VindicationKnight

Not entirely a fan species but I did draw fan art of a Tenasi based on exactly zero evidence. There's nothing textual to support it at all, but ever since I first read 'Defending Elysium' the name Tenasi conjured up the mental image of a kind of incredibly fluffy snake flatworm. It probably enjoys warm hugs and having their first contact ship be shot out of the sky.

Yeah those should cover it. For the quick cliff notes summary. The Cosmere is the setting for most of Sanderson's books, it takes place in a dwarf galaxy with several inhabited planets on which the stories take place. Backstory wise it all starts of with Adonalsium who as basically God. Adonalsium was shattered into sixteen Shards each one of which is embodies and ideal/intent like Devotion or Honor and which bonded with mortals like humans from the planet Yolen where humanity originally evolved. They headed of to other Shardworlds and are heavily linked to how the majority of the magics working the way they do there. Fast forward a good long while and you have Odium (one of the Shards) running around trying to kill the others to prevent a challenge to his power. But their is a man calling himself Hoid (whose not a Shard but was there when the shattering of Adonalsium took place) traveling around the Cosmere and claiming to be fighting against Odium. The rest of the stories take place on different worlds and in different times in the setting. Some are closly linked to the overall plot of the Cosmere, some are more self contained.

Doesn't seem to be the case. Way of Kings Chapter 33 'Cymatics' Page 550 Way of Kings Chapter 33 'Cymatics' Pages 551-2 Way of Kings Interlude 6 page 495

Doesn't necessarily have to be destroyed, the energy can be lost (decaying back into raw Investiture as opposed to properly formed Spiritweb or into the 'atmosphere') without being destroyed. Indeed Thermodynamics insists that it must, aside from energy neither being created or destroyed the laws of Thermodynamics also insist that no energy transfer is perfectly efficient, some energy is always lost as waste byproducts, like sound heat and light. We also see that with other magics in the Cosmere, powerful acts of magic frequently generate byproducts, like light or smoke.

Opps, probably shouldn't have used his name you're right. True, both of them are a right pain in the arse to kill, I'm not sure if LR could out run a nuclear explosion, he still has to deal with friction and air resistance to some extent...We might have to see more of what the upper levels of compounding can do to know for sure. That said if Father would struggle to put down the Lord Ruler the same is true in reverse. GodFather's shield could competley ignore multiple barrages of WW2-equivilant artillery fire untill his 'batteries ran low', and if his internal monolouge is to be belived then his full 50 million soul powered version could shrug of his own nuke attack at point blank range. And that's before you actually reach his own regenerative capabilities. The only reason they stood a chance in the show was because Hoenheim stripped away the majority of his power source and then held of his intial attacks long enough for him to run low on batteries. Really the best weapon for killing him would be something like Nightblood or a Shardblade, so long the person wielding it could get close enough to stab him in the Philosopher's Stone. Who ever wins the innocent bystanders lose. This is a fight to watch from some distance away I think... I loved the little touches like that. It seems like the sort of thing Brandon would do.

Denethor was the movies greatest failure imo, which is a shame because book Denethor is a tragic and fairly noble figure who Dalinar would probably be able to respect in some degree. Movie Denethor sucks. Hoid meanwhile runs through at least six cars a month a has a near miss roughly every time he hits the main roads. His other car is a spaceship.

The Eagles actually makes more sense than at first glance, the whole point of the Fellowship was to sneak in under Sauron's radar cause if he knew about Frodo he'd have stomped over nabbed the ring and crushed everyone without trouble. The Eagles are good for emergency rescues but they're also massive magical flying servants of the Valar who are exactly the sort of people Sauron would be watching to make sure the Valar weren't going to intervene. They also never leave their mountains under normal circumstances and only really do so at the request of Gandalf or one of the other Istarii. Flying in on the Eagles would sent up a big red flag saying 'Gandalf is here guys!' and then Sauron would have just met them at Mt Doom, crushed their resistance and taken back the ring.

Depends on whether its regular Father or GodFather, GodFather has an omnidirectional forcefield that disintegrates matter, can perform nuclear fusion with his mind, and survive doing so. From volume 26 Chapter 105 The Throne of God. The Viz Media official translation. He can also control the weather, rip out souls, fire energy beams that destroy most of a Central Command and more. He could probably beat Rashek in that form, unless of course Rashek has the Well.

Good points and thanks for the compliment I think if I were to do a crossover I'd keep him as being Truth but Enligtenment or something similar would also work. I do find it interesting how much of Alchemy works under Realmatics, they even have a three part model of their universe, body mind/spirit and soul (they use both mind and spirit interchangeably depending on the translation but it's still pretty close). Large parts of the system like swallowing souls to gain powers and immortality are right out of Awakening and Hemalurgy. They even have a similar life sense ability.

I thought about this a lot actually, I reckon the tectonic energy might be something like Feruchemy or Lift, converting normal energy into Investiture maybe? Or it could be like color in Awakening, not the fuel but a necessarily catalyst. Or they could be wrong and tapping into something like the Dor, the Xingese Alkahestrians mention something called the Dragon's Pulse as a source of energy which seemed somewhat similar... Father is definitely a Splinter imo, and the Homunculi are splinters from him, which in a roundabout sort of way makes Ling an equivalent to a Knight Radiant The Order of the Greedskins Oaths include "I want everything you can possibly imagine. I want money and women, power and sex, status, glory! I demand the finer things in life!" And that's it. That's all the oaths. I also think that the human sacrifices are, if not full Slivers, getting close to that, being people who performed Human Transmutation, touched the power of a Shard, and were left altered body, mind and soul. For Truth I reckon Truth actually works quite well for him, he grants knowledge of the world and it seems like it's primary goal is to educate the people who try human transmutation, it gave Father a whole speech about how he had failed to learn about himself and how Ed (by trading away his Gate) had learnt the lesson he was trying to teach etc. According to the author the reason he looks and acts differently is because it's a reflection of the person it's talking to, their own personal Truth that reflects what they need to hear and mimics their shape and personality. Which is why it always knows what to take that the person would value the most. So in away the Truth Ed talks to isn't the Shard itself so much as the part of the Shard invested in him. I...may have thought a fair bit about FMA and the Cosmere. But really, it fits so well part of me thinks that Amestris must be on a Shardworld somewhere in the Cosmere galaxy, which then makes me want to see Hoid and Hohenheim getting a drink sometime.

I find the potions idea more interesting, partly because I've seen similar shapeshifting ideas done before but also because I think the potions has more dramatic potential, rationing how many potions you have left, picking the right dosage and keeping track of the timings, watching for the risk of overdose, all of those are good dramatic limits to ensure tension and conflict within the setting. I also like the egalatarian aspect of it, potions being available to everyone in a variety of types meaning more flexibility of use and a more cohesive impact of society makes it feel more like a magic system to me and less like a set of randomly assigned super powers. I'm interested to know more about how these potions are made and the specifics of what they can grant (strength, sense, flight?) as well as how they choose which attribute a potion grants and what happens if you use more than one potion or more than one species to draw from at a time. Also, what would happen if you used human blood? Enhance your intelligence and become superhumanly smart maybe? That would be a good, and unsettling, villain power to have.

Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, we all know that Sanderson has a very particular style of magic with a scientifically rigourous approach applied both in universe and out, what other settings and magics fit the same general mold? Which magic systems fit most closely with the Sanderson 'hard magic' approach? Which ones are most interesting to compare to his? What magics can you see working within the Cosmere and what setting are they from? For instance one of my favorite 'magics' from any work is Alchemy from FullMetal Alchemist. The rules are simple, logical and clearly defined and everything the characters can do with it follows on sensibly from the initial premises. There are occasional surprises and exceptions to the familiar rules but all of them are satisfactorily explained as the characters discover more about the laws of Alchemy and learn where the rules can be bent via loopholes. The use of magic, both as a tool of the characters and as an overarching aspect of the stories plot and mystery reminds me very much of Mistborn. Alchemy itself is similar in many ways to Soulcasting, it's a 'magic' (everyone in universe regards it as a science) based around the transmutation and reshaping of matter, using various fuel sources such as tectonic energy or to do so. Alchemy is governed by simple rules and principles From those basic rules you get all sorts of effects, like reshaping the earth to make tools out of trace metals or barriers of stone, repairing buildings and machines or even altering the composition of the atmosphere to make it flammable which make for great fight scenes and creative non-combat uses. (For added bonus there's even a Shard like entity behind the magic system named after a concept, in this case Truth...) What would you pick?

I tend to the theory that the Breath is only a part of a person's soul/Innate Investiture not the whole, so drabs can have less Innate Investiture than normal people but still have some (enough to have a soul and sentience for example). Getting Brandon to clarify on this would be helpful though.

For the Lord Ruler and duralumin examples I figured that was just like piercing a cloud with enhanced bronze, a product of raw power bypassing the natural protection of copper. I believe that's even mentioned by the characters in the book. The Zane example is odd though...it's possible she wasn't using copper for whatever reason (to make her bronze work better?) or it could be an inconsistency or maybe the work of Ruin? I don't think we know enough to conclusively say what was going on there, though there are a lot of interesting possibilities.

Well remember, part of the reason that Preservation needed to siphon of the excess power was because of Ruin outweighing him in raw power after he Invested in granting mankind his power. That power is still in the people of Scadrial so in order to keep a balance of the two Shards he holds he might be dumping a portion of Ruin's power into a safe vent, like the Pits.