Silver, what is it?

[Crylorenzo he/him]

21 hours ago, John203 said:

Yes. In SfSitFoH, shades interacting tarnishes silver, Silence has to make enough money to replenish the warding circles around the inn.

Thanks for the reminder - the fact that it tarnishes it to the point that it has to be replaced and can't just be polished means that it is used up in some way. Silver acts as a ward against the shades which are cognitive shadows, like Kelsier (though he is unique in his own way and not mindless), right? That combined with with Vin's earring makes me wonder if it blocks negative influence from Shadesmar, or influence at all from Shadesmar. A question to ask Brandon may be - if someone were covered in Silver, could they still form a Nahel Bond? And if they could, what about the voidspren entering the Singers? That would help answer that question, maybe.

Unless, of course, Silver has more to do with the spiritual realm after all.

Edited November 12, 2018 by Crylorenzo

[King's Twit he/him]

On 11/7/2018 at 10:14 AM, Crylorenzo said:

I always thought that Silver had to do with shadesmar / cognitive realm. Or perhaps even the spiritual realm. We don't get much of either in Mistborn, then shades are cognitive shadows and are affected by it. My memory maybe off, but doesn't Hoid do something to hurt Kelsier at the Well? I know we don't see any metal here, but it could've been hidden silver. I wonder if Silverlight has anything to do with Silver and Shadesmar.

Yeah, I've had a quarter-formed idea about this floating in the back of my head for a while too. I've been thinking that aluminum and silver are similar, but affect different realms. Aluminum might be fairly similar to every other metal in two of the realms, the physical and either the cognitive or spiritual realms. But in that third realm, aluminum would act as almost like a vacuum in space, or maybe even something like anti-matter. And if aluminum is cognitive anti-matter (hypothetically, not sure which realm it would be), then silver could be spiritual anti-matter.

We don't see an effect similar to that of silver on Threnody's shades anywhere else (except maybe Kel) because something about being a living being, or at maybe having an anchor in the physical realm, prevents the silver from interacting with anything. Shades are possibly stripped in some way of this protection they had when they were alive.

Edited November 12, 2018 by King's Twit

[HSuperLee]

1 minute ago, King's Twit said:

Yeah, I've had a quarter-formed idea about this floating in the back of my head for a while too. I've been thinking that aluminum and silver are similar, but affect different realms. Aluminum might be fairly similar to every other metal in two of the realms, the physical and either the cognitive or spiritual realms. But in that third realm, aluminum would act as almost like a vacuum in space, or maybe even something like anti-matter. And if aluminum is cognitive anti-matter (hypothetically, not sure which realm it would be), then silver could be spiritual anti-matter.

We don't see an effect similar to that of silver on Threnody's shades anywhere else (except maybe Kel) because something about being a living being, or at maybe having an anchor in the physical realm, prevents the silver from interacting with anything. Shades are possibly stripped in some way of this protection they had when they were alive.

The problem with that theory, at least as far as aluminum is concerned, is that we've seen it resist investiture in all three realms.

Physical: Aluminum cannot be allomatically moved.

Cognitive: Aluminum cannot be soulcast into something else.

Spiritual: Aluminum cannot be soulstamped.

[King's Twit he/him]

Just now, HSuperLee said:

The problem with that theory, at least as far as aluminum is concerned, is that we've seen it resist investiture in all three realms.

Physical: Aluminum cannot be allomatically moved.

Cognitive: Aluminum cannot be soulcast into something else.

Spiritual: Aluminum cannot be soulstamped.

You may be right, but I think that all of those things are consequences in the other realms from its nature in the one realm where it is special. Aluminum can't be affected by allomancy, but that might be a consequence of how allomancy functions. It seems like allomancy depends really strongly on the cognitive realm, because we've seen examples of the role Intent plays in it (Wax's push bubble) as it does in other magic systems, like Hemalurgy and Awakening. The inability of an allomancer's cognitive aspect to interact with the cognitive aspect of aluminum would then make even the most physical of allomantic powers useless against it.

[Crylorenzo he/him]

Is Soulstamping spiritual or is it cognitive? I sort of equate it to soulcasting, just on a deeper level. Otherwise, there just came out a WoB today where someone asked if Silver was like Aluminum and they got a sort of yes from it:

---

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Is silver in Shadows for Silence similar in any way to aluminum in the rest of the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

*hesitantly* Yes, but not really. Silver is like silver, and aluminum is like aluminum.

---

Aluminum negates investiture of all types - I'm not sure it has anything to do with physical, spiritual, or cognitive.
In a similar way, Silver may be a negater, or perhaps a warder? I know he likes to talk about how the magic is often related to fundamental forces and I wonder if it has to do with repulsion (like electromagnetism) of spiritual things (like the shades). Not sure, but it's a wob to chew on.

Edited November 13, 2018 by Crylorenzo

[BooksBeforeDeath]

On November 12, 2018 at 8:44 PM, Crylorenzo said:

Is Soulstamping spiritual or is it cognitive? I sort of equate it to soulcasting, just on a deeper level. Otherwise, there just came out a WoB today where someone asked if Silver was like Aluminum and they got a sort of yes from it:

---

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Is silver in Shadows for Silence similar in any way to aluminum in the rest of the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

*hesitantly* Yes, but not really. Silver is like silver, and aluminum is like aluminum.

---

Aluminum negates investiture of all types - I'm not sure it has anything to do with physical, spiritual, or cognitive.
In a similar way, Silver may be a negater, or perhaps a warder? I know he likes to talk about how the magic is often related to fundamental forces and I wonder if it has to do with repulsion (like electromagnetism) of spiritual things (like the shades). Not sure, but it's a wob to chew on.

I'm pretty sure Soulstamping rewrites your spiritweb. Sorry about quoting the entire thing; I'm on mobile

[Arith Matic he/him]

Silver Is essentially only special on Threnody, as far as I know.  Aluminum is probably what your brother is referring to by being anti-Investiture or Dragonsteel.

WoB on silver's Allomantic uselessness (spoilered to distinguish the WoB):

Brandon Sanderson

Spoiler

Chapter Sixty - Part One

Silver, the Useless Metal

I've annotated about this before, but I figured I'd mention it again. As you probably know, in book one, tin was originally silver. I swapped it out for various reasons.

However, that left silver having no Allomantic powers. That feels strange to a lot of people because of how common and useful it is in our modern culture. Such an obvious metal doing nothing seems wrong to readers.

I toyed with using it in place of aluminum at the end of book one, but I realized that wouldn't work. It was too common, so if it had any Allomantic powers, people would know about them for certain. Only a metal that was very hard to find—like aluminum—would be believable as a new metal that most people hadn't heard of.

So silver is Allomantically inert. Just one of the quirks of the magic system.

source

 

I think that aluminum is a fascinating metal in the Cosmere, because it does block shardblades as stated in this WoB:

Spoiler

Bridge4AM (paraphrased)

What would happen if you tried to cut aluminum with a shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

A shardblade would not cut aluminum.

Footnote: This contradicts a previous WoB where Brandon said shardblades could cut aluminum. This contradiction is addressed here.
source

And it does seem to block other forms of Investiture like Allomancy, but I don't know what the deal is with it.

[Calderis he/him]

1 hour ago, BooksBeforeDeath said:

Sorry about quoting the entire thing; I'm on mobile

I live on mobile. Highlight the text you want to quote and wait a few seconds. A "quote this" should pop up. 

[Fezzik]

In addition to highlighting, I have to scroll a little with my finger on the highlighted bit to get the "quote this" to pop up.

[Lightblood]

On 11/12/2018 at 8:39 AM, Crylorenzo said:

Thanks for the reminder - the fact that it tarnishes it to the point that it has to be replaced and can't just be polished means that it is used up in some way. Silver acts as a ward against the shades which are cognitive shadows, like Kelsier (though he is unique in his own way and not mindless), right? That combined with with Vin's earring makes me wonder if it blocks negative influence from Shadesmar, or influence at all from Shadesmar. A question to ask Brandon may be - if someone were covered in Silver, could they still form a Nahel Bond? And if they could, what about the voidspren entering the Singers? That would help answer that question, maybe.

Unless, of course, Silver has more to do with the spiritual realm after all.

If this works the way you said (blocks influence from the cognitive realm) then it wouldn't really affect the ability of a Nahel bond. The sprens have a weak physical presence and a spiritual presence as well. If silver were able to affect all three of these then silver would just kill humans on touch (as the known varieties exist on all three plains). Also the shades on threnody obviously have more power then a normal cognitive shadow. We don't see Kelsier killing people in M:SH. Silver has a very specific ability on thredony and little to no ability off planet (as far as we know). 

[Quantus he/him]

In addition to that oddity there's a strong indication that the Shades are connecting, creating, or acting as Perpendicularities, which would imply that the process will involve all three realms.  Not sure how that relates to Silver, necessarily, but it's another factor.

 

Lacking anything else, Im starting to blame Leras and Ati for it.  I strongly believe that the Allomantic and Feruchemcial tables are (somehow) direct reflections of the 16 Shards themselves (there's a good WOB to support this but I cant find it at the moment), and Ive seen it theorized that there might be some connection between those specific metals and the original 16 and/or the process of the Shattering.  Separately, I am deeply suspicious of the fact that the Metallic Arts are apparently the only way in the entire Cosmere to Invest Aluminum, which happens to exist on the planet that was Created whole post-shattering.  So, while we know that the Doylistic reason for Aluminum over silver is that Aluminum requires a minimum amount of Industrial progression before it can become common, better fitting the multi-Era plan for Scadrial, perhaps the Watsonian explanation is that originally there were 16 Cosmere significant metals that did not include Aluminum (which presumably was always the Investiture sink it is today) but one (or both) of them consciously altered it to include Aluminum after creating a world where Metals were the door to the Spiritual, specifically in an attempt to invent a way to make Invested Aluminum.  It's something I tend to think more and more is nearly as big a Chekhov's Gun as Nightblood seems to be.

[MarShadow he/him]

What if silver is Investiture on Threnody, and there is a shard--small bit--of preservation here too, with souls staying to rest here after they die, and the Inertness of the silver 'banishing them', creating a space they cannot go?

I don't know if that makes much sense to anyone else. Here's something I got from a signing:

MarShadow [PENDING REVIEW]

What new statement can you give us about the cosmere that would give us a bunch to speculate on?

Brandon [PENDING REVIEW]

I'm not sure if there's something new I can say. Um... I think rampant speculation about the Threnody novel would be cool. So, you have seen a hint in the books about the Threnody novel that no one has asked me if this is the thing.

Edited December 28, 2018 by MarShadow
referred to Threnody as here, may have been confusing

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 11/12/2018 at 7:00 PM, HSuperLee said:

The problem with that theory, at least as far as aluminum is concerned, is that we've seen it resist investiture in all three realms.

Physical: Aluminum cannot be allomatically moved.

Cognitive: Aluminum cannot be soulcast into something else.

Spiritual: Aluminum cannot be soulstamped.

Yet it stores identity. And allomancers wearing aluminium hats  seem to have no problem using their own allomancy.