Bondranx

2 hours ago, Aspiring Writer said:

That's a bad example. Vin was at first his pawn and then a piece of information. I think the reason they don't smite them is that they can no longer manipulate them then. Yes, their working against them, but Ruin is clearly capable of manipulating them to do what he wants. Killing them may not have the best effect. that's Why he kept spiking them, for more direct control. Stop looking at it like a battlefield and more of a very intricate game of chess. Remove Vin? Loses pawn and possible information. Kill Elend? Someone else will take command who is possibly less able to be manipulated, will cause Vin to lose her mind and go into rage/depression, and other effects we may not even know, and he seems to be certain that he can manipulate him. Kill Yolen? He might put someone who is more likely to work with Elend. And that's without mentioning that him killing someone and an assassin killing someone is VERY different in how people will react.

 

Goddamn it, why is it always my post that starts a second section!

I apologize, this was in a way the intent behind what I meant, a pawn would be lost, even if it was actively working to stop him, in his opinion her every action to stop him was playing into his plans. He isn’t very capable of looking at what others are working towards and that was his downfall, if he’d been able to predict where her actions would lead I’m sure he would have taken a harder course of action himself. It was still a very ‘this creature is beneath me, even on an intellectual level mindset’

23 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Might want to say that it's a SH spoiler.

Thanks, didn’t occur to me the first time, fixed

I would imagine that the fact that shards typically see ‘mere humans’ as being so far beneath them that smiting them is pointless. The thought of “this being is trying to stop me, but realistically I am so far beyond their capability, what can they really do to me.”

secret History spoiler:

...So, just so I'm understanding you perfectly clear here. You think that Vasher, as we see him in the book, at that time, will agree with the sentiment, "the world will be a better place if we simply kill every single person who does anything wrong." He would see this as being "logical and reasonable." You're saying, "trying to reform a city doesn't exist, so just kill everyone in it."

I see that my request for specifics once again gets responded to with generalities and vagueness, and then declarations of victory. I will probably, from this point on, stop responding to general, vague statements. Anyone who wants to give me a specific, perhaps I will actually respond.

Also, Killer Squirrel, if that's how you think Awakening works, I suggest you read the book again. I... I don't even know how to begin explaining to you how you have the fundamentals of BioChromatic Awakening wrong, and it seems like you won't simply take my word on it anyway.

I'm not saying that's how Vasher feels at the time of the book, he clearly regrets the creation on Nightblood, but the destruction on an invested object as powerful as him is clearly very difficult, if not impossible. So he keeps Nightblood with him to prevent anybody from misusing him.

There may in fact have been a time when he felt that WAS the only option, but I'm not saying that he still feels that way.

(Sorry for the double post, I missed this one this morning while going through my email)

Commands in awakening can be either specific or vague, the more specific your command the more difficult the visualization behind the command Becomes. If one of you could find the parts of the book where Vasher is teaching her to Awaken it would be helpful as I am currently on my phone

Okay, I'm going to invite you to step back and take a breath. Before you tell me that I only do one thing or that I'm flat-out wrong, you could instead look back over everything I've written and realize that I address this exact issue.

 

Yes, there are evil acts in the world. There are even, in my estimation, a very small percent of people in the world who themselves are simply evil. Irredeemable? I dunno, up for debate. But (to repeat myself, since I've said this already) that evil is a nebulous, non-physical thing that cannot be destroyed with a sword. Let's say that crime in a city is terrible, it's a very bad, even evil thing. How will a sword fix that? Just kill all the criminals? Every petty thief, every desperate man who nabs a purse? The real way to address this problem, to "destroy the evil," is to remove the environmental factors that cause the problem to exist in the first place. Find honest work for people. Provide health care to the sick, injured and elderly. Open a community center. Provide role models for the youths so they know they have the option to grow up as something other than a criminal. How is a sword supposed to do this?

 

A sword cannot fight this sort of "evil," the evil that exists for real in our world. The only kind of evil that a sword is qualified to take care of is a supernatural menace, a monster or a demon, something with a physical presence that can bleed and die yet is inherently and fundamentally evil.

 

The concepts you talk about, community centers, cleaning areas up, educating people. Yes, they are ways to end the nebulous sorts of evil you're talking about. However these are all very modern social sciences, even in terms of our society. The way I viewed the Hallandren culture, even at the time of the books, these types of institutions just don't exist. So  300 years before it's even less likely that these things existed. In the days before we created these types of things our main solution to 'evil' was to destroy it or lock it away. 

 

Even now, how often do we actually use these types of solutions, I can tell you, that in the city I live in, some areas of the city are just declared to by irredeemable, the police service bumps up it's presence to deal with any problems that might arise, but otherwise they're left to just get worse and worse. I have friends who live in a housing block that has two separate gang/drug houses, despite repeated attempts to report the situation to he police it just keeps getting worse.

 

Given this, I can easily see how someone could see a creation like Nightblood to be a solution to this type of situation. If you can't think of another solution to the problems plaguing your society, just annihilate them, it's easy to justify, they're horrible evil people, who are just making the people around them's lives worse, so why not?

 

 

Sorry if this is a little hard to read, I'm not the best writer, but I think I got my point across as best I could.

First of all, you keep acting like evil only exists in the form of some strange, supernatural force or demon. You're wrong. There are no monsters or demons in our world, but there is certainly evil. People do evil things. Not just things we "disagree with", truly evil things. It's naive to claim that there isn't such a thing as evil.

 

So why not Command the sword to Destroy Evil? A sword kills, that's what it does. By telling it to Destroy Evil, they were trying to ensure that it would do so to protect. It would be rather silly to directly tell the sword to protect. That's what a shield is for. A sword is a tool for destruction, so it's logical to be careful what it ends up killing. 

Thank you, Lindel, that ties in very well with my post on how you'd want to be careful when using a command to awaken something like a sword. You said it far better than I was going to.

The way I see it, "Destroy Evil" is a command that isn't likely to cause too much harm, When using it to perform an experiment where you're 1) Not sure if its going to work. 2) Not sure what the result are going to be if it DOES work, then "Destroy Evil" seems like a very good, logical choice. I mean, would you rather they'd used a command that was more likely to cause some sort of chaos, or have no really noticeable effects?

First this topic should be in cosmere theories, not the introduce yourself board, but I don't really think that it holds a lot of weight, as his last words are (Paraphrased) "You don't know what you've done, you have doomed us all"

 

Edit: She also had to really, REALLY work to kill him, it's not like she just walked in and he let himself be beaten at any point during that fight. He even panicked when he realized she had ripped off his atium metalminds, knowing that their loss would cause him to die

Hi everyone, I've had an account here since the week WoR came out, been lurking around a lot. I first discovered these books when I picked up Mistborn by chance in a bookstore, I saw it, the title intrigued me, and I took it home. It was one of the best books I had ever read, the copy I bought on that day has long since disintegrated and been thrown away (I lend books out to friends if I like them, and they are free to lend them as well if they like it too, Mistborn got a real workout). Ever since I have picked up every book as it came out (Most on the day of release) I never really saw a reason to get involved in the 17th Shard until I really learned about how deep the Theory behind it can pull you in, every since I have been reading every Q&A I can find, every signing report I can find, and every theory I can find on this board.

 

I thank everyone who has worked to build this from it's beginning to what it has become, this forum is a treasure of knowledge for anyone who wants to know more about what is happening deeper behind the scenes of the Cosmere, I can even begin to tell how much I have learned myself and the kinds of theories myself and my friends have gotten from this forum.

 

(Sorry if I rambled a bit, I'm in a Programming class at the moment and mostly just trying to kill time)

For myself, I first noticed that there was more going on when I noticed the name Hoid across multiple books, from there I went searching for more information to see if there WAS a link and stumbled onto the coppermind. The coppermind eventually led me here since a lot of it's references and information lead back here as source, I've been lurking around for a while and keep learning more very day. I personally prefer the Cosmere Theories board, as that's where my interest lies

I know this thread is nearly a month old, but I noticed you discounted Amethyst on the Scadrial section of the chart.

 

If you'll recall Atium itself grows inside of an amethyst-like geode in the Pits of Hatsyn

You mention that apricity is the feeling of a warm summers day, I don't have the book in front of me so I can't give a page reference, but didn't Dalinar have an experience like that in a dream just before he spoke with the Stormfather