The Third Door Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 (edited) The lady in border of the voidbringer diagram See diagram in spoiler. Spoiler From: https://brandonsanderson.com/books/the-stormlight-archive/the-way-of-kings/the-way-of-kings-art-gallery/ 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 East2.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 area3.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. Spoiler Perhaps this should have been called Alethkar is the remnants of the empire of the knights radiant, or Alethkar is built on the bones of the Knights Radiant empire. But those seemed a bit long. Basically the idea is the the Radiant's fall, but the people still have their traditions and perceived borders, and so yes over the years things do change, but the big things like one unified national identity with smaller subsections remains. 10 high princes, 10 orders This is pretty straight forward, the Highprinces are the people who took over each area that had once been under the care of an order of a Radiants. The delegation of power in the old kingdom / the knights radiant roles The traditions of the Highprinces evolved from those of the Radiants, specifically the one's which divided up the governing of the kingdom. Wok p1 chapter 18 pg 313 Dalinar's thoughts "In the distant past, each of the ten highprinces in Alethkar had been given a specific charge for the governing of the kingdom. (...) it was a clever device, meant to force the highprinces to work together. Once, this system had forced them to submit to one another's authority. Things hadn't been done that way in centuries, ever since the fragmenting of Alethkar" to the East, Honor's place of power And Alethkar is to the East which assuming section one was true means this is evidence for it being the centre of the people of Honor (the Radiants). 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 radiant4.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 Cultivation5. 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, Odiumspren6. Cultivation, Odium, and Parshendi Got WoB'd by Argent on this one, but i'm leaving the idea below anyway Quote Argent I was talking with someone about the woman on The Way of Kings endsheet, and I wondered about her identity - could you reveal whether she is supposed to depict a someone/something specific, or is it just a somewhat generic image of a woman? Brandon Sanderson The woman on the border of the maps isn't meant to be anyone specific, I don't believe. I've never asked Isaac about it, actually. Source Spoiler So now here's the theory as to who the woman in the diagram's border is. Cultivation in the middle, Odium in the corners https://coppermind.net/wiki/Odium "Odium may be the one referred to as the Broken One. This quote mirrors how the voice in the storm talked to Kaladin and said "Odium reigns".[1] The "sixteen" surely indicates the sixteen Shards, and indeed there are three Shards on Roshar. However, it is peculiar that if three reigned, why is Odium (presumably one of the three) referred to so strangely as the "Broken One" here? It is possible to say that indeed Odium is one of the three mentioned rulers, and as to why he is called the Broken One, it can be said that while Odium ruled along with the other two Shards he was still solid and "whole" in the sense that he was of physical form. But as indicated by Wit he is more of a force than a living being so this Broken One status we can say is him becoming this force." Odium is the big one here, or rather the small one, so the theory is that the yellow to red flame-like blob in the corners of the border are a representation of the force Odium, and that cultivation is the woman between them. One of the biggest things for me here is the colours joining the lady and the blob in the corners, the patterns start out as yellow from the lady, and change to red the further from her they get, the blob comparatively is made of the same colours, with the reds being further from the centre of the image. To me this seems as if the force of Cultivation flowing out from her, and the force of Odium in the corners. On top of this is the background, the storms are dark around Odium, but light around Cultivation, which reflects things as they are on Rothar, Odium is the source of the everstorm, but Cultivation's realm of Shinovar is hardly touched by the current storms (subject to change from the everstorm, probably). Edited October 19, 2017 by The Third Door Further research into section 3 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Sooo, there's this... Quote Argent I was talking with someone about the woman on The Way of Kings endsheet, and I wondered about her identity - could you reveal whether she is supposed to depict a someone/something specific, or is it just a somewhat generic image of a woman? Brandon Sanderson The woman on the border of the maps isn't meant to be anyone specific, I don't believe. I've never asked Isaac about it, actually. Source 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuantumHarmonix Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 I always thought she was going to be an important clue to figuring out the chart. Then I saw that WoB and was crushed. :cry: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Third Door Posted October 19, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 5 hours ago, Argent said: Sooo, there's this... Source Alas 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted October 19, 2017 Report Share Posted October 19, 2017 Yeah, I'm sorry. I too thought she would be important - there were theories, back in the day, about how she was going to be key to us figuring out the magics of Roshar (theories, some of which ran close to your ideas @The Third Door). Like VenDell's coat, it was not meant to be... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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