The One Who Connects

Anything short of the Shards themselves would probably gonna be on the chopping block, and even then, Nightblood can damage them too.

Nothing in Odium's Intent prevents him from telling the truth, no? To me, it's far more interesting when there isn't a deception. When the hero-turned-villain character turns because they were tricked, a lot of times it ends up making them look foolish in the reader/viewer's eyes(I know Brandon is a better writer than that, but you still kinda feel it...) It's just so much more powerful and tragic when a hero gets turned by something genuine, because authors can explore the interplay of that.

By virtue of being from something living, it'd be easier. How easier is up for discussion, but you're still gonna have a heck of a time awakening metal.

I've got several series that I've been getting into recently: Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake (2 Books) Sweet Venon by Tera Lynn Childs (3 Books) The Selection by Kiera Cass (5 Books) I've read the first 2 series, and am on book 3 of 5 for The Selection. The former two series do have magic, while The Selection is a tad modern tech-wise. Fair warning that (near as I can tell) every series but Three Dark Crowns is set in modern day, though that's not always a relevant detail. Several More Suggestions: Witches Of East End by Melissa De La Cruz (3 Books) Shadow Falls by C.C. Hunter (5 Books) Shadow Falls: After Dark by C.C. Hunter (3 Books) Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr (5 Books) The Immortals by Alyson Nöel (6 Books) Daughter Of Smoke And Bone by Laini Taylor (3 Books) I haven't read these series yet, mostly for lack of time. I started Witches of East End, and it's doing good so far.

Eh, it got me to actually do the Claymore comparison, so it's all good.

Well, from the Coppermind Article on Nightblood: The way you see it and the way Arook saw it are quite different, considering that 65 cm is just over 25 inches. Brandon has compared Nightblood to the Claymore in Dark Souls, noting that said Claymore might be "a tad" bigger than Nightblood. The Claymore page on the Dark Souls Wiki has a link to a youtube video of the weapon moveset. In said video, the full sword looks to be a little over double the length of the player's arm(counting fist & shoulder), with the blade portion comprising 3/4ths of that length. As an average 6 foot fellow, my arm is roughly 27.5 inches(counting fist & shoulder). Double that would be roughly 55 inches. Since the sword in the video is over double, this makes the Dark Souls Claymore nearly 5 feet in length, with Nightblood being "a tad smaller" than that. I'm forced to agree with Arook's wording in the Coppermind here and say that Nightblood stands around 4'8"

It could still have been made by him. From the annotation snippet Calderis posted. Brandon used "swords" plural here, and mentioned usage by the Idrian Coalition. Vasher(it was Vasher, right?) had a vision of Lifeless wielding Nightbloods. Yesteel playing Blacksmith to the War Effort seems reasonable in the face of these things.

So.... Discussion Value

Explain this, if you would. Why are Windrunners necessary?

That depends on how you describe Plot Armor. The definition I'm finding is "a situation where it strains credibility to believe that the character would survive." So far, I don't think we've had any situations like that. If you feel like the injuries sustained would kill the character, they do. If they survive, there is always an explanation rooted in a healing power/magical enhancement. I can't think of any examples of non-powered individuals surviving something they shouldn't. But if you just mean "main character deaths," there haven't been too many of those so far(though most of the series aren't completed yet, so we'll see)

Given that F-Steel doesn't let you avoid air resistance, I tend to think other powers can't beat it either, for sake of consistency. The adhesion thing could work(I think), but I'm not sure how well it would work in practice.

This is not how magic works in the Cosmere. On their own, words are meaningless vibrations of the air. That's the reason why Intent is so storming important. To name one example: Vasher's "I want you to repeat them, and mean them.” For another, Lift's nonverbal Oath. For a third, the entire concept of lying. What Calderis is saying is this: Actions speak louder than words." Consider Kaladin whose Bond didn't break until he acted against it. He had already sworn an oath that contradicted his other ones, but until he acted, those words meant little. It's one of the reason why Squires have trouble bonding a Spren. They can shout words into the wind until they lose their voice, but unless they actually embody what they're saying, nothing happens.

I know the Stormlight books often get split in two(the English versions as well, in some countries), but I think Warbreaker is short enough to not need that.

Minor technicality, but the child returned did mature to something post-puberty, like say... a 20 year old, and then stopped "aging." But otherwise, your point stands. The Returned get to look like whatever they want(within reason), and this gets pointed out more than once in the book. The viewing audience should understand why Susebron isn't 40.

During one of Shallan's flashbacks in WoR. The festival. (Chapter 45, for those who care) Mistborn Era 2 is planned to take place between SA 5 and 6, so.. this happened before Era 2. However, MB Era 1 is ~341 years before Era 2, and I'm fairly certain Shallan is younger than 340. Shallan is roughly 18 at the end of Oathbringer, and the Middlefest Fair Flashback is listed as "Three and a half years ago." The time gap from mid-WoR to End of OB is barely over 2 months(Icsachah is 10/8/5, Nanishah is 2/10/5, so... 110 days? We're talking about 337 years after Era 1, give or take about 2 Rosharan months. Era 2 is after SA 5 now.

That's not what we are arguing. Building a theory under the assumption that he burned the Lerasium is fine. Discussion things under the assumpton that he burned the Lerasium is fine. Arguing that the WoBs say something that they technically don't is the issue here. Hoid stole the Lerasium, this is absolutely what happened. Hoid burning the Lerasium is almost certainly what happened, but it is not absolutely what happened. Stating that "Hoid burned the Lerasium" is probably true, but it is not yet true until we have real confirmation. Unconfirmed Hypotheses about the Cosmere are Schrodinger's WoB. Until Brandon tells us that something happened, it hasn't happened, even if it has. Your statement will retroactively be true if Brandon tells us that Hoid burned the Lerasium, but until that happens, the statement "Hoid burned the Lerasium" is not true, and you should word it in a way that reflects that. That's the only point we've been trying to get across. In hindsight: All of this could have been avoided if you had typed "[Hoid] probably used it to become a Mistborn." Scion would have read a correct statement, moved on with his forum readings, and none of us would not have ended up hijacking this thread twice in two weeks. But none of us, myself included, are good at letting something drop, so here we are.

I don't think they can. This isn't definitive, but...

Concerning the Recreance, Odium's touch just feels... absent to me. So I guess I will disagree with you until such future point.

What I'm seeing with a few cursory google searches is that it wouldn't be easy. One of the main problems would be this one: With a magnet in the sky and a magnet on the ground, they'd have to be geosynchronous in order to not drift away and come crashing down, something magnets by themselves aren't good at. I'd assume that you want the city to be entirely free-floating, so any form of stability ties to the ground would be out of the picture. Hrmm... several of the other methods involve some fancy electro-tech. Guess we'd need an idea of this world's tech level to see how viable these are. Short summary of a few options(the ones I can explain, at least): Servomechanisms — measuring the position and speed of the object being levitated, and using a feedback loop which continuously adjusts one or more electromagnets to correct the object's motion. [Layman's Terms: Magnets get weaker/stronger to push/pull object back into safe zone] Induced Currents — When a conductor is presented with a time-varying magnetic field, electrical currents in the conductor are set up which create a magnetic field that causes a repulsive effect. [Layman: On/Off Electromagnets to counterpush/pull object back into safe zone] Diamagnetics — Diamagnetic materials cause lines of magnetic flux to curve away from the material. As water is predominantly diamagnetic, this technique has been used to levitate water droplets and even live animals, such as a grasshopper, frog and a mouse.[11] However, the magnetic fields required for this are very high, typically in the range of 16 teslas, and therefore create significant problems if ferromagnetic materials are nearby. [Layman: Materials push off of magnetic fields in order to float. Needs strong magnets and/or light materials] Superconductors — completely expel magnetic fields due to the Meissner effect when the superconductivity initially forms; thus superconducting levitation can be considered a particular instance of diamagnetic levitation. [Laymen: Supercharged version of Diamagnetics.] Rotational Stabilization — a spinning magnet or array of magnets is levitated via magnetic forces above another magnet or array of magnets, and stabilised by gyroscopic effect due to a spin that is neither too fast, nor too slow to allow for a necessary precession. [Laymen: It's the floating spinning top toy] None of these seem particularly easy to come by

Seons/Skaze are Splinters too, and they are Spren equivalents. I'm not sure if the distinction between Spren and Splinter really means much of anything anymore.

You'd be contending with their level of belief and the actual level of believability. The further something is from that Spiritual Template, the harder it's gonna be to attain via healing. I'd say that you get my meaning. Brandon can still make it functionally impossible by having a separate Spiritual Ideal for "Human Male" and "Human Female" if he wanted to, but if there's just a template for "Human," then I think it could technically be done.

I did that spoiler tag myself. All the other posts were in tags, so force of habit made me change mine. I remember something to do with Gamora's homeworld, where it started thriving at some point after his forces did their culling. I'd have to see how it was actually presented in the exact scene, but I never looked at it as him halving the population "fixed" things so much as the survivors changed what their way of life after the halving, which is why they are thriving now. If there's a line that presented it differently, then I'm just wrong, but this is the impression I've got, and other discussions about it haven't really changed what I think I know. One thing a lot of people have pointed out involving other solutions is the difficulty. Halving the population "doubles" the available resources, so to speak. To achieve a resource double without killing would be much more complex. What should/shouldn't you double? Double the water on a planet where it's toxic, and everybody dies. Double the water on a planet where it's useful, like earth and well.. "Ask Noah." Double the lumber/stone/other for building, where do you put it? Some land can't grow food on it, etc... I'm sure he could have probably figured out all of that stuff given enough time(especially if he had all 6 stones), but by that point, it'd be too late to override his conviction to the original plan. Yea that's gonna be a problem, but I don't think it'll be as bad as you think it will. (call me an optimist, for lack of a more accurate term)

How high do you want the cities to float? I'm no expert, but that might be important in determining feasibility.

I agree that it seems odd. We all do. Calderis flat-out stated that it wasn't the answer that he was expecting when he gave Grapevine the question. As an aside: Though it doesn't appear to be lost, Breath does weaken over time. "wouldn't be noticeable" seems to imply that it does happen, just very gradually. Breath slightly weakens over time, and holding breath extends someone's lifespan. Is it too far to assume these could be linked in some way? When in an awakened object though, it seems breath can be lost(jeez, this WoB is from 2002)

A Radiant taking sides in a conflict has nothing to do with their powers, and everything to do with what they represent. These paragraphs of my theory hardly change: Whether or not they have powers, they'd still have Blade and Plate. Without Oaths, the aforementioned Emuli Windrunner would still want to protect their people. The Tukari Radiant wouldn't want his people being slaughtered by a fellow KR, and those tensions would still happen. As long as the KR are meant to represent something, then their actions have socio/geopolitical consequences. Just because their actions wont have bond severing consequences, doesn't mean that they can do whatever they want. They can't maintain order when "the bad guys" change every time, and without their bonds, the surefire moral compass is gone too, so they have even less proof that they are in the right with any given action. Taking it back to Kaladin's dilemma, someone who's been a Radiant for years would have the lifestyle of the Oaths ingrained within them. Imagine that Kaladin loses his bond somehow in SA 9, which is around 2 decades after OB in world. By that time, he'd think in terms of the "honorable choice" even without his bond. That mental dilemma would still occur, but without his bond to keep him on the right track. All of these theoretical moral scenarios affect people whether or not they have a bond. The bond just shows them where they are on the right track. The only thing losing their bond changes is that they lose their certainty in the "right path." That's why abandoning their bonds and sticking around changes little. All of those stresses would still be around after they break their bonds, and would still be affecting what they can do.