Harrycrapper

To Jasnah's credit, she has been told that God exists, but that the beings masquerading as gods killed him. If God can be killed, is he really God?

I'm a bit averse to adding in spoken Truths that weren't explicitly conveyed to the reader. Going down that road, there are likely dozens of other instances where Shallan says something that could be a deep Truth but wasn't conveyed with the fanfare like the ones we know are Truth-Oaths. I can see an argument(though don't agree for reasons explained further explained below) for "I'm terrified" is a Truth Shallan spoke to Pattern and that's why she has a living Shardblade in WoR. But, I just can't bring myself to believe that Brandon sprinkled in hidden Truths to make the living Shardblade in WoR work, that just doesn't feel like Brandon to me. I was dumpster diving for WoBs and found this one that I think is relevant to the discussion, though should be taken with a grain of salt like all WoBs. If this is still true, that's a solid indication that certain parts of Shallan's Bond with Testament still function based on whether she wants to acknowledge Testament. There is zero possibility that at that point in WoK that her Bond with Pattern was advanced enough to summon a Shardblade and Brandon specifically says she would not be able to Soulcast without her attempt to summon her Shardblade. I think that also further indicates that Testament was the voice that asked "What are you?" Like I said, WoBs should be taken with a grain of salt, but this one seems more clear than some others and I don't think he's deliberately misinterpreting the question.

I have another option based on this WoB: First, I agree that the Truth "I'm terrified" was not Shallan's first Truth to Pattern. The voice in both the normal audiobook and the Graphic Audio production is much different than Pattern when he's in the Physical Realm or the Cognitive. The Graphic Audio is especially particular about getting voices consistent even if they need to recast someone due to the unavailability a voice actor. It's not definitive, but I do think it's a good indication. The text itself describes the voices differently too I believe. Second, I also have a slightly different interpretation of how Shallan uses Testament in WoR. I think when she killed Tyn and when she encounters Taln, Testament is in her deadblade form, no different from an ordinary person using a deadeye Blade. But, when she changes the Blade's shape in the chasm and when she activates the Oathgate, Shallan is momentarily reviving her Truths spoken to Testament and the Shardblade acts as a true Radiant Blade. Shallan herself told Kaladin in the chasm that she can just take her bad thoughts and memories and shove it into a deep inaccessible part of her mind. So, per the WoB where Brandon says she's taking 1.1 step forward and 1 step back, I think she's momentarily acknowledging her Truths. I believe in the chasm, she was being deeply introspective and open with someone about her past for the first time in a very long time. So, the ability to change the shape of the Shardblade came easily, the Truth of her past was closer to the surface of her mind. In the case of the Oathgate, she saw that Renarin's Shardblade wasn't going to work. She knew that there was something wrong with all Shardblades, she said as much out loud, and she reasoned out that a living one would work. When Kaladin revived Syl, she said that she was only as dead as his Oaths, which means Testament is only as dead as the Truths Shallan spoke to her. So, that leads me to believe that Shallan is using her ability to tuck things away in her mind to bury those Truths and bringing them up in the moments she needs to have the advantages of a living Shardblade. If true, it puts certain things in OB into a different context. Once she spoke the Truth of killing her mother to Pattern, she could now summon a living Shardblade without acknowledging her Truths to Testament. But, now she has to deal with the Truth of killing her mother which is also painful and she associated wielding a Shardblade with both killing her mother and killing Testament. That tangle caused her to have that mini panic attack when Adolin insisted she train with her Shardblade. Which resulted in her creating Radiant, a persona that didn't have the memory of killing Testament, so she was able to wield the Blade without smothering the Truth that she killed her mother while keeping the Truth of killing Testament buried.

Um Dalinar? And that was the only moment of lucidity that Taln has shown that we have seen firsthand. Regardless, I don't think how sane they are when momentarily cured of their madness should be the gauge by which we judge how mad they are when not being propped up by a Bondsmith Oath.

I'm not sure what you mean, he hasn't had any truly lucid moments except the one time a Bondsmith swore an Oath near him at the end of OB. There was the moment where he saved Amaram from assassins, but that almost seemed like muscle memory rather than him being lucid.

Even if you disregard the WoB, the Forgery has to be possible for it to work. An Allomancer has to have access Preservation's Investiture, whether it be from the innate bit that each Scadrian has or they need Lerasium. If the person is not from Scadrial, I can't see how any Forgery could alter their past to the point where they were, I don't think they can alter events that precede their own birth. And to somehow Forge their past so that they encounter Lerasium, they'd need to know where some is at a specific point in time, if there even is some left after the events of HoA. It would be similar with other magic systems where the planet/locality in which you were born determines if you can become the respective magic user. The key here is that to alter the past to the point where you'd acquire access to a magic system, other things/people in the past would need to change too, and changes made through Forgery are localized to whatever entity is being stamped. So, you can't change your parents past to alter where you were born. This also wouldn't work with a Nahel Bond, as both you and the spren would need to choose to Bond, and a Soulstamp will not take on an entity as Invested as a spren. Even in the questioner's case in the WoB, if someone from Scadrial wanted to change what type of Allomancer they were, they'd need to know how that was determined, which no one does.

Oh, forgot to clarify that. Least insane. Taln is hands down the most insane, at least when he's not in the presence of a Bondsmith swearing an Oath, which seems to momentarily cure the Heralds.

Well we've only really seen 6 out of the 10. We've heard about Battar participating in The Diagram, but haven't really seen enough of her to get a feeling of where she's at mentally. Of the ones we've seen speak and interact with characters, it's between Kalak and Shalash. I'm leaning Kalak because he spent his time trying to get off Roshar(which is a fantastic idea given the circumstances) while Shalash spent hers destroying art.

Kaladin's Oaths will prevent him from seeking revenge on Kalak unless he is a danger to someone in the present. Also, Kaladin is supposed to be going with Szeth and Dalinar to help heal Ishar of the madness that plagues the Heralds and Ishar's crimes exceed Kalak's. So, if they're going to somehow redeem Ishar, taking a hardline with Kalak wouldn't be fair. If Kaladin remembers Amaram mentioning Restares and learns that Kalak goes by Restares, his encounter with him will test all of Kaladin's Oaths: Protect those who cannot protect themselves - Kalak cannot protect himself against his madness Protect even those you hate - He will hate Kalak if he learns the truth Accept there are those you cannot save - He'll need to accept he couldn't save his squadmates and killing Kalak will not bring them back

Lin didn't use the Soulcaster himself, he had that Ghostblood agent on staff that was supposedly responsible for it, I think his name was Luesh. And I think people that exhibit the savantism effects are people that have been Soulcasting constantly for years to facilitate societal needs like food and housing. Lin was having deposits made at a rate that wouldn't look suspicious but was enough to get him funds to play whatever political games he was playing. Luesh had only been with the Davars for a year or so, likely not enough time to become a Soulcaster savant. It's still possible you're correct here, but savantism doesn't really figure into this Edit: Forgot to mention, there is something else suspicious about Luesh. First, he didn't have the Ghostblood tattoo, he just had a pendent, meaning he wasn't a full Ghostblood. Second, why would the Ghostbloods kill him if he was one of their agents or at least working for them? And then come back later asking for the Soulcaster? They wouldn't have killed Luesh without interrogating him, so if they had done that they would have known it was both broken and Shallan had taken it with her. So, if someone wanted to misdirect the remaining Davars(and us the readers) into thinking he was a Ghostblood, they could have planted the pendent after they killed him. Meaning he could have been a double agent from one of the other clandestine secret societies on Roshar. Even if not, something doesn't add up there, although after RoW the Ghostbloods don't seem as competent as we were lead to believe early on.

I believe it's Dai-gonarthis based on this death rattle from WoK: First, among the options you have there, we can discount two of them. Moelach like you said seems to only interact with soon to be dead people and hasn't exhibited any traits that would indicate he affects the living. If he did, I get the feeling it would come in the form of showing them visions of the future. Ashertman affected people in a much more obvious way than the Davar household indicated they were being affected. Only really Jushu exhibits the characteristics of someone under the influence of the Revel, and even then he seems more like someone gambling and drinking from depression rather than a desire to let go of his inhibitions. Second, I think the Dustmother uses the Surge of Division or her abilities are similarly destructive. I have nothing to base this on besides the fact that the order that is mostly known for Division is the Dustbringers and the patron Herald of that Order is Chanarach which sounds kind of similar to Chemoarish. Not much to go on, but it's pretty much all we have on her. So, I don't think she's the likely one out the the two remaining Unmade. But, she can't be eliminated from the list until we get confirmation otherwise or learn more about her. Lastly, the Davars all have different mental issues, but there was a common theme between Lin and Balat of giving up their pain by making others suffer. Lin with the servants, Balat with animals and cremlings. Going on that death rattle, Dai-gonarthis works similar to how Odium and Moash interact, where Moash gives him his pain. I think it's likely that he was somehow stoking and feeding off the Davars' collective anguish and despair.

True, that one probably doesn't fit, none of the others listed are forms of power.

Another possibility I thought of is that the Sibling's Bond was broken as a result of or during the process of binding BAM. So, the Sibling wasn't made into a deadeye because the full scope of the damage that binding BAM caused wasn't in full effect.

This one's a little bit deep for someone who doesn't know anything about the Cosmere outside of Mistborn(specifically, Realmatics): Elend actually went into the Spiritual realm when he burned duralumin and Atium at the end there. This next part is speculation, I thought it was in a WoB but I didn't see anything: I think Elend saw that his death is what prompted Vin to kill Ruin which leads to Sazed becoming Harmony and saving the world. It's why he said "we won Marsh."

I think this post and other like it where people try to fit characters from other Cosmere worlds aren't actually proposing this happen in a book. It's just speculation about how a character would fit into the various Knights Radiant orders, like people speculating which Hogwarts house people would fit into. Obviously Spensa has no way of becoming a Dustbringer, but her personality fits the order.

Ok, I thought that was the case. Yea, it's possible they could help turn the tide more than we'd think, but they'd have to be useful again. It doesn't answer the OPs question of why humanity is seemingly doing better as of RoW than they were in the latter days of the original Desolations. Also, consider that the ancient Radiants had a functioning Taln, which the current ones do not. The other Heralds might very well have been useless, possibly some even making mistakes that got people killed where they would not have. But, Taln was not mad like he is now. From what they said you could basically send him to an unwinnable battle and he'd turn the tide and/or die trying. Now, I'm not arguring in favor of "the modern Radiants doing better than ancient Radiants makes no sense" statement. Yes ancient Radiants had what was left of the Heralds and more numbers of experienced Radiants. But modern humanity has far more ordinary people than they did back then, more resources, better technology, and better training. Along with the points you made about the Fused not being at full capacity and Radiants possibly having stronger powers, it's clear that modern humanity has more of a chance than ancient humanity. Also, we haven't seen or heard much of Unmade that can affect battles, I wonder if Odium is holding them back more than he used to because he's afraid of them being captured like the ones that have been.

I agree with most of what you have there, but this point is kinda off: Did you mean to say "it's entirely possible their abilities aren't nearly as prodigious when they were getting new bodies every decade." ? It seems like you're making points about why humanity is doing better, but if there's anything that's not helping, it's the Heralds. At best they've been mildly useful for information and at worst they're actively working against humanity. It mostly seems like something that could be relevant if the Heralds ever become useful again, but at present they are not.

Yea Shallan is quite capable of suppressing something like that, she's not a reliable foundation to base any assumptions on. Although it isn't definitive, the Bondsmith art from the WoK Kickstarter does not feature someone wearing armor. The only other Order that doesn't have someone in armor is the Windrunners, so it might have just been them not wanting to draw the characters in armor who are going to have big moments obtaining their armor, but that might be saying something. Something else that's odd about the Bondsmith art is that the woman standing beside Dalinar(I'm not sure if it's Navani or a future squire) seems to have some sort of Shardblade...

Considering it's mostly explored in RoW, I don't think I could explain much here. But I think Cohesion + A-Chromium could be a strong combination.

It isn't the Elantrians he was referring to, it's the Seons. The Seons had the same problem the Aons did, they needed the chasm line to be whole. Seons, like spren, are also Splinters that gained sentience unlike Elantrians, which are not cognitive shadows because the Shaod does not kill them. Something had irrevocably been changed about the landscape and because the Aons were based on the landscape, they needed to be completed with the chasm line. The solution to the BAM situation seems to be somewhat of a reverse on the Elantrian one. It's thought that releasing BAM from her prison will in some way help heal the deadeyes or enable them to be healed. Instead of adapting them to the change like Seons and Aons were in Elantris, they need to fix the damage that was done.

You make an excellent point here. Someone would not be able to do certain things like a compounder who has both abilities would. One key thing that requires the ability to store the attribute is TLR's age trick. You need to store the age to use later or you'll reverse age yourself back into a baby or worse. You can get around that by only burning small amounts of the metal relative to the Feruchemical charge. So, there's a decent amount of planning to be done in allocating the metal into specific portions depending on what you do with it. Or you have to make sure you throw up the metal instead of burning it all. But it's definitely less convenient than having the ability to store attributes that you don't need at that moment on the fly.

I wasn't really sure, but I thought it out and I believe you are right. If I understand it correctly, an unkeyed metalmind is one that was created by someone who was also storing their Identity making it so any Feruchemist with the right ability can also tap it or store in it. The key hurdle with compounding is that you can't compound a Feruchemist's stored attributes not because you're not a Feruchemist, but because you aren't the person who stored it. So if a Feruchemist can use an unkeyed metalmind just like they would one of their own, I don't see a reason why an Allomancer couldn't either. The key thing that bothers me about the WoB is that Brandon said he would be able to use it because he'd have a "Spritual Connection" to it and Connection doesn't really fit into this. The WoB was technically before BoM was released where we learn about the whole Identity trick that allows people to make unkeyed metalminds, so maybe he didn't want to spoil things. I get the feeling that if he answered that today, he'd swap in Identity.

There's no clear answer, but I have a theory that I never did a post for I can shortly detail here. I don't think the overmastery itself is what made sand mastery stronger. I think becoming more in line with Autonomy's Intent by breaking the rules is what did it. Looking at other magic systems, there seems to be a correlation with people who embody the Shard's Intent and how strong they are or how they get their powers. This is most obvious in Stormlight where Knights Radiant have to swear Oaths to do Honorable things and become more powerful the further they go with those oaths. In Elantris, the people who are chosen by the Shaod all seem to be Devoted to something. In Raoden's case, he's extremely devoted to the people of Arelon and is the most powerful Elantrian. In Mistborn, Allomancers usually snap when they experience(at least what feels like) a life threatening event. I speculate they snap because they become aligned with Preservation and wish to Preserve themselves. Assuming I'm right about all of that, overmastery was a test like you said, though I'm not sure if they knew what they were doing. Sand Masters get their powers from Autonomy, and to be autonomous, one must not be bound by rules. Ever since Kenton showed little potential in the opening scene, he sought to use the rules of the Diem and the rules of Lossand to make his place there. But, by trying to work within the rules of those systems rather than rebelling against them, Kenton ensured he would get no stronger as a Sand Master. Drile on the other hand, broke rules and cared little for the Diem's leadership and he was seemingly as strong as Kenton's father. Baon is one of the most autonomous people we've seen in the Cosmere and based on that scene at the end he's going to be an immensely strong Sand Master. One other thing I'm not completely sure of is what seems to be the upper limit Kenton reaches with the amount of ribbons he can control. It's possible that once he figured out that the overmastery rule was a test, it became a pointless test. Or he does just have an upper limit on his strength, possibly related to how much Investiture he has in his Spirit Web.

Yea the Skybreakers in general seem like the weird ones where it seems like external factors determine if they're ready/able to swear the next oath instead of all the orders where we have PoV characters struggle internally to reach their next Ideal.

I think it would be weird if Szeth swore the 4th and 5th Ideal in the same book, but I guess there's precedent with him swearing the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in OB.