name_here Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 Actually, the prayers are generally written in glyphs, which most lighteyed men can read and write. The gender distinction is only for the Alethi alphabet, which is why the Stormwardens get away with apparently inventing a pictographic writing system and writing books with it. Which also means they are one of the only organizations of which all members are capable of communicating by spanreed without needing a scribe, causing me to suspect they're up to something. Male ardents can also write the Alethi alphabet, and there's no evidence much came of it. Maybe the writing-related system is used by a Radiant order associated with a female Herald? Possibly Shallan's order, since her bonded spren vaguely resemble glyphs. That could have become culturally enshrined. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odium's_Shard Posted March 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 I apologize, its getting quite late and its been a long day. I had forgotten all of the exceptions, had become wrapped in my own excitement and my head is still reeling from getting thrashed at quantum mechanics by Chaos. The Stormwardens also ring alarm bells in my mind. After all, maybe they could be some sort of strange twisted Radiant underground movement that is analysing the Storms and Stormlight in order to discover more secrets of their lost Order, and so moves around detailing the locations of storms and issuing correcting warnings to the populace, after the old ideals. I don't feel their intent is malicious though. But you'd have to defer to Chaos for this one, after all, he did come up with the Theory of Intent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos he/him Posted March 28, 2012 Report Share Posted March 28, 2012 BTW, Chaos, did you know that photon does not have a well-defined wavefunction in classical quantum mechanics? Since it moves with a speed of light, and all, so the relativity takes over (and fails miserably). Oh, yeah, naturally. I am, in fact, totally lying to make an illustrative point. To do a proper treatment requires Quantum Electrodynamics, which is waaaay too math-intensive to make the point about wavefunction collapse I was trying, haha. If it makes you feel better, maybe think of the double-slit experiment with electron beams. Or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dros Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 (edited) However, the 'written word' theory deteriorates a bit when it is mentioned that Kaladin only has to speak aloud the Oath to 'bind' his will to Honor's power. However, I should say that this may be because Syl hears it (she seems to be necessarily present) and notes it down Cognitively, which sends the 'written word' from Physical, Kaladin's voice, through Cognitive, Syl's notation, to Spiritual, the unlocked power invoked by the words. Someone or something prompted the words for him, though. So there's probably something special about the exact phrasing or cadence with how they're spoken. I'd be curious to know if he had messed up the wording, like instead saying "I will, most definitely, protect those who cannot protect themselves" would the effect be the same? -or- Maybe he's not accessing Honor's power, but Cultivation's. edit: I'm biased towards this one, because if Honor's dead, who was prompting him to speak the words? Edited March 29, 2012 by Droz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sweetness she/her Posted March 29, 2012 Report Share Posted March 29, 2012 Is Honor dead? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Terrisman Posted March 30, 2012 Report Share Posted March 30, 2012 I think so. Isn't there a chapter that says "Honor is Dead"? One of the opening ones maybe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyRioter she/her Posted March 30, 2012 Report Share Posted March 30, 2012 chapter 2 yeah. Peter actually referenced it as a clue once. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted March 30, 2012 Report Share Posted March 30, 2012 Honor is dead, but dead's a relative term when it comes to Shards. Devotion and Domination were long dead during Elantris, but their magic systems were in perfect shape. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyRioter she/her Posted March 30, 2012 Report Share Posted March 30, 2012 well not really, the Reod wouldn't have happened if Aona was there to keep an eye on things, probably. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Voidus Posted March 30, 2012 Report Share Posted March 30, 2012 Well it could be that upon being spoken the written oath was restored somehow. Magical scribing system or something also since Honor left that message for Dalinar, he could have done something similar for any future KR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dros Posted March 30, 2012 Report Share Posted March 30, 2012 Should've put a spoiler tag on that part about Honor, sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zas678 he/him Posted March 31, 2012 Report Share Posted March 31, 2012 Don't worry about it! It's the General Theories section, so no need to worry about spoilers. Here there be "more spoilers than you can shake a lifeless at!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Odium's_Shard Posted March 31, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2012 Exactly. Why do you think I haven't read Elantris yet? Also, in all honestly, the occasional reference to things such as 'Reod' and 'Aon', etc, really hold no spoiler potential, as without context, they lack substance to 'shock'. Whereas 'the Almighty is dead' really can't be misinterpreted anyway you look at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triasmus Posted April 1, 2012 Report Share Posted April 1, 2012 Don't worry about it! It's the General Theories section, so no need to worry about spoilers. Here there be "more spoilers than you can shake a lifeless at!" I'd have problems shaking a lifeless at anything, so that adds up to at least one spoiler. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lil_literalist he/him Posted April 24, 2012 Report Share Posted April 24, 2012 Another physics topic! Hooray! It looks like the quantum-mechanics side of it has been explained fairly well, though I'll just touch on a few points. When we get down to a quantum scale (atomic-sized stuff and smaller), this is where QM really rears its head. Now, when we talk about not knowing a particle's position, it's not just that we can't measure it but it does exist at one point. The particle's location really isn't determined, and actually exists as a probability. The uncertainty principle, if applied to the spren here, would mean that once you measured a spren and its size was fixed, some other aspect of the spren would begin to fluctuate wildly. And then measuring that aspect would free up the spren's size again. As Chaos said, the spren's behavior is more analogous to the waveform collapsing. (Unless, possibly, the aspect of the spren that changes is not in the physical realm.) Also, most of the "laws" in physics are actually "theories." Although some theories are generally always accepted as laws, many physicists aren't going to say for certain that the theory will hold true in every single instance, no matter what the circumstances. But for laws in classical mechanics, where we can observe things with ease, we tend to call things laws just because within certain guidelines, the theories will hold true. I don't have much else to add to the spren discussion, but I'd like to talk about burning the prayers. Now, is it reasonable to assume that these prayers are actually heard by Honor, Cultivation, or some deity? On one hand, these prayers are treated almost the same way as simple charms, like the ones the bridgemen buy. On the other hand, they are being burned, transformed into fire--one of the ten essences. Is it possible that this could somehow be related? I would say no, because we see very little spiritual significance of fire in other places, and there shouldn't be any reason why this would stand alone. Also, going by that logic, prayers could be written in blood. ... Anyway... Let's just assume that a Shard or a deity is listening. The one thing that seems to separate the prayers from the charms is the act of destruction. Just like erasing the figures for the spren (which is how the two were linked in the first place). But in that case, the prayers wouldn't necessarily need to be burned, if all that was needed was the destruction of the form. The prayers could be ripped to shreds, soaked in water, written in disappearing ink (even Navani's burn ink left a burn mark, so complete destruction shouldn't be necessary), or even eaten. So why burn them? I doubt that there's anything along this line of reasoning, but I just thought I would bring it up for other people to digest. Of course, it's also possible that the burned prayers are just a wasted effort, and that only special people like those who form Nahel bonds can interact with the Shards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
name_here Posted April 24, 2012 Report Share Posted April 24, 2012 Shards, at least by the prior evidence, can effectively see everything on the planet except what they're specifically blind to and things obscured by that. So I don't see any particular reason why the method of destruction would matter, except that it would need to be possible to read the symbols at some point during the destruction. Fire is good for this if the ink used on Roshar is of a kind that would burn either before or after the surface it is written on, producing a glyph-shaped flame. So it's quite possible Honor once told someone that he'd make sure to read any message written in glyphs and set on fire, and alternate methods would theoretically work if Honor happened to be paying attention. This wouldn't really be a proper magic system, as Honor would grant prayers on a case-by-case basis instead of a fixed set of rules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Triasmus Posted April 25, 2012 Report Share Posted April 25, 2012 Actually from what I gathered, shards focus on a single area, but they can move around fast. and while they're focused on the one thing, everything else is in their "peripheral" with things farther away being more to the side (although they can widen their focus, which is just like us moving farther back. everything becomes a little blurrier but we're able to see more). Otherwise there would have been no point to Vin following Ruin's consciousness around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lil_literalist he/him Posted April 25, 2012 Report Share Posted April 25, 2012 Actually from what I gathered, shards focus on a single area, but they can move around fast. and while they're focused on the one thing, everything else is in their "peripheral" with things farther away being more to the side (although they can widen their focus, which is just like us moving farther back. everything becomes a little blurrier but we're able to see more). Otherwise there would have been no point to Vin following Ruin's consciousness around. In that case, it would seem that the fire might be a way of drawing attention to the prayer. If so, then the form of destroying the prayer would matter, whereas it does not matter for spren's measurements. So in conclusion, the two are similar but unrelated phenomena. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts