silver-the-ridgerunner

I was drawing from the Coppermind article on Ambition: "Odium gained the upper hand and mortally wounded Ambition by tearing off chunks of her power, which altered the people of Threnody as well as the planets in the system. Ambition managed to escape the system, but she was killed and Splintered in another location despite fighting back." (emphasis mine.) And this statement cites Khriss from Arcanum Unbounded as well as certain WoBs. On its face, this seems to be at odds with the epigraph (presumably from Harmony) that you quote. And that wouldn't be unprecented - the Coppermind is not canon, and even within the Cosmere, Khriss is not infallible. (Although neither is Harmony. Ugh, my kingdom for a reliable narrator in the Cosmere!). And yet, I think these two things can both be true. Specifically, Harmony's epigraph can be read in two different ways, neither of which contradict the Coppermind. One, Ambition was 'destroyed' when she lost a significant chunk of her power, which was in the Threnodite system; she was not fully Splintered until later. Two, the m-dash in the epigraph denotes the serial - i.e. there is a wound upon the Spiritual realm where Ambition clashed with the other shards [Threnody], and another wound upon the spiritual realm where Ambition was destroyed. This would seem to rely on very tricksy language-use... but might be something Brandon would employ, if he wanted to continue hiding that Ambition was killed in the Rosharan system.

Theory: After Ambition was wounded in the Threnodite System by Odium and Mercy, she fled to another point in space. This point either was, or became, the Rosharan system. Here, Ambition was killed. Her death created the Barrier Storm in the Cognitive Realm around the planet Braize. This storm was later Invested by Odium to create the proto-Everstorm that was pulled through into the Physical on Roshar at the Battle of Narak. Ambition's death also created a wound in the Spiritual Realm in the Rosharan System similar to that which exists on Threnody. This is the reason there are spren on Roshar. Datapoints: I group this into two categories, Spren and Storms. SPREN: From Shadows for Silence in the Forest of Hell, we know that the wounding of Ambition in the Threnodite System created Shades: cognitive beings which manifest in the Physical Realm. We do not see similar manifestations in the Mistborn novels or the White Sand graphic novels. We know there are no Splintered Shards in the Scadrian or Taldain systems at the time these stories are set. We see similar manifestations in Elantris and Emperor's Soul (Seons and Skaze). We know there are Splintered Shards in the Selish system at this time. We see similar manifestations in The Stormlight Archive (spren on Roshar) (and voidspren on Braize). STORMS: From Khriss's statements in Arcanum Unbounded, we know that the Dor around Sel is a whorl of free Investiture created when Odium Splintered Dominion and Devotion there. From statements from Nazh and Hoid, we know that travel to/from Sel through the Cognitive Realm is very difficult and dangerous due to the presence there of the Dor. From statements by Nazh, we know that that travel to/from Braize through the Cognitive Realm was difficult due to the presence of this Barrier Storm. A possible chronology: 1) The Shattering of Adonalsium. 2) Odium and Mercy clash with Ambition in the Threnodite System. Ambition is wounded. 3) Odium (and possibly others) clash with Ambition in the Rosharan system. Ambition is killed, creating the Barrier Storm, and spren. 4) Odium goes to the Selish system. He clashes with Dominion and Devotion. They are both killed, creating the Dor. 5) Odium returns to the Rosharan system, and begins whispering in the ears of the Ashynites. 6) The Ashynites devastate their planet using Dawnshards. They are taken in as refugees by Honor and Cultivation on Roshar. Their God, Odium, comes with them. 7) Honor, Cultivation, and Odium make a deal that they think will allow them to live in harmony on Roshar. This is the Oathpact. 8) Odium intentionally goes against the Oathpact, triggering its punishment prohibitions. He is exiled to Braize, on the far side of the Barrier Storm. The cycle of Desolations begins. 9) Honor is Splintered. 10) Honor's Cognitive Shadow is bound to the spren of the Highstorm. 11) Several millennia pass. 12) Odium invests a not-insignificant amount of Investiture into the Barrier Storm, creating the proto-Everstorm in the Cognitive Realm. This process takes several centuries. 13) Finally, the Everstorm is pulled through into the Physical Realm on Roshar, creating a direct passage between Braize and Roshar. Questions: A] Why is this wrong? B] Were other Shards involved in the death of Ambition? Did Mercy join Odium for the final clash? Did Ambition? Did Endowment (who we know is relatively new to the Nalthian system)? Indeed... were Honor and/or Cultivation in on the kill? C] Did the death of Aona and Skai occur before the initial conflict with Uli Da in the Threnodite system; after this initial conflict but before the final conflict in the Rosharan system; or after the Rosharan conflict? D] When on this timeline did Honor and/or Cultivation arrive on Roshar? E] When was Odium's first contact with the humans on Ashyn?

Spoilers for Rhythm of War and also for the entire Cosmere, literally all of it, if you ain't caught up then pretend this post is Aimia and sail right the hell away plzkthx I just posted this as a comment on Reddit. Reposting here as its own thread in case its of interest to y'all :-) This post was inspired by the recent episode of Shardcast. What a great podcast. Absolutely love it. The most recent episode is about Jasnah, in particular her asexuality as it related to her having a sexual relationship with Hoid in Rhythm of War. On the surface, this relationship is BOGGLING. I totally agree. And one interpretation of this is that Brandon Sanderson has done some very bad writing around an asexual character. This sure is possible. However, I don't think that is the case here. I think that Jasnah/Hoid is meant to be boggling. We are supposed to say to ourselves this does not make sense! And then we are supposed to ask, well, under what circumstances could this make sense? I tried to do this, and I think I have an interesting answer. We are told that Jasnah is not interested in sex for pleasure, and that she does not reciprocate Hoid's interest in a romantic relationship with her. How can she be in this sexual relationship if not for sexual pleasure and not for romance? I think the Shardcasters are forgetting that there can be other reasons for a relationship, particularly a cis/het sexual relationship in an (essentially) medieval context. I can think of two possible reasons. The first reason is for the sharing of power through a union, such as marriage. This doesn't seem likely here. What power could a Queen gain from union with a Wit? This would be my conclusion if they had proclaimed a union publicly but not acted on it privately. They are doing the exact opposite. So this doesn't seem likely at all. As a result, I think it's the second reason: procreation. They are having sex in order to produce a child. This is the only reason that I can think of for a person who is not interested in sex in general, not interested in romance with this person in specific, and has nothing to gain from the relationship being public, to engage in a private sexual relationship. Why does Jasnah want to have a baby with Hoid? Merciful Domi but idk. Maybe she wants to give Hoid something to live for (we WoT fans call this "the Veins of Gold"). Or maybe the answer is "magic stuff." Maybe she wants her child to have Connection to a Dawnshard. Maybe she wants her child to be a Mistborn - Hoid's a Lerasium Mistborn so his child will probably be full Mistborn too. Maybe she wants her child to be a Lightweaver apart from the Radiant Surges. Maybe she wants her child to have Connection to Yolen. Or, hell, maybe she just wants to raise a child alone, and in the incorrigibly patriarchal Alethi society, the only way to do this is to hook up with the literally least dependable man in the Cosmere. I don't know Jasnah's reasons - all I know is, this is Jasnah, and so she has 'em. This brings up one more question: if procreation is Jasnah's reason for their sexual relationship, is it also Hoid's? Hoid's behavior might be a clue. His attempts to sexually interest an asexual person suggest that he's unaware of her asexuality; doesn't understand it; or is deliberately ignoring it. If someone agrees to have a sexual relationship with an asexual person for purposes entirely apart from pleasure or romance, maybe their subsequent attempts to interest the asexual person in sexual pleasure result from their guilt at experiencing pleasure in the sexual act which their partner does not. In other words, Hoid is making misguided attempts to resolve a dissonance. This... isn't great. This seems like how an alien would think human empathy works. But Hoid could be that alien just as easily as Brandon. Alternatively, Hoid is just an asshole. This is entirely within the realm of possibility, because, y'know, Hoid. But I don't think this is likely. First, Hoid is not a dumb person. Moreover, he seems to be quite empathetic when he wants to be - and his statements about wanting a romantic relationship with Jasnah suggest that this is a person for whom he'd be empathetic. But most importantly, Jasnah is kind of the freaking patron saint of telling people how it is. If she told Hoid she was ace, I can't imagine she wouldn't explain to him exactly what that means to her & set boundaries clearly and effectively. As a result, I think the most likely answer is that Hoid is unaware of Jasnah's asexuality. This would would imply that Jasnah is pretending to be interested in sex - or at least, allowing him to assume that she is and not correcting him - in order to entice him into a sexual relationship. This would imply that it is her desire to get pregnant - but not his. It wouldn't surprise me if Jasnah has learned a way for cognitive shadows to be involved in conceiving children that is unknown to Hoid. Further, I bet she learned this as a result of things that her father Gavilor Kholin did with the Sons of Honor in an attempt to create 'Fused Heralds' - magical experiments that resulted both in Jasnah's childhood 'lunacy,' and later, Shallan's identity complexities. See https://old.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/qyctcp/shardcast_jasnah/hlouize/?context=3. But that's theories upon theories. But that's why I love the Stormlight Archive In a greatshell: I think that Jasnah has allowed Hoid to believe their sexual relationship is one of pleasure/romance purely in order to concienve a child with him. Further, I think Hoid believes himself incapable of getting someone pregnant - and as a result is going to be mad surprised when Jasnah hands him the sonogram.

"Astarte or Ashtaroth, where?" I believe that the linguistic drift in the so-called Biblical languages was no less pronounced than in the tongues of Roshar. Why yes I enjoyed that pun why do you ask.

Also I wonder if "Cephandrius" derives from "cephas," which is a name based on the Aramaic word for "gem" (כֵּיפָא). See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Peter#Names_and_etymologies

When a crystal breaks, and it has no natural fault lines, it kind of breaks in every direction at once. Kind of like when a car windshield gets hit by a big rock. This breakage is known as a "conchoidal fracture" - viz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conchoidal_fracture The shattering of a perfect gemstone would lead to a conchoidal remnant of a gem first gem topaz concHOIDal HOID HOID HOID

I loved Dawnshard. Rysn is one of my favorite characters in the Cosmere. It was such a romp - it was just so fun! - and it was nice to see a character in a magical world who was struggling with nonmagical difficulties that required nonmagical solutions. Plus, Rhuidean Vibes galore. I can't wait for the audiobook to come out.

I believe this was a piece of white wood, confirmed to be from Yolen. This could have been a recent cutting from a distant planet. It could also be a really old cutting that is just well preserved - ye unto petrified wood. It could also come from a currently-alive plant that is the descendant of those old plants, White Tree Of Gondor style. Or one of those original trees could still be alive, Avendasora style. (Or... magic stuffs!) We have not yet seen Shinovar, known as the being the most Yolen-esque nation on Roshar. This scene could well be set there. Conversely it could be set in a little corner of Roshar that Frost keeps in the old style - a combination private garden, living museum, memento mori. I rather favor this explanation. And... a part of me wonders if that scene occured in the Cognitive - if Frost literally dwells in the memory of what has gone away. After the end of Era 1, I am distrustful of the constancy of "constants." Change is taking one thing and making it a different thing. Divide is taking one thing and making it two of the same things. It is the difference between sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction - a fundamental distinction among all life. Ooo, why not? Feel like this is some herald lore that I don't know! Although: If I remember my WOBs, a cognitive shadow can only have children under ery specific circumstances. I wonder if Chana reduced, or even abandoned, some of her powers, in order to have children - "becoming mortal" or something quite close thereto. The virgin Amaram versus the chad Guy Who Is Connected To Every Magic System. ...no, seriously, great catch. Wonder if she'll also arrange to give birth in Arelon? I hear Selish citizenship can really open Dors for a kid. Agree. Picked this up from Shardcast (and like SHOUTED OUT LOUD, those guys RULE) - the location where the Bands of Mourning were found looked eerily reminiscent of the location where Rysn found her Dawnshard. Maybe he had to drop the Bands in order to become a Dawnshard for <some magical reason>. But what I think is, maybe Kelsier wanted to protect his status as a Dawnshard so much that he was willing to sacrifice the Bands in one gigantic act of misdirection.

Anyone who isn't Ham and Breeze

The best advice I can possibly give to any hiker is to START SLOW! If I had a nickle for the number of Marathon Bros that I met on the Appalachian Trail, who showed off all the first week and so were badly injured by the second, I could afford to go to space on my own private rocket ship. (I wouldn't - but, I could!) Starting fast is never good. Listen to your body, enjoy nature, eat more than you think you need to, and you'll get where you're going - and you'll get better at the getting-there part, every single day. For what it's worth, when I started my first thruhike I had never been backpacking in my life. I had been hiking exactly twice - each time for just an afternoon, and each time it took me to the edge of my own dang annihilation. I had also just recovered from bilateral knee sugeries. And three years of uninterrupted immobility o/a/o law school. Also I was approximately the size and shape of a Snorlax that hadn't shaved in wayyy too long. And yet, somehow, I managed to keep hiking for the better part of two years. (And would have gone longer if it wasn't for la peste). I'm now kind of good at hiking, and on most days I'm pretty okay with how I look in the mirror (which is decidedly new for me). Also I met a hiker on Te Araroa who made me read The Final Empire, and, well, here I am Also, while I haven't had kids yet, I've thruhiked with quite a few families. It sure has it's challenges but it can indeed be done! Now I'm like "wait I never really wanted kids but NOW that I know you can HIKE WITH THEM" omg hiking kids are the best. They grow up so fast out there! It's incredible! This is why, when Nohadon started talking about long walks, or Dalinar said Dalinar Things about Next Steps, I was like YES, YES, GO OFF KING, GO RIGHT THE HECK OFF. Is is a Mortal Instruments forum, because if so, tell Baguette that I say hi :-)

What's GucciYokska? My name is Silver. My job title is Ridgerunner. Here I am in the BrandoFandom, once again proving the validity of nominative determinism. When I'm not thruhiking or working in the outdoors, I'm an attorney - at turn corporate law (when I remember that money exists) or human rights law (when I remember that souls are a thing a person can have). I am also a blacksmith, a cyclotourist, and a bad writer of bad stories that are bad! If you want to find me, I'll be in the Litchfield Hills and southern Berkshires all summer, watching over the Appalachian Trail... and, given half the opportunity, ranting about the Dawnshards more than storming Tanavast. -silver

Spoilers RoW - Spoilers Dawnshard - Spoilers All Cosmere - SPOILERS HERE - SPOILERS THERE - SPOILERS BLOODY EVERYWHERE ...now that we've scared off the neophytes: I haven't read a lot of Stormlight theories. I'm going to start that right now. But I've spent a lot of time reading the books, and reading the blessed Coppermind. So based on too much information and too little community critique... here are my craycray ideas about the Cosmere: Roshar is Yolen. The original planet, home of Adonalsium, is hidden in the Physical by crem (much like Akinah)... and known so commonly as Roshar that it is shrouded in the cognitive. Adonalsium was Shattered at the Shattered Plains, and the warcamps were the loci of the vessels who Ascended to become the first Shards. The burst of power from the Shattering created so many features of Roshar, such as the Windblades, as a result of cymatics. Rosharan Highstorms are driven by the spren of this storm - basically its memory - imprinted on the cognition of the very world. Every highstorm is the memory of the shatterstorm. Cusicesh is the spren of everyone on Yolen recognizing the Shattering - the spren of "a million voices crying out in terror," Alderaan-style. The reason the three realms on Roshar bleed over into each other so much is because of the realmatic trauma of the shattering - a kind of permanent perpendicularization. The ancestors of the Alethi are from Ashyn. The ancestors of the Ashynites were from Yolen. As such, they share a common ancestry with the Shin, who never left Yolen. (Alethkar-son-son-Shinovar). This explains their continued use of stone, which is but a memory of what once was used to keep the Fain at bay. The crem-based life of Roshar is either Fainish, or the result of Fainish adaptation to Roshar - that is to say, to the introduction of the crem cycle. This possibly aided by Cultivation, and/or Dawnshardic influence - or maybe Cult simply created the context which would cause 'evolution' in the direction she desired, God do I love Cult, she storming owns. In this same manner, the races of Roshar are mostly the result of interspecies combination caused at a Deific level. We've seen part-human, part Dysian Aimian; part-human, part Siah Aimian; part human, part Parsh... what is hiding in plain sight is that the Parsh themselves are part human, part dragon. Hence their limited but impressive ability to shapeshift, and their Revisionist Smaug hoarding of gems. Sja-anat's "Enlightenment" is literally adding a light. Five broams says Horneater White is how Brandon thinks Hornitos is pronounced. Axies the Collector is of Whimsy. So is his race. His Collectoriness is his Whim... and he can change his appearance on a whim as well. I'm guessing that the Dysian Aimians are of one of the remaining two shards - probably a complement of Invention, such as Observation - or maybe Fascination. The planet-names of the Threnodite System are all about songs for the dead. They are unrelated to Ambition. They're a little related to Mercy. Maybe. But I wonder if the original Shard of that system was something like Mourning, or Grief, or maybe even Celebration. I wonder if that shard is still in the Threnodite System - maybe Celebration plus the presence of a dead Shard equals Mourning. Harmony will fail to turn Waxillium Ladrian into his prime agent. This is mainly because Harmony's mutually-exclusive powers prevent him from making something into something-else. (His Shard-name could very well be "Laissez-faire.") As a result, he will need to recruit an Agent from offworld. Someone who is already brilliant and capable. Someone who can serve with honor. Someone who, opposite of Sazed, can put on a different intent and skillset to meet the particular challenge at hand - a little like the halfway point between a kandra and a human. Someone who is already involved with a Scadrian organization. Someone who is already involved with an organization dedicated, by happy accident, into discovering how someone with a spren-bond could leave Roshar. Harmony thinks he needs a "sword," but what he really needs is a "little knife." Shallan’s mother was the Herald Chanarach. When Shallan manifested surgebinding, her mother tried to kill her. Shallan killed her in self-defence - but in doing so, she started the False Desolation. I also wonder whether Shallan killed her mother, not with Pattern, and not with Testament, but with something else - either a permadeath weapon, like the knife that killed Jezerien, or a gem-on-a-stick weapon, that killed her mother's physical form but trapped her mother's spiritual aspect in the gem, which was then hidden in the box - either to remain trapped forever, or shattered and sent back to Damnation, starting the cycle of desolation BUT allowing for her immediate rebirth. (Poor Lin!) Jasnah is trying to get pregnant by Hoid. The Dawnshards are the building blocks of life. In the context of the world - of what an evolutionary biologist might call *evolutionary pressures* - they are Adaptation, Perseverence, Mating, and Multiplying. Devoid of their context, they are, at their most fundamental levels, CHANGE, SURVIVE, UNITE, and DIVIDE, respectively. At a more programmer level (Cosmere's Game Of Life?) they are +CHANGE, -CHANGE, COMBINATION, and REPRODUCTION. (Or on an OS level, "Edit" "Save" "Merge" and "Duplicate"). As of the current moment - the end of RoW, and the end of Era 2 Book 3 - the Dawnshards are held by Rysn (CHANGE), Kelsier (SURVIVE), The Stormfather (UNITE) in trust for a worthy host, and I'm guessing Jaddeth for Divide. The effects of this can be seen in Chiri-chiri's evolution; Kelsier's sheer inability to stop being alive; and Dalinar's desire to Unite Them... which so far expresses itself mostly in political terms, but is probably not orthogonal to the fact that, as has often been commented upon, suddenly and irrepressably, Dalinar f---s. Vstim was training Rysn to be a Dawnshard. He made her fit to hold it well, and also developed her Connection to its evolutionary concept sufficient for her to claim it. He arranged for her to have a larkin, and a ship. This smacks of Cultivation’s work with Taravangian, but is rather less direct. Perhaps Vstim is an agent of Cult. Perhaps he visited the Nightwatcher and as a result has become her pawn unknowingly. Or perhaps the indirectness of his actions is based upon an oath of noninterference… because Vstim is Frost. The reason that Investiture on Scadrial always re-gathers is due (howsoever indirectly) to the presence of the Dawnshard SURVIVE. The reason behind so many of the racial hybrids on Roshar is the presence of the two Dawnshards, UNITY and CHANGE. The reason that Kelsier and Hoid immediately wanted to punch each other - and Hoid was able to! - is because of their closeness to Dawnshards. We know that Kelsier is Mr. SURVIVE. Hoid might have also held SURVIVE, and perhaps the Dawnshards are like storming magnets, whereby identical polarities repulse. Or Hoid might have held CHANGE, and as such they are naturally opposed. Personally I prefer the former logic, because... um... well... RYSN/KELSIER. IS THE SHIP THAT I DID NOT KNOW I NEEDED BUT NOW I DO I DO I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Larkin/lanceryn are guardians of Dawnshards because they prevent the Dawnshard-holder from gaining Investiture. They are like the tamper in the core of a nuclear bomb. (Someone get Kelsier a gang... that is entirely made up of EDIT: Leechers.) The forging of Nightblood took "ten thousand breaths" but I bet it also involved ten thousand hemalurgic spikings. This is related to the growing theme in the Archive of "is it okay to do evil to make a technology that will do more good?" - which is very Ishar and just SO DAMN TARAVANGIAN. (As an aside: I wonder if Nightblood was cast or forged. Unwrought steel naturally has a crystaline structure, quite akin to a gem.) (As another aside, I bet the Conventicle of Seran was founded by one or more of the Five Scholars - at least Shashara - and its name is related to the name she used when she was on Scadrial.) Speaking of awakening, command, intent, and visualization: I am told that humans dream in black and white. I wonder if that's why Awakening requires color, to make our dreams reality? Aaand speaking of ethics: Odium's champion is going to be someone Dalinar cannot kill. Adolin? Kaladin? Gavinor? The ghost of Evi? Dalinar will "lose" this rigged contest... but also, *he will be glad to lose*! The end of Stormlight 5 will have the humans of Roshar abandon the planet to Odium. More specifically, they will cede the planet to Toadium, in reparation for bringing the Void and enslaving the Parshmen lo so many years ago. (Stormlight is anticolonialist literature?!?). The Shin will remain, as they predate arrival of humans from Ashyn. Maybe *some* humans will, too. But some will go. They will leave Roshar behind. And this sets us up for the Stormlight Archive Back 5 to suddenly and fully go COSMIC STORMING COSMERE. Dalinar and Navani will go to Sel (Dalinar to Unite that which was splintered; Navani to study seons and aons and basically become Ada Lovelace but for MAGIC), Shallan will go to Scadrial to become Harmony's Mara Jade, and Jasnah will lead the Alethi to Ashyn to try to de-storm the planet of Honor. AND I MENTIONED KELSIER/RYSN RIGHT?!?!?! But not "Toadium." Actually "Passavangian." Because: The Oathpact was a deal between Honor and Odium to fight FOR THE SAKE OF FIGHTING. Odium would send his forces after Honor, and thus be his Hateful self. Honor, in turn, was the anti-Yoda, and thought that wars DO make one great - and longed to provide his people with an endless war in which they could fight and die in glory. This is the truth which the Knights Radiant learned, leading to the Recreance. I would even guess that Koravellium betrayed Tan to Rayse in desperate hope to end their mutual madness (shard-savantism + toxic masculinity = you're gonna have a bad time). El wishes to continue this fight, probably by going after the forces of Valor in big bad Infinity War II Interplanetary Boogaloo. The real test will be whether Odium can truly be transformed into Passion as once he was, causing El to rip off his armor and return to his carapace... a very heavy-metal version of swords-into-plowshares. ADDITION: I still wonder if Ba-ado-Mishram is actually the Sibling - broken of light, trapped in a gem - already bonded by Navani. ADDITION: I bet Kaladin will will sacrifice himself to save Moash, even though Moash has not been redeemed. This might be his fifth Ideal. Or, it might be him being unable to swear the fifth Ideal! In either event, it will be so damn Honorable that we'll get Kalavast. ADDITION: I believe that the most important person in the entire storming cosmere is our sweet, our beloved, all-around best twink in fiction, Adolin Kholin. And why? Because he is Connecting so strongly to Mya. He's not just going to reverse the Deadeye-ness. He's not going to just become an Edgedancer. No. No. He's going to form a bond with a spren WITHOUT SWEARING THE IMMORTAL WORDS. He's going to form a Nahel outside of the strictures that Honor placed on Surgebinding on Roshar. He's going to be a Radiant without being a Knight. And this will be both the key to Connecting with Investiture on other worlds... and also will make Surgebinding on Roshar as dangerous as it was on Ashyn. Yeeeeesh. ADDITION: My guess is that Urithiru is one leg of a Rosharan Bifrost. When you turn it on, it makes a bridge to another similar device on Ashyn. This is how the Ashynites got to Roshar in the first place. However, I also have an alternate guess that is probably mutually exclusive - that the gateway to Ashyn is still open, that it's at the Origin, and that it's the source of all the crem on Roshar. ("Ashyn fell from the sky.") ADDITION: Adonalsium was not actually shattered. It was split, like light by prisms. No, not actually like, but literally. A Dawnshard is a pure Command, wrought into a crystalline lattice so that it can capture investiture, and held by (as) a person in order to supply Vessel-like Intent. (I half wonder whether Hoid's name when he was a youthful otherkin on Yolish Tumblr was Feldspathoid The Dragon, hence "hoid.") I think that the Sixteen thought they would split the light of God off into the world(s). But. But! They used gems that contained TOO MUCH DAMN ALUMINUM. (Such as topaz!). This trapped the Investiture, forcing the Ascension of those who held these gems. ADDITION: I really wonder if Shallan's mother was planning on having more children. Like, 5 or 6 more. Think about that for a hot minute. ADDITION: I wonder if the way you "wound" a Shard is to convince them to betray their Intent. The Sixteen made a promise not to reform Adonalsium. From the get-go, this limited Ambition's ambition to such an extent that they were in internal conflict, and thus injured. Exploiting this injury was easy for our boy Rayse The Roof. By the same token, the infinite loop of the Desolations grew so dishonorable that Honor began to lose himself within it. Kind of like if Cultivation was asked to *not* prune, such as by choosing to *not* nuke every human on Roshar except Kharbranth. I wonder if Koravellium is setting herself to be Splintered, or even killed, by making such a choice - as part of a plan to kill Odium - or even, as part of a plan to let some others (Dalinar and Navani?) Ascend to Unity. Also the binding of Ba-ado-Mishram is the source of the taint on saidin. Okay I'm done now. -silver the ridgerunner (yes, actual name) (yes, actual job title) thanks for being the best fandom. just, the best. <3

Could the Sibling and Ba-ado-Mishram be one and the same? - a Godspren - light-producing - stuck inside a gem - missing a part of itself - wary of Knights Radiant! - both went dormant about the same time Could "Mishram" have been a three-part spren, an equal divide between the three Shards - the three pure tones - of Roshar... perhaps even created to symbolize the unity of the three when the Ashynian Refugees were accepted? Perhaps even created as *part of the Oathpact*?

We know that the Radiants were shocked to discover she had found a way to provide them Voidlight. It would have been rather shocking to think her only able to provide an emulsion of the two lights, only to discover she had found a way to separate them.

Awesome. I ah... went ham on a related theory, and just posted it, if you're interested.