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  1. Some new Wobs from Sanderson’s Skyward Reddit page.
  2. So i ran into this interesting WoB. Tho Cultivation wasn't mentioned here so maybe he is only more worried about Harmony simply because he is a Shard compared to both Hoid/Dalinar. Still interesting nonetheless that he is more worried of Harmony who is so far away who probably doesn't even have plans involving him(or maybe he does with Hoid's letter and he has Kandra's spying on that place) than the actual people causing him problems upfront. Or is it about overconfidence but he isn't that confident enough against Harmony (cause he is a relatively unknown vessel who just randomly joined the game) ? Personally while i do subscribe on the theory that Autonomy may likely be the big bad. It is interesting to find WoB that push the hype of a possible confrontation between the two bigs of Cosmere. Thoughts ?
  3. I'm wondering: is it possible the "Sibling" was twisted and broken up into the unmade? We have this about the unmade from the Arcanum: Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) 1) The Nightwatcher and Stormfather are parallel entities such that Nighwatcher:Cultivation :: Stormfather:Honor. 2) There is sort of a parallel for Odium, but the parallel is the various Unmade instead of a single entity. 3) They are parallel in that they are all Splinters. 4) The Unmade are voluntary Splinters, because Odium ("like almost all of the other Shards") voluntarily Splintered part of it's power. 5) The Stormfather is different from the others because it's a Sliver. source So Odium voluntarily Splintered part of its power into the Sibling, then somehow the Sibling splinters into the Unmade (probably parallel or similar to the splintering of Adonalsium). On Roshar, there is one splinter for Honor (the Stormfather) and one for Cultivation (the Nightwatcher). Why would Odium have nine splinters (the unmade)? We know there is a sibling, but if the sibling is Odium's splinter, then where do the unmade fit in? In my mind, it's possible the Unmade were once one splinter: the sibling. Given that Dalinar has imprisoned the Thrill, I'm also wondering if uniting the Unmade will become a goal of his. Certainly sabotaging the Heralds and the Unmade are part of the war against each other, but if Dalinar can remove all the Unmade from the playing field by uniting them back together... Disclaimer: I searched "unmade+sibling+unite+dalinar" and still got over 1,000 results on the forums. This theory seemed different enough from the ones I read - I know there are a few threads regarding things Dalinar needs to unite, and what/who the Unmade are, and who the Sibling is, but none actually seemed to put them together. Regardless, I apologize if this has already been discussed!
  4. I've been thinking about the physics and realmatics of soulcasting. We have seen quite a bit of it on screen, but there are, of course, still mysteries. Going down the soulcasting rabbit-hole, I came across the following WoB: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/105-17th-shard-forum-qa/#e1139 Unfortunately, this seems to disagree with the canonical description of soulcasting. I imagine Brandon said this because in general he likes to preserve the laws of physics. (In this case the conservation of mass.) But how does mass conserving soulcasting contradict canonical soulcasting: 1) Soulcasting is shape preserving. We have seen this in every case where it is possible to see the shape of both the original object and the soulcast object. However, not only is it shape preserving, soulcasting also seems to be volume preserving. We have never seen a soulcast object, when soulcast into a denser material, shrink. This would be a very visible effect. It looks like marble has a density of about 2.7 g/mL. A human body has a density(if we include the air filled lungs) a little less than water, so let's call it 1 g/mL. If soulcasting conserved mass, a body soulcast to marble would shrink in volume by about 63%. This would cause a 6 ft. man to become a 4' 4" statue. 2) If soulcasting conserved mass, soulcasting to a lighter density material would cause catatrophic explosions. The analysis would be easier if she had soulcast it to air, but let us consider the example of Jasnah soulcasting the boulder to smoke. The smoke floated upward so it is less dense than the surrounding air. It looks like air at Standard temperature and pressure is about 1.3e-3 g/mL. If the boulder was 1m diameter sphere (This is being generous, it was likely much larger), it would have a mass of about 1.4 million grams of 1400 kg (using the density of marble as above). If soulcasting conserved mass, this would result in smoke that really wants to occupy about 1 million liters. To put that in D&D terms, that is 307 5ftx5ftx5ft cubes. Upon being soulcast the smoke would initially be at a pressure of 770 atms. A rough estimate would put the resulting expansion of the smoke at the equivalent of 55 lbs of TNT. (This last figure is very detail dependent and it is possible that I made some mistakes in the calculation. To make the conversion to equivalent pounds of TNT, I referenced http://ftp.feq.ufu.br/Luis_Claudio/Segurança/Safety/GUIDELINES_Chemical_Process_Quantitative_Risk_Analysis/0720X_02e.pdf) My conclusion? Soulcasting doesn't preserve mass, it preserves volume. Breaking conservation of mass is always problematic if you want to have physics behave in any way like we are used to, but I have some realmatic thoughts about that that I will share soon. I think that you can avoid the troubles associated with non-conservation of mass in a realmatic way.
  5. Where do you guys research your WoBs? I could swear I saw one a year back or so saying a Herald with an Honorblade is going to be able to do much more than a normal person with it. I've been searching the Arcanum here for tags, Heralds, Herald, Honorblade, and on and can't find it. Does anyone else remember this quote? This has been sticking in my head lately, due to my perceived foreshadowing that Nale and Szeth will fight. I wonder how it would look because Nightblood was described by the Nightwatcher as a "sword that cannot be defeated". Nightblood told Szeth that he could show him that Nale's sword was nothing and let him show him how.
  6. I originally thought Timbre was maybe Eshoni's soul back when we saw the as of then unnamed Timbre in WoR, but when we saw more of Timbre in OB I abandoned that train of thought. Because of this, I found this WoB to be funny. Especially @Overlord Jebus's reaction to it.
  7. I didnt see this WoB being discussed anywhere yet but this comes from the London Signing and is on Arcanum What do you guys think about this? Do you think it was originally one of the 16 or it ended up there somehow?
  8. Hey guys I just came across this WoB on arcanum, and I apologize if this is common knowledge but it is new to me! Source So what does this change to you guys? Does this mean Jezrien was immediately forced to beyond or was he himslef captured in a gem (like some sort of spren in a fabrial)?
  9. I am admittedly terrible at search functions. Google is my Nemesis, always. That said, I remember seeing a map that Mr. Sanderson wrote ‘Great Magic Unleashed Here’ on someones copy of WoK. Have we figured out what that was yet? I am stuck on either: 1: The Splintering of Honour. or (My favourite) 2: the Shattering of Adonalsium Hoid was present at the Shattering and seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Roshar. As massive as the Shattered Plains are (and ‘Shattered’ just sounds... well..) How much energy would it take to cause that level of destruction?
  10. So there is this WoB that I couldn't figure out. I was wondering if you guys could make heads or tails of it. Q: The prevailing theory on the 17th Shard is that Hoid worldhops using Shadesmar. I was wondering if you were willing to confirm or deny that? A: Hoid has indeed gotten between worlds before through Shadesmar. Q: And would you be willing to give us a hint as to how he does that? A: There are hints in the books. There is a hint in the very first cosmere book I released. [that would be Elantris] Which I thought was a huge hint, but so far I haven't seen anyone talking about it. I thought for sure once people started figuring the cosmere, they would see the massive in-your-face hint I put in that book, but so far, as far as I know, no one has. Now, the one [hint] about the map, that one I don't think is obvious. I know people have been trying to figure it out. It's going to be fun once you figure it out, but it's not something huge and obvious. The Elantris once was, like, enormously "HIIINT!"
  11. Anyone have a WoB on whether someone can level up on their Heightenings with Stormlight? Or do they need (can only use) breaths to level up? Yes, Stormlight and Breaths can be used interchangeably. But is there anything on whether you can have a sufficient amount of Stormlight to create a heightening jump. If yes, did Peter work out the math for this? If you need 200 breaths to get the the second heightening, how much Stormlight would you need? thanks!
  12. I haven't see a discussion on this WoB yet, source: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175-oathbringer-houston-signing/#e8418 Typical cagey Brandon. I think this means that while being broken is the most common way it isn't the only way. What do you guys think?
  13. === This theory has been moved from the Stormlight Board and updated for Oathbringer. Spoilers start at this post. Read at your own risk === So, this is a theory that I've kinda been kicking around in the back of my head for a while, and I've written some posts using this assumption. However, I've never atually gone and typed up a formal theory post. I... kinda made one on tumblr, but that doesn't count, so I've gotta get it up over here. For those of you alergic to tumblr posts, fret not. I'm going to put all that information over here. Now, as of the Shadows of Self signing, I've got some Word of Brandon on the subject as well! So it's high time we got this thing out here. I'll put the theory itself first, in-book justification, and then Brandon's responses to my questions. Theory: Renarin Kholin's visions throughout Words of Radiance are not a normal manifestation of Truthwatcher powers. They are likely not regular Surgebinding at all and may not even be related to his status as a Truthwatcher. Now, perhaps this seems counter-intuitive. Renarin says in WoR Ch. 89 that he's a Truthwatcher, which means he "sees." He's been seeing throughout the whole book, counting down to the arrival of the Everstorm. Why wouldn't those two be the same thing? Well, there's a few very good reasons why there seems to be more going on with Renarin than originally meets the eye: Arguments: #1 - Renarin's visions do not match other Radiants' expressions of his Surges. Admittedly, we have seen very little use of shared Surges by different orders, but from what we have seen, Surge expression seems to be very similar between sharing orders. Jasnah and Shallan's Soulcasting seems to work the same way, to the point that Jasnah believes she can teach Shallan how Soulcasting works, even though they have different Orders. We see both Ym (who is a Truthwatcher!) and Lift use their shared surge of Regrowth, and in both cases, it seems to work in an almost identical way. We would expect therefore, that Renarin's Surges, Regrowth and Illumination, would manifest in the same way as other users of these Surges. As stated above, we had two separate practitioners of Regrowth in WoR, one of whom was actually a Truthwatcher. On the other side, we've seen extensive use of Illumination thanks to Shallan, who goes through all kinds of self-training and uses of her Illumination powers. With these examples, we should be able to make a very educated guess as to what Renarin's Surgebinding capabilities are, even though we don't actually see him using these powers himself. The problem? Neither of those two surges seem to do anything close to what Renarin's visions do. The visions don't line up with either Illumination as we know it or Regrowth. You might be able to argue that Truthwatchers use Illumination differently than Lightweavers (which I'll support wholeheartedly, but that's a different topic) but this level of difference is difficult to justify. The more logical explanation is that something entirely different is going on. #2 - Renarin's visions appear to be involuntary, compulsive, and entirely outside of his control. [ CONFIRMED: See below ] Renarin is seeing the future, which is highly taboo in Vorin culture. This isn’t something I believe he would choose to do. Considering the way that he hides this from his family throughout the book and the high level of distress he shows in the finale with Shallan, this does not appear to be something he is choosing to experience on his own. In the same way that seeing the future is taboo, so is writing for men. If Renarin does not want to reveal that he’s seeing the future, we wouldn’t expect him to voluntarily write things down. Seeing him succumb to the vision at the end, he cries out and screams as he writes, and the way that he continues to write the same thing over and over make this seem like an involuntary reaction, going as far to be something he would fight if he could, but cannot. He loses control and is forced to write the glyphs. Additionally, Renarin cannot control entering or leaving the visions. While we do see Kaladin and Shallan using their surges unintentionally, we never see them using Stormlight against their will. With Shallan and Kaladin, it is a subconcious thing, rather than something done with them actively fighting it. Shallan is never trapped within an illusion, struggling to get out of it. Kaladin does not ever find himself unable to stop using Stormlight, or toppling into the sky as gravity suddenly yanks him the wrong way without him asking it to. As soon as those two become aware of their surgebinding, they can control it, even if they started unintentionally. Renarin’s visions show no such control. He seems to be able to feel them coming on, but can't do anything to stop them. Once within a vision, he can't get out until the vision itself decides to end. Renarin cannot do anything to stop or resist the visions. They are entirely against his will. #3 - Dalinar's visions are another example of involuntary, uncontrolled, compulsive visions which are not Surgebinding. Now, don't say it. Yes I know that Dalinar is a Surgebinder by the end of Words of Radiance. However, I am fairly certain that he was not a Surgebinder before the very end, when he actually bonds with the Stormfather. And he has been experiencing visions since before Way of Kings started. I take this to mean that they're not Surgebinding. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's the assumption I'm working under for now. Dalinar's and Renarin's visions are incredibly similar actually. Both are involuntary and unable to be resisted. Both involve visions. Both have an element of compulsive actions, as Dalinar moves and speaks in other languages and Renarin has an almost hypergraphic need to write during his visions, despite that Renarin probably hasn't ever written before this. They also appear to both be tied to highstorms, since they happen at the same time. Perhaps most telling is the fact that Dalinar seems to think that Renarin's future-sight is his own up until the reveal, and that he simply can't remember it happening. That said, there are differences. Dalinar sees the past, Renarin sees the future. Dalinar is completely unaware of the real world while in the midst of his visions. Renarin seems to know and be aware of what's happening to him, even though he can no longer control his body. Dalinar seems to act out what he's experiencing, Renarin writes. Still, I would argue that Renarin's visions have more in common with Dalinar's visions than with Shallan's Illumination. If Dalinar and Renarin shared a Surge, I'd be comfortable saying that they were a shared Surge. But Truthwatchers and Bondsmiths are actually on directly opposite ends of the Radiant Orders. If this is supposed to be Surgebinding, why are they manifesting similar powers in opposite Orders? Why did Dalinar's start before his Nahel bond? My answer: they're not Surgebinding. Neither one of them. Relevant Canon Texts and Commentary: All are from WoR, because I can’t find any significant evidence of Renarin's powers in WoK. Does Renarin use his powers somehow to hide his coming into the room and writing the glyphs? Does he put Dalinar to sleep somehow? It’s possible. The sudden break between the paragraphs is strange here... Sloppy lines, unpracticed at drawing glyphs. Renarin is not used to writing. He also might have been fighting against the complusion to write as he did it. This is right after the fight with Szeth. Renarin was towed back by Moash at the beginning, and then Kaladin, Dalinar, and Adolin fought. After Kaladin ran Szeth off outside the palace, he was unconscious for an indeterminate amount of time, and then the glyphs were found when he got back. It’s interesting that Renarin would choose to provide the translation, when Navani is there and could read it herself. I would have thought he would not want to implicate himself in the glyphs by reading them. Or perhaps his compulsion pushed him to provide the translation here? I’m mostly putting this in here because it’s another iteration of the glyphs and I wanted them all. The real interesting stuff comes from the discussion afterward between Dalinar and Adolin. Seeing as Renarin is the one doing the carving and not Dalinar, Adolin’s theory is undoubtedly what happened. One wonders if Renarin maintains enough control during the visions to be able to hide himself. Does he have enough autonomy to be able to frame Dalinar for the carvings and keep himself from being implicated? And here we see the reason that Renarin doesn’t come forward with the fact that it’s him. Adolin is used to the idea of his father losing control of himself during Highstorms, but this is taking it a step too far, it seems. Considering that Renarin is already quite an outsider in Vorin culture, he doesn’t want to make it worse. Dalinar is very self-assured even though his own visions are making him lose credit among the other lighteyes. Renarin is not. Over the sounds of me hissing protectively while clutched around my darling and glaring at Shallan, here we have the first time that Renarin is shown doing something strange and/or powery. No one else can sense the Everstorm yet. Pattern mentioned that the storm was coming to Shallan but Renarin seems to be able to sense it on his own. Even being warned about it, Shallan doesn’t see anything. Feather continues to be generally upset in Shallan’s direction. It’s interesting again that he says something here. If he’s trying to hide the fact he can see the future, wouldn’t he keep quiet? Is this right here voluntary or compelled? Feather continues to be GENERALLY STRESSED ABOUT RENARIN’S WELLBEING. By this point we’re definitely getting into involuntary territory. He’s feverish and crying out and screaming. I’m guessing we’re watching Renarin on the cusp of succumbing to the vision, yelling out in defiance right on the edge of it taking him over. Then he’s lost and the writing happens. That said, even as he’s lost control, he continues to talk, whispering as he writes. (UNRELATED SCREAMS OF RAGE) Okay this quote doesn’t really show much of his powers. We’ll say it’s here for the sake of completeness and not because Feather felt like raging at the heavens. Honestly, by this point, I’m really surprised that Shallan continues to think that Renarin is mad or crazy. Considering he’s been giving the exact same warnings as Pattern you’d think she’d catch on that this is a real thing. In some cases, Renarin’s warnings came before Pattern's. So here we see what is really the only argument for Renarin's visions being Truthwatching. I'm not convinced. I think that Renarin probably is a Truthwatcher, since there's other evidence that his Nahel bond is legitimate - screaming Shardblades, healed eyes, Glys, etc. -- but I don't take this as immediately confirming that what's happening with his visions is an expression of Surgebinding. I think the visions are either unrelated, or if related (less likely in my opinion), somehow influenced by an outside force as well. It’s also worth noting here that Glys uses masculine pronouns. Aside from Dalinar and the Stormfather, all other Nahel bonds have been between opposite gender pairs: Shallan/Pattern, Kaladin/Syl, Jasnah/Ivory, Lift/Wyndle, Ym/unnamed spren. Word of Brandon: These questions were asked by me, the first at the Words of Radiance Midnight Release (I'd already finished it at that point) and the latter two at the Shadows of Self Midnight Release. Unfortunately, I don't have direct quotes, though I think the SoS questions were recorded, but haven't been transcribed yet. The WoR Release question is unfortunately very far from verbatim as I just asked and didn't write down the answer until a few hours later. Silly Feather. The SoS two, while also not direct quotes, were written down right after being given. Feather: Is there something important in the fact that Glys and Renarin both have masculine pronouns, while other Nahel bonds have been opposite gender? Brandon: There is something to it, though maybe not what you're thinking of. (Answer is very paraphrased, sorry. I'm not entirely sure what he thought I was thinking of...) Feather: Are Renarin's visions compulsive/involuntary? Brandon: There is an element of that to them, yes. Feather: Are Renarin's visions Surgebinding? Brandon: *evil laughter* RAFO!
  14. Is there a way to quote a WoB from Arcanum directly into a 17th Shard thread?
  15. AerionBFII

    WOB's??

    Hello everybody!! It's good to be back to the site after so long, don't want to waste anybody's time so ill get to it. I feel like I've fallen way behind after my absence, Is there any forum or site where i can read the latest WOB's or tidbits of info from Q&A's? Thank you
  16. Hey everyone! For the past few years there has been a lot of discussion on the Words of Brandon situation. The Theoryland Interview Database served our fandom well but it has always been more a part of the Wheel of Time fandom and has grown harder to keep up-to-date as our fandom has grown and aged. The subject of a new database has been brought up a number of times but myself and the other admins have either remained quiet in those discussions or been unhelpfully vague. And there is a reason for that. We have been working on something. In fact, we've been working on a replacement for a long time, and we've iterated our implementation for a while. We've scrapped a few bad implementations, so we did not want to prematurely announce something that wasn't good. But, we have a system now. It's real, and it's pretty cool, so it's time to start talking about this with you all. The software is codenamed Palanaeum (though that won't be the name of this database; it's the software's name), and it's been made by coder extraordinaire Mestiv, who you may have noticed has a new rank on the site due to his tireless work on it. Our goals with a new WoB Archive have been to not just replicate the Theoryland Interview Database, but add new features and improve upon Theoryland. Let's talk about what Palanaeum does. Submitting interviews open to everyone A core problem with the Theoryland DB is that only a select few input things, which means it is almost always outdated. (Turns out, Brandon talks a lot.) The solution is obvious: we need a system that allows the many awesome and enterprising members of the community to contribute. Palanaeum does this. Anyone can contribute, input new events and entries, and suggest changes to old things. Transcribing audio The workflow for transcribing audio has been clunky. The audio has to be uploaded and then there's a Google doc where transcribers work at it, with the link to the Google doc being buried in an Event topic somewhere. We can imagine that in a year or two it can be very hard to find the original audios and the transcription Google doc. This is not sustainable. Palanaeum puts that entire process in-house. You can upload audio and transcribe it within the system. You can create "snippets" of audio that links the timestamp of the audio to the question/answer you are writing. Since the audio and transcription are connected in the system, this means for new interviews inputted this way, you'll have a Play button next to an entry which will just play the audio source of that exact question. We intend to host all this audio forever, so it won't be lost to the aether. It will be in our system and you'll always be able to find it. We also intend to allow people to do similar things with video sources, but video is significantly more costly to host, so you'll have to upload videos--or link to videos--on YouTube, then transcribe them similarly. Huge props to Mestiv for creating this crazy feature. I wasn't sure this would be possible, but it absolutely works. It's hard for me to describe to you how awesome this actually is. Search that doesn't suck Lastly, there's another problem with Theoryland: it's really hard to actually find the thing you want, so obviously we want to have a search feature that works well. (This is one of the core reasons we wanted to build a new system in the first place.) Search is complicated but we have an implementation we like. It will have a lot of search filters as well to narrow down your search, too. A big benefit to us doing this in-house is that the search algorithm can be iterated on. If we launch and you think it's being weird and not giving you reasonable results, we will work on it. We don't have to say, "well, that's how it works. Sorry about that." Since there's an account system on Palanaeum, we want you to be able to favorite particular quotes for later. We think that will really help research for theories or writing wiki articles. That's an area we intend to work on. Oh, and one more thing: this software will have a responsive design, which means you can find all the quotes you want on your phone. The software will be open source, too. If you're an enterprising coder, you can contribute to the project. If you're a different fandom, you can install it for your use, too! The software probably won't be open source immediately, as Mestiv wants to clean up his code a bit before opening it up. But soon after launch, it will be open source. Where we go from here We plan to show the WoB Archive to many awesome individuals in the community who already transcribe stuff so they can test and give feedback on things. This will be our beta period. We're just about there, so very soon this will be out there in June. We have a list of people we are inviting, so hang tight! We want to show you this ASAP. We're starting small for now (especially compared to the fandom at large), but you'll all see this soon! Overall, our goal is to have the software done--with the core functionality listed above, at least, completed and well-tested--by the Oathbringer release. Obviously, that's where there will be a massive spike in new interviews, so all our transcribing stuff needs to be very good there. So, Oathbringer is our deadline. But our progress is going very well, so we may end the beta period early and have our official launch earlier. We'll see. Lots can happen in software development. You'll notice that we didn't include any screenshots of the system for now. That's not to conceal anything--it does work, and it's pretty cool--but right now our design team hasn't begun work on making it pretty. Function comes first. The usual 17S design team will work on making it look and feel good this summer, and then we can show more off We intend to import all Brandon-related interviews from Theoryland to this new system. We're hoping we don't need to manually input things and we can do a software-based conversion of the data, but we are committed to a system that is complete and will be up-to-date. We hope you will join us on this quest to archive everything Brandon has said in this difficult time of transition from Theoryland to this system. But, I think this system will finally be the interview archive we all need. With your help, we will be able to keep things up-to-date for years to come. The era of long lag on things being inputted into the database will be over. (Of course, we will be working hard too.) We're sorry it's taken so long. Big thanks to Weiry, who tirelessly works to make sure everything is perfect. Even bigger thanks to Mestiv who is finally making this a reality. Also major thanks to Joe who coded an implementation of a database as well and is always awesome. He helped us move towards a custom coded solution, which I always worried would be too difficult. But it's real now, and I'm insanely excited to show you all this.
  17. What We Know: Brandon, for some unknown reason, refuses to acknowledge this 'Taln' as the Herald Talenelat. He continually refers to him as "the man who calls himself Taln..." This 'Taln' does, however, display certain physical characteristics that have been associated with descriptions of the Heralds before. Namely, he has "dark skin," and speaks "perfect Alethi," without any "hint of an accent." He also catches darts at hyper-speed... He only speaks perfect Alethi in his first appearance by the gates of Kholinar. His accent changes to something like gibberish when Elhokar and Dalinar are 'interrogating' him. Further proof that something strange is going on is his apparent inability to immediately know who he is, as demonstrated by his hesitation ("Who am I? I... I am Talenel'Elin, Stonesinew..."). (I'm pretty sure this happens somewhere else, but I can't remember where, at the moment.) Theories: Here's a compilation of some of the theories I've seen regarding the dual identity of this character: He's the same Taln, but he's been broken over 4500 years of constant torture. Seems to imply that Brandon is just trolling us with his description, which seems highly unlikely to me considering the strange inconsistencies mentioned above. He's someone else (likely a Herald overcome with remorse) who went to the Nightwatcher and asked her to release Taln. The way she 'fulfilled' his wish was by placing Taln's mind in his body, thereby 'releasing' him. This seems plausible; the only issue I have with it is that it seems that just because we don't know the limitations of the Old Magic, we ascribe any unexplained occurrence to the Nightwatcher... Similar to the above, but removing the Nightwatcher aspect. Maybe he's just a Herald overcome by grief, who has developed a multiple personality syndrome as a way to cope. He could be an Aimian impersonating the Herald Talenelat, though that does not explain how he has the memories of being tortured on Braize or knows so much about the role of the Heralds. This is a little far-fetched, but, now that I think about it, he could just be a really good actor that is impersonating Taln... The current Comere-connecting theories are that he's either a kandra, Forgery, or Hemalurgy was involved. (BTW, if we're ruling in Scadrial Investiture, Allomancy could just as easily be an explanation for his lightning-fast reflexes...) My Theory: There is a chance that this has been said before, considering how long the books have been out for, although I did search for it and couldn't find this specific theory anywhere... If it is somewhere, hopefully I'll add something new to the discussion or provoke some new thoughts. Here goes: Could it be that the some form of the Heralds' minds are held in their Blades? Being that the Honorblades are a large part of what makes a Herald a Herald, that seems to make sense to me. Taking this a little further, it could be that the Heralds are tortured on Braize, not only until they break, but until they actually die. At least physically. Their minds live on in the Honorblades, which then return to Roshar and are bonded by the bodies which will eventually become the new Heralds. There is even a WoB (It's here, I believe) which says that they can remain on Roshar for a certain period of time before another Desolation begins. That could be a transitional phase when the bodies accustom themselves to holding the Herald's mind within them, allowing for them to be fully adjusted and ready to carry out their individual missions once the Desolation starts. This 'Taln' could simply be the body holding the Herald Talenelat, a suitable explanation for Brandon's cryptic way of referring to him. What do you guys think? (Now that I'm thinking about it, there is the issue that Brandon doesn't refer to the other Heralds we know of (Nalan and Shalash, for example) in this same obscure manner. Is there a way you can think to explain this or is my theory drowned already...)
  18. So it's time once again to grab your aluminium lined bowler hats, for some random speculation off the top of my head, that has literally just occured to me! My current random thought is on our ever present cameo maker, Hoid. We don't know much about his backstory outside of the now (at least mostly) non-canon Liar of Partinel chapters, and WOBs have been few and far between, but from a few of them, I've pieced together a slight idea about Hoid's magic system, or at least one of them. SO. Spoilers ahead for here and there, for WOBs and Secret History at least! Read at your own peril, you rusting airsick lowlanders! (Sources for my points below will either be coming when I'm more free from work, or if you kind Sharders add them with your speculation and additions to my thoughts ^-^) We know that Hoid cannot harm living people, but can apparently beat up Cognitive Shadows, as of Secret History at least. Hoid also knows how to stop pain and damage from physical blows from harming him in the Cognitive Realm, again from Secret History. We know that Hoid has a form of Feruchemy, via WOB. We know that "What Hoid does heals the soul", via WOB. We know Hoid has Lerasium, a Godmetal that can change someone's Spirit Web, and may have used it for a purpose that we don't know of yet, to make a change we haven't seen in the Cosmere so far. We know via WOB that Hoid has time dialation techniques for moving forwards in time, possibly to permit travel between planets avoiding the Cognitive Realm (Which would explain him getting on and off of Sel with the Dor making it so storming difficult in the CR) We know that in the Spiritual Realm, all things are connected, and there are idealised versions of everything, an ideal concept of Fire, and time and space don't apply to the Spiritual Realm, despite it not being the Beyond. We know from recent WOBs - Here We know that Lift exists partly in the Cognitive Realm, moreso than most humans are, enabling all sorts of things for her, (like perhaps her cognition of her age affecting her physical age, but that's a theory for another ramblepost....) mainly her absorption and metabolism of Stormlight. This all leads me to believe that Hoid has a form of magic that can affect the Spiritual Realm, either drawing power from, or connecting directly to, the Spiritual Realm. Hoid is immortal, ageless, as defined by Brandon's tiers of immortality within the Cosmere, and from what we know about Lift, I suspect that Hoid may be able to pull himself partially into the Spiritual Realm, and exist mostly there. The idealised self there wouldn't age as time doesn't exist in the SR, and we can see that TLR's age trick using Feruchemy wouldn't work because of the overriding Spiritual age forcing itself onto his Physical body. Thi may also account for him being unable to hurt Physical, living beings, since the Spiritual Realm is filled with idealised versions and true selves of everything, so I can't imagine that someone in the SR would be able to actually do something negative to harm the Physical form of someone in the PR. If Hoid could manipulate the SR, at least for himself, he could also change the ideal version of himself there, perhaps through an overwriting method like Forging, and change his appearance more than just Lightweaving (Both KR and Yolish) and age-manipulating Feruchimey could, explaining his various disguises, and how he could change his height to be short when he first met Kelsier in The Final Empire. Considering Hoid's longevity lasting from before the Shattering and long after, I can't imagine that he gained my proposed SR Magic from Lerasium, but I suspect it could enhance it somehow, considering it's a Godmetal that can affect Spiritwebs after all. Sooooooo, thoughts? Additions? Rebukes? This is based almost entirely on the SR containing ideal versions of each individual human, rather than one for Rosharans, Scadrians, etc, but I think that that would be the case, especially considering the different races on each planet, and the fact everyone and everything exists on all three Realms, rather than just the ideal versions in the SR.
  19. From WoK Epilogue: Kholinar on the map: Interesting, no? Why did Taln come back from Braize near the largest city in the area, or near Kholinar, and why was he wet? We have no mention of being wet when Jasnah elsecalls, no? Could he be have swum in through a shardpool or something? Tell me, yah?
  20. Over in this thread, it was mentioned that we have this WoB from an inscription: "Preservation was the first shard to be held by someone outside the original 16." Assuming this refers to the events in Mistborn era 1, do we think it is possible that any of the Shard holders initially picked up one Shard but then traded with one of the other Vessels for another? If so, any speculation on who might have traded and why?
  21. I was reading through the excel spreadsheet of Reddit WoB's that was compiled by Pagerunner here and came across this one (#437): Q: Do you plan to write the stormlight archive books with the same POV characters throughout the series (like WoT) or do you think that you give other characters POV (aSoIaF) as the series continues? A: Most of the main POV characters have been introduced. Each book will take one major character (Kaladin, Dalinar, Adolin, Jasnah, Shallan, Navani, Szeth, Taln) and give them 'flashback' sequences in the same way Kaladin got flashbacks in the first book. There are some open spots for which I'm toying with other characters being used. Other characters will get viewpoints now and then, but I feel that one of the ways that big series get off track is by changing the focus to side characters. (Note that I will continue doing the Interludes to give some other voices and perspectives screen time. Few of these will be main characters.) ADOLIN is mentioned as a PoV character who will get his own book. This quote is from August 2015. Is this a typo and should read "Renarin" or has some change occurred and none of us have followed up with Brandon about it? @maxal, you would probably be interested in this. Also, notice this : It seems the chosen 10 are not as set in stone as we might think, eh?
  22. Well, we long suspected it but it's nice to have confirmation.
  23. A friend of mine recently ordered a personalized copy of Warbreaker from Brandon's site with the following question: Simply, yes, an Awakener can give Breaths to Nightblood, but Nightblood cannot use those Breaths to Awaken.
  24. Several days ago I mentioned somewhere (I did, didn't I?) that Brandon is maybe considering backpedaling on some savant... stuff. I felt that his original comment to me was unclear, so I reached out and asked for a bit of clarification. Here it is: The TL;DR of all of this is: Wax was intended to be a savant of the combination of Allomantic Steel and Feruchemical Iron. Originally, savantism was meant to come with a consequence, a danger to it (e.g. see Spook) Three three published Wax & Wayne books don't seem to explore that - Wax experiences no downsides to his savantism So it's possible that some stuff will change in the future - whether it is Wax's status as a savant, whether it is how savantism and/or resonances work, whether it is some slight retcon, nobody knows ('cause it might not even happen). So take all this as a word of warning that any discussion about how savants work might end up being wrong and/or incomplete, even if all the information in it is currently accurate.
  25. I thought there is no confirmation about that but if we trust that WoB (it's paraphrased so I'm a little hesitant) it's official.
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