Blightsong

Introduction The biggest question left in the wake of Oathbringer by far is the mysterious nature of the Dawnshards. Brandon's been teasing and RAFOing us about them for years and years, making the tantalizing bit we finally did get in Oathbringer personally one of my favorite hints throughout the book. After enough staring at WoBs and Oathbringer cross-eyed, I think I've come up with a sensible reasoning as to what they are. As I always say in these intros, if you see any discrepancies or stuff that doesn't make sense, make sure to drop a comment. Enjoy! Greater Rosharan Pre-History When trying to guess at the nature of the Dawnshards, I started by gathering information that we had regarding the magic that existed before men came to Roshar. We have this important tid bit in the Eila Stele: And this from the Listener's song of secrets: To me, this sounded similar to Surgebinding when first read, but we know that the Eila Stele was almost certainly written before the cycle of desolations began. After reading around a bit more, I saw this passage: If Surgebinding was not yet a magic system, then what could have been the powers of these people who, as the author of the Eila Steele puts it, "brought the void"? I'd always taken the 'void' portion of Voidbinding's name to mean that it is related to or of Odium, but it also makes sense that the Singers named the powers wielded by their enemy after said enemy, regardless of the realmatic nature of the magic system. And I do mean to be pointed in my belief that Voidbinding wasn't originally of Odium, although it may have been coopted before the cataclysm that destroyed Ashyn. Taking a look at the voidbinding chart, you'll see that the number ten is just as relevant there as it is on the double eye of the almighty, not the number nine. This is further supported by the below WoB: So, to sum up this section, Voidbinding seems like the best candidate for the power originally wielded by the humans that destroyed Ashyn. So what do we know about Voidbinding? Voidbinding Being the magic system we've seen the least in the series, there isn't much we can say about how Voidbinding and how it works with any certainty. We do have one framework to go off of though, so lets read the below WoB: We've only seen pieces of Renarin's power, but the fact that they are completely diffrent from the Surgebindings is a very interesting tid bit. I just want to note that the power we see Renarin possess, future sight, has only ever made one other appearance on Roshar, and that is in the form of the Moelach's deathrattles. Seeing as how Renarin's spren was created by Sja-Anat, this immediately raised questions in my mind about the nature of the Unmade. Lets see what she herself has to say about her own nature: Every Cognitive entity we have seen up until this point has been derived from the power of one of the Shards, so the statement that she is only of herself is much more important than just the denial that she is of Odium. This implies that she isn't of Honor or Cultivation either, that she pre-dates the dawn of the Shards and the modern history of the Cosmere, that she is of Adonalsium himself. We know that Adonalsium had a careful hand in the creation of Roshar, from the statement from Frost in the Letters, the ten outer gas giants, to the continent of Roshar itself being based on a Julia set, so it makes sense that he would have made the original spren as well. Dawnshards I think you all see where I've been going, I believe that the Unmade were powerful spren that existed in the Rosharan system before any influence from the Shards and that these are what were referred to as Dawnshards. You might ask "but why would there only be nine instead of ten, then?" or "How could they have destroyed Ashyn?" Just read the below WoBs, i'll get to it: What is a singular mysterious spren thats relation to Honor and Cultivation is dubious and is also capable of world-bending powers that Brandon has been just as tight lipped about as the Dawnshards? Ding ding ding, you guessed it, the illusive third Bondsmith spren. Brandon has even hinted... or rather flat out told us that we should think of the power of a Bondsmith as very dangerous, read the below WoB: This matches what the text says about Dawnshards. Perhaps the Dawnshards were Voidbinding's equivalent to Bondsmith-spren on Ashyn before this immense power destroyed it. I think we've even seen hints of this shift from Dawnshard to Unmade in the text. Read this portion of the Eila Stele with this theory in mind: Outro It's 1:45am and I've been writing this theory for hours, so I think I'm gonna leave it here. I've had this one bouncing around in my head for a long time and I'm sure other people have guessed similar things with other theories, but I think the foundation of WoB and direct quotes is pretty solid on this one. Let me know what you guys think if you were able to slog through this, thanks for reading!

This is definist fallacy, cleansing does not neccesarily mean physical removal. The Voidspren had attached itself to Venli's very soul. Whatever Timbre did broke it's grip on Venli's soul but not all Connection, as we can see it still stuck around. This is pretty much exactly what we see with aluminum Allomancy, the effects of any kinetic Investiture are negated but it's not like it's gonna "clense" away the Allomantic Connections, it's just not destructive like that. I mean the only other Spren we've seen physically trapped, having its kinetic Investiture subdued, on screen is Nightblood with his sheathe. I agree it's a stretch but the similarities are there and there aren't contradictions in the text as you suggest. I don't think it is a Godmetal. I think it was a Godmetal. Obviously before Allomancy or Trellium ever even existed. Read the below WoB I've mentioned in this thread.

I didn't mention Dragonsteel by name in the theory because that specifically being the Godmetal is really, really iffy but it's the best candidate. Probably because it is the only candidate. Regardless, if Adonalsium had a Godmetal, it stands to reason that, similar to how modern Godmetals are for their Shards, it would have been a blindspot for him. As he was the source of all magic, if you use magic to defeat him it's gonna have to be a power he can't control, presuming he didn't want to be defeated. If Adonalsium can't control it, no external magic could, as he was the source and essence of all magic. Seeing as how that power or weapon is expended as per WoB, it makes sense that the remnant we know exists would now be something that the power of Adonalsium can't control or manipulate, and there seems to be literally one thing in the Cosmere besides the Beyond where that is the case. We both have each other rambling but I hope some of this makes sense.

Tha'ts what i was alluding to with that title comment. Dragonsteel the series takes place before and up to the Shattering.

We don't know if Soulcasting even existed, much less in the same form, back before the Shattering. If my theory is correct then whatever aluminum was pre-shattering has had its properties changed, remember the weapon was somehow "used up" and all that remains is remnants.

Introduction With the recent Idaho signing I know that a lot of us have had our heads spinning over that 'Pre-shattering Weapon' WoB, especially in how it relates to Hoid. After listening to the related Shardcast episode I left with a few takeaways from the conversation the crew had that I wanted to share with you all. Before I get in to this, I want to warn you all that at its core, this theory is crackpot. I think I've made a lot of interesting connections but at this point we just don't have enough information on the related topics to make reasonable conclusions. With that in mind, strap in cause this is a long one! The Case For Aluminum As was discussed in the Shardcast, my hypothesis is that Aluminum is the remnant of the weapon used to destroy Adonalsium. It simply makes sense when you deduce things. To defend yourself from a seemingly all powerful being who's essence was the basis of all things and who you were deeply Connected to, it seems reasonable that the first step would be to stop that being from detecting you, manipulating you, or influencing you in any way which just so happens to be the primary passive effect of Aluminum. Having made this conclusion, lets take a step back. If the weapon used to kill Adonalsium is now expended and not in its original from, Aluminum itself cannot be the weapon and its properties may not be the same as its theoretical original form, so we're kind of missing a crucial puzzle piece. This is about as far as any of my theories pre-Idaho got, but the extra clue of how it relates to Hoid's power got me interested enough to dig deeper. The Realmatic Effects of Aluminum After hitting this dead end, the next step towards understanding what this illusive weapon is came in finding what other things in the Cosmere seem to share properties with Aluminum. After thinking about it for awhile, I began thinking about Allomantic Aluminum. Despite it's inert properties, it is somehow able to provide a magical, investiture related effect. Digging a little bit deeper, I remembered this WoB: Thinking this kind of sounded familiar I remembered this scene in Oathbringer: I was just as stumped as Venli was until making the connection that Timbre also happened to be a Spren existentially linked to metal, it being the essence linked to Venli's assumed order. Both Timbre and Aluminum seem to be able to, as Brandon described the latter's effects "[clense] the spirit of unwanted effects of other Investitures". Seeing as how the only thing aluminum and Timbre share in common is this whole idea of metallic properties, I began thinking about what other phenomenon in the Cosmere relate to metals, and naturally I shifted my focus on Scadrial. The Link To Godmetal With all these new ideas and connections in my head I began thinking about how metals may be used in the defeat of a Shard-level being and immediately things started making sense. In the Mistborn series, there has been a clear theme in what is being used to combat Shards/Spiritual beings on that planet: Godmetals. While regular metals, tied to the magic, investiture, and essence of the planet, can be used to blind Shards; this seemingly Scadrial specific effect is nothing compared to a power that transcends the Metallic Arts and the resident Shardworld, Godmetals. As seen when Sazed encounters Trellium, they can directly act as a weapon against a Shard-level being, a property necessary for any weapon that has a chance at defeating Adonalsium, but there is an even more interesting example that I believe ties this whole thing together. Something I never really thought of was how peculiar it was that Ruin had no ability to sense or interact with Atium directly, something seemingly made out of his own power. It was completely dark to him, the plot of the whole third book even revolves around how he needs it to defeat Preservation. Haven't we also seen this effect of an un-sensable metal elsewhere... Conclusion Looking at all these connections, it seems so natural and obvious. The exact kind of long term, hail mary twist Brandon likes to pull on us. I believe that pre-shattering, Aluminum was Adonalsium's godmetal. A piece of his essence that he couldn't find, touch, or manipulate from the spiritual realm but had power within the physical one, a power that could be stolen and manipulated against a being that encompassed all of reality as was the case for Ati. For gods sake, the title of the series where all this is taking place even alludes to a metal with magical properties. The fact that Adonalsium is now dead and shattered could explain why this hypothetical godmetal has become inert and lost its magical properties. Afterthoughts So this is as good an educated guess as I can make on this topic. I probably left a few loose ends lying around in the theory but I'm writing this one a bit more fast and loose than i typically do due to its nature as a pretty speculative crackpot so feel free to press me on those. I'm interested in what you all have to say, if you have any ideas drop a comment. Have a good day y'all!

If the spheres held different things I feel like that would have been hinted at by Brandon at this point.

I think you guys are over thinking it personally. No where in Oathbringer does it really imply that those spheres might hold Voidspren. The heavy implication throughout the book is that it holds an Unmade, Brandon would not have said what he said in this latest WoB (in my opinion) if what was in the sphere was something less heavily implied. Any thoughts we have about what Gavilar could or couldn't have done or had access to are really too uninformed to sway me away from taking all the hints that the spheres hold Unmade.

Both are a bit off the mark. All Shards have separate bodies of Investiture that have been associated with them and this association has existed since the beginning. By killing another Shard and taking up their investiture, or even part of it, their original intent would change and their body of investiture would grow "larger" in some way than its original, (somehow infinite) size as seen with Harmony.

So connecting ideas from Quantum Mechanics, as he has named that as one of his inspirations for a lot of this and he references spin in the post, Investiture is like an elementary particle with no discernable units/can't be broke down to a "particle" as far as we know that has spin trajectories (as opposed to a set number) related to the nature/personality (same thing?) of Adonalsium that has now been divided into 16 different entities. Yeah, he wasn't kidding when he said this gets complicated. Anyone with more than a cursory half-understanding of Quantum Mechanics, feel free to correct it me. Edit: Oh, wow. Just realized something that made a lot of sense. 16 is (in my new theory) an arbitrary number associated with these kinds of different 'spins'. So 16 may be a thing on the micro level of investiture and that's why it's reflected in the macro level of it.

Brandon just responded to a question on reddit from @Oversleep. One of the best WoBs we have on Investiture and its conceptual ideas; it's essay length and helps to point us in the right direction when it comes to the nuance of the relationship between Autonomy and Patji. Read here.

The use of the word 'refugee' could refer to how they were forced out of most of Roshar. Could also refer to what happened with the Scouring and all that. I feel like I have this idea that the aimians have formed a society on Aimia, but that could be totally false and they could be a people scattered across Roshar. That is also a paraphrase, so the diction could be inaccurate. I think it was me and you that discussed this on the Discord. You made a good point in that it is possible that the Dysians originally were aliens and looked very different, but bred to fit their environment.

Here is the relevant quote: Only some old spren have four genders. This line could possibly be in favor of my theory, but I think that's a bit of a stretch.

Welcome! Always nice to see new faces around here. I also recommend joining the 17th Shard Discord server, a lot of us old blood hang out around there and get up to some old discussion. See you around the theory boards!

Creatures can evolve in such a way that what used to be only a minor adaption becomes essential to their identity as a species. I see your point, but I don't think it's that detrimental to the theory.

I've already been on this. I think the two below quotes may be related, and that the original clash between the Roshar "Natives" and the Humans may have been instigated by the Sleepless, who were jealous of the humans and what they could do. If my theory is correct, the Dysians likely inhabited Roshar before the Singers. It is also evident that they have more knowledge of spren (they can make ancient fabrials) than the Listeners. Ive been suspicious about how little the Dysians have been talked about when it comes to their involvement in the past.

That humans existed on Roshar, created separately from the Yolen variety, and slowly became what we see now through some magical effect. Read the below snippet from the above WoB with this in mind. I think that some sort of adaptation may have taken place, although this possibility is much more crackpot.

"Derived from" does not equal "Share a common ancestor". I think that that is one possibility.

We discussed this WoB on the Discord just now. We concluded that 'no common ancestor' can mean that the Yolenese and hypothetical Roshar variant were created separately. Edit: For example, Scadrians and Yolenese don't have a literal common ancestor, but can mate.

Anyone make this?

Introduction There has always been something about the Parshendi that has bothered me, something that felt uncharacteristically off. After months of thinking on it, I think I've come up with a viable theory related to this. I think I've mentioned this on the Discord in the past, so a few of you may have talked to me about this at some point already, but I've only just pulled these thoughts together. Enjoy! The Singers Don't Fit This has always been strange to me. There are no species even remotely similar to Singers on Roshar. No other bipedal (or close) creatures. No Singer equivalent to monkeys. Nothing. Brandon has always been very meticulous about his world-building and the wildlife involved. Especially considering that Dysian Aimians do have creatures closely similar to them, and seem to have developed consciousness in a completely different way. This oddness becomes even more apparent when considering that Singers, creatures who allegedly evolved completely separately from humans, can mate with humans and create viable off-spring. Theory There is another animal like this on Roshar. One that doesn't fit (as Renarin so keenly points out), one that i think may be related to all of this. Ryshadium. They are able to form symbiotic relationships with spren, have carapace hooves, and are still able to mate with regular horses. My theory is that Singers are derived, somehow, from the human species. Whether they were somehow magically transformed from living humans into what they are now or Adonalsium changed the formula slightly and stuck it on Roshar, I am not sure. This theory also extends to Siah Aimians, another species that really seems out of place on Roshar. It is also possible that if a alien species exists on a planet they were not from originally from long enough, some effect related to Connection may transform them into something similar to what already exists on the world, or something similar, although this is a much more crackpot theory if I'm being honest. Read the below WoB with this in mind. Conclusion I'm sure i dont have all of the puzzle pieces connected yet, but this is the kind of super obvious twist that I've learned Brandon likes to pull on us. Let me know what you guys think!

You are mistaking us not seeing the spren much as evidence that a bond does not exist. Not really the same thing.

Yeah, I could see how Jasnah's personality is polarizing. She's the brutally honest type (and very ruthless to boot).

Looks like a sweet collectible!

I'm gonna point it out again. There is a double eye at the center of the Void-watcher symbol.