Fanghur Rahl

Umm, I honestly can’t say whether I think that your theory is wild or not, because I quite honestly did not understand half of what you just said. There’s no such thing as a ‘SprenSpren’ to my knowledge, and the Stormfather is the Spren of the Highstorm specifically, not of wind. Windspren are a separate ‘species’ of Spren.

I seriously need to get up to date on the WOBs.

That’s one thing I didn’t really get; it seems to me that at least in terms of Dakhor, there are pretty much zero commalities with Elantrian AonDor. Dakhor seems to be almost exclusively based on Dominion whereas AonDor seems almost exclusively based on Devotion, the mechanics between the two seem completely different, and Dakhor doesn’t seem to suffer from the same proximity weakness that AonDor does. Calling them different subsets of the same magic system strikes me as a bit of a stretch; if it’s true, it’s only true in the same sense that crustaceans and mammals are ‘different’ subsets of the kingdom ‘Animalia’; technically true, but for all practical purposes they’re completely different. And like I said, AonDor certainly seems to be a system Devotion would create while Dakhor seems like a system Dominion would create. So in what sense is it even meaningful to call them the same system? They seem at first glance to be oil and water.

Fair enough, I’ll check that discussion out.

But Tanavast with the Shard is effectively a completely different being than Tanavast without the Shard, with only the former being a god. So presumably both could have a cognitive shadow.

Wait a sec, did the Stormfather take on Tanavast’s cognitive shadow, or Honor AS Tanavast’s? Because without his Shard, Tanavast was presumably no more ‘divine’ than you or I. I always thought the Stormfather was the ‘Spren of Honor’, so to speak, not merely the ‘Spren of Tanavast’.

Well, for the sake of the sanity of everyone involved, let’s just assume for the sake of argument that Brandon is unaware of advanced calculus or at the very least is not utilizing it in his books in any fundamental way. lol. At any rate, I confess that the idea of the Shards each having limitless power no matter what they do kind of rubs me the wrong way, because the thing about magic in the Cosmere is that pretty much without exception it is very much rule-based and almost scientific in a sense. It always has very precise limits and domains of applicability. It would seem, then, that there very well could be some analog of energy conservation inherent in the Cosmere; conservation of investiture so to speak. I’m a relatively recent fan of Brandon Sanderson’s works, so for all I know someone has actually asked him this question and had him reply in the negative, but it would certainly seem to fit in with what we know about how magic works in his universe from what I’ve been able to tell so far. And if that is the case, then it would indeed follow that for every avatar that Autonomy creates, it leaves the ‘Prime’ proportionately weakened, at least if we assume that the avatars are each individual autonomous beings. Then again, perhaps the Shards are able to draw limitless power from the Spiritual Realm to replenish themselves over time; I dunno. Like I said, it just rubs me the wrong way because it would effectively mean that Autonomy is creating entirely new Shards, and that would NOT seem to fit with what we know about how the Cosmere works.

Well, the problem with that is that it would then make it a meaningless statement to say that Harmony has more raw power than any other Shard; infinity times anything is still infinity. I’ve always looked at it as the Shards being unfathomably powerful, but not infinitely so. I just think that makes the most sense. Though I may just be overthinking it. Although, it kinda begs an interesting (though most likely false) question: could the Shards in some sense be ‘avatars’ of Adonalsium?

Honestly, for me it was pretty much just because of how fitting it would be; Dalinar was kind of similar to Kevin Landwaster from the Thomas Covenant series, who ultimately gave in to his despair after the Despiser subjected him to tragedy after tragedy until he broke and ultimately became his unwitting puppet. The only difference is that Dalinar was able to overcome the despair and grow from it with Cultivation’s help, whereas Kevin had no one.

Plus, this is Hoid we’re talking about. He behaves very differently in pretty much every book. Playing different roles is kind of his forte.

Wouldn’t that weaken her considerably though? Creating a whole bunch of independent beings and infusing each with a fraction of her power would presumably require her to ‘give up’ that same amount of her own power in at least some sense. If so, she certainly shouldn’t be able to stand up to Harmony.

Well, ‘merely’ as opposed to that in addition to being the withered shadow of a nigh-omnipotent deity. Presumably he’s vastly more powerful now than he was when he was ‘merely’ the Spren of the Highstorm.

To clarify, when I said ‘Stormspren’, what I meant was that he was merely the Spren of the Highstorm.

Not really a ‘death’ so much as just a delaying defeat, but the repeated defeats of Lord Foul in Stephen R. Donaldson’s ‘The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: The Unbeliever’ series definitely qualifies. As does the true death of Turiya Herem in the final book in the series.

With the exception the Arcanum, audiobooks all the way.

So it's probably a reasonable (or at least plausible) assumption that the Nightwatcher (or at least some powerful Spren that would ultimately become the Nightwatcher) also existed during that time as well? It's just a little bit confusing because the Stormfather all but explicitly confirms to Dalinar that the Nightwatcher is to Cultivation what the Stormfather is to Honor, albeit presumably through different means since Cultivation was never killed, and yet the two of them seem vastly different in pretty much every respect.

I stand corrected. I always thought of ingenuity as just being a synonym of intelligence.

Well, except maybe for Ruin. Though I suppose technically even Ruin helped to create as well, albeit just so he would have something to destroy soon after.

Well, 'ingenuity' and 'invention' are only tangentially related at best. It might be said that the latter involves the application of the former, but it certainly isn't in any way synonymous. That said, I agree with your basic point, and I think that there are probably Shards related to each. Though like I said, I think 'Aptitude' would be a better, more encompassing name for a Shard than 'Ingenuity'.

Unless it functions in a way analogous to Kaladin’s bond with Syl; when he violated his oaths, which could be thought of as the ‘intent’ of a Windrunner’s power (albeit in a very nebulous fashion), he effectively killed Syl, at least until he got his act back together. Maybe in that same vein, Dalinar wouldn’t be able to misuse Honor’s power without severing his connection to it in a similar way?

Would Honor’s power even HAVE any restrictions that would be relevant to the fight against Odium though? It’s not like with Preservation in which fanatical pacifism is inherent within the Shard’s essence. There is nothing inherent within the concept of honor that should interfere with him combatting Odium or the Fused, whether directly or indirectly, or in uniting the people. At the very least not in the same way as Preservation.

Touché.

I just want to know if I’m understanding this correctly. Is it fair to say that the Stormfather was a Stormspren who ended up being invested with a fragment of Honor’s power/essence, and the Nightwatcher is at least plausibly a Forestspren who Cultivation imbued with a fraction of her own power/essence? Or am I looking at this the wrong way?

Is the unknown Shard actually ON Scadrial though? I was under the impression that Harmony has so far managed to keep it away.

I’ve always pronounced ‘Sadeas’ the way the audiobooks do, namely Sa-dee-as(s). Without the two brackets. Seriously guys? You censor those three letters? lol.