Realmatic Attributes: A Classification of Magics

[Chaos he/him]

It's been a while since I've been theorizing! It's time to change that.

This treatise--and it is a treatise; it is way too long--has a long history in my mind, and now it is finally time for me to actually put it down in writing. (The graph also took forever to figure out how to do, but I finally got it to work. Yes, there's a graph in this theory.)

Introduction

There is a wide variance in magic in the cosmere, but it has never been clear why some magics might be more related to one than another. Considering Words of Radiance, we know that Stormlight and Breath are similar in many ways. In this exhaustive classification scheme, we will rigorously describe how cosmere magics differ, using Realmatic reasoning, and also provide a high level view on how these magics came into being, and why they act as they do.

(Look, I know I should be calling them Investitures or manifestations of Investiture, but I'm going to go with magic systems for now because it is just less clunky than "manifestations of Investiture," okay?)

These ideas began, as many things with me do, with a conversation with Windrunner. When we read Words of Radiance, we had many thoughts, and we started comparing magic systems. What makes one stronger than another? The Spiritual fuel is important, but what of spren?

In this scheme, I said that Allomancy and Surgebinding was probably the most "powerful" of the magics, but for different reasons. Allomancy was very restrictive, but because it was so restrictive, its effects could be much more impressive. AonDor was also very powerful in its own way, but while flexible, it required a great deal of preparation. So I supposed that maybe there's a "Power" axis and a "Preparation" axis. BioChroma would be of more middling power, but require less preparation. This seemed like a sensible way of organizing the magics together from a high level. But, I had never been satisfied with these terms, as they had no relation with any other cosmere terms. And more importantly, something seemed… missing, somehow.

It turned out there were more precise axes to use: Realmatics. We throw terms around like Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual, but we don't know what they mean as much. But with Emperor's Soul, we know more, and now I'm going to relate these in classifying cosmere magics. Two axes seemed too few, so let's go with three, the typical Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual.

In fact, there are good reasons to use these as attributes. In Words of Radiance, the writer of the Ars Arcanum uses it to describe Lightweaving:

Unlike the variations present on Sel, however, this method has a powerful Spiritual element, requiring not just a full mental picture of the intended creation, but some level of connection to it as well.

…I wish to delve more into this ability, with the hope to gain a full understanding of how it relates to Spiritual and Cognitive attributes.

Of course, this by itself, is not a new idea. A long-espoused idea is that All Magics have Three Parts. But that theory didn't go far enough. Why? Magics are not equally rooted all three Realms.

Time for a short digression on my philosophy on magic: every magic is essentially a Realmatic exchange. Power--Investiture--is moved or transformed from one Realm, say the Spiritual, to a different Realm, like the Physical. Not all magics have the same Realmatic exchange between Realms, but there's always some sort of interaction between all three Realms. For this to happen, a magic system has to be partially embedded in each Realm. Think of it like a chemical reaction: you have three different pots and with the right conditions, you cause a reaction between these three pots, causing various effects. This is not entirely relevant to this theory, but to me it seems to be an interesting way of thinking about magic. It's more fundamental, and to me explains the reasoning why magics need to have roots in all three Realms.

It seems obvious that magics will be rooted in each Realm differently. Awakening has a strong Cognitive component that Allomancy does not. Surgebinding requires a Spiritual connection, and is totally different from Awakening and Allomancy. Three different magics, three different distributions in which Realms the magics are rooted.

I think the idea of a "focus" can also be fit into this classification scheme. Originally, without Roshar, the focus of a magic system seemed pretty self-evident: Aons/symbols, metals, Commands--with Commands being the least immediately obvious, but in retrospect, Commands do all the "action" of this Realmatic interaction, if you think about it. But Surgebinding just doesn't have an obvious equivalent, and that's totally okay. Brandon has more recently said that the idea of a focus is something that peoples came up with to describe magic, which implies to me that the notion of a focus is not a core, fundamental attribute to cosmere magics.

But again, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's classify magics.

The Model

You guys know I have a math degree, right? (Now a Master's degree in fact.) So, this part may be slightly… unnecessarily numerical. Don't worry about it; you can skip the numbers.

Mathematical models, at their simplest, start with a few core principles and then use that to construct equations or numbers which hopefully illuminate things. We obviously have little to no true numerical information, so I'll be doing some estimations. But first, let's make our assumptions very clear before insanity begins.

1. Every magic is rooted in each of the three Realms (pretty widely accepted)

2. Depending on magic system, this distribution is not equal.

So let's get onto classifying just how much each magic system is rooted in each Realm. It seems sensible that perhaps we rate magics on a scale of 100 points, and we'll have three values, for Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual. These values need to sum up to 100, so you could say these are the rough estimates for how much a magic is rooted in each Realm. (If you've had probability, you can just scale these to be from 0 to 1 rather than 0 to 100, but big numbers seemed nicer for this). So we might say a magic is 50 in Physical, 30 Cognitive, and 20 Spiritual, for an example.

Now, that might seem like a pretty safe assumption, but what I'm effectively doing is saying that I'm normalizing every magic to have the same power level. There's 100 "power" to distribute between Realms. That's a pretty big assumption! We will see minor Shardworlds where Splinters power magics rather than Shards, and those magics will definitely not be as powerful as the Shardic magics. So, our final assumption:

3. Generally all Shardic magics have the same amount of pure "strength"; it is just distributed differently (this may be totally false, but right now we don't have tools to properly measure if one magic is purely stronger than another).

With our assumptions in hand, we can begin thinking about magics. But maybe I ought to say what I mean by Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual.

Physical: How much a magic is aligned with things in the Physical Realm. The Physical generally results in more restrictive abilities.

Cognitive: How much a magic is aligned with Cognitive things, such as thought, preparation required in manifesting magic

Spiritual: How much a magic is aligned to ideals, Identity, and other Spiritual traits.

Depending on which Realmatic attribute is dominant will determine how a magic's focus is. Physical magics require a very rigid focus. Cognitive magics have more fluid foci. Spiritual magics may purely not require a focus because of a person's direct connection. We'll talk a lot more about this in a bit.

Finally, let's get to business.

Scadrian magics are interesting in that they are specially hardwired into a person's Spiritweb (and Hemalurgy revolves on rewiring these, essentially). It's the only cosmere magic like this, with very rigid abilities encoded into you. Many other magics can be accessed more easily, but not the Metallic Arts. You either have it or you don't, or you're a horrible person and like spiking people.

I would thus classify all Scadrian magics as Physical. Whereas other magics require significant work to get going, like AonDor, Forgery, or Awakening, all the "work" of the Realmatic interaction is contained in the correct metal. Nothing else is required.

Allomancy - Heavily Physical, minor Spiritual (due to its connection with Preservation), very little Cognitive

Feruchemy - Physical, about equal Cognitive and Spiritual

Hemalurgy - Physical, Spiritual, and Cognitive, but there's more Cognitive to Hemalurgy (since it heavily depends on knowledge of where to put the spikes), and it steals a lot of Spiritual attributes, hence its Spiritual designation. One could argue, perhaps, it is more Cognitive than Spiritual.

Nalthian magics are most obviously embedded in the three Realms: color, Commands, and Breath are its Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual components, respectively. But where does the work lie? It's primarily Cognitive. The visualization and the Command is the most key element to the magic,

Awakening - Cognitive, Spiritual, then Physical

Selish magics are also highly Cognitive. It requires a lot of work to create just the right Aon or soulstamp.

AonDor - Cognitive, Spiritual, very little Physical

Forgery - Cognitive, Spiritual, more Physical

I'm not including the ChayShan or Dakhor, as we know so little about them, but if we had more data I'm sure we could fit them into this scheme. At the moment, ChayShan seems more Physical, and Dakhor has a more strong Physical component too. AonDor really has the least Physical of all the Selish magics, yet a very strong Spiritual component.

Finally, Roshar. This is a Spiritual magic if I've ever seen one. It requires a deep bond with your spren to make the magic work. If you don't have that bond, you need an Honorblade, which I would call a "focus" in this case. It grants that ability for you, giving you that connection to Honor necessary to suck in Stormlight. But in most usual Surgebinding, its dominant attribute--the reason for the power--is your Spiritual Identity. Who you truly are.

Surgebinding - Spiritual, Physical, Cognitive (the last two depending on Surge)

Of course, in this, I'm generalizing all magics under one umbrella. Certain Feruchemical abilities are in one Realm entirely, and while Windrunning doesn't involve much Cognitive, Lightweaving does. So take these as rough averages at best.

Putting it all together:

Allomancy - Heavily Physical, minor Spiritual,very little Cognitive

Feruchemy - Physical, about equal Cognitive and Spiritual

Hemalurgy - Physical, Spiritual, and Cognitive

Awakening - Cognitive, Spiritual, then Physical

AonDor - Cognitive, Spiritual, very little Physical

Forgery - Cognitive, Spiritual, more Physical

Surgebinding - Spiritual, Physical, Cognitive

And heck, let's put some numbers to it, because I feel that will show a magic's attribute and its distribution more effectively than me blathering:

Allomancy: 60 Physical, 30 Spiritual, 10 Cognitive

Feruchemy: 50 Physical, 25 Cognitive, 25 Spiritual

Hemalurgy: 50 Physical, 30 Spiritual, 20 Cognitive

Awakening: 60 Cognitive, 30 Spiritual, 10 Physical

AonDor: 50 Cognitive, 45 Spiritual, 5 Physical

Forgery: 50 Cognitive, 40 Spiritual, 10 Physical

Surgebinding: 60 Spiritual, 20 Physical, 20 Cognitive

That seems to sum things up pretty nicely. The only one I'm not really sold on is Forgery, since it throws around much less power than AonDor, but yet still deals with Identity (a very Spiritual attribute) heavily. Perhaps if we consider that AonDor only seems so powerful with the help of Elantris, this power disparity doesn't seem nearly as extreme.

So of course, here's a pretty graph displaying this info:

Each color corresponds to a particular world:

Red - Scadrian

Purple - Nalthian

Blue - Selish

Green - Rosharan

But what is a 3D graph from just one angle? That's why I made a fully interactive version for your viewing pleasure!

Now that I think is pretty slick.

Power levels and Cognitive Intermediaries

And with that model in place, we can get back to the discussion Windy and I originally had, about relative powers of a magic. Tied up in this question also will be spren and foci.

Remember, in my conception of magic, manifestations of Investiture occur because Investiture is being shifted between the Realms. This effects don't happen in a vacuum; they require a user, and almost always, they require activation of some sorts, a will for magic to occur (the only time it doesn't is when Allomancers unconsciously burn metals). But more importantly, there needs to be a catalyst for this Realmatic interaction to occur.

If we think about Surgebinding and Shallan Soulcasting, Pattern acts as her intermediary in Shadesmar. Given Syl talks about magic being an "agreement with friends," it seems reasonable to say that your spren is the thing that, in the Cognitive Realm, makes this interaction work. It all comes back to the Cognitive Realm, really, because Shadesmar connects the Physical and Spiritual. It's where change happens. (Is it any wonder that Shadesmar is predominantly water? Liquids are a transitionary state of matter between solids and gases)

I'll call spren a Cognitive Intermediary, or an Intermediary more simply. These are the catalysts that make magic all work.

So, that immediately asks the question, do other magics have a similar Intermediary? Of course! They are focuses. I originally defined a focus as something that shapes power into a specific effect. Realmatically, that focus facilitates the Realmatic interaction.

This explains why AonDor is incredibly unforgiving. Without a sentient Cognitive Intermediary acting on your behalf, you have to do all the action yourself, and persuading the "spren" of other things to do what you wish is… well, as we know from Shallan, it is nontrivial. Aons allow Investiture to be shaped very specifically, but you have to get it precise, or else the whole thing is for nothing.

Awakening's Commands are also that Intermediary, and similarly, you have to be pretty darn specific in your Command (and your Cognitive visualization, which is really what you want; the words just help to visualize the Command). You are willing that Breath to take this very specific shape and form, for the "spren" of the object to do as you wish. You have to be a pretty persuasive.

What of the Metallic Arts? In the case of Allomancy, the consuming of the metal unlocks the Investiture directly from Preservation. I interpret this as, the powers are very specifically ingrained into you, and when the metal--the Intermediary--is used, Investiture is forced down the very specific paths that are ingrained into you. It's like a very narrow conduit that suddenly opens with the metal present.

Other magics that aren't as firm in abilities either need a very precise Cognitive focus to shape the power how you want it, or it requires a deep Spiritual connection, with something doing the action for you. Those are the three ways you get magic. And of course, the way the Investiture is accessed also needs to be in line with the Shard's intent, but this goes a step further in identifying what components a magic will require need, Realmatically.

(Tangent: Nightblood is a spren, really. He's his own Cognitive Intermediary in Shadesmar, like a spren. I imagine in Shadesmar, he's violently using the power of his Breath and the Breaths he consumes to actively fulfill his specific intent. Other spren get vaguer intents and have a bit more freedom in what they do.)

So Allomancy is hardwired in, and it is powerful primarily because its power is very focused in specific ways.

In AonDor and Awakening, you construct your Cognitive Intermediary yourself. Differences between these two magics come from the way you get the magic in the first place (differences in Shard intent), but also, AonDor has a lot more Spiritual power to throw around. Awakening is interesting in that it is the only magic (well, other than Hemalurgy) where Innate Investiture--Breath in this case--is the fuel, and in the scale of Shards, Innate Investiture is really small. Powerful magics require a connection with something more Spiritual. In Allomancy and Feruchemy, the encoding grants that connection to the Shards, and your Identity and who you are is what triggers the Shaod, allowing a direct connection with the Dor. Thus, AonDor has a lot more to work with.

So power, ultimately, is vested in the Spiritual. The stronger a magic's spiritual aspect, the more power it gets to throw around. As such, Elantrians, Knights Radiant, and Allomancers have a great deal of pure "strength". However, Elantrians and Radiants are more closely related in this spiritual way. Radiants and Allomancers are more related in ease of use, because things are less Cognitive, but that comes with limitations: the magics that are fast to use are limited and not flexible.

The more a magic is Cognitive, though, the more flexibility it has. Awakening and AonDor have almost innumerable abilities. Practically unlimited!

Physicality means that things are the least flexible. But rigidness means you get dramatic effect at minimal costs. I predict that there will be very few Physical magics in the cosmere, as building a physical magic with these specific Spiritweb encodings seems like a very deliberate act on a Shard's part, and I'm not sure a Shard would make such an intense effort.

Which brings us up to a more mythological analysis on maybe, just maybe, why these magics are vested in each Realm the way they are.

A historical perspective

The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

(Source, and emphasis is mine, of course)

This is an incredibly important quote. Focuses are not a function of the Shards themselves, but also the Shardworld. This could be taken to mean many things about a Shardworld, but what if this means foci occur because Shards and the actual events that happen on that planet? So let's take a historical look at magics.

Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy have much more active Shardic connections, and their Spiritweb encodings represent a specific design. It's as if the magics were created with that purpose (If you buy that the Metallic Arts are designed, this can explain how Harmony can alter the way Snapping works and Preservation could switch out metals--the magic itself is Physical. Constructed. Designed.)

That does make sense given Scadrial's origin. Things on this planet were born of an agreement between two Shards. They had to carefully craft what they built. Preservation let people access his power more, forging Allomancy in the process. The metal, being an artifact of agreement, became its focus. Ruin countered Preservation by using the metals for his purpose instead. He of course wouldn't let people access his own power.

Their agreement was hardly a pleasant one. They were enemies and every action they did had to subtly give them an advantage over the other. As such they could have agreed upon a focus which let them be very careful in how their Investitures were used; hence the reason abilities are so rigid here.

(Another tangent: It is important to note that they did not Invest the metal on Scadrial. Rather, they made a more interesting construct: Investing people in very particular, specific ways, and allowing the metal to be the key to unlocking the Investiture. So a Scadrian could burn Rosharan tin and find it chemically identical, unlocking the power exactly the same as elsewhere.)

That was how Scadrial's conflict manifested in its magic. On Roshar, things emerged quite a bit differently.

Honor and Cultivation, romantically involved, went to the Rosharan system. It is possible they Invested some of their power onto Ashyn or Braize--we don't know yet. But either way, Honor and Cultivation made it to Roshar first.

Then Odium came and caused some issues. (Understatement of the millennium)

Odium would not have agreed, as Ruin did, to an easy accord. Odium didn't even want to construct--he wanted to eliminate his opponents. Honor and Cultivation disagreed rather strenuously. Honor, at the very least (it is not clear how Cultivation fits in), began opposing Odium with everything he has. Honor threw around a ton of his power in opposing him--perhaps creating the storms in what seemed at the time to be an effort to blow Odium's forces off the whole planet. Odium threw a lot of his power around too. As such, Rosharan magics have a high ceiling of power because the Shards there threw a lot around. Conflict is Roshar. Or, rather, "Man's life on Roshar is conflict," says The Arguments (Way of Kings, Chapter 24).

Spren, appearing through… well, the origin of spren is not clear, but possibly Honor and Cultivation wanted them prior to Odium's arrival. Either way, spren began imitating the Heralds' abilities and granting them to humans. The Heralds bound these Surgebinders to them, and perhaps due to the Heralds' connection to the Almighty, Honor Invested his power into these Surgebinders, so if they followed Ideals, they would become ludicrously strong. They became the Knights Radiant.

There's another mystery with Roshar; why did Hoid say that its Shards are very strict? Well, in this epic conflict, Honor and Odium were battling with powers that were hard to comprehend for us. But Shards have limitations. Whether there were efficiency restrictions in this battle (Honor would not have wanted to use his power in such a way to be much weaker than Odium), Honor made it so you got two Surges, not all ten, for whatever reason. This is still a bit mysterious to me why this would be, but the strictness of the Shards came from high level restrictions and rules to how this war happened, maybe through the Oathpact.

On Nalthis, Endowment Invested people and began Returning. Magic arose naturally (though I'm sure we could debate this a long time). Endowment allowed humans to do with the power what they will, not restricting the power. They could do basically anything with the power, if they knew the right Commands. Is it any surprise that the Scholars discovered essentially how to make a Shardblade (which Nightblood essentially is)? BioChroma is incredibly versatile.

On Sel, the current day magics are really different manifestations of the same magic (this was proposed in Kerry's Selish theory, and I am absolutely certain Brandon said that's essentially what's happening, but I can't remember where that confirmation was posted. If someone finds it, I'll update this) It seems entirely rational that prior to Devotion and Dominion's Splintering, there was in fact a single magic system on Sel. Devotion and Dominion worked together, I think. Complementary. But whatever magic looked like on Sel, the Splintering created this unformed mass of power that couldn't be released effectively. The Dor formed.

And because the Selish magic wasn't as restrictive, when the Shards were Splintered,

The question you might ask is, why would Selish magics break whereas Honor's did not? Two reasons: first, Honor's Splintering power had places and people to Invest in, so his power didn't cause this cataclysmic Dor. Second, Honor was probably much more precise in how people could access his power than Devotion and Dominion. If you agree with how I've sorted magic systems as above, it seems as though Devotion and Dominion took a more hands off approach to how their magic initially was. There's not evidence of grand conflict between the two initially, so that could make sense. When Devotion and Dominion Splintered, that lack of "definition" meant that the method that mortals usually accessed the power also was disrupted, and so you needed a different sort of connection (and Identity) to the power to use magic.

Comparing magics and replicating effects

Let's talk about Nightblood more. Come on, you know you want to.

It seems intuitive that Stormlight and Breath are similar. Both are gaseous metaphors. You Invest the two similarly. However, Breath is of life. It is the Innate Investiture on that world. Stormlight is not the power of life: it is directly the power of chaos, of the storm raging inside you. That is similar across all Radiant orders.

This is to say, I'm suggesting that Spiritual power actually sees itself differently, depending on how the Shard's power was distributed (and the Shard itself, surely). Endowment made Breath Innate. Breath was of life. When you have more Breath, your life sense is increased, and at the fifth heightening, you're immune to disease and are freaking immortal. (Makes sense that you could use Breath to influence the mind--it is a Cognitive magic, and it is affecting life, right in line with Breath.) Then there are other abilities granted with that much Spiritual power, too, and other abilities related to tones and color (other Nalthian attributes). It perfects, as Spiritual power does.

Stormlight is the power of storms and chaos. It perfects, but does so entirely differently. And actually, Stormlight is probably a much more potent source of energy than Breath. Breath being Innate means it is a weaker investiture than these gigantic storms and the power they radiate. Also, it seems as though Stormlight is more Physical than Breath is. Stormlight Invested things glow; Breath does not. But you can hold a lot more Breath than Stormlight at a time. Breath also requires color to move (an extra physical impetus for that spiritual transfer to a new physical host), whereas Stormlight requires a Spiritual link to Honor to move it in the first place. The idea that Stormlight is more Physical than Breath may explain why Stormlight dissipates while Breath does not. It's more Physical, so that power diffuses into the Physical Realm, while Breath is located more elsewhere.

This idea--that these fuels are subtly different in intent--could mean a lot to Vasher and Nightblood.

Shardblades are ludicrously destructive, and cause spiritual damage.(cite) Nightblood is, in many ways, a Shardblade. Would not the type of fuel matter for Nightblood? As I said, Breath is the power of life, and that's very different from what Nightblood's intent is. Stormlight though. That seems like the perfect fuel. Chaos. Destruction.

So when it comes to some magics, if you want to get the most bang for your buck, you want the right Spiritual fuel for the job. I'm not sure if this makes Nightblood more or less destructive. Maybe he wouldn't be so vicious at consuming Stormlight as he was with Breath because the storms are a better fuel for him. Stormlight might make Vasher quite a bit different. Remember, any Investiture, no matter how small, will change you over time(cite), and Vasher has lived a long time. Make no mistake, Vasher is there because he can live off Stormlight(cite) easier than acquiring a new Breath frequently… but I'm thinking that because he's consuming the power of storms and chaos, he would be quite a bit different.

It seems to me that if you wanted the right magic for a given task, you would want to consider the effect you want to have, and pick the Investiture colored by a Shard's intent that would be most in line with what you wanted to accomplish. Then, depending on what Investiture you selected, you'd have to work to shape the power in exactly the form you wanted.

Illusion magics are replicated frequently. Yolen has it. Sel has it with AonDor, but that variant is different as there's no Spiritual requirement; it is all Cognitive. It is possible that Yolish magic has a key Spiritual component, if Lightweaving is similar.

If Preservation and Ruin actually altered themselves to allow metal to be the key to their power, as I suggest, it makes sense that iron and steel influence metals. That might actually be the hardest basic Allomantic effect to replicate on another world because of those Shards relationship with metal. The other effects of Allomancy could definitely be replicated, especially the mental metals.

Conclusion (the tl;dr version)

The Realmatic description of magics help define magic systems much more precisely. How much a magic is rooted in each Realm determines a number of effects of a given magic. It can determine how you access it, and what sort of "focus" it requires. Physical magics cost the least to do, Cognitive magics are the most flexible, and Spiritual magics throw the most "power" or Investiture around.

I realize this was far too long, but I hope I minimized the amount of crazy in the theory and made it as elegant to describe as possible. The numbers weren't important (since they are just guesses), really, but the moment I realized there were three axes, I had to show an awesome graph.

At the very least, I hope I gave you a new way of thinking about cosmere magics, with the Realmatic interactions, Cognitive Intermediaries, and the nuts and bolts of how these Realmatic interactions happen.

[TheArcanist he/him]

By the God Beyond and all that is holy, this is insane! The amount of work that went into this is mind-boggling!

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Oh wow, that was really interesting!

 

A couple of notes:

 

Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy have much more active Shardic connections, and their Spiritweb encodings represent a specific design. It's as if the magics were created with that purpose (If you buy that the Metallic Arts are designed, this can explain how Harmony can alter the way Snapping works and Preservation could switch out metals--the magic itself is Physical. Constructed. Designed.)

 

Given the following quote I would definitely lean towards "no" on that.

KAIMIPONO

On a broader level, is hemalurgy officially dead, then? Or is it still extant in some Ruin-free (but still messy) form? (If it's gone, is there any imbalance since Preservation's magic power is kept and Ruin's isn't?)

BRANDON SANDERSON

Is Hemalurgy dead? No, not at all. It, like the other two powers, was not created by Ruin or Preservation, but by the natural state of the world and its interaction with the gods who created it. It still requires the same method of creation, but very few people are aware of how it works.

(source)

 

On Sel, the current day magics are really different manifestations of the same magic (this was proposed in Kerry's Selish theory, and I am absolutely certain Brandon said that's essentially what's happening, but I can't remember where that confirmation was posted. If someone finds it, I'll update this) It seems entirely rational that prior to Devotion and Dominion's Splintering, there was in fact a single magic system on Sel. Devotion and Dominion worked together, I think. Complementary. But whatever magic looked like on Sel, the Splintering created this unformed mass of power that couldn't be released effectively. The Dor formed.

 

You're right it has been confirmed (be you actually)

Q: Are Selish magics their own distinct systems, or are they different manifestations of one system?

A: Different manifestations of one system, which is in turn a manifestation of the common laws between the worlds.

 

(source)

[Left he/him]

I couldn't read all of that. Upvote for righting all of that anyway though.

[Tempus]

I like the way this goes. Considering magic systems as composed of different balances of Physical, Spiritual, and Cognitive is a flexible way of considering them, and helps the magic feel less rigid and restrained and more elegant. We know that Investiture transcends the Realms, but has more influence in different parts, so it makes sense that manifestations of Investiture would follow suite.

 

 

To cover the generalities, besides the massive positives, there are a few things I don't agree with. Your math background has convinced you to examine the Investitures on a relative scale - dividing them up into percentiles between the three realms. I think this is an ineffective way of approach the issue - certain Investitures clearly have much more Cognitive presence (such as Surgebinding) than other manifestations of Investiture, yet that doesn't necessarily mean they have less presences on other Realms. I would suggest instead that absolute values would provide a better comparison, showing that Investitures with a presence of many Cognitive elements and strong Cognitive effects (like Surgebinding and Forgery) have similar manifestations in the given realm without having the other Realms be 'sacrificed' in the visualization, leading to misconceptions.

 

Another issue is how to define the attributes of an Investiture that signify its potential balance between Realms. For example, Feruchemy, by your measure, is strongly Physical. Yet its manifestations are actually more concerned with the Spiritual and the Cognitive than the Physical. And its actualization doesn't seem physical in nature at all - it seems more Spiritual than anything (especially so if you consider that the 'laws' of physics are in many ways Spiritual in nature). Yet this doesn't discount your own rationale as to its presence in the Physical. Should all these be counted? Are there certain key indicators we need to look for? Or should we view it more as a flow than simply a presence?

 

 

Another thing that I want to bring up is the aspects of a thing tend to be interdependent. A hemalurgic spike not only rips the Spiritual away, it damages the bond between the Physical and the Cognitive. The Cognitive identity of a person can directly impact their Physical presences, and changing their Spiritual connections can impact the other aspects in other Realms, etc, etc. Given this, I wonder if some things should be considered more as balanced mechanics as well. For a specific example, you speak of genetics in Allomancy as being a physical trait, but it is known that there are three sets of DNA, and the one governing Allomantic powers is the Spiritual. Genetics are properly passed on in the physical, but it is in the Spiritual that we see the Investiture manifest - should we not consider that both then? Or primarily Spiritual?

 

Those are my comments - I can't provide any more specific comments because doing so requires your theory to more directly analyze mechanics of systems. We'll have to see how this extrapolates before we can take a look.

 

 

 

Smaller nitpicking list:

 

• You left this sentence unfinished

 

And because the Selish magic wasn't as restrictive, when the Shards were Splintered,

 

• You state that Awakening absorbing colour is physical in nature, but it is clearly not. It drains colour like a Shardblade cut, from an area. It doesn't drain lightwaves, or pigment, or some weird substance. It drains the property of being coloured.

 

• Awakened objects emulate humans, which is a very good indication that the Breath is strongly tied to the Cognitive/Spiritual Identity of its user, and like other Cognitively sticky objects we've seen (that is a stick pun), it attempts to mimic or retain its original form.

 

• Many systems consume byproducts, something that has been under discussion lately. Some people are calling it fuel, some reactants, etc. Metal for Allomancy, Warmth for Surgebinding, Colour for Awakening, possibly other unpublished systems might consume things when used as well. The reactant could be indicative of the Realmatic balance of a system - metal being very physical, warmth being Cognitive (explicit in Feruchemy), and colour being apparently Spiritual.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Tempus

[Kurkistan he/him]

Comments I made as I read:

 

I'll be disagreeing with the assumption of all magics having the same fundamental strength, I think. It seems rather clear that the Shards have some degree of say in how much of themselves they put into a magic system: A shattered Honor dishing out stormlight every highstorm is giving out a lot more than, say, Endowment, on average.
 
It doesn't matter much when just talking of proportions, though.
 
----
 
One useful tool for tightening your definition of "Cognitive" magical components here would be to disregard "preparation" and replace it with "complexity of initiation"or something. A blind puppy (who happened to be an Elantrian ) could luck into drawing the perfect Aon in a split second and I don't think we'd expect that Aon to be any less effective than an identical one that happened to be drawn painstakingly over the course of a week.
 
Same goes with "thought", really, though with that one it's a tad less clear that the blind puppy could carry out a successful Command.
 
The key is that you don't get points for effort, you get points for results. Effort and thought and consideration seem to have little to do with it at core.
 
---
 
I find I must disagree with some of your categorizations, then, because of this incorrect (in my estimation) understanding of Cognitivity. Just as with AonDor or Forging, you can luck into the correct bindpoints in Hemalurgy. So far as we know, the only "intent" required is that you know you're about the business of Hemalurgy when you do the thefting. Not necessarily that you know exactly what power/attribute you'll be stealing. So Hemalurgy really seems the least Cognitive of the whole metallic set, not the most.
 
--
 
But despite this I agree with you that AonDor, Forging, and Breath seem very Cognitive. The false (in my mind, at least) inclusion of Hemalurgy in the set of "this looks pretty Cognitive" is thus a result of misleading definitions.
 
So perhaps the best thing to gauge how Cognitive something is is simply how detailed the "execution" (or "implementation", but I have historical reasons to use the other word ) process that the user actually has to specify is? In Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy users just have to go "BURN!", "TAP!", and "STABBY STABBY!" respectively and they get all the magic in the form it needs to be in. Whereas in the more "Cognitive" magics that you identify the user has to do a lot of legwork to shape the Investiture before it actually starts doing anything.
 
In Awakening, the user needs to tell that poor object how to do anything before it can utilize the power you hand to it. In AonDor, the form the power takes is dictated entirely by the Aon's form (this aside from the power not even showing up unless the Aon meets certain basic prerequisites). In Forging, the Forger needs to spell out every part of the "honest, I really should be like X now!" argument for that poor Forged object to make to the universe. In each case, the complexity of the Command/Aon/Stamp are all to do the work of shaping the use of power that, for instance, the metals do automatically for Allomancy.
 
P.S. Reading on, you seem to be catching onto this with your talk of intermediaries, so perhaps we're not so strongly in disagreement.
 
---------------
 
Moving on:
 
Shadesmar... isn't water... It's composed (on land) of "seas" of beads, each of which represent individual Cognitive aspects of objects. No water we've seen, though.
 
---
 
I wouldn't be quite so quick to dismiss the importance of the Vocalization part of a Command in favor of just looking at the Visualization. I'd hazard that the actual Vocalization (the words, or at least the thought behind them separate from the Visualization) is actually quite important, at least before we get into weird territory that we haven't actually seen in the books yet with the 10th Heightening.
 
---
 
On Sel: Kerry's theory actually has the citation for them all being the same system in the OP.
 
So far as different effects of splintering goes, we probably ought to look to the bare existence of the Dor as a differentiating factor, as well as the different "danger levels" in Shadesmar. Spren being a "release valve" could perhaps be related to how structured the magic system is, by your model.
 
---
 
In your discussion of Breath vs. Stormlight, it may be useful to note how the Heightenings are a function of growing more Endowmenty. Perhaps it might be worthwhile to examine the nature of Honor, then, and whether Stormlight makes one more like Him? Prone to action and bursting with power seems to be at least going down the right track.
 

Also, some WoB:

 

Source:

Q. I know that there’s three sorts of forms that magic presents itself in, the liquid and the solid and air. What would Breath be?

A. Breath is definitely like Mist, it is in the form of the air.

Q. And is Stormlight the same?

A. Stormlight is the same. Good questions!

------
 
Overall a good and interesting theory, though I can't say I agree with all your conclusions. Nice to see you back in the game, either way.

 

EDIT: @Tempus-the-ninja

 

On Breath and anthropomorphization: Given the aforementioned way that the Heightenings work the way they do because "each Breath incorporates into it this sort of idea of being endowed by the diety Endowment", I would say that the anthropomorphization is more due to the innate nature of the Breath and less to do with the human it was sourced at.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Tempus]

Comments I made as I read:

 

I'll be disagreeing with the assumption of all magics having the same fundamental strength, I think. It seems rather clear that the Shards have some degree of say in how much of themselves they put into a magic system: A shattered Honor dishing out stormlight every highstorm is giving out a lot more than, say, Endowment, on average.

 

It doesn't matter much when just talking of proportions, though.

 

Absolutely. We have WoB that planets like Roshar and Sel are highly Invested, while Scadrial is rather low in Investiture.

 

 

EDIT: @Tempus-the-ninja

 

On Breath and anthropomorphization: Given the aforementioned way that the Heightenings work the way they do because "each Breath incorporates into it this sort of idea of being endowed by the diety Endowment", I would say that the anthropomorphization is more due to the innate nature of the Breath and less to do with the human it was sourced at.

 

Perhaps, but I think here you need to break out the Forms. There are a few facts to consider - Breath that is used for Awakening is still attached to the identity of the Awakener. Breath that is transferred to another human is no longer attached to your identity. Breath put into other living creatures is also not attached to your Identity. So there is a distinct attachment between your personal Identity and Breath, and also Breath and the Form of Endowment, and thus we can draw a parallel here that Investiture that belongs or originates from a thing is likely also connected to the Form of a thing. So it seems likely that it is not only connected to the Form of Endowment, but also the Form of the Identity of the owner. This suggests why the Returned look as they did in real life except with some enhancements, despite having no conscious memory of their previous selves.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Sorry, I had to laugh a bit when you said this was an instance of me being too attached to Forms. That quote is actually the single most devastating setback my Formic theory ever faced, and has nothing to do with affirming them in this context, as a result. That's an aside, though.

 

I wholeheartedly agree that Breath is certainly "keyed" to you when you use it to Awaken inanimate objects. I think it may well even still be keyed to you for Lifeless, it's just that other factors stop you from recovering it.

 

Source:

 

You see, when one makes a Lifeless, the reason the Breath stays and won’t come back is because the body of a recently deceased person is too “sticky” for Breaths. One Breath attaches to it, and because the body so clearly remembers being alive, it can use that Breath to power it.

 

Brandon's talk of "stickiness" here implies rather strongly, at least by my reading, that Awakeners are still able to "yank the rope", but the Breath is just stuck too firmly. But the attachment is definitely still there.

 

-

 

Perhaps this keying is enough to get the anthropomorphization done, but if I had to bet I'd go with the Endowmentization that we know exists and have observed the "humanity-maximizing" effects of rather than the less well-understood way that Breaths are keyed to their users.

 

---

 

As an aside, people don't (as a rule) have "Forms" under my model. Though you can just replace "Form" with "soul" there and it won't be any significant change to your argument.

---

 

I'm not following you on Returned, though, because if they got a shiny new Breath fresh from Endowment (as is the case, I believe?) then that would actually argue against them keeping the same general appearance under your model.

[Tempus]

I had some thought that without their memories they would have no Cognitive Identity, and should thus not reflect what they believed to be their own previous appearance. Rereading, I mangled that whole paragraph a little.

 

What I was basically trying to say is, Breaths have an attachment to the Identity of their owner, and there should be a Form for 'humanity', the ideal human of a sort, that influences Breath in part. Because unlike other Investitures, when you put Breath into an object, it does not then belong to the object, it still belongs to you. So there becomes a sort of connection between you and the object, bridged by that Investiture, which could in part explain why the Awakened Object wants to take Human Form if it can - it is trying to emulate the Form (humanity) of the Identity attached to the Investiture driving it.

[Kurkistan he/him]

On Returned: Ah, that makes a tad more sense. I'd probably just fall back to their body still having the identity and/or the memories still existing somewhere (recall that Lightsong remembered everything at the end) and/or ask the question of whether an amnesiac who got Regrowthed would turn into a pile of goop; but that's all for another thread.

--

An interesting and plausible way to look at it, upon your reformulation. Might I suggest that you throw out Forms altogether, though? Why not have all the interaction simply be between Awakener and Breath?

P.S. I'm still leaning towards Endwomentization, fyi, if only because it's an effect we know of versus one we theorize.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Tempus]

Well, under Forms, someone with 0 identity or memories or Cognitive aspect or whatnot who got regrowthed would approach the general human Form as closely as possible - make for themselves a generic version, so to speak. It's a curious idea, and moreso for being potentially possible under Feruchemy.

 

---

 

I suppose it's possible to throw out Forms altogether, but what I find notable is that no one in Warbreaker seems to mention any sorts of awakening that make visible copies of the Awakener. Like, if you Awakened a bunch of Jello, would it attempt to form into you? We don't see instances of that, or hear about it, so I'm leaning towards 'the general idea of a human'. This is why I bring in Forms.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Well, under Forms, someone with 0 identity or memories or Cognitive aspect or whatnot who got regrowthed would approach the general human Form as closely as possible - make for themselves a generic version, so to speak. It's a curious idea, and moreso for being potentially possible under Feruchemy.

Um, no. I am now convinced that I need to write "Forms: Complicated" if that's what you took away from reading all my Forms threads.

---

But we're really really tangenting now and I hereby formally give Chaos back his thread.

Edited June 4, 2014 by Kurkistan

[Tempus]

Well, your original ideas of Forms and what I think makes sense and have internalized (and converted from my own study of Platonic Forms) are fairly different, and I'm not good at keeping track of these things. But indeed, let us give Chaos back his thread, and await his replies.

[Argent he/him]

The end, the part about the "Spiritual fuel," doesn't resonate with me quite so well, but I mostly agree with the rest. I expected to see more math though

[Tempus]

Where x is the function of Investiture and a is the volumetric measure of the Investiture in standard notation, the balance of the Realmatic composition of the Manifestation of Investiture can be described as baffling.

[Curiosity he/him]

 

Absolutely. We have WoB that planets like Roshar and Sel are highly Invested, while Scadrial is rather low in Investiture.

Where is this WoB? 

 

This would make sense, as Roshar and Sel have Splintered Shards, but Scadrial doesn't. 

[Moogle]

Where is this WoB? 

 

This would make sense, as Roshar and Sel have Splintered Shards, but Scadrial doesn't.

 

Here you go:

BRANDON SANDERSON (paraphrased)

The amount of investiture is relatively low on Scadrial, whereas worlds like Sel and Roshar are pushing around "high power" according to Brandon. I interpreted this to mean that hemalurgic spikes and metalminds have low amounts of investiture compared to Shardplate and Shardblades.

(source)

[Argent he/him]

Makes sense in the context of the theory - Sel and Roshar both have a lot of free(-ish) Investiture (some) people can pick up and work magic with; Scadrial's Investiture is kept mostly within its Shards, and people who want to use it need a conduit to the Shards to access it.

[Fallen Rope he/him]

Maybe you could add more numbers to this theory. Magic is not just based in the three realms but it is investiture flowing between realms as Chaos said. You could get two sets of number for the three realms, one for were the magic comes from, another for where it goes to. To awaken uses a lot of cogitative and spiritual to do, but awakening normally only has physical effects. So to get the new pattern, awakening would be

Coming from would be the same, 60 Cognitive, 30 Spiritual, 10 Physical.

Flowing to, 70 Physical (physical objects are awakened), 20 Spiritual (the object had to have been alive, it had a spirit) 10 Cognitive (awakened objects can’t think much)

The Cognitive level would be different for lifeless, returned or nightblood because they can think more. Different forms of magic have different flows changing their affects.

There could be pattern between the source and effect, this could need a new graph.

I hope my humble addition is accepted .

[skaa he/him]

I only skimmed through some parts and read the tl;dr version (I promise to read the whole thing carefully later) but I already gave you an upvote because of the cool interactive 3D graph, and because anyone who spends this much time writing a Cosmere theory deserves some sort of reward. Actually, that's two reasons to give you an upvote. Could someone please upvote Chaos again for me?

 

Anyway, other people already gave in-depth commentary, so I'll just make one tiny observation

 

Spren, appearing through… well, the origin of spren is not clear, but possibly Honor and Cultivation wanted them prior to Odium's arrival.

 

We know that Adonalsium left some spren on Roshar, so they aren't something Honor/Cultivation invented. In fact, I rather suspect that any Shard attempting to Invest on Roshar will find that they can't do it without creating Splinters of themselves. I'm currently developing my own theory on how spren work, so I'll be able to talk more about this topic soon.

[Chaos he/him]

I just wanted to give you guys a very quick response saying no, I have not forgotten this thread. My summer work is just very busy at the moment, and I'm exhausted. I'm drafting a long reply in response to everyone, though

One thing I will say, to the people who want more math. Yeah, I'd like more math too. But considering I feel that there's going to be a lot of discussion on the numerical values I assigned, I'd rather not put too much stock in those estimations, nor would I like to arbitrarily add more variables to the model than I have to. Mathematical models are only good if we can effectively measure and test things, which we can't. The numbers I assigned here are for visualization purposes. I don't really think that with this deep cosmere stuff we can do much more math than that. This isn't the iron Feruchemy thread, where we know the mathematical formulas at work. Considering Brandon is not a mathematician or physicist, I am under the standing assumption that he does not have secret math formulas that make the cosmere works. He's a writer.

And anyway, Peter does the math for him if needbe

[lyht]

We know that Adonalsium left some spren on Roshar, so they aren't something Honor/Cultivation invented. In fact, I rather suspect that any Shard attempting to Invest on Roshar will find that they can't do it without creating Splinters of themselves. I'm currently developing my own theory on how spren work, so I'll be able to talk more about this topic soon.

 

Yes, Adonalsium did that:

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

... for instance there were some spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation got there. Those were already Splinters of Adonalsium where he had left power which attained sentience on its own. So, it can be intentional is what I am saying, does that make sense? You have seen other splinters.

http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1078#25

 

Interesting thought on the splinter requirement. I wonder why all 3 shards have created spren on this world, and that might explain it.

Edited June 17, 2014 by lyht

[Fedelpen]

I think I saw a WOB somewhere that said the three realms were interconnected, not a straight line with an intermediary. I'll see if I can find it. 

 

 

'Odium's_Shard', on 25 Sept 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

I'll be quite brief, as its getting reasonably late over here. I would first like to express my intense gratitude for such a prestigious author to answer the questions of some of us insane folk, and I just know that this'll get us all pulling up all sorts of obscure references from this Q&A at least until Stormlight 2, and most likely will fuel discussion for months!

I have only a few simple questions that are mostly a matter of clarity, and a few that are needed to fill gaps in our knowledge, or to clear a current discussion; here goes:

[*]So, firstly, is the Cognitive realm the only way to access the Spiritual Realm from the Physical Realm, and vice versa?

No.

I'll admit, it's not exactly conclusive, but I imagine it differently than you.

 

I do like the idea of classifying the magic systems based on their realmatic attributes.    

Here's a WOB on that, too.

 

Quote

RAFO Bait:

Would it be fair to describe the three realms as the Spiritual realm providing motivation/general directives (gravity, desires, energy, etc.), the Cognitive realm interpreting and applying those directives, and the Physical realm as where these directives--as interpreted by the Cognitive realm--are actually implemented? All of this with interactions/change flowing back and forth between the realms as well (Physical phenomena affecting thought affecting the spirit, for example).
 

Last One: Ha! That's a very interesting way to look at it. The theory isn't all there, but it's thinking along the right lines.

 

 

I think it's safe to say that we are also thinking along the right lines

Edited June 24, 2014 by Fedelpen

[StoneWalker he/him]

I really like this theory. Overall, it is well thought out.

 

All this has made me wonder if each shardworld has a different presence combination in each of the three realms. If the three realms create a triangle with everything in the cosmere sitting within that, we could see something like this:

We have a WoB (here: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727#45) that the way magic systems work is because of the shardworlds, not the shards, and has to do with realmatics. If the shardworlds have a different balance of Congnitive, Physical, and Spiritual aspects (e.g. Roshar is pretty balanced in all three, Scadrial is more physical than the Cognitive/Spiritual, etc.) it could line things up pretty clearly. It might even shed a bit of light on why Sel is so difficult/dangerous to get to, as it could have poor conections to the Cognitive Realm.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Soooooo.... Chaos...

 

What's up?