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I was at lunch one day, thinking about Hemalurgy and Awakening, and what their effects are, and I had a realization. Hemalurgy can grant sentience where there is a conscious, and Awakening grants a pseudo-conscious to the object being Awakened. I also remembered that Hemalurgic spikes keep their Investiture longer when they're in meat. I then realized that you could (at least theoretically) make a person using Hemalurgy, steak, and Awakening. I explained the concept to the other person at my table, and we both agreed that it was possible. Later, we realized you could put different people's Identities together to give the meat person the personality you want it to have. This also means you could take all of someone's Identity, and put them in a body of meat, extending their lifespan. This process would wipe out many different forms of Investiture you may have had access to before, but because of the nature of the Nahel Bond, any bonds you had with spren would carry over to your new body. To avoid this, you could use spikes, that, from the above, would look similar to the Allomantic table or maybe a pie chart. These new spikes would bring over everything if all the bind points had these spikes struck through them at the same time, resulting in nearly complete transfer of the Spiritweb, due to the decaying nature of Hemalurgy. However, Awakening may cause some unwanted side effects. The Awakening may cause the patient/victim to have urges to do what the Awakener Awakened the patient/victim's new body to do. If they awakened them to grab things, the patient/victim may grab things, even when they don't want to. This of course can be much more harmful, such as simply Awakening the body by saying destroy. If any of you can think of a possible way to overcome this, please tell me. Also, the meat man has been confirmed, at 18:05 in the third spoiler stream, but the spike thing has not been confirmed so far as I know. Also, this is my first post. Did I put this in the right spot? What tags should I attach?

Anyone else ever be having a perfectly fine day where nothing necessarily bad happens but then you just look for the smallest things to complain about and you feel like you're kind of being a brat but you don't care? No, just me? Okay.

Two things! First, and most important by far, I finally finished reading Cytonic! I loved it. Not quite as good as Skyward, but much better than Starsight IMO. Second, today in science we did a lab that involved making chromosome shapes out of mike n ikes to represent meiosis. Best lab experiment ever! Especially since we got to eat the mike n ikes once we were done.

me: sees like 4 different SUs about how people are suffering from too much homework also me: has literally 2 classes and basically no homework life is good y'all life is good oh also I got cast as Naphtali in my schools production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

I was in Newsies this past summer! I got to be Elmer, which was way fun. @Channelknight Fadran and @DoomStick were actually able to come see it, which was awesome!

It’s my Shardiversary let’s go! Some of the awesome people found along the way- @Chinkoln @Frustration @Channelknight Fadran Well see you next year.

So, there is something very weird and not yet revealed about the timeline for the human migration from Ashyn to Roshar, the Heralds, and the Oathpact. From what we are told in Oathbringer, humans came to Roshar and were granted Shinovar to live in, eventually they wanted more land and fought against the singers/Dawnsingers, starting the wars that became the Desolations. But most if not all of the Heralds were born on Ashyn, before the migration to Roshar, with the only possible exception being Shalash. And the Heralds became Heralds when they were the age they now physically appear to be. (See the WOBs at the bottom of this post...) This puts a fairly tight constraint on the time scale for these events; probably no more than 30-35 years or so, if Shalash was born around the time of the migration. Yet it seems this must have taken a very long time. Shinovar is a pretty large land, and much more favorable to human life than most of Roshar - there wouldn't seem to be an immediate need to move beyond Shinovar. And the humans from Ashyn presumably arrived as refugees, not immediately ready for a war of conquest. And furthermore, it seems the Oathpact couldn't have been a response to the initial war with the singers. The Stormfather says (Oathbringer chapter 38; I'm not copying his ALL CAPS): So the Oathpact didn't happen until after: - humans fought a war with the singers - the dead singers became the Fused to fight against humanity further, and were repeatedly reborn - this process continued long enough for it to become clear that humanity couldn't win the war unless something drastic changed That pushes the timeline out even further, as these wars probably lasted years (maybe many years) by themselves. This seems to be a major timeline issue. But do we really know that the Heralds became Heralds at the same time as the Oathpact was formed? The Stormfather says (same chapter) that the purpose of the Oathpact was to seal the Fused spirits in Braize: But then, why do they get Surgebinding powers and Honorblades? How does that help? (This question isn't original to me- wish I could remember who brought it up - but I've seen it used as evidence that repeating Desolations, and thus a need to fight, was Honor's plan. But the Stormfather made it very clear that it was supposed to "end the war forever", ie no more fighting needed...) We do know that the Honorblades were given to the Heralds as part of an oath (Oathbringer Chapter 16, the Stormfather speaking:) But perhaps there is more than one oath involved. One maybe 30 years after the migration to Roshar, when the Heralds stop aging, get Surgebinding and Honorblades. And a second one, the actual Oathpact, after decades of war with the singers, becoming an endless losing battle as the Fused arise and reincarnate endlessly, which doesn't involve Surgebinding but does trap the Fused spirits on Braize. WOB #1: Post-TLM Update: I think the Honorblades were originally granted by Honor to provide a limited, controlled form of Surgebinding to replace the destructive Ashynite form. Mistborn TLM Spoilers: I think their granting also made the Heralds into Avatars of Honor, and stopped (or greatly slowed) their aging -- before they ever became Cognitive Shadows. If their original granting created Avatars, that could explain the Stormfather's cryptic comment that Jezrien's Honorblade is much more powerful than Dalinar realizes: "you would be a Windrunner unoathed. And more. More that men do not understand, and cannot. Like a Herald, nearly." From what we know so far, a Honorblade's powers are strictly worse than a 3rd Ideal Radiant's - same Surges and Shardblade, but much worse healing. And by 4th Ideal, with Plate, the Radiant is ridiculously far ahead. But if there were an unknown way to use a Honorblade to become an avatar - maybe one requiring Shard/Sliver/Avatar expanded mind ("men do not understand, and cannot") - it would make sense. More timeline anomalies Raboniel says (ch 76 RoW) that she wasn't around when humans arrived, but her grandmother told her about what it was like, in a way that implies her grandmother was around to see it. Essu, Raboniel's daughter, became a Fused, so given that apparently (according to Raboniel) all the Fused were "elevated" at once, and presumably Odium wouldn't have chosen a baby or young child, Essu was probably already adult or at least close at the time the Fused were created. So there were probably about 3 singer generations between human arrival and the elevation of the Fused. Singer generations are shorter than human ones, so that could be argued to be compatible, but it's a stretch. Singers are considered adult at 10, so if that's equivalent to human 18... human generation times in a pre-industrial society are probably something like 25 years, so maybe 13-15 for singers? 3 generations would still be something like 40-45 years ... and according to the Stormfather, the Oathpact was created because humans couldn't win a war where their enemies kept reincarnating, which means there was more war between the creation of the Fused and the beginning of the Oathpact. There is no way the younger Heralds are physically 50, or even 40. It's not completely definitive, because it's possible that Raboniel's mother was alive - maybe even adult and just somewhere else - at the time of human arrival, and that Essu was made a Fused before full adulthood. If Raboniel was born only a few years after the arrival (say 3 years), and Raboniel had Essu at say 12, and Essu was made a Fused at maybe 8, and only two years passed between the Fused being created and the Oathpact... then Shalash could be like 25 at the time of the Oathpact. But that seems like a stretch.

Two things: 1: Yesterday I got 4 cavity fillings with no numbing shot. (It didn’t hurt, thankfully) 2: My dad tested positive for COVID today so I have to stay home from school tomorrow and I hate missing school and I’ll likely have to miss more because I might have it because we live in the same house but I’m hoping that if I retain the mental state of denial I can get the Placebo effect to kick in to keep the symptoms at bay for as long as possible and I think I might be getting a little stressed out… But other than that, life’s good!

Finally logging off the Shard after being on for around three hours, almost completely consistently. I don't know whether to be proud of myself, or disappointed in myself...

Don’t you just love being sick. It’s soooooooo much fun, especially when you don’t get to see your friends and miss out in all the important projects that effect your grade. Fun am I right? Anyways, how have you guys been?

anagram is an anagram for ram aang

Flashback to when i was new to the shard and made this: Now i know that would have been better to put in an SU, but it was fun to remember and read through lol

https://www.icloud.com/pages/0U7PCnNBV4xO22i06gLOnyoFg#Elebet_2

It is finished! This project took much less time than I was expecting, despite it still taking around 10-13 total hours to finish. I am super happy with how it turned out, considering the whole thing is straining at the limits of the pieces! I included a Spensa minifig along with a "Doomslug" figure (just a yellow arm with a blue hand). The underside of the wing folds out with access to the technical bits for repairs and whatnot; there is also a storage compartment in the back with a destructor pistol. The model is based on the illustrations from the back of the book and the 3D model made by Simon Jennings on SketchFab (https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/skyward-ddf-poco-ship-e68799eb65bd40e193dd0d3b656274d5).

..... bonus:

Why not have another character die to do this though? A Dalinar death would make so much more sense. What exactly would his arc be after KoW? Kaladin has his mental health thing, as well as potentially becoming a trainer for new Radiants. even an Adolin death would make more sense that killing Kaladin off. Adolin has mostly fulfilled his arc. What little is left for him to do, figuring out how to help deadeyes, can be completed in KoW via the release of Ba-Ado-Misram. A heroic sacrifice holding off the enemy while Shallan releases Ba-Ado-Mishram makes much more sense than Kaladin dying heroically. Killing Kaladin would be like WoT spoilers:

We've already seen a way for the Heralds to have their sanity restored, even if only temporarily. It will take Dalinar though, or maybe the Stormfather... Ooh, there's an idea. Kaladin needs to kidnap Ishar, and drag him into the middle of a Highstorm. Then they can sit and chill in the eye, where the Stormfather refreshes Spheres, and Ishar will be at least partially sane, thanks to the Stormfather's connection to the spiritual realm.

I really enjoyed this and could really imagine it happening.

Oh no. It happened. R.I.P. old profile pics

I feel overwhelmed with homework. bleurgh.

Well, Dalinar has killed his share of highprinces, too! Jasnah has a history, herself. I don't think either of them punish him because if Adolin had killed Sadeas in a more structured setting--say, on the battlefield or in a duel to the death--I don't think it would have raised any eyebrows at all. Still, I'm pretty sure it's the same reason that Dalinar's not going to face a trial for his war crimes. Alethi society just isn't going to go there yet, in a world-building way. Maybe later there will be scholars in-world looking back and asking those questions. I would argue that this plotline actually does get picked up in RoW, somewhat obliquely. Sadeas's murder is at the forefront of his mind when he confronts the honorspren and accepts their trial. Adolin accepts being held accountable for the deaths of spren that he didn't cause, while invoking the brash feeling of "instinctive rightness" of the murder he did commit and for which he was never called to account. In both cases, it's because his opponents wouldn't give him a chance to defeat them in ordinary circumstances. Sadeas would never allow himself to be put into that position where Adolin could defeat him honorably; the honorspren deny him a chance to argue his case under ordinary diplomatic circumstances. He plays on Sadeas's expectations, he plays on the honorspren's righteousness, and gains ground for his side in unconventional ways. (Just like he does in his duels!) It's the thing I find most interesting about Adolin. He's way more instinctually cunning than any of the other characters give him credit for, to the point where Sadeas makes a note of it in WoR and then still falls for it. Adolin knows, in a heart-deep way, how to subtly nudge people into certain positions. His cajoling Kaladin into hanging out with friends or his encouraging of Shallan to embrace her strength is the flipside of that ability to socially manipulate people. This often reads, I think, like things just magically go his way, but I would argue that he simply knows what "weapon" he needs in any given situation. But he also has a tendency to act on impulse and in the moment, playing the short game extremely well and fumbling the long term. (See: every relationship he's ever had prior to Shallan.) He can get into the honorspren fortress but it's not Adolin who wins over the honorspren in the end. Sadeas is no longer a threat, but was it really right? I think of it like how Jasnah's alley is supposed to cause me to question Jasnah's methods. I believe it's supposed to make me question if Adolin is really the person he's made out to be by people like Dalinar, Shallan, Kaladin, etc., and what he would be like if he had power the way Dalinar or Jasnah have power. I read it as remaining unresolved (for now?) because it's something the reader should always be keeping mind while following his character. Right now it feels more character development than plot development.

RoW

The Heralds are just beginning to reappear, and most of them are mad and broken (save for Taln), I assume that for book 5 we should get some answers regarding the Oathpact, since we'll have our boy Kaladin having a chat with Ishar, though it'll take time (with Ishar absolutely mad and convinced he is the Almighty, Kaladin will only have very little time to speak with him, unless he finds a way to return his sanity, besides having a Radiant swear an Oath).

Hello I just wanted a place to collect my Sanderson sketches.

Not sure if this has been theorized before, but been having thoughts, and I figured I'd write them out and get people's opinions. My thought is that Edgli, the vessel for Endowment has really good Futuresight and manipulated events to bring a weapon like Nightblood into existence to further her goals for the Cosmere endgame. First things first: Brandon gas been cagey about how well Endowment can see the future: But we know that futuresight plays a role in Endowment's Returned. Each Returned, at the moment of their first death, is granted a vision of the future by Endowment, where they see an important event that their presence can aid in providing a favorable result. Sometimes it is by their action - Lightsong saving the Godking. Sometimes it is by what they can teach - Calmseer showing Lightsong the value of sacrifice and caring for others. And then they have their memory erased so that they cannot try to pre-emptively change things and cause paradoxes. Though sometimes they get hints in visions or dreams to poke them in the right direction. Regardless, all Returned return for a purpose. And that purpose involves visions of possible futures. We also know that the five scholars were all Returned. They returned, for a purpose as of yet unknown to us, though some of them may have accomplished that purpose before their demise. Regardless, they went on to become some of the most skilled Awakeners of the era, and all highly contributed to the advancement of Awakening as a science. They created and improved the lifeless, they discovered new commands. And Shashara created Nightblood with Vasher. Shashara is dead, killed to prevent her from creating another Nightblood, but Vasher is still lurking about, following and guiding Nightblood in his own way. So what if Edgli has top tier Futuresight, and used it to create the five scholars, knowing that they would create Nightblood. Knowing that Nightblood and Vasher would eventually end up on Roshar in time for Odium's break-out. Knowing that Nightblood would be a weapon that obliterates its foes on all three realms? Does anyone else feel that Edgli is playing the longest game, and that Nightblood is her endgame piece? Her ace in the hole?

Hey everyone, Not sure if this is worth making a thread for but just read the below sequence from WoR Chapter 63 and was just blown away how I did not notice this. Love how Shallan just casually drops what a spren who has had their bond broken in Shadesmar is supposed to be like. Brandon with the "100 Sneak" in writing haha.

You're right. The meat person could probably maintain themselves unless they needed a new body, in which case they would need some help. And as for it's purpose, well, it's purpose could be anything. You could put a bunch of different pieces of different people together and Awaken the meat to protect, and then it would be some sort of bodyguard. Or, you could Awaken the meat to destroy or kill, then that would be it's purpose. You could Awaken it to emulate a person, or something along those lines, and then use the spikes to extend someones life. It could simply be a servant. It all depends.

Honestly, I have no idea. My reasoning for voting on them last cycle is still valid, and it didn't depend on Meerkat's alignment that much (or perhaps vil!Meerkat fits with my guess as to how Pearl being an elim under those circumstances, but elim!Meerkat is theoretically possible there as well). So yeah, I'll vote for Pearl. But I don't currently have anything to add to my case, so I'm not sure I will be able to make that a viable train. I don't know how I feel about Gorilla, since I went from suspicious D1 to a playstyle read last cycle (which is basically neutral plz contribute more), and I have the feeling that their reaction sort of fits with the player profile I gave them after D1. My gut feeling after D1 was also that D1 was v/v/v, so I'm going to stick with that. Seems likely that we'll find out by the end of this cycle as things stand. I'm going to try and write some stuff about Falcon before the end of the turn, and I might end up switching to vote on them. So far that's based on their D1 vote and some gut based on what they've said today, but I'll see if there's more to say there. Dyring was pleasantly surprised when the latest Tineye message was found, not "decorating" his inn's walls, but rather posted to a board just outside. He was less pleasantly surprised by the fact that the note implicated his friend Kellehrt. After a short conversation with the fellow, Dyring resolved to protect him from any mobs before true justice could be meted out, but eventually it turned out the whole thing was a ruse, and the Kellehrt hadn't even vandalized his inn the other night. Of course, the lack of major destruction of his property didn't mean that Dyring didn't have work to do. The kid Loenthal had put up in a room needed checking in on, although the boy oddly independent. Still, a quick look in would ease Dyring's conscience. And after that, well, by now someone else was bound to have made a mess, either in their room or by the bar. A bit of cleaning would help settle his mind back on the problem of finding the Spiked.

Well though, Brandon has also stated that a chromium burner would take longer to burn away a compounder's Feruchemical reserves. This probably means that metalminds, and any stuff with higher investiture is harder to burn away

Lord of the Rings does not feature a sequel series that takes place 15 years later with nearly the same cast. The major threat of LotR has been vanquished, and so it makes sense for the surviving characters to go on with their peaceful lives. Even then, most of the closure comes from the characters who actually have reached the end of their respective lives: Gandalf, Bilbo, nearly all the elves, and especially Frodo -- who sacrificed himself physically, mentally, and emotionally -- who then make their sea voyage into the (not quite confirmed) afterlife.

Okay so I posted a theory about Odium’s champion in the ROW lore/magic thread and I feel like nobody saw it or maybe just thought it was too unlikely or insane or something... BUT I was just rereading the ROW prologue and gosh I’m so damn convinced that Odium’s champion is going to be Gavilar!! This is what he says to Navani in the prologue: This is freaking me out. Like at first I was just trying to think through all the possible candidates for Odium’s champion and people like Szeth just seemed a bit too obvious to me, so I thought who would be the most surprising AND crippling to Dalinar? And who better than Gavilar himself, the one he looked up to and failed. Now I do actually think this could be possible! And maybe even likely from these words that Gavilar says. And since we know that the next prologue is going to be from Gavilar’s perspective, what if we get to the part where he’s killed and he appears in the cognitive realm and finds a way to stick around? He was slightly invested like Eshonai was. And the more info we get about him (RoW prologue and Venli flashbacks), the more we learn how much crazy cosmere stuff Gavilar was in on. His relationship to the heralds, and to Axindweth who seems to clearly be a worldhopper of who knows what allegiance - he even seems to know of Kelsier/Thaidakar. So what if he figured out a way to stick around and his motives are not what we think. His whole stint with the Sons of Honour seem to have been a cover for other intentions, since he already knew the heralds were around? It just seems crazy to me how much Gavilar was in on - like where did he get those void light and, especially, the anti-voidlight spheres?! So many questions. Can we get all the answers to them in one prologue? Or will we get those answers from Gavilar as an actual character in the next book!! He is so obsessed with being extraordinary, with unending existence, so what if he finds the opportunity for this by joining Odium’s forces? I at least think it’s possible that we will find out in the prologue that Gavilar has stuck around, and if he does I think he would be an excellent and surprising candidate for Odium’s champion. Also one death rattle I remembered could perhaps support this theory... Interested to read thoughts!

Have you seen philosophy debates? Listening to those can probably kill someone.

It probably works similarly to (SotD) But it would probably take a lot of practice to use effectively.

Death has never been difficult for Kaladin, nor has sacrificing way too much of himself. The difficult thing has been fighting against those urges. Dying and especially sacrificing himself wouldn't be a capstone to his arc, it would be a complete reversal of it and contradiction of its themes.

I've thought about this before but never ran across that WoB, nice find! I think it's very plausible. If Threnody is Invested so heavily from the fight that people can just... become Cognitive Shadows all the time, it's probably Invested enough that the Realms are very close. Ooooooh nice catch, I assumed it was just due to being more recent but that's very plausible imo. Interestingly, while they aren't fully solid, they actually partially are (moreso than Syl who can barely lift a leaf, anyway): With how they change in appearance (white with green eyes to black with red eyes, iirc?), I've wondered whether perhaps shades are made of two kinds of Investiture (Mercy and Ambition? Ambition and Odium?), but they aren't truly harmonized, and so when certain actions are taken that align much more with one Intent than the other, it sort of temporarily shifts the internal balance of control in favor of that one, and with as mindless as they are, if one of those Intents is violent...

Man, I've gotta reread SA. On first read you can miss all these things, then on reread, Roshar is positively teeming with worldhoppers. Is there anyone confirmed to be from Sel on Roshar? Obviously the massive time gap between Elantris and Stormlight would complicate that I imagine

I mean, we don't know that Endowment even cares if there's another Manywar. Maybe she wants it to happen, so that Nalthis will heavily militarize. Maybe she manipulated the events of Warbreaker in order to get Kalad's phantoms would come back into the equation.

I don't think so. The Wheel of Time has a very convoluted plot, and I'm afraid it wouldn't make much sense to you if you did. Plus you'd miss out on a lot of character development.

I was thinking… what if if two people tied in reputation, they both won the day instead of it being random? (Or neither of them).

Well.... Scud. This book was just amazing. I personally loved it. Hesho coming back from the dead honestly didn’t go over that well with me. I feel like he died and therefore should stay dead it removed a lot of the kick from the end of Starsight. Is that to say I will complain? No. I love Hesho, and am glad I get more of him. I’m just slightly disappointed. (And then I remember I get more Hesho and the disappointment fades.) That was honestly my only major complaint. (Aside from not learning more about what really started the Human wars) I loved the twists and turns and pirate queen Spin. I didn’t see Chet coming and was completely blindsided by that. It took me a solid 5 seconds to get over that. And when I learned that the next memory was from Jason from the Phone company I almost screamed. (I would have screamed but I happened to be in class at the time and that wouldn’t have been the best idea) Sp yeah, great book but I feel like it won’t be as good to reread because a lot of the kick from this book was that there were a lot of awesome reveals.

This actually sounds pretty cool to me, not gonna lie. I would like to think this is theoretically possible, but as for right now, I get the impression that Brandon won't take it this direction because Odium just barely changed hands; I think good ol' Vargodium is gonna hang around for a bit. But still, I think the mechanics of that are possible, especially the combining and redistributing of two Shards. Have an upvote!

Today in my class, we were listing things that we wanted to be. Then we were supposed to find a partner and tell them that they were the things they wanted to be, and then tell ourselves we were the things we wanted to be. There were an odd number of people in the class, so I paired with the teacher. She told me that I already was all of those things. I'm so happy! Because I didn't think I was!

Wow. I honestly don't understand why many people even read these books. It seems so many people don't like the characters, find the arcs boring, and cringe when readiing important character development arcs. And I am really interested in understanding other people. I should study this forum more, it seems. These problems that our heroes struggle with are not easily solved. They take a long time, and lots of repetitive frustration to find a way out. That is one of the most believeable and interesting aspects of these books for me. I'm sorry, I haven't got anything to add to this thread. I find Shallan very interesting and I learn a lot from her. I just had to let out a little frustration. This negative complaining really makes it less interesting to visit this forum for me. For me the whole SA experience is about learning how to positively understand other people, and to stop complaining about how bad, boring and completely useless other people are. Please don't get me wrong, I don't wish to stop other people from complaining, I just don't understand what people see in these books if they don't wish to read about the chraracters that are different from themselves. I thought that was the whole point.

This whole series is about flawed characters, the complexity of their hurts, motivations and struggles. RoW especially shows how sometimes things have to get worse and reach the bottom before they get better, how easy it is to stick to habitual and familiar patterns until we find ourselves pushed against the wall with no other option but to change. This is true for most people in real life. Without good role models, most people stumble around trying to play one or more roles, unaware of it, not daring to listen to their true selves. To like Shallan, you need to like complexity and understand humanity on a more than surface level.

Reading through this thread, that's exactly what I started thinking as well. Their human appearance with some malleable features. They don't seem to have full shapeshifting like the kandra. They definitely have that cognitive connection, with their shadows pointing towards light. There are wobs that imply that romantic relationships happened between Knights Radiant of old and their spren. It's not a stretch to think that humans and spren living in the cognitive realm would have fallen in love. But it wouldn't be all that common. Though it happened perhaps enough to establish a small group of quasi-immortal group that lived in Aimia... Basically, I'm onboard with this theory on the origins of the Siah Aimians. Still think that the Dysian Aimians are not from Roshar.

Could the Siah have come from a human and a spren mingling in the cognitive realm?