Are they Sellish? [discuss]

[listerfeend]

OK, so I've had some time to put together some of my thoughts on the legend of Cakoban and how he defeated the Dakwara and everything else. I think that Cakoban and the people he migrated with may have come from Sel. There may be a few holes in this, I'm well aware, but that's why I'm sharing it. Maybe we can shore up those holes, and maybe those holes do indicate that this isn't correct. 

So, what makes me think that? First, we'll start with the story as told by Frond.
 

Quote

“After Cakoban made a deal with the great winged statue, who promised to come to him when next he needed help, he escaped by sailing between the legs of the great giants of Epelli! First one, then the other, so they attacked each other in their confusion! He rode the waves of their falling clubs. And when their great bodies crashed to the ocean—dead—he had the grandest wave of all, which carried him three days across the endless sea!”

He escaped by sailing between two "great giants" of Epelli, who attacked each other, the resulting shockwaves of that battle propelling Cakoban and the Migration across the unsea. We know of exactly one clash between two shards, that resulted in the death of both shards, and that is Aona and Skai. I believe this must be what the great giants of Epelli is referring to. Their fight started the "waves of their falling clubs" propelling them out of the sub astral of Sel, before the final confrontation, which resulted in the Splintering of the Shards, and Odium forcing all of that Investiture into the CR. That forcing of their Investiture woudl be the "grandest wave of all", a massive surge of Investiture flowing into the Cognitive Realm, flinging them further out into the unsea.

Now, we know from WoB that Odium wanted to take out Ambition first, seeing them as the most likely to grow in power and try to rival that of Odium. However, Odium found Aona and Skai first, and was somehow able to get them to fight each other, capitalizing on their conflict to get them to destroy each other, before trying to do something with their Investiture. He was really just figuring out his MO in this, which evolved by the time he hit Ambition, learning from his past mistakes. We do not know the time frame or length of time between Aona and Skai and Ambition, but, after taking everything we know into account, the closest I've come to a time frame for the death of those three shards is somewhere between 1 and 3,000 years post Shattering of Ado. There is nothing to say that they couldn't all have happened within the lifetime of Cakoban. Though it's also not entirely necessary that Cakoban even be alive for that, it's possible that the stories about Cakoban are an amalgamation of stories about multiple individuals, with Cak definitively only being a part of the fight with the "Dakwarra".

Next we get the flashback chapter, in which we see Cakoban ingesting a "thick golden liquid" form of Investiture, and also him glowing with a golden light. Both of those sound Sellish to me, as Elantrians glow golden, and the purified form of the Dor we've had described to us is a thick golden liquid. Now, obviously, purified Dor wouldn't have existed back then, as the Dor itself is a result of how Odium tried to deal with the Investiture of their Shards. However, the comparison is there, and I think that perhaps "purifying" the Dor actually might revert the Investiture back to it's more original form, with the added benefit of "unkeying" it. 

Cakoban and Jope run into one of the Entities, with Cakoban believing it to be one of the daccwaga from their stories. So, if my theory is correct, some time between them leaving Sel, and finding Patji's Perp, Ambition gets killed. There are a few things that we know about Investiture and sentience, and these Entities don't seem to follow them. We know for a fact it takes thousands of years for Investiture left alone to begin to form sentience, the Entities are the Evil, which began attacking people pretty much right away, so they don't follow the rules of Investiture gaining Sentience. There is a topic on this thread that basically says maybe they got some of their consciousness from Uli-Da, becoming essentially Shard level Nightmares (as described in Yumi, another source of Investiture with a rudimentary consciousness that is highly susceptible to "thought molding" as I'm going to call it, from an Invested person). If they came from Sel, immediately post Aona and Skai dying, and are flung out into the CR, they would be able to run into this Entity, provided Uli-Da's death happened within a lifetime. With the vaguely defined time dilation properties of the CR, it's possible they were in the CR while many years passed in the PR as well.

Now, the last bit of support for this theory is extracted from a WoB where Brandon basically says that at least one of the cultures on Sel is based on "Catholic Vikings", a group of people known the world over for their Navigation and seamanship. It seems logical to me, then, that maybe Cakoban and his Navigation ability comes from the planet with a society that is loosely based off the idea of Vikings. Not to mention, the "serpent whose tail stretches the entire ocean" being a pretty obvious reference to the Viking myth of Jörmungandr. 
 

Quote

Nimrod Rappaport

In Arcanum Unbounded you mentioned that Sel is one of the biggest planets. You also mentioned that there are three empires on that planet. In Elantris 2 two will we get... You also mentioned that they are largely ignorant of each other, will we get a book in which those empires interact? Maybe in Elantris 2? 

Also, can you please specify on their nature and maybe some inspirations you got when writing and thinking about them?

Brandon Sanderson

So, sure. Sel wears its inspirations quite blatantly on its sleeve, right? It's not that obvious for instance in Stormlight that the Alethi are based off of Mongolians, because there's so much more in the mix there, that it's not quite as obvious. But in Sel, it's a little more obvious. You know, basically the idea came to me that what if the vikings had united behind a very hierarchical religion like Catholicism, and we had Catholic vikings, conquering the world. What would the world look like and that is where the entire religion came from.

Actually the truth is it's like, there was this priest, right, and one group became Buddhist and the other became Catholic vikings and, you know, Buddhist Renaissance... Italians is kind of where we got there and of course, the Rose Empire the inspirations are a little bit more Eastern and Middle Eastern. For instance, the Grands are based on Babylonian influences and I'm kind of looking at a lot of Babylonian, a little bit of Syrian. But of course Shai is very very clearly based on East Asian cultures and specifically China.

So, the empires and things like that... for there you might have noticed that we've got a Europe centered one, and an Asia/Eastern centered one, so you might be able to theorize where the third empire's inspirations might be or at least a list of possible candidates.

ICon 2019 (Oct. 17, 2019)

 

Edited July 9, 2025 by listerfeend

[alder24]

33 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

Next we get the flashback chapter, in which we see Cakoban ingesting a "thick golden liquid" form of Investiture, and also him glowing with a golden light. Both of those sound Sellish to me, as Elantrians glow golden, and the purified form of the Dor we've had described to us is a thick golden liquid. Now, obviously, purified Dor wouldn't have existed back then, as the Dor itself is a result of how Odium tried to deal with the Investiture of their Shards. However, the comparison is there, and I think that perhaps "purifying" the Dor actually might revert the Investiture back to it's more original form, with the added benefit of "unkeying" it. 

Elantris glows with a silvery light, so do Elantrians, Seons and the Dor. They don't glow golden at all. 

I think the only golden investiture we've seen so far was that of Odium, at the end of RoW when Kaladin's eyes were glowing with a golden light. Odium is also associated with the golden color, even his perpendicularity was filled with golden investiture. Other than this part, I do think you're right, especially considering the WoB. It seems to me that Cakoban had access to Odium's investiture, which does makes sense as Odium was present on Sel, he did Splinter Aona and Skai, so he probably invested in Sel is some way, making it possible for Cakoban to access his investiture and take it for the journey.

Although knowing how the ending of the story of Cakoban differs from reality, I wouldn't be surprised if the beginning of it changed as well. Now we know it as him escaping while "giants" were clashing, but it's just as likely that he left the place where giants clashed in the past. He could have left Sel centuries or even millennia after the Splintering of Devotion and Skai, leaving enough time for Odium to Splinter Ambition and give birth to the Evil. He could have acquired golden investiture somewhere along his journey too, we can't really say anything for certain about the story. There are also three other places where "giants" fought - Threnody, Ashyn/Roshar and Scadrial (during Ruin's imprisonment). Each of them could have the origin of this part of the story. I do agree however that Sel is probably more likely than the others. 

[Argenti he/him]

Just now, alder24 said:

I think the only golden investiture we've seen so far was that of Odium, at the end of RoW when Kaladin's eyes were glowing with a golden light. Odium is also associated with the golden color, even his perpendicularity was filled with golden investiture. Other than this part, I do think you're right, especially considering the WoB. It seems to me that Cakoban had access to Odium's investiture, which does makes sense as Odium was present on Sel, he did Splinter Aona and Skai, so he probably invested in Sel is some way, making it possible for Cakoban to access his investiture and take it for the journey.

 

Two notes, we've also seen the men of red and gold, in Lost Metal, who are very much invested, but we're not sure if they belong to Odium as well as Autonomy. I'd also argue that the Iriali count as a golden investiture as well, but we have no idea what's up with them.

[listerfeend]

2 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Elantris glows with a silvery light, so do Elantrians, Seons and the Dor. They don't glow golden at all. 

Ah, thanks for that correction. It's been quite some time since I've read Elantris, or depictions of Elantrians, and I probably just knew they glowed and figured it was golden

 

5 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Now we know it as him escaping while "giants" were clashing, but it's just as likely that he left the place where giants clashed in the past. He could have left Sel centuries or even millennia after the Splintering of Devotion and Skai, leaving enough time for Odium to Splinter Ambition and give birth to the Evil.

That could make a lot of sense, but part of the story about them riding a giant wave through the unsea sort of cements in my mind that it happened about the time the Dor was created. Could very well be the case that the Dor puts out some kind of "Investiture Wind" like the cosmic wind in our own universe though! 

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Argenti said:

Two notes, we've also seen the men of red and gold, in Lost Metal, who are very much invested, but we're not sure if they belong to Odium as well as Autonomy. I'd also argue that the Iriali count as a golden investiture as well, but we have no idea what's up with them.

Yes, that's true. Setting aside the Men of Red and Gold, I initially thought that this golden investiture might be related to Iriali, but now I think it makes more sense if it's of Odium. The Men of Red and Gold are still an unknown thing, but they were not described as glowing gold, they just had golden skin and glowing red eyes, so I doubt they are related.

1 hour ago, listerfeend said:

That could make a lot of sense, but part of the story about them riding a giant wave through the unsea sort of cements in my mind that it happened about the time the Dor was created. Could very well be the case that the Dor puts out some kind of "Investiture Wind" like the cosmic wind in our own universe though! 

If you're looking for an "investiture wind," then there is the Current. Either the story is true and he rode the Current in the moment of its creation, or it's just partially true and this fragment is meant to represent that he just used the Current to navigate (or maybe even to propel their boats). 

[Argenti he/him]

1 hour ago, listerfeend said:

Ah, thanks for that correction. It's been quite some time since I've read Elantris, or depictions of Elantrians, and I probably just knew they glowed and figured it was golden

In your defense, there have been theories about Dominion based Elantrians who glowed gold.

 

[lacrossedeamon]

One thing to also note: we don't know the original builders of the city of Elantris. It was found abandoned by the ancestors of the modern Aonic people. This tidbit is used in some Long Trail theories (along with the abandonment of the Diem) but could fit here instead.

[Isilel]

Given the golden investiture, so far only seen from Odium, couldn't they have been Ashynites?

If they are Selish, I wonder if Odium stuffing the powers of Devotion and Dominion into the Cognitive Realm didn't create a much more extreme and long-lasting time dilation, so that Cakoban and Co could have both witnessed the deaths of D@D, yet by the time they got out of the time bubble,  Ambition had also been killed? Though, how they got through all the deadly plasma around Sel would be quite a head-scratcher.

If they are from there, I don't think that they originated in any part of that world that appeared in the books.

Edited July 18, 2025 by Isilel

[lacrossedeamon]

I have recently come to the idea that the Eelakin are an outbreeding of the Iriali similar to the Rirans. And that the Iriali are originally from Taldain (7 is most likely Autonomy's number) but that Sel was one of the earlier stops on the Long Trail and thus like the abandoned Diem the Iriali built the abandoned Elantris.

[listerfeend]

3 hours ago, lacrossedeamon said:

I have recently come to the idea that the Eelakin are an outbreeding of the Iriali similar to the Rirans.

I would expect if that were true for most of them to be fair skinned and light haired, like the Rira. We know the golden hair and skin of the Irali are a dominant trait, and even the Rirans have light hair and skin on Roshar

[lacrossedeamon]

12 minutes ago, listerfeend said:

I would expect if that were true for most of them to be fair skinned and light haired, like the Rira. We know the golden hair and skin of the Irali are a dominant trait, and even the Rirans have light hair and skin on Roshar

We know it's the dominant trait compared to the traits the Reshi and Selay had but maybe not this other population (and genetics are a bit wonky in the cosmere). The Eelakin would also be much further removed from the original population than the Rirans are from the Iriali whom they can get new influxes of genes from until WaT.

[Nitpicking]

On 7/10/2025 at 5:14 AM, Isilel said:

If they are Selish, I wonder if Odium stuffing the powers of Devotion and Dominion didn't create a much more extreme and long-lasting time dilation ...

Yes. After all, Silverlight is under a permanent time-stretch effect.

[LockDown Ammo he/him]

 

On 7/10/2025 at 2:44 PM, Isilel said:

If they are Selish, I wonder if Odium stuffing the powers of Devotion and Dominion into the Cognitive Realm didn't create a much more extreme and long-lasting time dilation, so that Cakoban and Co could have both witnessed the deaths of D@D, yet by the time they got out of the time bubble,  Ambition had also been killed?

Brandon has teased us several times but across several WoBs it is almost confirmed that Sel does experience huge amounts of Time Dilation. This theory also easily explains Kaise being in Lost Metal when Elantris took place long before without having her have some way of stopping aging. So yes that is possible.

On 7/10/2025 at 12:45 AM, alder24 said:

The Men of Red and Gold are still an unknown thing, but they were not described as glowing gold, they just had golden skin and glowing red eyes, so I doubt they are related.

I mean it could still be Autonomy's Investiture. The worms are suffused with it and it gives a golden glow. Which also begs the question. Assuming the perpendicularity and excess Investiture on the planet is mostly due to Autonomy's avatar, why had she Invested in a then uninhabited planet? And if not then there would have been no perpendicularity for them to enter through. Unless of course Autonomy was the one to orchestrate the quest, as way to "prove themselves" and we can see several hints of Autonomy's beliefs being believed by Cakoban and his crew.

Edit: I am curious if someone knows how is "Dakwara" and "Cakoban" pronounced and if we can find some vague linguistic origin (It feels kinda Slavic to me? Could be way off though) which we can compare to current known languages from cosmere.

Edited August 11, 2025 by LockDown Ammo

[Isilel]

12 hours ago, LockDown Ammo said:

. The worms are suffused with it and it gives a golden glow.

 

The worm paste glows silver, doesn't it? It was the unknown investiture that Cakoban and Co. used that was golden. 

I like your thoughts otherwise - all very possible.

[LockDown Ammo he/him]

On 8/12/2025 at 2:23 PM, Isilel said:

The worm paste glows silver, doesn't it? It was the unknown investiture that Cakoban and Co. used that was golden. 

Huh... I was trying to find some reference but the book never really tells what is it's colour, only that the worm paste "glows" (maybe I missed some reference, you are welcome to add). I think I confused it with gold because of the golden glowing butterflies (and I think Hoid also used golden stuff in Secret History?) so my mind pictured the paste golden too. But yes Cakoban did have golden Investiture on sail so maybe they are from Autonomy's world who guided them there.

[lacrossedeamon]

On 8/11/2025 at 4:25 PM, LockDown Ammo said:

Edit: I am curious if someone knows how is "Dakwara" and "Cakoban" pronounced and if we can find some vague linguistic origin (It feels kinda Slavic to me? Could be way off though) which we can compare to current known languages from cosmere.

Cakoban I believe is inspired by Cakobau, the first and last king of Fiji.