Ripheus23

I put my subconscious on Cosmere-analysis autopilot this morning and came up with the framework for a theory of how to Shatter a being like Adonalsium. Since there are too many unknown variables for a full theory, I want to emphasize the "framework" in all this. So, first off. Magic systems, in some sense of the concept, depend on the Intent of the Shard and the planet being Invested in. It's not just the Shard, it's not just the planet, it's both. Now, that being said, Scadrial was designed, to some extent, based on Yolen. So the first premise of my theory is that there is a very special analogy between Adonalsium's magic system on Yolen (supposing there was such a thing) and the Metallic Arts. Scadrial's 16-ness factors into this fact(!) too, at least as an indicator. So, my supposition is that one step in the original process of becoming a Shard was doing something like ingesting a bead of... Adonalsium. To become "Shardborn" let's say (and for lack of a better term!). I doubt Adonalsium deliberately made 16 beads of his essence and then gave one to each Vessel just so they could Shatter him. He Shattered because he was killed, so I'm guessing he was a self-Vessel (again for lack of a better term) and this personage was directly killed, and when his soul went to the Beyond (if it did) his corpse divided into the 16 Shards (like there was one force field for him that decoupled into 16 force fields spanning the Cosmere/possibly the universe). Nevertheless, something like "becoming Shardborn" was, I suspect, involved in the Shattering, at least in the sense of equipping the future Vessels with the power needed to kill their God. I also think that there's something to there being fourteen lands on pre-TLR Scadrial (IIRC it's said there were fourteen). My guess is that the fourteen nations mapped onto the Shards minus Ruin and Preservation, onto whom the entire planet mapped. This doesn't pertain to the Shattering unless we find out some complex historical Connection-shenanigans that at least allow some reverse-engineering of information about the Shattering from relations between the Shards being similar to relations between the fourteen lands. Finally, though this takes some of the potential explanatory power from Scadrial, I think the full process of the Shattering might have involved analogues to different "spells" in all the major future magic systems (again, in some sense of the term). Like let's say Adonalsium's essence could be condensed into a metallic form (via some snazzy proto-Lightweaving or what) that was then "Awakened" with the "Command," "Kill yourself," or as I suggested in another post Adonalsium was able to become a bonded Shardweapon-like object, the bond being broken (and Adonalsium killed in the process) when the Vessels betrayed God somehow, or whatever.

Don't you have to visualize something to Awaken an object? An evilspren, in any event, would be an ambivalent thing, seeing as (by comparison) honorspren don't per se know, absolutely, what is honorable. (I'm thinking of Kaladin's debate with Syl in OB, don't recall where it is exactly.)

What if the extra X in Nightblood is something like "evilspren"? Shashara would've been trying to visualize evil itself being destroyed, right? But unless she was visualizing tons of different kinds of evil objects, people, events, etc. being destroyed/negated/cancelled out/etc., it seems her Command would've lacked a tangible element, unless Shashara were thinking of an "evilspren" and the sword destroying such an entity. It could even be that she was thinking, say, of one specific of the Unmade, experienced when the Scholars were doing research on Roshar. Or perhaps some other Voidspren (if those could be encountered at the time). Or even... Odium? I guess that would only be if Odium had manifested personally to her or someone who described his manifestation to her. IDK how powerful Nightblood should be in the end, but at least being the incidental solution to one of the Unmade seems like a legitimate role for him to play in the story.

Honor and Cultivation the Shards 10 Roshar Ct. Roshar, GR-TK 101010

Ooooooh you found out Hoid's secret plan!

Where there's a WoB there's a way.

This is the ultimate flaw in my rando theory. My only attempt at an explanation is that the pseudo-Shard still counts as a "hacker," in the sense that a person can use their computer normally but, if they were of a mind to, hack into it also.

Why oh why is Nightblood named as he is? The color theme from Nalthis suggests a colorful reason. However, waiving the possibility of such an explanation, let's explore names Nalthians might give to other Awakened swords. Dawnphlegm/Dawnseed Morningsnot Dayspit/Daypus Noonpoop (I am so sorry)

So Warbreaker was supposed to be a quasi-prequel to the SA. Reportedly the Shard of Endowment is the Shard that Hoid would have been tempted to pick up. My guess is that Hoid knew the potential for Nightblood-like swords that this Shard might provide, and the development of Nightblood and suchlike weapons is crucial to Hoid's overall plan.

Let's say Autonomy infiltrates a religion, or starts one, or whatever, on some world. She keeps the details such that there is a sort of worship/belief energy directed at her personally, in each case. But over time, a discrepancy develops between Bavadin herself, and the image of her that is being worshiped. (I'm thinking like how the Stormfather is Tanavast's Cogntive Shadow partly by inheritance of Honor's role in the minds of Vorin and related believers.) Each of these now-separate images is Invested, self-aware, etc. but they all "fold back into" Bavadin/the Shard of Autonomy as such. I feel like these wouldn't be Splinters and they wouldn't be Slivers, and that they might fit the use of the word "avatar," under the circumstances. Is this theory too vague to mean anything? Or is there something else wrong with it?

Two bits of evidence: Sazed's remark, "Be warned, the Larsta love oath is binding. They knew no form of divorce in their culture," which is reminiscent of an Honorific oath. Not that Larsta was Tanavast as a transvestite (a Tanavestite?), though, but as Tanavast's girlfriend/wife/w/e. Also this (I'm quotin' the Coppermind as I've not got me own Mistborn copies): "The Larsta left many of the descriptions of Scadrial's pre-ascension plants and animals, such as the Marewill flowers that Sazed uses to model new flora." This strikes me as a little Cultivation-y, if you will. Also "Tanavast" and "Larsta" sort of sound like they could be from the same language. Not that either would necessarily have been averse to marrying people who spoke a different language or whatever, but still.

Hear ye, hear ye, atiumfoil-hat time! I firmly believe that Trell is 99% probably Autonomy (at least as far as the evidence is concerned). I'm even assuming that the Ones Aboves are from Scadrial and they end up going to the Patji/Aviar world in pursuit of Autonomy (after it is disclosed that she was Trell and tried to destroy Scadrial, etc.). However... The last of MBE2 will be named The Lost Metal. I haven't read up on theories about what that metal will be, but my theory is that it will be malatium. That is, there are remnants of atium on Scadrial that have gone unnoticed due to their being alloyed with gold. Now, the religion of Trell was dualistic, and Miles thinks Trell created the world. This sounds a little like Ruin and Preservation, who did create the world in question. So, my theory is that the religion of Trell is Cognitively interfering with Harmony. They are implicitly worshiping Ruin as if Ruin were still a different person (had a Vessel separate from Preservation's), and this combined with Sazed's difficulties with holding the two Shards, has resulted in some dimension of the Shard of Ruin acting "on its own," so to say. This pseudo-Shard is pursuing Ruin's original plan, to the point that now Trell favors the extinction of Scadrial. I'm also going to propose that some alloy of atium is the metal that Bleeder's Spike was made from (I would've thought necessarily not if there was an explicit statement that Trellium is a godmetal, as if that were so then my theory would entail Trellium = Atium and of course Sazed would know about that one---but the WoBs are all worded to allow that there's an "association" and "you could call it that" and suchlike, which could be fit onto an atium alloy). Not necessarily malatium, as I feel Sazed would have known of this metal. But some other alloy, maybe with lerasium even (if that's remotely possible). The atium being in an alloy might help explain why Harmony can't "see" it or whatever, he being in a situation like Ruin was in relation to atium (during the MB1 final showdown), or some such. Now I also feel like there are probably a ton of holes in this notion, so prepare to sink my battleship (I'm lookin' at you Calderis and Weltall!).

The title of this thread is making me think of that line from Labyrinth, "Hoggle is Hoggle's friend!" or w/e.

Cultivium, Odivation... These are good 'ship names, at the least. Maybe Harmony is Trell and he doesn't realize it because his mind is so messed up, so he's hacking his own Investiture or something.

Actually, this argument is not deductively valid. First, Steelheart is the first book in the series, and as far as I know, Calamity doesn't appear as a character there but as a phenomenon. Second, even if Calamity acted as a character in the first book in the series, this doesn't mean that this being was first conceived of for the series at all, or at least not primordially so (again, characters are sometimes transferred from story to story and transformed drastically). Also, whether Calamity as such was ever the successor to a concept for a Shard was always an aside as far as the argument of this thread was concerned.

Ishar is readying himself to pick up a Shard, at which point he will be known as Ishard. (OK, first half of that sentence is legit prediction, the second half sheer flippancy.)

The black sphere strikes again!

Hmm, not to be flippant (except yes, to be flippant) I doubt Elend was eating a lot of these during his final battle:

You're welcome. Impossibility's magic system is based on terrible ideas for fandom 'ships. It's called Surgalurgy and results from using Surgalurgic Spikes to either make characters romantically involved, or to combine the Spiritwebs for their names' spren. Like, Kaladin's name has a spren with a Spiritweb, and so does Taravangian's. So when you Surgalurgically create the relationship "Kalavangian," you can use Impossibility's magic system. Now, the worse the relationship, or the worse the name, the greater the relevant power. For example, take "Elithanathile" and pair him with himself (but not using the name "Tanavast"). The relationship is ridiculous, and so is the name: "Elithanathilelithanathile." So Surgalurgically forging this relationship/name draws on a massive amount of Impossibility's power.

"The black sphere" are the most important words a man can say.

Just wait. One day we'll read of a being on some rando Shardworld who is made of Recognitive Spliverture, who has a Spiritsoul-lattice, who corresponds to some kind of szpren (which will come from the Cognitive Shadow of Szeth somehow), wielding the Ascended sword Nightbloodblade, in battle against the Quadrashard Impossibility. EDIT: And the protagonists will have to travel through a Hyperpendicularity to reach the Metaphysical Realm.

I'm going to make fun of my argument. If Honor were ever the strongest Shard, he'd be able to reach into our world and inspire the other posters to agree with me. Since that's not happening, he must not have ever been the strongest

Well I just said "so it IS entirely within reason to try to square the way magic works in the Cosmere with the way physics works in our world" to justify drawing a possible analogy between matter-energy not forming an automatic black hole during the inflation of the real universe, and the question whether or not Adonalsium would have had a perpendicularity. I wouldn't pretend to know all the mathematical details that would be relevant to either side of the equation. Unless scientists come up with a good enough GUT for the real world, it won't work out that way for us here, either

I'm sure people have done that (I'm sure I've done that) with better or worse results. People who don't know philosophy might think this to be the case, but it's about as far from true as can be. EDIT: Because you can't even begin to try to define the very difference between an objective and a subjective question, without implicitly "doing philosophy." (Besides which, as an avid reader of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, I will devoutly testify to the fact that objective questions are raised there all the time. (EDIT 2: For that matter, I would testify to the same thing on the ground that a great number of classic philosophy texts either don't revolve around the objective/subjective distinction in the first place, or circumscribe it, or whatever (e.g. The Republic or The Critique of Pure Reason or Principia Ethica or Principia Mathematica or A Theory of Justice for that matter. Indeed the mere fact that computer programming is half-based on mathematical kinds of logic testifies very well to the fact that philosophy is even intertwined with technology. (EDIT 3: It's like when I see people contrast ethics with mathematics, saying the first is subjective and the other objective. Well, not quite. Besides the general debate, in mathematics, over formalism/intuitionism/logicism/Platonism/etc., it's just a fact that pretty much everything in the entire world is partly objective and partly subjective (which incidentally is a different issue over what is absolute or relative; a chair might be to the left of me, which is a relative fact (for me) but it's objective.)))

Who says Identity and Connection don't exist in the real world? Concepts like haecceities and synchronicities, which are believed by some (including me) to be true of the real world, line up fairly well with such notions. Also consider this: That's from http://www.mentalsymmetry.com/dooyeweerd.php and it is odd that this guy has a physical, cognitive, and spiritual realm in his system...