LewsTherinTelescope

He actually plans to release this one with the Words of Radiance Kickstarter, because he feels it's one of his better-quality unpublished books and we've apparently made it past most of what would be spoilery.

Yeah, it's apparently an emerging belief in Scadrian society.

If AonDor did, I'd speculate that the rest did as well, because it'd be odd for Arelon to have a magic system based off it but not anyone else on the planet, but I've no real clue what to expect with the Selish magics after this, lol

I suppose so. Man, Sel is weird...

The formation of the seons around Aons has definitely usually been confusing to me. I had wondered if perhaps they only coalesced later. This makes that part make sense, but makes the rest just make no sense to me, lol.

Then what decides where the border of "Arelon" is, for the purposes of the shape of Aons, or MaiPon for stamps? I suppose so, but it's just so odd that the magic was doing this.

Yeah. The Splintering of D&D was a loooong time ago, so that definitely still left room for it to have been abandoned up to several thousand years ago and still have been built post-Splintering, but I guess not. This one really blindsided me, because it completely changes the way Selish magics work — not that we thought we had a full understanding of that in the first place! It's just shocking to me that I guess the regional magics still existed (whether locked to their own countries or not)? That or Arelon for whatever got a magic system and the rest of the planet just had to use theirs, but that one's even stranger to me. (It also surprises me that even after the abandonment of Elantris, there was enough of a concept of an Arelon for Aons to remain as they are. This is an issue either way, but extending Elantris's creation back gives a lot more time that the concept of the nation has to remain around.)

Someone on Reddit got this WoB a few hours ago.... Sorry, what? How? Did the regional magics exist prior to the Shards being in the Cognitive???? Because AonDor is pretty specifically based on Arelon. (Could mean a normal, non-magic city, but "when was Elantris built" feels like it's pretty clearly not saying "when were three buildings built that would become a city down the line", it's about the magical power enhancer that makes Elantris Elantris.)

Especially when said godly being has acted to screw up his life so badly too I could definitely see different terms being made for scientific use, whether to refer to the Realms only vs including the afterlife, or just to be more specific if the common word just meant a vague concept of "stuff that's out there I guess". (On a similar note, "reality" or "existence" vs "universe" could be an example IRL of different words being used for the same thing, without necessarily having any substantive difference besides some just sounding weird in certain contexts but fitting better in others. Though I'd say "universe" is by far the one most likely to be actually used to refer to the universe, so it's not a perfect example by any means.)

Wax also might just not really be aware of the phrase "the universe is out to get you", and so asks if by that she means the one they consider to be the God in control of the universe. (I'd note that the word "universe" itself has only been used one time in all of Era 2.) I agree it's kinda odd, though, and that explanation doesn't leave me fully satisfied. But the fact nobody besides Wax has ever batted an eye at the word makes me wonder.

He summons the Stormfather as something, but exactly what happened there isn't super clear afaik (and it caused the Stormfather a lot of pain, whatever it was, so I don't think that's being done again anytime soon).

Otoh, the Bondsmith art has a Shardblade, which we know Bondsmiths don't get... (Also, canon Plate and Blade are plain grey and the only color is the glow at the seams, so it's not like he forces the art to be particularly accurate.)

Interesting bit that this brings to mind: Sja-anat mentions that she needs a bond to Odium to stay "awake", which reminds me of Radiant spren.

They're theoretically direct descendants, but like, kingdoms do have a habit of people coming in from a far-off branch of the family with questionable descent and taking over on occasion. (The Kholin bros themselves were pretty much just some random citylords that belonged to the House until they conquered Kholinar and wiped out several other branches of the family, to my understanding?)

Well... Hemalurgy does steal things besides powers But I know what you mean lol. I more was curious for a more specific explanation, ex. what kind of effects does it have (probably with some pure spitballing for examples, just to clarify the idea), how it actually does this, that kinda thing.

One thing I'd note: Voidbinding hasn't been fully explored yet, so it could just be that most people don't know enough about Voidbinding to tell us that. I'm a fan of the idea that the reason it is a "cousin" is just that the Old Magic is the NW doing things, and the Voidbindings are the Unmade doing things (as well as possibly a set of powers that align with what the Unmade do, but this isn't super clear). Hmm, could you elaborate on what you mean here a bit more? This sounds interesting. The ten levels thing + the Voidbinding chart do for the moment still make me think it's Surge-based, but this isn't actually something I've thought on a whole lot, so this theory is a pretty interesting one.

Which is unfortunate, because I've been strongly against those, but now I end up arguing for them in this post (Though I think "Unite" would take the place of Create, not be in addition to it) Not necessarily. Under that theory, "microkinesis" actually refers to a set of related powers that each have distinct abilities. So there'd be some relation to all, but it could manifest differently enough in each Dawnshard to have each be associated more with a different power. Valid point, though. Yeah, vertically symmetric would be more pure Rosharan, but Tension and Illumination being the Surges in question would be weirder, imo. The symmetry thing was a throwaway line, don't take it too seriously as an argument Not necessarily. There's Dalinar's weird reassembling of the temple, for example. If Unite is indeed a Dawnshard, I think it's likely to extend more to cover things like assembling things too. Uniting the pieces into a greater whole.

I did consider that, but (very flimsy argument warning) to be perfectly honest, the Surges method is more aesthetically pleasing With these Surges, it ends up being every other Surge is either a Shard or Dawnshard, which forms a nice pattern of the type Rosharans are so fond of (and splitting it with Division as the midline, the locations of the Shard ones are even symmetrical!). If you go by orders, you instead get Bondsmiths and Stonewards next to one another, and Lightweavers and Truthwatchers next to one another, but Stonewards and Lightweavers two apart, and Dustbringers two apart from Bondsmiths but one apart from Truthwatchers. (And swapping Edgedancers in for Truthwatchers or Skybreakers in for Dustbringers isn't any better.) And that's assuming Bondsmiths as Honor and Stonewards as Unite (which admittedly the latter's weird), if we take those both as Dawnshards and Windrunners as Honor, it ends up even worse, lol. It's totally a possibility, though, agreed. I just like it being pretty

Define "Nahel bond", lol The actual definition is pretty broad (even encompassing Aviar) and Nightblood's telepathy is done via a bond. But that doesn't seem to grant any notable magic powers.

I mentioned in my Dawnshards and Microkinesis theory[1] a few times that I was going to be writing another related theory. Took longer than I expected, but here we are. (0.) TL;DR I theorize that several Surges share a connection to Dawnshards, though whether this is purely thematic, or due to perception shenanigans, or in some way related directly, I am unsure. These Surges are Cohesion, Transformation, and Division. (1.) Cohesion (2.) Transformation (3.) Division (4.) Some Concluding Thoughts (I.) References

At most, it would probably mean you'd need Lifelight for some and Stormlight for others, not a custom mix for each, since the death of Phendorana shows that it can kill something even if it's only partially of that. Didn't say they were all exactly 50/50. Also: The spren are all similar enough in composition that when their essence is manifested Physically, it is close enough to be reasonably considered the same thing as any other Radiant spren (though it is not exactly the same).

Why? I'm afraid I don't understand what you're saying here, can you clarify? Clearly. I'm just wondering why.

I mean, that's kind of a pretty bad thing, too, but I think many of our Radiants are already well aware of that.

I mean, they didn't have to use them as slaves, even if not capable of repairing their minds.