Strifelover

I feel like the Envisagers get kind of a bad rap, their idea isn't THAT bad. They definitely go a little bit too far, but the basic plan is pretty much the Cosmere standard for how you manifest magical powers. Generally, you need to be broken and on Scadrial they do basically the same thing - they beat their kids half to death to see if they'll manifest allomancy. It obviously doesn't pan out well for team Envisager, but I feel like they're not that far away from a good plan. Yeah I find it hard to believe that it was all brain power. Like they say in the podcast, Taravangian must've been incredibly well-informed to make all these logical leaps. Doesn't he predict that one of the Unmade is likely to betray Odium? How could he possibly have figured that out at the time of the Diagram's writing?

Might have to be an agree to disagree situation, but I actually think what you're saying about Harmony supports what I'm saying about Vessels and their Shards' intents. When he combined Ruin and Preservation, he created a new Shard with a new intent, the name of which has to do with how it's being filtered through the Vessel. It's not like the 16 Shards' intents are some immutable Cosmere concept, that Adonalsium was made of those 16 concepts and when shattered they just simply broke apart. We have this WOB where Brandon says that had the shattering gone differently we could've ended up with different Shards:

I partially agree with you, but I partially disagree with you too. I get that each Shard has this overwhelming intent, but first I don't think it can be properly described in a single word. I think they are each a lot more complicated. And even though a Shard's intent is pretty overpowering (and seems to grow more so over time) the Vessel still can have a major impact on what the Shard actually does. Take a look at Ruin and Preservation, one of the early things they do is create Scadrial and life there - an act which in no way goes along with either of their intents. However, over time the intent does seem to win out since Leras couldn't really fight Ruin since it went against Preservation's intent, but Vin was not similarly held back presumably because she was so new. We've also got pretty conflicting WOB's where Brandon has said that a Vessel can really only shift the Shard's name to a synonym, and another mentioned above that if Harmony can't control his conflicting intents he'd have a very different name (probably Discord). So I guess that's all to say, I agree that a Shard's intent is its intent, but it's a really complicated thing and how that filters through depends on the vessel.

That's really interesting! Both Honor and Unity are about binding people - either to ideals or to one another. All we really know about Tanavast (besides that he shared a drink with Hoid) is that he was romantically involved with Cultivation. Maybe his relationship with her, and the idea or potential oath associated with that, helped to shape the shard's intent. For Dalinar, post-Gavilar, his whole life has been about bringing people together so Unity makes sense.

Brandon has said that the fact that one shard ‘just wants to hide and survive’ is only tangentially related to that shard’s intent. It isn’t the Shard of Survival. We don’t know anything about that shard’s intent to speculate on how it could relate to the others.

Just to reiterate a put an even finer point on what @Yata said, I think it's really important to think about what (most likely happened) with the False Desolation. That's the one where the Fused weren't involved, and Ba-Ado-Mishram was leading the Singers rather than Odium directly. It seems likely that the last Bondsmith (pre-Dalinar) Melishi sealed B-A-M in a stone, which lobotomized of all the connected Singers (basically the entire race minus the little group of Listeners). So essentially at that time, the Radiants learn about their past which includes not only that using magic destroyed their previous planet, but also that THEY are the evil invaders not the other way around. Then their god Honor starts claiming they too will do horrible things with their magic, and shortly afterwards they commit mental genocide on an entire race. So they did terrible things in the past, are predicted to do terrible things again and then immediately do a terrible thing - the Recreance makes a lot of sense in that context.

But up until Gavilar's death, the Stormfather wasn't trying to bond with Dalinar. It was only after the assassination, that he started looking elsewhere. That was also a major turning point in Dalinar's character, when he started to turn his life around and live by the ideals from the Way of Kings, considered a cornerstone of the Knights Radiant. The Stormfather isn't doing back research on Dalinar. He just sees a guy who now occupies a similar role as the previous one he's watching, and this guy totally embodies the ideals of the KR.

Brandon said that the Dor made things incredibly dangerous for the Hoed being placed into the Perpendicularity, because they weren't prepared for the clusterf-ck that was happening in the Cognitive Realm. Not being a mindless Hoed, consumed by pain is probably a great start towards preparing for a dicey situation. Having powerful magic, assuming that since location is still relevant in the CR and that Perpendicularity is located pretty close to Elantris that Elantrian magic would be quite strong there too, would also help plenty. It might be as simple as that.

Brandon has been pretty cagey about exactly how it would work. He always says it's difficult for a Spren (or a splinter) to leave the planet in which its Shard is invested. But obviously difficult implies not impossible, and if there's any trick to it I bet Hoid would know. Also, in looking around the WOB database, I found this juicy little one: So it's not only possible, but that a few Spren (in the Roshar-specific sense) have found their way to Scadrial's cognitive realm!

But doesn't that WOB say that the Sovereign and Marsh have just the one spike in opposite eyes? I'm guessing you're saying that the second eye spike that Marsh gains is the one that Kelsier had 'convinced him' to use on himself in order for Kel to take over his body. But the Sovereign we see (and from whose perspective we see) has just the one eye spike. So unless Marsh spiked himself so Kel could take over, and Kel then removed Marsh's original eye spike, this seems pretty unlikely.

Maaaaaybe, but I'm not sure that WOB definitely confirms that Kelsier retains his features such that he still looks like Marsh. Unless I'm misunderstanding something there (seems like BS was a bit confused at first too), they're asking about which eye is spiked. I actually had to reread that WOB a few times to see what you were getting at, since I just read it as they're spiked in the opposite eye so it mirrors each other. I do get what you're saying, but I don't think that we know he's retained his Kelsier features from that WOB.

It's interesting that we don't get a full description of his features, but we do get confirmation on his most prominent one, that of the scarred arms. This reminds me a lot of (Oathbringer Spoilers):

I don't think that White Sand should've ever been adapted to the graphic novel format. I feel like it was done for two reasons, 1. Brandon wants to canonize this story because Autonomy is going to be a big deal, and this is a convenient way to not spend more time doing that, and 2. the idea of sand mastery sounds like it would be cool in visual format. Unfortunately, White Sand is a terrible choice as a GN for two much better reasons, 1. despite the magic, it's primarily a story about politics and people standing around talking, and 2. the title should tell you everything about how this will be depicted!! WHITE SAND, most everything is pretty bland, looks similar, isn't very visually stimulating, lacks color, etc. I also think it's tough (impossible) to achieve Sanderson-level world building in a three volume graphic novel. It's just not a good format to introduce us to a new place and magic system. It would be much better used to present short stories or novellas that branch off of our main stories. You already know the setting, understand the magic, now here's a fun little jaunt elsewhere! For example:

It might not be that worship directly increases a Shard's power, but that having more and more pawns completely devoted to her gives Autonomy more pieces to move around the chess board. If Mistborn Era 1 is any indication, when Shards just clash directly they're so evenly match that both will be destroyed. In contrast, Odium has successfully splintered Shards and in Stormlight he's clearly looking to leverage mortals (Fused, Dalinar, Amaram, etc.) in order to wage his war. Indeed he's actually afraid to expose himself directly for fear of Cultivation. So I'd say by expanding her influence across multiple worlds, Autonomy is gaining more power by way of more followers to fight her battles.

We don't really know much of anything for sure about the Dawnshards. Pretty much all we know is the line you quoted and the one @Wandering Investor alluded to. The specific line is: The Tranquiline Halls being the previous human world of Ashyn. The reason I don't think that dawnshards are perfect gems are two reasons. First, a gem doesn't really seem like a weapon, maybe it could be used to power something else but to me that would make the thing its powering the weapon/Dawnshard. Second, we've already seen Dalinar use a perfect gem to bind a powerful spren. Dawnshards continue to be very mysterious, and Brandon has RAFO'd any and all questions about them. It would be kind of a letdown if the big mystery was actually something we've already seen and are familiar with.

I think that Jaddeth is similar-ish to Autonomy co-opting Trell / Trelagism on Scadrial, although with a little more direct relevance. Sarene tells us that Jaddeth was an old Pagan god of the earth, and we also know that the land on Sel is starting to gain sentience. I think that part of Dominion's investiture that is located over in Fjordell gained sentience and since it's of Dominion wanted to go and dominate other lands. Or taken another way, its intent is to make everything part of its dominion. It cleverly used the old god of land/stone, as a way to immediately establish credibility and turn the people of Fjordell into religious zealots. So I agree that Jaddeth is probably just an old legend, but one that a now-sentient splinter of Dominion is using for its own agenda.

Is there a WOB or something that says that? I do agree that Shardic suicide vs. homicide could totally result in a different dying process, but it sure seemed like Preservation was rapidly deteriorating before Ruin was released from the Well. When Kelsier first arrives in the Cognitive Realm 'Fuzz' looks pretty normal, but over the course of the year or so that Kelsier is trapped in the Well he looks much worse. It's from in the Well that Kelsier notes that half his face is missing, and that he's started raving and stopped making sense. That to me seems like Preservation was quickly on his way out whether Ruin escaped the Well or not.

He said that Odium mortally wounded Ambition in the Threnodite system, but that he splintered elsewhere. I feel like we'll just get overly semantic if we start discussing what a death blow is, and any sort of timing implied by any of this. Clearly it wasn't an immediate wound to splinter, anything else is pretty speculative. As much as I want to hold onto my theory, 6,000 years for Ambition to be mortally wounded until he finally dies just seems like bad storytelling. I'm curious, what are the leading theories for what DID cause the earthquake? A particularly wild game of stones with Raoden's brother?

Hmm, well although it seems kind of silly for Ambition to be mortally wounded and dying for 6,000+ years, isn't that kind of what happened with Preservation. When Pres speaks with Kelsier in SH, he says he's already dead, that Ruin has already killed him. A Shard's death isn't necessarily a single event like a mortal's, but can be a very protracted event. When he says that in SH, is he referring to something that Ruin has done during the course of that book, or is it resulting from their agreement and his betrayal? If it's the latter, wouldn't that mean he'd been dying for several thousand years, since each time the Well refills is a 1,024 years and Rashek isn't the first person to take up the power. If I'm remembering SH incorrectly then fair enough, but if not and Preservation has been dying for thousands of years I don't think it's impossible that Ambition was dying for 6,000+ although it does seem pretty wacky.

This an interesting theory, and I don't think we know enough about the events surrounding the splintering of Dominion and Devotion to really say yes or no. But we do know a few things about how investiture works without a vessel. Brandon has said that over time, investiture starts to gain sentience and Khriss says in AU that the land itself is becoming self-aware. So I believe that as the land in Fjordell becomes self-aware, seemingly godlike, it makes sense for them to ascribe to it an old God of the land. Now in terms of Odium's influence, my theory is that Odium indirectly caused the earthquake that lead to the Reod. Here are a few things confirmed via WOB's that mak it seem plausible: The Earthquake was not caused by the splintering of Dominion and Devotion, it happened much later. Odium wanted to splinter Ambition first, but wasn't able to locate the Shard and ended up splintering Dom/Dev first. Ambition was mortally wounded near Threnody, but eventually was splintered elsewhere. Brandon has RAFO'd a question about whether the splintering of Ambition had an effect on Sel. Brandon has confirmed that the earthquake was due to unnatural causes. So basically, Odium mortally wounds Ambition near Threnody, who subsequently travels nearby Sel where he finally splinters. The splintering causes the earthquake and all the subsequent events we see in Elantris.

We also know that while some Shards have numbers associated with them, not all do: So the Shard numerology theory seems very unlikely, unless the theory is that only some of them have numbers associated with them. If so, that's just a pretty weird theory... On the other hand - the planet-number theory or even the Cosmere-number theory seems pretty likely given Brandon specifically referring to planets as being 10-centric or 9-centric. Edit: Ninja'd by Calderis' own edit, apologies for being redundant.

Definitely agree with this. Accepting Szeth has joined their side is a stretch, but appointing him to be Dalinar's bodyguard just makes no sense. He spent the first two books trying to kill Dalinar when he wasn't busy assassinating other world leaders. The only reason he stopped was because Kaladin seemingly killed him, and nothing happened in between that and Szeth joining up (from Dalinar & Co's perspective) to think anything has changed.

It's interesting that Kaladin's name implies a long life, as mentioned in that WOB and in a previous comment, and a major part of his character development/arc is that he feels tremendous guilt that he always survives when his friends and companions die. Based on that WOB it doesn't seem that Brandon intended that connection, but it's a cool one nonetheless. Normally you'd think if a name meant long life it would be a positive thing, but in Kaladin's case it's very negative and associated with his depression.

Whoops, sorry about that! Although I agree with you, and my criticism of that theory is more or less the same as the other I referred to. I don't think we need to add any more complexity to Adonalsium > Shattering > Shards and Cosmere Stories than just revealing how that happened and then seeing how it plays out. The setting is already rich enough to provide all story fodder we need, without needing to go back even further than Adonalsium.

I've seen that theory, that Adonalsium is really just 1/16th of a bigger, more infinite God!! My question is...why? The Cosmere is already such a massive, sprawling and satisfyingly rich universe for our stories' settings, that I see no narrative value in that sort of a reveal. It would also seem to run very counter to Brandon's writing style - he seems to like to set up the rules and then have his characters operate and his story play out within them. Having some big Deus Ex Machina where everything we knew was wrong would totally go against that style.