The One Who Connects

Unless Venli is a Dustbringer, she hasn't bonded an Ashspren. Prevailing theory right now is that Willshapers bond Lightspren. Either way, your overall point stands, and I agree. Nahel Spren in general are a threat to the Fused in the same way Voidspren are a threat to the KR: they represent an advantage the enemy can use. Unlikely. Mental Command is granted by the Tenth Heightening, and I don't see Hoid waltzing around with Susebron levels of Breath. I also believe that you cannot accomplish mental command without it, because I trust Vasher. Warbreaker Spoilers: I don't see it. What does he store the attribute in without a Metalmind?

More specifically(if you need it), it's from Interlude I-3 of Way of Kings. (It's also near the end of that interlude, if that helps)

Not as much of a problem as you think. Red haired Ati only shows up as a dead body for one scene in HoA, and only has the "Vax?" line in Secret History. Every other appearance of Ruin in Mistborn is either as Reen(who isn't a red-head, I think), Kelsier(I think Spook "saw" him at one point), or as a black mist with a voice(ascended Ruin/Vin scenes). For the purpose of cinema, I imagine we would have an upper body within the smoke, kinda like how a genie coming out of a lamp would be portrayed, but with much more smoke surrounding them. As a consequence of the extra smoke, cinema team could make it look like naturally red hair that's tinged black, and, if necessary, spin it as the power affecting how they appear(meaning Vin would have a white tinge to her hair, so that the audience could make that connection). Do you think black tinged with red(or vice-versa, technically) would work on Hiddleston?

Because Szeth said he hid it there. Regarding Taravangian getting it, barring a passage from the Diagram, I have my doubts. Szeth hid it at least... 2-3 masters before Taravangian hired him.

See, it doesn't even register as an error when you consider that Honorblades are a hack, rather than a magic system. The Honorblades are a hack of a system that already existed, but wasn't in use on Roshar. It's like saying Hemalurgy doesn't exist anymore just because nobody is using it. Hemalurgy already existed before TLR used it, just as the Surges existed before Honor made the Honorblades. Surgebinding is what I would call the magic system, regardless of the method used to access it. The Nahel bond isn't the only way to access the surges, as proven by Honorblades and Fabrials(and possibly Hemalurgy), so why not have another method in use on Ashyn before humanity fled? (Honor mentions humanity destroying their prior world via the Dawnshards, so... perhaps something to do with those?)

We know who all 10 characters are. We do not know the Order of the back five, but we do have his planned order from September of 2016.

You know how the Spren for Singer Forms are bonded in the Gemheart, and how Spren need to be in the gemstone for Fabrials to function? The fancy gem Yelig-Nar uses serves the same purpose, since Humans don't have Gemhearts(although it appears a Singer would have to swallow a gem too, for some reason). He's not trapped at all, he uses the gem as a focal point to "bond" with his hosts.

You make a valid argument, but Elantrian magic is useful in different areas than the Metallic Arts are. Their tech tree will still have a lot of techs skipped "because magic," but it'll look vastly different. For a proper example: communications. Roshar has Spanreeds, while Scadrial had to invent the telegraph. Elantrian magic and Roshar have Soulcasting(Aon Shao), while Scadrial has to improve their agriculture. Nalthis has awakened objects, while most of the other worlds will probably have to invent robotics(something the programming oriented Selish magic will probably have an advantage on). Scadrial will have a metal industry, while Roshar will be all about gemstones. Etc... Tech progress is all about what the magic can't do/what tech can do better. And since magic easily allows one to skip entire segments of the tech tree, they can spend that time focusing on other areas. Elantrians can bypass all the time Edison & Co. spent inventing the lightbulb courtesy of Aon Ashe, and get a head start on something their magic can't do that easily. Take the countless days/years spent on earth researching medicines. With the advent of Gold Medallions, the Scadrian people can spend all that time focusing on more advanced things(if they had a shred of ambition in them). "It is our goal to be stronger, to achieve our potential and not rest upon our laurels. We are the seekers, not the shepherds." —Yuthura Ban To purposely quote the Sith, this is where Scadrial messed up. They got complacent, and rested on what they were given, rather than trying to achieve even more. Given that Selish magics require a good bit more learning and effort than the instinctual Allomancy, I imagine Sel wont have the same problem(or at least, not to the same extent).

I'm pretty sure we know it's not Eshonai, but that's about all I remember. Under the current interpretation of events, Odium didn't really switch sides. The Listeners abandoned H&C after an event of some sort, and turned to Odium, who in turn offered them power(the Fused). It's like a teacher having a new set of students next school year. Did he switch which class he was teaching, or did the students switch teachers?

This sentence is permeated with "hears, but does not listen." I don't mean to sound particularly rude, but this is the third time I've done this. 4. Shalash could be a member of literally any of the Orders, or none of them, during her flashback book, and we learn about Dustbringers from a different member of the primary three viewpoints(like Kal/Shallan in WoK/WoR). 5. Shalash could be dead at the time of her book(like Eshonai), and we learn about Dustbringers from whoever replaces her in the primary viewpoints. 6. Shalash x Dustbringer romance/professional relationship, allowing us to learn about Dustbringers from a more minor character involved in the main narrative. (Kinda like if we'd been learning about Shallan's order from Adolin's PoV of her, so Brandon can switch it up on us) 7. Literally anything else that would lead us to learn about the Dustbringers, so long as it is interspersed with Shalash's flashbacks in a way that makes sense. Nothing Brandon has stated prevents any of these, but everyone seems to think it automatically has to be option 1, which is why I've gone back to using the phrase "connecting dots that aren't necessarily there." Brandon loves to switch things up on us, but he also likes coming up with new and inventive ways to change it up. So as for your theory itself, I'd say it's not as likely anymore because we already have this happening now, what with Eshonai indisposed and Venli taking her place in the narrative.

Even if they were, there is a difference between using a Metalmind as a Spike and using a Spike as a Metalmind. The former falls under what Deval said about less space in it for holding a spike charge. The latter already has a spike charge, so any excess space can be used as additional Feruchemical storage(this is what some of the Inquisitors did, by the way)

Vin was only able to remove his bracers because she was being fueled by the Mists, which were pure essence of Preservation. It's not direct action by a Shard, but it's action directly fueled by a Shard. The distinctions are there to be drawn by the two of you. The two big things here that let TLR win are his powers and his experience. He's had a millennia to hone his skills and deal with situations. He has one of the most combat conducive powersets in the Cosmere. Those two things are a hard combination to beat. I agree. This battle was more than likely made so "Battle of the God Kings" could happen rather than anything serious. Also, ~~~~ vs Herald devolves into which Honorblade is being used. Some of those powersets are very conducive for combat, and others aren't.

Remember how the Keepers got slaughtered sometime during book 2? The Inquisitors have been hunting Feruchemists for centuries, on TLR's orders. He gets rid of his enemies, and his elite troops become even more elite. Win-Win. Humanity and their obsession with numbers and organization. "Remember, the first and only reality of the Sith. There can only be two, and you are no longer my apprentice." —Darth Sidious There aren't that many Inquisitors, and it has always been that way. (Marsh thinks there's under 20, there were 13 in the final battle, so if you add in the few that had been killed prior to that, how about 16 of them?) This way, they don't need to be dying off with any real speed, they just need to be dying. When one dies, they get replaced(give or take, since some of them are in the outer dominances at times).

The scientific method exists. All it takes is a few intriguing stories and an inquisitive mind(or two, or five). Yesteel invented Ichor-Alcohol for Lifeless, Shashara & Vasher created Nightblood(and proved the existence of Type IV Awakening in the process), they discovered the single breath command for making Lifeless, discovered a way to worldhop off Nalthis, Vasher learned a way to substitute Stormlight to fuel his Divine Breath, etc.. They patterned Nightblood after Shardblades, and Vasher used soulcasting corpses into stone as the inspiration for Kalad's Phantoms, so they clearly made an effort to learn some about things on places they visited. I don't see it as all that strange that they would hear something about Aluminum from a worldhopper and then test it out. I'd actually pin this information on someone from Sel. The Scadrian timeline doesn't add up. Nightblood was made about 600 years before SA takes place(300 years back from SA to Warbreaker, and another 300 back to the Manywar). That'd be about 3 centuries before Era 1 Mistborn takes place, and I don't think anyone outside the Inquisitorius knew about Aluminum at that time. Sel however, has Ralkalest. Elantris(book) should take place a few centuries before The Lord Ruler ascended and created the Final Empire. Sel has nearly 2 millennia to modernize from what we see in Elantris until we reach the time of SA, and they don't really have much/any Shardic conflict to screw with it. Look at how far Earth has gotten in the last 2,000 years, add magic, and tell me that Selish society shouldn't already be wandering the cosmos. The magic of AonDor(and to a smaller extent Forgery) is literally programming, which is the very essence of trial and error. There are absolutely going to be people who say "Hey. Our magic doesn't work on this metal, so how about yours?" Add a Scholar going "Well, what about my magic?" and the rest is history.

Wouldn't really work the way you think. The specific type of Spren seems just as relevant to Fabrial powers as the type of gemstone, so breath would be like a specific type of Spren. Assuming your idea even works, you'd get a singular power from Breath Fabrials. You could probably use breath instead of Stormlight to power Fabrials though, so that's something. So.. the Eighth Heightening doesn't actually grant a power, per se. Breaking Commands can be done by anyone with lots of patience, a little breath, and torture implements. Spoilers for size: All the Eighth Heightening grants you is instinctive knowledge, which would bypass the patience requirement. So I doubt Vasher could use the Eighth Heightening for anything on Roshar unless it's an ability we haven't heard about yet. This one is legit. Not sure if it'll actually be done, but it's doable.

I'm saying it can't magically cut through aluminum(we seem to agree here), but I'm also saying that it should be able to physically slice through a thin enough piece because that's how sharpness works(we also seem to agree here). So I don't think you're missing something, I think we just see disagreement where there isn't any because we are bad at wording our thoughts. Time for me to read, I guess

That WoB isn't definitive in the slightest. Have the history of the subject: From Brandon(Feb 1, 2017): From Brandon(Feb 3, 2017): From Peter(February 6, 2017): The status of the subject is still very much up for debate, and will likely remain that way until Brandon puts Shardblade vs Aluminum into a book. This WoB implies that Aluminum stops magical cutting, nothing more. Given that you can stab Nightblood's Sheath though a person's chest, it's rather heavy duty, so I can see it being thick enough for Nightblood to not physically cut it. In the end, we return to Peter's answer, where magical cutting is prevented b/c aluminum, and physical cutting is prevented by thickness(as it is in the real world).

Problem with that is that Aluminum is an Investiture sink too, in addition to being inert. Meaning you can pump investiture into it and it won't do anything. So the Augmenter Fabrial would do nothing to Aluminum. Shardblades are still very sharp, and aluminum is rather thin. If you can cut something with a normal sword, a Shardblade will cut it too, magic or no magic.

Then the Stormfather is mistaken.

It's the Unmade wiki page that's in error. Dai-Gonarthis is hyphenated in the Death Rattles page, Dai-Gonarthis's page, the Epigraphs pages for both books, and within both books themselves. All other hyphens and lack thereof are correct and have been consistent in every iteration of their names within the books, the wiki, and the WoBs.

WoB's. Read them.

Do we have confirmation about the hyphen-sapience idea? I thought it was still just a theory and/or coincidence with the names. Other than Dai-Gonarthis still being a "potential" Unmade rather than confirmed, that's the only thing that stuck out in your post.

Why would they need arms? Reread WoK Interlude 9. Szeth specifically despawns his Honorblade so he has both hands free to grapple/infuse the soldiers. He didn't need his blade out to use the powers it gave, so it stands to reason...

He can take in Stormlight to sate his body. It's the primary reasons he's even on Roshar. Because they are the norm, like every human in the Cosmere. The Returned are the exception to the rule. We don't know the proper details of why, but Returned need to consume breath to keep their body alive. A living human has natural bodily processes to stay alive. I can't give you answers regarding the Heralds(although they used to be directly fueled by Honor, which would satisfy the Investiture needs. And then there are the Highstorms, as Deval pointed out, which is presumably where Vasher gets his. No answers on Threnody or Kelsier. No idea, but there have been a few theories(pre-OB) that the Heralds take over bodies in order to return for Desolations. So.. maybe?

Preservation did imprison Ruin to make it more likely to succeed, but several things were luck and happenstance. For example, TLR was instrumental in keeping the plan afloat, but he only managed to take the job because Ruin got tunnel vision.