Jofwu

The Midnight Essence was named as one of them wasn't it? And I think we saw enough of them doing what they do to reasonably rule them out. I agree on Thunderclasts, but I do think we can assume that their creation isn't an example of Voidbinding. And the little we do know doesn't seem to suggest that they do magic once created. So I'm doubtful about them. That's how I read it at first, BUT I think the phrase "in the same way" is key here. I think there's some missing context. The questioner begins by referencing the Parshendi bond and asks if humans can bond the Voidspren as well. Brandon's answer says "humans are not good at bonding spren in the same way". This implies to me that he's referring to something more like the listener bond, as something distinct from the Nahel bond. It's possible these bonds are basically the same thing, and I'm reading into that too much. As for Stormform only being a "gateway" to Voidbinding... That sounds like a stretch to me. Lots of tenuous assumptions that don't feel right, as I see it.

Can't be quite that simple. Dirt doesn't become hard as stone when you dry it out. I don't know if there's a direct WoB on it, but we have pretty strong reason to believe crem was around long before the Shards arrived. The highstorms existed before, and the crem seems to be a fairly natural thing. Therefore, I doubt it can be compared to Scadrial's mists.

Ah, completely forgot about this one! It's interesting that Brandon lists Surgebinding, Voidbinding, and fabrials then says "Old Magic is kind of its own weird thing".... While Khriss refers to the Old Magic as Voidbinding's "cousin". She does follow up saying that she suspects the Old Magic is "something entirely different", but it's still a strange wording. I'm curious what "esoteric abilities" she is referring to. Perhaps that is what the Listeners are doing... Something related to Surge/Voidbinding but definitely more mysterious. But how does that fit with Brandon's list of three magic systems? You also have to pull in the (arguably) magical nature of many creatures on Roshar as they interact with spren. Could it be that all of these "natural" lifeform-spren interactions (including the listeners) are considered a part of "fabrial magic"? Or would we say that all of these interactions (including the listeners) are just "natural magic", and Brandon isn't including them as a "magic system"? Perhaps a "magic system" here refers to a construct set up by a Shard (or Shards)... But then that implies fabrials weren't a thing before the Shards arrived on Roshar. This is all very tangled, and a bit off topic... But I think these are all things that have to be considered to understand what Voidbinding is and how it fits in. If the listeners aren't Voidbinding... Who or what is? Something like Thunderclasts, the Ten Deaths, etc. are the next answer my mind jumps to... But I'm pretty sure this same WoB eliminates them as well... Unless maybe Brandon is playing with words (we've seen those things, but we haven't seen them doing magic). The cleanest answer is that humans do Voidbinding. It's just an "evil version" of Surgebinding. But we've had NO hint of humans being "bad guys" in the past. It's always the Voidbringers, the Unmade, Voidspren, Ten Deaths, etc.

"Move yours up; my pen moves too! What else can these spren-gem-pens do?" "Come meet my friends, Surge One and Surge Two." I'm dying here. This is incredible work @ccstat. I'll be reading this to my daughter when she's a bit older. Hope you can find time to do more illustrations! Or that someone else pitches in.

@maxal, I think Passions are mentioned in a handful of other places... I think most of the Thaylen characters use "Passions" as an exclamation. Yalb and Rysn (and others) make mention of them I believe. Yalb mentions them along with "You win when you need it most". Rysn mentions that she's a bit skeptical of them sometimes. Shallan calls them "pagan superstition". Jasnah dismisses them, using them as an example for how she has no proof for God either. Navani criticizes them indirectly, comparing them to Adolin's pre-duel rituals. They obviously originated in Thaylenah. I get the sense that they predate Vorinism there. Vorinism probably came in and painted the Passions as superstitious nonsense. But they're just so deeply rooted in Thaylen culture that Vorinism never rooted them out. It's like this thing that most Thaylen believe on the side, and they don't talk about it in front of Vorin priests who discourage it. Kind of like how African tribal beliefs (about spirits, divination, witchcraft, etc.) seep their way into local versions of Christianity and Islam. Thanks! I'll update my post. @BeskarKomrk, feel free to put this transcription on your OP. Or if someone wants to start a full transcription of both readings with the Q&A then insert it there. I think the general assumption about Kelsier is that he used Hemalurgy to "reattach" himself to a physical body. Perhaps with the help of Marsh, Spook, and/or Sazed.

@Green Hoodie Mistborn, this is good stuff. Thanks for pointing out that first WoB in particular. Definitely makes it sound like the listeners are Voidbinding.

@Pagerunner, I'm sure Brandon has a better grasp of the chemistry that it sounds like in this transcript. I feel pretty sure that at least some of the confusion is a tired brain. It's not easy to go on socializing and signing books for so long and then to suddenly dive into detailed chemistry/physics discussion. There's bound to be some brain farts. My first interpretation of the "compound vs element" bit was that he was emphasizing that it behaves like a unique element. It's not a mixture of multiple things that can be subdivided cleanly. The comment about calling it a subatomic particle, however, seems to suggest that... it's not really an atom at all. He makes it sound like a completely unique phenomenon, not made of protons/neutrons/electrons. It interacts with other matter sort of like an element would, but it's not an atom. That's my interpretation, which could be way off from what he meant. And which again could be all based on a slip-up anyways. Your point about the catalyst sounds right to me. That's... very interesting if correct. Need to think about all this some more...

I've been under the impression that Stormfather has been around since before the KR. I imagine Tanavast's Cognitive Shadow merged with (or attached itself to) Stormfather. This particularly makes sense if Honor's Perpendicularity is in the highstorm. All to say that I'm not sold that these are former Bondsmith-spren, or something like that. I don't think they're Unmade either. They don't seem very evil for one... They hang out in the highstorm apparently, marching along with Stormfather. It seems like all the Unmade theories were based on the idea that they were connected to the Shattered Plains, and that's obviously not the case. They certainly seem more like spren than something physical...

My argument is that (1) the "listener bond" and the "Nahel bond" are not the same thing, and that (2) the Nahel bond is associated with surgebinding/voidbinding while the listener forms are something separate. The first point is based on (a) the fact that humans can do one and not the other and (b) the fact that Brandon has said Parshendi don't (historically) form nahel bonds. So I feel good about the first point. The second point is based on similarities in terminology, symbolism, etc. There are "ten levels of Voidbinding" just as there are ten orders of Knights Radiant. The Voidbinding chart is heavily reminiscent of the Surgebinding chart, both in terms of structure and the symbols used. This suggests a close relationship between the two. Therefore, I propose that Voidbinding is associated with a Nahel bond (or some similar analog) rather than a listener bond. This doesn't help a whole lot since so little is known about the nature of the Nahel bond. (I, for one, am dying to know where that term came from... Is it named after a person? What does it mean?) But it does suggest that the stormform listeners were not Voidbinding. How do you explain what the stormform listeners were doing then? Well, they were just doing what they naturally do. They listener-bonded a spren and got a new form. This forms "abilities" naturally happen to include the power to summon the Everstorm. That does seem oddly more... unusual and powerful than their other forms' abilities. But this can be explained away by the fact that the only other forms we have seen are based on rather mundane spren. I would also propose that summoning the Everstorm wasn't as powerful as it may appear. They didn't just create a storm from scratch. They sang the thing into existence, probably related to their Rhythms somehow. Doesn't sound like a matter of Surges (or Voidsurges) to me. One other point... This suggests a rather interesting concept. Not only can Parshendi form a Nahel bond with a KR-spren... They can also, perhaps, form a listener bond with one. Theoretically. Assuming the spren allows them to, or they capture it, I suppose. They could bond with an honorspren to obtain "honorform" for example. They could bond with an inkspren to obtain "inkform". We can only guess what these forms might be able to do... I expect, given the nature of the associated spren, that they would be on the interesting side (as we see with stormspren). I expect it would NOT grant them the powers of the associated KR order.

I figured I'd pull up any explicit references of "voidbinding" and "voidspren" that I could find:

I'm skeptical that the Listeners performed voidbinding. The way I see it, the Listeners ability to bond with spren is an entirely natural thing, right? They were doing it before the Shards ever showed up, if I'm not mistaken. I think them bonding to a voidspren is no different from bonding to any other spren, in a sense. A "voidform" is just like any other form. The seemingly terrifying powers that these forms grant aren't voidbinding. It's just part of what that form can do. We've only seen them form bonds with fairly mundane spren so far... So it's not surprising that bonds with voidspren would grant forms that are more terrifying and unnatural than "normal". I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a Listener could technically bond with an honorspren as well (a listener bond, not a nahel bond) and get something more interesting than normal. I feel like voidbinding must be more analogous with surgebinding than what we saw in them. Don't have much proof for that... Just my speculation.

Just wanted to point out that seeing years... decades... centuries into the future is a VERY different thing from seeing a few seconds into the future. If Brandon has said that Ruin isn't very good at seeing into the future (which makes sense), he was probably referring to the former.

I transcribed the new Oathbringer interlude, relevant portion in spoiler tag below. Got a few spots I'm not sure about, the worst of which are marked with [?]. Edit: some updates to most of the missing/questionable bits

I transcribed the new Interlude. (in spoiler tag) Feel free to copy and stick it somewhere more convenient. Would be nice to get another ear on it. It was pretty clear for the most part, but there are a few words I couldn't figure out. And names are tricky. I put a [?] when something eluded me. For names that repeat it's just on the first instance. I thought about updating the Prologue, as it has apparently been revised. But the changes weren't particularly drastic, and I've lost the inspiration for now. Edit: updated with input from @DAdam

Can we talk about the Voidbinding chart now that Brandon has confirmed that theory? Seems like there's been a push lately that it's related to fabrials and all kinds of other stuff. Now that we have some direction, seems like a good time to take a step back and reevaluate in light of this news. I'm including the chart below (with the Shadesmar map, since they go together). Also going to list some of the key observations that I can remember. Then I've got a theory of my own to add. Chart: Observations: Note: I'm going to refer to everything on the chart as a "void-" version of whatever analogue is on the Knights Radiant chart. 1. The void-surge symbols are rotationally symmetrical versions of the normal surge symbols. 2. Many of the void-order symbols resemble the normal KR order symbols. 3. The void-Truthwatcher symbol is also horizontally and vertically symmetrical. It is also incredibly similar to the glyph that shows up on maps of Roshar (around compass roses, behind the R's of 'Roshar', and around the borders - see "Glyphs" link in my signature) 4. The void-Dustbringer symbol shows up in the corners of the artistic view of Kharbranth. 5. Lines connect all of the void-orders and void-surges just like they do on the KR chart, except (strangely) for the two in the center, which aren't connected to a void-surge. Just an artistic thing, or something more? 6. The two in the center are also set on an octagon (rather than a circle) and are shown above a red gem (rather than the clouds to the sides). This sets them apart from the other eight even further. 7. Do the circles around symbols bring Shadesmar-beads to mind? Or Gavilar's dark sphere? The void-orders also have a slightly pink/purple glow. 8. Background imagery: (storm?) clouds, lightning bolts (both yellow and blue/purple, an (infused?) red gemstone. 9. Border: Flames, especially in the corner? Woman with safehand covered implies she is Vorin. Perhaps this helps to date the image? (after the advent of safehand covering) Alternatively, it could be dated to some point in the future, beyond what we have read so far. 10. Shadesmar map: This is clearly meant to accompany the map of Shadesmar, implied by the visual similarity and the fact that the border around the two is rotationally symmetrical. The somewhat detailed information on Shadesmar implies the person who created this voidbinding chart had a greater understanding of Shadesmar than most people in Roshar currently do. This excerpt from the TWoK Ars Arcanum is also worth mentioning perhaps: Questions: Some questions that come to my mind... What IS voidbinding? Is a listener bonded to a voidspren a voidbinder? Or is bonding to voidspren just like bonding to any other spren, and voidbinding is more like surgebinder, but with specific voidspren? Can a human be a voidbinder? Or is this completely off... Is voidbinding more related to the ten deaths, Thunderclasts, the Unmade, or other things like this? Is it voidbinding to create these things, or is voidbinding what they do? Why the heck is the void-Dustbringer symbol on the Kharbranth map? And why is the void-Truthwatcher symbol plastered all over both new and old maps of Roshar? What's going on with the center of this chart? Lots of things separate out the middle two from the other eight. Anyways... Some musing of my own... It strikes me that voidspren might be "corrupted" versions of normal spren. This is based on the Dalinar vision where they are searching for a spren that "doesn't act right." If something like this is correct... what does that mean for void-Bondsmiths? Are there any viable "great voidspren" that can make voidbinders of that type? I've got a little baby theory stirring around in my mind. What if the reason void-Bondsmiths and void-Truthwatchers are cut off here is because they don't exist at the time of this chart?

So weird that there's no discernible order to the glyphs on the warcamp drawing. Anyways, I just wanted to highlight in this thread that the "Voidbinding Chart" was confirmed to indeed be a Voidbinding Chart. Thus the theory that those symbols are connected with Silver Kingdoms or anything like that seems highly unlikely. So now I'm really wondering what that one glyph is doing on the Kharbranth picture of all places!

Ah, I see what you're saying. Though I'm not convinced that Brandon's "interesting" "something else" has to be invested matter. In fact, his apparent emphasis on how the "very important thing" is related to mass-energy-investiture equivalence, I absolutely don't think that must be the case. The investiture isn't destroyed of course. At least some of it is converted to energy, from what Brandon said, and that's a big deal. Some of it could be converted to some other mass which wasn't there before (investiture becoming mass). Though I think that's unlikely. Or it could remain as investiture... and just... do something interesting now that it has been "released" from what it was doing before. I like @Brgst13's idea that it might create a (miniature? temporary?) perpendicularity. That would definitely be something very interesting and important that got left behind. I expect on a small scale it's too small and temporary to matter. But if you blow up a lot of it at once... boom, you've got a (temporarily?) stable perpendicularity. That's huge. And that's just one idea. There's all sorts of other things that the investiture might be doing. Or perhaps Brandon is implying the investiture-energy conversion itself is a big deal. That could have implications beyond the reaction of harmonium.

Ironeyes can you clarify the bold part? Was Brandon saying that the particles lose their association with ONLY ONE of the Shards (i.e. they still have it with the other)? Or was the use of "one" here just your own wording? (i.e. the particles aren't associated with any Shard after the reaction, Ruin-particles lose their Ruin association and Preservation-particles lose their Preservation association) At first glance, my understanding here is that ALL spiritual identity is lost when harmonium reacts. I don't think we're left with Ruin-flavored products. That feels awkward to me. Why would just ONE Shard's identity go away? (presumably Preservations) That leaves you with a LOT of extra Ruin in the world, compared to just the 1 extra Ruin electron. And what would it mean for Ruin-hydrogen or Ruin-hydroxide to be floating around in the world? What are the implications of that? Just doesn't feel right to me. I think we're left with "normal" products. Vanilla hydrogen and vanilla cesium(?) hydroxide. The identity associated with BOTH Shards is removed, and this is the extra energy Brandon is talking about. What happens to the "extra Ruin"? Sazed just makes more harmonium (not unlike atium).

Brandon gave that away during the AU tour at the end of last year.

It would be one thing if multiple people described them one way and Elhokar another. But Shallan's the only other person who describes them. So I think you're a bit quick in dismissing the connection based on this one difference in description.

I don't think the "ten deaths explanation" really solves anything. Doesn't that just push the problem further down? Why are there ten deaths rather than nine deaths? I think too much value is being placed on the number associations here. Just because "Odium's number is 9" that doesn't mean his magic system HAS to have 9 'orders' to it. Especially since I'm not sure we can say voidbinding is precisely "Odium's" magic system. It seems to me that voidbinding is actually a corrupted form of surgebinding. There's some evidence, I believe, that voidspren are regular spren who have been corrupted in some way (e.g. Dalinar's vision where they look for spren that aren't acting normal). So it makes sense that corrupted spren would use the same ten surges of Roshar. That's in their nature. It's just that they use those surges in different ways, compared to how they are made manifest in surgebinding. All of that said, it's interesting that Brandon said Roshar is 10-centric and Braize is 9-centric, rather than referring to the Shards there. Perhaps this suggests that the unmade (assuming there are 9) are from Braize? (hence the reason there's not ten of them)

I disagree. I expect the products of a Harmonium+water reaction aren't going to take the form of nice, bite-sized beads. It's probably more residue than anything else. Unless they stopped to perform a careful chemical analysis, I doubt they'd realize there's anything strange about the product. And even then you'd have to find some way to scrape enough of it together to do something useful with it. Probably not doable with their technology. My biggest reason for doubting Lerasium is the meta problem of how many Mistborns we'd have if people figured this out. Still confused here, sorry. Variability is of Honor... and Inkspren don't like it because they're more Cultivation? Or are you saying "out of Honor" means "not very Honor-like"?

I'm not sure how to interpret this. What's the "thing out of Honor"? The Inkspren get this dislike from Honor? Human variability is a think of Honor?

You seem to be assuming that the person giving the death rattle is, in that moment, experiencing the effects of Dai-gonarthis. That's not how I read it. Some of the death rattles work that way (e.g. "I'm dying, aren't I? Healer, why do you take my blood?"). But others don't (e.g. "The burdens of nine become mine. Why must I carry the madness of them all? Oh, Almighty, release me."). So that point does very much depend on how the death rattle is interpreted. This goes back to the previous difference in interpretation. If Dai-gonarthis isn't directly affecting people on the other side of Roshar (currently), then all we can see is the "draining" effect described by Axies. This only affects people who are close by and observing Cusicesh, and it's fairly minor. Of course, the theory doesn't necessarily require that Dai-gonarthis be weak. The "weak" interpretation simply leads to the idea that perhaps he is imprisoned in some sense. It's entirely possible that he's at full strength and the weak affects in Iri can be explained some other way.