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Something is on my mind, and, I am hoping ya'll can explain to me / point out the Resolution I am missing: The Coppermind entry on Elantris (here) notes that the city of Elantris was empty when the Aonic people's showed up, and, after a few decades of living there, some of them started going through the Shaod. However, it also notes that Elantris was clearly built by Elantrians, as only they could have made the Aons that made the city work. But, we find out in Elantris that, without the actual city of Elantris itself to channel AonDor.... people don't become Elantrians. They become Reod. So, we appear to run into a bit of a chicken/egg problem: the city is needed to create the people who had to pre-exist the city in order to build the city. (?) My first thought was "well, Elantris could have been built pre-Splintering of Dominion/Devotion, when the rules were different. Okay, except, AonDor is part of a magic system that is tied to the specific local geography, and that geographic specificity is supposedly a result of the Splintering. From the cited WOB: Assuming the Coppermind is reading that correctly (and, on its face, that seems like the most direct reading), then, are we not left with a chicken-egg problem in the city of Elantris?

If a fallen Elantrian burned a bead of Lerasium, what would happen? Could pewter start to heal them even though they can't heal naturally because of their broken connection to the Dor, but pewter would be healing power from another shard. What would happen?

I've only recently finished Elantris and am quite interested in the Elantrian magic system and so have been developing a character for fun. However, if I wish to worldhop as said Elantrian character (who wouldn't if they could) I face the slight disadvantage of being away from Elantris and, oh I don't know, the magic not working. So the crux of my inquiry is, is it possible to somehow capture or store the Dor in some sort of vessel to carry around with you in your adventures? Would these be nicrosilminds? Spheres? Some other Thing™? I do hope it's possible, otherwise Elantrians prove to be pretty worthless worldhoppers.

If a normal human on Scadrial were to drink from the Well of Ascension, would they become an Allomancer? Would a human on Sel drinking from the Pool become an Reod Elantrian, as they don't have the Dominion part of the Dor in their body? What would happen if someone drank world-specific Investiture?

Ok, so from a WOB a while back, it was said that Allomancy was powered by the pattern of the molecular structure of the metals, similar to the patterns that Elantrians must draw to access the Dor. This begs the question... would an Elantrian on Scadrial b able to draw the molecular pattern of... let’s say iron... and have access to the metallic arts? The whole “location based” aspect of the Magic really confuses me so there may be something I’m not understanding. This is a question I’ve had for a long time.

Hypothetically let's say a Duralumin Ferring from Scardrial stored connection for years and had a lot of metal minds. If he became a world hopper and ended up on Sel, could he potentially tap all that connection and "attract" the Sheod becoming an Elantrian? Side question: assuming there just happened to be an Elantrian who could store connection, if they traveled to Roshar, could they tap the connection and potentially figure out how to alter the Aons to work with that geography? (For the sake of theoretical argument, let's assume that either distance from the shards Devotion and Dominion doesn't matter or the potential of tapping connection also maybe figuring out how to hack the local investiture or shard energy)

We recently got confirmation that Returned are Cognitive Shadows, and that some people would call the Heralds Cognitive Shadows. This got me to thinking, where have we see Cognitive Shadows before? On Roshar, we have the Stormfather, the Cognitive Shadow of Tanavast/Honor. We have the Heralds*, and we have the throwaway line by Khriss in Arcanum Unbounded saying the Braize is inhabited by Splinters and possibly Cognitive Shadows. On Scadrial, we have Kelsier, who's a bit of an exception, since he tricked Leras into putting him in the Well of Ascension. We also met Spanky, who is presumably a Scadrial native because it is difficult to take Cognitive Entities between worlds. Preservation/Leras might fall into this category as well, since he seems to have died a long time ago in Secret History. In the later era of Scadrial, Wax probably counts now, since Harmony stuck him back into his body. On Nalthis, the Returned are like Wax, Cognitive Shadows who were stapled back into their bodies by Endowment. On Threnody, we have the Shades, obviously. On Sel, now, I theorize that we have the Elantians. When Raoden wakes up as an Elantrian, and gets locked in Elantris, he talks to Galladon and realizes he doesn't have a heartbeat. Galladon is always going "You're dead, Kolo?" This always bothered me, because, how would someone who's body is dead, still obviously retain sentience? This question is answered if we realize that they are Cognitive Shadows that are (like the Returned, and Wax) stapled back into their bodies. Relevant WoBs and quotes: -Arcanum Unbounded. The Rosharan System. Page 535, hardback. Source. Source.

This is my theory for the reason about the only people of specific location (ex. Arelon and Duladel) are take from the Shaod. Before of this I had to remember some of the Realmatic aspect of the Cosmere. - The Cognitive aspect of someone (or something) is build about how is views and how he views himself. - The Spiritual aspect is a set of connection (less or more strong) with other Spiritual Aspect (place,time, idea, people, religion,ecc...) - On Sel there is just one "magic system" and the many forms that take are just different use of the same magic system. Now at the true Theory (that is specific of AonDor but can probably works with all the Selish way to use the Dor): I suppose the reason of only the right cultures have a chance to be take by the Shaod, is because their people have an Aon in their name. This simply fact put a minimal connection through the Spiritual Realm to the AonDor (something like bein a Scadiran give a little connection to Preservation). Growing with that name a people "imprint" that Aon as part of self in his Cognitive Aspect that improve his conncection to the AonDor. This theory works pretty well with all the Selish magic system (just remove "Aon" and put "Alphabeth of X") but has some problem with the AonDor without any other fact.... The AonDor is strange, is bein manipulate to offer much power of any other Selish Magic, using Elantris as a "super boost". I suppose that before Elantris was made any people with Aon-name and the right connection with the AonDor may use this magic (As seems to happen with the other selish magic). But for some reason they decided to concentrate the AonDor in a more mighty form. And any people with the "enough strong" connection was take by the Shaod and become Elantrian. Any though about this theory ? Pro or Contros ?