 Hey there, internet friends. I'm here today in not ideal lighting, but, you know, I have to film now, I can't do it later, so we'll deal with it. But I'm here today to give you a theory that I was thinking about, about the Cosmere. And I'm not normally a huge theory guy, like I'll read them sometimes from other people, and I might think about it a little bit on my own, but I'm not somebody that spends hours and hours looking over clues and trying to come up with connections between things, because I just like it a little bit more when the story surprises me. And I feel that by theorizing, I'm setting up myself to just expect a story to go a certain way, and it just, it has a whole host of problems. But the other day I was thinking of this theory, and it just stuck in my head, and it wouldn't go away. And I already posted it on Reddit, and you might have seen that, you may not have, but it got a bit of a mixed reception, but I still think it's a pretty solid theory. So I'm just gonna stop wasting your time, let's go into it. It's gonna have some major spoilers for Mistborn Era 1, as well as the Stormlight Archive, and it will have some minor spoilers for the rest of the Cosmere as well. So if that bothers you, then you probably shouldn't watch. So a really big theme of the Cosmere so far has been the idea of opposing forces fighting against one another, oftentimes destroying their surroundings in the process. The most obvious examples of this come from the Mistborn trilogy, because you have Ruin and Preservation, opposing forces that we're constantly working with and against one another at the same time. But then you also can look at the Allomantic Metals and see the same thing. Aluminum takes away your powers, Duralumin enhances it, Copper hides Allomancy, Bronze finds it, Iron pulls, Steel pushes, that sort of thing. Opposing forces. But you also see it in other places with the other shards of Adenalsium. You see Endowment and Ambition, which Ambition's dead now, but you saw the two of them, those were opposites. And you also have Honor and Odium. And again, Honor's dead now, but they were opposing forces. Now, thousands of years before any of the Cosmere books take place, there was a god named Adenalsium who was killed and broken into the 16 shards. And back in 2013, during an AMA on Reddit, Brandon Sanderson confirmed that there was a force that opposed Adenalsium. Now, it's possible that this opposing force was just the group of people that killed him. In fact, lots of people have interpreted Sanderson's words as that's what he's talking about. And he has been cagey about exactly what he was talking about when he said that. And he has also said that the weapon that killed Adenalsium is still around, if not in pieces. And he's also confirmed that that weapon is the source of Hoyt's immortality. So if there really was another being out there that opposed Adenalsium, then that would make sense. That would fit with the themes of the story so far. And for the sake of simplicity, I'm going to call it the other for the rest of this video. Now, you're probably thinking, well, if there was an other that was still out there, wouldn't we see evidence of it? And I would argue that we already have seen evidence of it in the form of aluminum. Now, think about it. Adenalsium is the source of all investiture, which is all magic, in the Cosmere. And aluminum has consistently shown itself to be a sort of anti-magic. I mean, think about it. In Mistborn, if an Allomancer swallows and burns it, they lose all their other powers for a little bit. In the Stormlight Archive, aluminum can't be soul cast, and Shardblades can't cut through it. In the Emperor's Soul, aluminum is immune to forgery. You can't do anything to it with magic. So, if Adenalsium is the source of magic, investiture, then the other would be a source of anti-magic or anti-investiture. And if that's the case, then we've already seen evidence of the other being around. Now, we don't know much about what was happening in the Cosmere before Adenalsium died. And we don't know much about what happened in the Direct Aftermath either. But what we do know is that Adenalsium created plenty of planets, and he created life on a lot of them. Roshar is one. But then there are other planets that were created by his shards after he was killed. Now, the thing is, we don't know much about what Adenalsium was like. But, and here's the thing, he may have been a god that wanted people to follow specific rules, or he wanted people to live a certain way, or he was constantly interfering with the affairs of those planets and not letting them live their own lives. And if that's the case, then the other would probably be much more hands off. He would be a god that just sort of created things and left them alone. This is kind of the way that hoid acts in the present day. You see, he shows up in all these stories, and he does give the good guys advice, or information, or pep talks sometimes, but he never directly interferes, even though he probably has the ability to do so. Now, if Adenalsium really was a god that went around constantly interfering and dictating how people lived, that would probably upset the other, because, you know, he wants sort of a laissez faire hands off policy towards humans. And it would probably upset a lot of humans, too. And so, my theory is that the other and the group of conspirators worked together to kill Adenalsium. Now, the other might have constructed the weapon that killed him, he might not have, he might have been directly involved, or he might have just encouraged the others to do it, but he was there somehow. And I'm also going to say that hoid's final goal is to prevent Adenalsium from ever being reassembled. Now, some people have thought in the past that hoid is actually going around trying to reassemble the shards, but I don't think that's true, because, one, we don't really see him trying to reassemble the shards, and two, well, that would just be kind of boring, wouldn't it? Like, that's the easiest, most obvious answer that we could come up with. So, no, I don't think he's doing that. I think that hoid is generally a good guy, which is why he helps out the main characters, but he still has that hands-off laissez-faire approach that the other does, and so that's why he doesn't really inject himself into their affairs too much. And hoid isn't the only one that embodies this theme either. After Eurowon of Mistborn, Rune and Preservation were combined together into harmony, and his stated goal is to just make sure that things stay okay so that people can follow their own path. So that's about everything there. Hoid is just a chaotic, good traveler going around trying to help people while also just staying out of their business as much as he can, and the other is just another god that's doing the same thing. Like, he's still around, he just doesn't hear a fear, he's just watching everybody. And I know that, yeah, a lot of people don't agree with this theory already. I've had mixed perceptions to it already. So let me know what you think down below. Just let me know your own thoughts, let me know... Well, no, just let me know your own thoughts. And also mark spoilers and all that. And thanks to my patrons, Des Brennan, and Christopher Hawkins, and all the rest of them, and I'll see you guys later. Bye.