Squallor

What do we know about the Jindoese magic? I'm trying to make a catalog of all Cosmere magic, and I'm starting with Elantris... I know the magic of Dakhor seems to be similar to Elantrian magic, and possibly uses the Dor (Raoden can feel it when Dilaf uses magic to take down his disguise at his coronation), though its obviously not the same. The only reference I see to the Jindoese is the ChayShan dance, but I don't remember it being particularly magical (finishing the book tonight, so we will see)

Just started to. I'll be finishing Elantris tonight, and will hopefully write down everything I find soon after reading his commentary for each chapter online. Unfortunately I need to take a break before the next book to read Towers of Midnight, but after I'm going to do a reread of Warbreaker, then I'll hit up Mistborn since that's the biggest beast to tackle. I don't know if it's worthwhile to do heavy documentation of WoK yet since we get very little info about the magic in the first book. All I wanted to do was figure out the 10 order of radiants by associating the small symbols with each large one, but that's just looking through the glossary, and not much in book knowledge. I'll make a huge post in the forum for each book as I do them, hopefully I can get enough info from the books and his personal commentary to make decent start in identifying the theory. As a side note: What do we know about the Skaize and ClayShan? Ive heard these named dropped in Elantris discussions, however, all I know is Skaize are evil seons, possibly from the Dahkor magic.

we do we find out Hoid re-weaves reality through shademar? I know he uses that for planet hopping, but I thought that was his only known relationship with it?

I'm aware. I've heard Brandon talk about "spiritual DNA" so to speak when talking about how Larasium (I believe that was the metal) grants allomantic powers to people. Since allomancy is hereditary and not common, it could be assumed to be a recessive genetic. Larasium would then impose forced genetic mutation. People from the planet Warbreaker is on (I don't remember off the top of my head) all have the genetic ability to give/receive breaths, so I assume something like that has naturally evolved in their DNA and can't be avoided (like being born with a heart and lungs, etc). It could be reasonably assumed that any planet hopper might be able to collect breaths as well without having a genetic mutation. On Sel however, it seems a bit harder to identify and the theory breaks down. Elantrian magic seems to be entirely random, and we don't know enough about Drahkor magic to be able to tell how they learn it. Is there a spiritual genetic mutation forced by some unknown source? We know that Elantians are more likely to transform the closer they are to the city. Maybe Elantris itself has some sort of spiritual radiation that forces genetic mutation over time much like nuclear radiation can do. For the moment, we don't know enough about the magic on Roshar to pass judgment on that, but I will try to identify trends on my next read through. This leads me to believe that certain magics can be collected, while others cannot. One reason I like to think Brandon claims Hoid is so powerful is that he has been around long enough to have collected many different forms of magic, but that is just wishful thinking on my part, since we have only seen him do his story telling magic (light weaving?) Anyway, thats the end of my rambling

So, first time poster, but I've been lurking around for awhile. Basically I want to start a thread to gather opinions about the unifying theory of magic. What do people think/know about it? I started a reread of all of his books last week, and I'm planning on taking notes about each world, their shards, traits of their magic systems, etc. I've figured out that magic always needs a fuel source, and there needs to be a certain method to unlock said power. Also their are the interactions with Physical/Spiritual/Cognitive Realms with what can be done. I plan on writing large post in each book section summarizing what I can find after the rereads, but wanted to start a general discussion first. Brandon said it was similar to how scientists are trying to find a unifying theory of physics. That to me implies that are very strict rules, and that we should be able to derive more information once we have a good understanding. Also, I'm going to his signing in Boston on the fifth, and wanted to ask him some questions about this system, but don't know exactly what I should ask to get the most I can out of it, ideas? Mike