[OB] Gobbledygook about Hoid, Investiture, and the General Cosmere

[TNTman20 he/him]

Hello all!

This is the first theory I have posted, so forgive me if I format things incorrectly or if this theory has already been posted before.

Also there are spoilers for Oathbringer, so be ye wary if you haven't read it yet.

 

Whilst skimming the book after having read it my first time, I found myself reading one of Hoid's little bits with Shallan in Kholinar. On page 676, Shallan notices that Hoid has a small sealed jar that was mostly black, but with a white part facing her. (Let me be plain here. I have scoured the Coppermind wiki a lot on the topic of Hoid so I'm mostly just reaffirming what I read there, forgive me if this information is already known by you fellow 17th Sharders.) I remember reading in Warbreaker Hoid telling Siri and Lightsong a story. In this story he used sand that could transform from white to black. Since we know that there is a sand based power on Taldain, this leads me to believe that Hoid must have gone there and learned sand mastery. This makes me wonder if Hoid has plans to use sand sometime in the SA series. While I must admit that I am uncertain about how sand mastery works, we do know that Investiture can be "replaced" (Stormlight can fulfill the need for Breath, as we see with Nightblood on Roshar.) This makes me wonder if you could use Stormlight to re-energize sand that has been used, or if you can draw upon the Investiture stored within the sand.

I hope you all will understand this balderdash. I also hope that you can leave behind some helpful insight to help me understand more the integration between Invested magics. As I mentioned this is my first thing I have posted, so forgive me if it isn't strung together well.

[Fezzik]

Welcome to the shard! Unfortunately, sand mastery is genetic. As of right now, we don't know of any lerasium like substance for sand mastery, but if there were, I am sure Hoid would be the one to know and have used it. It may just be regular sand that he uses in telling his stories.

[BlackYeti he/him]

Welcome to the Shard. It's great to have another theorist here.

On 12/12/2017 at 5:16 AM, TNTman20 said:

Whilst skimming the book after having read it my first time, I found myself reading one of Hoid's little bits with Shallan in Kholinar. On page 676, Shallan notices that Hoid has a small sealed jar that was mostly black, but with a white part facing her. (Let me be plain here. I have scoured the Coppermind wiki a lot on the topic of Hoid so I'm mostly just reaffirming what I read there, forgive me if this information is already known by you fellow 17th Sharders.) I remember reading in Warbreaker Hoid telling Siri and Lightsong a story. In this story he used sand that could transform from white to black. Since we know that there is a sand based power on Taldain, this leads me to believe that Hoid must have gone there and learned sand mastery.

The jar which Shallan finds is most likely sand from Taldain, however, in Warbreaker, Hoid is not using Sand Mastery on the sand there, per WoB:

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Nightfire107

Does the sand storytelling Hoid uses in Warbreaker have anything to do with your future possible trilogy "White Sand" written about in a recent blog?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it does not. This is a storytelling method that Hoid developed on his own. It does have a relationship to The Liar of Partinel.

On 12/12/2017 at 5:16 AM, TNTman20 said:

While I must admit that I am uncertain about how sand mastery works, we do know that Investiture can be "replaced" (Stormlight can fulfill the need for Breath, as we see with Nightblood on Roshar.) This makes me wonder if you could use Stormlight to re-energize sand that has been used, or if you can draw upon the Investiture stored within the sand.

We know from WoB that this is possible:

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Questioner

You've mentioned in the last couple of afterwords that you get interesting results when you mix types of investiture.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Twinborn and Surgebinders on Roshar. Can you mix a form of magic with a source of investiture? Can say Vasher use Stormlight in place of Breaths or would that require tampering via Hemalurgy or something like that?

Brandon Sanderson

Most of them require tampering. Some of them are a little bit easier than others. It depends on really what you mean. For instance, white sand can be charged in the presence of any Investiture right? It's just-- But that's not really using the magic, it's just charging it with other Investiture. But, you know, it would be very easy, for instance, if you can get yourself Invested-- Like, for instance, it'd be very easy to use Breaths to fuel Windrunning right? Because the oath and the bond and things like that are going to make it pretty easy. However fueling Allomancy with something else is going to be a lot harder. So it really depends on the magic. It's the sort of thing that there will be lots of science in the books dedicated to making happen in the future and you will find some of the processes these work easier than other ones.

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On 12/12/2017 at 5:26 AM, Ookla the oathgate said:

Unfortunately, sand mastery is genetic.

Actually, I don't think that we can say that for sure right now. It's certainly implied in White Sand:

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But characters in-world have been wrong about these things before, and in Elantris' Ars Arcanum, Khriss (our most authoritative source) seems to think otherwise:

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How, then, is a practitioner of AonDor Initiated? It does not appear to be tied to family descent, as one finds on Scadrial, nor is it a specific Shard’s Decision, as on Nalthis. Even Taldain’s and Vax’s methods do not seem to apply here.

In other words, Khriss thinks that Taldain's method of Initiation is different from Scadrial's which is genetic. As such, I don't think that we can say anything for definite about how a person gains sand mastery

[TNTman20 he/him]

Thank you for clarifying that BlackYeti.

So we can't really determine very much of how White Sand's Investiture works very much then, since it could go either way of learning and mastering it or if it is just family genetics.

Edit: I just searched Arcanum for any WoB about Sand Mastery and genetics. I couldn't find anything.

Edited December 13, 2017 by TNTman20

[Yata he/him]

The Sand Mastery's Initiation could be tied to a Sand master's family without be' actually genetic.

For example (but i don't think It's the case) could be Simply linked to be' Connected to another Sand Master (a bit like Roshar's magic) or a Sand Master's relative develop often an attitude that is the actual Sand Mastery's requirements.