Meandering Monotreme

34 minutes ago, RShara said:

I think he sent it to one avatar of Autonomy, hoping that it was independent enough to make a decision by itself.

Right, that's fair; the letter says "you have spoken to one who cannot respond...Perhaps if you had approached the correct one of us..." That implies to me that Hoid tried to send it to a specific aspect, on reflection, but that he chose wrong (or maybe he chose correctly, but we don't have the context to know why yet).

While obviously Hoid didn't send the same letter to all 16 shards (the "you old reptile" doesn't really work if he's not talking to a dragon), I'm confused about why he would have sent a letter to Autonomy, given that he says "You have accused me of perpetrating my grudge against Rayse and Bavadin." Why would he lump them together when talking to Frost and then turn around and ask for his help? I understand that he thinks this is important but I still think it's weird that he would call attention to his "grudge" with Bavadin if he was going to put it aside anyway.

Granted, but every other foreign language in a star wars film sounds to you that they are shouting "Houdini" all the time.

I wish that I could look through any other person's eyes at will.

Why do you guys seem to think that people need to fall neatly into introvert/extrovert categories? People are complex. People can seem introverted in certain situations and be much more outgoing in others. People are contradictory all the time. There doesn't have to be a readily-available explanation for why people might want to avoid the public eye but still look nice, or why people might find science interesting but also like to take leadership roles. Sometimes people are just like that!

Hey, quick question: I got the impression somewhere that the Thrill and the rhythms are related. There are some spoilery things that make me second-guess that, though, so does anyone have any evidence one way or the other?

Wait, is there an outstanding wish to be granted right now?

No Legion? Ivy, anyone? Kalyani? No? No one wants to be with a hallucination?

But seriously, I would probably go with either Shallan or Siri. Shallan's biggest problem is that she doesn't know if she wants to be more or less proper, something that will probably change as she spends more time with Jasnah (now that she's gotten over a bunch of her angst).

Siri...just think about it. She has hair. That changes colors.

Color-changing hair.

Slightly different question about Urithiru: The word "Urithiru" is perfectly symmetrical. While symmetry is a big thing in Vorinism, I had thought that it really wasn't that important before Vorinism (The Heralds had not very symmetrical names, but then Vorinism changed them to make them more symmetrical, etc.) So why does all evidence say that Urithiru was a city from before Vorinism?

Is it confirmed that Hoid's letter (epigraphs of WoK) was actually sent by Hoid?

Where is The Emperor's Soul in the cosmere? ie, is it a new world or one of the already introduced ones? When does it take place, compared to other books?

Speaking of which, do we know when any of the books take place in the Grand Cosmere Timeline?

society which was

]You can use cut and paste of the attached image, but that's about it for now. When I figure out how to make fonts using Illustrator and freeware font programs, I'll see if I can make a font and spread it around.

But...but...but...

The ten original kingdoms (Iri, Shin Kak Nish, Amia, Sela Tales, Makabakam, Rishir, Alethela, Natanatan, Thalath, Valhav) doesn't make as much sense as I assumed! Each of those is symmetrical if and only if "ch", "th", "sh", and "lh" are one letter. The former three are all letters, but "lh" has been forgotten--and therefore Valhav is not symmetrical!

Ok, so I am going to redirect the focus of the focus thread here. Everyone here keeps focusing on the stormlight and spren, but a new idea came to me as I read the first desscription of soulcasting.

Quoting from the ebook - "Jasnah closed her eyes, pressing her hand against the fallen boulder. She raised her head, inhaling slowly. The stones on the back of her hand began to glow more fiercely, the smokestone in particular growing so bright it was difficult to look at."

This paragraph is from when Jasnah was saving Taravangian's granddaughter, just for context.

So, step by step from what we know of soulcasting, we will say that when Jasnah breathes in and closes her eyes, she is entering Shadesmar. The gemstones glowing is where she is accessing the power and telling the stone or stonespren to change into smoke.

My theory is this. Gemstones are the focus.

The gem is where the stormlight is held. Much like metal in Mistborn, the gem is the access to the power. The metal unlocks the sDNA action related to the metal's spiritual attribute. The gem unlocks the stormlight for use in soulcasting.

Kaladin and Szeth both pull stormlight from gems in order to use "Lashings". Fabrials are similar to this as well, using stormlight. Off tangent, but could stormlight be spren without a cognative presence?

Stormlight has not been used without being first put into a gem. So, the magical power is in the physical realm as stormlight. It must be put into a container in order to be used. The type of spren bound to a person determines what the stormlight will unlock, but essentially, the gem is where the power is coming from. This is different from Scadrial as the sDNA determines the power and the metal unlocks it. On Roshar, the spren determines the powers and the infused gemstone unlocks the power.

Well, another crazy theory from Kelek. Enjoy.

Edited for spelling

The gems are not a focus, in my opinion. I say that because they are an external force. For everything else, the focus is directed from your sDNA and therefore from within (I think; I'm not completely clear on what sDNA is). My key problem with gems being the focus is that they never affect your sDNA at all. A concrete example of a problem with it is this: To soulcast, stormlight from a specific gem is required. To use lashings, stormlight from any gem is required.

Gems do play a part, however, and this is my theory on what they do. Stormlight is normally a wild, uncontrollable thing. However, gems capture that stormlight and put it in a usable form. We can only use the stormlight from gems (like how we can only use the nitrogen from plants; don't think to much on that analogy, because it will break down under much thought). When a gem captures the stormlight, it is changed slightly to fit the gem, so it is easier to soulcast, say, things into smoke with smokestone because the stormlight in a smokestone has been slightly changed in a way that is used when turning things into smoke. However, the stormlight is not changed much; stormlight from other gems works, it just uses more gems (hence all gems glowing, but smokestone glowed the most). Also, different powers might not be as fine-tuned as soulcasting is, so lashings need stormlight in general (and is not specific enough to require one specific gem).

Does that make sense?

Makes sense to me. The attributes seem to be what determines which power you get, and unless I've misunderstood something that's what the focus is supposed to do.

You are misunderstanding what a focus is. Focuses do not determine which power you get, they are what you channel the magic through to use it. So, for example, Allomancy is channeled through the metal, and Awakening is channeled through Commands.

Wispsy: there is another shard, or at least was. Honor, Cultivation, and one other. Odium came later.

Captain.Kaulu: how would the "Oaths and Bonds" be the focus? I'm not sure how that would work. And when does Szeth use eyes (although that one isn't a Radiant, so if he strays from the list then it's more in line with my theory than if Shallan does) and when does Jasnah use inhalation/exhalation? When she uses her hands, I had assumed that it was because she needed to touch the objects to soulcast them, and touch not a body focus.

One theory proposed here that I don't believe: the Odiumspren and Cultivationspren. The Odiumspren thing assumes that Odium was always on Roshar, which *NEW INFORMATION SPOILERS!* he wasn't. Also, I believe that spren are a thing of Honor, a theory which I won't go into right here because it is too much of a tangent, but it is fairly unlikely that Cultivation won't get a thing of Honor.

Anyway: Kaladin's parents.

Tien. Although this is just me liking Tien and wanting him back.

Why the Radients "betrayed humanity".

The Tranquiline Halls

...my post seems so much less smart now that I think about it.

I fail to see how moving very fast is a bone strength boost, especially when talking about an honourable man in shardplate. The harder your bones are doesn't change how fast you can run (except in extreme weakness where it would slow you down from them breaking) yes you would be able to take more pressure but I don't think dalinars bones are in danger of snapping every time he runs so he has to run slower unless they get strengthened...

That is why I said that going faster was "arguable" bone strength. It's a big stretch (the more bone strength, the harder you can strike the ground).

If you are arguing that shallan has no information related to her you have not really read this thread or you are just plain ignoring things it was shallans hand the brushed the goblet and shallan who in shadesmar held the sphere of its soul and asked I to change (kinda!) the spren only seemed to grant access, that's access depended on either how true a statement it was or how well she knew herself.

I'm saying that the giving information about Shallan is like giving a physical description of a baby. It may be accurate to a point, but it doesn't tell you that much and it is going to change very quickly anyway.

EDIT: formatting

I'm going to point out that we can't make any conclusions. I say this because we are trying to extrapolate from only three data points (Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker) to get information about a system. I point this out only because it shows that we don't have as much certain information as we think we do.

Anyway, we are forgetting how Kaladin uses is power. It tells us how he "inhales" and then gets stormlight that he can use. No mention is made to anything in the spiritual realm, so I will assume that the focus isn't spiritual (because if it had been, he would have noticed it). So I will go out on a limb and say that the focus is the body focus. I will get even more shaky evidence. Dalinar is probably in order Tanat, 9. Why do I say that? Because I don't know what the consensus is (if there is one) and Order Tanat helps my theory. What is the essence for Tanat? The bone. What does he do to protect the king? He goes inhumanly fast (arguably a bone strength boost) and holds up an entire chasmfeind (definitely a bone strength boost).

But what about Shallan? I will argue that Shallan doesn't have enough information associated with her. She hasn't even said the Oaths yet! (By the way, Dalinar has.) What she does is stictly done through spren, and I don't think that will be true forever.

Of course, this assumes that there is variant in the focus for each order, not each power, but I don't see how that is a bad thing.

(But--but--but--but--...Kelek, your post confused me: did you just not see KChan's post or is something else going on?)

But he never

I really hope I don't actually have to post here, but I will anyway: You pronounce it as the two words "tangle" and "talon". Now all together: Tangletalon! Yay!

And he was quite heavily tanned.

Did anyone else notice that the main continent seems to be in what us Earthlings would call the Southern Hemisphere? Sort of like a colder, wetter and wider/bigger Australia since I seem to remember that what seemed to be the equator going through the Purelake or near enough - I'm pretty sure latitude was indicated on the main world map.

The equator runs through the Reshi Isles. I never noticed the latitude. But it begs the question: how do they know where to put the latitude lines? How they know where the equator is when no one knows what is north of Roshar [that is my assumption]?

I am certain that Roshar is a sphere, based off of (sorry for the spoiler, if you haven't read the rest of Brandon's cosmere books you might not want to read this.)

the fact that the Cosmere is a universe much like our own, Sel, Scadrial, Nalthis, Roshar, Taldain, and Yolen are all planets so I don't think Roshar could be flat or any other shape. If you have read all these books(except Dragonsteel and White Sand of course) I hope this doesn't sound condescending, I just want to be careful.

But for other purposes I'm not sure that the Highstorms just go around the planet. It makes sense but the fact is that they would be able to be predicted more accurately. There would be a predictable interval wouldn't there? It's the Stormwardens' job to predict them and they would have noticed a pattern by now. But in the books, they often predict storms that don't arrive, or storms come that weren't predicted. Do you have any ideas why that might be?

Yeah, it's blindingly obvious that Roshar is a sphere, now that I think about it. It just fits almost too well on a map to be one.

But about the highstorms: they wouldn't go at regular intervals, because there is so much variation in various parts of the world. A hot sea would be different for highstorms as a cold sea, and there are many moons to mess things up as well.

And about you people thinking about an origin: I don't remember one. Can you give page numberes and quotes please?

ReaderAt2046: I love this idea, because it is very similar to a different idea I'm working on (but that isn't completed yet, so I won't espouse it at this point in time).

Roshar is probably a sphere! I say this for reasons (not surprisingly). The highstorms always run east to west. In Hoids' story, the people go to an island in the west. But some stories say that Derethil comes back, against the highstorms. The presence of stormlight (and the almost decimation of culture in the last 4500 years) has set back science and mathematics to the point where the world could be almost any shape at all and the people wouldn't know. Maybe Derethil came back by sailing all the way across the world! No other ship has done it, but there haves to be a first for something. Also, it would explain the highstorms more. They never stop blowing--they just blow all the way across the world before they come again. It makes perfect sense!