Dros

Regarding the "betrayed" or "abandoned" semantics used for the KR: we have only seen one instance of the Recreance, which Dalinar witnessed in his vision. It's my understanding that represented only two orders. We don't know what the rest of the KR did that day.

EDIT: Wanted to add that I've thought that maybe, along the lines of the above, the "betrayal" might have been the rest of the KR refusing to give up their Blades and Plate. Honor in the vision said, "this is the first of them, this was the last"...or something to that effect. Which always seemed a bit strange considering that wasn't all of the KR.

Here's a secondhand quote from Zas, but Zas being the quotemaster, I don't need to look further:

 

This is from the Theory:the Recreance thread. 

 

If you accept that the Radiants didn't exist at the time portrayed in the Dalinar-Nohadon vision and the prelude shows that the Radiants existed at the time of the Herald abandonment, then the Almighty was around while Nohadon was alive and at least some Honorspren existed. 

 

This is the only quote relating to the Recreance trigger that I remember and it has to do with the heralds, not Honor shattering.

Awesome...thank you for finding that.

It just seems the Nahel Bond works a lot like the relationship between a Shard and its holder. Syl has gained more and more cognitive abilities the longer she interacted with Kaladin. So a splintered Honor would probably create things like Honorspren. However, it's my understanding that Shards can "grant" splinters to the people of a world  while still whole (Preservation?) and if so, it means Honor didn't have to be splintered by Odium to create Honorspren. So, as a  counterargument against my own thoughts, Honor may have been weakened by granting Honorspren splinters to the people of Roshar and that's how Odium overcame him.

I really thought Brandon said the splintering of Honor was not the reason for the Recreance though.  

We know Honorspren were around when Nohadon was alive.  Were Honorspren created after Honor was splintered or already out there? 

I'm wondering about whether Cultivation is Splintered as well.  Honor's words in WoK seems to imply that she was still alive when he died.  Then again, we've also been told that spren are of both Cultivation and Honor, and I would think the spren's characteristics would be different if only half of their progenitors had been Splintered, because of their release valve nature for Shardic power, and that half of the spren would be behaving differently from the other half.

I'm beginning to wonder that same thing. For these reasons:

• Honor stated in his final vision that Cultivation was (past tense) always better at seeing the future so his vision might not be as accurate. If Cultivation was still around...why wouldn't Honor just ask her what the future held and relay that to Dalinar?
• Plant life, etc. has retreated to the lands of the Shin and it seems to be the only place where the land can be cultivated. That, by itself, can go either way. Maybe Cultivation is alive and that's her last stronghold? But taken with everything else, at the very least it helps build the case that the influence of Cultivation, as a force, is waning.
• The epigraph that says: "Three of sixteen ruled, now the Broken One reigns!" Most speculate that the Broken One refers to Odium. So, this epigraph is saying two of the Shards, at least, are out of commission. And even if the Broken One refers to Cultivation...that probably means she's been splintered.
• Honor said in his last vision that he should have known Odium would come for him...that line has always vexed me. Perhaps, he should have known because Odium just whacked Cultivation?
• Shardholders buying the farm seem to be the overarching theme of the Cosmere at the moment.

Both Pennsylvania and Nigeria were colonized by England, so they both had significant influences from the same source.

So if you think of the "crab" symbol that way, maybe Shivertongue and KChan have the best interpretation of how the symbols are similar but not the same.  Same influence, different people with different cultural preferences putting pen to paper, so to speak.

Honor's Shardpool most probably exists, but I don't think it's where Urithiru is (unless the reason it can't be found is because his death was there and it wiped it off the map, but I think people would have noticed that)

 

Using the word "nearest" though has me thinking that it isn't a shardpool. Because if you wanted to be close to Honor, and knew he was a shardpool, wouldn't you ask that Urithiru be built around Honor? or, if it was underground, over Honor? or if in the sky, under Honor?, etc. etc. It makes me believe Honor didn't physically manifest at that time in the physical realm.

I remember Brandon saying it was Dalinar, as well.  That would make the figure in the distance Eshonai...correct?

Also, regarding the banner and the surge symbol: Brandon has done quite a bit of world building around the fact that details, names, and religions have changed over time.  For example, all of the Heralds names are slightly different in Kalak's chapter than they are written now. History is muddled and details surrounding events aren't even known anymore.

So it may not be too much of a stretch that whoever designed the banner had seen the crab-like surge symbol and just simply thought it looked like that creature and just ran with it. Or, over time, it changed ever so slightly, bit by bit, over the years to eventually become the "crab" drawing seen on the banner. 

I wanted to keep my metaphor as non-magical as I could so I was only thinking about more mundane methods.  Of course now I feel kind of dense for not thinking of something as obvious as that...  My bad.

 

That said I don't think Ruin and Preservation have been merged to such an extent as to make that necessary.  If their very atoms have mixed then they would be one piece of glass, not two.

 

 

For this theory I've been operating under the assumption that the intents of the shards did not exist until during/after the Shattering.  The original window would not have been a stained-glass one, it would be like the Wide Window from A Series of Unfortunate Events.  Clear and continuous, i.e. it is not made up of smaller pieces of glass.  The color, which represents the intents, only developed after the window was broken.  A reforming of the Shards would create a window as beautiful as the previous just not the same kind of window.

 

Hopefully that answers your question, if not let me know and I will try to explain better.

Definitely. I like that line of thought.

I think between your theory and KChan's thoughts on it, the truth is probably not far off.

That lends a lot of weight to my theory - by successfully bringing the two Shards under his own cognitive control, they merged into a larger Shard and are now difficult to separate.

So...there's only 15 Shards now?

EDIT:

And I guess that lends more to the theory that, yes, in fact you can put Andolasium back together again. But also brings Hoid's thoughts of whether putting all these Shards together would form Andolasium or something else into the discussion I imagine.

DOUBLE EDIT:

What Odium feared would happen? How much did Odium know about Scadrial that he was scared of one person holding two Shards?

He may have been more scared of another Shard picking up the coginitively freed Harmony and combining all three shards.

Kaladin's a Super-sayan? Whattayaknow

http://kogiopsis.tumblr.com/post/47483528014/do-you-know-how-pissed-i-am-that-people-draw

 

That's the original post. All the ensuing stuff is in the notes.

 

It did lead to this piece of fanart. 

 

http://swamp-spirit.tumblr.com/post/47519867833/since-i-was-complaining-about-other-peoples

 

As well as my question in the AMA, which confirmed that everyone on Roshar except for the Shin (and presumably Hoid and Demoux) has an epicanthic fold on their eyes, which would make them look non-European to any of us for reasons beyond their skin-tone and whether or not parts of them are made of rocks/metal/wool.

 

Edit:

 

It occurs to me now that Dros commented that Kaladin's hair might be blacker.

 

I read Dros' post as "This pedanic fool thought that he was a blacker and younger dude."

 

Which means Joe and I could be talking about a completely different series of posts.

 

The above ones are just about how Kaladin isn't white and it's weird that he's usually drawn that way. Which definitely applies to this painting. 

Oh yeah, I was just commenting on the hair.  I could have sworn he was described with black hair.

It tells me Odium isn't native to Roshar, so where was he before?

Or maybe their leader is the mind that originally held Adonalsium. It's logical to assume that the whole follows the rules of the parts, so what was the cognitive aspect of Adonalsium? And assuming it's benevolent, where do you go when you have the power of Creation and are turned into a shadow of yourself? Maybe you build a network of world hoppers to put out the fires your power is causing while you figure out a way to kill sixteen gods.

 

EDITED for spelling

The 17th Shard apparently has a policy of non-intervention, though.

I think they are more of an intelligence gathering operation more than anything. Perhaps they are trying to limit the devastating effects shards have on some worlds as well.

I like this, but I see it as philosophical differences that aren't really about faith or religion. I can't find the quote I'm looking for though! (It was a few weeks, maybe a month ago... I think. Brandon described the metaphysics as a mash-up between Plato's forms and "everything is alive".) So there's a conflict between very different sources of meaning, with the Spiritual being about universal principles, and the Cognitive about perception and consensus. There are purely physical theories of meaning in philosophy too, but I don't know if the cosmere would go there, or if it ignores them.

What kind of entity would actually oppose Plato's forms though? Say they showed up in the real world; we discover that all war is because of a universal principle of War, and all peace is because of a principle of Peace. Why would something oppose that? I could see people taking sides, but why would someone oppose the whole system?

Maybe it's High Politics on a universal scale. BS has said he imagines the entirety of his Cosmere to be encapsulated in something the size of a small galaxy.  If the range of Andolasium's influence was just Brandon's Cosmere, there might just be quite a few entities equal to or greater than Andolasium inhabiting other Cosemeres or galaxies. Perhaps Andolasium was growing powerful enough to threaten outside forces, maybe Andolasium just pissed off the wrong superbeing.

OR- perhaps there is a group like the Illuminati/Ghostbloods that oppose the Shard's power and influence, not because they disagree with the system as a whole, but they think such power and influence should not be held by just one or even sixteen entities.

2) This depends on definitions. The effects of Adonalsium permeate everything, and Adonalsium is also the source of the Shards. It is possible to find a magic that isn't DIRECTLY powered by a specific shard, however, though most of these would have been set up before the shattering and would be much smaller in scope than things like Allomancy and Surgebinding.

Could the Old Magic be one of those that was set up before the Shattering?

This pedantic fool thought the hair would be blacker on a younger dude.  But that's just my foolish pendantishnessdicity.   

Yeah, I think Tanavast was the only Shardholder of Honor.

Random hypothesis with nothing to back it up: Perhaps Dalinar will "unite them" (the splinters) and be the next to hold Honor?

Look at the map. The shape of the land resembles a hurricane. I don't think the path of a Highstorm is linear. Also, Purelake is considered the eye of the Highstorms.

Which means the continent is spinning on an axis and what was in the West a thousand years ago, might be different than what is there now.  You picking up what I'm putting down here?

Has that been confirmed? I saw some interesting speculation that Tanavast was not the person who was killed by Odium, but had previously given up the Shard to another. 

 

Tanavast definitely held Honor at some point though,

I don't think I've ever heard that. What makes people think someone else held it?

Is it ever mentioned whether Gavilar uncovered or discovered anything among the Shattered Plains besides the Parshendi? 

EDIT:

WoR Spoilers

It was my understanding that spren are splinters of Honor. I thought Brandon had said that, but obviously he said spren were around before, so...my point is moot I guess.  Curses.

There weren't any spren. Or, at least, Dalinar never mentioned seeing any at the time. Surely, if Honor were dead at the time of the Recreance, the spren would have been clearly visible and agitated since they are splinters of Honor.

Now, it could be Honor didn't show any spren in the vision because he didn't know that would be the result after his death. But it shouldn't have been too much of a stretch for a Shard to know the consequences of his shattering I would think.

I really think the term shardblade should be seen as the make and something like Honorblades would be seen as the model.

Like--there are lots of Jeeps (shardblades), but they range from Cherokee's (Honorblades) to Liberty's (Szeth's blade) to Patriot's (Dalinar's blade), etc.