#cosmere theory

[naeuri-cosmere]

Crack theory about Kaladin, Kelsier, Vin, Syl, and Moash below cut. Full spoilers for Stormlight Archive and Mistborn.

Oh storms. Idk when it's gonna happen, but Survivorism is ABSOLUTELY going to make its way to Roshar, and it's gonna be a Greek/Roman mythology situation.

"The Survivor" is y'know, the guy who:

- Went through hell (hath sin/bridgecrews),

- Famously weilded a spear in battle

- Had a scrappy crew of misfits as close confidants alongside whom he changed the world (Kel's crew/Bridge Four)

- Was a slave who became free

- Famously had a small woman as his most trusted ally (Vin/Syl)

And presumably, at some point in Stormlight Era 2...

- Was thought to be dead, but has since been seen posthumously and elevated to status of a religious figure (The Survivor/A Herald)

Yeah, Vorinism will probably view Kaladin as the eleventh Herald, some sects might even NOT validate his status as a Herald because their religious views on Heralds don't match the Rosharan actual historical significanse and role of those who were Heralds.

And I mean. The Marsh/Moash, spikes-through-the-eyes agent-of-a-dual-shard thing could EASILY be construed as Moash being Scadrial's "Death."

The parallels are RIGHT THERE, even if they're not direct, neither was the connection between Mars and Ares! But many religions adapt to appeal to and reach a broader set of cultures (especially those used to push an ideological message that benefits the group of people spreading it, which Survivorism does. Thx Ghostbloods and Thaidakar.)

Anyways, that's my crack theory for the night. If it doesn't happen and if I'm still alive in 2055 when Stormlight finishes (half-joking, the world's on fire) I'll absolutely write fanfic where Kaladin is mistaken for the survivor and Roshar gets its own Survivorism denomination.

[leahthetincan]

I’m reading sunlit man for the first time. im reading it after wind and truth. anyways so here’s my theory i think nomad is sigzil. Am I tiered and not thinking straight? Yes. Am I too early in the book to tell? also yes. Am I an idiot? Definitely. But this will serve as a funny looking back at how stupid I was when I started to read this? Absolutely! but I think nomad is sigzil. What do I know about nomad? I know that he’s from roshar, he’s on the run, he had a former master that would be proud of him joking, he used to not make a lot of jokes because he was worried about being cringe, and he used to be analytical.

[therealsoulking]

What if the Horneaters didn't kill him, but just banished Rock to Threnody.

"Ah, I see you've broken our deeply bizarre codes of familial hierarchy, now we have no choice but to send you through the Perpendicularity to Planet Shit forever"

[rohanrider3]

Cosmere Finale Musings

Look all I'm saying is that if Kelsier ends up using the powers of Breath and Biochroma to let him leave Scadriel AND empower the tatters of his mist cloak to do even MORE awesome shenanigans...that'd be awesome.

If Kaladin ALSO ends up using the powers of Breath and Biochroma to augment his Stormlight powers via the COLORS of the GEMS that hold the Stormlight....oh, AND somehow use the Iridescent Tones AND the Rhythms of Roshar to unlock powers we haven't even seen yet...that would be even MORE awesome.

And if in the end Kelsier and Kaladin wind up on opposing sides of a final conflict (ideologies aside, "lowborn" Skaa Kelsier was killed with a spear vs. "lowborn Darkeyes" but now (extremely reluctant titled Lighteyes) Kaladin, who's a master of the spear wielding arts,--symbolic coincidence I think ?not?)...it'd be terrible, but BADASS to watch them match wits and skills.

But. If there's a bigger bad (?Odium? Sorceress? currently unknown?) and both the Survivor AND Stormblessed have to combine forces to fight it, and they both get WRECKED....

...what are the odds that Kelsier decides to give Kaladin one last gift.

A last gasp.

(TLDR: If the Survivor tells Stormblessed "My life to yours, my breath to yours." AND GIVES UP HIS MAIN DRIVING FORCE IE "SURVIVE" to help save the entire Cosmere I am going to straight up lose my mind. And enjoy every rusting, storming, color-soaked MINUTE of it.)

[seducemewithyourpuns]

SSP4 and Stormlight Archive spoilers/theory.

In chapter 4, Nomad says to Auxiliary "I liked you better when you were alive." To which Aux responds "and who is to blame for that?"

I also know there are some pretty solid theories that Nomad is Sigzil from The Stormlight Archive.

What if Aux is Sig's spren, who died because of whatever is going to happen in KoWaT (stormlight 5) and he's somewhat conscious again similar to how Adolin helped Maya return throughout the various books of Stormlight Archive so far?

[bucketocremlings]

Mistborn Era 2 Spoilers ahead

so ive been thinking abt the other types of allomancy and ett metal. most if them are pretty self evident: cadmium/bendalloy create time bubbles; steel/iron push/pull metal nearby; zinc/brass probably riot/sooth all emotions of those nearby; and aluminum/duralumin probably remove/boost the allomantic energy stored in the ett metal.

the problem is

what do tin, pewter, bronze, gold, and electrum do?

like can a chunk of metal see its own future or what it could be? what abt sense kinetic allomancy? how would it do that?

the only ideas i have for those five involve tin and pewter. maybe those two increase/decrease how reactive ett metal is. tin making it more reactive and pewter making it less so. this could be useful as tin infused ett metal would make a much larger explosion, especially when u add trellium in to the equation. and theoretically, if u use a lot of allomantic pewter in ett metal (and probably a lot of duralumin as well), it might be able to resist an explosion long enough for someone to burn it.

but thats just my 2 cents on the matter. if anyone has other theories abt this, id love to hear

[corvidpolyglot]

mistborn theory time again!

in The Lost Metal, Sazed claims that the Intent of his shards is shifting towards Discord rather than Harmony, which is a weird shift to happen given that we haven't seen major shifts in almost any other Shard.

So, my theory goes as follows: "Harmony" and "Discord" don't actually exist. We only have Sazed's word that they ever existed in the first place, and the words we use for the Intents are just descriptors for things that are usually a bit more ephemeral.

"Harmony" is interesting because it directly opposes Discord, and also represents a status quo compared to Discord's change; neither of those things should resolve from a Ruin/Preservation dishard, given that that's literally a major point of opposition between the Shards making it up. The more reasonable assumption, and one that explains the slow shift towards Discord, is that Harmony is just another term for Preservation and Discord is just another name for Ruin. We do know, after all, that Ruin still has a leg up over Preservation due to humanity on Scadrial still existing, so it's logical that it would slowly take over the double shard.

[tanoraqui]

Kaladin Return posit: a whole book, #6 or maybe #7 depending on series pacing, wherein its slowly increasingly obvious that the Heralds have returned - or at least, they should have, but no one can find them. People are looking for them, either to ally with them or to kill them. (Those who are immortal know, but those who aren't, don't, that this is actually normal - it takes a few days for even a Herald to re-orient themselves to being alive. And they don't necessarily all reappear together, and only Jezrien and Nale ever had fast-travel options!) Some Herald gets an Interlude POV eventually, so we do know they're out there, pulling themselves together for the fight...

Then meanwhile, there's some battle that goes poorly and ends with a megalomaniac Fused, or maybe an Unmade, standing high and lecturing a bunch of people about how their resistance was doomed from the start, the righteous shall now inherit the whole Roshar, Retribution reigns and Honor is dead--

"People keep saying that," a familiar voice complains, and everyone turns in shock and there he is: Kaladin Stormblessed, floating in midair with the wind whipping at his hair and blue cloak that he picked up somewhere on the road from Shinovar. Not glowing, dark-eyed, but aloft nonetheless, with a silver spear in his hand and Sylphrena full-size at his side.

"I'm still alive," Syl replies, arms crossed. She, too, wears Bridge Four blue, and she has lighting in her eyes and a rainstorm in her hair (which she tosses in proud irritation). "And I'm a solid chunk of Honor, you know. I'm very respectable about it these days."

And then it's epic and Kaladin really gets a cult this time, to his immense dismay.

[monarchetype]

Adonalsium (probably) contained/consisted of all of the investiture in the Cosmere, and investiture in its solid form is metallic, so you're technically right

my unhinged iteration on this theory is that the method of killing the god of the Cosmere involved somehow cutting off its cognitive aspect from the cognitive realm so the perception of people couldn't continue to reinforce it as The God Of The Cosmere. and this method resulted in limiting the ways people can perceive/think about it, including erasing/blocking its real/"true" name. but its god metal somewhat escaped that effect so everyone just started using the god metal as a substitute name since it contains the original name "Adonal" or something similar to that. (the name "Adonalsium" was inspired by the term "Adonai" so this would make sense.)

my unhinged cosmere theory is that adonalsium is not a person but a hunk of metal they split into 16 different components and that's why the shards all have god metals

[renarines]

being dumb as fuck is making this chapter preview period so fun like. yes i have read over 20 books and novellas in this series. no i have no idea what is happening at any given moment. i just love when people post like "NO guys this means the dawnspren will reverse nahel splinter and kaladin will mega-ascend to reforge three shards into a invested shardshit" and i'm just like. god you're so right. keep going everyone

[azure-sorceress]

I've seen the theory that by the end of Wind and Truth the Stormfather will die (either because Dalinar loses the contest and dies or something else that we're not expecting happens) and therefore there will be no more Highstorms meaning no more stormlight.

If that happens, it makes a lot of sense why Lift will be the focus character in Stormlight 6. Her powers don't work on stormlight, they work on lifelight, which she can make herself. It would also explain why Cultivation made her that way: "When everything else is going wrong, I want to be the same." This is what she asks for. And if all the radiants are unable to use their powers because there's no more Highstorm, Lift will be the only one who stays the same.

I also wonder if Renarin and Rlain will be able to power their surgebinding with voidlight, instead of stormlight if this happens. Considering their sprens are not only of Honor and Cultivation, but also Odium, maybe that means they can use voidlight as well as stormlight, and get it easily from the Everstorm. Again, it checks with Renarin being one of the main POVs in the second half of the series.

I do not think that the other orders of Radiant will end, though. I only think they will have to be extremely reliant on the Tower. Because through their bond, Navani and the Sibling can make Light, I bet they could make it to power the radiants, but they will never be able to stay away from Urithiru for long.

If all this does happen I expect that they'll be able to get the Highstorms again by the end of book 6 or 7 (considering what we know about Roshar from The Sunlit Man, I'm pretty sure the storm returns).

Anyway, this was just a little theory that I came up with the other day.

[sailorspren]

I'm not a cosmere theories freak but I do have one theory I'm very passionate about which is that the pure tones of Roshar sound like sine wave synths! Let me explain :) I am taking "pure" to mean "consisting of only one note (and no overtones)", which is basically the definition of a sine wave. A sine wave is the representation of a single frequency with no harmonics and is considered an acoustically pure tone. Sine waves don't occur naturally - real world sounds always have overtones, in varying quantities. We can synthesize sine waves, however, and they sound like this (I played it in different pitches so you can get an idea of the timbre):

Here's a visual representation of a sine wave:

So this is what I imagine it sounds like when Dalinar opens a perpendicularity, or when singers hear pure notes in highstorms. And because the sound of a sine wave is so unnatural, it would really stand out and feel otherworldly on a planet that doesn't have modern technology - and I feel like that fits the description.

We also know that it's possible to use tuning forks to play the three pure tones of roshar and pull the matching types of light out of gemstones. While acoustic instruments can't produce a truly pure note (aka a sine audio wave), tuning forks come pretty close. They initially produce high overtones, but those fade out quickly, and then the forks keep resonating with a pure tone. It makes sense that tuning forks are the closest Rosharan humans can get to synthesizing a sine wave!

There's also the fact that Raboniel can sing the pure notes and get the lights to respond, while Navani can't. Is it just because Raboniel's pitch is more accurate, or do singers have an physiological ability to produce notes with less overtones? This is really interesting to me...

And one more fun thing to consider. You know what other instrument comes pretty close to producing a pure tone? The flute! Hoid gave Kaladin a flute... idk if it actually has any reasoning behind it but I really hope it does 😂 imagine how cool it will be if it will be used for musical magic system stuff

[liltalle]

Shardic Opposite-Pairs – Cosmere Theory

It's been said that some of the Shards have opposite Intents (Preservation and Ruin). The obvious question is how inherent is this to the system? Given the symmetry of the original 16, do all of the Shards fit into 8 opposite-pairs?

As of Wind & Truth, we know the names of all 16, so I'm going to try to pair up each and see how they fit. (Cosmere spoilers below)

(Our pool: Devotion, Dominion, Preservation, Ruin, Odium, Cultivation, Honor, Endowment, Autonomy, Ambition, Invention, Mercy, Valor, Whimsy, Virtuosity, Reason)

Preservation/Ruin - This is our canonical example. I don't know that I need to elaborate on their locked conflict on Scadrial and Harmony's difficulty integrating them.

Devotion/Dominion - Khriss describes these two as having "a polarized relationship [...] Forced together as they are, trapped and bursting to escape". Also, the submission/dominance dichotomy seems obvious here.

Cultivation/Endowment - The Nightwatcher is all about fair if esoteric prices for the good she offers, and Cultivation takes that to a deeper level—her deal with Dalinar is about the loss necessary to relief, and the pain necessary to growth. Whereas, Endowment grants godhood freely as she sees fit.

(These first 3 seem pretty clear to me, and they're some of the Shards we know the most about. Those that follow I'm less sure of.)

Odium/Mercy - Odium represents many emotions, but the strongest emotion is hatred, which... I think could be described as a passionate attachment to a wound, lashing out at its perceived source. (That adding Honor's sense of righteousness yields Retribution supports this interpretation.) Mercy is the opposite of that, of Justice classically, letting go of wounds and forgiving. (The two things we know about Mercy canonically are that Harmony was disturbed by discussing Odium with them, and that they were involved in the clash of Odium and Ambition. The former could be Mercy expressing mercy for Rayse himself, but that's not well determined. What happened around Threnody is known to be disturbing, so that's a more obvious interpretation, and this is complicated by knowing that Vessels and Intents don't always align. So, the name is all canon really gives us.)

Autonomy/Honor - (On with my bolder choices.) Harmony says "Autonomy is driven to divide off from the rest of us, go her own way," while Honor's most famous directive is "Unite them." Autonomy's individualism and distinctiveness contrast with Honor's legalism and uniformity. Autonomy avoids constraint while Honor is all about binding people. (This one surprised me, but I think it holds up quite well. Another option was Honor with Whimsy, constraint vs. spontaneity, but I think this split is better, as I'll elaborate later.)

(We know very little about any of the remaining 6 Shards.)

Ambition/Valor - Ruthless self-preservation and accomplishment (Ambition would be mono-black in Magic: the Gathering, Brandon says) vs. selfless defense of others. (Here's a decent place to note my recurring thought that the saying "Discretion is the better part of Valor" is relevant to Hoid not being able to find her, though she does talk to others, so I don't know if that fully tracks.)

Invention/Virtuosity - My flaw here is that I've not read Yumi & the Nightmare Painter yet, only skimmed Virtuosity's Coppermind article. Still, there seems like a basic opposition here between the creation of new things vs. the mastery of existing arts (Renaissance art's focus on proper perspective, photographic painting, etc. vs. Modern art's focus on surprise and violation of convention).

Whimsy/Reason - Whimsy could well be defined as not doing things for reasons, but following unanalyzed spontaneous impulses. We're told the Shard is not congruous with intense planning or ambitions (per Coppermind, which is an argument for Whimsy/Ambition, but I'm guessing the planning aspect might be more important.) It's also not dignified. Reason, however, seems to be our most dignified and deliberate Shard. It's the Survival Shard, of which Brandon said "The intent is related but only tangentially. Mostly it just knows what's going on and is smart enough to get out of there." This sounds to me like Reason is relevant in that it channels the knowledge of the Vessel to a coherent conclusion that it follows very consistently. Having the discipline to hide from other gods for millennia does seem antithetical to the fun and spontaneity of Whimsy.

So... that fit better than I expected. There's a few other shufflings I could see, and if anyone wants to reblog with their own arrangements I'd be delighted to read your arguments. But it feels just coherent enough that this might actually be Brandon's intention and not only me projecting and forcing patterns to make it more interesting (as my OCD likes to do).

The obvious next question is whether these pairs are part of a more complex structure, analogous to the 16 mundane metals in the Metallic Arts. Each pair would then be like a Push/Pull duality, the 16 should be divisible into 4 quadrants, and so on. I do not know if Brandon planned that far ahead, but... the question of whether each of the four Dawnshards corresponds to a quartet of Shards was RAFO'd, so maybe (Cultivation and Ruin as under Change makes sense, Preservation then under Exist... maybe I should stop here, we only know 2 of the Commands anyway). Again, any thoughts are welcome 😉

[novaraptorus]

I disagree, I don't think it's hemalurgy. I think hemalurgy is an aspect of a Cosmere wide concept, Bind Points.

Hemalurgy requires the spike to be placed in a specific Bind Point on the body, or it won't work at all, or will work in the wrong way. The stealing of powers I believe to be unique to hemalurgy, but the Bind Points might be an underlying factor of the Cosmere!

On Scadrial metal is what holds investiture, so when invested metal makes contact with a Bind Point it creates a magical effect. On Roshar it's crystals that hold investiture, so when an invested crystal is touching a Bind Point it also does something magic!

The reason it looks so similar to hemalurgy at a glance is because the easiest way to make something invested contact a human Bind Point is, well, a spike through the point!

Wait wait wait, did Odium use hemalurgy on Moash? Like, for real? Is it even posible outside of Scadrial? It didn't look like he used metal spikes specifically, but come on, spikes in his eyes sounds pretty familiar... Also, this is terrible.How did they learn about it? What does it mean?

[wandersails]

kaladin subplot so unserious, first day on the job as a therapist (no qualifications mind you) and he’s dealing with a category 5 emotion represser suicidal bald man and an evil sword with five bajillion years of trauma, I would have quit!

[jochi-the-veristithaylen-baker]

Dawnshard naming speculation. Wind and Truth spoilers. Long.

In Dawnshard ("Stormlight 3.5") we learned the name of one of the four Dawnshards. And that one is Change.

In Wind and Truth (Stormlight 5) we learn the name of a second Dawnshard, Exist.

The Shards of Adonalsium are named after concepts (Preservation not Preserve, Cultivation not Cultivate). But the Dawnshards are named after actions. Specifically verbs that are imperative. They express Intent directly.

And now is when I bring in a parallel to make guesses at the last two Dawnshards.

In Computer Science there's a model of interaction called "CRUD". It's an abbreviation for "Create, Read, Update, Delete" and are the primary four actions of interacting with a system.

Exist and Change could be seen as synonyms of Create and Update, when taken as verbs. That implies the last two are equivalents of Read and Delete.

The last one, Delete, would be easy to rename "Destroy".

In that phrasing it sounds ominously related to Nightblood and whatever is going on there.

But it doesn't quite fit. Destroy has an external grammatical object. Someone destroys something even if it is unspecified in a sentence. The two know Dawnshards don't have grammatical objects. You exist. You change. Delete and Destroy translated into a parallel of that could be Die.

The second action, Read, is a bit more of a challenge. I will suggest that the Iriali people have a central religious tenet of Experience. Their religious duty is to experience the cosmere from as many viewpoints as possible so the memories can be collected back into "The One" that they believe everything (or at least every Iriali person) originates from.

And the Iriali feel way more important than the impact they have had on cosmere politics so far

Thus we end on four dawnshards named

Exist • Experience • Change • Die

It feels like a complete set and very much like four commands that could create a living universe. Or kill a god.

As a post-script, let me just state that if I am right and one of the Dawnshards is the command Die, I am already really storming scared of it.