cometaryorbit

I think it's the latter: there's a ton of Mistings for every Mistborn. The Ministry can recruit over 90 Soothers just from the Central Dominance. If all 8 generally-known types are equally common, that means close to 800 available to them in the Central Dominance alone. But surely most Allomancers stay with their Houses. So I'd expect thousands of known noble Mistings in the Central Dominance (and that excludes undiscovered or known-only-to-the-Ministry types, and half-skaa Mistings, and secret noble Mistings of the known types like Straff's). Mistborn are very rare and special. Mistings are not that unusual in the Luthadel underground- there are whole teams of them - but Vin is only the 2nd other half-skaa Mistborn Kelsier's ever known of. The 19:1 ratio can't be extrapolated because Venture is specifically a very strong line, and Straff is an Allomancer. It would be much lower for average nobles with neither parent being a Great House line, much less Allomantically poor bloodlines like the Cetts. -- I don't think obligators are 5% of the population, or even close. -- I don't think so (at least if you mean large-scale societies, not just a sugar plantation island in the Caribbean which was just a small part of a larger empire). The closest might be Sparta, where the helots were the majority of the population. Though whether they were more like serfs or like slaves is debated. Arguably the former. But that was very much pre-industrial, and IIRC that demographic imbalance is part of what wrecked them: certainly their society became shaped by the need for relatively few citizens to control a much larger helot population, as the imbalance grew over time. In general this kind of thing wouldn't be stable in RL, and doubly so in a society that needs to support a 1+ million city. But then, RL societies don't have an immortal invulnerable god-emperor and a squad of near-unkillable super-powered Inquisitors and armies of koloss to squash rebellions. TLR's system was rather poorly designed and maintained only by overwhelming force to prevent effective rebellion, IMO. I think most shops are run by nobles. Skaa having the ability to deal in coin is kind of the exception. Nobles aren't necessarily powerful or important, most are more like employees of the major or Great Houses.

This WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/379/#e12788 Brandon says it's rough, and "I believe", so it could be more like 12 or 15 to 1 overall (though Luthadel is 3:1). But still more than most historical societies with nobility. It's not that unheard of though. The Polish-Lithuanian szlachta nobility were maybe 10% of the population. The fertility differences are long gone by Vin's era. "Middle class" skaa like Clubs were unusual exceptions. I don't think they are a significant percentage.

Oh, ok, I was thinking "hand" (what's used to measure horses = width of a palm or 4 inches). Yeah 20 cm width seems possible then... though very absurd for a sword. Swords just aren't that wide, even huge greatswords. https://www.thearma.org/essays/2HGS.html#.ZD1e1x7MKIQ But I think that thickness is way too much. Thicker than a RL sword, absolutely, but RL swords are *extremely* thin, more like 5-6 mm (1/4" or 1/5") *at the thicker part*. The average thickness would necessarily be less, since the blade is sharp. So my 0.5cm average would mean 1cm at the blunt end, if the cross section was triangular, which is already about twice as thick as your average RL sword. Even huge greatswords were thinner than that (7.5mm for one example in that article I linked). Even if we double that (1.5cm wide part = 0.75 average) ... if the sword is as long as Vin's height, that's about 5'. Allowing for some hilt... maybe 4'2" (125cm) for the blade? that would come out to 14.7kg. I agree 10 (or even 15) kg is too little for that description, what I'm saying is that the description is basically inconsistent. It doesn't make sense for a 5'-6' koloss to be swinging a 47kg sword, no matter how strong they are. Making a sword that shape doesn't make sense.

I think probably some early Terris person or people got into the Cognitive Realm through one of the Perpendicularities. Maybe a previous user of the Well of Ascension 1000 or 2000 years before Kwaan/Alendi/Rashek's era, maybe just someone who stepped into one of the Perpendicularities and entered the Cognitive. From the Cognitive they could see the glow of metal. They also could talk to Preservation there, which would explain how the Terris Prophecies came from Preservation even though Preservation can't talk to people. I think that's why the Terris knew Realmatic stuff. They were living near both Perpendicularities after all... (Still doesn't explain how Preservation gave Feruchemy to the Terris in the first place, but...)

TFE has a higher noble to skaa ratio than historical societies with nobles and peasants. It's something like 1:10 overall, 1:3 in Luthadel. (Which makes sense, Luthadel is both huge and dense and so requires a lot of logistics to keep running. It wouldn't work with a nearly all illiterate population.) So about 10 million nobles in the entire FE. I also don't think FE demographics are Medieval Europe like. There's a lot of major differences: - TLR's meddling with fertility - the weird climate's implications for agriculture - the "closed system" nature of the Final Empire (no contact with external peoples) meaning no chance for introduction of plagues from outside like the Black Death - lack of large scale wars (only border raids and skirmishes with bandits, in marginal areas which are probably relatively low population anyway) - skaa being treated worse than most medieval peasants. I would think TFE (given its stable / relatively low seasonality, and somewhat artificial, climate, and much better than medieval shipping infrastructure) probably lacks really dramatic weather driven famines as well as plagues and wars. Local crop failures (eg volcanic eruption) aren't so disastrous with a canal system as good as theirs, and large scale ones probably don't happen. So you're not going to get large population crashes. But the terrible treatment of skaa will lead to a lot of extra deaths. So I think that TFE will have slower growth than the medieval "good" times but also lack crashes. Its population might be fairly near constant for most of its history, after a huge crash at the beginning with the Deepness destroying crops and Alendi/Rashek's wars (Scadrial started out as Earthlike and with early 1800s tech, and Earth's population then was about 1 billion). -- House Venture had two dozen Mistings in Luthadel early in book 1 (according to Dockson, so this probably excludes Straff's secret ones... who might not have been in Luthadel at that time anyway). Kelsier says that the Ministry must have recruited across the entire Central Dominance to gather 130 Mistings for the Soothing stations ... but they were looking only for Soothers and Seekers, and surely most Mistings stay with their noble House, so there are surely thousands and probably tens of thousands of Mistings in the Central Dominance. But due to the skewed nobility ratio in Luthadel the other Dominances presumably have less. Mistborn, though, are way rarer. They're probably mostly limited to the major or Great Houses and very rare even there. -- I'd expect the number of Mistborn to have peaked a couple centuries in, or maybe sooner. If some of the early kings were polygamist (like many kings in RL history) they could have had a huge number of descendants in just a few generations.

Strength may be proportional to their size, sure, but since they can eat dirt and such rather than real food, much of their energy must be non-Physical. It doesn't work exactly the same as kandra Blessing of Potency (which just gives the extra strength with no muscle mass change) but it's similar. Koloss swords are weird, and I don't know if the description is totally consistent. Swords just aren't that heavy, so if Vin needed to burn pewter to lift it, even x10 strength wouldn't be enough to use it in battle. Realistically I'd expect the sword of a small koloss to be no more than 6' long (due to impracticality of wielding a sword much taller than themselves) and so only somewhat heavier (due to thicker, probably single-edged blade) than RL two handed swords. 5-10kg maybe. I think that's way, way too big. A 5'-6' koloss couldn't effectively wield a 8.5' sword. A 6' sword with 5' blade seems much more reasonable (so 150cm). A koloss blade iirc is a handspan wide (so about 4" or 10 cm) and 2 cm average thickness for a sword (which is necessarily sharp) seems just vastly too high. If it's a single-edged sword, 1 cm thick on the blunt side and effectively zero on the sharp side = 0.5 cm average. Which would be 150 x 10 x 0.5 = 750 cubic centimeters, about 6kg at iron density. Add in the handle mass, so maybe 7kg? Which fits the range I got from extrapolating from RL swords. Even if it was twice that thick, 13kg would still be easily lifted by Vin without pewter. So something's off.

But that bulk matters. A lot. It's not just fat, their anatomy is not quite human. A koloss is way heavier built / more robust than a human of the same height, so anatomically would be far stronger. They're not a direct scaling up of humans. Also, larger koloss are definitely stronger than smaller ones, that's how their whole size based hierarchy works. 1) from the Hemalurgy chart, the linchpin is steel. It's one of the Physical Allomancy power spikes, not an extra spike. 2) generally, yes, but not 100%. Inquisitors aren't standardized. There might also have been Seeker or Rioter Inquisitors used for controlling koloss (otherwise they'd either need to be former Mistborn or have an a-duralumin spike). The soul change *is* a magic boost. It just also changes their Physical aspect. Now it's totally possible that they just get enough muscle to reflect that strength... but they do nonetheless get a magical boost, as they don't need to eat enough calories to make up for the energy they expend. Muscular strength doesn't mean tougher skin. Elend killed one with a knife before it got into rage mode; muscle strength doesn't protect from that.

I think this is key. Inquisitors aren't just humans with extra Allomantic powers spiked in, they're Hemalurgic constructs - effectively a new species. I think at least the unexpected physical strength is because they're not exactly physically human anymore. Maybe not just the size increase (which isn't that dramatic) but their muscles might also change. Pewter strength isn't *so* high that differences in physical size and musculature stop mattering. I agree with the general concept that Inquisitors need Atium (IIRC we know that not all Inquisitors had atium spikes, but that could be because the natural Mistborn Inqusitors - or Inquisitors made from Atium Mistings, which the Ministry did have - didn't need them) but not the conclusion. There's two ways a Misting Inquisitor could still have 9 spikes and have atium: 1) Not all Inquistors had f-Gold, so 8 basic metal + Atium 2) if that Inquisitor was an Atium Misting first, they could have 9 spikes including f-Gold. Doubling atium isn't worth it, so I don't think any Inqusitor made from a Mistborn or Atium Misting would have an A-Atium spike. While I do think Inquisitors would generally kind of need to have Atium, we actually don't see the Vetitan one use it. Vin burns electrum just in case, creating a cloud of shadows, but the Inquisitor turns out not to have any atium. Re strength... yeah, Lerasium is way up there. A newly made koloss should have strength of 5 humans (and probably they didn't pick unusually weak people) minus hemalurgic decay... say x4.5 or x4.75. A 12' koloss should be at least x10, even if the extra Hemalurgic strength doesn't scale with size. Normal flared pewter is strength of 3 people roughly... so Elend is definitely beyond triple normal Allomantic strength even by the most conservative reading. His Soothing is also notably super strong. I think he just never got a chance to pierce copperclouds. Inquisitors probably weren't bothering with copper in HoA - everyone already knows they're Allomancers and Ruin was controlling them completely.

Pewter Allomancy has a lot of general physical benefits; I don't think it would extend life per se, but I think it would help with the physical debilitation that comes with aging - it's not just strength like Pewter Feruchemy, it's also grace/agility, endurance, resistance to wounds, resistance to heat and cold, resistance to alcohol and other toxins, etc. So an elderly person who uses Pewter regularly is less likely to fall and much less likely to break bones, and will move at least as fluidly and have at least as much strength as a young healthy person. Still, 118+ years is pushing it. That's record breaking even with modern medicine (record for men is 116). Some cadmium time dilation could help, yeah. So could spiked in f-gold for compounding... yeah, it doesn't help with aging per se, but I'd imagine that compounded gold perfect health would make 120ish lifespans possible. I don't know if he actually would have access to any atium in Era 2.

Zinc is just speed of thought, your own natural abilities still matter. So Blessing of Presence + f-zinc should be better than f-zinc alone. Aon Ene is a really good point. F-electrum seems to be almost a controlled bipolar disorder thing; the high determination state is described as "manic". It sounds rather unpleasant. I think it'd be useful for pushing through exhaustion or pain, but might not be helpful for purely mental things. Expanded mind does seem to come with large quantities of Investiture, like a Shard or avatar. A ton of Breaths likely would have some effect in this direction, yeah, and Susebron benefiting from it makes sense.

Yeah, Kelsier held Preservation for a while in HoA/SH but was still very limited by being a shadow. He couldn't just create a body for himself. I think Kelsier's personality, if he could hold both Shards, would let him reach a Ruin-dominant balance between them rather than Sazed's attempt to have Preservation dominate ... which might be more stable since Ruin is stronger, but would also likely lead to a messier world. I wonder if Sazed could temporarily hand over Ruin to Kelsier to let Kel go to town on an enemy Shard though...

I agree Lightweavers = creationspren and Bondsmiths = gloryspren seem pretty much confirmed from how they swirl around Shallan and Dalinar. By the "cousin to the main spren" logic flamespren for Dustbringers (ashspren), and lifespren for Edgedancers (cultivationspren) seem extremely likely. But flamespren as cousin to lightspren (Willshapers) could also work... I don't think so, though. I think they do go with Dustbringers. I can see the argument for Stonewards = painspren but it seems less direct than the others. I don't see a clear answer for Willshapers, Truthwatchers, and Skybreakers. Logicspren are taken by Elsecallers, so I don't know what Truthwatchers are left with. I feel like they really need an observation/perception/awareness type "emotion" spren. (Logicspren are more about debates.) Starspren seem to be a good fit as cousins of highspren but they are too rare. Gravitationspren would fit their primary Surge but Windrunners don't use bindspren. Maybe snowspren?

I'd be really surprised if a Shardblade to the spine killed 4th+ ideal Radiants. Lower ideal sure, but I think it's fatal to Fused for the same reason a crushed skull kills Heralds. I think Nale wasn't completely immortal when Honor was alive only because he was a Cognitive Shadow and his body was imperfectly "his", I think a living Radiant with the ability to draw direct from Honor could only die to anti-Light or Nightblood/other Leeching-type effects powerful enough to overcome their maximum feed rate. Spine Shardblade being fatal would make Radiants a little less ridiculously overpowered though.

Feruchemy definitely involves all three Realms, Khriss says so in the Era 2 Ars Arcanums. I don't think most metals store a flow of energy from the Spiritual Realm, though. I don't think normal humans - no Invested Arts involved - are constantly drawing from the Spiritual. Their soul is Spiritual, but it's not constantly "powering" the body and mind - regular biology is doing that. There's probably an analogy to Hemalurgy making koloss, in that storing strength isn't just joules of mechanical energy - it's probably a Spiritual change that filters down to affect the other Realms, since muscle mass actually changes when storing/tapping strength. And it's not literally converting muscle mass into Investiture, either, since then it wouldn't return when the Feruchemist stops storing - they'd have to tap to get back to their original state, like memories in f-copper. Similarly, using tin Feruchemy to tap eyesight gives telescopic vision with narrower field of view, so it probably changes the actual shape of the eye rather than just being a magical boost like tin Allomancy. And f-zinc makes people hungry faster, so it probably changes the physical brain. So yeah, these forms of Feruchemy probably really temporarily change the spiritweb/Spiritual DNA "description" for the Feruchemist, reducing one variable now in exchange for being able to increase it later. As for the "snap back" exceptions.. I'm not sure. It's clear that copper works differently from pewter/steel/etc. Brass I'm not sure - it might actually store the ability to produce heat metabolically rather than heat energy itself (like pewter storing muscle mass rather than mechanical energy). Bendalloy probably does store energy, so likely would be an exception like copper. Cadmium could too, but unless tapping too much can give oxygen toxicity, I think it likely doesn't store oxygen per se but the oxygenated state of the Feruchemist's body.

Lerasium Mistborn level is still super powerful compared to what we've actually seen in the books, though. He totally could have made himself stronger than Elend's level, I just don't think we've seen anything from WoB confirming that he intended to retcon the clear statement in the book that their base power levels are equal. I don't think there was enough aluminum available during the Final Empire for even one person to become a savant in it. I thought it was just adult men who had to be present, not literally the entire population of Luthadel? So likely more like 300-600k. If a normal strength Era 1 Soother can affect hundreds of people but they need to combine efforts to affect koloss, 300-600k humans could easily be less power needed than 28k koloss.

Not a full theory ... just BAM's imprisonment has something to do with how deadeyes exist in the first place, so freeing her might either alter them immediately/directly, or BAM after being freed might have the Connection to actively do something to change deadeyed. I don't know if the forms of power are completely different from Surges (envoyform language ability seems similar to Dalinar's) but I don't think they're Voidbinding either, because of the post-WoR "you haven't seen Voidbinding yet" WoB - we saw stormform powers heavily in the final battle of WoR. I think forms of power are Odium hacking the natural gemheart/spren bond magic of Roshar with his own spren, not exactly a full on Invested Art. They likely have some Surgebinding-ish abilities (like envoyform languages) and some Voidbinding-ish abilities (nightform future sight?) without actually being either. .

True, it's really not clear how many people were actually affected. And yeah we can't necessarily assume that x2 strength normal burn / x3 strength flaring means flaring is always a x1.5 increase to a metal's effect. --- TLR's base power level ("essential Allomantic strength") probably was the same as Elend's. Harmony says so in the HOA epigraphs. The fact that it's now canon that TLR got that strength from the Well rather than a bead doesn't necessarily retcon the statement that their strength level was the same (though Brandon might do that eventually if "reverse compounding" ends up not being a thing in the books - but I don't think it's current canon). And I agree that "reverse compounding" wouldn't be strictly needed. The difference between Spook's senses in HoA and normal Tin Allomancy is probably significantly more than the difference between Elend's Soothing and TLR's - so savantism plus extreme skill could explain it. With the savantism 'soft retcon', TLR probably wasn't a savant in so many things, but he probably still was in bronze (which is low-consequence) and brass (which he used constantly). He apparently was also a savant in Compounded Atium, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was in some other Compounded metals (if he had to stay awake to keep tapping youth, bronze would be likely, and gold seems plausible as well). I doubt he was a savant in the Physical Allomantic metals, since he doesn't show Spook-like side effects (although f-Gold would let him survive becoming a pewter savant, so he could have done that if he'd wanted). And he surely wasn't in the rarer metals, some of which weren't really available. I agree that Elend+Duralumin is likely at least comparable to TLR without duralumin. In practice, both can affect any group that they'll ever encounter.

Yeah, 5th ideal Radiant with infinite stormlight probably can't die short of anti - investiture/Nightblood/an equivalent, which isn't part of a Fullborn power set, but a Fullborn with atium and Mists is also unbeatable, so the fight goes on forever or until someone decides to leave.

Huh, that's a good thought. It actually might not be completely unrelated to Aviar bonds. We know an Aviar bond is the same thing Realmatically as a spren bond. Given that at least some Aviar can use their powers unbonded (the "coppercloud" type hide minds near their trees when nesting), and that Dusk doesn't actively do anything to activate the "visions of death" power - it's automatic - they could be the same kind of mechanism with the Aviar as spren-equivalent being the "active partner". Though the Aviar also has a symbiotic bond with a parasite to provide the power, which makes the situation more complex. I don't think Aviar are of Odium (they seem to be a Pre-Shattering magic that has become aligned to Autonomy). But the mechanism is possibly the same. I think Adolin and Maya might also be forming a Nahel bond that's in some sense reversed. Adolin "gives strength" to Maya, rather than Maya giving powers to Adolin, and Maya as a Shardblade is already in the Physical Realm - she doesn't need an anchor in the Physical, she needs restored Cognitive sapience. I wonder if Adolin will get abilities relating to being pulled more into the Cognitive (ability to see hidden spren like Rock? Touch spren like Lift?) I don't think Adolin will become a Voidbinder exactly - unless Maya gets Enlightened by Sja-anat or modified by Ba-Ado-Mishram, which is totally possible in SA5 - but the mechanism might be similar. -- Yeah, I do think Voidbinding is likely Odium+Honor, but I don't think Unmade are actually pure Odium. They were something else first before Odium Unmade them. It's possible that regular voidspren - as opposed to Unmade or Enlightened spren - don't do Voidbinding for that reason. I'll have to reread those parts of RoW to look for hints with Ulim etc.

Broken down/numbers added for easier reply: 1) You're welcome! 2) He was down to about 8,000 (9,000 total - 1,000 under Vin's control) after the siege weapons/ensuing frenzy at Fadrex killed 10,000 or more; he took control of 28,000 more at the village. So he didn't get all 36,000 at once, but he did get 28,000. 3) true, this is the issue 4) the army in Ch 3 was 2,000 (1000 sort of trained + 1000 basically raw recruits). The text doesn't absolutely prove Elend was affecting them all, but I think he was. Yeah, the ballroom was probably hundreds- near Breeze's limit (he's supposed to be able to Soothe several hundred people at once) but easy for Elend. There's also this part from chapter 17, when the army is exposed to the mists: "They trusted him. They knew that the mists were advancing toward Luthadel, and understood the importance of capturing the cities with storage caverns. They believed in Elend’s ability to do something to save their families. Their trust made him even more determined. He reined in his horse, turning the massive beast beside a rank of soldiers. He flared pewter, making his body stronger, giving more power to his lungs, then Rioted the emotions of the men to make them braver. “Be strong!” he shouted." Question is, is he Rioting all the men, or just the rank he's nearest to? If it's all the men, that's tens of thousands. 5) seems likely, though TLR was likely hitting much more than 100,000. Luthadel is ~1-2 million, and I believe at least all men were required to be in the square: so likely something like 300k-600k. 6) yeah. If Elend can take over "thousands and thousands" of koloss - and likely most of that 28,000 - with one duralumin fueled pulse, he likely could hit 100,000 or more humans, maybe even as many as TLR affected, with duralumin. Especially if he could really Riot the whole army (over 30,000 I think) at base strength ... then hitting 300-600k with duralumin seems completely reasonable. But TLR wasn't using duralumin. There's no question TLR was stronger than Elend, I'm just not sure it was this vast orders-of-magnitude difference. Apparently TLR was using some kind of "reverse compounding", but given that he's Soothing basically constantly he's probably a Soothing savant. That might be a significant power boost.

I think that true instantaneous teleportation (Aon Tia, Oathgates) works by going directly through the Spiritual, yeah. But the person doesn't "enter" the Spiritual exactly - it's instantaneous, you're not hanging out in the Spiritual in between leaving and arriving. It probably does involve converting into and out of Investiture though. Worldhopping by perpendicularities involves literally walking through the Cognitive Realm between planets. The one I'm not sure of is the Transportation Fused "teleport". It's not truly instant (Kaladin sees a red streak of light/spren) and is visible in the Physical Realm.

BTW, the main reason I think that is this WoB https://wob.coppermind.net/events/76/#e6398 Zinc is equations and intuitive leaps, but does not improve reaction time; steel is "bullet time"/reaction time. It's somewhat arguable, but I think it's making a distinction between reacting to physical things/snap decisions vs intellectual feats. (Now, we've seen Sazed use f-zinc to predict the trajectory of something Marsh was Pushing in their WoA fight, so that doesn't make zinc useless in physical situations. But I think it'd be mainly useful for things like Pushing or bullet trajectories, vs a fistfight or sword fight's muscle memory.)

1-2) I don't think which way the rope is coiled or how the banner is folded matters, only the actual shape of the object (probably through Cognitive object definitions), but that's just my feeling with no evidence. 3-4) I think Lifeless (type II Biochromatic entity) vs Awakened object (type III) is determined by how close to its living form the subject of Awakening is. So I don't think you could Awaken an intact corpse as a non-Lifeless object (type III), and I don't think making something transformed into a human shape is enough to make it act as a Lifeless. A Lifeless isn't just person shaped (or squirrel shaped, etc) it has all the details of the living form, and the same composition. I don't think a wooden statue of a human, even a very well-made one, would Awaken as a Lifeless; it'd be a type III Awakened object. 5) a skeleton would take way more Breaths than a normal Lifeless, and what you'd get might be a hybrid entity like the Phantoms rather than a "true" Lifeless/type II. That aside, I think the kandra eating it would break the unity of the skeleton and thus it'd stop functioning as a Lifeless. If hypothetically the kandra was able to engulf it all at once without breaking the skeleton apart, yeah, I think it could struggle against the kandra's muscles.

Oh, I think F-Steel does speed up at least perception, and WoBs do show that. I just don't think Bleeder is a good example to show that, because her brain/nervous system is dramatically non-human to start with. I'm not sure I agree that F-Steel speeds up thought, though, depending on what you mean by "thought". It speeds up perception/reaction to stimuli/muscle memory for sure, and likely 'snap decisions' - swerve left or right, kind of things. I don't think it necessarily speeds up complex thought. Oh, yeah, the fast turns and such will make it far more demanding than driving. Still, there's an additional mechanical delay between slamming on the brakes and a car stopping (on top of the human reaction time) - I'm not convinced a person couldn't function at those speeds without much mental acceleration. Yeah, I think I still agree with what I said there. They can't just dissolve their brain matter without risking their memories etc. That doesn't mean they can't drastically rearrange their peripheral nervous system, or move their brain matter around - they have to do that anyway to take radically different bodies, or for MeLaan to put her brains in her thigh. I think they may well not be 1:1, but also and probably more importantly they're narrow. Just what you need to use the physical speed. F-steel isn't f-zinc plus all the physical stuff. There's some overlap, but it's not "everything zinc does".

TL;DR: I think Voidbinding is the reverse of a normal Radiant bond. In a normal Radiant bond, the human actively uses the powers; in Voidbinding, the spren uses the powers through the human. Renarin Renarin's visions are very strange because they're not a power he uses with Intent. Its possible to have subconscious Intent to use a power you don't understand, especially to survive (like Kaladin redirecting arrows or Vin burning traces of pewter), but that's still a basic Intent to survive. Renarin's visions happen even if he actively doesn't want them to. Also, even now when he has more control, he has to ask Glys to replay the vision. It's not like Shallan Lightweaving - Pattern can help her (like when Shallan attaches an illusion to Pattern) but it's still very much Shallan using the power, with Shallan's Intent. So it appears that Glys is the one actively using the power, and it's Glys's Intent that is relevant. Ars Arcanum In the Ars Arcanum, Khriss describes Voidbinding as "cousin to the Old Magic". That always struck me as a bizarre thing to say, since the Old Magic isn't really an Invested Art per se, it's just the Nightwatcher (and maybe Cultivation) messing with people. But from this perspective, it makes sense - in both the Old Magic and Voidbinding, the spren is the one actively using the power; the human is a necessary part of it, but not really active. Other Possible Examples I was going to say that Death Rattles are likely Voidbinding - future sight due to an Unmade acting through a human. But this WoB looks like there's no Voidbinding on screen in WoK or WoR, which does argue against it. It's still possible, though, because it's certainly not pointed out as Voidbinding. I think it's more likely, though, that the Death Rattles, the Thrill, and Ashertmarn's revelry effect aren't Voidbinding by themselves - but can be a pathway to access Voidbinding. When Nergaoul's Thrill allows a bunch of voidspren to possess the Sadeas army, that might be Voidbinding, even if the basic Thrill effect isn't. That would also fit with how Voidbinding in culture is presented as this dangerous temptation - if fairly common effects like the Thrill can be a pathway to it, that makes sense. Yelig-nar might also be Voidbinding. I am not sure if the human host is really using the Surges, or if Yelig-nar himself is. Amaram, at the point we see him fight Kaladin, appears pretty taken over, so it's hard to tell. We'd need a PoV from a Yelig-nar host, or a WoB, to distinguish. The Voidbinding Chart and the Ten Levels I'm not sure if the "ten levels of Voidbinding" mentioned in the Ars Arcanum are just the warped Surge symbols we see on the Voidbinding chart (in which case, why are they called "levels"?) or ten kinds of Voidbinding originating from the nine Unmade + one other thing (maybe Enlightened Spren or Odium himself)? If they're tied to the Unmade, then do the Surge-based symbols mean each Unmade is linked to one of the Surges (presumably lacking Adhesion)? Possibly Cognitive/Spiritual interpretations of them, like Nergaoul's rage being Division based, Sja-Anat's effect being Progression based, or Ashertmarn's effect being Cohesion on a cognitive or Spiritual level, softening minds or souls to make them malleable?