luminos

My take on Harmony is that he's just a dude. In the original trilogy, he was a Terrisman (Sazed) who gained the powers of Harmony towards the end, when the world was being destroyed, and he was able to use the ridiculous amounts of power he gained to stop that from happening. He is a nice, intelligent guy. But he isn't God, and is not equipped to handle the power he has appropriately. Furthermore, the fact that his power makes him seem godlike to normal folk means that he doesn't really have any peers, doesn't have anyone that can give him candid feedback or speak to him like an equal. So he has a real issue with both being isolated and having a degree of power that goes beyond what even a very moral person should be entrusted with. Also, upvotes for being new and posting an interesting topic.

My guess with how Zinc works is that it makes you smarter in the sense that you are able to perform the same mental calculations you normally could, only quicker. Intelligence is kind of misunderstood anyways, as a lot of it just comes down to learning speed. So you would be smarter, but that probably doesn't mean what a lot of people think it means. Compounding zinc, though, could probably give some good shenanigans anyways. My personal choice would be Connector Ferring/Thug Misting. Connector because that one has nice potential to do interesting things, such as get people to leave me alone when I reading by storing, then tap the metalmind to go into social butterfly mode. While Pewter rounds me out, plus it might be useful to hold my own in a fight when I am in "untrustworthy mode" from storing connection.

I don't think that holds a lot of weight. After all, all the in world documents don't really work unless you assume the language is at least equivalent to english. The diagram cypher couldn't have been figured out without it being in english, and it is an in world thing. Various puns don't work unless the language is at least close to english. In short, I don't think the in world vs. as a book distinction has practical import unless there is a particular reason to make an exception

So, I think I just caught the reason behind the use of 'h' as a placeholder for symmetry. Symmetry is supposed to indicate the divine on Roshar, so obviously their god's name has to be symmetrical. But 'Honor' doesn't look symmetrical. So priests would have explained that obviously, 'h' is always used for symmetry in this way. Just something random that popped into my head that I had to share. I'm sure others already figured it out

One of the bigger obstacles for a Kaladin/Shallan pairing is they have a lot of inherent conflict in Kaladin's need to protect people he cares about, and Shallan's strong distaste for being "protected". Still, be interesting to see how things end up. I think Adolin is more likely, but a lot has to develop there for it to last long term.

I agree that lit spheres are likely to become more valuable than dun spheres once knights and applications of stormlight consuming fabrials become more common. But there are a few tricky issues to monetizing stormlight. 1. You don't need to be in possession of a sphere to drain stormlight from it. All you need is physical proximity. So knights would value having access to more spheres, not necessarily owning more though. 2. Lit spheres are only more valuable if it is at least conceivable that they could be drained for use before the next highstorm comes. This means that for most people, lit versus dun won't matter most the time, and only on occasions where they know ahead of time that they'll need it for teleportation or whatnot. 3. Spheres of similar cut, size and type likely drain stormlight at an equal rate. This means that all spheres would depreciate equally over time between highstorms, which would mean that only completely dun spheres would have a different value than lit spheres at any one given time. Larger gems may become more valuable relative to smaller ones due to stormlight capacity. From these points, I hypothesize that a mature economy that sees monetary value in stormlight as well as in gems would have some small variations in monetary value from the amount of stormlight a gem currently holds, but the much larger impact would be that trading schedules would become much more strategic with relation to a highstorm. You would want to maneuver you selling and buying in such a way as to maximize your on hand cash during a highstorm, work towards getting a few very large gems that can hold enough stormlight to last between storms for desperate cases. Merchants would likely play games around trying to get advantage this way, and cultural institutions would likely be subtly influenced in ways that encouraged trade right before a highstorm and discouraged it immediately afterwards.

Hold does not imply physically holding something. In English, hold has enough idiomatic uses that implication has to be taken from the context.

Go to the chapter 83 epigraph. Record the first instance each letter of the alphabet occurs in that epigraph with the number of where it first occurs. Then use this to substitute out the numbers in the code.

The key is to take the first instance of each letter in the first pattern and assign that number to that letter.

Look at the first pattern and see how, say, the 11th letter and 25th letter of it fits the code...

Intelligence is not knowledge. Sociopathy makes it extraordinarily unlikely for him to pursue certain lines of thought, and therefore incapable of obtaining knowledge that comes from following those lines of thought. You mistakenly conflate intelligence with already having knowledge as opposed to the ability to build on knowledge.

It depends on which surges the surgebinder has access to, and some other stuff that is very spoilery for WoR.

I've read all of Brandon's published works, and yet I didn't figure out the cosmere stuff until I came to this forum and saw what other people were guessing. Zahel was just a swordmaster with a mysterious past and nightblood was an unexplained magical item (certainly not anything we've seen in stormlight archive up to this point, but something that will be explained in probably the next book). Edonidd, your distinction between easter eggs and foreshadowing is false to me. First of all, because Hoid is not primarily a character in other novels who is making a cameo in these. He has next to zero plot relevance in other novels, but is central to the stormlight archive story. So he would be an Easter Egg in Mistborn, but here he is a central part of the story and hints about his nature are absolutely in the realm of foreshadowing. Secondly, you assume that because you don't have enough information to correctly guess what something means, or whether or not it is meaningful in the first place, then it must be because there are too many "off-world" references thrown in to confuse you. This is not true. Brandon Sanderson is writing epic fantasy. There is supposed to be stuff that you couldn't possibly guess beforehand, simply because he deliberately withholds information. This is not him being a jerk, this is him being a good writer. Withholding information about this fantasy world and the rules that it runs on are part of what lets him pull off the big reveals down the road. The main veiwpoint characters think they have some grasp on how their world works (spren, radiants, voidbringers) but the truth is that the things they understand are just a piece of the puzzle. And because the characters can't see the big picture, neither do the readers.

Hi Brandon. Thanks for taking time to do this. I'm a fan of everything you've written, but the Alcatraz series is my favorite, and I've managed to get a few of my family addicted to it as well. What are the chances that you will eventually write a fifth Alcatraz book? Does Alcatraz ever actually end up tied to a stack of encyclopedias, about to be sacrificed by evil librarians? What is your Smedry talent?

I just wanted to say that I am superappreciative of everyone who's worked on this problem, and that I haven't forgotten about starting this thread. I'll put in my own attempts at an equation sometime next week, but I'll probably borrow heavily from the other contributors.

So, I love Sanderson's rules based magic systems, and really appreciate the way these systems make the story more interesting. In particular, they make things more interesting by adding intelligible restrictions to the use of magic: it has to follow established rules. Now, I know that some handwaving and suspension of disbelief is still necessary, but the math nerd in me wants to see how far I can push the explanations without doing that. This thread is an attempt to quantify how steelpushes work in terms of mathematical equations dealing with regular physics. If anyone has already done this, I'd love to see their work. Anyways, here is the procedure: 1.) Identify the basic properties of Steelpushing, as described in the books. 2.) Create a general formula to describe how Steelpushing works in terms of mass, acceleration, etc. 3.) Solve for the constants in the formula(s) based on specific examples in the books. 4.) Describe how this formula(s) would apply in other examples in the book, and see if the theoretical results give a rough match to the description. General thoughts: Its been a while since I've read the original trilogy (although I've read alloy), so I might be hazy on some of the details. I think Steelpushing is basically exerting a force that is proportional to the pusher's weight. It also seems to inversely vary with distance from the object being pushed, but I might be making up or misremembering this. The basic goal for me based on a formula using these facts is to solve for the proportionality constant. I want to figure out what proportion of the pushers weight is needed to achieve some of the "jumps" that Vin or Wax achieve. What will be super helpful is any observations about the way pushing actually works in the books. Also welcome are guestimates about some numbers; things like how high you think a push can get a person off the ground. Although anything at all relating to this topic is welcome. I'm tired, so I'll stop this post here, and come back to actually try to work some of this out later.

You know, I think I am interested in these prizes. Getting an ARC means I can start coming up with insane theories about what happened in the background of the story before everyone else.

Yeah, this was pretty much how I was thinking. The reaction was just too perfect, as if he had anticipated exactly where the bullet would go, and exactly when it would be fired.

Dang it, I came on here hoping I'd be the first to put forward the Tan is using Atium theory. I'm not as clever as I thought I was. Okay, but how about this theory? Tan is a Hemalurgist, and the bullet that killed Lessie is imbedded in his skin, making him more powerful. And he faked his death. Because he's done enough hemalurgy to survive gunshots to the head. Maybe? Also, I'm sure the face that Wax is the 16th of his line has no significance at all. Nope. Edit: @Silus: shouldn't that be all 256 of them? 16 metals, right?

When was Aether of Night written, and has any of it been cannabalized for other books yet? I have a theory...

I'm going to guess that it is Gaz. We don't even know for a fact that he is dead yet, so doubly mysterious!

extra information through looking stuff up on wikipedia! The last scene in Hamlet is Act V Scene II, so that is probably why the chapter where everyone quotes it is numbered as the next scene Chapter 070706 is the date Brandon got married.

I'll have to reread the first two for comparison, but its looking like this could definitely be the best in the series. It's hard to top a chapter of quotes from small villages.

Previous message : Congrats for getting this. Though if it took you more than a quick google I'll probably cry. (no googling or other searches, so your tear ducts may stay dry) New hint: location of broken international military conflicts https://thismessagewillselfdestruct.com/m/MNdjcVjFrrZqhT

A guy who can fly, but has severe acrophobia and agoraphobia.