Shin stone worship and why it may be more important than it seems

[Datan Nomlibash]

In shinovar the shin worship the gods of stone and such (source: Nale) and that got me thinking. What effect does this have on the cognitive realm for shinovar? We do know that belief is important to the creatipn of spren and that the spren are actually shaped by it (source: the interlude with the two monks measuring the flame spren) so what does this mean for shinovar? My theory is that due to the dogmatic religious nature of the shin that the "rock gods" have become extremely powerful spren and as a result the shinovar region may be more resistant to odiums influence as a result.

FIN

[Spoolofwhool]

On 4/13/2017 at 9:45 PM, Datan Nomlibash said:

In shinovar the shin worship the gods of stone and such (source: Nale)

Actually, Nale says the opposite. He said they revere the spren of stone, but their gods are the Heralds. 

Quote

“Who are you?” Szeth asked.

“You spend this long obeying the precepts of your people and religion, yet you fail to recognize one of your gods?”

“My gods are the spirits of the stones,” Szeth whispered. “The sun and the stars. Not men.”

“Nonsense. Your people revere the spren of stone, but you do not worship them

Edit: I'm incorrect. The source I we've using to read the books online do not have italicize the "you" in the last line, which in the actual book makes it abundantly clear that Nale is talking about Szeth not worshiping the spren. Fixed the text.

Edited May 27, 2017 by Spoolofwhool

[Calderis]

And for reasons we don't yet know, spren do not appear in Shinovar 

[Datan Nomlibash]

On 4/13/2017 at 8:06 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

Actually, Nale says the opposite. He said they revere the spren of stone, but their gods are the Heralds. 

 

Ah thank you, I knew something felt off.

On 4/13/2017 at 9:17 PM, Calderis said:

And for reasons we don't yet know, spren do not appear in Shinovar 

I dont think it matters since the cognitive realm is everywere. Maybe they dont visually appear since the people dont belive they will.

[+hwiles]

I like your idea that the Cognitive Realm could manifest differently for Shinovar to produce non-trivial consequences.  Not sure if Shin religious differences would be the main cause of the discrepancy though...

Shin are physiologically different than all other humans on Roshar (I'm mainly referencing eye shape, but there might be other things too), and their environment seems totally foreign to the planet.  Considering that the Shin and the plants and animals they coexist with in their valley appear to have evolved on an earth-like planet and were only later introduced to Roshar (speculation), the mountain ranges on both sides of the valley that break up storms almost scream "artificial."  Definitely think there are going to be some wild things going on in their part of the Cognitive Realm.

[The Sovereign]

On 4/13/2017 at 10:06 PM, Spoolofwhool said:

Actually, Nale says the opposite. He said they revere the spren of stone, but their gods are the Heralds. 

 

I've always interpreted this as Nale saying that while the Spren are the Shin gods they are not Szeth's god.

[Spoolofwhool]

On 4/17/2017 at 11:05 AM, Iron Eyes said:

I've always interpreted this as Nale saying that while the Spren are the Shin gods they are not Szeth's god.

I've heard that before. You mean that you're interpreting that the "you" is referencing Szeth instead of the Shin people in continuation of the first statement?

It's possible. I don't agree though especially with the distinction made between revere and worship. It feels too much like he's still talking about the Shin people as a whole. Overall though it's unclear, so either interpretation can be taken, though they have very different meanings. 

Edit: Never mind. Having looked at the actual text in the book, there is no doubt for me that Nale is referencing Szeth with the you.

Edited May 24, 2017 by Spoolofwhool

[Ardjet]

2 hours ago, hwiles said:

I like your idea that the Cognitive Realm could manifest differently for Shinovar to produce non-trivial consequences.  Not sure if Shin religious differences would be the main cause of the discrepancy though...

Shin are physiologically different than all other humans on Roshar (I'm mainly referencing eye shape, but there might be other things too), and their environment seems totally foreign to the planet.  Considering that the Shin and the plants and animals they coexist with in their valley appear to have evolved on an earth-like planet and were only later introduced to Roshar (speculation), the mountain ranges on both sides of the valley that break up storms almost scream "artificial."  Definitely think there are going to be some wild things going on in their part of the Cognitive Realm.

If I recall correctly, there are some hints or ideas that Shinovar itself is a foreign land mass. i.e. not originally part of Roshar. How might that affect things in the Cognitive? Food for thought.

[The Sovereign]

3 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

I've heard that before. You mean that you're interpreting that the "you" is referencing Szeth instead of the Shin people in continuation of the first statement?

It's possible. I don't agree though especially with the distinction made between revere and worship. It feels too much like he's still talking about the Shin people as a whole. Overall though it's unclear, so either interpretation can be taken, though they have very different meanings. 

This seems to imply that Nalan is directly addressing Szeth:
 

Quote

 

“You spend this long obeying the precepts of your people and religion, yet you fail to recognize one of your gods?”

“My gods are the spirits of the stones,” Szeth whispered. “The sun and the stars. Not men.”

“Nonsense. Your people revere the spren of stone, but you do not worship them.”

 

It is a matter of grammar; Using a comma and then "but" means you are referring to two independent clauses. If Nalan were saying "your people revere... but they do not worship...", then the comma would be grammatically incorrect as the clauses would not be independent of one another. The comma itself indicates that when Nalan says "You" he isn't referring to the Shin he is referring to Szeth. 

Edited April 17, 2017 by Iron Eyes

[+hwiles]

1 hour ago, Ardjet said:

If I recall correctly, there are some hints or ideas that Shinovar itself is a foreign land mass. i.e. not originally part of Roshar. How might that affect things in the Cognitive? Food for thought.

Well for one, spren in general appear to be unable to manifest in Shinovar; I've speculated in the past that this has to do with it being foreign to Roshar.  If this holds true for radiant-spren and Odium-spren as well then the radiants and parshendi might be unable to use their surges/powers within Shinovar's borders.  Presumably the honorblades would still work.

Mistborn era 2 spoilers:

Spoiler

It also implies that there are some weird things going on with the people's and land's Connection and Identity, though I doubt these will be serious plot points since Connection and Identity are being explored and experimented with on Scadrial using feruchemy.

Note, we've seen at least one fabrial function within the borders of Shinovar, which presumably utilized a spren trapped inside a gemstone and functioned using the physics that govern the surges, so it's possible that outside spren can be brought into Shinovar without any difficulty or consequence.

[Spoolofwhool]

1 hour ago, Iron Eyes said:

This seems to imply that Nalan is directly addressing Szeth:
 

 

Posting the passage that I myself posted and referenced earlier when explaining why I think things are the way they are isn't going to change my interpretation unless you actually give reasoning to support your interpretation. 

[The Sovereign]

34 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Posting the passage that I myself posted and referenced earlier when explaining why I think things are the way they are isn't going to change my interpretation unless you actually give reasoning to support your interpretation. 

Thanks mate :-)

Edited April 17, 2017 by Iron Eyes
Opted to not be an asshat and give you a thumbs up.

[mr42]

But all in all I think @Datan Nomlibash is right that this whole stone worshipping thing is more important than it looks like. There's something odd about stone on Roshar. The Horneaters and Herdazian people have some physical features that are related to stone because of their Listener blood. And then we have the Thunderclasts...I think there's a connection somehow.

[Crucible of Shards]

Don't the books themselves say that there are no spren in Shinovar? (or at least that none appear) Or am I misremembering? I believe it's in Rysn's first Interlude.

[Steeldancer]

Could it be because the lack of investiture from the highstorms prevents the realms from being pressed together and allowing spren to appear?

[Datan Nomlibash]

20 hours ago, Crucible of Shards said:

Don't the books themselves say that there are no spren in Shinovar? (or at least that none appear) Or am I misremembering? I believe it's in Rysn's first Interlude.

Spren are cognitive entities and those are every were in the cosmere (every were with sentience at least)

[Crucible of Shards]

12 minutes ago, Datan Nomlibash said:

Spren are cognitive entities and those are every were in the cosmere (every were with sentience at least)

Ok, perhaps they just do not visibly appear in the physical realm. There is this-

Chris King (Miyabi)

And this is one of my side theories that I espouse here. Is that kind of similar to the reason why there are no spren in Shinovar is because the people there so disbelieve them that it creates a negative pressure that keeps them from physical manifestation?

Brandon Sanderson

Good question.

 

Brandon does not correct the questioner who states that there are no spren in Shinovar. Not definitive, but it is an official answer from Brandon to a question that assumes there are no spren in Shinovar.

 

Also, Nale says the Shin revere the spren of stones, but Shinovar is covered in soil, while the rest of Roshar (as far as we know) is bare rock. So they could theoretically revere the spren of stones which they do not come into contact with. There's still a whole lot we don't know about Shinovar.

 

Edited May 24, 2017 by Crucible of Shards
Extra thoughts

[Djarskublar]

Shin: the people who live on a planet whose landmass is mostly rock, and also worship said rock. Live on the one spot with soil because they don't want to walk on rock. That sounds like meme material to me.

5 hours ago, The Flash said:

Could it be because the lack of investiture from the highstorms prevents the realms from being pressed together and allowing spren to appear?

That is actually a really good point. We were discussing some stuff in another thread and I mentioned the possibility that there are a lot of junctions you could use to Elsecall into the physical realm like

Spoiler

Jasnah talks about in the unreleased chapter.

If the Storm is what is weakening the line between realms, which I think is a totally reasonable proposition, then that could be what causes junctions to form. It would also be what allows spren to manifest when something draws them into the physical. This is really getting those mental gears turning. I'm going to make a separate thread on this to discuss all my thoughts with this, since I don't want to completely derail this one.

On topic, I agree that there may be more to stone worship than there seems, but I don't even have a guess to hazard as to what it would be.

[Steeldancer]

Well what I imagine with investiture is that you have three sheets of paper. Investiture is like a weight, drawing them closer together, when they normally have space between them. Then, a shardpool is a spike which just pins them together. An else calling would be like a pin, I guess. But a highstorm would be a moving weight in this idea, and since it never hits shinovar, whether because of belief or not, the realms are not drawn as closely together. What happens if a radiant goes to shinovar... 

[Farnsworth]

1 hour ago, The Flash said:

Well what I imagine with investiture is that you have three sheets of paper. Investiture is like a weight, drawing them closer together, when they normally have space between them. Then, a shardpool is a spike which just pins them together. An else calling would be like a pin, I guess. But a highstorm would be a moving weight in this idea, and since it never hits shinovar, whether because of belief or not, the realms are not drawn as closely together. What happens if a radiant goes to shinovar... 

I love this idea!

However in regards to stone, I have always thought that all souls (or maybe only Shin souls, although that seems odd) end up somehow in rocks. If we are going to go with the theory that there is something wrong with Roshar's afterlife, then the souls stay in the three realms instead of going to the Beyond. They could exist only in the Spiritual Realm, but so far we don't know of any entity other than a Shard that does that. Since they obviously aren't in the Physical Realm, they must be in the Cognitive Realm (and probably the SR as well). If that is the case, they must be in some specific location. Since there is the idea of Shin stone worship, and Szeth seems to have many ideas of where his soul goes after he dies, I was thinking this idea makes sense.

On the other hand, it is a pretty crazy idea, and is probably wrong.

[Andy92]

I always assumed their worship of stone tied back to the Honorblades being embedded in a stone by the 9 Heralds that abandoned the Oathpact. Since pretty much all of the Honorblades are in Shinovar, I assumed the Shin were the ones who found the blades in the stone. But there may be a lot more to their worship than that. 

[Steeldancer]

6 hours ago, Andy92 said:

I always assumed their worship of stone tied back to the Honorblades being embedded in a stone by the 9 Heralds that abandoned the Oathpact. Since pretty much all of the Honorblades are in Shinovar, I assumed the Shin were the ones who found the blades in the stone. But there may be a lot more to their worship than that. 

And we won't really find out until Szeths book. Which I find myself hoping is book 4

[Fezzik]

@The Flash, the plan is Eshonai for 4 and szeth for 5

[The One Who Connects]

10 hours ago, The Flash said:

And we won't really find out until Szeths book. Which I find myself hoping is book 4

Brandon seems to be pulling a M, F, back and forth pattern with Stormlight. Kal, Shallan, Dalinar, Eshonai, Szeth. And the back half has 2 Male viewpoints and 3 Female, which is the inverse of the front half.

[Djarskublar]

14 hours ago, FiveLate said:

I just wanted to point out that the Shin severance to stone is in particular to natural stone.  They will not mine it, nor use any that has been mined.  That was why they traded so much for the soulcast stone.   This implies that it is not just the stone in Shinovar, but all natural stone on Roshar.  This makes me wonder if Thundeclasts require natural stone to corrupt to take shape.

While I agree with your point, they were buying soulcast metal. They didn't want metal that had been mined. It was probably just a typo on your part, since most of the post has it right except that one word. Just a standard nitpick.

Your point about thunderclasts is interesting though. I wouldn't be surprised. It depends on how exactly Transformation works, I think. If the new stuff remembers that it wasn't originally stone, it may not be usable by them.