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I recently went down a cosmere rabbit hole(which I do on occasion) and I discovered that Design and Hoid somehow got off of Roshar to get to Komachi without breaking their bond. But I've also seen several articles state that that would be a bit of a problem for Hoid. How does this happen? I haven't read Yumi yet, if it's a spoiler, please don't tell me the answer, but if it isn't, I need answers.

Basically the title, YatNP and TSM have Connection as a major plot element and focus, and we see the ways Connection can be utilized and some of the dangers it presents. Some of these notes are probably pretty obvious, but I'm going to list them off anyway and aggregate them into this thread. In YatNP we have a spirit serving as an astral projection cord between a human and basically a super-invested Cognitive Shadow. Notably after Design listens to Yumi's explanation of the hijo, she confirms that she is more or less in a similar category as the spirits (buuut, this is Design we're talking about, I'm reserving 10-20% skepticism that she really understood what Yumi was talking about). We also learn that when a highly Invested being with a strong Spiritual Aspect inhabits the body of another person they will warp the body to fit their own self-perception, the more strongly Invested, the greater the change - Fused anyone? Importantly, we learn that it is absolutely possible for two people to share a single body without the Identity of the weaker getting destroyed or subsumed by the stronger, but presumably there needs to be a barrier or gap between them. Unbounded and unregulated Connection is dangerous, and it left Painter outside of his body and vulnerable to anything that could feed on emotion or Investiture. Direct contact, even briefly, had Yumi and Painter strongly experiencing the other's emotional state - it wouldn't have surprised me if Yumi would have absorbed Painter if they had tried anything more intimate like hugging or if Yumi had somehow deliberately used Investiture while still Connected to Painter (RIP Aux, thank you for serving as a warning). And there's my segue into TSM. In TSM, we learn several things about Connection. Using tech available to future Scadrians, they were able to modify existing Investiture sources to allow the Cinder King to gain control over the Charred via Connection. We learn that it's possible to drain and give people Investiture through special forms of Connection, even completely consuming them as the Cinder King does. Apparently this contact can be a very intimate sharing of Investiture (Yumi and Painter touching each other while sharing a body?), but can also be done forcibly. There are natural barriers that are formed between different peoples, but being adopted into a group like Nomad can remove those barriers on transference of Investiture - allowing him to both gain, give, and be stolen from. A question that I'm not sure I had ever really considered was the fate of the Fused in the war of SA. What is their end state? Extermination by severing their bond with Odium? Conquest of Roshar then letting themselves pass into the Beyond (if Odium lets them)? Their life as of now requires them to destroy the mind of the host Singer, and that's not a great end state. A cool one that came to mind if they were ever freed from Odium's claim to their souls was if they could form a 3-part bond with Radiant Singers, the Singer, spren, and Fused in a similar format to Painter, hijo, and Yumi. Not saying that there's a tidy happy ending in store for the Stormlight Archive, but this seems like a possible solution for disarmament for the Rosharan Human-Singer war, particularly if some Fused don't want to lay down and die. We also have the Oathpact, Heralds, BAM, Deadeyes, and a whole lot of broken and frayed Connections in SA. Anyone else think we got a crash course in Connection so we can better grasp the resolutions to some of these Connections (hopefully, we get some in SA5, and not just a big old RAFO, wait until SA 6-10)? Anyone have any theories on Connections they'd like to add in the context of what we've recently learned and the big wrap up of the first half of Stormlight?

OK. So I'm partway through Yumi (no spoilers please) and have noticed a recurring theme in cosmere books. Now I'd like to state here, clearly that I am simply curious as to if anyone else has noticed and nothing I say is ever intended as a slight on Brandon. Now with that said, has anyone else noticed there's a lot of bathing scenes??? It's a big part of Yumis daily life, vin has a bath scene, as does siri in warbreaker and Shallan and jasnah in stormlight. I think maybe serene had one in elantris as well but could he wrong.

The light coming from "the star" that can be seen from Komashi is the only light that penetrates the shroud. The shroud is pure investiture. So I'm thinking, what pierces/counteracts investiture? Silver! Could this be silver light?!? Hoid says he thinks the light has something to do with Virtuosity splintering herself, because apparently she did that near "the star" (aka UTol). What do you think the light is and why can it pierce the shroud when light from their sun cannot?

I’m a bit late to the Yumi and the Nightmare Painter discussion. It took me a while to read it; I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old, so I don’t have a lot of reading time. But, I wanted to point out this bit: That small passage hit me like a shot through the heart and tears welled in my eyes. It made me realize that I long for someone to say something like that to me. Without going too much into my personal life, there are things about myself that I’m working on, trying to change and improve. I’ve had only limited success so far, and I’ve backslid a lot. These backslides have been used against me by my loved ones—not necessarily maliciously, but still. The fact that I’m trying has either gone unnoticed by them or it hasn’t mattered to them; results are all that matters. I don’t want to paint a picture of myself as some innocent victim in what’s been going on with me. I am not. But this passage made me realize how desperately I need someone to tell me that they see that I’m trying. That would ease the burden I feel, would give my efforts more value than I alone can give them. But I cannot ask for someone to tell me this: If I ask them to say it to me, it will lose all meaning. And I am not posting this for people to reply with sympathy or to tell me that it matters that I’m trying (see previous sentence). I simply have no other outlet for this thought. I have never related to people who’ve said that a work of fiction has profoundly affected them—not even reading about Kaladin’s struggles in Rhythm of War (I am also a sufferer or chronic depression). I’m glad they experienced that; I just never had. Reading this, however, impacted me with such force that I have not experienced before.

Did anyone else notice that after Yumi stacks the rocks the first time, she is described the same way that the people in the city of Kasitor in Iri are described after every day when Cusicesh the Protector disappears (I don't have the exact quote on me, but I know it takes place in The Way of Kings, Interlude I-5)? Knowing that Yumi is a cognitive shadow here and that parts of - or entire, in the case of the father machine - spirit-webs can be ripped from living beings, is Sanderson suggesting that the Protector is acting in this way? For what purpose? To gradually power up a larger fabrial? I'm aware of the theory that Adonalsium intentionally designed Roshar pre-Shattering and that the planet/solar system itself may very well be a massive, cosmic fabrial so I'm curious as to whether we're seeing the way that the fabrial is gaining its power is through this arrangement with the Protector & the Iri.

Hey Everyone, In the postscript Brandon mentions that for the romance aspect of this book he took inspiration from a book set in a space station where two people have to share a room but as they are on different shifts they don't meet each other. They communicate and fall in love through notes that they leave for each other. This has me intrigued and want to check it out. Any ideas on what it might be?

I commented this thread into the reactions thread last night (under too little sleep) before this morning (better rested) realising that it should be its own thread so I'm moving it here. But basically Yumi and the Nightmare Painter shares a lot more DNA with the game Final Fantasy X Brandon has so far implied. I'm not saying anything crass about it being a knockoff of FFX's plot (because it isn't) but there are strong parallels between them throughout. (copied over from my firstpost) - Well I've not been on these forums since the start of 2019 but finishing this secret project makes me want to discuss it. Mainly due to the DNA from Final Fantasy X weaved throughout it. For those of you who are involved in the 17th shard podcast you should really include someone with a good understanding of the thematic content of FFX when you film the Yumi and the Nightmare Painter spoiler episodes. (Copied from the much longer second post) - OK, so below are massive spoilers for the game Final Fantasy X. Brandon has made clear how it was an inspiration for this project (one of many) in the section after the epilogues and has also spoken of the game recently but there are further parallels than the ones he has mentioned. I'll try to sum up the plot and themes of the game both for anyone who has no interest in ever playing it and therefore won't care about being thoroughly spoiled as well as those that do know the story but might want a reminder of some points. Definitely not for anyone who may want to play it for the first time in the future without knowing spoilers for the major plot points, so be warned. The following paragraph is mostly spoiler free as it covers the beginning events of the game, I'll spoiler tag the few spoilers that are at the end then the second paragraph will break the narrative of the game in a Very spoilery way. The game itself it told as a story from the perspective of the main character Tidas to his companions as they approach the end of a long journey they have been on, he is telling them how he got involved in their lives and reached this point (not particularly relevant to this thread but as good a starting point as any). His story begins in a futuristic fantasy mega-tropolis called Zanarkand where he is a famous sports star, he is in the middle of a game when the city is attacked by a gargantuan creature with devastating gravity powers which quite thoroughly wrecks his home city. During the attack he is guided by a friend of his missing father towards the creature which he names as 'Sin' and both of them are pulled through it into a dreamy reality before Tidas wakes up alone in the middle of nowhere by an abandoned temple. After managing to start a fire he is 'rescued' by strangely garbed people speaking another language, after finding one who speaks his language he explains how he got here but is told that Zanarkand was destroyed by Sin 1000 years ago. Before he can really process that he is somehow 1000 years in the future the ship they are on is attacked by Sin and he gets separated. This time he washes up on a small tropical island called Besaid. Here he meets a few more people who he will end up traveling with, primarily a woman his age (17) called Yuna (the character whose role Brandon has spoken on and even based the name of Yumi on). She has trained as a summoner and is about to embark on a strengthening pilgrimage that will end in the ruins of Zanarkand far to the north where she will gain the power to defeat Sin which has been devastating the world for the last 1000 years. The full details of the pilgrimage are only drip fed to Tidas/us but basically So this is Yuna's story as much as it is Tidas'. Time to break the narrative by handling them chronologically rather than how the story tells them to us. - OK that was a lot. This last section is about Tidas' story and ties together the above two sections. So that was all a very long recap of Final Fantasy X with oodles of the game missed out but gimme a break, its a 45 hour game. I think I've recapped it thoroughly enough to show the similarities it shares with Yumi and the Nightmare Painter for those who can spot them, along with enough that its story hopefully makes sense to those unfamiliar with it. but now it's 2:30am and I've been typing for way too long, maybe with this as a base I'll be more specific with the similarities tomorrow

So Brandon mentioned that the composition of the Nightmares is related to Midnight Essence and Nightblood's black smoke. I wonder if this also relates to the material that the Aether of Night assumedly grants the Sorceress of the Midnight Sea control over.