KChan

We just need to play around with the RSS controls. Wherever they are; honestly, I've been so busy with the design end of it that I haven't looked around for things like RSS at all, and the Invision Power Suite ACP can be a little... strange, sometimes, in where it puts the options. Like putting the settings for friendly URLs under "Search Engine Optimization" instead of the category that actually mentions URLs.

This explanation was

Good times! I would like to announce that I want the weekend to be longer.

"It's because of No, it hasn't. Chaos added a parenthetical under what he said, but there were no parentheses in the story itself.

In which case, why would the Radiants have been using them at all?

The only explicit reference we see to Shards being splintered is Hoid/Letter Writer's reference to Aona and Skai. Now, why would Odium kill the Almighty and not splinter his Shard? Who knows? But to be fair, that is a possibility we have to account for. Perhaps if Odium really is native to Roshar, that has something to do with it. Remember how Preservation and Ruin couldn't truly defeat each other? Maybe we're seeing something like this again. Also, if Shadesmar mirrors Roshar's landscape - or can be manipulated to mirror any world in the Cosmere (and remember, Hoid can manipulate Shadesmar somehow) - this presents a problem for Elantrians, whose Aons draw power from the lay of the land. If even the lack of a chasm line utterly destroyed them - for a time, at least - perhaps it has something to do with that. But then again, how did our planet-hoppers get onto Roshar? Especially if you subscribe to a certain theory about who they are specifically. We've seen Jasnah lend a hand to Shallan in Shadesmar; perhaps our potential Seventeenth Sharders had some external help.

Well, look at the other suspected (and confirmed) Splinters: Returned Breaths - bonded to a specific Returned, obviously Honorspren - bonded to humans (Radiants?) Shadespren/Truthspren/Symbolheads - bonded to (presumably) Soulcasters Seons (and presumably, by extension, Skaze) bond to humans in a similar (though still unique) way. Perhaps that does something to them - like a buffer, perhaps - so only the ones bonded to the cursed Elantrians are affected.

It's likely; everyone who's seen Syl remarks on how she's not like other spren. And I think the name Honorspren is particularly significant. After all, there are no Preservomancers on Scadrial, to give a really dumb-sounding example.

Still, that goes against the Shard's nature. So that brings into question whether or not Splintering affects how the Shards themselves actually function. But my point is still valid: There is more to Aona than the pool, and therefore we can't look at just that for her name.

The Meq? I can honestly say I've never heard of that at all. What is it?

Didn't I just read on here somewhere that the Returned Breaths are confirmed Splinters? Anyways, I think it's also likely that the Seons are as well, especially since it's mentioned so often that no one can explain them. If even the Elantrians couldn't understand how they worked or where they came from, what better explanation do you need than that they're fragments of a Shard?

Yes, but that's not the only aspect of the magic we should be looking at here. Certainly continuing to choose people after the Reod wasn't a charity (except, arguably, in the case of Raoden, who ended up saving everyone because of it). There's a bigger picture here than just the pool.

Yeah, that's just about as explicit a reference as we would ever need. And why not? If Elantrians (or at least, Dula, whether of the glowy variety or not) can planet-hop, why shouldn't Alethi (Rosharians? Rosharites? Roshites?) be able to go to Shadesmar too?

Wow, you started WoT with Fires? That must have been a trip and a half. XD

Oh, ouch. No wonder he has a grudge against you!

Ahh, Harry Potter. My aunt and grandmother got me the first book back when the series was first out, but it took me a while to get into it for some reason. When I did, I dove into it. I ended up rewriting Potterverse into an AU RP forum, back in the day. XD

weird bear things?"

Don't forget, at the very beginning of the book we're introduced to a cycle of Desolations, and the Heralds mention that they might not be able to end it. Then, at the very end, Talenel comes back and announces that, indeed, the Desolation has come. It very well could be that these resurgences of powers are all just part of the cycle: the Shards (or their Splinters, to be fair) reacting to the threat and endowing mankind with the power to fight it, much like what Preservation did in order to combat Ruin before the events of Mistborn.

So, we're all fans of fantasy. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here. There's a thread already for how we came to know and love Brandon's work, but what about the fantasy genre in general? Some of us were introduced to Brandon and fantasy at the same time, but many of us weren't. I actually have two different series I consider my "first time" for high fantasy. First was when I was young - elementary or middle school - and my Dad gave me the entire Chronicles of Narnia for Christmas. I read them all straight through and loved them. Then, in eighth grade, I read part of The Lord of the Rings as assigned reading. I was hooked immediately and went out and read them all. My copies are now held together with mailing tape; I read the entire trilogy straight through five times in the space of about a year. I counted. Besides those classics, there are a few other instances I can remember. I always loved fairy stories, so of course I remember reading a book called The Moorchild about a changeling named Saaski. I read it over and over. There was also a book about a girl who slayed dragons and then married a wizard, but I forget what it was called. There was also Ella Enchanted, of course, which I read long before they made a movie out of it. Then, Sophomore year in High School, towards the end of the year, my friend told me about The Wheel of Time. Luckily enough, they were selling the first young adult volume of the series at the school's book fair that very day. Over the course of that summer vacation, I read all ten books that were out at the time. I don't think I did much of anything else that break. So what about you all? What got you into the wonderful world of fantasy, and what are some of the experiences you remember best?

If I have to go into anyone's sig to remove an confirmed/debunked/outdated theory, you are getting a bright pink animated gif with sparkles, comic sans, and anything else annoying that I can think of in place of your old signature. Please don't make me do that to you. Now, which theories to put in my sig...

All valid points, to be sure. Perhaps without anyone to control the power of the Shards now that they've been splintered and their holders killed, the Dor is now wild, and will kill/vaporize anyone who goes there. Or perhaps the planet-hoppers did leave traps there. One thing I'm wondering about is whether or not Shadesmar is the only way to planet-hop. If so, how did Hoid manage it without dying? And if it isn't, what else is there? I think it's pretty safe to say that the planets themselves are the Physical Realm and the Shards represent the Spiritual, so it's not like there's anything conveniently lying around that we can use to explain this away.

polka-dotted bears Yeeeah, I'm tired. Can you tell?

There's also the devotion of killing another person in an act of supposed worship to your god. But this is sort of a moot point, since the name Devotion has been 86ed. As for Aona, a synonym for Love/Compassion. Sympathy, maybe, or Empathy? Just to give us some ideas, I put love into a thesaurus.com search and came up with the following list: I particulatly like Fidelity, Ardency, and - would you look there - Devotion. Rapture is also interesting, especially when you think of how the Dor feels. EDIT: Hey, wow, I completely didn't see how this thread had another page. I'm an idiot.

Me at the HBP premiere. And holy crap, yes. She's terrifying. And pretty perverted, too. o__O

No. No, I cannot. I have, however, been known to put on wizard robes and strike dynamic poses in movie theaters while friends take pictures and other customers look on in confusion.