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I don't know, I kind of love the build up to getting a new Stormlight book. Oathbringer was the first time I was following the whole process, and with readings at signings, the Reddit updates, cover and art reveals and the entirety of part one being released as sample chapters week by week the wait is almost as fun as getting the actual book. Especially the discussions and speculation after each weeks sample chapters. I’m really, really looking forward to all of this for RoW.

I wish the cover would show an actual Singer form! may be Eshonai in warform

TOR just confirmed Stormlight 4 will be released 11.17 of 2020. Here's the cover summary they posted on the pre-order link landing page: After forming a coalition of human resistance against the enemy invasion, Dalinar Kholin and his Knights Radiant have spent a year fighting a protracted, brutal war. Neither side has gained an advantage. Now, as new technological discoveries begin to change the face of the war, the enemy prepares a bold and dangerous operation. The arms race that follows will challenge the very core of the Radiant ideals and potentially reveal the secrets of the ancient tower that was once the heart of their strength. Let us discus.

Miss out on events like the swarm of pre-oathbringer theorizing, and the constant speculative ramblings that is these forums and discord... As well as watching theories be vindicated or crushed when books arrive, with time to formulate more between? No way! This community is more than half the joy of the books. I pity those who aren't aware of it and miss the opportunities for discussion and entertaining arguments.

That’s why I’m glad I was late to the Wheel of Time party

Deveraux Dufor casually stabbed backwards with his sword, a nice steel long-sword, to kill an eldritch abomination. He had heard it coming towards him for the past ten minutes at least, stalking closer and closer, sniffing him out with, with what he now saw as he turned towards it, an unnatural 37 nostrilled nose. Seriously, it was like an over-sized trunk or shaft of flesh, with 37 holes in it. But enough of that. Deveraux, or Storm, as more people knew him, continued to stride purposely through the shifting Alleyways. He'd spent a lot of time here in the past twenty-odd years, and he was quite used to it's rules by now. Though, that didn't diminish the danger. Even now, his compounded tin hearing let him know that there were a multitude of other creatures all around him. Now, he was sure he'd come far enough, any moment now... abruptly his surroundings changed, and he was standing somewhere outside the walls of Alleycity. Yes, he was where he wanted to be. Rusts he thought, looking up at the walls, This place has changed so much. He’d sworn he wouldn’t come back here. Sworn to never return to this place of Memories. Somewhere in those walls, was where he’d had himself stripped away. Swing had thought he was ready, but.. Harmony, Swing. He fell to his knees. Not Here, damnation it. He was shaking, by Preservation’s wings, he was shaking. This is why I swore to never come back here. But he’d had too. Once he’d heard of the state of TUBA. The memories passed, and he picked himself up. He sheathed his sword, and walked along the walls for a time, until he was approaching the gates. He pulled his cloak tighter around him, and pulled on his hood. As he made his way into Alleycity proper, he looked around at the buildings. Many of them seemed.. alien. He’d seen the beginnings pf skyscrapers in Elendel, sure. But the buildings here were sleeker, and reflective; like towers of glass. So much had changed. Despite the changes, the streets themselves were still familiar enough, even after all this time. Deveraux made his way to the TUBA headquarters, which, while still in the same location, was several stories taller. Offhandedly, he wondered if the old Terminals were still in use. He opened the door, walking up to the reception desk to find an aging man sitting leafing through a magazine. He thought he recognized the man, hadn’t he been involved with the creatin of the Terminals, actually? What was his name though, Gared maybe? Yes, his nametag confirmed. Gared looked up from his reading. “Can I help you?” He asked evenly, in a somewhat gravelly tone. “Yes,” Deveraux replied. “I need to speak with Deteca, immediately.” Gared looked surprised. “Oh, well.. er.. you’ll have to fill out some paperwork before you can--” he cut off. He seemed to finally be taking in the man standing in front of him. Deveraux lowered his hood. “St-Storm!?” Gared stammered. “I’d prefer if you called me Deveraux, but yes. It’s me.” He replied flatly. “I, uh—right. Of course. I’ll get a message to Deteca right away!” Gared pulled a small mobile from his pocket, and tapped the screen in a manner that made Deveraux dizzy. He’d of course heard of and seen mobiles before. They were like complex and advanced spanreeds. They had existed for a good number of years now, but had not been prevalent in Alleycity until the “towers” that powered them had been erected. Regardless, He would probably need to take advantage of them. His plans.. well, he’d get to that when he came to it. Shortly, an assistant came and lead him to an elevator, which shot downwards. They disembarked, and made their way through several winding hallways, to a smaller meeting room. Now he would just have to wait until Deteca arrived.

SOURCE: https://ectojazzmage.tumblr.com/post/172468159521/a-summary-of-the-cosmere#notes (beware of swears) So yeah, not mine.

If we don't find out how Mem got the aether out of Mraize's Azish cavalrylords suit, I'm gunna be pissed.

I am kind of jealous of the future readers of the Stormlight Archive. Because one day when the series is finished someone could pick up The Way Of Kings and be finished with the whole series in like a year. They will not understand the pain of having to wait for each book to release, Mostly because they couldn’t have our pain.

So khriss mentions in AU that in 300 yrs , Scadrial has made immense progress . We have seen it first hand in BoM. She also posits that without Tlr , the technology would already be space age or post scarcity. But on Roshar , it has been 4500 yrs since the last desolation and it's still in the middle age. Now I understand that Roshar and Scadrial are quite different. Scadrial doesn't have to deal with Highstorms destroying railways and other such inventions. The shardblades also serve to deincentivize guns and explosives. But even considering those factors, Roshar is extremely backward in scientific progress and technology. On Scadrial we have seen the magic system used in novel ways to fuel technology. Yet , Roshar which has Fabriel-istics, an entire magic/science system which requires only scientific research to perfect it is still so backward !!!! Anyone could do it at any time and yet , Even among spanreeds and heating fabriels ,it's only in the past 5-6 yrs that any great progress has been made in them. This progress, however , has been extremely rapid. Spanreeds, halfshards, painriels, heating fabriels , Greatbows , alarmers , emotion sensors , stormclocks ,attractors have all been devised or perfected only in the last half decade. The information based economy of Tashikk also seems recent. Then you have the hints at other Fabriels such as Navani's drawings of an inverse ship and the floating platforms which imply heavier than air flight or maybe even spacecraft. The discovery about the flamespren obeying an Heisenberg uncertainty principle analog by the ardents in the isles in WoK is also extremely recent and a breakthrough as well. Isn't it strange that these the requirements for these discoveries/improvements have been in place for millenia and yet it is only now that the potential is crystallizing ? The Vorin kingdoms have had extremely literate women and ardents studying natural sciences for millenia. The Spren have been there even longer. The Soulcasters and Regrowth fabriels were present and endured even during the desolations. The knights radiant have been gone for 2 millenia or so , allowing for fabriels to fill in the gaps. Indeed Roshar seems to have gone through technological regression since the last desolation losing every Regrowth fabriel. And now all of a sudden , just a few years before the Resurgent desolation, large strides have been made in technology . There is another curiosity , this growth has occured only in Alethkar and Jah keved . The other regions have simply imbibed them without making any original contributions. Why has real growth not occured in the Makabaki region which seems just as suitable for creativity and innovation to flourish ? It's more suitable actually , since they don't have gender or eye colour barriers to literacy , they generally have experienced greater peace than alethkar and instead have had to face a greater range of difficulties like famines for example ( Baxil's friend mentions one in living memory ), all of which foster innovation I think the answer is that there is an Unmade whose power is analogous to Nergaoul who caused the Thrill While Nergaoul enrages one's emotions , , I believe this Unmade smothers one's intellect or more likely , perhaps the positive emotions scientific curiosity arouses . Making them incapable or atleast less likely to exhibit innovation. This is similar to how soothing and rioting form a pair in allomancy. . This would explain why Roshar has been so backward in technology , even tho it had lots of time and potential. It's possible Odium used futuresight to see that technological growth would severely harm his cause Or perhaps he saw how much stronger humans became once Soulcasters and Regrowth fabriels were granted to them. So perhaps when Odium went hibernating , he realized the peacetime would allow technology to flourish and hence , he tasked one of the Unmade with strangling innovation. I think this Unmade would not have been mindless like Nergaoul , since it's task required much more precision. Also note that Soothing generally requires greater precision than Rioting. This seems to be true on Roshar as well. I also believe that this Unmade had a greater geographic range than Nergaoul or Moelech. Nergaoul settled in Alethkar until the thrill became an important part of Alethi culture and war drive , whereas Moelach moved adopted a more nomadic lifestyle , moving from one region to another dragging death rattles along with it. Our Unmade however had to cover all of Roshar. Technology has a way of spreading from one region to another , leave one small region and any tech they invent would soon spread across the continent, hence this was an absolute requirement. No region could be spared. It makes sense. Odium left Nergaoul loose to prevent political unity in roshar and Nergaoul has succeded. The 10 highly interconnected Silver kingdoms have all gotten smaller or fragmented or gone extinct and got more isolated as well. Many regions in central roshar are either unpopulated or at tribal levels of political organization. I think Nergaoul is atleast partially responsible for this situation. The Alethi unification was a freak occurrence , a deviation. Indeed , it would have been short lived too if not for the events that occured , mainly Gavilar's assassination, as we know Sadeas was planning on seizing power , Elkohar was weak ,Dalinar would have remained a drunk. Alethkar would have broken down again as it did after Sadees the Sunmaker died. So Nergaoul inhibited political unity , whereas our Unmade inhibited technological growth. As for why this smothering effects have ceased , atleast in Eastern Roshar , I believe the Sons of Honor were responsible. We know about the blacklighted gems Gavilar had and Navani says that gavilar thought he had created them. Could it be that Gavilar and the SoH , had imprisoned the part of the Unmade over Eastern Roshar ? Maybe they thought this would lead to technological growth ( a proven assumption ) which would force Odium into coming back soon , which in turn would force the heralds to return. Maybe this was one of the reasons Odium manipulated Gavilar's assassination, except Rayse didn't plan on Szeth fulfilling Gavilar's dying wish and hiding the gemstone. I think it's imprisonment is somewhat akin to Ruin's imprisonment. Like Ruin's mind was imprisoned. Similarly maybe the Unmade's mind along with part of it's body is imprisoned. The rest of it is now covering most of Roshar and smothering growth by instinct. And I admit , this following point is really teneous, but jasnah and I believe Navani too , saw a marked shift in Gavilar's personality towards the end right . Could that also be linked to the Unmade ? Maybe Gavilar was always smart , but the Unmade had suppressed that aspect of him ? Navani too seemingly went through a similar if less striking change in personality. It is only in recent years that she has immersed herself in fabriel science and while Gavilar's death and her exclusion from her usual social circles could be most of the reason. I don't think that's all. After all she could contributed more as an artifabrian even when Gavilar was alive . From what I know she was active in the community before but only later ,after becoming a widow does she show great creativity and innovation. Similarly , Maybe it was also a factor in turning Dalinar from a simpleminded brute to a philosopher. Of course , Cultivation and Honor's visions and Gavilar's death all effected him but still him going all philosophical to such an extent is a marked difference from his earlier personality in such a short term. So what do y'all think ?

Huh, we get to really experience “journey before destination” while reading these books!

The novella we never knew we needed until now.

We are told that it does in Shadows of Self I believe. It's in the bit where they talk about MeLaan having not read any of Sazed's books. It is in fact used as a defense for Survivorism. Frankly I've just always been confused, because I figure Sazed would have included Kelsier starting a religion specifically to start a revolution, and it seems like that would create some theological issues. Not that they're irreconcilable, I just want to know how they deal with the record basically being, "Oh yeah, your god made that stuff up about his own divinity." Survivorists probably use his brief divinity to elevate him, showing that he is a good enough person to step down from divinity to allow someone else to follow in his footsteps or something. Really, I just want to know more about the religion in general.

Far and away I choose Dalinar. He has, after Oathbringer become my favorite Sanderson character

And as always, these things are strangely satisfying

It gets even better:

We have seen a shallan drawing of Urithiru. There is some awesome fanart of Parshendi warriors but i want to see an actual Singer form by Brandon on the cover!

As to the blades sapience... It seems quite clearly to be more than a simple awakened object. And frankly, I think it's exactly what Nightblood should have been if it's creation hadn't gone so completely wrong. Nightblood is not a normal type IV. I think that the Ruin in Nightblood is very similar to what Autonomy did in turning Patji, a naturally occurring piece of Autonomy's power, into an Avatar. I think the circumstances and command used tapped into a naturally occurring pocket of Ruin's Investiture, creating a mixed splinter of Ruin and Endowment, with no involvement or knowledge on Ruin's part. Which is also why I think that the blade was not made by Vivenna, but by Yesteel. And why Vasher is on Roshar and seemingly so morose. Per the Warbreaker Annotations, we know that Yesteel knew the secret to making type IV's. At the end of Warbreaker, Vasher and Vivenna are leaving to deal with Yesteel. The only living person we know of who definitely knows how to make a type IV. And the next time we see Vivenna, she has what is almost definitely a type IV... Combine that with the fact that Vasher killed his wife to prevent the creation of more blades like Nightblood, and I don't think for a moment he'd have helped her to do so, or to have been accepting of her attempting to do so herself. But if Yesteel created one and they dealt with him, there's a very real reason for another to exist... And for Vasher to have discovered that the thing he killed his wife for, the atrocity he was trying to prevent, isn't at all like Nightblood. So he flees to Roshar, ditches the sword, and buries himself in a new life away from everything that could remind him of what he did, and what he left behind. It puts this exchange with Kaladin in a completely understandable light.

Memes! you know what to do. I'll start us off!

So a little story setup: Kindergarten classes took a field trip to this Santa Storyteller thing....honestly it was extremely underwhelming. Santa was looking rustic and pretty neat, but for entertainment he told long disjointed deadpan stories ("Holly the green nosed reindeer" ??? I think he was making stuff up on the spot) and then would play parts of Christmas songs on his guitar, but the words weren't the same that everyone knew so kids were confused. So we've got like 75+ kids looking intrigued but also a little weirded out. The reason I put this story in this thread: At one part he's talking and holds up a small jar with red glitter in it. He says something like, "This is my sparkly love jar. Do you know what I put in this jar? It's something very important, and it lives in your heart." And he pauses for an answer. And into the silence one boy says, in this awed hushed whisper, "It's blood." And Santa turns and looks at him with this concerned look. And there I am frantically trying to smother the giggles.

[Writeup to come later] Wonko was attacked by House Elariel, but survived! STINK was killed by House Hasting! Stick was attacked by House Tekiel, but survived! Snipexe has been killed by House Venture! Lemonelon has become the leader of their house and has left the game! Stick has won due to being a Kandra in service to Lemonelon. The Day will end on December 12th at 8:00 PM EST. GM Notes: -Yay! Death! Player List:

You're welcome.

I, being younger, am very late to the party with Star Wars, obviously. I get to miss out on all the anticipation building for the original or real Star Wars trilogy. It is because of this I accidentally ended up liking the prequel trilogy. Now my family has disowned me and I live in a box because nobody will hire me (not actually). In seriousness, I'm actually kind of glad we get to go through this experience. I will tell you that I didn't find Stormlight Archive until not that long ago, and I was kind of sad I wouldn't ever be able to theorize about Oathbringer. No, I didn't get years after finishing Words of Radiance to explore every avenue, every possibility ever, to go down every road. I finished it, wondered "what's gonna happen next" and picked up the next book. So there's that.

That scene if perfect. Maybe the Veristitalians will have a good scene and that is what he is referring to! I personally would love to see Jasnah Kholin queen of alethkar sneaking out of the palace with Shallan to visit a pastry shop owner who everyone knows as a women where we meet other equally diverse Veristitalians with equally awesome backstories!

He did fully Ascend. He couldn't do much with the power, but he held it. And he did give it up willingly.

Kelsier was Preservation. He Ascended. His weakness with the shard was a result of his state as a Cognitive Shadow without a tie to the Physical Realm. He was holding the Shard in truth, and released it to give to Vin. Another quite, from VenDell in BoM.

If she doesn't, the she's not the logical woman I thought she was. Every smart woman should have a cheap and easy way to access good pastry.

Yes, they are aware that Kelsier held Preservation for a time.

Agreed. It is awesome to be seeing everything from the mentor's perspective for once.

It could be. It could also be a big battle scene with all the radiants, a city awakening moment, Taln waking up and decided that he wants to open a pastry factory or Adolin and Kaladin's honeymoon.

No! I want something that raises more questions. Like... how would it feel if the Nightwatcher was on the cover? Or a planet that doesn't look like it's Roshar? Though more likely it would be something that doesn't reveal too much while still building anticipation: like Kaladin and Szeth facing off for WoR, and Jasnah Soulcasting with Thunderclast in the background for OB. For this one... Urithiru, perhaps?

Oathbringer's cover was released in March, so we probably still have a few months to go. Still, this announcement is making me so excited to see the cover. I'm hoping it's not as monochromatic as OB's was.

One Ookla to print White Sands, and in the darkness bind them.

Truthless gasped in horror. All of Potatoes pins, without him even moving? That was... That was supposed to be impossible! Part of the ancient magic, banished by Pins of Light! With hope fleeting, Truthless did the unthinkable. He pulled out his hidden third eye, the one that had yet to fail him. The shining eye had a beautiful golden iris, and was pearly white all the way around, untouched by red veins. He felt the familiar weight rolling around in his hands. He shook his hands a couple of times, then looked his eye in the eye. "Alright eye, don't fail me now," Truthless whispered. A single tear coalesced around the eyeball, and dropped into Truthless' hand. A deep breath in, and a deep breath out. There was little more Truthless could do to prepare. Truthless swung back his arm, windmilling it for a couple of seconds, then let go of the golden eye. It shot forward, flying like a spherical angel. Truthless had never seen something so beautiful in all of his life! It wasn't until it reached halfway down the lane that it began to wobble. Time seemed to slow down as the eyeball spun in an ever-so-slightly different direction, and the eyeball began to curve. It was slight at first, unnoticeable by the untrained eye perhaps, but by the time that the eyeball had reached the 3/4 mark, it was clear what was going to happen. In the course of a few milliseconds, the ball curved wildly, making an almost 90° turn, mere centimeters away from the bowling pin. It flew straight into the gutter. All around him, Truthless heard a collective gasp. A thud announced that a woman had even fainted. As the crowd quieted, there was only one sound that reached Truthless' ears. Potato's laughter. Well... rather his retainer's laughter. But Truthless only smiled. He knew what they did not. The eyeball he threw was no ordinary eyeball. It was a special eyeball, crafted by the holy Pins of Light, a reward for managing to to knock down of only one their ten members, a feat only a select few mortals could hope to achieve. With this eyeball came the promise that he would win, no matter what. And so, he kept on smiling. Moments passed by like an eternity. Truthless held his breath, and almost turned back to the crowd. But at the last possible second... BOOM The back wall of the bowling alley blew apart. Flaming unicorns and boiling whipped cream flew everywhere, but most importantly of all, pins. Hundreds of them, from all the different lanes flew through the air. Truthless had managed not only to get a strike in his lane, but every other lane in the alley. "Ladies and gentlemen," Truthless said, turning to the crowd. "You have a winner."

When you don't do any of your homework because you're too busy binding (another) printed version of White Sand. (I changed up the colors, so it's more Darkside-y compared to the first one, which was Dayside-y) (And I also just fixed some stuff that bugged me about my first attempt) (I also added some bits n bobs that were totally unnecessary but I love them) (as you can see, I just love experimenting with bookbinding) (Am I going to make little notebooks for my entire family for Christmas? Yes. I am.)

When you are so excited that there is a release date for Stormlight 4 that you don't do any of the homework you're supposed to do. When you use scud in a variety of classes and when people actually knew what I was talking about I was very excited.

Could Navani have created her floating ship now repurposed for war?

There has to be a I-really-need-to-pee spren, right?

Previous WoB has shown that the names of many of our favorite Northern Scadrians from the Central Dominance sound French. Without “hearing” the language or seeing it written, we can only assume it, as a whole, is French sounding. source As I’ve been re-reading BoM, I noticed that Allik’s use of language sounded distinct from what we’ve been accustomed to from Northern Scadrial. His words reminded me of a Germanic language. I first noticed this when he used the medallion to speak in the language of our protagonists, because he kept ending sentences with “yah”. This is the same sound that the word “yes” in German makes, and is spelled “ja”. Then came the word “Jaggenmire” that didn’t translate to our protagonists’ language. Marasi tried to pronounce it and came up with the following: She hears the “Ja” sound as a “yay” sound, which is similar to Allik’s frequent use of “yah”. This was further evidence to me that Allik’s language is Germanic in nature. Now it was time to dig deeper, and find other words to help provide evidence for my hypothesis. After further research, I think his language is actually linguistically similar to Northern Germanic— i.e., Scandinavian, specifically Danish. (Note, Denmark is literally just north of Germany.) I started my linguistic sleuthing with Allik’s name and googled German names similar to “Allik”, and came up with the following list (with their meanings): · Alrik: “Noble Leader” · Aldrik: Noble Friend” It appears that the shared root is “Noble”. Maybe this means something about who Allik will be one day? However, these names added an extra consonant, so I kept looking and found the name “Alek” in Danish. Alek is short for Aleksander, which means “Defender of Men”. Is this where Allik gets his name from? Will he be a defender of Southern Scandrian peoples and a noble friend to our protagonists? Allik’s name wasn’t enough for me. What about words that he says in his language? My favorite words he used were the names for Preservation and Ruin: I first googled to see if these names were German words. “Herr” means “Lord” in German…this seemed like a good sign to me! Unfortunately, “Frue” is not a German word. But it is Danish. In Danish, it literally means “wife” or “Ma’am” and “Herr” literally means “Mister”. So we have Mister and Missus…just like how Allik describes them. When Allik first realized Wax was an Allomancer he said a few words aloud in his own language that Marasi overheard: “Fottenstall” doesn’t really translate to much, even if “fotten” means “feet” in Norwegian. However “hanner konge” has a very interesting meaning in Danish: “Male King”. Allik notes that Wax seems very powerful, like the Sovereign, and thinks he needs to always use some type of title for him. The Sovereign described himself as a former King from Northern Scadrial. Thus, it doesn’t surprise me that Allik may be asking Marasi if Wax is a king. I didn’t look at very many other words other than these, because all of this already seemed like good evidence that the Southern Scadrian language is similar to Northern Germanic languages, specifically Danish. If people from Northern Scadrial speak with a French accent/sound, then it seems entirely plausible that the southerners speak some type of Germanic/Scandinavian language, given the clues. What do you all think?

So this isn’t really a meme and I take no credit at all but I just think people need to appreciate this (and I had no idea where else to post it). https://onlycosmere.tumblr.com/post/189502539647/source

You are going to love this theory. I guarantee it. I was reading Andrew's article the other day, and that got me thinking about what makes magic work on a fundamental level in the cosmere. This will be somewhat of a rebuttal to you, Andrew, because this direction is far more fruitful. But it's much more than a rebuttal. In my opinion, this is quite a paradigm shift. In any given Shardworld, magic is directly tied to a Shard. Everyone has pieces of Shards inside them. In Mistborn, everyone has fragments of Ruin and Preservation inside them. In Warbreaker, everyone has Breath. It's not unimaginable to think that this generalizes for any Shardworld, so I'm going to assume that always holds. In order to use Allomancy, you need to have "enough" Preservation in you. There's other stuff you need, too, like Snapping, but we'll discuss that later; it's not important anyways. The only real requirement for Allomancy is that you have enough Preservation. The rest is just book-keeping. And likewise, for Awakening, you need Breath, a fragment of Endowment. So here's a question: why is Awakening different from Allomancy? Before you go saying this is a totally obvious question, let me remind you that there are distinct differences between Awakening and Allomancy. Awakeners never need to Snap, though Allomancers do (and the Shaod is sort of similar to Snapping, too, in a way). We want to discover the fundamental rules of how magic operates, right? So the question about the difference between Awakening and Allomancy isn't so dumb. Now that I've made the question sound important, let me completely trivialize it with the easy answer: they are different because the Shards are different. Duh. That's fairly obvious. But in fact, this is precisely the key to understanding all magic. My principle is simple: To interact with the spiritual power of the Shard inside you, it must be in accordance with the Shard's intent. (That is, the name of the Shard. Ruin. Preservation. Endowment. It is what the Shard wants to do. Look at the bottom here for that reference.) I'm going to call it the Principle of Intent, simply because that makes it sound important. Now I simply have to show you how important this principle is. Let's say that Breath is the Nalthis equivalent of those fragments of Ruin and Preservation on Scadrial. These latent powers of a Shard can be accessed and manipulated. With Preservation's magic, I can do lots of cool things, but one thing I can't do is move that fragment of the soul around. But, I could do such a thing if I was using the right magic system. On Nalthis, Endowment endows. It makes perfect sense that Awakening can move pieces of souls around, because that's Endowment's intent. Indeed, I can do similar things with Hemalurgy, because it is inherently destructive. Ruin ruins. Endowment endows. Preservation preserves. "But wait, why does Allomancy cause such rapid changes if it's from Preservation? That seems antithetical to Preservation's intent." There was a thread about this on Adonalsium.net, actually, and I couldn't come up with a proper explanation. Now I can. Watch closely, because this is fancy footwork. Think, for a moment, less about the external effects of Allomancy. Brandon's said that powers don't need to have rational explanations, just that they are bound by rules. Is there any particular reason why iron does the Physical Internal power rather than pewter? No, and that's okay. Instead, let's consider what happens to that piece of Preservation inside you when you utilize Allomancy. Awakening moves spiritual energy, or endows it to something else. This doesn't happen with Preservation. There ought to be some reason why Preservation provides a net gain of energy with Allomancy instead of Awakening's system, and there indeed is. Preservation does preserve, it just preserves the piece of Preservation inside you (and for that matter, every aspect of your body. There is no direct physical cost to Allomancy in the act of burning metals). When you think about it from a Shard level, each Shard has a focus. Ruin and Preservation share a focus in metal. This metal activates some spiritual action, I'd imagine. Lock and key. The metal is the key to all the Metallic Arts. The metal must do something with respect to Preservation, and what's it going to do? With the Principle of Intent, that fragment of Preservation inside you wants to preserve itself, its spiritual energy. It also wants to preserve yourself. So, the only place it receive energy from is some external source, in order to preserve your own energy. Slight side note: Another issue with Allomancy and its net gain is the idea that if Preservation "designed" Allomancy--though that term is a bit misleading, as I suspect no Shard explicitly could design something like that--he's losing energy. That's not true. The Well of Ascension refills every thousand years (technically, 1024 years). Utilizing it doesn't make it go away. Burning atium also regenerates eventually in the Pits of Hathsin. Likewise, there's no reason why this Allomantic energy actually goes away. It regenerates, too. Wait a minute. I just got the most brilliant idea ever as I wrote that. Brandon said that Preservation or Ruin could, in principle, fuel any of the Metallic Arts, but he said that it expends power in ways gods are hesitant to do (I can't find the citation right now, but I think it's in the Hero of Ages spoiler thread). Why would it expend energy? Doesn't it all regenerate? No, I think not. Not exclusively. What if a Shard's power only regenerates when the Shard is doing something according to the Shard's intent? Atium is of Ruin, and so using that energy with respect to Ruining something will make it regenerate. The Well put Rashek into severe Preservation mode, making him extremely reactionary. So in a roundabout way, that again is Preservation. That kind of explains why dispersing the power broke Ruin's prison--it was an act not of Preservation, so the power wasn't conserved. Also, if this was true, it makes a heck of a lot more sense why Endowment Returns people, and why he isn't dead from doing so. The power all comes back eventually. Ahem, that got off track. I'll build that theory in more detail, with better citations, later. Back to the Principle of Intent, with respect to the other Metallic Arts. It's been noted in the annotations that Ruin is selfish. So, fragments of its power wouldn't want to destroy itself, but it is perfectly okay with destroying other things. Hence Hemalurgy doesn't do much to yourself, and instead destroys other things. To use the analogy with Preservation, Preservation preserves spiritual energy, while Ruin destroys spiritual energy. I suspect that the greater amount of Ruin inside you, the more likely to perform Hemalurgy, however. So why does Feruchemy work? Well, it's perfect balance. I can't utilize the power of either Ruin or Preservation here. They are balanced. I can't use either power up now. Were I to use or "access" the Shard's powers, they'd cancel each other out, so to speak. Nothing happens on the spiritual side of things (Okay, that's probably not true. It's just no spiritual energy is changed. I'm sure on some Realmatic level, both Ruin and Preservation act equally) So what happens if not doing something with spiritual energy? I draw from myself. This fits the Principle of Intent just fine. You may be wondering why there'd be such a principle at all. Sazed could do all sorts of things when he held both powers. The difference here is that the body acts as a conduit--and not a very good one--for the power. Only once Vin's body vanished did the power become more expansive. I suspect this effect is due to the Physical, Cognitive, and Spiritual Realms. When a Shard's power is in a physical form, it does one specific thing (lerasium, atium). The Physical Realm seems to have a restricting effect. Thus, for humans, they access the power in their Shards in a more restrictive manner simply by being human. That's why the Principle of Intent appears to hold. Of course, even as a full Shardholder, the same principle applies eventually. The Shardholder's mind would be shaped to the Shard's intent over the centuries. Furthermore, Brandon said that Preservation or Ruin could, in principle fuel any of Metallic Arts, but he said that that expends power in ways gods are hesitant to do. Presumably, this is because while a Shard is a part of the power of creation and can do lots of amazing things, the Shard can more easily do things in line with its intent. Or, if I was right about the conservation thing, it's that a Shard knows the power will come back eventually. A Shardholder's consciousness apparently "feeds" off the spiritual power of the Shard, so if that power is all gone, that person dies. Maybe you're not buying my principle. Don't believe me? Well, no theory is good unless it has some predictive power, so let's do some theorizing on other magics. I'd like to work with Elantris, but I don't know either Aona or Skai's Shard name, so it's going to be challenging to know just what they do. But Stormlight Archive is the perfect testing ground for a theory. We know all the Rosharian Shard's names, and there's a bunch of magic systems that don't exactly make sense. I began pondering what exactly would Honor--the Almighty's Shard--do. Knowing the answer to this would give an intuitive understanding to the mechanism of his magic. But Honor is hard to pin down. Ruin ruins... Honor honors stuff. That's, uh, super helpful. But you know what's really honorable? Oaths. Promises. Bonds. Oathpact. Surgebinder. Peter said on TWG that a Surge is what people on Roshar call a force (I'd assume things like gravity). Surge, plus a bond with a spren? Surgebinders. Congratulations, you are now a magic user. Honor's power comes from oaths and bonds. Perhaps it creates a spiritual bond of sorts. That's what Honor does. There was also the question of what happened to Kaladin at the end of Way of Kings. He spoke the Second Ideal of the Knights Radiant, then he burst with power. Seems to me that this near unequivocal evidence that Honor uses these oaths in a specifc, magical way. Then there's good old Szeth. How is he a Surgebinder if he doesn't have a spren? I'm not totally sure, but perhaps his strong oaths as a Truthless provides the sufficient bond for Honor's magic to work. Maybe there does exist a spren. Either way, those oaths are intricately tied with Szeth's Radiant powers. So, I'm calling it right now: if Szeth breaks his oaths, he will lose his powers. I read a little bit of Way of Kings today, and I had forgotten that Jasnah said that two orders of the Knights Radiant have natural Soulcasting abilities. Now, recall that in the 17th Shard interview with Brandon, he said that there are ten powers (it seems to be ten Surges is the technical term), and you make an order of the Knights Radiant by picking from two of those Surges. I never realized before, but that must mean Soulcasting is a type of Surgebinding. That's kind of a scary implication. We've seen, what, Windrunners and Soulcasters, and there are ten more powers? Plenty more magic systems to go around, clearly. But a more detailed analysis of Stormlight Archive magics is for another day, I think. Other theories for other days. Source: The Principle of Intent

When someone compliments your Doomslug shirt and you resist the urge to scream in joy that SOMEONE FINALLY GETS THE REFERENCE!

Renarin (arguably) saw himself as flawed in ways that kept him from being useful, both his eyesight and his seizures. See, I would argue the opposite: that her current feelings of being "flawed and useless" are the more transient Cognitive parts, while the fact that she still tries to stand subconsciously shows that her deeper self-image has not incorporated the damage.

There's a possibility that the Southern Scadrial's language ties back all the way to the Classical era. I mean, Germanic style names at least have survived in Northern Scadrial in the Final Empire, specifically in the Northern Dominance

In Stormlight? Dalinar is probably the most interesting and best done POV character. He is wise in a way that is actually understandable and his life experience as the cultural ideal of his people(one that he now rejects) make him very interesting.

Szeth is a wuss

Just to add to the big things happening at the end of era 3: It's from several years ago, but considering he likely only has an outline for era 3 it seems like a pretty big plot-point-moment. Also, he didn't have to think very long (there's audio), I'm fairly convinced Harmony will be giving up or granting something as a major turning point in era 3. On the other hand, it could just as easily be something nebulous like: humans desire non-intervention-->Harmony: Your future is yours now. So I don't know, but I'm excited. Thinking about era 3 and 4 tends to draw anticipationspren.

Also worth noting that they'd get more options out of Hemalurgy than most, on account of having fluid Bind Points.

Good sleuthing, and I agree with your conclusions. I thought of German too (I learn German at school, so that wasn't a great logical leap to make), though I didn't look into Allik's name. Interesting! For an added bonus, am I seeing things where there are none, or could NoScad and SoScad's relationship mirror that of real-life France and Germany? They were quite hostile for the longest while (can you say "Alsace-Lorraine"?) before being rather forced to become "friends" in face of an external threat (Cold War and USSR). SoScad and NoScad have already hit it off on a rather less-than-friendly note, after all, and we know external threat exists... and is red.

Come on guys, a little more enthusiasm! We have to Honor these puns, the Endowment of cosmere-punning ability shows our Devotion towards the Preservation of truly terrific humour! So let's not Ruin all of our fun, but spread the joy involved with the Cultivation of puns, which will eventually lead to our Domination of the entire world with cosmere related humour! Also Odium somehow :S