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The Dor is Adonalsium’s Investiture


Confused

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Brandon says that Adonalsium left only “Ambient Magic” on each Shardworld – magic that is part of the natural ecosystem but cannot be commanded by mortals. The magic of First of the Sun in Sixth of the Dusk and the pre-human Rosharan ecosystem are examples.

I propose that the Dor is the Investiture Adonalsium left on Sel and that it fuels all of Sel’s pre-Shattering Ambient Magic. Devotion and Dominion later made changes to the Dor to allow mortals to command it.

Adonalsium placed the Dor into Sel’s ground and thereby created Sel’s “location-based” magic – different Ambient Magic in different Physical Realm locations. Evidence of the Dor’s ground location: (i) Uncontrolled Dor caused the chasm explosion; (ii) Arelenes use the phrase “Domi below”; and (iii) when Raoden finished the “chasm line,” the Dor “exploded from the ground.”

Here’s how I think the Dor worked before Devotion and Dominion showed up:

1. The Dor forges a Connection between the lifeforms of a place and the place itself. Each location’s magical “nutrients” leach into the location’s soil and become part of the food chain. Every local lifeform absorbs this Investiture.

2. The Connection between person and place resembles the bond between Splinter and Magic User. The stronger the bond, the more effective the magic usage. Distance is one factor in the Connection’s strength. Brandon says “bloodlines” is another. Children of parents from two different places may have a weaker Connection to a parent’s home territory than the parent, even if the child currently lives there

3. Sel seems an exercise in “speciation,” the evolutionary process by which isolated biological populations evolve into separate species. On Sel, the evolutionary differences are magical. We don’t know how or why these magical populations were initially isolated. Perhaps Sel is veined with aluminum.

I previously thought Sel’s location-based magic results from the Shards’ Splintering. I now think location-based Ambient Magic predates the Splintering. Brandon says his “hard-core fans” are not “thinking right” about Sel’s location-based magic. I believe he means we think too much about the Shards’ influence and not enough about Adonalsium’s. That conclusion probably applies to all magic systems, except for Scadrial’s, the only planet created by Shards.

Edited by Confused
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1 hour ago, Confused said:

I now think location-based Ambient Magic predates the Splintering.

This is one theory that I can't wait to unravel.  Since we don't know if regionalized magic came before or after the Splintering, we can only guess.

I think Brandon's comments about "not thinking right" may be that it's too simple of answer - rather than a unified system of magic, it is now fragmented (as a result of the splintering of the shards on the planet).

I give an upvote to this idea (since we just don't know yet), but as I am a proponent of the splintering being the cause of a fragmented and disordered Dor, I can't say I support it! :-P  I think there will be a lot of "aha" moments looking back on these stories as it relates to Adonalsium's influence pre-shattering as we learn more about the cosmere in the future!

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Reaaaaly cool concept (upvote mate)

it seems very reasonable that if some planets have ambient magic all should have , in some shape or form ,if roshar can have spren why not sel have a prototype of the dor

could this apply in other worlds too (not scadrial since it didnt exist pre-shatering)
i can't imagine how nalthis would be but perhaps adonalsium was too bored to infuse all of the planets he created

 

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1 hour ago, Confused said:

Brandon says that Adonalsium left only “Ambient Magic” on each Shardworld

Each? Do you have any source for this maybe? I'm not really versed about Sel right now.

Anyway, Dor is literally made up of Devotion's and Dominion's corpses - their Splintered power, if you will.

The regionalisation we believe (there was a nice theory about that which I support) is the result of the Shardic power being in Cognitive instead of Spiritual. Spiritual is not timespace-dependent while Cognitive is. It makes sense that power would also regionalise.

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58 minutes ago, Pagerunner said:

I recommend you read the Selish System essay from Arcanum Unbounded. It's available as a preview from Amazon.co.uk.

I'm not sure who are you talking to but I read it last Friday and was trying very hard not to give anything away in my response :D

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3 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

I'm not sure who are you talking to but I read it last Friday and was trying very hard not to give anything away in my response :D

I was talking to Confused. It certainly is relevant, and I don't feel bad about saying that in public since it's available for free online.

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20 hours ago, Confused said:

Brandon says that Adonalsium left only “Ambient Magic” on each Shardworld – magic that is part of the natural ecosystem but cannot be commanded by mortals. The magic of First of the Sun in Sixth of the Dusk and the pre-human Rosharan ecosystem are examples.

I think you're misinterpreting this. I think what he is meaning is that "any power that Adonalsium left behind appears as ambient magic on shardworlds". After all, I don't think

Mistborn Era 1 things

Spoiler

Scadrial has any of Adonalsium's ambient investiture around since it was formed after the splintering, from the power of Ruin and Preservation.

 

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1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

I recommend you read the Selish System essay from Arcanum Unbounded. It's available as a preview from Amazon.co.uk.

Thanks, I didn't know about the Selish preview. It was fashinating, well it confirm what I already thought, but one thing is a speculation and another saw it canon in a book...thanks again 

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