Miyabi he/him Posted August 26, 2014 Report Share Posted August 26, 2014 I need your help to get all caught up on this page. I would have kept up all along, I would have read all the post, if I'd have taken just one second out of my busy life. But now I'm behind, and need some help. To know what the most recent post are that need to be read. .... If you sang the whole post, good on you. Really though, what are the most recent interviews/theories/posts that I should read to get caught up on the current theorycrafting? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted August 27, 2014 Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 (edited) Welcome back, Miyabi. For a start, this thread will get you caught up on just about everything we got gotten in the Words of Radiance release tour. On a narcissistic note, here's a set of my own theories that were affected by stuff after the WoR release. Of particular note is that ideals in the spiritual realm that affect magic are a thing. Edited August 27, 2014 by Kurkistan 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent he/him Posted August 27, 2014 Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 Once again I am reminded that we need a massive compendium / guide for getting started or caught up with all the Cosmere lore that comes from outside the books... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyabi he/him Posted August 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 Thank you, thank you. Argent, it's funny, because way back when that's where this site kind of started. A thread in the old forums meant to do just that, that became a wiki, that became this website. lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent he/him Posted August 27, 2014 Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 And we've acquired a fair bit of extra lore. We need a network of sites! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted August 27, 2014 Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 (edited) I'd go for a "Cosmere textbook" myself, if anyone were to write one. We could do a big shared Google Doc thing, if nothing else. I suppose the Coppermind handles that, it's not really organized in a fashion that would quickly teach someone new to the Cosmere everything (and it doesn't include much speculation/WoBs). Edited August 27, 2014 by Moogle 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyabi he/him Posted August 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 I'd go for a "Cosmere textbook" myself, if anyone were to write one. We could do a big shared Google Doc thing, if nothing else. I suppose the Coppermind handles that, it's not really organized in a fashion that would quickly teach someone new to the Cosmere everything (and it doesn't include much speculation/WoBs). Oh, that's a good idea. Especially considering the way Dogs allows you to highlight things and add annotations, that could be used to providing reference points. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent he/him Posted August 27, 2014 Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 I don't think a Wiki is a good way to learn about such a large number of concepts - the key to the Cosmere is understanding how things fit together. You need to know about the individual parts too, obviously, but the beauty is in the puzzle as a whole, and a Wiki can't show you the puzzle. A single (Google) document will work better, but it will be impractically long. A think something more akin to a textbook might work better - a collection of articles/documents, planned beforehand, and cross-referenced, with a vocabulary... Something like that might work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyabi he/him Posted August 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 I could see something organized in that fashion. Like one document would be an introduction; one about Hoid; one about Adonalsium; one about Physical/Spiritual/Mental; etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted August 27, 2014 Report Share Posted August 27, 2014 (edited) Re:Cosmere textbook Such a task would, in my opinion, be... non-trivial. Put aside for a moment the nigh-impossible task of keeping it consistently updated with new information as it comes out; and also put aside the difficult task of drawing a consistent line between reasonably solid speculation (which a startling amount of our "knowledge" is based on, when you get right down to it) and fact, not to mention the line between "good" speculation and bad. Beyond all of that, this would be hard to get down on paper (also put aside the need to formulate, follow, and enforce style guides if it's to be at all readable as a whole). I am, to retire my now-legendary humility for a moment, "the guy" when it comes to time bubbles. And it took me ~6 hours (IIRC) to write and edit a single medium-length exploration of the topic. This besides the thought/study and whatnot that went into it before, during, and after the process. Beyond being hard to write, this would also quite possibly be not-that-exciting to read. I'll bet you dollars to donuts (note: not an actual bet) that you (quite understandably, don't get me wrong) didn't pause for 20 minutes to read through that post I just linked to. And that's just one topic that's relatively ill-defined in books/WoB's and has little direct impact on other topics. I'll humbly play the role of Debbie Downer here, then, and suggest that such an effort is unlikely to succeed in any meaningful way given the challenges it faces and (to be somewhat harsh) how poorly the vast majority of us (myself very much included on this list) have even done contributing to our very own wiki. Edited August 27, 2014 by Kurkistan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent he/him Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 I think you are making more of this project than we - or at least I - are. I fully intend a good portion of it to be essentially a glorified list of WoBs. Let's run with the textbook metaphor (it is a metaphor, isn't it?) for a moment. If the first chapter is about the Cosmere - and I think it should be - then I imagine something like a paragraph or two explaining the Cosmere itself (briefly mentioning Shards, Shardworlds, and Realmatics). Then another paragraph or two about each one of the parenthesized entries, all linked and cited when necessary. And then some indeterminate amount of WoBs that are relevant to at least one of the chapter topics, but couldn't fit in the narrative well enough. Then we explore each Shardworld, because I think that makes sense to most, if not all, readers. Words of Brandon would, of course, accompany the appropriate sections (e.g. we would include all the relevant details about how the different Metallic Arts work after the section on Scadrial). Cross-world references (e.g. the identities of the three worldhoppers from Ishikk's (?) interlude) could be included either in the section of their "viewpoint" world (so, Roshar in this case), marked appropriately, or in a separate section after all the Shardworlds' ones. Then, once all that's done, we can cover the Cosmere again, if necessary, but now in greater depth, because the reader is caught up on all the specific worlds' details. We can also have links to the best supported theories here and there, but I would probably limit their number for various reasons. So no, the way I imagine it, it's nowhere near impossible. Difficult, sure, but absolutely doable by a few people who have nothing better to do 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan he/him Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Yeah, "textbook" is a metaphor. Sorry, I guess "down on paper" might have implied that I was taking it a tad literally... As you outline it it does sound a bit less complex, but still... still quite complex. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyabi he/him Posted August 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 It would be something that would require a number of people working in tandem to keep updated and working properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent he/him Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 The bulk of the effort would be in the beginning, with surges whenever there is a major new release, as that's when we tend to get people asking questions during signings. Outside of that, with no new lore, the thing would be just sitting there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moogle Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 (edited) Honestly, I'd like a full textbook. As Kurk says, it would be an insane task however. As more of an idea, we could definitely make it as more of a quick summary to everything we know, link a bunch of WoBs (as Argent says), and generally make an "index" of pages to read on the Coppermind/the forums here. Just constructing a table of contents for an in-depth introduction to the Cosmere, and then filling out the "textbook" with links to the stuff already written on those things, should prove to be a worthwhile and doable task. Any newcomer could just spend a few hours going through the links in order. Edited August 28, 2014 by Moogle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent he/him Posted August 28, 2014 Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 The reason I avoid considering the idea of an actual textbook, be it on paper or digital, is because our knowledge is really incomplete at this stage. I mean, none of Brandon's series are even finished! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyabi he/him Posted August 28, 2014 Author Report Share Posted August 28, 2014 Well let's dabble around and make a few things and see if we can start something. What are people's email address. I'll invite everyone to a Google Doc who wants to participate and we can just see where it goes, or if it dies out after a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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