The Third Door

Alas

The lady in border of the voidbringer diagram See diagram in spoiler. Some notes before reading For ease of following, I've broken down my thoughts into six chunks of reasoning. While I did skim through a number of the existing threads, my search was hardly comprehensive so some of these things may have been covered (I'm specifically thinking sections 1, 3, and 5). I didn't find a particular preferred citation method around, so I kinda did my own thing: Book, part, chapter, page, section Book - the book's name as an acronym part - referring to the physical book splits, not the parts within. Mostly just because I have both the current books in two volumes apiece. chapter - fairly straight forward page - note this is the page in this part, for people with both volumes in one, this won't help so much. section - notes the context of the quote, not always included 1.Cultivation resides in the West Honor in the East 2.People reflect the god most present in their area 3.Alethkar is the empire of the knights radiant 4.The nahel bond made the knights radiant more like Cultivation 5. Types of spren, Cultivationspren, Honorspren, Odiumspren 6. Cultivation, Odium, and Parshendi This section looks at the idea that the two Shards, Cultivation and Honor, don't hold share the whole planet like Ruin and Preservation, but rather have their own little dominions in the east and west of Roshar. No comment on whether this moves with the continent, or is more static and related to halves of the whole planet. Honor's power (highstorms) move from East to West This could be show Honor's power over Roshar generally, the east of Roshar, or a point off the east coast of Roshar (the Origin). https://coppermind.net/wiki/Highstorm#Causes "Vorin mythology claims that each storm is born in the east at the Origin before traveling west across Roshar" General change in flora, e.g. grass not hiding, everything is green It's the combination of this with the last bit that juxtaposes the very west of Roshar with the rest of the continent, and therefore Honor's influence over it. WoR p2 chapter 59 pg 157 Story of fleet (Hoid) "But here the storm, it too did wilt, with thunder lost and lightning spent. The drops slipped down, now weak as wet. For Shin is not a place for them." WoK p1 interlude 4 pg 473 Rysn "I've heard of the grass, but it's just so odd. (...) It didn't move at all." Some evidence against http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1120#37 "The highstorms predate," (the Shattering of Adonalsium) ~ WoB This bit however does put a spanner in my working, as if the highstorms predate the Shattering of Adonalsium than either: a. the highstorms are wholly natural. b. Honor is just augmenting the highstorms (which makes them his. maybe.). c. Tanavast was somehow influenced by his Shard (Honor) to go to Roshar and continue this function that Adonalsium had been powering beforehand. d. Just a coincidence or quirk that let the Stormfather be caught up in the storms (predating him being called the Stormfather). Answers coming in book 3 http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1120#43 1.Cultivation resides in the West Honor in the East 2.People reflect the god most present in their area 3.Alethkar is the empire of the knights radiant 4.The nahel bond made the knights radiant more like Cultivation 5. Types of spren, Cultivationspren, Honorspren, Odiumspren 6. Cultivation, Odium, and Parshendi This section does make assumptions based on the previous section, but if this is true than it can be applied to the other Shards of the Cosmere. Basically the idea is that the appearance of the people affected by a Shard's power is influenced over time to reflect atleast somewhat the appearance of the Shardholder. This does of course raise the question as to why the Shardholder's looked different from each other, and that leads into a bunch more questions about the Shattering of Adonalsium. Shin people are different This evidence assumes that Cultivation is at work in Shinovar more than the east. Szeth's eyes are dark green WoK p1 interlude 3 pg 185-6 "his people's large, round eyes, shorter stature, and tendency to baldness led Easterners to claim they looked like children" Szeth thinking to himself. The eyes A very distinguishing feature for the Shin is their eyes. This seems to be a bit of a theme, what with the whole lighteyes/darkeyes thing. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=979#86 "Normal eyes on Roshar are those with an epicanthic fold. The Shin do not have this." 1.Cultivation resides in the West Honor in the East 2.People reflect the god most present in their area 3.Alethkar is the empire of the knights radiant 4.The nahel bond made the knights radiant more like Cultivation 5. Types of spren, Cultivationspren, Honorspren, Odiumspren 6. Cultivation, Odium, and Parshendi EDIT: I've since found and compared the modern day map to the Silver Kingdoms Epoch one, and it's totally the same, just drifted a little south east. leaving the previous contents of this section in a spoiler for reference. 1.Cultivation resides in the West Honor in the East 2.People reflect the god most present in their area 3.Alethkar is the empire of the knights radiant 4.The nahel bond made the knights radiant more like Cultivation 5. Types of spren, Cultivationspren, Honorspren, Odiumspren 6. Cultivation, Odium, and Parshendi Now this one may be a bit of a stretch, but the idea is that the nahel bond changed the bonded human, not just their physical appearance, but also their genes, and perhaps even their spiritweb (well the spirit web was obviously changed, I mean bits that are or may be passed on to children). The changes to the future generations may even be greater than the changes to the current (bonded) one. Romantically involved This one is straightforward. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=985#6 STORMATLAS Were Cultivation and Honor romantically involved? BRANDON SANDERSON Yes. Idealised by Honor So the idea here is that because of their involvement, Honor idealised Cultivation's physical form and changed those bonded to his Splinters (I'm including spren and honorblades) to be closer to hers specifically here I'm thinking that she had particularly light eyes. The hand covering tradition for women is also important (for section 6), and could be from some habit of Culivation to always wear a left-handed glove which could be for a multitude of reasons: a.Just liked to do so. b. prosthetic/cybernetic arm c. covering an injury d. etc. And this could have been ingrained into the Radiants in at least two ways I can think of, either some odd quirk of shardplate on women, or an unconscious compulsion (in the women to wear a left-hand glove, or the men to prefer that behaviour). evidence against Szeth's eyes are dark green WoK p1 interlude 3 pg 187 Szeth does put a hole theory in that he is darkeyed which could point towards all the Shin being darkeyed (I couldn't find the eyes of any other Shin being mentioned, the visit to Shinovar by the traders may be a good spot to start if you want to look) but I've come up with a few reasons for that, the first applies to Szeth, the rest to the Shinovar people as a whole. a. corruption from honorblade, the honorblade makes his eyes light blue (Wok I-3) which may mean that his eyes them become darker when they're not light. I don't think this is likely. b. crossbreeding with other peoples c. Honor rubbing off on the shin, this makes the assumption that Honor is the source of darkeyes and that because at least a little of highstorms reach Shinovar that a little of his power does. d. Odium is the source of all darkeyes across Roshar, and the nahel bond reverses that affect. I like d myself here, but perhaps that's just because it stops this being evidence against. 1.Cultivation resides in the West Honor in the East 2.People reflect the god most present in their area 3.Alethkar is the empire of the knights radiant 4.The nahel bond made the knights radiant more like Cultivation 5. Types of spren, Cultivationspren, Honorspren, Odiumspren 6. Cultivation, Odium, and Parshendi -https://coppermind.net/wiki/Cultivation "Honor is connected to spren of emotion. Cultivation is connected to spren that represent forces." There are at least two different kinds of spren, those of Roshar, and Voidspren, but the spren caused by emotion seem separate from those caused by forces of nature. Note: From memory there was a quote from Eshonai where she grumbles about humans being able to call emotion spren more easily than the Listeners, which if so may be further evidence that all spren that bond with humans are of Honor (due to them 'rejecting' the Listener's emotional calls). 1.Cultivation resides in the West Honor in the East 2.People reflect the god most present in their area 3.Alethkar is the empire of the knights radiant 4.The nahel bond made the knights radiant more like Cultivation 5. Types of spren, Cultivationspren, Honorspren, Odiumspren 6. Cultivation, Odium, and Parshendi Got WoB'd by Argent on this one, but i'm leaving the idea below anyway Source