Jump to content

Is this ... Trell's perpendicularity?


Elegy

Recommended Posts

The newspaper illustrations of the Mistborn Era 2 books are full of easter eggs and yet don't seem to get discussed much. As I was flipping through Shadows of Self again, I stumbled over this one that I didn't pay proper attention to before:

sos_broadsheet.jpg

(Be sure to click at the "Full Size" button at the bottom left to make it readable.)

Specifically, I mean the article about "VISITORS from other WORLDS". It mentions a blue pool south of the Southern Roughs and an inhuman creature "by the pool". The implications seem to be obvious: The pool is a perpendicularity and the creature is some kind of worldhopper. This could mean it's Harmony's perpendicularity - or one of them. Brandon has been close-lipped about whether Harmony has one or two of them. However, blue being the perpendicularity's color irritates me. The colors of the previous perpendicularities on Scadrial were black and white, and while Harmony would be able to change the color, I don't see any reason for him to do. Blue wouldn't mean anything to him, would it? The logical conclusion is this perpendicularity being one of another Shard, as in Trell. It is very likely that Trell is an avatar of a Shard (and it's very likely that it's Autonomy), and avatars seem to be able to manifest perpendicularities (as happened on First of the Sun), so it doesn't seem unlikely that Trell's interaction with Scadrial has also lead to one manifesting - it has, after all, lead to another god metal.

It's not clear what the creature mentioned in the text might be. But - while all kinds of characters could move through it no matter its origin - it seems likely that it's associated with Trell: After all, the perpendicularity seems to be in the south, and the south seems to be a very good place to hide things on Scadrial (it took them hundreds of years to even discover the Southern continent), so it might be a safe place to move his agents through (like the red-eyed visitor in Bands of Mourning's epilogue - they had to get to Scadrial somehow, and without Harmony noticing, ideally).

As for the meaning of the color blue in this context, in Trelagism, Trell is associated with the night sky, which, being blue, could be an explanation for the symbolism behind blue as Trell's color.

Anything else I missed? Let me know. Also, if you find other interesting things in the Mistborn Era 2 newspaper sheets, I might repurpose this thread to an "Era 2 newpaper discussion".

Edited by Elegy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, Elegy said:

The newspaper illustrations of the Mistborn Era 2 books are full of easter eggs and yet don't seem to get discussed much. As I was flipping through Shadows of Self again, I stumbled over this one that I didn't pay proper attention to before:

sos_broadsheet.jpg

(Be sure to click at the "Full Size" button at the bottom left to make it readable.)

Specifically, I mean the article about "VISITORS from other WORLDS". It mentions a blue pool south of the Southern Roughs and an inhuman creature "by the pool". The implications seem to be obvious: The pool is a perpendicularity and the creature is some kind of worldhopper. This could mean it's Harmony's perpendicularity - or one of them. Brandon has been close-lipped about whether Harmony has one or two of them. However, blue being the perpendicularity's color irritates me. The colors of the previous perpendicularities on Scadrial were black and white, and while Harmony would be able to change the color, I don't see any reason for him to do. Blue wouldn't mean anything to him, would it? The logical conclusion is this perpendicularity being one of another Shard, as in Trell. It is very likely that Trell is an avatar of a Shard (and it's very likely that it's Autonomy), and avatars seem to be able to manifest perpendicularities (as happened on First of the Sun), so it doesn't seem unlikely that Trell's interaction with Scadrial has also lead to one manifesting - it has, after all, lead to another god metal.

It's not clear what the creature mentioned in the text might be. But - while all kinds of characters could move through it no matter its origin - it seems likely that it's associated with Trell: After all, the perpendicularity seems to be in the south, and the south seems to be a very good place to hide things on Scadrial (it took them hundreds of years to even discover the Southern continent), so it might be a safe place to move his agents through (like the red-eyed visitor in Bands of Mourning's epilogue - they had to get to Scadrial somehow, and without Harmony noticing, ideally).

As for the meaning of the color blue in this context, in Trelagism, Trell is associated with the night sky, which, being blue, could be an explanation for the symbolism behind blue as Trell's color.

Anything else I missed? Let me know. Also, if you find other interesting things in the Mistborn Era 2 newspaper sheets, I might repurpose this thread to an "Era 2 newpaper discussion".

Have you read Bands of Mourning yet? It is answered there. 

edit: after re-reading your post you mentioned the red-eyed individual at the end of Bands of Mourning so I assume you have already read it. The individual by the water is a southern scadralian. That has been confirmed by Brandon. it was meant to be a red herring for people to theorize it was the parshendi. 

Edited by Pathfinder
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trell's colors are clearly put forward by Miles Hundred lives with his "men of Red and Gold" thing. 

Preservation and Ruin were presented as black and white due to there relative opposition. With Harmony holding both, that could have changed off perception alone. 

Not saying that perp is or isn't anyone's, but personally I don't think Trell has actually Invested in Scadrial. I don't believe that's necessary to make a godmetal as we've seen metals from Shards on other worlds.

Edited by Calderis
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I absolutely love the broadsheets printed in the Mistborn era 2 books, they really help create immersion. (Unrelated: if you like newspapers from this era, I strongly recommend the game 'Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective').

As for this, my reading was that it is just a nice pool with a masked southern scadrian sitting by it. I think the illustration (presumably based upon the woman's memory) supports this, as it looks somewhat like descriptions of the masks the southern scadrians wear.

While it is possible that it is a shardpool, I think we can rule out Harmony being the source - presumably Harmony knows the location of his shardpool(s) and the Kandra would likely be watching. Though I suppose it is possible that the 'inhuman creature' is actually a Kandra.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Have you read Bands of Mourning yet? It is answered there. 

edit: after re-reading your post you mentioned the red-eyed individual at the end of Bands of Mourning so I assume you have already read it. The individual by the water is a southern scadralian. That has been confirmed by Brandon. it was meant to be a red herring for people to theorize it was the parshendi. 

I didn't find that WOB, but I'll take your word for it since it sounds plausible. But that only concerns the person at the pool. The pool itself is suspicious nonetheless.

26 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Trell's colors are clearly put forward by Miles Hundred lives with his "men of Red and Gold" thing. 

That's not "clearly" since "Red and Gold" can mean anything in this context. It might be a hint, but it's pretty ambiguous. We don't even know who these "men" are. They obviously seem to be associated with Trell, but that's about it.

26 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Preservation and Ruin were presented as black and white due to there relative opposition. With Harmony holding both, that could have changed off perception alone. 

Yes, there could be a shifting of the colors by Harmony perceiving himself as blue. But why would he do that? It seems far more plausible for him to see himself as black and white since he still obviously sees Preservation and Ruin as oppositions (after all, they hinder him from acting like he would want to).

With these things covered, the pool itself might as well be a red herring. Brandon definitely knew people would draw conclusions, so it either means something or he's messing around, or half-and-half.

Edited by Elegy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Elegy said:

I didn't find that WOB, but I'll take your word for it since it sounds plausible. But that only concerns the person at the pool. The pool itself is suspicious nonetheless.

That's not "clearly" since "Red and Gold" can mean anything in this context. It might be a hint, but it's pretty ambiguous. We don't even know who these "men" are. They obviously seem to be associated with Trell, but that's about it.

Yes, there could be a shifting of the colors by Harmony perceiving himself as blue. But why would he do that? It seems far more plausible for him to see himself as black and white since he still obviously sees Preservation and Ruin as oppositions (after all, they hinder him from acting like he would want to).

With these things covered, the pool itself might as well be a red herring. Brandon definitely knew people would draw conclusions, so it either means something or he's messing around, or half-and-half.

I appreciate you taking my word for it, but I am also happy to provide the WoB below:

 

Questioner
So, in [Shadows of Self], was that actually a Parshendi in the broadsheet?

Brandon Sanderson
No, it's not. It was one of the Southern continenters. I just wanted you to think it was.


Questioner
Is there a relationship between the Parshendi and the airships?

Brandon Sanderson
The Parshendi and the oh-- Okay. So the relationship is that I assumed when people saw the picture they would think Parshendi, and that was an intentional red herring.

Moderator
Or red and black herring.

Brandon Sanderson
Yes, red and black herring. *laughter* We spent a lot of time on that picture, Where I'm like "It has to actually look like the people, but it can't be straight up where people are like 'Oh! This is like what we've seen before here!' " And so we went back and forth on it a lot. That picture took a lot of revision to get right.

 

Now as to the blue pool being a shardpool. I could have sworn there was a WoB that confirmed it was Harmony's, but that I am less sure of. I will do some digging to see if I find anything. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks a lot! That clears things up!

I only found this:

Quote

Questioner

In Shadows... did we see a Shardpool? And was it Harmony’s or some other mysterious god who...  

Brandon Sanderson

So where do you think it is in Shadows?  

Questioner

In one of the newspaper articles.

Brandon Sanderson

I am RAFOing that, the whole newspaper article. So the newspaper articles, who knows what’s going on in them. They're tabloid-ish so maybe, maybe--

Shadows of Self London UK signing (Oct. 19, 2015)

So he's aware that people are wondering about it, but refrains from saying anything else about it.

Edit: And there's this ...

Quote

Questioner

So on the broadsheet page you you shared today, in the column about visitors from other worlds, there's a pool. Is that a shardpool?

Brandon Sanderson

*silence* That's a newspaper, I--

Questioner

It's canon though?

Brandon Sanderson

The newspaper is canon, yeah...

Shadows of Self release party (Oct. 5, 2015)

... which is interesting because to me it sounds like he completely forgot he mentioned a pool right there. Okay. Unless I have overlooked anything important, this seems like a dead end.

Edited by Elegy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 minutes ago, Karger said:

If Trell is a shard and encroaching on the system they may have set up their own shardpool.

It seems very plausible to me. If I were Trell, I would find it very valuable to have some way for my agents to get on the planet I want to invade without people knowing of it. And, as I said, the red eyed people at the end of BoM have to have gotten there one way or the other, and Harmony doesn't seem to have noticed them.

As for the "blue = night sky" thing I said above, I'm not so sure about it anymore. We know that the perpendicularity on First of the Sun is green - maybe because Patji identified with the islands which have jungles. But that's the islands (which are autonomous), not the sea. In the same manner, it would make more sense for Trell to identify with the stars instead of the night sky between them, so the perpendicularity should be yellow instead.

1 minute ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Shardpools "are a natural effect of a Shard spending a lot of time on a world."  I don't think that Trell, whoever they end up being (*cough* Autonomy *cough*), could be considered to be "on" Scadrial, as Harmony is currently fending them off.  

Honor has fended off Odium for a long time and he still seems to be somewhat Invested in Roshar. So I don't know about that. Admittedly, we don't know if there's an Odium perpendicularity on Roshar either.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Elegy said:

Honor has fended off Odium for a long time and he still seems to be somewhat Invested in Roshar. So I don't know about that. Admittedly, we don't know if there's an Odium perpendicularity on Roshar either.

 

Regarding Odium's perpendicularity: (Stormlight spoilers)

Spoiler

Odium is physically present in the Rosharan system - he's on Braize.  I believe that over time, Odium being trapped on Braize necessarily lead to the creation of an Odium perpendicularity.  This perpendicularity is what allowed him to rebirth the Fused when they died.  I believe that during Words of Radiance he was able to transfer this perpendicularity to the planet Roshar, where it's referred to as the Everstorm.  

Edited by Scion of the Mists
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Regarding the topic of Shards Investing and perpendicularities:

Quote

(...)

Brandon Sanderson

(...)

We generally mean the term "Invested" to mean a Shard has taken permanent residence in a location, a kind of base of operations--but at the same time, this is meaningless, since distance has no meaning on the Spiritual Realm, where most Shards are. So imprisonment of a Shard like Ruin or Odium is a crude expression--but the best we have.

Autonomy never "Invested" on First of the Sun. But even answering (as someone else asked) if they created an avatar without visiting is a difficult thing to explain--because even explaining how a Shard travels (when motion is irrelevant) is difficult to manage. It's a subject that I intend to be up for debate, discussion, and argument by in-world philosophers and arcanists.

You can see why I have such troubles explaining these things at signings--and why I fail when I try to, considering the time limitations and (often) fatigue limitations placed upon me. These are concepts I intend to spend entire, lengthy epic volumes explaining and exploring.

Let's say you were Autonomy, and you have--through expanding and exploring your understanding--found a gathering of Investiture that has always been there, you always knew about, but still didn't actually recognize until the moment you considered and explored it. (Because even though your power is infinite, accessing and using that infinity is beyond your reach.) Were you "Invested" there? No, no more than you're Invested on Roshar, where parts of what were Adonalsium still exist that are associated with you (in the very fabric of mater and existence.) But suddenly, you have a chance to tweak, influence, and do things that were always possible, but which you never could do because you knew, but didn't know, at the same time.

And...I'm already into WAY more than I want to be typing this out right now. If it's confusing, it's because it's practically impossible for me to explain these things in a short span of time.

I'm going to leave it here, understanding that no, I haven't fully explained your question. (I didn't even get into what avatars are, what Patji was, and what happened to Patji the being--and how that relates to Patji the island.) But hopefully this kind of starts to point the right direction, though I probably should have just left this question alone because I bet this post is going to raise more questions than it answers...

(...)

General Reddit 2018 (March 18, 2018)

And, later in that same WOB:

Quote

(...)

Chaos

Are you saying here that Patji is an avatar of Autonomy, or is it a separate Shard and not an avatar of Autonomy?

Brandon Sanderson

When I said Patji was a Shard, I was meaning Automony--but it is not quite that simple.

Take this post to mean "no, you should not be looking toward another Shard for Patji's origins. Autonomy is the one relevant." But Autonomy's relationships with entities like this (not sure entity is the right word, even) is complex. I'm not trying to confuse the issue, though.

General Reddit 2018 (March 18, 2018)

So Patji is an avatar of Autonomy, Patji has a perpendicularity, yet Autonomy never Invested there. It seems to be very confusing and perpendicularities don't seem to rely on Shards being Invested in the planet to such a degree for Brandon to call it Invested.

Edited by Elegy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Elegy said:

So Patji is an avatar of Autonomy, Patji has a perpendicularity, yet Autonomy never Invested there. It seems to be very confusing and perpendicularities don't seem to rely on Shards being Invested in the planet to such a degree for Brandon to call it Invested.

Yes, it is very confusing, and Brandon hasn't explained it fully yet.  My understanding is that Patji is Invested in First of the Sun and has a perpendicularity there.  Patji is a part of Autonomy.  But Bavadin is distinct from Patji.  

Either way, it doesn't seem like Trell "has taken permanent residence" or has "a base of operations" on Scadrial.  (From Brandon's definition of "Invested" in your WoB)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The legends about him have been floating around on Scadrial for thousands of years, so who knows. I think we can't rule out the possibility of a Trellpendicularity, and IF the pool is a perpendicularity, it might very well be his - and if it isn't, why call it pool instead of just lake? Brandon is very aware of the things a lot of his readers connect with that term ...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It is possible that Trell was watching Scadrial closely all the time and just now is starting to act because of how close the planet's societies are to becoming more cosmere aware. I just wonder how he could have hid for that long without any of the Shards on the planet noticing.

------

Soo, let's summarize the possibilities coined in this thread:

Possibility 1: Trell has Invested in Scadrial and a perpendicularity manifested OR he found a way to manifest one without being actually Invested (would break some rules we assumed but wouldn't be the first time). The perpendicularity is blue and lies in the Southern sector of Scadrial.

Possibility 2: Harmony has changed the color associated with the Shard to blue and put a perpendicularity south of the Southern Roughs.

Possibility 3: There's a random lake in the mountains. Mentioning it is just a red herring.

By now, I believe that P3 is the most likely, although I find it odd for Brandon to put that part in there just to mess with us, but it's not beyond him either. P1 would call for a lot of explaining, but there will be plenty of time for that (like, four more books). It's certainly not implausible, just demands some tweaking. P2 is the most unlikely, as I see it. I just don't see a reason for Harmony to start identifying with blue as a color. I don't think it's a perpendicularity of Harmony. That said, it's not out of question either. A Shard might be able to influence the color of the perpendicularity and making a blue is a way to make it less conspicious, but I don't really see why Harmony would bother doing that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Elegy said:

By now, I believe that P3 is the most likely, although I find it odd for Brandon to put that part in there just to mess with us, but it's not beyond him either. P1 would call for a lot of explaining, but there will be plenty of time for that (like, four more books). It's certainly not implausible, just demands some tweaking. P2 is the most unlikely, as I see it. I just don't see a reason for Harmony to start identifying with blue as a color. I don't think it's a perpendicularity of Harmony. That said, it's not out of question either. A Shard might be able to influence the color of the perpendicularity and making a blue is a way to make it less conspicious, but I don't really see why Harmony would bother doing that.

The pool could be blue because Harmony thought that blue would have some positive effect in the future.  Harmony is not just Ruin + Preservation he is something new and perhaps he thought blue suited him or perhaps because people associate him with the changes on scadrial(like the sky turning blue) he adopted that color.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Karger said:

The pool could be blue because Harmony thought that blue would have some positive effect in the future.  Harmony is not just Ruin + Preservation he is something new and perhaps he thought blue suited him or perhaps because people associate him with the changes on scadrial(like the sky turning blue) he adopted that color.

The sky blue idea is really neat! I thought the blue lines Allomancers see could possibly be a reason, but that doesn't make much sense. Now the idea with the sky is the first one that sounds plausible!

Hm, now I'm not so sure about my ranking anymore.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Chaos locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...