Fanghur Rahl

Don't worry, it didn't. But yeah, for the purpose of disclosure, like Shaukan I too am either an atheist, an agnostic, or both depending on which definitions of those terms you subscribe to. And I was also very surprised to learn than Sanderson wasn't as well, because he certainly sounds like one in his writing.

Religion evolves over time just like everything else. The only real difference between Mormonism and the older religions is that its history is sufficiently well-documented to not hold up to even a trivial amount of scrutiny; I believe I once heard it described by a Mormon scholar as effectively being 'Biblical fanfiction'. Regardless, this conversation strikes me as being decidedly out of place on this forum; I love debating subjects like this, but this doesn't seem like the appropriate place for theological debates between believers and non-believers.

Same with me, on all counts. Suffice it to say, his books are orders of magnitude better written than the Book of Mormon. lol.

The problem with that is what I said before: the Cosmere is only a minuscule part of a much larger universe, as Brandon himself has confirmed if I’m not mistaken. So it would seem that if that explanation is correct, they were almost have to be countless other examples of it throughout the larger universe. Which could very well be the case, but there certainly isn’t any evidence of it so far, unless the ‘Other’ is a rival ‘Adonalsium’. Of course, this would be the case even if I was correct I suppose.

If we assume that Adonalsium WAS some entirely non-physical entity from the start, I might agree. But personally, my suspicion is that this was not the case. I tend to favour the view that Adonalsium started out as a mortal human being (or dragon), and then somehow ascended to a god. I think this because from what we’ve been able to tell, Adonalsium did not seem to be a universal force/entity; it was localized to the Cosmere. Or at least that’s where it was when it was shattered. It’s pure speculation on my part, but I kind of see it as potentially being analogous to the post-physical civilizations of Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga; maybe Yolen has or once had some Investiture-equivalent of the Anomine’s elevation mechanism. Brandon has hinted that magitech has long been a important part of the Cosmere after all, so who’s to say that someone didn’t figure out how to create something that allowed them to absorb a huge amount of Investiture from the Spiritual Realm and effectively turn themselves into a god? Hoid does seem to imply that Adonalsium, whatever it was, was not truly God after all.

To my knowledge Mormon theology doesn’t address that question; honestly, I don’t think Smith and the early Mormons thought that far ahead. That said, mormonism is considered to be a monotheistic religion along with the other denominations of Christianity, so perhaps I’m just ignorant of some of the details. As for Adonalsium being a Shard of something even greater, that’s definitely a possibility, or at the very least a creation of something else. Honestly, part of me suspects that Adonalsium may have actually been some kind of post-physical transcendent human being in some sense; something analogous to post-physical ascension in Peter F. Hamilton’s Commonwealth Saga only by means of Investiture rather than applied quantum phlebotinum, but that’s pure speculation on my part. The way I look at it is, if this truly is the uppercase-G God of the Physical Realm, why does it appear to have been localized to some insignificant dwarf galaxy, or more accurately a small region of an insignificant dwarf galaxy? Shouldn’t it have been universal? But who knows.

Agreed. Hate can certainly have its place, and certain things ought to be hated. But hatred for its own sake stripped of any and all context could never be anything positive.

Possibly, though I think that 'Prudence' or 'Discretion' or 'Vigilance' would be better labels for it.

I actually hadn’t thought of it quite that way. You do make a valid point. Kind of a ‘monster from the id’ situation. I grant that that’s a plausible theory.

I think Ati is probably the best reason to doubt the claim that Vessels can have a significant effect of how the intent is expressed. After all, he was explicitly said to be a kind and generous man, and yet even he ended up being a omnicidal maniac eventually.

I kinda like ‘Jealousy’ and ‘Aptitude’ as other potential Shards. I might suggest ‘Compassion’ as well, but I think that would probably be subsumed into ‘Devotion’.

I think that the latter is actually more likely, if only because Arclo explicitly states that whether it’s true or not is ultimately irrelevant to his species, since they never sleep. I mean as far as I understand, as soon as a body dies the soul goes to the Beyond, where not even the Shards can affect. So what does kind of big the question of how exactly do the Fused work in light of that. I actually hadn’t considered that as such.

Well, I'm undecided about how I feel about that; I tend to lean towards the camp of the vessels having SOME influence on how the shard's intent is expressed, but only within a certain range. To quote Oromis from the Inheritance Cycle: "You cannot gainsay a word's inherent nature. Twist it, yes. Guide it, yes. But not contravene its definition to imply the very opposite." Regardless though, it's still irrelevant to my point. Whether or not it would still be true if someone else were to hold the Shards, the fact still remains that Ati-Ruin and Rayse-Odium are unquestionably malevolent in nature; their actions make that perfectly clear. And in the case of Odium, assuming that that truly is the intent of the Shard, I have a very hard time seeing how anyone could manifest that intent in such a way that they wouldn't be a very unpleasant individual.

I agree that he considered it an option, but I always interpreted it as being a last resort, at least in Dalinar's eyes. I had assumed that what Dalinar meant was that if Sadeas refused to yield in the duel, then they might ultimately have no choice but to kill him. But simply curbstomping him in the duel would have been enough to largely discredit him.

Well, they way I look at it is that if we can't make moral judgements against the Shards by virtue of the fact that ultimately they can't help but be the way their nature drives them to be, then ultimately we also can't make moral judgements against anyone else either because at some level the same holds true for all of us. I agree that in the case of the Shards this is far more extreme, but ultimately I think it's merely a difference in degree not category. By the standards of what most people would mean by terms like 'malevolent' and 'benevolent', Odium and Ruin are unambiguously malevolent while Devotion and Honor and Endowment certainly seem to merit the label of 'benevolent'; or at the very least those Shards certainly tend towards those respective directions. Now, would this still be the case if, say, someone was holding the Shard of Ruin in addition to Honor? Or Odium in addition to Devotion (which would arguably result in a Shard of Indifference)? Well, maybe yes, maybe no, it would depend on how the various combinations manifested. But regardless, the basic point remains that we judge the moral character of someone on the basis of their nature and the actions they take based on it, not on precisely how they acquired the nature they have. A murdering psychopath is a murdering psychopath regardless of whether they were born that way or became so by means of physical trauma. I view the Shards in a similar way.

But Dalinar never wanted Sadeas to actually be killed; even after he left him and his army for dead he didn't. He only wanted to take the bullets out of Sadeas' gun so to speak. From what I remember, there was no rule that would have forbidden Sadeas from surrendering, or at least if there was they wouldn't have enforced it. Am I missing something here?

Yeah, I kinda got the vibe that 'Devotion' was meant more in the sense of a loose synonym of 'Love' and 'Compassion' than it was in the kind of corrupt sycophantism of the Dakhor monks and fanatical faith in general. Her Shardpool certainly conveyed a vibe of benevolence from whatever is left of her. After all, the Seons are basically Splinters of Devotion, and there is no question that they are extremely loving and compassionate, about as different from the Dakhor monks as it's possible to get. Like I said, it's always seemed to me that while there's technically only a single system of magic on Sel, which both Devotion and Dominion invested themselves into creating, their investments weren't evenly distributed across each of the subsystems. Some like AonDor and Forging seem to contain more of Devotion, while others like Dakhor and Bloodsealing seem to contain more of Dominion. At least that's how I see it.

That's true, though I don't think that's what he is referring to, for the simple reason that he explicitly states that it isn't applicable to him or his kind because they never sleep or by extension lose consciousness. I don't think the Ship of Theseus problem is what this is meant to be referencing; the context is completely different. The closest real-world equivalent to this that I can think of is the Teleportation problem, but even that has some differences from this.

I agree that jealousy and envy are not the same things, despite the unfortunate fact that most people tend to assume that they are. So I actually agree with you that 'Envy' is probably not a very good option for Adonalsium. 'Jealousy' on the other hand would work just fine; like I said, there is overwhelming precedent for this even in modern religions involving omnipotent gods. Although, technically in the case of Adonalsium, 'Envy' could still work as well, since Adonalsium was technically only a little g deity, since the true big G deity is implied to reside in the Beyond. Adonalsium seems to be the big G deity only of the three realms we know, but not for all reality. And I only listed Dominion as possibly being a malevolent Shard because the Dakhor magic system seems to be most heavily aligned to Dominion, and it's pretty hard to see that as anything other than manifestly evil, at least from what we've seen of it. (Yes, I know that technically on Sel all magic ultimately stems from both Devotion and Dominion, but I don't think all subsystems are 50/50 from both).

That's definitely a possibility; like I said, I'm by no means convinced that there's anything more to it than that. But on the other hand, like I said, it did strike me as a complete non sequitur topic for him to bring up. I mentioned the Heralds and their Oathpact as one possible thing it might be hinting at, but for all I know it's something else entirely, or nothing at all as you said. But one thing I've come to learn about Brandon during my as yet short time as a die-hard Cosmere fan is that seemingly trivial things he says in his books sometimes end up having extreme and unexpected implications later on that only become obvious in hindsight. So is this one of those instances? Honestly, probably not. But definitely worth considering.

The Gods of most monotheistic religions are supposedly all-powerful too, and yet are unambiguously portrayed as being extremely jealous (worship no one but me!). Admittedly, jealousy and envy are two different (complimentary, really) things, but still. So there's no real reason why Adonalsium couldn't have these attributes as well. After all, it had 'Dominion' as one of its attributes, and jealousy/envy is arguably at least tangentially related to dominion. Besides, the way I look at it, we've only had two unambiguously malevolent Shards so far, namely Ruin and Odium. Dominion may be a third, but that can at least be arguable. I think there must be at least one more out there, and Jealous or Avarice seem like good options.

I recently finished listening to Edgedancer and I was really intrigued by the Sleepless we encounter, Arclo. Specifically his very philosophical outlook, as I tender to ponder various philosophical issues as well. I was actually surprised when he mentioned to Lift an obscure philosophical theory that I myself had actually pondered several times, or at least something very similar to it. Namely the idea that whenever someone goes unconscious, they effectively die and a new clone soul comes to inhabit their body once they regain consciousness (for the record, while I admit that I've pondered things similar to this long before reading Edgedancer, I do NOT believe that this is actually true, though it is obviously completely unfalsifiable, but I digress). What struck me is how weird it seemed for him to just randomly mention something like this as literally the first thing he says to her once he sees her again in the alley, because while admittedly it does have some tangential relevance to his own philosophy that he's been developing, it seems more like just a random philosophical factoid he mentions on a whim. So I couldn't help but wonder whether there might be something more too it than that; whether it might be intended to be some kind of foreshadowing or hint relevant to either the current situation or future books. Honestly, I have no idea whether it does or not, but as far as I can tell, there have not been any WoBs asking about it, so I was just wondering what everyone thinks. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head which it might have some kind of relevance to is the Heralds, who each time they die during a Desolation they somehow return to Braize in presumably a completely new clone body, the exact mechanics of this process still being largely a mystery from what I've been able to tell. So might it be the case that the Heralds are themselves in some sense clones as well, both in body and in soul? There is at least some tenuous precedence for people getting new souls in The Emperor's Soul, albeit in a completely difference sense than what would be happening here, so that if nothing else makes me think that this idea is at the very least worth considering. Again, I'm not at all convinced that Sanderson didn't have Arclo mention that purely to further his desired image of him as being a highly abstract and philosophical thinker, but then again, it does seem like a very weird thing to put in there for no reason other than show (though I suppose that considering his species is called the 'Sleepless', that might also explain it). So I'm curious what everyone else thinks about this. Is this simply a strange but ultimately irrelevant philosophical factoid, or do you think there may be more to it than that? I definitely think that Arclo's own philosophy will probably have at least some kind of relevance later on, if only because he tells Lift that he'll be seeing her about it again, but what about this one? Any ideas?

Clarification: to my knowledge, Adolin was never intending to kill Sadeas if he duelled him. The intention was simply to knock him off his high horse by completely curb-stomping him and to deprive him of his shards. But regardless, even if he DID want to kill him in a duel,there's a huge difference between defeating someone in a duel and murdering them in cold blood through what essentially amounts to a knife in the back. In an honor-based society like Alethkar, those are two completely different moral issues, and what Adolin actually did would have been considered cowardly and dishonorable even setting aside the part about it being illegal.

Yeah that's a good point too. Because in Mormonism, 'God' technically speaking is more akin to one of the Shards or of Adonalsium than a traditional big-G God in a philosophical sense. It's an ascended human being exalted to godhood. Like I said, I think his Mormon background probably does influence a lot of his ideas. Though admittedly, it's hard to tell whether such parallels are deliberate or incidental.

I actually can't help but wonder whether his Mormon beliefs, whether past or on-going, contributed to his general Cosmere mythos in any way. Because there are some admittedly tenuous parallels between certain aspects of the Cosmere mythos and the mythology of the Mormon religion, most notably the idea of humans 'ascending' to godhood and getting to rule over their own little worlds, as well as there being three distinct 'realms', four if you count the physical universe in the case of Mormonism and the Beyond in the case of the Cosmere, though this is far more tenuous a parallel than the whole ascension thing. Interesting to think about at any rate.