discussion An interesting WoB on Sel and Threnody

[Rasarr]

So Paladin Brewer has been to San Antonio signing and asked a question I asked him to ask (lovely grammar is lovely...). To not-just-my surprise, it wasn't RAFO'd.

 

Without further ado:

  

 

Q: Is Threnody in the same planetary system as Sel?

A: Yes, it is.

 

I dare say that's quite a news - Sel and Threnody at the very least circle the same sun. One may even be a moon of another. We can probably guess that whatever messes with Sel's cognitive realm to make it dangerous is connected to whatever makes dead people into Shades.

 

I've been having this thought for a while that Sel may be the Homeland of Threnodian history, and this only seems to support this. A short distance between the two would mean that it'd be easy to escape from Sel to Threnody, and the planet may've been named in memory of those who didn't manage to run away. This would also suggest that the Simple Rules come from Selan arts (AonDor, ChayShan, Bloodsealing...), not to mention that Forescouts (Silence's family), who were supposedly one of the first people to leave Homeland, were worldhoppers. What is probably more important, something chased Threnodians away from Sel. Odium returning to finish the job it started? Events of the elusive Elantris 2? I have no idea. 

 

Of course, it could also be that Threnodians are just one culture from Sel that was hit especially hard by Odium paying a visit to splinter Devotion and Dominion - hit hard enough to worldhop to another world to escape it. This would explain why their names are so different from the cultures we've seen so far (Silence and Theopolis vs. Shai and Raoden).

 

I honestly don't know what to think of this.

[Khyrindor]

Little nitpick: Threnodite, not Threnodian.

 

I think it could be possible that Threnody was named in Honor of Aona and Skais' deaths. 

 

Svrakiss = Shades?

 

I don't think Odium would have returned to Sel after Splintering Aona and Skai; he would have no reason to. Perhaps the people just worldhopped there in the ensuing chaos before things settled down with the Dor. The thing is, the Cognitive Realm around Sel is dangerous because of the Dor ripping people apart, so they could have fled the planet before the Splintering as they saw it coming.

 

In SfSitFoH, it clearly states continents, not worlds, were fled. We don't know what the Evil was as of yet, but it was much later after the exodus. Perhaps the continent closest to Sel in the Cognitive Realm is where the Shades/Svrakiss are, and the people knew about them because they had to travel through them on the way to safe lands.

[King's Twit]

Based on zero evidence, I now believe that Hoid led the Forescouts and the other Threnodite founders to Threnody, and then named the planet after the deaths of his old friends/acquaintances Aona and Skai.

[ParadoxicalZen]

Perhaps Shades are the cognitive shadows of the Hoed

[skaa]

Perhaps Shades are the cognitive shadows of the Hoed

Well, we know that at least some Shades are the cognitive shadows of Threnodites who violated the Simple Rules in the Forests of Hell. Also, if you're talking about Hoed who were dropped into the pool, we now know that they are ripped apart by the uncontrolled powers in the Selish Cognitive Realm.

I like @Zmann966's idea that Threnody is Sel's moon and that Shades are Svrakiss. Too bad the Starbelt was the only thing visible in the Threnodite night sky (at least during the events of the story). Maybe the Forests of Hell is on the far side of the moon or something.

Edited February 29, 2016 by skaa

[IndigoAjah]

To be fair, in a world where planet names don't have much meaning in English, and with a word as poetic as Threnody, Hoid does jump out as the person likeliest (whom we have met) to name a world Threnody. He loves his stories

[IndigoAjah]

To be fair, in a world where planet names don't have much meaning in English, and with a word as poetic as Threnody, Hoid does jump out as the person likeliest (whom we have met) to name a world Threnody. He loves his stories

Actually, based on the language of the Ars and the Second Letter, can probably add Khriss and Frost to Hoid

[Pagerunner]

In SfSitFoH, it clearly states continents, not worlds, were fled. We don't know what the Evil was as of yet, but it was much later after the exodus. Perhaps the continent closest to Sel in the Cognitive Realm is where the Shades/Svrakiss are, and the people knew about them because they had to travel through them on the way to safe lands.

 

Can you provide a definite quote that says that? There is a strong implication, but it's never mentioned definitively. Silence refers to Lastport as the most powerful fort on the continent, but Homeland is never referred to as another continent, just another place, IIRC. (And I just reread the story a few days ago, with that question in mind, so I'm pretty confident. Like, 95%. Maybe 94.)

 

But you're definitely right that the Evil couldn't be the Shattering of Skai and Aona. Silence's grandparents were among the first of the first to explore Hell, and considering that William had a teenage child at the time of SSFH, the Evil hadn't occurred more than 100 years before the story. Couple that with Brandon's comments about timeline - that it's the later half of the overall Cosmere sequence, but before Stormlight - and it doesn't seem like it could fit in the 3500 years before Odium was trapped on Braize. (I, personally, think that it's happening concurrent with Mistborn, which is why Hoid wasn't able to be in SSFH.)

 

So, of the four major Shardworlds we've had books set on (Sel, Scadrial, Roshar, Nalthis), two of them have confirmed minor Shardworlds in their systems. I wonder how many Shardsystems have multiple Shardworlds in them? That could be an interesting follow-up: what's the highest number of Shardworlds in a system? Maybe there's another minor Shardworld in the Sel system, which is where Homeland originally was?

[Ari]

So Paladin Brewer has been to San Antonio signing and asked a question I asked him to ask (lovely grammar is lovely...). To not-just-my surprise, it wasn't RAFO'd.

 

Without further ado:

  

 

Q: Is Threnody in the same planetary system as Sel?

A: Yes, it is.

 

I dare say that's quite a news - Sel and Threnody at the very least circle the same sun. One may even be a moon of another. We can probably guess that whatever messes with Sel's cognitive realm to make it dangerous is connected to whatever makes dead people into Shades.

 

I've been having this thought for a while that Sel may be the Homeland of Threnodian history, and this only seems to support this. A short distance between the two would mean that it'd be easy to escape from Sel to Threnody, and the planet may've been named in memory of those who didn't manage to run away. This would also suggest that the Simple Rules come from Selan arts (AonDor, ChayShan, Bloodsealing...), not to mention that Forescouts (Silence's family), who were supposedly one of the first people to leave Homeland, were worldhoppers. What is probably more important, something chased Threnodians away from Sel. Odium returning to finish the job it started? Events of the elusive Elantris 2? I have no idea. 

 

Of course, it could also be that Threnodians are just one culture from Sel that was hit especially hard by Odium paying a visit to splinter Devotion and Dominion - hit hard enough to worldhop to another world to escape it. This would explain why their names are so different from the cultures we've seen so far (Silence and Theopolis vs. Shai and Raoden).

 

I honestly don't know what to think of this.

 

Great speculation and question, well done on figuring out where they came from!

 

This brings up some interesting questions- the most obvious is why would the investiture in the Cognitive Realm make shades in the Forest, but not on the rest of Threnody or on Sel? There's something more going on there, but knowing that the loose investiture is around explains part of why it's so much easier to turn into a shade. The most obvious answer is that the loose investiture around the Forest is somehow set up to be easier for spirits to become cognitive shadows than the rest of it, but I don't know exactly how that works.

 

Have to agree that it's still pretty open as to what The Evil is, but knowing they've also experienced the Shattering in their past makes a lot of things make more sense.

[Yata]

I like the Theory (I find it maybe a bit forced, but I like it) but like Pagerunner says the Timeline made this theory quite impossible.

 

D&D's death is too far away in the past and instead SSFH is between Mistborn and Stormlight..... Of course something may happen in Elantris Sequel and the Selish will run away from their planet... But we don't know enough about.

Odium himself is seal on Great Roshar during this exodus

Edited February 29, 2016 by Yata

[Rasarr]

People commenting on the timeline are correct, it's unlikely it was the shattering of DeeDee that was the Evil to push people off Sel and into Threnody (if that is indeed what happened), and Odium was imprisoned by the time SSFH took place. 

 

Also, I'm all on board with theory of Hoid being somehow involved in exodus to Hell! I do recall somebody noting similarities between the depictions of White Fox and him - maybe that where he is in the story (I know White Fox is Silence, but she could've adopted an older moniker for herself).

 

Frankly, I'm still most certain that it'll be events of Elantris 2 that'll shed some light on connection between Sel and Threnody, but for some other theories that came to my mind when I thought about it:

• Threnodites are a culture from Sel that could worldhop. They were invaded by one of other Sel cultures, such as Fjorden, and decided to run to one place they were sure they enemy would not follow - Hell, or Threnody. Groups such as Elantrians of Dakhor monks could very well feel so inhuman to them as to be called Evil and ran away from. More even, we don't know how much time and technological advancement passed between Elantris 1 and exodus from Homeland, so it could even be that the invader attacked with gunpowder weapons. 
• Threnodities are not connected to Sel people (Selites? Selians?) in any way, and Homeland was a continent on Threnody. The Congitive crazypalooza of Sel has been slowly spreading from the world further away, eventually reaching Threnody. The brokeness of the Cog became the Evil, driving Threnodites out of Homeland and making Shades. This suggests that matters on Sel, the "ground zero" of the problem, are even worse.

Aaand for the crazy one:

• Threnody is a world created artificially by Aona and Skai in memorial of Yolen or their friends who died there, hence the name. They were not as good at worldbuilding as Ati and Leras, so the Cognitive of Threnody is broken there, and Evil resulted from things slowly spinning out of control after Aona's and Skai's untimely demise. How people came to live there is anyone's guess.

[Pagerunner]

Put your aluminum foil hats on, boys and girls.

 

Remember the antagonist's name, Theopolis? It's a combination of two Greek words: theos, meaning God, and polis, meaning city. Combined, they mean "City of God" or "City of the Gods."

 

Brandon named the bad guy after Elantris.

[The Invested Beard]

Put your aluminum foil hats on, boys and girls.

 

Remember the antagonist's name, Theopolis? It's a combination of two Greek words: theos, meaning God, and polis, meaning city. Combined, they mean "City of God" or "City of the Gods."

 

Brandon named the bad guy after Elantris.

 

That's a good point. Would make me kind of sad if all Elantrians in the future of the Elantris timeline are baddies though. I'm hoping more for just one group that goes rogue and is more nefarious.

[Jondesu]

Great question, awesome fact to learn! I don't have much to add, but I'll be very curious to see more answers come out. I do agree that the name Threnody may indeed be in memoriam of Aona and Skai, though it does bring up the question of when it was named.

jW

[Ari]

So I went back and re-read Shadows to refresh my memory, and I think it's worth pointing out that the migration Silence refers to is the migration to the current continent, not a migration to Threnody as a whole. So while the Evil can't be the Shattering of Devotion and Dominion, that can totally still be the reason her people migrated to Threnody. (although perhaps the detail that Theopolis is the villain may be suggesting that the Threnodites were chased off Sel by Elantrians, instead)

 

edit: spelling

Edited March 1, 2016 by Ari

[Mestiv]

I think that that the Evil is Jaddeth that Fjordells worshipped. He was once called the "Great Jaddeth Below" and Fjordells generally say that he'd come from beneath when everyone is united under Shu-Dereth. Silence at one point thinks with dread about "Deepest Ones" like if they were some special kind of shades. I think there's some kind of connection.

[Argent]

I wonder how far into the Cognitive Realm the Dor's effects can be felt. Is it possible that the Shades do originate on Threnody, but the reason they spawn in the first place is because the Dor affects them all the way from Sel?

[PeterAhlstrom]

Folks, I hate to be a killjoy, but I just asked Brandon about this, and he says that he answered that question with "No, they are not."

[Titan Arum]

I know that Peter has been known to Troll us before...but I believe him here. OP, is there a recording of any of this? Is there some confusion about some other question? If Brandon distinctly remembers saying No and you distinctly remember a Yes...then I am distinctly confused. 

 

This may be a lesson in don't believe everything until we get a recording that's been transcribe by multiple people to verify what was or wasn't said.

[Zmann966]

Folks, I hate to be a killjoy, but I just asked Brandon about this, and he says that he answered that question with "No, they are not."

 

No to the "planetary system" (which still leaves solar system) or No completely and utterly?

Better question, does it count as the "same system" if Sel no longer exists? haha

[Pagerunner]

Folks, I hate to be a killjoy, but I just asked Brandon about this, and he says that he answered that question with "No, they are not."

 

 

So, all the connections we saw: Svrakiss/Shades, Odium/Evil, Sel Magic/Simple Rules... we see what we want to see. It's the Wizard's First Rule: People will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. (Not accusing the OP or question-asker of lying; just that we ran with it way too eagerly.)

[Zmann966]

I blame myself. I can be really convincing in arguments, haha.

I would like clarification though, both from the exact specifications of the Q&A where we got this "confirmed" and from the specifics around the "No" from Peter/Brandon.

ITS NOT DEAD UNTIL I SAY IT IS~

[Argent]

I wonder why the mixup happened...

[skaa]

Folks, I hate to be a killjoy, but I just asked Brandon about this, and he says that he answered that question with "No, they are not."

 

Aw man. Well, I'm not too bummed out. Threnody's magic doesn't seem to be connected to either the form-based magic of Sel or the Intents of the Selish Shards. For comparison, Ashyn (which is in the Rosharan system) has a manifestation of Investiture reminiscent of the curse-blessing combo of the Old Magic on Roshar.

[Paladin Brewer]

I asked him exactly the way I typed it "Is Threnody in the same planetary system as Sel?" and he said it was :/

Edited March 3, 2016 by Paladin Brewer