So… what’s Kelsier up to?

[Woefulleaf]

This contains Mistborn spoilers AND Stormlight AND Wax and Wayne spoilers!! 

Did any of you catch that Kelsier reference in RoW? I’m pretty sure he’s the leader of the ghost bloods now. Sometime in the book it mentions “lord of scars” or something. And to me that sounds like Kelsier. And it’s obvious he’s still around because of The Wax and Wayne trilogy. And we know that happens after stormlight.
 

I don’t think that the Ghostbloods are a “good” organization. Idrk tho because we don’t know the full story yet. But basically, what I’m wondering is if you think Kelsier will be the antagonist in the upcoming stormlight books. 
 

TELL ME YOUR IDEAS NOW

Edited August 31, 2021 by Woefulleaf

[+honorblades]

I feel like Kelsier will definitely end up being one of those "Hero in his own POV, villain to others" characters. Seeing his actions, or the effects of his actions, will make him seem bad. But if we get a book where we get to see his side of the story, we would see a noble cause or some other sort of justification. 

[Weltall]

3 hours ago, Woefulleaf said:

Did any of you catch that Kelsier reference in RoW? I’m pretty sure he’s the leader of the ghost bloods now.

This has been confirmed by Brandon. You'll like that WoB as it has a lot of juicy info, especially when it comes to his relationship with the Ghostbloods we see on Roshar.

Right now it's pretty safe to say that what Kelsier is mainly up to is trying to figure out how to get off Scadrial. Possibly so he can continue his new ambition to find every Shard and punch them in the face.

Edited September 1, 2021 by Weltall

[+Invocation]

I still think Kelsier will be connected to the Mistborn serial killer thing in Era 3.

[Elegy]

We will presumably find out between Stormlight 5 and 6:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

As of the Alloy era, he is still unable to get off of Scadrial.

Chaos

Guess we'll learn about that in Era 3, if it's all Kelsier stuff.

Brandon Sanderson

Era 3 will definitely involve some Kelsier stuff. Let's just say he's perturbed.

Shardcast Interview (Jan. 23, 2021)

 

[Halyo_Alex]

6 hours ago, Elegy said:

We will presumably find out between Stormlight 5 and 6:

 

I love his phrasing there: "he's perturbed." That feels like such a nice way of phrasing his actual feelings towards his predicament.

[Benkinsky]

personally, I think the long-term goal is becoming Ambition.

[Rosharan Chicken]

We know the ghostbloods are at least attempting to export stormlight off of Roshar. Mraize speaks about power in ROW and trying to reach the oath gates. They may be trying to sell the stormlight to returned not on Nalthis.

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Spoon

[apepi]

He is trying to get off of Scadrial, but has trouble because of the investiture stuff. I feel like he has been getting the Ghostbloods to gather a lot of investiture and find a way to transport it off planet so he can try to balance out the investiture that he has now so he can world hop to other places.

[Weltall]

20 hours ago, Spoon said:

He might just be selling the stormlight

There's no need to double-post.

Also, he definitely wants off Scadrial; Brandon has described the fact that he's currently stuck there as being 'really annoying' to Kelsier. The more information he gets on moving various manifestations of Investiture around, the more likely it is that he'll figure out how to overcome his current limitations.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Weltall

[Rosharan Chicken]

4 hours ago, Weltall said:

There's no need to double-post.

Also, he definitely wants off Scadrial; Brandon has described the fact that he's currently stuck there as being 'really annoying' to Kelsier. The more information he gets on moving various manifestations of Investiture around, the more likely it is that he'll figure out how to overcome his current limitations.

Thank you

[Hearthebeard]

I'm still of the mind that Preservation gave Kelsier a Dawnshard, Survive, I'm not sure what this means for his personal ambitions - but I wonder if this would grant him some kinship with Shards that have associated intents. Like Autonomy? I don't want Kelsier to be in league with Trell because I like Harmony, but if Trell really is Autonomy I could see Kelsier liking that intent alot.

[Rosharan Chicken]

Trell 

On 9/14/2021 at 9:11 PM, Hearthebeard said:

I'm still of the mind that Preservation gave Kelsier a Dawnshard, Survive, I'm not sure what this means for his personal ambitions - but I wonder if this would grant him some kinship with Shards that have associated intents. Like Autonomy? I don't want Kelsier to be in league with Trell because I like Harmony, but if Trell really is Autonomy I could see Kelsier liking that intent alot.

Trell is Dalinar

[Frustration]

2 hours ago, Spoon said:

Trell is Dalinar

An unconfirmed theory

[+Child of Hodor]

7 hours ago, Frustration said:

An unconfirmed theory

I don't expect Dalinar to be alive as a human after book 5, but it would be such a bummer if Dalinar not only became a servant of Odium against his will, but also was mostly written out of the back half because he's off fighting Harmony. I know he won't be a focus of the back 5 regardless of what happens to him, but still. 

Also, I don't think a Fused could cause Harmony so much trouble or be worthy of Harmony representing them by a giant red miasma encircling the planet as he does to Wax in BoM. Maybe if he's still connected to Stormfather / largest remnant of Honor it could be a package deal and would help explain why Harmony is like "I don't what this is". Sazed is still pretty cosmere ignorant, but we know from RoW he's talked to most of the Shards. 

I'm still going with Avatar of Autonomy for Trell. Sazed was very hands on as a god early on helping out the basin humans too much, even he says he regrets it in SoS, and that's something Autonomy would be bothered by. Plus all the Freedom talk from Trell's servants. 

On 9/14/2021 at 9:11 AM, Hearthebeard said:

I'm still of the mind that Preservation gave Kelsier a Dawnshard, Survive, I'm not sure what this means for his personal ambitions - but I wonder if this would grant him some kinship with Shards that have associated intents. Like Autonomy? I don't want Kelsier to be in league with Trell because I like Harmony, but if Trell really is Autonomy I could see Kelsier liking that intent alot.

It seems like there is Dawnshard along those lines of keeping things the same, unchanged or surviving. Hoid was a Dawnshard and he can't eat meat or hurt others, or himself because he once held/was this Dawnshard. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/443/#e14300

I don't know that Kelsier is it. When Rysn became one it was a very noticeable event.

If Preservation had a Dawnshard I would think he could handle Ruin better than he did. He invested more in humans than Ruin so Preservation inherently had less power available to use, but Dawnshards are supposed to enhance what can be done with investiture to a crazy degree. 

I think Kelsier still likes Sazed and wouldn't sabotage him on a large scale by colluding with a hostile Shard or whatever Trell is. Kelsier is probably more self-interested trying to solve his problem of not being able to leave the system because he's a Cognitive Shadow whose investiture traps him there. The Ghostbloods serve as helping him solve that problem while also being his eyes and ears in the Cosmere. 

At the end of Secret History Kelsier decided he never wanted to be caught off guard by his ignorance of the larger Cosmere machinations again. He accidently set of a series of events that nearly destroyed Scadrial because he didn't know about Ruin and Preservation. I think he's spent the intervening time trying to learn as much as he can about the Cosmere and try to position himself to be a player in it, but he's not quite there yet. 

[Elegy]

10 hours ago, Spoon said:

Trell 

Trell is Dalinar

Trell's metal doesn't look like Raysium, so very unlikely.

---

13 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

I think Kelsier still likes Sazed and wouldn't sabotage him on a large scale by colluding with a hostile Shard or whatever Trell is. 

That's actually confirmed:

Quote

Questioner

Do Sazed and Kelsier still like each other?

Brandon Sanderson

*Very drawn out and with a "but" nearly audibly hanging in the air* Yes.

Questioner

Thinking of him as Thaidakar, I have to wonder like, he can't be doing things that Sazed would approve of, right?

Brandon Sanderson

No. He definitely is doing things Sazed does not approve of. That's an astute observation. They do understand each other, though, right?

Questioner

So then Sazed knows what he's doing?

Brandon Sanderson

He knows some of it, yeah. A decent amount. You will find out more in upcoming books.

Let's say that the relationship between Sazed and Kell is... complicated and strained. But they would still consider themselves friends, would be what I would say.

JordanCon 2021 (July 16, 2021)

Furthermore, it wouldn't make sense for the Set to look for the Bands of Mourning when Kelsier obviously knows where they are, so Kelsier and Trell/the Set are almost certainly unrelated.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Elegy

[Hearthebeard]

7 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

I don't know that Kelsier is it. When Rysn became one it was a very noticeable event.

If Preservation had a Dawnshard I would think he could handle Ruin better than he did. He invested more in humans than Ruin so Preservation inherently had less power available to use, but Dawnshards are supposed to enhance what can be done with investiture to a crazy degree.

I'm also not certain that Kelsier is the Dawnshard, but I think it has either been used on him to command him to survive (which is part of why he didn't go beyond to be with Mare) or it is calling to him and he what we've seen is just foreshadowing that he will be.

 

In regards to Preservation, I think there is certainly some reason that the Shards have not gobbled up the Dawnshards. There must be some realmatic explanation - either they can't hold them and the shard, or they can't use them/see them/something. Rysn also has to make all these vows about not accruing other investiture.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Hearthebeard

[Weltall]

9 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

Also, I don't think a Fused could cause Harmony so much trouble or be worthy of Harmony representing them by a giant red miasma encircling the planet as he does to Wax in BoM. Maybe if he's still connected to Stormfather / largest remnant of Honor it could be a package deal and would help explain why Harmony is like "I don't what this is". Sazed is still pretty cosmere ignorant, but we know from RoW he's talked to most of the Shards.

This bears noting, because Sazed is clearly aware of Odium at the time he and Hoid are exchanging letters, yet he doesn't know who's trying to meddle on his world. If the letters are roughly contemporaneous to the books then whichever Shard it is, they're doing it before the end of the first half of SA, at a point when Odium is definitely not free to act because getting that freedom is part of what Rayse wants to get out of his bargain with Dalinar. If they're not, we'd still be left with the question of why Sazed assumes that the force encroaching on Scadrial is from one of the other Shards he hasn't contacted (a list that prominently includes Autonomy) and not, say, Odium.

Actually, we can reasonably assume the letters are contemporaneous because Sazed cautions Hoid about the danger of a Vessel and Shard in better alignment than Rayse/Odium were (which hadn't happened yet when we read that letter) and Brandon said that the change in Vessel is something the other Shards will notice very quickly. He also describes how Ambition, Devotion and Dominion are dead in the present tense in the RoW letter and we know that Trell is associated with a Shard we knew at a given date so between the Shards that are splintered/otherwise dead at the time (Ambition, Devotion, Dominion and Honor) and the ones we know aren't Trell (Endowment and Sazed's not attacking himself) or aren't free to act (Odium per his own words) that narrows down the field of suspects to... Autonomy. Okay, Autonomy and maybe Cultivation via some kind of crazy Book 5 twist but she seems like she'd have been too busy worrying about Rayse up until the end of RoW to be messing around with other worlds even if she had a reason to do so.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Weltall