Benkinsky

that's true. But now you're making me wonder whether Taldainians could figure out something very similar to Solar Tech, if they find a way to use Investiture to power things or mechanisms. Once they reach space, it should be very possible to establish Space Stations and such using the Investiture from their Sun. Atleast in the local solar system.

yeah, and Trell can't be Mercy, it's a shard we knew at that point. But yeah, Mercy can be scary. I think we're too nervous to assume something like "Mercy" has to be a positive force after seeing Preservation enjoy the Lord Ruler.

I checked again, he did use some kind of Fabrial to heal Szeth before his soul had passed on? Makes me wonder if we'll get to see a Flashback in Szeth's book of hanging in Shadesmar before his death.

yes. I was very tempted to mention Fused too @Bzhydack but I personally dislike the theory that Svrakiss ARE Fused from when Odium was there killing D&D, But I wouldn't be surprised if there were similarities, if Kel learned something from Sel, or, as Bzhydack said, the Svrakiss might've been some kind of inspiration. I feel like if any kind of Cognitive Shadow would have an easy time posessing bodies it would be ones created with DOMINIONs Investiture. And maybe very devoted Indidivuals/Vessels can make it easier to be posessed too. I really wonder if it's a bond-type thing or if the posession is more like the Fused version, basically killing the Person(s spiritweb) who inhabited the body before. There's also Szeth. Who, as far as I know, we still don't know how Nale "stapled" him back to his body.

I can very much imagine this Phendorana and shuravf's Teft as a team. Awesome!

you've come to the right place tehn. Welcome!

yeah, pretty much. Well put.

Glad you like the theory. Your points to the Anti-Investiture parts are very fair, and I'm inclined to agree. Even though I feel like Galladon and other 17th Sharders would very much want to keep the knowledge of Anti-Investiture hidden if they had it, if some Selish Scholars had it this early in the timeline (which I forgot is where Elantris is), Khriss and others would have known about it much earlier. And true, the Intent that Navani and Raboniel had was very precise. The Computer-Virus / A-Copper-A-Bronze analogy is more probably, I agree there. Now, to the second part: You are right here. However, I think we can't compare Rasheks death to an invested persons death on Sel. I maybe should have added this in the original post. The Cognitive Realm around Sel is seriously stormed up. We don't know the details, but it sure is. A lot of stuff that usually happens in the Spiritual Realm happens in the Cognitive Realm here, while things that are usually tied to the Cognitive Realm (Location-based things, sentient concepts) seem to happen, atleast somewhat, in the physical realm too. TL;DR in a bit: longer explanation: Rashek was for sure more invested than any Dakhor Monk we've seen, and will probably remain the most invested person on screen aside from Godkings for a long time too. I think a Dakhor-user or Dakhor-sacrifice would be more like Elend, who had a direct connection to preservation due to the Lerasium, and stuck around a bit, and then moved on to the Beyond. What I'm trying to say is, what happened with Elend and Rashek how I understand it was this: Be invested in the physical realm -> Die -> the amount of investiture in your soul/spiritweb keeps you in the cognitive realm for a while longer -> move to the beyond or, in the case of Kelsier: Be invested in the physical realm -> Die -> the amount of investiture in your soul/spiritweb keeps you in the cognitive realm for a while longer -> load up on Investiture and connect to something (I'm not sure if Kelsiers connection to Scadrial comes from bathing in the shardpool of a shard that's invested there, from being worshipped there, or from dying and living there) -> don't move on to the beyond (-> find something to connect you to the physical realm if you want to act there, like a spike or bond) Mix that with the fact that the realms are weird around Sel, the planet itself is invested/sentient?, and magic is location-dependent. When you die on Sel, I believe you either move on to the Beyond directly or get vaporized the instant you appear in the Cognitive Realm, your investiture joining the Dor again and you, uhm, move on, I hope. What I'm proposing is that for Dakhor/Svrakiss it would be like this: Be invested in the physical realm -> Die/get sacrificed -> the amount of investiture in your soul/spiritweb combined with your connection to the location keeps some kind of Cognitive Shadow of you sticking around in the physical realm even though your body is burned out. Your soul is "twisted" and part of the invested landscape now. You're too loaded up on investiture to fully die, not dead but not alive either. (-> find a body to posess/dominate if you want to act in the physical realm.) Maybe i should coin the term "physical (cognitive) shadow", but that sounds weird. Something like a Radiant Spren without a bond, not quite in this realm, not quite not there either. i should have explained that better from the start, I hope it's clearer now. TL;DR: realms are shifted on Sel. The physical realm has properties of both the "normal" physical and "normal" cognitive realm, while the cognitive realm has properties of the "normal" cognitive and "normal" spiritual. Wheras on other planets, when you die invested, your consciousness holds out in the cognitive realm a bit longer before you move on, on Sel, that might not be the case. Uninvested souls would just pass on basically instantly, and even heavily invested souls probably would. My theory is that a "twisted" soul would be connected to the physical realm so much, that it would stick around there even when its body dies, rather than in the Cognitive Realm. That would be what a Svrakiss is.

oh, good question. I think that depends on how the Storms work with providing Investiture. If there's a mini-perpendicularity inside the storm, with Investiture pouring out from the Spiritual Realm, I doubt a bunch of Anti-Investiture could really do much apart from causing a big explosion. If it's a mass of Light, and you had a sufficient amount of Anti-Light, you might be able to do something. If you can kill Fused with Anti-Voidlight, and Spren with Anti-Stormlight, it sounds like you might be able to kill the Stormfather if you try hard enough and figure out where and how to hit him.

Just jumping in here real quick cause I remembered this thread exists and how much fun it was and still is. @Inquisitor #5@Zoey and everyone else, you're doing a good job, it's very fun to read. I'm still hyped for the Knights Enlightened, let's see if I return to the discussion properly with a reread or when W&W is less on my mind

SPOILERS for SA, Mistborn, and Elantris. Not sure if this should be a post on the Sel Topic. So, I was doing some reading on the Coppermind, and noticed something on the Page for Dakhor. (source: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Dakhor) The Dor now, I'm pretty sure I saw a WoB once that I can't find right now, I'd be happy if someone found it, that said that every magic on Sel was powered by the Dor aka by BOTH Dominion and Devotion, not just one. Most people who've read Mistborn assumed Dakhor was a counterpart to Hemalurgy and AonDor to Allomancy, with one being powered by Ruin/Dominion and the other by Preservation/Devotion. Good vs Evil, yes. But that's not how the Dor is or works. WoB told us that every magic has the mix of both shards as a power source, so AonDor uses Dominions Investiture just as much as Dakhor uses Devotions. But now that we know what we know from RoW, what if that's just initially true. what if it should be "every challening (for lack of a better word) accesses the Dor initially, not just one shard.", and what the Dakhor Monks do by chanting is messing with that. Rythms Honor, Cultivation and Odium all have a Rythm. There are Rythms for the mix of them (The Rythm of War, for example). This is a Cosmere-wide phenomenon, as far as we know. Ruin's pulses from the Well of Ascension are similar to the Rythms, we know that. If my meh-tier understanding of all the magiphysics in RoW is correct, Navani and Raboniel could use the Rythms of Odium and Honor respectively to influence the shards investiture, their flow, and their combination. The Rythm of Dominion The simple conclusion here would be: The Dakhor monks chant the Rythm of Dominion to use specifically Dominions Investiture/Investiture aligned to Dominion for their magic. But even if we say the WoB "It's always Dor" still holds true, Selish magic is all about Keys. I think the Bones of Dakhor monks are more like the Aons on Plates that you can reactivate than the Aons you draw into the air. The making of a hyper-specific Key is the chanting itself, where different chants/rythms influence what kind of mix of Devotion and Dominion is channeled into a bone, thus deciding what kind of twisting the bone will do. Okay, aluminum foil hats on. The next points are all based on my initial theory (Dakhor chanting uses the Rythm of Dominion and maybe that of Devotion), and are wilder. 1. Anti-Investiture (source: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Dakhor) The Anti-Tones, from my understanding, sound the same as the Tones, but technically they are inverted, and it's the Intent that matters. I doubt that Dakhor chanters know "what we're doing is channeling the Anti-Tone of Devotion", but I assume an Intent like "we want this to block AonDor" could be enough to create Anti-Dor properties. Is Anti-Investiture how Dakhor monks can be resistant to or negate AonDor magic? Counterpoint: We've seen some pretty violent reactions when the lights meet. So either the violent reaction here happens in the cognitive realm, Dakhor blocking the Aons from even channeling much Investiture, or there's no Anti-Investiture involved. Then again, Anti-Light is described very similar to how Skaze are described, so maybe Dominions Investiture inherently has features similar to Anti-Investiture. 2. Svrakiss Next crackpot thesis: Svrakiss are Dakhor monks or Dakhor sacrifices. It is those that have a sufficient attunement to Investiture aside from their connection to their home country to come back as Cognitive Shadows. Now, we don't even know that Svrakiss even exist. But lets assume they do, and take what knowledge we have: Let's go in order. 1. half-ghost and half-demon. Sure sounds like Cognitive Shadows. 2. souls of men barred from entrance into heaven. -> don't enter the beyond because they're so invested that they don't pass on initially - or maybe at all. 3. Taking over bodies of living men and control their actions. If that doesn't scream Dominion, i don't know what does. 4. older concept than Shu-Dereths presence in Svorden. That's actually very neat for us. We know a) Elantris already existed when Shu-Keseg split and b ) Elantris the city is older than the splintering of Dominion and Devotion. We don't have a timeline, but it could be that the mythology of Svrakiss comes from a time before the Dor came to be. Another thing I want to highlight is the wording from this WoB: (Emphasis mine, source: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/3-firefight-chicago-signing/#e48) "Twisting" is exactly the vocabulary used for the bones of Dakhor monks, which from what we know are the key to Dakhor magic, and, as I've theorized, are influenced by Rythms. Now, this wording might be a coincidence, but I think it's possible that it isn't. Which leads me to my theory: Svrakiss today (when Elantris takes place) are either former Dakhor monks or specifically monks that have been sacrificed in Dakhor ritual. To further explain: Svrakiss in general are Cognitive Shadows based on Dominions Investiture, and some kind of mistwraith-spike-construct and/or Nahel-Bond parallel stuff happens for them to take over living bodies. Since D&D were shattered, Svrakiss don't really come to be anymore, since Cognitive Shadows don't happen in the Plasma that is the Dor, and since Dor users aren't aligned to Investiture in the same way that someone burning a metal or holding a lot of Stormlight might be. (I admit, this point is a bit iffy, we just know very little about the mechanics here and about the Dor). However, a Dakhor user or sacrifice would be so aligned to and filled with Dominions investiture due to the chanting that when they died or were sacrificed, they don't pass on into the Beyond directly ("barred from entrance into heaven") but rather become Svrakiss, still connected to the physical realm, half-ghosts and half-demons. What I'm saying is if Svrakiss are real, the very rare nature of sole-Dominion-aligned people dying might explain why they're so rare that no on-screen-character so far has seen one (aside from maybe Suit...). Counterpoint: The Cognitive Shadows we know aren't super affected by whose investiture they're using as shadows, from what we've seen. Second, maybe Svrakiss could also just be Dor-Cognitive-Shadows. Or something closer to the Threnody Shades than the Heralds and Returned. But, importantly, we only know the Shades as being from post-Ambitions-death, while Svrakiss mythology might be older than the splitering of D&D. Aluminum foil hats off. Again, the last two points are very out there. The first one, I think, might not be. I'm pretty sure that whenever the Elantris sequels come out and we learn more about Dakhor, the chanting will tie into the cosmere-wide phenomenon that are rythms.

oooh wow these are all really amazing!

Same. I'm excited for all of them. I've read the teaser for the sequel, and it's already so much fun. And Kingmaker seems to be so, too. Although i really hope we'll get some Aviar action in Kingmaker. And god, yes, Dust Brigade. Please. I love Threnody, and I'm so hyped to find out more about the Evil, how it connects to Ambition, if my theories about the future of Threnody are correct (cough Ghostbloods cough). More shades!

Exactly my thoughts! He's done so much already, and none of it was what he was returned to do for.

Horrible, I love it!

oh hell yeah. First of the sun is so cool, I would love this novel for sure!

yeah, she could easily create the warriors she needs for whatever plans. I don't know how much control Edgli has about the Divine Breath, but if she, in her long lifespan, made a few returned with goals like "destroy another Vessel" or whatever, and helped in the creation of things like Nightblood, she has a good defense probably. We know the Cosmere has the rule of "live long enough and become very good at fighting", so a bunch of returned would be a powerful force against a Fused invasion or whatnot. We've heard what the five scholars can do, and there's five of them. And she probably might even have a backup Vessel in case Edgli's personality interferes to much with what has to be done. We've seen Cultivation prepare Taravangian for ascension, to make him attuned. Many people assume she's doing the same with Honor. If someone had been alive for centuries as a returned, traveling Nalthis or even the Cosmere, never dying of age because the goal of the Divine Breath is specifically "take up Endowment when it becomes necessary", they'd 100% be attuned to Endowment so much that they could easily take it up, and their travels probably taught them whatever lessons were necessary. Who knows, maybe that's what Vasher will be. Maybe Endowment knows she'll see her death coming early enough, and she has both the tools to fight and her own replacement to do it.

from what we know, this wouldn't really work, since he would need to spike the Spren too, otherwise he'd just get the Radiants part of the Nahel Bond, which the Spren could cancel, so all El did was stab himself with some metal. Personally, I think a Fabrial is more likely.

I assume Roshar the planet does, since Preservation just took up a set of metals that seem to have been a thing pre-shattering, and none of the metals (except for Atium, which might be retconned as being part of the 16) are godmetals or creations of preservation or ruin. However, Scadrial has a much much much higher incentive to actually dig for and try to alloy new metals than any other planet. And even so, in Era 1 due to TLR they didn't have all of them discovered. Taln's mantra tells us that up until recently, each desolation threw humanity back so far they had to rediscover bronze casting, so yeah, I think while the metals are technically on the planet, Humans haven't found or cleaned them yet. Maybe some Fused know more, and that's why they're interested in certain areas, where they know they can mine for those metals.

I wouldn't be surprised if he had a kind of ritualistic way he does that. Spoke with a friend yesterday and came up with the idea that we might see the Notes or the structure of that ritual as one the pre-chapter snippets, where El or whoever made those metals for him the first time if it wasn't him goes through the different plates one by one, what metal they are, maybe what purpose they serve. from how I understand it, Fabrial tech wouldn't have that problem, since the metal isn't actually charged in any way. So El can just recover his old plates. You do raise a good point with that the metal has to touch the Gem. I doubt he has a spike deep enough into his flesh that it touches his gemheart, but then again, who knows. If his Cognitive Shadow isn't exactly in the Gemheart but just present in the whole body somehow, maybe that's enough contact.

I'll make my own Tinfoil hat theory out of yours (with Blackjack, and Hookers) The Fabrial Stuff isn't a hint that it's hemalurgy, it's very direct: The metal in El's skin act as the cage, making him a kind of Fabrial-Cyborg. I mean, he has a Gemheart, and I'm unsure if there's a Spren in it (that's what Regals are, but Idk if Fused and Regal are exclusive things), if that's where "El" is (as in, the cognitive Shadow) or if he otherwise inhabits this body (more akin to how Nale stapled Szeth back to his body... somehow.) Either way, we have the two pieces for a Fabrial: 1. a Gem(heart) for a Spren (a piece of investiture) to inhibit 2. A metal "cage" around it to influence what happens. I would not be surprised if we learned that that's what the metal is there for. We know El has appreciation for Humans and their arts. He would be eager to see if the impressive technology of Fabrials can be used for gain. Now the only question is what metals those are, and what they do with the Spren or CS inside El's Gemheart.

Yeah, I'm big on that. We already know only very few, and Mraize and Iyatil definitely seem to be part of the Rosharan Chapter / Roshar Operatives. The GBs are said to be a massive organisation, so I rather think (and am very excited for it) that we'll meet atleast one, maybe a few, Scadrian GBs (as in, GBs stationed there, not necessarily people from Scadrial). Maybe one of them will be from a planet aligned with the Shard that Trell belongs to, and that will be our Info. If Trell is Autonomy, which I believe, it might be Sand master or otherwise Taldainian that tells us something like "The same force that guides Trell rules in my home. It stifeled progress for centuries. No wonder it took interest in your world" or something like that. I wonder how prevalent Images of the Sovereign are to the Southerns are. As in, will Allik see a statue of the Survivor and be like "wait a minute"

I kind of feel like Hoid won't be that, because we have another candidate for it. A good foil for Hoid, and in the far future, maybe even kind of a rival. Either way, it feels like we're watching that set up happen at the moment with Thaidakar, so I doubt Hoid will be too similar to that. But then again, standing by and watching Jasnah, Shallan, Kaladin & co die at the end of Book 10 and knowing he can't interact because of some reason would definitely be an intense moment for him and him as a character

First of, because I have to get that out: as far as I know and I'm pretty sure of that, Nightblood is not (the same thing as) Anti-Light. Nightblood destroys Investiture, Anti-Light is Anti-Investiture, negative Investiture. I wouldn't be surprised if Nightblood could eat Anti-Light too tbh. That said, yeah, I definitely think El is going to be a Fused+ kind of villain. We're kind of used to the Fused already by now. Unsure if he'll be done with by Part 5, I wouldn't be surprised, and he functions as an opponent for Adolin or Szeth or someone, or maybe he goes to try and assassinate Jasnah or Dalinar, OR if He's being set up for the Back 5 books. Maybe as some kind of Commander for TOdium's Forces.

It's a very good show. I appreciate that someone responded to the comment