Theory: Devotion, Dominion, and Convergence

[Phantom Monstrosity]

"Yo, Tanabanana, you're my champion.  The honorable thing to do is to help me out.  Go splinter yourself, kthxbye."

[Vortaan he/him]

+1! That quote had been bothering me...why would Odium agree to that? He would if he thought he could win, and get what he wanted from it. Very interesting idea.

 

Further thought: what if you turned a Shard's champion against it's Intent? What if Elend, for example, used his powers to Ruin while being empowered by Vin?

[Nepene he/him]

Further thought: what if you turned a Shard's champion against it's Intent? What if Elend, for example, used his powers to Ruin while being empowered by Vin?

 

Nice idea.

 

Perhaps if your champion violated your intent you are easier to shatter.

 

And Honor had a lot of people who probably violated his Intent, with all his Heralds and Knight Radiants.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Hello, I'm making my "threads I really should have read earlier" rounds. I like this theory as a whole, though I think that magic was likely regionalized before Odium made his house call.

 

As far as the side discussion about Breaths goes, I've always seen them as primarily Spiritual. They're little bundles of energy that do some augmentation on the side, and though you could describe some of their effects as "mental", I don't think that automatically entails Cognitive, in the strict sense. "Life sense" is almost certainly related to Connection in the Feruchemical (Spiritual Feruchemy, recall) sense, and ties into a conception of the Spiritual as chalk-full of meaningful "connections" between people and objects. Even Returned's shapeshifting, while dependent on how they view themselves Cognitively, seems to flow ultimately from the Spiritual Realm.

[FeatherWriter she/her]

As part of my return to the forums, I'm going on an espousing spree! You and Kerry both get espousations because your discussion on Shardkeepers was excellent. I REALLY like these theories. They're well thought-out and just make sense.

 

Though I've realized I am hesitant to give you more upvotes, since you already have so many... Eh, whatever. You typed all that out. You deserve it.

[VirtuousTraveller]

I'm ripping this thread from the grave to sprinkle some thoughts on it!

What if the reason magic has become regionalized is because the magical unity that formerly existed with a combo shard (of Unity, which was the Dor of the ancient Jesker religion and the message of Shu-Keseg) no longer exists?  I've theorized that Aona and Skai intentionally fused their shardic powers to create a Unity shard, and thus the unified Dor existed all over Sel.  After the splintering, without a mind(s) to guide it, the Dor became incredibly unstable and caused all kinds of strange things to happen with the magic system on Sel.  Perhaps the shards of Devotion and Dominion, damaged and splintered as the are, created the fragmented and regional magic systems we see not as a result of the initial intents of the Vessels (unity), but because of the mindless aftermath of Odium's splintering.

[VirtuousTraveller]

@Chaos put these ideas forward a couple of years ago and I noticed this is one of their espoused theories.  I'm curious about their thoughts on the regional component of Selish magic being an original condition of Sel or as something that happened as a result of the splintering of Devotion and Dominion.