[OB] Voidbinding, and what we can learn from Scadrial

[Naerin]

[Spoilers for Mistborn series further on] 

So, there's been a lot of discussion about Voidbinding, and how exactly it works as a distinct magic system from Surgebinding. And with our look at the early chapters of Oathbringer, there's questions floating around as to why the Fused apparently have access to at least some of the same Surges (specifically, when Fused followed Kaladin into the sky, presumably using Lashing). Now, I'm not claiming to fully grasp how Voidbinding likely works (we just don't have enough information yet) but I would like to propose that we should consider Voidbinding by looking at another situation where we saw distinct magic systems on a Shardworld with more than one opposing Shard. 

On Scadrial, we have Preservation and Ruin, each of which has a specific magic systems associated with them: Allomancy for Preservation, Hemallurgy for Ruin. Now the important thing here is that while these are two entirely separate magic systems, they both deal with the same powers. Hemallurgy does not add new metals or new abilities (I'll get to Atium in a minute, don't worry). Rather, it provides a new way of accessing the same abilities. Effects like steelpushing, or emotional allomancy, these are not the magic system. The actual system of Allomancy is accessing Investiture through specific metals used as catalysts. The system of Hemallurgy is accessing Investiture through ripping chunks of Spiritwebs off of living beings and grafting them onto another living thing (well, I'm assuming they have to be living; not sure if that is actually confirmed). Atium was an instance of Preservation incorporating Ruin's body/power into his own magic system. It is suggested in The Hero of Ages that Preservation did this specifically to create a way for Allomancers to exist who could burn away Ruin's body/power, preventing him from accessing it for a time, as they did during the climax in a truly awesome scene.

So what does this mean for Voidbinding? Well it suggests to me that the underlying Surges might be more or less the same. Honor's magic system involves accessing Surges through the nahel bond (or via the Honorblades, which the nahel bond is imitating). Odium's magic system seems to involve accessing Surges through a transformation, a kind of parasitic bond that takes over the Listeners, rather than a symbiotic bond between spren and humans, in which both get something from the other and must work in harmony. So basically, while there may be differences in how the Surges manifest and are utilized (producing variation on effects and appearance) the real difference in magic systems could likely be in how they are accessed, the kind of bond (symbiotic vs parasitic) that facilitates and shapes the use of Investiture. And just like Hemallurgy changed the underlying effects based on its associated Intent (a net loss in the Investiture and powers transfered), so too does Voidbinding subtly warp how the Surges are expressed/used according to its associated Intent. For example, the Fused seem to utilize Lashings but fuel it with something other than stormlight. The stormform Fused and their red lightning could be using a Surge we haven't see much of yet; but it could also be a strange, twisted form of Adhesion (pressure and vaccuum) given how lightning works and given the apparent versatility of Surges as seen in Kaladin's (presumed) use of it to fight the highstorm. Soulcasting might differ more dramatically, using different base Essences to produce apparently quite different effects (Midnight Essence, for example) that are in reality still at their core the Surge of Transformation. You would end up with magic systems that on the surface appear to produce some different effects, but they would both still be based in the ten Surges we are already familiar with. The physical transformations of the Listeners also add depth to the differences without changing the underlying mechanics. It's of course still possible that Voidbinding involves a completely new set of powers, but based on what we've already seen and the way that the magic systems interacted on Scadrial, I think that is less likely than two magic systems with different methods of accessing the same basic set of Surges. 

[shawnhargreaves he/him]

I agree that there seem to be strong parallels between Surgebinding, Voidbinding, and what we've seen so far of fabrials, but I'm not convinced by the Scadrial parallel.

For one thing, Scadrial has three magic systems, not just two.  Hemalurgy is powered by Ruin, Feruchemy by Preservation, and Allomancy is a blend of the two.

That doesn't seem to match what we know about magic on Roshar.   Surgebinding appears to be just one magic system, but with 10 variants, each of which is differently associated with some blend of Honor and Cultivation.   There doesn't seem to be the same structure as on Scadrial, which would leave us to expect one system from Honor, another from Cultivation, plus a third that blends the two (also maybe an Honor+Odium blend, a Cultivation+Odium blend, and perhaps a blend of all three if the combinatorics are fully expanded?)

It could be argued that each separate surge is its own magic system, but in that case Roshar has far more graduated blends than what we saw on Scadrial.

Hemalurgy is an odd magic system in that it steals the powers of other systems, rather than having any specific capabilities of its own.  When an Inquisitor burns steel, I'm not sure it's right to say they are using Hemalurgy to do this.  Hemalurgy was used when they were first spiked (thus stealing the ability to burn steel from someone else) but at the point when they actually burn it, I think they are now using the stolen Allomantic power rather than Hemalurgy.   So I'm not sure we can conclude anything more general from the fact that these stolen abilities stay basically the same.

[DracostarA]

Just to clarify, Allomancy is of Preservation and Feruchemy is a blend of the two.

From the Ars Aracanum of WoR, we know that Surgebinding is Honor+ Cultivation, there exists Voidbinding with 10 levels (perhaps of Odium and Honor since 'binding' implies oaths like Surgebinding does) and another, more esoteric magic (unlikely to be Old Magic) to be a mix of Odium and Cultivation?

[KidWayne he/him]

It's the surges. They determine the way that magic is manifested on Roshar just like the 16 metals determine the expression and manifestation of magic on Scadrial. 

Feruchemy, allomancy, and hemalurgy... All three have different effects based on the metal used. 

Roshar: surgebinding / void binding... If a bond is used, the surges will dictate the expression of the magic enabled by the bond. Presumably the Old Magic isn't dependent on a bond and therefore it isn't confined to the surges. 

[Naerin]

On 11/11/2017 at 4:00 PM, Calderis said:

Brandon Sanderson

But, but even the powers, it’s, it’s really this sort of thing. What’s going in Stormlight is that people are accessing fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe. They’re accessing them through the filter of Cultivation and Honor. So, that’s not to say, on another world you couldn’t have someone influence gravity. Honor doesn’t belong to gravity. But bonds, and how to deal with bonds, and things like this, is an Honor thing. So the way Honor accesses gravity is, you make a bond between yourself and either a thing or a direction or things like that and you go. So it’s filtered through Honor’s visual, and some of the magics lean more Honor and some them lean more Cultivation, as you can obviously see, in the way that they take place.

So, I found this on another thread and thought I'd post it here since it seems relevant. Notice that he's not saying the Surges are an Honor thing. The bond (specifically the nahel bond for the Radiants) is the Honor thing, because that is how they access those Surges. My main point was just that Voidbinding could involve the same basic Surges as Surgebinding, but filtered through Odium's fusions of voidspren and Listeners, producing slightly (or majorly) distorted effects. I'm not saying this is the case necessarily. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post we don't have enough information yet. Voidbinding could be a completely new set of effects, working off of entirely different principles. But judging from WoB and from what we saw on Scadrial, it doesn't have to work like that. You can have an opposing magic system in the cosmere that accesses the same underlying powers/principles in a different way. And the fact that we have seen Voidbringers essentially using Lashing like Windrunners would supports this theory. 

[Solant he/him]

Reading these posts, something occurred to me. Perhaps there is a direct parallel between surgebinding and voidbinding? What if, where with KR there is a voluntary bond between the spren and the user, in the case of the Fused it is a forced bond between the spren and the user. They could be corrupted versions of the very same spren types the KR bond. The spren themselves could be the actual voidbringers. This would explain the number nine vs ten radiant orders (no special spren to bond bondsmiths). I'm probably totally off, but the idea is interesting.

[sprocket]

I feel like it's worth pointing out that Preservation and Ruin being so diametrically opposed is something fairly unique in the Cosmere. I'm sure their nature as opposites had an effect on how Alomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalugy came about. Honor, Cultivation, and Odium are not nearly so neat in their interaction. There's no reason to think that there should necessarily be one magic system for each shard plus one for the blend (as we see on Scadrial). One blended system (surgebinding), plus one shard specific system(voidbinding), seems to be the case on Roshar.  

That said, I think your parallel still holds. The basic effects of most magic systems are similar, but vary slightly in application and method of access (the actual system, as you very accurately put it, I think). You can actually do a lot of the same stuff with Allomancy that you can with Feruchemy. And what do you know, that's a shard specific system achieving similar effects as a blended system, the very same situation we seem to be seeing on Roshar. 

Also, Listener forms already seem to be a kind of fusing of spren and listener, as opposed to a bond as we've seen before. It doesn't look like the spren actually sticks around after the transformation nahel bond style. I assume that's what is happening here, just to voidspren with minds instead of the mindless spren that Listeners normally bond to. The listener fuses to the voidspren and they become a kind of composite entity and grants them access to the surges.  

 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

17 hours ago, Naerin said:

The stormform Fused and their red lightning could be using a Surge we haven't see much of yet;

Reminder that anything we saw Stormform do in WoR is not Voidbinding. WoR came out in 2014, and the "We haven't seen Voidbinding" WoB came out in 2016.

That said, I will say that Voidbinding being another version of using the Surges is almost certainly true. The Surges are the Fundamental Forces made manifest, and that means that magic there will be tied to those forces, no matter what you call the method of access. 10 Surgebinding, 10 Voidbinding, 10 Fabrial Somethings...

I'm not 100% on your comparison to Hemalurgy though, but that wasn't really the point of your post.

---

I also found this WoB, which is an.. interesting bit of info. Fabrials could theoretically duplicate Voidbinding.

Quote

Questioner

Is, like, Fabrials that can imitate, I mean, very specific forms of Surgebinding... Are there Fabrials that can imitate the Surge-- <stages> of Voidbinding?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That is theoretically possible.

[frozndevl]

Okay, here's my thought. We learned that humans brought Odium with them, and they likely already had access to the surges because of Odium. When they got to Roshar, they abandoned Odium for some reason, maybe because they just saw how awesome Honor and Cultivation were, who knows... But then there was conflict. Honor realizes that his pet humans need protection, so he fashioned the Honorblades to grant access to the surges. However, since both H and C had invested the planet, instead of just granting a single surge, the H-blades now granted two and with them the resonances. Then the greater spren created the nahel bond to mimic the honor blades. So, voidbringers always had voidbinding, regardless of human or singer, and surgebinding turned out to be a better copy. also, because of the references to destroying a planet and needing limits, they put in place the ideals to control things and limit the full power to those worthy of it.

I also feel like the ten heralds came from times preshattering, not the Ashyn humans, and therefore honor thought them worthy of receiving the Honorblades.