Fanghur Rahl

Are any of us truly the people we think we are? I kind of view the Lightweavers’ progression to full Radiant as being kind of equivalent to a person learning their True Names in the Inheritance Cycle. That is, it requires laying your identity completely bare and relinquishing all the comfortable delusions about yourself. One thing I’ve noticed about discussions involving Shallan and her personas is that people tend to assume that the personas are lies, acting, or some combination thereof. But that’s not true. All of her personas are truly her, but just different aspects of her identity given priority. Arguably her ‘true’ persona is one of these as well, though I don’t think I personally buy that. But regardless, is Shallan really Shallan? Are any of us truly the people we see ourselves as? And most importantly, is it even really a meaningful question to ask? I dunno.

Maybe Cultivation's storm would make the Everstorm grow into something that isn’t evil?

I think it’s too similar to Devotion to waste another Shard on it.

Another possibility I think is very plausible is something like ‘Inspiration’.

Yeah, Brandon has said that Devotion is essentially Love.

Sorry, that ended up sounding a lot more flippant than I intended it to. My point was simply that I can’t imagine any way of defining the concept of ‘weakness’ such that it isn’t relational without essentially just abandoning the term altogether.

Well, sure. But then again, I can walk through walls, which I hereby define as synonymous with ‘doorways’. Yes, ultimately all definitions are subjective and arbitrary, but if we’re gonna allow for infinite variation in what any given word means, communication simply breaks down.

Ruin and Cultivation are similar in that they are both Shards of change, but in polar opposite ‘directions’. Ruin is change toward decay, and Cultivation is change toward growth. Whereas Preservation is essentially the opposition of all change of any kind. So all three of them are completely opposed to each other, with Ruin and Cultivation arguably being the most opposed, since they don’t just want to prevent the other from carrying out their intent like Preservation does, but they also want to do the exact opposite of each other.

Subjective does not necessarily imply relative though. Sure different people might define ‘honour’ differently, but as long as they are consistent with how they use the term, it remains objective, and someone/something either is or is not honourable by that definition. However, the concept of ‘weakness’ is different in that the statement “X is weak” is meaningless unless viewed in relation to something else, Y. I am weak compared to a weight-lifter but not weak compared to a toddler.

Not in terms of its definition. Something either is or is not honorable, but it can’t be both from different ‘frames of reference’. Not like ‘weak’ can. ‘Honor’ does in fact have an objective definition.

The other problem is that ‘weakness’ is entirely a relative term; it has no kind of objective referent in reality. Nor does ‘might’ for that matter.

If that were true then Cultivation should have been drawn there as well, although I suppose that can be explained by her relationship with Tanavast.

I’m pretty sure at some point in the first trilogy it’s pretty much explicitly said that neither one could create individually, only by working together could they do so. Though I don’t know the exact quote.

Technically I don’t think any Shard can truly ‘create’ in the philosophical sense. Not out of nothing anyway. I think the implication was that Ruin and Preservation formed Scadrial out of their own substances, with Preservation giving up a little more to ‘create’ humans. But yeah, I personally think it’s just a flat-out plot hole. At least as explained in the books.

Logically, they are -1 and 0, respectively, to Cultivation’s +1. Honestly, I think the whole ‘Ruin and Preservation had to work together to create’ thing is dumb. If neither of them have the ability individually (Ruin can only degrade and Preservation can only preserve), then how exactly does destruction + preservation = creation? That’s never made a shred of logical sense to me, and that’s one of the very few things I think Brandon flat-out faux pas’d on storywise.

Actually, considering that an object made of matter and that same object made of antimatter are completely indistinguishable in all but a subatomic context, I would think that soulcasting one to the other would probably be pretty easy assuming it’s even possible. The soul of the object would probably just be “meh, all the same to me!”

Protons don’t have strange quarks. They’re composed of two up quarks and a down quark, whereas an antiproton is the other way around. Strange matter is something else.

You could know what antimatter is and yet scoff at the idea that anything could possibly be that destructive. Though whether soulcasting it under those circumstances would count as ‘inadvertent’ or not is I suppose a matter of semantics.

Well it’s at least enough for them to be constantly glowing, which is something they have in common with Radiants (at least while they’re channeling Stormlight). And once Raoden fixes the city, we see the Elantrians pretty much instantly heal from what would otherwise be lethal and/or mutilating wounds (including decapitation in Karata’s case IIRC). So their healing factor would seem to be at least on par with that of a Radiant, if not even stronger. So I think ‘trickle’ is probably a vast underestimation.

Wait, why would Aons even be necessary? Aren’t Elantrians constantly channeling the Dor through their bodies, hence their enhanced strength, healing factor, immortality and glowing skin? Why wouldn’t Nightblood simply be drawing directly on the Dor through the Elantrian?

@Calderis, can you confirm or refute that? The only WOB I know about relating to this was about using Aons to power Nightblood, not actual Elantrians, whose power never runs out as long as they’re within Elantris. I could be wrong though.

How would it be destroyed? It would just keep endlessly recycling the Dor to power itself. I don’t know if it’s possible in principle for Nightblood to ‘eat’ the entire Dor, but I doubt it.

Pretty much, since they’re always connected to the Dor. As long as they didn’t leave Elantris, I don’t see how they could ever run out. Or at least practically, since the Dor is basically two Shards worth of raw Investiture.

An Elantrian holding Nightblood within Elantris. Talk about being overpowered. lol. That would be absolutely terrifying.