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So, we know little of aimians. We however know that at least one of them, Axies, is followed by something called the Curse of Kind. The curse might give bad luck, since Axies says:

Quote

"When the Curse of Kind followed you, you learned to take what happened as it happened."

So, Axies has his curse, and thus we can guess (or is it even confirmed?) that the other Aimians have it as well.

Now, how did they get it? Theory:

Aimia was scoured some time ago, and most Aimians seems to have been killed. A guess is that the Aimians then went to the Nightwatcher and asked for a boon for their whole people in order to survive. They got it, whatever it is (immortality, perhaps), but also got the Curse of Kind, which brings bad luck upon all of them.

What do you guys think?

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Fixed the post to make it look better, with help of my new posting skillz
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4 hours ago, Chull #445 said:

So, we know little of aimians. We however know that at least one of them, Axies, is followed by something called the Curse of Kind. The curse might give bad luck, since Axies says:

"When the Curse of Kind followed you, you learned to take what happened as it happened."

-The Way of Kings, Gollancz edition, page 484.

So, Axies has his curse, and thus we can guess (or is it even confirmed?) that the other Aimians have it as well.

Now, how did they get it? Theory:

Aimia was scoured some time ago, and most Aimians seems to have been killed. A guess is that the Aimians then went to the Nightwatcher and asked for a boon for their whole people in order to survive. They got it, whatever it is (immortality, perhaps), but also got the Curse of Kind, which brings bad luck upon all of them.

What do you guys think?

I don't think we have much to go on, but considering the little I remember, to me your theory sounds pretty well possible. The Aimians certainly are intriguing. I think I'll read the Axies chapter in WoK and the scene in WoR again, to see if I can come up with a more informed comment and maybe some extending ideas, but at first sight I definitely like it!

Edit @Chull #445:

Reading that scene again, it sounded to me like the 'curse of kind' is connected to the shadow pointing the wrong way. And since Jasnah's experience, I've come to connect that with spren / the Nahel Bond / proximity to Shadesmar - something like that. And 'proximity to Shadesmar' also fits the strange abilities of the Aimians to reconfigure their bodies - as if they don't wholly belong to the physical world.

What do you think? Do you disagree, or see any way to incorporate that into your theory?

Edited by Erklitt
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2 hours ago, Erklitt said:

I don't think we have much to go on, but considering the little I remember, to me your theory sounds pretty well possible. The Aimians certainly are intriguing. I think I'll read the Axies chapter in WoK and the scene in WoR again, to see if I can come up with a more informed comment and maybe some extending ideas, but at first sight I definitely like it!

Edit @Chull #445:

Reading that scene again, it sounded to me like the 'curse of kind' is connected to the shadow pointing the wrong way. And since Jasnah's experience, I've come to connect that with spren / the Nahel Bond / proximity to Shadesmar - something like that. And 'proximity to Shadesmar' also fits the strange abilities of the Aimians to reconfigure their bodies - as if they don't wholly belong to the physical world.

What do you think? Do you disagree, or see any way to incorporate that into your theory?

First, I need a second mention, it seems. Never got the first one.

I see what you mean, rereading the section. There is still hope for the theory though: we still do not know from where the Aimians got their wierd shadows. Maybe the boon/curse from Nightwatcher contained being somehow connected to Shadesmar.

The fact that he calls it a curse could be a hint towards Nightwatcher. 

Then, the text can be interpreted in two ways. One is that the Curse and the shadow has to do with eachother. The other is that the Curse might bring him the bad luck of being arrested because of his shadow. I do think that number one is the most probable though.

And also I am not sure about the Aimians connection to Shadesmar in the first place. If the Aimians were partially connected to Shadesmar, wouldn't Axies know a lot about spren already? Wouldn't there be easier ways for him to learn of them? The shadow connection between Jasnah and Axies could be a red herring.

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If we want to run with a Nightwatcher theory, maybe the bane/curse is the second type of Amians that I do not think we have seen yet. They are supposed to look very different (maybe not even humanoid).

However, I do not think someone can ask for a boon on someone else's behalf. I think you have to ask for yourself. So every Amian would have to ask, and if that happened the boon and banes would vary widely.

 

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2 hours ago, Argel said:

If we want to run with a Nightwatcher theory, maybe the bane/curse is the second type of Amians that I do not think we have seen yet. They are supposed to look very different (maybe not even humanoid).

However, I do not think someone can ask for a boon on someone else's behalf. I think you have to ask for yourself. So every Amian would have to ask, and if that happened the boon and banes would vary widely.

 

I wonder if they could have asked as a people. Like if they were to choose a representative to go to the nightwatcher on behalf of everyone, would they be able to get a boon/curse on a societal level?

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What's interesting to me is I never considered the Curse of Kind to be referring to anything magical at all. I always assumed it was the Aimian philosophical way of saying "Bad stuff happens to us because of who we are." Despite all the other magic in the story, that never seemed like magic to me.

jW

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@CaptainRyan thanks for the chance to try it; it's like Chull #445 said: I only got one notification. So that's cleared up.

@Chull #445 I wonder if it is possible to have a 'spren-independent' connection to Shadesmar? Maybe not for Humans, but for Aimians? But of course you could be right about the red herring.

Though, on a tangent: sometimes I feel like the long wait for the next volume makes us overthink and question everything out of sheer boredom instead of just following the leads that are there. (Myself absolutely included.) At least a few of those have to be what they seem to be, right? B)

@Jondesu Interesting indeed! Maybe we are all overthinking it...

But I still like the theory.

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@Erklitt Since we dont know much of Shadesmar, thats impossible to guess. Someone could try asking Brandon of this. 

And then, you are of course right about overanalyzing. However, theories are fun, and without risking to get stuff wrong, you wont get stuff right. 

Then, there still is the possibility that Aimians+Shadesmar is true, and that it came from Nightwatcher. In that case the Shadow is not a red herring.

@Figberts Since they can change their bodies, this looks true to me.

@Assassin in Burgundy This is very possible, since we dont know anything about the other Aimians (Dysian Aimians was their name, right?)

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13 hours ago, Jondesu said:

What's interesting to me is I never considered the Curse of Kind to be referring to anything magical at all. I always assumed it was the Aimian philosophical way of saying "Bad stuff happens to us because of who we are." Despite all the other magic in the story, that never seemed like magic to me.

jW

Agreed.  I thought it was a roundabout way to say racism, but as if he's taking the blame himself for being Aimian rather than blaming others for the way they treat him.  It's a strange viewpoint morally, but it keeps him optimistic and lighthearted. 

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  • 1 year later...
On 7/20/2016 at 8:30 PM, Jondesu said:

What's interesting to me is I never considered the Curse of Kind to be referring to anything magical at all. I always assumed it was the Aimian philosophical way of saying "Bad stuff happens to us because of who we are." Despite all the other magic in the story, that never seemed like magic to me.

jW

This is always what I also thought.

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5 hours ago, The Invested Beard said:

So we now know what the Dysian Aimians are and it doesn't appear their variation is from a boon/curse from NW. Does our new knowledge add to or change anything about this theory? Probably not, but I could be wrong.

Well, I theorized that they got immortality from the Nightwatcher, in exchange of bad luck. I don't think the Sleepless ruins the theory, but it could be an argument against it.

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