Shaggai

Sja-anat. I'm not sure if I agree with your theory (Midnight Essence is almost certainly generated by Re-Shephir, for one thing, although I realize that wasn't the main point), but it would make sense for Sja-anat to be (one of) the strongest Unmade, since it's probably a Satan analogue.

Ryshadium have a strong bond as well. And besides, Ranger horses don't grant Rangers the ability to use super-OP magic.

The horses are Ryshadium, obviously.

... You just managed to come up with an original, non-obvious use of Hemalurgy that saves lives without requiring deaths (besides the original one used to create the spike, but I'm sure we've got spikes around somewhere that could be reused). You are officially the best person on this forum. Congratulations.

Vastly easier actually, since the Eagles are a. generally neutral for most of the book, and b. not a taxi service. And you can't really force them to fly you there if they don't want to. Unless you've got Feruchemical iron or have some other magic system that prevents you from dying when you fall from the height at which giant eagles fly.

I mostly comment on theories, with a few theories every now and then (and sometimes things that aren't quite theories). What does that make me? I'm in no way a hardcore Theorist. Most of my comments on theories are about possible further implications, without much concern for WoB or evidence. But I have never posted in any sort of RP thread.

Buy. Nalthian space stations will be Awakened with commands that lead to them vaporizing everyone one board.

Well, he's not exactly gaining rep at the same rate as Kobold King. It's not that urgent.

Ah, okay. Yeah, that's true.

Brandon? Slow in writing? There are multiple running jokes about how he's got a Shardpen, is secretly a team of robots, etc. I agree that a SA TV series should wait until a few more books are out*, but Brandon is definitely not slow. *I would recommend waiting at least until book five, and perhaps even until the series is done, because if it waits until the end, it won't be in GoT's shadow and will also have no risk of running ahead of the books, but that's just me.

Of course, not everyone has to die if they lose. The second five books could totally be about the world under Odium.

About Ideals, I don't think that they're necessarily bound to planets. Some probably are bound strongly to planets, and those form the basis of the magic systems, but there are probably some that are bound to units of Investiture (thereby forming Intents). Some Ideals probably vary from location to location - for example, between different societies with different concepts of beauty. That variance is likely the basis of the regional magic systems of Sel. Anyway, hopefully Stones Unhallowed (with flashbacks of Jasnah in the Cognitive! Woo!) will clear up more about the Cognitive, and things will get easier to figure out. The interactions between Intent, Identity, and the mind are probably one of the most interesting and most terrifying processes in the Cosmere. Seriously, they're scarier than Hemalurgy. At least you can protect yourself from Hemalurgy by not getting stabbed. Re: memory, I would expect it to be stored either in the Cognitive or the Spiritual or even in the interactions between the three Realms - it's not entirely clear where the mind and the related bits and bobs are stored. That was one of the reasons I theorized that the Spiritual Realm was composed entirely of connections, because it cleared up a lot of things, even if it did so wrongly. I'm not sure about the second Principle of Intent - if you took up 16 large splinters, each equal to 1/16th of a Shard, you wouldn't have a single general Intent, you would have 16 conflicting specific ones. I think that a better way to phrase that would be "as Intent-associated* Investiture splits, the Intent splits with it". In practice, this tends to work out to roughly the same solution, but is more precise. As for the nature of Investiture, whether it's Spiritual or not: Even if the substance of Investiture is wholly Spiritual, it still transcends Realms. Intent is Cognitive, and it all affects the Physical.. Hell, maybe Investiture is just a term for "Spiritual energy imbued with an Intent", and there's non-Intent-based Spiritual energy somewhere. Or maybe we're looking at it all wrong. Things get really complicated, really quickly, and then we pray that Brandon will write faster. *That bit might be irrelevant. Does "Intent-associated" describe all Investiture? Actually, it probably does, since all Investiture is originally of Adonalsium. So the "Intent-associated" bit can be ignored.

Well, that basically disproves the actual theorizing that I did. I could try and find a loophole, but it would get too contrived, and there's no way that factions could exist according to my theory. Well. This was kind of pointless then.

The Spiritual Realm is quite a mysterious place. It's the Realm of connections and ideals, and is the source of Investiture. The soul is also known as the spiritweb. But other than that, very little is known. What does it look like? Why is Hoid Spiritually blind? What exists within it, other than Investiture? What is Investiture, really? I don't know the answers to all of those questions, but I hope that my theory can help shed a little light on some of them - either by providing answers, or by highlighting how much we don't know. Be warned: I am unlikely to use many quotes or WoBs, as they have provided little information on this subject. If I'm lucky, I will at least raise the right sorts of questions so that we can learn more. So the first thing we need to do is examine the basic consequences of the things we know. The word "spiritweb", combined with the knowledge that the Spiritual Realm is the Realm of connections, provides an image of a tangle of connections. Each Spiritual entity is connected to certain others, and the amalgamation forms a being. Your spiritweb is composed of the connections between the entity which is essentially you, and the things around it - your relationships with other people, your connections to ideals, etc. But then things get more complicated. For example, consider Identity. What is it? Is it a separate Spiritual entity, some sort of identifier which marks the person as that person? That would be a bit contrived. It can't be the central element of the Spiritweb, because it can be stored Feruchemically. Is it an ideal, generated for each person? That seems unlikely. I think the most likely idea is that it represents the connection to the Cognitive entity for that person. And then we get into interactions with different Realms. The Cognitive and Spiritual Realms seem to interact quite a lot, but we know very little. Cognitive entities can apparently influence the Spiritual Realm to repair the Spiritweb, if given the right type of Investiture. This is how Feruchemical gold and Regrowth work. But Cognitive entities can also be modified by the Spiritual Realm and Investiture, especially through Hemalurgy. So things get more complicated. Plus, the Spiritual interacts with the Physical - this is how the laws of physics apparently work, and of course there are spiritwebs and so on. To go off on an apparently unrelated tangent, consider Allomantic steel. It uses Investiture to form an almost certainly Spiritual connection to nearby sources of metal, then makes the connection visible. It then allows for the modification of that connection, resulting in the Pushing of said metal. So you have to wonder, does this allow someone to see through the world into the realm beyond? Or does it simply make visible what was there all along? Is the Spiritual Realm a separate world in the same way as the Cognitive, or is it simply a different type of interaction, something embedded into the other worlds, able to go between them freely. Something in them, but not necessarily of them, without being a whole new world. What would the practical consequences be? First of all, there might not be such things are Spiritual entities. The Spiritual Realm could be composed entirely of connections. Instead of connecting the Spiritual entities associated with various parts of the person to the Spiritual entity associated with the person and the Cognitive entity associated with the person, it connects the Physical and Cognitive entities. This explains some apparent contradictions with ideals - for example, the ideal of beauty varies from place to place and from time to time, making it Cognitive. However, in this view, ideals are simply cognitive entities endowed with a higher level of Spiritual connection (or a higher level of Investiture). Spren represent this quite well, being ideals with enough Investiture to become sentient. Investiture, of course, is the basic substance of the Spiritual Realm, which presumably forms the connections. This is how magic works. Awakening involves binding an object to a Cognitive entity representing the desired behavior. Allomancy provides a connection to the metal which allows the user to draw on Preservation's Investiture, and then connects to something else - an external piece of metal, another person's mind, the senses, etc. Feruchemy draws off the connection to an attribute, then restores it with greater strength. Surgebinding forms a connection to the spren and the Surges - the laws of physics as endowed with extra Investiture and connected to Cognitive entities. All magic is based off of this connection. Having sufficient Innate Investiture also grants sentience, probably by forming a stronger connection with the associated Cognitive entity. This is how Hemalurgy grants Mistwraiths sentience - their Cognitive entity is quite similar to a human's, so Hemalurgy allows a strong enough connection to that for them to become kandra. It's also how spren become sentient - in the Cognitive Realm, everything has some degree of sentience, from ropes to rocks to sticks. Investiture allows for a stronger connection to the Physical aspect, granting sentience. When Nahel spren bond, that binds them even closer to the Physical Realm, making them fully sentient in both Realms. So. There you have it. My insane ravings on the Spiritual realm. What do you think?

I avoided those. I would have downvoted that, but I reached my quota.

The specifics of the Diagram are not of Cultivation. There are three levels to the Diagram - the base goal, the general way it plans to achieve that goal, and what it specifically says to do at any given time. The second one of those is entirely of Cultivation, and therefore the Diagram is of Cultivation. The goal is Taravangian's, the general methods are of Cultivation, and the specific directives are a product of the two. The Diagram is partially of Taravangian, certainly, but it is also of Cultivation.

The Diagram is probably of Cultivation, at least in general methods (as opposed to specific methods or purpose). It is definitely of lowercase-c cultivation, from what we can tell, and the intelligence that formed it was of Cultivation. I would also rate it highly likely that the Shards affect the minds of Rosharans, which would be especially pronounced in T's case due to the Nightwatcher's gift. So you're right in that we can't predict what Cultivation thinks. Cultivation might not have the survival of humanity as an ultimate goal, and might not personally advocate the Diagram's methods. But the hypothetical idea of the Diagram - a long, subtle, complex plan to provide the highest chance of a certain goal being achieved - is of Cultivation.

Jensen is the one who posted the correct frame that explained the easter egg in the map of Roshar. Over fifty upvotes on that one post alone.

And then it would turn out at the end of the final book that the God Beyond was actually Brandon all along. Actually, what if that's what it actually is? What if that's Brandon's way of inserting himself into the Cosmere? A hidden reference that nobody else would get. And Brandon would certainly be a God beyond all other gods, for the purposes of the Cosmere. And Yolish magic grants the ability to sense the plot, which, enhanced by Feruchemical tin or Feruchemical nicrosil, is how Hoid knows when there are novel-worthy events going on.

Compare it to Kobold King, or Peter, or Jensen. I'm not even going to mention Brandon, because that would be unfair. There are some insane ratios out there.

Someone would call Pattern a Voidbringer and get the crap beaten out of them. Wait, are you saying that Brian Herbert did a good job? I haven't read his stuff, but I heard it was terrible. Yes, Dune was going downhill (seriously, there's an entire mental rant by Odrade near the beginning of Heretics of Dune about the word "liberal", despite the word being used in a completely different context in the phrase that triggered the rant), but I heard that the post-mortem stuff was even worse, just in different ways. If the 17th Shard wrote the Cosmere, the Stick would be the physical body of Adonalsium, there would be a magic system based entirely on foodstuffs (somewhere between Allomancy and Lift, with cookies and waffles being two of the main components), nobody would have an intact soul due to the constant use of Hemalurgy, Renarin would alternate between being the most awesome entity in the Cosmere and a worthless sack of meat (depending on who specifically was writing), Shallan would never make up her mind on who to have a relationship with, Taravangian and Szeth would both, like Renarin, alternate between tragic heroes akin to Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and psychopathic madmen, and Hoid would still be Hoid because Hoid is Hoid and Hoid is always Hoid.

The question there is if he would also attempt to eat the Investiture of his wielder. On Nalthis, the Investiture of his wielder is really the only kind of Investiture available, so he obviously eats it there. But would he still try to eat the wielder if there was another major source of free Investiture around? If he would still do it, then Szeth would need to be holding Stormlight so that Nightblood would eat that first. But if he just goes for the largest source of Investiture available, then anyone can use him as long as they have an available storm. Protection from the dangers of the high/Everstorm would of course be provided by Nightblood. If that's how it works, then the best thing to do is run. Run away, as fast as you can. If you're lucky, an Elsecaller or a Shardpool might be able to get you into Shadesmar so you can head to another planet where you will be safer. Preferably one without a Shard, so there isn't much Investiture around for Nightblood to eat (and there's less novel-worthy stuff going on, so there will be fewer worldhoppers to bring Nightblood there).

I think that would fit better with Reshephir, as Resheph was viewed as causing disease.

This is a bit of a necro, but I was thinking about potential future Unmade and what they might be named and what they might do. So the obvious first Biblical demon I thought of was Baal. Baal was worshiped by the Israelites quite commonly in the Bible. In fact, it's one of the most commonly mentioned false gods in the Bible. But so far, we have no Unmade named after it. That seemed strange. To figure out what it was, I looked at the connection. Baal was worshiped so commonly because he was a rain god, and rain is absolutely vital to life. So we have a hypothetical Unmade which is connected to a rain god. The most likely conclusion is that there is an Unmade (perhaps the most powerful of the Unmade, given the Biblical importance of Baal) which fuels the Everstorm. This Unmade would serve a similar purpose to the Stormfather, distributing Voidlight and converting parshmen to Voidbringers.

I believe WoR says that Braize is another word for Damnation. However, it's unknown if it was originally the Tranquiline Halls.