Ripheus23 Posted July 1, 2018 Report Share Posted July 1, 2018 So, this is an incomplete theory about what, if anything, the ultimate antagonist in the Cosmere will end up being. We have two Shards that resulted in major villains (Ruin and Odium). Some suspect Autonomy to be antagonistic, it seems... But now let's suppose at some point the previous "evil" Shards are all held by no one (e.g. Sazed/Harmony loses hold of Ruin), and then someone else comes along and takes them all up... Or maybe there's an anti-Hoid out there, and Hoid isn't trying to reforge Adonalsium but prepare for his nemesis... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Harlem Worldhoppers Posted July 2, 2018 Report Share Posted July 2, 2018 I'm of the mind that Mraize and Hoid will come into conflict at some stage. Mraize is the only character apart from Hoid that has made efforts to both visit numerous shardworlds and collect Investiture related artifacts. Shallan notes that Mraize's hand looks like it was broken and poorly set, but I think this gnarled bony look is the result of a partial Dakhor monk transformation. In the scene where Shallan first meets Mraize she confuses him with Hoid. Here's an interesting post someone made on the topic. We have seen the Ghostbloods aim progressively higher in pursuing their goals, with their next target being Sja Anat. Logically, the most ambitious gambit the Ghostbloods could make would be an attempt to take up one or more of the shards on Roshar, and as Mraize said to Shallan they do value ambition. So from Hoid's perspective the Ghostbloods might be seen as villains for hindering his plans. I think Hoid is trying to reforge Adonalsium for purely selfish purposes. Hoid denied his chance for a shard so there is obviously a huge difference between what a single shard is capable of compared to what Adonalsium is capable of. From reading The Traveller, I think it has something to do with bringing someone back from the beyond. Hoid won't let anyone stand in the way of accomplishing his mission so he could end up at cross purposes to our heroes. Just to clear things up; The anti-Adonalsium force referred to the people who shattered Adonalsium and took up the shards. Quote Eric In Secret History we learn the 16 Shards that Shattered Adonalsium. Was that done [on behalf of the anti-Adonalsium force]? Brandon Sanderson You’re focusing too much on this idea of an anti-Adonalsium. It—the original question I believe that was asked me was “is there a force that is opposed to Adonalsium” and it left me a lot of wiggle room. In other words, the people who killed Adonalsium, you could say were a force, any person who opposed Adonalsium... What they were trying to get was a “devil” but to do that you must assume Adonalsium was a more Christian-style God, and I haven’t confirmed any of that. So while the existence of an anti-Adonalsium devil figure has not been ruled out I do think it's a little too cliché for Brandon. I think we will mostly have Shards and humans as villains throughout the Cosmere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatikis Posted July 2, 2018 Report Share Posted July 2, 2018 12 hours ago, The Harlem Worldhoppers said: I think this gnarled bony look is the result of a partial Dakhor monk transformation. Quote Questioner [Mraize's] cosmere treasure room had a white tree branch-like thing, is that the bones from Sel? Brandon Sanderson It is not from Sel, it's from Yolen. source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leyrann Posted July 2, 2018 Report Share Posted July 2, 2018 8 minutes ago, Fatikis said: Those two don't need to be related. The gnarled bony look is from his hand, the white tree branch-like thing is one of his items. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fatikis Posted July 2, 2018 Report Share Posted July 2, 2018 8 hours ago, Leyrann said: Those two don't need to be related. The gnarled bony look is from his hand, the white tree branch-like thing is one of his items. Ahh sorry. I must have misread that. Though a broken poorly set bone could be just be a broken and poorly set bone. He is a hunter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripheus23 Posted July 10, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2018 "his nemesis" was not meant to refer to a nemesis of Adonalsium but of Hoid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farnsworth Posted July 10, 2018 Report Share Posted July 10, 2018 I really don't want there to be an ultimate antagonist. This might just be me, but that just feels to cliched, something that Sanderson had done a fantastic job in my opinion of avoiding. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus Posted July 10, 2018 Report Share Posted July 10, 2018 I dont think there will be any single "ultimate Antagonist" unless it's Adonalsium itself. I do, however, think we'll see a bunch of different people, nations, and Shards all having to choose Sides in some Cosmere-wide conflict, I hope there will be at least three sides, and I suspect that Hoid will not be on the side we might normally expect from a "protagonist". 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wander89 Posted July 10, 2018 Report Share Posted July 10, 2018 Ultimate Antagonist screams Endgame to me and, as much as I would HATE to see it happen 237904 books from now, if it's done well then i'd be for it. And I know Brandon always plots well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sorana Posted July 11, 2018 Report Share Posted July 11, 2018 9 hours ago, Quantus said: I dont think there will be any single "ultimate Antagonist" unless it's Adonalsium itself. I do, however, think we'll see a bunch of different people, nations, and Shards all having to choose Sides in some Cosmere-wide conflict, I hope there will be at least three sides, and I suspect that Hoid will not be on the side we might normally expect from a "protagonist". I really hope you are right. I trust Brandon to write the whole ultimate antagonist Plot, but I enjoy that there isn't the typical hero/Villain. Every character has his/her ein motivations and reason and that leads to a grey picture instead of a black/white one. And imo that makes his books so interesting (next to the whole cosmere Plot and the Secrets ...) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goody153 Posted July 11, 2018 Report Share Posted July 11, 2018 (edited) 10 hours ago, Farnsworth said: I really don't want there to be an ultimate antagonist. This might just be me, but that just feels to cliched, something that Sanderson had done a fantastic job in my opinion of avoiding. Yep this exactly. This is what makes the Shards of cosmere really unique. Every intent that the shards have can be translated into bad or good depending on the translation of the person. It's all in the matter of perception. That even Ruin isn't bad since change/death is just a natural thing. Preservation can't always be good as well as an example since never changing state can terrible at times. All the shards can be bad or good. If there was a BIGBAD then it just undermines the theme so far in every concept he explored in cosmere(for example Mistborn with the concept of religious influence where it can be good or bad). Cosmere don't need a "ultimate antagonist" just for the sake of a "greatest scale enemy" . In fact that can actually be detrimental since a secret greater enemy when everything is establish just ends up with a "power escalation problem". Just notice on movies, anime/manga's(especially this one), comic stories(it's common here as well) and others on how common the power escalation problem is. Basically it's just about a none-stop powerup that ends up undermining everything that the story has carefully setup about. Usually it just becomes ridiculous and particularly bad(Bleach and DragonBall are big examples of how bad a neverending escalation can be) You could say that epic fantasy's are different but i say otherwise. Alot have fallen for the escalation problem in all kinds of story telling medium and i doubt Sanderson isn't susceptible on it as well. Greater strength/scale enemy doesn't always necessarily mean "better enemy" for the story. Even i don't have confidence Sanderson could pull of a greater scale villain well in the current Cosmere. Edited July 11, 2018 by goody153 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhapsody Posted July 11, 2018 Report Share Posted July 11, 2018 I agree here. I really hope Brandin doesn't go this route. Until now all of his antagonists have had their own motivations and I really enjoy that as @Soranaput it there isn't a strict black/white picture. Sometimes it even seems that our heroes are the bad boys in the long run OB spoiler for example the Voidbringer question in OB or WoA spoiler how Vin kills all those people in WoA. even though for example straff was a bad person, it wasn't exactly the way someone truely good would have handled the situation just as two examples. HoA spoiler even Ruin wasn't evil. It was just the principles of entropy and decay taken to their extremes. both are necessary for life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quantus Posted July 11, 2018 Report Share Posted July 11, 2018 5 hours ago, Sorana said: I really hope you are right. I trust Brandon to write the whole ultimate antagonist Plot, but I enjoy that there isn't the typical hero/Villain. Every character has his/her ein motivations and reason and that leads to a grey picture instead of a black/white one. And imo that makes his books so interesting (next to the whole cosmere Plot and the Secrets ...) It's downright colorful. Even shades of grey would be theoretically quantifiable, but which is Darker between Red and Green? (damnation, I want to go read Warbreaker now..) 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sorana Posted July 11, 2018 Report Share Posted July 11, 2018 (edited) 8 minutes ago, Quantus said: It's downright colorful. Even shades of grey would be theoretically quantifiable, but which is Darker between Red and Green? (damnation, I want to go read Warbreaker now..) Yes it is colourfull. Brightly so and that's great. I was aiming at the classical roleplayer Character types white (=good) and black (=evil) with Grey in the middle. Sry I should have explained that more. Edited July 11, 2018 by Sorana Typo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ripheus23 Posted July 11, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2018 Having a super-antagonist doesn't necessarily mean having a "Supreme Evil." OTOH if there's no super-antagonist, then the final crisis of the meta-series would have to revolve around a Natural (or Magical) Disaster, I suspect... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhapsody Posted July 11, 2018 Report Share Posted July 11, 2018 8 hours ago, Quantus said: It's downright colorful. Even shades of grey would be theoretically quantifiable, but which is Darker between Red and Green? (damnation, I want to go read Warbreaker now..) that is a beautiful metaphor and extremly acurate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sorana Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 (edited) 12 hours ago, Ripheus23 said: Having a super-antagonist doesn't necessarily mean having a "Supreme Evil." OTOH if there's no super-antagonist, then the final crisis of the meta-series would have to revolve around a Natural (or Magical) Disaster, I suspect... I'm not sure about that. I can see your point that the meta story has to have a conclusion, but I'm not sure if a supreme antagonist is needed for that. We already have several different groups/individuals with different goals. Imo they have enough potential to oppose each other without a supreme-antagonist entering the Game. I don't think one antagonist opposing all the others would work. I think it more likely we get a huge conflict but that it's more a "different people to the party" kind of situation. But in the end we'll see what happens... Edited July 12, 2018 by Sorana 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhapsody Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 I agree with @Sorana It would be much more interesting than having a single antagonistic entity to defeat. And could still bring the cosmere to a satisfying conclusion. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leyrann Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 It would tear my soul apart if the main characters from different books (the immortal ones, at least) would end up fighting one another in the end. Then again, it would probably make for a very good story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calderis Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 Hoid is going to be a major player in Era 4, and it's the end... Maybe we're wrong about him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leyrann Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 1 minute ago, Calderis said: Hoid is going to be a major player in Era 4, and it's the end... Maybe we're wrong about him. He will be a main character, to me that sounds like he's going to be a (even if maybe not the) protagonist. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/39-sandersonchat-twitter-qa-with-audiblecom/#e436 Quote The Chaos Geek Is there a plan for a book focusing on Hoid or will he always remain an enigma? Brandon Sanderson The final Mistborn sequence will have him as a main character, as will the Dragonsteel prequel novels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhapsody Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 OB spoiler Spoiler we already get his viewpoint in OB. so the jump to main character isn't to far. I think we will already get to see more of him in future SA books. And I think it will be so cool to finally find out more about his thought process and motivations through his viewpoints Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calderis Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 33 minutes ago, Leyrann said: He will be a main character, to me that sounds like he's going to be a (even if maybe not the) protagonist. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/39-sandersonchat-twitter-qa-with-audiblecom/#e436 I don't think that "main character" and "protagonist" have to be synonymous. I don't believe my suggestion anyway, was just throwing an idea out. There's an endgame planned for the Cosmere, and with the way events have unfolded, there's going to be a climax. With everything we've seen that's going to have to involve Shards. If it doesn't, Hoid as the antagonist is the only other viable option that makes sense. I can't see era 4 being a simple war between factions when it is meant to be the end of the story that will start in Dragonsteel, with the Shattering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wandering Investor Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 Ah, so Hoid was the great evil all along. It makes sense, he must have engineered Adon's downfall in a 20,000 year plan, IT ALL MAKES SENSE *evil laughter* But more seriously, I think we'll have a final showdown between shards, a scenario that will create an equilibrium between the remaining shards. Think of the Roshar conflict, but not kept to one planet. And then Brandon could write POV characters on the opposite side of the conflict that Mistborn/Roshar characters are on. Then we get torn between rooting for the current protagonist/shards and the ones we're familiar with from the previous series. This will either culminate in all the shards dead/broken, all the shards merging together, or a select few of the shards left in a solid and permanent alliance with the other shards dead, or something along these lines, a permanent ending to the saga of the shattering/shards. Or the shards have nothing to do with it, and it is just a faction war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calderis Posted July 12, 2018 Report Share Posted July 12, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Wandering Investor said: Or the shards have nothing to do with it, and it is just a faction war. Yeah. A faction war that involves shards on all sides... I can see that. No Shards involved to end the story... Of the Shards? That's a big pile of nope. Edited July 12, 2018 by Calderis 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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