Cosmere arc

[Arkelao]

Hey!

I’ve been pondering a lot about the Cosmere grand arc, about Adonalsium and the Shards. I have a few doubts about a couple of things but for what I’m writing here is not important.

The thing is everything begins with the shattering of Adonalsium and the vessels influencing the Cosmere. So I think that maybe the mayor arc and how the Cosmere cycle will close, it make sense to me that the ending will be the reconstruction of Adonalsium.

Has anyone though about this?

[+Croaker's Apprentice]

1 hour ago, Arkelao said:

Hey!

I’ve been pondering a lot about the Cosmere grand arc, about Adonalsium and the Shards. I have a few doubts about a couple of things but for what I’m writing here is not important.

The thing is everything begins with the shattering of Adonalsium and the vessels influencing the Cosmere. So I think that maybe the mayor arc and how the Cosmere cycle will close, it make sense to me that the ending will be the reconstruction of Adonalsium.

Has anyone though about this?

I don't think the end can be the reconstruction of Adonalsium, as that would just take us round in a circle which isn't very satisfying; there has to be something new, not old, at the end. Some may say the 'Wheel of Time' is a circle, but, of course, a wheel is always moving forwards...

[Arkelao]

Exactly. A wheel always move forward but also moves on his axis. It occurs to me that the power of Adonalsium is to big to be in the hands of any creature. It’s like the difference between the Christian god and the greek gods. The greek gods were just like humans, but with amazing power, like the vessels. God, in the other hand, is beyond good and evil, that is, without desire. It make sense to me that at the end this power is coming together in unity. Maybe not like Adonalsium but as a new thing to put equilibrium to the Cosmere (that one could be Dalinar).

Its just a theory, but I can’t think other ending without leaving open threads.

Edited December 7, 2018 by Arkelao

[Ripheus23]

My two cents: the Cosmere as a whole is becoming an individual living being, the Shards can't be fully all fused but once there are only three left, the Cosmere will "awaken" and take hold of the last three.

[Scion of the Mists]

3 hours ago, Arkelao said:

it make sense to me that the ending will be the reconstruction of Adonalsium.

This is probably the most common theory.  Brandon even refers to it as the null hypothesis, if you will:

Quote

Questioner

Is his end goal trying to join as many pieces of Adonalsium together to *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

Um, that, I will give a "that's a very good guess." And that is what the books seem to indicate is happening.

source

However, that WoB makes me think that it's more complicated than that and that the reconstruction of Adonalsium is a red herring.  

[Arkelao]

Obviously is more complicated than that. It’s a long process of many many books. But as more as I think about it the more logical it seems, and the most probable outcome. Maybe at the end will be fighting Odium with the power of all the shards and scatter the power through all the Cosmere, who knows. Maybe that’s harmony at a cosmic level.

54 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

My two cents: the Cosmere as a whole is becoming an individual living being, the Shards can't be fully all fused but once there are only three left, the Cosmere will "awaken" and take hold of the last three.

What do you mean by awaken?

[Yezrien]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last cosmere story before Space-Mistborn (the grand finale) will be Dragonsteel, the origin story. And that's not an accident.

We can't yet grasp how the cosmere story ends because we still don't understand how it begins. We know that Adonalsium was shattered, but we still don't know how, or why, or even what Adonalsium really was.

I'm not saying it's pointless to theorize, but I don't think you can build a good theory on just the evidence in the books so far. You have to imagine the evidence that doesn't exist yet, and extrapolate from there. You must predict both the beginning and the end.

[Arkelao]

Not necessarily. Brandon is keeping the beginning because is tied up with the end, when we will learn the motives and reasons. Maybe Adonalsium was a tyrannical entity who escape his own plane for his atrocities. We dont know. But still it’s a theory. It seem logical to rebuild the power of Adonalsium, maybe to something new, maybe to destroying it later. But is good the theorize. Keeps you thinking.

[RShara]

6 hours ago, Arkelao said:

Hey!

I’ve been pondering a lot about the Cosmere grand arc, about Adonalsium and the Shards. I have a few doubts about a couple of things but for what I’m writing here is not important.

The thing is everything begins with the shattering of Adonalsium and the vessels influencing the Cosmere. So I think that maybe the mayor arc and how the Cosmere cycle will close, it make sense to me that the ending will be the reconstruction of Adonalsium.

Has anyone though about this?

I disagree with this on a more meta level than most. I think that doing that would be too similar to how The Wheel of Time works, and I think that Brandon will stay far away from anything resembling WoT, if only for the likely perception that he's being derivative.

[Arkelao]

Didn’t read The wheel of time. Can you explain a little please?

[RShara]

Well the basic premise is that the universe is cyclitic.  There's no beginning or end, and events happen over and over again. The Big Evil is released, is imprisoned, is released again when that Age comes around again.

Quote

 The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long pass, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

 

[Arkelao]

That seems to me that it’s very different to the Cosmere. But if you try to imagine an ending that seems plausible. The vessels are to unstable. 

[RShara]

8 minutes ago, Arkelao said:

That seems to me that it’s very different to the Cosmere. But if you try to imagine an ending that seems plausible. The vessels are to unstable. 

But if Ado were to recombine, you can see how a lot of people would find it similar to the WoT story. And since Brandon finished that for Robert Jordan, I suspect many people would draw that comparison and be rather critical.

[Arkelao]

The thing is not getting there, is how you do. But you’re right. Any other ideas about the ending?

[RShara]

Brandon is very tricky and we're barely halfway through the Cosmere. I couldn't hazard a guess just yet

[Weltall]

2 hours ago, Arkelao said:

Not necessarily. Brandon is keeping the beginning because is tied up with the end, when we will learn the motives and reasons.

And this is precisely why it's so hard to come up with theories on the endgame of the Cosmere. We know the Vessels had different reasons for wanting to Shatter Adonalsium (so we can't really generalize) but we know at least some of them saw it as the only good option available. Good for what, we don't know. The Vessels made some sort of promise to one another which Frost appears to have been part of but Hoid was (probably) not. What did they promise each other, when did they do it and why did they do it in the first place? We can conjure up any number of hypothetical reasons for why the Shattering had to happen but until we get answers to all of these questions we're largely stumbling around in the dark.

For example, let's imagine that the Vessels who saw the Shattering as a regrettable necessity did it because Adonalsium represented some sort of danger that had to be gotten rid of. If Adonalsium itself was the threat for some reason like 'It simply had far more power than even an infinite mind should be trusted with' then trying to reassemble it in a single Vessel (whose minds are not infinite, just greatly expanded) would probably not be a good idea. Likewise if it was doing something the Vessels thought had to be stopped (like if they feared the spread of fainlife and worried that Adonalsium was going to bring it to all the other worlds and displace everything already there) they wouldn't want that power concentrated in one place again, because who's to say that the next person to hold all that power wouldn't be equally dangerous? Or perhaps Adonalsium was protecting the Cosmere from something (whether by intent or by the simple fact of its existence) but the mind controlling all that power was beginning to wear down and wasn't going to be able to keep it up, at which point the Vessels split Adonalsium to distribute the burden while keeping the power in large enough chunks to do whatever it needed. In that case, you'd also have reasons to not want to reassemble it in a single entity again.

These are just random ideas but you get the picture, we can't simply assume that recreating Adonalsium is logical or desirable.

Edited December 7, 2018 by Ookla the Gralsritter

[Arkelao]

Maybe not Adonalsium itself, but something different. One controlling all the power. 

[Ripheus23]

4 hours ago, Arkelao said:

What do you mean by awaken?

Well, Sel in itself (as a planet) is partly alive, and other places in the Cosmere might "come alive" likewise. However, so far, those would just be separate living systems. No single mind overarching them. But eventually, it might be that the "cells" would come together as a unit organism, which would then have its own mind... Metaphorically (or not), that "moment" or period of "coming to have its own mind" would be the awakening of the Cosmere.

[Arkelao]

That’s nuts. Love the idea!

[Ripheus23]

8 minutes ago, Arkelao said:

That’s nuts. Love the idea!

Here's a WoB to back it up:

Quote

CosmereQuestioner

The background to my question is this:

It was once stated by Mr Sanderson that "Magic in the cosmere needs a guiding force.  If it doesn't have one, the magic itself will gain sentience."  We also have that things like Nightblood that gained sentience because of crazy amounts of investiture.

My question then is:

"Is the reason that investiture has this tendency to lead to sentience caused by the fact that pre-Shattering Adonalsium had a goal/purpose/intent of bringing sentience to his universe."

(I guess this is in a way a 2 part question, because it assumes that Adonalsium actually HAD the intent of bringing sentience to his cosmere)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is part of the reason.  Good question!

source

 

[Zelly]

I'll stick with the crazy idea that the Shattering was a necessary part of Adonalsium's "life cycle".  

He's not broken, just evolved.  The people of the cosmere, however, can't see it.  The phoenix rises and flies around the room, but everyone's too busying clutching at it's former ashes to notice it.

And if that's not the story then dang it, someone write that story. XD

[RShara]

15 minutes ago, Zelly said:

I'll stick with the crazy idea that the Shattering was a necessary part of Adonalsium's "life cycle".  

He's not broken, just evolved.  The people of the cosmere, however, can't see it.  The phoenix rises and flies around the room, but everyone's too busying clutching at it's former ashes to notice it.

And if that's not the story then dang it, someone write that story. XD

Read Wheel of Time

[Zelly]

8 minutes ago, RShara said:

Read Wheel of Time

I stopped after Fires of Heaven like 20 years ago, but apparently I need to go finish it!! 

But I see where you're coming from as the whole "no beginnings or endings" cycle bit is too close.... Unless humanity got involved where and when they shouldn't have and did actually cause a problem by initiating the Shattering.  Like if the Dark One could be released too early somehow and it completely imbalances the universe.  Sounds like something the Sons of Honor would appreciate.

Edited December 8, 2018 by Zelly