The Grand Knell: Location Speculation (& Potential Calculations if possible)

[LockDown Ammo he/him]

So the name of Grand Knell was first mentioned in WaT Ch 11:

Quote

This device points to something far in the distance. Something the Sibling called ‘the Grand Knell, source of the Current, the death of a god.’ 

Currently there are 2 leading theories:

1. The first one is, that it is due to Honor's death. Supporting arguments - it says "a god".
2. The second one is that it is actually where Adonalsium died, as "the Current" through Shadesmar may be a cosmere wide phenomenon. It also says that it can be pointing towards the "sun" in Shadesmar which pulls everything towards it and would explain why its called the Current. There are also theories saying that the sun represents or is a like peek into Spiritual Realm as all Investiture is pulled towards it.

How to get the location of this place?

Well before it was named, we were given this info in Ch7 of WaT:

Quote

As long as we stay at forty-eight degrees from the baseline, we should be right on target.

This is what they use for navigating from Lasting Integrity to Azir. 48degrees from baseline. Using this we should be able to calculate 2 possible directions for the Grand Knell (as it does not state which direction from the baseline does it lie).

I am using this interactive map of Roshar as it gives me a general sense and latitudes and longitudes if needed for calculations.

Spoiler

I haven't run the actual numbers yet to see how the possible directions would look like (we can get every place lying in that direction using it). But I am currently estimating just 45 degrees on both sides in my head.

Analysis on Theory 1 (Honor):

So 1st theory, it points towards Honor's deathplace.
There were theories that Honor's death happened at Origin, well clearly its not in that direction (Edit: I ran the numbers the picture is in one of the followups and it definitely points to Origin but Honor still did not die there so no) but from WaT we do know what Honor's death does not in fact happen there.

Chapter 124 of WaT starts with him betraying Mishram, so probably at place where the betrayal took place. Then as the power is rejecting him, he tries to flee towards his nest with Cultivation.

Quote

I tried to sweep to our nest, to be with Kor, to beg her forgiveness. The power, however, began to separate from me. I formed as a human again and crashed down from the sky, through a forest of trees with limbs that pulled away from me. I was left lying in the underbrush—but with a hole straight toward the sky, cool moonlight playing on me as I was splayed among the snarls of writhing vines. A fallen god.

The nest is most probably in the Valley (or atleast nearby) as of her hiding there later and also due to this line in Ch 113 of WaT:

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I found her in our home on Roshar: the verdant explosion near the center of the continent. She called it our nest.

So where did Mishram's betrayal take place? Well Dalinar speculates about it in Ch 85 of WaT.

Quote

The landscape here was made up of many towering rock formations, reminding him of the place where the Heralds had abandoned their Blades. Perhaps this was the same region—with rocks like buildings, forming many canyons, small trees lining a stream that ran past behind Dalinar.

So assuming Dalinar's speculations are correct that means he died somewhere on the way in a forest from Shinovar to the Valley.
Now I will probably need to run the numbers and plot it on map as it is close.. (if someone else wants to they are more than welcome to try) but in rough estimations I would say there is probably very less chance.

 

Edit: After plotting the directions as shown in one followup below it does not point in that direction so definitely not Honor

Analysis on Theory 2 (Adonalsium):

So, if it like points in a random direction of no significance (which it seems to do to me) I would assume Adonalsium. Unless we get the location of Yolen on the star map I am afraid its not possible to trace it in that direction.(Edit: @alder24 found some proof which points against this in one of the followups below.)

The other thing is the "sun" in Shadesmar. This will require some research (again you are more than welcome to try) to comb through books to see if its direction respective to literally any known location. (I hope it is mentioned somewhere) Yes, even Mistborn works (I am assuming its direction is constant throughout, I have no reason not to. Its the most logical assumption) we can trace it back to how it would be on Roshar using our knowledge about how Scadrial's Cognitive Realm is oriented with respect to Roshar.

Any other theories, input, calculations I missed are welcome here.
 

Edited January 2, 2025 by LockDown Ammo
Updated info to show if something was disproven

[11thHerald]

Considering that the Current is capitalized, it may be that it's another of the old gods along with the Wind, Night, and Stones. 

[LockDown Ammo he/him]

2 hours ago, 11thHerald said:

Considering that the Current is capitalized, it may be that it's another of the old gods along with the Wind, Night, and Stones. 

I mean it feels weird that the Wind or someone else won't mention it as it mentioned other ancient sprens. I don't feel its a spren as the context of a god dying doesn't make sense with that. Anyhow we still need to try to pinpoint the place of the death of a god to figure out where it points.

[alder24]

21 hours ago, LockDown Ammo said:

It also says that it can be pointing towards the "sun" in Shadesmar which pulls everything towards it and would explain why its called the Current. 

Source on that please? The book doesn't say this.

[LockDown Ammo he/him]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Source on that please? The book doesn't say this.

My bad I didnt realize the point was not under the bullet point of theory. I have fixed it.

What I meant to say was that the theory suggests it could also be pointing towards the sun and not that it was something in the book.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

The important thing seems to me that you stay at a certain heading. The distance between Azimir and Lasting Integrity is not trivial. It the point the compass points to is on Roshar, the heading should change.

[alder24]

About the Shadesmar's sun, it seems like each world has its own sun because when Kelsier left Scadrial in search of Ire, the sun disappeared from the sky. SH ch 5-1:

Quote

He'd hoped to have the sun back once Ruin vanished from the sky, but after walking far enough out, he seemed to leave his world behind—and the sun with it. The sky here was nothing but empty blackness

So the compass likely doesn't point towards the sun as the sun is local to Roshar only and the compass should change heading in between two locations separated by such significant distance. I also doubt it points towards the Adonalsium's corpse, as the Shattering happened on Yolen and Yolen was said by Khriss to be hidden and hard to find - if there were compasses pointing straight towards it made thousands of years ago, it wouldn't have been hard to find. I think it most likely points towards the location of Ambition's death - it's a corpse of a god, it was a very violent event and from WoBs we know that Odium did something similar to Ambition to what he did with the Dor - not the same but similar.  SH ch 3-2:

Quote

“Other planets,” she repeated gently. “Yes, there are dozens of them. Many are inhabited by people much like you or me. There is an original, shrouded and hidden somewhere in the cosmere. I’ve yet to find it, but I have found stories.

 

Spoiler

Questioner

So, Sel: Investiture has been pushed into the Cognitive Realm. Threnody: Has it seen something similar?

Brandon Sanderson

It has not seen... Okay. Yes, something similar. It would count. Something similar, yes.

[...]

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

[LockDown Ammo he/him]

On 12/30/2024 at 11:00 PM, Oltux72 said:

The important thing seems to me that you stay at a certain heading. The distance between Azimir and Lasting Integrity is not trivial. It the point the compass points to is on Roshar, the heading should change.

No, the distance is not trivial, but there are other ways for it to have constant heading. Both locations could be on Rhumb line, we can't know for certain. Rhumb lines cut across all meridians at same angle.

 

23 hours ago, alder24 said:

About the Shadesmar's sun, it seems like each world has its own sun because when Kelsier left Scadrial in search of Ire, the sun disappeared from the sky. SH ch 5-1:

So the compass likely doesn't point towards the sun as the sun is local to Roshar only and the compass should change heading in between two locations separated by such significant distance. I also doubt it points towards the Adonalsium's corpse, as the Shattering happened on Yolen and Yolen was said by Khriss to be hidden and hard to find - if there were compasses pointing straight towards it made thousands of years ago, it wouldn't have been hard to find. I think it most likely points towards the location of Ambition's death - it's a corpse of a god, it was a very violent event and from WoBs we know that Odium did something similar to Ambition to what he did with the Dor - not the same but similar.  SH ch 3-2:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

So, Sel: Investiture has been pushed into the Cognitive Realm. Threnody: Has it seen something similar?

Brandon Sanderson

It has not seen... Okay. Yes, something similar. It would count. Something similar, yes.

[...]

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

 

Those are excellent finds. This causes a lot of problems. The different sun thing is very curious even apart from it affecting this problem, I want to to know what and why is it that way now. What does it say about the nature of the sun? Anyways lets focus on the problem on hand.

It could still point at the sun, like the sun is basically a lodestone on each world and it will point towards it wherever it is based on which is closer and stuff like that (normal physics stuff so no worries about that).

The constant heading can be solved easily, I can give 2 reasons:

1. As stated before, they could be on a Rhumb line.
2. The sun while local and it disappears after some point, is still at infinity. For even if it disappears (due to magic), you never actually reach it, its size or appearance never changes as you travel. It will never appear closer. And you will always have constant heading, as there will be no significant change in angle.

The Yolen thing is once again sad and interesting all at once. Makes me wonder how is it shrouded and hidden, like there are a lot of fain life moving about doing deliveries and stuff. One could befriend them  and get to know? or just follow them? Nazh is pretty good at that. 
So we can rule out Adonalsium's corpse.

Ambition's corpse could be one and is a good idea, though I will prefer if it was D&D from Sel. It would explain (without relying on spiritual mumbo jumbo) why other Shard's death didn't cause the same thing as 2 shards were killed at the same place and then stuffed completely into Cognitive Realm where the Currents exist.
Ambition can also be a very good explanation due to the damage done to the Spiritual Realm there. Evil could be the thing as in where Ambition's Investiture was stuffed.

So, I tried to align it and if see it matches....

Spoiler

I mean one of them kind of does line up with threnody,(direction of scadrial had to be kind of sacrificed? it still works but not that good) this was always going to be a rough direction based game for planet level. I would say that it matches as that much error I think was expected and is acceptable. One of them also aligns with Nalthis, so its just the case of choose what feels right. None of it goes to Sel though so sad. And yes those are 2 lines inclined 48degress from the original path, you may have to zoom in a lot to see that.

But I did plot where these lines would fall on Roshar and calculated them accurately so this one is a lot more exact and the most error you may get is upto 1 degree.
Here is the result:
 

Spoiler

So this seems to go to like nowhere important. Except well it could be going towards Origin. (So what is it the origin of? Sure its the highstorm and not the Current?)
But there is a more interesting place that it crosses:
 

Spoiler

Spoiler

It crosses the Emberdark channel and misses Emberdark by 1 degree, Which I think is an error. (There were several times I had to take trignometric and then inverse trignometric which caused loss of precision several times.) I wonder if the book is going to have lots of details about the Current or just one off mention or something.

 

[+Oltux72 he/him]

34 minutes ago, LockDown Ammo said:

It could still point at the sun, like the sun is basically a lodestone on each world and it will point towards it wherever it is based on which is closer and stuff like that (normal physics stuff so no worries about that).

Not to be obnoxious, but you can see the sun. If a device were to point always at the sun, wouldn't they notice and wonder what is so great about a device that just points at a thing you can just see?

[LockDown Ammo he/him]

On 1/1/2025 at 3:34 AM, Oltux72 said:

Not to be obnoxious, but you can see the sun. If a device were to point always at the sun, wouldn't they notice and wonder what is so great about a device that just points at a thing you can just see?

I mean thats a very valid point huh I never thought about it.... why point at it if its something we can see? I mean it could be just that it can be used to measure like the bearings as everyone cant just tell what direction 48degrees from that is....

But you argument does poke a big hole in this theory...

 

So I am leaning towards it either being Ambition or smth related to Emberdark (i have no idea what it could be)? as shown in my previous comments.

[SPECTRE120]

The definition of a knell is "the sound of a bell, especially when rung solemnly for a death or funeral". All of the Threnodite planets have names related to songs of mourning so I believe it's probably the place where Ambition died.