[AU Spoilers] Bavadin, Autonomy, and new info

[FirstSelector]

The Taldain essay reveals some pretty interesting information about Bavadin and Autonomy, even beyond the specifics of sand mastery and the solar system.

First, the way Khriss describes Bavadin makes me think that she has a lot of control over her Shard.  It appears she made a conscious decision to prevent travel to/from Taldain after Khriss and Baon left, and Khriss seemed to imply it wasn't impossible that she might restore the perpedicularity.

Second, Autonomy interfering with other planets despite the contradiction with her isolationist policy seems to fit nicely into an old theory of mine, which was that Odium recruited her to take down Sazed.

These two taken together raise several interesting questions.  Are Rayse and Bavadin related/involved together?  What was their role in splintering Adonalsium?  Do they share any of the same goals and plans?

[Jondesu he/him]

I was pretty sure Bavadin was male. Is there something in there indicating otherwise?

[Blightsong he/him]

19 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

I was pretty sure Bavadin was male. Is there something in there indicating otherwise?

She is called a she in the Taldain essay. Brandon seemed to changed his mine on their gender.

[Jondesu he/him]

20 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

She is called a she in the Taldain essay. Brandon seemed to changed his mine on their gender.

Thanks, that's very interesting! Definitely opens up possibilities for why she'd be working with Odium, though it could be completely unrelated to their genders.

[VirtuousTraveller]

Bavadin could have been male - perhaps a female is now the Vessel of Autonomy?  It would seem out of character for Brandon to make such a mistake, considering Bavadin is one of his favorite characters IIRC.

[Landis963 he/him]

38 minutes ago, VirtuousTraveller said:

Bavadin could have been male - perhaps a female is now the Vessel of Autonomy?  It would seem out of character for Brandon to make such a mistake, considering Bavadin is one of his favorite characters IIRC.

Either Bavadin was changed to be female retroactively (because Dragonsteel hasn't been published yet and is therefore somewhat in flux - see also Trackt Ais' gender change between prose and comic White Sand) or the Shard of Autonomy was taken by another Vessel.  Either way, the current Vessel is female.  

[teknopathetic he/him]

Bavidan could be something other than human. Maybe he/she doesn't have a gender in any sense we'd recognize or perhaps he/she is a dragon that can change gender like in some common dragon lore. We know some of the holders are not human. 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

I believe that Brandon just changed his mind, since Bavadin is someone he is fond of, has a grudge, and might be the sun.

 

2 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

We know some of the holders are not human. 

We do? Where is that stated?

[Pagerunner he/him]

8 minutes ago, Chull #445 said:

I believe that Brandon just changed his mind, since Bavadin is someone he is fond of, has a grudge, and might be the sun.

 

We do? Where is that stated?

From the Scadrian essay:

Quote

Yes, the Shards undoubtedly used humans from Yolen as a model (indeed, both of the Vessels for these Shards were human before their Ascensions) in creating life.

If all the Vessels were human, that parenthetical statement would be superfluous. Thus, there must be non-human Vessels.

[Argel he/him]

There are (were) also three races on Yolen, including humans and dragons. It's really hard to imagine that some of the vessels are not dragons considering Brandon's introducton to Fantasy was reading stories about dragons. I'm pretty sure there is a WoB out that that implies or outright says that not all of the vessels were human.

[PallonianFire he/him]

I find it most likely that there's been a change of hands with Autonomy. I'd be stunned if Brandon changed Bavadin's gender (Ais notwithstanding).

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

I want to see Bavadin as a shard though. Will Brandon do tours for AU? In that case, maybe someone could ask him about this gender issue?

Also, the word perpedicularity was in the OP as something Autonomy might restore. What does it mean?

[PallonianFire he/him]

There is a tour. I'm gonna be gone for work when he comes to my town, but I'm dragooning my friends into going and asking questions. I'll add it to the list.

12 minutes ago, Chull #445 said:

I want to see Bavadin as a shard though.

I think we will in the further White Sand sequels. I'm sure he sticks around for a while.

[cometaryorbit]

2 hours ago, Chull #445 said:

Also, the word perpedicularity was in the OP as something Autonomy might restore. What does it mean?

Seems to be the canon term for what we've been calling Shardpools - the Pits of Hathsin and Well of Ascension in Mistborn are called Perpendicularities in Secret History, and the weird pool on Patji (Sixth of the Dusk) is almost certainly the Perpendicularity Khriss discusses in the Drominad system essay.

[Argent he/him]

1 minute ago, cometaryorbit said:

Seems to be the canon term for what we've been calling Shardpools - the Pits of Hathsin and Well of Ascension in Mistborn are called Perpendicularities in Secret History, and the weird pool on Patji (Sixth of the Dusk) is almost certainly the Perpendicularity Khriss discusses in the Drominad system essay.

I think you (unintentionally) have the relationship backwards - or slightly sideways, at least. Shardpools are a type of perpendicularity, but not necessarily the only type. I believe there is still room for both terms to exist.

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

Yeah, personally I'm of the camp that Bavadin is a he, and Autonomy switched hands at some point before this was written, most likely during the events of White Sand.

Also, I will raise another possibility - we know Khriss is the most cosmere aware character, but that doesn't mean all her conclusions are true. She might simply believe Autonomy to be a she, having never met Bavadin personally.

[Argent he/him]

18 minutes ago, ROSHtaFARian2.0 said:

Also, I will raise another possibility - we know Khriss is the most cosmere aware character, but that doesn't mean all her conclusions are true. She might simply believe Autonomy to be a she, having never met Bavadin personally.

I don't think she would make an assumption like that without noting her ignorance. It's similar to how she felt it was necessary to point out that Ruin and Preservation were humans.

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

2 minutes ago, Argent said:

I don't think she would make an assumption like that without noting her ignorance. It's similar to how she felt it was necessary to point out that Ruin and Preservation were humans.

True, but then perhaps its possible she was misled in some way or another. If Bavadin is still Autonomy, and is also Trell, or the force behind the manipulations on Scadrial, then misdirection and working via proxies is definitely within his/her wheelhouse.

[Weltall]

8 hours ago, Argel said:

There are (were) also three races on Yolen, including humans and dragons. It's really hard to imagine that some of the vessels are not dragons considering Brandon's introducton to Fantasy was reading stories about dragons. I'm pretty sure there is a WoB out that that implies or outright says that not all of the vessels were human.

There was one when someone asked him 'Were all sixteen original Vessels human' and he replied that Yolen had three sentient races, wthout answering the direct question. The implication was that some of them were not human, otherwise that umprompted response wouldn't have made much sense.

6 hours ago, Chull #445 said:

I want to see Bavadin as a shard though. Will Brandon do tours for AU? In that case, maybe someone could ask him about this gender issue

I'm almost certain we will. Brandon has implied that Bavadin was one of his favorites among the original Vessels when someone asked, though he couldn't/wouldn't explain why. So between that and the specific mention in The Letter in WoK I'm pretty certain we'll see Bavadin eventually. And I'm certain someone will ask about this on the tour. I'll be attending the San Francisco signing (one of the first) and if I don't see it asked before then, I'll be happy to add it to my own list of questions.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Or it may be Brandon playing on the trope about presuming some ambiguous characters to be male, like Bleeder/Paalm. Granted, Bavadin seems like a masculine name given Brandon's written naming conventions but also seeing as how Aonic requires alternative emphasis on word sounds, Baa/vah/dIN could easily be Buh/vah/dEEN or Buh/vay/dEEN

Off the top of my head, any WoB I've seen pertaining to Bavadin/Autonomy has Brandon never actually respond with a gender pronouns but I could be wrong mind, nor have I seen any WoBs asking if Autonomy has changed Hans, other than the one saying that some Shards have, but it doesn't happen often

[Landis963 he/him]

57 minutes ago, AnanasSpren said:

Or it may be Brandon playing on the trope about presuming some ambiguous characters to be male, like Bleeder/Paalm. Granted, Bavadin seems like a masculine name given Brandon's written naming conventions but also seeing as how Aonic requires alternative emphasis on word sounds, Baa/vah/dIN could easily be Buh/vah/dEEN or Buh/vay/dEEN

Off the top of my head, any WoB I've seen pertaining to Bavadin/Autonomy has Brandon never actually respond with a gender pronouns but I could be wrong mind, nor have I seen any WoBs asking if Autonomy has changed Hans, other than the one saying that some Shards have, but it doesn't happen often

As far as I know, he has referred to Bavadin as male precisely once, when saying that "He is the only Shard in the [Taldain] system."  

[PallonianFire he/him]

3 hours ago, AnanasSpren said:

nor have I seen any WoBs asking if Autonomy has changed Hans

I asked this at JordanCon last April and he RAFO'd, but he said he did so because he wasn't sure if he'd answered it or not already.

[Full Metal Rithmatist]

On 23/11/2016 at 3:19 AM, Blightsong said:

She is called a she in the Taldain essay. Brandon seemed to changed his mine on their gender.

Autonomy ? more like Androgyny ami rite

[Asperity he/him]

Bavadin is a male. I'm interested to see who controls Autonomy now. I was surprised when I saw the 'she'.

On 11/23/2016 at 7:57 AM, Pagerunner said:

From the Scadrian essay:

If all the Vessels were human, that parenthetical statement would be superfluous. Thus, there must be non-human Vessels.

 

That was more meant to explain where Ati/Leras got their inspiration for human life-forms since they created Scadrial, and then created life on the planet in the form of humans.

[Weltall]

If that was all we were meant to take away from the statement, it could have ended with just 'they used humans from Yolen as their model'. There's no reason for Khriss to have added 'and these two were human pre-Ascension' as an aside unless she intended to imply that other Vessels were not originally human.