Quantus

I would argue that Ruin-As -Entropy is just part of the natural order of the universe and is no more innately Negative than 'Cold' or 'Dark'. Which ultimately proves your point, I think, that all these Shardic Intents are like 95% subjective. Devotion is synonymous with Love, but could easily become Obsession, Harmony is a coin-flip away from Discord, Dominion-as-sovereignty can fall anywhere on the spectrum of Tyrant to Protectorate, yada-yada-yada.

He wanted to convince everyone he was All-Powerful and Immortal in his own right, he didnt want them to realize that he'd simply found a magic loophole. He also hid entirely metals in the magic system, and convinced everyone that his metalminds were hemalurgic. Not to mention, babies are weak and fragile and not a fun body to be stuck in with a full adult mind. Better to maintain yourself at your physical prime, I would say.

Also entirely possible, good point.

Not necessarily, I wouldnt be surprised if the weakening of the Oathpack was approaching a tipping point, especially now that Heralds are Perma-Dying. My personal expectation is that Ishar's story is going to be tied heavily into Nale and the Skybreakers, so the more we see of Szeth the more likely we are to see Nale and Isahr. Though separately several of the Heralds look to be taking a more central role, and that will almost inevitably push the other Heralds more central on stage. Especially with Ishar, which several of them seem to (incorrectly) think is the only one who is not Insane,

I dont think this is really the case, at least not from what Ive seen of Nale's sect. They follow the Laws of whatever Land they happen to be in, but they dont nessesarily internalize that as "moral" so much as...I dont know...necessary? Recall how nobody had an issue with the idea of murdering a child just to prove your sincerity to hostages, but they did object to doing so without first filing the correct paperwork for the nation they happened to be standing in. I agree with the major theme here, that the Skybreakers are all about embracing an External Authority, whatever form that may take. Nale has embraced the Law of the Land and seems to have worked out a hierarchy that satisfies him for conflict resolution between Laws, but I dont think that would have to be the case. Notice how Szeth's Crusade might well be completely incompatible with adherence to the idea of obeying the Law of the Land, since his goal is to overthrow the current authority there. I strongly suspect that a different 5th Ideal Skybreaker might have a different take on the whole Law of the Land idea. I especially @ChickenLiberty's suggestion that one might take to Vorinism as the Law that supercedes the local/secular Laws. It makes sense that Nale wouldnt take to that, as a literal Herald who was witnessed all the development and failings of the Vorin Church, but a more contemporary 5th Skybreaker who was raised to it might look at it differently.

Also worth noting that some Orders seem to have more personal Ideals than others, with both the Lightweavers "Truths" and the Skybreakers' having individual Dedications and Crusades, but the Windrunners we've seen all seem to be restatements of the same basic theme. Dear lord, I cannot wait to hear another Bonsmith's Oaths...

While I know this is Technically the correct answer ("the Best Kind of Correct") it still bothers me. This WOB is a Doylistic statement about what he expects to include from a narrative complication stand-point, not a statement of what is theoretically possible (like we often get for things that will still never actually happen). But from a pure cosmere theory, while I can accept that standard Feruchemy would naturally limited and so not be capable of creating Savants, Compounding (specifically) should be entirely capable of causing savantism just like allomancy, because the part of Allomancy that causes it (channeling huge amounts of Investiture being supplied by Preservation) is the part of Allomancy that Compounding share. Unless there is something very specific about feruchemy that actually prevents investiture overload from warping the spiritweb, Compounding Savants should be entirely possible even if they are never intended to appear on stage. Even if he's not technically a Savant (defined as somebody who's Spiriweb has been warped by overuse of Investiture) there could conceivably be downsides to long-term overuse of Gold. I imagine a two-stage Addiction: First is psychological addiction where you compound Gold to tap it so freely that you get addicted to the energy "high" that Bloodmakers typically get when they tap Gold with no wounds to heal. Second is much closer to an actual physical addiction where you've let the the lack of a limiting Fill requirement allow you to Tap F-Gold constantly, which over the long term is going to leave you without much in the way of a functioning immune system, basically as if you'd been living in a hyper-sterile bubble that whole time. That's a downside, but not really Savantism. It's more on the level of how Wax is constantly filling weight, so he spends all his waking hours weighing 75% of his usual weight, so logically he is going to have less muscle mass than he otherwise would have developed in the same timeframe. And a bloodmaker that had been burning constantly (whether it's advisable or not) could also easily be so used to the Gold-healing constantly preventing the sensations of pain, fatigue, etc that they'd loose the ability to feel them in general, but also likely loose the ability to function normally without that constant buffer against sensation.

Are they actually difficult, I thought that was just the commonly quoted unit of measure (that the average dose would compress 2 minutes into 15 seconds), but given that flairing Bendalloy is possible I dont see how tha limit would work. If that hard limit is true it is interesting to me for several reasons. That would be the only example of an allomantic metal with an actual limit to burning it that Im aware of, and I imagine it would complicate the crap out of flairing conversations. Also has implications on most FTL designs Ive seen. I dont personally think so, though it's admittedly a culturally subjective question. WOB has it that Rioting and Soothing's ability to modify your mood is roughly as potent as the way Music naturally has an effect on the listener's mood. By that measure I dont think I see anything morally wrong with providing emotional calming on the level of Spa-Music.

Easiest answer is probably that he was thinking Atium rather than Gold. Hard to say, but the only actual reference to health/Gold as the specific metal being compounded looks to be an editor fill-in over what Im guessing was a lost section of the audio.

Short Order Cooks should absolutely be Sliders: literal Instant Gratification! Ditto for portrait Painters.

Have you finished Oathbringer yet?

By era three Medaillions might be common enough that this sort of sport could be possible. The trick wouldnt necessarily be about finding twinborn players but rather finding talented players and having a Team Owner with pockets deep enough to provide a team's worth of relevant paired Medallions. Natural-born Twinborns would then be a source of additional hype, but would not be a requirement. And secret Spikes would be the PED's of the league.

The difference as I see it is that Shardblades Cut the Spiritual aspect, damaging it enough to kill the person, but the Investiture that makes up the Spiritweb is otherwise left Alone. Nightblood, by contrast, directly Absorbs the Investiture of what it attacks (or it's wielder if nothing else is available), so after the damage is done the pieces are then trapped. So in the case of the fused the shadow can be reconstituted by the Everstorm because the peices are availible, but those killed by Nightblood are then trapped at least as well as a Perfect Gem would. That still leaves the separate and perpetually unanswered Question of what, if any, distinction there is between the Spiritweb and the Soul that goes Beyond (if "Beyond" even exists).

You are both Awesome, thanks a ton. When I suggested that the Ten Cities where originally from Ashyn, I was imagining the same thing @Karger was suggesting, which was the idea that they used the Oathgates to transport the entire city. While I was suggesting that the Cities were originally the Ashyn Flying Cities and had been brought here as part of the Migration, I was still imaging some sort of teleportation effect, not Bubble-Doming the cities off for a Spaceship migration through the Physical Realm. But if they already had mobile cities as well as enough Surgebinding and realmic knowledge to make Oathgate-esk tech, it doesnt seem like a huge leap that they might use those cities as realmic life-rafts for their planet's fleeing population.

Awesome. I really appreciate it, thanks.

If nothing else it might mitigate that particular downside of habitual Bendalloy use: Sliders should all be older than the chronological time since their birth; use it a lot over the course of their lifetime and they are going to grow old and die early.

No luck. Do you have a link to the WOB that you mentioned? That's honestly what interests me more, if it shot the theories themselves down

I think they'd get away with it fine if they were up-front about it. As in Signs and probably having the Rioters/Soothers visible and readily identifiable. Seems to me like an Informed Consent sort of thing.

Oof, you're right. Sorry, I need to read more carefully, thought it was asking about Axies directly.

Me too, I dont think Ive ever seen that particular thought before. Cool, I hadnt heard the theory before, let alone a WOB addressing it. Do you have a link?

Oh, in that setting certainly. Politicians and public speakers too, I would think. I got the sense it was frown upon to Sooth/Riot people without their knowledge, but was relatively acceptable in curcumstances where it was expected, like a concert or political rally

Axis is the only Siah Aimian we've been introduced to so far. While I couldnt say that being such would disqualify him from being a Herald as well, I think from a literary standpoint he's unique enough already.

True, but we're talking about the back half of Stormlight, which if Im not mistaken is going to happen a good bit down the road in terms of overall cosmere publication timeline. We know there will be heaving worldhopping in Scadrial era4, and a decent chance at it playing a role in Era3. Besides that Roshar is really the only other one with established worldhopping with all the Shadesmar spren civilization and trade routes (and whatnot). Worldhopping is going to have to start playing a bigger role, if only to give a chance to establish its rules before things start to really get moving on endgame story lines. For the record Im not saying it's all that likely, but I do think it would be a very fun and interesting twist.

Therapists yes, and I think they said there were recreational bars/clubs/dens for that too, but wasnt there mention of it being illegal to use emotional allomancy on shop customers? Perfect Pitch (ie. Absolute Pitch) is technically something different that cant really be learned (at least in the real world) so it would be qualitatively different than the basic Increased Hearing Sensitivity that Allomancy grants. It would still likely help with music and possibly increase their relative pitch capabilities, but on the flip side they'd likely have difficulty performing in any loud environments, so small crowds only.

Ya, I realize that's the way it would more likely work, but frankly I like the thematic implications of Wayne being older (and ultimately longer lived) than everyone expects, especially with Melaan in his life now. Since this is all pure speculation Im hoping that when the temporal ability flips from the External to the Internal (affecting himself rather than the outside world) it will also flip on that axis. The logic being that from Wayne perspective, both abilities are about Creating More Time for himself, so that subjective viewpoint would influence the guiding Intent of the Resonance. So rather than Creating More Time by speeding up his own personal timeframe (essentially burning Years of his life at an accelerated rate) he will suffuse his spiritweb with Investiture to Add Years to his total, manipulating the same general region of the Spiritweb that Atium does but in a less dramatic but more permanent way.