What did the Shaod do before Elantris was built?

[coredumperror]

Hi all, I'm new! I recently finished getting fully caught up on the cosmere novels (holy rust, Oathbringer was amazing!).

I feel I have a pretty good grasp of the cosmerre, especially after having wiki-dived through The Coppermind. However, one thing still bothers me, and I haven't found an answer to this question anywhere:

If the very shape of Elantris itself (a gigantic Aon Rao) is what allowed the Shaod to turn people into Elantrians, what did the Shaod do before Elantris was built?

Aon Rao being broken by the Chasm is what caused the Shaod to start turning people into Zombie Elantrians (as I like to call them), so I don't understand how normal Elantrians could have been created before Elantris was built.

Edited January 24, 2018 by coredumperror

[Yata he/him]

Hi and welcome on the 17S.

Your question is really clever and indeed is something we wondered for a long time. Our main hypotesis for now is it simply there was no Shaod pre-Elantris.

As you maybe already know, Elantris is an artificial boost to AonDor...It enhances that magic far beyond its actual power and it's the reason of the hyper fast weakening of the AonDor as soon as you leave the sorrounding (to make it more clear, the AonDor's power showed before the "fix" of the City or the one showed in Teod is the rightful one).

The Main guest is there were pre-Elantris some AonDor user but not the Elantrians we know today....Those users built Elantris to focus the power and enhances it...They (maybe) designed the Shaod to use this surplus to turning the AonDor's users into the immortal shining dude we know today.

Of course this is a speculation but it's one of the easy to accept ones you will find in the forum now.

PS: Honored to gave you, your first upvote of welcome ;-)

Edited January 24, 2018 by Yata

[RShara she/her]

Basically what Yata said.  The original Elantrians probably developed their language and slowly figured out a way to use it to take advantage of the Dor.  Then they realized that they could boost their power level significantly by building Elantris as a giant Aon-power-conduit.  They probably also put in modifiers to have Shaod Elantrians created, to be better vessels for the Dor, or just to give themselves immortality.

Chapter 55 of the Elantris Annotations talks about the Aonic Language and the Dor.

https://brandonsanderson.com/annotation-elantris-chapter-55/

in particular,

Quote

Most likely, the early Elantrians (who probably didn’t even have Elantris back then) would have had to learn the Aons by trial and error, finding what each one did, and associating its meaning and sound with its effect. The language didn’t develop, but was instead ‘discovered.’

 

Edited January 24, 2018 by RShara

[coredumperror]

Ahh, I had not considered that there could be pre-Elantrian AonDor users. That seemed impossible, given that Zombie Elantrians couldn't make Aon Dor work. But now that you mention it, I realize that they couldn't use it because of the Chasm Line being missing from their Aons; not because Elantris was broken.

I can't recall... did anyone manage to successfully use Aon Dor w/ Chasm Line before Roaden fixed Elantris? If so, that would be pretty good confirmation.

 

EDIT: Oh cool, RShara also posted a comment while I was writing mine. And I did not know that Elantris had annotations! I'm totally going to go read those. I friggin loved the ones in Warbreaker!

Do any of Sanderson's other novels have annotations?

Edited January 24, 2018 by coredumperror

[RShara she/her]

3 minutes ago, coredumperror said:

Ahh, I had not considered that there could be pre-Elantrian AonDor users. That seemed impossible, given that Zombie Elantrians couldn't make Aon Dor work. But now that you mention it, I realize that they couldn't use it because of the Chasm Line being missing from their Aons; not because Elantris was broken.

I can't recall... did anyone manage to successfully use Aon Dor w/ Chasm Line before Roaden fixed Elantris? If so, that would be pretty good confirmation.

 

EDIT: Oh cool, RShara also posted a comment while I was writing mine. And I did not know that Elantris had annotations! I'm totally going to go read those. I friggin loved the ones in Warbreaker!

Do any of Sanderson's other novels have annotations?

Yep.  Raoden did the Fire Aon and almost burned down the library, remember?  Plus the illusions and minor healing he did.

I believe Mistborn: The Final Empire has annotations, too.  They should all be on his website.

[coredumperror]

Awesome, thanks!

*goes off to read a bunch of annotations...*

[+Harrycrapper]

Quote

5 hours ago, coredumperror said:

Ahh, I had not considered that there could be pre-Elantrian AonDor users. That seemed impossible, given that Zombie Elantrians couldn't make Aon Dor work. But now that you mention it, I realize that they couldn't use it because of the Chasm Line being missing from their Aons; not because Elantris was broken.

I can't recall... did anyone manage to successfully use Aon Dor w/ Chasm Line before Roaden fixed Elantris? If so, that would be pretty good confirmation.

 

EDIT: Oh cool, RShara also posted a comment while I was writing mine. And I did not know that Elantris had annotations! I'm totally going to go read those. I friggin loved the ones in Warbreaker!

Do any of Sanderson's other novels have annotations?

 

Mistborn has plenty of annotations, I believe the first trilogy and Alloy of Law have them. Way of Kings also has some that Brandon released before OB came out a few months ago. If you get Sixth of Dusk through the original format in Shadows Beneath it doesn't have annotations but Brandon does discuss the making of the story to an extent. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

17 hours ago, coredumperror said:

If the very shape of Elantris itself (a gigantic Aon Rao) is what allowed the Shaod to turn people into Elantrians, what did the Shaod do before Elantris was built?

So.. your question delves a little into continuity that we just don't have answers for yet. Credit to Oversleep for realizing this.

Quote

Wait, wait, wait. I've only realized that there is something wrong.

As the WoBs of @The One Who Connects say:

1. Only Elantrians can draw Aons (so it means they must have built Elantris. Nobody else could make it work):

   On 5/10/2017 at 11:29 AM, The One Who Connects said:

   The Aons had to exist before Elantris–otherwise, the original Elantrians wouldn’t have known the shape to make the city. Their study of AonDor taught them a method for amplifying Aon power.

2. To become Elantrian you have to be taken by Shaod:

   On 5/10/2017 at 11:29 AM, The One Who Connects said:

   Only Elantrians can draw Aons in the air, so someone taken by the Shaod must have developed the writing system.

So far it means that Shaod must have existed before Elantris. But there is this WoB:

Quote

The Shaod is an effect of Elantris.

source

which makes it all circular reasoning since to have Shaod you need Elantris and you can't build Elantris without Shaod having already existed.

So basically.. listen to Yata until the Elantris Sequels come out.

[RShara she/her]

So I'm pretty sure (at least in my head) that this is likely.

Some people in each region have some natural inclination toward being channels for the Dor.  They could have been madmen who were cracked enough to sense it, or whatever.  They started experimenting and other people followed suit, eventually.  They slowly started figuring out Aons.  But they were very very low power and required a lot of intense study.  Very likely similar to how Forgery was developed (anyone can do Forgery but it requires a lot of study and practice but it is very low investiture).

 

So eventually, some geniuses among them realized they could focus and exponentially increase their power by building Elantris.  They could also build into it a way to channel the Dor into making them immortal, and perfect channels for the Dor.  They likely knew how it worked well enough that they could all be Elantrians.

So they built Elantris and continued their study and development of their sciences.

At some point, something happened.  They all disappeared or ascended or went through the shardpool, whatever.

 

Years pass and the second wave of Arelish people arrive and settle around Elantris.  Once their Connection grew strong enough, they started converting to Elantrians as well.  And so on and so forth.

 

I don't know if this is accurate, but it makes sense to me.

[NotBurtReynolds he/him]

On 1/25/2018 at 0:55 AM, RShara said:

So eventually, some geniuses among them realized they could focus and exponentially increase their power by building Elantris.  They could also build into it a way to channel the Dor into making them immortal, and perfect channels for the Dor.  They likely knew how it worked well enough that they could all be Elantrians.

So they built Elantris and continued their study and development of their sciences.

At some point, something happened.  They all disappeared or ascended or went through the shardpool, whatever.

In MB:SH, the members of the Ire are described as looking kind of Elantarian and 2 of them mention Devotion

Quote

We move forward, the seated man said, looking to the others. One at a time, they nodded. Devotion protect us. We move forward.

You won't need Devotion, Elrao, Alonoe said. You will have me.

So we have ancient, cosmere/Shards-aware beings who speak of Devotion like they not only knew of her as a god concept, but as an actual un-splintered and interactive god. Would these members of the Ire be the initial Elantris geniuses you're postulating? Because those Devotion mentions have been itching my brain and I think your idea would explain them using Devotions's full name as opposed to "merciful domi" or some other generic curse(like other Elantarians we've come across in the Cognitive) or the like. My thinking would be the framework you outlined is probably right with the details of the "somethings" that happened to be filled in later.

So say, Elrao, Alonoe, and others were the ones who figured out the Dor, its relationship to Devotion, built Elantris, and probably a lot of other cool stuff. They became cosmere aware, started exploring the Cognitive, maybe even some light worldhopping. Then the big "something" happened that forced them away permanently.(Would this have to be the Splinterings or are their other likely scenarios?).  Then

On 1/25/2018 at 0:55 AM, RShara said:

Years pass and the second wave of Arelish people arrive and settle around Elantris.  Once their Connection grew strong enough, they started converting to Elantrians as well.  And so on and so forth.

And this next wave base their own religions based off of the concepts of Devotion they suss out from what the original Elantarians have left behind, without ever actually knowing the real deity.

Is this what you're thinking or am I off-base with my assumptions?

Edited January 26, 2018 by NotBurtReynolds