theory A Model of Rosharan Magics

[Steelheart]

Just now, FiveLate said:

Hmmm I think we just differ on the definition of a magic system.  You consider Southern tech to NOT be part of a magic system.  I consider anything that uses or moves Investiture to be part of a magic system.

Would you then consider Nightblood to be his own magic system? Seons/Skaze? Lifeless? Chasamfiends?

All of these are reliant on Investiture, but none are enabling magic on their own. 

[Steelheart]

3 minutes ago, FiveLate said:

I would consider them all PART of a magic system.  I would upvote you for the logic, but I used my 16 for the day already.

Haha thanks for the upvote! However, according to your reasoning, if Sanderson was talking about Modern Fabrials, then where would Ancient Fabrials fall under? They seem to function very differently, so it would be hard to consider them under the same umbrella...

[Steelheart]

1 minute ago, FiveLate said:

An example please?

As previously mentioned, the Oathgate requires a living Shardblade to work. All modern Fabrials can be used by anyone, so long as they have the proper intent (this includes modern Soulcasters). 

[Calderis he/him]

@Steelheart, I have to agree with @FiveLatehere. The oath gate is a fabrial that uses gems and Stormlight to function. The requirement of a living Shardblade is just a lock over the activation switch.

I'm more curious how they made the lock, as it appears to be the same metal as a Shardblade, and we know where that comes from.

@BlackYeti in your response to me you said

Quote

The problem I have here is that, as I understand it, bonds are Spiritual in nature, not Cognitive.

One of the functions of the listener-spren bond is that it removes a block from between the listener’s physical and cognitive aspects, similar to the block that the mistwraith have. In fact, we have a WoB that the Parshendi could be given new forms using Haemalurgy, and we know that Haemalurgy functions by stapling part of one person’s soul onto another. Which means that removing the Cognitive block is something that happens on the Spiritual level, not the Cognitive.

If bonds as a whole were only spiritual and relied solely on connection I would agree with you. I think the complexity of bonds goes beyond a single realm though. 

The realms are able to effect each other, so yes manipulating the soul is going to effect the Cognitive and physical, but for the purposes of soulcasting a Cognitive bond between a gems color and the essence it represents, in my opinion, could shape the investiture as it flows back to the spiritual to enact the change to be created. 

Looking at bonds as purely of the spiritual limits what the are to Connection alone. I think it's a far more complex construct than a single Realmatic function. 

Edited June 8, 2017 by Calderis

[BlackYeti he/him]

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

The Stormfather betrayed the Listeners by abandoning them, along with the other Radiant spren, so I think the Listeners must have had ancient Forms of Power with spren associated with Honor.

Hmm, I would be very wary about using this as evidence to base a theory on. The listeners clearly have their own historical narrative that they’ve developed, and the thing about historical narratives is… actually, I’ll let Jasnah explain: “To many, writing a history is not about truth, but about presenting the most flattering picture of themselves and their motives.” Past books have shown that this kind of in world information is often wrong: e.g. just how much of what Kelsier told Vin about Allomancy actually turned out to be correct? So I view this source extremely sceptically.

To add to this, we are talking about ancient history here, which is extraordinarily vague and imprecise, and incorporates a lot of guess work. Moreover, we’re using that history to draw conclusions about an entirely different subject which is yet another potential source of errors. If we were simply developing a theory pertaining to Rosharan history, then it would be wrong to ignore this, but to use that theory as a stepping-stone for this topic is past where I would draw the line. This is why I made the decision to omit the history element from the topic.

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

The phrase "of Honor" or "of Odium" doesn't actually mean all that much; the first place we saw it used, with the Kandra, said that even though everyone thought they were "of Ruin," they were actually "of Preservation." But they were still created using Hemalurgy, Ruin's magic system. I've always taken the phrase to mean "on such-and-such Shard's side," which can be true even if they use Investiture of another Shard entirely.

You raise a very good point here which I hadn’t considered, and I will concede that it does weaken my argument. I do, however, still disagree with your interpretation of “of [insert Shard name]”, and I have a counter argument for you: I think you’re overlooking the full implications of Haemalurgy.

Haemalurgy works by splicing part of one person’s Spiritweb (Investiture) onto another’s, it does this using Ruins power, however, the Investiture that is transferred is not necessarily of Ruin. Allomancers have greater connection to Preservation than non-Allomancers, therefore it follows that when spiking Allomancy into someone, you are spiking in Preservation’s Investiture to draw them closer to Preservation. And by extension, if you were to spike sand mastery into someone, you would be spiking in Autonomy’s Investiture to draw them closer to Autonomy.  Thus counter-intuitively, Ruin’s power is being used to draw the person closer to a different Shard.

Now consider this WoB from the Hero of Ages Chapter 39 Annotation:

Quote

As I was toying with how this would work, I realized that I needed to work the kandra and the koloss into this as well. Only, it was ridiculous to assume that the Lord Ruler would kill Allomancers to make koloss. There weren’t enough Allomancers, for one thing—plus it would be foolish to lose the power of an Allomancer to gain an inferior tool in a koloss.

So that meant koloss had to be made out of regular people, not Allomancers or Feruchemists. Suddenly I had another set of abilities that Hemalurgy had to be able to steal—the basic pieces of Preservation inside the souls of all men.

This explicitly states that kandra have extra Preservation being added, which, I feel should explain why kandra are “of Preservation”.

The question is though, how did Brandon interpret it for the purposes of that question: I could totally imagine him doing an Aes Sedai type word play to send us down a theoretical cul-de-sac (anyone else remember that anti-Andonalsium force?)

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

I think Listeners take on any spren, adopting the characteristics of the spren they bond, whether it be of Honor, Cultivation, or Odium. When they bond a spren that can cast red lighting, they can do that, too; it's not like it's a magic system, any more than the spren's ability to act like that is part of a magic system. More powerful spren make more powerful Listeners, but also open up the Listener to Cognitive Realm influence (like Hemalurgy does). Whether or not Odium creates his own Splinters, or corrupts other spren... it's an interesting question, but I don't think it's really necessary for this topic. But I do think this whole phenomenon is a thing of the Listeners, predating the arrival of the Shards, so it shouldn't be aligned with any of the Shards in particular even though it utilizes spren from some or even all of them.

So the idea that I’ve been working with for listener-spren bonds (voidspren bonds excluded), is that prior to the arrival of the Shards they would have bonded Adonalsium spren, since of course there wouldn’t have been any other types of spren to bond. When Honour and Cultivation arrived on Roshar, they possibly might have adapted to bond Cultivation spren, but not spren of Honour due to that WoB, which we’ve just established might not be as good as I had assumed. So, maybe we can add Honour back in there?

I am however, still not convinced that the listeners ever had Forms of Power prior to bonding the voidspren. How would the timeline work? 

1. Odium comes to the Rosharan system an Invests in Roshar forming the Unmade, which go on to corrupt other spren.
2. In response Honour gives the Honourblades to the Heralds and forms the Oathpact.
3. The spren copy the Honourblades and start bonding humans (Supposedly the great betrayal of the spren).

At which point in this sequence did the listeners first start bonding the voidspren? The obvious answer is between (1) and (2), meaning that the Oathpact was a retaliatory move on Honour’s part. Yet this contradicts the listener narrative that the spren betrayed them (another part of the reason why I distrust this narrative). Of course, it would be simple to come up with a way for it to have come after (3), but at this point it’s all just guesswork.

Interestingly though, if the listeners did have Forms of Power from other spren prior to the Oathpact, I don’t think that it would actually contradict what’s in my framework.  I didn’t include the listener non-void forms for a number of minor reasons, and if I had they would have had their own section, but that’s because I was classifying by Shardic Composition and as such it would have been a rather arbitrary distinction. A different method of classification could unify the two while still following the same principles that I am laying out. So I’m not disagreeing that the Voidbringer forms and non-Void forms are related: at some point all of the magics are and any attempt to classify them will run into these kinds of problems.

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

As for Voidbinding itself, I hesitate to separate that from the Surges. We know that the glyphs on the Surgebinding chart are the names of Orders and Surges; but since we don't know their Rosharan names, we can't actually decipher the letters. But we can see that the same building blocks are used for the Surges and the Voids; even though the symmetry is different, it's still built out of the same letters, in the same arrangement, so it's the same word. The Radiant/Voidbinder glyphs are even more similar - most of the time, it's the same shape, just spread out (not even rotated or flipped).

Now this is the most experimental part of my theory, I will admit part of this comes from my trying to break things to see what falls out, so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if I turn out to be wrong here. That being said, I do think that this is a reasonable argument in its own right.

If you’ve read my, now debunked, theory on Cognitive Surgebinding, you’ll have realised that I’ve spent a long time staring at and analysing these charts (I’ve practically got them memorised at this point), so, yes I have factored the similarity between them into the theory. I’m proposing that this is caused by the involvement of Honour in both magics. One of the things that I keep coming back to is the rigid structure that Honour imposes on the magics, and this is one of the key examples of this structure. I apologise if I didn’t make that clear enough in the OP. (I’m not arguing that Honour is responsible the significance of the number 10 on the magics though, that I believe is determined by the planet itself).

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

I think Voidbinding needs to be a very similar thing to Surgebinding; kind of like Hemalurgy, which by definition grants the same powers as Allomancy and Feruchemy.

Except that I disagree that Haemalurgy is similar to the other two Metallic Arts. While it can grant the same powers as Allomancy and Feruchemy, that is merely a function of its true power of splicing part of one person’s Spiritweb onto another’s. So it is also able to grant the powers of many other magics, as well as other things that aren’t even magical in nature (e.g. physical strength). So is it also a very similar thing to the other magics, such as my earlier example of sand mastery?

More importantly, the other two metallic arts do not go about modifying the Spiritweb at all (save perhaps for the Spiritual quadrant of Feruchemy, and even that’s temporary). So I’d say that the powers are altogether very different.

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

For Initiation, I think you're not quite using the term correctly. I've recently come to understand that Initiation isn't when you get the magic, it's who can get the magic.

On Initiation, I don’t think that we disagree on the points that you think we do. On your claim that it’s not when you get the magic, I do agree.

I’d actually define it more precisely as a change to a person’s Investiture, typically through the Spiritweb, that increases the Connection to a Shard (or Shards) which grants the person potential access to the magic. But Initiation is not the only thing that needs to happen in order for the person to use the magic.

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

The Initiation of Allomancy isn't Snapping; it's described as genetic.

I’m sorry to be pedantic, but it’s actually described as being tied to family descent. This might sound like it’s saying the same thing, but in the Cosmere it’s actually an important distinction. Saying its genetic suggests that it’s determined by the person’s physical DNA, when really it’s determined by the Spiritweb, both of which get passed down to a person’s children. This is why they can get stolen by Haemalurgy.

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

Not everyone who can become an Allomancer does. Same with Returning; Endowment chooses people, but they are given a choice to return, so that means that not everyone she chooses will Return. That also shows it's different among magic systems on the same world; Hemalurgy has a universal Initiation (anyone can learn and perform it), while Allomancy and Feruchemy are limited to a specific gene pool.

So with Allomancy and Feruchemy, Initiation is happening at conception. With Haemalurgy though, I’m actually arguing that there is no Initiation (since the magic is never encoded into the Spiritweb), rather than Initiation being universal. The magic is universal, precisely because there is no Initiation. 

I think that with Initiation on Nalthis, something a bit more complex might be going on. However, this is something that really deserves its own topic, so for the time being I’m not going to be responding to comments on Awakening. I’ll get this written sometime, but I’m not sure when at this point.

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

I would limit the Initiation of Surgebinding to behavior. Not everyone who acts according to the ideals of the spren will attract one. But you will not be able to attract one unless you act in the appropriate manner.

The problem that I have with it being behaviour is that it would presumably be a primarily Cognitive property, not a Spiritual one. Moreover, your behaviour doesn’t guarantee you a spren, it’s simply a single prerequisite. The reason that I think that it’s the bond is that it’s directly adding Investiture to the person’s Spiritweb. And the reason why you appear to gain access to the magic immediately upon Initiation is that, in the case of Surgebinding, the other conditions that must be satisfied (having a cracked soul, attracting a spren) have to happen before the Initiation occurs.

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

As for Focus, can you go into more detail about why you believe gemstones are necessary? The kind of gemstone determines the kind of spren you can capture in it, true, but that seems to get back to spren again.

The specific types of gemstones capturing specific types of spren wasn’t my main argument for gemstones as a component of the focus, that was simply an attempt at demonstrating that there is a clear relationship between the two.

My main argument was that if you were to consider Soulcasting in isolation from the remainder of the Rosharan magics, you would think that the gemstones were the focus since they seem to be behaving exactly as the focus should. Yet in the other magics it seems to be the spren that are behaving as the focus. As we have seen both spren and gemstones present in every use of every magic that we have seen, I think that it is actually the two in combination with each other instead of one or the other.

On 6/7/2017 at 6:53 PM, Pagerunner said:

In Hemalurgy, you need to place spikes at specific points, but the spiritweb isn't the focus, it's still the metal of the spikes. That's how I see gemstones fitting in; it's an important restriction of the capture and application of spren, but at the end of the day, it's still the spren.

We keep arguing over Haemalurgy, don’t we? 

Not every part of the Spiritweb connects to every part of the body, if you were to cut through someone’s limb with a Shardblade, it would cut only the part of the Spiritweb associated with that limb. The bind points of Haemalurgy are the points where the Spiritweb connects to the physical body: if you want to spike a certain attribute out of a person you would need to spike it out of the correct bind point since that is where the Investiture resides. Trying to spike it out of a different point would therefore be a bit like when Vin first burned duralumin and she wasn’t burning any other metals, nothing happened because there was nothing for the duralumin to act on.

In the case of Soulcasting, however, I don’t see any other reason for the gemstones to be directing the power. They don’t seem to be containing trapped spren, so what else does that leave?

Those were some really excellent questions @Pagerunner; it took a lot of thought, and a lot of time to answer them. I was hoping to address some other comments today, but these actually took up all of my free time, so I’ll have to come back to those tomorrow.

[EpicSOB he/him]

On 6/7/2017 at 0:48 PM, BlackYeti said:

But, if the focus is cognitive, then shouldn’t it be possible for it to be something more abstract in nature, such as a function? We know that gemstones and spren have some kind of relationship with each other. Just consider Navani’s notebook:

Quote

The cut and type of the gem determines what kind of spren are attracted to it and can be imprisoned in it.
There must be thousands of possible combinations.

Could it be the case that spren and gemstones are bound together as variables in a cognitive function that is acting as the focus on Roshar? When spren are imprisoned in gemstones, is that what’s really happening, or are they instead being constrained to the same space as part of such a function?

This is what I think is happening here: neither the spren nor the gemstone is the focus, but they are both components in a kind of complex focus.

I like the way you explain this here, and I have an idea that you may not have considered that builds upon the idea of using a function as a focus. could it be that the composition of the gemstone and the type of spren are  2 of the main variables and the cut of the stone represents the physical form of a geometric equation, this wold explain why the interlude from Way of Kings whare 2 people are measuring fire spren is important. the scene demonstrates that spren are affected by math and measurement. keep in mind that another magic system we have seen is geometrically or shape based

[Steelheart]

@FiveLate @Calderis, I concede that the Oathgate may be simply a larger, more complex version of a Modern Fabrial - your logic is sound

As for what the lock is made out of... it's been a while since I read that section, but I believe Shallan assumed the lock was the same type of metal since Renarins Shardblade couldn't pierce it. But we know it can't pierce Aluminum either - they use it as guards for training with Shardblades. It's possible that's what the lock is made out of - it's the only thing that could work as a lock, since a lock that breaks when you enter the key isn't a very good lock. 

[Jace21 he/him]

6 hours ago, Steelheart said:

As for what the lock is made out of... it's been a while since I read that section, but I believe Shallan assumed the lock was the same type of metal since Renarins Shardblade couldn't pierce it. But we know it can't pierce Aluminum either - they use it as guards for training with Shardblades. It's possible that's what the lock is made out of - it's the only thing that could work as a lock, since a lock that breaks when you enter the key isn't a very good lock. 

As far as I know the guards they use to train with Shardblades are definitely not Aluminium for the followimg reasons:

1. Aluminium is known on Roshar yet Zahel states no one knows what the guards are made of.

2. Both the guards and the Oathgate lock seem to shift to match the shape if the blade. Aluminium couldnt do this.

3. Shardblades cant magically cut Aluminium but they're still large sharp objects and can cut/scratch on a physical level, particularly with Aluminum being quite a soft metal. Yet Renarin cant scratch the lock and as long as the guards are on the blade they dont brake.

On my phone so cant do quotes at the minute or a full WoB search to see if I'm right but I think so.

Edited June 9, 2017 by Jace21

[Calderis he/him]

52 minutes ago, Jace21 said:

As far as I know the guards they use to train with Shardblades are definitely not Aluminium for the followimg reasons:

1. Aluminium is known on Roshar yet Zahel states no one knows what the guards are made of.

2. Both the guards and the Oathgate lock seem to shift to match the shape if the blade. Aluminium couldnt do this.

3. Shardblades cant magically cut Aluminium but they're still large sharp objects and can cut/scratch on a physical level, particularly with Aluminum being quite a soft metal. Yet Renarin cant scratch the lock and as long as the guards are on the blade they dont brake.

On my phone so cant do quotes at the minute or a full WoB search to see if I'm right but I think so.

I also disagree that it's aluminum, for the physical properties of a Shardblade, and because the guards and lock shifts form, meaning they are invested. Aluminum blocks investiture

Aluminum is on Roshar, just not naturally. In the Shallan's, the necklace was Aluminum. Aluminum has to be soulcast. 

[Emerald101 he/him]

Shardblades can cut aluminum:

Quote

WAYNESPREN

Can Shardblades cut aluminum?"

BRANDON SANDERSON

"Well-um-yes, yes they can."

(Source)

[Calderis he/him]

5 minutes ago, Emerald101 said:

Shardblades can cut aluminum:

(Source)

I'm really not surprised. For a Shardblade to cut living matter it fuzzes and cuts on the Spiritual level. For non living physical matter it just cuts. That's not an issue of investiture beyond the blade being formed. It just cuts. The Aluminum itself blocks investiture and would stop a surge or soulcasting, but the edge of the blade is supernaturally sharp and is physically cutting, possibly on the molecular level to be able to cut everything so cleanly. 

Edited June 9, 2017 by Calderis

[Pagerunner he/him]

The effects of a Shardblade on aluminum has been a point of contention among Team Sanderson. The latest statement I can recall was that a Shardblade could not cut aluminum the way it did stone or dead flesh. But it is still a sword, so it could still damage a weak piece of aluminum without needing any funny Realmatics.

[Steelheart]

2 hours ago, Jace21 said:

As far as I know the guards they use to train with Shardblades are definitely not Aluminium for the followimg reasons:

1. Aluminium is known on Roshar yet Zahel states no one knows what the guards are made of.

2. Both the guards and the Oathgate lock seem to shift to match the shape if the blade. Aluminium couldnt do this.

3. Shardblades cant magically cut Aluminium but they're still large sharp objects and can cut/scratch on a physical level, particularly with Aluminum being quite a soft metal. Yet Renarin cant scratch the lock and as long as the guards are on the blade they dont brake.

On my phone so cant do quotes at the minute or a full WoB search to see if I'm right but I think so.

1. What makes you think Aluminum is known on Roshar? I don't recall anyone mentioning it....

2, 3. Yup - you're probably right in this regard. Don't know why I thought they'd repel the damage on a physical level 

@Pagerunner do you think you can find the source that says Shardblades can't cut Aluminum as it would other things? 

[Pagerunner he/him]

4 minutes ago, Steelheart said:

 

@Pagerunner do you think you can find the source that says Shardblades can't cut Aluminum as it would other things? 

Certainly.

 

[Steelheart]

Just now, Pagerunner said:

Certainly.

 

"If it's too thin"... makes it sound like if the lock was thick enough, it would stop it even on a physical level....

.... or I'm just grasping at straws here

[Calderis he/him]

Huh. That makes it seem like the actual cutting is blocked, and thus a pure product of investiture (which makes sense), but the force applied through the impact of the blade would still hit. Aluminum is a very brittle metal so if there's flaws in the metal, or it's thin it would still be liable to snap.

Hmm. I can see that. 

[Jace21 he/him]

2 hours ago, Steelheart said:

1. What makes you think Aluminum is known on Roshar? I don't recall anyone mentioning it....

2, 3. Yup - you're probably right in this regard. Don't know why I thought they'd repel the damage on a physical level 

@Pagerunner do you think you can find the source that says Shardblades can't cut Aluminum as it would other things? 

Shallan's necklace that she tries to use to barter for her brothers freedom is Aluminium. Its not found naturally and can only be soulcast, making it rare, but the Rosharans do know about it at least.

I agree the lock in particular may be too thick to cut with the blade but I would have thought it would have scratched at least when Renarin tested it. I could be wrong though, I cant really remember the material properties of Aluminium.

I suppose the lock isnt specified to be the same material as the blade-guards and is possibly thick/strong enough that the blade wouldnt cut.

I just cant see any way the Aluminium could shift shape to match the blade without it being invested, which is impossible because Aluminium.

I think the lock amd blade-guards are probably the same as yet unknown material. I'd love to know what it is though. The logical answer is they are also spren, but locking spren in the physical just to be able to train with blunt blades seems harsh.

[Steelheart]

1 minute ago, Jace21 said:

Shallan's necklace that she tries to use to barter for her brothers freedom is Aluminium. Its not found naturally and can only be soulcast, making it rare, but the Rosharans do know about it at least.

I agree the lock in particular may be too thick to cut with the blade but I would have thought it would have scratched at least when Renarin tested it. I could be wrong though, I cant really remember the material properties of Aluminium.

I suppose the lock isnt specified to be the same material as the blade-guards and is possibly thick/strong enough that the blade wouldnt cut.

I just cant see any way the Aluminium could shift shape to match the blade without it being invested, which is impossible because Aluminium.

I think the lock amd blade-guards are probably the same as yet unknown material. I'd love to know what it is though. The logical answer is they are also spren, but locking spren in the physical just to be able to train with blunt blades seems harsh.

An idea just occurred to me - if Spren (or at least dead spren) are Honours' god-metal, then perhaps the lock was made of Cultivations' god-metal?

(We have WoBs that every Shard has a god-metal, not just the Scadrian ones)