CognitiveShadow

Adding a clarifying question here- how much time do we think has passed from when the events in the story happened to when Hoid is telling the story to his audience?? I’m guessing both events are in the same general area of the cosmere timeline, but there’s probably been a significant amount of time between I would think.

That’s a good question, I found a wob that I think sheds some light on how that works: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/188/#e4911

I took that as more of a slip of the tongue by Hoid- he called it a laptop, realized the people he is talking to would have no idea what that is, and corrected it back to a magical box. To me it seemed like Hoid was trying to “magicify” all of the high tech things in the story because he couldn’t very well explain them to the audience- because they have no modern tech or understanding. so I still think it’s people on first of the sun. Wit is also just a name he uses now, doesn’t have to be in reference to the title of the kings wit on roshar. He kind of took over that title and still goes by that name in roshar even when he has a new title under Jasnah

My guess based on this WOB is that Autonomy co-opted the Derethi religion, autonomy is Jaddeth. Or Jaddeth is an avatar of autonomy. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/509/#e15951

I still lean towards a Sho Del. It doesn’t call out the extra limbs but says it only vaguely resembled a human. To me that leaves it open enough to have been a Sho Del.

The main reason for us to have the story is because it ends with Hoid becoming an Elantrian, which will no doubt have a major impact on the future of the larger story of the Cosmere. If that (or something of a similar level of impact / tie-in) didn’t happen, this book would be cute and fun, but ultimately disappointing, I think. At this stage in the Cosmere, every new book should be either pushing the overarching plot-line forward, or giving us answers existing and important questions. That’s why Brandon is ‘taking off the gloves’ as others have mentioned on this thread. Ultimately, I loved secret project 1 for the fun and unique story it was, but loved it even more for the tie-ins to the larger Cosmere (especially Hoid’s new progress). I don’t understand the ask for new starting points in the Cosmere given how far along it is now, or why people are surprised that the same characters are popping up. Like I said earlier, I personally think the pool of people that are actively involved in the major storyline is relatively small. Plenty of random (and awesome) stories could be told about the millions of people in the Cosmere and their lives/adventures, but Brandon is focusing in on the threads of a larger story. To me that means the important characters will continue to pop up, especially given that various forms of immortality is a thing in-world.

Yeah I think you make some great points. I guess for me at this point I highly doubt there will be any books coming out in the future that are truly good standalone / entry into the cosmere books. Best entry points have already been written I think. From here on out Brandon is racing to get to the end of the cosmere story before the sun dies

The way I look at it, the actual number of people in-world who are fully aware of the big picture of the cosmere and it’s main ongoing conflicts is actually fairly small, especially if you recognize that there’s actually an even smaller number of organized efforts involved, which are led by people who have found a way to avoid death by natural causes. That limits the number of people who are available for the stories. On top of that, we are getting a carefully crafted story of this major conflict in the cosmere, and each book helps push that overarching story forward a little bit, or helps us better understand the situation at hand. This includes lots of foreshadowing, and it makes sense that the people the story has focused on previously that seemed to just be random people in the cosmere turn out to actually be important players…. (Sixth of the Dust for example) The whole reason we get to see these peoples stories is so that we will better understand them and value them when we see them on the bigger stage with everyone else. So it makes sense that we have reached a point where more and more overlap will start happening with these people that we already know about, we been introduced to them and now we get to see the real reason why. There will still be new casts like in MB eras 3 and 4, SA back half, etc, but the important / immortal and involved people will still be interacting with them and making major decisions. That’s why we got their stories- they tie in with the bigger one.

Thanks for the link! I’ll check it out and hopefully improve my ability to know when I’m wrong lol

For me it was a suspicion from their first meeting, but I always reserved a bit of doubt as to whether Brandon was trying to make me think it was Charlie or if it really was haha When Huck was talking about Hoid’s curse and kept saying that talking about someone else’s curse lets you give more hints and stuff I started to feel pretty certain. But I almost abandoned the idea and bit on the fake Sho del Charlie coming out of the cell too haha

I'm with you on this- I think it's Sixth of the Dusk and maybe some of his companions

Lol that’s perfect if there’s one thing we can all agree on completely, it’s that there is nothing we can all agree on completely haha

The back and forth on this thread is as eternal and evenly matched as the opposing sides in SA. A battle destined to go on forever until someone finds the anti-light equivalent of a forum argument

I tend to agree with @IlstrawberrySeed on the function of an aluminum hemalurgic spike- you have to stab (and likely kill) someone to make the aluminum spike become hemalurgically charged. And THEN, you can stab someone with that spike to remove their powers. If you had an uncharged lerasium spike and stabbed someone with the right intent and in the right place (again, likely killing them), it would steal their powers (becoming hemalurgically charged) and you could then stab someone else or yourself to transfer those powers.