Are Fabrials Really a Separate Magic?

[Crylorenzo he/him]

While reading over some of the other threads about Radiants, higher ideals, and shardplate and how the connection to the spren increases, a wild theory developed in my mind that could very well be answered in Rhythm of War since it is Fabrial heavy and because there is still a lot of mystery surrounding Soulcasters and other fabrials that replicate Surges.

Are Radiants just more advanced Fabrials? I postulate that Radiants are sentient Fabrials

Hear me out. Some of these may be stretches, but I don't believe all of them are.

Radiants form a Nahel Bond with a type of sentient spren because they begin to embody something that the spren loves.
In order to create a Fabrial, you must attract it with something it loves.

Higher ideal Radiants get Shardplate, which is metal, likely of a God kind like Shardblades (or at least I've heard others theorize such)
Fabrials themselves require cages and different metals produce different effects.

Radiants must be "broken" or have cracks in their spiritweb in order to form a Nahel Bond.
In order to trap a spren in a fabrial, "The gemstone must not be fully infused, but also cannot be fully dun."

When a Radiant swears a higher ideal (which I imagine to be letting the Nahel Bond further into the spiritweb), it is accompanied by a burst of Stormlight, which I believe comes straight from the Spiritual realm of the Radiant's Spiritweb due to the pressure differential.
With Fabrials, if the Stormlight is withdrawn quickly enough the spren is drawn in due to the "pressure differential, created by the sudden withdrawal of Stormlight"

Radiants can't hold onto Stormlight, though the higher the ideal the more efficient the use of their Stormlight, yet the Spren doesn't break away so long as the ideals are kept.
In Fabrials "All gemstones leak Stormlight at a slow rate—but so long as the crystal structure remains mostly intact, the spren cannot escape."

---

This leads me to wonder if later on, probably more in the latter 5 books in the series, if the use of different "metal cages" for Radiants will be used to enhance/change their abilities. Perhaps live Shardplate does this already. I know in RoW Navani is searching for the secret behind Soulcasters and I believe an understanding of the relationship between Radiants and Fabrials will be key to this. Can't wait to find out in less than a week!

[Asha'man Logain]

I'm pretty sure we have WoBs saying you do not in fact need to be broken to bond a spren. This is a prevelant theory in cosmere but not actually necessary. I think its more that the spren are impressed by the broken people still trying to move forward toward whatever ideals (small I) attract them in the first place, but perfectly fine healthy non-broken people could attract t spren as well.

 

I was disappointed as I thought that explained snapping, that they needed to crack the spirit web through extreme circumstances, and perhaps it was a cosmere wide need for investiture. Unfortunately this seems incorrect.

I don't espouse your theory but the rest of it is very well thought out, and you may be on to something.

[Crylorenzo he/him]

Thanks for the response! I had forgotten that WoB so thanks for the input. I thought the same way you did.

I'm probably wrong (and we'll probably find out by how much in RoW), but it seemed like many of the ideas that Navani had said regarding fabrials could also have some relevance to Radiants.

[Karger he/him]

What does and does not constitute a "magic system" is pretty arbitrary.  We say there are three "metallic arts" but even with are limited understanding and argument could be made for forty eight or one and Khriss could probably make a decent case for seven or nine million if she really wanted to.  There is in fact a saying in science that all models are wrong but some are useful.  I personally find looking at fabrails as their own magic system separate from surgebinding to be helpful but if you find that not doing so is helpful then go right ahead.  No natural or even rational law says you can't.  Good luck coming up with something with your own paradigm.

[Crylorenzo he/him]

Thanks for the reply. Perhaps my post came off as sounding too strongly worded? If you feel this is nit-picking or arbitrary, my apologies. I see you area  Theory Collector and so probably have a lot more practice in this than me, but I'm honestly trying to look at the information given and predict what is coming (and would love any help offered as to why or why not what I'm looking at makes sense or not).

For me, if this self-proclaimed wild theory were true, it could give me some areas I could predict for Radiants in future books (we have 10 books and I know that Sanderson usually uses magic reveals that make perfect sense but that we don't always anticipate for great effect, so I am assuming the more intricate uses of the magic to be revealed over time), and thereby be useful. 

That being said, I didn't intend to use the word theory here in the scientific sense - a model that had been tried and tested and currently stands up to scrutiny. If anything, I posted it here in this forum FOR scrutiny.

If you feel like I am pulling at straws and the connections I see are false, like the idea Asha'man pointed out about cracks in the spiritweb related to half-diffused gemstones, I'd love to hear it since that keeps the discussion going. Thanks!

[Honorless he/him]

Ah, this is old but I feel like I should help clarify... Kar didn't really mean that you're splitting hairs, he meant that classifications are fundamentally at least somewhat arbitrary. Cosmere magics aren't distinct things, they're just natural phenomena, "magic systems" are just how parts of these phenomena that interact with humanity are termed in-book by the author and by the readers. So one could make an argument both for whether or not fabrial science is mechanical Surgebinding or a separate magic system. One could also give separate classifications to other spren bonds (like between megafauna like the Tai Na and the spren that allow them to break the square cube law) than the Nahel Bonds of Surgebinders / Knights Radiant.

Edited September 5, 2021 by Honorless

[Thanatos]

Wonder is they use Jezrien in some sort of fabril.

what would that do? 

[Fezzik]

Finish RoW first, Thanatos. The epigraphs specifically answer your question.

[Brgst13]

Relavent WoB:

Quote

Questioner

How many magic systems are in The Stormlight Archive, and how many of them haven't been seen?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say the only major one you haven’t seen is Voidbinding, it depends on how you count them. I count fabrials as one, Surgebinding as one, and Voidbinding as one. And then the Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing.

Calamity Seattle signing (Feb. 17, 2016)