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The Dawnsingers


the winter system

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What were they? And what is their relationship to the Dawnshards?

I believe they may be the Knight Radiant Spren, but the 'singer' part might imply listeners.

"Both were here when the city was founded. Some think these chambers may have been cut by the Dawnsingers themselves."

- a servant, page 114, Way of Kings

Would one of the surges been able to cut? Division or Soulcasting might, though we don't know anything about Division.

"Surely you know the story, that both glyphs and letters came from the Dawnsingers?"

- Kabsal, page 511, Way of Kings

This doesn't support my theory, as what use would Spren have for letters. Pattern directly says that Spren do not communicate by speaking in the Cognitive Realm and I doubt they would need an alphabet.

"They were kindly Spren sent by the Almighty to care for the humans once."

-Kabsal, page 633, way of kings

This implies they might be the Knight Radiant Spren.

"Talk of the Dawncities had been popular lately among light eyes- the idea that certain cities could trace their origins back to the Dawnsingers."

-Dalinar, page 754, Way of Kings

This could support it, that Dawncities were cities in the cognitive realm or that their Knights Radiant founded the cities.

"A mythological treasure, Brightness, much like the Dawnshards or the Honorblades."

-Shallan, page 460, Way of Kings

This means that the Dawnshards are not the same as the Honorblades and it also implies that the Dawnsingers are not the same as the Heralds. The Dawnshards could be Knight Radiant Shardblades. It could also mean they are something else entirely, perhaps of Cultivation, but it's said they're sent by the Almighty so perhaps not.

"Taking the Dawnshard, known to bind any creature voidish or mortal, he crawled up the steps crafted for Heralds, ten strides tall apiece, toward the grand temple above.

- From the Poem of Ista. I have found no modern explanation of what these "Dawnshards" are. They seem ignored by scholars, though talk of them was obviously prevalent among those recording the early mythologies."

-Jasnah Kholin, epigraph page 524, Way of Kings

This directly contradicts my theory. They could bind any creature, apparently, but what does bind mean? Does it mean capture? If so, why not say so? Who is this he and why is he going towards a grand temple?

"And... Without the Dawnshards..."

-Almighty, page 997, Way of Kings

Why are these Dawnshards so important? I've lost my theory that they're Knight Radiant Shardblades, as too many potential points contradicts them.

Conclusion:

I have no idea what the Dawnsingers or Dawnshards were.

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I personaly like the idea that the dawnsingers were listeners bonded to radiant spren, since their Rhythms offer a possible connection to cymatics, and they summoned the everstorm by singing, so I suspect they could acess the power of another shard if they were bonded by its spren instead. Also, the voidbringers are commonly thought to be spren, so it makes sense that the dawnsingers, being from before the coming of Odium, the appearence of human surgebinders, and the corruption of listeners, would be called spren as well, simply by virtue of being magical. This also ties nicely into the betrayal of spren: Honor and Cultivation gave the listeners their spren to help humans adapt to Roshar, but after it was done they couldn't force the spren to stay with the listeners against their will.

EDIT: Typos

Edited by CognitivePulsePattern
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At first, I was going to say I would disagree, due to this WoB 

 

 

 

INTERVIEW: Mar 11th, 2014QUESTION
How about the other way around? Can a Parshendi bond a KR spren?
BRANDON SANDERSON

Historically, the Parshendi were not made Knights Radiant, or the parshmen weren't.

QUESTION

Can they become squires maybe?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Historically they did not, but it's not impossible.

 

But he never actually stated if a bond between a Parshendi and Nahel Spren ever happened, so it could very well be possible

Edited by ParadoxSpren
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There was a really interesting theory I read a couple of days ago (and can´t find now) that talk about the Listeners.

It started from the observation that Listener don´t seem to create the tunes, just listen and attune them. That lead to believe the tunes or rhythms are preexistent. 

It also postulated that the rhythms come from Roshar itself. That would explain the Cymatic Theory Kabsal showed us back in WoK.

 

(Please, if you are reading this and that´s your theory, be welcome to explain it in more detail).

 

So I wonder:

Are the Downcities the ancient cities like Alethkar or Kharbranth, created by the Downsingers?

What is the relation between Downsingers and Listeners? Maybe they were the first Listeners.

And if the Downsingers are Listeners bonding some kind of spren, and Downshard are their particular Shards, why are they so important to survive the desolation/everstorm?

 

I think there´s definitely something there…Just trying to put the pieces together…

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As far as I remember, the Heralds are potentially not from Roshar. If that is true, that they came from somewhere else, maybe Yolen on the request of Honor, they may have brought some foreign technology/magic with them. This technology/magic might be the Dawnshards. And the Dawnsingers? Well, maybe Heralds weren't the only ones that Honor brought to Roshar to help. Maybe Dawnsingers were a bunch of Worldhoppers that decided to help people exiled from Tranquil Hills.

Edited by Mestiv
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I have some super crazy speculation on the Dawnsingers: Taravangian wrote the diagram in their language.  I've been saying this for a while, and have almost zero proof, but I would love if it was true.

 

No idea what they actually are, though.  Could they be counterparts to the unmade, possibly?

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There was a really interesting theory I read a couple of days ago (and can´t find now) that talk about the Listeners.

It started from the observation that Listener don´t seem to create the tunes, just listen and attune them. That lead to believe the tunes or rhythms are preexistent. 

It also postulated that the rhythms come from Roshar itself. That would explain the Cymatic Theory Kabsal showed us back in WoK.

 

(Please, if you are reading this and that´s your theory, be welcome to explain it in more detail).

 

So I wonder:

Are the Downcities the ancient cities like Alethkar or Kharbranth, created by the Downsingers?

What is the relation between Downsingers and Listeners? Maybe they were the first Listeners.

And if the Downsingers are Listeners bonding some kind of spren, and Downshard are their particular Shards, why are they so important to survive the desolation/everstorm?

 

I think there´s definitely something there…Just trying to put the pieces together…

 

 

That was my theory. Glad to see someone liked it.  :D

 

It was a pretty long post, so I'll just link to it here. But I'll try to summarize the important bits.

 

I postulate that the Rhythms are always there, a part of Roshar itself, and that they are a separate type of magic system. I've seen, and agree with, other theories that think the Listeners were the only race native to Roshar and they were there before any Shards arrived. The spren of the Listeners were the original spren of Roshar before the Shards arrived and these spren, when bonded, allow the Listeners to Attune the natural Rhythms of Roshar and gain their normal forms (worker, warrior, etc.) I think it's noteworthy that the Parshmen (called slaveform by the Listeners) have neither spren nor music.

 

Further I think that the Shards distort the natural Rhythms of Roshar somehow (like listening to a song through water). The Listeners bonding spren of one of the Shards allows them to Attune the distorted versions of the Rhythms and give them different forms of power related to that particular Shard. So bonding the spren of Odium allows them to Attune more hateful versions of the natural Rhythms (Amusement becomes Ridicule and etc.) but it also allows the Stormform, and probably other powerful forms as well that we haven't seen yet (the ones mentioned in chapter headings perhaps). I suspect that if a Listener somehow bonds a spren of Honor or Cultivation they would also hear distorted Rhythms and gain new forms of power but more in line with those two Shards. I'm curious to see if that's possible and what happens when a Listener bonds a spren of Honor. I also think this is why Brandon has said that there were "no Parshendi Knights Radiant", perhaps bonding an honorspren wouldn't make them a Windrunner but instead a different form of power.

 

Most of it is pretty speculative but so far I think it fits what we've seen. Hopefully I did it justice in summary but I did leave out some of the more wild speculation I went into near the end of that post if anyone is curious. Suffice to say I don't think the Voidbringers we've seen are using Voidbinding. I don't think we've seen any Voidbinders yet. I think they're using Void Rhythms instead and that there are also Honor Rhythms and Cultivation Rhythms.

 

And as you said if the Rhythms are a natural phenomena to Roshar itself it explains some other things, like how Cymatics seems to affect the planet's natural formations. Also it would explain why the Listeners are the only race who can hear them if they're the only ones who are native to Roshar.

 

 

If my theory is correct, then the Dawnsingers could be Listeners who bonded natural Rosharan spren and gained forms of power that way. The Dawnsingers might be the Listener's natural forms of power in other words. Not sure how the Dawnshards would fit in, though.

Edited by Ansalem
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I do like the Listener theory, but I'm just not sure if that can work.

 

Tanavest specifically mentions the Dawnshards to Dalinar.  He doesn't say "without the Dawnsingers, you're doomed", he says "without the Dawnshards, you're doomed."

 

With the listener theory, you basically need a dawnsinger to get a dawnshard, and every dawnsinger has a dawnshard.  I just think that Tanavest would have mentioned this to Dalinar if this theory were true.

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I do like the Listener theory, but I'm just not sure if that can work.

Tanavest specifically mentions the Dawnshards to Dalinar. He doesn't say "without the Dawnsingers, you're doomed", he says "without the Dawnshards, you're doomed."

With the listener theory, you basically need a dawnsinger to get a dawnshard, and every dawnsinger has a dawnshard. I just think that Tanavest would have mentioned this to Dalinar if this theory were true.

That is assuming the dawnshards are the equivalent of dawnsinger shardblades. They could be instead what allowed the creation of dawnsingers en masse in the time before the desolations. Maybe they were also used to create the parshman later, in a misguided attempt by the KR to end the desolations, and that was what destroyed stormseat.

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I do like the Listener theory, but I'm just not sure if that can work.

 

Tanavest specifically mentions the Dawnshards to Dalinar.  He doesn't say "without the Dawnsingers, you're doomed", he says "without the Dawnshards, you're doomed."

 

With the listener theory, you basically need a dawnsinger to get a dawnshard, and every dawnsinger has a dawnshard.  I just think that Tanavest would have mentioned this to Dalinar if this theory were true.

 

 

That may not necessarily be the case. We know basically nothing about Dawnshards. The Dawn in the name may be misleading us to think there is a direct link. It could just be a reference to an era where both the singers and shards existed but not necessarily requiring each other. It could just as easily be that they're called Dawnshards because the Dawnsingers were the first to use them, whatever they were. Or the reverse of that, the name Dawnsinger might come from them being the first to use the Dawnshards. Or perhaps the Dawnsingers created the Dawnshards but the same could be done again without their involvement. The way that anyone of any species could make fabrials the same way the Alethi do. Or it could be the Dawnshards still exist somewhere and they simply need to be found.

 

We just have too little information about the Dawnshards to really speculate. We know that the two things are connected somehow, but at this point it could still be basically any type of connection. Just because the Dawnsingers had Dawnshards doesn't mean you need them to get the shards. If that's the case then Tanavast might not thought to mention it.

 

Besides no matter what the Dawnsingers are you're still assuming you need them to get the Dawnshards so it isn't a mark against the Listener theory anymore than any other theory on who they were.

 

Bonding voidspren hasn't given them any type of shards so bonding any other type of spren may not either. The way they bond spren seems to be different in a lot of ways to how Surgebinders bond spren. A human and a Listener could both bond the same type of spren and get different results from it.

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That was my theory. Glad to see someone liked it.  :D

 

Hi! I`m glad you found your way here!

 

 

Bonding voidspren hasn't given them any type of shards so bonding any other type of spren may not either. The way they bond spren seems to be different in a lot of ways to how Surgebinders bond spren. A human and a Listener could both bond the same type of spren and get different results from it.

 

I think Brandon tricked us with that answer about not being parshendi knight radiants. It`s impossible just because humans and listeners bond with spren in different ways.

 

I keep thinking the Dawnsingers were some kind of Listener`s ancestors, maybe the first Parshendi to bond with spren, before Odium and the voids spren.

 

What if the Dawnsingers, just as they created the Dawncities, created the Dawnshards?

What are exactly the Dawncities anyway? and what makes them so special?

Edited by Awesomness
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