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Who is the audience?


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A forward, if this is in the wrong spot, my apologies, I haven't yet finished TLM(I'm reading it book club style) so I didn't want to put it in the TLM and TotES board, to protect myself from spoilers, but if a mod needs to move it there, please do.

As Brandon has said at one point, we might be able to make guesses as to who the audience of TotES is. This will have spoilers for Mistborn(Possibly up until Wax and Wayne) and SA(only book one), and if you haven't read TWoK, you shouldn't try to read this, as everything, and I mean everything, is locked behind spoilers.

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

...

  1. Yes, he’s telling the story in-world to someone. You might be able to pick up some of the context of who he’s talking to–but it’s not meant to be explicitly obvious. You don’t need to stress about that, as it’s not relevant to the story. Just know that this isn’t written to you (you don’t exist in the cosmere) but is instead meant to be him telling the story to someone in the cosmere listening

...

Secret Project #1 Reveal and Livestream (March 3, 2022)

It is my goal to present my best guess, and the reasoning behind it, so without further ado, let's begin.

Timeframe

We can use clues from the text to determine a range of time the story could be told.

Spoilers for Mistborn

Spoiler

 Don’t wake me up unless Death himself has shown up, nails in his eyes.

Chapter 53

This definitely implies that an amount of time has passed since the end of Era I

Location

Again clues help to figure this out, but I've noticed some conflicting pieces of evidence.

Minor, mostly worldbuilding, spoilers for SA

Spoiler
Quote

Now, I know that on your planet, steering a ship isn’t that big a deal. In many places, they’ll hand the ship’s wheel to any kid with a standard number of fingers and a habit of leaving at least one out of their nose for extended stretches of time.

Ch. 20

I think this one kind of discourages Roshar as a locale, since the Thaylen consider steering the ship a big deal. -see Dawnshard- but I think it's only one culture, and I'm sure the rest of Roshar is maybe a little less so

Quote

The weather patterns on Tress’s world aren’t specifically Invested—so they aren’t self-aware.

Ch. 43

Self-aware weather patterns? What does that sound like? Oh wait, the Stormfather.

Personality

Finally, now that I've determined where and when I think the story is being told, I will explain who I think it is being told to.

Quote

Worldbringers like myself spend decades combing through folk tales, legends, myths, histories, and drunken bar songs looking for the most unique stories.

Ch. 24

This quote is likely directed at someone who is not a Worldbringer, seeing as Hoid doesn't say "us" , but Hoid also wouldn't tell a story without a reason, so maybe he was training someone to be similar...

Spoilers for SA

Spoiler

Who's that pokemon Cosmere character?

It's...

Spoiler

Sigzil

Sigzil, as we know, was trained by Hoid, and we knew already there was a connection between the two groups.

Quote

Cosmeregirl

Do you think the Worldsingers will eventually get some time? That's who I'm most curious about. It's just so cool to see new parts of the world/cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

Possibly. Someday, I hope to be able to do more with the connection between them and other groups with oddly similar names across the cosmere.

skewh1989

I always wondered if there was a connection between Worldsingers and Worldbringers. Can I take this as confirmation there is one?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there is a connection.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

I feel that Sigzil is a logical candidate, because he is one of Hoid's three apprentices, whom Hoid is training to be like him, doing what he does, which this story is a great way to show.

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

...And it became clear to me that the best way to do that story would be with Hoid’s apprentices. There are three of them, of which Sigzil is the one you know the best. And I realized that I wanted to do this story. This was years ago that I first started contemplating this, over a decade ago that I started working on what is the story of Wit’s apprentices and their explorations of the Cosmere. I liked that idea because they were in different places in their lives than Wit was. And so, I really wanted to someday tell Sigzil’s story. He began to lock into the Cosmere in a specific way...

Secret Project #4 Reveal and Livestream (March 24, 2022)

 

 

Thank you for reading this mess, tell me what you think, feel free to debate me(cough cough, FrustrationI'mNotGoingToTagYouBecauseIDon'tKnowIfYou'veHadAChanceToReatTotESYetButPleaseDoFeelFreeToDebateOrDisproveMe, cough cough) or just tell me I'm awesome.

Edited by Lego Mistborn
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12 hours ago, Lego Mistborn said:

Timeframe

We can use clues from the text to determine a range of time the story could be told.

Spoilers for Mistborn

  Hide contents

 Don’t wake me up unless Death himself has shown up, nails in his eyes.

Chapter 53

This definitely implies that an amount of time has passed since the end of Era I

Actually, we know for a fact that this is well after Era II. Ulaam is definitely a kandra, Hoid mentions something about Sazed "released them" at least several decades ago:

Quote

“And there. After only a few days of trying, she’d discovered more about helping me than Ulaam had in our year together. That stupid shapeshifter was enjoying this. I swear, they’ve all been getting weirder ever since Sazed released them.”

Excerpt From: Brandon Sanderson. “Tress of the Emerald Sea.” Chapter 42

Quote

“Ulaam, it should be noted, is not known for his bedside manner—as I’ve pointed out, his people lost something when they stopped being forced to imitate actual humans. I can genuinely say that without that burden, they’ve all become increasingly themselves over the decades.”

Excerpt From: Brandon Sanderson. “Tress of the Emerald Sea.” Chapter 57

I'd actually argue that it hasn't been too long since their release since Hoid says "over the decades" instead of "over the centuries". So potentially less than 100 years. That said, we have no idea when the kandra will be "released" on the Mistborn timeline, but it certainly hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, in regards to the possible audience there are a LOT of details to trawl through, I think you've listed some good ones here, and there are certainly more. Some of them don't seem that helpful but the one that stuck out the most to me was this one:

Quote

“As you wish,” a monotone voice said. It was the spirit that inhabited this place, you see, obeying the will of its owner. Yes, like the speaking minds inhabiting the ships you’ve seen landing on your planet.”

Excerpt From: Brandon Sanderson. “Tress of the Emerald Sea.” Chapter 60

Spoiler

The only world we've met so far that has spaceships landing on it is First of the Sun. That said, this might not be a particularly unique feature for worlds at this point in the timeline. However, at one point Hoid also says this:

Quote

“ I can understand why you would want tales of people like Linji, who tried to sail around the world with no Aviar.”

Excerpt From: Brandon Sanderson. “Tress of the Emerald Sea.” Chapter 24

He says the world not their (Linji's) world. I think this might be a strong point to the audience being on First of the Sun.

Edited by Lightspine
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There is a fairly sizeable thread discussing this question over on the cosmere spoiler board. It hasn’t reached a consensus.

My personal thoughts are (mild spoilers for Mistborn, not including TLM):

Spoiler

I think Hoid is talking to a group of Scadrians in or around Era 4 of Mistborn, ie cosmere space age.

My reasoning is that he references some concepts from Scadrian religion (Ironeyes and the idea that people were made by Shards) which seems like Scadrian ‘localisations’ for a Scadrian audience. He also refers to himself as a Worldbringer, a term which he is using metaphorically (since he was never literally a Worldbringer during the Final Empire period), which sounds like something he’d say to people with the concept of Worldbringers ingrained in their culture.

And I’m very confident he’s talking to a group rather than an individual, since he says things like ‘some of you may have noticed’.

 

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4 hours ago, RedBlue said:

There is a fairly sizeable thread discussing this question over on the cosmere spoiler board. It hasn’t reached a consensus.

My personal thoughts are (mild spoilers for Mistborn, not including TLM):

  Hide contents

I think Hoid is talking to a group of Scadrians in or around Era 4 of Mistborn, ie cosmere space age.

My reasoning is that he references some concepts from Scadrian religion (Ironeyes and the idea that people were made by Shards) which seems like Scadrian ‘localisations’ for a Scadrian audience. He also refers to himself as a Worldbringer, a term which he is using metaphorically (since he was never literally a Worldbringer during the Final Empire period), which sounds like something he’d say to people with the concept of Worldbringers ingrained in their culture.

And I’m very confident he’s talking to a group rather than an individual, since he says things like ‘some of you may have noticed’.

 

I don't think this actually implies he was talking to Scadrial, especially since another character(a Lumaran not an offworlder) was the one who mentioned death.

I did fine the quote you were talking about that implies they are a group. Darn those English speakers who stopped using "Thou" and caused this confusion.

4 hours ago, Lightspine said:

Actually, we know for a fact that this is well after Era II. Ulaam is definitely a kandra, Hoid mentions something about Sazed "released them" at least several decades ago:

I'd actually argue that it hasn't been too long since their release since Hoid says "over the decades" instead of "over the centuries". So potentially less than 100 years. That said, we have no idea when the kandra will be "released" on the Mistborn timeline, but it certainly hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, in regards to the possible audience there are a LOT of details to trawl through, I think you've listed some good ones here, and there are certainly more. Some of them don't seem that helpful but the one that stuck out the most to me was this one:

Spoiler

The only world we've met so far that has spaceships landing on it is First of the Sun. That said, this might not be a particularly unique feature for worlds at this point in the timeline. However, at one point Hoid also says this:

He says the world not their (Linji's) world. I think this might be a strong point to the audience being on First of the Sun.

I put that bit in spoilers because it references unreleased content, might want to be careful with that and other spoilers. I think First of the Sun is a great guess, now that you've pointed this out, but it's probably a mixed group, because there are too many references to a variety of planets.

For Mistborn:

Quote

Also, I do think released the Kandra means released them from the contract, which Sazed, as hero of the ages, released them from when he ascended.

 

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1 hour ago, Lego Mistborn said:

I put that bit in spoilers because it references unreleased content, might want to be careful with that and other spoilers. I think First of the Sun is a great guess, now that you've pointed this out, but it's probably a mixed group, because there are too many references to a variety of planets.

 

Done! I couldn't quite remember if:

Spoiler

The spaceships were in 6th of the dusk or only in that one chapter we got of its sequel.

 

1 hour ago, Lego Mistborn said:
Quote

Also, I do think released the Kandra means released them from the contract, which Sazed, as hero of the ages, released them from when he ascended.

 

I can see that interpretation. However, I'm a bit hesitant to place this ~ 1 century or less after the catacendre (as I said previously, I'm interpreting the word "decades" to mean it hasn't been centuries yet since they were "released") because of the level of tech and magic we see. TLM spoilers:

Spoiler

I think at some point in TLM we here that Scadrial is the second world to develop guns—the first assumedly being Taldain—and it's been about 350 years since the catacendre at that point. Yet Riina has a full spaceship to work with. I think if the Ire had spaceships 250 years before Era 2 that would put Sel well above Scadrial in terms of technology.

There is a way to make that work though; I had the brief thought that the metallic soldiers of Riina might be same or similar to the "men of gold and red" in which case she might be aligned with Autonomy, and have access to Taldian tech.

This would also place it roughly 200 years before Stormlight, which makes it before Warbreaker as well. Since we see some Awakening applications that certainly weren't around in Warbreaker, I don't feel like that really works out.

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On 1/3/2023 at 8:10 PM, Lego Mistborn said:
Spoiler

Also, I do think released the Kandra means released them from the contract, which Sazed, as hero of the ages, released them from when he ascended.

 

Spoilers for Mistborn Era 2 - including TLM

Spoiler

Harmony didn't release them from their contract post-Catacendre - he changed the contract to them being his servants - which was one of the main reasons for the entire plot of SoS and Paalm's Actions. We also see in TLM that MeLaan becomes the first Kandra Worldhopper. . . 

So the events of Tress have to be significantly later than Mistborn Era 2. I also think the "audience" is on First of the Sun - and the timing is either shortly before or shortly after the events of SotD. 

Also, the mention of the Iriali may imply

Spoiler

That after teh events of the Stormlight Archive, some of them migrated to Lumar - and then subsequently left Lumar 300 years ago

Which places the events of the story at least 300 years after the events of the Stormlight Archive

Edited by Treamayne
SPAG
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On 1/3/2023 at 1:46 PM, Lightspine said:

Actually, we know for a fact that this is well after Era II. Ulaam is definitely a kandra, Hoid mentions something about Sazed "released them" at least several decades ago:

I'd actually argue that it hasn't been too long since their release since Hoid says "over the decades" instead of "over the centuries". So potentially less than 100 years. That said, we have no idea when the kandra will be "released" on the Mistborn timeline, but it certainly hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, in regards to the possible audience there are a LOT of details to trawl through, I think you've listed some good ones here, and there are certainly more. Some of them don't seem that helpful but the one that stuck out the most to me was this one:

  Reveal hidden contents

The only world we've met so far that has spaceships landing on it is First of the Sun. That said, this might not be a particularly unique feature for worlds at this point in the timeline. However, at one point Hoid also says this:

He says the world not their (Linji's) world. I think this might be a strong point to the audience being on First of the Sun.

Except that we know for a fact that First of the Sun is specifically technologically backwards, which is why the sky people carry so much influence. In describing Riina's hideout, Hoid seems to say that you [the audience] would call it a laptop, which no one on First of the Sun would.

Edited by MGershone
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8 minutes ago, MGershone said:

Except that we know for a fact that First of the Sun is specifically technologically backwards, which is why the sky people carry so much influence. In describing Riina's hideout, Hoid seems to say that you [the audience] would call it a laptop, which no one on First of the Sun would.

I took that as more of a slip of the tongue by Hoid- he called it a laptop, realized the people he is talking to would have no idea what that is, and corrected it back to a magical box. To me it seemed like Hoid was trying to “magicify” all of the high tech things in the story because he couldn’t very well explain them to the audience- because they have no modern tech or understanding. so I still think it’s people on first of the sun. 

9 hours ago, RaeTheRaven said:

At at least one point, he makes reference to himself being Wit, so I'm guessing whoever this is being told to includes some Rosharans. Or at least people who know of the role he took as King's Wit. 

Wit is also just a name he uses now, doesn’t have to be in reference to the title of the kings wit on roshar. He kind of took over that title and still goes by that name in roshar even when he has a new title under Jasnah

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6 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

I took that as more of a slip of the tongue by Hoid- he called it a laptop, realized the people he is talking to would have no idea what that is, and corrected it back to a magical box. To me it seemed like Hoid was trying to “magicify” all of the high tech things in the story because he couldn’t very well explain them to the audience- because they have no modern tech or understanding. so I still think it’s people on first of the sun.

You make a good point. I wonder, is Brandon making the names of things the same as on earth just to make things more easily understandable to us, or is there something deeper to it?

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1 hour ago, MGershone said:

You make a good point. I wonder, is Brandon making the names of things the same as on earth just to make things more easily understandable to us, or is there something deeper to it?

That’s a good question, I found a wob that I think sheds some light on how that works:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/188/#e4911

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I don't know if Hoid is talking to people on Roshar because he says

Imagine him as the answer to the question: “What if that gunk from your shower drain were to come to life?”

I don't remember Roshar having showers.

 

This is my first time commenting, so I might not be the best.

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Spoiler
On 3/1/2023 at 5:10 PM, Lego Mistborn said:

For Mistborn:

Quote

Also, I do think released the Kandra means released them from the contract, which Sazed, as hero of the ages, released them from when he ascended.

 

I think you meant to use a spoiler box not a quote for this^_^

Edited by Cinnamon
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13 hours ago, CognitiveShadow said:

Wit is also just a name he uses now, doesn’t have to be in reference to the title of the kings wit on roshar. He kind of took over that title and still goes by that name in roshar even when he has a new title under Jasnah

Well yes, and it's possible he just decided to adopt it as a nickname on other wolds too after his time on Roshar. But we have no way of knowing that and clearly he chose to go by Hoid on Lumar. It was said in a *wink* *wink* sort of way and the only place we know of him going by that name at this time is Roshar. 

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On 1/11/2023 at 1:52 AM, RaeTheRaven said:

Well yes, and it's possible he just decided to adopt it as a nickname on other wolds too after his time on Roshar. But we have no way of knowing that and clearly he chose to go by Hoid on Lumar. It was said in a *wink* *wink* sort of way and the only place we know of him going by that name at this time is Roshar. 

He takes similar roles on multiple planets. So it’s possible that there was a King’s Wit like position on First of the Sun that he has held. Frost’s letter to Hoid also states he uses Wit as a name rather than just a title.

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  • 9 months later...
On 1/3/2023 at 1:49 PM, RedBlue said:

He also refers to himself as a Worldbringer, a term which he is using metaphorically (since he was never literally a Worldbringer during the Final Empire period), which sounds like something he’d say to people with the concept of Worldbringers ingrained in their culture.

I am pretty sure that unless he was literally a Worldbringer during the Final Empire period, which he plausibly could have been, the Worldsingers were all gone at that time and had been for over 1,000 years. 

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