KandraAllomancer

Brandon's quote is specifically "The 'role' of the Shard has to do with the WAY the magic is obtained, not what it can do." Braize system, as far as we know, is only a slightly modified Surgebinding. Designed by Honor, I presume, to punish Odium and siphon his power. And I honestly don't see any other explanation for 9-centric magic (the Fused) and 10 Voidbindings.

I looked it up, and here is the fragment:

We don't know if humans can bond Voidspren permanently (beyond a temporary emotional state). Why doesn't Moash/Vyre attract any Voidspren? Also, Singers are a very interesting case: do spren need to leave their gemhearts to become Shardblades? If Timbre did it, it would set the imprisoned Voidspren free. He still counts as a true Spren, even if corrupted. Or at least I would assume so. The Fused are located in the dead Singer's gemhearts and are affected by the Oathpact. For all we know, they probably can be considered Vodspren at this point.

I think it's all a little big overcomplicated. My theory is that there are two different Odium magic systems: 9-centric Braize Surgebinding. The Fused and most Forms of Power use this. Falls under ten Surges, technically. We have seen this before the end of Words of Radiance (Stormform) 10-centric Rosharan Voidbinding. No longer fully exists (Odium is imprisoned on Braize), but the Unmade (corrupted Investiture, rather than pure Odium Investiture) were never imprisoned and continue to use/provide it. Those are ten Voidish Surges / corrupted Surges / Voidbindings. We have finally seen one example (future sight) in Oathbringer, but it was mentioned before (Hessi's Mythica for example) BTW Thanks @Calderis for helping me come up with this. I think the Unmade, as a whole, have access to all ten Voidbindings (I wouldn't be surprised if Ba-Ado-Mishram had all ten herself), but most have a, let's say, signature move based on one particular Voidbinding. Also, one very important thing that I think no one has mentioned: the effects of magic are never filtered through Shard's Intent. It affects how Investiture is obtained or accessed. For example (Mistborn spoiler): On Roshar, Surgebinding (Honor/Cultivation magic system) requires oaths and progress, while Voidbinding would probably require hatred and giving up control ("your pain") to Odium.

You need metal, insulators (wood? rock?) and semiconductors (silicon falls under quartz/glass/crystal, I think). That's at least three Essences. That's for Earth-type computers. If you want something Stormlight-based you need gems, but those can't be Soulcasted as far as I can tell.

That would be my guess too. Yelig-nar - the whole wind theme makes me want to say Adhesion. Consuming someone might be seen, in a way, as an ultimate expression of forced, corrupted Connection. Also, maybe manipulating Connection is somehow responsible for granting all ten Surges? Ba-Ado-Mishram - Adhesion (massive scale Connection)? Transportation (to get huge amounts of Voidlight from Braize)? Cohesion (hive mind)? We don't really know that much about her at this point. We also don't know if each Unmade has access to only one Voidish Surge (Voidbinding) Nergaoul - emotional Gravitation, focusing solely on battle/competition Ashertmarn - emotional Abrasion, removing inhibitions Re-Shephir - Transformation, creating corrupted Essences Sja-anat - Progression. Enlightening = spiritual growth. She probably removes parts of spren spiritweb, and regrowths something else Moelach - Illumination. Mistborn spoiler: and it looks very different from Renarin's ability Chemoarish - seems like an obvious candidate for Division, but it's hard to prove anything at this point Dai-Gonarthis - Cohesion would be useful for the Scouring of Aimia, but once again, hard to say. We don't really know for sure if he's even an Unmade

For me? Moash killing Taln before he gets his sanity back

I absolutely agree The same I hope for Szeth, just to see if Nightblood can break the Oathpact. I'm fairly sure it can, but both Nightwatcher and Nale don't seem very concerned about this possibility Kalak, on the other hand...

I see several potential problems : It would require extreme willpower. Electrum compounding might help I don't think it's possible for a human to store the blueprint for a modern computer (all the transistors etc.) in their head. With a coppermind though... If I understand correctly, you can soulcast one Essence at a time. I also have no idea which Essence synthetic materials, like plastic, would be The level of required skill is enormous - you probably become a savant and die long before achieving it Dalinar can't just power Soulcasting alone - Stormlight needs to go through a gemstone, and they easily break. No idea how a perfect gemstone would work in this situation

@Calderis I thought about it and I believe you're right. Your theory provides a basis for a much nicer explanation, which has a very epic fantasy, Wheel of Time, feel to it. Here it is: Voidbinding Theory 2.0 Odium Invested in Roshar in the past ("Three of sixteen ruled"), creating a 10-centric magic system - Voidbinding. He was, however, defeated by Honor and Cultivation, imprisoned on Braize and forced to Invest there, creating an underpowered, 9-centric knockoff Surgebinding (that's why he's the Broken One). The only remnant of original Voidbinding are the Unmade, which can grant some powers to humans and certain Forms of Power to the Singers (e.g. Nightform). That's the similarity with Old Magic that Khriss mentioned - both systems are remnants of something much more powerful, fueled by powerful splinters (what happened to Cultivationlight? I believe Unity has something to do with it). The Fused cannot Voidbind yet (without Unmade's help) - they're trying to bring it back, using Braize surges (e.g. Stormform). That's what Desolations are for, and the Everstorm is the first part of their plan. There are some interesting ties to the Selish lore here (svrakiss, Jaddeth's return, Wyrn's future sight). What about corrupted spren? Sja-anat could always corrupt true spren, but only Truthwatcher ones ("I worry about my fellow Truthwatchers"). She was very discrete about it (she was designed to be Odium's spy) and Truthwatchers were very secretive in the first place, so this information never got out to the public. For some reason, she can insert any Voidbinding ability into Truthwatcher spren's spiritweb (Renarin got future sight). That's what the red gem in the middle of the Voidbinding chart represents - corrupted Honor/Cultivation Investiture (the Unmade and the Truthwatcher spren) that can access any Voidbinding.

OK, so who do you think can Voidbind? Yelig-nar grants access to ten surges, but I don't see any evidence those are other than the ones in Surgebinding. Moelach, Nergaoul and Sja-anat do things that Surgebinding Surges cannot do, but that hardly constitutes a magic system. Nine orders of the Fused don't count as nine-centric. Neither do corrupted Knights Radiant, as (A) they're a new thing, (B) they use Stormlight and (C) I don't see any way to corrupt godspren, so, once again, nine-centric. Some Forms of Power would count (Nightform for example), but you consider them organic fabrials. The only option left is some form of human-Voidspren bond we haven't seen yet. Would that mean that Odium has two magic systems (Roshar and Braize based?) or even more? I think that Ars Arcana we see in Stormlight books are a work in progress, and Khriss would modify them if new information was available. Do we even know when they are written? More or less during the True Desolation, before or after (when Odium might be long gone)?

@Pathfinder To be honest, my theory is only that, if any spren would bond with Aerys or Cersei, it would be some vengeful, rogue ashspen. Nothing less, nothing more.

He did have help of his own Cognitive Shadow and the diary still ended up with Gavilar, of all people. Toying with the Unmade would probably have ended tragically. I guess we'll finally read and find out

Much of it was forgotten. Turash was probably alive since the times of the First Desolation, but is still surprised that Voidspren can bond with humans. Unmade were something else before. Voidbinding should be entirely of Odium. When Kaladin says his Third Ideal, some glyphs appear. Glyphs are of Honor, I think. According to the WoB below, the whole Rosharan system is ten-centric. Braize is the odd one. And Odium never Invested in Roshar. Plus, as far as I can tell, numbers seem to be associated with Shards in Cosmere (Preservation and sixteen, for example).

@GoWibble Here is the closest WoB I could find on spiritweb modification: Usually, yes. But if we treat Taravangian as Cultivation's tool, whose Ultimate Empathy Day will be triggered at some point in the future, hardening his spiritweb makes sense. With all the atrocities he's gonna commit, he could ridiculously broken on his less intelligent day and bond with Almighty-know-what kind of spren (a vengeful ashspren? a sociopathic highspren? a Voidspren even?). Such spren would have no problem manipulating dimwitted Taravangian, so why not remove this factor from the equation?

It's absolutely possible. But Honor, in his last moments, wasn't exactly very lucid and was raving about Dawnshards and the danger of using Surges. Cultivation, on the other hand, is much better at seeing the future and is known for using spiritweb modification to influence future events in he favor, as evidenced by what she did with Dalinar.

My line of reasoning goes more or less like this: Odium corrupts (unmades) powerful spren to create the Unmade Cultivation is the only Shard to fight against Odium and live to tell the story She must have learned a lot about how Odium operates from that experience Now she uses that knowledge to wage a silent war against Odium - uncorrupting Sja-anat (modifying her spiritweb) is a vital part of it

@StanLemon Exactly. Why would Odium's magic be symmetrical (it's specifically Vorin symbolism)? Why would it use glyphs (even if modified), which predate Odium's arrival and are associated with the Heralds and Knights Radiant? Why ten Surges, if Odium's number is nine? Why Bondsmiths, when there's no Unmade associated with them? It's all nicely explained if we assume that the chart is an in-universe document - an attempt (not 100% correct) to understand Voidbinding using Surgebinding framework.

@Karger For the record, I don't think she's fully uncorrupted. But she's gained more free will and her abilities changed, which I attribute to Cultivation's influence (it definitely fits her modus operandi). Sja-anat still mostly consists of Odium's Investiture and he can definitely compel her to obey in most situations.

Virtually he same can be said about Taravangian. I still believe he and Sja-anat are ultimately Cultivation's agents, even if they're not aware of it.

It would explain why they don't technically count as full Voidbinding as well. But then again, what about the Fused? They're residing in the gemhearts too, if I remember correctly. This WoB specifically calls Old Magic a magic system. And there is probably more to it - we still don't know what Cultivatonlight does, for example.

I agree And Cultivation would be a stepmother in this analogy One important addendum to the theory - this WoB is usually considered a proof that Stormform is not Voidbinding: It relies, however, on word ambiguity. Take fabrials for example. All spren-based machines are called fabrials (general term), but there are only 30 magic systems on Roshar, so 10 of them must be Surge fabrials (like Soulcasters or Oathgates). The same principle applies to Voidbinding: it's both umbrella term for Odium's magic system and name of the nine corrupted Voidish Surges (Voidbindings). We haven't seen the latter until the end of Oathbringer, when Renarin is shown to use future sight. 10 Surge fabrials + 10 Surges + 9 Voidbindings + Big Spren Magic (Old Magic and possibly the Unmade) = 30 magic systems

I just took a quick look at Oathbringer chapter 121 (I assume this is what you're referring to) and I don't see Stormfather admitting any control over the Oaths (only the knowledge that Lopen wasn't ready before). Lopen's theories notwithstanding, I don't see how Stormfather would allow Syl's bond. Or Spark's. And what about Cultivation/Nightwatcher? And the Sibling?

I don't disagree. I believe that Dalinar will be Unity's vessel and (at the end of Stormlight) the last Shard standing on Roshar. I think that Odium will end up splintered, with his Investiture stored safely on Braize, so that Unity/Dalinar can tap it whenever needed (like a planet-sized, Shardic equivalent of metalmind).

According to the Diagram, Dustbringers are the most likely order of Knights Radiant to accept the Diagram's cause, so this attitude would probably be shared by at least some other ashspren. I agree, though, that most of them wouldn't condone that behavior (and wouldn't bond with human anyway, after the Recreance).