natc

You can't get killed if you're already dead. Even the shards can't go in there or even see what it's like. Adonalsium was very much a living entity.

And also, metal glows like mad on Zcadrial anyway. They can't visualize its appearance that way but you'll have to be in the Beyond to not notice that next to you.

Feruchemy other than wakefulness requires consciousness though. You can't actually heal without a working brain. Or your head, presumably. Hoid can grow his head back but I'm not sure TLR can. The beheading story was either slightly exaggerated, or it was done with a sword so he can reconnect the severed neck as the sword passed through.

Tapping feruchemy generally has the required secondary powers invoked to make sure the powers don't simply kill you with their physical implications, but there's no evidence that storing does the same. To begin with in general, the hard limit on storing for many attributes is acknowledged as the point where death occurs. Storing heat will kill you past a point just as surely as storing health, age/youth, or nutrition should.

Who . . . uh, is never described to exist and I can only presume to have existed because of common sense? Now we're just entering the realm of being pointlessly convoluted.

Yeah, I think that was the phrasing. It works.

So it's entirely possible that he is less than his normal power level at any given point in time. And he's still unstoppable. Great. Considering that he can bullet time both physically and mentally as well as having both physical and investiture senses heightened to extreme degrees, his one weakness would actually be nearly impossible to exploit if he wasn't so cocky all the time. And he made sure nobody had the resources or strength to do so the normal way anyway. Vin won quite literally by divine intervention. That had been set into motion since her birth of course, but if she was literally any other mistborn she would have died.

It is also an inevitability. Corrupted Ati interprets ruin and destruction as the hastening of a natural process that has been forestalled. If Ati had some sort of beef against stagnant societies, immortal beings, or perhaps other things associated with the "darker" side of Preservation it may have added towards the birth of Ruin. And of course, topping it off the destruction of God he helped orchestrate. It is potentially the greatest, most Ruinous act any mortal will ever achieve. And from certain perspectives (depending on what was happening to Yolen to incite this event) it may change the world for the better. There are any number of ways to interpret Ruin in a "good" light in accordance to a kind and generous personality. Not being evil is probably Ruin's most often insisted fact. It's almost like he's trying to convince himself . . .

Actually, if the Nightwatcher is of cultivation may the Nightforms not be as well? It would make sense. She is far better at future sight than Honor, as Honor himself says. I could've sworn their species was said to have once been of Cultivation in a WoB somewhere. Actually . . . huh. Night and Dawn. This is interesting.

That Harmony had distinct intents does not exclude the possibility that Adonalsium had no concrete intents prior to shattering. Take, say, an urn. Smash it; you have 16 pieces. There were any number of exact locations the fractures could have appeared at, but you already broke it and here's where they are. You then glue it back together. It won't be the same anymore, and while it's basically an urn again the pieces are forever clearly visible. It might even influence the fractures you get if you smash it again; the original lines will likely give first, as glue isn't as sturdy. We cannot everything will just be fine and dandy if we fuse shards together. The Shattering of Adonalsium could very well be irreversible even if every investiture-ounce of power is reclaimed. We don't know how it works.

Indeed, we know exactly what Scadrial looks like in CR and it is pretty much entirely mist (aside from bodies of water and outer space being solid black as usual). Even standing on the ground is tough unless you are cognitive yourself. The Nalthis and color assumption comes mostly from Lightsong's vague memories of his first death and the moments leading up to his Return.

I don't recall the Kalad's Phantoms ever being activated until after all the lifeless had left the capital.

Build the statues with proper articulation I suppose? It isn't impossible. They may turn out slow and clumsy, but against an army with swords and spears the Phantom is basically invincible. You'll need a shardblade or some serious firepower to bring it down, it can take its time.

So really, is it likely that a certain degree of cellular degeneration due to aging is in reality what is considered "perfectly healthy" by a human soul of the associated age? That would seem to work. You can probably heal away organ failure or whatnot for a while, but eventually everything just straight up stops and you're doomed.

IIRC Scadrial actually has higher metal content than Earth . . . I won't think that the aluminum bizarreness would kick in until after the aluminum starts existing, and aluminum interacts with both feruchemy as a whole and burning properly, so it being possible to soulcast isn't too unbelievable. But can you soulcast aluminum into something else?

It does worry me that all honorblade users we've come across (Szeth or Herald) doesn't seem quite sane though. Doesn't rapid investing of one's self normally result in the widening of spiritual cracks? Honorblades use stormlight "dangerously" quickly . . .

Vorin woman duties are much less dangerous and involve a lot of sitting around. More my thing. Plus I can read. Would you rather get by as a Returned on Nalthis with a dedicated group to feed you breaths, without the people's consent (threats, ransom, taking from slaves, the works), or a Returned stranded on Roshar and are dirt poor in spheres?

Hoid is a Yolish lightweaver, he looks a bit different in nearly every book.

Thoughts on Wax and the sisters. I think everyone admits Marasi seemed like the obvious setup at first. She does definitely have the skills to keep up with Wax in his work, back him up out there. But once the hero worship passed her discontent visibly grew. She wanted to change society for the better by changing the core of it, not by killing off one criminal at a time with an overdose of bullets. Wax was not what she wanted to be, and while they can work together well they are both competent enough to work separately for their own goals. Handing over the Bands was honestly the moment she finally made her point known to him for good. This is Wax's job. She wants to be known for having played her own desired role instead of being known for helping him accomplish his. Steris seems as different from Wax as they come at first, but she understood him in feeling like a fish out of the water. She's good with things Wax isn't good at, and is contentas the sidekick wife in the background because she knows she is the most useful this way. Wax needs someone like her in the end, if even only 7% of the time. Overall, Marasi and Wax are similar and a good pair on the surface, but Marasi definitely no longer wishes for it to be that way and her life goals lead further from his by the day. Steris actually relates to Wax better beneath the surface, and their outward differences compliment each other. And she is very much content being the complimentary partner doing all the background work her husband can't do himself, while Marasi very much wants to strike her own path, and wants people to acknowledge it. I say the three of them make it work. Wayne and MeLaan are much harder to analyze . . .

The Rider of the Storms/Stormfather seems to predate Honor's death, so he must have been some sort of investiture-being already, and somehow took on the form of a cognitive shadow later."Mundane" Cognitive shadows of normal humans are very much a thing though. And they were humans initially and not some spren-thing. Are Returned something similar? The person's cognitive shadow "merged" with the divine breath splinter and put back into the body to biochromatically reanimate the corpse?

I recall the balls of fire being simply visible through the obsidian ground at one point. Huh, solid obsidian. Man, retrieving Shallan's (or was it Jasnah's?) chest from underwater must have been tough. Sorry Nazh.

Well, obviously the original corpse is dead and digested. You're going to walk up to a guy and say "I need your beard"?

The pulse direction (spreading outward or inward) determines pushing or pulling, and then the speed and pattern of the pulse for external/internal and physical/mental/temporal/enhancement, I believe. According to Marsh you can even pinpoint the emotions being affected by emotional allomancy from the pulses alone. We have never seen a description of a feruchemical pulse, it may be completely different.

Hoid would actually grow a new head apparently, IIRC. He was surprised himself when it happened. He expected what you did.

Copper can be overwhelmed by sheer strength, so likely it isn't complete hiding, but rather strong dampening. Perhaps great enough investiture use might bleed through, or strong enough investiture sensing abilities may detect the pulses anyway. Similarly seeking is incredibly detailed in its perception of investiture, but unlike lifesense it doesn't detect people simply for being alive. Past a certain strength level (Vin with earing) it starts picking up even cognitive shadows and shards, but still ignores living souls. There may be a qualitative issue involved.