Kurkistan

It's always been a double-eye, but the surrounding area used to be flesh-toned rather than the grey it is now. Creeped me out, I must say.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that not every major character will end up a Radiant. We're approaching the "reasonable proportion of magic-users" threshold fairly fast as it is.

Yeah, Forms! Ahem. An addendum: I would not be surprised if the earlier and/or smaller version of Syl did not have her safehand covered; as young girls do not customarily cover them, and Syl was of a less than mature variety at the time. big!Syl and/or Syl when she's being more serious, though, might well have the hand covered.

Just to be clear on my feelings here: I'd like to note that this interpretation, if it is in fact what Mailliw is going for, is almost certainly inaccurate. Let me quote KChan from further up this very page: It's possible that Brandon would have clarified a bit if he'd thought through the implications on the spot, but it's still very clear from this that Smoked Seekers cannot themselves Seek. Recall: We practically needed pliers to get Brandon to lay out that Smokers can potentially—with much intent, skill, and training—shield the emotions of others. If Smoking Seekers took the same level of skill, he'd have mentioned it.

I didn't have any specific plans, it'd just be nice to have a spare... ---- How about I give some background to un-creepify myself? Once upon a time, I made a mistake (I know, shocking! ). In the course of this mistake, I said that I'd eat my hat if X were not the case. I was wrong, but no angels of vengeance descended upon me to demand that I eat my hat. Glad to be spared this humiliation, I immediately turned around and decided to make sure that no one else ever got off that easy ( ). So, in short, people have a habit of making these grand oaths and then everyone forgets about them months or years down the line when they are actually proven/disproven. I ran across one of these oaths on the site one day and decided it would be funny if I started bookmarking them so that I could make fun of people when they turned out to be wrong. But, sadly, Feather was actually right, so no making mock to be had just yet... ---- Some fun to look forward to, though: Riddlesinthedark will "eat [his] numbered first edition if Shallan did not kill her father." Windy "I'll eat my hat if [the blades carried by the Heralds] aren't called Honorblades." Scott will "eat [his] hat if Dalinar became a radiant and his spren was a cultivationspren," to the extent that "I don't have a hat, so I'd buy a hat and THEN eat it." And Jaaaaaade's signiature says that "I swear to never utter another word on FTL until the third trilogy is out." --- Oh, then there was the matter of the bet, but that's already been settled.

Nice. Yeah, I think that is the first present-day excerpt so far.

I just did an advanced search from May 15 up to the end of August with little luck. We've got this big discussion about the possibility, but no WoB. Then we have Peter saying that the UK cover is non-canon. Might this be another case of the infamous "everyone knows" as relates to shardweapons? Like how "everyone knows" that they're stored in the Spiritual Realm despite there being no WoB on it? EDIT: Oh yes, and this.

You are welcome.

I just now was recalled to this by hoser's new thread, but it may be of interest to you guys to know that I have picked up the habit of bookmarking whenever someone (else) makes a foolish oath predicting something. I'd been hoping to be able to post a "now you have to eat your hat" (the usual oath) message, but sadly the first oath has been fulfilled. Since we now know that Shalash has the powers of order #Shash (Lightweavers), Feather can rest easy knowing that her arm is off the market.

Nope, you're right. My mistake.

WoT: Elayne. I wanted to tear my eyeballs out calmly close and set down the book when reading her sections. Hunger Games: Katniss Everdeen. I once had to do a 2-page persuasive essay on anything for a creative writing class, and chose a detailed analysis of her true nature as a sociopath.

Interesting idea. I've been keeping a list of the oaths various people have made about what they'll do if X theory isn't right, but I like a more formalized system. 3. No. 4. Yes. 7. No. 9. Yes, seeing as how I'm espousing it. 12. See above. 13. No. 14.No. They're half-horizontally-mirrored copies of the glyphs in the front chart, so I doubt that that just happens to look like a spren for each surge. 21. Yes.

Sorry about the derailment. BioChroma discussions have a tendency to do that. As for the metal question: Good question. There's a claim floating around that the metals return to the planet somehow, but I've yet to see the source for it. Another pseudo-theory that appeals to me is that the metals aren't destroyed, but instead rendered inert and/or changed somehow, while actually still remaining in the Allomancer's body.

Always a tragic state of affairs, I must say. Let's see if we can't sort it out. A fair enough criticism. I agree that we don't know for sure either way, but I think we can both agree that the rest of BioChroma being end-neutral (so not drawing on Endowment) would argue for Nightblood being end-neutral as well. The same for the converse. Or Nightblood could just be WEIRD. I dismiss it mainly because it's a relatively small part of the magic system. All the truly power-requiring and interesting stuff happens after the Breath-transfer and can keep happening at the same power-level for centuries, so I'd think that the color is of minimal import. As to the end-neutrality of it all, I would say that the use of color is either slipping towards a bit of a credit on the ledgers or is balanced out by the energy of the Cognitive transfer (which I can go on about, if you'd like ). Either way, I don't think it leads us towards the positivity of Endowment stepping in. Just so you know about surging in Feruchemy: the lost power goes into compressing the extra power down into an unnaturally short moment, so it's not "lost". I agree that it doesn't affect Feruchemy's neutrality, but it's a nice tidbit to know. Our disagreement, it would seem: "The Breaths are only the energy source if they get used up". Does the Feruchemist get "used up" when he stores in his metalminds? No, of course he doesn't. Once he stops storing, he goes back to default. Where did that energy come from in the first place, may I ask? Did he have to burn extra calories to make up for all the strength he "lost" while storing in a pewtermind? No. He just has a natural level of "strength", some of which was siphoned off into the metalmind for a time. A feruchemist can store speed or strength or identity or mental speed, all without having lost anything once he stops storing. Nothing is "used up" from the source of the power: the Feruchemist himself. The only thing used up is that power he siphoned off into the metalminds, when he taps. So too with Breath. I would hold that nothing is "used up" when Breaths are invested in an object or person because the Breaths act just like the Feruchemist does in Feruchemy: they are a source of nigh-endlessly replenishing power, but are not themselves (normally) harmed by the extraction and utilization of that power. -Note: a few Feruchemical powers are able to go outside the Feruchemist to get their energy: Feruchemical bendalloy, Feruchemical cadmium, and Feruchemical brass spring to mind. That doesn't affect the point that quite a few of them are entirely internally generated by the Feruchemist himself. Even those three involve their energy-sources being somehow incorporated into the Feruchemist before he can store them. I agree that the energy is from the Spiritual Realm, but not that that means its from Endowment directly, or otherwise sourced externally from the Breaths themselves. No, it is not: I here define invested Breath, while Spiritual in nature, as "internal" to its holder, whereas Preservation or Endowment or the Dor are all external. Sound fair? EDIT 2: Yep, it's fair. "Innate" may be a better term than internal, though. EDIT: Just for fun: So, since Breath (the fundamental source of this power) is neither strengthened nor weakened in its use, +1 for neutrality. --- Not quite. Sazed doesn't store the effort of lifting something or the like: he stores his fundamental attribute of "strength". He taps and gets big muscles, which cost him the same whether he uses them or not. Sitting in a chair with massive muscles and not doing anything does not burn extra caloric energy, and yet is costs the same, magically-speaking, as using those muscles to wrestle a Koloss. The above point on Feruchemical pewter applies to this general point as well. Feruchemy is (mostly) all about storing up capabilities and attributes, not actions. fStrength, when you think about it, comes from you but not from your body, if you catch my drift. Once again, I'm totally on board with the power being fundamentally Spiritual. No need to go around doing weird things like converting calories into Spiritual power ( ). I think our clash may (also) rest on this rather narrow definition of end-positivity. I think BioChroma's use of Breath certainly is a direct infusion from the Spiritual Realm, but in the same sense of the way that Preservation fuels allomancy: the power, once used, returns to the Breath—much like as water, after passing over a turbine, continues on in its system. In this case, then, Endowment has stepped aside and is not providing any "external source" of power. If s/he left Nalthis, I think it almost certain that Awakened constructs would still work as their Breath kept providing them with energy. I've been using a terminology of capital and interest because I think it useful, particularly when discussing the vampiric natures of Returned and Nightblood, but this turbine-metaphor may prove more apt for diffusing our disagreement. My reply: This is a shorter version of my long-form explication of the nature of Feruchemy up above.

While I agree that even Vin likely can't Seek while she herself is burning copper, I don't think she knew about her copper-piercing at that point. So either way she'd want to turn it off to Seek. If you're asking why she'd have copper on after figuring out there was a Smoker in the room: paranoia/not wanting her own emotions affected?

Enclose the spoilers in a tag like this: <spoiler>SECRETS!</spoiler>.

Speaking of your sig: did you mean to say "conformable," or is that a spelling error?

No, it's not.

@masaru Not necessarily. Brandon did major revisions to the Stormlight Archive after his first time writing it. He's said in the past that he avoided using WoT-esque magic so that he wouldn't be copying, so it's quite possible that Brandon changed the magic in SA to get rid of gateway-like magic. There may well be teleportation in SA, but I doubt it's "similar" anymore.

Fair enough, but could you please explain how Feruchemy isn't end-positive under this definition? How is an Aluminum ferring doing anything but storing and retrieving some aspect of the power generated by their soul?

There would be no reason for both of them to burn copper. After all everyone knows that you can't pierce copperclouds... And copperclouds do stack.

Hello. Where is this wonderful new quote?!

NIGHTBLOOD. IS. WEIRD! In all seriousness, though, I think that even Nightblood ends up being end-neutral. When a Feruchemist uses up an attribute in his metalmind, that attribute is gone. Yet we still call it end-neutral. Nightblood seems to use up the full power of the Breath he consumes, but he doesn't necessarily squander it (ala Hemalurgy) nor does he seem to gain any special boosts of power beyond that contained within the Breath already (ala Allomancy). He might be end-negative, though, considering that his energy needs go up the longer he is wielded. Or he might just become more powerful to compensate for the increased energy requirement. It's unclear. I agree that it matters but, given that it's only ever used the very first instant when you Awaken something, I think it logical that the color only fuels the transfer itself. You're making a rather large oversight here in your comparison of BioChroma and Allomancy: the Breath. You don't just use up some color and get a rope that flings stuff: you use up the color and transfer a hundred Breath or so and only then do you get an Awakened object. Hello energy source. So "the thing that is lost" is both color and the transferred Breath (though the Breath isn't really "lost", since it can be recovered.) So far as the national heirloom thing: we kind of have that. Kalad's Phantoms were Lifeless that lasted ~300 years. But with non-Lifeless objects, apparently, the Breath starts to peel off after some period of time because Brandon didn't want to break Nalthis' society. P.S. Technically, the energy contained within the flakes of metal Allomancers burn, if the metal is truly destroyed completely, is orders of magnitude greater than what you get from the Allomantic effect. This has zero bearing on theorizing, but that always an amusing fact to bring up. With Lifeless, the Breath is still doing stuff despite the fact that you can't get it back, so it's not "lost" in terms of where its power went. I strongly disagree. As I implied to MadRand, I think a Breath provides its own juice. Just like a Feruchemist provides his own power, so too do I think people's "souls" in the Cosmere do the same (and Breath are a part of those souls). Whenever you Awaken an object you "put in" an incredibly large number of Breaths that were otherwise raising you to X Heightening and providing sensory and health boosts. And recall that it takes dozens or hundreds of Breath to get anything done with normal objects: it follows, then, that each Breath is providing its own small amount of continuous power to get the job done.

Yes, but by that logic then Feruchemy is end-positive because new Feruchemists are being born and can start storing their attributes (which are Investiture of some kind) in metalminds. On the level of use, though, both are neutral.