Frost & the Shattering

[Through the Living Potato He/Him]

Alright, we know Frost was at the Shattering, because a very helpful dragon told us.

 

Spoiler

Isles of the Emberdark Ch 47

Quote

”We chronicled the Shattering itself—my uncle was present at the event.” - Starling

Emphasis mine

We also have a Hoid quote from Tress about him saying something to Adonalsium with 16 other people. This second quote implies 17 people at the Shattering. If Frost was there, then I have a question; What was Frost doing there?

My ideas:

1. Frost took part in Shattering, but did not say this with the others. 
   I. If true, Frost likely had another motive. He does not appear to have a Shard, but perhaps a Dawnshard? There are two we haven’t seen, and the dragon’s one is missing. However, Starling says present, not took part, and this seems to mean he didn’t do much, if anything, in the Shattering. This leads me to my other theory, and my more likely one.

2. Frost did not take part in the Shattering.

   I. If true, Frost was simply a spectator or did not play a major role in the events. This gives me more questions, like if there were more people watching. It does not seem to have been a public event, because of the relative secrecy surrounding the origin of the Shards. But Starling says chronicled and, as far as I know, this would require more viewpoints. 
 

So, I guess that’s it. This has been bugging me for a while and it’s weird to me. I hope some of you could shed light on this, if it’s a misunderstanding, or if we have confirmation about this. Ah, well.
 

[Treamayne]

4 hours ago, all_cats_are_windrunners said:

My ideas:

1. Frost took part in Shattering, but did not say this with the others. 
   I. If true, Frost likely had another motive. He does not appear to have a Shard, but perhaps a Dawnshard? There are two we haven’t seen, and the dragon’s one is missing. However, Starling says present, not took part, and this seems to mean he didn’t do much, if anything, in the Shattering. This leads me to my other theory, and my more likely one.

2. Frost did not take part in the Shattering.

   I. If true, Frost was simply a spectator or did not play a major role in the events. This gives me more questions, like if there were more people watching. It does not seem to have been a public event, because of the relative secrecy surrounding the origin of the Shards. But Starling says chronicled and, as far as I know, this would require more viewpoints. 

Another possibility:

3. Frost was present at the shattering, but trying to prevent it. He was unsuccessful (and/or too late).

Edited May 2 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Through the Living Potato He/Him]

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Another possibility:

3. Frost was present at the shattering, but trying to prevent it. He was unsuccessful (and/or too late).

Oh, interesting! I hadn’t thought of that. He seems quite… not friendly, but familiar with Hoid, though. Not like he resents him. They might have “made up” with each other about it, though that seems difficult due to the circumstances. Thanks for the idea!

[Treamayne]

15 minutes ago, all_cats_are_windrunners said:

Oh, interesting! I hadn’t thought of that. He seems quite… not friendly, but familiar with Hoid, though. Not like he resents him. They might have “made up” with each other about it, though that seems difficult due to the circumstances. Thanks for the idea!

It's no longer Canon, but the Sanderson Curiosity Dragonsteel Prime has Frost/Hoid interactions. WaT Spoilers:

Spoiler

And we know that, at least, some of the story will remain Canon, as Hoid tells Dalinar about Jerick. 

Discussion of details would need to move to the Dragonsteel Prime forum

 

[Through the Living Potato He/Him]

Huh. I haven’t looked into Dragonsteel Prime. Maybe I should seems interesting. Thanks!

[Treamayne]

9 hours ago, all_cats_are_windrunners said:

Huh. I haven’t looked into Dragonsteel Prime. Maybe I should seems interesting. Thanks!

It's not for everyone, and there is a reason it was originally unpublished. For people that have problems separating non-canon detail from Canon detail, the Prime books are probably good to avoid. But for those that like "could-have-beens" or want to see the origin of some of their favorite things, it is interesting enough. WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Questioner (paraphrased)

I’ve been fortunate enough to read White Sand and Aether of Night and I enjoyed them very much. Will they ever be published? I also managed to read Dragonsteel and I enjoyed that too.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

White Sand will definitely eventually be published. Aether of Night, not so sure on, because Aether is two halves of two books that didn't fit together. The two pieces didn't mesh. White Sand is part of the sequence and will be done. Dragonsteel is part of the sequence and will be done, but it will be very different now that the Shattered Plains have been used in Way of Kings.

Footnote: White Sand eventually was released as a graphic novel
A Memory of Light Raleigh Signing (Feb. 20, 2013)

Quote

17th Shard

You've told us that you took the idea of the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel into Way of Kings and reading Way of Kings it's hard to imagine the book without them. What did Roshar look like without them? Can you walk us through the process of moving that concept from that series to this one?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, it looked pretty much like it looks in the books, but Way of Kings Prime takes place mostly in Kholinar and in a location that has not yet been talked about in the books.

Ah…it took place in another location, how about that?

One of the big things with this book is, as I was saying, that I think I started [Way of Kings Prime] in the wrong place. I moved some things back in time and some things forward in time. For instance, if you ever read Way of Kings Prime, the prologue to Way of Kings Prime is now the epilogue to The Ways of Kings. You know, the thing that happens in the epilogue with the thumping on the door and the arrival of a certain individual? That scene is now from Wit's viewpoint which it wasn't before. Pull Wit out of that scene and you'll get almost exactly [what happened] in the [original] prologue. So, the timing has been changed around a lot.

As I was playing with this book I found that, like I said, one of the big things I had a problem with was that I felt that Kaladin had taken the easy route when he needed to take the hard route. I was really looking for a good plot cycle. I needed something to pull this book together. I had characters but I didn't have a plot and I've mentioned before that sometimes things come [to me] in different orders. In this book world and character came to me, in fact character came to me first, world came second and then I was building the plot around it. I knew the plot of the entire epic and the entire series but I needed a much stronger plot for book one. Because of the various things that are happening I wanted to deal with a war.

So I was planning a war away from Alethkar, and I'm trying to decide what I'm going to do with this war. Meanwhile I have Inkthinker, Ben McSweeney, doing concept art for me to use in my pitch to Tom Doherty at Tor and he says, "Hey, I just drew up this sketch of some creature that lives at the bottom of a chasm, what do you think?" And he showed me this.

I told him that we were looking for kind of above water coral reef formations, and he sends me this brain coral, which is essentially the Shattered Plains with a big monster living at the bottom and I'm like, "Wow!" I actually did a book where this was essentially the setting. I looked at that, and that's actually what made me say, "Wait a minute, could I transpose this and would the Shattered Plains actually make more sense on Roshar than they ever did on Yolen?" I started playing with that concept and I absolutely fell in love with the idea. Unfortunately for Dragonsteel, that was the only really good plot cycle from that book.

So, I ripped it out of that book and I put it here, and that means it brought with it a few side characters who no longer live on Yolen because they now live on Roshar. Rock is one of them, though he's been changed. When he came along the Horneaters were born; they had not been in the books before. For those who have read Dragonsteel, he was Ke'Chan in that book. I couldn't bring that culture because that culture is extremely vital to [Dragonsteel]. I can bring a plot cycle or a little region, and there's certain things you can pull out of a book without ruining the soul of what the book is. I couldn't take the Ke'Chan out of Dragonsteel; they're just part of what that book is and so Rock had to change nationalities. I had to build him his own nationality, a new culture essentially just for him. And yeah, it worked wonderfully.

Someday I'll let you have that art, and if you remind me to ask Peter you can probably post it with the interview. As you can just see it's not the way that it ended up being because it looks different from how the Shattered Plains turned out, but it was the spark that made me say, "Let's move this over."

17th Shard Interview (Oct. 3, 2010)

Quote

Maru Nui

You've said you lifted the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel, what would Kaladin have been doing if not running bridges and what will happen to Dragonsteel without the Plains?

Brandon Sanderson

Both good questions. I've spoken before of the big changes that happened when I wrote The Way of Kings 2.0. One of them was bringing in the Shattered Plains. The problem was that there was a big hole in Kaladin's storyline, because in the original manuscript of The Way of Kings (major spoiler), he accepted the Shardblade. That was the prologue of the book; Kaladin—then known as Merin—saved Elhokar's life. They tried to take the Shardblade away from him, and Dalinar insisted that he be given it. So Merin was made a Shardbearer in the very first scenes of the book. And from that point, his character never worked. So in doing the second version of the book, I decided that no, we've got to build more into this, we've got to dig deeper, and he has to make the opposite decision, which is where the entire framework of him turning down the Shardblade and then being betrayed all came from. The problem was then what was he going to do? I knew I wanted him to have therefore ended up sold into slavery and have terrible things happen to him, but I couldn't figure out what Kaladin was going to do and was unable to write the book until I mashed in the Shattered Plains and said, "Ah, that was what he needed to be doing all along."

I really don't know what I'll do in Dragonsteel without that now. The problem is that it was the part of Dragonsteel that worked, but it was the part that was most at odds with the story in Dragonsteel. The story that I wanted to tell was the first half of the book, which is the more boring part. Hopefully as a better writer now I can make that part more interesting, but that was the core of what Dragonsteel was. The Shattered Plains was always just going to be a small diversion, but when I wrote it it was fascinating, and I ended up pouring tons of effort and time into it. In many ways it was a distraction, a deviation, a beautiful darling. So for a long time I've been thinking, "I can't kill my darling, because that's the most exciting part of the book." Yet it was at odds with what the story of the book was originally intended to be. I wasn't as good at controlling my stories back then, making them come out to have the tone I wanted. Anyway, we'll have to approach that when I actually write Dragonsteel.

Tor.com Q&A with Brandon Sanderson (Jan. 10, 2011)

 

 

[Nitpicking]

16 hours ago, Treamayne said:

It's no longer Canon, but the Sanderson Curiosity Dragonsteel Prime has Frost/Hoid interactions.

There's also a scene that used to be on Brandon's web site where Hoid and Frost have a conversation in person.

[Frustration]

31 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

There's also a scene that used to be on Brandon's web site where Hoid and Frost have a conversation in person.

The Traveler is avaiable here

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

A focused southern breeze made the trees sound like they were chattering. Tiny crisp leaves spreading the news of the Traveler's return. Pure white leaves, clustered along branches like skeletal limbs. Even the bark clinging to the trees was white. In some lands, white meant purity; in others, it meant death. Here, it didn't mean a thing. It was simply, normal. 

The Traveler sat on the mossy white ground, back to the tree, legs crossed idly as he picked at a pomegranate, eating the seeds one by one then spitting out the pits. They fell on the stark moss-covered ground, leaving red juice like blood running across a sterile white floor. To say he wore rags would have be an insult to many a goodwife who kept her washing rags in much better shape than the Traveler's costume. Ragged brown and black canvas, tattered cloak, and scruffy beard, rubbed dark with a black material that might have been soot — or ash. 

The leaves suddenly fluttered excitedly behind him, and a strange puff of wind blew across the trunks. A moment later, a figure in simple gray robes walked into the clearing. Clean-shaven and silver-haired, he had the look of an aged scribe, not haughty, but tired. 

"So, you're back," the elderly visitor said. 

"Did I leave? I am the lingering odor you can never quite locate, my friend. Just when you think I've faded you open your cupboard and find, in an overpowering reveal, that I've merely been… ripening."

"Hmph, that's a new look for you."

The Traveler looked down at his ragged clothing. "I've been learning to blend in. Hard to do that in one of my normal costumes."

"I doubt you'll ever be the type to blend in."

"You'd be surprised!"

"Is that soot in your hair?"

"Maybe."

The elderly man sighed, walking across the short clearing and settling himself down on a large protruding tree root. "You can't keep doing this." The Traveler continued to eat his seeds, though he had started to chew them up rather than spitting out the pits. "You will just make things worse." 

"Ati and Leras are dead," the Traveler said, picking a piece of seed out from between his teeth. The elderly visitor said nothing, and the Traveler eyed him, leaning in closely, studying the man's eyes. The pupils were rimmed with a silver far too metallic to be natural, at least for a human. 

"You sly old lizard!" the Traveler said, pointing. "You already knew! You were watching! And here you were chastising me."

"I did NOT interfere," the elderly man said. "You meddle in things we promised to leave alone. Things that we—"

Traveler held up a finger, interrupting him, then slowly he pointed at the older man. "I. Made. No. Promise."

"You made your choice. Why now seek for things you so eagerly denied? My friend, it's the dangerous desire, the lust for power best untouched, that created the situation in the first place."

The Traveler did not reply. The two sat for a time, listening to the winds through the garrulous trees.

"Did you… find what you were seeking?" the elder man finally asked.  

The Traveler shrugged, picking at another seed and nibbling on it. 

"You will not find a way to restore what you have lost, old friend," the aged man said softly. "It is impossible." 

"You don't know that. The old rules no longer hold." The Traveler turned the pomegranate over in his fingers. "Besides, I've heard of a place… It doesn't matter. I don't care. This isn't about the dead… or it's not JUST about the dead, at least." He dropped the fruit to the ground, wiping his fingers on his riding coat.

"So it's a simple vendetta, then," the aged man said, sighing. "How many years have you lived, and you still can't learn the wisdom of just letting go?"

"A simple vendetta?" the Traveler said. He rose, stalking up to the older man, holding out a finger and touching the man's chest. "You saw what Ati nearly did." The Traveler leaned down, face even with that of his older companion. "I would not think it MY vendetta that should worry you, old friend."

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/332/#e9518

 

 

[GG0z He/Him]

Also, going back on the Dawnshard theory, it said that Frost had immortality upon dragon immortality, so that could ber a supporting factor

[PanLin they/he]

On 5/2/2026 at 2:13 AM, all_cats_are_windrunners said:

Oh, interesting! I hadn’t thought of that. He seems quite… not friendly, but familiar with Hoid, though. Not like he resents him. They might have “made up” with each other about it, though that seems difficult due to the circumstances. Thanks for the idea!

It could well be that the 16 vessels, Frost, and Hoid each represented three different 'factions' with competing ideas on what to do about Adonalsium. Hoid obviously chose not to take a Shard, so maybe Frost and Hoid both opposed the 16, but for different (and competing) reasons.