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Huh. OK, I stand corrected. Not sure I agree with Brandon on that at a personal philosophic level (or hell, a semantic one), but I dont have to for these discussions. But I dont get how you can swear Journey Before Destination while also espousing that the Journey doesnt matter at all, only the Destination. Id argue that "Cultivation" in particular is itself the part of Nature that does the most killing; more often than not the mechanism for Cultivation is Pruning, Natural Selection, etc.

Thermal changes tend to happen as a natural part of nearly ANY movement of energy, from electric flow to pure physical strain, so it would make a ton of sense to say that drawing too much energy from a Gemstone too fast would risk physically cracking it on that alone, especially given that most gems are encased in glass/crystal as spheres where the differing materials would increase that risk. Separately, given how much Intent matters to all cosmere magic it might be possible that Jasnah's gems were cracking for no other reason that because that's something normal fabrials do and so she made it happen by expecting it to happen. But that holds less water in the face of Shallan also cracking some gems.

I personally think that Mr T is far to much of an "Ends Justifies the Means" sort of guy for him to ever successfully speak the First Ideal, and if he did there's a reasonably chance he'd violate it and kill his spren the first day he woke up too "Smart".

Ah, cool I gotcha. I certainly think he will try, and I think that his more intelligent self might even have a chance to succeed (not alone, but not zero chance). But when he was backed against the wall he Chose to save only one very small and specific group at the expense of all the rest, and I think it would take a lot more than usual to get from there to speaking the Oaths of a Bondsmith with sincerity. Also I have to wonder whether Ideals spoken by him on One day would (or could) be binding on the rest, given how wildly varying his outlook actually is; he'd have to get both of his extremes to agree to something before all the variations in the middle would reliably keep it. His "intelligent" aspect has a tendency to order the execution of anything that annoys him, so Im not seeing /that/ personality swearing the Ideals of the Bondsmith, and in general I think he's waaay too much an "Ends Justifies the Means" sort of guy for him to even swear the First Ideal

Yup, per WOB she tried to help Honor against Odium. We know that she takes the long game on things (as expected for a Cultivator), and that she is something of a risk-taker given Dalinar. I strongly suspect that we will see some of the Nightwatcher Boons revealed to be a lot more specifically aimed than they first appear. Mr T is the obvious one, but I strongly suspect that Lift and her Food-to-Stormlight conversion ability will prove to be the Chekhov's Gun of the stormlight archive.

So there wont be any history or possibility of two or more of these avatars being in disagreement or conflict, is that true? Are they actual beings and/or characters, or are they purely a cultural thing? Also, what do you mean by "The Hexaverse" and how do the 6+1 dimensions manifest in terms of the actual underwater setting. Are these traversable realms, or are they again just cultural stories and/or philosophic metaphors (like the average afterlife plane of existence).

Oh, wow, I never considered that Bonding multiple spren could be possible, at most I though there was some sort of secondary bond-extension to account for the lesser spren becoming Plate. That would certainly open a lot more possibilities than I'd previously thought. In that case I want to add Venli to my list of possible Bondsmiths, though even if it does happen I dont think it will be one of the "complete set" of Radiants that Dalinar gathered at the end of OB, for meta reasons. Im not sure I get your meaning? (sorry)

Ooh, fun! Couple starting questions to get me on the right page: How do the people view the relationships between the six primary interpretations? Are they viewed as competing interpretations (like rival denominations), or are they more like the Trinity (or Brahman) where they are viewed as parts of the same larger Whole? Do they actually exist, and if so are they literally distinct beings or masks used by the same whole, or maybe some schizophrenic middle ground? Are the magic systems going to be race-specific or shared across the species? For what it's worth, any time I come across a triumvirate like this, the first two places my mind goes is the Serenity Prayer, and the Triforce of Hyrule, both of which might offer some interesting parallels.

I dont think Lift is in the running purely on the basis that she's already bonded spoken the Ideals for a different Order, and I expect it would take some serious shenanigans to actually Switch orders.

I dont think Mr T can qualify for Bondsmith anymore on the basis that he chose a specific subset of Everyone to care about, so he'd have to reverse that course first (which itself might be an interesting story). I like Renarin for it with no reason other than I want him to become as Awesome as possible. I like Rlain for it, but only because he's one of the few Listener characters and I really want one bondsmith to be non-human. I could easily see it going to Navani though I dont know how I feel about it becoming that much of a Kholin dynasty. On the extreme fringe of what is possible I could see the Cryptic that they were digging for (that Hoid likely bonded) to be the missing Third Sibling based purely on how much effort they were expending trying to reach it.

You are doing both. The Metal's own investiture is not what is powering the effect, but per WOB any time any metal is Burned is is literally destroyed and converted to Investiture, causing among other things a tiny but very real net loss of Mass on the entire planet.

Previously Id never considered that it was a blending of Listener blood in the human that caused the physical variation, Id just put it down to the influence of Cultivation causing more dramatic divergent evolution. But if the key is that some, maybe even all, of the current human tribes have at least a little Listener Blood in them, that would makes sense,be thematically appropriate, and likely play an important role in the logical Arguments I really hope somebody poses to Nale.

Short answer is that we dont actually know. We know he has reached at least the 2nd Heightening of Biochromatic Breath, he has access to Unsealed and Unkeyed Scadrial Medallions, Invested Sand from Taldain, uses a form of Lightweaving that predates the Rosharan Radiants and is from Yolen, and possesses a Lerasium bead he may or may not have used himself (though there were moments that looked like he was downing metals, so...). If I had to guess from that scene, Id say it was breath Awakening by the way he applied it (having presumably stored the Breath in an object the way Vasher does), but rather than trying to actually use the Awakening I think he just needed to Charge it with Investiture enough to get the oar to interact with the Mist.

This is really what's hanging me up about Aluminum: In the other magic systems it is inert and cannot be affected or changed by Investiture. But all three forms of the metallic Arts are able to Invest it, either adding Investiture as a Metalmind or Spike, or directly converting it to Investiture as is the case with Burning it for Allomancy. And while it's possible to turn something into Aluminum via other means, none of the other magics can so readily Invest existing aluminum or even work past or through it (since it acts as shielding against the Surges and Nightblood).

I have more questions than theories on this one. We know Aluminum is Inert for investiture, which is why is blocks some powers and why it's can function as a sheath to contain Nightblood. By WOB it cannot be Awakened or Forged, but at the same time it's still possible for the metallic arts to Invest Aluminum in the form of Spikes and Metalminds. So how much of the Inerting function remains at that point? Would an Invested aluminum metalmind block Nightblood similarly, or would the investiture make it vulnerable to it's Three Realms attack and eat the Investiture as normal, or maybe act more like a shardblade in combat terms?

Ok, so it's Investiture in the same way that all matter is technically just organized and/or crystallized energy, but it still takes steps and processes to actually access the Energy in a usable fashion just like Energy here. The distinction between inert and Kinetic Investiture probably factors into that.

Two Follow-up questions: 1) Is my understanding correct that Atium and Lerasium are no longer being (naturally) created? I didnt think we knew whether he could exert himself to recreate some, but I believe there was WoB that Atium and Lerasium where the result of those Hosts and not just the shard itself being held. 2) If Harmonium is more or less an Alkali metal, are the same sort of intermetallic alloy compounds possible, and would those have varried effects the way the other God-metal alloys did?

Oh, Cool then. Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying there, I think because the the Kelsier context so the original body wasnt part of the equation. But whatever, my bad. So does that make the Cognitive Realm the built of pure investiture? Half of me thinks that cant be right because the natives still trade and stockpile Investiture in Breaths and Stormlight; but the other part of me isnt even sure that the Physical realm itself couldnt be described as pure crystallized Investiture as well. True, Good point. Nightblood is likely more Invested than hers (by virtue of being around longer if nothing else) but unlike actual shardblades there's no real reason for him to have a different self-image on that side; he still sees himself as a Sword, just an awesome one.

Wow, that's embarrassing; I missed that WOB in your post entirely, sorry. 100% retract my previous theory. I was still picturing Elsecalling as something only powerful enough to make the Physical and Cog Realms warp and fold and was more poking a hole between those two only. Figured it took more powerful (and not a single surge) actions to make all three fold in gravity-style. This kinda makes the UNITY moment a little less awesome, but it does open the possibility of using Surges to access Spiritual Realm Investiture directly; I wonder if they could make farbials that power themselves directly rather than needing the filter of the Highstorm and gems? Ok, I think I understand you better. And no worries, I didnt think you were disputing it, that was more me trying to get my bearings in the conversation (sorry about that). But I think I where our models are differing. The reason I dont think we see the sort of spike and dispersion that we would in a RL matter/energy conversion is that in RL it's a matter/energy conversion that is still taking place entirely in a Matter universe/ecosystem, forcing the energy to find expression in the forms available (your list). Im imagining the PR/CR transition as more an event where the Matter is being converted into Energy as part of being transferred to a 100% Energy State universe (not Investiture persay, but CR-stuff, whatever the spheres and spren and such are technically made of). There's no Spike and Dispersal because there is no uncontrolled build-up and/or forced release, (other than whatever visual, etc may come with the method like the light show with Elsecalling) since the states on both sides of the transition would match their surrounding ecosystem, and would just be expressing the Spiritweb SR blueprint. In most cases those forms are the same, though we have Sword/People pairs so...hey, I wonder if Nightblood looks any different in Shadesmar?

Here's the thing in your statement that I cant get past: you keep asserting that the Surge of Transportation and a Perpendicularity are accomplishing their versions realmic travel via the same mechanism, which I think is downright impossible. Perpendicularities allow for transfer to the CR because they have so much metaphysical Mass (Investiture) that they cause the realmic equivalent of a gravity well and squeeze the realms together until the boundaries cease to exist (or to be meaningful, in a weird quantum mindset). But there is simply no way that an ordinary Radiant can create a Perpendicularity like that, it takes Shardic quantities of Investiture to make that happen and they cannot do it. I have no issues with the Transportation surge itself, or with the concept of teleportation in the Cosmere. I simply dont think we can assume that ALL realmic travel involves creating a Perpendicularity and traversing a common point of all three realms the way using a Perpendicularity does. Whatever the back-end mechanisms of the Surge Of Transportation may be, and how that surge may differ between the Elsecallers, the Willshapers, and/or Fabrials, I dont think we have neough information to really say; but by all we know of the Realms I am confident that it is not as simple as Transportation being a mini-UNITY event. There a couple WOBs that strongly imply to me that Investiture can be thought of as a Third side of the relativity Matter/Energy equivalence (Like how Scadrial is technically loosing mass thanks to metal burning). If that is the case, I dont think it would be that complicated for Realmic travel to be accomlishing that sort of 1-to-1 conversion. The question then is just "What is that stuff that looks and feels like matter in the Cognitive Realm?" I mean, as far as I can tell Shadesmar could jsut as easily be described as a standard (if admittedly very entangled) parallel dimension that just has it's own laws pf physics, but one that doesnt actually abandon the Matter/Energy basis. If the other realm was simply called the Prime Realm or something rather than literally "physical realm" which implies that the others are both specifically Non-physical, it could be mechanically the same but never have to raise questions like "What are their bodies made of" or "Why can they Breathe".

What I was trying to say was Oathgates accomplish Transportation, but it does not appear to be the same mechanism as the Elsecaller Surge of Transportation, which so far does not allow access to the Spiritual Realm nor can it accomplish the sort of instantaneous transport, rather it pokes a hole to the Cognitive, and you then have to traverse the terrain there. Oathgates seem a lot closer to a mini-perpendicularity, but the Elsecaller surge does not seem at all up to that level.

I dont know if that is entirely true. Elsecalling is a way to physically transfer yourself into and out of the Cognitive Realm, but per this WOB Oathgates operate on a different principle involving travel through the Spiritual Realm. They also (and separately, since that part can be shut down while the gates still function) allow for travel into and out of Shaesmar, but it sounds like they are arriving at the same effect via a different mechanism.

I think we're settling on the idea that it will come down to the practical differences between FTL travel and Shadesmar travel. So lets dig into those for a sec. Shadesmar has two primary advantages: It almost entirely ignores the vast emptiness of space down to foot traffic distances, and it is traversable without having to carry a full environment with you (air supply, etc). It's downsides are that it is restricted to Perpendicularity Travel (unlike Surges, the Metallic Arts do not provide independent Shadesmar transfer, yes?) so it has something like a dozen worlds it can reach, being only the Shardworlds plus whatever naturally occurring perpendicularities might be left post-Adonalsium shattering (not many Im guessing). Physical Realm FTL is likely going to have some oddball advantages and disadvantages depending on how it is actually implemented. But we do know that it will have the advantage of being capable of reaching non-perpedicular worlds, worlds with a dangerous Cog Realm side (Like Sel) or heavily populated one (like Roshar). I might have the advantage of being pure Science rather than Investiture, but I think that is less likely. I suspect that it would be able to transport larger number of people and resources, but really there's no reason they couldnt make a fleet of Shadesmar specific vehicles just as easily as a space fleet. One major advantage is that it should not have any difficulty removing a large chunk of Investiture the way over-invested Kelsier had trouble. It's downsides are the real physical distances, though until we know how much faster than Light it goes we cant know if that's an actual issue. I dont actually see any particular shortcoming of FTL in general, though I can see all sort of different shortcomings depending on how it's actually implemented.

It's downright colorful. Even shades of grey would be theoretically quantifiable, but which is Darker between Red and Green? (damnation, I want to go read Warbreaker now..)

I may have Hoid's service time wrong, it's been a while since I last read WoK. That's a good point about the Allomancy, it fits his general MO on that sort of subtle power use.