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So in WoK, there are those two ardents in the the eighth interlude (Geranid). The one is studying Spren and discovers that if you measure a spren, and record your measurements, it locks it somehow. Size, shape, luminosity. I assume this had to do with the cognitive realm and I'm sure there's already somewhere on these forums about how recording it sets a law in Shadesmar or something. BUT! This isn't about that so much as it's about the similarity to the real-life scientific phenomenon called the Quantum Zeno Effect - or Turing's Paradox - where if you measure or observe an unstable particle enough times, it will stop decaying like it should. You can lock an unstable particle of Uranium by measuring it or watching it. Thought it was an interesting similarity and I didn't see it pointed out anywhere else here. Btw this is my first post here so yeah... Just thought it was worth mentioning. Don't know if it means anything...

I was perusing the web today after casually reading about some new AI research (side note, people have some ridiculous ideas about how AI works, with very little understanding) when I ended up reading about Karl Popper one of the greatest modern philosophers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popper%27s_three_worlds Not going to lie, it actually blows my mind how similar this is to realmatic theory. For people who are more familiar with the theoretical underpinnings of the cosmere than they are with our own reality (i.e. all of us here), Popper describes reality as three seperate worlds: World 1 (the physical world), World 2 (the mental world), and World 3 (the world of objective truth). It's not identical, but it's unsettleingly close to realmatics. I can't help but wonder if Sanderson was influenced by Popper, or if he just happened to come up with a theory that is nearly identical to one developed by one of the most respected philosophers in the scientific community, then decided to use it in his fantasy world rather than be bothered to publish it.

A month or two ago I saw an advert for Skittles on TV which had two distinct effects on me. You've probably seen it, the Midas themed one where the guy is depressed that he can't touch anything without turning them into skittles. He tries to answer the phone and it turns into a pile of skittles, he gets frustrated and touches his desk; it collapses into a cascade of coloured candy. First and most obviously it reminded me how much I love skittles, they're yummy. Normally I skip or mute all adverts but this one actually got to me. I've tasted many a rainbow in recent weeks (you know, the skittley type, not the other type... not that there's anything wrong with... you know what, never mind). Secondly though I was thinking 'So that's what its like to fall into Shadesmar'. Everything around you losing it's form as it collapses into a sea of tiny beads. Except of course a wee bit more colourful. So now I challenge you all to read the parts of WoR & WoK where Shallan or Jasnah find themselves in Shadesmar without thinking of magical skittles, cause I can't anymore. I can't say I'd mind drowning in Skittle Shadesmar all that much. Now if you'll excuse me I need to go to the corner shop for something.

So I was writing up my absurdly large time bubble thread (what else is new?) and I got the section about bubble occupancy. For the first time, I actually sat down and thought about the implications of a particular new WoB in light of some fairly old knowledge: Namely, how do we reconcile the facts that time bubble borders are static (i.e., don't distend ever) and any living thing touching a time bubble is affected by it with the fact that passengers in a bubbled train that doesn't notice the bubble won't notice it either? The WoBs: Living touch enough Bubble borders static VS. Bubble occupancy ----- How to reconcile these, then? It seems that the key to this question is to ask how time bubbles "find out" whether or not objects should be included in their effect. We see that objects are included or excluded as wholes: You won't be speeding up one leg of a chair and leaving the rest untouched, for instance. Yet objects do not lose their individual identities when they become a part of a greater whole. We saw in WoR that parts of the whole can both have their own beads in Shadesmar (their own individual Cognitive aspects) and be represented within the beads of their parent (and presumably their parent's parent and so on). The doors and lamps in Kholinar's palace have their own distinct beads at the same time as those same objects are a part of the "PALACE" mega-bead. We see, then, that time bubbles know not to include the child without consulting the parent. You won't see the chair leg being included on its own because the bubble somehow knows that that leg has a parent aspect and that that aspect is not included. The bubble then doesn't include the leg. Where is this answer derived, though? 1. Does the bubble look first at the leg, then see it has a parent, then look to the parent, then check if it has a parent, then see it doesn't and determine if it would like to go fast today? -This requires some mechanism of "trickle down" for all the child objects to be suitably affected/not-affected. 2. Does the bubble simultaneously survey all potentially-included objects, figure out the tree, and then only bother to actually look to the root nodes for occupancy? 3. Does the bubble simply ask the leg "would you like to go fast?" and then the leg, as black-box, replies Y/N after querying its parent? I am somewhat disposed towards the third option, myself. It's a bit of extra work on the part of individual aspects, but requires fewer/slower fundamental changes than the first and far less unbelievable work than the second. The first option requires that pesky trickle-down mechanism. It requires that either the bubble remember everything it's looked at and associate them with their parents as it finds them or that the parents be able to tell all their children its "decision". The second requires a large degree of "thought" on the part of the bubble: it takes place in two distinct steps, with some concept of consideration/evaluation in play between the steps. The bubble somehow "looks" at everything before "actually" looking at only a subset of those things for its actual answer. It seems overdone. The third option does demand some degree of work from individual objects. It requires that random peice of wood #7 go through the trouble of actively figuring out whether it and/or its parents want to be included in the bubble. This could go on for dozens or hundreds of layers, depending on how fine-grained we get. -- Another thing we must consider is how what objects are included in the bubble is decided. Yes, there's Cognitive "is this thing 'in' this space?" questions, but who's asking and who's answering? Are individual objects returning their assessment of whether they're within the bubble's space, or are third parties, or is the bubble itself determining this? The answer to this question has special weight for Option 3 above because that option doesn't allow the bubble any input into whether the root object is included. -- Getting back to my own judgments, I would also say that the objects' Cognitive aspects in the broad sense (so including both personal and external opinion) determine "where" they are in space, and then that object reports whether it thinks it's "in" the bubble if some part of it is straddling the line. I don't think it appropriate to saddle a distortion in space-time with too much thinking. This presumed lack of cognitive ability is yet another reason to discard Option 2, also. I think it fair to proceed as if we've narrowed the reasonable options down to 1 and 3, then. Not being sure between these two still leaves ambiguity as to exactly what these Cognitive aspects look like, though. In the case of Option 3, then the only thing we need in order to reconcile the WoB's is for child objects to know who their parents are. You can have a bunch of illegitimate passengers running around saying "this train is my parent" without the train ever being aware they even exist, let alone that it allegedly has a few hundred children. -- But in the case of Option 1, things are nastier. We've already essentially excised the time bubble from any computational heavy-lifting, so requiring that it remember/associate children with parents seems untoward. That leaves the parents being able to inform their children of what's what. How, then? I see two fundamental ways. Either the parent knows all of its children and tells them all personally or it "broadcasts" some message to all saying essentially "My kids: listen as I say...". The broadcast idea is rather uncivilized, and ghastly-expensive/loud. If the parent has no idea whatsoever who its children are, then it has to tell everything it can reach the message. And the kids have to all be listening for it and be able to actively distinguish when their parent has a message. Ugly and I don't see Brandon designing it that way, frankly. On more Realmatic grounds, the Cognitive isn't really that kind of place. Nor is the Spiritual, when you get right down to it. We've yet to see any simple broadband "tell everyone the news" communication Realmatically. The Spiritual has sets of 1:1 connections while the Cognitive seems composed of a bunch of quite singular entities that, to their core, know what they are. While this "knowing what you are" could quite easily extend to "just knowing" your parents or children (and thus perhaps going on to forge and maintain Spiritual bonds with them for communication), it doesn't seem to extend to knowing and being able to communicate with your local area. So the other way is that the parent knows all of its kids and tells them personally. How kind. But the problem with this is the ephemerality of some of the relations we're talking about, and how quickly they'd have to be established and torn down. When a passenger sets foot on a train, this model requires that that train immediately become aware of that passenger as its child and see itself as containing him. That's the impact of this set of WoB's. And that's rather absurd on the face of it. Besides the "absurd on the face of it" thing, which isn't exactly a scientific assessment, we also have good reason to disbelieve such ephemerality: Soulcasting. When Shallan soulcast the ship in WoR, she did not, as it turns out, turn all of its human occupants to water. Despite this, I think it fair to claim that those same occupants would have been unaffected by a passing time bubble that the ship ignored. So there are in fact at least these two levels of Cognitive identity to deal with: one where ephemeral occupancy does protect you from time bubbles but does not entail being "part of" something (the ship's occupants) on a deeper level, and another where long-term occupancy both protects from time bubbles and entails "partness" (the ship's various planks and whatnot). Following from this, the natural conclusion to make, I think, is that what separates these two types of belonging is exactly where children objects are accounted for in their parents' cognitive aspects. Perhaps some other division could be made, or we could make allowances for the difference being due to different degrees in which the parent regards the child, but such seems unwieldy and quite unnecessary in the face of a simpler option. -As an aside, I'd say that Soulcasting directly affects exactly those parts of an object which its Cognitive aspect (its bead) says are a part of it. So Soulcasting directly locates and transforms all those basic-level, non-parent objects which are a part of the whole according to the whole. The whole knows what all of these objects are, and is likely Spiritually connected to them, so I'd wager it easy enough for a Soulcaster to follow the threads down. ---- It seems, then, that we've discarded Option 1 in its entirety. That leaves Option 3, which, to recall, is the one where individual objects are queried by the bubble and make black-box replies which they base on querying their parents. This model requires only singly-linked lists rather than the more expensive doubly-linked tree option 1 needed. Any given object needs only to know either what object its parent is or that it does not, in fact, have a parent. In the first case it asks the parent whether they're in the bubble, in the second it makes the judgment itself. The parent doesn't need to remember any of this, only bothering to connect to its children for a moment as it replies to their individual queries. To the parent in this model, the child asking after occupancy is asked and answered in the same exact way as the bubble asking after occupancy. ---- So, to summarize, this leaves passengers in the train not "touching" the bubble proper because they don't really "interact" with it directly. At no point are they actually doing any work in assessing whether or not they're in the bubble: all they do is ask the train to make the call. When the passenger is in the train, he doesn't actually know whether or not he's touching the bubble because the only way he has to assess the question is asking his parent the train what the answer is. When the passenger is outside the train, though, the buck stops with the human and he is, in fact, "touching" the bubble with no Cognitive intermediary. Honestly I preferred distension to all of this, but given the WoB we have and assuming that I'm not drastically misinterpreting it (which I'm fairly sure I'm not), this seems the answer. ------------- Implications: This is likely the exact same way that clothing and/or held items behave for time bubbles. While I have my whole thread on the matter, I have yet to address what happens to clothing when people touch time bubbles. I think it intuitive and natural that their clothing is included in the speedup/slowdown as well. It wouldn't do to have a "pulled out of his socks" situation it a man poked a time bubble with his finger while running by. So perhaps the mans clothing is included in the direct, "this is part of the human's Cognitive aspect" sense. It's a bit more of an open question whether held-items (like weapons) would have the same privilege. To expand why such short-term "partness" is plausible, I would argue that such possessions (including held items?) are included (and eventually discarded) so easily because living beings are living beings. We cannot expect a train or a ship to actively track and/or have opinions on what's properly part of it: That kind of thing is decided entirely by the input/views of living beings who can make such judgments. By that measure, though, it could well be that the living things have much more malleable "part of me" parts of their Cognitive selves, and can in fact very quickly come to regard clothing/held-items as a part of themselves. In this human case, then, clothing and possibly held objects are included in the effect of the bubble directly because of the uniquely malleable nature of the living Cognitive aspect. -- Another point to make is that I would think a man wearing gloves who touched the edge of a bubble with only the gloves might get included, as the gloves are a part of him. That one's a tad in the air, though, as to whether the "part of me" extends so deeply. We wouldn't expect someone whose shirt got cut by a Shardblade to feel pained by it, after all. ---- Another expansionary point is that this might actually address the "man runs into pole at 500 mph" point I touch on in a few of my time bubble threads. The basic problem is that of a moving person who is trailing along a train (matching its speed) and then gets time-bubbled at 20x speed into the back of a train that is ignoring the time bubble. Does this man suffer damage from this collision? This "parenting" theory may solve this problem: potentially, the moment the man contacts the train his overriding "wait a minute, I'm now in contact with an object big enough that I consider myself to be 'on' it" is such that he begins to take his time-bubble-related ques from the train rather than his own body. So the man ends up painlessly coming to rest against the back of the train with no tangible impact, rather than going kersplat. ------ So... yeah. This is what happens when I get in time bubble mode.

Preface: So I had this thought a while back, but I've been lazy about coming here recently. If someone else has thought of this and posted about it... please forgive me... I gave a cursory glance of what's been happening, but as I mentioned, I've been lax in my presence here as of late, and am probably not up to date. Let's just get right into it shall we... I'm proposing that Hoid worldhops through pools of some kind, possibly shardpools. Let's have some quotes! So note first that how Hoid worldhops is not the be all and end all of worldhopping... there are other ways. Concerning my argument, these quotes are most important... (This is going to be really embarrassing if you guys have figured out what this is in my absence and I am wrong). People I've seen have jumped on the teleportation aspects of Elantris, but there is another more interesting feature of Elantris which seems to connect to Words of Radiance. In Elantris we see Elantrians placed in the magic dissolving pool, and disappear. The element of Words of Radiance I am talking about is of course the story Rock tells about how he met Hoid (he doesn't know it's Hoid, he thinks of it as a trickster god, but it seemed obvious to me it was Hoid, and if anyone takes issue with this I suppose I can revisit the passage and make the case). Hoid was emerging from a sacred pool only the Horneaters are allowed around; people with a connection/awareness of spren, and therefore with some sort of cognitive mumbo jumbo. So Hoid comes out of the sacred pool in Horneaterville... where was he coming from? We've thus seen people disappear into pools, and a known worldhopper emerge from one. Even more suggestive, you'll note that one of the only known instances of Hoid's worldhopping in which we know exactly where he went was when he used worldhopping to access the Well of Ascension chamber and steal a bead of lerasium... he worldhopped directly to somewhere with a shardpool... perhaps through the shardpool in some way. My theory, mechanically speaking, is that these sacred pools (which don't all have to be shardpools) somehow form a rift between the cognitive realm and the physical realm, allowing travel between them. In terms of Scadrial, and Hoid's long search for the Well of Ascension, it is possible Hoid only knew where the pool at the pits of Hathsin was, and needed a better idea of where Preservation's pool was before he could "exit" there, hence all his time wandering around Terris. Finally, let's consider perhaps the most important quote: You could take Brandon's "but it isn't needed" in two ways, but in the context of his second sentence, it seems to me to imply that no magic system is needed, or at least that any magic system could be used (although ones with Cognitive Realm powers serve better, unsurprisingly). If this is the case, one would simply need to know where these pools (or perhaps more accurately rifts) are, and how to access them. That said, Jasnah notes that it is dangerous to travel Shadesmar without Stormlight, and I can see at least one magic system being required in order to generate the investiture necessary to survive... Thoughts?

We have WoB that "Hoid and Kelsier do not get along. At all." The context seems to indicate that they would want to kill each other. How did they meet in the first place and why wouldn't they like each other? My theory is that they've simply bumped into each other in the Cognitive Realm, where Kelsier hangs out after he died. However, why they would have reason to hate each other is a mystery to me. Thoughts?

In the Way of Kings, we first see a glimpse of Shadesmar when Shallan accidentally discovers it after giving a Cryptic (Pattern, I'm sure) a truth about herself. We see that there are bizarre floating flames in the part of Shadesmar where Shallan landed. Then, in Words of Radiance, we finally learn what those flames are supposed to be: So those flames supposedly represent the minds of living things. I shall henceforth call them "Mind flames". Anyway, when I first read that, I remembered a particularly exciting scene from the Way of Kings involving Jasnah and Soulcasting: (A sidenote: Why did the second footpad's clothing get transformed along with him, while the clothing of the last two remained untouched? I have no idea.) Anyway, I thought to myself: If living things were represented as flames in Shadesmar, does that mean Jasnah had to touch those Shadesmar flames in order to transform the first two footpads? That's some pretty cool imagery right there: Jasnah getting hold of the floating flame of her enemy's mind, casually ignoring the heat, and then sending Stormlight to it to turn her enemy into quartz. But there's a problem with that scenario: People who die have their "Mind flames" snuffed out. Here's a scene from Word of Radiance: The problem here is that a corpse is a non-living thing, and therefore should exist as a glass Identity bead in Shadesmar. If the Mind flame is the thing targeted when Soulcasting a living person, then that mind-flame should transform into a sphere upon that person's death, not vanish as described in that excerpt. So, it seems that the Mind flame is not simply a living thing's version of a dead thing's Identity bead. I now think that each person should have both a Mind flame and an Identity bead on Shadesmar, two distinct Cognitive objects. This duality reminds me of Hesina's little lecture in the Way of Kings: I guess Hesina's "soul" terminology might refer to the Mind flame, while the "very small" spren refers to the Identity beads of each body part (or even each cell). There has to be one Identity bead that represents the whole body, though. I think that Identity bead was the thing Jasnah targeted during that fight with the footpads, not the Mind flame. Even if my theory (that a person has both a Mind flame and an Identity bead on Shadesmar) is correct, I still wonder if there are Surgebinders who can affect Mind flames. Dustbringers have the Essence of Spark, but they're not known to visit Shadesmar, so I don't think they'll be able to do this. Since fire is a form of light energy, I feel that Lightweavers should be able to affect Mind flames somehow. Lightweavers are also adept at changing people's minds, so that fits with the idea of manipulating a representation of a mind. Perhaps Shallan should experiment with using the Illumination Surge on one of those when she next visits Shadesmar? As for Elsecallers, perhaps they can somehow access their own Mind flame in Shadesmar and do funky Elsecaller-y things with it. I'm a bit too sleepy to ponder on specific theoretical scenarios, though. How about you guys? What do you think?

The Realmatic Theory gives us 3 Realms. Physical, Spiritual and Cognitive. Shadesmar is said to be the Cognitive Realm and a waystation to other worlds. But, is this realms a part of the Universe Itself or they exist because of the presence of Aldonalsium or the 16 shards? My speculation is that the 16 shards create a reality field that is responsible for all the magic systems as it is responsible for the existence of all 3 realms. So... what´s the implication of this? First: Cosmere is a Sandbox World and you can worldhop outside Cosmere, since Shadesmar does not exist outside the Shardic Field (Felt myself like Spock here ). Second: As Odium splinters the other shards, this Shardic Field weakens. The local effects much more strongly felt than the overall effect. That would explain why Sel´s shadesmar is so dangerous for there is not enough power on the Shardic Field to stabilize it. But as the theory goes, the field on all other shardworlds have weakened. Third: As the Shardic Field weakens, so the magic systems will do so. All Cosmere tales show some kind of wax and wane on magic. This is pure speculation.

On thought has been bothering me Shadesmar. Does it touches (and connects) all Systems on Cosmere (like the Ethereal Plane) or do each System (or even planet) have it´s own Shadesmar version and theese Shadesmar connnects between themselves (like train hubs). Why this question is bothering me? Because of the Spren. It is said that Shadesmar is the congnitive realm and home to the Spren (that even buits cities there). If there is just one Shadesmar that connects all, shouldn´t other Systems be influenced by the Spren as they are the masters of the cognitive realm? At least until now, the Spren are tied just to Roshar.

I asked Brandon a question or two about Shadesmar and Elantris. Ben McSweeney and Isaac Stewart were also present. Me: So, I don't actually own a hardcover copy of The Way of Kings, but I did notice when looking at one that there's a map of Shadesmar... And that the map shows that Shadesmar geography is precisely aligned with Roshar's geography... So I'm just going to assume that other planets we've visited so far also have realms of Shadesmar that are aligned geographically. Brandon: That's very clever of you! (smiles) Very clever... Me: So I guess my follow-up question is: is Elantris a Dawncity? Brandon: Hmm. I could see where your reasoning could come to that conclusion, but no. No, that's not it. But your earlier extrapolations are in the right direction. Ben, Isaac: Yeah, you're in the right direction.

So, I've been doing my TWoK reread, and found this interesting connection to Jasnah/Shadesmar: From TWoK Axies Interlude: And from Jasnah's perspective the night Gavilar was assassinated in WoR: Granted, Jasnah's shadow was pulling towards Stormlight, whereas Axies was casting his shadown the wrong way in sunlight, but I still think there is some sort of connection here. Possibly because Axies is studying the spren? Does the fact that he is so "involved" with them provide him with some sort of access to Shadesmar? Do you think he might have his own spren bond starting? I wonder if this is an Axies trait, or an Aimian one? Just wanted to throw this out there and see what y'all think?

I have one last theory before WoR is released. So we all know that there is a fancy pants weird sun in the sky in Shadesmar. What is the purpose of this sun in Shadesmar? Is it there just to give light? Or is there a higher function? Well, I finished up my pre-WoR WoK reread today (not that is really matters since Amazon is the Devil) and I came across this tidbit spoken by Honor in Ch. 75, "In the Top Room": So, obviously there is the mundane figurative imagery of the sun setting on a time of relative peace. But, perhaps there is more to this. Perhaps the sun in Shadesmar rises after a desolation and begins to set as a desolation begins to approach. The setting of the sun signalling the start of the desolation. As some evidence of this, I note that in Ch. 45 "Shadesmar", Shallan notes that the small white sun in Shadesmar "hung on the horizon". So the perhaps figurative sun spoken of by Honor is in a similar position to the Shadesmar sun seen by Shallan. Obviously not conclusive by any margin. But, an interesting thought nonetheless. What say ye?

So the 17th Shard Organization uses Shadesmar to WorldHop, and Shadesmar is the Realm where the Spren live. So Why can't Spren enter other worlds? Is it because Honor was only "active" in Roshar?

Okay, so we know based on the map of Shadesmar that the Cognitive and Physical Realms on Roshar look similar, except the land areas on the Physical Realm are "seas" on Shadesmar (probably the sea of glass beads that Shallan and Jasnah are familiar with), and the bodies of water on the Physical Realm appear to be stable land on Shadesmar. We also know from Jasnah that spren have cities on Shadesmar. Here's my question: wouldn't it make sense for the spren cities to be located on Shadesmar "land" (i.e. on Roshar waters)? So, does that mean that if Shallan and Jasnah travel to Shadesmar while they are still on Tozbek's ship, there's a chance they'll find themselves in a spren city? Also, given the mysteries behind the Purelake, I wonder what they'll find in its Shadesmar equivalent. Could it perhaps be where Urithiru is located? Or perhaps it's on the Sea of Spears in Alethkar (since the Knights Radiant used to rule Alethela back in the day)? Finally, we know that the Origin of the highstorms are somewhere to the east of Roshar (somewhere in the "Ocean of Origins"). Could that be the city where Syl is from? The city that Stormfather rules? I hope we find out in a couple of months! Post-WoR Edit: So, we got confirmation that travelling to Shadesmar while at sea results in being on Shadesmar land, which apparently is made of obsidian. Cool! Sadly, we didn't get to see any spren cities, and we now know that Urithiru is on the Physical Realm, hidden behind certain mountains on Roshar.

So, haven't seen this up anywhere else, but came across this in my recent rereading in WoK and with what's been seen in WoR so far - interesting possibilities are afoot at the Circle K. (Otherwise known as Shadesmar? Is that how Bill and Ted did it?) In Shallan's chapter of WoR, we are given a much better idea/definition of Spren and their relation to the Cognitive realm, and humans than previously: Now, comparing the idea of spren as "living ideas" with this from "Wandersail": Now, Hoid may just be being cryptic here about the way he stole his identity from someone. But there seems to be just a little too much of a correspondence to Shallan and Jasnah's discussion. We know Hoid is intimately involved with and expert at manipulating Shadesmar to travel between worlds. What could this mean for him, if he originated somehow in the Cognitive Realm? This would be an interesting idea (see what I did there? ), as Hoid could then be literally the embodiment of storytelling - which would explain his penchant for being a spreader of knowledge and tales... Ok, all you who are smarter than me in the ways of the Cosmere - Discuss!

So, haven't seen this up anywhere else, but came across this in my recent rereading in WoK and with what's been seen in WoR so far - interesting possibilities are afoot at the Circle K. (Otherwise known as Shadesmar? Is that how Bill and Ted did it?) In Shallan's chapter of WoR, we are given a much better idea/definition of Spren and their relation to the Cognitive realm, and humans than previously: Now, comparing the idea of spren as "living ideas" with this from "Wandersail": Now, Hoid may just be being cryptic here about the way he stole his identity from someone. But there seems to be just a little too much of a correspondence to Shallan and Jasnah's discussion. We know Hoid is intimately involved with and expert at manipulating Shadesmar to travel between worlds. What could this mean for him, if he originated somehow in the Cognitive Realm? This would be an interesting idea (see what I did there? ), as Hoid could then be literally the embodiment of storytelling - which would explain his penchant for being a spreader of knowledge and tales... Ok, all you who are smarter than me in the ways of the Cosmere - Discuss!

So, haven't seen this up anywhere else, but came across this in my recent rereading in WoK and with what's been seen in WoR so far - interesting possibilities are afoot at the Circle K. (Otherwise known as Shadesmar? Is that how Bill and Ted did it?) In Shallan's chapter of WoR, we are given a much better idea/definition of Spren and their relation to the Cognitive realm, and humans than previously: Now, comparing the idea of spren as "living ideas" with this from "Wandersail": Now, Hoid may just be being cryptic here about the way he stole his identity from someone. But there seems to be just a little too much of a correspondence to Shallan and Jasnah's discussion. We know Hoid is intimately involved with and expert at manipulating Shadesmar to travel between worlds. What could this mean for him, if he originated somehow in the Cognitive Realm? This would be an interesting idea (see what I did there? ), as Hoid could then be literally the embodiment of storytelling - which would explain his penchant for being a spreader of knowledge and tales... Ok, all you who are smarter than me in the ways of the Cosmere - Discuss!

I have had this theory for quite a while. I have not got a chance to go through the theories, so if it sounds that I started repeating something you have seen before, just skip it. It begins with this: Shardblades does not cut in the reality realm, but cuts things in the congnitve realm - Shadesmar. Thats could be why it can't be stopped by anything only has realitive realm quality, and can only be deflected by weapons which has the same attribute (i.e. has the properties of shadesmar ). The part of the being that was cut by shardblades is broken congnitively, and cease to being in the realitive realm. Thus rocks disspears where the blade past, hand stopped being hand but a useless piece of bone and meat, and life cease to be life if the body is cut. Another interesting fact is that the shards appears wherever the owner is. It is always there by your hand, only takes a bit of time to materilize. If where the blade normally is was explained in the novel, I can not remember. But to me I always think that it exists in the shadsmar (which is not a place, is around us ), waiting to be called, and the 10 heartbeat is the time it takes to crossing that veil. So.. Does it also takes 10 heartbeats for Shallan / Jasnah to cross the veil to Shadesmar? Will Shallan be able to locate her shardblade bead in shadesmar? Or, will Shallan be able to find her shardblade nearby materialized already, not as a bead in shadesmar? ( or how else could she cut? ) And if she does find the blade, will she be able to use it to cut through the surrounding beads and initialiate a point blank massacre to beings not directly close to her? ( Think of the possibilities.. Shallan the mountail killer, who removes the whole mountain and all life in it in one blow, because she accidently swung her blade in shadesmar ) OK. These are old news, I just re-think them again as I read the teaser. Here is where things starts to get interesting with the info from the WoR prview.. As sperns are the citizens in shadesmar and shardblade is cutting things in shadesmar, shouldn't shardblades be able to kill spern? ( Syl does not like shardblades at all, so that has a high possibility, but now it almost seems like we are only only waiting for a confirmation ). And, there's more.. How does Shardblades come to be if it is able to cut in shadesmar? Are shardblades forged by Spern? Of Spern? Or just reality realm substances infused with spern ( or lots of sperns )? I am leaning toward the later idea, as the shardblade materializes after bearer is dead. It belongs to the reality realm therefore it stays here when not binded. Being a knockoff of honorblade ( who else but the people in reality realm needs the knockoff? ), it seems to make sense that it was initially made in realityrealm and somehow gained the shadesmar cutting ability. However honorblade... It dissappears from reality realm when bearer is dead. Could that be because the honorblade origins from shadesmar? ( or even spiritual realm while we are at it ) Now the final blow.. If shardblades's shadesmar qualities comes from adding spern power to the blade, wouldn't it make sence that 'honor" blade, if it is made similarly, is made of / by / given by "honor" spern? Or at least honor spern is somewhat attached to honorblade ( like, only the one binded with spern could retrieve it in shadesmar where the honorblades went missing? ) Could it be that Honor spern is special in the world and there are only 10 honor spern in it, each binds an honorblade? ( explains why honor spern is never witnessed, and why they are soo smart and seems to lived for soo long ) Where are you Shallan? Come take Kaladin's hand and go to shadesmar to find those darn blades! Or Syl, just give Kaladin some blade so he can fight Szeth! But don't you sacrifice yourself while doing so! ( Why do I see Mr Sanderson smiling in a mean way? Someone go rescue Syl! ) Well. these were my musing. What do you think?

Yes, I know that Kurkistan figured this all out and posted the solution years ago. But I still have questions, and I'm not smart enough to understand what he wrote anyway. 1. What was the not quite the sun, not quite the moon thing in the sky that Shallan drew? Heaven? The sun for real? 2. How can there be air in the cognitive realm? I could see that your body in the physical realm needs to breathe, but why is air not a bead in the cognitive realm? If we think about the air in the cognitive realm, do we create a cognitive realm of the first cognitive realm? Is there air in the cognitive realm's cognitive realm? 3. Physical location correspond to locations in the cognitive realm. Jasnah can grab the palace bead when she is in the palace. But the beads go flying around. In the physical realm the relative locations of the objects that correspond can't be changing similarly. Do the locations not have to correspond? Do the beads find their way back to where they're supposed to be? Are there spren janitors that put them back where they belong? But the Palace bead should encompass countless other beads to match up. When it is a little bead itself, how can it be in the corresponding location? Have some beads gotten put in remote places relative to their physical neighbors? Help!

If I understand things correctly, such as that (we assume) Hoid travels through Shadesmar/the spiritual realm (they are the same, right?) to Hop around, and that (we assume) Shardblades, when not Physical, are Spiritual (in Shadesmar)… Does Hoid have the capability of accessing any Spiritual Shardblade in existence, whenever he enters Shadesmar? And Shallan as well, if she had the practice? If so, this brings up the question what would happen if Hoid is holding one as he leaves Shadesmar? Would it come with him? Would then the original(er-ish) owner just lose it, or be able to summon it away from Hoid? A question-theory. Because I am a noob and dont study the books. And I didnt see an idea like this.

I have been wondering for a long time just what has become of Cultivation and I've come up with a new theory for us to sink our teeth into. In the Tanavallah I claim this image represents Odium's magic system. There are many aspects of the picture that lead me to that conclusion, and I'll summarize the main points to support that. The real goal though is to discuss the parts of the image that don't fit with Odium and to follow those down the rabbit hole. The symbols of fire and shadow are everywhere, including the outstretched arms of the woman, the swirling flames on top and the ribbons of darkness on bottom, the fireballs in all four corners, the lightning bolts and shadow bolts between Voids and Orders, and the dramatic contrast between red shard and swirling darkness. These all point to Odium since his minions are invariably described with fire and shadow. The Void Glyphs are another hint. They are formed by partially inverting the Surge Glyphs from the Knights Radiant Table which ruins the perfect symmetry. Violating symmetry fits with Odium upsetting the balance created by the Almighty. Also, the inversion may represent negative interference in the Surge itself. We know the power of creation is a wave with pulse length and frequency. If you hit this wave with its inversion the two would obliterate each other similar to noise cancellation headphones. But instead of destroying sound this unravels creation itself, leaving nothing but an empty Void. Now to the parts that don't fit with Odium. Instead of Honorblades, all of the Orders are represented by different animals. The red one in the bottom right is a crab. The red one on the left has six legs and bunny ears. The green one in the middle is almost certainly a lurg. The purple one on the left has horns. Each of them is either a whole body picture or a face depicting an animal. Using living creatures as your Order icons just doesn't strike me as very Odious. Another big problem I see is gender. We know from Hoids Letter that Rayse is a man, yet the only person in this chart is female. That seems incongruous. Why would a chart designed to represent a man have four images of the same woman? A third point against Odium is location. The adjacent image is a map of Shadesmar, with the same woman motif surrounding it. We know Odium is on Braise, a different planet in the Roshar system. Why then is the chart linked to Shadesmar? This suggests that something other than Odium is being referenced. Many people believe that the chart is about Cultivation's magic system. That provides a nice parallel, with Honor linked to the physical world and Cultivation linked to Shadesmar. The animals fit as her symbols, and the female motif makes more sense if it is representing Cultivation. Unfortunately, if this is Cultivation's chart then the fire and shadow references and the glyph asymmetry are terribly out of place. So how do we reconcile these seeming contradictions? Lets take a closer look at the woman depicted here. When I first studied her I saw the right hand representing fire and left representing shadow, both symbols of Odium. But now I see something else. The entire image is a mixed message, combining symbols of both Odium and Cultivation. Perhaps the right hand represents cultivation in her natural state, and the shadowed left hand represents some imprint of Odium. There is evidence both on Roshar and Sel that odium can command dead souls to possess humans and force them to do evil acts. Is it possible this was done with the holder of a Shard? It would explain why the chart for Cultivation's magic would be so dark and foreboding, and reconcile the symbols of odium that pervade the image. There are many many places where cultivation could be, but I'd like to add "possessed by evil spirits and fighting for control of her shard while hiding in Shadesmar". EDIT: Renamed the thread and added spoiler warning.

I was reading the Derethil thread when I finally realized how much "Derethil" looks like "Dereth" and decided to connect some impossible dots. Urithiru is in the West some people think Urithiru is in Shadesmar Roshar suffers a lot of physical effects from shard interference. So what if there's a physical way to enter Shadesmar west of the Roshar supercontinent? What if this is where Derethil sailed, and somehow found himself on Sel, sitting right on the X in Aon Mea (thoughtfulness, no less). Two physical entry points to Shadesmar. Two planets with dead gods. Sel becomes all the more realmatically aware because of his talks with a little guy named Keshu. Naturally, Hoid would've been their milkman or something. Shoot, he could've been Korath. Regardless, he'd know the tale. Can anyone pick anything useful out of this wild conjecture?

Okay, so I have a few theories that I want to propose. Some of them may be RAFO, and some are speculation (not necessarily theories) but I find them interesting and hope someone else does too. First. Are Elhokar and Sadeas in cahoots? Think about it, when Dalinar is talking to Sadeas and the king (Chapter 50) Elhokar is very insistent on Dalinar accepting Sadeas's bridges. It sounded like they were maneuvering him. Sadeas is always by the king, whispering in his ear, who is to say they had a way to get rid of Dalinar? I know in the early chapters (chapter 18) Elhokar is very foreboding about Dalinar, comparing him to his father who went insane during his last years alive. Is Elhokar in cahoots with Taravangian in killing Dalinar? Dalinar may not notice because he is too naive. Speaking of Elhokar, who were the men at the beginning of the prelude Szeth sees talking to him? The fact that Elhokar hates it when people compare him is understood, but the fact he becomes severely irate is strange. Did he have something to do with Gavilar's death? And speaking of foreboding, what about in chapter 27, when Rock is praising Kaladin for his kata, he calls him "Master Brightlord." Did Syl tell him about it and Rock know that Kaladin was a true lighteyes? Second, at the beginning of chapter 4 a Reshi chul trainer who is being bled speaks of Shadesmar. He describes it the sun he sees as "dark and cold shining in a black sky." When Shallan enteres Shadesmar, the same dark sky and distant sun are described. So, one can extrapolate, that some, not all, people when they die see Shadesmar. Sanderson explains in an q & a on Barnes & Noble[1] that there are three main realms: the physical. the cognitive, and the spiritual. Shadesmar appears to be the cognitive, but it may be the spiritual. I firmly believe the Heralds are either reincarnate in the forms of Kaladin and Szeth; Shallan and Jasnah; and Dalinar and someone else. Kaladin is the first to find his spren (spren are accompaniment to Heralds). It may also be that these characters are the Radiants alive whom need shardblades (that turn into honorblades) because the Almighty tells Dalinar "the Radiants must stand again." About Syl, notice how Syl starts following Kaladin after he kills the shardbearer. It was the fact Kaladin did not take the shardblade that made him personify honor, which is why and when Syl followed him. Syl hates shardblades. Do all spren hate shardblades? It seems that is why the Horneaters can see them, because Horneaters don't have any shardblades. If they were honorblades, would that change anything? I think the "shards men once bore" were honorshards, as evidence by their glowing. Once the honor left the Radiants (aka, the Day of Recreance) the shards became "mundane." Without honor, the blades and plate could not act as they should. It is interesting to note that Szeth says in the prologue how you cannot surgebind while wearing plate, but in Dalinar's first vision we see (chapter 19) the Radiants could surgebind (hence, why they "fell" from the sky). Maybe if Kaladin could get into plate, he could surgebind? Also note that, as I speculated above, Szeth may be a Herald, or Radiant, reincarnate. If this is so, the reason he hasn't found his spren, unlike Kaladin, is because he acts without a key ingredient. I do not know what this is; it may be honor or something else. Speaking of Szeth's honor, in the prologue we assume Szeth became Truthless because of his belief in the voidbringers. Whether that belief manifested itself into a resistance, or was merely heretical to Shin religion is up to debate. When Gavilar said "find the most important words a man can say," did he mean the Radiants codes? (May be why the next book is "Words of Radiance" because Dalinar finds them). When the Almighty tells Dalinar to "unite them" who is he talking about? Is he telling whoever (it just so happens to be Dalinar) to unite Alethkar or is it something more than that. Does he mean unite the people of Roshar? Maybe. I think he means Dalinar, or whoever because he doesn't know who's listening, to unite the Lost Radiants into a new Knights Radiant. This would bring back honor to them, especially if they follow the Codes and the Radiants Codes, and allow them to surgebind with shardplate 'n' stuff. Essential, have the shards become honorplates and blades. So, stormlight infuses itself into the spheres at a definite point during a highstorm. This is evident when Kaladin is in the highstorm. If the stormlight infused spheres throughout the storm, in duration, the sphere Kaladin held would still be lit (because the highstorm was not finished when he blacked out). That being said, is it possible to surgebind during a highstorm? I understand the human body may not hold it or even it may become overloaded. If it is overloaded that raises the question can you control how much stormlight you breathe in? I know you can control how much breath you inhale, but do you also control the amount of the stormlight itself that enters? Even so, I wonder if Kaladin and Szeth have the ability to surgebind unlimitedly during a highstorm, as long as they stay safe. Now here is a tricky one. It is based on speculation from a reading Sanderson did from a draft of "Words of Radiance" before it was called that. The taping took place before Christmas of 2012. After you hear it, come back and I'll say something I've been thinking. [2] So Sanderson states that Parshendi are that way because they bond to a spren. He may change that later or he may not, but it is interesting to note that the Parshendi need the gemhearts. Why is that? Alethi assume for soulcasting, but what if it is for some kind of religious ceremony? Isn't it interesting to note that yes the Shattered Plains are expansive, but the Alethi and Parshendi have been battling for 6 years and still there are more and more chasmfiends. Adolin notes after the chasmfiend is dead in chapter 15 that there are spren coming from it. There is also moldy smell of blood of the chasmfiend, also of the Parshendi. Could the chasmfiends be Parshendi that have evolved into a hulking monster? Eshonai talks of different forms that form different bodies. Perhaps the most revered place in Parshendi is to become a chasmfiend? The chasmfiends may become uncontrollable and turn hostile, which is why the Parshendi don't have any in reserve. That's all I got! But stay tuned for more! References [1] http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Fantasy-Science-Fiction/Post-Questions-For-Brandon-Sanderson-Here/td-p/354645/page/3 About halfway through (try ctrl + f and type "three;" it should be on there after a couple) [2] https://soundcloud.com/stringbean1982/brandons-reading Sanderson begins Stormlight talking about 8:53 and reading at 12:10

One of the first things that caught my attention when I read TWoK was this: The idea that the Heralds actually had to travel somewhere to go back to Damnnation surprised me. This obviously isn't in a place that can be easily accessed, being so alien to the way Roshar is described. Obviously somewhere off-world or at least far away from the main Rosharan supercontinent. And we haven't heard any indication of the Heralds having to journey back to Damnation after the Desolations. It seems fairly clear to me that there has to be some other way to get to Damnation. So, I think that the Heralds have access to Shadesmar and the knowledge of how to Worldhop. We know little of their abilities at this point, so it's at least plausible. It would certainly be useful in coordinating a worldwide defense against the Voidbringers. They can easily return to Damnation, be it on Roshar or elsewhere. Another point in favor is that, to Worldhop you go to Shadesmar. When Heralds die they automatically return, and we know that Shadesmar is where people seem to be going when they die, so that ties together quite nicely. I wouldn't even be surprised if the Travel surge was based off a similar principle. I know this is kind of an insignificant, rinky-dink theory, but what do you guys think?

Brandon's been answering some questions on Reddit, and he just said some pretty cool stuff. This quite clearly implies that Hoid wrote the letter, personally my mind is made up on the matter. Many thanks to Nepene for so quickly letting us know about this revelation... Also, Shadesmar! This info comes from here.