Kurkistan

Full Feruchemist is fairly widely accepted, I'd say, and does the job well enough. Brandon will probably introduce a new term at some point in the future Mistborn books.

There may be a form for "evil", but Nightblood isn't evidence of it, since his Breaths apparently use a quite different process to "detect evil.". Actually, he gets the whole wall. There's a bit of fuzziness about how much "nesting doll" activity is going on with discrete objects, but even TES allows that walls in a building are their own things. As I've said, I don't think Soulcasting, in practice, is as versatile as you could hope. From what we've seen, I get the impression that you're stuck with using either a (fairly large, but finite and simple) set of "defaults" or incredibly difficult "novel" transformations. @Sats It's a thing.

You'll forgive me, as I have some ill-founded notions I carry around with me in a sack. I'll just share them now. Forms, Moogle! Forms! *ahem* Specifically, I think that the "ideas" of lots of these simple things are stored as abstractions in the Spiritual, and can be accessed by Soulcasting. Same with "food" as a general type, which is why Soulcast food is notoriously bland. I imagine that, with sufficient skill/effort, a Soulcaster can substitute their own ideas, or perhaps modify "Formic" ones, as to what they want to happen to the target. I don't think so. Going by a "Formic" model, there is no proper abstraction of "a woman" (at least not one specific enough to transform someone into) stored in the Spiritual realm for Jasnah to access. So Jasnah would have to provide the entirety (or at least majority) of the details of the new body she wanted to create. This isn't 100% under my model; probably 98. An interesting question. To be clear, I don't think "partial transfiguration" (bonus points for getting the reference (without Google!)) is possible: if you change a block of wood into a block of half wood, half glass, you've transformed the entire block, not just the one part of it. Beyond that, though, I think it may be possible to use more than one stone/essence at a time. That one really just comes down to how the magic system is implemented, I think. If you can use more then one Essence at once, I don't see why not. --- I don't have clear thoughts on the rest of your post. EDIT: Ninjas. This thread is full of ninjas.

Great minds think alike.

I suppose. I watched the first few episodes all in one sitting, so perhaps I had a less jarring transition. It could be argued that that's kind of the point, actually: the reality of the situation setting in and being adapted to and it no longer being a survivey-game.

I think when a show "betrays" (for lack of a better word) its premise within 1-2 episodes, it was actually never really about what you thought it would be. That's more a flaw of marketing/perception than the show itself, I would say.

@Gamma Yeah, the second arc of SAO is far weaker than the first, though I don't hate it, myself. It's merely mediocre, but then you have to compare it to the first half... If it makes you feel better, the scuttlebutt is that that arc is also by far the weakest of the source material, while the upcoming arc for season 2 is one of the best. Also, from what you described yourself as wanting from SAO, Log Horizon might be right up your alley (or at the very least on an adjacent street). Give it a few episodes to settle into its groove though: past the first mini-arc, at least.

Or one Herald is (meant to be) sent to each kingdom, perhaps. Actually, just how many Dawncities are there again?

Taln's "summoning" being the cause of his wetness is a commonly held theory, I believe, and one that I agree with.

@Kads You're right. Quote incoming. Source:

We have a bit of WoB. Source:

It may be appropriate to bring this quote back to people's attentions: Source:

WHO GAVE FEATHERWRITER POWER!?!?!?!?

Given the aforementioned muddling of the terms, and other times/ways Brandon has used "sentient", I think it fair to assume that he's using the broader meaning.

Think of it this way: If you had a twinborn (Allomantic atium, Feruchemical zinc) versus a simple Seer, who would win? The twinborn, almost certainly. If the arguments in favor of Feruchemical zinc's superiority on its own are correct, then the Sparker can essentially negate all of the Seer's advantages, while the Sparker is still in a very good position with his Feruchemical zinc.

Your Google-fu is weak, Swimmingly. Very well, if you insist. EDIT: @Natans' deleted post: off by a year or so there.

Okay, that's that. Thank you for what you caught, Sats. We had company so I couldn't really watch/participate. I do anticipate the recording/transcript, though. One Q&A I noted was that Brandon said that Rosharan mythology is very influenced by Korean culture/mythology, due to his familiarity with Korea.

Thank you for sharing. Did Feather get you to drop by?

We have all been there Shardlet. Heck, my first thread was analyzing WoK's literary antecedents, of all things.

Sorry that I implied that you were a quoteless wretch, Shardlet. I just do so love quoting things. Actually, Shardlet, we had a discussion about this awhile back. Or was there some aspect of it that you'd like to explore further?

Right you are, Maximus. It's all about "[t]he chemical and color signature". Source:

Welcome to the forums! That's an interesting idea. If we are to go down that road, though, I think we should settle on "are". We know that magic users on Roshar aren't born, they're made. So maybe the same "spiritual wounds" that allow people to become Surgebinders leave them open to these death rattles?

Consider: They are both weathermen and, so far as I can tell, the most advanced statisticians that Roshar has. Conclusion: The perfect storm of lies! ( )

Yeah, I was probably just being hopeful when I thought "well maybe...". Best for us to not be "that guy" who derails the conversation.

Peter's said onTwitter that it will be recorded/available.