Search the Community

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*?