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Adonalsium


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@Quantus in my mind, though I know many disagree, those two things are not contradictory.

The Shards are infinite. There is a finite amount of investiture in the Cosmere. 

The Cosmere is not the universe, just the region of it we see. In order to access more of the infinite resources of the Shards, the Vessels would have to pull an Autonomy and reach beyond the bounds of their pocket of the universe. Which, considering the nature of the stories we're reading, I don't think will ever happen. 

Edited by Calderis
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28 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Quantus in my mind, though I know many disagree, those two things are not contradictory.

The Shards are infinite. There is a finite amount of investiture in the Cosmere. 

The Cosmere is not the universe, just the region of it we see. In order to access more of the infinite resources of the Shards, the Vessels would have to pull an Autonomy and reach beyond the bounds of their pocket of the universe. Which, considering the nature of the stories we're reading, I don't think will ever happen. 

Agreed, put like that.  I think I was taking a different view of the monothiestic possibilities:  My statement only really makes sense in the model that there is (potentially) only one God Beyond, but that there would be many Adonalsium-equivalents, each with their own finite region of Supremacy, such that All Investiture of the Cosmere would be Adonalsium, by definition, but that other areas (galaxy clusters) would have their own Adonalsium-level deity and (potentially) their own completely different rulebook. Thus it would be possible that the Matter/Energy/Investiture triumvirate is a local model not shared by other regions, and if they did have Investiture as a 3rd state of existence it would be a completely separate store of energy than what Adonalsium had command of. 

 

If, on the other hand, you are correct that the Cosmere was simply the most recent building project of Adonalsium and the rest had been abandoned to auto-pilot (like the classic Watchmaker analogy of God), I tend to agree with your view.  At least, if the Shattering itself did not send out any sort of cosmere-wide disruption, I could easily buy into the idea that those existing systems will only see any effect of the shattering when a Shard actually, willfully messes with them. On the same logic that I assume the shattering of Honor or Devotion, etc did not propagate noticeable effects out to the other shardworlds

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4 hours ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

That’s personally how I’m inclined to think of it as well; Adonalsium was analogous to an archangel of the God Beyond rather than a God in its own right. It just seems to make more sense to me that way.

To your mind, would that preclude there being more than one Archangel/Spenta out there fiddling with things?

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9 minutes ago, Quantus said:

To your mind, would that preclude there being more than one Archangel/Spenta out there fiddling with things?

Not at all. In fact I definitely think that’s something someone ought to ask Brandon sometime, whether Adonalsium was the only one of its kind or just one of many similar beings throughout the greater Cosmere universe. He’d pretty much have to answer too, since a RAFO would basically be a confirmation in this particular case.

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3 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Not at all. In fact I definitely think that’s something someone ought to ask Brandon sometime, whether Adonalsium was the only one of its kind or just one of many similar beings throughout the greater Cosmere universe. He’d pretty much have to answer too, since a RAFO would basically be a confirmation in this particular case.

How is a RAFO ever a confirmation? 

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2 minutes ago, Calderis said:

How is a RAFO ever a confirmation? 

Haha, Agreed.  Though I guess in this instance Id generally expect it to be more of a "Will Not Appear" kind of like the the God Beyond; so you could say that an RAFO confirms it would appear and/or become relevant. 

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8 minutes ago, Calderis said:

How is a RAFO ever a confirmation? 

What would you conclude if someone got evasive and refused to answer whether they ever abused their spouse or not?

If someone asked “Is it possible that there are others like Adonalsium beyond the Cosmere?”, pretty much any response other than a definitive ‘no’ is basically a confirmation that, yes, such a thing is not impossible.

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RAFO means Brandon isn't willing to answer, and that is literally all it means. It is not yes, or no. It does not mean we will ever have an answer. 

Quote

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

I will be very liberal with the RAFOs. Just because getting pinned down on things like this... I always say, I like to answer questions. I like to give you guys the secrets you want to know. But at the same time, I'm a showman. And where I really want it to come out is in the stories. And so there are a lot of things I'm holding...

For those who don't know, RAFO could mean "This is a secret I want to hold for dramatic purposes in the stories." It could mean "I enjoy the fact that the community is discussing this even though the commonly assumed answer is the right answer. I don't want to canonize something 'cause I don't want to kill the looney theories. Because people who love their looney theories really hold on to them tightly for a long time." It could just mean, "You know what, I haven't thought of that," or "I know I wrote it down somewhere, and I don't want to say it right now because I'll contradict myself later."

source

 

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55 minutes ago, Calderis said:

RAFO means Brandon isn't willing to answer, and that is literally all it means. It is not yes, or no. It does not mean we will ever have an answer. 

 

Well sure, but if you look at the things he's RAFO'd before vs given more straight answers, you can (try and likely fail to) extrapolate intents and motivations.  It help if you have several extra layers of Tinfoil hat on, helps focus those secret-whispering voices :P  

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10 minutes ago, Quantus said:

Well sure, but if you look at the things he's RAFO'd before vs given more straight answers, you can (try and likely fail to) extrapolate intents and motivations.  It help if you have several extra layers of Tinfoil hat on, helps focus those secret-whispering voices :P  

Have fun with that :D

https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=rafo

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38 minutes ago, Fanghur Rahl said:

Look I’m just saying that there are some types of questions for which ‘no comment’ is for all intents and purposes the same as just saying ‘yes’. Maybe this isn’t one such case, but regardless, I still think it would be something worth asking him sometime.

I agree it's a question worth asking. We either get a straightforward answer, and Adonalsium was either a unique all spanning power, or there are other Adonalsium-like entities throughout the universe in which the Cosmere sits. 

I just think that a RAFO, in this instance, is going to be a "I don't want to kill discussion" and the most likely outcome. 

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4 hours ago, Calderis said:

I agree it's a question worth asking. We either get a straightforward answer, and Adonalsium was either a unique all spanning power, or there are other Adonalsium-like entities throughout the universe in which the Cosmere sits. 

I just think that a RAFO, in this instance, is going to be a "I don't want to kill discussion" and the most likely outcome. 

Yeah, you may be right. But then again, I don’t think answering in the affirmative would kill discussion; quite the opposite in fact, it would merely change the direction the discussion takes.

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1 hour ago, Thanatos said:

Maybe Uncle Andy is like the Demiurge in gnostic religion. 

The Beyond is heaven aka Pleroma.

I'm not religious but I do like the gnostic myths.

 

Thanatos 

For what this is worth, yeah

Quote

Billy Todd [PENDING REVIEW]

How closely does Adonalsium map to the gnostic demiurge?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

A little bit.

Billy Todd [PENDING REVIEW]

So, not completely? I'm not completely off?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

That's not off at all. 

Billy Todd [PENDING REVIEW]

So, not the urge, but the demiurge. 

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Oh, well I'll have to go read to make sure what I'm talking about then. Your answer is: I will go read and make sure I know. I thought I knew what I was talking about.

Billy Todd [PENDING REVIEW]

So, there's the creator, which is the urge, which is the creator of the Universe. *large hand gesture* The demiurge is actually God. The demiurge is the one that creates [its] universe, *small hand gesture inside larger gesture* and entities living within the universe need knowledge of that which is beyond what the demiurge has created.

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Okay, that matches pretty well.

source

 

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