ROSHtaFARian2.0

I doubt it.

Was Braize once known by another name, not including Damnation?

Reading again how Brandon answered the question 'Has Hoid ever been to Braize' and how much importance he put on it, I'm more convinced than ever that Braize was once Yolen.

Brandon has said that Adonalsium could have shattered in different ways. That is, the 16 Shards that were formed were not the only possibilities, if it had shattered in a different way, there could have been Shards with different Intents.

If someone on Sel with the necessary knowledge of the cosmere and realmatics were to try and reassemble the Splinters of Devotion and Dominion, would it be easier to try and reform those Shards separately, or just try and use Shards of both to form a new composite Shard similar to Harmony? Or would there not be a difference? On a related note, if Devotion and Dominion were reassembled somehow and taken up by new holders, would this directly lead to Shadesmar becoming safer to travel, or would further conscious efforts be required to make a change there?

I would love for this theory to be true, but I doubt that it is for the reasons others have been outlining (particularly the length of time people have been Returning on Nalthis). Given Brandon's comments on keeping this series relatively contained, I think if the Heralds aren't native to Roshar, their homeworld will be part of the myths of Roshar, which don't fit any of the other known Shardworlds. Most likely, if there is a degree of truth to humanity coming to Roshar from the Tranquiline Halls, meaning the Halls are another Shardworld, that is where the Heralds originated.

I don't think so, but none of the other Shards we're aware of have been quite as faceted as the concept of Honor? By that I mean, Honor is such a subjective concept, it means something different to everyone, hence its easy to see how it could have 10 Purposes, or Splinters or Aspects or mini-Intents, whatever you want to call them - to some, being truthful in all things is what it means to be honorable, to others adhering to your oath no matter the circumstances is most honorable (Skybreakers), to others, perhaps Honor means doing what needs to be done for the sake of the many, even at expense to yourself (such as one of the Orders who would find Adolin's actions at the end of WoR honorable). In contrast, preservation, ruin, odium, endowment are all fairly cut and dried - they might manifest or express themselves in different ways, but conceptually, when one person visualizes preserving something, chances are its going to look very similar to how another person visualizes it. Of the seven shards we have names for, the ones I would expect to have multiple Purposes or Aspects might be Devotion or Dominion. Might that have something to do with how diverse the expressions of the various region based magics are?

It would make sense if those 10 Purposes were basically the 10 mini-Intents that made up Honor, and shaped the way Honor Splintered. Ie Truth, Justice, etc. The various facets of the Shard of Honor, each of which forms the Ideal or focus of a Herald and an Order of the Knights Radiant. Further, that could explain Brandon's statements that while the voidforms of the Parshendi are pretty much Odium's response to the surgebinders and Knights Radiant, there's not a one to one correlation

We actually have no idea how much influence Shard's have over their magic systems. All we know from Brandon is that they don't have total control of how things work, as it involves all of the factors you list, but we have no idea what that means. For instance, the part they have no control over could be what medium their Investiture is imbued in (ie metals on Scadrial, forms on Sel). But other than that, we know Preservation definitely had a fair amount of influence over allomancy, between snapping, his mists, the rule of sixteen, etc, all of which were deliberate tweaks done to suit his agenda. We have no idea how much he did or didn't have to do with what alloys access what powers, and so on.

I believe Brandon has said that the sci-fi Mistborn trilogy will be the big cosmere finale, where all the pieces come together, and that the last two books of it will be Hoid-heavy (paraphrasing, but the impression I got was that Hoid is a major player in the end of that trilogy but not the central character). He's also mentioned a Young Adult cosmere novel called Skyward, but that is not intended as part of the big cosmere story, its a side thing.

I would first examine the current Shardholders to see how long approximately it takes for a Shard to begin visibly warping a Holder's personality to fit its Intent. I'd shave a hundred years off that just to be on the safe side, and take up Shard for that long and then willingly relinquish it to a handpicked successor. After leaving myself a way to access my Shard's magic system as a Sliver and gift myself with immortality that way a la The Lord Ruler. Of the currently known Shards I'd probably take Cultivation. Though if Invention (or a close synonym) is revealed to be a Shard, as I strongly suspect one will be revealed to be, I'd take that one.

Whoa so White Sand is no longer intended to be a trilogy of novels, but a graphic novel(s)? Huh. I must examine how that makes me feel. I see both positives and negatives to this. *ruminates*

I've kinda wondered if that has something to do with Identity (and remember we still don't know how Identity breaks down realmatically, ie is it primarily cognitive, spiritual, an even mix, etc). But if even objects have a cognitive and spiritual aspect in the cosmere, would the threshold of a house be what contains the house's Identity as a home, kinda act as a barrier to intruding cognitive or spiritual aspects just as a door acts as a physical barrier for physical aspects? Does anyone remember if Shades can cross thresholds on Threnody?

Well Threnody is a real word after all. Its a song or poem of mourning composed as a memorial to a dead person. Very fitting for the world in question - its kinda like the cosmere equivalent of naming a planet 'Earth'.

Yeah, I've always assumed from that quote that with the right knowledge, Lerasium could be used to rewrite a person's spiritual web to acquire access to any Shard's magic system. Its the only thing that would keep it in balance with what atium can do to spirit webs and foreign Investiture.

And the fact that Brandon willingly attributed such significance to it makes me think that the answer is yes. We already know that Hoid hates Rayse, and is very afraid of him and his power. In WoR he specifically mentions his worries about what would happen if Odium found him, and that's while he's on Roshar. So if the answer to that question was no, it wouldn't be that significant in my mind. Hoid has plenty of reasons to avoid going to Braize, Odium's actual home. There wouldn't be anything strange or unusual about him staying away from there. My inference is that Hoid did go to Braize in the past, and something big went down between him and Rayse there. Alternatively, given the mentions we've heard of Adonalsium having influenced Roshar pre-Shattering, if Hoid and the original Shardholders were capable of worldhopping pre-Shattering, might it be possible that Adonalsium wasn't shattered on Yolen, their planet of origin, as we've all assumed? Maybe it happened on Braize. There's a certain sort of sense in the 'personification of God's wrath' choosing the site of God's destruction as his abode, thematically speaking. But I definitely think now that Hoid has been to Braize, and what he did there had huge ramifications for the greater cosmere story, whatever it was. Edit: The more I think about it, the more I'm trying to remember...have we ever had confirmation that Yolen was the site of Adonalsium's shattering, or did we just assume it because that's the homeworld of Hoid and the other Shardholders, and the focal point of Dragonsteel? But if Hoid and some others were capable of worldhopping before its Shattering, which, technically, there's no reason to assume they weren't....huh. Now I really would love for someone to ask if Adonalsium was Shattered on Yolen, and/or if Hoid was worldhopping before it Shattered.

This would explain the Unmade, and the Parshendi view of them as spirits of their ancestors who were broken and filled with power (roughly paraphrasing). Also why they seem so powerful compared to other singularly Invested beings. It seems this could give Odium a significant advantage over other Shards, and explain part of why he's so dangerous and feared. Word of Brandon tells us that all the Shards have some say in how they Invest themselves and how their magic systems work, but not total control over it. They have limitations they have to work around, thus Preservation's invention of Snapping and his tricks with the mist doing it externally....but if Odium can just rip apart any soul , traumatize a spiritual web until its full of fissures and fill it back up with his Investiture, then in theory that gives him considerably more flexibility when creating weapons/armies/champions than someone like Honor, who is limited by his warriors needing to be true to his Ideals, etc. That is of course, assuming you don't view the world with the same optimism as Brandon. Could be this is the nature of the Oathpact, and why Honor was able to get Odium to agree to it. It certainly explains the Heralds being tortured between Desolations. If the essence of the Oathpact is that Honor's Heralds, his ten perfect warriors, submit to torture between each Desolation, so that Odium is free to try and break their souls, rip through Honor's Investiture and rip apart their spiritual webs so that he can fill them back up with HIS Investiture and turn them into his warriors instead.....*shrugs* If that's the case, Jezrien and the other Heralds giving up might actually be responsible for Roshar lasting this long after all. If they were each secretly afraid they were weak, they were going to break under Odium's torture and thus be turned into his instrument of the destruction of Roshar and humanity....I could see that being enough to make them abandon the Oathpact and consign Taln to his fate.

I don't know if there needs to be a reason other than personality, really. Like I said, if they ended up with more people than Shards that needed holders, it totally fits Hoid's personality to stand back and let the others take up the Shards. He's not the sort who seems to like the idea of being tied to anything - I think he'd dislike bonding with a spren, let alone a whole Shard.

Huh, was that something that was said recently? Because I could have sworn we had Word of Brandon that the Shard just trying to hide and survive was the Ashyn shard.

Yes, which makes it very strange that its on Ashyn, a world so close to the planet with arguably the MOST cosmere activity and the greatest active threat to other Shards, Odium. My assumption from that has always been that the Ashyn shard was there and invested itself long before the business with the Tranquiline Halls happened, meaning its presence in the Roshar predated Honor, Cultivation and Odium's arrival - and perhaps because of how it had Invested itself in Ashyn, it was unable to pull up stakes and flee when Odium came to the neighborhood, so it just tried to keep its head down instead. Holy crap. Totally random thought, call it a proto-theory.....what if that has something to do with the nature of Ashyn's disease magic system? Diseases that grant powers for as long as you have them....but by their very nature, some of those diseases still are likely to be fatal, even if Ashyn's societies have highly advanced medical knowledge to compensate. Societies built around a magic system that encourages people to tap into the powers it grants, but likely coupled with a high mortality rate as well.....think about it: Roshar's technological development has been actively hampered over the millennia because of the Desolations. Civilization has never been able to advance too far without a Desolation coming and knocking humanity back into the Stone Age, meaning technologically they're thousands of years behind where they would be without the Desolations happening. Without the Desolations, shouldn't Ashyn be thousands of years more advanced than Roshar? We know from the little that Brandon's read of Silence Divine that Ashyn's a fairly advanced society, about on par with where we are, but still not as far ahead as they should be compared to a world that suffers planetary cataclyms on a regular basis. What if Ashyn's disease based magic system is part of an attempt by its Shard to limit their advancement? Simultaneously limiting population growth while keeping civilization's focus on biology related fields of study rather than physical sciences. If Ashyn's Shard just wants to hide and survive, and stay out of the greater cosmere affairs, AND if its unable to leave Ashyn and flee to a safer planet because of its Investment....it REALLY would not want Ashyn's humans developing space travel and journeying to the nearest habitable worlds....Roshar and Braize, either of which would draw Odium's attention to Ashyn.

Is there any kind of civilization on Braize?

Theoretically possible, but I know Brandon's said Bavadin is on Taldain (the White Sand world), and the context made it sound like he was present as a Shard there at the time White Sand took place.

Wow, now that's a revelation. I'm trying to figure out how she could possibly be more cosmere aware than Hoid, given that he's from Yolen, knows all sixteen Shardholders and was present at the shattering of Adonalsium. Can anyone remember if Brandon's ever listed where White Sand is supposed to be chronologically in the order of cosmere books?

LOL! Revised question: If an Awakener, an Elantrian and a Surgebinder walk into a bar on Scadrial, which will be able to adapt their magic first in case Wayne starts a bar fight with them.

If an Awakener, an Elantrian and a Surgebinder were to go to Alloy of Law era Scadrial, which would have the easiest time adapting their magic for use their and which would find it most difficult?