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this is another theory that I have had for a while but haven't done anything with. I think that in the pits of Hathsin the voice telling Kelsier to survive is actually him being granted a Dawnshard by preservation. my main reason for this is that he describes it as a command in an extremely similar way to when Rysn gets her Dawnshard. another reason I have for this is that preservation says that he was the one telling Kelsier to survive in the pits but the thing is that it is an important aspect of preservation that he cannot speak into the mind of people, only read them. however, the biggest reason I have for this is that throughout era 1 it is a very important thing that Leras couldn't ruin, even to preserve, we know that this isn't an aspect of the power because vin can still do it when she has the shard. what I'm saying is that the reason for Leras being unable to cause harm, even having his hand being forced when he stabs Elend, is that he held a Dawnshard, which prevents him from causing harm. Also who better to hold the Dawnshard of survival than the shard of preservation. now a larger part of my theory is why preservation would give a Dawnshard to Kelsier, I think that the reason for this is that in Leras's grand plan which we hear fuzz speak of in secret history is actually to form harmony and that in order to do that he needed to have Kelsier kill the lord ruler and so needed to give him motivation by saving him from death at Rashek's command, thus allowing the events of the rest of the series to take place, eventually resulting in Sazed becoming harmony. now you may ask if this was preservations plan all along, than why was Fuzz horrified when he found out that Kelsier had caused the lord rulers death. the answer to this is simple in that we hear Fuzz say that he doesn't remember the plan and know that he has progressively lost his mind. I'd like to know what holes you guys can see in this theory.

this page is for Dawnshard theories, about what dawn shards are and the rest of the book.

To figure out the dawnshards we need to figure out what they are and where they are. so I think first we need to know who has a dawnshard to begin with, we know that 1) at least 2 are on roshar 2) 1 is change and I think we can assume it belonged to cultivation 3) 1 compelled hoid to not harm people and may or may not be on roshar 4) 1 destroyed ashyn which means that it likely belonged to odium but honor brought them to roshar for a reason meaning it could have been his. This is also why he raved about it and felt like it was needed to beat odium. 5) one may be on Scadrial and if one was it seems likely that it is survive. 6. the dawnshards have voices and speak to their bearers, can they speak to people who do not Carry them? so assuming each of the 16 who owned a dawnshard had them at the shattering. So the shards are 1. Change- That means cultivation had one and its change that’s done. When this was taken up there was a stark golden light 2. ______- dawnshard savanatism stopped hoid from hurting people and hoid had this one where it is we don’t know. 3. ______- destroyed ashyn possessed by honor or odium. 4.______- no definitive information interesting points- 1. surivive is a voice heard on Scadrial and would match preservation 2. unite them and unity is tied to dalinar, nohadon and honor. when dalinar proclaims himself unity odium shrinks back from a golden light 3. honor appears to have a unique surge present in bondsmith a and windrunners additionally bondsmith dedicated on ashyn which means adhesion must have been accessed but honor was not present and a dawnshard was. 4. this is very very important the most important one, surges existed before the shattering they are fundamental forces of the universe and the fundamental laws that govern it which means that since they are tied to honor and cultivation specifically by the fused if we take their word considering their advanced cosmere awareness and age we may be able to. 5. this is also very very important, one dawnshard is different than the others. conclusions- Then if dawnshards are the fundamental commands used to create the universe and honor and cultivation are responsible for the surges somehow but surges and surgebinding was around before the shattering that means that it makes sense for this to be a dawnshard that did this and since we have a danwshard very closely matching cultivation’s intent being growth there should be one very closely matching honors. therefore the dawnshard closet match’s honors intent it is likely the one that grants bondsmithing through the honor or potentially dawnshard specific surge, this woudl be how bondsmith existed on ashyn most likely. in fact based on this it seems that bondsmiths are basically recreations of the power that this dawnshard gave. So that means dawnshard number 3. Was most likely possessed by honor. This assuming that he possessed it for the shattering means in cannot be hoids. so 3._______- possessed by honor so what is the most likely candidate for this shard the answer immediately seems to be unity but we will see. so as another post suggested we can group the shards into 4 like the alomantic metals each under a dawnshard nad this why their are 16 shards it split adonalsium into 16 parts each group of 4 being aspects of a dawnshard. So we must be able to group these along the lines of dawnshards. we can ignore change since other then cultivation it doesn’t matter. So we must identify Other shards related to bondsmithing to then work out the intent of this dawnshard. It cannot be odium, or cultivation because on has a dawnshard and one divides which bondsmiths do not do. Valor doesn’t seem to currently share much in common same for whimsy, invention, mercy, ruin, ambition, and autonomy. Endowment is out because hoid was offered the shard of endowment and assuming he had this dawnshard at the shattering along with honor that means endowment cannot be in the same group as honor. This all leaves us with honor, dominion, and devotion. All of these are effects that bind things. It is possible that odium is in this group if you consider that maybe it is in a two shard group with devotion as shards that unite for/against one pushing and one pulling but I think hatred being more divisive so this is debatable. I think odium would be in the group with ruin but this is a possible arrangement. this means odium seems to not possess a dawnshard as it may be in the group with honor and 3 dawnshards on roshar seems unlikely. Now for the dawnshards I think that the different dawnshard is likely either the one possessed by hoid or honor. Hoid because of the interesting effects it may have had on him but this may be explained by basically dawnshard savantism. Honor because of the unique surge associated with the dawnshard honor possessed and honor himself possesses as a consequence of that dawnshard potentially. This opens up a possibility that all people in honors 4 group have adhesion but this seems potentially unlikely since odium could be in that group and the fused who know of other shards specifically call it a surge of honor. However it does not seem like cultivation has a unique surge and she seemingly possessed a dawnshard that means honors dawnshard is likely the unique one, so it is still possible all shards in honors group possess this power because they were created through a unique dawnshard this means odium is not in honors group if this is the case. I could also have this backwards and change is the only one that does not give a unique surge or we have not seen the unique surge for change yet. This seems unlikely because odium possesses neither another special surge or adhesion. Supporting this is the line stating the dawnshards were known to bind any being voidish or mortal however growth seems hummable to do this and adhesion can do just as described. unity would fit this description and may be the dawnshard or at least soemthing similar which means dalinar may have it. Another possibility that may have been overlooked is that kaladin is actually in possession of this dawnshard and that is why he has other unexplained abilities however this would likely mean that the honor dawnshard is not different because he does not display bondsmithing abilities or he potentially does not have enough investiture to activate them. So what is the dawnshard hoid had? it does not appear to be the one honor had assuming honor has had it during the shattering and it is likely the one related to endowment and its like it also made him nearly unkillable and prevented him from being able to harm anyone. This appears to be a form of savantism. The unkillable part seems likely to apply to all of them but the inability to harm may be similarly connect to them all or it may help us narrow down the intent, assuming it can help us our best bet here is to group endowment with other shards via common ground then extrapolate an intent. But I have no clue what shards it could share common ground with other then cultivation and those don’t seem to have similar dawnshard roots. A suggestion I like on the names of the dawnshard is from user Leuthie These are comprehensive commands that fit the nature of the shard held by honor very well. this would mean hoid has the create dawnshard however I think this doesn’t make sense for a few reasons. The main one is these are commands to a universe where thermo dynamics exist and as such matter/energy/investiture cannot be created or preserved so I think the shard hoid has was something along the lines of conserve/ maintain/ transfer basically the first law of thermodynamics. This is why he cannot kill because in the cosmere souls exist outside this and when things are killed they pass seemingly for good meaning hoid is unable to kill them or eat their flesh since it would violate that intent. In this context endowment represents whatever the energy is being converted to when its “used up”. The 4th dawnshard I have no clue but bind seems a good bet for the 3rd. Basically- the first dawnshard is change and cultivation had it. the second dawnshard is basically or at least kinda related to the first law of thermodynamics or soemthing similar and hoid had it at one point. If it is not this I believe that this dawnshard would be life or soemthing similar and would law down the rules for life in the cosmere and it’s interactions with everything this would include things like the rules for how souls work. the third dawnshard is different from the others and is possibly unity or bind or some other similar command this dawnshard if this is correct was likely used to bind the other three into a cohesive system. This dawnshard also appears to give bondsmithing powers to those who use and the bondsmiths may exist as imitations of this, honor likely possessed it this likely destroyed ashyn, it is also likely honor possesses the surge of adhesion because of holding this dawnshard for a long time or soemthing like that or all shards split by it may have access to it these likely include devotion and dominion it’s possible it include odium but I doubt it. the 4th dawnshard i have no idea about and were ruin not a shard I would assume it to be like the second law of thermodynamics ever increasing entropy but generally it seems likely that this category includes ruin, maybe odium and others and will be vowed more negatively. also cultivation is evil, Because I feel compelled to put that since in losing my mind thinking of cultivation conspiracy theories.

So, Brandon has said that for this book Rysn's Interlude is from a different viewpoint, is very different and won't spoil the novel but it would be better to have read it. Relevant WoBs on the matter spoilered for leanght: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/430/#e13976 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/438/#e14257 With this information I believe that we will have a Chiri-Chiri Interlude. There's no direct evidence for this but I think it makes sense. We know it won't be from Rysn's PoV, but it will still feel like Rysn's Interlude and not some other charachter related to her( like Vstim or someone from her ship) Also we learn in Dawnshard that larkins/lanceryns were the ancient guardians. This makes me think that Chiri-Chiri is much more sentient that what I initially suppoused or even Rysn thinks. It would be Brandon's MO to surprise us with her PoV. Tl;dr Get ready to get inside the mind of a larkin I would really like this theory to come true( Chiri-Chiri fan over here), but if someone else has another idea for the PoV on Rysn's RoW Interlude I would love to hear it.

OK, So I literally just finished reading and skimmed the first page of the Dawnshard spoiler board to make sure nobody had already posted this exact theory. If I missed it, sorry about that. Okay, major dawnshard spoilers: Anyway, that’s not really a thought out theory, just something I randomly thought of as I finished the book, and had to write down before I forgot it.

So, the Ch. 15 Epigraph mentions logicspren and one their purposes in advanced fabrials. During the discord discussion, it was brought up that Aon Ene, which means logic and debate, is used as a linking Aon to join lists together and to determine their timings. We know of only one other linking Aon, Ehe, fire, and it is used to start other Aon Chains. It was theorized that flamespren could be used in fabrials to the same effect. This is kind of hinted at with what Rushu gets distracted reading, the interestinmg interactins of Logicspren and Flamespren. So, yay! for that theory. Now questioning time, what other spren/Aons can be used for similar purposes? I would guess the Aon Soi, meaning "order" for the creation of lists and chains, and possibly Orderspren or Neatspren for the fabrial purposes. Aon Soo means "mathematics" so possibly some combination of effects? What d'y'all think?