Dawncities

[therunner he/him]

I would like to propose that Dawncities were spren-cities, similar to what Urithiru is.

First possible hint of this is in Oathbringer, where on p. 611 Kaladin notes that the strata in Kholinar look like those of Urithiru.

Second, we now know that there were other ancient spren, such as Wind (possibly Stone), and they might not have been singular.

As a corollary, I would propose that spren of Dawncities became Unmade.
They were Made (into the Dawncities) and then Unmade (and cities partially broken with only some larger patterns remaining).

Second corollary, Shattered Plains were Shattered when Odium made failed attempt to form tenth Unmade from the spren of Stormseat (possibly due to Honor intervening).

[Display-Names-Are-Stupid]

Oooo, I like this as a theory! Who do you think matches up with which city?

Definitely Nergaoul with Kholinar.

 

[alder24]

1 hour ago, therunner said:

I would like to propose that Dawncities were spren-cities, similar to what Urithiru is.

First possible hint of this is in Oathbringer, where on p. 611 Kaladin notes that the strata in Kholinar look like those of Urithiru.

Second, we now know that there were other ancient spren, such as Wind (possibly Stone), and they might not have been singular.

As a corollary, I would propose that spren of Dawncities became Unmade.
They were Made (into the Dawncities) and then Unmade (and cities partially broken with only some larger patterns remaining).

Second corollary, Shattered Plains were Shattered when Odium made failed attempt to form tenth Unmade from the spren of Stormseat (possibly due to Honor intervening).

I fully agree that Dawncities are strongly related to Urithiru because of their look. This is an interesting proposition and I think it's very likely. It all depends if the Sibling after Unmaking would still be bound to Urithiru or be free like other Unmades - which we don't know. But this does explain why they are so similar, why there are no spren manifested in Dawncities anymore and even what happened to the Shattered Plains. 

But then what do you think happened to the Stormseat spren after the failed attempt? 

[Display-Names-Are-Stupid]

Perhaps they died and that was the Shattering? They chose their own destruction over turning to the enemy? 

[therunner he/him]

10 hours ago, Display-Names-Are-Stupid said:

Oooo, I like this as a theory! Who do you think matches up with which city?

Definitely Nergaoul with Kholinar.

Nergaoul and Kholinar is probably one of the few connections I would dare make.

But generally, we know very little about the Unmade, and even less about Dawncities. So matching them seems near impossible to me.

10 hours ago, alder24 said:

But then what do you think happened to the Stormseat spren after the failed attempt? 

I would guess it died/was broken, similar to what can happen to Shards, but on smaller scale.
 

[BinarySecond]

The strata in Kholinar have always bothered me.

 

Kaladin LOSES his stormlight, it removes the lightweaving Shallan placed.

 

At the time he assumes he did but he's touching the strata lines. I think you're right; they were truly alive cities.

Edited Monday at 10:59 AM by BinarySecond

[alder24]

6 hours ago, therunner said:

I would guess it died/was broken, similar to what can happen to Shards, but on smaller scale.

A Shard can't be fully killed, a spren can't be either. If a spren as big as an Unmade was killed, destroyed or broken, there would be some remnants of it somewhere. Some Deadeye, some lesser spren sharing a specific characteristic, or maybe it would have been reformed like a spren cut with a Shardblade, but we should see a sign of this somewhere. 

[therunner he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

A Shard can't be fully killed, a spren can't be either. If a spren as big as an Unmade was killed, destroyed or broken, there would be some remnants of it somewhere. Some Deadeye, some lesser spren sharing a specific characteristic, or maybe it would have been reformed like a spren cut with a Shardblade, but we should see a sign of this somewhere. 

Correct, however there are numerous spren that we know exist, yet there is little evidence of them so far.

E.g.

• Spren of stone/Ur (only Venli interacted with them)
• Wind (only active post Odium exchange)
• 2 Unmade (Dai-Gonarthis and Chemoarish)
• Sibling (when pretending to be dead)

So the remnants might as well be present, but we have not yet seen them. Perhaps the free Listeners will encounter something of such nature, or perhaps as broken spren of Stone, such signs won't be visible to anyone who cannot Stoneshape.

[feruchemicalrockband]

20 hours ago, Display-Names-Are-Stupid said:

Perhaps they died and that was the Shattering? They chose their own destruction over turning to the enemy? 

This was probably Ba-Ado-Mishram. When they sealed her away, she was still connected to her city. Being sealed caused it to shatter as she lost her connection to the physical and cognitive realms. What if the Grand Knell in the cognitive realm is actually the cognitive version of the shattered plains?

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, feruchemicalrockband said:

This was probably Ba-Ado-Mishram. When they sealed her away, she was still connected to her city. Being sealed caused it to shatter as she lost her connection to the physical and cognitive realms. What if the Grand Knell in the cognitive realm is actually the cognitive version of the shattered plains?

Stormseat was already Shattered when the Last Legion abandoned Odium, which had to be at least before Mishram's imprisonment, if not even before the Aharietiam. 

[coolsnow7]

22 hours ago, Display-Names-Are-Stupid said:

Oooo, I like this as a theory! Who do you think matches up with which city?

Definitely Nergaoul with Kholinar.

 

You could probably then go to Dai Gonarthis and Akina. And possibly Sja Anat and Feverstone Keep.

Yeah I like this theory. I think it’s a bit of a stretch, but we can speculate that Honor and Cultivation “reverse-unmade” the Sibling to protect it from unmaking and that’s why it has the special characteristics it has.

[feruchemicalrockband]

7 minutes ago, alder24 said:

Stormseat was already Shattered when the Last Legion abandoned Odium, which had to be at least before Mishram's imprisonment, if not even before the Aharietiam. 

The Last Legion didn't flee to Stormseat though. The listeners didn't even live in Narak until the war with the Alethi. The Last Legion lived in a place called the "dark home" that we basically don't know anything about, its mentioned off-handedly only once.

[alder24]

4 minutes ago, feruchemicalrockband said:

The Last Legion didn't flee to Stormseat though. The listeners didn't even live in Narak until the war with the Alethi. The Last Legion lived in a place called the "dark home" that we basically don't know anything about, its mentioned off-handedly only once.

The name Narak means exile and that's because it's where the Last Legion escaped. Moreover the Song of Wars recorded that the Stormseat was already Shattered and all the songs were remembered before the Listeners abandoned their forms - the Stormseat had to be shattered long before Mishram was captured. 

Quote

They blame our people
For the loss of that land
The city that once covered it
Did range the eastern strand.
The power made known in the tomes of our clan
Our gods were not who shattered these plains. 

WoR I-1:

Quote

They had named it Narak—exile—for it was where they had come to be separated from their gods.

 

[feruchemicalrockband]

34 minutes ago, alder24 said:

The name Narak means exile and that's because it's where the Last Legion escaped. Moreover the Song of Wars recorded that the Stormseat was already Shattered and all the songs were remembered before the Listeners abandoned their forms - the Stormseat had to be shattered long before Mishram was captured. 

WoR I-1:

 

That's actually some really impressive recall, kudos!

 

Is it possible the song was created after the shattering? I'm not sure if we ever received confirmation which songs were created when. The events could have happened as either:

Shattering of the plains --> Last Legion flees/songs created --> Mishram captured --> Listeners leave the city of Narak and live in the outskirts of the plains

OR

Last Legion flees --> Mishram captured/plains are shattered --> song of Wars is created and listeners leave Narak to live in the outskirts

 

To be clear, I'm of the opinion that it was Honor's death that caused the shattering, even though that doesn't fit with events cleanly either, but there's always a chance that more information will be given to help us understand exactly how everything happened. Outside of Mishram and Honor I don't know what else would have caused it. Definitely not the Knights or Heralds, with Honor around to bind their powers it doesn't seem likely for them to have done it (though I could see the final reveal about the recreance and the Knights abandoning their oaths revolve around the reveal that a single knight at the 5th ideal caused the shattering). Adonalsium's shattering is also a possibility (since that was the original plan) but that puts the shattering over 3000 years before humans arrived on Roshar.

Edited Monday at 06:23 PM by feruchemicalrockband

[Mayalaran]

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

A Shard can't be fully killed, a spren can't be either. If a spren as big as an Unmade was killed, destroyed or broken, there would be some remnants of it somewhere. Some Deadeye, some lesser spren sharing a specific characteristic, or maybe it would have been reformed like a spren cut with a Shardblade, but we should see a sign of this somewhere. 

Maybe this is the wind? I really have no evidence *shrug*

[alder24]

15 minutes ago, feruchemicalrockband said:

Is it possible the song was created after the shattering? I'm not sure if we ever received confirmation which songs were created when. The events could have happened as either:

Shattering of the plains --> Last Legion flees/songs created --> Mishram captured --> Listeners leave the city of Narak and live in the outskirts of the plains

OR

Last Legion flees --> Mishram captured/plains are shattered --> song of Wars is created and listeners leave Narak to live in the outskirts

They were created after the Stormseat was broken, because the Song of War recalls this event. The songs were created shortly before or after the Last Legion abandoned their forms, as a way to preserve their knowledge. They had to be made within that generation otherwise Listeners would risk forgetting everything. And because Listeners fled to Narak specifically to isolate themselves from everyone on Roshar, if the Stormseat was shattered after Listeners abandoned their forms, they would have no idea that humans blamed Fused and Voidspren for the destruction of Stormseat, so the city was already broken when the Last Legion settled in it. Plus the Songs recall that the Last Legion chose those ruins as their home because they could isolate themselves. WoR I-4:

Quote

“Except for that day,” Eshonai said along with her mother, in rhythm.
“The day of the storm when the Last Legion fled,” Mother continued in song. “Difficult was the path chosen. Warriors, touched by the gods, our only choice to seek dullness of mind. A crippling that brought freedom.”
[...]
“Daring was the challenge made,” Mother sang, “when the Last Legion abandoned thought and power in exchange for freedom. They risked forgetting all. And so songs they composed, a hundred stories to tell, to remember. I tell them to you, and you will tell them to your children, until the forms are again discovered.”
From there, Mother launched into one of the early songs, about how the people would make their home in the ruins of an abandoned kingdom. How they would spread out, act as simple tribes and refugees. It was their plan to remain hidden, or at least ignored.

Moreover, the song suggests that the destruction of Stormseat happened a long time before the False Desolation. Firstly, humans blame Odium's forces for its destruction, so they clearly don't know what happened there, or so much time had passed that the truth was forgotten. Secondly, they are blaming Singers gods - Fused, Voidspren and Unmades - all of which except for Mishram were either trapped on Braize, or were presumably inactive on Roshar during this time period. The sheer fact that Listeners know that Fused and Voidspren are their gods seems to suggest that the Last Legion lived when they were on Roshar - during one of real Desolations, which is at least 4500 years ago. 

29 minutes ago, feruchemicalrockband said:

To be clear, I'm of the opinion that it was Honor's death that caused the shattering

Honor's death happened after the Recreance, thus after Mishram was captured and after the Last Legion was already exiled on Narak. However, because Honor's death was a long event and he was already dying when Recreance happened, he could have received a deadly wound which shattered Stormseat before all of this happened.

32 minutes ago, feruchemicalrockband said:

Outside of Mishram and Honor I don't know what else would have caused it.

 

Dawnshard maybe? Playing and amplifying an anti-tone of Stormseat? Every Dawncity has its own tone, as proved by cymatics and the Shattered Plains are symmetrical. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the anti-tone of the Stormseat itself (which may be related to the way a spren is being Unmade, as this theory suggests).

[logicless.bt]

There was a very similar post on Reddit, was that you? They also brought up that the seat of the Hierocracy (where people were claiming to see the future) could have originally hosted Moelach -- I think it was in Jah Keved but I don't quite recall.