Quantus

Greetings! Welcome to the Shard. Get to Know You Questions: What's your favorite book? Scene? Character?

In general yes, but Szeth in particular left extra wriggle room in his Oaths. His Second Ideal allows him to find a "more perfect" one later, Dalinar could release him from his Third at any time if he so chose, and Dalinar could simply Veto his Forth which I think would allow/require him to find a new Crusade to swear before he could move forward and reach the 5th.

Proof: Syl is the favored Daughter of the Stormfather, and he's a fairly destructive force, objectively speaking. Theory: Hoid is an artificial being, and is the result of an early (pre-Shattering) experiment in Awakening

Excellent! I was pretty sure he was at least a Misting from the hints in WoR, though it always seemed to me that using it to become a Misting of a single metal would be a huge waste of its potential. If Im not mistaken, this would still leave open the possibility that he divided the bead and saved some to alloy to other world's Godmetals.

Huh, that's weird I didnt know Nalthis actually had established "Customs" for realmic travel. A self command seems like it would be too expensive and limiting to do it (assuming you cannot recover the Breaths after you transition), especailly if there are a bunch of people in said caravan. And if it worked like Elsecalling it wouldnt restrict the entry points enough to establish workable Border Customs. I'd think awakening a more permanent Portal might work better.

His stated plan was to have the rough draft of Peace Talks turned in before his wedding last fall, which if Im not mistaken he did indeed achieve (both the draft and the Wedding). So I think it would take something extreme and unforeseen to prevent Peace Talks from being published some time in 2019.

Mr. T mentioned that Moelach seemed to return right around the same time that Gavilar was getting involved in things, just before his assassination. If that Black Sphere did contain an Unmade, that would be my guess, though it would mean that either the Gem was not Perfect or else somebody intentionally released it.

Was rereading Stormlight over the holidays, turns out all of Bridge Four got glyph tattoos on their foreheads to hide the slave brands. Kaladin's wouldnt take, the ink got pushed out to reveal the brands again. On the flip side, Shen/Rlain got the tattoo as well and it persisted to his new warrior form, for what that's worth. Teft has one, and most of the squires of Bridge Four did as well, and I think those were sticking around even after they started channeling stormlight (just started the Oathbringer reread, so Ill let you know if I find any more evidence). As far as the original topic, Ive been giving it a lot of thought. I still think that (at some level) it has to be possible purely due to the interplay of a person's three realmic aspects. That being said, I there are likely several limitations that add up to it being impossible for anyone short of Sliver and/or Vessel levels, which is already basically cheating. 1)Identity in the spike is going to be a major barrier, as is it's purpose in the Cosmere, though with the proper preparation that can be mostly removed from the equation. 2) There are fundamental limits to what aspects you can Change in your spiritweb, such as Age, which was something even the Lord Ruler couldnt just Wish away, and he'd already made direct, brute force alterations to his own spiritweb to become a Fullborn. Thus there are quantitative limitations that cannot be ignored. 3) Realmic Healing such as F-Gold and Regrowth are a process where Investiture is added to allow the Spiritual Aspect to assert itself over the Physical, which might well be working against you regardless of self-image. Soulcasting would have much better chance as it is instead a process that allows the Cognitive Aspect to rule. Though it's a brute force method so you'd need an intimate understanding of the spiritweb that most mortals would not be able to get. Maybe advanced Heightenings could get you there (since they offer innate understanding and Breaths/Awakening are very Spiritweb focused), otherwise we'd be talking Slivers at least, and maybe Bondsmiths if they are much more awesome than we've seen so far. 4) At the end of the day, the concept is that you're Self-Image would have been so adjusted to and defined by the presence of the Spiked Spiritweb that they'd become part of the Spiritual Healing Template. But the spiritweb in them will have always resided in the Physical Realm, so best case you'd be talking about using Healing to regenerate/recreate the charged Spike itself in the Physical Realm (as opposed to just absorbing it into your web as Id previously theorized) which is definitely going to run up against limits on affecting Invested objects. Sooooo, New Question: Can you use Spikes and F-Gold to steal traits from yourself to multiply them? As in, you Spike your own natural Allomancy or perhaps Mental traits, heal the web, then re-implant that charged into yourself to increase your total capacity? And would that be easier to adopt into your personal Self in this regard, or would it still have the same issues of being a Charged Object that is located in the Physical Realm?

Proof: We've been told her name is Kriss, and she's a decent dancer. THEORY: Gavilar was replaced by a Kandra in the months leading up to his assassination.

I always thought it was a symbolic representation of the Three Realms, with the central intersection being a Perpendicularity.

Oooh, sorry, I see where you are going with that now. Good Question. That could go either way in terms of a test case, Tattoo Dies are/were historically organic dyes as often as not, but also there might be a cognitive threshold where it's more or less "metabolized" in the sense of being taken in and made part of you like any food, vitamins, minerals, etc. might be. I think to have a chance it would still need to be part of your identity like the brands, given that tattoos are basically dyes stored in scar tissue, so if the scars where healed away the dyes would be released back into their system. Now that you mention it, have tattoos been culturally present on ANY shardworld? I cant recall anyone doing it, unless there was an offhand mention with one of the many Rosharan cultures Im forgetting? There's a lot of polynesian influence that would have made sense, and I would have expected the Nalthians to try. I bet the Tears of Edgli could make some awesome (invested?) Tattoos. Blast it, now I want to see an Ire Elantrian with Edgli-Tear Aon Tattoos...

For the purpose of this topic, "Sometimes they are" is good enough for me, in that it establishes that it's not out of character for the Nightwatcher to grant intertwined Boons & Curses. Especially in the case of that story, as it's from somebody who apparently comes from a community that goes to her pretty often and so he has a reasonable, and recent, sample size. Agreed on both points. I didnt have any idea where the two fell on the timeline. Thanks.

Forgiveness, at least how Dalinar was asking, is all bound up in social concepts like morality, which sound like they are beyond her, or at least not something she naturally gets, and since she's probably all Cultivation that makes sense as those would be more Honor things. By contrast all she did to Mr.T was give him linked, feruchemy-style slider bars on the two traits he requested: Intelligence and Empathy. She could have easily done that; whether or not she understood the full, long-term consequences and/or possibilities is a different question. And while I dont know the exact nature and limitations of her interaction with Cultivation, I tend to credit Cultivation as likely having the most developed Future Sight of all the Shards we know (since she's fundamentally focused on the future of the rest of the Cosmere) so if anyone at all could have arranged such a thing well in advance it would be her. She wouldnt have to explain the details to the Nightwatcher, and the Nightwatcher would probably like the symmetry of the Curse being the split Boon. Separately, I tend to think the other Boons & Curses are more connected than they appear, and likely have a similar issue where they come down to twisting the literal wording of the request.

Ah, cool. If it's intentional, yes. Though it does have her flair for corrupting their desire via a bad choice of words (not specifying "at the same time") so I could see her doing it without the full knowledge of where it might lead him. And that would not itself preclude Cultivation planning for it and having a strategy, it would just mean she was one more step removed and was using the Nightwatcher. His would have been a boon the Nightwatcher could understand, which I think is the difference between Mr.T and Dalinar. Dalinar didnt really come with a "Boon" in mind, "Forgiveness" wasnt something the Nightwatcher could really grasp (Cultivation said she lets the Nightwatcher hold court to better understand Humans), which I think could have been the reason she wanted to talk to Dalinar directly, she had to discuss things with him to arrive at an actual Boon, which ultimately was to be free of the guilt-screams, at the cost of all ability to recall is wife (not just a purge of memory but an inability to be told more).

That was Apparently he was all over this one in cameos. The creators say he was in the background in most crowd scenes, and he even voiced JJJameson in the after-credits scene.

I could definitely get behind that, things coming full circle to a second apocalyptic event. There'd be some nice literary opportunity with the way the Knights of the Word sort of live in the present and future both.

Welcome to the Shard! Who's your favorite Sanderson Character?

That one at least is easy: Kaladin regrows his Slave brands. I dont think the charge would be an issue in the pure Energy Balance sense, you'd already be flooding the spiritweb with an outside Investiture that is trying to change itself to fit you (and Id assume this would take a pretty extreme amount of gold or stormlight), that should provide the needed energy for a Charge. The Identity barrier would still be a big issue, I dont have any way around that unless you'd prepared the original Spikes specifically for this, using a medallion to blank the Donor's identity during the harvest. Buuuuut, just chasing the idea, if that were the case and Identity were removed from the equation entirely, do you think that would bring it closer to possible?

Sounds like any Kandra on Roshar is going to be easy pickings for Odium, so more likely they'd become a Voidbinder. Sooo, "ShadowWeaver"?

Granted. She swaps you gender first (she wanted to try something new). Also, the Stormfather gets jealous in a way he doesnt understand or know how to emotionally contain, and the fallout is...intense. You dont remember the Why of any of this, but the physical effects are permanent. Boon: Full conscious understanding and control of my own Spiritweb.

Welcome to the Fourms! If you are an Audiobook fan I strongly recommend the Graphic Audio versions of them, the full cast, score, and sound effects are an amazing experience. Have you read Elantris or Warbreaker yet? Elantris is on the same world as Emperor's Soul, and Warbreaker gives a lot of backstory on Nightblood, and also has one my favorite Cosmere magic systems. Who would you say is your favorite character (or top 3 if it's too hard to pick)?

Honestly, my biggest issue with the way they are dealing with and/or using the Diagram is the fact that they are willing to Modify it with Odium's Influence. It seems like a serious risk to allow Moelach's power to Alter it. @Calderis As to whether Mr.T's Curse was something from the Nightmother or Cultivation Herself, I fully agree with the idea that it seems too powerful and/or Subtle for her given how she was acting in Dalinar's flashback. The only hesitation I have is that Cultivation told Dalinar he was the first she's come to personally in centuries and I was pretty sure dalinar's trip happened after M.T (yes?). She could always be lying, or she could have done the work without appearing personally (though if she gave Dalinar a Choice and Chance to say No, it seems like she'd have done the same for Mr.T), or of course I could have the Timeline wrong; It's doesnt disprove anything, but it is an incongruity that bugs me.

Heheh, we laugh but I actually do like to think she's responsible for the 5 Ideal Radiants development. PROOF: There is so much mineral content in the Highstorm rainwater he grew up on that he'd never know he needed metals. THEORY: With the right Command, you could use a Larkin to grow/incubate a single breath in power to rival a Divine Breath (this is an Alleyverse idea haunting the back of my mind).

Nalthis is definitely going to Elf-on-the-Shelf their kids...

Wait, so that means a Returned feed their Divine Breaths off the Mist directly, no?. I dont know why that never occurred to me. We had a discussion a while back about the possibility of such folks on Era1 Scadrial (Returned and dragons that I was theorizing fed directly off Investiture like Larkin), but I was thinking they'd be attracted to the place because of a established Godmetal economy, but just drinking in the Mists should work as well as Stormlight.