Search the Community

It’s been a while, and I listened to the book so I don’t have access to the written words for reference, but I remember Moonlight’s denunciation of Autonomy’s hypocrisy. How her brand of individualism ends up creating more conformity. It leads me to wonder: how strong is Bavadin’s hold on Autonomy? If she’s creating effects that contradict the Intent of the Shard, is it possible she’s starting to lose her grip just a bit? Could she end up being supplanted? if so, I wonder if Kelsier might be a better fit.

So where is Autonomy exactly? I was going through the White Sand comics and there were faces in the sky. Not very subtle, that. But I remember reading WoBs and theories where Autonomy is the sun on the Dayside of the Taldain system. About how strange the entire Taldain planetary/stellar system was, why Taldain's Perpendicularity might be blocked (because it's in the Sun), how the lichen of the white sands recharge after being used for Sand Mastery, the Skycolors of Darkside (Shifting Colors in the comics), etc. Autonomy being the Sun made perfect sense, but there are also theories on her being Invested in the atmosphere, and some of those theories still work with that. So is Autonomy hiding in the sun or in the atmosphere? Did Brandon change his mind? Also, what's up with, what looks like an Avatar of her, appearing before Elorin? What's this about Scythe (Skathan in the comics, the Emperor of the Dynasty on Darkside) possibly being another Avatar of her? I've read the WoB on Patji about it being an Avatar of Autonomy formed of her Intent but not quite Splintered off her, and I understand that bit but why would Hoid leave the letter to him? Was access to Bavadin blocked at that point due to her closing off Taldain?

I'm going to just say right off the bat that I am by no means convinced that this is even likely to be true much less that it actually is, and it only just finished coming together in my head a few minutes ago in another one of my posts in which Autonomy was brought up. So for all I know, this is demonstrably false, but I thought I'd just put it out there. So for a while now, I've been trying (and failing) to wrap my brain around just what the heck is going on with Autonomy and why she seems to be acting so contrary to at least reasonable conceptions of what her intent would seem to indicate. What we seem to know about her is that 1) she's 'spreading' from planet to planet and installing avatars of her Investiture on them, whatever exactly that means, 2) she tends to discourage if not outright forbid in the case of Taldain any access to or from the planets under her dominion (pun definitely intended), and 3) that she tends to inspire or deliberately set herself or her avatars up as objects of worship among those on her planets. This has always struck me as extremely bizarre behaviour for the Shard of Autonomy, for which really only (2) could be argued as unsurprising. But then I remembered that there was a WOB in which someone had asked Brandon whether Autonomy was involved in the splintering of Devotion and Dominion, and Brandon answered in the affirmative, albeit only after they rephrased the question to be extremely broad to prevent him from RAFOing it on the spot ("was Autonomy involved in any way), which is so vague as to be compatible with practically anything, but oh well, just consider that one of the unproven assumptions of this theory. What occurred to me is that it almost seems like Autonomy is displaying behaviour consistent with and expected by Dominion and Devotion (albeit interpreted in the sense of 'subservience' and 'sycophantism' rather than 'love and compassion' as Aona seems to). That is to say, I don't think any of us would have been at all surprised to have learned that Dominion liked to spread from planet to planet and claim them for itself, or that a less benevolently-interpreted Devotion would like to set themself up as an object of worship and reverence, but that Autonomy would do those things is, at the very least, somewhat more surprising simply by virtue of it not being as expected given that Shardic intent. So my question is this: IF we assume for the sake of argument that Autonomy was in some way involved with the deaths of Devotion and Dominion, or of disposing of their 'remains' afterward so to speak, is there any chance that the uncontained Investiture of Dominion and Devotion could have in some sense 'contaminated' Autonomy's own Investiture (and maybe even Odium too for all we know, since he's really no different, just even worse) to some extent and instilled into her these tendencies that would be more expected for those two Shards? I mean she clearly doesn't hold their full Shards, that's not what I'm suggesting, but it doesn't seem entirely outside the realm of possibility that when the Investiture of two Shards comes into contact, for lack of a better term, some limited degree of melding occurs (it certainly did in Harmony's case, admittedly through completely different means). Looked at in this way, Autonomy's behaviour would no longer seem quite so counter-intuitive. She'd effectively be a single Shard in terms of power, but possess in addition to her primary attribute, a limited extent of two other Shards as well. Though admittedly, an obvious inconsistency with this theory is that Ruin and Preservation's Investiture had clearly been 'in contact' before and yet neither of them displayed any sort of 'intent blending', so clearly if this has any merit at all it would require the additional assumption that something different and possibly unique occurred on Sel that simply hasn't occurred since. Exactly what this is, I don't know. Does anyone have any thoughts?

I want to try to answer and identify any and all possible avatars of Autonomy throughout the Cosmere as possible. Be warned: possible spoilers. To preface, if you are unsure of what I’m talking about, it has been hinted at in books and mentioned by Brandon that Bavadin splits up their identity in a way similar to shallan (almost!) and spreading out, “colonizing” the Cosmere. current list — Patji: located on First of the Sun, has enough investiture in one place to have a functioning perpendicularity and be considered “a shard” with an asterisk of course. Considered to have writes the first OB letter. — Obrodai: nameless for now; was stated by Patji that a “manifestation of our being” is forming there (Obrodai). — Trell: a mysterious being worshipped by Miles Hundredlives. Location: Scadrial. — Taldain: the planet where most of Autonomy’s power is centralized. Where Bavadin the true vessel is said to be. — other: it has been stated by Brandon that there are pantheons where every person worshiped is Bavadin.

Recently on Reddit, somebody mentioned that Autonomy's investure doesn't empower sapient beings directly. 1. On Taldain, the sunlight contains investure that energizes microscopic lichen in the sand. Sandmastery is the manipulation of these organisms, but as far as I can tell, involves little to no flow of investure through ones self. 2. On Patji, Avien are formed when normal birds eat the grubs in the Eye of Patji. Notably, there is no effect if a human were to consume said grubs. I believe that this is intentional on the part of Autonomy, and I believe that I know the reason why. We know from Oathbringer that Autonomy is leaving sentient splinters of herself around the cosmere. From Secret History, we know that a share cannot be taken up without significant connection to it. As there is more Autonomy to go around, the likelihood that someone could eventually take up a splinter is higher. Autonomy tries to limit others connection to it, either as a precaution or simply due to her intent, by providing this buffer between her magic and the people of the cosmere.

Potential Oathbringer Spoilers So this is very much a crackpot theory, and I highly doubt this is actually the case. But let me explain. Brandon has stated that gender does not need to be associated much with Bavadin, stating that entire Pantheons are in fact Autonomy's Shardholder. And in the second letter in Oathbringer, it is assumed that Bavadin wrote it. The way she/he referred to itself was as "We", due to the various personalities it seems to have split itself into with its potential empire of planets. This is very much a guess, but could Bavadin have had a split personality disorder? And when Bavadin ascended, these different personalities multiplied into the different avatars that now rule and are worshipped across the cosmere. Could this have been a side effect of Ascending, or is it just something that is potentially unique to the Autonomy Shard? Thoughts?

It is known to most Cosmere fans that Hoid is a fan of the college student's favorite meal: instant noodles. The question is, however, where would he have had something like this in a universe that is predominantly High Fantasy? The answer is simple.To quote a WoB: Now what would be stopping our wittty, white-haired friend from stopping by his local Taldain Conveniences and buying a 24 pack of Lossand Spice flavored ramen? That lies with one issue. One large issue invested into the Dayside star of Taldain. Bavadin--being the bearer of the shard Autonomy--has limited off-world travel in and out of Taldain, restricting our snarky Yolish Worldhopper's options to pushing development in other regions in the direction of plastic cups and fried noodles. This would explain his interest in Scadrial, it being one of the most technologically advanced Shardworlds outside of Taldain. Given a push in the right direction, Hoid could be seeing his noodles in less than a century--with Scadrial currently being analougous to Late 1800s/Early 1900s Earth. Naturally, anyone would be mad if someone took away a ready supply of their favorite food and forced them to push a world's development for around a century just to get at it again. As a result, it wouldn't be too much of a logical jump for Hoid to bear a grudge against Bavadin for trying to stem his instant noodle addiction. (please be gentle, this is my first theory post)

Autonomy is a popular theory for the identity of Trell, and I really like it. There is just one thing: how could Autonomy go to Scadrial? She is invested in the Taldain system as far as I know. So she shouldnt really be able to go anywhere.

So, this just popped into my head, but my theory is that, at least in relation to the other shards, Autonomy's holder is not as restricted by the effects of his/her intent. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe that they could go directly against their mandate, but more that, by following their mandate, they are given far more freedom to act within the cosmere than the other shards we know. Its 1:30am here and I'm on a break at work, so I don't have time to go into much more depth than this, I will post more about it tomorrow, but please, in the meantime, discuss!

Just noticed the similarities in the names of Bavland and Bavadin. Coincidence? Probably. Still, just thought I'd mention it, since we know that Bavadin has influence in a number of places. I remember Tyn and Shallan talkibg about bavlanders sounding like they have rocks in their mouths, and sand is technically small rocks. And who is the shard of Taldain? Bavadin. I dont believe this myself, but Im throwing it out for the fun of it. If someone can find something about wierd religions in Bavland, that would be kind of interesting though.

I noticed something interesting in a SoS reread last night. At the end of chapter 7, Wax goes in to interrogate Rian, the spiked man who tried to shoot Winsting. Here's a rough quote: Two chapters later it is revealed that Rian was spiked by some unknown metal (likely trellium). In that same chapter, Wax hears a voice in his head while wearing his earring. In both cases, Wax assumes that the voice he hears is Paalm. But... does that really make sense? There's really no precedent for a person (including kandra) to talk to somebody via Hemalurgy. Isn't it much more likely that some other Shard is at work? "Someone else moves us lawman." Given the context revealed in BoM, doesn't it seem likely that Trell is at work here? In fact, I'd like to go even a step further. I'm reading this in the context of the new info released with AU, where we learned that (1) Bavadin is female (technically, at least) and (2) Autonomy is away from Taldain, meddling somewhere else. This context made the "she" stand out to me. What if "she"=Trell=Autonomy? I'm not super familiar with Era 2 Mistborn, so help me out if I'm missing something in all of this. Isn't Paalm's message and mission about "freeing" Scadrial from Harmony's control? How certain are we that Paalm is acting completely on her own here? She IS spiked by some unknown metal. Presumably trellium. Are we really sure that she wasn't (at least partially) under the influence of another Shard? A Shard who wants to divorce a planet from the control of Harmony? Remember: "Someone else moves us lawman."

This just happened over on reddit (in the context of me commenting on how Brandon must've chuckled every time we use "he" referring to Bavadin): Is it something Brandon said before?

The Taldain essay reveals some pretty interesting information about Bavadin and Autonomy, even beyond the specifics of sand mastery and the solar system. First, the way Khriss describes Bavadin makes me think that she has a lot of control over her Shard. It appears she made a conscious decision to prevent travel to/from Taldain after Khriss and Baon left, and Khriss seemed to imply it wasn't impossible that she might restore the perpedicularity. Second, Autonomy interfering with other planets despite the contradiction with her isolationist policy seems to fit nicely into an old theory of mine, which was that Odium recruited her to take down Sazed. These two taken together raise several interesting questions. Are Rayse and Bavadin related/involved together? What was their role in splintering Adonalsium? Do they share any of the same goals and plans?

Last May, Tempus posted something that he/she called "Shardic Number Theory." Tempus included a section that discussed Bavadin (now known as Autonomy), the shard on Taldain, but had to censor most of the White Sand-Specific words. Here is the section: Bavadin - Five, Eight, Nine We don't know much about Bavadin, but there are a few options. There are five shshshshsh, and a shshshshsh can have five shshshshsh. The religious texts on shshshshsh are five hundred years old. There are eight shshshshsh, who elect eight shshshshsh, and shshshshsh spent eight years training. The shshshshsh religion sends eight shshshshsh at shshshshsh per day. There are also nine ranks of shshshshsh, nine people in shshshshsh's expedition, a maximum of nine shshsh without over-shshshshsh, and nine shshshshsh if you count the beggars. This paragraph brought to you by the Librarians. Now that we have a forum on which we can talk about white sand, who wants to fill this in? EDIT - I think that it was actually May 2014.

Ok so this might be a long shot and I'm making a couple of assumptions, but I've just finished Shadows of Self and was thinking about the Shard that might have made the new metal and was controlling Bleeder. A few people on here have been throwing Odium's name around as there was a lot hatred taking place as a result of Bleeder's actions in Shadows of Self. However whenever Wax actually talks to Bleeder she goes on about Freedom and being released from control. On the other side, after keeping it quite for a long time, Brandon recently informed us of the intent of Bavadin's shard: Autonomy. If you look Autonomy up in the dictionary on Google, the 3rd definition is: "freedom from external control or influence; independence." This seems to match Bleeder's attitude throughout the entire book, which lead's me to think that it is Bavadin's shard that is influencing her. Also Brandon doesn't like to reveal information about book before we have had a chance to read them, but seems to be happy to tease us with clues and little tidbits that might have relavence in the near future. So the timely reveal of Bavadin's shard does seem to fit. However if this is Bavadin's shard then this poses 2 major questions among loads of smaller ones: 1. Has Trell now take control of Autonomy, and if so what happened to Bavadin? 2. If Bavadin is still in control, then who the hell is Trell and what are her motives? Anyway, that's my two cents. Anyone agree with me? Or do you think this is stupid and want to shut me down? Let me know your thought. >Zaineph<