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Shadesmar and Sel


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From Puck's Vericon report:

Instead of having him personalize it to me, I asked him to write a clue about the Cosmere in my worn copy of Elantris (it's my first Sanderson, and is literally falling apart; the cover is scotch taped on Posted Image). He wrote "Do not go to Shadesmar on this world (really, I'm not kidding)" on the title page, then said to me "You guys can chew on that for a little while."

So, let's chew on it.

On a base level this is very interesting, since we know a Dula is on Roshar. They world-hopped somehow, and Brandon said that Hoid (world hopper extraordinaire) is very good at manipulating Shadesmar to get around. That implied in my head that he used Shadesmar to travel around, always. But clearly not all the time. Not on Sel.

This is almost certainly due to Odium's Splintering of Aona and Skai's power. Something very bad happened there, and that caused something to happen to Shadesmar there. It also explains why Hoid/the letter writer was so disturbed. Odium's power has tangible effects on the realms. (I've heard that Shadesmar is considered the Cognitive Realm).

So. We know of the Dor, which has a lot of destructive force. Seems rational to me that perhaps the Dor exists in Shadesmar, and if you travel there, you just get vaporized.

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So far I've brainstormed a few ideas. I emphasize "brainstorm" here, because all of these ideas have seriously gaping holes:

1) Odium's splintering of Aona and Skai had such an affect on the Cognitive Realm (confirmed that Shadesmar is synonymous with the Cognitive Realm per the Brandonothology) that visiting it there will tear you apart unless you're, well Hoid I guess.

2) the Travelers in WoK set traps in the Shadesmar before they left to protect their planet from other, malevolent Travelers. This explanation has the advantage of explaining why Hoid could come and go and why a Dula worldhopper would be safe on Roshar; it's just a simple matter of timeline

3) Sel is the only planet (as far as we know) that has a beacon - an amplifier - for a magic system. Who knows? This might have an effect on the Cosmerecology (see what I did there?). It might be tearing the Shadesmar apart. Maybe an incomplete Elantris (the city) is actually a good thing. Just throwing it out there.

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All valid points, to be sure. Perhaps without anyone to control the power of the Shards now that they've been splintered and their holders killed, the Dor is now wild, and will kill/vaporize anyone who goes there. Or perhaps the planet-hoppers did leave traps there.

One thing I'm wondering about is whether or not Shadesmar is the only way to planet-hop. If so, how did Hoid manage it without dying? And if it isn't, what else is there? I think it's pretty safe to say that the planets themselves are the Physical Realm and the Shards represent the Spiritual, so it's not like there's anything conveniently lying around that we can use to explain this away.

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I'm pretty sure the place that Shallan and Jasnah go to at the end of WoK is Shadesmar. The place with all the spheres? If I remember correctly, Jasnah says something like "How dare you try and enter the Shadesmar with one sphere!"

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Yeah, that's just about as explicit a reference as we would ever need. And why not? If Elantrians (or at least, Dula, whether of the glowy variety or not) can planet-hop, why shouldn't Alethi (Rosharians? Rosharites? Roshites?) be able to go to Shadesmar too?

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I'm pretty sure the place that Shallan and Jasnah go to at the end of WoK is Shadesmar. The place with all the spheres? If I remember correctly, Jasnah says something like "How dare you try and enter the Shadesmar with one sphere!"

If it makes you feel even better, in the version I read, the chapter title had been Shadesmar. It must have been changed on one of the last drafts. Hopefully Peter thinks this isn't revealing too much, but people got ABMs. It's not a huge secret, guys.

I'm really wondering how an Elantrian would get there, and what someone would have to do on Scadrial to get to Shadesmar.

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The chapter when Shallan goes there for the first time accidentally is called Shadesmar.

Also,it'd be awfully difficult to planet-hop using that Aon since you have to know where you're going first and how far it is.

Edited to fix grammar fail

Edited by CrazyRioter
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So we know going to the Shadesmar in general is dangerous. Maybe something about the Shards keeps the Shadesmar under control enough so humans can enter it.

Also, from the map in the back of Way of Kings, we see the Shadesmar seems to mirror the landscape. Maybe that has something to do with it? If the Dor comes through Elantris from the Shadesmar (just an assumption), then at the very least you wouldn't want to enter it anywhere near the city, and possibly not anywhere. Maybe I'm rambling nonsense.

Or maybe killing Aona and Skai did something cognitively to the realm. Like, infinite dying screams or something like that. Dying screams that are deadly in some way.

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Problem is there's at least one (maybe two if Odium killed Cultivation) Shardholder that was killed on Roshar, and as we've seen it's still possible to enter Shadesmar safely on Roshar provided you know what you're doing. So it probably doesn't have anything to do with the dead Shardholders. Unless the fact that there are no current Shards properly active on Sel is the problem?

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Problem is there's at least one (maybe two if Odium killed Cultivation) Shardholder that was killed on Roshar, and as we've seen it's still possible to enter Shadesmar safely on Roshar provided you know what you're doing. So it probably doesn't have anything to do with the dead Shardholders. Unless the fact that there are no current Shards properly active on Sel is the problem?

ahhh but were they Splinterated or just killed (and left to diffuse...blah)?

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The only explicit reference we see to Shards being splintered is Hoid/Letter Writer's reference to Aona and Skai. Now, why would Odium kill the Almighty and not splinter his Shard? Who knows? But to be fair, that is a possibility we have to account for. Perhaps if Odium really is native to Roshar, that has something to do with it. Remember how Preservation and Ruin couldn't truly defeat each other? Maybe we're seeing something like this again.

Also, if Shadesmar mirrors Roshar's landscape - or can be manipulated to mirror any world in the Cosmere (and remember, Hoid can manipulate Shadesmar somehow) - this presents a problem for Elantrians, whose Aons draw power from the lay of the land. If even the lack of a chasm line utterly destroyed them - for a time, at least - perhaps it has something to do with that.

But then again, how did our planet-hoppers get onto Roshar? Especially if you subscribe to a certain theory about who they are specifically. We've seen Jasnah lend a hand to Shallan in Shadesmar; perhaps our potential Seventeenth Sharders had some external help.

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I thought the reason Preservation and Ruin couldn't defeat each other had to do with the nature of their shards. Ruin didn't want to die, and Preservation couldn't harm anything, even for the sake of preserving life.

Going off what you said about the manipulation of the Shadesmar... do you think manipulating the Shadesmar could change the Physical Realm? Like, do they mirror each other, or does one mirror the other?

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Going off what you said about the manipulation of the Shadesmar... do you think manipulating the Shadesmar could change the Physical Realm? Like, do they mirror each other, or does one mirror the other?

I think Shadesmar seems to mirror the Physical Realm, at least from what we've seen so far. Perhaps manipulating Shadesmar to mirror one of the worlds is how you can get from one planet to another? I don't think changing Shadesmar will change the Physical Realm, but rather where you come out when you leave it. If this is true, it is, of course, very difficult to do, otherwise it wouldn't be such a feat for Hoid to be able to do it so well.

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I think that there is some way for anyone to be able to get to the Shadesmar. Why? The Way of Kings (the in-story book). In it Nohaden talks about how he walks instead of taking the normal way, and in one of the Jasnah epigraphs, it talks about traveling in "the blink of an eye" across Roshar.

I think this way has been lost, but I think that it could be found again, especially given Brandon's dislike for travel scenes.

And maybe not anyone can access the Shadesmar. Maybe only certain guides can, and they can take people with them. Maybe that's what happened on Sel.

EDIT- wasn't finished.

Someone came, said "hey was Hoid here", they say "yes", and then they all say "let's catch him!"

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I didn't mean to imply that only specific people can access Shadesmar (though that is a valid thought), but rather that manipulating it as effectively as Hoid can seems like it would be incredibly difficult. If anything, the one explicit reference we have to Shadesmar - the scene with Shallan and Jasnah - has connected Shadesmar with the use of magic: Shallan's bond with the symbolheads. Now, we can either assume that a planet's magic is a way to access Shadesmar, or it's the way. I'm more inclined to think it's the former, if only because the latter would then exclude magic users on Scadrial. Unless some sort of Shadesmarium exists, that is. :P

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Which is why perhaps the magic is just a convenient way to access Shadesmar, if you can use the appropriate magic system(s). We need more information on this before any solid theories can be formed, though, in my opinion.

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Do those weird spren that Shallan sees exist in Shadesmar as well?

Could the difference be that in SA, Mistborn, and Warbreaker, all the magic systems involve people taking in some of the power of a shard, while Elatrians only channel the power of Aona, but do not actually hold on to it. They touch it once when they are transformed, but afterwards they can't hold it in their bodies like other magic users?

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I think Honor has to be Splintered. If a Shard was killed regularly, as in Mistborn, then someone could take up the power. If this happened on Roshar, you can bet a lot of crap just went down with whatever that new Shardholder is.

Hence, Honor is Splintered, and its power cannot be taken up, as far as we know.

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Or just that Honor isn't held by anyone right now, which is a true statement. This is my preferred interpretation.

Mine too, mostly because it makes my detective work more useful and makes everything much simpler in general.

Edited by CrazyRioter
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