Squallor

I just don't buy it. It is a huge stretch to link Taravangian to Gaz, and I don't think Gaz is a reliable source for death quotes. If he isn't using Gaz as a quote collector, and just a spy, there are better places for his spy to be. As for second hand quotes... I don't want to believe he is going with everything and anything. Even a simple word mix up could change the meaning of the quote entirely, so that could be dangerous. I think it might be more of someone didn't die in front of his Ardents, but there were several witnesses who all heard the dying say something very odd with their last breath. This is a reliable way to get second hand quotes, without just having one person who just has to overhear dead people.

O.o ..... Touche

I agree with the Cheese here. Gaz as a spy for someone, I could fall in line with. However, as a spy for Taragavanivigan, the means and motivation don't really match up. I can almost guarantee Tavarganidan would want very meticulous notes taken on all death quotes: he is treating the phenomenon as a scientific study, so he most likely won't care about second hand stuff heard from some grimy soldier. Also, he has a city full of hospitals, so he has no shortage of dying people. Also, I am sure someone like Garavantigan has the resources to get more efficient spy networks going. Nothing Gaz learned could have been important to call for Gaz to make the trip in person. Also, Taverengavian most likely has resources is more elite circles anyway: someone like a cook would be much more useful as a spy that Gaz. Gaz is too out of the loop. I currently like to believe Gaz was kidnapped by some baddies and tortured for information about someone who is showing the powers of radiants. IE someone is looking for Kal. DISCLAIMER: I havent read the book since it came out, so my memory on motivations and the like might be a bit flakey. I also have no evidence of any sort that Gaz was kidnapped. Its just what I would do if I needed Gaz shipped somewhere/had people looking for Kaladin.

I second this. I would put it the category of "other mistborn books that Brandon hasn't planned, but isn't ruling out." It very well could be another Wax/Wayne adventure, however, it is just as likely its other characters.

Did Brandon ever say for sure whether or not another Shard could be on Roshar? I know we have explicitly stated that there are 3 Shards that are "native" to the planet, but I don't remember if the question has been asked if some other Shard could be taking some involvement - Sazed or otherwise. I really don't think the vision is within in the realm of "mortal" powers (I am using the term to identify people who are more or less normal humans, this includes Hoid, Elantrians, Returned, and Heralds), but would not be surprised if it is some character or being that we have not been otherwise introduced to. Also as a side note, I am personally of the mind that Adonalsium is not really a being so much as a fundamental force that defined creation. In going with Brandon's linguistics patterns (though primarily Mistborn at this point really), the -ium suffix tends to be the power source of something. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the Shattering of Adonalsium was the result of a group of people/scientists trying access this force, and in doing so, they accidentally unmade creation. In order to fix it, they had to take on the power themselves to re-create the Cosmere. Ok, that's enough of me going off-topic.

O.O I am proactively stating that I have had no involvement with any future ill-will that may befall Silus.

Well, maybe that was some bad wording on my behalf :-/

Check me in the box for people who are buying it even though I have no one to play it with. Too bad he isn't coming to Boston for the AoL tour, I might be inclined to nerd it up for an evening if there were others nearby to play it with. *goes back to reminiscing Junior High when I actually played RPGs*

I would like to announce that we should all take a moment to commemorate Silus - Shard of Flame. As of the time of this post, he has made 1337 comments on this forum.

At first I was just going to say that there was just as much evidence for it being Cultivation as the face as Adonalsium, however, you're Hoid point completely changes the argument. I had forgotten that Hoid brings this up to Dalinar, and if Hoid knows Adonalsium is poking his head in somewhere (I know, shameless pun), it would be a VERY Brandon thing to do to have him looking in the wrong place. It seems to be habit of his. The only problem I have with this theory is the concept of Adonalsium being shattered, and how he could maintain this level of influence. I would think that each Shard is representative of one of each fundamental aspect of life, covering all three realms. If this is Adonalsium, that implies that there is a distinct Cognitive aspect that survived, and never fell into Shard form. However, now that I write this, I guess the Cognitive aspect would likely be the only part that survived. If each of the current Shard holders was once their own person, then they would each have their own distinct identity, leaving Adonalsium's untouched. Interesting. I still am in the air... we don't know enough about the nature of Shards or the Shattering to make me convinced it is.

That is quite a bit of evidence you have there, but I still don't know if I agree. The problems that I have are that of motivation and means on Honor's part, why would he be sauntering around as a normal shardbearer in the first place? If he was the Almighty, how did Kaladin - someone who is relatively low on the fighting prowess food chain at this point in time - actually manage to kill him? Another thought, how does this line up with Dalinar's timeline? I haven't read the book since it was first released, so I am a bit rusty, but I thought Dalinar started having the visions about a year before the present action of the book, which would put these recordings prior to when the Almighty dies according to you. The only thing might cause the Almighty to be this shardbearer would be if he was trapped in some way in a mortal body, which seems unlikely to me. My intuition says that these god/holy references are in a comment on the divinity of shardbearers in general, and how at one point they were Honor's chosen ones. Maybe this one shardbearer was a bit like Dalinar in that he could draw a bit more power from the shardplate then most people could.

I guess I should rephrase my statement. It's not so much low-key situations, he just fits in better in those situations, and dresses to the role he is playing. A beggar at a ball would be a great way to to stand out. Every public appearance of him so far, either in Warbreaker or WoK, no one would find it odd that he was there, kolo?

Good catch, I would say if there is no further reference to this in the rest of the book, it very well might be. The only thing that makes me hesitant to think it is Hoid is that we tend to see him in more low-key settings. A beggar at a ball seems like something that would stick out quite noticeably. I wouldn't be surprised if that guy was affiliated with the Vanishers in some way.

My guess is that Marasi is going to get kidnapped in the next chapter or two, though she did just become a much more interesting character in my eyes. As for the originators, I think that might reference anyone that survived the pseudo-apocalypse at the end of HoA. There would only be a few thousand people scattered about, and they had to rebuild the entire population of the world, so I wouldnt be surprised if thats how they are all related. Though, to be fair, it could just refer to the metal-born. Also would Spook be the Lord Mistborn? I can't think of anyone else that could fit the bill.

Aren't the Heralds technically resurrected? Tal explicitly dies in the prologue, and now hes back again. There's your second book/series with resurrection as a major world building point.

My guess would be that there isn't going to be much involvement with the other people. We know that Sanderson is a big fan of little bits of irrelevant info just for the sake of world building, so I would put it in this bucket. We might see a few references, but not major part in the plot. I also wouldn't doubt that these people become important to the world in the second trilogy, as this is the point in time that there will likely be mass communication and travel between them, so he might just be setting them up for future inclusion in this book.

It's not so much that I hated the entire series, mostly just the ending. I knew going into the series I wasn't going to get WoT/aSIaF level plotting and the like, after all it is a kids series. I also agree that the characters are easy to relate to and root for. I can look past the lack of foreshadowing and some of the deus ex machina resolutions to some of the plot cycles. My only real complaint is just how she had this very mature beginning to the capstone book, so I was expecting a lot of the ending. Then halfway through, it just spiraled down hill. I feel like she just gave everyone the happy ending they wanted. Oh well, such is life. I am sure I will watch the movies again when I have kids and enjoy them, but I don't think I will ever stop getting into arguments with every person who tells me that HP was the best fantasy series since LotR.

So, after noticing a comment in the announcements, and in the event of the last movie having just been released, I was kind of curious what other people's opinions of the Harry Potter series were. I had been putting off reading it for the longest time since it always seemed childish to me from all the hype it received, but a friend of mine who is big into fantasy told me it was worth one read through. That being said, I have to say I actually enjoyed reading the books more than I expected, though I wasn't completely enamored with them like most HP fans I've met. That was, until Deathly Hallows. Is it just me, or did anyone else feel that the ending was unimaginative, and seemed just like a forced "I need to finish the series" kind of ending. The part that killed it for me, was that in the final book we actually get to interact with Voldemort in a lot more scenes, seeing what he is actually capable of, and then he completely failed to deliver. For a character with the reputation of being not only absolutely brilliant, but also the most powerful wizard in modern history, good or bad, he just kind of seemed unimpressive. His only dangerous spells were the three unforgivable curses, which are known widely by the entire wizarding community. Little else he does shows his knowledge of long forgotten spells, or any of his dangerous magics collected from the far reaches of Scandinavia or where ever. As for his defeat at the end, I know the reasoning behind Harry winning had to do with the Elder Wand and Harry being the master of death, but that just seemed like a mechanism thought of in the last book just to beat the whole prophesy thing back in book 5. And why would the most powerful wizard in the world hang out in the middle of a room of 100 or so wizards/witches ready to fight him, and only focus on just harry potter, why wouldn't all these other people try and help out in any way, given the fact that all of Voldemort's team was captured or dead. Anyway, this kind of finishes my rant. I don't get how anyone can be disappointed in the second movie for not being true to the book, when it ended just as lackadaisically as the book did. They were the same endings in different rooms. What were other people's opinions on the books? I figured people here might have a bit more of an opinion given the fact it is a Sanderson forum.

I kind of feel that the Parshmen might be of a divine nature, and can be easily influenced by any shard. When Odium takes them, then they become the voidbringers. Maybe what we see in the Parshendi, is them being influenced by Honor's power instead. So far from what we have seen, a shards power still lingers around the planet, even after his/her death. Maybe this latent power "snapped" the parshmen the same way the mists would snap allomancers even after Laras' death? I would not be surprised to see parshmen on both sides of the field before the end of this.

True, it doesn't necessarily require mind reading, however, Sazed clearly is taking a heavy interest in Wax's activities.

I don't agree with that. The advice he gives is too specific to be mere coincidence or general "encouragement." It's more of the line "You'll figure it out." If Wax prays every day, along with all Pathians, then each time they prayed/pondered, they would need to be facing some sort of question that has an actual answer, as opposed to some generic philosophic question, like "what is the meaning of life." Also, I take it for granted that the events of this book have some large scale impact to the world of Scaladrial, mostly due to the fact that all of Brandon's books focus on world changing events, though this may be different since this books was kind of made up on the spot so to speak. If whats going on is of great import to the world, we also know that Sazed will try to interfere/meddle just due to his personality. He was never the type to sit and wait for things to play out, and I don't think has changed since his ascension. The counter to the argument could just be that Sazed is just pushing his emotions, as we know this is a power of the shards on Scaladrial, and Wax came up with the words himself. To me it just seems a little to coincidental.

Also, Brandon posted an in-world broadsheet on twitter: http://twitpic.com/5po9qi. Anyone have any ideas on what breaknaught might be? Also, could we be seeing the freshly regrown atium crystals in the Pits of Eltania? Could explain how Tan was able to intercept the bullet without having the whole scarcity of atium problem.

Sounds like confirmation to me. Maybe the Kandra take human forms to act as Harmony's missionaries? Also, even if the spikes that are given to path followers aren't hemalurgically charged with allomancy/feruchemy, could they be charged like the Blessings of the kandra, or the 4 spikes in the old form of koloss? Do we know if the kandra spikes had to be made by killing a human? I am not sure if it has been confirmed, but I remember a theory about the realmatic reasoning behind hemalurgy was that it steals part of the spirit realm identity of one person, and pins it to another. Is it possible that it could be used to create "spiritual links" with other people (in this case Sazed?)

I personally am now a lot more curious about aluminum being able to block brass/zinc, on top of it being immune to pushing/pulling. I personally had figured it was immune to pushing and pulling b/c it is non-magnetic, and I always assumed that pushing/pulling was a manipulation of electromagnetic forces in the same vein that feruchemists can manipulate mass, and windrunners(?) in WoK can manipulated gravity. However, now aluminum obviously has much more power than we give it credit for. Can it be used in some way as a non-allomanticly fueled copper cloud? Does it have a potential greater power than we give it credit for? One thing that I was thinking, that if simply surrounding you head with aluminum foil can block mental pushing and pulling, could you stop any metal from being pushed/pulled in the same way with just an aluminum coating?

Hey, you knew what we meant. I just copied that guy. ^^^^(Yes, guy in another thread that I don't remember that made me curious about ClayShan, I'm pointing at you)