How can Hoid use AonDor when he's so far away from Elantris?

[vulpessophos]

In Elantris (the book), Raoden realizes that the farther one is from Elantris, the less effective Elantrian magic is - at the end scene in the Battle of Teoras, he tries to use both teleportation and healing magic and fids them to be much less effective than normal. That matches up with most Selish magic - the further away you are from your home nation, the less effective it is. However, Hoid uses AonDor in the tower scene at the end of Tress and the Emerald Sea with no problem, and I think Moonlight (Shay) might also in one of the later Mistborn II era books, I forget which one. This seems incompatable - even if Hoid got his powers by faking/creating some Connection to Opelon so his spirit thinks he's been taken by the Shaod (and Moonlight does a similar thing with her stamps), I don't see how that would work.

[alder24]

Hello, welcome to the Shard

48 minutes ago, vulpessophos said:

In Elantris (the book), Raoden realizes that the farther one is from Elantris, the less effective Elantrian magic is - at the end scene in the Battle of Teoras, he tries to use both teleportation and healing magic and fids them to be much less effective than normal. That matches up with most Selish magic - the further away you are from your home nation, the less effective it is. However, Hoid uses AonDor in the tower scene at the end of Tress and the Emerald Sea with no problem, and I think Moonlight (Shay) might also in one of the later Mistborn II era books, I forget which one. This seems incompatable - even if Hoid got his powers by faking/creating some Connection to Opelon so his spirit thinks he's been taken by the Shaod (and Moonlight does a similar thing with her stamps), I don't see how that would work.

We don't know for sure unfortunately.

Shay did it by hacking the magic system - she drew a map of the Basin in TLM, which acted like the city of Elantris and allowed her to use AonDor there, probably being tied to this Aon of the Basin (so the further away she would get from it, the weaker would her magic be). While we still don't know the details of this, we know this works. TLM ch 54:

Quote

The glow started to fade almost immediately, but she knelt on the ground and began drawing with her finger. She consulted the map, and the notations on it that Marasi showed her. She nodded, and light flooded from her, leaving a traced image on the ground. It looked a little like the map—a quick sketch of the Basin, but with a strange rune at the center.
Once she finished, her light stabilized, then brightened. She sighed in satisfaction again and stood in the center of the circular drawing of light.

 

Spoiler

Jofwu

Why did Shay-I have to draw a map of the Elendel basin, if the jar of Dor was her source of Investiture? Did the map connect her to another source of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

No, the map didn't, but her magic is still wonky. Selish magic has some wonkiness to it and it needs to be tricked.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)

 

Spoiler

Questioner (paraphrased)

Is there a region-based magic like Elantris on any of the other worlds?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The Aon magic is unique to that planet because it is intrinsic to the Shard that created it, but you could theoretically hack the magic system so that AonDor would work on another planet.

Words of Radiance Houston signing (March 11, 2014)

 

The same thing might have happened with Riina and Hoid in Tress - after all there was a giant map of the entire planet on the floor, which might have acted in the similar way as Shay's drawing from TLM. However, unlike Shay's drawing, the map in the tower wasn't glowing, so personally I don't think it was due to the map. Plus, once Rinna left the planet, Hoid was able to use AonDor to modify the curse in some way and without the map it would probably be impossible. Keep in mind, Tress happens in the far future of Cosmere, very far future as Iriali left Lumar 300 years prior to the events of the book, they'd lived there probably for many generations, but right now they are on Roshar - this implies Tress takes place hundreds of years into the future, it's hard to say what will happen on Sel in that timeframe, they might have solved the problem of the Dor being in CR for example, which causes magic on Sel to be restricted by location - but this is a heavy speculation.

Additionally, we know that increasing your Connection to Elantris, can help you overcome the location limitation of AonDor. It might be possible that both Riina and Hoid were using this trick to access the full power of the Dor, without any maps and other tricks. 

Spoiler

DoritoJH

So, AonDor is super versatile and powerful.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, but region-locked!

DoritoJH

Yes, it is region locked, exactly. If a full Feruchemist using nicrosil were to create an unlocked medallion that allowed an Elantrian to store Connection to Elantris' location, would it let them use AonDor at full power as long as they were tapping that Connection?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. That should work just fine.

...

Just understand that the medallion's going to have to be usable by everyone in order to work. You're going to have to jump through some hoops, but I think what you want there would work. And for those of you listening, that would be the harder way to unlock AonDor. There are easier methods.

DragonCon 2019 (Aug. 31, 2019)

 

In the end, both Riina and Hoid have lived for thousands of years, studied arcana in great details and have extensive knowledge of all things regarding AonDor - they for sure can find dozens of ways to trick AonDor and make it usable on other planets.

1 hour ago, vulpessophos said:

even if Hoid got his powers by faking/creating some Connection to Opelon so his spirit thinks he's been taken by the Shaod (and Moonlight does a similar thing with her stamps)

Moonlight did fake her Connection via a Soulstamp, but Hoid was invited to become an Elantrian by Riina, which apparently is a legitimate way of doing becoming Elantrian. Moonlight probably won't be Elantrian forever, because it's all fake, but Hoid will remain a real Elantrian. Tress ch 64:

Quote

Turns out that to get this particular set of powers to work, you couldn’t simply fake Connection. You needed an invitation and adoption into a very select group. My only chance had been to find one smart enough to be a member of that group, stupid enough for me to toy with, and sadistic enough to trade membership for the opportunity to see me cursed.

 

Spoiler

Love-that-dog

Why won't Moonlight's stamp wear off by itself?

Brandon Sanderson

This is an excellent question. The answer is—it might someday. But the other question is—it's been a spell. Depending on where I time these things, it's either been hundreds of years or decades since... Moonlight has had a lot of time to practice with powers and investigate what's possible in the Cosmere with magic and talk to some of the smartest people in the Cosmere about how it works. You should draw from the way the soulstamps work, the more mundane ones, that Shai has made a ton of progress in pushing forward the art of Forgery.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 5 (Dec. 2, 2022)