WoB: Elantris was built pre-Splintering of Devotion and Dominion

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Someone on Reddit got this WoB a few hours ago....

Quote

/u/Evilsmiley

Was Elantris built before the Shards were [Splintered] on Sel or not?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, in my outline right now Elantris existed before Odium did his dirty work on Elantris.

It's unlikely to change, but I do have to point out this isn't strictly canon yet, and likely won't be until I write the Elantris sequels.

General Reddit 2021 (Feb. 22, 2021)

Sorry, what? How? Did the regional magics exist prior to the Shards being in the Cognitive???? Because AonDor is pretty specifically based on Arelon.

(Could mean a normal, non-magic city, but "when was Elantris built" feels like it's pretty clearly not saying "when were three buildings built that would become a city down the line", it's about the magical power enhancer that makes Elantris Elantris.)

[Quantus]

19 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Someone on Reddit got this WoB a few hours ago....

Sorry, what? How? Did the regional magics exist prior to the Shards being in the Cognitive???? Because AonDor is pretty specifically based on Arelon.

(Could mean a normal, non-magic city, but "when was Elantris built" feels like it's pretty clearly not saying "when were three buildings built that would become a city down the line", it's about the magical power enhancer that makes Elantris Elantris.)

Sweeeeeeet.

 

It implies that at least some of the shapes/"languages" of the Dor magics pre-date the Dor itself, enough that they might have still worked before the Seon's were created.  We knew the timeline on Elantris was wonky and that it had been "Rediscovered" at some point.  

[Frustration]

Perhapse the AonDor was still somewhat the same, but after Odium, it became locked, meaning it no longer worked far from arelon

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Just now, Quantus said:

It implies that at least some of the shapes/"languages" of the Dor magics pre-date the Dor itself, enough that they might have still worked before the Seon's were created.  We knew the timeline on Elantris was wonky and that it had been "Rediscovered" at some point.  

Yeah. The Splintering of D&D was a loooong time ago, so that definitely still left room for it to have been abandoned up to several thousand years ago and still have been built post-Splintering, but I guess not. This one really blindsided me, because it completely changes the way Selish magics work — not that we thought we had a full understanding of that in the first place!

3 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Perhapse the AonDor was still somewhat the same, but after Odium, it became locked, meaning it no longer worked far from arelon

It's just shocking to me that I guess the regional magics still existed (whether locked to their own countries or not)? That or Arelon for whatever got a magic system and the rest of the planet just had to use theirs, but that one's even stranger to me.

(It also surprises me that even after the abandonment of Elantris, there was enough of a concept of an Arelon for Aons to remain as they are. This is an issue either way, but extending Elantris's creation back gives a lot more time that the concept of the nation has to remain around.)

[Chinkoln]

21 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Perhapse the AonDor was still somewhat the same, but after Odium, it became locked, meaning it no longer worked far from arelon

I think Frustration is correct. The magic still functions the same, but now is can only be used in Arelon, whereas before it could be used anywhere.

[Eternal Khol]

4 minutes ago, Quantus said:

It implies that at least some of the shapes/"languages" of the Dor magics pre-date the Dor itself, enough that they might have still worked before the Seon's were created.  We knew the timeline on Elantris was wonky and that it had been "Rediscovered" at some point.  

I always just assumed they Aon's and other magical shapes and what not were naturally formed by the Shards settling/investing Sel. Not as a result of the Dor

in the arcanum khriss says "I believe that early on, the Shards took an unconcerned approach to humankind—and society was shaped by the slow, steady discovery of the powers that permeated the landscape.

i think thats what the people were discovering.

 

12 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

(It also surprises me that even after the abandonment of Elantris, there was enough of a concept of an Arelon for Aons to remain as they are. This is an issue either way, but extending Elantris's creation back gives a lot more time that the concept of the nation has to remain around.)

Im not sure the Aons are impacted by human perception like that.

 

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Perhapse the AonDor was still somewhat the same, but after Odium, it became locked, meaning it no longer worked far from arelon

Thats been my only conclusion.

WoB is that Elantris was built before the splintering of D&D and also that Elantris was built using "the local magic" 

so Aon's/Elantrians had to have already existed "pre-splintering"

if the only thing that made the powers regional was the power moving to the Cognitive, then if the powers existed before(which they did) then it shouldnt have been regional. Right?

 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

5 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

Im not sure the Aons are impacted by human perception like that.

Then what decides where the border of "Arelon" is, for the purposes of the shape of Aons, or MaiPon for stamps?

6 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

in the arcanum khriss says "I believe that early on, the Shards took an unconcerned approach to humankind—and society was shaped by the slow, steady discovery of the powers that permeated the landscape.

i think thats what the people were discovering.

I suppose so, but it's just so odd that the magic was doing this.

[Quantus]

29 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Yeah. The Splintering of D&D was a loooong time ago, so that definitely still left room for it to have been abandoned up to several thousand years ago and still have been built post-Splintering, but I guess not. This one really blindsided me, because it completely changes the way Selish magics work — not that we thought we had a full understanding of that in the first place!

 

9 minutes ago, Eternal Khol said:

I always just assumed they Aon's and other magical shapes and what not were naturally formed by the Shards settling/investing Sel. Not as a result of the Dor

in the arcanum khriss says "I believe that early on, the Shards took an unconcerned approach to humankind—and society was shaped by the slow, steady discovery of the powers that permeated the landscape.

i think thats what the people were discovering.

 

I think what is throwing me is that I was kind of operating under the assumption that the Aons (and other regional languages) where "born" from the shattering cataclysm.  Because the Seons and Sakze were.  But from a Chicken Vs Egg standpoint it actually does make more sense if the shapes/symbols were already significant to the Shards and their destruction just blasted off the "sparks" into those pre-defined shapes.  

[LewsTherinTelescope]

1 minute ago, Quantus said:

 

I think what is throwing me is that I was kind of operating under the assumption that the Aons (and other regional languages) where "born" from the shattering cataclysm.  Because the Seons and Sakze were.  But from a Chicken Vs Egg standpoint it actually does make more sense if the shapes/symbols were already significant to the Shards and their destruction just blasted off the "sparks" into those pre-defined shapes.  

The formation of the seons around Aons has definitely usually been confusing to me. I had wondered if perhaps they only coalesced later. This makes that part make sense, but makes the rest just make no sense to me, lol.

[Eternal Khol]

33 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Then what decides where the border of "Arelon" is, for the purposes of the shape of Aons, or MaiPon for stamps?

Yeah. You got me there... lol

 it could be a result of the way D&D viewed things?

 if humans "discovered" the magic pre-splintering like Khriss said, then they discovered Aons, which means they couldnt have directly shaped them. I guess it was just unconscious human perception?

Edited February 22, 2021 by Eternal Khol

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Just now, Eternal Khol said:

 it could be a result of the way D&D viewed things.

I suppose so. Man, Sel is weird...

[Frustration]

Just now, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I suppose so. Man, Sel is weird...

Sel is the weird reletive the rest of the Cosmere doesn't tell anyone else about.

Here's a question, did Dakhor predate the splintering? 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

28 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Here's a question, did Dakhor predate the splintering? 

If AonDor did, I'd speculate that the rest did as well, because it'd be odd for Arelon to have a magic system based off it but not anyone else on the planet, but I've no real clue what to expect with the Selish magics after this, lol

[Bejarden]

So the magic that is split into many parts and regional b/c the shards are in the cognitive realm

was doing this BEFORE THE SHARDS WERE SPILNTERED!!!!!!

I am so very very confused

[Dancer]

On 2/23/2021 at 10:48 AM, Bejardin1250 said:

So the magic that is split into many parts and regional b/c the shards are in the cognitive realm

was doing this BEFORE THE SHARDS WERE SPILNTERED!!!!!!

I am so very very confused

I mean you have the Shard of Dominion there, It makes sense to me. The Shard dictates how the magic is accessed. Having the literal embodiment of Dominion there means you would have to be apart of a specific domain to access a certain magic. The only thing that is up in the air is if you could use a regions magic everywhere on Sel without the power drop before the Splintering. If the answer is no then I am will be confused. 

[Ixthos]

On 2/22/2021 at 5:50 PM, Eternal Khol said:

in the arcanum khriss says "I believe that early on, the Shards took an unconcerned approach to humankind—and society was shaped by the slow, steady discovery of the powers that permeated the landscape.

In addition to that there is the following just before that:

Quote

Sel is notable for being dishardic, one of few planets in the cosmere to attract two separate Shards of Adonalsium: Dominion and Devotion. These Shards were extremely influential in the development of human societies on the planet, and most of their traditions and religions can be traced back to these two. Uniquely, the very languages and alphabets used today across the planet were directly influenced by the two Shards.

So it has been implied that they deliberately were attempting to achieve some goal on Sel, possibly related to the Iree and the Elantrians, which is why Odium was "allowed" to attack them - perhaps they hoped to form a of investiture and human which could do things the shards couldn't, and so circumvent some restriction.

[Halyo_Alex]

8 hours ago, Ixthos said:

In addition to that there is the following just before that:

So it has been implied that they deliberately were attempting to achieve some goal on Sel, possibly related to the Iree and the Elantrians, which is why Odium was "allowed" to attack them - perhaps they hoped to form a of investiture and human which could do things the shards couldn't, and so circumvent some restriction.

Given how programmatical AonDor is, I'd say you're on the right path... Imagine if there was a human that could write an AonDor program that somehow changed a fundemental property of a Shard, fueled directly by D&D.

[Honorless]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, eheheh, @RShara, I told you so!

 

Think about it. Seons were formed during the Splintering of Aona. Seons have Aons at their centre. Which means Aons themselves must've existed in some form before the Splintering. So AonDor could've too.

 

Elantris was found abandoned by the Arelish people when they first settled there, where did the original builders go? Wonder if they were killed during the clash with Odium. Might be they left and became the Ire. 

Edited April 27, 2021 by Honorless

[RShara]

On 3/6/2021 at 7:42 AM, Honorless said:

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha, eheheh, @RShara, I told you so!

 

 

"Existing" doesn't mean "existed in the exact same state it's in now" though. It could have been a collection of huts or a few dozen buildings in no particular pattern for all we know. I'm willing to wait till the books come out to discover for sure

[Daggon Forescout]

On 2/22/2021 at 7:29 AM, LewsTherinTelescope said:

(It also surprises me that even after the abandonment of Elantris, there was enough of a concept of an Arelon for Aons to remain as they are. This is an issue either way, but extending Elantris's creation back gives a lot more time that the concept of the nation has to remain around.)

Arelon has some very well-defined natural borders (coast, river, mountains), so I buy that people would perceive Arelon as a single entity long before the "modern-day" nation emerged. I mean it's a slight stretch, but for comparison, the nation of Hungry has existed in one form or another for 1200 years despite having less well-defined borders then Arelon

[LewsTherinTelescope]

13 hours ago, Daggon Forescout said:

Arelon has some very well-defined natural borders (coast, river, mountains), so I buy that people would perceive Arelon as a single entity long before the "modern-day" nation emerged. I mean it's a slight stretch, but for comparison, the nation of Hungry has existed in one form or another for 1200 years despite having less well-defined borders then Arelon

Fair point. 

[Honorless]

On 3/10/2021 at 7:50 AM, RShara said:

"Existing" doesn't mean "existed in the exact same state it's in now" though. It could have been a collection of huts or a few dozen buildings in no particular pattern for all we know. I'm willing to wait till the books come out to discover for sure

"in no particular pattern"?

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Weak Aons

Elantris is like a massive power conduit. It focuses the Dor, strengthening its power (or, rather, the power of the Aons to release it) in Arelon. This far away from Elantris, however, the Aons are about as powerful as they were before Raoden fixed Elantris.

If you consider it, it makes logical sense that the Aons would be tied to Elantris and Arelon, yet would work without them. The Aons had to exist before Elantris–otherwise, the original Elantrians wouldn't have known the shape to make the city. Their study of AonDor taught them a method for amplifying Aon power.

Elantris Annotations (May 12, 2006)

The pattern is what makes Elantris Elantris.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Honorless

[LewsTherinTelescope]

The recent spoiler stream adds some interesting bits to this:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

It's basically Odium being like "alright I just murdered you people, I don't wanna have to come back and do it again". So he's trying to figure out a way to make this happen. As it currently stands (again, these things can change when I write future books), it was partially happenstance that he took advantage of rather than something that he was able to set up very intentionally from the beginning, but he was definitely a part. YouTube Livestream 32 (June 3, 2021)

[+Child of Hodor]

On 2/22/2021 at 9:22 AM, Frustration said:

Perhapse the AonDor was still somewhat the same, but after Odium, it became locked, meaning it no longer worked far from arelon

Sounds right to me. 

The city of Elantris was built a looong time ago by unkown people. Others discovered the city fully built and completely empty and they became the modern day Elantrians.  It has this whole history we know nothing about.. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Elantris_(city)#Discovery

Cosmere & Stormlight Spoilers:

Spoiler

My pet theory is that the people who lived there and abandoned it en mass were the ancestors of the people we know as the Iriali. When they think it's time to leave a land they up migrate to another planet. I don't think Sel was the first land, but I think it was one of the previous 3 planets in the Long Trail

 

 

 

[+AutonomousJoy]

On 02/08/2021 at 1:45 PM, Child of Hodor said:

Sounds right to me. 

The city of Elantris was built a looong time ago by unkown people. Others discovered the city fully built and completely empty and they became the modern day Elantrians.  It has this whole history we know nothing about.. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Elantris_(city)#Discovery

Cosmere & Stormlight Spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

My pet theory is that the people who lived there and abandoned it en mass were the ancestors of the people we know as the Iriali. When they think it's time to leave a land they up migrate to another planet. I don't think Sel was the first land, but I think it was one of the previous 3 planets in the Long Trail

 

 

 

That's a really interesting theory, I like it!

Elantris, The Hope of Elantris and Stormlight spoilers:

Spoiler

The metallic gold cast to the Iriali's skin and their golden hair could be a remnant of Elantrian ancestry! In their power, the Elantrians are always described to having metallic skin (silvery, bronze etc.), perhaps this trait is passed on to their children.

I'm not sure if we've seen the children of any Elantrians on screen currently. Hopefully we'll be able to see Raoden's child in a future Elantris sequel.

Edit: Galladon's father was an Elantrian, so that is a strike against my theory. However his mother was not particularly Invested as far as we know, so it could be that the children of two Elantrians may pick up the traits.

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by AutonomousJoy
did some research