Primal Aethers Speculation

[Jult]

Spinning this off from Isilel's Theory about the origins of the Unmade.. To summarize how we got here:

@KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren pointed out that Re-Shepir could be a corruption of the Midnight Primal Aether because her abilities strongly resemble midnight Aether.

I then suggested that perhaps all 9 Unmade are corrupted Primal Aethers. My only real inspiration for this idea being some numbers working out conveniently. In TLM, Prasanva calls out:

Quote

“By the grace of Silajana, Suna, Vishwadhar, and the Twelve Primal Aethers, I am Sanvith Prasanva Maahik va Sila..." 

Which I noted as odd because he calls out what appear to be 3 specific primal aethers by name and then redundantly calls on all 12. 

But what if those 3 Primal Aethers are the only ones actively fulfilling their roles as "Gods" on Dhatri right now? Because something bad happened to the other... 9.

I felt I was starting to deviate too far from Isilel's original Topic, but @ChipsAHoid expressed interest in continuing to spitball ideas around this potential connection between the Unmade and the Primal Aethers. So, here we are.

To get the ball rolling, we know of 6 out of 12 types of Aether (I'm assuming the Aether Spores from Tress map one-to-one to the Primal Aethers because otherwise I think we'd only have 2 Aethers to work with and 1 would be Silajana's uncorrupted Roseite). They also seem to roughly map to the 10 Primal Essences of Roshar, but Brandon has said this isn't a strict rule and there will be some fuzziness. Which makes sense since there are different numbers of Aethers and Essences.

1. Roseite - Crystal structures (associated with the Lucentia essence?)
2. Zephyr - Bursts of air (associated with the Zephyr essence of course)
3. Midnight - Black liquid that imitates a creature
4. Crimson - Red spiky coral/carapace stuff (associated with the Sinew essence)
5. Verdant - Plants (associated with the Pulp essence)
6. Sunlight - Generates light and heat (Spark essence?)

Also, a side note with spoilers for the unpublished Aether of Night novel:

Spoiler

There were several additional Aether types in Aether of Night. I don't want to lean on unpublished materials too heavily, but if you've read these, you can probably see Dai-Gonarthis has a very nice match among these non-cannon Aethers.

I have read Aether of Night, but I'm on the fence about whether or not I should include it in the discussion. If anyone wants to include it, I give in to peer pressure pretty quickly.

So! Roseite would not map to any Unmade because Silajana is still active on Dhatri. And I guess we get 2 more "freebies" in the form of Suna and Vishwadhar that also would not need to map to any Unmade.

Hence, between Zephyr, Midnight, Crimson, Verdant, and Sunlight we need to map at least 3 of these to an Unmade or this idea is a bit dead on arrival.

My best guess for Midnight: Re-Shepir is pretty clear already.

My best guess for Zephyr: Yelig-Nar almost entirely because he is called the Blightwind

My best guess for Crimson: Ashertman was recommended by @ChipsAHoid.

My best guess for Sunlight: Sja-Anat because she only appears in reflections or perhaps BAM because "Ado" means light

My best guess for Verdant: Maybe Chemoarish since she is sometimes confused with the Nightwatcher?

And that's as far as I've gotten with this.

 

[ChipsAHoid He/Him]

34 minutes ago, Jult said:

Spinning this off from Isilel's Theory about the origins of the Unmade.. To summarize how we got here:

@KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren pointed out that Re-Shepir could be a corruption of the Midnight Primal Aether because her abilities strongly resemble midnight Aether.

I then suggested that perhaps all 9 Unmade are corrupted Primal Aethers. My only real inspiration for this idea being some numbers working out conveniently. In TLM, Prasanva calls out:

Which I noted as odd because he calls out what appear to be 3 specific primal aethers by name and then redundantly calls on all 12. 

But what if those 3 Primal Aethers are the only ones actively fulfilling their roles as "Gods" on Dhatri right now? Because something bad happened to the other... 9.

I felt I was starting to deviate too far from Isilel's original Topic, but @ChipsAHoid expressed interest in continuing to spitball ideas around this potential connection between the Unmade and the Primal Aethers. So, here we are.

To get the ball rolling, we know of 6 out of 12 types of Aether (I'm assuming the Aether Spores from Tress map one-to-one to the Primal Aethers because otherwise I think we'd only have 2 Aethers to work with and 1 would be Silajana's uncorrupted Roseite). They also seem to roughly map to the 10 Primal Essences of Roshar, but Brandon has said this isn't a strict rule and there will be some fuzziness. Which makes sense since there are different numbers of Aethers and Essences.

1. Roseite - Crystal structures (associated with the Lucentia essence?)
2. Zephyr - Bursts of air (associated with the Zephyr essence of course)
3. Midnight - Black liquid that imitates a creature
4. Crimson - Red spiky coral/carapace stuff (associated with the Sinew essence)
5. Verdant - Plants (associated with the Pulp essence)
6. Sunlight - Generates light and heat (Spark essence?)

Also, a side note with spoilers for the unpublished Aether of Night novel:

  Reveal hidden contents

There were several additional Aether types in Aether of Night. I don't want to lean on unpublished materials too heavily, but if you've read these, you can probably see Dai-Gonarthis has a very nice match among these non-cannon Aethers.

I have read Aether of Night, but I'm on the fence about whether or not I should include it in the discussion. If anyone wants to include it, I give in to peer pressure pretty quickly.

So! Roseite would not map to any Unmade because Silajana is still active on Dhatri. And I guess we get 2 more "freebies" in the form of Suna and Vishwadhar that also would not need to map to any Unmade.

Hence, between Zephyr, Midnight, Crimson, Verdant, and Sunlight we need to map at least 3 of these to an Unmade or this idea is a bit dead on arrival.

My best guess for Midnight: Re-Shepir is pretty clear already.

My best guess for Zephyr: Yelig-Nar almost entirely because he is called the Blightwind

My best guess for Crimson: Ashertman was recommended by @ChipsAHoid.

My best guess for Sunlight: Sja-Anat because she only appears in reflections or perhaps BAM because "Ado" means light

My best guess for Verdant: Maybe Chemoarish since she is sometimes confused with the Nightwatcher?

And that's as far as I've gotten with this.

 

Yeah, for Ashertmarn Sanderson said in a WoB that it correlates with Sinew, and flesh, but he didn’t want it to be too… gruesome, going for more carapace like. I believe that Ashertmarn is the best fit for flesh, being a massive, black heart, fitting with the flesh theme.

I guess the blightwind one might make some sense

I can’t find a whole lot of justification for others though. It would help if we knew more about either unmade or spores, but alas. 

[TwinStorm He/Him]

51 minutes ago, Jult said:

Spinning this off from Isilel's Theory about the origins of the Unmade.. To summarize how we got here:

@KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren pointed out that Re-Shepir could be a corruption of the Midnight Primal Aether because her abilities strongly resemble midnight Aether.

I then suggested that perhaps all 9 Unmade are corrupted Primal Aethers. My only real inspiration for this idea being some numbers working out conveniently. In TLM, Prasanva calls out:

Which I noted as odd because he calls out what appear to be 3 specific primal aethers by name and then redundantly calls on all 12. 

But what if those 3 Primal Aethers are the only ones actively fulfilling their roles as "Gods" on Dhatri right now? Because something bad happened to the other... 9.

I felt I was starting to deviate too far from Isilel's original Topic, but @ChipsAHoid expressed interest in continuing to spitball ideas around this potential connection between the Unmade and the Primal Aethers. So, here we are.

To get the ball rolling, we know of 6 out of 12 types of Aether (I'm assuming the Aether Spores from Tress map one-to-one to the Primal Aethers because otherwise I think we'd only have 2 Aethers to work with and 1 would be Silajana's uncorrupted Roseite). They also seem to roughly map to the 10 Primal Essences of Roshar, but Brandon has said this isn't a strict rule and there will be some fuzziness. Which makes sense since there are different numbers of Aethers and Essences.

1. Roseite - Crystal structures (associated with the Lucentia essence?)
2. Zephyr - Bursts of air (associated with the Zephyr essence of course)
3. Midnight - Black liquid that imitates a creature
4. Crimson - Red spiky coral/carapace stuff (associated with the Sinew essence)
5. Verdant - Plants (associated with the Pulp essence)
6. Sunlight - Generates light and heat (Spark essence?)

Also, a side note with spoilers for the unpublished Aether of Night novel:

  Reveal hidden contents

There were several additional Aether types in Aether of Night. I don't want to lean on unpublished materials too heavily, but if you've read these, you can probably see Dai-Gonarthis has a very nice match among these non-cannon Aethers.

I have read Aether of Night, but I'm on the fence about whether or not I should include it in the discussion. If anyone wants to include it, I give in to peer pressure pretty quickly.

So! Roseite would not map to any Unmade because Silajana is still active on Dhatri. And I guess we get 2 more "freebies" in the form of Suna and Vishwadhar that also would not need to map to any Unmade.

Hence, between Zephyr, Midnight, Crimson, Verdant, and Sunlight we need to map at least 3 of these to an Unmade or this idea is a bit dead on arrival.

My best guess for Midnight: Re-Shepir is pretty clear already.

My best guess for Zephyr: Yelig-Nar almost entirely because he is called the Blightwind

My best guess for Crimson: Ashertman was recommended by @ChipsAHoid.

My best guess for Sunlight: Sja-Anat because she only appears in reflections or perhaps BAM because "Ado" means light

My best guess for Verdant: Maybe Chemoarish since she is sometimes confused with the Nightwatcher?

And that's as far as I've gotten with this.

 

9 minutes ago, ChipsAHoid said:

Yeah, for Ashertmarn Sanderson said in a WoB that it correlates with Sinew, and flesh, but he didn’t want it to be too… gruesome, going for more carapace like. I believe that Ashertmarn is the best fit for flesh, being a massive, black heart, fitting with the flesh theme.

I guess the blightwind one might make some sense

I can’t find a whole lot of justification for others though. It would help if we knew more about either unmade or spores, but alas. 

Sanderson has confirmed in a wob that all the Unmade all native to Roshar

[Argenti he/him]

40 minutes ago, TwinStorm said:

Sanderson has confirmed in a wob that all the Unmade all native to Roshar

He hemmed and hawed quite a bit, though. I bet there's an Asterisk.

[Jult]

1 hour ago, TwinStorm said:

Sanderson has confirmed in a wob that all the Unmade all native to Roshar

30 minutes ago, Argenti said:

He hemmed and hawed quite a bit, though. I bet there's an Asterisk.

Oof that is a pretty brutal blow to the idea. We're gonna have to really hope that Brandon's hesitation there meant something. He could maybe be pulling something tricky like "the Unmade originated on Roshar, but whatever they were before they were Unmade came from somewhere else". But I feel like he'd just RAFO it over resorting to sneaky semantics. I haven't seen too many examples of sneaky answers from him.

[Leuthie]

On 7/10/2025 at 10:32 AM, Argenti said:

He hemmed and hawed quite a bit, though. I bet there's an Asterisk.

That's usually not his style in these kinds of things. Part of the existence of the Unmade is that their creation further locked Odium to the Rosharan system. It also seems a bit absurd for Brandon to have Odium carry 9 Aethers with him to Roshar to corrupt just so Brandon can use semantics to make us think they're native to Roshar.

[Jult]

14 hours ago, Leuthie said:

That's usually not his style in these kinds of things. Part of the existence of the Unmade is that their creation further locked Odium to the Rosharan system. It also seems a bit absurd for Brandon to have Odium carry 9 Aethers with him to Roshar to corrupt just so Brandon can use semantics to make us think they're native to Roshar.

Agreed. The similarities are interesting and there could be something there. But I think the most likely case is that the Aethers and Unmade are both based on similar underlying rules of the Cosmere. Brandon has said before that there's a tenuous relationship between the ten essences of Roshar and the Aethers before. WoB:

Quote

MoriWillow

Is there any significant relationship between the twelve types of aethers and the ten essences on Roshar, even just in a sense of recurring cosmere-wide patterns?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say yes, but it's tenuous.

Secret Project #1 Reveal and Livestream (March 8, 2022)

The Unmade are probably just an extension of this effect. I think this will all be clearer once Brandon reveals his "Unifying Theory of Magic" that he has teased before (if that ever happens).

[Treamayne]

On 7/10/2025 at 11:56 AM, Jult said:

Re-Shepir could be a corruption of the Midnight Primal Aether

Possible, but unlikely. WoB:

Spoiler

Red the Windrunner (paraphrased)

We have now seen Midnight Essence on Lumar and as part of the Unmade on Roshar, should we assume that all the other Unmade have connections to Odium’s other conquests like maybe Sja-anat and Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Midnight Essence is more like Lightweaving in that multiple magic systems will reach the same conclusion. When something is done to the magic to corrupt it, it becomes like Midnight Essence. So while there are similarities between the two and they work the same they may not have the same point of origin.

Red the Windrunner (paraphrased)

So there is no meaningful connection between Sja-anat and Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You weren’t going to let me off the hook. You are theorizing in a very interesting direction. RAFO!

Tampa Bay Comic Convention 2023 (July 28, 2023)

We've also seen Midnight Essence in the Nightmares of Komashi (YNP). Just as it is unlikely that Father Machine has anything to do with the Primal Midnight, the WoB implies that Re-Shapir is corrupted <something> that, after being Unmade became Roshar's version of Midnight Essence. To find her source, we would need to discover what Magic would become Midnight Essence when it has been corrupted. . . 

[DoctaDajman]

On 7/10/2025 at 9:56 AM, Jult said:

Spinning this off from Isilel's Theory about the origins of the Unmade.. To summarize how we got here:

@KaladinsSenseOfHumorSpren pointed out that Re-Shepir could be a corruption of the Midnight Primal Aether because her abilities strongly resemble midnight Aether.

I then suggested that perhaps all 9 Unmade are corrupted Primal Aethers. My only real inspiration for this idea being some numbers working out conveniently. In TLM, Prasanva calls out:

Which I noted as odd because he calls out what appear to be 3 specific primal aethers by name and then redundantly calls on all 12. 

But what if those 3 Primal Aethers are the only ones actively fulfilling their roles as "Gods" on Dhatri right now? Because something bad happened to the other... 9.

I felt I was starting to deviate too far from Isilel's original Topic, but @ChipsAHoid expressed interest in continuing to spitball ideas around this potential connection between the Unmade and the Primal Aethers. So, here we are.

To get the ball rolling, we know of 6 out of 12 types of Aether (I'm assuming the Aether Spores from Tress map one-to-one to the Primal Aethers because otherwise I think we'd only have 2 Aethers to work with and 1 would be Silajana's uncorrupted Roseite). They also seem to roughly map to the 10 Primal Essences of Roshar, but Brandon has said this isn't a strict rule and there will be some fuzziness. Which makes sense since there are different numbers of Aethers and Essences.

1. Roseite - Crystal structures (associated with the Lucentia essence?)
2. Zephyr - Bursts of air (associated with the Zephyr essence of course)
3. Midnight - Black liquid that imitates a creature
4. Crimson - Red spiky coral/carapace stuff (associated with the Sinew essence)
5. Verdant - Plants (associated with the Pulp essence)
6. Sunlight - Generates light and heat (Spark essence?)

Also, a side note with spoilers for the unpublished Aether of Night novel:

  Reveal hidden contents

There were several additional Aether types in Aether of Night. I don't want to lean on unpublished materials too heavily, but if you've read these, you can probably see Dai-Gonarthis has a very nice match among these non-cannon Aethers.

I have read Aether of Night, but I'm on the fence about whether or not I should include it in the discussion. If anyone wants to include it, I give in to peer pressure pretty quickly.

So! Roseite would not map to any Unmade because Silajana is still active on Dhatri. And I guess we get 2 more "freebies" in the form of Suna and Vishwadhar that also would not need to map to any Unmade.

Hence, between Zephyr, Midnight, Crimson, Verdant, and Sunlight we need to map at least 3 of these to an Unmade or this idea is a bit dead on arrival.

My best guess for Midnight: Re-Shepir is pretty clear already.

My best guess for Zephyr: Yelig-Nar almost entirely because he is called the Blightwind

My best guess for Crimson: Ashertman was recommended by @ChipsAHoid.

My best guess for Sunlight: Sja-Anat because she only appears in reflections or perhaps BAM because "Ado" means light

My best guess for Verdant: Maybe Chemoarish since she is sometimes confused with the Nightwatcher?

And that's as far as I've gotten with this.

 

There are different levels of aethers. Not just the primal ones. There are tiers if I am not mistaken. 

Have you considered the possibility that an aether bonded themselves to a native Rosharan and the unmaking process simply altered them and corrupted them in a way that allows them to use voidlight to fuel their bindings and adds efficiency and power through that?  

 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

On 7/10/2025 at 12:32 PM, Argenti said:

He hemmed and hawed quite a bit, though. I bet there's an Asterisk.

My suspicion here is the distinction between the mindless and minded Unmade is that the former are pure power while the latter are power granted to a person, and while this power is Rosharan and some of the people were singers, some were also Ashynite humans which makes the question tricky to answer. When Sja-anat isn't in her weird shadow form she looks like an ordinary human woman in archaic clothing, for instance (OB 84):

Spoiler

Someone else stood in the mirror. A woman with black hair that fell to her waist. She wore archaic clothing, a sleeveless, flowing gown that was more of a tunic, with a simple belted waist. Shallan touched her face. Why had she put this illusion on?

The reflection didn't mimic her motions, but pressed forward, raising hands against the glass. The reflected room faded and the figure distorted, and became a jet-black shadow with white holes for eyes.

Radiant, the thing said, mouthing the words. My name is Sja-anat. And I am not your enemy.

 

[Argenti he/him]

2 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

My suspicion here is the distinction between the mindless and minded Unmade is that the former are pure power while the latter are power granted to a person, and while this power is Rosharan and some of the people were singers, some were also Ashynite humans which makes the question tricky to answer. When Sja-anat isn't in her weird shadow form she looks like an ordinary human woman in archaic clothing, for instance (OB 84):

  Reveal hidden contents

Someone else stood in the mirror. A woman with black hair that fell to her waist. She wore archaic clothing, a sleeveless, flowing gown that was more of a tunic, with a simple belted waist. Shallan touched her face. Why had she put this illusion on?

The reflection didn't mimic her motions, but pressed forward, raising hands against the glass. The reflected room faded and the figure distorted, and became a jet-black shadow with white holes for eyes.

Radiant, the thing said, mouthing the words. My name is Sja-anat. And I am not your enemy.

 

What about the things that are borderline? Re-Shepir and the Blightwind, for one. 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

2 minutes ago, Argenti said:

What about the things that are borderline? Re-Shepir and the Blightwind, for one. 

Yelig-nar I think was a singer, hence why he makes you grow a gemheart & carapace. Re-Shephir I'm not certain which species, but Shallan gets the impression her mimicry is an attempt to recapture something she had lost (OB 32), so she was also probably once a person imo.

Spoiler

"It wasn't like the stories," Shallan whispered. "Re-Shephir is a spren. A vast, terrible spren who wants so desperately to understand us. So she kills us, imitating our violence."

There was a deeper mystery beyond that, a wisp of something she’d glimpsed while intertwined with Re-Shephir. It made Shallan wonder if this spren wasn’t merely trying to understand humankind, but rather searching for something it itself had lost.

I also think she's more intelligent than we give her credit for, since she was able to deliver information to the Fused about the Sibling's state (RoW 37).

Spoiler

"The Sibling sleeps," the scout said. "Just as the Midnight Mother felt. Perhaps the Sibling has truly died. Permanently made into an unthinking creature."