Oraiyu Posted April 23, 2025 Posted April 23, 2025 I've searched around, and have not found anything clear about the relationship between the Primal and Kumar Aethers. Obviously we have some information from Tress & TLM. But has anything else come to light regarding how or why they split off? Are they still connected? So far, the clearest tidbit I've found outside the aforementioned books is this WoB Quote Lego Mistborn Aethers in Tress seem to take over their hosts aggressively, probably without the host's permission, whereas we see in The Lost Metal with TwinSoul it's more willing. Is this related—and how—to the corruption of aethers on Lumar? Brandon Sanderson Yeah, it is related. You have the main aether planet, which we just named but I can't... so Kalyani named it for me. Well, Kalyani and Rahul. I'm relying on them a lot for this planet, and they actually just sent me a five-thousand-word world guide for it. [...] They could tell us how to pronounce it. "Dhatri" might be how it is? Regardless. On the main planet. So the idea here is they're very formalized, how you interact with the aethers. But on some other planets (not just Lumar), aethers have gone that are not connected to the main set of them on the main planet, and what's going on on Lumar is directly related to how that separation happened. So that answer is a long-winded yes. Dragonsteel 2023 (Nov. 20, 2023)
ChickenBonanza Posted April 23, 2025 Posted April 23, 2025 Fairly certain all there is to it is that they did ‘split off,’ if one can even call it that. Aethers are have spread to multiple worlds, and different Aethers would naturally behave from other members of their… ‘species,’ I suppose. Here are two others words which might prove relevant, maybe. Spoiler simonthekillerewok How much have the aethers changed since Aether of Night? Brandon Sanderson The big change I made to the aethers, other than adding this other world... A couple things going on with the aethers. First off, when you finally meet people who bear the aethers (which we're calling aetherbound, currently, and I like that term), you will find that, in order to differentiate them from things like seons and things like spren bonds and things like that, I've decided that one core aether bonds a lot of people, and it's one entity that you are all bonding with. So, if you meet five aetherbound who have bound to the Verdant aether, they are all bound to the same individual, at least on the core aether world. And that just adds a different nuance to it. There is lore and worldbuilding that is different that I will leave. There's a lot that's the same; there's a lot that's different that I'll leave to you to discover. I am working quite a bit on this planet for future projects (which, no, I haven't secretly been writing yet). But that's the big change. And the other change is that I decided that aethers would be able to... I would have different things happening with them, different strains. In their own lore, they were not... the aethers themselves don't believe they were created by Adonalsium. And so they're, like, a different sort of thing, a different entity, so to speak. And this goes back, even, to way back when I tried to write them into Liar of Partinel, them predating things like the Shattering and what not, and it feels right for how I want to treat them. Those are a few little tweaks that you will eventually get. But the basic mechanics of how they work is the same as they worked in Aether of Night. I think that one of the things that really worked in Aether of Night was the mechanics of the aethers. I thought they had a lot of interesting storytelling play, I thought that they did different things than some of the other magics that I was writing did. And they have remained solidly a part of my brain for how the Cosmere will proceed. And that's why you see Mraize having a chunk of an aether and things like that in his trophy case. simonthekillerewok We know there are multiple planets with aethers, so do both of these worlds exist simultaneously? Or is this one an evolution of The Aether of Night's Vaeria? Brandon Sanderson They do both exist simultaneously; this one came from that one. The answer to both is "yes." Secret Project #1 Reveal and Livestream (March 8, 2022) Spoiler LewsTherinTelescope Are the aethers native to multiple worlds? Brandon Sanderson Currently, no - but they have spread + they claim to be not from any world. Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 22, 2021) Personally, I do not view the Aethers of Lumar to be particularly related to the Aether’s of Dhatri, beyond their being Aethers. Dhatri is called the ‘main’ Aether planet, but that could be referring to plot relevance rather than something like their planet of origin. They ‘split,’ yes, but what does such a thing entail? At this stage, very little information about their connection to one another. 1
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