skaa

I hope this one hasn't been tackled yet: If a person on a Shardworld other than Scadrial (say, someone on Roshar) used Hemalurgy, will Sazed (or Ati, pre-HoA) be able to communicate with him? The purpose of that question is to determine whether a Shardholder on one planet can influence people who use his form of Investiture on other planets. I guess a similar question would be whether Endowment can Return a non-drab Nalthian who died on Sel (for example).

Don't worry, Brandon says Herdazians are supposed to have hispanic qualities: I'd love to hear "Australian Herdazian", though. *goes searching for audio clips*

I'm sure a bunch of us here figured it out as soon as they read that scene in the book. Being Cosmere-aware makes such clues easy to spot. Now the question is this: whose Shardpool is it? I'm thinking Honor's, because Hoid probably won't want to use Odium's or Cultivation's Shardpools, seeing as they're not too fond of him.

@EMTrevor and @kari-no-sugata: Good points! @Shaggai: Indeed, one of the epigraphs does contain strong evidence for it: That's the one you meant, right? I regret not including that quote in my original post, but oh well.

And at the heart of each spren is... Sorry, that's another one of my own theories from last year (back when I thought Lucentia was the "Light" Essence; oh how innocent we all were back then!), so I guess it shouldn't really count. Pardon the shameless plug. I admit that the "Surgebinders have gemhearts" theory might be a viable (if weird) alternative to my Essences theory, but it will have to explain why Honorblades work. Does a person sprout a gemheart upon getting an Honorblade, and then lose the gemheart upon relinquishing the Honorblade? Also, won't it make more sense (in the context of the gemheart theory) if the Surgebinder had a gemheart before bonding a Nahel spren, so that the spren would be attracted to it? I don't know. I think it would be more believable if Surgebinders instead had a sort of "gemsoul", a Spiritual, abstract form of the Polestones, something that can be shaped by the Divine Attributes. In other words, the soul itself would act as the "gemstone", with the Attributes acting as the "cut" required to attract a Nahel spren. But then, the Attributes are just another column of the Essences table, separate from the gemstones column, isn't it? So in the end, as I said, it all boils down to the Essences. Weeell... my theory says they're both focuses, being manifestations of the Essences. But I understand how that might sound too abstract for some people. That really is the one weakness of my theory. The Lopen would like to have a word with you.

For me, one of the best things about Words of Radiance is that we got to know a whole lot about Shallan's powers. I'd like to discuss an aspect of this that's not as showy as transforming a whole ship into water, or creating very realistic illusions to fool Cosmere-aware enemies, or even making perfect drawings from memory. I'm talking about Shallan's ability to "transform" the personalities of people around her. She first does this with Bluth. That one started with a drawing: And it ended with Bluth fighting bandits until he was killed. At around the same time, she does it again with the Alethi deserters led by Vathah, who've been committing acts of banditry as they traveled. This time, Shallan didn't draw them, but merely spoke to them of what they could be: Soon enough, the deserters were off fighting bandits. Now, you'd think that all this had nothing to do with magic, that those people were simply inspired by Shallan's actions. But Pattern thought differently: Then there's this epigraph: We could debate all day as to the real nature of this ability, but instead I would like to simply posit that this ability reflects what I believe the Order of Lightweavers was really about: They were all about changing temperament, whether of the people they fooled/inspired with Lightwoven illusions, or of the Shadesmar Identity beads that they convinced to transform during Soulcasting. It was their specialty to change others' minds, or more importantly, change their hearts. ... So... what has all this got to do with the Essence of Blood? *replaces Cosmere nerd hat with Wikipedia geek glasses* As it turns out, people in the past (starting from as far back as the Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Greeks) believed that blood was a very important thing when it came to understanding behavioral changes in people. Not only is it directly linked to the heart, which was believed to be the seat of all emotion, it was also a central part of humoral theory. According to the ancient theory of humorism, the human body contains four different kinds of "humors", which are bodily fluids (not jokes ) that govern health and temperament: phlegm, yellow bile, black bile, and blood. An imbalance between these humors were said to result in sickness, or at least a change in personality. Each humor is associated with a certain type of temperament: calm/unemotional (for Phlegm), bad tempered (Yellow Bile), melancholic (Black Bile), or passionate (Blood). They were also associated with the four Classical Elements: Water for Phlegm, Fire for Yellow Bile, Earth for Black Bile, and Air for Blood. Here's where it gets a bit more interesting (if you're a Cosmere nerd and a Wikipedia geek): Apparently blood has a special place among the humors. People who believe in humorism believe that since the other three humors travel through the body via the bloodstream, blood must also carry the Elements of Water, Fire, and Earth. So Blood has all four Elements. It has also been suggested that the very origin of humoral theory might have something to do with blood, specifically how blood in a container looks like after it has been left to clot. After a while, the blood starts to separate into four layers: the bottom layer containing platelets (representing "black bile"), then a layer of red blood cells ("blood"), then the white blood cells ("phlegm"), then the blood plasma ("yellow bile"). Even when we look at "real" Science, we can still find links between blood and temperament. While we now know that the "seat of emotion" is actually in the brain, emotions are also influenced by certain endocrine glands, which produce hormones that travel via... you guessed it... the bloodstream. *puts back Cosmere nerd hat* After reading about all these little coincidences, I now believe Brandon used this concept of humorism, associating body fluids with temperament, when he designed the Investitures related to the Essence of Blood. This makes me wonder if Shallan is unconsciously changing the blood chemistry of people she "transforms", or if Jasnah's "eight kinds of blood" is actually just normal human blood with varying amounts of behavior-changing hormones mixed in. As a final note, I'd just like to mention the Parshendi, whose Rhythms are related somewhat to their temperament. I theorize that these Rhythms actually originate from their heart, and are thus Blood-related as well.

I'm the thread starter, so I'll just go ahead and exhume this thread of mine. Let's just say I want to do an autopsy of sorts, an analysis of all my predictions above in light of Words of Radiance. Obviously, there will be Words of Radiance spoilers:

I wonder what the Yolish people called this planet (if they were even aware of it). I thought the names we had for the other planets (Scadrial, Sel, etc.) were their Yolish names, so I'm surprised Brandon decided to give the First-of-the-Sunners' name for their own planet instead.

Currently, due to a WoB from a recent signing interview, there is uncertainty as to whether Ashyn is even a major Shardworld or not, given that it might not have a Shard on it. If we get a more definitive answer (hopefully in JordanCon), then I might revise the original post. @Cromptj: Maybe. But if Yolen is one of the ten major Shardworlds, then it not having an Essence would be a death blow to my theory. @Tempus: I will concede that at this point there is still a lot of room for more evidence or counter-evidence. The theory's not very tight yet. That's okay. It gives me something else to look forward to every time a new Cosmere book comes along, something to fuel my Cosmere research via random Googling and Wikipedia-reading in search for interesting coincidences. Speaking of which, here's another coincidence I've found. Apparently the gemstone amethyst (Essence: Foil, theoretical Shardworld: Scadrial) has a very interesting supposed magical property. In ancient times, amethyst was considered to be an antidote for drunkenness. This magical property is in fact what gave the gemstone its name: "amethystos" or "not drunken" in Greek. I find this interesting because, coincidentally, Allomantic vials often contain metal shavings mixed in an alcoholic drink (Wax even uses whiskey in his). Again, it's not really proof of anything. Just another small coincidence to add to my list of small coincidences.

Someone asked Brandon a Silence Divine question recently and he misunderstood it to be a Shadows for Silence question. I wouldn't be surprised if this was another instance of that. I guess it's easy to get confused by the two "Silence" titles. Here's a question: Are newborn Listeners in slave form, or do they get bonded to a spren somehow before birth? Edit: Also, I would suggest not asking questions that are RAFO-bait unless you really want a RAFO card. I suspect that any question that has to do with Shardpools will be RAFO'd.

LOL! So that's why the old bugger never explains anything! Seriously though, according to Rock, Hoid does have one rule imposed upon him: I don't know if there are other rules that Hoid has to follow, or what the repercussions are for breaking them, but I had a good laugh when I realized: Hoid follows Asimov's First Law of Robotics!

As I mentioned in one of my theory threads in the Cosmere Theories forum, I think I may have found the inspiration behind the table of Essences. It may be the 16th century book Blazon of Gentrie by Sir John Ferne. The book associates the nine heraldic tinctures (the colors used in heraldry) with various things that were relevant to the astrologers of the time, including gemstones, virtues, numbers, classical Elements, the months of the year, etc. You can read various excerpts here (just search for "Blazon of Gentrie"). Sounds familiar? Yeah, these very same things are also associated with the Heralds of the Almighty, with a few major differences. For example, ten is the numerologically significant number on Roshar, not nine. Also, the four classical elements of antiquity are replaced by the ten Essences. There are other differences, but I believe that the similarities are striking enough that a connection here seems likely. On the other hand, these kinds of astrological associations have been done by other heraldists before Ferne, so it's possible that Brandon got the idea from somewhere else. There is, however, another connection between the Stormlight Archives and the Blazon of Gentrie. Ferne, being a knight, was well aware that knighthood wasn't supposed to be just parading around in jousting competitions wearing heraldic symbols and poking other knights with sharp sticks. Knights were supposed to uphold chivalric codes of conduct, and part of Blazon of Gentrie was dedicated to the virtues of chivalry, of which there were nine: Others have made different formulations of the chivalric code of medieval knights (look here for Gautier's), but the particular way that Ferne worded his version reminded me a lot about the Ideals of the Knights Radiant (just change "He shall" to "I will"). What do you guys think? Did I stumble upon something relevant, or is this all just a coincidence?

Wait, Tempus, you want every single Essence association to appear conspicuously on each Shardworld's magic system before you can accept the validity of the theory? That's a bit much, don't you think? Heck, we haven't even seen much of the magics on Yolen and Ashyn, nor have we seen the full extent of the Scadrian, Selish, Nalthian, or Rosharian magics. Remember that the Shards themselves (or at least their Intent) also influence how Investiture manifests, so we can't expect all the Essence associations from Roshar's system to appear in other systems. I think it's enough that a Shardworld's manifestations of Investiture generally point towards a particular Essence. (But yes, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm wrong about Yolen. I think I'll just have to wait for new Dragonsteel info before I can make a more informed guess on that one.)

Thanks! That's true. Blazon of Gentrie certainly can't be used as proof of anything with regards to Brandon's Cosmere since this is his own universe and he could do whatever he wants with it. Even if he was inspired by the medieval heraldists, he didn't have to follow their pattern. For one, there were only nine heraldic tinctures, while Brandon's system has ten. There are also some things in Blazon like the zodiac/celestial signs and the ages of man that have no clear equivalents in the Cosmere. Still, I think the coincidences I've found (the number of Shardworlds, the nature of Investiture on those Shardworlds, the heraldic charts) all point (or at least nudge suggestively) towards my theory.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree, Aminar. Anyway, I'm reviving this thread to tell you guys about an interesting find I had earlier today. On a whim, I decided to read about heralds on Wikipedia to search for possible clues about the Heralds of the Almighty. Soon I was sidetracked into reading about the fascinating world of heraldry (which is all about coats of arms). Just when I thought I've unintentionally but very thoroughly distracted myself from all things Cosmeric or even magical, especially as I found myself reading the very mundane-looking topic of tricking, when lo and behold I saw this table: As you can see, the table associates heraldic tinctures/colors with tricking abbreviations, gemstones, planets, and planetary symbols. This reminded me somewhat of the table of Essences, so I went and checked what this table is about. Apparently, there was a time when heraldry became influenced by astrology and magic, and people started connecting the heraldic tinctures to the heavenly bodies, plants, minerals, etc. Some guy named Jean Courtois created a system relating each tincture to a gemstone and a planet, hence the table above. Later on, an English knight named Sir John Ferne wrote a book called Blazon of Gentrie that had a large number of tincture associations. Below is the entry for "purpure" (the heraldic term for purple). I modernized the spellings to make it more readable, but you can find the original text here. Do you see the similarities between Ferne's system and Brandon's table of Essences? Both systems involve gemstones, virtues/attributes, numbers, and classical Elements (which Brandon has modified into his idea of Essences). We also know that there are ten important colors/tinctures associated with the Knights Radiant and the gemstones, and therefore the Essences as well. I wouldn't be surprised if Ferne's work (or Courtois') was the inspiration behind the table of Essences. If this is true, then it is further evidence that the Shardworlds, being the major planets in the Cosmere, are connected to the Essences. (Off-topic side note: Ferne's Blazon of Gentrie also contains a part about the virtues of chivalry. Go read it and see what it reminds you of. )

You're both assuming that volcanic ash-based cement is "second-rate", when it has been used by the ancient Egyptians in the construction of the pyramids of Giza, by the ancient Romans in the construction of their famous aqueducts and such buildings as the Colosseum and the Pantheon, among others. In fact, mixing volcanic ash with cement is still done today due to the increased durability it provides. We can't assume that most Scadrian builders knew how to utilize volcanic ash in order to most effectively bring out its advantages. The first few people to discover a good method could keep the knowledge a trade secret. They could market their product as a more durable alternative to their competitors' cement, selling it at a premium, without having to divulge the fact that half of its composition came from the ash falling on their heads at that very moment. And even if the secret does come out, they still have a very cheap method for making good concrete. They could simply innovate in other ways to keep the prices up. And that's just one possible commercial application of ash. (Hmmm... This topic isn't generating the kind of discussion I was hoping for. In hindsight, ash is a boring subject that most people probably wouldn't bother researching about. I think it's better if I stick to magic theory from now on. )

There's only one problem I see here: If steelminds store "internal weight", then storing would make the person faster (since he'll feel lighter the more "internal weight" he stores) while tapping would make him slower (since he gains "internal weight"). But Steel Feruchemy does the exact opposite in that storing makes you slower and tapping makes you faster.

Funnily enough, that is the same exact interview that I quoted from in my post above (though I linked to the actual Reddit page instead of Theoryland). I apologize for not quoting the whole thing. Garnet is associated with the Essence of Blood. We know that the Essences are important to Vorin symbolism and are therefore well-known, so calling garnet marks "bloodmarks" still makes sense regardless of the color.

I really like this theory that Hesina, and therefore Kaladin, had lighteyed relatives. Upvote! The other theory that Hesina is related to either Gavilar's or Dalinar's wife is interesting, but it requires that either Gavilar or Dalinar, probably at the height of his power, married someone from a mixed family (i.e. a lighteyes with a darkeyed parent). That doesn't seem very likely to me, although I admit that it is possible. Let me propose an alternative theory: What if Hesina is from a mixed Oldblood family? We now know that "Oldblood" is the term used for members of the Alethi dynasty that ruled prior to the most recent breakup of Alethkar into separate princedoms (before the Kholin-led reunification). A darkeyed citizen marrying the darkeyed daughter of a lighteyed Oldblood probably wouldn't cause too much of a scandal now that a different dynasty is in place. The reason why I thought of this theory is because I've been wondering what the significance of the Oldbloods is in Brandon's story, and an interesting possibility came to me. What if the last "Oldblood" king had been a good one, a king who believed in Nohadon's teachings and who strived to rule virtuously? What if the fall of their dynasty was simply because the Alethi highprinces could not tolerate a peace-loving king and therefore warred against him? More importantly, what if that king was chosen by the Stormfather to be the first recipient of Honor's final message, the first "modern" proto-Bondsmith, but was too weak to enforce Honor's wishes and ultimately failed? Finally, what if Kaladin was descended from that king? Jezrien, Herald of the Windrunners, is also called the Herald of Kings. If Kaladin is an Oldblood, it might be a viable story choice to make Kaladin king in the future, bringing back to the throne not just the Oldbloods but also the Knights Radiant who ruled the Silver Kingdoms in ancient times. Edit: As for Jasnah, Dalinar, and Renarin, members of the current dynasty who are also Radiant, they could still be monarchs in a future re-established Silver Kingdoms. They, Kaladin, and six others (perhaps including Shallan) could all rule from Urithiru, where the thrones of the Silver Kingdoms are found.

For once I'll post something unrelated to magical theory. :-) We know that falling ash was something people dealt with on a daily basis during the Lord Ruler's reign. We see skaa always having to clear up the streets and canals free from the stuff. While most people would see ash as a source of annoyance, the more enterprising of Scadrians must have realized that it was a possible source of profit. I did a quick Google search for the various uses of volcaninc ash and found the following: construction materials (e.g. ingredient for a kind of cement) abrasives (e.g. in hand soap) soil "conditioner" ceramics Those are some of the uses of volcanic ash here on Earth. If you were a businessman on Scadrial during the Final Empire, how would you commercialize the continuous ash fall in your surroundings?

Apparently silver was initially the Internal Pulling Allomantic metal, but Brandon changed that to tin instead, so right now silver is not Allomantic as far as we know. You can find a list of Allomantic and Feruchemical metals in the Ars Arcanum of the books (the one Alloy of Law has the most complete list so far), or you could read the Coppermind wiki.

Here's my theory: There's a person on Roshar whose death would ensure victory against Odium, either because he's destined to be Odium's champion or some other reason. The new Knights will find out about this, but they will choose not to kill the person because he is innocent (for now). Due to the following death rattle, I believe this person might still be an infant when the new Knights find him:

Before college, the only novels I enjoyed reading were detective, mystery, and thriller novels. Just like most people, I read fairy tales as a kid, but in my early teenage years I had this misguided notion that reading about magic (what with its made up words and make-believe physics) was childish, unproductive, and silly, so I mostly restricted myself to non-fiction and non-fantasy fiction. Heck, back then the only speculative fiction novel I remember reading in full was H.G. Wells' the Time Machine, and that was sci-fi, not fantasy. Then in my first year of college an upperclassman sent me a RAR file containing hundreds of speculative fiction novels. He suggested I try out Terry Pratchett's Discworld series first. As he seemed pretty intelligent, I respected his opinion and decided to give Pratchett a chance, which was honestly one of the best decisions I've made in my life. That, I suppose, was my introduction to fantasy fiction. What got me into Pratchett was that his books had a satirical nature that gave me an excuse: I told myself that I was reading a parody of fantasy literature, not "real" fantasy, so it's okay. Being a "hater" actually made me enjoy the Discworld series more because I got to laugh at the silly tropes that were made fun of in the books. Little did I know that because of Discworld, I was slowly getting used to reading about magic. Before I knew it, I was learning to appreciate the magical elements of the story as they were, as opposed to what they were referencing. Then when I read another, more serious fantasy book (I think it was the Fellowship of the Ring, but that may have been later), I noticed that I no longer cringed at the use of magical terminology, no longer rolled my eyes after each magical explanation. In short, for once I suddenly found myself liking fantasy.

Well, this might seem off-topic, but since the colors of the KR glowing Shardplate (as well as that of the KR eyes) are based on the Polestones, I think we can discuss this here. I do think you're onto something there, Wrath. I was studying the composition of the ten Polestones a few weeks ago and noticed that there are three stone type pairs: sapphire and ruby are both corundum, emerald and heliodor are both beryl, and amethyst and smokestone are both quartz. Windrunners and Releasers (sapphire and ruby) have the opposite powers (one lashes things, the other releases things). I think this might be similar to how alloys have the opposite Allomantic characteristics of their base metal. So, it's possible that Skybreakers and Willshapers (smokestone and amethyst), as well as Truthwatchers and Bondsmiths (emerald and heliodor) have opposite magical characteristics as well. Here's a relevant WoB: I don't really know how diamond, garnet, zircon, and topaz fit into this, though. Garnet, zircon, and topaz are all nesosilicates, which makes them a triad, not a pair. Diamond is just carbon, which the other Polestones do not have. We don't even know what variety of garnet Brandon chose for the system. Still, it's interesting that the ten Polestones are composed of five different mineral groups (corundum, quartz/tectosilicates, beryl/cyclosilicates, nesosilicates, and diamond).

While thinking about this new koloss info, I realized that those who accepted the spikes to become full koloss would become influenced by Harmony, so while they may be somewhat stronger with their spikes, they're probably a lot safer to be around with than the koloss-blooded people like Tarson who refused the spikes.