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Thanks! I was going to include an analysis of how my theory relates to things like fabrials and non-Voidbinding Parshendi Investiture, but I feared it would overcomplicate things. Suffice to say, assuming my theory is correct, the other forms of Investiture on Roshar were not necessarily affected by Tanavast's little experiment. The Heralds and the Knights Radiant have to deal with the changed Surge arrangement because they derive their powers (directly or indirectly) from the Honorblades. I think Rayse might have decided to base his Void arrangement on Tanavast's system, though.Perhaps I can write another appendix tomorrow regarding this, after I get some sleep. And... drats, I will have to do a major overhaul of my fabrial theory, won't I?

Well... blood and tallow are also connected to life since they're organic substances found in living things. Life is also symbolized by breath (Vapor), and there is the concept of the "spark" of life. Besides, Pulp and Sinew can be connected to life and still be symbols of Adonalsium/Divinity, since it is that divine being that is responsible for life in the Cosmere.To be clear, I was trying to go for the "Essences are from the Classical Elements" idea, so given that the four terrestrial Elements are already taken by the other Essences, the only element left for Pulp and Sinew was Aether (the fifth, special, heavenly Element). Yes, Leras' change to Scadrian Investiture was pretty minimal; he just added the God metals to the normal metals, which were left intact. But in a way, Tanavast also left the "normal" Surges intact, adding only the Adhesion and Progression "God Surges". The Honorblades were his own fabrications, so he could decide which Surges to put into which Honorblade. It's like the Lord Ruler mixing various abilities in his Steel Inquisitors as he saw fit. It was only a circumvention of the system, not a fundamental change in the system. @Khyrindor: By the way, I forgot to say how excited I am for the chance to have Brandon shoot down or RAFO this theory. Knowing Brandon, though, the wording of the question will have to be really precise. It's possible that merely rearranging the Surges (and adding two Surges) would not be considered as "messing" with them, since the Surges themselves are unchanged. Here are some possible questions I would ask in relation to this theory if I had the opportunity: Theoretically, can the Surges of Illumination and Division be combined to access other Surges? Theoretically, can the Surges of Gravitation and Transportation be combined to gain time travelling powers? Do the Honorblades reflect the natural pairing of the Surges, or did Honor decide which Surge pair to put in each Honorblade? Are there Surges that can be considered as God Surges (analogous to the God Metals on Scadrial)? Anyway, I hope you enjoy the convention!

Thanks, Khyrindor! Honor+Odium sounds very interesting. It could mean Justice (hatred of wrongdoing) or some other concept that indicates "righteous anger". Lift becoming Cultivation is possible if Cultivation's holder ends up dying, but I think Lift is more of a "Spook": a fun character who could become very powerful in the end, but not a Shard. By the way, I've been thinking about how Sanderson's Second Law would affect "Lightborn". There has to be some sort of limitation to them, right? So, allow me to present an appendix to my theory: Appendix A: Order-specific Powers and the Limitation of Lightborn Note: I've decided to revise Appendix A to reflect the following clarification by Brandon regarding an Order's unique power: Since the "quirk" is not necessarily a hybrid of the two Surges, I will now abandon the notion of hybrid powers, my speculations of which I've hidden in the following spoiler: So, now that we know that each Order has its own unique quirk unrelated to their Surges, I will speculate that these quirks will still remain even if the Order's Surges has been "corrected". Therefore, a Lightweaver who became a Ghostblood would still retain the ability to record Memories (which barely has anything to do with Illumination, anyway) and perhaps even change emotions. Also, Windrunners who become Stormlords will still retain their enhanced squires, which makes sense given that Stormlords are also meant to be leaders. *** As for the Second Law and the awesome power of Lightborn, I think it's likely that Lightborn can't access the Order-specific powers of other Orders. In other words, they won't be able to replicate the Memory ability of Ghostbloods, or whatever awesome quirks other Orders might have. Still, I think they're already pretty awesome the way they are.

Perhaps. But the feeling that there seems to be more suitable Essences for most of the Surges was just too strong that I wasn't able to resist developing a theory based on that suspicion.

Part IV: What Might Be Tanavast might have been successful in keeping the Surgebinders under his control for thousands of years, but he's dead now, and is likely to be replaced at some point in the Stormlight Archives series. If my theory above is correct, it is totally possible that people will figure out how to access the "real" Surge-pairs of the Essences. I think the Ghostbloods are one of them. And they are now recruiting Shallan into their ranks. Does this mean she will eventually have access to four Surges (assuming she doesn't kill Pattern)? That would be pretty neat! Another thing I'm thinking about is whether Lift is being groomed by the Nightwatcher to someday become the first Lightborn ever. I guess her "Mistborn"-like method of getting Investiture from ingested substances is what triggered this thought in my mind. I am now sure to watch for signs of non-Edgedancer Surges from this awesome girl in the future. I foresee a time when the Heralds shall become completely obsolete, the Honorblades cease to exist, and the original eight Surge-pairs become the norm. At that point, perhaps the Bondsmiths and the Truthwatchers will also slowly go the way of Mistborn and Atium Mistings. In the end, honor needs to come from within, not forced upon Surgebinders by the Bondsmiths. It will be interesting to see if a new holder of the Honor Shard would implement his Intent in a more democratic way.

Part III: What Came to Be Now I would like to take the hypothetical "original" Surge arrangement described in Part I and create a theoretical explanation as to how the current Surge arrangement came to be. Note that everything below is completely speculative. I make no claim of accuracy or canonicity, merely consistency. So please, don't ask for WoB or evidence! *start of hypothetical scenario* When Odium started threatening Roshar, Honor knew that he will have to start making warriors out of the humans he created. But he realized quickly that granting humans Surgebinding in its original unmodified form would be a mistake. With such powerful combinations of the Surges (especially those of Lightborn), Invested humans would become very difficult to rein in, and would easily be corrupted by Odium. Honor had to find a way to balance Surgebinding power somehow by tweaking the Surges a bit. With the help of Cultivation, Honor modified Rosharian Investiture by mixing the "God Surges" of Adhesion and Progression in with the other Surges. This is similar to how Leras tweaked the Metallic Arts on Scadrial by including the God Metals. The Adhesion Surge is the power to bind things both physically and spiritually, basically a way to hold other Surgebinders to a certain honor code (as in the Oathpact, and as Ishar did when he forced the Knights Radiant to follow oaths). The spiritual binding would come from Honor's own Intent. The Progression Surge, on the other hand would come from Cultivation's Intent, adding the more "cultivating" abilities of Growth and Re-Growth to the pool of Surgebinding abilities. After that, Honor created the ten Honorblades, one for each Essence (including the Aether Essences Sinew and Pulp), and hardwired into them his idea of how the Surges ought to be arranged, hiding the fact that there were originally only eight Surges and that they originally matched the Essences thematically. By offering the Surges to mankind via the Honorblades, Honor successfully jury-rigged the system on Roshar, creating the artificial "balance" that he desired. This is why the ten Heralds have the specific powers that they have. For example, since the Lucentia Honorblade does not have the original Lucentia Surges of Illumination and Division, Vedeledev did not become some uber-powerful Lightborn, and was instead just a Friction-Progression Surgebinder. And since the Nahel spren mimicked the Honorblades, the Knights Radiant all obtained the same Surge-pairs as Honor designed. *end of hypothetical scenario*

Part II: What Could Have Been Given the differences in the Knights Radiant Double Eye chart and the theoretical "original" arrangement I described in Part I, let us take things one step further by imagining what abilities Surgebinders would have if they used my theoretical arrangement. Here is my attempt (complete with made-up Order names!): Lucentia: Lightborn (Division and Illumination) If you think Mistborn are overpowered, wait till you see these badasses. By manipulating Stormlight itself and dividing it into various colors, Lightborn can have access to all the Surges! Spark: Lightweavers?Firestarters (Illumination and Transformation) Interestingly enough, there is still an Order with both Illumination and Transformation Surges under my arrangement. They should have the same general powers as the Order of Lightweavers (perhaps not their Order-specific quirks), but I don't think the title applies to these fellows anymore. I think they focus less on inspiring people or giving "spiritual sustenance", and more on government destabilization, starting revolutions, and generally sowing chaos in enemy lands. They might also be experts in offensive uses of the Illumination Surge (e.g. firing lightning bolts at enemies). I suspect that Malchin would have been a great Firestarter. Vapor: Dark Inquisitors (Transformation and Gravitation) Imagine you are committing some heinous crime using Surgebinding, when all of a sudden a flying, black-clad, smoke-trailed officer of the law lands on your head while simultaneously administering a Soulcasting kick that turns you into smoke. Nobody expects the Vapor Inquisition. Zephyr: Stormlords (Gravitation and Transportation) A Stormlord considers himself the master not only of the sky and of the chasms, but also of the Three Realms. He may not be able to Soulcast, but he'll be able to send enemies flying in all directions, to all locations, and through all realms. He could also lord it over the spren in Shadesmar, if he so wants. Quite a dominating bunch, these Stormlords. Blood: Ghostbloods (Transportation and Tension) Yep, I'm incorporating the Ghostbloods in my theory. I believe Mraize and a few of his friends use the Transportation Surge to creepily appear out of nowhere, like a ghost. And as for the Tension Surge, I'm sure they found a way to creep people out using that, as well (e.g. making walls soft enough to go through, maybe?). Also, ever noticed that at least one of them is a Worldhopper? The Transportation Surge is a perfect tool for Worldhopping, since you can physically transport your entire self into Shadesmar. Tallow: Oilwrestlers (Tension and Friction) While these Tension-Friction Surgebinders can probably turn any nearby object into a deadly weapon, they won't even need weapons. Oilwrestlers are the masters of all sorts of martial arts. Not only do they have faster reflexes than Szeth or Kaladin, they're also a lot more slippery. You better watch out for that friction-enhanced fist, or you're definitely fried! Foil: Metalsomething-ers? (Friction and Cohesion) I don't have any theory yet about the Cohesion Surge (though I like Moogle's malleability theory), so I shall skip this for now. Talus: Rockslayers (Cohesion and Division) Whatever they might be doing with the Cohesion Surge, I think it's enough to say that these Surgebinders can easily slay huge rocks without the need for a Shardblade.

Introduction In a previous thread, I noted several strange things about how the Surges are currently connected to the Orders/Essences. Most of them just didn't seem to fit, in my view. How does blood relate to illumination? What has tallow got to do with transformation? Anyway, since I promised not to formulate a theory in that thread, I'll just post the theoretical solution I came up with here. But first, let me describe two other issues that, in addition to the Surge issues I've already mentioned, eventually led me to this theory (spoilered for length). The Problem of Elemental Arrangement The Problem of Edgedancers Due to these problems, I'm going to theorize that, for some reason, Tanavast "did a Leras" and fiddled with Rosharian Investiture at some point in the past. Let me detail this theory into four parts (plus a few appendices): Part I: What Was Part II: What Could Have Been Part III: What Came to Be Part IV: What Might Be Appendix A: Order-specific Powers and the Limitation of Lightborn Appendix B: Cultivation, the Listeners, and Odium Appendix C: Circumstantial Evidence from the Books Part I: What Was I believe that what we now see in the Knights Radiant chart does not reflect the natural order of the Surges on Roshar. This natural order involves eight "basic" Essences (Lucentia, Spark, Vapor, Zephyr, Blood, Tallow, Foil, and Talus) that normally interact with Roshar, and the two "Aether" Essences (Sinew and Pulp) that deal with Shardic Investiture and transcend the other eight. The interaction of the eight Essences manifest as the eight "basic" Surges: Illumination, Transformation, Gravitation, Transportation, Tension, Friction, Cohesion, and Division. Each Surge reflected the qualities of two Essences, as I shall detail below (spoilered for length): Here's a diagram: And here's another diagram with the exact same Essence connections, but twisted vertically at the center, and with Sinew and Pulp added but disconnected from the others: Notice how it's almost the Double Eye of the Almighty, only minus the connections to Sinew and Pulp. Also, notice how it looks like two diamonds merged at the tip. In fact, even the first diagram sort of looks like a gemstone, and can probably be stylized into looking like the crown view of an "old eight cut" diamond. Edit: Re-worded Part I due to theory developments in Part III. I sometimes change my mind about details in my theory halfway through writing it. Sorry if this confused anyone. Also, fixed some weird formatting errors that appeared in my last edit.

Good theory! It's been suggested before. Edit: LOL, I didn't realize this thread is already almost two months old.

Here's one from Brandon's Annotation of the Prologue: Even after the First Heightening (where instinctive aura recognition is first achieved), I believe the ability to sense auras continues to improve with each Heightening. At the Seventh Heightening, the Awakener can even sense the aura of objects infused with Breath. I suppose Breath acts as the "life force" of an Awakened object. I imagine that at the power level of Endowment, the aura of the Shardworld itself (which has a strong Spiritual presence) becomes visible, making the whole surface of the planet seem suffused with light. And that's exactly what Stennimar saw when he died:

In my understanding, the problem faced by the Shards on Scadrial is not that they can't detect metal, but that metal glows so overwhelmingly bright in their perception that it's impossible to read anything written on them. If we want to find Nalthian analogue of this, we need to ask what things become more visually impressive the more Breath one has. What thing shines brightly in the eyes of a powerful Awakener? I think it's the aura of living things, or perhaps Breath itself. I don't think it has to be the Focus (that would be the Commands).

It doesn't have to be subatomic fission. There just needs to be a Power of Creation-Realmatic Object equivalence, such that a certain object (from whatever Realm, whether it even has "mass" as we know it or not) can be transformed into a certain amount of Power, using whatever equation Brandon (or Peter) thinks is suitable for the stories. Again, E=mc^2 does not have to come into play. Sorry, but I never said that. I even explicitly gave examples of fuel on Sel (e.g. life, blood, organic ink). Again, there doesn't seem to be any fuel for AonDor in particular. Power seems to come directly from the Dor, and not by consuming some other stuff. Just by looking at the text, we find no evidence for an AonDor fuel at all. The fact that this fits very well with the image of a very devoted Shard freely giving away its own Power for the sake of others means AonDor makes sense in the context of what Brandon said: "The means of getting powers are related to the Shard."

@Kurk and @Moogle: Indeed, the Ars Arcanum did seem to dismiss Body Focuses. That makes the fact that Transformation is not connected to Spark a bit less weird. But how about the other connections I mentioned that don't involve the Body Focuses? @Moogle: What's the connection between tallow/oil/fat to the soul? The "Essences are insignificant human embellishments" option is of course possible, but I choose to make that the last resort since it's pretty boring.

Good arguments against the Joule-Thompson-Sanderson Effect, Tempus. Now about the other things... And yet we know from Einstein that even a bunch of metal flakes can produce a lot of energy. While I doubt Brandon took E=mc^2 into account while writing his Mistborn scenes (he doesn't have to; this is just fantasy, after all), you're going to need a much better argument against metal->Power transformation than just pointing out how tiny metal flakes are. Energy to energy conversion is pretty typical. I never said anything about Fuel necessarily being matter. As for "color", in my Object-Oriented Realmatic Theory everything is an object, including spiritual entities (idealized forms, conceptions, forces, etc.) and cognitive entities (emotions, perceptions, beliefs, etc.), and therefore subject to the Power of Creation. Pardon me, but isn't that exactly what I've been saying all along? Color provides the Power needed for extra Investiture. The other fuels/reactants provide more Power that the Shard's existing Investiture provides. I think we sort of have the basic idea, if not the exact wording, Tempus. Lastly, I think your complaint against Intent's supposed influence on how Investiture is used (including the interesting example you gave) should be addressed to Brandon. He was the one who invented these Intent-based magic systems, after all. In my opinion, while it clearly has some flaws (e.g. the ambiguity of Intent's influence, as you pointed out), it's still loads better than any other magic system other authors have come up with. At any rate, Brandon has indicated in the past that the various powers can indeed by controlled by any of the Shards; it is the way these powers are accessed that is influenced by their Intent: As a note here, the powers granted by all of the metals--even the two divine ones--are not themselves of either Shard. They are simply tools. And so, it's possible that one COULD have found a way to reproduce an ability like atium's while using Preservation's power, but it wouldn't be as natural or as easy as using Preservation to fuel Allomancy. The means of getting powers--Ruin stealing, Preservation gifting--are related to the Shards, but not the powers themselves.

Okay, I don't intend to make a theory here (I promise!). I'll describe something that's been bugging me ever since we started learning more about the Surges from various post-WoK WoBs, and especially after WoR. After I do that, I'll let you guys give whatever explanation you can think of. Because I certainly don't know what to make of this. The first inkling of this problem of mine appeared when we learned that there is a form of Lightweaving on Roshar, and that it involved the Surge connecting Pulp and Blood. When I saw that, I felt troubled. "What's Blood got to do with Light?" I asked myself. This nagging feeling that something was wrong intensified when we finally got the Surge name: "Illumination". Illumination. Light. Shouldn't that be more of a Spark (which connotes "fire") and Lucentia (which is Latin for "visibility") thing? What's going on? Then I looked at the other Surges. There is Transformation, the Surge of Soulcasters, which was assigned to Blood and Tallow. Note the term: Soulcaster. Why then isn't it assigned to Spark, which is the Essence of the Soul? And Vapor is the Essence of smoke, the end product of certain significant transformations. So Transformation would have been the perfect Surge for Spark and Vapor, except it was given (randomly, it seemed to me) to Blood and Tallow. Next, there is Transportation. I don't know about you, but I think Blood, which transfers oxygen and nutrients to all the cells in the body, sounds like a perfect Essence for Transportation. I'm not quite sure of what a second appropriate Essence would be (Pulp might fit due to the capillary action that happens in plants), but that's beside the point that the Surge has weird connections. What's Foil (metal) got to do with Transportation?! Then the real weirdness starts. Doesn't Progression sound perfect for Pulp and Tallow (because, you know, fat makes things bigger)? Okay, that was sort of a joke. But speaking of Tallow, doesn't it remind you of Lift's "Slick" ability (because, you know, oil makes things slick)? But that ability is supposed to be from the Abrasion Surge, connected to Lucentia and Spark. It does not make sense! None of this makes sense! If the Essence does not fit, you must acquit! Um... sorry about that... Could anyone help me make sense of all this? Am I just seeing connections that don't really exist? Did Tanavast mess with the Surges when he arrived on Roshar? Or did some other Shard do the messing? Or is there some other more elegant explanation? The only Surge that I think sort of fits its current Essences is Cohesion and Adhesion. I don't even know what to think of Gravitation and Division! Heeelllppp... Edit: Other problems: Why does Talus have both Strong Axial Interconnection ("Cohesion") and Soft Axial Interconnection ("Tension")? And isn't the Tension Surge supposed to be based on surface tension, which is a property of liquids? Edit: Whoops, I accidentally wrote a four-part theory based on this. Sooorrryyy...

Many eons ago (well, technically it was just last year, but it feels so long ago that I've almost forgotten about it), when I was trying to grasp Realmatic theory, I speculated that for some magic systems in the Cosmere (not necessarily all), there is something found in nature that can be transformed into a spiritual power called the "Power of Creation" (a term that Brandon has used in interviews) and then Invested on another object. I called this something a "Fuel for Investiture". Unfortunately, I wasn't able to elaborate on that term at the time, but I guess I can do so here, then compare my ideas with that of Moogle and Tempus. So, all the magical stuff happening in the Cosmere is due to the investiture of the Power of Creation (or just plain "Investiture" for short) upon various objects. This Power comes from Adonalsium, who used the Power of Creation to make the Cosmere what it was. After the Shattering, the Power was divided among the resulting Shards of Adonalsium, who continued the process of Investiture, but now separately and with different Intents. As far as I know, everything in the previous paragraph is backed by WoB, so I hope we all agree on that. Now, onto something more controversial. When I try to analyze AonDor, it appears to me that the Power of Creation comes directly from the Dor, which is a Shardpool. A similar thing happens when an Allomancer taps into Preservation's Mist to access the Power of Creation directly. In both cases, the Power is taken directly from a Shard. Some other forms of Investiture are not as direct. Awakening involves draining the color of objects. Regular Allomancy involves "burning" metal. In those cases, I think that the Shard sort of "cheats" a little: instead of taking the Power directly from its own Shardic stores for Investiture, the Shard transforms an object into Power, adds his own Intent, making the power his own, and then uses that for Investiture. In other words, color-draining (in Awakening) and metal-burning (in Allomancy) are just ways to create Power outside of what the Shard already has. That's what "Fuel" is. In the case of Feruchemy (and Hemalurgy), the attributes of persons are the things transformed into Power and Invested. Again, in this case the Power in the Shard is not used (except maybe when granting the Feruchemy ability to a person, but that's another mystery altogether). But why would Shards need to take Power from other things? Don't they have humongous power Invested in themselves? Well, it really depends on the Intent of a Shard. We know that Leras was more into preserving humans than preserving himself (hence the sacrifices he made), but using metal to create more Power to preserve his own (to an extent) still fits his Shardic Intent. The Shard of Ruin obviously fits a system where the attributes of murder victims are used for slowly-decaying Power. Feruchemy mixes both Intents to create a system that uses the attributes of persons without necessarily harming them. Endowment Invested humans with Breath, as a form of endowment ("gift"). Now, a good gift is one that lasts a long time, so it fits Endowment's Intent to use Breath only for non-consumed Power and to get consumable Power from the color of objects. *** On the other hand, it makes perfect sense that Devotion's Investiture is taken directly from the Shard's own Power stores, because the Shardic Intent in this case is very self-sacrificial. That's why we don't see a "Fuel" in AonDor. I suspect Dominion is a bit less open with its stored power, hence the need to sacrifice people to power certain Dakhor magics, and to use blood in Bloodsealing. I'm not sure what this makes Forgery (which uses organic ink as "Fuel"), but I wouldn't be surprised if it is a hybrid Devotion+Dominion system. What I'm saying is that the existence of a "Fuel" is not a universal thing for all forms of Investiture. It all depends on Shardic Intent and specific applications of that Intent. This, I think, is my only disagreement with Moogle here. I don't think we need to look for a Fuel in AonDor because Elantrians are already taking the Power directly from the Dor. Nor do I think that Mist becomes metal inside an Allomancer's body. Why would it need to, if the Mist itself is already a form of Power? *** All that being said, I'm still impressed by Moogle's idea that heat is something consumed during Surgebinding. (Or was that Tempus?) If that really is the case, then Surgebinding is a lot more like Awakening that I previously thought, and that might explain why Brandon already placed an Awakener on Roshar in his early Way of Kings drafts, even before Warbreaker was written. Good job! Another theory that tries to explain "magical coldness" is Bean's Joule-Thompson-Sanderson Effect. I think I like the Moogle-Tempus "Surgebinding Heat-Consumption Theory" a bit more than that now, though.

Haha! Incidentally, I attended a free Filipino martial arts lesson a couple of weeks ago. The female instructor taught me some basic knife-fighting exercises. The whole time I pretended I was holding an obsidian dagger instead of a wooden practice knife, and that the instructor was Vin. Anyway, the Philippines is generally considered part of Southeast Asia (like Malaysia and Singapore), not Oceania. Moving it to the Asia category would be very much appreciated! Alright! I'll send her a PM later: "Hey! Aether wants to nibble at your toes. Please tell him where you live."

I need to visit the General Discussion forum more often. Anyway, I'm from the Philippines. I know another Filipino member, but I'll let her announce it here herself if she wants.

I can't believe I didn't see this earlier! My joke avatar is pretty awesome, Tempus. Thanks! I shall save it for when I've gotten sick of my current avatar. Edit: On second thought, might as well use it now!

Yes, it's always possible that important details related to a particular scene were hidden from the reader, but I don't see why that should stop us from speculating things based on the given text alone. Unless Brandon left clues, the hidden things will stay hidden until he reveals them. In the mean time, we might as well use the clues that are there (e.g. Hesina's lecture on spren, which suggests that Mind flames exist separately from the Identity beads of living things). Rest assured that I'll keep a look out for evidence of flame-to-bead transformations in future books.

If I needed to manipulate light, I'd hire a Lightweaver. That would be infinitely more efficient than making a Windrunner lash onto individual photons traveling at three hundred million meters per second (and also infinitely more safe, since making bone-crushing gravity-wells won't be necessary). I think it's possible to just infuse the water in the barrel since it is isolated enough to have its own Identity. He'll just have to make sure that the water has a clear path "down" towards the target (which should be easy: just make sure no one closes the barrel with a tight lid or otherwise block the water flow).

Alright, that's much clearer. I suppose I could indeed imagine a Mind flame following a person's actual physical location. Good theory. I'm pretty sure there's an Identity bead in Shadesmar representing the quartz figure that was once a Kharbranthian footpad who tried to attack Jasnah. His Mind flame vanished when he died, but that bead was left over. Also, when a Vorin lighteyes dies, an ardent would traditionally Soulcast him into a statue. How would you Soulcast a corpse if there's nothing left over in Shadesmar to represent it? I think what Syl means is that living things are more than just material objects arranged a certain way; they have a certain "spark" (the spark of life) that sets them apart from non-living things. When you kill, you could say that you're just rearranging matter and nothing is really lost ("The meat is still meat," you might say), but in fact something *is* lost, because you've extinguished a flame, and the spark is now gone.

@Moogle: It's one thing to say that spatial relations don't matter much on Shadesmar, and it's another to imagine what that actually means. Remember that Jasnah transported her whole body into Shadesmar after her "death" scene (i.e. no more body in the Physical Realm). Suppose she landed on a particular location on Obsidian Shadesmar land, wherein she finds her Mind flame floating a certain short apparent distance X from her. Suppose she then travels across Shadesmar, perhaps crossing glass bead "waters", to the highspren city an apparent big distance Y from her initial location. Would she still find her flame floating a short distance away? Did it follow her? Maybe I'll get what you're saying after I get some sleep. Good night!

That's a good point. So bloodmark=garnet one and firemark=ruby. I wonder why you didn't accept my Essence-based explanation for firemark=ruby. Anyway, just to answer your other post, in that scene the apothecary never mentioned the exact price of knobweed sap. Kaladin also had the following thought: Kaladin is given only half what bridgemen earn because he's a slave. So that's a clearmark a day. Given there's five diamond chips in a clearmark, that's fifty diamond chips for the antiseptic. Fifty diamond chips is also exactly two garnet marks. Incidentally, the two prices actually mentioned were two bloodmarks (for the mucus) and two sapphire marks (for the oil). The antiseptic Kaladin mentioned must refer to the mucus (the cheapest choice), so a bloodmark must be the same as a garnet mark. Sorry for making a big deal out of this. Carry on.

Ah, that's a great point, Shardlet (haven't seen you in a while, BTW ). For those who've forgotten, here's the scene Shardlet referred to: I've almost forgotten about that, myself. Anyway, this sort of fits my last idea above that Elsecalling involves Mind flame manipulation. By the way, shouldn't Shallan's flame be positioned right next to her, and following her around? It seemed like the flames in that scene just stayed put, which is weird since Jasnah travelled all across Shadesmar in Words of Radiance presumably without leaving her Mind flame behind.