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Elantris Ramblings


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So I'm currently re-reading Elantris (typically started just before the Anniversary edition was announced or I might have waited :P )

 

Anyway, I'm making notes and things as I'm going of things (realmatic or otherwise) which interest me and might be good talking points.

 

There's every possibilty they've been raised before, and my contributions to this thread will be mostly weird ramblings with no real structure, but I'm hoping that people will be able to take something I raise here and turn it into something more significant Reamatically.

 

So let's go!

 

Jaddeth - is he a real person? is Domi? Are they Slivers? People who've figured out a way to hold one or more Splinters the way that Aona and Skai once held full the Shards?

 

He's referred to as being underground. "Prison of stone, Great Jaddeth below". Things like that. For some reason I get the feeling this is literal rather than figurative. Makes me wonder if the similarity to Stone Shamanism is significant or just coincidental.

 

 

 

Regional magic - The Elantrian scholar who wrote (or at least owned) the books on AonDor that Raoden studies had a LOT of books and scrolls on Fjordell geography. Was s/he trying to hack AonDor to work in Fjordell? Did Galladon know about this place BEFORE Elantris fell? Was he trying to figure out how to make AonDor work outside Elantris? Perhaps on other worlds? Could Galladon have been part of the 17th Shard prior to the events of Elantris? (Somehow I feel this is a no, but I'm putting it out there).

 

 

 

That's all for now, more coming as I think of it.

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Are Jaddeth and Domi real? I'd say no, they're just cultural constructs.  Inspired and influenced by the Shards of the world yes, but constructs nevertheless.  Jaddeth, originally, was just a minor god that cared for the rocks under the earth (hence him always being described "below") before Shu-Dereth appropriated the figure for its own theology (thereby adding in all the Dominion-y stuff).  Domi is just a name based off of Aon Omi, love, which fits Shu-Korath's whole Devotion-y bent.

 

The library.  I always got the impression that it wasn't a private collection, just a secret library for all Elantrians.  And that in addition to the AonDor there was a lot of general knowledge stuff (when Raoden draws the Aon Ashe it burns most of the biology section and there's a lot of general history and literature, like Wyrn the King).  There is no indication that Galladon knew of it, he only knew about his father's study.

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Good shout on the library Weiry. The books I'm talking about though are from earlier in the book before they find the library. They came from Galladon's secret stash.

Is that Galladon's father's study? I thought it was something like that but couldn't remember for sure and it hasn't come up in my re-read yet.

Edited by Senor Feesh
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Good shout on the library Weiry. The books I'm talking about though are from earlier in the book before they find the library. They came from Galladon's secret stash.

Is that Galladon's father's study? I thought it was something like that but couldn't remember for sure and it hasn't come up in my re-read yet.

 

Yes that is Galladon's father's study, but there aren't any books on Fjorden geography in there (and not really anything on AonDor either if I remember correctly).

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Yes that is Galladon's father's study, but there aren't any books on Fjorden geography in there (and not really anything on AonDor either if I remember correctly).

 

That's where Raoden finds the book written entirely in Aonic script (along with a dictionary to decode the whole thing).

 

And there are lots of books and scrolls of Fjorden geography there; I literally read it only a few days ago. Depending on how your copy is laid out (I have the eBook) it should be page 1 or 2 of Chapter 13.

 

Galladon, still determined to keep his small book-filled study a secret, had insisted they lug the necessary volumes up to the chapel rather than let anyone else into his sanctuary.

     "Sule, I can't read that," Galladon protested, looking down at the book. "It's written completely in Aons."

     "That's what made me suspcious," Raoden said.

     "Can you read it?" Galladon asked.

     "No," Raoden said with a smile. "But I do have this." He reached down and pulled out a similar coverless volume, its cover pages stained with Elantris grime. "A dictionary of the Aons."

 

"If I have to read one more word about the landscape of Fjorden, I am going to be sick."

     Galladon grunted his agreement. Whoever had owned the books before the Reod must have been a geography scholar, for at least half of the volumes dealt with the topic.

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Maybe the reason Galladon's pa was so unhappy in Elantris is because he knew what was out there o.O

Just reached the passage where he talks about his dad. Seems he was always unhappy in Elantris, but it was because he missed his homeland (and later because of the death of his wife).

Galladon doesn't give any hint as to why he would have been studying Fjordell geography sadly. I still think region-hacking is a likely motive, but why Fjordell and not Duladel?

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Just reached the passage where he talks about his dad. Seems he was always unhappy in Elantris, but it was because he missed his homeland (and later because of the death of his wife).

Galladon doesn't give any hint as to why he would have been studying Fjordell geography sadly. I still think region-hacking is a likely motive, but why Fjordell and not Duladel?

In hindsight Fjordell has a functional region system for a different magic system where the characters are known to be able to channel what appears to be the Dor and shape it like Aons can for their own purposes. Much easier than trying to construct symbols for Duladel from scratch when it isn't really known what process is used in determining how a geographical region becomes interpreted as simplified lines by the Dor.

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Ok, more to come, might even start a new thread for some things when I can get it all straight in my head, but

 

I'm happy that Galladon wasn't 17th Shard prior to the events of Elantris (sections near the end of the book from his PoV make that pretty clear).

 

More thoughts regarding AonDor and its relationship to Elantris:

 

Elantris is a power amplifer for AonDor. Presumably then, AonDor must have existed prior to Elantris. When Raoden fixes AonDor (but before he fixes Elantris) the Aons are weak - was this how they worked prior to Elantris being built? Gut says yes.

 

Dilaf's wife - why did missing out one of the fundamental lines cause her to undergo transformation? All the incomplete Aons Raoden draws (sans Chasm line) simply fade out and do nothing. Two possibilities I can think of.

 

1) It's specifically tied to healing. I think that's unlikely though.

2) It's because Elantris was amplifying the throughput, allowing the Dor to push through an 'incomplete' filter.

 

I also have some questions regarding the Shaod and the Reod. Why did the Chasm opening cause the Shaod to stop working properly? Why did it START working again because Elantris was fixed?

 

My guess is that pre-Elantris, there was AonDor, but not Elantrians. Something about the construction of Elantris (which supercharges AonDor within Arelon) causes the Shaod to have the super-transformative effect that it does on the human body. Perhaps prior to the construction of Elantris, the Shaod simply gave basic access to the Dor, like the weak-form Aons that Roaden uses afrer figuring out the Chasm problem. That would mean that Elantris actually powers a super-Shaod, which because it was broken by not having the Chasm line caused the partial transformation.

 

As always, if there is contradictory WoB, please let me know and I'll revise.

 

Still hunting for that elusive Cosmere clue that's supposed to be buried in Elantris somewhere.

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Senior Feesh, I think that your discovery that Galladon's father may have been studying Fjordell geography is actually a brilliant discovery.  It's just the kind of thing that Brandon would hide right in playing sight.  Given how the conflict between the two powers has been building, I would not be at all surprised if his research turned out to be very important to upcoming events.  Raoden, at least, should be concerned about Fjordell's growing power (and ability to manipulate the Dor), and it would be awful stupid of him to not study (or have somebody else study) Fjordell geography.  It's not curiosity any more; it's national security!  And look, there's the resources right there.  On top of it, any previous Elantrians who got a whiff of this would have been doing the same thing, so Galladon's father's behavior makes perfect sense.  It  was only lost because he went into a deep depression after his wife died---a realistic reaction.

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I agree with you that there weren't Elantrians before Elantris. I also base it on my gut. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't even a Shaod before Elantris. I suspect it was like Forgery or Dhakor or ChayShan, that just anyone can do it if they have the training, but it's comparatively weak. Someone in ancient Arelon, before it was Arelon, made the decision to amplify the power by concentrating it; Elantris was made to strip away the power from "everyone" and concentrate it in a few, giving them not only super-powered AonDor, but a concentrated burst of Dor that healed, and allowed for the creation of Aons without needing a medium. Of course, something happened to this entire society. Did they all die off? Did they communally transcend physical form and become one with the Dor? Did they lock themselves out of the kingdom and forget the keys? Only the Magic 8-Ball knows for sure...

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Isn't there an sDNA issue with someone from Arelon using Dakhor? Somewhere in theoryland (and yes, I am too lazy to look) there is a WoB that people from Arelon have like a tag that says "hey I'm Arelish." Likewise for the other regions on Sel. This is why it made no sense for the Shaod to come on Hrathen.

 

I suppose hacking is possible, but it wouldn't be as simple as learning Fjordell geography to get access to Dakhor magics.

 

I don't think "anyone can do ____ if they have the training." (fill in the blank with AonDor, Dakhor, Forgery, or ChayShan (ok maybe Forgery, what was it Shai said about it? Can anyone do it, or just anyone from that part of Sel? Would she know?))

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I don't think "anyone can do ____ if they have the training."

 

Sorry, I was trying to make one point and forgot this other one. I thought we were all on the same page with the ethnicity restriction. I suppose the more complete sentence I meant was, "Anyone Arelish could have done AonDor if they had the training, long ago before the Shaod came to be."

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Sorry, I was trying to make one point and forgot this other one. I thought we were all on the same page with the ethnicity restriction. I suppose the more complete sentence I meant was, "Anyone Arelish could have done AonDor if they had the training, long ago before the Shaod came to be."

I realized that after. :)

Edited by Xaladin
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Yet Jaddeth is the Dominion-oriented deity religion-wise. Domi's religion is more Devotion-based.

Don't even try to associate Selish proper nouns with English spelling.

While it is probably not helpful to use Selish words as roots in English, Domi could be more related to Dominion than what is most widely believed. See:

 

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3363-devotion-dominion-and-magic-on-sel/

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  • 3 weeks later...

I think these are appropriate to place here. Old goodies that used to be in the store. 

 

Aon Notes

 

Also, Galladon keeps on talking about how confident the Elantrian's were of their godliness- what if they weren't? Imagine that they had heard whispers of secret things of unholy magics happening in Fjordell- and so they decided to look into it. I imagine that some knew that the land was connected to the magic, so they tasked Galladon's father to start research into it.

 

Or maybe they didn't really worry about it, which is why Galladon's father, an outcast sad with heartbreak was working on it. But he slowly started figuring out that it was real, that it was a threat- and Dilaf found out about it and had him disposed of.

 

Or maybe he just really liked researching land since it was the closest he could get to the land without leaving Elantris. Who knows? Maybe we'll find out in a couple years when Elantris 2 comes out. 

 

 

I also imagined that part of the reason Dilaf's wife was "cursed" was because he was there, and his anti-AonDorness countered some of what was going on, making it so that only part of the transformation occurred. Or maybe it was broken, but his Anti-AonDorness let him "push" on the Dor so that it still tried to do the transformation, but failed. 

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  • 3 months later...

Geography

In Arelon there are two giant Aons - the artificial Rao with Elantris in the middle, but also the "natural" Aon Aon, an geographical manifestation.

If there were whispers of dangerous magic in Fjorden, would one study the geographics?

Fjorden has a connection to the Dor, perhaps Galadon's dad was looking for something similiar to an Aon in Fjorden.

We really need better - and more - maps.

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Shai's forgery didn't seem weakened enough for her to make note of the difference either, and she wasn't un MaiPon at the time. The strength decay of AonDor probably only seemed drastically noticeable because they were out of range of Aon Rao, perhaps? The actual decay of regional magic systems being a real problem, but not as big of a difference since AonDor is actually constantly supercharged?

That, or we go with the theory of Dahkor having better range since Fjordell identity is associated with global conquest/domination.

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It's all still up in the air as to the inner working Sel's magic systems, and if distance decay applies to all of them. We have it via WoB that distance also applies to Soulstamps but as for ChayShen and Dakhor, we'll have to wait and see. It could be that it is a form of Haemlurgy and that given most of the power is Invested inside the body, it doesn't deteriorate. In fact, that is now my next question :D

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey, I'm new to Brandon Sanderson and have just finished reading Elantris (late to the party I know). So towards the end of the book Raoden drew a line in Kae to free the Dor after realising the whole map of Elantris and the surrounding areas are in the shape of Aon Rao (the spirit Aon) and he needed to add the chasm line to complete picture. The problem is that Raoden drew the line in Kae and does not match the map of where the chasm actually is. I know this has been in previous forums and it is quite an old confusion but since this conversation started to get on to geography I just wanted to ask if it is definitely confirmed now that Brandon described it wrong towards the end of the book and the chasm line should really be underneath the square shape south of Elantris? Did Brandon want the chasm line in Kae but the guy who drew the map got it wrong or did Brandon describe it wrong and should he have gone with the map version of the chasm instead? Sorry if this problem has already been fully cleared up, I just need to get my head around this inconsistency. :)

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I asked Mr. Sanderson at a book signing to draw me Aon Rao with the chasm line, and from that I have deduced something: Elantris is not oriented north. It is oriented west. So the "bottom" circle is actually the eastern one, not the southern one.

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