Chicken

A little aside: "Voidbringing" is a thing Lift was making up. It's not real.

So I finally noticed the oddity about everstorm. It's summoned by singing, which seems unprecedented. So far the supernatural stuff we've seen on Roshar is about bonding (or at least trapping) spren and involves oaths to "strengthen" spren bonds (or something) and bunches of Stormlight and there doesn't seem to be any singing about it. Old Magic is another supernatural thing that's related to a certain high level spren and also has nothing to do with singing or music (far as we know). Everstorm might've needed bonding those voidspren but happened with singing and zero Stormlight usage. Eshonai's tiny storm demonstration for masses also happened in a similar manner aka completely unlike Surgebinding/Old Magic. This seem to point to an entirely different kind of magic, one that's powered by some nonStormlight power source without apparent user resource limits accessed by singing. Venli's mention of something "waiting and gathering" when talking about everstorm sounds a lot like the "Dor buildup" from Elantris. Stormforms (at least their leaders) also seemed compelled to unleash the everstorm; not like the physical pain Dor put on the guy who seemed most likely to let it out, but some kind of psychological push. Since stormspren are bits of Odium and a similarity to Elantris is noticed, a voidbringer starts to look a lot like an Elantrian. So, out of all cosmere magics so far, the everstorm (which is presumably voidbinding) is most reminiscent of AonDor: some sort of power gathers and builds over time, some beings with a connection to a Shard is capable of letting it out by performing specific actions, the power starts pushing at those beings in an attempt to get free, the power gushes out once they open a hole, later on all Shard connected beings are free to use their shiny new magic powers. Seems legit to me but I haven't actually trawled through masses of WoBs. Does anything contradict this? And it'd make a cool bit of thematic artsy thingy if Odium is exactly like Devotion except some key inversions.

-Tien's death should've been a lot back in or completely out. It was entirely past the point where it'd accomplish anything meaningful. -Renarin should've had a lot more going on. He's been a cardboard cutout with health problems for 2 whole books, then suddenly comes out as a Radiant and we're expected to care? Nope, I don't care about him at all. He has no personality yet. The shoemaker who died was more interesting. -Szeth and Jasnah's reappearances should've been spaced further. -Stormforms shouldn't have become straight up orcs. -Kaladin and Shallan's return from chasms shouldn't have been seen from any main character's point of view. Give that to Sadeas, that'd have been a great scene. -Rest of the series should focus on Lift and Lopen's crazy adventures on the road from this point on, all the epic fantasy stuff isn't all that necessary.

Adaptations are bad. Say no to adaptations (especially Hollywood adaptations).

Shallan would side with Adolin in any sort of dispute and nobody who wants to live in Urithiru's protection against crashing storms will dare challenge her. Adolin is also buddies with the guy that beat Assassin in White. That's enough might to make anything right, Alethkar still runs on it. Dalinar isn't even needed. Best Ialai could do is get Adolin assassinated to push the Kaladin-Shallan narrative forward, which seems unlikely since Kaladin isn't there for now. Roion will probably be replaced by some lighteyes of his camp we haven't seen before, dead highprinces seem to be replaced by their strongest brightlord (which is probably usually their own son), and Sadeas will probably have a similar new character successor for Ialai to slot in or she'll straight up become highprincess herself. Amaram lost his rep among Alethi court so he's unlikely to get anywhere unless he starts waving around Taln.

This is one of the best things ever.

I liked it. Best of Sanderson after Emperor's Soul. Szeth became a Looney Toon and/or Popeye before the end. It was awesome. Then he got the crazy sword of craziness. It's very hard to wait for their buddy cop routine that's no doubt gonna happen in the next book. They'll fight crime! Herald Dread is both interesting and boring at the same time. He's interesting because of his background and actions and boring for being a cliche lawful stupid. Kaladin was paddling water and getting nowhere when he wasn't interacting with Syl/Adolin/Shallan. Luckily it picked up and ended well. Moash was a nice foil for showing him how he can still turn out badly. Windrunning is a bit too flashy though. The climactic battle was getting ridiculous and distracting from characters. I doubt Sanderson will fall into the starwars prequel pit, but it's there. Shallan got the best scene of the book with the much anticipated murder. Her growth comes off as much more relatable than Kaladin's, possibly because how over the top grimdark Kaladin's situation was. Then again, Kaladin was starring in Bridge Over River Kwai while Shallan went all Bourne Identity on us so "relatable" isn't really correct either way. Her flashbacks are filling in for the requisite grimdark too, so in total Shallan>Kaladin. Dalinar was a bit overshadowed by everything else going on. Spotlight was mostly on Adolin, which is cool. He's a cool guy who does cool things. He got lots of points for that magnificent Shallan date and broing it up with Kal. Also removing Sadeas was probably the most useful thing anybody had done so far. Then Dalinar went and bonded Stormfather, reclaiming badassery throne. Poor Adolin will never ever get out of dad's shadow. The chasm scenes were seriously great, everything was cool down there. We should've had some outsider perspective for the ending however. It would've been much better to see the reactions to Shallan and Kaladin return from the chasms from somebody other than the main protagonists. A Sadeas viewpoint there would have been soooo great. Alas it wasn't meant to be. Hopefully internet won't get clogged with rabid shipper wars now that a possible triangle has been established. (who am I kidding?) Jasnah managed to surprise twice. Killing her randomly was a big twist. In retrospect, going the way of wise mentor figure seemed really fitting and normal for her. Then she reappered to spite the old cliche and everything was happy sunshine. While I know Parshendi won't become generic orcs, it's still somewhat disappointing to see them suddenly becoming fulltime evil minions. Renarin came out of nowhere and wasn't very interesting either. Perhaps he'll get better. Elhokar may as well be a failspren. Seems everything he's ever done, including picking a wife, generates nothing but failure. It's entertaining. And that duel... Dat duel!!1!one!!11! It was the most pro wrestling scene ever written in the history of fantasy literature. "You're going down Sadeas!" "Amaram! I'm calling you out!"

Shallan must get into a triangle with the brothers, if only to mirror the previous generation (with delicious running commentary from Dalinar and Navani). Symmetry begs for it (which is a pretty strong theme so far in SA). Doesn't matter what happens ultimately but triangle must form. I really want Sadeas to never die. His presence on the chopping block of redemption is glaringly obvious and I'd like that averted. So long as he survives I'm down for anything, up to and including him inheriting Honor (if Sanderson somehow managed that there'd be no minds left unblown). Amaram, however, will not survive. He's likely to become a loyal follower and sacrifice himself for Kaladin or something for bonus irony. Elhokar is such a douche. He's infinitely worse than Elend started as, so he has a lot of room for cool stuff. Or a quick and ignoble death. I'd be fine with either but the fact that he sees symbolheads makes me think he'll stick around. Everyone talking about age seem to have forgotten Allrianne. If Sanderson let some teen whippersnapper get away with seducing a forty something guy, why would he shy away from pairing up Kaladin and Jasnah? Not that he's obligated to have pairs with age differences, but there's no reason to assume it can't happen. Besides Shallan must get on with that triangle and Kaladin doesn't look like he'd have any positive opinion of her if he got to know her. I'm half imagining a scene where Kaladin returns triumphant to Hearthstone to learn that his father went off the deep end and killed Roshone. It'd be a pretty dramatic scene it's very unlikely. I'm also envisioning Shallan inexplicably becoming more and more powerful. She already has a Blade and can Soulcast so if she were to start training, I could easily see her defeat some random Shardbearer and take his armor. Then she somehow acquires Szeth's oathstone and gains the most powerful and dangerous servant on Roshar. Afterwards she learns voidbinding from some new type of spren, finds a certain item Hoid forgot to take and gains strange powers never seen on Roshar from it, invents a way to reanimate chasmfiend corpses with Stormlight infusion, is bitten by a radioactive spider, glues together splinters of Honor and inherits the reforged Shard, and then beats up Odium. It's a mildy amusing sequence but alas it's just not meant to be. Taravangian interests me most. That's a guy who has problems. He reminds me of Hrathen and Kelsier minus massive badassery or charisma: the monster with noble goal. I guess he won't survive to the end but when he'll go down and how much he'll screw over the world in his misguided efforts remains to be seen. Or I'll be caught offguard and he'll end up saving the world. Both options are cool. I also want more wacky hijinks of spren collector. He doesn't have to have anything to do with main story but I'd love to see him in a more bizarre and improbable situation each book looking for a more bizarre and elusive type of spren in a new exotic location. That guy is the best.

Chasms are narrow enough that scouts can jump over them with poles. It was somewhere in the book. Also they never go back the same route so they always push from high to low.

In WoA, "compound" seems to mean "increase something a whole lot with Feruchemy" almost as if Feruchemical equivalent of flaring. But in Alloy, it seems to mean "burn a Feruchemical storage with Allomancy to get a lot of power" as in: But there's also a bit that implies first one in Alloy: Wax can't possibly be Compounding by second definition because his Allomancy and Feruchemy don't match. I'm not sure what to make of this. Without that last bit I'd assume Compound had been retconned, but with it I'm confused. Is this a mistake, did that word actually change meaning on Scadrial or is there something weird going on?

Pretty sure the same thing he thought every time he saw anyone: "Get off my lawn."

I'm pretty certain that it takes live humans to make a koloss. And considering their frenzy, I'm sure koloss armies kill a lot more people than they incapacitate. Therefore there must be at minimum as many dead people as there were kolossified. Also from Lord Ruler's death onwards, there were a lot of war happening in the background between dozens of upstart kings. There was a mention of a village where all men and food were taken for some warlord's army (who all subsequently died in a war somewhere), which was I assume a regular event in the countryside. While these individual warmongers' a few thousand bodycounts wouldn't be that impressive compared to millions from koloss, there were a lot of those guys. Adding in the starvation and banditry and general anarchy, that'd mean whatever population Final Empire had, a large fraction of it didn't survive. (And all of this is only on bodycount, we don't think too much on what sort of nonmassmurdery crap people would be doing to each other in an end of the world setting where all rules of society are gone. Mistborn is a very grim story.)

I'm proud to proclaim that that's what she said.

They're all physical aspects, and even the same material far as I understand. If you melted and boiled Atium you'd get the black fog Vin saw when going to Well and if you froze the liquid from Well you'd get another nugget like Elend ate. Cognitive aspect is on whole planet, which is why Ruin and Preservation can see everywhere and hear everything. I have no idea what/where Spiritual aspects are though.

Preservation is god of status quo. Initiating a collosal change such as destroying both deities of the planet would be against its nature. Not that he could; Ruin had no idea that Vin could actually attack him, because attacking is too close to destroying. The best Preservation could do without going against its own Intent was imprisoning Ruin. The only reason Vin can even manage to attack is because of Ruin essence within herself, she explains that at the end. I'll bet good money that if Preservation was taken up by someone from another world, they wouldn't be able to harm Ruin either. Of the Shards we've heard of so far, only Ruin and Odium (and maybe Dominion) would be allowed to attack without going against their Intent. Well, Dominion could presumably attack but only to beat up and force into submission, and maaaybe Devotion could attack in order to protect something but don't quote me on that, and Cultivation could maybe possibly sorta kinda allow destruction of one thing to make something better in its place but the required jumps in logic to justify destroying gets larger as you move away from Ruin (even Odium would prefer to make it hurt instead of simply destroying). But I digress. I believe any human species that doesn't contain a bit of a destructive Shard within would find themselves unable to attack anything upon becoming Preservation, which is why Preservation had to make such a needlessly complicated masterplan to destroy his enemy. E: Also a new single god that can Ruin and Preserve would be a much better defender of Scadrial in case of Alien Invaders (such as Odium). But I have no idea if Preservation considered that angle.

Another and completely unrelated observation (that I don't want to start another silly thread for): Today I realized that Popeye jingle must be played when Vin discovers and drinks the vial of metal during Elend's failing rescue attempt at Kredik Shaw.

The idea occurred to me that if Lord Ruler had allowed someone to invent condom, noblemen wouldn't be required by law to kill skaa women. That was one of the major ingredients that made skaa angry enough to rebel and this bit of technological progress could've kept the masses a lot more docile, and keeping Lord Ruler's chull on the throne even longer. While he'd probably be overthrown somehow anyway due to divine meddling, this idea is highly amusing. Also, [insert terrible hemalurgy joke here]

Maths? Pff. In other news, I obviously meant 4 groups like the metals and not at all 3 like the realms. Clearly there wasn't a mix up due to not looking up the aforementioned theory...

It seems clear that the difference between Ruin and Odium is the one between being killed and being killed horribly followed by eternal suffering in afterlife. So far the only afterlifely things we've seen in cosmere is Sazed's word that it exists and the hell Heralds go to between Desolations. Ruin seemed to have absolutely no interest in afterlife aka Spiritual Realm, while Odium is definitely involved somehow with Herald hell. I've seen a theory around here that groups Shards into Physical, Cognitive and Spiritual much like Allomantic metals. I liked that, it looked logical. If that's true and Ruin is a physical shard, he is concerned only with destroying Physical Realm; while Odium isn't so his reach extends to (or maybe even exists solely in) Spiritual Realm. Whether this theory is true or not, Ruin is done when you're dead but Odium is only getting started.

While this is not the correct thread, I didn't find the proper one for Final Empire and it doesn't seem to warrant a new thread so there it is: Mistborn Final Empire softcover p. 226: "Kell's fine," Breeze said. I'm sure that's Dockson, Breeze isn't there. However this may or may not be too late to report that.

Word counts are more or less: Elantris 200k. Final Empire 213k. Well of Ascension 248k. Hero of Ages 236k. Warbreaker 201k. Way of Kings 380k.

I'm fully expecting a Knowledge/Learning/Illumination. It's bound to happen, all sorts of funky twists and magics can happen with omniscience concept. I also wouldn't be surprised if Bavadin is a Fear/Horror/Terror/Insanity/Dementia analogy. That would be worse than destruction but not as terrible as ill intent. Other concept clusters that look somewhat likely: Stasis/Permenancy/Equilibrium/Balance, Imagination/Creativity/Art, Health/Life/Wellbeing/Vitality (which kinda drifts toward Cultivation) and Happiness/Joy/Mirth/Humor. A Shardworld ruled by Art would be awesome. They'd use the power of ROCK!!! Actually no, that'd be terrible. Scratch that. How about the world of Humor where the chief weapon is satire, satire and pun... The two chief weapons! Are satire and pun and pop culture references... But wait, no, that'd also be horrible... There's definitely a reason why I'm not a writer.

ME3 basically has the worst ending that exists. I'd dismissed that claim up until the very last 10 minutes because it'd been solid gold for 30 hours. While it may not be objectively the worst ending for anything ever, the preceding 30 hours of awesome, plus the 50-80 hours invested from first games, makes it exponentially worse. And simply cutting those abominable 10 minutes without doing anything else would've been more than enough to make it great, seeing how there's an incredibly fitting endlike sequence right before the huge pile of radioactive crap. I don't think I've ever seen an overzealous internet outcry be as justified as this. It really does ruin ME forever, then jumps into a time machine to retroactively ruin entire series from start. ME3 must go down into literary history as a shining example of how not to end a story. Comparing the end to the bulk of the game, it looks almost deliberate. Plus latest situation seems like Bioware intends to sell the actual ending for extra $$$. Which is totally rad.

Cluck.

Hurray. Speaking of which, this could be the beginning of some sort of new fad around here, as demonstrated by the Vin one above. ... Further gushing: Leras and Ati don't need any explanation. Lord Ruler wasn't like a boss. He was the boss. Boss of the whole world, for a thousand years. Plus everything he did, he did for the world. Or at least tried to. Shame he went nuts but I'm sure no mortal could stay nonnuts in his position. Vin is full of win. It took Sanderson a whole trilogy to explain her awesomeness, me trying here would be so pointless. Hrathen is the perfect villain: he's strong, he's smart, he's dedicated, he has a PLAN; who goes off like a champ at the end, after conquering his own failings. Dalinar has already been gushed on adequately in this thread. Kelsier is Batman. True story. He'd be right at home in a superhero comics universe. Stuff we like about superheroes applies for Kelsier. Denth on the other hand, is more or less Kelsier's mirror image. He could hang out with Kelsier in that comics universe as his evil twin/nemesis. Stuff we like about supervillains applies for Denth.