[OB] Sja-Anat enlightening, how it works, what it means?

[PunSpren he/him]

So this is an Idea that has been bouncing around since my first read through, and is heavily influenced by

Spoiler

Gyl's , the Kolinar oathgates, and general spren corruption/enlightening

To start we know spren are bits of power, shaped by the cognitive definitions of physical realm inhabitants ( human, listeners, etc)

For the sake of this idea i will only focus on true spren ( bond capable spren) These spren are made from a combination of Honor and Cultivations power. Some are more honor, some are more cultivation. 

Now with the Advent of the everstorm It seems Odium has greater ability to effect/ invest in Roshar. So his generals/unmade may all be made more powerful due to this advent. So Sja-Anat can now effect greater spren, spren with more investure. 

So here is the question/ what i am thinking. Sja-Anat makes a connection between a spren and Odium, inserting his investiture into the touched spren.

In the case of true spren, does the touch of Sja-Anat insert odium investitures such that they are formed from the power of three shards, or does it replace the investiture of one of the shards, or both?

I can think of a number of questions id want to ask Brandon to see if we can start teasing this out, what does the shard think about this ?

[Wandering Investor]

I suspect it would add to, not replace. But investiture seems to run on a lot of rules we don't know about, so hard to be sure.

[SpeakoftheDeval]

The way I interpreted it was that she doesn't add or replace- instead she takes what is already there and corrupts that investiture turning it into odious investiture in almost the same process of changing investitures intent that hemalurgy uses( the investiture is "lost" but that can't be true because investiture can't be destroyed so it must turn the investiture into a different unusable undetectable form)

[Kaymyth she/her]

However she's doing it, touching sapient spren may be opening her up to corruption by Honor/Cultivation's power in return. This would go a long way toward explaining why she's starting to help the other side; she's starting to look at the world in a new way, thanks to the "contamination" by other Shardic Investiture.

The Unmade in general seem to have a very strong drive to understand/connect with humans. They have twisted ways of doing it because their nature is programmed by Odium, but that drive seems to remain consistent. The introduction of bits of new Investiture into her psychological makeup may be giving her new insights, which she is now acting upon.

[+Bliev she/her]

We know we have WOB that splinters often have their own intent, and I wonder if Odium intentionally splintered off some of his more "uncontrollable" components into the unmade to serve as his "servants" so to speak (e.g., lust for fighting, gluttony, lust for power). Odium might have done this because of the specific Rosharian magic which includes spren and Listeners who bond with spren, as a context-specific tactic, or this may have been in response to some other impetus (like serving as his "eyes and ears" from before he was trapped in the Rosharian system. Over the millennia, those splinters have continued in their very specific intent, but maybe without necessarily having the entirety of Odium's "divine hatred" to guide their actions. Hence the almost childlike, animalistic reactions that "the thrill" experiences when Dalinar addresses it at the end of OB. It only knows that it wants to rile the fury of fighting. It doesn't mean "harm" in that it hates people. It has one intent. And, like a puppy, almost, it appreciates being appreciated for doing that job well. Sja-Anat is obviously more "sentient" than "the thrill". But what was its original intent? You might be on to something in that it opens spren up to Odium's influence. I don't think that Sja-Anat, as a splinter herself, could give investiture to other spren, though? But maybe I'm wrong about that. Warbreaker spoilers:

Spoiler

Because, in Warbreaker, for instance, the "Divine Breath" (a splinter of endowment) can be given away by its host. 

But this would suggest that Sja-Anat has unlimited investiture to grant. So, hard to tell.

[soyperson]

3 hours ago, Ookla the Unicorn said:

However she's doing it, touching sapient spren may be opening her up to corruption by Honor/Cultivation's power in return.

Kind of like [SoS spoilers]:

Spoiler

Bleeder and Harmony, with the spikes?

 

Edited November 29, 2017 by Ookla the Melodious

[Kaymyth she/her]

6 hours ago, Ookla the Melodious said:

Kind of like [SoS spoilers]:

  Reveal hidden contents

Bleeder and Harmony, with the spikes?

 

Somewhat similar, though I imagine to a lesser extent.

[PunSpren he/him]

One of the main reasons i was thinking about this was trying to tease out why Renarin hasn't light weaved yet, And i wonder if he isnt able to access it at all.

As in, Does the corruption of sja-Anat replace honors investiture and now glys is essentially a cultivation/ odium spren.

If hes not a replace and it is an add to, that should mean Renarin has access to voidbinding!

[Stark he/him]

Well, this has me thinking: If Sja-Anat is corrupting spren, by converting their Connection from Honor/Cultivation to Odium, she is essentially corrupting their Investiture and modifying their access point to the same well.  Though, notably, Renarin/Glys still use Stormlight, not Voidlight, so not a full conversion/corruption.

 

Is there a link between this corrupted Connection/Investiture from spren touched by Sja-Anat, and the corrupted/converted Investiture in Nightblood?  Do they function in a similar fashion, as Sja-Anat 'corrupts' the spren she touches, and Nightblood absorbs and 'corrupts' the investiture he touches.  Is there a similar mechanism in play here, on a different scale of magnitude, or do they both work completely differently?

[echaozh he/him]

Sja-Anat trying to rebel makes me believe more that the Unmade are not made by Odium, but just "unmade" by him. If the Unmades are splinters of Odium, the shard's intent will enforce their obedience, and they will never even be able to rebel.

Also, the action being called "enlightenment" by the Unmade is also interesting. I think before Sja-Anat herself was "unmade" by Odium, she help some god more respected by the humans, say Cultivation, to actually enlighten spren. To give them sentience? To help them reproduce? To urge them to bond with humanoids? Or she may be the one to mix investitures from Honor and Cultivation to make the magic system, as what she now does is channeling one shard's investiture into another's.

What the other Unmade do is also useful if used in the right way. Giving people foresight. Granting courage and power on battlefields. You know, Moelech sounds like a pretty impressing VR show of the cruelty of the wars. They're just tools turned into terrible weapons, and they may still be within salvation.