Corrupting Investiture

[Darkness]

So, there has been a moderate amount of speculation, verging on certainty, that spren can be corrupted... and quite a few people are saying that maybe Sja-Anat has that ability.

I looked this up on theoryland briefly, but I was hoping maybe somebody knows a WoB that can either confirm or refute that investiture can be 'corrupted' in the sense of 'metamorphosized' or 'changed in nature'.

I have this WoB:

Blightsong

How does corrupted investiture work, like Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, Nightblood. Again, this is a definition of what somebody feels is a corruption. For instance, there are spren people would feel are corrupted. But that is corruption where the mixing of different shards has changed things, and I think a lot of times when people say corruption, people are meaning the mixing of shards powers.

Blightsong

So is there a mixing of shards power with Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

*smirks* RAFO. That's the natural question, I'm glad you asked it.

Blightsong

Ok, uhhh, so something similar is happening with Gavilar's sphere, right?

Brandon Sanderson

*contemplative silence*, RAFO.

Blightsong

Uhhh, if anyone else has questions, speak up (I started running out of questions at this point).

Brandon Sanderson

Question over here!

but it is obviously more of a mixing to become impure than a true corrupting.

One reason I'm asking is that I think it might be cool if surgespren could be corrupted and under what conditions that might occur.

I would put this under Stormlight Archive, but it would probably have cosmere-wide implications.

[+Extesian]

I've had a thorough search myself and haven't found anything extra. But this WoB makes me think that the spren corrupted by Sja-Anat are exactly that - corrupted by the mixing of Odium's power with that of Honor/Cultivation (depending on the spren), and that's what makes them creepy and corrupted.

The one possible exception I can think of is Threnody which was invested prior to the battle between Odium and Ambition but the fallout is thought to have corrupted it. That said, a

Quote

measure of Investiture must have existed on this planet before the battle between Shards. However, the waves of destruction—carrying ripped-off chunks of Ambition’s power— twisted both the people and the planet of Threnody.

So even there it sounds like it was Ambition's investiture mixing in that corrupted it. I'm leaning towards investiture being uncorruptable except by Shardic influence. Which would make sense - what could be powerful enough to alter something as fundamental as investiture except other investiture.

[Darkness]

I really like the bit about ambition in the WoKhriss, but I'm skeptical about the odium on roshar mixing. I know there are "spren of him", but I feel like WoB could easily have been discussing mixed honor/cultivation spren, and had nothing to do with odium. The only concrete thing he says about spren is that "the mixing of shards has changed things".

somebody please figure out how to ask Brandon something that wont be rafo'd on this haha

[Hawkido]

Nightblood might have Autonomy corruption, allowing the creation of an autonomous mind where no semblance of a mind existed prior (didn't even resemble something that looked like a sentient being, i.e. straw figurine)

I think Ambition corruption is/has been happening on Sel, First there are way too many magic systems on Sel for only 2 shards to have created, Second the Devotion religions are way too focused on arrogance and ambition.  When next you re-read (or listen if you are like me and do the graphic audio versions *HIGHLY RECOMMEND*) Elantris just keep the Ambition corruption in mind and you will see that MANY MANY references to Ambition on Sel occur.  Does Devotion + Ambition + Dominion = Arrogance? As all three are now shattered, If one Entity manages to consume enough of the investiture to hit critical mass could they then blackhole and suck up the rest of the splintered investiture and become a triple shard?

Edited February 16, 2017 by Hawkido
bad grammar (extra Prepositions)

[+Extesian]

2 minutes ago, Darkness said:

I really like the bit about ambition in the WoKhriss, but I'm skeptical about the odium on roshar mixing. I know there are "spren of him", but I feel like WoB could easily have been discussing mixed honor/cultivation spren, and had nothing to do with odium. The only concrete thing he says about spren is that "the mixing of shards has changed things".

somebody please figure out how to ask Brandon something that wont be rafo'd on this haha

I only think that coz of the Unmade theoretically 'corrupting' normal spren and coz Parshendi were not originally of Odium but are now

Quote

ESTION

Are the Parshendi of Odium?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Not originally

But no solid basis beyond those points

I don't think it's necessarily Odium spren mixing but something about his investiture flowing through to corrupt the investiture (kind of like presumably happens with Trell-based hemalurgy on Scadrial).

[Hawkido]

I seem to remember a reference somewhere that White-Red Parshendi used to be more common but are quite rare now, they are mostly Black-Red now.  I haven't seen alot of discussion about this, have I just missed these discussions as I got into the Cosmere so late?

[Landis963]

13 hours ago, Hawkido said:

Nightblood might have Autonomy corruption, allowing the creation of an autonomous mind where no semblance of a mind existed prior (didn't even resemble something that looked like a sentient being, i.e. straw figurine)

I think Ambition corruption is/has been happening on Sel, First there are way too many magic systems on Sel for only 2 shards to have created, Second the Devotion religions are way too focused on arrogance and ambition.  When next you re-read (or listen if you are like me and do the graphic audio versions *HIGHLY RECOMMEND*) Elantris just keep the Ambition corruption in mind and you will see that MANY MANY references to Ambition on Sel occur.  Does Devotion + Ambition + Dominion = Arrogance? As all three are now shattered, If one Entity manages to consume enough of the investiture to hit critical mass could they then blackhole and suck up the rest of the splintered investiture and become a triple shard?

Re: Sel:  The myriad variations of the Dor are present because Devotion and Dominion's power is in the Cognitive Realm (instead of the Spiritual Realm, where it's supposed to be).  

[Spoolofwhool]

8 minutes ago, Landis963 said:

Re: Sel:  The myriad variations of the Dor are present because Devotion and Dominion's power is in the Cognitive Realm (instead of the Spiritual Realm, where it's supposed to be).  

Expanding: they're all one magic system with variations on its use.

[Farnsworth]

If corruption has to do with what people think, it's definitely in the Cognitive Realm, which is where spren live anyways. This means that it is easy to corrupt Spren: just bond then to a human who thinks that they are of Odium and of Honor. Then they will get a 50/50 spren, who is of course corrupted.

[Hawkido]

Quote

If corruption has to do with what people think

Actually Sanderson commented that Corruption is actually a term describing the mixing shard powers.  While you could say the Spren of Roshar are "Corrupted" because of Honor and Cultivation, I would term that Mixing, as it was willful and deliberate cooperation between the two shards (purely my view, not cannon).  But Odium's influence is unwanted and probably accidental on Odium's part as that seems to be what anchored him to the system.  Perhaps that is the "Trap" that Honor and Cultivation planned, make the spren so influencable that they will leech investiture from another shard when they try to interfere, and then pull enough investiture that they become bound to the system, and unable to pull away without killing all invested entities, thus returning the investiture.

[Hawkido]

 

7 hours ago, Landis963 said:

Re: Sel:  The myriad variations of the Dor are present because Devotion and Dominion's power is in the Cognitive Realm (instead of the Spiritual Realm, where it's supposed to be).  

7 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Expanding: they're all one magic system with variations on its use.

I was not clear in my statements, completely my fault... LOL  I am bad at posting while away from my materials.

Was refering to Ambitions influence on the system... I believe Ambition fled to Sel before dying out.  There were 2 shards that got splintered on Sel, Domination and Devotion.  The Elantrians arose from the splinters of Dominion, The Shu-Koreth and Shu-Dereth arose from Shu-Keseg, which was Devotion.  But there was a split in Shu-Keseg, where a more pure form of Devotion Split into Shu-Koreth, but a corrupted form went to Shu-Dereth.  An entity named Jaddeth arose with the ambition to force devotion upon everyone and also has the power to utilize the Dor.  Jaddeth wants all possible peoples that can be taken by the Shaod killed so noone else can receive this investiture, save him (or Her? gender wasn't specified).  This will allow Jaddeth to finish consuming all of that investiture, then He/she will need to purge the other forms of investiture, to be the sole recipient, of all the investiture, then He/She will be freed (not from the earth of the planet as Jaddeth claims) but from being bound to the planet so Jaddeth can go finish consuming the lost parts of ambition, sprinkled everywhere.  Ambition was one of the shards that Odium feared, as Ambition was the one shard that was innately interested in consuming other shards.  Harmony was created almost by accident (or Preservation's master plan).

Ambition was mentioned 7 times relating to Shu-Dereth.  Raoden's Father had devised a new form of governance that was designed to attract ambitious leaders, specifically Financially ambitious leaders, as he was a merchant King.

and then there is this little quote

Quote

ambition was the one emotion Jaddeth would accept as readily as devotion.  --End of chapter 3

 

Edited February 17, 2017 by Hawkido
Grammar, Punctuation

[Landis963]

Intriguing, but I think there's a WoB that states D&D were Splintered before Odium found Ambition.  Admittedly, that does not preclude Ambition attempting to flee to Sel without knowledge of D&D's deaths.  

[+Extesian]

11 minutes ago, Landis963 said:

Intriguing, but I think there's a WoB that states D&D were Splintered before Odium found Ambition.  Admittedly, that does not preclude Ambition attempting to flee to Sel without knowledge of D&D's deaths.  

Yeah there is

Quote

BRANDON SANDERSON

He went after Ambition first, but didn’t find Ambition until after going after Devotion and Dominion. But Ambition was number one on his hit list.

That said Ambition was fought in the Threnodite system and was mortally wounded before finally being splintered elsewhere. So it is conceivable he/she went to Sel in between. I have my doubts though. I think most of what goes on in Sel is explainable by the two Shards being stuffed into the cognitive realm there.

[Spoolofwhool]

Also, keep in mind that both Devotion and Dominion were splintered and pressed into the Dor by Odium, meaning that it occurred before Ambition was splintered. Additionally, by the sounds of it, pressing such an amount of investiture into the cognitive realm is really unstable, so I don't think that pieces of Ambition's power, if there are any, would leak in or if so, do much damage. 

A lot of what is happening does seem to be explained by Devotion and Dominion's powers. 

[Mason Wheeler]

On 2/16/2017 at 0:02 AM, Hawkido said:

When next you re-read (or listen if you are like me and do the graphic audio versions *HIGHLY RECOMMEND*)

Elantris was actually the one Graphic Audio recording I really didn't enjoy.  The voice actresses for both Sarene and the young girl cousin (can't remember her name) had voices that were really strident, and it got very grating very quickly, listening to them.

[Hawkido]

4 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Elantris was actually the one Graphic Audio recording I really didn't enjoy.  The voice actresses for both Sarene and the young girl cousin (can't remember her name) had voices that were really strident, and it got very grating very quickly, listening to them.

True, it was the worst of the GA Cosmere books, but that being said the little girl was meant to be annoying.  Sarene's voice was too old for a 25 year old, but everyone else was spot on, with 3 exceptions, when Uncle K was first cooking and runs off yelling "Merciful Domi!" It was just BAD, they should have used a sound board to to modulate his voice to make it sound as if he was hustling off to tend the food, instead of the actor trying to emulate the effect with his voice, they didn't use the same actor for Hoid's 2 lines in the book, and the laugh at the end by Raoden.  I believe that GA has broadened their staff significantly since then, and the Mistborn books are absolute amazing. and The Stormlight books can't really be better.  WarBreaker's voicing and accents are great.  I was thrilled to hear NightBlood's voice at the end of WoR.  It sounded different, more subdued, but we don't know what all effects stormlight has on him.  And after reading Edge Dancer I can see that there are wild changes to how Nighblood operates.

[Hawkido]

13 hours ago, Extesian said:

Yeah there is

That said Ambition was fought in the Threnodite system and was mortally wounded before finally being splintered elsewhere. So it is conceivable he/she went to Sel in between. I have my doubts though. I think most of what goes on in Sel is explainable by the two Shards being stuffed into the cognitive realm there.

Everyone is thinking Ambition is floating in space.  I believe what is left of it is being collected by Jaddeth on Sel, leeching D&D out of the cognitive realm but he doesn't want other humans receiving the investiture, thus the pointed extermination of the genetic group of humans capable of becoming Elantrians. I believe Jaddeth is trying to reassemble the splinters into a new shard.  There are just too many references to ambition being accepted as well as devotion.  Also what has been happening to all the Seons?  Jaddeth has been consuming them, he only keeps enough to allow communications with his priests until it is time to consume them as well, quite possibly along with his priests.

[Hawkido]

If you have the e-book for Elantris just search Ambition and read the snippits (well google books gives snippits of each instance).  Also If Jaddeth is trying to get Devotion and Ambition, and the Elantrians could make more Seons, that would be stealing slivers of devotion, that Jaddeth would need.  The hard part about reassembling a shard is getting all the pieces.  If Jaddeth IS literally trapped within the earth then Jaddeth might have been the direct and deliberate cause of the Chasm that caused the Reod,

[Hawkido]

13 hours ago, Landis963 said:

Intriguing, but I think there's a WoB that states D&D were Splintered before Odium found Ambition.  Admittedly, that does not preclude Ambition attempting to flee to Sel without knowledge of D&D's deaths.  

Ambition was wounded, ruptured, and leaking.  Ambition didn't flee to Sel looking for aid from D&D, nor did Ambition go there looking for targets to attach, Ambition was wounded, and was looking for a patch.  Something to prolong his life and maybe turn an injury into a benefit.

[Landis963]

1 hour ago, Hawkido said:

Ambition was wounded, ruptured, and leaking.  Ambition didn't flee to Sel looking for aid from D&D, nor did Ambition go there looking for targets to attach, Ambition was wounded, and was looking for a patch.  Something to prolong his life and maybe turn an injury into a benefit.

It's certainly possible, and you argue it well.  The problem is that we just don't know what Ambition knew at the battle of Threnody, nor where he went after Odium dealt the mortal blow.  

EDIT: Also, we don't know whether Ambition was a he, she, or zhe. 

Edited February 17, 2017 by Landis963

[Mason Wheeler]

Just one problem with all of this: Devotion was not the Jaddeth-side Shard.  Devotion was held by Aona (as in the Aons) and was the primary influence on the Shu-Korath religion.

Dominion's Shardholder was named Skai (as in the Skaze, the "evil Seons" who advise the Dakhor) and his power influenced the formation of Shu-Dereth.

[Hawkido]

On 2/17/2017 at 1:27 PM, Mason Wheeler said:

Just one problem with all of this: Devotion was not the Jaddeth-side Shard.  Devotion was held by Aona (as in the Aons) and was the primary influence on the Shu-Korath religion.

Dominion's Shardholder was named Skai (as in the Skaze, the "evil Seons" who advise the Dakhor) and his power influenced the formation of Shu-Dereth.

What makes you think this is a problem with the theory?  A force is trying to consume all the splinters on the planet, to become a triple shard.  AMBITION, DEVOTION, and DOMINION were all Splintered, and thus there is no proper side.  This isn't a three sided Coin... this is a stew with 3 ingredients, Jaddeth is just killing everyone else who is trying to ladle out some of the stew, permanently.  What if Jaddeth has succeeded by now?  What if Jaddeth was literally buried underground, like in a cave system?  What if Jaddeth was a dragon?  What if Jaddeth is now a dragon life form and a triple shard bearer?  What if Jaddeth is the person that Hoid was writing to?  We know the person Hoid was writing to was a Dragon and is now a Shard Holder.

[Hawkido]

On 2/17/2017 at 0:02 PM, Landis963 said:

EDIT: Also, we don't know whether Ambition was a he, she, or zhe. 

I realize this and just got tired of making sure i typed he/she.  I was using the gender indefinate form of he, unfortunately english doesn't support this gendercase.  English also doesn't officially support y'all either.  Most other languages have a second person collective noun.

[Mason Wheeler]

Do we have any evidence at all that Jaddeth even exists, or ever did?

[Hawkido]

Quote

“I’ve read it,” Raoden said. Wyrn was said to be the oldest recorded piece of literature—even older than the Do-Kando, the holy book that Shu-Keseg, and eventually Shu-Dereth and Shu-Korath, had come from. “You may have read a version of Wyrn the King, ” Sarene said, this one. Modern versions of the poem make references to Jaddeth in an almost Derethi way. The version in this book shows that the priests rewrote the literature from the original to make it sound as if Wyrn were Derethi—even though he lived long before Shu-Dereth was founded. Back then Jaddeth—or at least the god of the same name that Shu-Dereth adopted—was a relatively unimportant god who cared for the rocks under the earth.

This is a quote from Elantris.  It references the just how old the name Jaddeth exists.  Basically Thousands of years.  but in the last 300 yeah the shu-dereth religion has been re-writing the poem to better suit their needs.