about voidbinding beyond that it is a thing, though, so I don't want to speculate here as to what it does.

[Jondesu he/him]

Something else I've been thinking about related to all this (I think others have at least touched on it, so I apologize if I step on any toes here):

While all of the worlds, except Scadrial, as far as we know, may have been visited, affected, even Invested in by Adolnasium, the impression has definitely been that Roshar may have received some special focus and work from Mr. A (I love that name for him).  What if the magic systems were all actually put in place by Adolnasium, and when Honor and Cultivation arrived, their power was required to work within the framework that had already been established?  Without significantly more Investiture than they may have even been able to Invest, it's possible that they simply wouldn't have formed their own new unique systems.  We know Odium's magic simply worked with the existing systems, though that likely was because he didn't want to invest more significantly, but perhaps Honor and Cultivation ran into the same situation without intending it.  It's also possible that they did form Surgebinding between them, but the Fabrial magic and the forms of the Listeners were both preexisting from Adolnasium's Investiture, and they had minimal if any impact on those.  I don't really see any particular Intent of either Honor or Cultivation present in either of those, beyond the tenuous idea of the bonds involved, so they strike me as possibly having no connection to Honor or Cultivation.

jW

[Blightsong he/him]

5 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

Something else I've been thinking about related to all this (I think others have at least touched on it, so I apologize if I step on any toes here):

While all of the worlds, except Scadrial, as far as we know, may have been visited, affected, even Invested in by Adolnasium, the impression has definitely been that Roshar may have received some special focus and work from Mr. A (I love that name for him).  What if the magic systems were all actually put in place by Adolnasium, and when Honor and Cultivation arrived, their power was required to work within the framework that had already been established?  Without significantly more Investiture than they may have even been able to Invest, it's possible that they simply wouldn't have formed their own new unique systems.  We know Odium's magic simply worked with the existing systems, though that likely was because he didn't want to invest more significantly, but perhaps Honor and Cultivation ran into the same situation without intending it.  It's also possible that they did form Surgebinding between them, but the Fabrial magic and the forms of the Listeners were both preexisting from Adolnasium's Investiture, and they had minimal if any impact on those.  I don't really see any particular Intent of either Honor or Cultivation present in either of those, beyond the tenuous idea of the bonds involved, so they strike me as possibly having no connection to Honor or Cultivation.

jW

Made a theory about this exact topic last night, check it out.

[Djarskublar he/him]

I really like @Blightsong's theory linked above. Check it out, it's definitely upvote worthy!

If I take that theory to be true, it has many, many interesting implications. The ones relevant to my theory here need to be addressed. Jondesu could be right, and the way systems manifest could be somehow constrained by Mr A's influence. I kinda dislike that idea though. I still think Stormform is too powerful to just be another form though, so here goes another possibility.

Forms and fabrials are the same thing, as implied by Blightsong's theory. They come from Mr A, and aren't a Manifestation of the Shards currently there.

Surgebinding is somehow the individual Manifestation of both H/C and their combo magic at once... Makes some sense of you think that Honor's is Honorspren, Cultivation's is Cultivationspren, and all the mixed spren are actually the combo system. That sounds really wierd, so something similar to what Jondesu is saying may be happening here. Odium has voidbinding, which Sanderson defined as separate to surgebinding in that WoB. Stormform is so powerful because it grants access to something with voidbinding by virtue of bonding with a voidspren. The old magic is something funky and not a true manifestation, also as WoB.

As an aside, does that means there are forms of power from the other shards too? Could a Listener gain access to a single suregebinding surge by bonding with a relevant spren?

That accounts for all the powers. It ended up being similar to Spools theory, but accounts for fabrials better. Is something about like this what we want to go with for a full unified theory of Roshar?

[Spoolofwhool]

My main contentions now are fabrials, which I address in Blightsong's topic, and surgebinding, which is an even bigger contention. Other than that, the theory looks great.

My opinion stands that surgebinding's concept is based solely on Honor's investiture, and that Cultivation had nothing to do with it. Here's why:

Honor is upholding oaths and ideals, uniting, and binding. Cultivation is about end-positive change through careful effort, to keep things simple. Now look at what is happening with surgebinding. A spren chooses and bonds to a person of like ideals. As their ideals grow more alike, the bond deepens, and the person gains further abilities. By all accounts, this looks like it is just based on Honor's intent. While you could argue, as you have, that Cultivation has to do with it because you're applying effort to improve the bond, you're really not. You're improving the bond by adopting and embodying an ideal, which is far like Honor. The loose argument regarding Cultivation and surgebinding could be just as loosely applied to other manifestations of investiture. (Dahkor monks are cultivating the growth of their bones.)

[Spoolofwhool]

So, this is from the Natural Fabrials topic, regarding surgebinding.

9 hours ago, Blightsong said:

Wait, why do you think that Surgebinding is only of Honor? "The process of trying to acquire or develop a quality or skill." Is a verbatim definition of Cultivation and seems instrumental to the Nahel bond. Not to mention that Brandon has confirmed numerous times that Surgebinding is a result of more than one Shard's power. You say Surgebinding's base concept is binding likeminded individuals and Spren (again, bonding isn't specifically honorable, keeping the oaths is where that comes in. These same bonds happen between cognitive entities and humans on other shardworlds separate from Honor), but this is highly subjective. One could just as easily say that Surgebinding's base concept is advancing one's ideology, One could not form a bond without this.

First of all, I don't recall any WoBs that state that surgebinding is hybrid manifestation of investiture. The closest I've gotten is this, which just states that spren maybe from either or both shards can form nahel bonds as a result of the preexisting system, which doesn't prove anything. As to "the process of trying to acquire or develop a quality or skill", I'm assuming you're referring to the surgebinder following the ideals of the spren they are bonded to? You could look at it that way, but there's another way, which I feel makes more sense. The spren you're bonded brings with it a set of ideals to follow. You become stronger as you honor those ideals, and gain more surgebinder strength. As to bonding, it does on the Coppermind that Honor's intent is "Honor seeks to uphold oaths and agreements, and to make things binding." While there is no reference for this, I don't think the Coppermind would put something that is assumed without stating so. Also, "the process of trying to acquire or develop a quality or skill" is really vague. I feel like Cultivation's intent and what she would bring to a manifestation of investiture would be a bit more precise. I mean, you could argue that by that, aondor is of Cultivation, since they need to be cultivated into Elantrians first. Dahkor require the cultivation of their fancy bone runes and growths to use their magic. 

[Blightsong he/him]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

So, this is from the Natural Fabrials topic, regarding surgebinding.

First of all, I don't recall any WoBs that state that surgebinding is hybrid manifestation of investiture. The closest I've gotten is this, which just states that spren maybe from either or both shards can form nahel bonds as a result of the preexisting system, which doesn't prove anything.

I don't think we have direct confirmation that it is a mix between but it is so hinted at that it basicly is confirmed. The most relevant WoBs being this and this. 

 

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

As to "the process of trying to acquire or develop a quality or skill", I'm assuming you're referring to the surgebinder following the ideals of the spren they are bonded to? You could look at it that way, but there's another way, which I feel makes more sense. The spren you're bonded brings with it a set of ideals to follow. You become stronger as you honor those ideals, and gain more surgebinder strength.

 I am referring to how the Knights actually advance within the magic system. You don't gain power within the system just by honoring the ideals you have previously said, you have to develop the qualities of your order within yourself and speak new oaths. I think it's indicative of Cultivation being apart of the system that the is advancement at all within the magic system, in all other magic systems you simply have the power or you don't (or can be given it I.e. awakening or dakhor monks), there is no gaining or losing part of the magic system (expect for savantism, which is a natural affect of manipulation investiture and isn't specific to any one magic). You don't just bond a Spren and suddenly have to follow all of the rules, you have to actually be ready to "speak the words". Some orders don't even have specific rules to follow, Lightweavers just have to develop self awareness and be truthful to themselves.

 

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

As to bonding, it does on the Coppermind that Honor's intent is "Honor seeks to uphold oaths and agreements, and to make things binding." While there is no reference for this, I don't think the Coppermind would put something that is assumed without stating so. Also, "the process of trying to acquire or develop a quality or skill" is really vague. I feel like Cultivation's intent and what she would bring to a manifestation of investiture would be a bit more precise. I mean, you could argue that by that, aondor is of Cultivation, since they need to be cultivated into Elantrians first. Dahkor require the cultivation of their fancy bone runes and growths to use their magic. 

The coppermind is an unofficial source with the same knowledge that we have, it is simply a collection of what we already know, and we do not know if Honor's intent specifically involved binding litteraly things as opposed to binding concepts (also, speaking of vague "make things binding" is as vague as it gets). I think I argued this point a bit above already, but in no other magic system is there this sense of development that is a substantial part of the system. As for your comparing AonDor to this concept of mine, we know almost nothing about how people are initiated into these magic systems, so we don't actually know what you are saying in the above is relevant or correct at all.

 

 

All in all I just think that the above WoB combined with the fact that it intuitively makes sense (to me and others, pretty much the entire forum agrees that Cultivation is involved in the magic system) makes it very obvious to me that what I'm saying is the case.

[Spoolofwhool]

I see. Did take a look through the forum quickly and did note the fair amount of people who bring up that it is a hybrid of Cultivation/Honor for the same reasons. I still don't agree mind you, and those WoBs don't really state anything either way other than the fact that there is a hybrid system on Roshar. In any case, I don't think continuing to discuss this will bring any change to either of our respective opinions, so I'm going to leave this to rest.

I guess that sums up the discussion on the manifestations of investiture of Roshar. 

[Oversleep]

All Nahel bond spren are a mixture of Honor's and Cultivation's Investiture. There is a WoB about this, somebody was trying to get percentages.

Also, the progress of the Surgebinder is quite unique, as no other magic system has something what actually is leveling. The way you level is though by swearing Oaths.

Another thing is that Nahel bond is a symbiosis. It's very Cultivationy to me.

[Mason Wheeler]

15 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

Also, the progress of the Surgebinder is quite unique, as no other magic system has something what actually is leveling. The way you level is though by swearing Oaths.

What about Allomantic savants?  That's not exactly the same thing, but it's similar enough.

Also, much more "level-like", including an exponential progression of the amount of "points" you need to get to the higher levels, is the Heightenings on Nalthis.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

18 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

Another thing is that Nahel bond is a symbiosis. It's very Cultivationy to me.

Where did this come from? I fully understand it, I just haven't heard it

[Oversleep]

3 minutes ago, Mason Wheeler said:

What about Allomantic savants?  That's not exactly the same thing, but it's similar enough.

Also, much more "level-like", including an exponential progression of the amount of "points" you need to get to the higher levels, is the Heightenings on Nalthis.

Both Savants (or just tapping nicrosil or Hemalurgy) and Heightenings are just a matter of increase of the power avalaible.

However, no amount of Stormlight would make a fresh Surgebinder able to manifest a Shardblade.

1 minute ago, The One Who Connects said:

Where did this come from? I fully understand it, I just haven't heard it

Back in WoK Syl talks about taking something from Kaladin and giving something in return. Also, Brandon multiple times talked about Roshar having magical symbiosis. Not to mention it just seems to be symbiosis. Two different organisms together, benefitting from their relationship.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Oversleep

[Blightsong he/him]

Just now, Mason Wheeler said:What about Allomantic savants?  That's not exactly the same thing, but it's similar enough.

Also, much more "level-like", including an exponential progression of the amount of "points" you need to get to the higher levels, is the Heightenings on Nalthis.

Allomancy is not the only magic system that's like this, the soul will change to accommodate frequent use of any investiture.

 

The heightening are kind of level like, but I'm not sure you would call the heightening a a magic system, it's just the natural side affect of holding large amounts of that kind of investiture. Holding a shard similarly wouldn't be called a magic system. Also, the heightenings don't involve any development of a quality or skill, which is the specific part of the initiation in Surgebinding that I think relates to Cultivation.

[Spoolofwhool]

6 hours ago, Oversleep said:

Back in WoK Syl talks about taking something from Kaladin and giving something in return. Also, Brandon multiple times talked about Roshar having magical symbiosis. Not to mention it just seems to be symbiosis. Two different organisms together, benefitting from their relationship.

The magical symbiosis does seem like a fairly common theme throughout Roshar as a whole. Greatshells and their spren, and listeners and their form-changing with spren, all follow similar mechanics, which is probably the principle Roshar applies to developing manifestations of investiture. 

[Blightsong he/him]

14 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

The magical symbiosis does seem like a fairly common theme throughout Roshar as a whole. Greatshells and their spren, and listeners and their form-changing with spren, all follow similar mechanics, which is probably the principle Roshar applies to developing manifestations of investiture. 

What do you mean "the principle Roshar applies to developing manifestations of Inviestiture"? Can you elaborate?

[The One Who Connects he/him]

25 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

What do you mean "the principle Roshar applies to developing manifestations of Inviestiture"? Can you elaborate?

It sounds like he's saying that the symbiosis/symbiotic bond might be the "Focus" of magic on Roshar.

Granted, I could be misreading it too, but that made the most sense when I read it

[Spoolofwhool]

27 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

It sounds like he's saying that the symbiosis/symbiotic bond might be the "Focus" of magic on Roshar.

Granted, I could be misreading it too, but that made the most sense when I read it

Yes that's what I mean. Similar to how Scadrial uses metals and Sel uses symbols. It's just a lot more apparent on Roshar outside of the manifestations of investiture.

[Blightsong he/him]

49 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Yes that's what I mean. Similar to how Scadrial uses metals and Sel uses symbols. It's just a lot more apparent on Roshar outside of the manifestations of investiture.

The bonds seem more related to initiation then they do to keying in investiture. The thing on Roshar that Brandon has said is kind of like metals on Scadrial are Gemstones. Specifically the line "The idea here is that the physical items (like the metals or the crystals) provide a key by which magical interaction occurs." supports this idea.

[Spoolofwhool]

Well perhaps focus was the wrong term The One Who Connects used. I'm talking more about a general concept of Manifestations of Investiture. Like, Roshar makes it so that any magic involves a spren bonding to something, usually non-physically, but sometimes physically as well. Similarity, all magics on Sel use a symbology in them as a result of Sel, and magics on Scadrial use metals. 

 

Edited August 24, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Blightsong he/him]

19 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Well perhaps focus was the wrong term The One Who Connects used. I'm talking more about a general concept of Manifestations of Investiture. Like, Roshar makes it so that any magic involves a spren bonding to something, usually non-physically, but sometimes physically as well. Similarity, all magics on Sel use a symbology in them as a result of Sel, and magics on Scadrial use metals. 

 

I agree that many of the concepts for the magic on Roshar involve Spren (I think I have mentioned this, but I don't think the physical bond seen in Fabrials and the spiritual bond seen in Surgebinding should be compared. Just because we call them both bonds does not mean that they are similar realmatic processes and I think that this has led to the misconception that they are realmatically similar processes) but I don't think an apt comparison would be metals or Aons. Both metals and Aons are kind of irrelevant to the actual magic. For example, someone could use Allomancy without metals by, say, using Stormlight to power their Allomancy. None of the magics on Roshar could be used without the Spren bond being present, there is no substitute. Getting Stormlight from gemstones, however, doesn't need to be apart of the process, someone could use some other form of investiture to power their Surgebinding or their Fabrials (presumably). Do you get what I'm trying to say, it's a bit of an abstract concept.

 

I know I'm being nit picky, but I think that these kinds of distinctions are important to make when trying to learn more about Realmatics.

[Spoolofwhool]

Yes, I understand. I'm aware of what you're talking about. I not saying that the worlds are requiring metals/symbols/spren/whatever for the magics, I'm saying that those aspects of the magics are influenced by their respective world in a similar way that shards influence the magics their investiture cause. I'm not talking about how the magic is used, I'm talking about base concepts which are a part of its formation. If you're dying I'm wrong though, then are you saying that the magics of Scadrial being related to metals and the magics of Sel being related to symbols is just a coincidence?