Jump to content

Is the Alcatraz series connected to the Cosmere?


Colin

Recommended Posts

Now, Sanderson said it wasn't in the Cosmere, but I found something interesting. In the story The Emperor's Soul, objects specifically have a cognitive identity. In Alcatraz vs The Dark Talent, the Shamer's lens make objects explode from embarrassment. right? When using the lens, Alcatraz heard the thoughts of the objects until they blew up. They described how they felt about how they appear to others. Sound familiar? The Cognitive Realm. Using Soul Stamps, you can change how an object views itself, along with others, to the extent of changing history. Am I just grasping at straws, or could I be seeing an actual connection?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Brandon loves writing functional magic systems and some of his non-Cosmere ideas may share elements with Cosmere works but not in the way they fundamentally work. Ie, there may be elements in Alcatraz that resemble the way Soulcasting and Forgery influence the Cognitive Realm but they're not actually the same thing. He's been very explicit that Earth is not Cosmere and never will be. Too much baggage.

The most obvious example of this would be Rithmatics, where the magic system was originally conceived in Cosmere terms but because the setting requires it to take place on Earth (or a version of Earth at least) it isn't part of the Cosmere. So a lot of the magic can be thought of in Realmatic terms but it's still not part of the same unified system. And he's mentioned that for other works like Reckoners and Alcatraz, not having to stick to the underlying principles of the Cosmere lets him have fun and do screwy things, like the Smedry Talents or Epic powers that still operate on certain internally (semi) consistent rules but don't have to be as consistent as if they were Cosmere magics or follow all the same requirements.

Edited by Weltall
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I understand that, it's just that I was wondering if there was any connection, not that Earth is in the Cosmere, but in a way connected to it. Like how the reservoir of power that allows Smedrys to power glass is similar to things like the Dor and other energies made out of Adolnasium. It's probably just that it's all written by Sanderson, so it's hard not to make connections. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Colin said:

I understand that, it's just that I was wondering if there was any connection, not that Earth is in the Cosmere, but in a way connected to it. Like how the reservoir of power that allows Smedrys to power glass is similar to things like the Dor and other energies made out of Adolnasium. It's probably just that it's all written by Sanderson, so it's hard not to make connections. 

The reasoning behind is probably similar as they're both by Brandon. That's as far as the connection goes though. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It might be intentional, it's very hard to tell. The Alcatraz series, in particular, is just Brandon having fun and messing around, so he might have had an idea for something in the cosmere that wouldn't be a good fit thematically, so he used it in Alcatraz where he can be silly. (I know he has done some other goofy stuff, like having some people in Alcatraz speak a language from Dragonsteel. No deep meaning, he just thought it would be a clever joke no one would pick up on for years and years.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I'm getting at is that the Alcatraz series could be connected by Universe physics and concepts, like the three realms (Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual). And I know the Alcatraz series is a way for Brandon to have fun, I just like to make connections. And for a such a goofy series, there are some pretty dark underlying tones within it. Especially the fifth book in general.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

You're looking at it from a Hushlander perspective.  In the Free Kingdoms the works that make up the Cosmere are known to be dramatizations of actual historical events in our universe, however in Libraria the Cosmere books are published under Brandon's name in order to bypass Librarian censors just like the Alcatraz autobiographical series.  Accept this fact and the deepest of Cosmere secrets will be clear as glass:  How was Adonalsium shattered? A:

Spoiler

The Dark Talent, the power of breaking.  Additionally, "shattering" is often used as part of curse phrases in the free kingdoms.

 

Edited by runyan_ft
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ahh, I think I see how this works now. Chuck Norris kicked Milky Way!Adonalsium so hard that it actually Shattered reality backwards in time, leading to the divergent universes of Alcatraz, Rithmatist, Reckoners, Apocalypse Guard and Snapshot.

Edited by Weltall
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/28/2017 at 7:46 PM, Weltall said:

Ahh, I think I see how this works now. Chuck Norris kicked Milky Way!Adonalsium so hard that it actually Shattered reality backwards in time, leading to the divergent universes of Alcatraz, Rithmatist, Reckoners, Apocalypse Guard and Snapshot.

Leaving aside the Chuck Norris nonsense for a moment, I suspect that Reckoners and Apocalypse Guard will turn out to be the same universe.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, Thanatos said:

But yeah i think the milky way is in the same universe. With Reckoners and Apocalypse Guard. 

just different galaxies

Considering the premise of Apocalypse Guard, and one of the powers in Reckoners, I'm pretty certain they're all on earth in layered but connected dimensions. 

It is called the "Multi-verse" after all. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, new goofy quasiheadcanon.  Alcatraz is confirmed to not be in the Cosmere.  However, we also know that the Cosmere is a dwarf galaxy.  On the other hand, Alcatraz takes place on an alternate Earth which resides within a galaxy which is orbited by dwarf galaxies.  Therefore the Cosmere is contained within the Alcatrazverse. It all makes sense now!

(warning, this post contained humor.any statement of fact should be laughed off as false unless WoBed otherwise)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just to clarify (even though this is mostly humor) the Cosmere has no relation to any dimension of Earth :)

Quote

Uh, Rithmatist started in the Cosmere. The magic shares a lot of its roots, then, in Cosmere magic worldbuilding. I split if off because I wrote the whole first book with it being in the Cosmere. I split it off, saying “No, I don’t want Earth to be in the Cosmere.” Even an alternate version of Earth. It just raises too many questions about the nature of Earth being involved in this. I want the Cosmere to be its own dwarf galaxy of which not even a dimension of Earth is involved. And when I made that decision, I broke Rithmatist off. That’s the only one I had written that didn’t belong, but it still has, so, it means that the magic is going to feel very familiar to you, uh, it’s going to feel like the magic of a, um, of the Cosmere. And Cosmere magic is based around, usually, human beings making a symbiotic bond with an entity made out of the magic. This is, kind of, one of the origins of Cosmere magic, and Rithmatist has, therefore, its roots in that. I’ve done some things since I’ve split it off in the outlines to distinguish it, but it’s going to have the same roots. So you’ll notice some things like that, that are similar.

The non-Cosmere stories are parallel 'Earth' universes but Cosmere is deliberately separate. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No see, it's fine, realmatics only works in the Cosmere dwarf galaxy around Milkyway 16 (the number is of course coincidental) because they are a result of the epic Adonalsium Smedry's Talent for complicating things interfering with his epic gifting powers.  See? total sense.

(again, humor. don't quote me unless you include that is was joking)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Chaos locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...