StormingTexan

Yeah I guess all the tin foil hat people would get the last laugh.

This WoB implies he was at least a passive accomplice so agree he was not trying to talk them out of it.

Maybe I am not understanding the premise but they are attacking earth right? That does not have a CR..

So what ratio of magic users to regular soldiers would there be? None of the regular soldiers from any of these worlds (assuming we are referring to their current tech level) would stand a chance against our modern militaries. I know you said more than cannon like how much more?

I mean on one hand we have an exact description of what Khriss says in a book and on the other we are making speculations (which agreed is fun and what this site is all about). So my opinion is this is a stretch but I do agree that there is some kind of connection between Re-Shephir and Aethers. We also have Hoid saying Cultivation is the only dragon on Roshar in the very same book Khriss talks about Foil in a way that suggest he is still on the bottom of an ocean. Of course Hoid could be wrong or just doesn't know about Foil or he meant currently but again that is all speculation opposed to the context we are given. Even if Foil was on another planet before Lumar if Hoid is correct that Cultivation is the only dragon on Roshar currently it still give us the 300 year timeline from RoW unless Foil went to another planet that Khriss is referring to. I do believe that Brandon likes to add some miss-direction but he is also a huge proponent of properly foreshadowing things and the mention of Foil in the AA of RoW and then seeing a dragon matching the description in a later book appears like we should be making this connection to me and not an attempt to trick us.

Haha very punny!

That is what I am thinking they all have nicknames like how Hoid calls Cultivation Slammer. But it would also have to be under an ocean on a planet that presumable has Aethers as well to study. Sure not impossible but seems like an unlikely stretch to me and I think the simplest answer is the right one. I do not think Brandon is trying to trick us on this one.

@Shallan Stormblessed One of my favorites! Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man, it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God Mark 10:27

Yeah something is weird with the timeline and it is driving me crazy lol. If Xisis = Foil that puts ToTES at a maximum 300 years after RoW. Of course that is assuming the in-world info is accurate like he has been on Lumar for 300 years. We are also assuming Khriss writes the AA around the times of the books events which in the context of her mentioning Foil I think we can assume this is the case because she is talking about the discovery of anti-investiture by Navani. Interesting that he arrived and the Iriali left about the same time according to in-world sources. It really muddies up the timeline though to have Iriali on Roshar then have a maximum of 300 years in between ToTES and RoW but the Iriali left Lumar 300 years ago.. I really feel like it has to be Foil but not sure how you rectify the Iriali situation with this as far as the timeline and that is not even throwing the extra wrench in the works with what was said in TLM. If all this info is correct they would have been in 3 places at the same time right? Maybe one of the things we are being told is miss-direction or maybe we are just assuming the Iriali are one group traveling together when we shouldn't be.

But interestingly along the lines of the discussion there is this WoB while it is a RAFO it was also a "Valid Theory"

Man I love this art. Actually all the art in the book is amazing. So I may be completely wrong but wouldn't the chasm line just be relevant using AonDor on Sel? I really need to re-read Elantris because it has been forever but I thought the chasm line was just added to make the location accurate. So no chasm on Lumar and no need for the line.

Correct! We also have Buff Orpington and Silkies (just for fun but one of them does lay pretty well). Two smaller eggs on the left are Silkie eggs. The bigger of the two is the white Silkie she lays pretty much every day. The tiny one is from the brown Silkie she lays an egg about once a month glad we do not rely on her solely for breakfast lol.

You are correct!

I think I felt the same way when I initially read the books too. I will say in the next era the "Wax and Wayne" books something new is introduced in to the mechanics that make it easier to understand in my opinion. You may also try going back to HoA and re-read Kelsier's tutorials for Vin I think he explains a lot of this pretty well may help to have a refresher.

This is my best guess as well that she is taping in to whatever investiture the spores are using to fuel her AonDor. Although one thing I found odd in TLM was you would think that Shai's Elantrian soul casting would have only lasted as long as she had access to the "Dor in a jar" but that does not seem to be the case. Does AonDor need a steady stream of investiture or just as a primer then there is some kind of connection mechanics with the maps? This does not seem right to me and honestly would be pretty OP with the power level of magic being able to be used without some resource being used.

This was my thought as well but this would mean that the Aethers were at some point on Roshar as we have a WoB that they are all native to Roshar. I think this is a good possibility and now makes me think the Old Magic is the Dragons innate magic. I think this is likely which gives us a rough timeline of 300 years in between RoW and TotES depending on how long Foil was on the planet when the AA was written. Also seems too coincidental that Xisis has been there 300 years and the Iriali left 300 years ago..

He was an Aelfinn! I am not exactly sure what he was but I think this was also kind of a joke the whole Lizard people troupe.

Besides the awesome and dedicated staff one thing I think Brandon's fandom benefits from is how much interaction he has with fans. Half the stuff discussed here and what is in the Coppermind comes from Words of Brandon.

I grew suspicious of Huck especially when the Midnight monster (or whatever they were called) obeyed him but I will admit I was clueless until we were told it was Charlie.

Sure but he says this to the audience mentioning a very FoS sounding name (so much so the Coppermind is already attributing it to FoS). So someone from another planet would rather hear a story about someone that tried sail across the world without an Aviar? I think we need to realize some of these phrases are the typical "Hoid does not care if the audience knows what they mean". This is different than when he says the thing about the Aviar or the ship landing on the planet in my opinion. I am not 100% sold on the audience being from FoS but I think it is one of the strongest contenders. It is going to be somewhere we have seen since Brandon said we may be able to puzzle it out so not a random planet we have not seen that uses Aviar. I also like the idea that it could be a group of worldhoppers as has been proposed but my problem with that is he seemed to think they wouldn't understand some of the tech mentioned (like when he says laptop but then changes it to magic screen or whatever). I would think a group of worldhoppers would know just as much about the existence of the advanced tech as he does at this future time.

Good point.

I think the Aviar is meaningful because of the full context. Yes Aviar are known on other planets but he says it in a way the audience would associate as a common practice and engrained in the culture as it is on FoS. I guess their is a possibility that other planets like Roshar would figure out that it is helpful to have an Aviar on ships but presumably at the time this story would take place Roshar would be at a high tech level (like we see in the FoS sequel chapters) and not afraid of sea monsters.

Yes this is the part I am really perplexed on. It made more sense with what we saw in MBSH and TLM because they had the "Dor in a jar" but we do not really see her source of investiture here. I had always perceived AonDor as location limited as you described and I guess I always assumed limited to Elantris but clearly from what we have seen in these three books it is not that limited and at the moment does seem a little OP.

It was weird because it wasn't really reversible unless you fulfilled the obligation of the "curse" but Hoid was able to "re-write" the curse essentially. It actually sounded more like forging than using AonDor. It has been a long long time since I've read Elantris though and honestly we really have very limited on-screen use of AonDor so maybe just haven't been exposed enough. Elantrian magic is way more interesting and seemingly powerful to me after reading this and TLM. Great question. Could he just lightweave a disguise to mask it when he wants to?

As @Dunkum said Coppermind is a great place to learn more about the Cosmere. One cool feature is there is a time machine function where you can (mostly) avoid spoilers by picking a book release or date. https://coppermind.net/wiki/Special:TimeMachine