Author Topic: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*  (Read 28669 times)

Munin

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #90 on: September 09, 2010, 07:27:29 PM »
Once again, i'm just convinced that "once an elantrian, always an elantrian" is how it would be working, since getting even a trickle of the power (tainted or not) they retain their physical changes (just lose their powers), and not "slightly revert" back to being normal
I would argue that's a different situation, though. When you become an Elantrian, you go through a transformation. In this case, it was just that there wasn't enough power to complete the transformation. That's why, for instance, the Elantrians' hearts didn't beat until the Aons were fixed.

But what of the elantrians who were all ready transformed? The same happened to them, did it not? IIRC, they were put into the exact same state as the newly transformed ones.
We know that SOMETHING happened to them. But I don't think we get a description of the old man (who is the only one we met).
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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #91 on: September 09, 2010, 09:52:56 PM »
All of the Elantrians alive when the chasm was created suffered the same affliction that newer ones did afterward.  Everything related to the Dor was affected.  The Dor was not tainted, nor was it weakened, but the basic symbol needed for it to interact with the world was changed.  Remember the first time Raoden used a glyph that worked?  The pressure that built up was enormous.

As for whether or not they would lose their coloring with distance, I would say the glow of their skin would certainly wane as they got further from elantris.  It would then be easy enough to disguise your skin and hair.  Also remember that Raoden was able to disguise himself completely even before he added the chasm line to Elantris itself.  It would seem that very little power is needed to affix a disguise.

Earongal:
I have to disagree with you.  Occam's Razor is fine, but all facts have to be put into account, and I feel you are missing a couple of things in this instance.  First, Brandon goes out of his way to describe Grump, making sure to include that, while he had the skin color of the Mubakanaki(??), he was not built like one. in fact, it is noted that none of the three strangers really fit in with any nationality the viewpoint character knows. Second, do you remember the epigraphs from HoA?  Brandon likes giving special characters a unique way of speaking so they can be identified more easily.  As for the tall grumpy blonde analogy, it works if your in Sweden, but if you were in China, there's a good bet it's the same guy, especially if he speaks in a unique pattern, and even more especially when the author goes out of his way to make the guy speak one of the four or five words of his native tongue that is known to the reader.

I wanted to write something profound here, but I couldn't think of anything.

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #92 on: September 09, 2010, 10:57:17 PM »
All of the Elantrians alive when the chasm was created suffered the same affliction that newer ones did afterward.  Everything related to the Dor was affected.  The Dor was not tainted, nor was it weakened, but the basic symbol needed for it to interact with the world was changed.  Remember the first time Raoden used a glyph that worked?  The pressure that built up was enormous.


Right. It's more like putting your thumb over a faucet tap and restricting what comes out, rather than tainting or weakening of it.


As for whether or not they would lose their coloring with distance, I would say the glow of their skin would certainly wane as they got further from elantris.  It would then be easy enough to disguise your skin and hair.  Also remember that Raoden was able to disguise himself completely even before he added the chasm line to Elantris itself.  It would seem that very little power is needed to affix a disguise.

Oh, i have no qualms with them losing their shiny from distance, but I don't think they'd lose their color. However, this also comes back to my life-support analogy. If greatly restricted flow of the Dor because of the Shaod causes them to practically zombify, and their lives to essentially "freeze", when they move completely out of range for the flow of Dor to even reach them (which i'm assuming being lightyears away would do), wouldn't this basically kill them?

Earongal:
I have to disagree with you.  Occam's Razor is fine, but all facts have to be put into account, and I feel you are missing a couple of things in this instance.  First, Brandon goes out of his way to describe Grump, making sure to include that, while he had the skin color of the Mubakanaki(??), he was not built like one. in fact, it is noted that none of the three strangers really fit in with any nationality the viewpoint character knows. Second, do you remember the epigraphs from HoA?  Brandon likes giving special characters a unique way of speaking so they can be identified more easily.  As for the tall grumpy blonde analogy, it works if your in Sweden, but if you were in China, there's a good bet it's the same guy, especially if he speaks in a unique pattern, and even more especially when the author goes out of his way to make the guy speak one of the four or five words of his native tongue that is known to the reader.

First, Quick Nitpick - It's Eerongal with two E's, not Ea (not a big deal, just FYI) :)

well, currently, we only know one person who's a native Dula speaker. Galladon. So it's hard to say if he has a unique way of speaking, or if he talks like any other dula.

I accept that he's speaking dula, and indeed that these people are likely from Sel (of that i'd had no doubt), and they indeed dont fit physically into the race they appear to be, but this would be true of almost anyone who pretended to be of a native race elsewhere (take your swedish in china example, if he dressed up and tried to look chinese, it would be obvious he wasn't chinese, generally)

Also, another thought occurs to me. Wasn't Galladon pessimistic and grumpy BECAUSE of the Shaod? Like when he was reminiscing about being a farmer, didn't he talk about missing the care-free days or something, though not fitting in with others? With the Shaod fixed, wouldn't he likely become a much happier, nicer person anyways? This is all speculation, but it certainly doesn't SEEM like a far leap in logic, and we have nothing to go on for this to be true, since we don't really get any extended time with them after everything is fixed up.

Also, yet another thought that occurs to me when writing this: Generally, yes, brandon likes dropping hints about other works in his current works. However, so far only 1 character has had any crossover action. Hoid. And that's because he is in all of brandon's (shard) books. While the stuff pertaining to Hoid may be as an "on the side" nature to the events in WoK, it seems a pretty bold step to be bringing other characters directly from his other works just to build some anticipation for anything upcoming that involves hoid and the shards themselves, especially since brandon's official stance on his other works is that none of his works are required reading for others, even if they all have elements in common.

To some extent, this would make Elantris required reading to make sense of these little outlier scenes involving characters from Elantris, if they are indeed characters actually from Elantris.

Now brandon may very well break his usual form and do so, he certainly is allowed to if he wants to, but to me, the idea of Raoden and Galladon showing up in WoK for foreshadowing just really seems to break the usual way he does things.

It wouldn't surprise me to get some hot cross-over action as soon as hoid and the shards become the main focus of a book, but until then, i can't really see brandon reusing some older characters in a new book until that focus is shifted.

Thoughts on these couple of things? These are both obviously personal speculation, and attempting to logic all the info we have together, so i could very well be wrong on both accounts, but I feel they're actually both worth considering.
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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #93 on: September 10, 2010, 05:38:52 AM »
Here is my understanding of what happened to the Elantrians:

Pre-Reod: Shaod transformed them into silver skinned white haired super beings.
Reod: The most powerful were overwhelmed by the Dor trying to get out through them, and all were changed into blotchy zombies (if the man looked different, dont you think someone would have noticed?  It's his comments that set him apart, not his appearance).
      *Sub point: I believe the Reod was the disaster on Sel spoken of by the epigraph writer who I think is Hoid.
Post Reod: The shaod continues to take change people, but into zombie things.  Aon Dor does not work, and those closest to getting it to do so (Raoden) are overwhelmed with the Dor trying to push through them.
Chasm Line Addition:  The Dor is released, but weaker than it should be (besides the initial surge), and the Elantrians are still unchanged.
The Elantris Aon Rao is repaired: Elantrians are restored to what they were pre-reod.
When Raoden goes to Teod: His power is reduced, but as far as we know his appearance stays exactly the same.  Only the aon's power is weakened.

IT is my conclusion from these events that if the Dor was blocked again, they would revert to zombies.  If the dor was reduced because of distance, they would remain the same in appearance but be unable to use aons.

Thus, if the man in the interlude is Galladon, he is using AonDor, which might work on Roshar (perhaps different planets are not subject to the distance rule, who knows?) or possibly makeup to disguise his Elantrian appearance.

PS:  Why would Raoden have a scar if he has healing abilities?
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kerkrom

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #94 on: September 10, 2010, 09:15:29 AM »
this is all assuming that the poeple looking for Hoid are Elantrians (Grumpy is accounted for imho the rest is all too vague):

I assume that there is one main time-line in the cosmere. Which means that the Elantris Sequel happens before WoK. Right now that does not spoil that much of Elantris II, but there might come a point where Brandon just has to write Elantis II just because some WoK stuff (like Hoid finally meeting up with the Elantris gang), significantly interferes with his plans on Elantris II.

This all goes to the Question of how Hoid got to be a World-Hopper. There really should be no reason for others not to be able to learn the same feat. And we still have to find out what exactly the relationship between Hoid and his apprentice Worldsinger Sigzil is/was. There is definitely more there.

Salkara

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #95 on: September 11, 2010, 05:55:53 AM »
Munin, looks like you caught something here. I just got back from the San Diego WoK signing, and Brandon pretty much confirmed that (1) Grumpy is a Dula and (2) the Hoid-hunters are the 17th Shard.

Me: Could a Dula be a member of the 17th Shard?

BS: Why would you ask that?

Me: Grumpy uses the term 'kayana'

BS: [laughs] There's no reason a Dula couldn't be a member of the 17th Shard.

Then he mentioned that it was the first time someone he'd been asked about that (sorry if you were planning to ask him later in the tour; I made sure to mention that I wasn't the one who caught it). At this point, I think it's really likely that Grumpy is Galladon.

Munin

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #96 on: September 11, 2010, 07:02:30 AM »
Munin, looks like you caught something here. I just got back from the San Diego WoK signing, and Brandon pretty much confirmed that (1) Grumpy is a Dula and (2) the Hoid-hunters are the 17th Shard.
Yeah, I was at the same signing, one of the last ones in line. He mentioned someone else had asked him that.

Me: Could a Dula be a member of the 17th Shard?

BS: Why would you ask that?

Me: Grumpy uses the term 'kayana'

BS: [laughs] There's no reason a Dula couldn't be a member of the 17th Shard.

Then he mentioned that it was the first time someone he'd been asked about that (sorry if you were planning to ask him later in the tour; I made sure to mention that I wasn't the one who caught it). At this point, I think it's really likely that Grumpy is Galladon.
My exchange went something like this...

Me: So, in Way of Kings, there's a character named Grumpy in the first interlude. He acts like Galladon, looks like Galladon, and apparently has the same personality. And he says a Dula word.

Brandon: A Dula word? He says several.

Me: So... is it Galladon?

Brandon: Well... there are certainly facts there. [I forget the exact wording after this, but it's basically what you'd get from a politician or a lawyer if you tried to nail them down on a tricky issue]


So, it's confirmed that he's speaking Dula. We know that a Dula could be a member of the 17th shard (thanks for asking that, it didn't occur to me). And he seemed very evasive, so unless he's like that with incorrect theories, too, I'd say we have a much more solid basis for the Galladon theory.

I didn't ask about Raoden or Shuuden, though.
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Salkara

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #97 on: September 11, 2010, 04:08:11 PM »
You were at the SD signing? Heh, that's pretty awesome. You weren't the guy who passed out during the Q&A I hope.

Anyways, I figured asking something too direct would get a RAFO. Still, from his answers, I'd say it's pretty safe to say that Grumpy is Galladon. As for the other 17th Sharders, I get the feeling that they're characters we probably haven't seen before. Really though, I'm basing this on my desire for the makeup of the 17th Shard to be more than just Elantrian.

Munin

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #98 on: September 11, 2010, 05:27:04 PM »
You were at the SD signing? Heh, that's pretty awesome. You weren't the guy who passed out during the Q&A I hope.
Fortunately, no. I was near the door (right next to the counter) , so you probably didn't see me.

Anyways, I figured asking something too direct would get a RAFO. Still, from his answers, I'd say it's pretty safe to say that Grumpy is Galladon. As for the other 17th Sharders, I get the feeling that they're characters we probably haven't seen before. Really though, I'm basing this on my desire for the makeup of the 17th Shard to be more than just Elantrian.
At the very least, I'd say it's now almost certain that the people in the first interlude are members of the 17th shard, and that the organization is made up of people from worlds with other shards on them.
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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #99 on: September 11, 2010, 08:27:13 PM »
I imagine the 17th shard is made up of people from several planets, as they can planet hop. It seems kind of counter-productive to have an organization that can planet hop, and then not take advantage of potential members from other planets.

While I think the conversation with Brandon about Galladon makes it more likely, I still think it's more likely that it's just a Dula. But I've been wrong before, and where Galladon likely won't be making any more major appearances on Sel, he could very feasibly become a member of the 17th shard.
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Munin

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #100 on: September 11, 2010, 08:41:05 PM »
I imagine the 17th shard is made up of people from several planets, as they can planet hop. It seems kind of counter-productive to have an organization that can planet hop, and then not take advantage of potential members from other planets.
Yeah, I had assumed the same, but now we're sure of it.

Although it might be that someone or something else is in charge of it.
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Salkara

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #101 on: September 12, 2010, 06:10:19 AM »
While I think the conversation with Brandon about Galladon makes it more likely, I still think it's more likely that it's just a Dula.

Yes, but Brandon went to such lengths explaining how Galladon's pessimism was unique that I find it hard to believe that Grumpy the Dula is anyone but Galladon.

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #102 on: September 12, 2010, 08:47:35 AM »
i think grumpy is a dula but there is still no proof outside of phonetics that hints he is galladon. NOTHING... i will ask directly at the signing on tuesday but i would bet it  is another dula (fun fact: there is more than one pessimestic asian too)
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Munin

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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #103 on: September 12, 2010, 03:39:49 PM »
i think grumpy is a dula but there is still no proof outside of phonetics that hints he is galladon. NOTHING... i will ask directly at the signing on tuesday but i would bet it  is another dula (fun fact: there is more than one pessimestic asian too)
Asking directly won't do any good. I did the same thing, and he didn't tell me.

Instead, ask if Elantrians would stop glowing and/or die if they were on another planet.
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Re: First Interlude *Way of Kings SPOILERS*
« Reply #104 on: September 12, 2010, 04:39:19 PM »
i think grumpy is a dula but there is still no proof outside of phonetics that hints he is galladon. NOTHING... i will ask directly at the signing on tuesday but i would bet it  is another dula (fun fact: there is more than one pessimestic asian too)
Asking directly won't do any good. I did the same thing, and he didn't tell me.

Instead, ask if Elantrians would stop glowing and/or die if they were on another planet.

^this ^

We know he's Dula, we DON'T know if he's Elantrian. If he's Elantrian, we have a strong case for it being Galladon. If we find out he can NOT be Elantrian, it likely isn't Galladon.

This question will let us know if he is or isn't Elantrian, but straight asking if he is Galladon will get you an evasive, non-commital reply you get when someone doesn't want to give up info in the affirmative or negative.
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