Cousin Spren

[sonwarrior01]

So, I'm fairly new to the boards and this has probably been discussed ad nauseam elsewhere, but is it possible that each of the sprens who grant surgebinding has a "cousin" spren who will act as the shardplate? Since we have only really seen two surgebinders in depth, I'm probably committing the hasty generalization fallacy, but Syl is "cousins" with windspren and Shallan attracts creationspren. I think that creationspren might count as cousins to the cryptics because although Pattern dislikes them he is always attracted to the creation of lies and patterns, which is just a higher level of creation. Also, there is unfortunately often no love lost among families. 

To tie this together, I think that each spren that grants surgebinding has a "cousin" who is non-sentient. After a specific number of oaths, the surgebinder will be able to bond these cousin spren as his or her shardplate. 

Like I said, I'm new. So please point me to the relevent WoB. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

10 minutes ago, sonwarrior01 said:

Like I said, I'm new. So please point me to the relevent WoB. 

Given that the minor/cousin spren as plate is still one of the popular ideas, I don't think there is a relevant WoB yet.

Just check out any theory on how to make Shardplate. They either say some minor/paired spren or solidified Stormlight or something similar.

[Patrick Star]

You're close, but all cousinspren are directly descended from Lopen.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

5 hours ago, Patrick Star said:

You're close, but all cousinspren are directly descended from Lopen.

His genealogy just got a tonne more interesting

[Yata he/him]

The Relationship between Radiant Spren a a specific kind of Lesser Spren is well speculated:

For now the pairs (sure, likely or speculate) are:

Honorspren----------->WindSpren (only confirm)

Cryptic----------------->Creationspren (high suggested)

Wylde's race---------->Lifespren (high correlation)

Dustbringer's Spren->FlameSpren (Speculation)

Ivory's race------------>Painspren (Wild Speculation of mine)

Bondsmith's Spren--->BindSpren (Speculation for her role and for affinity with the Stormfather and the Vacum's pressure)

 

[Eki]

I think I saw someone suggest that rainspren might have a connection to the Skybreakers. Don't remember the reasoning though.

[Lord_of_Awesome]

26 minutes ago, Eki said:

I think I saw someone suggest that rainspren might have a connection to the Skybreakers. Don't remember the reasoning though.

Rain = sky maybe? I dunno.

50 minutes ago, Yata said:

The Relationship between Radiant Spren a a specific kind of Lesser Spren is well speculated:

For now the pairs (sure, likely or speculate) are:

1 Honorspren----------->WindSpren (only confirm)

2 Cryptic----------------->Creationspren (high suggested)

3 Wylde's race---------->Lifespren (high correlation)

4 Dustbringer's Spren->FlameSpren (Speculation)

5 Ivory's race------------>Painspren (Wild Speculation of mine)

6 Bondsmith's Spren--->BindSpren (Speculation for her role and for affinity with the Stormfather and the Vacum's pressure)

 

1: Of course.

2: Would make sense, I agree.

3: Wyndle is a Cultivationspren, and I think there's a WoB on the matter of Cultivationspren + lifespren. Someone find me the relevant link, pretty please?

4: We haven't actually seen the Dustbringers' surges in action, only the end results. I wouldn't be surprised if they tie to flamespren, however.

5: Can your train of thought for this one? Elsecalling doesn't seem like it would much tie into pain, and neither does Soulcasting. Just because Jasnah and Ebony encounter one in Shadesmar (not confirmed as canon) doesn't mean that they are linked...

I also (for the Plate theory) think it would be hard to attract the painspren if you are an Elsecaller. I do not believe that they would willingly hurt/kill people to make Shardplate, and they probably weren't into self-torture either.

6: The names might be similar, but I don't know... Kinda skeptical on this one.

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

1 hour ago, Yata said:

Honorspren----------->WindSpren (only confirm)

And Gravitationspren. Not sure if they are called that or gravityspren

1 hour ago, Yata said:

Cryptic----------------->Creationspren (high suggested)

Or liespren. Theres aways liespren

1 hour ago, Yata said:

Ivory's race------------>Painspren (Wild Speculation of mine)

Pretty sure its Shadowspren. That's what Ivory appeared as before bonding

You can also form a Nahel bond with a wisdomspren :/

1 hour ago, Yata said:

Wylde's race---------->Lifespren (high correlation)

There's that, and heatspren, 

Highspren would be connected to gravityspren and decayspren. Because Gravitation and Division.

[Yata he/him]

18 minutes ago, Lord_of_Awesome said:

5: Can your train of thought for this one? Elsecalling doesn't seem like it would much tie into pain, and neither does Soulcasting. Just because Jasnah and Ebony encounter one in Shadesmar (not confirmed as canon) doesn't mean that they are linked...

It's all started by this wild thought "Jasnah acts as a good Elsecaller" (that can be wrong) and the  fact that Her actions in Kabranth were in line with her Order...I mean the bait criminal with the purpose of murdering them. This point (to me) to something like "vengeance" as Elsecaller's concept. If this is true or near the true...the Painspren are affine.

18 minutes ago, Lord_of_Awesome said:

6: The names might be similar, but I don't know... Kinda skeptical on this one.

I admit it's a unlikely correlation...but both their "status" than their "look" suggest a correlation between them and the Stormfather...I have to see another Bondsmith spren to catch some new features to search in lesser spren.

PS: The Adesion Surge, who are more likely affine with Honor's mandate...call Bindspren when used. But I don't know if it may be considerate as a clue.

Edited October 4, 2016 by Yata

[Rasarr she/her]

3 hours ago, Eki said:

I think I saw someone suggest that rainspren might have a connection to the Skybreakers. Don't remember the reasoning though.

Interesting. I saw a suggestion that the Skybreakers secondary spren might be starspren, though I think that's mostly because stars->high->highspren. Though the words "rain" and "skybreaker" do bring to mind a Radiant doing the superhero landing, so maybe there is some connection. (that's some flawless logic on my part!)

For Elsecallers, could shadowspren be their match? I'm mostly basing this on Ivory's appearance, but they'd probably be less problematic to summon than painspren.

[Eki]

7 hours ago, Lord_of_Awesome said:

Rain = sky maybe? I dunno.

Yeah, but there were other things discussed too. Like Kaladin disliking rain, and Skybreakers often disagreeing with Windrunners, for example. I think there were better arguments too. I'm personally a little bit sceptical, since normal rainspren seem to be rooted to the ground. Their sentient cousin might not be, but I feel like the two orders that can flyfall with style should have airborne spren.

[thegatorgirl00 she/her]

Some thoughts I had reading this thread. 

1. Windspren are very common and the Windspren was one of the largest orders. Creationspren are less common, but are still around enough to be easily recognized. Could there be a relationship between the size of the order and how common the cousin spren are? That would mean Bondsmith minor spren would be extremely rare. 

2. Spren lean towards Cultivation or Honor, with natural phenomena being Cultivation and emotions being Honor. 

• Honorspren - Honor
• Windspren - Cultivation
• Cryptics - Cultivation, but has more mixed 
• Creationspren - This is harder to place. Creation seems like it would be of Cultivation. But what Creationspren are attracted to seems to be creativity, which is an emotion and of Honor. 

Is it possible there is some balance of Honor/Cultivation in the major-minor spren relationships? The problem with this theory is that both Edgedancerspren and lifespren are closely aligned with Cultivation. 

[marianmi]

well, this thread is fun

 

but let's not forget that windspren, creationspren etc are adonalsium spren, and such they cannot access Honor's power. So I think this cousin-spren theory is a bit off. Fun, but a bit impossible according to my cosmere knowledge.

[Eki]

9 minutes ago, marianmi said:

well, this thread is fun

 

but let's not forget that windspren, creationspren etc are adonalsium spren, and such they cannot access Honor's power. So I think this cousin-spren theory is a bit off. Fun, but a bit impossible according to my cosmere knowledge.

We don't actually know exactly what sentient spren are - they certainly existed before Honor died. Not as many, which suggests that they are of Honor, but we know for a fact that some spren are close to Cultivation (like Wyndle). Are they still splinters of (just) Honor?

We also have very good reason to believe (or maybe we actually know for sure, I don't remember) that the Stormfather existed even before the shards arrived on the planet, making him an Adonalsiumspren too. I guess we don't know if the Stormfather actually bonded with anyone before Honor died, but the quote by Pattern saying the Stormfather survived the Recreance kind of suggests that he was at risk in the first place. The Stormfather could have been imbued with Honor's power to enable the bonding, or he was able to do so naturally. Or the only thing needed was for Honor (and maybe Cultivation) to invest in the planet, but he could still do it as an Adonalsiumspren...

Also, Honor was part of Adonalsium, so all Adonalsiumspren should be partly of Honor.

My point is, there are lots of possibilities. You may be right that a spren has to be at least partly of Honor to be able to form a bond that enables Surges, but I wouldn't say it's fact. When shards invest in planets (or just hang around), all sorts of weird things happen, especially when other magic is around.

[marianmi]

2 hours ago, Eki said:

Also, Honor was part of Adonalsium, so all Adonalsiumspren should be partly of Honor.

 

I don't think this is true. Odium (the shard, not the shard + rayse) is basically a HUMOUNGOUS spren of Adonalsium. Is Odium also partly of Honor?

My understanding is that splintering was done over primary ... "sentiments". I see this as white being split into primary colors. Something like Honor is green, Odium is red, Cultivation is blue (let's assume there are 16 primary colors :P). Don't know where I can put Adonalsium spren - but let's say that they are a mix of colors. This does not mean that they necessarily have green in them, they can be only a mix of red and blue.

Also, I was under the impression that BS confirmed sentient spren (by that I mean the 10 human bonding spren) were all a mix of Honor and Cultivation. But even if it's not confirmed, I believe this to be so because:

* access to the 10 surges was given by Honor to the Heralds. Spren copied that Honor did, and gave the KR access to those 10 surges. This means that spren are linked to Honor - not ANY spren would be able to do that. Would a Odium spren be able to give access to those 10 surges like Honor did, by using stormlight? I think not. We've seen black stormlight that is linked to Odium (whereas "normal" stormlight is of Honor); we've seen red-lightning spren storm magic that we can't place in the 10 surges. Also, it's sensible that a shard can't access another shard's power.

* some spren look like they are tied to cultivation (wyndle looks like a vine), and mention cultivation. If Honor contributed to the mixed spren with access to his power, it's not clear how cultivation contributed. My pet theory is that she gave spren the ability to "cultivate" themselves - to think, to organize themselves. I think spren that are closer linked to cultivation are more organized (e.g. they live in cities), whereas spren closer to honor are more "wild" (e.g. honorspren don't live in cities). KR do not use cultivation's power like they do honor's (stormlight, surges), but they seem to get some abilities (e.g. based on the KR chart, truthwatchers spren would be the one closest aligned to cultivation, and truthwatches have precognition abilities, something that cultivation was good at).

 

Edited October 4, 2016 by marianmi

[Eki]

1 minute ago, marianmi said:

I don't think this is true. Odium is basically a HUMOUNGOUS spren of Adonalsium. Is Odium also partly of Honor?

My understanding is that splintering was done over primary ... "sentiments". I see this as white being split into primary colors. Something like Honor is green, Odium is red, Cultivation is blue (let's assume there are 16 primary colors :P). Don't know where I can put Adonalsium spren - but let's say that they are a mix of colors. This does not mean that they necessarily have green in them, they can be only a mix of red and blue.

When I wrote Adonalsiumspren, I basically meant spren with roughly equal amounts of each shard in them, since that's how Adonalsium itself was. And if they aren't, I don't see how that changes anything - it seems highly unlikely they wouldn't have pieces of Cultivation or Honor in them. Many of them are connected to physical forces, for example, which are exactly the things Surges manipulate.

 

19 minutes ago, marianmi said:

Also, I was under the impression that BS confirmed sentient spren (by that I mean the 10 human bonding spren) were all a mix of Honor and Cultivation.

There are WoBs along these lines that refer to all spren, I think, not just sentient ones. But we also have WoBs (just checked, wasn't sure) that say there were spren on Roshar before the two shards arrived on the planet. Either those were already of just Honor and Cultivation (unlikely since Adonalsium was whole when it grew Roshar), or they are a mix of some other combination of the parts that eventually became shards. I think it's more likely that Brandon considers spren that come from all parts of Adonalsium as "of Honor" and "of Cultivation", so to speak. Because they are that, and more. I guess it's also possible that Honor and Cultivation investing in the planet changed the local spren, but that doesn't change my argument, since all spren would presumably have changed in that case. And if Honor and Cultivation created just the sentient spren and not all of the other ones, the Stormfather is still an anomaly, since he existed on the planet before they arrived, and is a Radiantspren.

I'm not saying you're wrong - just that there are lots of things to consider here.

 

31 minutes ago, marianmi said:

(whereas "normal" stormlight is of Honor)

We don't know this either. There is ecology on Roshar that seems to depend on Stormlight, and presumably existed long, long before the shards arrived. Cultivation could have had a hand in that, though. But I think it's more likely Stormlight is Adonalsium's Investiture, rather than any specific shard's. That seems to fit better with the idea that Adonalsium designed Roshar.

Accidentally found this WoB by the way:

Quote

Interview: Apr 15th, 2013

Reddit AMA 2013 (Verbatim)

TheFinisher4Ever ()

Are all wind spren really just unbonded honor spren?

Brandon Sanderson

No, they are cousins to one another, but not exactly the same thing.

So even Brandon called windspren "cousins" to Honorspren!

[marianmi]

That quote doesn't reveal much.

You can say honor and odium are brothers, so red lightning spren and syl are cousins too. But then again BS would not have said that if all spren are cousins. I am wondering - were there windspren BEFORE the recreance? Maybe windspren are the result of Honor's death/shattering.

Why do you say Stormfather existed before shards arrived on the planet? I don't remember anything to point to that.... Rider of Storms is supposed to be Stormfather before the Recreance, not before Honor came to Roshar.

Edited October 5, 2016 by marianmi

[Eki]

28 minutes ago, marianmi said:

Why do you say Stormfather existed before shards arrived on the planet? I don't remember anything to point to that.... Rider of Storms is supposed to be Stormfather before the Recreance, not before Honor came to Roshar.

It's not stated outright, but the Rider is a big part of Listener culture, and we know they have existed on the planet at least longer than humans (and he seems to be the one to facilitate their form changes). The Stormfather also called them "Ancient Ones". They in turn think of him as the soul of the storm, implying he's the one creating them, making him as old as the storms themselves. Combined with my earlier point about Roshar's ecology, that makes him predate the shards.

We also have WoBs that say that Listeners are not originally of either Cultivation or Odium, and not of Honor. That probably means they are originally of Adonalsium.

So either they could not change forms before the shards arrived (unlikely, since they would pretty much have to have been in slaveform constantly - with no humans to take care of them (although there are other explanations, but they all become rather complicated... there was a thread about which form Listeners are born in not too long ago)), or the Rider predates the shards on the planet, giving them the ability to change forms even before then. You could come up with lots of other explanations for how the Listeners lived long ago, but the Rider being around back then seems most likely to me.

[marianmi]

So by Adonalsium spren, you mean spren created by/from Adonalsium when it was still god, or spren created at the shattering?

[The One Who Connects he/him]

6 hours ago, marianmi said:

So by Adonalsium spren, you mean spren created by/from Adonalsium when it was still god, or spren created at the shattering?

Personally, I mean spren that are remnants of the power/essence he used to grow the continent of Roshar.

If we assume that the Listeners are of Adonalsium, then that more or less means that he created Roshar's Cognitive Realm.
Better wording is like.. he made it the way it was. R&P used mist, Scadrial's Cognitive is mist. Adonalsium used Spren, Cognitive is full of Spren

It's a stretch, but it's a reasonable stretch

[Yata he/him]

15 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

If we assume that the Listeners are of Adonalsium, then that more or less means that he created Roshar's Cognitive Realm.
Better wording is like.. he made it the way it was. R&P used mist, Scadrial's Cognitive is mist. Adonalsium used Spren, Cognitive is full of Spren

It's a stretch, but it's a reasonable stretch

To be honest, I don't think your analogy works very well.

We don't know if the Gods (to place both Shard and Adonalsium in the group) choose how to Manifest their power in the Cognitive...I find is more likey that there is in every shardworld an element (I call it Essence but it's a uncanon term of course) as the Investiture naturally manifest and it's this Essence who fill the Cognitive Realm and is showed when we see Raw Investiture of a Shard Invested in a specific Shardworld (mist for Scadrial, color for Nalthis, "crystal"/glass/sphere/ecc.. for Roshar)....I think its like the Focus, it's something strictly related to the deep nature of a Shardworld...When you put Investiture in that System (transition Spiritual Realm-->Cognitive Realm), the Investiture is forged into the Essence

Anyway in your analogue you place the Spren as base element of the Roshar's Cognitive Realm while they are like "people" in a land made of "essence". In the end also if there are a great number of Spren on Roshar, everytime someone visit its Cognitive Realm, there aren't ton of Spren everywhere.

Edited October 5, 2016 by Yata

[The One Who Connects he/him]

2 minutes ago, Yata said:

To be honest, I don't think your analogy works very well.

We don't know if the Gods (to place both Shard and Adonalsium in the group) choose how to Manifest their power in the Cognitive...I find is more likey that there is in every shardworld an element (I call it Essence but it's a uncanon term of course) as the Investiture naturally manifest and it's this Essence who fill the Cognitive Realm and is showed when we see Raw Investiture of a Shard Invested in a specific Shardworld (mist for Scadrial, color for Nalthis, "crystal"/glass/sphere/ecc.. for Roshar)....I think its like the Focus, it's something strictly related to the deep nature of a Shardworld...When you put Investiture in that System, the Investiture is forged into the Essence.

Anyway in your analogue you place the Spren as base element of the Roshar's Cognitive Realm while they are like "people" in a land made of "essence". In the end also if there are a great number of Spren on Roshar, everytime someone visit its Cognitive Realm, there aren't ton of Spren everywhere.

Fair enough. My rational thinking isn't gonna be superb so soon after waking up. I like the Essence idea, and its similarity to the Focus principle makes it more likely to be right.
I still cannot figure a logical reason why Shadesmar would be spheres, but it is.

Now that I think a bit more, R&P weren't too good of an comparison since Scadrial was created by them. Gives it the potential to be a bit different than the other Shardworlds (not much, but it is still possible)

[Yata he/him]

3 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Now that I think a bit more, R&P weren't too good of an comparison since Scadrial was created by them. Gives it the potential to be a bit different than the other Shardworlds (not much, but it is still possible)

Actually you have right. It's possible that Scadrial was created to comply to specific requirements (for example have as a focus a physical object/matter). In the end if this is true this mean almost every Shardworld are designed by Adonalsium with his own willing requirements.

 

About the Reason for the Sphere in Shadesmar, I have to be honest, I didn't figure it fully but you may see an affinity with the only material who may keep Stormlight.

[marianmi]

8 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

Personally, I mean spren that are remnants of the power/essence he used to grow the continent of Roshar.

If we assume that the Listeners are of Adonalsium, then that more or less means that he created Roshar's Cognitive Realm.
Better wording is like.. he made it the way it was. R&P used mist, Scadrial's Cognitive is mist. Adonalsium used Spren, Cognitive is full of Spren

It's a stretch, but it's a reasonable stretch

Scadrial's cognitive is not mist. Mist was actually

Spoiler

the body of Preservation, as maybe stormlight is the body of Honor and black stormlight is the body of Odium. While stormlight = shard body might not be true (it's still debated) this would be more accurate than mist = cognitive. We haven't seen how the cognitive realm looks like on Scadrial.

Adonalsium did not *create* Roshar's Cognitive Realm - probably Adonalsium created Roshar with all 3 aspects. And yes, that's how Roshar works - fragments of power take the form of spren. My question was - when did these fragments of power were formed? We know for Honor, there were not many of them before the recreance, and now there are many => there were a lot of (the 10) spren created when Honor shattered/died. So, when were Adonalsium spren created? When the planet was formed (=> they are of all shards), or when Adonalsium shattered (=> they have less "ingredients")?

One thing to keep in mind, if you consider parshmen are "of Adonalsium" / bond full spren of Adonalsium. Wit says "God is in the hearts on men" with the probable meaning of "men's hearts are a combination of all 16 shards" / "are capable of all emotions that were shattered into <primary emotions>" / "every human is a little Adonalsium". The fact that parshmen have different forms given by different spren means to me actually that they are never bonding a "full spren of Adonalsium" - they would become more like humans then. I would actually say that each form-spren have different "components" of Adonalsium, e.g. there's more of odium in war-spren than in nimble-spren, more of cultivation in work-spren than in mate-spren etc...

[The One Who Connects he/him]

9 minutes ago, marianmi said:

We haven't seen how the cognitive realm looks like on Scadrial.

Did Secret History actually lack a description? I could've sworn it had one, if a bit simplistic.

10 minutes ago, marianmi said:

One thing to keep in mind, if you consider parshmen are "of Adonalsium" / bond full spren of Adonalsium.

I do not consider those two things to be mutually exclusive. Not in the sense that you imply. I consider "of Adonalsium" to refer to anything created by Adonalsium. That would include the Listeners and Adonalsium-Spren. The Radiant Bond brings the Spren more into the Physical Realm, is it not a possibility to imagine that the Listener Bond brings the Listeners closer to the Cognitive?

Following Explanation/Assumptions:
Creationspren embody the Cognitive Ideal of creativity, and the Listeners get Artform.
Decayform - described as desctuctive, Cognitive Ideal of Decay? Perhaps Rotspren or Decayspren?
Scholarform - Cognitive Ideal of Wisdom/Learning? Logicspren are rare enough to warrant Nimbleform..
Mateform - requires true empathy to bond. Passionspren exist, perhaps the Cognitive Ideal of Passion/Love
Oh yay, Stormform actually is a bond with Stormspren. OK, speculation over.

Basically, on the idea that they are pulled closer to the Cognitive(or because they are closer to the Cognitive than humans anyway), they better embody the ideal related to the spren they bond with. This gets around your idea that a "full spren" of Adonalsium would make them more humanlike. In a way it does, but more specific to a Cognitive Aspect of humanity.

42 minutes ago, marianmi said:

So, when were Adonalsium spren created? When the planet was formed (=> they are of all shards), or when Adonalsium shattered (=> they have less "ingredients")?

While we do not have a direct answer, the post where he confirmed the existence of Adonalsiumspren implies that they were intentional, but that's up to reader interpretation. Bit of emphasis added

Quote

So, any piece, for instance there were some spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation got there.  Those were already splinters of Adonalsium where he had left power which attained sentience on its own.  So, it can be intentional is what I am saying, does that make sense?