Was Adonalsium lonely?

[☫Kelsier☫]

Hi!

Kell here. I'm obviously running out of ideas…  Finally reading the Alloy of Law again will definitely help. I'd normally do some weird Feruchemic theory right now but I don't feel like it. Maybe in five minutes.

Anyways, forgive my ignorance but when Adonalsium reigned supreme, were there any other gods? Take Trell for example. Did he exist, or were there others? Did Raidri-- oh nevermind. Ausar and his bro Galath probably did tho

Ising the I of being STORMING CURIOUS!

Seeya!!

[Modal Seoul]

If he was lonely, then the Shard Vessels were being jerks when they Shattered him.

Maintenence, you're needed on Yolen.

[☫Kelsier☫]

1 minute ago, Captains Domon said:

If he was lonely, then the Shard Vessels were being jerks when they Shattered him.

Maintenence, you're needed on Yolen.

Yup.

[Alendi]

Audra and Galaxy… lol 

[Alendi]

I mean Ausar and Galath

IM A SKAA NOW YEAHBRO!!!

[scyron]

Quote

Clayton Phillips 

Before Adonalsium shattered, was it consciously opposed by something, be it people or another cosmic force? Is whatever opposed it still around?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes. Yes.

There is this WoB, although its a rather vague answer. This could mean there was indeed another god,  or it could simply refer to the 16 who shattered Adonalsium, or it could be something else entirely. 

There is also the God Beyond. We don't know much about it other than it is worshipped on multiple worlds. Silence Montane worships it, Wayne, Shai, and Hoid have all mentioned it as well. I believe it is generally thought that the God Beyond is a similar force to Adonalsium, possibly even an opposing force, although its hard to be certain of anything.

Hope that answers your question.

[Weltall]

Trell is probably not a god independent of Adonalsium but one of the Shards with a propensity for meddling and for alter-egos. Though you'll need to follow WoBs to actually know about that since it's not obvious from the books. Arcanum Unbounded spoiler

Some confusion was caused by the essay on the Taldain System refering to the Shard Autonomy with female pronouns, when at one point in the past Brandon used a male pronoun to refer to its Vessel. He later clarified in a Q&A session that Bavadin is female but that gender is sort of a fluid concept for her and she's taken many personas. It's a popular theory and with quite a bit of support (though not proven as of yet) that 'Trell' is really Autonomy.

As far as other gods go though... maybe. Hoid uses the plural when talking about learning his storytelling art from a place where 'gods have died' and we have several reasons to believe he was talking about Yolen. Though whether we should take it to mean that there were multiple Adonalsium-like entities or if there were other things the people called gods (along the lines of super-spren like the Stormfather, or extremely powerful individuals like the Hallandren God-Kings or the Lord Ruler) we don't know. Brandon has not been forthcoming on the topic of the God Beyond so we really can't say anything about it other than 'it's something people on multiple worlds believe in'. For all we know, since the non-Cosmere aware think of their local Shards as Gods, the God Beyond could even be Adonalsium by another name. Or it could be Adonalsium's cognitive shadow (if it could have one) or it could be something completely unrelated. Or it could not exist and just be a belief that's sprung up independently and we're only seeing the same term on multiple worlds because of translation convention. We really can't say.

Myself, I rather like the idea that the story Ym tells the orphan in Way of Kings ('the One who became Many') is actually a memory of Adonalsium. In that reading, he would have allowed himself to be Shattered so that at some point in the future he could be recreated with a Vessel who had truly experiened the world. There are some parallels to real beliefs that God (in one variation or another) created the universe in order to attain self-knowledge. It sounds like the sort of idea Brandon would be interested in playing with.