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  1. Kalad’s Phantoms are large lifeless made from bones encased in stone, due to this weapons are virtually useless against them, and they are far stronger and more dangerous then other lifeless. Hallandren acquired these Phantoms after the Pahn Kahl rebellion, and used them effectively against the regular lifeless army. From what we saw Susebron is fairly peaceful and is unlikely to use these phantoms to conquer other nations. This means that the Phantoms will simply be standing around in Hallandren, while the news about these reborn/recalled Phantoms spreads. Eventually, although it might take a while, other nations will realise what they are, either through experimentation or spionage, and build their own. At this point most of the Nalthian kingdoms will have Phantoms replacing their regular lifeless. This will change how warfare is practised on Nalthis, regular humans becoming even less important. Nations from other planets will also have trouble fighting with Nalthian kingdoms, as many nations don’t have access to this kind of firepower, although some invested arts might destroy this advantage. Even with the inevitable discovery of guns and artillery Phantoms will stay the main troops used, stone is still far more resistant to bullets then flesh, although their importance might go down.
  2. So what’s the deal with Heightenings? From Warbreaker, we got the impression that it was a specific to Nalthis thing. Then, when it very clearly appeared in Dawnshard, I gathered that it must, instead of being a Nalthis thing, be a Invested being thing. Holding breaths tie them to your Spiritweb, granting Heightenings. Metalborn and Radiants don’t really get Heightenings, as while they hold Investiture, they never really hold it for long, and so they themselves aren’t particularly Invested. But then here, we get informed that Elantrians are more Invested than Returned, and from what I understand, Elantrians sure don’t have any Heightenings. So what’s the deal? How do you acquire Heightenings?
  3. I've been fiddling around with an attempt to place Warbreaker in the larger Cosmere timeline recently, and that led to me trying to figure this question out. We know for a fact that the Five Scholars were Worldhoppers and fairly Cosmere-aware, both via WoB and because they hacked Awakening to create a Shardblade. So at this point we know that there were Nalthian Worldhoppers at least before the Manywar, who most likely passed through Endowment's perpendicularity in Hallendren since that's the easiest known method for most people to reach the CR. If I remember correctly, there was also mention of Nalthian traders in RoW, which we know takes place after Warbreaker (though due to Vasher's immortal nature and the possibility of Vivenna extending her life with Breaths, we don't know how far after). The trouble comes in that we don't know how open the 5 Scholars were with their knowledge, like how the Ghostbloods existing doesn't translate to the Elendel government being especially Cosmere-aware. We also know for a fact that at least some of their legacy has been forgotten; i.e. people forgetting that the D'denir statues were Kalad's phantoms. My best guess is that in establishing the Court of Gods, Vasher entrusted the highest rung of authority with the knowledge that there's a gateway to other worlds out in the jungle so that they wouldn't be completely caught off-guard if another shardworld launched an invasion, unless he decided to withhold that info to lower the risk of more Nightbloods getting created. But even if he did tell them, then there's still the question of whether or not that knowledge survived the deaths of Susebron's predecessors and then the deaths of his priests during the Pahn Kahl revolt. The other option I can imagine is that some of the court is Cosmere-aware, but it's treated like the lifeless command codes; the knowledge is restricted to a handful of returned, so that they can shape policy with the larger Cosmere in mind without turning Nalthis into an expansionist force.
  4. How do Breaths attach themselves to a person? Do they just latch on wherever they find space on their Spiritual Aspect, or do they latch onto a specific part of the Soul? Or do they eschew the Spiritual Aspect entirely and attach themselves to the Physical Aspect? I ask because I want to find out this: Will damage to the body get rid of Breaths? Say someone has a thousand Breaths, putting them at exactly the Fourth Heightening. If I were to cut off their arms and legs, would they lose Breaths? My first instinct is to say that it would not, since Breaths are part of the soul, but then again, they are more grounded in the PR than other forms of Investiture. If that doesn't get rid of Breaths, what if I cut someone's arms and legs with a Shardblade? That's severing several chunks of the soul off. Would that get rid of some of the Breaths? You may or may not be able to steal Breaths from someone by using H-Nicrosil. If I was to stab you with a Shardblade in that bind point, would that excise the Breaths? Will all three? Will neither? Some WoBs: This one implies that Breaths are more in the PR than SR, and so Hemalurgy wouldn't be able to steal them. This makes it sound like cutting off limbs would affect the number of Breaths, since you're losing chunks of what the Breaths are anchored to. This one says, if implicitly, that Breaths can be stolen through Hemalurgy, so this one is in favor of removing Breaths via Shardweapon, either by ripping chunks of the soul off or by excising them by stabbing you at the appropriate bind point. Thoughts?
  5. On at least some parts of Nalthis, Returned are seen akin to vampires, draining the life from the living to sustain themselves. We know that Returned appear more in accordance with how they see themselves and how society sees them (WoB and other WoB), so would one of these Returned be less like a superhuman in appearance and more like an actual vampire? Plus, the whole increased physical speed and strength lends to the vampire theme as well. Now I actually really want to see Returned from other cultures on Nalthis and how they are different from the Hallendren Returned.
  6. Do we know if a second generation singer is born on Nalthis would they be granted a Breath? Would the offspring of Nalthians who previously migrated off world be granted a Breath?
  7. I don’t know if anyone has talked about this I found a few forms talking about mixing of the magic systems but nothing like this so far. What I was wandering was what would happen if let’s say on Nalthis they make a sentient airship that looked humanoid and traveled to sel. Would a soul stamp work on the ship? I think it would but I’m curious on what other people might think
  8. Could you somehow unkey breaths? So if you put 50 breaths into an object could they somehow become unkeyed so that any person could pick them up? Edit: I just realized we've seen something like this in Rhythm of War. Taravodium steals or at least destroys some of Hoid's Breath. Thinking of this reminded me of when we saw Vasher tell a girl the Command to give away part of a Breath (Warbreaker). So since we know it is possible, the only question would be how? What could this Command be?
  9. Goal: Gain a vague timeline of the Iriali people's travels. (Full Cosmere Spoilers) I would like to focus in on the Iriali and specifically speculate about their lands (including Lumar) 1 We know that Roshar is the 4th land. 2 The Iriali follow the "Long Trail" 3 People from Rira (Evi) have sayings that reflect the planets of Nalthis and Taldain 4 A queen in Iriali responds to Dalinar with comments about the tides 5 Rirans are different from the Iriali. 6 Autonomy's isolation principal has locked Kriss out of her homeland during the time she is writing her essays. 7 Nalthis and Roshar have a lot of interaction and linguistic similarities. New Secret Project Info 1 The Iri have been on Lumar. 2 A cup written in "their language", old Iriali, is written from up to down, not left to right. And made entirely of tin. (not Rosharan writing) 3 Disappeared 300 years prior to Secret Project 1 story. 4 Hoid does not appear to have Design at this time 300 years past their disappearance. 5 Iriali had at least one "king" on Lumar. (Probably three monarchs, though.) Assumptions 1 Evi's idioms can be traced to Taldain "Sun at night" quote and Nalthis from some color related quotes. And these quotes come from her partial Iriali heritage (golden hair, but not true golden hair) 2 Autonomy has isolated Taldain from the Cosmere for a significant amount of time. 3 There is only one group of Iriali roming the Cosmere. Speculation and Proto-Theorizing 1. With near certainty, we can say that the Iriali must have been to Lumar prior to Roshar, through abundant circumstantial evidence. a. Hoid makes no mention of Design. b. Rosharan and Scadrial references not present. c. Iriali have tide readers. "The Iriali religion may involve fortune-telling with ocean waves, as a member of the Iriali court is the court tidereader. A spanreed meeting between the Iriali queen and Dalinar was moved up because of something seen in the waves." -from a stormlight archive fandom wiki. Tide implies some sea-faring history and considering the importance of paying attention to the fluids on Lumar, it would be wise to have a tide reader. 2. Now, it gets interesting. We conclude that if Roshar is the 4th land, Lands 1-3 must be Nalthis, Taldain and Lumar My suggestion for order is 0th Before the beginning of the "Long Trail". (Perhaps destroyed in the shattering.) 1st Lumar --- Ancient Iriali writing that goes up to down must predate their visit to Taldain because on the Dayside of Taldain they write from left to write based on the current comics (papers on Heelis' desk). 2nd Taldain --- At some point travel to and from Taldain is blocked, but in early times of Kriss and Kenton, it is not blocked, so earlier is more likely for Taldain (additionally, I can only remember the one Evi expression). 3rd Nalthis --- There is a lot of interconnectedness between Roshar and Nalthis. Therefore, I think it seems logical that the last leg of the Long Trail, so far is from Nalthis to Roshar. 4th Roshar --- Confirmed. 7th Final land (Yolen?) 3. The question remains whether the golden Aether sea provided the Iriali with their golden hair, or, and I think this more likely, there is a 0th land. This stands to reason, based on how Charlie seemed to think the golden hair was something noteworthy, and we haven't seen anyone around with green hair or heard any mention of new inhabitants having golden hair. Hopefully this can be answered when we have the full book for Secret Project 1: Please add your own observations and theories. I am sure I missed some data and I have been unable to confirm the fact that I think that the Iriali on Roshar write from left to right.
  10. Endowment's investiture seems to be the best at sticking with people and objects that we've seen so far. So if someone make a Hemalurgic spike from a Nalthian, would it decay slower than normal?
  11. I was wondering, is the Life Sense possessed by Awakeners the same thing as the Mind Sense possessed by many of the creatures of Patji? If not, how do they differ, and which would be more beneficial for a cosmere Worldhopper looking for a "sixth sense" to obtain?
  12. It has been confirmed by Brandon Sanderson that you can steal a Returned’s Divine Breath by using hemalurgy. If someone could somehow steal a Divine Breath and give it to themselves, they could pretend to be a true Returned and get taken into Hallandren’s Court of Gods. They’d have access to an additional breath once each week, allowing them to get an addition 52 bio-chromatic breaths in total each year, since they don’t need to consume a breath each week to stay alive. They could also siphon off tons of money that Returned normally waste, using it to obtain more breaths if they have some lackies on the outside the Court that could go buy some for them. Not to mention the political power they’d wield, and the great comfort that they’d have just by being there a supposed Returned. In hindsight, though, this is a bad idea for two big reasons. One: You have to murder a person to get the Divine Breath. Which is bad. Two: Endowment personally dolls out each Divine Breath, so she’d probably notice if someone she hadn’t picked suddenly got one somehow. I can’t imagine that she’d be terribly pleased.
  13. From the album: Biochromatic photoshops

    Imagine, you are with your Grandfather, the best person you know, on his death bed, saying his last good bye to you and your family before he passes on. He intakes a breath, and sighs, as his eyes glaze over. Suddenly, waves of color start gathering around the bed, and the body starts to glow. You gasp as you realize your grandfather is Returning! Coming back to fulfill some mission given to him by the iridescent tones, As the light subsides, you realize your grandfather is no longer in his bed, a large, brillantly colored lizard lay belly-up belly in his stead. "Excuse me," the lizard turns to you and asks, "Do you know where I live?
  14. If a Returned had a form of psychosis that made them sincerely believe that they are, or ought to be a lizard when they were alive, would they return as a lizard?
  15. (Edit 4/16/21: spotted and fixed an error; these are the updated files) WarbreakerFont.otf WarbreakerFont.ttf WarbreakerFont_README.txt This image is simply the phrase "Hello, would you like to destroy some evil today?" rendered in the font above. I created this font using FontForge after being inspired by the fabulous discussion in this post, which transliterates the inscription on the cover of the leatherbound edition of Warbreaker. This script is not the Artisan's Script of Hallandren, since it does not use color (see this post from Isaac Stewart). I have simply called it "Nalthis" internally. If you compare this image to the leatherbound cover, you will notice a discrepancy in the word "destroy" - it appears to be spelled "deiroy" on the book, but I have spelled it normally here. See the transliteration post linked above for more details. All letters besides F, G, J, P, Q, X, and Z appear on the cover or on internal art. These missing letters were assigned by me based on trends in the IPA designations of similar glyphs and are in no way canon. I posted an image of a table showing the IPA designation of each letter in this thread. Additional unused glyphs created following the existing patterns are assigned to Unicode values: "Aacute" U+00C1 - same base stroke as A, Y "aacute" U+00E1 - same base stroke as A, Y "Eth" U+00D0 - same base stroke as D, T "eth" U+00F0 - same base stroke as D, T "Uacute" U+00DA - same base stroke as U, O "Esh" U+0283 - same base stroke as C "Tesh" U+02A7 - same base stroke as C The unused glyphs are also assigned based on IPA trends, but no automatic substitutions have been included in the font. It is possible that "th" is substituted by the "eth" character, "sh" by the "esh" character, and "ch" by the "tesh" character, but these letter combinations do not appear in the text samples mentioned above. To use this font, install your preference of the OpenType (.otf) or TrueType (.ttf) font file. If using MS Word, once you create a new document, type some text, and set the font to "Nalthis," you must also highlight the text, expand Word's "Font" section at the top (or press Ctrl+D), and navigate to the "Advanced" tab. Here you must select the checkbox "Kerning for fonts" under the "Character Spacing" section, and under the "OpenType Features" section select "all" from the drop-down menu labeled "Ligatures." Blame Microsoft for the convoluted method of enabling these features; I have heard that other programs do a better job. If you use a different text editor, search for information on "enabling advanced typography features" or "enabling ligatures and kerning" for your program of preference. My experience is limited to Windows & Microsoft; sorry I can't be of more help If you're familiar with FontForge and want to mess around with this font, here's the SFD file: WarbreakerFont.sfd
  16. First things first, I am not talking about Scadrial. In that case the answer is obvious. And I am not talking about the worlds. They are natural. But that does not mean that the life forms living on them are natural. They could be Adonalsium's creation Yolish imports Shardic creations or a mixture thereof. We usually expect a planet in the habitable zone with live to show macroscopic life with animals and plants like our Earth. But that is wrong. For the greatest fraction of its existance Earth had only microscopic, unicellular life and all the land was barren. And with the inevitable brightening of Sol, it is unclear how long Earth will remain habitable. It is possible that macroscopic life is an exception among the planets capable of supporting it. In case of Roshar and First of the Sun we can be reasonably certain that they have native life forms. The prime suspect and the reason I am posting this in this section is Nalthis and its fossil record. Zahel told Kaladin that Nalthis has no fossiles. I think the easiest explanation for that is that Nalthis is too young. So who has introduced multicellular life to Nalthis? If it has been people, why has the technological level of the Cosmere's worlds decayed so far? If I may speculate wildly, was Adonalsium going mad, destroying stuff and the people causing the Shattering had a very good reason?
  17. So there’s all this talk about how dangerous mistborn are, and how dangerous radiants are, but not many people have considered Awakeners. For one, awakeners use invested weapons, so it’ll be tough to soulcast or push/pull. The cloth or other items will be tough to cut through with coins, especially when you can fortify it. Shardblades are tough to stop, but invested vs invested are very good at resisting each other. Awakened stuff is also pretty darn strong, so pewter won’t make a huge difference here. And the strength of awakened objects might even be able to break some Shardplate. so that cancels iron, steel, pewter, shardblades, soulcasting, and maybe even Shardplate right there. now, the radiant’s trump card, regeneration, is tough. BUT awakeners also have resilient tools. The lifeless. One breath lifeless allows you to make an army pretty darn easy. If we are talking one v. one, awakeners will have superiority in numbers. If we are talking about many vs many, every death can be used as another soldier. That would cause a lot of emotional turmoil. If we’re talking about mistborn, lifeless koloss would be annoying to deal with. so that combats large numbers and the regenerative properties of radiants (sort of). now the trump card of mistborn is their atium. But to an awakener with enough breath, that’s no problem. Just do Vasher’s hundred breath trick, catching them off guard and killing them without problem. 100 breaths to kill a mistborn is likely worth it. Heck, that truck might even kill a radiant! So there goes a mistborn’s trump card. Now for the awakener’s trump card. Anti-investiture. Heightenings don’t usually grant much to awakeners in battle. But with the knowledge of anti-investiture, it means everything. Third hiieghtening grants perfect pitch. That allows you to know how to play the opposite tone of any type of investiture. That allows you to be an anti-investiture generator. One blast of that stuff can kill a radiant spren and, since scadrians are of preservation, that means that they too are susceptible to non-existence. so that DEFINITELY defeats Shardplate and regeneration. Now Nicrosil and chromium is hard. It can’t affect the awakener because the breaths are not really kinetic investiture, since they are attatched to the spiderweb, not the person. But it can affect the awakened material (not lifeless though). That renders awakened cloth a tad useless, so long as there is nicrosil or chromium. Though, while that is being done, an anti-investiture blast can finish things off. Abrasion is hard to use against invested stuff, so that’s out. Gravitation is annoying to put up with, but holding anti-investure stops them from air drop kicking you. soothing and rioting can really hurt, especially with duralumin. But an aluminum hat can cancel that easily. Bondsmiths can by tough to deal with if you are dealing with multiple people, but every awakener is an anti-investiture, perpendicularity closing machine. I think, overall, that covered everything that could be thrown at an awakener. Conclusion, awakeners are OP.
  18. So Raysium has passive ability of sucking in investiture. Nightblood sucks in investiture. There isn’t many other things that could suck in investiture while being a sword. We know Nightblood was based off of a shardblade because Vasher and Shashara visited Roshar. They could have also discovered Raysium and used that for nightblood’s blade. It seems pretty plausible and makes a lot of sense. I don’t think there is any reason why this wouldn’t be a valid theory, but if there is, I’d love to hear it.
  19. BEWARE! THERE WILL BE ALL OF THE LORE SPOILERS FOR DAWNSHARD AHEAD! I only put this post here instead of the dawnshard board because there is a bit of things relating to RoW, and I’m not supposed to put spoilers for RoW in the dawnshard forum. So. Endowment. Let’s break down the magic system. We have heightenings and the whole breath thing. The hightenings come from breaths being grafted onto your spiderweb, as seen in dawnshard. They are very color-oriented. They make colors pop. This is very useful to know given that color is a fundamental part of shards. We have their light or color, and the anti-light, and color. This doesn’t seems to be a specifically Roshar thing. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can have anti-Ruin light and so on. So perfect color recognition helps in that respect. it also helps with perfect pitch. That allows you to make the anti-light in the first place much more easily. so basically, the heightenings are very useful for creating anti-investiture. Endowment has created a magic system to specifically allow for this type of thing, with the breaths sticking to your spiderweb, and whatnot. now there are commands. These are based off of Intent and Command, which we learn in Dawnshard is the fundamental part of all of magic in the Cosmere. In other worlds, it is more veiled. The command is symbols in Sel and the molecular composition in Scadrial. But in Nalthis, it is just verbal, which is the most fundamental form there is. The third part is investing objects. This makes them harder to tamper with and make much more powerful objects, such as Nightblood. The final part is the divine breaths, which is all about stapling the cognitive shadow to the physical realm. This is seen in many other systems, but this is given so freely by Endowment, and she made it part of the magic system as well. Nalthis’ magic system seems to be made off of the fundamental building blocks of the cosmere. It is built to allow gateways to all parts of the Cosmere’s magic, within easy and straightforward access. This is quite surprising and quite dangerous. What is Endowment doing? She has plots that involves all of the raw power of the Cosmere within easy access. Why is she doing this? And what does it mean? This is a thing that seems very deliberate on Endowment’s part. I’m quite worried how dangerous she might become later on.
  20. Pretty much exactly what the title says; I just wanted a single topic/thread to discuss and theorize/hypothesize what stuff like the Pure Tones and Rhythms might mean for Investiture on other worlds. The main one that spurred me to make this thread is: Can you use the Song (Pure Tone + Rhythm) of Preservation to draw in and burn the Mists of Preservation, even if you don't have the same Connection to Preservation that Vin had in the Final Empire? We see that the Pure Tones alone can guide the Lights of the corresponding shard into different containers, so would adding the Rhythm and making the Song of Preservation attract the Mists strongly enough to be consumed by an Allomancer? ...Could you do the same with the Song and Mists of Ruin to fuel Atium Allomancy without needing physical Atium??? See, these thoughts are why I make topics like this, I need to know if I'm completely off-base or not, bring in some other thoughts and see if I'm onto something by thinking in weird directions.
  21. Finished! Nine characters from eight Shardworlds! From left to right: Dusk from First of the Sun / Kaladin from Roshar / Vasher from Nalthis / Hoid from Yolen / Harmony (Sazed) / Khriss from Taldain / Shai from Sel / Vin from Scadrial / Silence from Threnody This piece is also celebratory art! Happy Chinese New Year 2016 (Year of the monkey)! At first I drew these characters mainly for an online fantasy magazine because they kind of let me (as translator of WoR) introduce Stormlight and the whole Cosmere series in their New Year issue, which meant I’d better add some festival stuff. So here it is - Characters from eight different Shardworlds wishing you a Happy New Year! In China, this is a popular traditional gesture when people give New Year’s greetings. It’s called 作揖 (zuò yī, in spoken language: zuō yī). When you do this, you make a bow with hands folded in front of you and greet others at the same time. Raise your folded hands and then lower them. The motion can be repeated several times. For men, they should use their left hand to cover their right hand (In ancient China, men tended to hold weapon with their right hand, so they covered it when saluting, to reduce hostility and show respect.), while for women, they should do it otherwise and it’s better not to clench the left hand into a fist (You can learn this from the picture above.). If you do it wrong, you will convey some ominous meaning. Please be careful # # # Heck, so many tags! Also seriously, I think we may need a Cosmere crossover art album
  22. So I was wondering how you can get more breath without needing to have it given willingly. It’s a fairly simple question. But it is a complex solution. one option is taking it from a lifeless awakener’s stuff. This is a in-world cheat, but it has to be in a very particular scenario. So it’s not quite for the average person. another option is through blanking your identity or adopting another person’s spiritual identity. This will allow anything you make to be taken by anyone without need for consent if it is stored in an object, and possibly even taking it from other people’s objects, kind of like stealing metalminds. That one is a tough one, given that the only way we know how to do that (as far as I’m aware) is through aluminumminds. It is a tough thing to pull of for an ordinary person, again. A third option is nicrosil compounding. Sadly, it requires a very rare set of powers. It is definitely not for the average person, but it is the easiest way to get a TON of breaths with the least amount of effort. A fourth option is kind of cheating the system. This is using rioting and soothing. They still have to give it willingly, but you can manipulate their willingness to do it. Still not for everyone, but more common than the other three. this fifth one is the easiest for the average person to do, but it is the least effective. That is through drugging someone. This can be through normal alcohol or through more serious stuff. This will be doing what a soother or rioter can do, but more...diluted. It will not be a sure way to get it, but it makes it easier. that is the list of knowledge I know, but there is doubtlessly more. Can the grand beings of the shard come up with more?
  23. I finished rereading Warbreaker last week, and it struck me this evening: named Shardblades have very Returned-style names. Maybe it's just a coincidence--maybe you can't read too much into it; after all, Brandon has confirmed that there has been hundreds if not thousands of years of cultural trade between Roshar and Nalthis; this could just be cultural happenstance in the same way that shash is a shared linguistic trait between the two worlds. But here are some names of the Returned: Lightsong, Blushweaver, Allmother, Peacegiver, Strifelover, and of course, Warbreaker. Here are some names of (named) Shardblades: Firestorm, Sunraiser, Oathbringer. I don't count Mayalaran because that's her spren name, in the same way that Sylphrena is the name of Kaladin's spren; not sure what to make of spren names. But really--where do Shardblade names come from? They seem to have a similar naming tradition as the Returned: two-part words, often involving a verb. Sunraiser and Oathbringer both fit that bill. Is there a connection? Or is it happenstance?
  24. So let me just preface this with some stuff: 0) This will also be obviously shaped by my experience of queerness as a white Ace Bi Transwoman from Switzerland, so maybe keep that in mind as you read this. 1) This is also not supposed to be a dunk on Brandon for his inclusion (or lack thereof) of queer characters. While I wish there was more in his work (and I’ll talk about how you could do that in the cosmere), it’s not like there is none, which is already more than many other Fantasy writers have. He is also not queer himself (as far as we know) and I can respect it that he doesn’t want to include harmful representation in his books (as he has stated before). 2) I’m mostly writing this because I got a friend (who has not (yet, as I hope) read any of the Cosmere books) to take the Knights Radiant Quiz (I guess mostly by saying it’s essentially the Sorting Hat Quiz). Following that I realized I truly had a lot of thoughts about the Cosmere at large, but since none of my friends is into the Cosmere, I had no one to talk to (it’s much easier for me to talk to friends than strangers online, so I didn’t really want to go on Discord and start a conversation, so I’ll just plop it down here and let people decide whether they want to be part of that conversation or not). 3) This is essentially me rambling, there’s probably going to be holes or stuff that I missed or aspects of queerness that I did not think about. Calling it “Queerness in the Cosmere” might have been a bit ambitious, but I honestly didn’t know what else to call it. I’m also not really active on here, so maybe other people have already said all of this, but I had a desire to write this. 4) I think this will mostly concentrate on Roshar (specifically Vorin culture), Scadrial and Nalthis so I’ll structure it accordingly. Nalthis and Scadrial will also probably much shorter than Roshar, both because we know a lot about Vorin culture compared to the others and because the Magic on Roshar gives a bit more to talk about. To start with, let it be said that there is a WoB that clearly states trans people can use Investiture to change their body (he specifically says this with regards to Bloodmakers, Stormlight and the surge of Progression). So let’s start with Nalthis. There’s not that many Characters to begin with and none of them appear to be queer. Of course, many characters have their own situations going on where we don’t see anything regarding their sexualities or identities (Vasher and his history with Shashara, Denth being consumed by vengeance, Vivenna being brought up with the singular purpose of marrying the God King with the implicit understanding that she would be killed eventually, etc.), so I can’t talk about what is, because there isn’t any. As for what could be: the interesting thing for me on Nalthis are the Returned. We know their bodies change upon being returned and we also know that they have the ability to shape-shift to a certain degree. This is confirmed by Vasher (in deeds and words) and also evident in the Court of Gods, where Returned tend to fit their given domain (Blushweaver being extremely attractive, Lightsong being muscular/toned) physically. You could easily fit trans people into further Nalthis works via Returned and their place in Hallandren society. For one, you could have person return and in the process have their body change to one matching their identity. Now, we don’t know whether the Returned consume investiture when they shape-shift. Given that investiture is highly quantized on Nalthis, this seems unlikely. However, as the process of Returning is a result of direct shardic intervention, this investiture could easily come from Endowment directly. This would be a bit more complicated in terms of non-binary, agender or genderfluid people (as well as other marginalized identities which I don’t know about), but this goes beyond my experience and I don’t want to speak for them. Once you have a trans Returned, this would obviously have an influence on Societies where Returning is viewed as a divine act (e.g. Hallandren and Idris (I’m actually not sure whether Idrians see it that way, but I do believe so)), legitimizing their existence beyond doubt (as clearly, God says trans rights). Even if this is not the case, the process of bestowing a divine breath on someone to heal has also implications regarding trans people. Healing in the Cosmere generally works, as I understand it, by restoring the body to the spiritual ideal, with possible influence on self-perception (see Kaladin inhaling Stormlight doesn’t fix his slave scars as of now). From Renarin we know that you can be born with a body that does not conform to this ideal (his bad eyesight was corrected upon inhaling Stormlight). We don’t know whether bestowing a divine breath requires the Returned in question to know what they are healing, although considering Brandon has described this process as “supercharged healing” my guess is not. So it is easily possible that a Returned will bestow their breath and give a trans person a body they are comfortable with, at which point, again, God says trans rights. From there, you could make Hallandren either a very trans acceptive place or (and I personally don’t want that, but it’s a legit possibility) a place where you have to “medically transition” before you are treated as your real self (as in get a Returned to bestow their breath) and where the Returned essentially judge your trans-ness (as in, if a Return doesn’t bestow their breath on you, you’re not “really trans”, as otherwise they (and by extension God) would have given you their breath). Again, that would suck as much as that attitude sucks in real life, but it would at least be something that isn’t cooki-cutter Fantasy stuff “gay people bad and gender binary rulez”. Awakening itself might also provide people with the mechanism to shape-shift. There are “mental commands” that Vasher uses to make a girl forget Trauma, so there is a possibility there to apply this also to “physical commands” that change the users body in a certain way. Let’s look at Scadrial, specifically Era 2 onwards. For starters, we have lesbian rep with Ranette (although I guess she could be Bi), we have disaster Bi rep with Wayne and kandra, who are an interesting subject with regards to gender identity (even further, we have TenSoon, a kandra who spends most of his time as a dog). They are probably the queerest books in the Cosmere and as such, there is not much that I want to talk about. The kandra are super interesting, because they have a distinct gender identity. This could obviously be a remnant of either the spikes that are used to give them thought or because they were human at some point and then transformed by Rashek (this point depends a bit on whether mistwraiths can procreate or whether all mistwraiths were once terris people). Still, they are a super easy way to introduce queer characters. You can easily have a kandra that uses they/them pronouns or who presents differently at different times (apart from the fact that they do this anyways in Era 1 to spy), so they are always the same person, but switch between male/female presentation including pronouns. I hope we get to see something like this in the future. Bands of Mourning and the medallions the southern scadrians use have a huge implication for trans people. In essence, you could build an industry (healthcare should be free though!) on providing unkeyed gold metalminds. If they are charged enough, they would allow trans people to change their bodies. This could also be added in the background, like an ad in the newspaper pages Era 2 books have every now and then or that a character reads in the newspaper. I’m not sure how that would impact a society. Like, in real life there are many medical tools that allow transition, but our society is still incredibly transphobic. So it is not a given that, even though the effectos of healing would be impossible to ignore evidence that trans people are real and valid, there would not be effort to deny trans people access to unkeyed goldminds. You could then still, through Wayne for example, show that there is a black market going on where trans people try to get access to them. So, Roshar. More specifically though the Vorin nations and the singers. Again, Stormlight healing and healing via the surge of progression allow for very easy ways to introduce trans characters, either only as background characters (like in a scene where Renarin heals people) or in a more direct way as a Radiant that changes upon inhaling Stormlight the first time. Apart from that, Vorin culture allows for very interesting explorations on queerness. Vorinism heavily enforces gender roles through the book “Arts and Majesty”. It’s not really clear how this system reacts to the emergence of new professions. It might be the same as with stable hands, where it’s not part of the book so everyone can be one. It might also be that it gets amended, similar to how the bible was changed at various councils. That may sound like it’s beside the point, but whether or not it can be changed does have implications on queer people. Like, could it be changed to include the existence of non-binary people? Or gender fluid ones? That is something I think could be touched upon (assuming Vorinism survives much longer). As the system is right now, there is an obvious (and I think boring) way how Vorin culture treats marginalized gender identities: It’s a heavily gender segregated, binary society and thus, moving between the two camps or outside of them will be suppressed as heretical. However, it could also naturally support trans people, but only as long as they conform to society. You could show this by having a man that can read (maybe in an emergency situation or through subtle reactions in a span-reed conversation or like this) but doesn’t do it openly because it’s unmanly (the implication being that he was taught as a child an came out after). Or maybe there are professions for people that don’t identify as either male or female, but transitioning from one to another is not possible. I think the heavily segregated Vorin society is a really cool playground on queerness, which I hope Brandon will explore a little bit. If there is any fanfic of this, I’d be glad if you could recommend them to me! I also want to shortly talk about homosexuality in at least Alethkar (but I assume this is again a Vorin thing). There seems to be no real prejudice against it. Kaladin does have bit of a different reaction, where he finds it weird how uncomfortable Bridge 4 is with Renarin possibly learning to read but they have no problem with Drehy courting a man (Dru) and Bridge 4 reacts very strongly in favor of the relationship. (I just checked as well, according to Brandon Vorin culture doesn’t have a problem at all with homosexuality). To me, the acceptance of homosexuality seems at odds with Vorin culture, which heavily reinforces the relationship of man-woman not only in a personal sense, but also a professional one. The fact that only women can write and read means that they are pretty much essential in almost any profession (as seen by the fact that Alethi at least reeealy like their ledgers). In my head canon, at least one of the Heralds was gay and this persisted as a part of Vorin society even past “Arts and majesty” (which might have been written after the fall of the Radiants, as they were open to all people). With Sigzil, we’ve seen that at least the Azish are not so supportive of gay people. In his own words, Drehy would have to apply for “social reassignment”, which is exactly what it suggests according to Brandon: You can’t have a gay relationship, instead one of the involved parties has to “socially transition” and would henceforth be treated as their opposite gender (in a WoB, Brandon references ancient India as a inspiration, although let it be said that Iran for example still does this today). This might suggest that, while being wildly homophobic, Azish culture might actually be trans-supportive (in a certain sense). This is also something I hope we get to see more of. There are also the Iriali and their religion of the One. According to Brandon, the more conservative/religious Iriali are supportive of gay people (and I think that would extend to any other marginalized gender identity) on account of them all being part of the One. I very much like the inversion happening here: the “modern” Iriali have outlawed it, but the “conservative/religious” ones accept it with no problem. The singers have 4 distinct gender identities. I know that this is sometimes contested, whether they are really genders or not, but we have not seen much of singer society as of now. Brandon promised that we would get more of that, so I guess we will see. I don’t think Brandon would call them gender identities if they weren’t such, but again, he is a cis man, so his view on “gender identity” might be flawed. I think you could do some interesting things with the singers. They are explicitly shape-shifters, taking on forms as demand dictates. Again, you could easily have a singer that is femalen in one form and malen in a different one or even change from malen to female in the same form (this all depends on how forms exactly work; we’ve only seen a limited amount, and gender seems to be tied to some). This could also indicate how singers would treat, say, non-binary people. This ties in with the Sibling, who we know does not identify as male or female and also not as malen or femalen, so they are either older than the singers and thus not shaped as much by their perception, or it was enough of a part in singer society for them to pass it on the the spren, as it were. According to Syl, some spren do have 4 gender identities, which I think Brandon has confirmed is because of the singers. I also think it would be neat if singers would be referred to as they/them if they are children or even teenagers, leaving it up to them to decide. At least, I guess you could say the first time they go into the storm to adopt a form would determine their pronouns. Again, we don’t have much information on singer children, so we don’t know what form they have when they are born. Also, I love the idea of an entirely Asexual race (well, mostly). I think Brandon has alluded that not all forms are Ace, mate form included. Personally, I think this does Ace people a little bit of a disservice. Lots of Ace people have sex, some enjoy it themselves, some enjoy it because their partner enjoys, it really is (as always) a spectrum. At its essence, Asexual only means that you do not experience sexual attraction and is not tied to sex drive or the desire to have sex. The singers could easily all be Ace and still reproduce enough. I… guess this is all? If you’re still here: thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed my rambling thoughts! Maybe this starts a discussion on queerness, maybe not. But I wanted to post it regardless because I've been thinking about it, like, a lot. (I hope there are not too many spelling or grammar errors.)
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