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I think The Shadow Rising might be my favorite. Things do actually get cooler later on, but book 4 is when the greater world really opened up, for me.

I realize this thread is a little old, but whatever. On the Asmodean thing, I only noticed on my third read-through, but there definitely is clear evidence of who his killer is. I can't remember which book it's in, but his killer mentions that Asmodean is dead, even though no one should know that. Rand and company think he ran away, and the Forsaken only know that he hasn't shown his face anywhere lately. There's some supporting evidence elsewhere, too. For example, an offhand remark explains why the killer would feel comfortable being on Rahvin's turf before anyone could know he was dead.

Indeed, he would know if he were burning a new metal. If he burnt a new metal. If the Investiture was fed directly to him through the mists, he might not. He did notice that he felt like he had extra power but wrote it off as adrenaline and thought it was all in his head. Keep in mind, he also thought it was all in his head when he felt Sazed communicating with him...

Doomdude, you just gave me an idea (probably a stupid one). Has a "double-dipped" spike been considered yet? Like, you have a charged hemallurgic spike, then spike someone else with it? If Wax were to say, "Screw it. I'm not wearing that earring. I'll have Ranette turn it into a bullet, too," then shot an allomancer/feruchemist with it, what would happen with its charge? What if he shot a Sentry ferring with Vin's earring, and it went through and hit someone else in just the right place? Instant bronze compounder? I know, this is ridiculous speculation, but...

Oh, well. It seemed like such a good idea. Though that does now make me really wonder what the Oathpact was about.

Hmm... This is all true. I wonder what on earth is going on there. What if splintering is just a part of Odium's nature, even to the extent that it affects his own Shard? I dunno. That sounds more like something Ruin would do, and he didn't, so... Actually, didn't Brandon say that Cultivation might have something in common with Ruin? Maybe she's the one causing the splintering, not to destroy but to cultivate new forms of life. Well, in any case, I still think Tanavast probably died really early on, even if my spren idea is way off. It just makes the most sense to me as the antecedent to the Oathpact.

I have to say, the situation in The Liar of Partinel, from what little is shown, seemed worse than anything else in the Cosmere that we've seen so far, except for when Ruin was free on Scadrial.

Well, here's what my idea depends on: -Adonalsium had a holder (like a Shardholder, except it's the Wholeholder) -Things are terrible because that holder is dead. The opposing force, what/whoever it is, probably contributed to Adonalsium's death, but it doesn't have to have anything much to do with the threat humanity faces, necessarily. Just the consciousness-less power going haywire could be the whole of it. So the Shattering, in my idea, happened because that power required a consciousness for things to get back on track, and for whatever reason, shattering the power was the only solution they had to get consciousnesses in there.

It occurs to me that Honor must have been splintered right around the time that the Oathpact was made. Afterward, to be sure, but it was probably the last, desperate act of a Shardholder who saw his end coming. You see, spren could not have existed before Honor was dead and splintered. I recently saw a WoB where he said something along the lines of, "There were seons on Sel before the Reod, but there were none before Rayse visited." Such sentient Splinters (which include seons, skaze, and spren) come from dead gods. What we know of the Desolations suggests that the spren were not a late arrival in the cycle of Desolations. Of course, Honor's death didn't have to be around the time of the first Desolation. Maybe it happened sometime in the middle. But if not right at the beginning, what was the Oathpact even for? It's just fighting a horrific war, then going to hell, then fighting a horrific war, then going to hell again--forever (but, hey, you get cool swords!). Just about anyone would walk away from that horror pretty quickly after the guy who made the deal died. Unless carrying on after his death was the deal. Sidenote: I saw a post about how Endowment willingly splinters her power to give to the Returned, who become Splinterholders or something. These Splinters are unique, as they do not have sentience, while the byproducts of fatal splintering do. The Returned's Splinters aren't unique, though. The Honorblades are the same thing, in a different form.

I had never read the Liar of Partinel, but I finally did, and without going into much detail (because I'm not sure how much we're supposed to talk about it on the forums), I am more convinced of my "Adonalsium was dead" idea. I know that it's not canon, but still. Even assuming that every character except for Hoid is scrapped and the setting is changed in major ways, and we're left with just the broadest of strokes of plot similarities, just that barest skeleton of story still suggest that Adonalsium was dead. Or gone totally crazy.

As I understand it, positing a Shardweb between the pools is not the same as Shadesmar/the Cognitive Realm. If I'm not mistaken, the Shardpools are not necessary for travel for those gifted with Transportation. Also, I'm pretty sure I read that the pools are the only easy way to magically travel to and from Sel because of the way the weird way the Shards there behave. So they're not quite the same as the Cognitive Realm, even if they will take you straight there. Hoid almost certainly does not normally need the pools to worldhop. Other than travelling to and from Sel, there is no reason (that we know of) that he ever would. That means that when Rock saw him show up on Roshar through a pool, he was probably coming from Sel.

Belief has very little to do with how Selish magic works, though, per the new Ars Arcanum. Granted, that was in reference to execution, but I would think that it should apply across the board.

Yes, the differences in the ages that he appears to be are indeed caused by a combination of Lightweaving and his acting ability. As far as how old he actually is, that's a tough one. Even if we knew exactly how many years it had been since the Shattering (a figure that varies rather widely, depending on which book we're talking about), it wouldn't be as simple as adding about 30 years to that figure. Apparently, Hoid can skip forward in time somehow, so he could be a whole lot younger than that. But, of course, we don't know if Hoid has skipped 2 years or 2,000. Whatever the case may be, he is certainly quite old. Even a very conservative estimate would put him at several centuries, and several millennia is far more likely.

Is it really in heavy disfavor? I got the impression that it was a deeply respected book that a lot of people had around, but no one really paid any attention to what it says one should do. Kinda like how someone might have Plato's Republic on their bookshelf but not be directly influenced by its ideas--if they even have the slightest notion of what those are.

I suppose I could put this in the Elantris forum, but I tend to forget myself and start blathering about other Cosmere stuff without considering spoiler tags, so I'll just put it here. First of all, I always assumed that the Reod debacle was the direct result of Aona and Skai being killed. It would seem not. They had been dead for a long time before that. The chasm that caused all of the problems with the Dor could even have just been the result of a natural disaster. Regardless of what caused it, the geography-based magic got all messed up when the geography changed because there was no consciousness behind the power to set things right. So why is the magic geographically linked to begin with? When the Dominion theory was shot down, I was at a loss, until a sudden eureka moment: this is some of the weird stuff that happens when a Shard loses its Holder. Without its consciousness, the power blindly tries to compensate, and the balance of its power shifts towards the Cognitive Realm. Normally, while the Shardpool is the manifestation of the Shard's power in the Physical Realm, it is not the only access point because spatial relationships don't mean a lot in the Spiritual Realm. That's why you have Hoid, millions of miles from Nalthis, presumably accessing Endowment's power through his Breath for perfect pitch. The Cognitive Realm, however, is a sort of bridge between the Physical and the Spiritual. With the balance of power shifted so heavily into the Cognitive Realm, the ability to access power from anywhere is weakened. The power sort of congregates around the physical manifestation of the power (the pool). This also explains why it is difficult to travel there. The Cognitive Realm is overloaded with power, and the Spiritual drained of it. One (or both) of these Realms is involved in Transportation, and either condition would likely interfere with travel.

So, uh... When do you think Lift read it?

Power is power. Another Shard could find a way to hack hemalurgy for their purposes. The Returned are associated with Endowment, but Vasher is still able to use Stormlight (probably associated with Honor, but maybe Cultivation, as well), rather than Breath, to keep himself alive.

I don't think that's quite how the Shards work. The Shards all balance each other--not just their direct opposites--and rather than make it impossible to act, they make it impossible for any single Shard to warp the will of the Holder. Even if all of the Shards were exact opposites, someone who held all 16 would be completely free to act according to their will, not balanced into inaction.

I am about 90% certain that this is what was going on. Sazed would have known if another Shardholder was in the vicinity of his planet, and with two Shards, he probably would have been able to shut them down pretty fast.

And isn't Cett the one who names him as a good informant? He would have had to spend quite a lot of time in Fadrex to be so known.

While it's hard to guess what his overall purpose was, if I recall correctly, Hoid had abilities related to Feruchemy. The events he got caught up in may be the Terris refugee situation, and he got involved while investigating their powers.

Maybe the Aon-shaped alignment sometimes happens within someone who is particularly devoted to something, rather than their bodies.

I think Trell was responsible for the original Trelagism that is mentioned in The Final Empire. Miles' Trellism seems to have nothing but the name of the god in common with it. Trell, the person, is probably from Bavadin's planet.

Yeah, I'm thinking some don't really have a true opposite at all. I just thought something like Odium would need an pretty exact balance.

Ah, okay. Well, confirmed is confirmed, then. Still seems like something of a mismatch, but if not, I guess that says more about Odium than anything. More like disgust or revulsion than unbridled hatred, perhaps.