Quantus

For some reason I couldnt define, I think the fused Cannot Heal to the point of changing their gender, at least not as a standard thing. The reason I say this is that they already Do alter their host bodies to match themselves: their skin patterning changes. I suspect that as a group they default to viewing their host bodies as that, a Host Body vehicle that is separate from themselves, and that's why their bodies dont adjust more dramatically the way a Radiant will. From an Occam's Razor standpoint that seems the simpler answer than some realmic difference between between the function of Stormlight vs Voidlight.

He opens RoW arguing that he is not even a real person anymore, so Yah I'd say he's at least slightly depressed...

I found this, if it helps. The reddit thread explains the logic behind the placement.

His obsession is trying to leave the Rosharan system, so my guess is his insane mind believes that bringing back the Desolation would somehow help break the last vestiges of the Oathpact, and in so doing break the Bonds that are locking him to the System.

That's the issue, that would be perfect for 1 of the 4 in that quadrant, and the other would each be arguably it's opposite. I havent been able to come up with anything that encapsulates all sides of it.

Damn, that's a strong argument! Here I thought Ruin was one of the few that wouldnt move in the 2.0 version. EDIT: Ive been struggling to figure out which sort of Command would best fit the Cognitive realm, and I think you might be on to something with Choose. I had BE and CHANGE for the physical and temporal, respectively, and was leaning toward something like "I AM" or "ME" or something that implied not just existence but thought, not just Being but having a subjective point of view about it. CHOOSE really works for that. Still struggling with the Spiritual version, BOND or JOIN or whatever seem to limited and focused on the Connection aspect of it.

I agree more or less but I think the 4 dawnshard will correspond to the four quadrants of the allomantic table, consistent with my old Quadrant Theory of Shardic Intents. Under that framework the Change dawnshard is the Temporal Quadrant, but I think I'd still place Ruin in the Physical Quadrant (Im guessing it will be a "BE" Dawnshard).

Im in the camp that the secret to Nightblood is that the 1000 Breaths plus the Command actually forged a primal Connection to a Shard, which is why it has significantly more Investiture than just the 1000 breaths themselves. He's known to behave differently once drawn because "his Command takes force" which I think is hardcore channeling the Shardic Intent most aligned with it's Command. In Nightblood's case Destroy Evil forged a Connection to Ruin, the primordial expression of Entropy, and that's why he destroys in all three Realms. If Azure's blade where made with the same general method but a different Command, I could entirely see it creating a Connection to some other Shard that would then manifest different powers/effects because she's drawing from some shard other than the Ruin that is in/behind Nightblood.

Why does everyone assume Todium is going to be a bad guy? For all you know he will be an entirely kind and benevolent god of Passion that will ultimately save everyone? He does care, and unlike before he isnt so far outclassed that he has to use all the distasteful options.

I dont think so, at least based on the attribute distinction demonstrated in Feruchemy. If the were the case they would be feeling the discomfort still. I think it's more that stormlight grants some general buffs across a lot of attributes, including the equivalents of feruchemical Health, Breath, Determination (described as a manic feeling), and wakefulness, on top of the more overt physical buffs. Wakefulness is probably the closest comparison, in that it's another natural process that can cause physical damage but is not itself direct damage.

Hallandrian dyes provide better color fuel for awakening, specifically, which turns it into a technological and military resource. And whether they talk about it much or not, Hallandrian's economy is probably being propped up by their open trade of Breaths themselves as much as anything. By the sound of things not all nations are as accepting of the Soul Trade. The Idrians threat as a nation was their control of a major trade route to Hallandrian, which itself was as much as trade-based economy as a craft-based one. As a ruling family their threat was more in the Royal Locks giving them an undeniable and very strong claim to the historic unified throne. But their puritanical rejection of strong colors was said to be more of a reaction to their overly color-obsessed rivals. I dont think it would be able to take root enough to fully suppress the need for color pigments (be they textile, paints, etc) unless something happened to REALLY demonize awakening as a whole...Something like a phantom army of nightmare rising from the forgotten past to wipe out the most puritanical of nations and martyr them... But what are the odds? True, though silk did and does have a lot of superior mechanical properties which probably influenced it's demand, at least until we started developing comparable synthetics.

I am entirely willing to try

I mean, infinite access to Breaths is a little silly. It doesnt just make me an Awakener, it makes me a God-King!

The real answer is that the physics break down, much like the age-old question of Why dont bugs kill the (non-bulletproof) Flash. The current explanation is that the Weight manipulation is some sort of Higgs field manipulation, not literal mass. For me it helps to think of it as a skin-level field effect that changes how the Feruchemist interacts with their surrounding reality without actually modifying anything inside that field. The line between Internal Effects and External ones is pretty fundamental to a lot of cosmere effects.

Not to mention Hemalurgy has a lot of potential applications entirely independent from stealing magic Powers. From increasing your total on traits you can feruchemical store to doubling Powers to stealing all kinds of spiritual things (Connections, Destiny, etc). Plus Hemalurgy never has to be recharged.

Huh, that's a new one. Good to know, thanks! Looks like he's changed his mind on this one, the earlier WOB's all seems to confirm that metal poisoning was a legitimate issue for allomancers. He did say he was wavering on it in one of the recent-ish ones.

Oh God... Ok, short version on Investiture, without getting into the Three Realms and the nature of Reality in the Cosmere, is that Investiture is the magic 3rd form of Existence along side Matter and Energy. All things that exist have some (to facilitate their existence itself), living things have more, and Sapient things like Humans have even more. Most of the time that's pretty much it, but when there is some accumulation of Investiture (because a God/Shard lives on that world, for example) then strange and magical things happen, and "Investiture" is the magic pseudo-energy that makes it possible. It either exists Infusing some existing matter (like a person or a metalmind) or is manifesting as "pure investiture" in one of the three traditional forms of matter. For "because it's Cool" reasoning solids are almost always Metal, powerful but generally locked into a specific form and purpose; shardpools are the most powerful/versatile because they are dense liquid, and Mist, Breaths, and Stormlight are all Gaseous forms.

Yes indeed. If you really want to delve the complications with the temporal metals: Cadmium is poisonous, and WOB is that the traditional way to handle that issue is to just burn it all off at the end of each day, before the damage can accumulate. For anyone that uses it as much as Wayne is going to eventually see signs of a different age than their objective years. For Wayne I have to wonder if there isnt some Gold healing impact (or even resonance) that is keeping his body aligned with his objective (or perhaps just perceived) age, despite the divergence he should be experiencing.

This. I Am Unity was something else entirely. Note that the Words were never accepted. Personally, I think Navani's repeated mantra from OB "Bring Order from the Chaos" will become her version of the Bondsmith 2nd, with the shared theme of bringing things together and building from it.

If it counts: Azure by a mile. From the actual main cast, Shallan started ok, dipped low in her initial Veil time (the unearned mask never quite fit, as she realized), then has gotten a lot better since. I was pretty much on board with all the other POV characters, or else at least intrigued by their arcs. She was the only one who's ratio of off-putting to interesting tipped the wrong way on my first read. On rereads she's better because I know more of the secret context.

I dont think she ever got it back after she revealed her swap during the whole Poison Jam bit. She passed out having shown both to Jasnah, who I believe took both.

Agreed. Especially since Fortune is a Feruchemical trait, which are all Internal/self targeted effects (and traits that are part of the natural existence of the mortals). And even in Allomancy where external effects are common, its example of Fortune, Atium, is very much still an internally directed effect. Further on the Tinfoil side, I do think there is another example of Fortune in the Books:

We know there was enough interbreeding for at least two distinct subspecies of Human to form that retain Singer Traits. Are there any Singers that retain Human traits?

Not Contradicting, but another datapoint. Atium is specifically a Fortune effect, and was included to demonstrate Fortune specifically:

Depends whats happening there, but generally Yes(?), depending on your definition. Hemalurgy is carving off functional chunks of Spiritweb. As far as I can tell Ishar was manipulating Spiritweb Connections a little more directly (not requiring the Physical (metal) part of the equation. But if Connections are the wires of the Spiritweb "circuit", Ishar is manipulating similar fundamental cosmere forces. The difference that I see is how they get and alter their raw materials. Hemalurgy is donor/splicing system that stores the investiture in a physical object (the spike) and accesses the spiritweb through Bind Points. I think Ishar is starting with a Radiant Nahel Bond, cranking it up to 1000% and/or altering its nature to entirely override the Human with the Spren, making them more like Super-Fused than normal Radiants. They then Die because most of the Sapient spren species dont have native forms that are compatible with the Physical Realm (and physics, etc).