Magic Archive

[Verline Wesolowski]

I've read every Cosmere book that Brandon Sanderson wrote, I understand breaths, allomancy, Feruchemy, and Aons (or the basic principles, at least). However, within the Stormlight Archive books (with 2 rereads) I cannot get even a basic understanding for the magic system.

I've read through the forum trying to understand the way other people explain it, but it's just not clicking, and this is important, because the information that I'm missing, or simply not understanding, could be substantial when creating and understanding ties with not just Roshar, but how they are connected along the cognitive, spiritual, and physical realm.

Well, it's pretty simple. Basically, once someone forms a bond with a spren, they can sort of bribe spren (with Stormlight) to do what they want. Each order has the ability to bribe two types of spren representing "fundamental forces." For the Windrunners, it's Gravity and Air Pressure. The "lashings" are basically just every way that these two Surges can be used together.

The exception to this are Surgebinders with the ability to Soulcast (the Elsecaller and Lightweaver orders, to be exact,) who can apparently bribe the spren of any physical object to change what they're made out of, in lieu of one of their spren types.

We don't know what, or how most of the Surges operate in detail. We have yet to see Division, Cohesion, or Tension used on-screen. We have hints that Division can melt stones, WoB says Cohesion could allow you to stick your hand on a table and leave a handprint like the table is wet concrete, and Tension can make things stif (imagine making a piece of paper as hard as steel and cutting things with it).

Each order of KR bonded a single type of spren, which grants the ability to use the abilities. (So, if you bond a liespren, you are called a Lightweaver, if you bond an honorspren, you are called a Windrunner. There is also one Honorblade for each order granting the same powers as the spren grants.) Each KR is granted access to two Surges, and shares each Surge with another order.

The surges don't really "perform" that list off things, those are names for the surges themselves. All surgebinders command two surges naturally, dependent on the bonded spren/honorblade, and there's really not much else to explain in the "how" department besides "I inhale stormlight, then shape it to do certain things when I put the stormlight into objects".

The lashings are just what windrunners of old used to refer to various common uses of there abilities, because I doubt a bunch of people from stone/bronze age tech-level societies know enough about physics to be able to tell you which of their powers uses vacuum pressure and which alters gravity. We do not really know if bondsmiths or skybreakers share this terminology with the abilities they share with windrunners.

It's fundamentally not too different from allomancy, really. You take external investiture and bring it into yourself, and then shape it to produce a specific result. In allomancy, however, it's just that you burn a metal to break it down, and depending on the atomic structure of the metal burned you unconsciously send the message "Hey, Preservation, give me power molded in [this] way to do [that]" and Preservation does so automatically. God metals are exceptions and might be closer to surgebinding than normal metals.

With surgebinding, you have to procure the power (stormlight) personally by collecting it in a highstorm with gems or some other method, then absorb it into your body and shape it yourself to do something. The spren bonded to your soul determines what forms you are capable of manifesting, while with allomancy what you can produce depends on what you can burn, which is encoded into your spiritual DNA at birth.

Not exactly: Windrunners use one field of Investiture, namely Surgebinding. The Surgebinders are most akin to Mistlings/Ferrings: they can use a part of a whole Investiture-System. The relation between Windrunners and, for example, Edgedancers is like those between Coinshots and, let's say, Tineyes. They are still in the same Investiture system, but for first look their Investiture looks unrelated. If you look closer, you see the similarities; especially the focus of the Investiture is similar: metal (or, better said, the burning of metal) in the case of both allomancers; and the consumption of stormlight in the case of both surgebinders. Twinborn use two different magic systems: Allomancy and Feruchemy.

Theoretically it would be possible to cross these two systems with Surgebinding (with equally oscure and fascinating results). Would be interesting to look at a Windrunner-Lurcher or Truthwatcher-Pewterarm or something like it.

There shouln't be a limitation like that for "Extraplanetar Humans". We know that other kind of Bonds gain Power on Roshar (like the Seon bond) and that probably the Roshar's Peoples themself aren't native of Roshar.

Though whether surgebinding fails completely outside of Greater Roshar is a problem. Parts of a nahel bond's properties apparently come entirely from local realmatics, IIRC, something that will even happen to a seon and its bonded master if in range.

This is quite a point. Something must change outside of Roshar. For me a surgebinder lost it's ability to access the local investiture (Stormlight) also if he carry on Himself some Infused Spheres. But this is of course a my idea and there isn't any kind of proof.

Adding elements doesn't imply a better product, personally I prefer to see magic works with clear elements and see them used in originally way rather than having tons of them popped up around for every circumstances.
Some could disagree with me, others will agree with me...It's mostly matter of taste and perception ;-)

Mistborn is much better understood. We know, other than the limits of hemalurgy, and the functions of a few feruchemical metals, what it does and what it's capable of it has hard limits and can be manipulated in ways that are easily understood and quantified.

At least until we understand the rules and limits of surgebinding better, the Metallic Arts are the better defined magic system. And that's what a lot of people like about Brandon's magic to being with, so that's probably where you're getting that vibe from.

I like the Mistborn magic, I love Stormlight. Mistborn is more "Oh, that is really cool"., where as S.A. managed to find the perfect blend of the system that makes sense and yet carried a huge wow factor.

This may be weird to some other people, but I hate magic systems that are dependent on bloodlines (with the exception of stuff like vampire/blood magic, since the blood IS the magic). As such, a large part of Mistborn's magic system just never resonated with me.

What I love about Surgebinding isn't so much that the magic itself is cooler or more powerful than that of Mistborn, but how the magic system is oath-based and is tied more strongly to how the characters act, rather than who the characters are. Basically, allomancy/feruchemy are dependent on WHO you are, while surgebinding is dependent on who you ARE, if that makes sense.

I pretty much agree with everything @Calderis said. The big difference is we really understand Mistborn magic and still have a lot to learn about Stormlight magic. I actually like the magic in Warbreaker over the both of them but I am probably in the minority there. I also somewhat agree with @Patrick Star that magic systems are better when they are not inherited. Of course with Hemalurgy and what the Southern Scadrians are doing there is still some non-inherited magic in Mistborn. I agree with the general sentiment though that magic is better when people have the ability to gin it beyond being born with it.

I was actually thinking about this the other day and I'm not sure if a shardblade could hurt a mistborn if they were burning the right metals. If they were burning aluminum or perhaps even pewter the investiture in their bodies might deflect a blade not sure though.

But over all We have had much deeper access to the mistborn power set in both cosmere novels and in additional materials. This has helped us establish a ruleset to live by in mistborn. Eventually the same will be true with SA and teasing out the rules is what excites me because I know there are hints here and there of the relationships and of things to come.

For example before era 2 we knew a lot less about compounding and many feruchemical powers but many of those mysteries have been solved with enough new mysteries that it is still interesting. Now with those additional rules it becomes obvious why the LR was so powerful.

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