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Kelsier deserves his own topic [MISTBORN SPOLIERS]


Cheat Commando

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On a few different other topics, the idea that Kelsier is a Dawnshard has come up. I have been reading through the fist Mistborn trilogy, plus Secret History and The Eleventh Metal, and I have found some evidence that I think indicates that Kelsier is INDEED a Dawnshard.

By the way, there are many Mistborn spoilers here, so be warned!!!

From "Secret History"

Quote

Do better, Kelsier, Preservation commanded, his voice fading. If the end comes, get them below ground. It might help. And remember . . . remember what I told you, so long ago . . . Do what I cannot, Kelsier . . .
SURVIVE.

The word vibrated through him, and Kelsier gasped. He knew that exact feeling, remembered that exact command. He'd heard that voice in the Pits. Waking him, driving him forward.
Saving him.

(Later, in Urteau...)

Kelsier looked down at the child in his arms. No, not a child any longer. He opened himself to Spook, and spoke a single, all-powerful command.
"Survive!"

(Bolded emphasis is mine)

From "The Hero of Ages"

Quote

Demoux shook his head. “I’m saying that Kelsier was a man, but a man who gained something—a mantle, a portion of something eternal and immortal. When he died, he wasn’t just Kelsier, the crewleader. Don’t you think it odd that he was never Mistborn before he went to the Pits?”
 “That’s the way Allomancy works, Demoux,” Elend said. “You don’t gain your powers until you Snap—until you face something traumatic, something that nearly kills you.”
“And you don’t think that Kelsier experienced those kinds of events before the Pits?” Demoux asked. “My lord, he was a thief who robbed from obligators and noblemen. He lived a very dangerous life. You think he could have avoided beatings, near-deaths, and emotional anguish?”
 Elend paused. 
“He gained his powers at the Pits,” Demoux said quietly, “because something else came upon him. People who knew him speak of how he was a changed man when he came back. He had purpose—he was driven to accomplish something the rest of the world thought impossible.” 
Demoux shook his head. “No, my lord. Kelsier the man died in those Pits, and Kelsier the Survivor was born. He was granted great power, and great wisdom, by a force that is above us all. That is why he accomplished what he did. That is why we worship him. He still had the follies of a man, but he had the hopes of a divinity.”

(Bolded emphasis is mine)
 

But this is the one that struck me the most:

From "The Eleventh Metal" (Kelsier is having an introspective moment)

Quote

Memories. A dark hole lined by crystals sharp as razors. Her sobs as she died. His sobs as they broke him. Crumpled him. Ripped him apart.
His screams as he remade himself.

(Bolded emphasis mine)
 

 

 

My assumptions:

  1. There is a Survive Dawnshard
  2. Preservation was the Survive Dawnshard

My uncertainties:

  1. When did Kelsier become the Survive Dawnshard? Was it in the Pits or was it when Preservation died?

Anyway, I'm going to say a few thoughts on the quotes I listed above.

From my first quote above, when Preservation dies and Kelsier remembers hearing the voice in the Pits, people have said that Preservation was incapable of speaking to people. To counter that argument, I say that Preservation was able to speak to Kelsier, not in his role as Preservation, but in his role as the Survive Dawnshard. Perhaps he was able to separate the power form his mind for a moment and speak the command to Kelsier in the Pits. Kelsier is certainly able to do the same thing when he commands Spook to survive. By the way, did you notice that it was an "all-powerful" command?

Now, of course Kelsier is better able to separate himself from the power of Preservation because he's not Connected enough to it, but maybe Leras could've pulled the power away from himself, just barely, to speak to Kelsier.

The second quote, from "Hero of Ages," I think was Brandon giving us foreshadowing WAY in advance. Demoux is a very perceptive guy, so I think it makes sense that he would say these things AND be correct. The way Rysn describes the Dawnshard at the end of chapter 19 sounded very similar to me.

Rysn: "The will of a god to remake things, to demand they be better"

Demoux: "The hopes of a divinity"

Then finally, the quote from "The Eleventh Metal."  While the word "remade" isn't capitalized here, it made me wonder if becoming a Dawnshard requires you to remake yourself: to be broken and pull yourself back together, rather than having something else remake you.

Anyway, that's my theory!

Edited by Cheat Commando
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I agree that Kelsier is likely a Dawnshard, but I don't think that Preservation was the Dawnshard before him, just because I don't feel like Shards would also be able to be Dawnshards at the same time. However, there must be a reason why Preservation was able to give a Command like a Dawnshard would have. I think that, to be able to do this, Preservation might have been "holding on" to the Dawnshard, similarly to the mural under Akinah.

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There's this WOB with a question about Kelsier hearing a voice while almost dying (when he snapped) ... I couldn't find the passage in the book that mentions this, and Brandon's answer doesn't seem to hint at a Dawnshard, but there might be something there?

Quote

RoboChrist

Did Kelsier really hear Preservation's voice telling him to Survive when he was in the pits of Hathsin? Or was it Ruin pretending to be Preservation?

If it was Preservation, does that mean Kelsier died in the pits? Or were there special circumstances that allowed Kelsier to hear Preservation's voice without dying?

Brandon Sanderson

Special things often happen in the cosmere when someone is very close to death, or undergoing intense pain (either physical or emotional.) Barriers between the realms weaken.

I can confirm that the Kelsier who left the pits was not a cognitive shadow.

Phantine

Could he have become a shadow using the pits if he died immediately after snapping?

Brandon Sanderson

Possibly.

General Reddit 2017 (Aug. 28, 2017)

Does anyone have the exact quote in the book? Because that sounds like a Command in a way.

(Although I guess him using Allomancy without any spectacular enhancements makes it kinda unlikely that he had one during the first book.)

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On 12/7/2020 at 1:30 PM, Flyingbooks42 said:

I agree that Kelsier is likely a Dawnshard, but I don't think that Preservation was the Dawnshard before him, just because I don't feel like Shards would also be able to be Dawnshards at the same time. However, there must be a reason why Preservation was able to give a Command like a Dawnshard would have. I think that, to be able to do this, Preservation might have been "holding on" to the Dawnshard, similarly to the mural under Akinah.

I think perhaps preservation may have been able to hold a dawnshard around the time kelsier died, he had already separated most of the shards power from himself (the mists, ruin's prison) so by that point he was more like a splinter of preservation than preservation himself.

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Wow. This seems kinda out there, but there’s also a surprising amount of evidence for it. I like it. 

MB SH

Spoiler

hold up, maybe that explains why Hoid could attack Kel. Not because Kel was a Cognitive Shadow, but because they were both former Dawnshard holders...

 

Edited by Ookla the Disproportionate
Figured that even though this thread is tagged as Mistborn spoilers in the title, you can’t be too careful... Added spoiler tag.
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On 06/12/2020 at 10:58 PM, Cheat Commando said:

On a few different other topics, the idea that Kelsier is a Dawnshard has come up. I have been reading through the fist Mistborn trilogy, plus Secret History and The Eleventh Metal, and I have found some evidence that I think indicates that Kelsier is INDEED a Dawnshard.

By the way, there are many Mistborn spoilers here, so be warned!!!

From "Secret History"

From "The Hero of Ages"

But this is the one that struck me the most:

From "The Eleventh Metal" (Kelsier is having an introspective moment)

 

 

My assumptions:

  1. There is a Survive Dawnshard
  2. Preservation was the Survive Dawnshard

My uncertainties:

  1. When did Kelsier become the Survive Dawnshard? Was it in the Pits or was it when Preservation died?

Anyway, I'm going to say a few thoughts on the quotes I listed above.

From my first quote above, when Preservation dies and Kelsier remembers hearing the voice in the Pits, people have said that Preservation was incapable of speaking to people. To counter that argument, I say that Preservation was able to speak to Kelsier, not in his role as Preservation, but in his role as the Survive Dawnshard. Perhaps he was able to separate the power form his mind for a moment and speak the command to Kelsier in the Pits. Kelsier is certainly able to do the same thing when he commands Spook to survive. By the way, did you notice that it was an "all-powerful" command?

Now, of course Kelsier is better able to separate himself from the power of Preservation because he's not Connected enough to it, but maybe Leras could've pulled the power away from himself, just barely, to speak to Kelsier.

The second quote, from "Hero of Ages," I think was Brandon giving us foreshadowing WAY in advance. Demoux is a very perceptive guy, so I think it makes sense that he would say these things AND be correct. The way Rysn describes the Dawnshard at the end of chapter 19 sounded very similar to me.

Rysn: "The will of a god to remake things, to demand they be better"

Demoux: "The hopes of a divinity"

Then finally, the quote from "The Eleventh Metal."  While the word "remade" isn't capitalized here, it made me wonder if becoming a Dawnshard requires you to remake yourself: to be broken and pull yourself back together, rather than having something else remake you.

Anyway, that's my theory!

I'm 50-50 on this but it makes things interesting. 

Kell must have heard the Command, we think, to hold the Dawnshard. So it would be when Leras's Shadow passed it on I think. The Pits was just Snapping (and Snapping into a full MB is big enough). But Leras could have passed the Dawnshard on if he held it, and it adds a component to Kell's actions to help Vin survive in SH and his command at the end of BoM. 

 

It also makes him HUGELY dangerous, being a CS who had held a Shard for a while (one that fits the Dawnshard's Intent too) with all the impact of that, who has now manifested physically again with Full Born capabilities, knowledge, con-man and assassin skills, an organisation that seems to follow him and now a Dawnshard which I think would give him the ability to give a Divine command.

The big question for me is whether, assuming this is true, Kell's real target on Roshar is the Dawnshard there. We know people are seeking it, people the Endless want to hide it from (probably not just the Ghostbloods, and surely including Odium too?). Maybe Kell wants to get all 4 Shards that shattered Adonalsium. Maybe he isn't trying to become a God but, once again a theme for him, the One Who Killed God?

 

Quote

On 07/12/2020 at 3:00 AM, Flyingbooks42 said:

07/12/2020 at 3:00 AM, Flyingbooks42 said:

I agree that Kelsier is likely a Dawnshard, but I don't think that Preservation was the Dawnshard before him, just because I don't feel like Shards would also be able to be Dawnshards at the same time. However, there must be a reason why Preservation was able to give a Command like a Dawnshard would have. I think that, to be able to do this, Preservation might have been "holding on" to the Dawnshard, similarly to the mural under Akinah.

I think it's hugely implied in Dawnshard that Shards can hold Dawnshards at the same time, and that it's necessary to best utilise the Dawnshard.

 

 

 
Quote

 

 

"The most powerful forms of Surgebinding transcend traditional mortal understanding,” Nikli said. His body began to re-form, hordelings crawling back into place. “All their greatest applications require Intent and a Command. Demands on a level no person could ever manage alone. To make such Commands, one must have the reasoning—the breadth of understanding—of a deity. And so, the Dawnshards. The four primal Commands that created all things.” He paused. “And then eventually, they were used to undo Adonalsium itself. . . .”

 

 

From Dawnshard. I think Intent clearly refers to a Shard. Not a group of Shards of one type, either, but a Shard. At their core they are attributes of Divinity that come down to Intent, and Intent frequently comes up regarding what they can and must do. They are also the things that come automatically with the understanding of a deity, automatically change the mind to make it so. So if the Sleepless are right, you need to have at least held a Shard, or possibly had another access to boosted capacity like Compounded Zinc or similar, in order to use a Dawnshard properly. 

 

 
Quote

 

Quote

“Fortunately, you would not be able to employ it,” Nikli said. “It is beyond your capacity. But there are those in the cosmere who could use it for terrible acts.”

 

 

Edited by IndigoAjah
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/10/2020 at 0:27 AM, Dannex said:

Wow. This seems kinda out there, but there’s also a surprising amount of evidence for it. I like it. 

MB SH

  Hide contents

hold up, maybe that explains why Hoid could attack Kel. Not because Kel was a Cognitive Shadow, but because they were both former Dawnshard holders...

 

That's a great catch!! I love this thread, this is one of the best 'probably actually canon' theories I've seen in a while. 

Quote

That makes a lot of sense. We know there's a lot more cognitive shadows / techinically dead people than Kel out there. Why isn't Hoid trying to beat up the fused or the heralds or shades or whatever. He made it seem like this was the first time in a very very long time. Holding a Dawnshard would be much more unique. 

 

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On 1/2/2021 at 1:27 AM, Could Be Fire said:

That makes a lot of sense. We know there's a lot more cognitive shadows / techinically dead people than Kel out there. Why isn't Hoid trying to beat up the fused or the heralds or shades or whatever. He made it seem like this was the first time in a very very long time. Holding a Dawnshard would be much more unique. 

Exactly. Remember how he was actually surprised when he found out he could beat Kelsier up?

How has all of Hoid's life, he had never interacted with a Cognitive Shadow he could beat up, if it was just because they were a Cognitive Shadow?

Plus, I like to think Hoid used to carry the same Dawnshard, "Survive", as we know his time holding a Dawnshard has something to do with:

- his longer than normal life (coughs because it was literally the Dawnshard of Survival, maybe? coughs)
- his inability to harm others (coughs because harming is the opposite of Survival, maybe? coughs)
- his inability to eat meat (coughs does anyone have a cough drop? coughs)

Edited by Knight of Iron
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