theory The three magic systems of Roshar

[KandraAllomancer]

After thinking about it for quite some time I have finally come up with something that, I believe, might be a satisfying solution to the problem of genesis of three different magic systems on Roshar. Unlike other planets, we shouldn't consider Rosharan magics to be of this Shard or that; Roshar is simply too complicated for that. It has a long magical baggage of being designed by Adonalsium for something, and a lot of things were either changed / repurposed by Honor an Cultivation, or corrupted by Odium.

Instead, we should split the issue into two independent questions:

• which Shard shaped the fundamental forces – the answer would be obviously H&C for Surges and Odium for Voidbindings
• who bound the fundamental forces – which usually means creating (or changing) some spren and making the powers accessible for people to use. The answer, I believe, could be H&C, Odium, or selected types of special, large spren – most notably, the Sibling and the Unmade

Surgebinding

The Surges are obviously of Honor and Cultivation, we have both book quotes and WoBs to confirm that. Surgebinding, however, was created (or, in other words, Surges were bound) at least three times:

• Ishar bound the Surges on Ashyn, possibly using Dawnshards and Odium's Investiture
• Odium created the Fused on Roshar
• Honor and Cultivation created the Radiant Spren and then added the Oaths

The KR Surgebinding is, in my opinion, the only Rosharan magic system where the Shards behind the fundamental forces and the binding of powers are exactly the same

Voidbinding

Things get slightly more complicated here. I think that Voidbinding (the binding of Void i.e. Odium) is the direct result of Odium being forcibly bound to the Rosharan system by the powers of H&C, rather than Investing on a planet willingly. As a result, the powers (Voidbindings) are of Odium, but the whole structure of the magic system (10-centric, two Surges per “Order” / level) are identical to KR Surgebinding, not the Fused Surgebinding.

This is obviously rather speculative, but I think the history might have been more or less like this:

• Odium creates the Fused and gives them Surgebinding
• Odium is bound to Braize by Honor. Voidbinding is created and Odium's Tone becomes one of the pure Tones of Roshar, as the effects of Honor's actions extend to all habitable planets in the system
• Odium creates the Unmade and realizes that they can grant Voidbinding, which hurts him. Still, they are too useful to throw away, so he keeps them and tries to control them. He doesn't create new Fused, though, as they might have Voidbinding rather than Surgebinding now
• Honor tells the Heralds about Voidbinding, who then warn people about the dangerous power of futuresight. Ishar creates the Voidbinding chart
• Honor tries to suppress the Voidbinding (or, more generally, Odium's Tone), but fails shortly before he dies, which leads to Odium's powers becoming stronger and causes the False Desolation

I believe that true Voidbinding would require bonding a sapient Voidspren, which is currently fully suppressed by Odium. The only way to get Voidbinding is through the Unmade, which are actually tied to the third magic system

Fabrials and beyond

The third magic system is tricky, as we know that it includes fabrials (Surge fabrials, presumably, as modern fabrials look like they could exist on a minor Shardworld) and some unknown esoteric powers. The possible solution to this, I believe, is the Sibling.

The Sibling has a specific ability to suppress magic of the enemy, which can be replicated by a fabrial (Voidfabrial used by Lezian), but not any Surgebinding we know of. They most likely can change some spren to be used in fabrials and give them restrictions on their own, as demonstrated by the Oathgate spren that refer to them as their parent. My proposition is that the esoteric powers Khriss mentions in Ars Arcanum are the powers of binding spren and forces by ten powerful spren,  the Sibling being the only one we've seen in uncorrupted state.

As you can guess, I believe that at least some of the Unmade used to be the same class of spren as the Sibling (Sja-anat even refers to them as a cousin). They would include:

• Yelig-nar – grants all ten Surges, yet another method of binding Surges
• Sja-anat – her Enlightening changes spren and gives them new powers
• Ba-Ado-Mishram – can grant Forms of Power, Voidlight and Voidbinding, possibly crucial for Ghostbloods' plan to et Investiture off-world

The fact that Voidbinding  currently seems to only be granted by large spren (and only one Vodibinding for that) has some nice parallels with the Surges being widely known and understood only from Soulcasters before the return of the Knights Radiant. That's also the reason Khriss treats Voidbinding as a cousin to the Old Magic, which would technically refer to the Unmade alone, not the Voidbinding itself.

I'm not convinced that all Unmade were like the Sibling before, particularly the mindless ones. There are some weird large spren around (Cusicesh, the Stormstriders) that might be relevant here. Also, Aimia was, until relatively recently, kept habitable by some incredibly powerful fabrials, possibly linked to another huge spren.

Interestingly, as a result of the creation of the Unmade, the third magic system seems to be of all three Rosharan Shards now, with H&C powers (fabrials) working as an equivalent of Scadrian magitek and Odium's powers (granting enormous powers at a cost, merging powers of different Shards, working outside Roshar?) largely covering the niche of Hemalurgy

[LewsTherinTelescope]

16 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

• Honor and Cultivation created the Radiant Spren and then added the Oaths

Some of this is... debatable. First, the Radiant spren predate the Ashyn crisis and the Fused: Syl tells us they are ten thousand years old (though them making the Radiant bond was a surprise, iirc). Second, it is by no means clear that the Ideals were added on after-the-fact.

[KandraAllomancer]

8 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Some of this is... debatable. First, the Radiant spren predate the Ashyn crisis and the Fused: Syl tells us they are ten thousand years old (though them making the Radiant bond was a surprise, iirc). Second, it is by no means clear that the Ideals were added on after-the-fact.

I agree, but these weren't necessarily meant to be in chronological order. Despite creating the Radiant Spren, though, Honor did seem to have suppressed Surgebinding for a long time; the history is murky, yes, but I don't think Surgebinding existed fully in current form until after the creation of the Honorblades

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 minute ago, KandraAllomancer said:

the history is murky, yes, but I don't think Surgebinding existed fully in current form until after the creation of the Honorblades

I would agree that its current form was undiscovered (I believe it was mentioned that they imitated the Honorblades?), but I don't know that I think it didn't "exist" prior to then (though whether it exists when nobody knows the method to unlock it might be a difficult question to answer, with the weird intricacies of Surgebinding's existence). But ultimately this is probably a bit pedantic of me

3 minutes ago, KandraAllomancer said:

though, Honor did seem to have suppressed Surgebinding for a long time

Yeah, I'm very curious what's up with that.

[mathiau]

23 hours ago, KandraAllomancer said:

Surge fabrials, presumably, as modern fabrials look like they could exist on a minor Shardworld

What?

[KandraAllomancer]

41 minutes ago, mathiau said:

What?

Modern fabrials require only a lesser spren captured in a gemstone, which sounds like something possible even before H&C Invested on Roshar. It definitely fits the description of a minor Shardworld magic from this WoB:

Quote

I still consider one of the major dividing lines between "major" and "minor" Shardworlds (other than Shard residence) to be in strength of access to the magic, and control over it. I intend the minor Shardworlds to involve interactions with the magic as setting--coming back to spren, you could have a minor Shardworld with people who use, befriend, even bond spren. (Or the local equivalent--Seon, Aviar, etc.) But you'd never see power on the level of the city of Elantris, the actions of a Bondsmith, or even the broad power suite of a Mistborn.