Adonalsium was just a normal person who held a lot of Investiture. (Theory)

[AidenTollis]

In some of the books, we see that Adonalsium is referred to as "Ado". This is an affectionate nickname one would give to a normal person, not an all encompassing omnipotent immortal being. Raboniel says it, and as said before, one should have a connection with that person to call them a nickname, at least be friends. We also have this small piece of evidence. "You will give your soul to me....You will join the Fused" [ROW p1177]. This shows that a human can become a fused and maybe the singers are just humans that evolved on Roshar to fit the landscape (a little fan theory of mine...) SO what if Raboniel knew "Ado" and after the shattering became one of the fused under Rayse's supervision etc. So, all I wanted to say is:

• Singers could be an evolved human variant
• Adonalsium could be just a normal guy with an incredible amount of Investiture
• Raboniel could have been Adonalsium's friend at some point.

 

Also, as an afterpoint, Raboniel could have wanted to betray Rayse because he killed her friend Adonalsium...

Edited March 11, 2022 by AidenTollis

[NameIess]

5 minutes ago, AidenTollis said:

In some of the books, we see that Adonalsium is referred to as "Ado". This is an affectionate nickname one would give to a normal person, not an all encompassing omnipotent immortal being. Raboniel says it, and as said before, one should have a connection with that person to call them a nickname, at least be friends. We also have this small piece of evidence. "You will give your soul to me....You will join the Fused" [ROW p1177]. This shows that a human can become a fused and maybe the singers are just humans that evolved on Roshar to fit the landscape (a little fan theory of mine...) SO what if Raboniel knew "Ado" and after the shattering became one of the fused under Rayse's supervision etc. So, all I wanted to say is:

• Singers could be an evolved human variant
• Adonalsium could be just a normal guy with an incredible amount of Investiture
• Raboniel could have been Adonalsium's friend at some point.

 

Also, as an afterpoint, Raboniel could have wanted to betray Rayse because he killed her cool beans friend Adonalsium...

I think that Ado is just an abbreviation that people use because saying "Adonalsium" us a bit of a mouthful. Raboniel's far too young to have known Adonalsium anyways. And Singers were probably created by Adonalsium along with Roshar.

[AidenTollis]

 

Well I think that she must have had some form of connection to him maybe...

Edited March 11, 2022 by AidenTollis

[NameIess]

1 minute ago, AidenTollis said:

Well I think that she must have had some form of connection to him maybe...

I doubt it. Heralds curse by Adonalsium's name too. I think it's just a Cosmere-aware thing.

[+Invocation]

If anything I was thinking about the "Ado" thing like there was a prohibition against invoking the full name of someone or something that powerful.

[AquaRegia]

23 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Raboniel's far too young to have known Adonalsium anyways. And Singers were probably created by Adonalsium along with Roshar.

Agreed.  She's old compared to our garden-variety humans, but she's not 11,000 years old.

I think there is ample evidence (gemhearts, carapace, orange blood, etc.) that Singers are evolutionary cousins of all the other native Rosharan lifeforms.

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, AidenTollis said:

In some of the books, we see that Adonalsium is referred to as "Ado". This is an affectionate nickname one would give to a normal person, not an all encompassing omnipotent immortal being.

Adonalsium was neither all encompasing, omnipotent, or immortal.

[cometaryorbit]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Adonalsium was neither all encompasing, omnipotent, or immortal.

Given that Adonalsium was killed, yeah, it doesn't seem that he(?) was more immortal than a Shard. And presumably not truly omnipotent, unless being Shattered was part of some grand plan that will ultimately end in re-uniting Adonalsium (like the Iriali One and Many idea).

The Aethers apparently claim to be not created by Adonalsium. That could just be boasting, but if true, maybe Adonalsium is something like a limited demiurge and didn't really create the entire cosmere universe.

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, cometaryorbit said:

Given that Adonalsium was killed, yeah, it doesn't seem that he(?) was more immortal than a Shard. And presumably not truly omnipotent, unless being Shattered was part of some grand plan that will ultimately end in re-uniting Adonalsium (like the Iriali One and Many idea).

The Aethers apparently claim to be not created by Adonalsium. That could just be boasting, but if true, maybe Adonalsium is something like a limited demiurge and didn't really create the entire cosmere universe.

Not being created by Adonalsium isn't the same as not being of Adonalsium.

All investiture is of Adonalsium, so even if he didn't create them, they are not entirely unrelated.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Personally, my thought on the "Ado's sake" thing has been less that "Ado" is a nickname and more that "Adonalsium" is perhaps a compound word or a title of some sort, and she's just using a shortened version of the title/phrase that still has its divine connotations in that context (probably "the Light" or something similar, since "adoda" = "light", as seen in Adolin's name).

Edited March 11, 2022 by LewsTherinTelescope

[CryoZenith]

Creation and being or not being created is a very finicky construct (and I don't even mean metaphysically; I'm talking about linguistics and language use).

Like, we generally say that our parents created us, but we don't typically say that our grandparents created us, but despite the latter, we do say that our way-back ancestors created our lineage (although we don't quite think of it in terms of them creating us). But then we're fine with saying that God created us (and not just us as in humanity, but us as in us-us). We're also cool with crediting God with creating different pieces of natural landscape and geography, even if they're too young/recent to have been made "at the beginning" (even in a young earth sense) but we don't credit God with creating anthropic things like the internet or toilet paper.

Basically, my point is that "to be created by" is such a linguistically fuzzy term and its relationship with degrees of separation is so haphazard that I don't think we can productively speculate on what it means for Brandon to say that the Aethers don't think Adonalsium created them, not until we get to see how the Aethers express this belief IC.

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

What if Adonalsium is one of the Dawnshards?

[NameIess]

19 minutes ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

What if Adonalsium is one of the Dawnshards?

He wasn't. The Dawnshards were his special intent thingies. And they were used to kill him. So while the Dawnshards are probably made of Adonalsium's investiture or mind or something along those lines, I don't think Adonalsium was a Dawnshard.

[EmulatonStromenkiin]

1 hour ago, Nameless said:

He wasn't. The Dawnshards were his special intent thingies. And they were used to kill him. So while the Dawnshards are probably made of Adonalsium's investiture or mind or something along those lines, I don't think Adonalsium was a Dawnshard.

I was under the impression that the Dawnshards were just as old if not older than the cosmere

[LewsTherinTelescope]

18 minutes ago, EmulatonStromenkiin said:

I was under the impression that the Dawnshards were just as old if not older than the cosmere

Last we heard, Dawnshards tentatively are younger than Adonalsium in the current outline, but Brandon is NOT canonizing this until the final version of Dragonsteel is out, to avoid locking himself in as his plans evolve.

Quote

Gary

I was wondering if Dawnshards were created at the same time that Adonalsium was.

Brandon Sanderson

Dawnshards, I’ll have to RAFO that, mostly because my timeline for all the Yolen stuff, with the Adonalsium stuff, is going to depend on writing Dragonsteel. And right now, I intend those to be post-Adonalsium but pre-Shattering. But I can’t canonize that until I’ve actually written that mythology and lore. Because the original intent of the Dawnshards, when you read Dragonsteel Prime (which we’ll release with the Words of Radiance leatherbound), you will find two Dawnshards in there. And their original intent has changed a great deal as I’ve canonized things and really, really dug into building the cosmere. And you’ll see what my kind of original intent for those was. (Or at least I can talk about it.) And it’s changed since then. The way that they were in that book (and have remained so far) is that they are younger than Adonalsium.

Dragonmount Zoom Call (Dec. 10, 2020)

[TheCollector]

I've seen a thread talking about the "For Ado's Sake" thing, back when RoW first came out.

It talks about Bo-Ado-Mishrim, and how that was probably what Roboniel was talking about, which would make sense, because BAM caused the False Desolation, and was one of the most important unmade.

That's what I personally think is what the Ado thing is.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

14 hours ago, AidenTollis said:

In some of the books, we see that Adonalsium is referred to as "Ado". This is an affectionate nickname one would give to a normal person, not an all encompassing omnipotent immortal being. Raboniel says it, and as said before, one should have a connection with that person to call them a nickname, at least be friends. We also have this small piece of evidence. "You will give your soul to me....You will join the Fused" [ROW p1177]. This shows that a human can become a fused and maybe the singers are just humans that evolved on Roshar to fit the landscape (a little fan theory of mine...) SO what if Raboniel knew "Ado" and after the shattering became one of the fused under Rayse's supervision etc. So, all I wanted to say is:

• Singers could be an evolved human variant
• Adonalsium could be just a normal guy with an incredible amount of Investiture
• Raboniel could have been Adonalsium's friend at some point.

 

Also, as an afterpoint, Raboniel could have wanted to betray Rayse because he killed her friend Adonalsium...

I love the idea, it just doesn't fit the known timelines. 

• Raboniel's grandmother was alive when humans came to Roshar, not Raboniel
• Humans came to Roshar having "destroyed" Ashyn... and brought Odium with them (maybe, but similar time frame regardless)
• Odium ... wasn't around until after the Shattering of Adonalsium.

I'm kind of with the Iriali on the whole "one broke apart to many to experience all things" theory. I know it's probably not true, but it's my head canon until we see Dragonsteel canon. 

[Frustration]

36 minutes ago, TheCollector said:

I've seen a thread talking about the "For Ado's Sake" thing, back when RoW first came out.

It talks about Bo-Ado-Mishrim, and how that was probably what Roboniel was talking about, which would make sense, because BAM caused the False Desolation, and was one of the most important unmade.

That's what I personally think is what the Ado thing is.

It's Adonalsium

Spoiler

AbjectBed3833

When Raboniel said "For Ado's sake," was she referring to Ba-Ado-Mishram or Adonalsium?

Brandon Sanderson

Adonalsium.

YouTube Livestream 39 (Feb. 1, 2022)

 

[+Invocation]

21 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Personally, my thought on the "Ado's sake" thing has been less that "Ado" is a nickname and more that "Adonalsium" is perhaps a compound word or a title of some sort, and she's just using a shortened version of the title/phrase that still has its divine connotations in that context (probably "the Light" or something similar, since "adoda" = "light", as seen in Adolin's name).

So what you're saying is that Adonalsium is cursed by in the same manner as the WoT Light?