Thoughts on "Tress of the Emerald Sea"

[Vin(Diesel)]

1. So if Hoid is an Elantrian now, can he stop glowing if he wants to? Will it be hard for him to hide? Seems like glowing uncontrollably would really change his MO.
2. Turning someone into a rat seems like a different kind of magic from what we've seen in the Cosmere so far. Is that just a standard Elantrian ability? If so, dang, Hoid is going to be practically unstoppable wherever he can draw a big map.
3. Hoid said that he and sixteen other people told someone "It's for your own good." I guess they were speaking to Adonalsium at the Shattering, though they could have been speaking (metaphorically) to the Cosmere as a whole. Why would the Shattering have been for Adonalsium's own good?
4. I liked that the story wasn't just "Sometimes the princess does the rescuing." That is no longer a clever twist. The end of this story was. 
5. Will the duke's nephew still be his heir? That seems legally doubtful.
6. Silver seems to have the ability to thwart or kill living Investiture around the Cosmere - Threnody, Roshar, and now Lumar. 
7. I want to see more types of spores and their uses. Or the aethers the spores are connected to. 
8. What was Xisis's real reason for letting Tress go? 
9. Tress mentions death himself with nails in his eyes. Those Scadrians must get around, huh? 

[+robardin he/him]

16 minutes ago, Vin(Diesel) said:

1. So if Hoid is an Elantrian now, can he stop glowing if he wants to? Will it be hard for him to hide? Seems like glowing uncontrollably would really change his MO.
2. Turning someone into a rat seems like a different kind of magic from what we've seen in the Cosmere so far. Is that just a standard Elantrian ability? If so, dang, Hoid is going to be practically unstoppable wherever he can draw a big map.
3. Hoid said that he and sixteen other people told someone "It's for your own good." I guess they were speaking to Adonalsium at the Shattering, though they could have been speaking (metaphorically) to the Cosmere as a whole. Why would the Shattering have been for Adonalsium's own good?
4. I liked that the story wasn't just "Sometimes the princess does the rescuing." That is no longer a clever twist. The end of this story was. 
5. Will the duke's nephew still be his heir? That seems legally doubtful.
6. Silver seems to have the ability to thwart or kill living Investiture around the Cosmere - Threnody, Roshar, and now Lumar. 
7. I want to see more types of spores and their uses. Or the aethers the spores are connected to. 
8. What was Xisis's real reason for letting Tress go? 
9. Tress mentions death himself with nails in his eyes. Those Scadrians must get around, huh? 

Addressing just the boldfaced points you raise, for now:

I suspect AonDor lets you do nearly anything, including transforming/transfiguring another person. The really unique thing is that Riina's magical transformations were reversible, which something like a hemalurgic Ruining is not. So they are more like a really long-lasting Soulstamping, one that doesn't require plausibility to stick but just plain ol' AonDor.

Why might the Shattering have been in Adonalsium's best interests ("own good")? Maybe the Iriali have it right, about the One, eh? Which decided to become Many, to experience all things, before reassemblying into the One.

Whether or not Charlie could assert his claim on being heir to the dukedom of The Rock, at the end of TotES he clearly has no desire to do so. He's set sail with Captain Tress as her valet, though they may put in at The Rock to say hello to Tress' family every once in a while.

If anything, Charlie probably has a vested interest in making sure his chinny cousin lives to inherit the title and to have an heir of his own, lest the King at some point require Charlie to take up the position or something.

I do wonder what Tress will rename the Crow's Song. Maybe The Rat's Curse?

[dashardie]

1 minute ago, robardin said:

I do wonder what Tress will rename the Crow's Song. Maybe The Rat's Curse?

At the end of TOTES, it's stated that they sold the Crow's Song and bought a new ship, which was names The Two Cups or something like that.

[+robardin he/him]

Just now, dashardie said:

At the end of TOTES, it's stated that they sold the Crow's Song and bought a new ship, which was names The Two Cups or something like that.

Ahhh right! I should have re-read the ending when I asked that question, LOL.

[StormingTexan he/him]

3 hours ago, robardin said:

I suspect AonDor lets you do nearly anything, including transforming/transfiguring another person. The really unique thing is that Riina's magical transformations were reversible, which something like a hemalurgic Ruining is not. So they are more like a really long-lasting Soulstamping, one that doesn't require plausibility to stick but just plain ol' AonDor.

It was weird because it wasn't really reversible unless you fulfilled the obligation of the "curse" but Hoid was able to "re-write" the curse essentially. It actually sounded more like forging than using AonDor. It has been a long long time since I've read Elantris though and honestly we really have very limited on-screen use of AonDor so maybe just haven't been exposed enough. Elantrian magic is way more interesting and seemingly powerful to me after reading this and TLM. 

4 hours ago, Vin(Diesel) said:

So if Hoid is an Elantrian now, can he stop glowing if he wants to? Will it be hard for him to hide? Seems like glowing uncontrollably would really change his MO.

Great question. Could he just lightweave a disguise to mask it when he wants to? 

[+robardin he/him]

8 minutes ago, StormingTexan said:

It was weird because it wasn't really reversible unless you fulfilled the obligation of the "curse" but Hoid was able to "re-write" the curse essentially. It actually sounded more like forging than using AonDor. It has been a long long time since I've read Elantris though and honestly we really have very limited on-screen use of AonDor so maybe just haven't been exposed enough. Elantrian magic is way more interesting and seemingly powerful to me after reading this and TLM. 

Great question. Could he just lightweave a disguise to mask it when he wants to? 

I'm starting to wonder what the limitations on it are. It feels a bit OP otherwise, if it can do anything and the effects are permanent/ongoing... Are there at least different "power levels" of users, like Riina is especially powerful due to her age/length of time with the powers?

In Elantris, when we first see AonDor in action, the big limitation is the requirement for the Elantrian to be physically in or near Elantris - the further away, the weaker the effects or the harder it'd be to do. Like when Raoden teleports to Teoras to help head off the Fjordell invasion of Sarene's homeland, it was easy for him to use AonDor to teleport there (though he needed to know the exact distance), but it was so far away that he couldn't effectively do the same to get back (or to use AonDor in combat).

We had WoBs that there were ways around that limitation, and saw that the Ire had figured at least some of that workaround in MB:SH. What Riina does on Lumar is even more like Elantris-level use of AonDor. In which case... Whoa.

I would have expected some limitation like "needs feeding Investiture to maintain the effect", the way a Soulstamp needs daily renewing, or a Lightweaving needs feeding Stormlight. Like, if it meant Riina had a constant draw on her "bandwidth" to AonDor (similar to having a background process running on your computer that sucks up 10% of your CPU/memory), where she could only juggle so many curses like that at a time.

But no, the curse kept operating even after Riina admitted defeat and left the planet, and she and Hoid agreed that there was no way for the curse on Charlie to end except by meeting the built-in conditions (which Hoid, however, could modify enough to make possible). If it represented a "constant draw" on her abilities, you'd think Riina would have been motivated to do something similar, since she wouldn't be around to enjoy seeing a cursed Charlie suffer any more anyway.

[RedBlue she/her]

12 hours ago, Vin(Diesel) said:

1. So if Hoid is an Elantrian now, can he stop glowing if he wants to? Will it be hard for him to hide? Seems like glowing uncontrollably would really change his MO.
2. Turning someone into a rat seems like a different kind of magic from what we've seen in the Cosmere so far. Is that just a standard Elantrian ability? If so, dang, Hoid is going to be practically unstoppable wherever he can draw a big map.
3. Hoid said that he and sixteen other people told someone "It's for your own good." I guess they were speaking to Adonalsium at the Shattering, though they could have been speaking (metaphorically) to the Cosmere as a whole. Why would the Shattering have been for Adonalsium's own good?
4. I liked that the story wasn't just "Sometimes the princess does the rescuing." That is no longer a clever twist. The end of this story was. 
5. Will the duke's nephew still be his heir? That seems legally doubtful.
6. Silver seems to have the ability to thwart or kill living Investiture around the Cosmere - Threnody, Roshar, and now Lumar. 
7. I want to see more types of spores and their uses. Or the aethers the spores are connected to. 
8. What was Xisis's real reason for letting Tress go? 
9. Tress mentions death himself with nails in his eyes. Those Scadrians must get around, huh? 

2) I’m pretty sure turning someone into a rat is really advanced, but technically possible for anyone with the ability to use Aons, access to enough Investiture, knowledge, and skill. From what we’ve seen of Elantrian abilities, they can use Aons as a kind of programming language.

I assume Riina’s ‘curses’ were just really, really complex ‘programs’ written with Aons. I would be interested to find out where the Investiture was coming from.

8) I got the impression that Xisis let Tress go because she was both competent and determined to escape. Even if she didn’t stand a real chance, escape attempts would be a bother for him to deal with. Crow would be less disruptive to his work.

(It’s unclear why he needed an ‘excuse’.)

9) I think the mention of Death was a ‘localisation’. Hoid is translating the characters’ dialogue into the language his audience speaks, and most translators will switch out culturally loaded phrases to equivalent phrases in the target audience’s culture. So here, Tress really made a reference to some local belief, but Hoid changed it to an Ironeyes reference so he wouldn’t have to stop and explain.

That makes more sense to me than a fragment of Scadrian religion winding up on Lumar, stripped of all other context.

[StormingTexan he/him]

15 hours ago, robardin said:

I would have expected some limitation like "needs feeding Investiture to maintain the effect", the way a Soulstamp needs daily renewing, or a Lightweaving needs feeding Stormlight. Like, if it meant Riina had a constant draw on her "bandwidth" to AonDor (similar to having a background process running on your computer that sucks up 10% of your CPU/memory), where she could only juggle so many curses like that at a time.

 

Yes this is the part I am really perplexed on. It made more sense with what we saw in MBSH and TLM because they had the "Dor in a jar" but we do not really see her source of investiture here. I had always perceived AonDor as location limited as you described and I guess I always assumed limited to Elantris but clearly from what we have seen in these three books it is not that limited and at the moment does seem a little OP. 

[lacrossedeamon]

On 1/5/2023 at 0:54 PM, Vin(Diesel) said:

1. So if Hoid is an Elantrian now, can he stop glowing if he wants to? Will it be hard for him to hide? Seems like glowing uncontrollably would really change his MO.
2. Turning someone into a rat seems like a different kind of magic from what we've seen in the Cosmere so far. Is that just a standard Elantrian ability? If so, dang, Hoid is going to be practically unstoppable wherever he can draw a big map.
3. Hoid said that he and sixteen other people told someone "It's for your own good." I guess they were speaking to Adonalsium at the Shattering, though they could have been speaking (metaphorically) to the Cosmere as a whole. Why would the Shattering have been for Adonalsium's own good?
4. I liked that the story wasn't just "Sometimes the princess does the rescuing." That is no longer a clever twist. The end of this story was. 
5. Will the duke's nephew still be his heir? That seems legally doubtful.
6. Silver seems to have the ability to thwart or kill living Investiture around the Cosmere - Threnody, Roshar, and now Lumar. 
7. I want to see more types of spores and their uses. Or the aethers the spores are connected to. 
8. What was Xisis's real reason for letting Tress go? 
9. Tress mentions death himself with nails in his eyes. Those Scadrians must get around, huh? 

1) Probably not given his various methods of Lightweaving and Identity manipulation

2) Yeah seems pretty powerful but less powerful than making someone else an Elantrian without having to go through the efforts of Soulstamping or Hemalurgy.

3) I assume it was more for a Cosmere as a whole thing.

4) Yeah it was good.

5) It's possible with the changes to how the island works the "duchy" no longer exists and the title revoked.

6) I still think something else is need in regards to Spren. Otherwise Raboniel wouldn't have been looking so hard for Anti-light; she'd have just used silver.

7) Well going from AoN there is also Ferrous and Bestarin which is metal and flesh respectively. While Amberite turned into Roseite I'm not sure if the sunlight Aether used for heating is the same as AoN's Illuminous Aether which was paired and on par with Midnight Aether. There is a theory that aside from Midnight and its counterpart the other Aether correspond to Vorin's Ten Essences: Zephyr/Zephyr, Verdant/Pulp, Roseite/Lucentia, Sunlight/Spark, possibly Crimson/Blood, Ferrous/Nail, Bestarin/Sinew and the other three Essences being the final three unknown Aethers.

8) Maybe he could tap Fortune somehow and did see Tress defeating the Sorceress.

9) Khriss says as much in TLM's Ars Arcanum

On 1/6/2023 at 1:17 AM, RedBlue said:

9) I think the mention of Death was a ‘localisation’. Hoid is translating the characters’ dialogue into the language his audience speaks, and most translators will switch out culturally loaded phrases to equivalent phrases in the target audience’s culture. So here, Tress really made a reference to some local belief, but Hoid changed it to an Ironeyes reference so he wouldn’t have to stop and explain.

That makes more sense to me than a fragment of Scadrian religion winding up on Lumar, stripped of all other context.

I don't think that's the case. As stated above Khriss mentions that Marsh is being mentioned on other worlds and she doesn't know why or how. This coming out right after seems to intentionally be hammering in this detail. And we know Lumar seemingly gets a lot of random worldhoppers including a Scadrian in the story.

Also Hoid seems to be talking to First of the Sunners given all his narrative asides and while do their recent contact with Scadrians would also let Marsh enter their mythology I assume if it was a Connection translation it would go to something native to First of the Sunner culture rather than a religious import.

[BogJuan]

On 1/5/2023 at 0:11 PM, robardin said:

Addressing just the boldfaced points you raise, for now:

I suspect AonDor lets you do nearly anything, including transforming/transfiguring another person. The really unique thing is that Riina's magical transformations were reversible, which something like a hemalurgic Ruining is not. So they are more like a really long-lasting Soulstamping, one that doesn't require plausibility to stick but just plain ol' AonDor.

Why might the Shattering have been in Adonalsium's best interests ("own good")? Maybe the Iriali have it right, about the One, eh? Which decided to become Many, to experience all things, before reassemblying into the One.

Whether or not Charlie could assert his claim on being heir to the dukedom of The Rock, at the end of TotES he clearly has no desire to do so. He's set sail with Captain Tress as her valet, though they may put in at The Rock to say hello to Tress' family every once in a while.

If anything, Charlie probably has a vested interest in making sure his chinny cousin lives to inherit the title and to have an heir of his own, lest the King at some point require Charlie to take up the position or something.

I do wonder what Tress will rename the Crow's Song. Maybe The Rat's Curse?

Don’t forget. Tress’ family is on her ship.

[+robardin he/him]

6 minutes ago, BogJuan said:

Don’t forget. Tress’ family is on her ship.

Ah right. So no reason really ever to return to the Rock, I suppose!

[Trutharchivist he/him]

On 08/01/2023 at 0:18 PM, lacrossedeamon said:

7) Well going from AoN there is also Ferrous and Bestarin which is metal and flesh respectively. While Amberite turned into Roseite I'm not sure if the sunlight Aether used for heating is the same as AoN's Illuminous Aether which was paired and on par with Midnight Aether. There is a theory that aside from Midnight and its counterpart the other Aether correspond to Vorin's Ten Essences: Zephyr/Zephyr, Verdant/Pulp, Roseite/Lucentia, Sunlight/Spark, possibly Crimson/Blood, Ferrous/Nail, Bestarin/Sinew and the other three Essences being the final three unknown Aethers.

 

Hey, that's a theory I thought of, too! But Crimson being blood doesn't make sense to me - I mean, those are spikes, not blood. I think the comparison to AoN is far less prominent. I mean, Night did have the ability to create Midnight Essence-like monsters, but it also had teleportation of oneself and enhancement of aethers relating to its god. I don't think this is how things will work here...

Anyway, I still wonder about how the metal will work - we've seen that metals affect aethers in ways that relate to their allomantic use. And the liquid essences are kind of problematic. Also, there are twelve moons, not ten, so there will be two exceptions to this comparison either way. Midnight, I think, will be one of them.

[Leuthie]

On 1/5/2023 at 9:54 AM, Vin(Diesel) said:

1. So if Hoid is an Elantrian now, can he stop glowing if he wants to? Will it be hard for him to hide? Seems like glowing uncontrollably would really change his MO.
2. Turning someone into a rat seems like a different kind of magic from what we've seen in the Cosmere so far. Is that just a standard Elantrian ability? If so, dang, Hoid is going to be practically unstoppable wherever he can draw a big map.
3. Hoid said that he and sixteen other people told someone "It's for your own good." I guess they were speaking to Adonalsium at the Shattering, though they could have been speaking (metaphorically) to the Cosmere as a whole. Why would the Shattering have been for Adonalsium's own good?
4. I liked that the story wasn't just "Sometimes the princess does the rescuing." That is no longer a clever twist. The end of this story was. 
5. Will the duke's nephew still be his heir? That seems legally doubtful.
6. Silver seems to have the ability to thwart or kill living Investiture around the Cosmere - Threnody, Roshar, and now Lumar. 
7. I want to see more types of spores and their uses. Or the aethers the spores are connected to. 
8. What was Xisis's real reason for letting Tress go? 
9. Tress mentions death himself with nails in his eyes. Those Scadrians must get around, huh? 

In Tress, Hoid says:

Spoiler

"I've heard those words. I've said those words. The words that proclaim, in bald-faced arrogance, "I don't trust you to make your own decisions." The words we pretend will soften the blow, yet instead layer condescension on top of already existent pain. Like dirt on a corpse.

Oh yes. I've said those words. I said them with sixteen other people, in fact." - Hoid, Tress of the Emerald Sea

They didn't tell Adonalsium "it's for your own good". They said "We don't trust you to make your own decisions." Makes much more sense.

[The Unknown Ajah he/him]

On 3/24/2023 at 1:06 PM, Leuthie said:

In Tress, Hoid says:

  Reveal hidden contents

"I've heard those words. I've said those words. The words that proclaim, in bald-faced arrogance, "I don't trust you to make your own decisions." The words we pretend will soften the blow, yet instead layer condescension on top of already existent pain. Like dirt on a corpse.

Oh yes. I've said those words. I said them with sixteen other people, in fact." - Hoid, Tress of the Emerald Sea

They didn't tell Adonalsium "it's for your own good". They said "We don't trust you to make your own decisions." Makes much more sense.

That's not correct. He says that the words "it's for your own good" proclaim "we don't trust you to make your own decisions." Here's the full passage:

Quote

“So far as I can tell,” he said, his voice growing very soft. “I’m sorry, Tress. I can’t let you face the Sorceress. I can’t. For your own good, you see.”

Ah, those words.

I’ve heard those words. I’ve said those words. The words that proclaim, in bald-faced arrogance, “I don’t trust you to make your own decisions.” The words we pretend will soften the blow, yet instead layer condescension on top of already existent pain. Like dirt on a corpse.

Oh yes. I’ve said those words. I said them with sixteen other people, in fact.

 

[Leuthie]

25 minutes ago, The Known Novel said:

That's not correct. He says that the words "it's for your own good" proclaim "we don't trust you to make your own decisions." Here's the full passage:

 

I know the whole passage. I quoted most of it.

You don't tell someone you're about to kill "it's for your own good". Charlie said it because he was trying to save Tress. That makes sense. Telling Adonalsium "it's for your own good" before killing it doesn't make sense. So I'm reasoning that he's drawing a parallel between what Charlie said to Tress and what the 17 said to Adonalsium, not saying that the 17 said "it's for your own good" to Adonalsium. You can't know that I'm not correct. You can disagree, but that's completely different.

[The Unknown Ajah he/him]

38 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

I know the whole passage. I quoted most of it.

You don't tell someone you're about to kill "it's for your own good". Charlie said it because he was trying to save Tress. That makes sense. Telling Adonalsium "it's for your own good" before killing it doesn't make sense. So I'm reasoning that he's drawing a parallel between what Charlie said to Tress and what the 17 said to Adonalsium, not saying that the 17 said "it's for your own good" to Adonalsium. You can't know that I'm not correct. You can disagree, but that's completely different.

That's the mystery here.

But let me explain fully how the sentence isn't structured to apply what your saying.

“So far as I can tell,” he said, his voice growing very soft. “I’m sorry, Tress. I can’t let you face the Sorceress. I can’t. For your own good, you see.”

Ah, those words.

I’ve heard those words. I’ve said those words. This is the first bit, before "I don't trust you" is ever said, Hoid says that he has said those words, referencing For you own good. If he was saying what you claim, he'd say something along the lines "something very similar to those words." The words that proclaim, in bald-faced arrogance, “I don’t trust you to make your own decisions.” This is him saying that the "it's for your own good is proclaiming "I don't trust you," not that he has said "I don't trust you. The words we pretend will soften the blow, yet instead layer condescension on top of already existent pain. And this is the only part that comes after the comparison, as such it's the only part that could logically be referencing those words, yet how could the equivalent of 'I think you're stupid,' ever be intended to soften a blow? "It's for your own good" is used in that manner all the time, but, like he says, really means nothing of the sort. Like dirt on a corpse.

Oh yes. I’ve said those words. I said them with sixteen other people, in fact. So, since none of those sentences can logically be referencing the "I don't trust you," sentence, why would this one sentence go against the grain of the rest of the paragraph, referencing a throwaway line instead of the single thing he's been talking about for the last two paragraphs?

But yes, technically, I can't know you're correct until Dragonsteel comes out, pretty I can be pretty sure that you are.

And, you yourself presented your own opinion as fact to the original person, so you can't fault me for doing the same thing but with moe evidence behind it.

[Elhokar'sHat]

At the end of Mistborn book 7 (I think) it says that the idea of Death having spikes through his eyes is actually common in several different places in the Cosmere, with the narrator being surprised on how well the idea has spread.