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Wit Beyond Measure

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Wit Beyond Measure last won the day on December 27 2017

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  1. I wholeheartedly agree and have always agreed with that statement. The Coppermind says, "Since the listeners recall this story about throwing off the Fused," citing WoR I-4, where WoR never says "Fused" but instead talks of abandoning the forms their gods gave them. BAM and the Unmade are their gods, as Venli confirms, and so WoR I-4 could easily have been talking about the False Desolation, as Ulim tells Venli. So, yes, "gods" could mean Fused or could mean the Unmade or Odium. The premise on which the Coppermind concludes that the listeners became listeners before the False Desolation is unproven to me until I see a direct quote from WoR that proves the Coppermind's premise to be true, that the Last Legion threw off the Fused when becoming listeners.
  2. Thanks! I couldn't find the quote you were speaking of, and it may just be that I was searching on the wrong word, "Unmade," to find the quote, but I did find a Venli quote saying much the same thing.
  3. Yes, I'd already forgotten when Wayne started investing, and it was much further back than I realized. He's had his "lucky hat" since before Alloy of Law, so perhaps Wayne has always had a bit of Fortune. We only really saw the payoff in LM, though. While I don't think anyone believes Harmony to be a 17th Shard, that would be a 17th godmetal, so I misspoke. Even so, I don't think Wayne's 17 is pointing toward Harmony. If it were, others would be saying 17 and not just Wayne. Marasi tells Wayne he's wrong, even, and everything in Era 2 is still essentially base 16. In fact, I don't think anything was base 16 until Era 2. Era 1 was all base 10 just like our standardized system of counting. So no, I don't believe that Harmony is the 17th. Yes, I definitely agree that the Shattering created 16 Shards, which is why Era 2 finally discovers all 16 and starts counting in base 16. Wayne's use of 17 seems prophetic because it hasn't happened yet, a new Shard being created like the group and this forum's namesake strive to create, a 17th Shard. Oh, I had forgotten that quote! You are correct that Sazed didn't realize Wayne was the key until the end, and so Sazed almost surely did not deliberately give Wayne the Fortune. And yet, I still think that Wayne was the epitome of Fortune in LM especially, and I don't believe that to be coincidence. Here's a WoB that references Stormlight and explains how Fortune works in another character without the user knowing exactly the details but only what he needs to do and where he needs to be. So perhaps Sazed was doing things with Wax because Wayne always tags along, only Sazed didn't realize until later that the reason he sent Wax was to get Wayne there. I could be wrong, of course, but that seems to be how Fortune works. There are a ton of these about this particular non-Wayne character marked #fortune if you want to search, assuming you're up to date on the cosmere.
  4. From the Coppermind's article on Fortune: Coincidences like making a series of investments that appear to be ridiculously fortunate and like pulling off the impossible with his bendalloy at the end of LM. With Fortune, Wayne could literally see the future without realizing it, which is why he made such great investments. Hoid trades his precious harmonica to Wayne for a rat. Are there other fortunes Wayne received? I'm dying to do an Era 2 re-read, now! My favorite thing was something I had noticed after my first read as sounding particularly prophetic, but that was before I realized that Sazed had essentially granted Wayne the gift of prophecy in LM by giving him so much Fortune. Wayne prophetically uses 17 or 17th a total of four times in this book alone, even though Marasi corrects him and says, dude, it's like supposed to be sixteen! Something is absolutely up with that. I cannot help but think we have a 17th Shard confirmed, and that Shard will mean a 17th godmetal. I'm not sure that's the case, but something is definitely up with seventeen. Here are the four quotes and my thoughts on them at the time... https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/123106-wayne-his-17th-metal-17th-shard/
  5. Thank you! I looked up the source that the Coppermind quoted, and it was I-4 from WoR. WoR does not contain the word "Fused" in the entire book. This interlude does speak of the Last Legion attempting to escape their gods, yes. It seems that the Coppermind has assumed that gods = Fused, which is not an unreasonable assumption, but I think that their own definition is broader than that. I believe that the listeners would include Odium and BAM in their definition of gods, as granters of forms of power: This paired with Ulim's quote that BAM originally Connected with "all singers" on Roshar makes me believe that the Last Legion abandoned their forms during the False Desolation. Assuming Ulim is being honest and accurate, all singers Connected to BAM during the False Desolation, including all listeners, which means that the listeners must have still had their forms at the beginning of the False Desolation. As to your Mistborn spoiler: Thank you for the hope that the gemstones may not be necessary! The aluminum is the more necessary part, I believe, and perhaps the only necessary part for the travel itself. Singers are still Connected to BAM even though they have gemhearts, so the gemhearts if necessary would not be enough to completely negate Connection on their own, without aluminum. I joke about stuffing Thaidakar in a box, but he could have an entire spaceship or at least a room in a spaceship (like Azure's room) lined completely with aluminum. If a cognitive shadow can negate previous world Connections by establishing a new world Connection, any source of world Connection would do. But something tells me that Thaidakar has a stronger Connection that is not so easily negated, and perhaps that's why it is harder for him to off-world than all the others in Thaidakar's world who are already off-worlding. I mean, the Ghostbloods might as well be called Worldhoppers 'R Us.
  6. This is in the digital version at the very end of Chapter 4, and it might not be a typo. I could just not be understanding the use of the word "saw," here.
  7. Thank you! My understanding of worldhopping and travel is far from complete, for sure. There are holes in my understanding, but I love taking educated guesses and then tweaking as we learn more information. I'm definitely not fully there, but I hope I'm moving along the right path. Watching a WoB Shardcast just now, they mentioned two WoBs that appear to confirm the usefulness of BAM-like abilities (Bondsmith spren abilities) when it comes to travel off-world:
  8. I believe the Arnist method specifically refers to using larger gemstones to suck out the light from the smaller gemstone prison, but other methods like the Thaylen tuning fork and Odium's use of Raysium metal both still suck in Stormlight to capture the spren. Dalinar does specifically mention that the Thrill isn't smart enough to be afraid of him, so the Thrill may not have needed to be sucked and suckered in as smarter Unmade, like the Midnight Mother or BAM, would have. The Bondsmith's bond with the Thrill played an essential role in his capture, yes, and that's surely at least part of what Melishi did with BAM, as well. They are Bondsmiths for a reason.
  9. Warning: This post contains a single Stormlight 5 prologue spoiler, masked, and potentially significant spoilers should these theories prove accurate. Reading the prologue for Stormlight 5 first is recommended. Just as the Stormfather provides Stormlight and surgebinding powers to all of Honor's children, Ba-Ado-Mishram (BAM) became the Voidmother proving Voidlight and voidbinding powers to all of Odium's children, all of her Singers, during the False Desolation. One BAM to Connect them all One BAM aligned them One BAM to draw them all And with her Voidlight bind them One gem severs the whole One gem divides them One gem rips away souls And then the darkness finds them In the Land of Roshar Where the Singers die And Listeners live We'll explore much relevant history leading up to and beyond BAM's imprisonment (see Coppermind's BAM and False Desolation articles for supporting canon references) and theories explaining the magical science behind what happened with BAM, her Singers, and related events. BAM-SINGER CONNECTION HISTORY The lead up to and fall out from BAM's gemstone capture includes: Long, long ago, Odium unmakes 9 spren who fight during many desolations in which BAM serves as highprincess and commander of Odium's forces, The last desolation comes where all but Taln survive, Taln holds Odium and his Fused on Braize all by himself (spanning a total of 4500 years), During the long imprisonment of Odium and the Fused, BAM somehow gains the ability to pull Voidlight into the Physical Realm and to Connect herself with all the Singers of Roshar, a feat previously only managed by Odium, making herself a little god (RoW 847-848), Even though Odium and the Fused are still trapped on Braize, BAM's newfound powers give her the ability to provide Singers with forms of power including all the Regal forms plus stormform, which allows BAM to wage war against the Knights Radiant during the False Desolation, with no end in sight, The Listeners, tired of endless war and manipulation from both Odium and Honor, "cast off everything - including our very forms - to find freedom," which severs their Connection to BAM (RoW 159), Honor's long, slow death begins around this time, The Knights Radiant form a special Strike Team to imprison BAM inside a gemstone in order to end the False Desolation, Because BAM is a little god and holds strong Connection to the spren and souls of every Singer in Roshar except the Listeners, these tethered souls and spren get sucked along their Connection to BAM, ripping out pieces of their souls, removing both their Identity and Connection, and possible damaging or destroying their gemhearts in the ripping process, Somehow even Honor and Cultivation's spren and the Sibling get damaged by BAM's imprisonment, though to a much smaller degree that perhaps signals a much smaller Connection between the Voidmother and "all who belong to Roshar," affecting the Sibling's abilities to make Towerlight and crippling Urithiru (RoW 621), Close to dying, Honor cannot help the Sibling, Urithiru, or the Knights Radiant, The Battle for Feverstone Keep begins before BAM's imprisonment since the enemy still pushes for that ground and parshmen are anything but pushy (OB 809), BAM's imprisonment, if during the Battle for Feverstone Keep, would have caused all fighting Singers to experience excruciating pain and then simultaneously transform into docile, mindless parshmen, All Singers Connected to BAM become parshmen through a break in Identity and Connection; only the Listeners escape because of their previously broken Connections to her, Hundreds of Windrunners and Stonewards at Feverstone Keep become the first to abandon their oaths en masse as Honor says, "they are the first" (OB 547), Two thousand years later, the Everstorm travels to Roshar through the Cognitive Realm and is brought through to the physical realm, and The Everstorm restores both Identity and Connection by repairing the Singers’ souls and possibly their gemhearts. SCIENCE-MAGIC THEORY BEHIND CONNECTION, CAPTURING SPREN, AND THE SINGERS' SOULS From Newton, we know: Force = mass * acceleration From Jasnah (OB 1179), we know that "concentrated Stormlight has a faint mass to it." So the more we accelerate the physical mass of the Stormlight, the stronger the physical force we have acting on the Stormlight and anything Connected to and by the Stormlight. How do we move or accelerate Stormlight? Navani's lecture on fabrial mechanics includes details on sucking Light into a gemstone in order to trap a spren inside a gemstone. We first lure a spren into close proximity to a gemstone with something it likes (e.g., flames for flamespren) and by using the type of gemstone it prefers (RoW epigraphs, Chapter 1). Interestingly, we already know the type of gemstones preferred by each Order of Knights Radiant (and each associated herald). Moash's knife had a large sapphire gemstone hilt that gave a subdued glow after capturing Jezrien's spren-soul (OB 1205), which makes me wonder if the gemstone in Leshwi's spear (RoW 80) that drained Kaladin's Stormlight and nearly sucked out his soul (RoW 101) was sapphire, as well. The first questions we must ask ourselves would be 1) what would BAM be attracted to and 2) what kind of gemstone would she prefer? To answer the second, maybe the Voidmother would prefer a heliodor, as the Stormfather would. As for the first question, she appears to like war and commanding, and she has shown particular interest in Feverstone Keep (OB 809). One might imagine Melishi, the False Desolation's Bondsmith, and her Strike Team showing up at the Battle for Feverston Keep with a large and perfect (or nearly perfect) heliodor gemstone, knowing that BAM would be nearby commanding her troops and in search of something in the area that interested her. Navani's next stages in capturing a spren (RoW epigraphs, Chapters 2-5) would be filling the gemstone to around 70% full of Stormlight (Voidlight in BAM's case) and then quickly sucking that Stormlight out to create a vacuum that will suck in a nearby spren. Suppose you take a brown paper lunch sack and suck the air out. It collapses, right? The same would be true of a Ziploc bag. By collapsing to reduce the volume, the bag equalizes the pressure. But what about something that has a rigid structure like a gemstone, especially a gemstone that doesn't leak? If you suck all the air out of a glass, for example, you'd suction that glass to your face since you've created a vacuum of extremely low pressure. Because air and Light will always seek the lowest pressure possible, they'll get sucked into a vacuum until the pressure outside of the gem roughly equals the pressure inside the gem. Since volume is inversely proportional to pressure, the larger the gemstone, the lower the pressure (where the lower pressure goes the stronger the vacuum becomes). And finally, the tighter the seal, the less a gemstone will leak and the stronger the vacuum will be. So large, perfect gemstones make the perfect traps for these gods. At this point, you might be asking yourself, how does the spren gets sucked in along with the Stormlight? That's where Connection comes in. When the Stormfather gives Stormlight to his children - his spren and his surgebinders - an invisible cord of Stormlight will Connect that spren or that Radiant to the Stormfather. The same can be said for the Voidmother's children - BAM's spren and her Singers: they're all Connected to their mother by a physical force from the Voidlight she provides. Let's say you have a massive gemstone and a larkin quickly sucking a ton of Light out of your stone. The gemstone will quest out seeking to replace all or almost all of the light it just lost with a powerful force. Once it captures a nearby Stormlight Connection cord, the spren will be drawn in along with the Stormlight the spren is tethered to. Yes, the Connection is mostly spiritual, but there is a small physical Connection, too (because the Stormlight Connecting them has a small mass, as Jasnah said, and mass * acceleration is force, as Newton said). If we yank hard enough on that tether, the spren cannot help but be pulled in. We see this with spren pulled into fabrials, yes, but also with human and Singer souls, tethered to their home planet by their Connection to the Investiture there. We saw Jezrien's spren-soul sucked into Moash's sapphire knife and Kaladin's soul nearly sucked into Leshwi's gemstone-capped spear, both of which had metal that specifically draws in Stormlight including the Stormlight cords of Connection. Let me digress for a smidge to explain that Identity and souls are nearly synonymous. For instance, the Fused (where each Fused is the soul of one ancient Singer fuzed together forever to a surgebinding spren, granting surgebinding powers and immortality) maintain their Identities - and most of their intellect, knowledge, and memories - even though they constantly lose the rest of their bodies because Identity is stored in the soul. Connection for the traditional Singer bond appears to be stored in their gemhearts since that is where their spren and probably their souls reside. Now I said all that to say this: this, this, this is how Singers' souls were ripped away, how their Identity and Connection were stolen, and how they became mindless parshman slaves, by having parts of their souls that were tethered to their Voidmother ripped free, likely destroying their gemstones in the process, as BAM and all her many Connections were sucked into her gemstone prison. With Singer souls damaged, they were not quite soulless and mindless nothings but nearly so. And with Singer gemhearts damaged or destroyed, the parshmen lost their abilities to bond any other spren or to hear the rhythms of Roshar inside their gemhearts. The Listeners were spared, maintaining their Identity and their abilities to Connect with other spren because they had previously severed their Connections to BAM before her imprisonment. TRAVEL & WORLDHOPPING We'd be remiss if, while we're here with Connection, we didn't speculate on travel and worldhopping. Connection tethers Invested individuals to their home planet, not letting them escape lest they rip out part of their souls, their Identity, and destroy their Connection. But of course there is a way around this problem, a way out, because this is Sanderson, after all. The remainder of the post includes a little speculation about how off-world travel may be possible based on what we know of Connection above and a single spoiler from the Knights of Wind and Truth prologue that gives a bit more detail regarding the quote above. Reading the prologue for Stormlight 5 first is recommended. I've kept all non-Stormlight cosmere spoilers out of this post.
  10. Just over 2 weeks ago, my eldest started Stormlight!!! We're more than halfway in, now, and she wants us to fly across the country to do Dragonsteel 2024 for the Knights of Wind and Truth release. We would love to propose a panel. Are there submissions? If so, where and approximately when (for 2024) would I look to find them? Would your best guess be that KoWaT would be released before, after, or during Dragonsteel 2024? Thank you!!!
  11. Thanks, Treamayne, for the insights on why other shard mergers will likely not be so unstable: that makes so much sense! I love the WoB quotes. alder24, I forgot the mention our 17th Shard organization! I meant to. Yes, Wayne's 17 references could definitely be pointing to a future alliance or membership. At the same time, the 17th Shard group name could be the kind of double-ironic foreshadowing we see with the dead Survivor's survival hoax in The Well of Ascension: a hoax no longer.
  12. Mistborn Era 2 counts in base 16 with "sixteens of years," "sixteens upon sixteens of cars," and "sixteens of feet," all crafted from the premise that there are 16 base metals. Wayne's fascination with 17 instead of 16, however, in the "Lost Metal" particularly drew my interest. Wayne chooses 17 for his scale of 1 to 17, instead of 16: And then he keeps his scale at 17, despite Marasi's reaction to the number: Hoid surprisingly accepts Wayne's live rat in trade for his precious harmonica after Sir Squeekins escapes from Wayne 17 times: And finally, Wayne uses 17 bags of bendalloy to become the surprise hero of Era 2, where Harmony thinks 17 will be enough: Seventeen. Now, if you're a normal, well-adjusted reader sauntering through these passages, you probably just keep on moving. But I have never been a normal, well-adjusted reader, particularly after Sanderson took hold of me. There is always another secret, and Sanderson leaves the best crumbs. Even though I'm reasonably sure Wayne's 17 is meant to grab our attention and point to a future secret, what I don't know - what I really have no idea about - is what Wayne's 17th secret truly is. My best guess points to one more base metal: 17 base metals instead of 16. Does this mean we also have one more god? One more shard? A hidden one? The new shard of Harmony? But Harmony as the 17th shard doesn't really seem to fit, in my opinion, because there will likely be lots of mergings of shards in our journey to putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, to a new Adonalsium, which is where I think the whole cosmere is headed. And are we truly done with Wayne? Most of me cannot fathom Wayne sticking around or ascending, and yet part of me marvels at how blatantly our tale's Blatant Barm beginning mirrors the ending: "It gets better," Wayne's Ma tells us, "because the ending has a surprise." Jak defeats his villain by being swallowed by the beast and then choking the beast from the inside as he goes down with him, both ending in tragedy. Sound familiar? But there is always another secret with Sanderson, the promised surprise ending. Jak "sauntered out down its tongue—like it was some fancy mat set outside a carriage for a rich man" (where Wayne describes himself as "a fancy rich guy now"). Another interesting observation, which may or may not be related, is how atium (Ruin's body) and lerasium (Preservation's body) disappear as Preservation and Ruin disappear while Harmony emerges just as ettmetal, also known as harmonium (Harmony's body), emerges. The only known method for separating harmonium back into atium and lerasium occurs by applying trellium (Autonomy's body), with limited success. Is this metal splitting a foreshadowing of how Autonomy herself will eventually split Harmony back into Ruin and Preservation, in Era 3 perhaps? Or is this a metaphor for something that already started to happen with limited success? Miles Hundredlives describes trellium as "the final metal" (Lost Metal pg 58). I'm not sure what that means but it seems significant. Wax describes trellium as extremely hard and brittle (Lost Metal pg 86), where surely hard and brittle describe both the metal and the shard itself. "Stannis is pure iron, black and hard and strong, yes, but brittle, the way iron gets. He'll break before he bends." (A Clash of Kings, GRRM) Harmonium, on the other hand, is "pliable" (Lost Metal pg 86) and so "highly unstable" that the metal must be kept in a protective oil to keep it from reacting to the very air (Lost Metal pg 89). Just. Like. Harmony. Oh, I hate that for Sazed. He's so good, a wonderful person to be a vessel. But no one would be able to hold Harmony for long by its very nature. Will all merging shards be highly unstable until we reach back to a new Adonalsium? Is a 17th shard needed as glue to unify the shards permanently and make our new Adonalsium truly eternal?
  13. Our eldest daughter has finally been convinced to read a Sanderson! She's been intimidated by the length, so I tried to get her to start with Skyward without luck. But my having a hard copy of Tress that was completely gorgeous and hearing me rave about the book, our artsy daughter decided to dig in. I had told her that my favorite character (Wit, of course) had a major role but not that he was the narrator. And the first comment she had was how much she adored the narrator! She was confused when I said that he was my favorite, though. She was like, his name is Hoid. And now she's all, are they joking about the talking rats? And, I hope this little rat sticks around. Love, love, love being able to share Sanderson and Wit with her!
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