Glyphwards

[+King of Herdaz he/him]

Throughout the Stormlight Archive we see people writing glyphwards and either wearing them or burning them. Is there any actual power involved here, or is it just as Jasnah thinks, an irrelevant superstition?

[Argent he/him]

Hey, @Lipton Tea, I've moved your topic to the Stormlight Archive forum, where it fits more accurately - but welcome to the forums!

I would put my money on this being simply a superstition. Glyphs are, at least for the most part, manmade, so I don't see much of a reason to believe that burning them would have any kind of effect. There are some loose threads you can kind of grab here - Honor is associated with oaths and bonds, and writing things down, speaking words, or putting any kind of mark can be associated with that in turn; conversely, destroying the stand-in for the bond could have an effect as well. You could also throw the Cognitive Realm here as well - glyphs are associated with ideas, and if that association is strong enough, it could have effect in Shadesmar.

But I think all of these things are purely theoretical, in the same way it is true that technically speaking every human is gravitationally attracted to every other human, but this has no practical bearing. I think the scale of these relationships, correlations, and associations is just too large for anything to actually be affected.

Plus, I am contractually obligated to agree with everything Jasnah says...

[Mushroom Catalog he/him]

14 minutes ago, Lipton Tea said:

Throughout the Stormlight Archive we see people writing glyphwards and either wearing them or burning them. Is there any actual power involved here, or is it just as Jasnah thinks, an irrelevant superstition?

I'm pretty sure that it's just the Vorin religion, and doesn't actually do anything.

I think they might have used to do things, when Honor wasn't splintered, and this is what they are based off of. Honor might have done something about them, and this tradition of this might be a holdover from ancient times, when they might have actually done something. But that's just speculation.

[Karger he/him]

Perhaps... The ancient Ashyn surgbinding worked this way!  Aluminum hat theory but a good one.

[Mushroom Catalog he/him]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

Aluminum hat theory but a good one.

Thanks, I think...

[Karger he/him]

3 minutes ago, Mushroom Catalog said:

Thanks, I think...

I was talking about my theory.

[Mushroom Catalog he/him]

Oops. I thought were you talking about mine! My bad.