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Perhaps This is TOO Obvious


StormyAngel

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My interpretation of the Threnody situation is that, somehow, a "blockage" between life and death occurred on-planet. A lot of souls DO get through to whatever genuine afterlife awaits sinners and saints in the Cosmere but some...get stuck. Maybe that's why Shades are so reactionary---they want so badly to finish their journey, but they can't...especially when some jerk puts up the spiritual equivalent of a floodlight on them, by breaking the Simple Rules. Shades aren't evil, they're maybe just driven to madness by their inability to move on.

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The idea of a central hell doesn't really fit with my understanding of the cosmere.  Each separate system seems pretty independent with little interaction between the shards of separate systems (with one notable exception).  We haven't seen any god's judging and elevating/damning anyone, and Harmony talks about souls still being around and available for discussion.  I think Sol Invictus has a pretty good idea though.  Sanderson's afterlife seems more based on natural consequences and the state of being you are in rather than a judgement and assignment.

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I agree that the judgement and assignment basis for the afterlife doesn't seem to fit, but I think there may still be some significance to calling the place Hell. The Shades certainly don't seem like nice happy people, so Sol Invictus theory strikes me as good.

 

Given that we accept Sol Invictus' theory, I wonder why it is that the simple rules provoke them. Is breaking the simple rules really a spiritual action? Is it Cognitive? And why those three things in particular?

 

The actions look more like they have a cognitive element to them, since drawing blood, starting a fire, and moving quickly are all actions tied into life one way or another.

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Like measuring Spren, and then the Spren staying that length maybe the fact that they created the simple rules makes the shades behave in the way that they described that they should? Does this make sense? And I don't think this place could actually be Hell, because they can worldhop, so they are still physically alive. At least I believe we have heard of a worldhopper from threnody

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Also, keep in mind they used to live on a continent I think called Home or Homeland, and knew of this other continent and called it Hell, before the Evil came and they had to flee. So is just this one continent the afterlife?

 

And I still want to know ... anything, really, about the Deepest One Silence briefly mentions.

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The deepest ones are probably some different category of shades, because it seems they can still provoked, just not often, and way more dangerous. Silence probably has seen one herself otherwise I don't think she could truly fear them as she seems to have in that one moment.

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Just to warn you, I'm about to post pretty far-fetched thoughts on the matter.

 

I doubt that the 'evil' has much to do with Odium. What interest would he have in Threnody? There are no shards there. I'm currently sitting on the belief that it is actually the location of whatever hit Adonalsium, recovering from the encounter. I'm probably wrong, but hey, it isn't a shard, it certainly isn't warm and fuzzy, and I'm almost positive it would have some nasty effects on the local realms. In this case, it seems to me like the cognitive/spiritual realms are in chaos on Threnody. The souls of the dead are unable to move on, presumably because something is blocking them. A large spiritual power could be to blame. And these "deepest ones" could perhaps be the 'evil' itself leaking out.  Why would it care about breaking the simple rules? That's pretty simple to explain. It may not be a shard, but it would probably operate on similar principles, since they seem to be pretty universal. We've seen examples of shards having weaknesses (ie. not being able to see certain things), and we've seen examples of natural investiture being able to hide cognitive processes (Aviar), so I don't believe it would be too far a reach to say breaking these simple rules is mostly just you lighting a beacon saying "Hey! Hey, you evil thing! I'm right here!" 

 

Now, you may be wondering what that has to do with the shades and the simple rules, which could easily be explained by the cognitive realm. If something powerful enough to challenge Adonalsium is chilling in the cognitive realm, that could understandably warp the other beings around it to similar thought processing. If you've read WoK/WoR, it touches more on the cognitive realm, and I don't want to spoil anything if you haven't read it (And I can't figure out how to do spoiler tags at the moment, and don't have the energy to look it up), but it isn't out of the realm of reason to warp cognitive essence into another purpose, like draining energy from the native species to heal, perhaps?

 

I apologize for the rambling nature of this post, and as I said, I'm sure I'm wrong, but I like to think that Threnody might actually be slightly more significant than simply showing off some cosmere afterlife, and hey, Adonalsium's 'rival' had to go somewhere didn't it?

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One quick thing, I see people comment about how when people die they can't move on. This is not the case, unless I'm reading the book very wrong. You only turn into a Shade if you are killed by a Shade. If you simply die, you pass as one normally one.

 

This says to me that the Shades kill in such a manner that corrupts a part of your Innate Investiture, spreading the 'infection' as it were.

 

I suspect that the Deepest Ones are natural Shades, patient 0 as it were. Something unique made them, but now like vampires their every kill adds to their numbers with lesser copies of themselves.

 

Also worth pointing out, they knew of this continent and named it Hell long ago while they were still on Homeland, before the Evil happened. Since they predate it, while I can absolutely believe the two are related, it's not necessarily that the Shades are just a natural outcome of the Evil. Though who knows, perhaps in this arcana effect can predate cause.

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  • 5 months later...

It's established that there are no shards on Threnody, but perhaps there once were?  I had been thinking that perhaps there was a shard, but it was one of the ones that Odium killed, or maybe Odium attempted to kill it and the shard fled.  That might have been the Evil, Odium attacking whatever shard was there.  I haven't actually fact checked this though, so I could very easily be proven wrong.  

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Yeah, I just removed that line from the article because it misrepresents the WoB, which I have the transcription of (the reason you can't find it is because it has not been posted yet).  Here it is though:
 

Questioner: The Evil on Threnody…
Brandon: The Evil on Threnody.
Questioner: Is it related to Ruin?
Brandon: Is it related to Ruin.  Well technically, yes.  Directly?  No.  You let me wiggle out of that one, that’s so broad.

 

Going off of other questions like this Brandon has been asked, they are technically connected because they are both cosmere.

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Yeah, I just removed that line from the article because it misrepresents the WoB, which I have the transcription of (the reason you can't find it is because it has not been posted yet).  Here it is though:

 

 

Going off of other questions like this Brandon has been asked, they are technically connected because they are both cosmere.

 

Threnody does look remarkably like Sel or Roshar in that it has creatures made of magic wandering about.  Maybe Threnody used to have a single shard associated with it, until Odium came along?  And maybe the method(s?) of Investiture manipulation was (were?) lost during the population's flight from "the Evil?"  

Edited by Landis963
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So they left Damnation for Hell... These Threnody folk aren't the brightest.

without deep knowledge of WorldHopping, maybe they have not many choice.

And also the Threnody is quite a decent living place if you are not an adventurer or a dumb one.

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without deep knowledge of WorldHopping, maybe they have not many choice.

And also the Threnody is quite a decent living place if you are not an adventurer or a dumb one.

 

 

...I think that depends on the definition of "decent". Not kindling fire is difficult enough, but sheding blood? I guess most of Threnodians are involuntary vegetarians. And not running at night can be also quite difficult...

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...I think that depends on the definition of "decent". Not kindling fire is difficult enough, but sheding blood? I guess most of Threnodians are involuntary vegetarians. And not running at night can be also quite difficult...

Sure unless you are quite far away from Shade (for example in a Town) protected by Silver.

You have to be quite near to a Shade and break the Simple Rules to put yourself in Danger.

It's the reason for the Cityfolk to understimate the Rules and the Shades.

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It's shedding blood, any blood, I thought.  

Yes, and on Therenody there isn't any carnivores to this reason.

 

But we saw that through some method you may "fool" at least 2 of the 3 rules.

Now I don't say, that Therenody is the best place in the Cosmere, but if you know how to act the Shades aren't a real problem (unless you put yourself far in the wildlands).

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