happyman

My suspicion is that Elantrian's are long-lived but not as immortal as the Shards, or even as immortal as the Returned. This is partly because otherwise they would have overrun the entire world of Sel by now if they were truly immortal, even functionally like the Shards. It is also because we see that they were much more human close-up than they seemed at first. They had funerals and heart attacks and a religion of some sort, not to mention children and families. They're powerful when the magic functions, yes, but the impression I got was that they were still pretty human and limited compared to Shards or even Hoid. I would note that the Returned are functionally immortal with enough Breath to sustain them, but that Breath requirement stops them from overrunning the world. Different magic, different constraints. Also, the Shardholders are immortal until they are killed. I suspect the Elantrians are more mortal than that, for the reasons given above.

Either that, or she's just a little bit nuts after all this time. BTW, I agree with the identification of Baxil's mistress. It took the inexplicable, and made it make at least a little more sense.

One thing about tone is that it does tend to shift depending on context. There is a lot of history between the letter writer and its addressee. We've never seen Hoid before when he was talking to somebody who could reasonably be considered an equal or who he wasn't trying to subtly manipulate. I would add at this point that I don't think Elantrian's are as immortal as people have been thinking. They live a long time, yes, but even twice as long as a normal person, with health for most of that time, would be impressive in my book. We know they remain mortal in the strict sense of the term---Galladon's father died of a heart attack.

What's more, I would say it's also pretty clear that the 17th shard doesn't have all the information either. People not knowing things on both sides-an interesting dilemma.

My theory is that Aona and Skai were splintered into the Seons and Skaize. But I'm also of the opinion that Elantris happens long after Odium's visit, and that the Reod was just a side effect of the fact that the Gods of the world were dead and no longer maintaining their religions or systems of magic, and thus things could break all on their lonesome. Actually, in thinking about this, I wanted to discuss the evidence for and against this. The first thing I would note is that the Dor, as found in Elantris, is apparently utterly without consciousness. It is clearly the power of a Shard, or perhaps the combined power of two shards. As far as I can tell from the text, it has not had a consciousness for as long as people have a memory of knowing about it. This comes from several facts: the fact that the Dor still apparently the works the way it did pre-Reod, with only the Chasm line having changed, that the Elantrian's had to scientifically work out how to get it to behave even before the Reod, that the Jesker religion had been studying it for quite some time, apparently thinking of it as a force of nature rather than a consciousness. Basically, it is very easy to read Sel's history as a history without a god intervening for quite a while, with the Dor just kind of sitting there for anybody to use if they can find a way of attuning. The fact that the Elantrian's are worshipped as gods is a pretty good indicator that any other gods whose power they were taking has long since been forgotten. I'm also pretty sure that the powers of the Shards haven't been destroyed. They probably can't be; the Dor is still around, after all. In fact, they're probably still on Sel. The only question is: what form are they in? That's part of why I think they are connected to the Seons and the Skaze. Those---entities---have a consciousness, and so are clearly connected to the cognitive realm. They seem to be immortal, and the Elantrian's have no records of how to create them. They are an anomaly. Where does their consciousness come from? I suspect it is a small piece of the consciousness of their respective Shard, long since shattered into pieces.

My theory is that Aona and Skai were splintered into the Seons and Skaize. But I'm also of the opinion that Elantris happens long after Odium's visit, and that the Reod was just a side effect of the fact that the Gods of the world were dead and no longer maintaining their religions or systems of magic, and thus things could break all on their lonesome.

My guess? It's part of his backstory that we haven't heard yet. Far out there, I know. But there's so little we do know that this seems much more likely.

Back on topic... My guess is that the simplest explanation is true: The Shardholders remember what their names used to be, but it just doesn't matter any more. They have held their powers for so long, they embody the powers they are much more than they embody the people they once were, and their actual personal names are absolutely irrelevant to them or the other Shardholders. Their birth name doesn't mean anything more to them than it does to us that we were all once single cells.