[Spoilers All Cosmere] A thought on the Bands Of Mourning

[silver-the-ridgerunner he/him]

Spoilers All Cosmere

This is just some crazy tinfoil idea that I had. 

 

I've long had a pet theory that Kelsier was connected to another Shard.

He has such commitment to his ideals that it speaks of great Intent. He comes off as cocky and self-interested but his willingness to sacrifice himself - and pursue his ideals even thereafter! - shows the depth of his devotion.

I used to think that, if he was influenced by a shard, it was probably Bavadin. Her penchant for Investing herself into Avatars is well known. Kelsier's anti-authoritarianism seems pretty Autonomous. And Kel's immidiate antipathy towards Hoid seems rather as if he "has been instilled with an intense and overpowering dislike of" our favorite flautist. 

This seems a little hard to square with his becoming a ruler (the Sovereign) on Scadrial, and a leader (Thaidakar) to the Ghostbloods. But it's possible. Perhaps there is no greater autonomy than sovereignty. Kelsier created the Bands of Mourning, an artifact so powerful as to grant its user quite a bit of "freedom and self-direction." 

But of all the questions about the Bands of Mourning, one gets a little lost: Why are they so named? I don't believe that the eponymous book gives an answer.

But another text may: Shadows For Silence In The Forest Of Hell.

Shadows for Silence is set on the planet Threnody, namesake of the Threnodite system. The other planets in that system include Monody and Elegy.

A threnody is "a wailing lament composed or performed as a memorial to a dead person." Both a monody and an elegy are "poems lamenting a person's death."

All three of these are examples of mourning. 

There's no Shard in the Threnodite system now. We know that several Shards were once there - Odium, Ambition, and Mercy.

A "wail for the dead" doesn't speak much of Ambition, and though it is Passionate it doesn't really feel like "God's own hatred." Mercy? "Compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm." That doesn't sound much like a death-song - and it sounds nothing like Kelsier.

In the Threnodite system, then, one of two things seems likely.

The first possibility is that the planets are named for some other Shard. Perhaps this is one of the two we haven't encountered - maybe it is the Shard of Grief? Maybe Memory?

The second possibility is that this system was created, or at least deeply touched, by all three of the shards which once resided there: Odium, Ambition, and Mercy. What do you get when you mix striving, passion, and forgiveness? I think that you would get the creation, of a song, of mourning.

Perhaps Kelsier is touched by something from these worlds. Kelek's Breath but there are enough Cognitive Shadows running around Threnody! And we know that the Selish Ire have set up pickets around Scadrial's subastral specifically to prevent Threnodite Shades from coming through via Shadesmar. And we know that Kelsier had a deeply transformative experience when he was enslaved in the Pits of Hathsin - the Lord Ruler's prison, the source of all atium, but also a Perpendiculatiry.

Maybe a Shade got through the Ire's picket and touched Kelsier. Maybe it was more than one of the apparently simple-minded Shades we see in Shadows for Silence. 

Perhaps all of the Shades of Threnody contain portions of the three Shards we know were present there. Maybe they contain an especially large portion of Ambition, since Uli Da was the one so wounded there.

One part hatred, three parts self-striving, and one part "a desire to relieve suffering."

...that sounds a lot like Kelsier to me.

[Frustration]

I don't want to stop this theory before it takes off, but I have two problems

1. Why the link with SFS? You have the naming convention, but that already has an explanation
2. Why would Kelsier not wither as everyone else touched by a shade has? Why would he be different?

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

Bands of Mourning may have been a pre-existing term Kelsier coopted. The myths may well have pre-existed the actual item.

[Aspiring Writer]

5 hours ago, silver-the-thruhiker said:

And Kel's immidiate antipathy towards Hoid seems rather as if he "has been instilled with an intense and overpowering dislike of" our favorite flautist. 

That avatar has been confirmed to be female, and I'm pretty sure avatars are at shardic levels of power.

 

5 hours ago, silver-the-thruhiker said:

Why are they so named? I don't believe that the eponymous book gives an answer.

I'm pretty sure that's what everyone started calling TLR's atium bracers, which he then co-opted into his own myth. 

[Morningtide she/her]

I am not sure that I agree that Kelsier is "connected" to another shard, but I do like that @silver-the-thruhiker linked some of his central character traits to shards. It makes me wonder if we can connect other people's character traits to shards. It's just interesting to me that @silver-the-thruhiker could find shards that fit so well into Kelsier's persona.