Twenty@20

Thanks for the link. I went back and read your posts. The idea of underground aquifers is probably the best explanation for water drainage. Also your ideas about crem and water cycle are interesting. I wonder if crem like stormlight is part of the Investiture in the Highstorm since crem has been reported to help in faster growth of plants and it is absent during normal rains.I agree with you Brandon must be a genius to able to worldbuild so meticulously.

Sorry, I am a bit late in introducing myself having joined a few days ago. I am from India and I am a huge Sanderson fan. I discovered Steelheart last fall and then passed a month in haze as I gobbled one book after another. Mr. Sanderson's Cosmere is the most amazing fantasy setting I have read and I love how he breaths life into all his characters. The Way of Kings is my favourite book of all time. It is almost like an inspiration for me. And I adore Sylphrena. Also congratulation all you guys and gals for building such a vibrant community of fans. You are like the best icing on the best cake ever. I visited the site as a guest for a long time before joining and I hope to remain a part of 17th shard as long as possible and share with you all my weird ideas. See you around.

Dalinar is the rock on which Stormlight Archive is built. I was sold on him when I read him digging toilets for his soldiers in WoK. That is something you don't read often. This single deed shows all the greatness in Dalinar. My vote is for him.

OK, I am going to start an offbeat topic. Roshar is a strange place climatewise. A highstorm a week is pretty rough. And the storms are not even localised as it circles the entire landmass. Do we know how much windspeed do these highstorms develop? I would guess north of 100 kmph atleast over Natanatan and perhaps even Alethkar. Yes, I know that the storms lose their intensity as they move inland. But still I can't even think of such a highstorm occurring even once on Earth which involves an entire country of the size of say Australia. The flooding would be devastating I guess. A worldwide storm a week sounds pretty apocalyptic by itself. At least Alethkar should be in perennial flood control. So where does the water from these floods go? It is unlikely to go underground because of the rocky terrain. The map of Alethkar in WoK names two rivers. A Windrunner river near Hearth stone (coincidence?) and a Deathbend river near Sebarial's district but we never see any flooding around these river as expected due to increased waterflow. OK over to you guys?

Ya, neither Hoid nor Jasnah tell us their location in the epilogue. I got the impression that they were in the Frostlands. Jasnah's original plan was to go to the Shattered plains, so it makes sense that she would try to appear near that area. Also Hoid mentions rocks (so not Shinovar) and the Frostlands do seem like the "middle of nowhere".

I believe the event which pushed Szeth over the edge was his first meeting with Kaladin. It shook him to his core and made him question his beliefs, his life as Truthless. Szeth here is at the end of his tether watching his life crumbling around him. In his heart, he already thinks that he is beyond redemption. This is why we see the crazy, mad Szeth at the end.

Well I am all in support for agreeing to disagree . I have nothing much to say to that. This is the point where I disagree with you the most. It has been said by several sharders that Szeth is a product of his society. I believe the pressure to conform to the rules of society can be greater than any direct threat to life and family. When we see the Shin society in detail in next book, we will know the societal pressures on Szeth. Even the Diagram speaks of using a Truthless. That indicates that becoming a Truthless involved radical conditioning to instill absolute obedience. Szeth was honour bound to be a slave to the holder of his oathstone. I don't intend to condone his crimes. Even Szeth wouldn't want that. He after all only wishes for someone to kill him and end his misery. Szeth, in the larger perspective was only a weapon. The largest part of the blame would fall on those who made him this way and those who used him. Didn't he do exactly that in the end. Granted he was losing and he had killed a lot of people but he did stop fighting. He could have saved his life by escaping by running away but he chose to die.

I like your explanation. You have almost convinced me. Based on the discussion in this thread I realised there are two distinct abilities associated with iron and steel allomancy with respect to metals inside human body and diffuse metals in the environment. The first ability is to metal-sense these particles and gain the sort of vision Inquisitors have. The second ability is to push on these minute metal particles which Lord Ruler seemed to have. The annotation quoted by Moogle above seems to indicate that the first ability could be learned by enough practice irrespective of the allomantic power one has. On the other hand, the second ability was dependent solely on allomantic power. So only someone like Lord Ruler could push on metals inside human body, while any allomancer can learn to use these metals to develop metal-sense. Don't know if this is important but it kind of became obvious to me.

Where does Navani say that she does not understand Shardplates? Can you give the quote? All I remember, is Navani telling Dalinar about the half-shard fabrials which mimic the Shardplate's ability to block Shardblade (WoK ch 22). However Navani does say to Dalinar that she doesn't know how shardblade are created. I have a theory regarding shardplates which I mentioned on another post. What if shardplates are armour fabrials? The most important part is the Shardblade stopping technology which has been developed using "new age" augmenter fabrials. Other benefits like speed, agility and power are not yet developed. (Fabrial technology has seen most advances in recent years after the ancient technologies were lost ) Shardplates need Stormlight to work(see how Eholkars plate failed because the spheres were dun.) just like fabrials. And no spren screams on contact with Plates which means they are not formed by bonded spren.

I agree Szeth was unhinged in WoR. I would say being used as a political assassin by Taravangian was the reason behind it. It is one thing thing to be bound to a oathstone by his honour. However being reduced to Taravangian's pawn and having to senselessly murder so many people, would have destroyed any other person. I think he redeemed himself during the fight with Kaladin, when he committed suicide at Kaladin's hands after realising he had been duped. His oathstone had forbidden him from taking his life, but he abandoned his oath because it was the honourable thing to do. Now that he is back his story has great potential.

I am expecting great things from Szeth. He has got a fresh start and new direction. I like that he got a second chance and hope this time he won't blindly follow someone else ( wink wink Nalan). Truth be told, I am anticipating Stormlight 3 for two characters only - Szeth and Adolin.

I am really divided between a Sparker and an Archivist. One complements the other. Before exams put all books in your copperminds and store as much mental speed and reasoning power in zincminds. I expect in modern day Scadrial feruchemist candidates for any exam will be checked for metalmind just for the sake of fair play or perhaps they won't have to appear for any exam ever. I think I will go with copper, just because storing mental speed is going to be frustrating.

Have an upvote for your troubles.☺Edit: Since Brandon talks about trace metals in human bodies in the quoted annotation, I would like to point out the metals are not nearly as rare in our bodies as often believed. Calcium is the most abundant metal in human body. Roughly 1 kg of calcium is present in our body. So much the better for Inquisitors.

Thanks for the WoB Moogle. That helps a lot. I have another point though.( funny how they never seem to end) Kelsier is described in TFE as an expert in Iron and Steel allomancy. Is it possible that he could see like Steel Inquisitors?

A few people seem to believe that Allomancy itself grants some sort of excess brain capacity that allows Inquisitors to use iron-lines for visual purposes. Correct me if I am wrong. What I thought is, can this same process occur for a Mistborn or a Lurcher who lost his eyes?

I think that the "Burning aluminum causes the body to instantly metabolize its metal reserves without any other effect." part applies only to Mistborns. An Aluminium Gnat won't be able to burn any other metal in the first place, and so would have no other allomantic metal reserves to be instantly metabolised by aluminium. As for the idea that aluminium can heal metal poisoning, I don't know if a metal sword struck into a person qualifies as poisoning. By the way, nice theory.

The idea that Inquisitors were ironpulling savants is widely accepted in these forums. I have a problem with this idea though. Savantism implies that initially the Inquisitors were blind and by continuously flaring iron for a certain period of time, they got this sort of allomantic vision. We don't know whether this is true. We have the example of Marsh whom we saw moving around normally within a short short period of time after becoming Inquisitor.

I used to imagine the Inquisitor visual experience as the blue version of the iconic green 3D digital rain which Neo sees towards the end of the Matrix. See http://www.dan-dare.org/FreeFun/Images/TheMatrixWallpaper1024.jpg. Anyway I guess I can live with the fuzzy logic of Inquisitor vision and enjoy the awesome story.

Wonder what will be Peter and Brandon's reaction to this meta-thread. Something along the lines of - Those crazy 17th sharders are discussing whether we discuss their theories. They must have exhausted all other theories.. Followed by lots of laughter and evil grinning..

The silhouette or heat vision goggles analogy works but that means that the Inquisitors see blobs of blue of various sizes and shapes. And that is not terribly accurate.

This topic might be old for many sharders but I unsatisfied with the explanation provided in Mistborn. Inquisitor Kar PoV in The Final Empire CH. 38. This is the first time we get an idea how the Inquisitors "saw". It is clear that they were physically blind and they use allomantic blue iron-lines. Here I have the first problem. Colours can be appreciated only visually. Moreover, when Vin learns allomancy for the first time, she sees the blue iron-lines radiating from her chest. So I can't understand how the Inquisitors could see the iron-lines radiating from their chest and even see the colour while being physically blind.Another issue I have is with the accuracy they have in visualising their surroundings. Unless everything around them has a metallic coating, I don't think its possible for them to pick up minute details. Of course, there are metals all around us. There are lots of metals in the periodic table. Still must have been problems. How did they see water? Only metal impurities should be visible to them but that won't help them to know that the impurities are dissolved in water. How did they diffentiated faces? How could they see the difference between glass and sand? Did the Lord Ruler too have this ability as he was the most powerful allomancer on Scadrial?

Szeth has not been described as having any sort of physical transformation similar to the Ardents using Soulcasters even though he is in possession of the Honor blade for few years. Perhaps the "dangerous" part refers to Szeth's potential to cause harm. Or there may be some other side-effect of Stormlight that we don't know yet.

Looking the quality of discussion in these forums, I have often wondered a few times whether these ideas and theories eventually find their way into Mr. Sanderson's theory book. I can imagine Mr. Ahlstrom smiling as we discuss Adolin's future and giving Mr. Sanderson an idea about public opinion. Well this can mean only one thing. More power to us! Crowdsourcing of plots. Ahem. Perhaps I am getting carried away a bit.

Kaladin is already a Radiant. Why would anyone offer him shards anymore? From now on, anytime he goes about protecting someone, he will be inhaling stormlight openly unless he runs out of spheres. Renarin, even though he is now a Radiant may need help if he zones out forecasting the future during battles.

The Desolation: Age of Nightblood.☺