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Zas678

By Zas678
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Zas678
Zas678

Hey! So I thought that it would be a good idea to have a thread that was open to any question about Brandon Sanderson's work. Doesn't matter if it's been asked 1,024 times, or if it's the first time i

Aether
Aether

It was not mentioned in any book that I remember, but Brandon offered it up freely when asked:  

Commander Spoonface
Commander Spoonface

Like this?

Corax

Corax

Posted
Posted

Aha! The perfect way to poke around ideas without having to read every dang thread on the forum first!

 

Put on your aluminum foil hats and brace yourselves, because I've been making crackpot theories for ages and only recently got the nerve to join the forum. Even simply referring me to pertinent threads would be greatly appreciated.

 

1) Has anyone worked out any further information on the Ten Passions and their relation to Thaylen (and other) culture? And potential interconnection to Navani's emotion fabrial? For instance, Rysn swears "oh Craving Passion of Need." 

 

2) Is there speculation on whether Justice was Splintered on Threnody? Is Bavadin's Shard is Schism?

 

3) If the Heralds that defected *are* the Unmade? (I don't recall either way if Brandon's said if they were originally human... if they weren't, that might be part of how Odium would be bound....) 

 

4) Has anyone deconstructed what we can from the known Horneater words?

 

5) Is Frost mentioned in any published works? (I know nearly nothing of him). Or is he only really in Dragonsteel?

 

6) Has anyone else noticed the similarities in the Aons for Beauty, Flower and Endowment? Do we think other Shards are hidden in Aons? (Preservation=Edo, Ruin=Ire, Endowment=Eshe, Honor=Mai, Cultivation=Ial, Odium=Reo)? Maybe this is a stretch, but it's a fun one. Has it already been discussed?

 

7) Is it thought that Wyrn is a Sliver of Dominion?

 

8) What color do Aimians bleed?

 

9) Were there sapient spren before Honor was Splintered?

 

10) Do we know more about the Ten Fools than about Cabine and Eshu?

 

11) Do we know that the only Shards that were on Roshar were Honor, Cultivation and Odium? Or was there a fourth, 'native' Stard?

 

12) Is 'Taln' some poor guy that's channeling the actual Talenel still in Damnation by simply holding his blade?

 

13) Is there a known significance to spren's colors?

 

14) Is Cusicesh the Protector a giant rainspren? O.o

 

15) Do we know where the Iriali came from?

 

16) Do all Aimians, or at least Siah Aimians cast odd shadows, or is his Shadow's behavior similar to Jasnah's.

 

 

I guess that's all off the top of my head. I know it's a huge splat of randomness, but I figure some things might at least have been already discussed somewhere in Forumland. 

 

Thanks, folks!

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Moogle

Moogle

Posted
Posted

...

1. Nope, no theories on this I know of.

2. Threnody doesn't have a Shard (though it may have in the past, it seems massively unlikely due to no Shardic magic systems - the Evil is not a Shard). Bavadin we don't know; have you read White Sand? If so, I'll add you to the private PM conversation. There's a few theories.

3. The Heralds are still kicking (as far as we know), and are almost definitely not the Unmade. Rlain claims the Parshendi gods (who are the Unmade, it seems) were those who gave of themselves to destroy at the end of WoR. We know that there's a fixed number of Unmade, and it's not ten, through WoB.

4. Not as far as I know.

5. Not in any published works. Dragonsteel and a few WoBs are all that mention the name to my knowledge. I haven't read Dragonsteel.

6. There's been mention made of the 'shash' glyph being in Warbreaker and in SA. Ati the Aon is not pronounced like Ati the holder of Ruin by WoB.

7. The Wyrn is probably not a Splinter (which is non-human) but the Skaze (evil Dominion-version Seons) are, and they have a lot of influence on Fjordell.

8. Not known.

9. Radiants existed pre-Splintering, so yes. Honor's Splintering was responsible for creating a bunch of new spren though.

10. Not to my knowledge.

11. We know there's only the three. Honor + Cultivation came first, and Odium came later. There's not a fourth.

12. We don't know. I am disinclined to believe that the Blade he had was an Honorblade (if it was, it should have changed his eyecolor like Szeth's did, but this is just my line of thinking). Some discussion on Taln's likelyhood of being an imposter is here.

13. Nope. Radiant spren seem to go after the color of their order's gemstone when they can, though, at least when in Blade form. (Pattern glows garnet, Syl blue). We have example of spren outside of Blade form not obeying the pattern: Truthwatcher spren aren't emerald.

14. Unlikely. Some theorize him to be one of the Adonalsium-spren.

15. No, though it seems humanity on Roshar came from another planet, fleeing Odium.

16. The shadow thing seems related to something's closeness to the Cognitive or something. The shadow thing should be a general feature for Aimians, as Axies is not irregular to our knowledge. The reddit AMA had a question in the recent past where Brandon mentions all the Aimians are long-lived and tend to devote themselves to one huge task to avoid going too loopy. There's a WoB on the shadow thing I can't find, can somebody help me out here?

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Corax

Corax

Posted
Posted

I'll clarify some things I said in a little, 'cause I think I was misunderstood on a couple of questions... I have, Indeed Read White Sand, so I'd love to join that discussion. :) I'll concoct a better reply when I'm not just on my phone. :D

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Confused

Confused

Posted
Posted

Civilizations rise and fall, and technological "progress" is not always in one direction. (There's a reason the "Middle Ages" are also called the "Dark Ages," following the fall of the Roman Empire.) Time lapses of 4,500 to 5,000 years don't necessarily mean progress or decline, but some of each.

 

BUT - I think Honor deliberately slowed down innovation, perhaps to limit humans' ability to destroy themselves and others. (This is an important theme of Joe Abercrombie's "Half a..." series.) "Honor" as a concept is conservative, relying on values rather than law to establish social cohesion. Honor binds, including binding technological growth.

 

You all know I think Honor created Desolations to prune human populations and reduce Odium's influence on them. Taln in his conversation with Shallan says a main purpose of the Knights Radiant was to restore technology lost in each preceding Desolation. While Desolations were ongoing, human technological progress was necessarily limited.

 

In the 4,500 years after Aharietam, there have been no Desolations. Human technology should have advanced beyond new-fangled fabrials and steel. It hasn't. (4,500 years ago on Earth, the dominant civilizations were Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China, all based on the surpluses created from fertile flood plains.)

 

I think Honor found other ways to slow down technological progress until Odium killed him. We don't know when that happened, but it was after the Recreance, which occurred after Aharietam. My speculation, therefore, is that humans started expanding their technological base AFTER Honor's death. "Recent" technology growth on Roshar occurred over a much shorter time period than 4,500 years.

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Oudeis

Oudeis he/him

Posted
Posted (edited)

In the 4,500 years after Aharietam, there have been no Desolations. Human technology should have advanced beyond new-fangled fabrials and steel. It hasn't. (4,500 years ago on Earth, the dominant civilizations were Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China, all based on the surpluses created from fertile flood plains.)

 

I'm confused by one thing... humanity at the time of Aharietam were wandering around in furs with weapons cast from metal they had no more access to. Are you saying this is more advanced than Meopotamia was at the time? Considering the devastation that would be wrought to any burgeoning civilization by a once-a-week storm greater than 99% of the storms Earth has seen during humanity's occupation of the planet, I see no reason to think human civilization is less far along that we'd have expected. I don't think they're up to computers, but they're not much further than, say, 200 years before us, now? Certainly within the margin of error when we're talking millenia.

 

...Though it only just occurs to me, 4.5K Rosharan years works out to closer to 5K Earth, so maybe they are pretty far behind... still, Highstorms. I'm not convinced that human civilization is behind where we'd expect without other outside influence.

 

EDIT: Not sure when Dalinar's visions actually fall, but the woman in Starfalls literally couldn't understand the idea of a human cutting a cave out of the ground.

Edited by Oudeis
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Dunkum

Dunkum he/him

Posted
Posted

and don't forget that there is no soil anywhere except Shinovar (that we are aware of).  I don't know how much food the rockbuds and such can provide, but I would bet that it is probably relatively small compared to the more fertile areas on Earth, all of which would probably slow down technological process.  also, don't forget that even today there is still the occasional Amazon tribe that apparently hasn't had any contact with modernity, so it isn't like it is a given that after 5000 years everyone will have our level of technology.  even here that hasn't happened.

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Oudeis

Oudeis he/him

Posted
Posted

Eh, considering the nutritional properties of crem, I'd be surprised if the weekly influx of their equivalent of fertile land literally inundating the entirety of the continent didn't mean that food wasn't typically scarce. Recall that Kaladin's family found those roots, not the tastiest thing, but nourishing and literally a weed that other people got rid of. They might not be able to farm like earth, but life will exist wherever life can. Where life can't, this sometimes takes longer. (Credit to Terry Pratchett for that line, btw.)

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Hoid Is Dead

Hoid Is Dead

Posted
Posted (edited)

My question is: Why on Roshar, after Aharietiam, when they had 4500 year of rest from desolations, they didn't do much progress with technology? And I'm not just talking about the bronze-iron-steel-steam-electricity progress we know from our (and Scadrial) history. I meaprogress like in fabrial creation and soulcasting. In WoK and WoR we see that Navani herself was involved in creation of a couple of new types of fabrials. It sn eems like if almost no progress has been done for thousands of years, until several decades ago when Navani went into fabrial-making business. Does Roshar lack coal to start an industrial revolution? Is fabrial-making that hard and Navani is a Tesla-level genius?

 

I'm not an expert but in my opinion, war is the reason why humanity progresses. In this case, in the shattered plain, the spheres are "flowing", thanks to the chasm fiends, so near infinite income. With this resources, you can support the researches. Another one is that they needed something new to defeat the parshendi. So they are now forced to think on how to make new things. Iirc, Navani doesn't have the time to research based on WOR. The ardents are limited in ideas cause of their religion (Sould Casting is very limited thanks to their GOD can only make this things etc.). Keep in mind that this is based on my memory, lol. feel free to correct me. So like Tesla, even if you are a genius, you still needed someone to sponsor you. 

 

And I'm not just talking about the bronze-iron-steel-steam-electricity progress we know from our (and Scadrial) history

"Kalak will teach you to cast bronze, if you have forgotten this. We will Soulcast blocks of metal directly for you. I wish we could teach you steel, but casting is so much easier than forging, and you must have something we can produce quickly. Your stone tools will not serve against what is to come" - quote from 1-7 taln wordss of radiance

 

Long story short, they didnt know/forget how to cast steel. So, electricity will be expensive, because it would be underground (cause of highstorms). No time to research electricity because they already have fabrials. 

 

Again, please correct me if I am wrong.

Edited by Hoid Is Dead
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Young Bard

Young Bard he/him

Posted
Posted

While I haven't read White Sand, (I was going to e-mail for it, but then the graphic novel announcement came out and I decided to wait for that instead) I think it would be easier just to have a hidden thread that only the people who are on the list can see. A bit like the Shardhunt thread, but only for specific people who are on the list. Is this possible, without a complete overhaul of the site?

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Moogle

Moogle

Posted
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While I haven't read White Sand, (I was going to e-mail for it, but then the graphic novel announcement came out and I decided to wait for that instead) I think it would be easier just to have a hidden thread that only the people who are on the list can see. A bit like the Shardhunt thread, but only for specific people who are on the list. Is this possible, without a complete overhaul of the site?

 

Plans are in the works for a White Sand private board, as far as I know.

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Moogle

Moogle

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Posted

Why would there be interference? If two shards can fit in one person I'm sure two splinters will.

 

There's always interference with Investiture. With the Sazed thing, it was special. WoB:

Argent

Can a Returned like Lightsong go to Roshar and form a bond with a spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Investiture interferes with other Investiture.

Argent

And they have a lot of it.

Brandon Sanderson

And they have a lot of it. That is not-- It's not completely-- For instance you can Push on Invested metal, but it's hard. There's a resistance, the more Invested the harder-- So a bond for instance-- forming a bond-- It's, yeah-- It can be done--

I mean Sazed took two of the powers up, right? But I kind of imagine what he did as a nuclear reaction. Where breaking an atom is hard, unless you are in the middle of a sun. And he was in the middle of the sun. At that point--

Argent

There was a lot of stuff going on around him that facilitated.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, definitely. But when you've got that much power you'll-- In other words if there is a lot of power going around, these things become easier.

Argent

So, possible but difficult is--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

 

(source)

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ParadoxicalZen

ParadoxicalZen he/him

Posted
Posted

 

There's always interference with Investiture. With the Sazed thing, it was special. WoB:

 

(source)

 

I was are of that bit, was just curious if he could do it whilst his D-Breath was suppressed. it would actually be nice to know what is actually going on in that regard, does he still count as highly invested or is  he hiding/pushing the investiture elsewhere, perhaps into the Cognitive realm (that is so going on my list now)

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