What's in a Spren? Or, trying to explain why spren manifest only on Roshar

[Wyndlerunner he/him]

So, recently the fact that spren are super weird just kind of wiggled into my brain and wouldn't leave until I'd tried to parse it out. So, I devised a couple of theories that might explain why spren only manifest on Roshar, and nowhere else in the Cosmere. Individual Sections will be put in spoiler tags for length purposes, although I'd pretty much say if you've read Era 1 and 2, Elantris, and SA 1-4, you should be fine. If you have any ideas of how to streamline these theories, or any of your own feel free to post them! Really, I just want to talk about spren and figure out why they're weird in the ways that they are.

Introduction:

Spoiler

Spren are potentially one of the biggest worldbuilding features on Roshar outside of its crustacean bent, and are potentially one of the most important aspects of the magic system, as many of Roshar’s fantastical phenomena rely on spren to function. Whether it be the greatshells bonding with mandra to support their gargantuan mass, the obvious examples of Regals, Radiants, and even just ordinary Singer forms; all of these expressions of Investiture cannot function without a spren bond. Spren at this point are simply a matter of course for Roshar; yet, thanks to the mind of an inquisitive listener to me reading these giant tomes, I have begun to really consider just how odd spren really are, and the peculiarity of why they don’t manifest outside of Roshar itself on other sufficiently invested Cosmere planets.

What is a Spren?:

Spoiler

First, in order to really talk about what’s so weird about spren, we need to define what makes a spren a spren:

1. Spren are Cognitive entities that are brought into existence in Shadesmar, specifically within the Rosharan Subastral. 

2. Spren have variable levels of sapience, contrasting the animalistic sub-spren with the more humanlike true-spren. 

3. Pattern claims in WoR that spren are ‘ideas that wish to live’, and we see that many spren represent a natural concept, or an idea conceived by one of the varied intelligent species on Roshar. There are of course, some exceptions to this idea, as Adonalsium itself appears to have directly created a few varieties of spren, such as the Rider of Storms, and potentially Ba-Ado-Mishram, while spren such as the Nightwatcher, Sibling, and Honorspren (potentially Cultivationspren as well, given they refer to Cultivation as ‘mother’) appear to be direct creations of Honor and Cultivation. Whether Voidspren are direct creations of Odium remains to be seen, but given we now know something about the process of ‘Unmaking’ a spren thanks to Raboniel’s efforts in RoW, it is possible that the various voidspren associated with the Forms of Power were ‘Unmakings’ of lower level spren. However, at this time I’m leaning towards the Voidspren being purely Odious in origin. 

4. Spren exist primarily in the Cognitive realm but can be drawn into the physical realm by the ideas they represent. We see this all throughout the series as characters attract various emotion spren, or nature spren in their elements. True spren are attracted to those who could bond them, and give them sapience in the Physical Realm in exchange for Surgebinding capabilities. Spren however cannot fully manifest in the physical realm (discounting whatever the storms Ishar is doing with his experiments) outside of a few specific instances that we have seen. True spren can manifest as the Shardweapon of choice for their Radiant, (the same applies to a Shardbearer bonded to a deadeyes) and a similar process occurs when a Radiant forms living Shardplate, except we exchange true spren with the cousin spren (windspren for Windrunners, etc.). Whether or not spren trapped in gems for fabrials exist purely in the Physical Realm remains unclear post Rhythm of War, we can infer they are at least mostly there, as they cannot slip back purely into the Cognitive Realm. (Otherwise fabrials wouldn’t work). This contrasts them with the notably similar entities of Seons and Skaze. Seons and Skaze exist primarily in the physical realm, and maintain their sapience regardless of whether or not they are bonded. Notably, unlike Rosharan spren, these splinters maintain their form in the Cognitive Realm, (at least Seons do) whereas Rosharan spren manifest more fully in the Cognitive Realm. Also notable is that there are far less Seons then there are spren, as only one Seon exists per Aon, and they were created directly by Investiture gaining sentience following the splintering of Devotion (while we know far less about the Skaze, given the similarities between the two, we can assume the Skaze were created similarly).

This brings us back to the question, what is different about spren, and why do they only appear on Roshar (and to a lesser extent Braize)? If they are ‘ideas’ as Pattern claims, then why do they not appear on other sufficiently Invested planets with sapient life to imagine these concepts? At the moment, I have two working theories as to why this is.

Theory 1: Shardic choice

Spoiler

We know that certain varieties of spren are direct creations of the various Shards that have Invested in Roshar, and others that predate the Shattering of Adonalsium (which at least implies to me that Adonalsium himself was behind their creation as it was with Roshar the planet). Shards are shown being given some control over how Investiture manifests on their Invested planet, given that Harmony altered the mechanisms behind Allomantic Snapping, and Honor somehow ‘bound the Surges’ although that particular item remains a mystery. Honor in even more relatively recent times, caused order to be thrust upon Pre-Radiant Surgebinders, forcing both the Spren and their person to be bound to the Ideal system.

 It is a possibility therefore, that a Shard must willingly allow the creation of these Splinters, as without a Vessel and Shard, Investiture seeks sentience/sapience, as shown by Seons and Skaze. Therefore, with a Shard in control, Investiture cannot seek sapience without the Shard’s direct choice in the matter. Yet, Spren are notably different than Seons and Skaze, as neither of those splinters allow access to Magic, and (for obvious, plasma storm related reasons) don’t exist in the Cognitive realm unless traveling there via perpendicularity or Oathgate. But why would Shards not allow spren to manifest, unless they believed them to be dangerous. 

So going by this theory, let’s say that hypothetically, Harmony allows Ruinspren to exist. Ruinspren would likely be drawn into the physical realm by the process of decay and death, similar to the Deathspren which exist on Roshar, but would likely be a true spren, given their direct connection to Ruin. Hypothetically, if a person were to attract a Ruinspren and bond it (I don’t like to think about how you would draw that sort of spren to you), they would likely have access to Ruinous Investiture without the filter of the Metallic Arts. I can imagine, particularly a Shard like Harmony not wanting to deal with that sort of thing, hence why spren don’t manifest on other planets, because the Shards didn’t want them. 

However, you may be asking, “Well if Shards thought spren were so dangerous, why wouldn’t Honor prevent spren from existing, since he likes regulating his power so much?” I think the answer to that particular quandary is twofold. Firstly, Honor was surprised by the spren forming Radiant bonds, and standard singer forms don’t provide as much direct access to Honor’s Investiture. Secondly, spren already existed on Roshar pre-shattering, and I don’t think Shards can simply undo what Adonalsium did.

Theory 2: Spren exist because Realms interact differently on Roshar:

Spoiler

We know that certain spren were created by Adonalsium when he created Roshar, like the Rider of Storms, and potentially Ba-Ado-Mishram (given that her binding affected all of Roshar in some way, it might make sense that she is the Spren of Roshar itself, and would have existed in some form when Adonalsium created Roshar.) Given that life on Roshar is fundamentally tied to spren, and spren bonds, it would make sense that spren exist/manifest through some more distinct mechanism than we currently understand. So, Adonalsium decided that realms would interact differently on Roshar (since things worked the way Adonalsium thought they should). This concept is also posited through the idea that the afterlife is weird on Roshar. (I can’t find a specific topic, but I do know it’s been discussed a few times on Shardcast). But the basic idea of that theory is that the ‘screaming dead’ phenomenon experienced by Szeth and Dalinar is indicative of a weird interaction with the Spiritual ‘corpses’ of dead people. However, we know for a fact that it is far easier to access the Cognitive Realm on Roshar than elsewhere in the Cosmere. Through abilities like the Surge of Transportation, Transformation, or even the Oathgates, people have easier access to the Rosharan Subastral than, say, Scadrial’s Subastral. I posit that the Realms are closer to each other on Roshar, which allows the life of Roshar to form investiture into spren, through thoughts and ideas. Adonalsium knew this would happen, which is why it was allowed to happen, so that species like the Singers and Greatshells could survive and flourish on Roshar through the spren bonds they needed to survive.

The closeness of the realms is what also allows spren to briefly dip and appear in the Physical world when given the catalyst of the ideal they are drawn to. For Radiant Spren, this is someone that exemplifies the ideals of the order they form, for a flamespren this is a burning fire. These act as catalysts and allow spren to appear/manifest in the Physical realm, through a process like passing through a semipermeable membrane that allows some stuff to travel through it, while other stuff can’t. If the boundary between Physical and Cognitive is more ‘squishy’ on Roshar, that would allow for the Cognitive Realm and the Physical realm to more freely influence each other in far more visible ways than we’ve seen on other Invested Worlds, and also the only example of the Cognitive actively influencing the Physical on a regular basis (except Sel, where the Cognitive Realm is weird due to the Shards’ power just being stuck there by Odium). Personally, I lean to this theory, since I don’t see Honor or Cultivation actively going about allowing the existence of the 1000’s of varieties of spren that are believed to exist. There’s simply too much Human/Singer/Greatshell/Ryshadium perception mumbo-jumbo for me to really think it’s as simple as a Shard choosing to allow spren to exist.

I apologize in advance to those of you who are more 'evidence' based theorycrafters. I simply didn't have the time or patience (or ebooks) to look up every WoB or quote referenced. Like I said at the beginning if anyone has other thoughts to streamline either of these ideas, or any ideas of their own about why spren only manifest on Roshar, I would love to hear it!

[Bejarden he/him]

The Seons on Elantris are basically spren 

And the extra Investiture on Scadrial was used as mist 

Sprens are basically investiture without a holder gained sapience,

[Wyndlerunner he/him]

1 hour ago, Bejardin1250 said:

The Seons on Elantris are basically spren 

I do think there are a few key differences here, being namely that Seons do not exist primarily in the Cognitive Realm, and formed after the splintering of Devotion, whereas varieties of Rosharan spren are noted to have existed even before the Shattering. Then of course there's the interesting matter of only one Seon existing per Aon (whether or not there's a similar limit with the Skaze is unknown, yet given their parallel nature to seons, I assume they are also similarly restricted)

Spren are pieces of the Shards (particularly Honor, Cultivation, and Odium), but given that of those 3, only Honor is dead, I don't think that spren are necessarily just investiture without a holder, as that would imply that all the shards are dead

[mathiau he/him]

11 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

I do think there are a few key differences here, being namely that Seons do not exist primarily in the Cognitive Realm, and formed after the splintering of Devotion, whereas varieties of Rosharan spren are noted to have existed even before the Shattering. Then of course there's the interesting matter of only one Seon existing per Aon (whether or not there's a similar limit with the Skaze is unknown, yet given their parallel nature to seons, I assume they are also similarly restricted)

Spren are pieces of the Shards (particularly Honor, Cultivation, and Odium), but given that of those 3, only Honor is dead, I don't think that spren are necessarily just investiture without a holder, as that would imply that all the shards are dead

Seons don't exist in the CR anymore than windsprens do

[Wyndlerunner he/him]

2 hours ago, mathiau said:

Seons don't exist in the CR anymore than windsprens do

I was always under the impression that was because there's always wind somewhere on Roshar, so they're constantly being drawn into the physical realm.

[ScadrianTank he/him]

Any splinter created to live primarily in the Cognitive realm should theoretically be like a spren, in that it would be strongly influenced by thoughts and perception. As to why they are a thing, "God did it" seems to sum it up quite neatly. 

16 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

Secondly, spren already existed on Roshar pre-shattering, and I don’t think Shards can simply undo what Adonalsium did.

Which is a good argument for the original sixteen being absolutely clueless of the consequences of killing God. Makes one wonder why Honor and Cultivation even chose to settle there, given the wide range of things that might go wrong. Worried about leaving Investiture of all the Shards combined for mortals to access, maybe?

Edited June 17, 2021 by ScadrianTank
typo

[Bejarden he/him]

I mean Seons can’t be in the CR

Its to messed up

And Seons are less because they are probably more powerful an a Investiture level, then your average spren

[mathiau he/him]

10 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

I was always under the impression that was because there's always wind somewhere on Roshar, so they're constantly being drawn into the physical realm.

Maybe there's always love on Sel so Devotionsprens are always drawn to the physical realm

6 hours ago, Bejardin1250 said:

I mean Seons can’t be in the CR

That's new

[Bejarden he/him]

10 minutes ago, mathiau said:

That's new

What I meant was that the reason that Seons mostly manifest in the physical realm of Sel is that the CR is very very dangerous so they probably like it better in the physical 

We obviously know they can be in a normal CR

 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Yeah, spren forming is super weird.

One thing I'd like to note: truespren in general did not exist prior to H&C settling on Roshar (implied in this WoB, implied even more in RoW when Syl mentions "Honorspren—all of the intelligent spren—were something new to Roshar. Well, new as in ten-thousand-years-old new"). Though we don't know how they were made (whether it was a natural consequence of the Shards investing + whatever already makes spren, whether H&C made them directly, etc), and Syl wonders on that herself. Probably not a shocker, but you didn't directly mention it, so wanted to be sure it was said.

On 6/16/2021 at 7:16 PM, Wyndlerunner said:

Given that life on Roshar is fundamentally tied to spren, and spren bonds, it would make sense that spren exist/manifest through some more distinct mechanism than we currently understand. So, Adonalsium decided that realms would interact differently on Roshar (since things worked the way Adonalsium thought they should). ... I posit that the Realms are closer to each other on Roshar, which allows the life of Roshar to form investiture into spren, through thoughts and ideas. Adonalsium knew this would happen, which is why it was allowed to happen, so that species like the Singers and Greatshells could survive and flourish on Roshar through the spren bonds they needed to survive.

I don't think it'd even necessarily need to be an "Ado said things work differently" thing. We know large amounts of Investiture draw the Realms closer together, I bet if you Invested a planet enough you could do that on a larger scale (it'd have to be absurd amounts of Investiture, but... looks at highstorm/Stormfather, Invested crem that falls from the sky regularly, etc). Personally I'm of the opinion that most of our planets have the Realms closer together to varying degrees, because of things like the mists, the Dor, etc, so this makes sense to me as part of the puzzle.

On 6/16/2021 at 7:16 PM, Wyndlerunner said:

 It is a possibility therefore, that a Shard must willingly allow the creation of these Splinters, as without a Vessel and Shard, Investiture seeks sentience/sapience, as shown by Seons and Skaze. Therefore, with a Shard in control, Investiture cannot seek sapience without the Shard’s direct choice in the matter.

To my understanding, this is correct. We've been told for a Splinter to form, "the power has to be 'let go of' in a way." (Though, this raises the question of if H&C did this, or if Adonalsium left behind a cremload of power "let go of" in this way and it got "assigned" to those Shards at the Shattering. Personally, I lean the latter.)

On 6/16/2021 at 7:16 PM, Wyndlerunner said:

So going by this theory, let’s say that hypothetically, Harmony allows Ruinspren to exist. Ruinspren would likely be drawn into the physical realm by the process of decay and death, similar to the Deathspren which exist on Roshar, but would likely be a true spren, given their direct connection to Ruin. Hypothetically, if a person were to attract a Ruinspren and bond it (I don’t like to think about how you would draw that sort of spren to you), they would likely have access to Ruinous Investiture without the filter of the Metallic Arts. I can imagine, particularly a Shard like Harmony not wanting to deal with that sort of thing, hence why spren don’t manifest on other planets, because the Shards didn’t want them. 

Tbh I am definitely super curious what would happen in that case. The power that makes the most sense to me would basically be Division, honestly. The power of decay and splitting.

On 6/16/2021 at 7:16 PM, Wyndlerunner said:

The closeness of the realms is what also allows spren to briefly dip and appear in the Physical world when given the catalyst of the ideal they are drawn to.

This makes sense to me, yeah. Imo this same thing might be partially behind shades and their weirdnesses. The massive chunks of Ambition thrown off apparently Invested the place enough you can just straight up become a Cognitive Shadow from dying there, I imagine that's gotta be enough to screw with the distance between the Reams.

---

So yeah, in my opinion it's a combination of the two theories you had. The power has to be left intentionally in a way that can form spren, and at the same time, the heavily-Invested nature of Roshar pulls the Realms a bit closer, allowing the proper interactions between Cognitive and Physical beings that we see, as opposed to just lumps of power slowly becoming aware and floating around the Cognitive.

---

A few nitpicks (which I'm gonna put in a spoiler box just to keep them from taking up too much screenspace):

Spoiler

On 6/16/2021 at 7:16 PM, Wyndlerunner said:

Harmony altered the mechanisms behind Allomantic Snapping

It's unclear what exactly is different, and some theories on it do not actually posit any mechanical changes (for example, some suggest he auto-mist-Snaps people).

On 6/16/2021 at 7:16 PM, Wyndlerunner said:

Honor in even more relatively recent times, caused order to be thrust upon Pre-Radiant Surgebinders, forcing both the Spren and their person to be bound to the Ideal system.

This is a common interpretation of the line, but not confirmed. (Personally, I subscribe more to the idea it just means Ishar founding the organization, rather than saying Ishar modified the magic system, as I don't see why such a fundamental change by Ishar would be possible + it makes sense to me for the Ideal system to naturally arise from the Intents of Honor and Cultivation.)

On 6/16/2021 at 7:16 PM, Wyndlerunner said:

Adonalsium itself appears to have directly created a few varieties of spren, such as the Rider of Storms

Note that the Stormfather's status with regards to the Shattering is unconfirmed, though I personally do agree with you it's likely he existed in some form. The highstorm and Stormlight both existed pre-Shattering, but we do know the storm has drastically changed, so it's possible the Stormfather postdates the Shattering and there was a different mechanism before. (My stance is that the Stormfather was just the Cognitive aspect of the highstorm until Honor came in and did weird things to him and basically Awakened him, almost, because of how he talks about being "just a wind" at the time of things like the Ashynite arrival.)

[Wyndlerunner he/him]

36 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

One thing I'd like to note: truespren in general did not exist prior to H&C settling on Roshar (implied in this WoB, implied even more in RoW when Syl mentions "Honorspren—all of the intelligent spren—were something new to Roshar. Well, new as in ten-thousand-years-old new"). Though we don't know how they were made (whether it was a natural consequence of the Shards investing + whatever already makes spren, whether H&C made them directly, etc), and Syl wonders on that herself. Probably not a shocker, but you didn't directly mention it, so wanted to be sure it was said

You know, to be honest, that is kind of a shocker. I binge read RoW over the course of an obsessive 24 hours, so smaller lines like that were probably lost in my mind compared to some of the more 'in your face' reveals in RoW. That's super interesting, and definitely works with the thought of at least Honorspren and Cultivationspren having been directly formed by the influence of H+C. 

 

40 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Note that the Stormfather's status with regards to the Shattering is unconfirmed, though I personally do agree with you it's likely he existed in some form. The highstorm and Stormlight both existed pre-Shattering, but we do know the storm has drastically changed, so it's possible the Stormfather postdates the Shattering and there was a different mechanism before. (My stance is that the Stormfather was just the Cognitive aspect of the highstorm until Honor came in and did weird things to him and basically Awakened him, almost, because of how he talks about being "just a wind" at the time of things like the Ashynite arrival.)

Yeah, that's also true. I do assume Adonalsium did create some spren, since he did directly create the whole Rosharan System, I assume that the Dawnsingers were either directly created by Ado, or evolved naturally with the tools that had been given them, which in the case of forms, definitely requires spren of some variety to be present. 

 

45 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

So yeah, in my opinion it's a combination of the two theories you had. The power has to be left intentionally in a way that can form spren, and at the same time, the heavily-Invested nature of Roshar pulls the Realms a bit closer, allowing the proper interactions between Cognitive and Physical beings that we see, as opposed to just lumps of power slowly becoming aware and floating around the Cognitive.

I like this way of phrasing this quite a bit! I also tend to agree there's some combination of the two theories, especially as I've reflected more after posting this. I'm all about that juicy, juicy synthesis. Thanks for your thoughts and feedback! I really appreciate it!

[LewsTherinTelescope]

2 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

I do assume Adonalsium did create some spren

Oh, definitely. Brandon's mentioned spren existed pre-Shattering (but not as many as now), and that Adonalsium left Splinters that attained sentience and became spren before H&C arrived. More specifically, most but not all non-sapient spren predate the Shattering. (There's also some weirdness with things, though, as for example they could not have worked in fabrials because Adonaldium didn't consider fabrials possible, so they weren't.)

Side note, we know that a lot of the Investiture in the spren got "assigned" to Cultivation, so tbh I wouldn't be surprised if H&C only went to Roshar in the first place because of spren with so much of her Investiture drawing her there.

(Sorry, that's a lot of WoBs but I wasn't sure which to post so I just put them all )

2 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

I assume that the Dawnsingers were either directly created by Ado, or evolved naturally with the tools that had been given them, which in the case of forms, definitely requires spren of some variety to be present. 

Yeah I can't see singers existing without spren. I'd say they were probably directly created, based on this WoB. But then, we also know things like the continent was "grown", so maybe Adonalsium "creating" them was done by setting things in motion so that things would "naturally" reach the end goal it had in mind.

2 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

I binge read RoW over the course of an obsessive 24 hours, so smaller lines like that were probably lost in my mind compared to some of the more 'in your face' reveals in RoW.

Lol yeah totally makes sense.

2 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

I also tend to agree there's some combination of the two theories, especially as I've reflected more after posting this. I'm all about that juicy, juicy synthesis.

Yeah it's always fun when you come up with two different theories, and then realize they actually fit together neatly and both are actually more likely to be right than either on its own.