Why do the Oathgates have two spren?

[Zelly]

As the title says.

Everything else I can think of, from emotions to physical concepts, have been singular spren entities.  Sometimes they gather in flocks, like creation spren or glory spren, but still singular.

Oathgates, however, have two distinct spren (at least appearance) for one object: 

Quote

"The Oathgate-do you remember those two spren in the sky? Those two are the gateway's soul..." -OB, soon after arriving in Shadesmar

I just found this curious.   Does each one represent a place, like to/from?  Or something more symbolic like the sides of a door?

[Juanaton he/him]

Perhaps it’s more like control building and platform ...I’ll have to think some more.

[LadyLameness]

There's the theory that they're the two spren associated with the surge of transportation, so an Inkspren and Lightspren

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

It is probably boring to guard a door, especially if you are alone. They are there to keep eachother company. 

[LadyLameness]

That is such a wholesome answer @Toaster Retribution

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

3 minutes ago, LadyLameness said:

That is such a wholesome answer @Toaster Retribution

Sometimes I think we overcomplicate things. Everyone would be shocked if "keeping eachother company" was a reason for a mysterious worldbuilding element in Stormlight. It would be a brilliant twist on Brandons part.

[harel55]

Notably, the Oathgate platform (or at least the floor of the control room) actually manifests in Shadesmar, which is a trait we haven't seen anywhere else.

One possibility is that the stone disk seen in Shadesmar is the spren of the Oathgate, and that the two spren guarding it are it's "soul" in a more metaphorical sense, and in fact only serve to keep it operable. This ties in with the theory that all ancient fabrials are accompanied by highspren who made some kind of oath to keep it operable. Then, the two spren of the Oathgate aren't manifested in the Physical in any way and aren't actually the literal spren of the Oathgate.

One piece of possible evidence for this is that when the spren of the Kholinar Oathgate were corrupted, this wasn't reflected in any way in the Physical manifestation of the Oathgate.

[tmnsquirtle]

57 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

It is probably boring to guard a door, especially if you are alone. They are there to keep eachother company. 

'Herald of bad jokes' indeed! 

[Wreith he/him]

Pretty sure at least one of the two spren is responsible for Oathgate function.
Sja-anat says she touched the spren so the gate would not function as expected. before Shallan activates it in Kholinar.

Then when the team is in Shadesmar, one of the spren is Red (co-opted investure indication) as opposed to the rainbow colors of its counterpart when they eventually get to Thaylen City.

Theory:
The gate in Shadesmar is *not* a manifestation of the physical gate but rather a distinct machine.
One spren is for the Physical Realm gate, the other is for the Cognitive Realm gate.
The OathGates normally function as a three step process.
Physical to Cognitive, Cognitive to Cognitive, Cognitive back to Physical.

The corrupted spren at the Kholinar gate is the Cognitive gate's spren, so the Physical gate worked to get them to the cognitive realm, but the Cognitive gate did not work to transfer them to Urithiru.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Wreith
adding theory

[Ripheus23]

I upvoted Wreith's theory but will argue for my own. I think the Oathgate spren duality is representative of the whole meta-level duality of Physical and Cognitive Realms. The Oathgates bind areas of each Realm together in a way similar to how people can bind to spren, maybe. We might speak of a kind of "sprenspren," then. This might be an inherently dual entity, or something along that line. Or: one is the spren of the Oathgate's presence in the Physical Realm, the other the spren of its presence in the Cognitive, and these two are Nahel-ish bound together, too.

[Wreith he/him]

I have two problems with that idea as presented

1. the Realms aren't dual, they are triunal. Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual. The theory needs to address the Spiritual.
2. we have no other examples of a cognitive entity forming another cognitive aspect. It could theoretically happen I guess, if say a higher order spren was brought fully into the physical realm for an extended period and then went back, it might meet itself.
 

[Ripheus23]

TBH I forgot that Oathgates are supposed to move objects in the Physical Realm. I had some weird notion that they were Perpendicularities.

[Wreith he/him]

Just now, Ripheus23 said:

TBH I forgot that Oathgates are supposed to move objects in the Physical Realm. I had some weird notion that they were Perpendicularities.

The Oathgates each ARE a sort of perpendicularity as far as I understand.
I base that on this:

Quote

Question

So, I don't know if this is a RAFO sort of question, but you call them Perpendicularities, will we see this sort of thing created?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, Perpendicularities can be created. You'd need a ton of Investiture. But, basically what Jasnah does is create a little mini Perpendicularity and slips herself into the Cognitive Realm.

Question

So it's just a question of skill, not a question of--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. It's hard to pull off...but some of the powers are built to do it.

 

[Calderis he/him]

2 hours ago, Wreith said:

1. the Realms aren't dual, they are triunal. Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual. The theory needs to address the Spiritual.

This. Teleportation in the Cosmere would require the Spiritual to bypass the location dependant nature of the other two realms. 

The Oathgates use transportation between set locations, and in my opinion it works no differently than a perpendicularity. 

Physical > Cognitive > Spiritual > Cognitive (in a separate location) > Physical

Cosmere teleportation is essentially using the Spiritual as a doorway to fold space.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Calderis

[Zelly]

7 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

It is probably boring to guard a door, especially if you are alone. They are there to keep eachother company. 

But technically they're not just guarding, they are the door.  So perhaps it's boring being a door.  Seems a literal upgrade from a stick though.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

Well the black one is described a lot like how Ivory is described. If one of them is indeed an Inkspren it would make sense that a spren of transportation is required for Oathgate function. The other guardian looks nothing like how a Reacher is described though. I could see the other spren as the cognitive expression of the Oathgate mechanism. So one Spren as the machine and the other as the power source?

[Dahak he/him]

On 29/08/2018 at 11:25 AM, Zellyia said:

Oathgates, however, have two distinct spren (at least appearance) for one object: 

I just found this curious.   Does each one represent a place, like to/from?  Or something more symbolic like the sides of a door?

I suspect they have four, since we always see two at one of the two ends. One for each platform and one for each end possibly.

[DocHoliday he/him]

What if the gate Spren work in tandem, like muscles? A bicep and a triceps; A push and a pull. One to send to the PR, one to receive from for the CR?

[goody153]

On 8/29/2018 at 9:37 PM, Toaster Retribution said:

It is probably boring to guard a door, especially if you are alone. They are there to keep eachother company. 

I'd consider this canon.

[Ripheus23]

All the spren-of-different-parts theories don't strike me as likely, since we're talking about one object with two spren. If the guards were spren of the Oathgates' parts, then wouldn't we see lots of objects with multiple parts having multiple spren, as such? I mean as far as spren work I imagine this is possible but it seems as if only some concepts/forces/feelings/w/e get tangible macroscopic spren, and those don't tend to be partitioned.

IOW there's something about the spatial duality of the Oathgates that gives us the two spren, I think. I keep getting an image of circles trading places, and the spren duality mapping onto the event of the trade. Like wave-particle duality except not really, I guess.

[Wreith he/him]

4 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

All the spren-of-different-parts theories don't strike me as likely, since we're talking about one object with two spren. If the guards were spren of the Oathgates' parts, then wouldn't we see lots of objects with multiple parts having multiple spren, as such? I mean as far as spren work I imagine this is possible but it seems as if only some concepts/forces/feelings/w/e get tangible macroscopic spren, and those don't tend to be partitioned.

IOW there's something about the spatial duality of the Oathgates that gives us the two spren, I think. I keep getting an image of circles trading places, and the spren duality mapping onto the event of the trade. Like wave-particle duality except not really, I guess.

This is part of why I proposed that each Oathgate is in fact two Oathgates. One existing as a physical object in the Physical realm the other as a physical object in the Cognitive realm.

The other part being the fact that there is a physical construct in the Cognitive realm for our travelers to land on.