AndrolGenhald

Words of Radiance spoiler: In both this case and the one with Wax though, they had just died; their body, mind, and soul had separated, but each was still alive in a sense. Kelsier had been dead for a long while before coming back.

You might be surprised by how thorough Brandon and Peter can be.

If Szeth considers breaking a law to be evil I think I'll stay as far away from him as possible. In fact, I think I'll just avoid all Skybreakers.

I don't think Jasnah believed that what she was doing was wrong; she put herself in a position where she could be harmed, but she didn't make the first move. I'd say what she did was closer to entrapment than it was to murder. There's a difference between doing something you believe to be wrong because you also believe the world will be better off, and doing something you believe to be right, even if it was in fact wrong. Personally I think what she did was at worst morally ambiguous and at best perfectly acceptable. I wouldn't call it an "ill deed", and I doubt that Jasnah would see it that way. I think it's important to point out that the Radiant Orders had very significant disagreements (e.g. Windrunners and Skybreakers), if there is a way to judge if a philosophy aligns with or opposes the Radiants as a whole it would have to be by comparing it to the First Ideal. Shallan mentions the Philosophies of Starkness, Purpose, Ideals and Aspiration. Starkness: Kill or be killed; very abstract, not necessarily opposed to the First Ideal Purpose: Actions are neither good nor evil, it is intent that matters; this one could go either way depending on how you look at it, I think we'd need more information to say for sure Ideals: Removing evil is moral; again, not opposed to the First Ideal Aspiration: If the goal is worthy, the steps taken are worthwhile; this sounds very opposite to "journey before destination" So only the Philosophies of Aspiration and perhaps Purpose conflict with the First Ideal, but do we even know if these philosophies are tied to Vorinism? Shallan doesn't mention the church at all in that section; I always had the impression that these were major philosophical theories that were unrelated to the church. I believe there's a WoB stating that Odium influenced Shallan's mother, so this is definitely a possibility. I like this idea, but Ruin only had trouble with the metal itself, if Odium had the same issue, it wouldn't hinder him all that much. Perhaps the Shards have trouble seeing anything illuminated by Stormlight?

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1069 That doesn't necessarily mean that they were of Cultivation at some point, but it does strongly imply it.

According to this similar topic, Szeth seems to think that the Shin have 7 blades, although he says "Another one of the seven?", which may or may not include his own. Edit: Really wishing I had my book right now, apparently the quote is actually "One of the other seven in Shinovar?", so that means that 7 blades are in Shinovar, Szeth's is accounted for, so the only 2 we don't know for sure about are Taln's and the one a Herald recovered. If Nale needs his blade to use Stormlight, he is likely the one that recovered a blade, so the only one we don't really know for sure is Taln's.

Coppermind cites WoR chapter 88 when it says "The Shin have seven of the Honorblades (Szeth is in possession of the eighth)", but I don't have my book right now to look more thoroughly. I believe there is also a WoB floating around somewhere that one of the Heralds recovered a blade. Edit: Aha! http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/4883-new-info-on-honorblades/

They originally had all 9 that the Heralds left, then Szeth got one, and Nale (probably) recovered his, leaving them with 7 currently.

It was the spyril's motivator.

Prof's force fields ran out the same way in Steelheart, we just didn't know they were a gifted ability. His disintegration ability doesn't seem to run out when gifted, or if it does it runs out very slowly, but we don't really see that used in Firefight. That's a good point about the range thing. I had always thought that when Prof was away he just couldn't give them more power, but that any power he had already gifted them stayed until it ran out. Now that you mention it though, I think you're probably right.

That's actually a very good idea, although I think perhaps defiance is a more suitable term. I think there's something else going on with the fear thing though, David seems to think that if he hadn't overcome his fear he wouldn't have been able to defy Calamity.

I very much doubt that David could have been an Epic all along, he didn't confront his fear until very recently. I think his affinity for powers is unrelated, but it would make it thematically appropriate for Calamity to give him the ability to steal other Epics powers.

I don't think that can be it. If that's the case, wouldn't he lose his fire powers when in our reality? Well, not "our" reality, but you know what I mean I suppose it's possible that he isn't fully in our reality so his powers aren't fully stopped, but I still find it hard to believe. Besides, that would make him basically impossible to kill in his own reality.

If his weakness is unpredictability it seems like a stray bullet would kill him, which I seriously doubt. I like the competition idea, but I feel like we might be missing something.

Yeah, I think Prof told her the location while pretending to be David.

Yeah, I've missed a lot more than that a couple times when reading too fast

The water did go down, as soon as David killed her. It was mentioned several times. The roots of Dawnslight's plants kept the buildings from collapsing.

I think it's just that the strength of the force field is variable. Prof's abilities aren't all or nothing, there's a scale. Probably the clearest example of this is how David heals extremely rapidly at first and then much slower when the gifted power starts to run out. Edit: And I believe the force field protecting David from Val had to be Prof's own. Didn't he just get back to the city? He wouldn't have had time to gift David a force field.

I noticed that too, I would guess that she shot herself through the wall.

I just thought of something I should have noticed a long time ago. iirc Conflux thought his weakness was dogs, but then he was wrong. And he's always, if not kind, at least not unkind. I think he must have overcome his fear. Granted, his not being evil could be explained by him not using the powers, but I think there's something here. Edit: And of course someone beat me to it.

I had actually come to that conclusion as well, but since it never came up again I had forgotten about it.

I had thought that Megan was moving the forcefield rather than David, although now that I think about it, it would be a lot easier to move David. David happening to stand somewhere else is much more likely than Prof missing with his forcefield. I'm thinking that if David can Steal powers that he would have to do so consciously, it's just that a side effect of this ability allows him to be Gifted powers as well, and he is able to master the powers relatively quickly. Actually, I'll have to figure out a timeline, but maybe the amount of time it takes him to figure out the powers is related to how much of the power he has? It seems like it took him longer to master the Tensors than the Spyril, although it could just be that I read Firefight in 7 hours so it feels like everything went by really fast...

That's the weird thing though, as far as we know most Epics started appearing about a year or so after Calamity (iirc). I don't think it's really comparable to a Rending, since it seems like Calamity didn't really do a whole lot at first besides Dawnslight. I guess it's possible there's other Epics that appeared right away that we haven't heard about, but I doubt it could be that many since say that they started appearing a year later.

I'm pretty sure it was mentioned at some point that he was in his forties, and Calamity showed up like 13 or 15 years ago or something, so for him to go into a coma as a child it would have had to be long before then. Guess that's another thing I'll look out for when I get around to reading through a second time.

Pretty sure Dawnslight was there before Regalia, it seems like he was one of the first Epics. Edit: Also iirc wasn't he in his forties or something? He may have been in a coma from childhood, but he would have gained powers sometime around his late 20s or early 30s.