Difference between revisions of "Lights"

|[[Navani]]{{epigraph ref|sa4|71}}}}

One of the most unique ways the Lights of Roshar behave unlike regular matter is in the way they naturally vibrate. Each Light vibrates at - and responds to - not only a specific frequency (matching the pure tone of its Shard), but also to a specific ''rhythm.''{ For example, when singers listen to a Stormlight sphere, they can faintly hear Honor's pure tone wavering and pulsing to a stately rhythm - Honor's rhythm. Hybrid Lights, such as Towerlight and Warlight, complicate this further, as they have ''two'' tones (e.g. in the case of Towerlight, Honor's and Cultivation's), somehow different from what they would be in the constituent Lights, changed to be in harmony with one another; both tones adopt a rhythm, once again different from the rhythms of the hybrid's "components" - for example, both of Towerlight's tones vibrate to the Rhythm of the Tower.{{book ref|sa4|76}}{{book ref|sa4|110}} The combination of a Shard's tone and rhythm is sometimes referred to as the Shard's ''song.''{{book ref|sa4|83}}{{book ref|sa4|97}}{{book ref|sa4|110}}

Historically, Odium's Light only found its way to Roshar during Desolations when Odium - -or in the case of the False Desolation, [[Ba-Ado-Mishram]] - -would supply it directly to his servants, provided they sungsang the Song of Prayer.{{book ref|sa4|67}} Since the arrival of the Everstorm, it can be obtained much more easily - -though it appears that it doesn't naturally infuse gems in the way Stormlight does during highstorms.{{citebook ref|sa4|16}} Like Stormlight, it can be stored in gems, but it leaks much more slowly - likely-possibly the source of Szeth's belief that the Voidbringers can hold Stormlight (in actuality, Voidlight) indefinitely.{{book ref|sa1|prologue}}{{book ref|sa4|16}}

Voidlight glows with a distinct purple-on-black glow described as "hyperviolet"{{book ref|sa4|16}} - -possibly the Rosharan or Alethi term for either superviolet or a chimerical color. When its illumination is split through a prism, Voidlight produces a rainbow with an "enormous" violet band, dwarfing all other colors.{{book ref|sa4|65}} When drawn in and held, Odium's Light enflames emotions,{{book ref|sa4|67}} though at least in singers at least it doesn't infuse their entire body - like Stormlight does - but, instead goesgoing to theirthe gemheart.{{book ref|sa4|67}} Its rhythm is chaotic, but with a certain strange logic to it.{{book ref|sa4|76}}

Lifelight, or Cultivation's Light, is perhaps the rarest of the three pure Lights. Some of it can be found in the [[Valley]], in the form of green mist.{{wob ref|12207}} [[Lift]] is uniquely able to produce it by metabolizing food,{{book ref|sa4|60}} but no other ways of obtaining it are currently known. It appears very similar to Stormlight, a nearly pure white light, but where Stormlight has a slight blue tint, Lifelight has a slight green one. When its illumination is split through a prism, it produces a rainbow with a larger green band.{{book ref|sa4|65}} Its rhythm is stark and staccato, but it builds. Lifelight shares Stormlight's effect on plants but to a superior degree, stimulating their growth when combined with the proper rhythm.{{book ref|sa4|76}}

Towerlight is the very substance of the spren known as the [[Sibling]], and as they are the child of Honor and Cultivation, so is Towerlight the product of the melding of these two Shards' Investitures, tones, and rhythms. It can only be created by the [[Sibling]] and their [[Bondsmith]], though the imprisonment of [[Ba-Ado-Mishram]] rendered them unable to produce more than small amounts - enough to power only the most essential of [[Urithiru]]'s fabrials[[fabrial]]s;{{book ref|sa4|69}} a deficiency that appears to have ended when [[Navani]] Kholin]] became the Sibling's current Bondsmith. A key factor in the creation of Towerlight is the Sibling's ability to hear both of their parents' songs - Cultivation's, which they could hear and sing on their own, and Honor's, which Navani had to provide for them.{{book ref|sa4|110}} Because of this, it is unclear whether the Sibling is truly "healed", or losing the bond - and Navani - would mean that they lose Towerlight once again.

In appearance, Towerlight resembles both Stormlight and Lifelight, as it glows with a soft blue-green light. When split through a prism, it produces two rainbows of color, one with a wider blue band, and one with a wider green one.{{book ref|sa4|65}} Towerlight's rhythm - the Rhythm of the Tower - evokes the "boundless energy of Cultivation, always growing and changing, and the calm solidity of Honor - organized, structured."{{book ref|sa4|110}} The psychological effects of holding Towerlight are unknown.

Unlike Towerlight, which has been known to humans and singers alike for millennia (even if knowledge of it was largely lost on Roshar after the [[Recreance]]), Warlight - the hybrid Light of Honor and Odium - is a recent discovery, one that even renowned singer scholars like [[Raboniel]] thought an impossibility. During the occupation of Urithiru Navani discovers that a human and a singer (or at least she and Raboniel) can create Warlight by allowing Stormlight and Voidlight to combine inside a gem made to vibrate to the Rhythm of War - a rhythm created by the harmony of Navani singing Honor's song and Raboniel singing Odium's; a rhythm Raboniel didn't know existed prior to these events,{{book ref|sa4|76}} and whose emotional influence she notes will be of particular interest to [[El]].{{epigraph ref|sa4|59}}

Warlight glows with a vibrant black-blue light, and its rhythm is a burst of chaotic notes, bounded by a regular, orderly pulse.{{book ref|sa4|76}} When contained in a gemstone the Light can be seen oscillating between swirling like a raging storm and then falling into a peaceful calm.

The existence of an Odium and Cultivation hybrid Light hasn't been confirmed, but [[Venli]] successfully attunes a rhythm of these two Shards, so a corresponding Light is likely.{{book ref|sa4|83}}

Physical matter is known to have a counterpart called [[Wikipedia: antimatter| antimatter]] - matter composed of antiparticles that share many properties with the particles of ordinary matter, but manifest some of them in an opposite way (e.g. a proton and an antiproton have the same mass, but opposite electric charges and magnetic moments). Raboniel describes this in terms of axi with opposite polarities.{{book ref|sa4|97}} A similar relationship exists between Investiture and anti-Investiture in the cosmere. Anti-Investiture - or, in Roshar's specific case, anti-Light - comes in a number of different varieties, each one of which shares some properties with its corresponding ordinary Light, while exhibiting other attributes in an opposite way. Most notably, a Light and its anti-Light that come in contact will naturally annihilate each other{{book ref|sa4|65}} - with the reaction seeming more violent when the two are brought together under pressure, such as within a gemstone.{{book ref|sa4|97}}

Much like each Light's natural vibration can be heard or felt by different species, anti-Light's can too, though its song is not just physically audible, it carries a magical effect too. For example, to a human the song of anti-Voidlight will sound identical to the song of Voidlight, Odium's tone moving to his rhythm, but to a Fused - whose soul is filled with Odium's own Investiture - the song of anti-Voidlight not only sounds different, it also causes intense pain, similar to the discomfort they feel when hearing the Odium's opposite tone, but much worse.{{book ref|sa4|97}}

Anti-Voidlight is the first anti-Light to be discovered on Roshar, -initially discovered by King [[Gavilar, Kholin]] not long before his death. His research into the Lights of Roshar and the ability to transport them between planets in the system allowsallowed him to come into possession ofobtain a sphere of anti-Voidlight, - a spherewhich he givesgave to Szeth moments before dying. ThatThe sphere, and the anti-Voidlight within it, eventually lead [[Navani]] to also discover how to create anti-Light.

Anti-Voidlight glows faintly violet-black and appears to fainlyfaintly warp the air around itself. Its tone - and song - sound identical to those of Voidlight, but they induce an adverse reaction in the Fused, and presumably other creatures heavily Invested by Odium, such as Voidspren. When made to touch the soul of such creature, anti-Voidlight reacts violently with the Voidlight there, resulting in permanent death.{{book ref|sa4|97}}