cometaryorbit

There's also my crazy Voidbinding theory: basically Voidbinding is to Surgebinding what Hemalurgy is to Allomancy/Feruchemy, a system defined more by how you get powers than by a set of powers:

Well, I disagree, but I don't think we have enough information to say much more than that ... except perhaps that I think "same magic system" is a loose concept subject to argument. Are Forgery and Bloodsealing the same system or not? Isn't there even a WOB that some would consider all the Selish magic systems variants of one system? I don't agree with this theory exactly, but I think it's close. IMO all the Greater Roshar Invested Arts are variants on the theme if the ten Surges. I don't really think old Ashyn magic was identical to modern Voidbinding- given that per WoB Sja-anat didn't corrupt Radiant spren in the past, I don't even think modern Renarin style Voidbinding is identical to historical Voidbinding - but its being similar makes a ton of sense to me given Odiums influence on Ashyn.

I was thinking more like Pewter Allomancy vs Pewter Feruchemy- both broadly "strength" but very different in detail. Or even maybe Nicrosil Allomancy vs Feruchemy- different powers but similar 'theme'

True but they are speaking a Rosharan language to a Rosharan. Admittedly Voidbinding is remembered at least as a word, but the current Vorin concept of "Voidbinding" may be so corrupted/mythified that it has little correlation to the real thing - apparently people think it basically means future sight, which obviously couldn't blow up a planet. Or both are true, as in my Voidbinding theory where Voidbinding (like Hemalurgy) is more a way to access powers than a power set. Yeah, that's exactly the same analogy I had in mind... different magic systems, but operating on the same basic set of Surges/metals. Using Gravitation through Voidbinding wouldn't do the same thing as using it through (regular) Surgebinding, but there probably is a Voidbinding Gravitation. Etc.

Another thought: Voidbinding is said to be "cousin" to the Old Magic. The Old Magic is basically a superpowered spren messing with spiritwebs. If Voidbinding usually comes from the Unmade... well, they are also superpowered spren, if they bond or do something to a human's spiritweb to allow Voidbinding... That analogy might suggest it's less a bond and more an one-time change to the human's spiritweb, with the Unmade not having to be around the human afterward. Instead they kind of add a crack (like Hemalurgy) to the human's spiritweb, so they're Realmatically open (future sight and voidish influence) and any powers they gain are warped. The Glys-Renarin bond would be a genuinely new thing, even if the individual powers (or the way the Surges are warped) is the same as ancient Voidbinding was.

"Surgebinding" can be used by Rosharans for magic in general, just like anything non-Physical is a "spren" to them. There's specifically a WOB that Bondsmith is both an Order of KR and a power that exists outside that order (just like Lightweaving). The Voidbinding chart mirrors the Surgebinding chart, and Renarins future sight seems like a Voidy Illumination. EDIT: I think pretty much all the magic in the Greater Roshar system is some interpretation or version of the Surges. ("Pretty much" because of the Old Magic and some fabrial effects- though others seem pretty Surge linked. But anything which isnt the spren itself doing the magic, at least. I'd say skyeel flight and chasmfiends not crushing themselves are Gravitation, the singer method of growing plants with rhythm and light is Progression, etc.)

I think there's a bit more to Identity than that. It's also the "familiar resonance" that prevents Investiture from interfering. It's why an Awakener can take back their own Breaths from an object, but not someone else's; or why a Feruchemist can tap their own metalmind, but not someone else's. (Thus why manipulating Identity with Aluminum Feruchemy can allow making unkeyed metalminds.)

I think it's probably better to compare known sets of abilities/equipment. There are a lot of things fabrial tech will probably do eventually, or medallion tech, or advanced applications of the Surges - but those aren't defined well enough to come to a conclusion. So I actually think era 1 Mistborn as we've actually seen them, with 9-12 basic metals (the base eight + gold and possibly electrum/duralumin/aluminum) plus atium but no firearms, vs. current Radiants as we've actually seen them up to RoW, is a better comparison.

I don't think there are really spren of everything, except in the Rosharan sense that all Cognitive aspects are called spren. (Which is totally understandable- Soulcasting is part of their culture and involves interacting with objects' Cognitive, which comes across as talking with them - "I am a stick".) In-world there's a classification into emotion and nature spren, which seems roughly right for the normal Rosharan non-sapient spren - Radiant spren, voidspren, and a few exceptions like Cusicesh probably exist outside that system (though I guess Cusicesh could be an oceanspren or something - though I doubt it.) So I don't think you'd get spren for forms of government like democracy, instead some kind of spren relating to the feelings involved with making decisions or something.

Do we have a Brandon quote confirming that's not the Rosharan broad use of the term; like we do with Fused Surgebinding? I know there's one calling it "manipulation of Surges" but some fabrials manipulate Surges, and Voidbinding likely does too.

Huh! That is really interesting... especially with the weirdness about Shallan's mother's soul as @Rg2045 mentions. Even if a Seon is involved... well the Stormfather is Tanavast's Cognitive shadow merged with a spren...

Returning involves direct intervention by a Shard, so it can probably heal things that normal Cosmere healing can't- if Endowment wanted to. Harmony fixed various lifelong problems, old injuries, etc. when he restored the world, so I think "external" healing by a Shard doesn't have the same Cognitive-view-of-yourself limits.

Its interesting that the Rosharan makes it sound like a direct conflict, whereas the Ones Above are specifically not talking that way - the First of the Sun people have calculated themselves what an orbital bombardment will do, the Ones Above didn't threaten it. They seem to be trying for purely economic control through monopoly of electrical power, medicine, etc.

Yeah Plate is the key to Radiants (at 4th+ ideal) winning. Even Atium (in normal quantities) won't last long enough for a Mistborn's usual weapons (coins and daggers) to break through Plate. Range won't help the Mistborn much since they just can't really harm the Plated Radiant. I'm skeptical that some of the Order specific tricks would work in practice (eg Progression growing plants to grab a Radiant or Cohesion stoneshaping to fire a projectile... I doubt you could actually hit a Mistborn with those sorts of things) but at 4th ideal they don't need specific tricks. EDIT: so i'd say any Order could win reliably at 4th ideal, with the flying or ranged Orders (Windrunners, Skybreakers, Dustbringers, Elsecallers) winning reliably at 3rd due to the Mistborn's lack of healing. Other Orders at 3rd ideal would be pretty binary - either the environment lets the Mistborn stay out of range long enough to run the Radiant out of Stormlight with coins and the Mistborn wins, or it doesn't and the Mistborn gets Shardbladed. -- Now if we give the Mistborn Era 2 tech they can break Plate with guns boosted by Steelpushing the bullet, but even if there were Mistborn in Era 2 they wouldn't have atium, and by 4th ideal Stormlight healing will be so efficient I can't see the Mistborn winning except maybe in the very narrow case that they can stay away almost indefinitely from a Radiant with no ranged option that can hit a Mistborn... and even then, they might literally run out of bullets first given the crazy healing ability we see in RoW.

Surgebinder kaiju would be so awesome. And we're already half there on Roshar, chasmfiends are kaiju like and their weight reducing spren bond is similar to using Gravitation. -- Shallan is bonded to three spren, not two, and the third is Ba-Ado-Mishram who was the Unmade influencing the Davar family and the reason the Ghostbloods and Skybreakers were both interested in the family. -- (More seriously) there are a bunch of secret Kandra on Era 2 Scadrial, possibly not working for Harmony (not necessarily Trell agents or anti-Harmony, possibly just free agents). A lot of the 2nd generation turned against the 1st generation and imprisoned Sazed, would they really just immediately convert to serving Harmony? And TenSoon seems to be the oldest one around... MeLaan does talk about how some of the oldest kandra just got tired of being immortal and figured out how to die, but all of them?

Sure, but 1000 Breaths while a lot isn't nearly enough to make him "one of the most highly Invested individuals that we have seen" - every Returned is Fifth Heightening, equivalent of 2000 Breaths. (The God King is 50,000+)!. And that WoB is post RoW so we'd seen plenty of Fused, and Zahel/Vasher basically says in RoW that Fused are more powerful Cognitive Shadows than Returned (since they don't stay dead when killed again). Which implies that Heralds are also in that stronger category of Cognitive Shadow. 1000 Breaths is a huge amount of wealth in Hallandren - most rich people stop at about 50 (First Heightening) - but it's nowhere near as special as Nightblood is.

We know kandra move around their brain matter (which isn't necessarily centralized in a single brain) - MeLaan talks about it- but as far as I know we don't hear about them creating/reabsorbing it. We're also told that they have to keep a certain minimum mass to keep their intelligence. So it's possible that they need to keep their brain matter relatively intact to keep their memories etc., moving it around but not reabsorbing and re-creating. So they might not have practice with changing it, or not be willing to risk experimenting (as @Duxreduxmentioned). Since their brain matter can be distributed, it's clearly somewhat different from human brains - I don't think we know enough to know if creating more would make them smarter. Perhaps the oldest kandra have to add extra memory storage or something, though?

The Breath can't be taken since it now 'belongs' to the Lifeless not the Awakener (as with Awakening usual inanimate objects), but the Lifeless isn't capable of giving it away. But the Returned-Lifeless would have full sapience and will so I think it could use the Breath used to Awaken it normally, either consuming it or giving it away, since it would now 'belong' to the Returned-Lifeless.

I actually think there might be ambiguity in the term. People in the books sometimes use it as roughly equivalent to 'universe'. But do they know that the Shards' influence doesn't extend infinitely*? It might be ambiguous because the in-world understanding isn't advanced enough to draw the distinction. Or it might just be like the inherent ambiguity of 'world' in English - it usually means the Earth, but in some contexts can mean the whole physical universe (eg 'many-worlds' in quantum mechanics, or 'this world' in a religious context as opposed to the afterlife etc.) *Or, indeed, does it extend infinitely (distance is irrelevant in the Spiritual) and its just that all the planets the Shards 'settled on' and focused upon are in this one cluster?

That's indeed a very interesting idea, but I take that WoB to be implying the problem is that there's *not* a separation between between the mind of a spren and its Investiture- the spren *is* Investiture- and so it's not suitable to be a Vessel for a Shard which is another much larger chunk of Investiture- the spren would just kind of merge into the larger mass. But if there were a way to give the spren that separation... Like Ishars experiments in RoW? I mean we don't know what those would do if successful, but if they made a spren into a sapient Physical Realm being *then* I think the new being could be a Vessel since multiple species with very different biologies can be (Ambition's original Vessel was Sho Del and Cultivation's is a dragon...)

We know from Mistborn Secret History that having held a Shard allows someone to persist indefinitely as a Cognitive Shadow, and we know that a living/intact Shard can voluntarily create Splinters (in addition to pre-Honor-death honorspren, Divine Breaths are also Splinters of a living Shard voluntarily created). But I don't think it would help vs. Odium - if he can kill a whole Shard he can surely kill a Cognitive Shadow.

I think absorbing Investiture is different from destroying evil. He absorbs Investiture to fuel himself in fulfilling his Command (destroying evil). Nightblood 'tests' people and if they register as evil he destroys them by making them fight over him/kill themselves with him. But if they've passed his test and he doesn't see them as evil, and they wield him - he will still eat their Breath / Stormlight / whatever when drawn, that's how he works (he consumes Investiture when drawn). And eventually if they run out of other Investiture he will eat their soul / spark-of-life Investiture, killing them. He also destroys whatever a wielder uses him against, so I think he accepts his wielders (once they pass the test) definition of evil to some degree. Or perhaps that's just his super Shardblade nature- whatever he hits is destroyed.

Technically yeah Nale is a Radiant, but being also a Herald that's easy to miss. Though the Regrowth fabrials might be kept by the Skybreaker Order. -- Re Vin and Zane: I think it's key that Zane basically gave her an opening. He could have killed her quickly. But due to his emotions/internal conflict he didn't. I don't think Preservation was specifically involved there, but Ruin indirectly was (Vin was the only person Ruin's voice didn't tell Zane to kill, which surely contributed to his internal conflict). Ruin still needed Vin to free him. Making that trick work at all still required exceptional skill on Vin's part, but in another situation she'd never have had the chance. - I'd argue that any Radiant without Plate loses to an atium burner- even Kaladin's skill wouldn't be enough in a situation without the atium burner delaying as Zane did - but one with Plate probably wins if they can close the eye slit, since usual Mistborn weapons can't break through Plate in 30 seconds or so. So they run out of atium and then the Radiant wins, not by actually beating atium but by surviving till it's gone. A speed advantage isn't enough, Yomen can dodge attacks from Elend despite lack of pewter, since he sees the attacks coming in advance. I don't think distance helps either- the atium burner wouldn't see the sniper a mile off but would see the atium shadow of the bullet.

I read Warbreaker after Mistborn but before Stormlight (I started in 2013 and read WOK and WoR right about the time WoR came out). Stormlight is longer and more in-depth than Mistborn; Warbreaker is less so.

Hmm, I figured it was because he didn't want anyone else to know how it was done. Hemalurgy was pretty secret; from Marsh infiltrating the Steel Ministry, regular obligators didn't know how Inquisitors were made despite effort in spying. (Though a few in the Canton of Inquisition or directly involved with koloss might have known.) Kandra specifically stayed away from Inquisitors, putting that requirement in their Contracts. Did anyone other than TLR and the kandra know that kandra were made by Hemalurgy? I got the feeling that the "cover story" was that they (and koloss) were created at the Well.