Nepene

Cosmere is based on Brandon's view of the world. You have the spiritual religious side of the world which connects everything, holds perfection. You have the cognitive side, our minds, how we are viewed, how we view ourselves. And you have the physical world. 16 and 10 are mystical numbers and grant magical power to whatever magic system they embody. But there is no need to empower the realms.

I was looking through the glossary and I noticed something. ""The Svrakiss," Dilaf said quietly. "Yes." Svrakiss. The souls of the dead men who hated Jaddeth, the opponents to all that was holy. According to Shu-Dereth, there was nothing more bitter than a soul who had had its chance and thrown it away." Maybe you're right and Odium wasn't petty. Maybe he corrupted the souls of the dead so they would use their spiritual power to mess with anyone on the plane, perhaps hoping to block Hoid and the 17th shard from accessing the world and keeping the world in general chaos. If it worked, and he managed to shatter Dominion and Devotion through some cheap trick like that it would be very impressive.

Some have suggested that Hoid wants to re-fuse the shards. I can imagine all of his actions there would aid that. He helped Elantris be re-established, thus gathering a large fraction of devotion's magic in one place to allow reconstitution. He has the moon scepter which may allow him to tap the local magic for whatever purpose or find large deposits of Devotion or Dominion's bodies.

Shards are extraordinarily powerful. I doubt it would cost that much for Odium to leave some reminders of himself on Sel to keep an eye on the fort. He may have some big plan too to boost his power, like stealing spirit energy from dead people. Edit. You think Odium is beyond wasteful pettiness?

He said it was indirectly related to the splintering. I'd guess that Odium made some evil Seons (the local manifestation of splinters) and they're messing about in Shadesmar with no one to oppose them.

I'm not sure if it'd work like that, didn't the heavy pressure from the Dor get relieved once Raoden started using proper magic? Elantrian magic is scientific, I imagine it would be a lot easier to make it help you do some wave hopping. It also includes a lot of transformation which we know from TES is related to the cognitive realm.

It's fine, I'm a pretty casual person. Indeed, this theory is very similar and is probably where Brandon got the idea. Just in his thing, you use spiritual power to bridge cognition and physical reality, and how much you can do it is dependent in part on how strong your spirit is. You were talking about Brandon's beliefs. Legion is representative of his beliefs. He's talked in interviews often enough about his religion. His religious beliefs are a major influence on the novels. Understanding them helps you understand the magic system, whether you are an atheist, christian, mormon, or whatever. We should keep on topic and focus on the books, but the odd diversion to the real world can be helpful. They've been called Gods enough. They're a creating force. They're close enough. Brandon Sanderson believes with basis of science and religion. He believes that the mark of a strong religion is it can be tested. He has talked about this much and this theme is very relevant to the people in the books such as Sazed. http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/346/mistborn-3-Chapter-Seventy-One This thread is not a good place to debate his beliefs, whether you are debating the existence of his beliefs or the validity of them. Relevant quote from Brandon, mentioned earlier. I am not saying that not knowing about the magic would allow you to ignore it. There's probably some mental thought process that has to go on. Perhaps if you thought of yourself as a train you could ignore the cadmium bubble? If you're going to respond to say that Brandon is bad for being a Mormon or that he's wrong for believing science and religion can coexist you probably should avoid responding truthfully. He believes what he believes, Sazed believes what he believes based off it. The collective unconsciousness exists in his books regardless of what you argue though my concept of it might not.

Yeah, while honor can be oppressive at times in a violent world where people will murder you and destroy you and do bad things for you at their whims it's much better to be protected by honor than not. It may be insulting to you at times, but in your roles and positions you're much safer than you are alone.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=763 Given that, I thought it would be a good idea to go through all the characters and try to find out who is a cross over character. My method of doing this is to to go letter by letter through every character, see if it's all probable they are a crossover character, and then and note their key adjectives, motives for crossing over, and any powers they have. I'll put pretty colors in for people to look at. I'd appreciate anyone else's aid in doing this, doing anyone. Just look at the character, check the chapters they're in, note down any adjectives used about them, anything to do with cognition, anything to do with religion, any key facts. Long term we could check over several books and see if the same adjectives were used for them. http://stormlightarchive.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Characters 1. Adis. Dead bridgeman, no adjectives. Unlikely candidate. 2. Adolin Kholin. Highprince Dalinar 's son and Renarin's elder brother. He is 23 years old. Shardbearer, royalty, likes showing off, honorable. Unlikely candidate. 3. Aladar is a Highprince of Alethkar. He wants to take a vacation. No adjectives. Unimportant, unlikely candidate. 4. Alakavish was a surgebinder. Mentioned by Nohadon, nahal bond to a spren which wasn't an honorspren, unwise. Allure among common people, started a war and blamed by other characters for it. Likely a popularist military leader who started a war with his super powers that ruined the people before the desolation. Could be a crossover character, no evidence of such. 5. Amaram. Highmarshal for Sadeas, protects his lands. Commander of Kaladin, viewed as honorable and honest, stole Kaladin's shardsword for the greater good. His standard is a dark green glyphpair shaped like a whitespine with tusks upraised. Merem and khakh, honor and determination. Tall man. Shardbearer. Could be a crossover character, no evidence of such. 6. Amark. Sniffly, sheepish. Dead bridgerunner, thief. May be different characters. Unlikely candidate. 7. Arik. Dead bridgeman, no adjectives. Unlikely candidate. 8. Ashlv, no adjectives, Tozbek's wife. Unlikely candidate. 9. Ashno the Sage. Rich religious man, art destroyed by Mistress. Unlikely candidate. 10. Au-nak. Natan man, visiting dignitory, Vorin family, bluish skin and stark white hair, two locks dyed a deep red and braided down to hang alongside his cheeks. Believes all conflicts are economic, not religious. Knows a city is a dawnsinger built one, dismissive to religious cults, defensive of family. Unusually smart, slightly above average chance of being a crossover character. 11. Av. Black 'dark skinned' Emuli man, cousin of Baxil servant of a mysterious crossover possible woman who destroys artwork of rich men. Has a thick bladed sword. Lots of relatives. Native, unlikely candidate. x. Mistress. Dark skinned, black haired, tall and lean, good ears, mixed breed, trousers, thin blade, violet eyes. Wonderful, intoxicating, overwhelming. Believes stealing is wrong, destroys rich men's art. Associated with Nightwatcher. May be crossover character, is significant. 12. Axies the Collector. Scholar of spren, Siah Aimian race with magical blue skin which was recently exterminated, followed by curse of kind (nightwatcher curse?). Can transform self to some degree. Casts shadow the wrong way. High chance of being crossover character, scholars are smart, has an understanding of cognition and so may be able to plane hop through cognitive plane. No age mentioned, no parents mentioned, race destroyed so he is a relic of the past. May be a voidbringer or a herald as beggar says so- not exclusive, heralds may have been corrupted. Enjoys beer, ale, imprisoned regularly. Crossover potential. B 13. Baxil. See Av. Not a candidate. 14. Bethab. Not baxil, despite what wiki says. Highprince, values word of wife. Unlikely candidate. C 15. Cenn. Cowardly fifteen year old who reminded Kaladin of Tien. Killed by Shardbearer. Unlikely candidate. 16. Corl. Another no adjective dead bridgeman near the front. Unlikely candidate. 17. Cusicesh, the Protector. Massive blue ocean spren. Comes at the same time every day to show a myriad of male and female faces. Only spren of its type. Perhaps a manifestation of Honor or Cultivation? If so, may be crossover character. D 17. Dabbid. Younger man, saved by Kaladin. Mute, moolie, battle shock. Unlikely candidate. 18. Dalinar Alethi Highprince, viewpoint character, drunk when Gavilar killed, bears shardblade oathbringer, rides Gallant, received nightbring old magic blessing and curse of loss of memory about wife. Called blackthorn for his dueling skill, follows Alethi way of war (honor books). Visions of Honor. Unlikely candidate, established history in world. 19. Dallet. Grey and black haired veteran, gruff, mountainous, confident. Second of Kaladin. Killed by shardbearer. Unlikely candidate. 20. Drehy. He was a lanky blond man, long-limbed and muscled from Rianel who was a Bridgeman under Kaladin. Generous, quick to learn the spear. Unlikely candidate. 21. Dunny. Youthful faced bridgeman under Kaladin. Good tenor singer, natural poet. Apprentice. Violet eyes from Veden heritage. Died to arrows on raid. Caused moral crisis for Kaladin, worry about losing men, prompted him to discover how to use stormlight. xx. Jasnah. Gavilar Kholin's daughter, powerful cognitive magics especially Vapor, Spark, and Lucentia (light), historian and scholar, likes music history and philosophy and hates art like Mistress. Tall, slender, pale skin, violet eyes, black hair, waist length hair, squarish face. Many enemies, unmarried. Stubborn. Deep blue dress. Made magic bows, numerous super scientific advances. Sought Veristitalian, truth in the past. Cosmere aware. Fond of dust, hates jam. Can transform people with magic, normally only possible for slivers. A monster and a hero. High probability crossover as she is cosmere aware, has cognitive magics, and has a hyperaware daddy. x. Nightwatcher. Has a black sphere, male or female, brings death and lies, backside stinks, has old magic, may be Odium, assumed to be a spren, likes treachery, gives boons, gives you what you want and a curse, dead people dine with the Nightwatcher if they are not heralds. If Odium, definite crossover character.

We later learn that the lens made the magical camera magical. Perhaps these lens are formed from some magical sand and Legion is set in the same universe. The lens that the physicist uses to power the camera may be just whatever sand has the power that Quentin has in Alcatraz. Incidentally this means the pacific ocean doesn't exist in Legion.

Suppose someone started a legend that you could fly and a lot of people believed in it. It wouldn't enable you to fly. But if you gained the ability to shapeshift and some divine fuel it would then be extremely easy for you to shapeshift into an angel or a bird. You could access the cognitive realm, pull out the archetype of flying, and impose your spiritual energy on it to enable a physical transformation. At least under my theory. Spoiler from Legion. Jesus exists and you can take photos of him if you have a magical time traveling camera. Jesus can also see into the future. God has manifested and has an avatar. Since Brandon does believe in God he expects there to be physical manifestations of him. Also, the answer from the Cosmere would not be that God is in a separate realm. The answer would be that God is in some aspect of the physical world that we thought was perfectly normal and common. Like metals. Or storms. Or sand. Hint hint, Alcatraz. Building your house on ground of sand may be a better idea than you'd think. There's probably been lots of foreshadowing where God is hiding anyway, you should look back through your life and see if certain themes have come up a lot and had lots of adjectives used to describe them. They'll probably be important later regardless once the Brandon Avalanche begins. Jacob Santos I'll add that, it's definitely something related to my theory. A non magical train can ignore magic just by nature of how it views itself. I wonder, could you train yourself to ignore other sorts of magic? Edit. I wonder if the way people can resist or ignore mist magics is another example of the limits of cognition. You can resist a mild spiritual force but not a large one. If you pierce yourself with a metal your spirit joins with it as your blood runs over it. Objects prefer to see themselves as a whole, as we know from TES. You don't expect magic to influence you, so you can resist it to some degree. Edit 2. I should probably give a more honest answer of what Brandon's beliefs are, based on what I've read of him, and how this reflects on his novels. Brandon believes in science and religion. He believes there is physical evidence of God in the world that you can find. All religions contain some truth and can lead you to become godly, but Mormonism contains the whole truth. He also believes that to be a true Mormon you must have a religious experience with God and has had one- this is more important than reading a book. He believes God wants to give us the greatest gift of all, to become like him, to become Gods in heaven.

I just found out something awesome which explains a lot. "Brandon Sanderson Jung's philosophy was that all people are connected. Question Oh, like the dream psychologist? Brandon Sanderson I believe that collective unconscious was one of his terms. So it's not hive mind, but there is—there's something the Parshendi can tap into." Perhaps the collective unconsciousness empowers the divine spark? Edit. It's an awesome idea of Brandon's. A magical database of archetypal forms that anyone can tap for magic, making a whole load of things easier. Presumably people expect the royal family to be magical, so they are.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=836 Hoid would probably argue that a story is the most powerful force in the universe, I'd guess.

I'm sure Brandon said somewhere that all the shards were roughly equal in power. Also Odium probably has invested himself in things- voidbringers, the everstorm etc. Odium is likely deadly not because of any special power but because Odium is so hateful and the shardholder is so intelligent and cunning.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/329/mistborn-3-Chapter-Fifty-Eight-Part-2 Ruin knows how to play off the lusts of mankind. Lust makes sense to Ruin, as he has lusts himself. He needs to destroy. It's part of who he is and what makes him function. It's the driving force of the power upon which his consciousness feeds to remain alive. Ruin had a need to destroy and ruin things. The world would have been torn apart by a million lusts and self interested people, family against family, friend against friend, everyone seeking ruination. In book 3, the world was being torn apart in war and strife. There was some limited unity, but lots of ruin and strife.

Theory Thank you to Staff Venture, Kurkistan, and lDanielHolm for your aid in this theory. In the Cosmere universe there is a collective unconsciousness present in the cognitive realm. People and objects have a psychic connection which has a " collective, universal, and impersonal nature" and which allows them to pull out "pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents." By pulling these forms out of the spiritual realm with their cognition and empowering them with spiritual force various physical transformations are possible. It is easier to transform into something which has form in spiritual realm. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=836 http://www.writingexcuses.com/2012/11/11/ 7.30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms When a returned adopts a form of a beautiful god it does so more easily because it is accessing the collective unconsciousness which has beauty standards. When a Pashendi transforms it can do so easily because there is an archetype which the cognitive realm holds. Our physical world is an imperfect shadow of the cognitive world and we can draw out something better from it. A window's soul yearns to be in its proper form and it's very easy to forge it to be better. When a person heals they can only heal to what they are seen as and how they see themselves. This is why Sazed could not regenerate his manhood. When a forging is made if people don't believe in the forging the forging will fail. This collective unconsciousness Background. Skim over if you like. In another discussion about Warbreaker Windrunner raised the question of whether the Idris royal family had magical locks only in the royal lineage because people believed in their royal locks, based off a quote from The Emperor's Soul. The thread then went slightly off topic. This quote came up from Kurkistan. This quote suggested that the form of returned may depend on how society saw them. I replied later with these found quotes from TES. That got me wondering. Can anyone think of any other examples of the collective unconsciousness? Another example, from Staff Venture. How magic affects you depends in part of how you view yourself. So you can make magic easier or harder by your cognitive beliefs. And another, from lDanielHolm What does it perfect towards? The cognitive archetype. The perfect protector. That is what honor is about, most of all. Protecting your brother in arms.

Spoiler for the emperor's soul here. There is one interesting thing that came out of this diversion. Brandon touches on your original debate, whether the way returned look was due to how society viewed them or how they viewed themselves. People's expectations can weaken a forgery. Perhaps the more people who expect a transformation will work the easier it is. People expect the returned to look like golden Gods so it's very easy for them to look like that. Likewise with the royal family, people expect them to have magic hair and be divine.

It's not especially a benefit though, as the author noted. It's a sign of the erratic self image of the princesses. A manifestation of a useful talent but not a sign of superior ability. The other returned wouldn't be expected to have this inferior flaw as a regular feature. The returned unconsciously mold themselves into perfect forms quickly and do not change subsequently, for the most part. I imagine some may discover their abilities and keep it to themselves as those who discover new commands do. I would not think that Lightsong would witness them changing form as I am saying, as Brandon said, that uncontrolled random transformations are not an ability. Why improve on perfection? And indeed, this is another very clear sign of the power of the cognitive realm. We can mould physical objects into our desired forms. I agree. Yes, I agree. The returned are superior beings empowered by a shard. To me, this is like you saying you are flabbergasted that endlessly healthy people don't have an attribute like puking and headaches. Oh, I apologize, I was imprecise with my phrasing. I meant that the five returned, Denth, Arsteel, Vasher and co, they probably had experience taking lots of breaths. They were used to maintaining control through it. They weren't used to dying though. The way Vasher does it is the superior way, transforming his body according to his wishes. Your hair changing colors according to your emotions is not an attribute. As far as I can remember, it's never been used usefully for either of the princesses. We know that you can maintain some degree of self control when receiving breaths. If he had pissed or pooped himself he would have said. You can't control your bodily motions, but you don't lose all control.

http://stormlightarchive.wikia.com/wiki/The_Way_of_Kings%27s_Epigraph_Letter Hoid states it pretty clearly here. "Ati was once a kind and generous man, and you saw what became of him. Rayse, on the other hand, was among the most loathsome, crafty, and dangerous individuals" The capabilities of the individual make a major difference in terms of how bad a shard is and Rayse is much worse. Also. "He holds the most frightening and terrible of all of the Shards." This shard is presumably worse than other shards. It may have more evil magics, or cause the owner to do more evil deeds. Edit. @Aethling Devotion is indeed like love, but I'd have thought that there would be some more direct aspect of Adonalsium to do with love what with all the God is Love stuff in popular culture. Perhaps different aspects of love are in different shards. And yes, I hadn't read the letter for a while, I read it just before you posted. You are right and wise.

Thank you for this, it covers a lot of ground. I'd note that there are also more direct magical sources for power you don't mention. Atium, the body of Ruin, can provide a physical and spiritual power for acts. Forging is noted to use soulstone, rocks that fell from the sky that are the souls of dead gods. So you can have combinations of physical and spiritual focuses doing interesting things.

Frequent and incidental hair changery is a manifestation of a Royal's poor self control over themselves and their lives. It is not a unique ability, it's a weakness. http://brandonsanderson.com/annotation/414/Warbreaker-Chapter-Thirty-Six I'd presume that most returned have better self control and perhaps some greater degree of emotional strength from the divine breath. Whatever a person loses that causes depression might be added to them, or the full divine breath may have some degree of self control. Changing the hair color, especially at random when it wouldn't be a good idea, is a mark of poor self control not good self control. Vasher is quite capable of turning his hair golden at the end. Denth, likewise, has excellent self control and experience keeping his form constant. I'd presume any returned will have some random fluctuations if they are overwhelmed by sensation and confusing experiences and they feel out of control. I'd presume the returned have a lot of experience absorbing breaths. Even if it was a unique power there's no reason to believe that only one returned could have it. It could be an ability of certain returned (although as noted, Vasher can change his hair color).

A royal being able to shapeshift their hair isn't a special magical ability. It's a minor manifestation of the divine soul that is in all royals due to their ancestry. Any returned could change their hair colour or change any feature of themselves. He may have lost control due to the pleasure from having all the breaths in him.

There's a more obvious answer. "She remained in place, kneeling. That stamp seemed the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Her ancestors had worshipped rocks that fell from the sky at night. The souls of broken gods, those chunks had been called. Master craftsmen would carve them to bring out the shape." A while ago Odium splintered Devotion and Dominion. Their physical forms, asteroids or moons above the planet, shattered and fell to the earth. These rocks had their magic power concentrated in them, as with Atium, and serve as fuel for the magic, massively amplifying the range you have for any magical act. As we well know, random rumours that people have heard are always true, so Soulstone is definitely the soul of a broken God.

Ruin was deadly and destructive, but wouldn't have simply obliterated the planet in the blink of an eye. He liked to slowly destroy and ruin things, and was happy to build something up to destroy more. If he had been released he would have been as deadly or more deadly than Odium. If Ruin can worldhop. I wonder where Love is among the many worlds. Shouldn't He or She be drawn to their opposite?

In Mistborn when Preservation destroys itself it forms a mist everywhere that people can tap for magic. In liar of partinel there's magic white fungi which transforms creatures and screws up everything. In way of kings with honor and cultivation splintered there are massive storms of energy which can be tapped for power. Aona and Shai are splintered and so their power can be tapped from land formations. It's my assumption that when a shard is destroyed their power is turned into a gas or a solid or a liquid which you can use. The puddles of power as you said. Except it's more like a sea of power than a puddle. Edit. Anyone out there who's read the original liar of partinel or dragonsteel, any more detail from their magic systems?