Khyrindor

If anyone there becomes a Worldhopper, it would be Wayne and MeLaan together. But I've never actually considered that...Marasi's curiosity would be so fun to explore, and she'd get in over her head so many times and it would be perfect.

There was a snippet in (I think HoA) that said "He shall be called Discord, and they will love him for it." Discord is an exact opposite of Harmony. Perhaps something within the embodiment of the Shards is still trying to create opposites out of the powers that have now merged. That said, I'm leaning heavily toward Trell=Autonomy now, because of Khriss's essays as well as evidence already there.

A relevant quote on Soulstamping from the Chicago signing in December: Source. (Scroll down to page 16) I underlined the part about Knights Radiant, but the rest is good to know too. On your first question, that's most likely correct, she would probably heal herself in the pattern of her overwritten stamps. On the second one, it's hypothetically possible, but it would take so much Investiture that it wouldn't be worth it.

@Valtak I don't think Mrall is confirmed to be a kandra, and that that was just @john203's theory based on what you said. Also, was going to say that Nale definitely has his honourblade back, but they beat me to it. For the blade count: "Taln" had had his in Damnation. Then when he returned to Roshar, it was somehow lost in transport. According to WoB, Hoid doesn't have it, and Dalinar's new blade is the one that was swapped out with the Honourblade. Kaladin has Jezrien's Blade, retrieved from Szeth upon his apparent death. Nale has his. Which leaves the seven, unless one is indeed stolen. Ishar does seem a likely candidate.

There seems to be a few levels of "dead" in the cosmere, I suppose. The first is when your physical form fails. When this happens, your Cognitive aspect prevails for a short time. When this step is in progress, the potential for Cognitive Shadows arises. Elantrians didn't "die" in the same way, so they can't be counted as Cognitive Shadows. Therefore, despite having a lot of the same qualifications of dead (at least, before Raoden restored Elantris), the Dor must have preserved them before that point.

So, been a while since I made this thread (relatively), but necro-ing because Brandon confirmed on Reddit that you guys were right, and that Elantrians don't, in fact, die when Initiated. Source. (Oathbringer Update thread tagged for Oathbringer spoilers. Beware. Got a lot more than I thought I would out of that one. Really awesome of Brandon to take time and type these out for us. It's great that we're theorizing about a theory.

Well, it's widely accepted as Kelsier because Secret History is supposed to spoil the reveal in Bands of Mourning that Kelsier is alive, according to Brandon IIRC. If you haven't read Secret History:

I expect he and Spook have done some trolling off world. No real basis for this other than Kelsier wants to discover new worlds and hasn't been seen recently on Scadrial, and Spook stepped down after 100 years of rule, yet no one spoke of his death.

True, but the fact is, Odium had some form of help in Splintering D&D from Bavadin. Maybe Bavadin was present and helped Splinter one of them, or maybe she just pointed Odium in the right direction and didn't try to stop him.

Wow, I didn't even know about that WoB. Would you mind providing the source?

Interesting thought

My little theory is that Odium and Autonomy were working together to splinter Devotion and Dominion. It makes sense because of the following: Autonomy and Dominion are highly likely opposites, and for the others: Odium=hate whereas Devotion=love. It's not a perfect pair, but Brandon has said that a lot of them aren't as perfect as Preservation and Ruin. I think that's why Odium chose those. First, he figured he'd go after Ambition, because it's the Shard he felt could rival him, then he struck up a deal with Autonomy to splinter their opposites, as Dominion was another high on the list (likely) and Devotion was his opposite (likely). Brandon has said that Odium would conceivably work with another Shard if he were in charge and they had a common goal, so this is totally plausible. The only things against it are the fact that Autonomy doesn't seem like a Shard that would let Odium be in charge of it, and that Autonomy isn't mentioned as being on Sel, though Odium is. (Although, according to Khriss, Bavadin does have a habit of interfering in other planets' businesses, and Hoid mentions his beef with Bavadin and Rayse in the same breath, so there is that).

There were a few really long ones that I didn't want to do lol I marked them in case anyone had the time and patience and wanted to. Granted I haven't looked in a couple days so I don't know if anyone's gone over them yet.

Maybe it has to do with Yolen being hidden, as Khriss mentions in SH?

Well, WoB states that Khriss actually knows more than Hoid about certain things, however, her knowledge stops (mostly) when it comes to history before White Sand. Hoid definitely knows what happened before, but his mission doesn't seem to involve study or intelligence. Khriss is (I'm guessing) one of the leading scientists in Silverlight. I wonder why Frost can't leave Yolen. Perhaps he's tied down similarly to Odium, and can't leave.

Edgedancer spoilers:

That's interesting. I need to do a reread of Elantris, it's been a few years. The whole system of Sel is weird because of the Dor...Even after we figured out what happened with D&D, we still don't know what all is going on there.

That's the assumption. I don't know if anyone has asked Brandon about the second, but that would make sense. A leading theory on the third Bondsmith is Cuiscech (or however you spell it).

Well, in order to be returned to his body, Harmony would have had to do it. I suppose that Harmony, as a Shard, could find ways around that, but he might fit the pattern. On the Returned, I hope I can clear it up a bit. The Divine Breath is the Splinter--the Investiture--that Endowment is using to permeate the Returned's soul, and a Cognitive Shadow is the soul that is permeated. 1. Are you saying that they would be in constant pain because of the death that happened before they were Initiated? I don't think that would still apply, because that happens before their Shadow is put back into their body. 2. Endowment made the Returned forget, whatever is doing this to the Elantrians would likely have the same power. And Kelsier remembered the Cognitive Realm anyway, so I don't quite see where you're going with memories, as we've seen two different types of Cognitive Shadows when it comes to memories. Returned don't remember, Kelsier does. The Stormfather doesn't seem to remember very well, and we don't know about the Heralds. Okay, I see where you're going. Maybe this is the same type of deal as with the Heralds. We weren't there when they became Heralds, but since Brandon says "whether they are or not is up for discussion," maybe they're in the same boat as the Elantrians. They (perhaps) didn't die in order to become Heralds. (Though, I do hold to the fact that the Elantrians are dead. If they weren't dead, then they would have been alive in the events of Elantris.)

On worldhopping, we've seen Vasher worldhopping, and he's a Cognitive Shadow, technically. Brandon has said that it's harder, but not that hard in terms of the cosmere. Getting off of Sel is hard enough as is, with the Dor being in the Cognitive Realm, so I suspect that people there are using an alternate method of worldhopping. But that is a conversation for another thread. I suppose it is possible that they're just being sustained continuously, especially since the same happens once they are restored Elantrians. But there's nothing to say it can't be a Cognitive Shadow. We haven't seen the initiation in person as far as I can remember. It always happens at night, so it's possible that the Elantrian died in their sleep, and then woke up changed.

We recently got confirmation that Returned are Cognitive Shadows, and that some people would call the Heralds Cognitive Shadows. This got me to thinking, where have we see Cognitive Shadows before? On Roshar, we have the Stormfather, the Cognitive Shadow of Tanavast/Honor. We have the Heralds*, and we have the throwaway line by Khriss in Arcanum Unbounded saying the Braize is inhabited by Splinters and possibly Cognitive Shadows. On Scadrial, we have Kelsier, who's a bit of an exception, since he tricked Leras into putting him in the Well of Ascension. We also met Spanky, who is presumably a Scadrial native because it is difficult to take Cognitive Entities between worlds. Preservation/Leras might fall into this category as well, since he seems to have died a long time ago in Secret History. In the later era of Scadrial, Wax probably counts now, since Harmony stuck him back into his body. On Nalthis, the Returned are like Wax, Cognitive Shadows who were stapled back into their bodies by Endowment. On Threnody, we have the Shades, obviously. On Sel, now, I theorize that we have the Elantians. When Raoden wakes up as an Elantrian, and gets locked in Elantris, he talks to Galladon and realizes he doesn't have a heartbeat. Galladon is always going "You're dead, Kolo?" This always bothered me, because, how would someone who's body is dead, still obviously retain sentience? This question is answered if we realize that they are Cognitive Shadows that are (like the Returned, and Wax) stapled back into their bodies. Relevant WoBs and quotes: -Arcanum Unbounded. The Rosharan System. Page 535, hardback. Source. Source.

For anyone who is interested, here's some relevant WoBs from Chicago: Source.

If I put my ear by the mic I can just barely make out the questions. Will get to transposing in the next few hours.

If you haven't already, look here for a lot more information on the Cognitive Realm, Silverlight, and the constellation map. Beware of AU spoilers.

@Argent Do you know when we'll get the General Q&A and the reading posted?