Jump to content

Millennium

Members
  • Posts

    102
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Millennium's Achievements

25

Reputation

  1. Brandon stated what it would take for Odium to leave Roshar, and stated that it would be very difficult: leaving some part of his power behind or ripping it out. But he never actually said that Odium didn't do it, one way or another. Is it possible that his visit to Sel is what left him "broken"? This could also explain why he only went to Sel, and hasn't gone hopping from world to world on a Shard-killing rampage since then. He can travel, but it's very difficult (maybe painful?), and so he needs time to recover between trips. Not as much time as it takes for a Splintered Shard to heal, or else he wouldn't bother, but on the order of centuries.
  2. My theory is that spren are creatures of probability. When something is likely to occur, it attracts the spren. In turn, the spren -just by the mere fact of their presence- increase the likelihood that it will occur. They cannot quite increase it to 100% -the deathspren came for Kaladin, but he did not die- but other than that, we don't really know what extent their influence has. Syl seems to think that she causes things. But she's also very new to being a "smart spren," so there is still a lot of room for her to be mistaken: this could be that special breed of ignorance that comes from knowing just enough to think you know everything. I think it's likely that smart spren can exercise some control over their influence, but can they control it to a point where they start causing things? I think that's a lot less certain. Brandon seems to be going for a quantum "feel" here. Why doesn't Dalinar have an honorspren? This may be a form of cosmic irony. The world itself has come to recognize just how harsh this world has become: it's so unlikely for a nobleman (or, perhaps, anyone?) to form truly deep bonds or hold real honor that honorspren are no longer attracted to them. Thus, Dalinar does not have one. But since he now has a man with an honorspren working for him, and spren raise the probability of their chosen concepts (if my theory holds), maybe Syl will be the catalyst that allows an honorspren to find him.
  3. That depends on where he fell. If he were to destroy some important support structure, the building could indeed come down. The thing about Allomantic Pushing is that it's Newtonian. Strictly speaking, you do not apply a force to an object: you apply a force between you and the object. If you and the object were floating in space, you would both move, though whichever of you or the object has less mass will move faster than whichever has more. On a planet, other forces (like friction with the ground) have an effect on how they move, and can have an effect on how each object is affected proportionally. This is important, because it explains the thing about changes in mass. When you tap weight, your Pushing force does not get any stronger, but the objects you Push will "feel more" of the force you apply. This is why you can Push light objects faster than heavy ones: the actual mass of the object doesn't matter as much as how much lighter it is than you, or the reverse. It makes sense that people might think of this as being able to Push more objects, or Push them faster, but in terms of the physics behind it, that's not really how it works. Incidentally, if you are ever sentenced to execution by firing squad, a good last request would be for them to shoot you with guns that are lighter than their bullets.
  4. Yeah, I'm not sure how reliable Shallan would be as a KR-finder. She can see things other people can't, but she can't see what isn't there, and bonded spren aren't shoulder-dragons. But even if that weren't an issue, she'd still have to recognize the bonded spren for what it is. I'm not sure how she'd do that from a single Memory, because Syl still looks like a windspren: a little more complex and detailed than most, perhaps, but I'm not sure that's enough to be especially remarkable. If Syl were to consistently hang around Kaladin in a whole bunch of Memories, that would certainly attract attention, but it would require Shallan to take a lot of Memories and draw a lot of sketches before she even knew there was something to look for. Then again, we've only seen Book 1, and Syl has already gone through quite a lot of transformation. It's possible that over time, she'll start to look even more distinctive than before, and that could clue Shallan in much sooner.
  5. We know that Preservation altered Allomancy and Feruchemy alike, to insert atium into the systems. It's possible that other Shards have meddled in "their" own systems as well, and that what Splintering really does is to return the system to its unaltered state.
  6. I'd imagine that any muscle mass gained from working out while pewter-enhanced would transfer proportionally to the non-enhanced self, but only proportionally. Using the time-honored tradition of numeres ex recto for my numbers here, you might have to bench press 500 pounds while pewter-enhanced to get the same benefits as bench pressing 100 pounds while non-enhanced. In other words, you could do it, but it wouldn't really provide much in the way of extra benefit.
  7. I'd guess that much like Allomancers, Feruchemists have some limited protection from the toxic effects of the metals they use. Eating them would certainly be a bad idea: even Allomancers can be poisoned by metals they ingest but don't burn, and most Feruchemists don't have the burning option. It might even be a bad idea to handle their metalminds unless actively storing or tapping. But as long as they're engaged in Feruchemical stuff, they probably don't have to worry about toxicity.
  8. IIRC, there have been hints that sDNA is at least partly about literal, physical DNA. But even if you have the right physical genes, there might still be a spiritual component that regular genetic engineering cannot transfer. As for the differences in terminology: before the Lord Ruler, there were no Mistborn. All Allomancers were Mistings, and "Allomancy" was the generic term for burning a metal. It was only after the Well of Ascension (and, more to the point, lerasium) was discovered that people needed a new term to describe those who could burn more than one metal, and since "Allomancer" was essentially already taken, the name Mistborn was coined. With Feruchemy, though, it was the reverse: until the death of the Lord Ruler, there were no Ferrings. Any Feruchemist could use all metals (though some metals hadn't been discovered), and so no separate term was needed for them: one Feruchemist was much like another, except for varying specialties. It was only during the time of Harmony, and the subsequent weakening of the feruchemical bloodlines, that a new term was needed for people who could use only one Feruchemical metal.
  9. Correct me if I'm wrong, but have we actually seen a Skaze at this point?
  10. This. Shadesmar exists in empty space, it's just very small. The gulf between worlds might be so small in Shadesmar that Hoid can just jump over it: literal worldhopping. One thing I found interesting is that where there is land on Roshar, there are seas in Shadesmar, and vice versa. I would imagine that the Cognitive aspect of a body of water is reflected in Shadesmar as land. That's an interesting counterpoint to the concept of a Shardpool: the Cognitive aspect of a Shard, reflected in the Physical realm as a pool of liquid. But there doesn't seem to be any liquid in Shadesmar that we've seen: the seas are instead made of these small glass-like beads. Why is the Cognitive aspect of a world so large in Shadesmar, when the Cognitive aspects of everything else are so small there? Or are there larger Cognitive aspects of things, and we just haven't seen them yet?
  11. Well, I've got a new question for Brandon now: If you had to place all 16 Shards into a chart, what shape would you find most informative? A square? A wheel? A star? A tesseract? Something else?
  12. Yeah, but they didn't specify which weapons. Lan would slice Tam up into a million pieces, then look down and notice that he'd been shot 16 times before Tam went down. End result: draw.
  13. Many kingdoms have been de facto ruled for a time by the king's advisers, while a mad (or bad) king dithers about looking like a king and not doing much else. It's not the greatest thing for a kingdom's health as a civilization, but it is survivable, and depending on how problematic the actual king is, it can be better than the alternative. Kharbranth is probably set up to look like this. No doubt the advisers believe that it is. For some specific advisers with especially demanding tasks, or responsibilities that Taravangian considers lower-priority than his own projects, it might even be true (though not for the reason they think). Meanwhile, Taravangian manipulates the other advisers from behind the scenes, getting them to do his will while thinking it's all their own ideas.
  14. Last I heard, none of his young-adult works (Alcatraz, Steelheart, Rithmatist, etc) are part of the Cosmere. That might change in the future, but I don't think it has as of now.
  15. Maybe, though the Nightwatcher might not see things that way. It's possible that when she decided to give him that curse, she did so knowing what he would do with his boon.
×
×
  • Create New...