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Another Dawnshard theory


En-priestess

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Okay so here’s my Dawnshard theory which I’ve spent way too much time trying piece together. By the way I hope it’s okay to make a new post as I have seen a couple going around but with different interpretations than my own... 

I’ve had a lot of different ideas but this is the first one that I’ve come up with that has all four that would work together with the Shards that we know. I’ve tried to work this out based on a few key bits of information:

  1. Hoid held a Dawnshard which is the reason he cannot physically harm others or even eat meat. (Perhaps also the reason he is immortal).
  2. The Dawnshards were used to shatter Adonalsium, and were used in the destruction of Ashyn. I can’t remember if this is confirmed or only a theory, but they perhaps also caused the shattering of the Shattered Plains. So shattering is a recurring thing...
  3. The Dawnshards are the Commands used by Adonalsium to create all things - therefore I feel they need to apply to energy and matter, as well as to life. So far many theories are more applicable to life whereas Change is something much more fundamental which can be applied to energy (eg. change from light to heat, kinetic to gravitational, etc), matter (eg. from one form to another, from something to nothing, etc) and life (people change, ideas change, singers change form, etc).

 

CHANGE 

Cultivation

Whimsy

Ruin

Endowment

 

Based on the fundamental law of conservation that energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed. This is the case for investiture in the Cosmere too. (From what I understand, Atium was not destroyed because it will eventually re-emerge - which also fits with the final Dawnshard I’ve theorised. Light and anti light seem to function like matter and anti matter in that the two can destroy one another but leave behind energy - eg. an explosion - another example of change, and why Ruin fits so perfectly here).

I think these Shards would fit if we think of change as being cultivated or random, destructive or constructive. 

 

CONSERVE/ REMAIN

Preservation

Dominion

Autonomy

?

 

*Not to be confused with the Dawnshard of jam making...  This one is linked to the above law of conservation of energy (and mass), and that if a system is isolated it will remain at rest - it can only be set in motion by an external force. 

This would be the Hoid Dawnshard which prevents him from physically harming others or himself, and is likely the key to his immortality. The definition of conserve is to “protect from harm or destruction”, and the definition of remain is to “continue to exist, especially after other similar people or things have ceased to do so”.

 

PROPEL (Shattered plains)

Valour

Odium

Ambition

Invention

 

This is based on the fundamental forces of momentum and velocity - “the mechanical impulse experienced during the absorption or emission of light”.

I believe this Dawnshard is a likely candidate for the destruction of Ashyn if it could be used to propel the surges. I can also see how this Dawnshard in combination with the other Dawnshards would cause the effect of “shattering” - which we see in both the case of Adonalsium and the Shattered Plains. For example, the combination of Propel and Change would break something apart, while the effect of Conserve/Remain would try to prevent this so that the pieces cannot be split apart too far or into to many pieces... The role of the Reforge/Unite Dawnshard is responsible for the pattern that we are able to see (eg. the Shattered Plains have a symmetrical pattern) that enables us to piece something back together.

 

REFORGE/ UNITE

Devotion

Honour

Mercy

 

This final one is based on an article I read called The Fundamental Laws of Matter and Energy by Gilbert N. Lewis, which states that if a body suffers a mere loss of energy through radiation, and if then the same amount of energy is returned to it by thermal conduction, or friction, or in any other such way, the system will return to its original state.

I feel like this could foreshadow the piecing back together of the Shards of Adonalsium, which we’ve already seen beginning to happen with Harmony. I also feel that the combination of the Change Dawnshard and this Reforge/Unite Dawnshard could help explain the line from the Dawnshard novella where Ryan feels something emanating from the mural...

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“Resignation? Confidence? Understanding?”

Adonalsium, according to Their own Commands, had to change at some point, was resigned to this, understood this, and was confident that They would be reforged again, anew? That the Cosmere as a whole had to experience change and be propelled in ways that Adonalsium was in some ways preventing? 

 

I’m not 100% sure on the names I’ve come up with, nor am I 100% sure about some of the proposed Shards in each (in particular Mercy, and possibly Endowment). Also I am by no means a physicist or science expert so I don’t fully understand the fundamental principles of energy and matter but I did do some research and I feel like this could be on the right track...

Also I feel like there’s probably just way too much that we still don’t know to understand Dawnshards so this is probably completely wrong, but let me know what you think :) 

Edited by Kahlani
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(Perhaps also the reason he is immortal)

That one is common to all Dawnshards

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The Dawnshards were used to shatter Adonalsium, and were used in the destruction of Ashyn. I can’t remember if this is confirmed or only a theory, but they perhaps also caused the shattering of the Shattered Plains. So shattering is a recurring thing...

I can't remember a definite confirmation but Honour raved about the Knights using the Dawnshards to destroy Roshar so it's at least heavily implied

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The Dawnshards are the Commands used by Adonalsium to create all things - therefore I feel they need to apply to energy and matter, as well as to life. So far many theories are more applicable to life whereas Change is something much more fundamental which can be applied to energy (eg. change from light to heat, kinetic to gravitational, etc), matter (eg. from one form to another, from something to nothing, etc) and life (people change, ideas change, singers change form, etc).

The fact that the Cognitive Realm exists and most non-living things have a mind a lot of things that should only be applicable to life are actually applicable to everythings

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CHANGE

Endowment

I had considered putting her here in my own theory but ended up not doing so because I was putting her there for the same reason as Cultivation, I'm curious as to why you made the opposite choice

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CONSERVE/ REMAIN

Dominion

Dominion is to much closely linked to the idea of Conquest to be an aspect of Conserve/Remain

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I believe this Dawnshard is a likely candidate for the destruction of Ashyn if it could be used to propel the surges.

That'd make three Dawnshards in the Rosharan system which is far too much. And both the Change and the Dawnshard know to bind[...] would be able to cause the destruction of Ashyn

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I can also see how this Dawnshard in combination with the other Dawnshards would cause the effect of “shattering” - which we see in both the case of Adonalsium and the Shattered Plains. For example, the combination of Propel and Change would break something apart, while the effect of Conserve/Remain would try to prevent this so that the pieces cannot be split apart too far or into to many pieces... The role of the Reforge/Unite Dawnshard is responsible for the pattern that we are able to see (eg. the Shattered Plains have a symmetrical pattern) that enables us to piece something back together.

I don't see why you'd need the Propel Dawnshard to create the effect of Shattering, just the Change one should be enough

The Shattered plains were destroyed by a static sound wave, it's symmetric because that's how static sound wave works, in my opinion a 5th Oath Boundsmith or Stoneward should be enough to shatter the plains.

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REFORGE/ UNITE

Mercy

I really don't understand why you're putting Mercy here, shouldn't they be in the Conserve/Remain quadrant?

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This final one is based on an article I read called The Fundamental Laws of Matter and Energy by Gilbert N. Lewis, which states that if a body suffers a mere loss of energy through radiation, and if then the same amount of energy is returned to it by thermal conduction, or friction, or in any other such way, the system will return to its original state.

The quantum physicist in me cringes at the radiation part, the rest cringes at the friction part, but please carry on.

15 minutes ago, Kahlani said:

Adonalsium, according to Their own Commands, had to change at some point, was resigned to this, understood this, and was confident that They would be reforged again, anew? That the Cosmere as a whole had to experience change and be propelled in ways that Adonalsium was in some ways preventing? 

Now that theory is fascinating, especially since

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"We are Iriali, and part of the Long Trail, of which this is the Fourth Land. … Eventually, all will be gathered back in—when the Seventh Land is attained—and we will once again become One" 

Ym, WoR interlude 2

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2 hours ago, mathiau said:

That one is common to all Dawnshards

Has that been confirmed? I didn’t think we knew whether Rysn would now be immortal.

3 hours ago, mathiau said:

The fact that the Cognitive Realm exists and most non-living things have a mind a lot of things that should only be applicable to life are actually applicable to everythings

I still don’t think this covers the whole creation of the Cosmere. Like all energy and matter? It could be true and I did like the theory of the Dawnshards being along the lines of Change, Think, Feel, Bind. But I also think that it could get to a more fundamental level.

3 hours ago, mathiau said:

I had considered putting her here in my own theory but ended up not doing so because I was putting her there for the same reason as Cultivation, I'm curious as to why you made the opposite choice

Dominion is to much closely linked to the idea of Conquest to be an aspect of Conserve/Remain

I really don't understand why you're putting Mercy here, shouldn't they be in the Conserve/Remain quadrant?


Like I said, Mercy and Endowment were both ones I wasn’t sure about. I put Endowment in change as an example of constructive change - adding something to something else - as opposed to Ruin’s destructive change. Cultivation I thought of more as organising change as opposed to Whimsy as random change.

Dominion I think fits in the Conserve/Remain section because to me it’s about controlling more than conquering. We see on Sel that they first need to conquer to control but that doesn’t have to be the case and isn’t part of the definition of Dominion.

As for Mercy, that’s the one I’m least sure about but I chose to put it in Reforge/Unite because mercy has the aspect of forgiveness which I think is important for reunification.

4 hours ago, mathiau said:

That'd make three Dawnshards in the Rosharan system which is far too much. And both the Change and the Dawnshard know to bind[...] would be able to cause the destruction of Ashyn

I don't see why you'd need the Propel Dawnshard to create the effect of Shattering, just the Change one should be enough

The Shattered plains were destroyed by a static sound wave, it's symmetric because that's how static sound wave works, in my opinion a 5th Oath Boundsmith or Stoneward should be enough to shatter the plains.

There’s nothing to say there aren’t more than two Dawnshards on Roshar, we literally have no idea. And if there’s already two, maybe there were all brought to the Rosharan system for a reason, I don’t know.

I don’t think change = shattering. You could be right about a Bondsmith shattering the plains but we don’t know that and I feel that since Adonalsium was shattered using the Dawnshards, and the Shattered Plains were shattered also and most likely due to Dawnshards, then it would be the same combination of Dawnshards causing this shattering effect. And we know all four Dawnshards were used to shatter Adonalsium. I tried to explain how this would occur using the combination of Dawnshards I’ve theorised.

 

4 hours ago, mathiau said:

The quantum physicist in me cringes at the radiation part, the rest cringes at the friction part, but please carry on.

Like I said, I’m no physicist or chemist but I read this in a work published by Gilbert N Lewis who was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 41 times. But I guess his terminology or concepts could be outdated? Do you know of any similar concept based in physics that describes some kind of process of energy and matter returning to a state of equilibrium or something? @mathiau

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12 hours ago, Kahlani said:

Has that been confirmed? I didn’t think we knew whether Rysn would now be immortal.

I misremembered what Brandon exactly said, it can be interpreted both way

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Brandon Sanderson

Hoid was a Dawnshard at some point in the deep past, and the reason he (even still) cannot physically harm people, or even eat meat, is related to the changes this made to his spirit. (Consider this the same fundamental principle as savanthood.) The few of you who have read Dragonsteel know that him being a Dawnshard was also the source of his immortality in that book, though the terms were different back then. (The word Dawnshard was never mentioned, for example--though the primary story of Dragonsteel (which is no longer cannon) was about several people who unwittingly become Dawnshards.)

And a preemptive RAFO to all questions on this point. :)

Dawnshard Annotations (Nov. 6, 2020)
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SheHartLiss

Does that mean Rysn is now immortal?

Is a dawnshard a shard along the same lines as odium/ honor or is it a combination of 4 of that type of shard? Or are dawnshards entirely separate?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO on most! But the Dawnshards predate the shattering, so they're something other than traditional Shards. Similar, but distinct in some ways.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 12, 2020)
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I still don’t think this covers the whole creation of the Cosmere. Like all energy and matter? It could be true and I did like the theory of the Dawnshards being along the lines of Change, Think, Feel, Bind. But I also think that it could get to a more fundamental level.

Honestly yours doesn't create cover the whole creation of the Cosmere either since you assumed energy was conserved. I think Dawnshards are fragments of a greater command, probable Be or Exists, that Adonalsium used to create energy and he then fractured them in our four and used them to shape the three words

My current hypothesis on the Dawnshars is @Kingsdaughter613's Change/Connect/Endure/Aspire (which to be fair is quite close of yours) in that framework the 1st principle and Newton's 1st and 3rd laws would be made by the Endure Dawnshard and gravity (according to Syl, an agreement between friends) would be made by the Connect Dawnshard

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Like I said, Mercy and Endowment were both ones I wasn’t sure about. I put Endowment in change as an example of constructive change - adding something to something else - as opposed to Ruin’s destructive change. Cultivation I thought of more as organising change as opposed to Whimsy as random change.

Sorry I had missed that sentence of your original post. I guess we're just seeing Endowment differently.

Ruin is more irreversible change than destructive change (He's the 2nd principle) but the two concept are very close

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Dominion I think fits in the Conserve/Remain section because to me it’s about controlling more than conquering. We see on Sel that they first need to conquer to control but that doesn’t have to be the case and isn’t part of the definition of Dominion.

But it's not what Dominion is, it could have been but it's not

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Questioner

I wanted to know why in The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn, all the gods were named after human traits?

Brandon Sanderson

So this is... all the books are connected. So a long time ago, the premise is, a being... god named Adonalsium was split into 16 pieces, and so the various "aspects" of god, and those aspects are now the gods of all of these things. So there were two in the Elantris world, there's one in the Warbreaker world. Mostly Mistborn and Stormlight is where you'll find out about them.

Questioner

Preservation, and... I remember Hatred [Odium] in Stormlight.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep, Preservation and Ruin. And on Sel, it was Dominion and Devotion, or Love and Conquest were the two.

Questioner

So all of them are connected?

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

Tel Aviv Signing (Oct. 18, 2019)
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As for Mercy, that’s the one I’m least sure about but I chose to put it in Reforge/Unite because mercy has the aspect of forgiveness which I think is important for reunification.

That makes sense, Devotion seems to consider Mercy to indeed be forgiveness

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There’s nothing to say there aren’t more than two Dawnshards on Roshar, we literally have no idea. And if there’s already two, maybe there were all brought to the Rosharan system for a reason, I don’t know.

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"Taking the Dawnshard, known to bind any creature voidish or mortal, he crawled up the steps crafted for Heralds, ten strides tall apiece, toward the grand temple above."

From The Poem of Ista. I have found no modern explanation of what these "Dawnshards" are. They seem ignored by scholars, though talk of them was obviously prevalent among those recording the early mythologies

The Way of King, Epigraph of chapter 36

We have a few reasons to belive the Remain Dawnshard is on Scadrial so I don't belive all of them are there. Also, spoilers for Sequel of the Dusk (kind of, I didn't read it I'm repeating what I hear)

Spoiler

The Cosmere's end game seems to include a big war between Roshar's and Scadrial's space empires, I don't think it'd make sense to do so if only one side had all the Dawnshards

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I don’t think change = shattering. You could be right about a Bondsmith shattering the plains but we don’t know that and I feel that since Adonalsium was shattered using the Dawnshards, and the Shattered Plains were shattered also and most likely due to Dawnshards, then it would be the same combination of Dawnshards causing this shattering effect. And we know all four Dawnshards were used to shatter Adonalsium. I tried to explain how this would occur using the combination of Dawnshards I’ve theorised.

I didn't say change = shattering, I said shattering Change

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Like I said, I’m no physicist or chemist but I read this in a work published by Gilbert N Lewis who was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 41 times. But I guess his terminology or concepts could be outdated? Do you know of any similar concept based in physics that describes some kind of process of energy and matter returning to a state of equilibrium or something? @mathiau

It's not true but it's true enough, especially for Chemistry where the difference between what he said and what happen doesn't matter.

If you use friction to heat something you'll necessarly damage the surface of the object so it's no longer exaclty the same. When an atom emit a photon then gain back energy in an other way it doesn't get back to the exact same state but for what Gilbert Lewis was talking about it doesn't matter. Honestly it's probably clause enough to the truth to theorise

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You didn't need to @ me, quoting someone already pings them :)

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12 hours ago, mathiau said:

It's not true but it's true enough, especially for Chemistry where the difference between what he said and what happen doesn't matter.

If you use friction to heat something you'll necessarly damage the surface of the object so it's no longer exaclty the same. When an atom emit a photon then gain back energy in an other way it doesn't get back to the exact same state but for what Gilbert Lewis was talking about it doesn't matter. Honestly it's probably clause enough to the truth to theorise

I think I like that even better, because if Adonalsium is reforged, I think the point would be that They were transformed in the process and that the shattering and reforging was necessary for the Cosmere to grow - and yeah I’m definitely thinking along the lines of the Iriali One religion like you pointed out earlier :) 

 

 

13 hours ago, mathiau said:

My current hypothesis on the Dawnshars is @Kingsdaughter613's Change/Connect/Endure/Aspire (which to be fair is quite close of yours) in that framework the 1st principle and Newton's 1st and 3rd laws would be made by the Endure Dawnshard and gravity (according to Syl, an agreement between friends) would be made by the Connect Dawnshard

Hmm yeah I like that, to me it is covering pretty much the same fundamental concepts I have in mind: Endure as a kind of parallel to Conserve/Remain, Aspire as similar to Propel, and Connect as Reforge/Unite. Gosh I just want to know more about Dawnshards!!
 

12 hours ago, mathiau said:

You didn't need to @ me, quoting someone already pings them :)

Ooops thanks, I haven’t posted here that much so I’m not sure how it all works :rolleyes:

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