World Hopping and Sel

[Observer]

I always figured that if Hoid had a decent guess on how far away the planets are, he could just round down and go. I don't imagine appearing in space would inconvenience him very much.

What about Aon Rao as the hint? It seems like Nicrosil for Elantris, and could possibly have applications elsewhere. Hoid could make a mini-Rao and use it + nicrosil to fuel Aon Tia or something.

[TheOneKEA]

Semi-shard? What's your basis for that supposition? There's a lot of big guesses in there.

It's based on WoB that if you put enough uncontrolled, undirected power in one place that it will become sentient. http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6597-theory-man-made-adonalsium/ has a post from Argent with the WoB.

I'm speculating further by guessing that any freshly formed intelligence will be very young and very immature, and will only have the fragmentary memories that the Seons appear to have about what happened to the Shards; therefore, I'm guessing that the intelligence in question doesn't know any better and will lash out at anything that might hurt it.

[Argent he/him]

Hmm. That might actually be possible.

[cosmosofclay]

From Elantris:

> "Over there," Karata said, pointing at the far end of the rectangular room, where the wall held only a single mural. It depicted a large mirrorlike blue oval. An Elantrian stood facing the oval, his arms outstretched and his eyes closed. He appeared to be flying toward the blue disk. The rest of the wall was black, though there was a large white sphere on the other side of the oval.

This would be the hint. The white sphere probably represents another world, or some sort of nexus, or whatever.

 

You should've also included the portion right after this where Galladon says it looks like a gate of some kind.

 

Also later on, as Raoden is getting out of the pool he says that whatever blue liquid is inside of it is thicker and not quite water. So, what sort of liquid is in the pool then?

[BreerEeto he/him]

After reviewing the conversation, and having been looking into Elantrian needs lately myself, I can speculate that the reasons the Elantrians dissolve in the pool could be because they're supposed to stay put by Elantris. The Shardpool having a gateway ability, transporting one to the Cognative Realm, it may completely cut the Elantrians out of circulation. So instead of offering them some transit, it tells them to get out or die. I haven't read Emperor's Soul, so I don't know for sure, but the way I see it, we've never seen a human try to step into that pool on Sel.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

I would love to see a human step into that pool. 

 

I think it's fairly obvious from Rock's story about Horneater history in WoR that:

Hoid came out of a shardpool in the Hornearter "ocean" sometime in the past. Both from his description and Sigzil's reaction to the story. So he probably is traveling some of the time by shardpool gates if not all the time.

[BreerEeto he/him]

It's fairly obvious (to me) the connection of Shardpools to mountains. I wonder if there's important information connected there, too?

[Argent he/him]

I wouldn't be so certain about the connection between Shardpools and mountains - the Endowment's pool is strongly suspected to be somewhere in the jungles / valleys around Hallandren, and given the special treatment the Elendel Basin received from Harmony, it might be where his pool is (and didn't we have a WoB that the Hallandren jungles and the Basin are similar somehow?).

[Tempus]

I think you're thinking of this theory: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/3898-theory-the-jungles-of-hallandren/

 

No Word of Brandon that I could find.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

There is WoB on this:

 

 

Q: Is there a similar relationship between Endowment and Hallandren's jungle as there is between Harmony and Elendel Basin ?
A: Yes and no. The flowers are being fed by something that's very similar to what you might find on other planets. So the ground is saturated with something that producing a similar effect as Elendel Basin. But it's not the same thing. Elendel Basin was just crafted really really well, and then it was endowed with a little bit of extra help. Here [in Hallandre's jungle] we have this extra seeping into the ground from the pool, which is saturated around and causing the flowers and causing what's going on around there. We'll wait until you've read Words of Radiance.

 

(source)

[Tempus]

Funny how I can search on theoryland, through the signing threads, and in the general forum here, and still not manage to find that quote. I bow to your expertise!

[Edgedancer he/him]

Could entering the Shardpool "kill" the Elantrians because the Shard is splintered? The only other time we saw someone interacting with a proven Shardpool, the Well of Ascension, it shortly gave them the power of the Shard or in other words made them more like the Shard. On Sel "more like the Shard" would mean to be effectivly destroyed. It being the Shard of Devotion could also explain why it doesn´t force, although strongly encourages, the Elantrians to let go. Having the Shardpool be one giant death trap would also make hopping harder.

 

If one wants to work the Horneaterpeaks into this pattern then we could assume that having multiple pools caused the effect isn´t as strong with them because the investure concentration is lower, so dipping in them turnes you only into a slightly invested person. This might also explain why people think it is water, although known Shardpools have liquid of other consistency in them. Seeing Spren also makes sense because the Spren are of the Shards.

 

This has nothing to do with Worldhopping though, mhmmm....

If Worldhopping is done by Shardpools they most likely act as some kind of signal fire that the hopper uses to aim. Hoid had to search the WoA, which means he didn´t use it for his trip to Scardrial. Maybe the LR did something to hide it? Hoids alternative would have been the Pits, which seem to just sit there so it´s possible.

 

Yeah, I´m stering into random speculations so I´ll stop here but I honestly can´t think of a better Worldhopping hint in the novel than the pool

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Funny how I can search on theoryland, through the signing threads, and in the general forum here, and still not manage to find that quote. I bow to your expertise!

 

It helps that I knew exactly where that quote was.

[Shardfan17 she/her]

Okay just throwing in my two cents and stating first that it has been  years since I've read Elantris or Mistborn so I'm just incredibly ignorant BUT when Rock met "someone" coming out of one of the pools of water I really don't think it was Hoid. Hoid was described in Shallan's memory as having dark hair and the man who came from the water had white hair like an Elantrian. Could it have been Galladon? I think it's someone from Elantris.

 

PS I didn't read all the comments either so if someone already said this just ignore me.

[Argent he/him]

Brandon hinted heavily that it's Hoid in a few places.

[WeiryWriter he/him]

Okay just throwing in my two cents and stating first that it has been  years since I've read Elantris or Mistborn so I'm just incredibly ignorant BUT when Rock met "someone" coming out of one of the pools of water I really don't think it was Hoid. Hoid was described in Shallan's memory as having dark hair and the man who came from the water had white hair like an Elantrian. Could it have been Galladon? I think it's someone from Elantris.

 

PS I didn't read all the comments either so if someone already said this just ignore me.

 

Hoid actually has white hair.  He has just dyed it black on Roshar.

[Shardmancer he/him]

All the speculation of Aon Tia- Travel is not likely becuase the farther you get from Elantris the weaker the aon dor is.. so travel through the elantrian powers is probably not the clue. I think it has to do with perception much like most of the small hints in all his novels. The elantrians preception of themsleves being great silver beings something to do with the connection of the shardpools preception and undertstanding of the physical and congnitive realms . ..? maybe

[Moogle]

One problem with using Shardpools to Worldhop is the question of how Hoid got onto Scadrial.

• Hoid did not know where the Well of Ascension was (at least, after Rashek moved it), so obviously he would have had to use Ruin's Shardpool if he came to Scadrial less than 1024 years pre-Mistborn 1.
• Ruin's Shardpool was a bunch of puddles on the bottom of the Pits of Hathsin at the time.

Perhaps we could use this as evidence to say that Hoid actually spent a thousand years on Scadrial, waiting for the Well to come back. But how would Hoid have gotten off the planet after it was used again? I guess Harmony could have his own Shardpool now...

Edited April 17, 2014 by Moogle

[Tempus]

Well, Hoid has some method of travelling forward through time. We know he was in the pool room just prior to the Well being used...

 

• Hoid was on Scadrial for the important events when Rashek got his mitts on the pool.

• He was then stuck. He used his unknown timeskip ability to jump forward in time to the period he knew would have the pool.

• He began to interfere with the Lord Ruler and 'assist' the resistance in order to help himself elude the Lord Ruler and locate the pool.

• He located the pool just before Vin, as his primary objective.

• He noticed the Lerasium, and took it as an act of opportunity.

• He shardpooled it out of there, just a few hours before Vin and Elend's descent into the area.

 

And then 300 years later...

 

• He used Harmony's shardpool or some newly acquired ability of his to return briefly during Alloy of Law.

 

 

 

Could be possible, perhaps.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Tempus

[Moogle]

• He shardpooled it out of there, just a few hours before Vin and Elend's descent into the area.

 

Hoid appeared in Mistborn 3 after the Well was used, so unfortunately this can't be true.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Moogle

[Aether he/him]

Permit me to jump in with this little tidbit:

little_wilson

So, Brandon. Hoid. I remember you saying at the Idaho Falls signing last year that he was in Well of Ascension. We, your dedicated fans who like scouring books searching for obscure characters who have any possibility of being the mysterious Hoid, have yet to find him. Peter sent us on a hunt for him (Hoid, not Peter...) in the deleted scenes, and we found his boot-print.

Now, I think he broke the pottery there too—the one holding the larasium—and since there's broken pottery in the actual version, I think he may have snuck into the cavern and broken it as well. If so, is this Hoid's part in Well of Ascension? This trace of him? I commend you if it is. It is clever, making us think it was a person, when in fact it's just something he did.

Brandon Sanderson
You are on the right track, but wrong on one point. Hoid does appear in the book.

I had originally toyed with making his touch on the novel more obscure, but decided that I wanted to be consistent with the other novels by actually having him appear. Once I realized I'd probably cut the scene with the footprint, I decided I needed this actual appearance even more badly.

Fortunately, I knew what Hoid had been up to all this time, and had placed him in a position where several characters could run into him. In Well of Ascension, Hoid believed (as Vin did) that the Well was in the North, even though it was not. He spent much of the book pursuing this idea.

Through events, however, he discovered he was wrong. He made the realization after Vin did, but only because of a chance meeting. (This is recorded in the books. Let's just say he was listening in when someone implied that the Well was in Luthadel.)

He hurried to Luthadel, and was in the town, skulking about in the last parts of the novel. He isn't seen here, though he does still infiltrate the Well. (Hoid is quite proficient at manipulating Shadesmar for his own ends.)
<source>

 

According to this, Hoid would be able to access Shadesmar (and thus Worldhop), without using the Shardpools as gateways.

Edited April 17, 2014 by Aether

[Moogle]

Permit me to jump in with this little tidbit:

 

According to this, Hoid would be able to access Shadesmar (and thus Worldhop), without using the Shardpools as gateways.

 

I agree, but the question then becomes why Hoid came out of the Shardpool on the Horneater peaks. Is it just a faster way to travel?

[Aether he/him]

I agree, but the question then becomes why Hoid came out of the Shardpool on the Horneater peaks. Is it just a faster way to travel?

Ok, time to make a List of possible reasons for these discrepancies:

• Accessing Shadesmar directly (without going through a portal, or something) allows for easy local travel, but not necessarily Worldhopping.
• Accessing Shadesmar directly makes him easier to track (in the epilogue of tWoR, he mentions that a certain person "caused quite the stir amongst the Highspren" or something, though that might have been for other reasons).
• Accessing Shadesmar directly might be costly in some way, either using up physical resources or spiritual ones.
• Passing through a Shardpool has some other benefit.

[PorridgeBrick he/him]

5. Hoid stopped by because he enjoys making fun of Horneater beards. Clearly the most likely option.

[Aether he/him]

• He needed a bath.