theory Spren in the History of Roshar

[Argent]

I've been talking (mostly monologue-ing, to be honest) about the nature of Surgebinding with some guys on the /r/Cosmere Discord, and some things about spren, Listeners, humans, bonds, and Surgebinding all clicked into a theory - or an understanding, really - pretty nicely. So I wanted to share that with you. The important points are bolded because I don't have enough time to format this more prettily at work.

We start off by establishing a foundation we can all (hopefully) agree on:

• Surgebinding is a magic system (what Khriss calls "a manifestation of investiture") on Roshar
  • This means it's a result - intentional or not - of Shardic influence on Roshar. For now I am not interested in whether it is a result of Honor's influence, or Honor's and Cultivation's.
• Surgebinding manifests as control over the Surges - the fundamental laws of nature as interpreted by the Rosharans - the same way Allomancy manifests as a set of very specific effects. I believe Surgebinding is a lot more variable in the level of control it allows for, but that's not important right now.

Okay. Foundation laid.

Now, a postulation: I say that control over the Surges is not exclusive to Surgebinders, Radiants, and Heralds. I say that every symbiotic relationship between (one or more) spren and a living thing in Roshar's Physical Realm results in some form of Surgebinding. A lot of those forms are somewhat limited and low key (e.g. the greatshells' ability to grow far bigger than they should be able to do - the greatshells are not Surgebinding to the level Kaladin is, but I do believe their relationship with the spren allows them to use the Surges (a little) and help themselves overcome the square cube law), but I argue that they are still Surgebinding.

Alright. This is going to be important in a moment.

So these less... spectacular manifestations of Surgebinding, they could've easily been present on Roshar prior to the arrival of the humans. They - the manifestations - may or may have required Honor's and Cultivation's presence either - I will acknowledge (but not really address) that it's possible all this comes from Adonalsium, and so Surgebinding is really just about what the humans can do, and the other, more primitive control over the Surges, a... proto-Surgebinding, if you will, could've come from Adonalsium. It's a possibility, but not one I am interested in. What I am interested in is that there is a very good chance that the Listeners had been making use of this Surge control for some time before the humans showed up.

But then the humans did show up and something made the spren who had previously been fraternizing with the Listeners abandon them and begin bonding with humans. This is the first part of my theory (if you could call it that): the Nahel bond is exactly the same bond spren already form with a lot of other creatures on Roshar. The only special thing about the Nahel bond in the context of the Knights Radiant is that it's a bond between humans and spren, not other native species and spren; in other words, the secret ingredient are the humans, not the bond.

So humans show up, maybe some time passes, and then something prompts the spren to start bonding with them. I think we can all agree that this "something" was either Honor's act of granting control over the Surges to his Heralds (by giving them the Honorblades), or another event that happened at just about the same time. Either way, the spren decide to abandon their previous best source of whatever it is that spren get out of the whole bonding business, the Listeners, and go bond with humans. This has an interesting implication - that the spren we identify as Radiant spren (honorspren, cultivationspren, inkspren, cryptics, highspren, etc.) may have been Listener spren in the past, with their own forms (Honorform, anyone?) - otherwise why would the Listener Song of Spren speak of betrayal? 

But why would "the smartest spren" (as the song calls them) choose to mimic what Honor had done with his Heralds and, as a result, abandon their previous hosts? I believe it is because there is a direct relationship between the level of Surge control a spren can grant to its physical bond-partner and how much the spren benefits out of the bond - the greater the access to Surgebinding, the happier the spren is; which is why you don't see honorspren bond with chasmfiends. So what I think happened was that the more powerful spren, what would soon become the Radiant spren, saw how much control Honor gave his Heralds and (correctly) deduced that if they bonded with humans, they would get a lot more out of the bond that the Listeners could ever provide. It's possible that this is all about the strength of the bond (so humans can, inherently, form stronger bonds than Listeners), but I think the end result is the same - spren figured out that humans are a good source of... whatever.

What do spren get out of the bond anyway? Creatures native to Roshar's Physical Realm get control over the Surges, but what do spren get? We've seen several effects (stronger mind, personality, memories, control over small physical objects), but I think we can, for the purposes of this theory, say that the spren get pulled closer to the Physical Realm. I use this phrase specifically because the Song of Spren says that the Listeners are "too close to [the spren's] realm". So, thinking a little less abstractly, I think the reason humans are more desirable targets for bonding is simply because they can pull their spren further into the Physical Realm. Listeners are closer to Shadesmar, so there's only so much physicality they can provide; humans, being further away from Shadesmar, can simply provide more.

--- --- ---

This is, I think, all I got. Just a series of realizations I had, reinforced by a little bit of (educated) guesswork, that all seem to fit pretty well together. Rosharan life naturally making use of the stupidly high levels of free investiture, Listeners being best buddies with the spren, and the spren (after observing the Heralds) figuring that there was a new cool kid on the block and giving rise to the Surgebinders we know. 

What do you think?

Edited March 9, 2017 by Argent

[Krandacth]

That matches my understanding, and is presented very clearly and logically :-) It also sets up Listeners bonding Radiant-spren (and so presumably having power closer to Radiant/Voidbringer levels) at the time of Humanity's arrival on Roshar, presumably with fairly benevolent intent similar to that of the original Radiants. This sounds like the Dawnsingers to me.

[Tsidqiyah]

I fully agree.  I do have a thought:

2 hours ago, Argent said:

the Nahel bond is exactly the same bond spren already form with a lot of other creatures on Roshar.

Why is it referred to as a separate phenomenon? In world it makes sense as most rosharians don't realize spen bond with other creatures. But do we have of out of world references (WOB's, statements form worldhoppers, etc.) that would imply a difference does exist.

Do we have any idea WHY it is referred to as "Nahel"? 

Edited March 9, 2017 by Tsidqiyah

[Modal Seoul]

Nice job. This is one of the best theories I've seen, and I once grew a garden for some keenspren.

[Andy92]

I had been wondering what the main difference was between what the humans can offer spren versus what the Listeners can offer them. I think their ability to bring spren closer to the Physical Realm is probably correct. 

[Argent]

7 hours ago, Tsidqiyah said:

Do we have any idea WHY it is referred to as "Nahel"? 

I've always assumed that it's named after whoever discovered it. As to why sources external to Roshar use the same term - I think this can easily happen if those sources learned about it from Rosharans. Similarly to how the term "Shadesmar" is becoming a Cosmere-wide term for the Cognitive Realm even if its origin is purely Rosharan.

[Pagerunner]

I think it's an interesting approach, that other bonds on Roshar still deal with Surges. I like the concept, but I disagree that they are all Nahel bonds, even those with Parshendi and greatshells. Which has to do with how the bond is formed, the specific oaths, that make the Nahel bond seem like something much more structured.

That being said, we see one of Kaladin's Surges manifesting as bindspren, I believe they were called. They are the spren of that Surge, of Adhesion, the Investiture embodiments of one of the ten fundamental forces of Roshar. Kaladin commands these spren, but they are not the spren he has bonded with; he's bonded with an Honorspren. I can see greatsheels being directly bonded to gravityspren; maybe those are the arrow-spren, and they directly manipulate the force of gravity on a greatshell using the Surge of Gravity to keep it from crushing itself. But I wouldn't call it Surgebinding, or part of a magic system proper, without seeing evidence of Intent from chasmfiends.

I think you could make your case stronger if you tried to connect Listener forms to Surges somehow. And I think that might be difficult to do, because the Surges are all physical phenomena, while the Listener forms we know of seem much more cognitive. For example, what kind of Surge would be produce mateform?

Lastly, there is no inherent connection (at least as far as I can see) between the Radiant Spren and the Surges, conceptually speaking. Why would bonding a Highspren let you control Gravity? Please, don't let it be just for the sake of the pun. The connection that I've seen is that there's another step between them; Radiant Spren are attracted to people like one of the Heralds, and the Heralds are connected with two specific Surges. The whole Copying What Honor Did. So, I don't think Honorspren could grant the manipulation of Surges before there were Heralds.

I know I said the last paragraph was my last point. This is still the same point, so don't worry. Seons will produce powers on Roshar, but not the same ones as spren. This could mean two things, the way I see it: Seons will create new Surges, or Seons will grant a different combination of Surges. Either way, there's nothing inherent about the Seons that grant these powers, since they won't do it on Sel; it's only because of an interaction between Seons and Roshar. There is something special about Roshar about bonds granting powers powers. I won't argue against a Seon bond and a greatshell bond being the same sort of thing (although I do think Roshar's spren symbiosis is different than what happens on other planets, since we don't see any physical transformation in those bonded to Seons), but I will argue that the Nahel bond is fundamentally different than either of those because of specific actions because it is designed to mimic Heralds, and its association with the Magic System of Surgebinding.

But the Surges are not inherent to Surgebinding. That I can agree with, and I think we can see subtle uses of Surges from specific spren as various Rosharan creatures interact with spren in their natural ways.

[Argent]

I was wondering when you'd show up in this thread  Let's address your points.

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

That being said, we see one of Kaladin's Surges manifesting as bindspren, I believe they were called. They are the spren of that Surge, of Adhesion, the Investiture embodiments of one of the ten fundamental forces of Roshar. Kaladin commands these spren, but they are not the spren he has bonded with; he's bonded with an Honorspren.

Do windspren cause the wind or are they attracted to it? My interpretation of the bindspren scene is that Kaladin - through Syl - is manipulating Surge of Adhesion (temporarily, using Stormlight), and that action is attracting bindspren. 

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

I can see greatsheels being directly bonded to gravityspren; maybe those are the arrow-spren, and they directly manipulate the force of gravity on a greatshell using the Surge of Gravity to keep it from crushing itself.

I am not saying that those spren are necessarily gravityspren. Syl and Kaladin have a short conversation, I don't remember in which book, about how Syl doesn't seem affected by... gravity, I think, is the specific example (i.e. how she can "walk" on air). She says something to the effect that the Surges, the laws of nature, are more like agreement between friends - not something she really has to obey. So you don't need to be a gravityspren in order to invoke Gravitation - which we already knew, since neither honorspren nor highspren are that. 

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

But I wouldn't call it Surgebinding, or part of a magic system proper, without seeing evidence of Intent from chasmfiends.

I think this might be just semantics. Proto-Surgebinding, if you will. Free Surgebinding. Natural Surgebinding. 

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

I think you could make your case stronger if you tried to connect Listener forms to Surges somehow. And I think that might be difficult to do, because the Surges are all physical phenomena, while the Listener forms we know of seem much more cognitive. For example, what kind of Surge would be produce mateform?

Yeah, I've been very actively trying to avoid that topic because I don't have good explanation for it. I need to spend some more time on it before I get back to you. My instinct is that it's the Listener-spren bond that's special, not the human-spren one; but the only piece of evidence (if you could even call it that) comes from the Oathbringer prologue, and it's a flimsy one anyway, so I think I'll just let this one sit unanswered.

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

Lastly, there is no inherent connection (at least as far as I can see) between the Radiant Spren and the Surges, conceptually speaking. Why would bonding a Highspren let you control Gravity?

As I suggested above, I don't think there needs to be a connection. I think it was more along the lines of certain spren types looking at certain Heralds and going "I am going to do that for someone." I believe, though I am not fully confident, that all spren have some control over all of the Surges, but only the greater ones have enough control to be able to bond effectively with humans, and even they can only bestow two - maybe because of cognitive influences. I am doing a lot of guesswork here, but the core of it is that I don't think you need a gravityspren to play with Gravitation.

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

Radiant Spren are attracted to people like one of the Heralds, and the Heralds are connected with two specific Surges. The whole Copying What Honor Did. So, I don't think Honorspren could grant the manipulation of Surges before there were Heralds.

So, this is a two-parter. I think honorspren had control over all of the Surges, but could express that control in the Physical Realm very weakly. And when they decided to imitate the effects Jezrien's Honorblade, they did just that - restricted themselves to only two specific Surges. Now, I am not saying Syl can just choose to give Kaladin full control - I think her limitations go beyond her control - but she probably still has a little bit of control over all of them, just not control she can share.

 

[Brgst13]

One issue...you describe the Radiant spren as granting forms to the Listeners.  How does that square with the idea that the Listeners were never able to Surgebind in the past?  One of the epigraphs describes that "it should be possible to blend their surge to ours in the end."  I am assuming that the same spren that grant surges to humans currently would then bind with the Listeners to grant them surges.  If these spren had previously bonded with the Listeners, why would that bonding now be different?

[Argent]

I realize now that calling Surge manipulation Surgebinding and using that as an umbrella term for everything from the greatshells' crush prevention thing and the Radiants' Surgebinding may have been a bad idea... Maybe it's better to think of Surgebinding as the specific thing humans can do, even if I consider all manifestations of Surge control to come from the same source (a symbiotic bond with a spren).

So, to answer you, I am not saying that Listeners bonded with the greater spren would've gained access to the Surges, not in the same way Surgebinders do. I think they would've transformed into something similar to the forms of power granted by the voidspren, but with powers closer to what Surgebinders can do (though still unique). I think the Listeners are somewhat unique in how they manipulate the Surges. 

[Matrim]

2 hours ago, Argent said:

I realize now that calling Surge manipulation Surgebinding and using that as an umbrella term for everything from the greatshells' crush prevention thing and the Radiants' Surgebinding may have been a bad idea... Maybe it's better to think of Surgebinding as the specific thing humans can do, even if I consider all manifestations of Surge control to come from the same source (a symbiotic bond with a spren).

So, to answer you, I am not saying that Listeners bonded with the greater spren would've gained access to the Surges, not in the same way Surgebinders do. I think they would've transformed into something similar to the forms of power granted by the voidspren, but with powers closer to what Surgebinders can do (though still unique). I think the Listeners are somewhat unique in how they manipulate the Surges. 

I wonder if we can take this theory and then apply it to voidbinding and voidspren? Are voidbringers those that voidbind? Are the listeners voidbringers or is that a broad term that, over the ages, was applied to a larger scope of creatures. Would this term only be applicable to the humans that attract these certain spren, as this theory says about surgebinders?

Edited March 10, 2017 by Matrim

[Calderis]

I agree with this theory completely mainly because of the fact that I am a believer of the bonds as Roshar's focus idea. All bonds givimg something makes sense, except for normal human emotional bonds as humans are too far removed from the cognitive. 

On a side note, I wonder if this is why Ryshadium are special. Horses only exist in Shinovar where there are no spren. Perhaps their bond is some sort of native/human bond hybrid. 

[Cosmere Savant]

Spoiler

On 3/9/2017 at 0:48 PM, Argent said:

I've been talking (mostly monologue-ing, to be honest) about the nature of Surgebinding with some guys on the /r/Cosmere Discord, and some things about spren, Listeners, humans, bonds, and Surgebinding all clicked into a theory - or an understanding, really - pretty nicely. So I wanted to share that with you. The important points are bolded because I don't have enough time to format this more prettily at work.

We start off by establishing a foundation we can all (hopefully) agree on:

• Surgebinding is a magic system (what Khriss calls "a manifestation of investiture") on Roshar
  • This means it's a result - intentional or not - of Shardic influence on Roshar. For now I am not interested in whether it is a result of Honor's influence, or Honor's and Cultivation's.
• Surgebinding manifests as control over the Surges - the fundamental laws of nature as interpreted by the Rosharans - the same way Allomancy manifests as a set of very specific effects. I believe Surgebinding is a lot more variable in the level of control it allows for, but that's not important right now.

Okay. Foundation laid.

Now, a postulation: I say that control over the Surges is not exclusive to Surgebinders, Radiants, and Heralds. I say that every symbiotic relationship between (one or more) spren and a living thing in Roshar's Physical Realm results in some form of Surgebinding. A lot of those forms are somewhat limited and low key (e.g. the greatshells' ability to grow far bigger than they should be able to do - the greatshells are not Surgebinding to the level Kaladin is, but I do believe their relationship with the spren allows them to use the Surges (a little) and help themselves overcome the square cube law), but I argue that they are still Surgebinding.

Alright. This is going to be important in a moment.

So these less... spectacular manifestations of Surgebinding, they could've easily been present on Roshar prior to the arrival of the humans. They - the manifestations - may or may have required Honor's and Cultivation's presence either - I will acknowledge (but not really address) that it's possible all this comes from Adonalsium, and so Surgebinding is really just about what the humans can do, and the other, more primitive control over the Surges, a... proto-Surgebinding, if you will, could've come from Adonalsium. It's a possibility, but not one I am interested in. What I am interested in is that there is a very good chance that the Listeners had been making use of this Surge control for some time before the humans showed up.

But then the humans did show up and something made the spren who had previously been fraternizing with the Listeners abandon them and begin bonding with humans. This is the first part of my theory (if you could call it that): the Nahel bond is exactly the same bond spren already form with a lot of other creatures on Roshar. The only special thing about the Nahel bond in the context of the Knights Radiant is that it's a bond between humans and spren, not other native species and spren; in other words, the secret ingredient are the humans, not the bond.

So humans show up, maybe some time passes, and then something prompts the spren to start bonding with them. I think we can all agree that this "something" was either Honor's act of granting control over the Surges to his Heralds (by giving them the Honorblades), or another event that happened at just about the same time. Either way, the spren decide to abandon their previous best source of whatever it is that spren get out of the whole bonding business, the Listeners, and go bond with humans. This has an interesting implication - that the spren we identify as Radiant spren (honorspren, cultivationspren, inkspren, cryptics, highspren, etc.) may have been Listener spren in the past, with their own forms (Honorform, anyone?) - otherwise why would the Listener Song of Spren speak of betrayal? 

But why would "the smartest spren" (as the song calls them) choose to mimic what Honor had done with his Heralds and, as a result, abandon their previous hosts? I believe it is because there is a direct relationship between the level of Surge control a spren can grant to its physical bond-partner and how much the spren benefits out of the bond - the greater the access to Surgebinding, the happier the spren is; which is why you don't see honorspren bond with chasmfiends. So what I think happened was that the more powerful spren, what would soon become the Radiant spren, saw how much control Honor gave his Heralds and (correctly) deduced that if they bonded with humans, they would get a lot more out of the bond that the Listeners could ever provide. It's possible that this is all about the strength of the bond (so humans can, inherently, form stronger bonds than Listeners), but I think the end result is the same - spren figured out that humans are a good source of... whatever.

What do spren get out of the bond anyway? Creatures native to Roshar's Physical Realm get control over the Surges, but what do spren get? We've seen several effects (stronger mind, personality, memories, control over small physical objects), but I think we can, for the purposes of this theory, say that the spren get pulled closer to the Physical Realm. I use this phrase specifically because the Song of Spren says that the Listeners are "too close to [the spren's] realm". So, thinking a little less abstractly, I think the reason humans are more desirable targets for bonding is simply because they can pull their spren further into the Physical Realm. Listeners are closer to Shadesmar, so there's only so much physicality they can provide; humans, being further away from Shadesmar, can simply provide more.

--- --- ---

This is, I think, all I got. Just a series of realizations I had, reinforced by a little bit of (educated) guesswork, that all seem to fit pretty well together. Rosharan life naturally making use of the stupidly high levels of free investiture, Listeners being best buddies with the spren, and the spren (after observing the Heralds) figuring that there was a new cool kid on the block and giving rise to the Surgebinders we know. 

What do you think?

 

So I read your article and I thought it was very neat and well presented but when I was reading it I wondered, have all the RadiantSpren actually stopped bonding Listeners. Maybe there's something that Humans give Spren (like a greater presence in the Physical Realm) and maybe there's something that Listeners give spren (-insert really awesome theory here-) so that when spren decide to go bond with something they have to chose either presence in the Physical Realm or the whatever else it could be. This I think could lead to some really interesting conflicts (Kalladin against Windform Listener or Shallan meeting a Lightform Listener). So basically I like your theory but who's to say the spren stopped bonding Listeners?

Edited March 10, 2017 by Cosmere Savant

[Argent]

I can think of two main factors  we can count as evidence that the Radiant spren did, indeed, abandon the Listeners.

• The only Listener forms we've seen or know of that come with active control over Surges are the voidforms, the forms of power, the forms that come from the Unmade. 
• The Listener Song of Spren outright says both that the spren betrayed the Listeners and that they chose to give their (the spren's) Surges to men. 

[Krandacth]

I'm with @Matrim here, terminologically.  As Brandon has said that we hadn't seen Voidbinding up to the end of WoR, I would think Xbinding specifically relates to humans. I would say that maybe Radiant-spren bonding Listeners would produce Surgeforms, in complement to Voidforms... But then I think Voidforms is a term spawned on the Shard, so that might be going down the terminological rabbit hole :-P

15 hours ago, Brgst13 said:

One issue...you describe the Radiant spren as granting forms to the Listeners.  How does that square with the idea that the Listeners were never able to Surgebind in the past?  One of the epigraphs describes that "it should be possible to blend their surge to ours in the end."  I am assuming that the same spren that grant surges to humans currently would then bind with the Listeners to grant them surges.

Firstly, that line suggests that the Listeners already have access to surges, just not the same manifestations/as powerfully. Also, I believe the same epigraph says something along the lines of, "We ask not if they will have us, then, but if we dare have them again." (Emphasis added.) Therefore those Spren have bonded with Listeners in the past.

Withregards to whether or not they did(/will) grant surgebinding-like powers, perhaps that would be something new that they developed by mimicking Honor, or that is an artifact of the bond with a human as opposed to a Listener. I would guess it is more the latter, given the line you quoted talking of blending surges, rather than granting them, which suggests a different result than Surgebinding (as defined at the start of this post).

Edited March 11, 2017 by Krandacth

[Brgst13]

On 3/11/2017 at 4:20 AM, Krandacth said:

Firstly, that line suggests that the Listeners already have access to surges, just not the same manifestations/as powerfully. Also, I believe the same epigraph says something along the lines of, "We ask not if they will have us, then, but if we dare have them again." (Emphasis added.) Therefore those Spren have bonded with Listeners in the past.

Withregards to whether or not they did(/will) grant surgebinding-like powers, perhaps that would be something new that they developed by mimicking Honor, or that is an artifact of the bond with a human as opposed to a Listener. I would guess it is more the latter, given the line you quoted talking of blending surges, rather than granting them, which suggests a different result than Surgebinding (as defined at the start of this post).

First, we know that they did NOT have access to the surges:  "The betrayal of spren has brought us here. / They gave their Surges to human heirs, / But not to those who know them most dear, before us. / ’Tis no surprise we turned away / Unto the gods we spent our days / And to become their molding clay, they changed us."  (Ch. 28 epigraph)

Rereading the second quote, I agree with your idea of blending surges.  I wonder if this possibly means that they have to have the Voidbinding forms first before they could bond human spren.

[Krandacth]

3 hours ago, Brgst13 said:

First, we know that they did NOT have access to the surges:  "The betrayal of spren has brought us here. / They gave their Surges to human heirs, / But not to those who know them most dear, before us. / ’Tis no surprise we turned away / Unto the gods we spent our days / And to become their molding clay, they changed us."  (Ch. 28 epigraph)

I see what you're getting at, but I've always interpreted that epigraph with Eshonai's musings on the Stormfather in mind: "One cannot be a traitor if one was not first a friend." (Paraphrased.) In that light, the "betrayal" of the spren suggests that, in "giving their surges to human heirs," they first withdrew themselves (and so whatever forms such powerful spren offer) from the Listeners.  I don't think these forms offered surgebinding, as i have said, but that they would have offered forms more comparable to Voidforms in power, just without the Odium.

[Argent]

On 3/11/2017 at 3:20 AM, Krandacth said:

But then I think Voidforms is a term spawned on the Shard, so that might be going down the terminological rabbit hole :-P

I am almost completely sure that the stormspren are referred to as voidspren, so the term "Voidform" isn't entirely unlikely.

But, generally speaking, your replies are in line with what I believe.