Theory: Aona and Skai's Shard Names

[Chaos]

Let's talk about Elantris, because that seems like the hip thing to do. There's plenty of mystery to go around. Any full theory about Sel addresses a few facts:

1. What Aona and Skai's Shards are.

2. What is the pool

3. The Shaod

4. What exactly is the Dor?

4. Why Odium needed to go to Sel.

5. The mysteries behind the Seons and Skaze

#1 is by far the most important of these mysteries, as everything is related to Shards. I don't know what's going on with the Shaod, so I'll give that one a wide miss. But I have an idea for the Shard names. I managed to misread the ending with Hrathen to give me an interesting conclusion for Skai's name. Oddly, by completely misreading some things, I create an easy argument which makes sense on almost all levels.

There are many suggested Shard names for Aona and Skai. One for Aona was Release, because it relieved the hoed of their pain, and also made sense with the Dor and its nature to release its energy. Another such one is Harmony and Discord, from Aona's harmony with the land of Arelon, and its supreme importance with the Aons. These are entirely reasonable, but they didn't feel right. Endowment is a name that feels right. These candidates for Aona and Skai don't feel right.

So I was reading Zas's Brandonothology, and he had handy links to the Elantris annotations. One night I decided--at 1am--to read these annotations. It's been quite some time since I read Elantris, so its good to relook at these.

First item of interest, Chapter Sixteen's Elantris Annotation.

Raoden's memory of Ien at the beginning of this chapter pretty much sums up what the Seons are. A lot of readers have asked me for more on them, and I'll give it eventually. However, in this book, you simply need to know that they are what they appear. Servants bound out of love, rather than duty, force, or pay.

Well, we're all in agreement that Seons are related to Aona. Probably Splinters of Aona. The exact specifics aren't important. By the Principle of Intent, whatever fragment of Aona's Shard is in there should be informing what's going on. If they are bound out of love...

Looking at the segment from the pool, the pool wants to relieve Raoden's pain. Out of love, let's say. That'd definitely be a loving thing to do, relieving pain. This seems entirely reasonable.

Aona's Shard is Love.

After reading Raoden fixing Elantris, I couldn't exactly go stop reading the Brandon Avalanche, could I? So at this point its embarrassingly late, but there are too many interesting things going on at the ending. One is Shuden, with his ChayShan dance. The other is the Dahkor monks. There's really no complete theory of how these two things work.

It's been suggested that, similar to the Allomancy-Feruchemy-Hemalurgy triad, Aona was net gain, ChayShan was the balance, and Dahkor was the net loss power. Since Dahkor's magic requires sacrifices to work, this seemed like a good bet.

But ChayShan can't be "balance", in the same manner Feruchemy was. In Feruchemy, the energy comes from yourself, and you use it later. Shuden appears to be drawing upon an external source, so that's net gain. This triad system has a problem in that case. But on Sel, these are different Shards. There's no reason to expect them to have exact symmetries with Scadrial magics.

Dahkor use sacrifices, you see. Hrathen and Dilaf talk about how Dilaf sacrificed a man to transport a easy distance.

"Absolute obedience is required." [Note: I don't have Elantris on me, so it's paraphrased] Dilaf has a better handle on Dahkor magic than Hrathen does, so anything he says is more likely to reveal clues about its magic's power. With those quote, I'm reminded of the Fjorden system of odivs to ...whatever those mentors were. There were oaths, and the logical structure eventually goes to Wyrn, who communicates directly with God.

Wyrn is interesting, you see, because he has the ability to see the future. That's some serious Shard power. Splinters have the ability to see the future, so Wyrn is likely to be a Splinter. Whatever Wyrn is, he's got power on his side. If obedience is related to Skai's magic, with its sacrifices, then this entire power structure in Fjorden funnels power up to Wyrn. Maybe every odiv gives a little bit of power to its krondet (?), and so on up to Wyrn. This would explain rather simply how Wyrn has such power, and it follows directly from this obedience idea.

Finally, to my misreading of Hrathen's ending. He fights Dilaf, his arm glows (obviously using some power), and he just collapsed. I immediately thought, "he's drawing from his body's power. There was no reason for him to die." Okay, I now realize he had already been stabbed, but the idea was already planted in my mind. What if Dahkor magic is fueled off of a person's own energy? It would absolutely fit with the sacrificial nature of the magic. Its high cost.

Remember, the only reason for explicit net gain/balance/net loss symmetry was specifically from the natures of Ruin and Preservation. Ruin destroys, so his magic system would be related to destroying stuff. Because Preservation balanced Ruin, that meant Preservation was net gain (for more crazy logic on the subject, go read the Principle of Intent, but that is the essence of the idea). When we go to different worlds, there is no reason why we need to categorize magics that way. It depends completely on the nature of the Shard. Endowment and Awakening aren't about explicit net gain. It's not important. They are important in that Endowent requires that its magic endows, like Ruin required things to be destroyed.

So, don't categorize by net gain. It is less than helpful.

Now that we have dispelled that myth, let me suggest that Skai's Shard is Devotion (an alternate possibility is Obedience, but let's say its Devotion for now). Its magic would then require devotion from its users. Sacrificing people to power magic? Yeah, that qualifies. To a lesser extent, any Dahkor's power is fueled by his or her own body, like Hrathen.

Dahkor is all about preparation. To make those bone symbols, you need to sacrifice people. Different sacrifices grant different powers, as Dilaf's ability to negate Aons was rather unique. And really, Raoden didn't have much trouble against those Dahkor (except Dilaf). They had enhanced strength or whatever, but their magic was fueled from their own body, while Raoden had a crapload of power to draw from. It makes a lot more sense that the Dahkor are fueling from their own bodies rather than the Dor. Remember, Roaden assumed that by the nature of the symbols in their bones, they were drawing from the Dor, like Aons. This is an entirely reasonable assumption for Raoden to make, despite being not quite right, according to this theory. Given enough time, energy, and sacrifices, Dahkor can kick some serious butt, and defeat Elantrians. But kind of like Feruchemy, you need to prepare beforehand.

Skai as Devotion makes sense, since Skai would then need people to devote themselves to gain power. Aona as Love, however, has no such qualms. Her magic is like a gift, out of love, for people to draw upon. In that sense, I have now made the necessary Aona-Aon connection, as required by the Principle of Intent.

ChayShan, then, being kind of a "balance" between Aona and Skai, makes sense since both the aspect of drawing energy from the Dor (like AonDor) and the connection with the body (like Dahkor) exists. We obviously need more information to analyze this further.

This is all from a very theoretically, magical point of view. It took me a day to realize that, holy crap, Love and Devotion was the whole split of Shu-Keseg. Let's think of this from a historical perspective, and assume Aona and Skai are Splintered, but Seons and Skaze exist (Brandon has said the Skaze are responsible for a lot of what Fjorden does. Go with me). Our nice guy, Keseg, has this idea of unity. In Elantris, the conflict came because Korath and Dereth couldn't decide how to go about unity. It doesn't seem unreasonable that the creation of the religion began somewhat randomly, with Keseg, but the agents of Aona and Skai twisted his ideas to conform with their Shards' Intent.

Magically and historically speaking, then, these Shard names seem to work pretty dang well. There's more. If you think about Ruin and Preservation, they were drawn together since they were such polar opposites. Love and Devotion aren't polar opposites, but they sure as heck are linked together. From the deepest sense of why the Shards came together, these two Shard names are reasonable.

Finally, this suggests a reason why Odium went to Sel. The Almighty/Honor always said to "unite them", in preparation to fight Odium. Love and Devotion were manipulating Keseg's teachings of unity. I don't think its unreasonable for Odium to want to defeat Love and Devotion, for the same reason as he killed Honor.

I think Aona as Love and Skai as Devotion makes the most sense of any Shard names that have been suggested thus far. I hope you agree.

[Zas678]

I really like this theory. It makes sense, especially if the Principle of Intent is true.

I have a slightly different idea. How about, instead of Aona being Love, she is Compassion? It would give much of the same things that Love does, and it seems to make the Pool make a little more sense. Then again, that is edging closer to Endowment, but still. I think that "Love" would be too often interpreted as romance instead of that feeling of helping and caring for others. Does that make sense?

[Chaos]

I'm okay with that. Compassion sounds a little more like a Shard name anyways. Love and Devotion could be replaced with a suitable synonym, with a similar idea behind it.

[leinton]

Raoden felt Dilaf use the Dor, so the energy can't all come from their body. I think it's more that the Aons focus the Dor, and since the Dakhor can't use Aons, they have to use a sacrifice of some sort to focus it.

[leinton]

Oh, and another thing. We don't know that Wyrn can see the future himself. He may not be the Splinter, but has access to something else that is one. Or maybe the Skaze can see the future. Just putting it out there, and sorry for the double post.

[Zas678]

Here is what Raoden says about the dropped illusion:

" I sensed the Dor the moment before my Aon fell, and it was coming from that priest."

[leinton]

You know, I don't think we've had another magic system where you can instinctively sense other magic users in the cosmere. The closest is Seekers and Mistborn burning bronze. Was there any indication that use of Stormlight can be sensed? Or Breath? If not, I wonder why the Dor can be sensed that way.

[Chaos]

Here is what Raoden says about the dropped illusion:

" I sensed the Dor the moment before my Aon fell, and it was coming from that priest."

I choose to intentionally misinterpret Raoden's idea for the sake of the theory. Raoden easily could be interpreting this as the Dor, when it isn't.

Of course, there's obvious problems with this idea. Shards should be able to tell when powers are distinct. But, then again, they never knew what atium was (not of Preservation like the rest of Allomancy) until the very end. At this point, Raoden would think of pretty much any energy source as the Dor, because he doesn't know of any other.

The short answer is that we simply don't know what the Dor is. If both AonDor and Dahkor can access it, that means it is a combination of both Aona and Skai's dead power.

There's definitely more to uncover.

[Zas678]

Or maybe the Dor (as I've said before) is just the "power of creation" that powers Allomancy.

And remember how Vin misinterprets her Seeking powers, and thinks the collection of Ruin's conciousness is a Mistborn? Even though he definitely was not using Allomancy?

[lordofsoup]

Devotion seems to good for what the Dahkor does, it seems more like blind devotion is a better way to describe it

[happyman]

Devotion seems to good for what the Dahkor does, it seems more like blind devotion is a better way to describe it

I think this is unfair. It depends on which oaths you give. Devotion isn't all bad on its own. It's when it's considered the only good that things become a problem. Hence, in the context of Elantris, it could become quite bad. But I don't think the concept is inherently wrong. It is a good example of why Adonalsium shouldn't have been shattered, though.

I actually think that Love is a good name for Aona's shard, simply because it's the term the Aons use to describe their feelings for humans. I admit that the term Love is rather ambiguous, but in this case I think it should be clear that it is strictly platonic.

[Chaos]

Or maybe the Dor (as I've said before) is just the "power of creation" that powers Allomancy.

And remember how Vin misinterprets her Seeking powers, and thinks the collection of Ruin's conciousness is a Mistborn? Even though he definitely was not using Allomancy?

Haven't we discussed this before, Zas?

Obviously, any Shard powers are of Adonalsium, which I interpret as the purified essence of creation. That's the power of creation Brandon is referring to. The Shards are merely different aspects (aka, shards) of that purified power of Creation. Kerry was telling me she was thinking of it like Mistborn and Mistings. You have the full, unshattered Adonalsium, which can use all the powers. When it Shattered, it split into its sixteen individual aspects of the power.

So the Dor is the power of creation. Every Shard is an aspect of that power. Nothing special there. Allomancy was special because it involved getting power explicitly from Preservation. So I guess my question is, what constituent Shards make up the Dor? Yes, Aons would tap into the power of creation, but that isn't a catch all. In a more concrete way, they are using the power of creation as colored by the respective Shards on their world. So, my question still stands. Is the Dor made up of Aona, Skai, or both?

Bringing up Ruin as Mistborn actually reinforces my idea that Raoden was getting confused by calling the force the Dor. Vin easily got confused, too. But there's nothing special there. Bronze senses Allomancy, which leaves its mark on the [REDACTED]. The mist spirit left similar echoes on that Realm, too. But since Ruin is also an aspect of Adonalsium, it leaves very similar echoes. It's just vaguer, because Ruin was using power generally, whereas Allomancy utilizes that power in a specific manner. If that makes sense.

Vin got confused because Allomancy, Ruin, and Preservation are all aspects of the same power of Creation; Adonalsium. Like different types of Mistings, different Shards are distinct, but they are similar in a lot of ways.

The real trick is that Bronze lets you feel those vibrations in [REDACTED], in my mind. This shouldn't be terribly surprising if you know the tiniest bit of Realmatic Theory, but I'm redacting myself just in case.

Devotion seems to good for what the Dahkor does, it seems more like blind devotion is a better way to describe it

I think this is unfair. It depends on which oaths you give. Devotion isn't all bad on its own. It's when it's considered the only good that things become a problem. Hence, in the context of Elantris, it could become quite bad. But I don't think the concept is inherently wrong. It is a good example of why Adonalsium shouldn't have been shattered, though.

I actually think that Love is a good name for Aona's shard, simply because it's the term the Aons use to describe their feelings for humans. I admit that the term Love is rather ambiguous, but in this case I think it should be clear that it is strictly platonic.

I'm with happyman. Devotion isn't inherently bad. I don't think any of the Shards are inherently bad (well, except Odium). Devotion is good, but like any Shard, by slaving to it too closely, the ideal gets corrupted.

[Zas678]

No, I think that preservation didn't give his power when people used allomancy.

Let me explain. I think that the power of preservation is kind of a giant reserve of spiritual energy. It isn't attributed to any shards. I think this is the dor.

[Zas678]

I'll post more tomorrow night.

[Chaos]

No, I think that preservation didn't give his power when people used allomancy.

Let me explain. I think that the power of preservation is kind of a giant reserve of spiritual energy. It isn't attributed to any shards. I think this is the dor.

I disagree wholeheartedly. The mists are the spiritual energy you are referring to. The mists are its manifestation. The mists are of Preservation. That giant spiritual reserve is exactly what a Shard is. In the MB3 annotations, Brandon said that a Shardholder's mind feeds off of that spiritual energy of a Shard. The two are one in the same.

Sazed said that Allomancy was given energy from Preservation's own body. In the annotations, Brandon said by burning metals, you tap the power of creation slightly. I presume that's where you got this idea in your head. But, this reserve of spiritual energy that is being tapped is Preservation's power, by what Sazed said. And Preservation is a part of the power of creation.

I think this explanation is the most intuitive, especially since Sazed explicitly said that Allomancy came from Preservation's power.

[KChan]

No, I think that preservation didn't give his power when people used allomancy.

Let me explain. I think that the power of preservation is kind of a giant reserve of spiritual energy. It isn't attributed to any shards. I think this is the dor.

Brandon: The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

From the Brandonothology.

Magic in the Cosmere comes from the Shards. That is how the magic works. Why would the Dor be any different?

[Chaos]

Brandon: The powers of Ruin and Preservation are Shards of Adonalsium, pieces of the power of creation itself. Allomancy, Hemalurgy, Feruchemy are manifestations of this power in mortal form, the ability to touch the powers of creation and use them. These metallic powers are how people's physical forms interpret the use of the Shard, though it's not the only possible way they could be interpreted or used. It's what the genetics and Realmatic interactions of Scadrial allow for, and has to do with the Spiritual, the Cognitive, and the Physical Realms.

From the Brandonothology.

Magic in the Cosmere comes from the Shards. That is how the magic works. Why would the Dor be any different?

Wow, that quote is the most perfect quote ever to back up my point. Thanks, QuoteMonkey!

I think that pretty much settles that debate before it even started, Zas, but I'd be interested in seeing your response.

[lordofsoup]

I know what you mean but the devotion to kill yourself to save a guy a fifteen minute walk seems a little much

[Joe ST]

I know what you mean but the devotion to kill yourself to save a guy a fifteen minute walk seems a little much

fanatical devotion is like that.

[happyman]

I know what you mean but the devotion to kill yourself to save a guy a fifteen minute walk seems a little much

Well, yes. Agreed. Devotion should not be the only good; that's why, in the context of Elantris and a Shard holding only Devotion, it would become effectively evil, just like a Shard holding only Ruin would be a serious threat to life as we know it.

[Chaos]

Well, yes. Agreed. Devotion should not be the only good; that's why, in the context of Elantris and a Shard holding only Devotion, it would become effectively evil, just like a Shard holding only Ruin would be a serious threat to life as we know it.

I agree with this completely.

Of course, the problem with Sel is less that Devotion is destroying things, its that whatever Devotio's Splinters are (Skaze or otherwise) are twisting that Intent even further.

[Puck]

Aona holds [some synonym of Love or Compassion]. Confirmed. This thread is half-resolved. Yaaay!

[Chaos]

And we're wrong about Dahkor completely. Hmmm.

Synonyms for Love:

Main Entry: love

Part of Speech: noun

Definition: adoration; very strong liking

Synonyms: adulation, affection, allegiance, amity, amorousness, amour, appreciation, ardency, ardor, attachment, case*, cherishing, crush, delight, devotedness, devotion, emotion, enchantment, enjoyment, fervor, fidelity, flame, fondness, friendship, hankering, idolatry, inclination, infatuation, involvement, like, lust, mad for, partiality, passion, piety, rapture, regard, relish, respect, sentiment, soft spot, taste, tenderness, weakness, worship, yearning, zeal

Synonyms for Compassion:

Main Entry: compassion

Part of Speech: noun

Definition: tender feeling

Synonyms: benevolence, charity, clemency, commiseration, compunction, condolence, consideration, empathy, fellow feeling, grace, heart, humaneness, humanity, kindness, lenity, mercy, softheartedness, softness, sorrow, sympathy, tenderheartedness, tenderness, yearning

Which do you think is the right one?

[Zas678]

Charity? That would explain the "old widows trial" of doing a service to others.

[Puck]

Charity? That would explain the "old widows trial" of doing a service to others.

Interesting. As well as why the Elantrians just gave everything away for free. (The merchants had to harass them to not just give away luxury items so they would be able to have a livelihood.) Charity is possible (although, my un-backed-up-by-data-opinion is that Charity doesn't sound very Shard-y)