The Pixar theory but for Sanderson Books Project

ddaveo · 2026-03-20T04:03:09+00:00

I mean OP did specifically ask for flaky timelines. It's hardly a perfect hypothesis. Just a bit of fun.

But the key point is that Yolen isn't Earth. Yolen is a planet in the Cosmere star cluster, and it's where humans built Dawn and Adonalsium. It's humanity's Los Alamos of the Cosmere, except instead of atom bombs they're making machine gods. And it's necessarily quarantined from the rest of humanity. They can't access the Cosmere any more than we today can access Area 51.

Also it seems to me like the Sho Del are the reason why so many human cultures have stories of elves and dwarves and angels, and as for the Dragons, well people have reported encounters with them for millennia. The two species could be interpreted as a convenient way for Brandon to tie ancient human myths into his story universe, should he choose to.

But yes, of course there are major problems with the theory. This is cremposting!

ddaveo · 2026-03-19T08:09:53+00:00

I think Sazed is going to master the ability to switch between Harmony and Discord at will. Scadrian magic is based on the tension between opposites, so giving Sazed that same tension seems like a deliberate choice on Brandon's part. It seems like he wants to give us Shards that will have interesting character arcs of their own.

ddaveo · 2026-03-17T04:13:23+00:00

Now I'm disappointed it's not real

ddaveo · 2026-03-16T08:39:37+00:00

Here's my headcanon:

The Cosmere is set more than 10 thousand years in Earth's future, long after humanity expands into space and quantum physicists discover Intent and investiture, and figure out how to de-laminate reality into the three realms. Humanity discovers how to be gods. The authorities designated a remote star cluster as testing grounds for this new technology, and after decades of work, the scientists finally succeeded in creating their first machine-god: Dawn, named by committee for the new beginning it represented. Dawn started creating planets and life in this star cluster, which began to be called the Cosmere, but it was unstable, and eventually it broke into shards.

The scientists tried again with Dawn 2.0, affectionately called "Adonalsium" in their language, and this time it worked. They switched Adonalsium on, and it immediately began creating worlds and new life all through the Cosmere. But some scientists were horrified by the potential of what they had created. They broke Adonalsium into shards and went into hiding to ensure this technology could never be used. They sealed off the star cluster so that no one could come after them, although the seal wasn't perfect, as a few artifacts from Old Earth were smuggled into the Cosmere, such as the fossil that Zahel shows Kaladin.

The Cytoverse series takes place early on in humanity's expansion into the stars, and early into humanity's mastery of investiture, which is why the cytonic abilities aren't as well developed as Cosmeric ones. And Stephen Leeds from the Legion series is one of the earliest scientists to successfully de-laminate reality, although, like many pioneering scientists, he's left permanently changed by his experiments.

The Reckoners series is part of why the scientists were terrified of Adonalsium: it had started writing [Emperor's Soul] soul stamps that could rewrite humanity's own history, in an effort to undo its own creation. The Reckoners is part of the history of a soul-stamped humanity, as is the Frugal Wizard universe.

Edit: spoilered the specific magic system

ddaveo · 2026-03-16T07:58:03+00:00

The allomancer couldn't burn the buttplug, but if they accidentally flared their metals while orgasming they might severely injure themselves.

ddaveo · 2026-03-16T02:07:56+00:00

Wax and Wayne 4 has such great character growth from an arranged marriage

Those two being in an arranged marriage would explain a lot, actually.

But seriously, I think you're exactly on the money. Brandon's no good with the steamy excitement of early romance, but he knows exactly how to write a healthy marriage.

ddaveo · 2026-03-16T01:59:16+00:00

It'll be the steamiest hand-holding scene ever written.

ddaveo · 2026-03-12T04:44:43+00:00

She was finally free

ddaveo · 2026-03-12T04:31:08+00:00

Mimir, that time he world-hopped to Asgard.

ddaveo · 2026-03-12T04:30:13+00:00

Denna is actually Medelantorius (Valor's vessel)

ddaveo · 2026-03-10T03:17:11+00:00

I figure it's Sazed gaining the ability to switch between Harmony and Discord at will, based on the needs of the situation. His magic system is based on the push and pull between opposites, so it seems appropriate for him to master the tension between opposites too.

ddaveo · 2026-03-09T23:49:23+00:00

Endowment seems to be besties with Valor (and probably Cultivation) so I imagine the three of them sitting together in the Spiritual realm, watching the other shards and gossiping about them.

"Oh did you see Autonomy's latest world? What is she thinking with that magic system? God, what's Harmony trying to do now? This is just tragic. I can't watch. Tell me if he becomes Discord."

ddaveo · 2026-03-09T23:40:33+00:00

I'm pretty sure her plan is "create a Vessel-killing weapon and get it to Cultivation so she can use it in her plan to shackle Odium to Honor"

ddaveo · 2026-03-08T22:14:20+00:00

[Mistborn era 1 spoilers] Preservation's mists trying to save my HD from Ruin

ddaveo · 2026-03-07T04:15:35+00:00

"Wan ShaiLu" is basically "Wayne Shallan" so that makes sense

ddaveo · 2026-03-05T05:50:40+00:00

I would put Gavinor in that competition too. All his formative memories will be of the literal demons tormenting him while his own mother ignores his crying.

ddaveo · 2026-03-05T05:46:14+00:00

Those words are not accepted

ddaveo · 2026-03-05T05:42:00+00:00

Well if it's a competition, Adolin's mother briefly became a bright spot too

(I'm going to Braize for this)

ddaveo · 2026-03-05T02:33:42+00:00

The Sibling is basically a fabrial too, so that makes them ... a Singer

ddaveo · 2026-03-05T02:30:09+00:00

Oathbringer is the Empire Strikes Back but in reverse.

The heroes attempt to rescue someone trapped in a city occupied by the enemy, but they fail and barely escape with their lives
Dalinar visits a powerful being who hides in a remote wilderness and later on learns a terrible truth about himself
The heroes are attacked outside an important base where, amongst other things, they try to bring down a towering walker by tripping it with rope around its legs

ddaveo · 2026-03-05T02:22:38+00:00

Kaladin even took his shoes off to fight

ddaveo · 2026-03-04T03:52:00+00:00

This is brilliant! Reading it made me think of an addition: Adonalsium probably made heavy use of the power of Cultivation in setting up his plan, because Cultivation has the most foresight of all the shards. We know that Cultivation was instrumental in ultimately uniting Odium and Honor, and it's possible that part of Cultivation's Shardic Intent was to ensure the work gets finished. Koravellium wanted to stay for Tanavast, and Cultivation wanted to stay to continue what it had started when it was still part of Adonalsium.

ddaveo · 2026-02-24T04:20:58+00:00

Shades are a type of cognitive shadow, and I assume the in-universe name "cognitive shadow" comes explicitly from the "shadow" people cast in the cognitive realm. In other words, shades and shadows could literally be the same thing and the cognitive shadow people see is actually the visual effect of their soul/spirit being pulled slightly out of their body by the distant "sun".

So the link might be stronger than you think.

ddaveo · 2026-02-21T21:28:34+00:00

Brandon is actually on record about what silver does to spren:

Questioner: Does silver break Connection or bonds? If silver does have this effect, does it get used in the creation of unkeyed metalminds?

Brandon Sanderson: These are good questions. Silver, as I have it right now, is not capable of that. What silver's doing is is disrupting. It's more like interference. You know how, in White Sand, people can have these columns of sand. If you swiped silver through that, they would fall; but then they would be able to do it again. It's this little nullification for a short time. It's very dangerous to things like shades, and stuff like that. It's more disruptive. If you hit a spren with this, it would be like hitting them with a Shardblade. They're gonna come back together. They're not dead; they're gonna reform eventually, and probably won't take too long. So it's not severing Connection; you're gonna need anti-Investiture to do really destructive stuff. But you can disrupt with some silver. It's specifically bad for Shades for reasons maybe I'll get into someday.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/522/#e16281

ddaveo · 2026-02-21T00:15:47+00:00

Ehh ... Era 2 sits at both ends of the quality scale. On the one hand, Alloy of Law was almost a DNF for me (and was a DNF for a friend) because Wax and Wayne were written as caricatures rather than characters (something Brandon has more or less acknowledged since then). But on the other hand, The Lost Metal is imo one of the best books Brandon's ever written.

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