The One Who Connects

I suppose once Medallions become a common household item, that'll be valid. Until Era 3 do we wait.

We tried that. Allomancy or Bust.

Aluminum isn't Invested though, so I'm not seeing the connection. The Investiture in an Aluminum Metalmind/Spike would make it harder to push on, except that you can't push on it in the first place, despite it not being invested.

For the same reason tapping heat doesn't make you heat-proof. What this precisely means in physics terms, I'm not sure(I've got speculation, but that's if I can understand the related science). It's one of the spots where the magic directly interacts with physics, and that has a tendency to appear to break the rules. Spoiler for size:

In-story, don't think so. In-WoB though... it's some pretty rough stuff.

The only thing they can really do differently is to get the transfer done in one swing of the hammer, but as you say, the spike is internal for the whole process, so I'm not sure that would actually do anything.

That one's in Jah Keved. 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. I agree, for the same reason you think it's not a Fused: availability of getting them. In Edgedancer, Nalan mentions finding pockets of Voidspren that survived(although that may have just been an excuse to deny the Desolation).

When put like that, it sounds a lot like what Taravangian was doing. The difference being that Taravangian's tool(Szeth) was more easily controlled, and much more precise, whereas the Parsh would just destroy what didn't destroy them. Their loyalty was fading, and Gavilar knew it. He indirectly mentions this to Eshonai during his "unite them" tangent. That's one of the reasons why he sprung for the "alliance" out of nowhere. He needed to accelerate the timetable before the kingdom fractured beneath him. The plan needed an enemy so that the Highprinces would have something better to do than petty rivalries and betrayal. Dalinar noted "the princedoms uniting against House Kholin" during his conquest flashbacks, which shows the concept works in small-scale. Unintentional as it may have been, the Vengeance Pact is also proof of concept, for the first few years until the Highprinces started fracturing again. It's basically a successful short-term test of the concept, and Dalinar shows in his "I remember when we had purpose" spiel that he saw the value of that success. In the face of this, it's not surprising that Dalinar is now trying to do exactly what Gavilar was aiming to do, but in full-scale and for the long-term. The Alethi Highprinces had nothing better to do than lie, scheme & betray. So Gavilar planned to create something more important for them to focus on, lest they destroy themselves. The World Leaders have nothing better to do than stay isolated & scheme. Dalinar needs to show them that they have to focus on something more important, lest they get destroyed. The only real difference between Gavilar's plan and Dalinar's newfound purpose is that Gavilar created an enemy, while Dalinar used an existing one.

Brandon has been fairly clear on this. It is as you say: "the relationship to the other planets has to be shaped by perception." Here's some perception for you: Mars orbits further out than Earth does, and that's how we perceive it. At any given time, Mars and Earth could be on opposite sides of the Sun in the Physical Realm, which would logically mean that to get to the other, you have to go through the Sun, but that's PR logic. In the Cognitive Realm, Mars will always be in the direction "away" from the Sun, because we perceive Mars as being further away from the Sun than the Earth. If Earth and Venus were on opposite sides of the Sun in the PR, you would still reach Venus before reaching the Sun in the CR, because Venus is perceived as being closer to Earth than the Sun is. The Expanse of the Densities is to the "Northwest" of Roshar on the Shadesmar image. And if you look at the Star Map, regardless of the orientation of either planet, or their relative position on their solar orbits, the Selish System will always be Northwest(relatively) from the Rosharan System in the Physical Realm, and Sel is perceived as being "to the NW of Roshar" when looking at the two from an outside perspective(like a Worldhopper or a Shard), and that means that it will always be to the Northwest in the CR. The Focus for Awakening is Commands, which is something Chaos has known since before the Forums existed. We have had contradictory WoBs on whether or not you can steal Breath. If memory serves, I don't think we've gotten it properly clarified, but the "can't" WoB was more recent(granted, only by 2 months), so that's what we're going with in the interim. Splinters(like Spren) haven't been "alive," per se, while Cognitive Shadows are of things formerly alive. The difference is in their origins. Splinter: Investiture given Sentience. & Cognitive Shadow: Sentience given Investiture(although that's a very bad way of putting it).

As a temporary aside: Not all video-games have a real story to them, so some people like the villains b/c they look cool/have good one-liners What kinds of "favorite" are you actually looking for @Toaster Retribution? Story, Looks, Archetype/Concept, Quotes, Other, etc... I've noticed that several of mine are from me admiring the execution of the concept as much as they're from me liking the character. Case in point: ◘ Darth Caedus (Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi) ◙ Grand Admiral Thrawn (Star Wars: Heir to the Empire) ◘ Makuta Teridax (Bionicle) ◘ The Shroud (Star Wars: The Old Republic) ◙ The Worker of Secrets (Infinity Blade) ◘ Szeth, Assassin in White (Stormlight Archives) Caedus takes the "necessary evil/for the right reasons" angle the prequel trilogy tried to build into Anakin's character, but do it much better. (I liked the prequels as movies, but the story was a tad basic) Caedus has more books in which to flesh it out, and better motivations. To quote myself from before Both Thrawn and The Worker of Secrets are takes on the villain who simply knows too much. Thrawn studied cultures through their art to give him a unique insight into them, and combined that with a tactician's mind, while The Worker of Secrets is simply old/experienced enough to appraise a person's personality and predict what they'll do(imagine TLR's lie-detector ability to read someone, add many millenniums of experience, and expand it to more than just honesty.) Teridax is somewhere in the middle. He has an overall goal, and plotted out how to get there, taking into account just about everything along the way. And I mean everything, the full plan prepared for setbacks, even counted on the hero's succeeding at minor points to unwittingly advance his overall plot. "Sometimes, my brothers, the best way, the only way to win... is by losing." The Shroud on the other hand, would be a perfect fit to take up the Shard of Ambition. The only real rationale behind why he does what he does is because he can do it, and because he can get away with it. He doesn't care if it's good or evil, he only cares about the challenge of doing the task, and the extra challenge of getting away with it(since the amoral often end up doing something highly illegal). Minor Spoilers: And Szeth is the perfect example of "too much of a good thing can be a bad thing." Calderis put it best:

I don't believe we have an answer(nor do I think we've even asked Brandon about this). Personally, I say no. Edit: I should probably explain why I think that. I feel like one Spren bonding multiple individuals would defeat the purpose of Squires having to attract a Spren of their own. KR also need their Spren close in order to use their powers, so one Spren bonding multiple people would resign them to being on a team for every mission or having to deal with "my turn to use the powers" like squabbling children. The same way fearspren and gloryspren know where to go. They are drawn to the proper emotions/phenomena. The Parshendi provide us with a great example of this, as they talk about needing the "proper mindset" to attract a Spren to change Forms. They need to be exhibiting the proper emotions to attract the right Spren(which is why they can't get any Creationspren for Artform. They know what Spren they need, but not how to attract it) As Kidpen said, the Nahel Bond as we currently know it(IE: the KR) came about because of Spren trying to replicate the Honorblades. Tanavast/Honor(through the Stormfather) tells Dalinar something to the tune of "I did not teach my Heralds this." Although the KR happened for this reason, I am no longer entirely sure of the Nahel Bond itself did due to something that may/mayn't be implied by Oathbringer Spoilers.

This deserves to be here, no?

Yes.

What exactly are you trying to say here? Miles could restore spiked out F-Gold by burning a Goldmind, or vice versa by tapping , so healing is definitely able to restore the lost section of Spiritweb.

You are thinking of Yolen, where the Vessels lived pre-Shattering. Also bear in mind that we don't know if this world was created by Adonalsium or if it came into existence through natural methods(and I doubt we'll ever get an answer to that one)

While technically true, that's not what Robardin's statement was getting at. Brandon talks about a survivor living without that lost section o f soul, which means no healing. We don't have any idea how to do this, and per Brandon, neither does anyone else.

That supposition could be valid in current times, what with the Shard-centric magic systems and all, but Aluminum acted like this before Adonalsium shattered. Everybody's Investiture should've been balanced as 100% Adonalsium back then, so if it works the way you're suggesting, I don't see how it would do much of anything back then.

It was one stab wound, and if memory serves, a gut wound. Under normal circumstances, you shouldn't die instantly from a gut wound. Were it chest level where he could've hit the heart/lungs, it'd be another story. Add to that the fact that he's in good enough shape to be wearing full heavy armor in every scene for the last 3 months without trouble, and probably months/years prior since the red armor is a "uniform of sorts," as well as the bonus strength the partial Dakhor transformation grants him... I don't see a reason for Fjon's stab to be what killed him. I'd argue the blood loss, combined with the stab Dilaf delivers is what really did him in.

Most relevant WoBs I could find. (1, 2, 3, 4) We've also discussed some of the topic in multiple threads in the past(with inconsistent results): As it turns out, there's a lot that we don't know. I do remember speculation on here that intent has a little to do with that. (this explanation is gonna be a little wonky, fair warning) We were thinking that you wouldn't go "off-world" without intending too, so the local CR is functionally a globe if you are just using the CR to travel around the world faster. If you jumped into the CR in say.. Jah Keved, then Alethkar is gonna be to the east. If you intended to use the CR to quick travel around Roshar, then you could continue east a little ways past Alethkar/Shattered Plains and end up in Aimia, something that could only be done on a spherical plane. But if you intended to worldhop towards Scadrial, then you could walk past Alethkar and into the darkness between planets, something that can only be done on a flat plane. This duality is made possible by the fact that the CR is literally shaped by perception. To use a potentially clearer example: the Columbus story. He felt that he could get to India from Europe by sailing westward around the world. If he had went into a Cognitive Realm for Earth, he would be able to do just that(after crossing over the Americas, of course). But if someone intended to go westward and fall off of the planet, they could reach the "edge" and go into the darkness between worlds before they even crossed the Atlantic. What this means for when there are multiple people is unknown, and is yet another thing that is breaking our brains.

The Cause of the Recreance shouldn't have much bearing on the current people, and they should keep fighting their Desolation. On this, we agree. But the reasoning for the Recreance itself was fine. The "voidbringer reveal" and the "ashyn reveal" seem like weak reasons because on there own, they are. Brandon has given us a majority of the reasons for it across multiple books, and hasn't had a character put the pieces together. Those last few reveals were more of a "the last straw" than the entire reason, as you think Oathbringer wants us to believe(Having not read the book, I can't speak to the tone of how it was presented) I tried putting the pieces together in the "Recreance Cause Elaborated" in my sig, and I think the overall reasoning is solid. It just requires thought because Brandon hasn't saw fit to just spell it out for us yet.

His words were "I will not be bound in such a way as to kill me" or something very similar. But I also think he says this before Dalinar says his Oaths, so I don't know if that was in response to the Bond itself or just general sentiment.

Long story short: Denth lied. Perception and Intent are a big deal when it comes to Brandon's magic systems. Since everybody thinks it's all or nothing, they never intend to transfer a partial amount, so they aren't able to do just a few. It's a more literal example of "repeat a lie enough times and it becomes the truth." Denth/Vasher know that you can do partial transfer, so they are able to do so if they want to. Additionally, you could awaken several objects(using most of their Breath), gift the remainder of your Breath reserve to someone else, and then retrieve the breath from the awakened objects, thus circumventing the whole "all or nothing" shtick anyway.

Has everyone but Yata forgotten about how it's actually tWoK? Calling SA4 "The Song of Secrets" is fully viable, especially since it's not a set-in-print book but an oral history. Oral titles tend to have a little bit of variance to them, so it being "the song of secrets" in print, "song of secrets" to the Parsh, and "Listener Song of Secrets" in the epigraphs isn't that big of a stretch. Just look at the aforementioned "WoK" debacle, and that title actually is set-in-print. If you don't mind me asking, what about it annoyed you/didn't feel thoroughly explained?

Another thing to remember is that any metals he orders production of for their powers, the Inquisitors would know about(or find out about). Inquisitors that learned about new powers would eventually find Mistings that have those powers(or take them from a Mistborn) and gain those powers themselves. TLR, overconfident as he was, had absolutely no reason to give his Inquisitors(and subsequently Ruin) a potential advantage over him. Thus, no Nicrosil/Chromium in Era 1, to give one example. His persecution of Terrismen/Feruchemists also served this aim, as it limited access to powers like Speed, Mental Speed, and Fortune. In the specific case of Cadmium and Bendalloy though, I think it was the tech level that sealed the deal on keeping it hidden.