Shardbearer

Magic on Sel is regional, but it seems that AonDor seems to be the only Selian magic that grows noticably weaker as you move away from the land, probably due to the the amplifying effect of Elantris. Forgers seem to be able to use soul stamps wherever they want. There is no hint that bloodsealers, ChayShan, or the Darkhor magic have this restriction, either.

Oh...egg on my face. I was seeing that as a billion with a zero left out when it's actually a million with two decimal places included.

I played the free 2013 Ipad app for a while, but didn't want to spend the money to upgrade to the full version. That is the extent of my knowledge on how to play the game. I used to play a Star Wars CCG.

Fixed that for you. Edit: And there's no way I could read it that fast even if I didn't have work/kids/wife/bathroom urges.

I wish I still lived in Utah... Even though I don't know how to play Magic.

Ah, I see. Poor word choice on my part, then. Yes, I mean the territory controlled by a governing body, nation, etc. Not the actual type or form of government.

If you look at the at the second definition of dominion, I do not think it is a stretch at all to say that this is how magic would work when based on a shard called Dominion. So yes, on Sel, I think that the "physical borders of land around me" and one's cognitive and/or spiritual ties to that land are important to the magic.

I think that if the person no longer held the Cultivation shard Odium would be doing something rather than hanging out at another planet in the system. I'm not sure what, as taking over the planet nor taking control of the shards are probably not his goal, but something. His whole goal might be to shatter Cultivation and leave the planet in a similar state to Sel.

That makes no sense.

Thanks for that link about the Aons. I haven't seen that before.

No, I'm not the one who came up with the idea that Sel magic is based on being "devoted" to a "dominion". The concept was introduced in a different thread and I like the idea, it sounds logical to me. And aren't most of the theories here based largely on speculation anyway? And I don't think the Arelish people created the same form of government as whoever built Elantris. I'm not even sure how you reached that conclusion from what I said? What I'm saying is that the Arelish people set up a new kingdom around Elantris. The first generation probably didn't have enough cognitive association with the new government for the Aon Rao to affect them, but when Elashe was born she was second generation and so saw herself as being from there, not from wherever the settlers came from.

That's true. There is also a quote in TES that makes me think that anyone can learn Forging regardless of nationality.

Hmm, yes I see what you are saying, but remember that the Dor comes from a combination of Dominion and Devotion. Arelon probably has more Devotion in the mix and Fjordell more Dominion (compared to other lands), but my sense is that Dor isn't tied to the land itself, but to the dominion (government) that controls that land. I'm not sure how long a few decades is in the Coppermind article, but I'm going to assume that Elashe was born after the government was already established, and that her cognitive self identity was tied into being a citizen of that government, and that she was suitably devoted to the goverment to be taken by the shaod. If, in the future, the entire planet was under the rule of a single dominion, I could definitely see this as having a huge impact on how the Dor is accessed and used by its citizens. At least once the goverment is established long enough to wipe out any other cognitive national identities. I'm not saying I think this will happen, but that it's theoretically possible.

I see your point. Upvote.

How do we know she was attracted only by Protecting and Leading and not the others also? Obviously, Kaladin doesn't appear to be all that confident through most of the book, but people have already theorized that KR have to grow into their second attribute. Kaladin does show himself to be someone who cares about justice a great deal. Everytime he is let down by someone's lack of honor it is because they act unjustly.

This is an interesting thread, so I'll go ahead and put my two cents in: I don't think that ROSHtafARian suggest is about the magic changing because people think the magic should change. The way someone accesses the Dor on Sel is tied to their cognitive view of their regional identity. If society advances to the point where they see themselves as members of the planet Sel rather than members of various nations, then the way the access the Dor will have to change too. We also see that each region/nation has a different application for the Dor. Forging transforms things. AonDor has a lot of applications and resembles our own concept of wizardry (or some versions of it). ChayShan is some kind of battle dance magic. We can assume that if regional identy shifted toward a planetary identity that the applications could be drastically differet than anything we've seen on Sel yet.

Just because something was published long ago doesn't mean everyone has read up to that point in the story. New people are probably still picking up The Eye of The World everyday. I think it would be a good idea to use spoiler tags when discussing things like this.

I was about to say that and got ninja'd,

Yes, which was one of my concerns with this theory too. However, I can't find anything to make me think that each Order might not have 2 patron Heralds, one for each Surge. Edit: I got sucked back in here after finding out about the Steelhunt.

Hmm, that throws a bit of wrench in my theory, but it could still work. The 40 parables could be related to the 20 Attributes, with 2 different interpretations for each attribute. That way you would still have 40 unique Ideals among the Orders. It's certainly possible that the 20 Attributes weren't ever formalized until way after Nohadon wrote his book. Someone read the parables and decided that it would make a nice bit of symmetry to come up with 2 Attributes for each Essence for each parable.

I don't know, they could have different interpretations for the same Attributes and word the Ideals differently.

One of the things I see on this forum is that everyone seems to assume that the 10 Essences are linked to the 10 Orders of KR. You can see this because people post things along the lines of Kaladin's attributes are Protecting/Leading. Personally, I am inclined to believe that the Essences are linked to the Surges instead. That would make Kaladin Protecting/Leading/Just/Confident. The reason I believe they are linked this way instead of to the Orders is that each Order has 4 unique Ideals other than the First, and it makes sense to me that the 4 Ideals are derived from the 4 attributes of that Order's Surges. Other than that, I don't really have much to go on.

Ok, I've read that thread, but I don't remember anyone explicitly stating that they thought the prophecies were true, though it certainly is implied in a few of the posts there.

I believe that the priests of the Heirocracy really were having visions. In fact, I think they were having the same visions Dalinar is having and they were following Honor's command to "unite them" when they were trying to rule all of Roshar. Then the sunmaker, under odium's influence, came and messed everything up, fabricating false evidence that the prophecies were lies.

I'm sorry Skaa, but this theory, while interesting, really doesn't hold any water. Shardblades act like physical objects with unusual cognitive/spiritual properties, not like cognitive beings with unusually strong physical aspects.