vineyarddawg

Uh oh... ... ... ENHANCE PATTERN IS ODIUMSPREN CONFIRMED BY WoB OMG SHALLAN IS A VOIDBRINGER

This might sound overly pedantic, so I apologize in advance if that's the case... but I wouldn't say there's no moral imperative for shardholders. Rather, each shardholder would have their own unique moral imperative based on the shard's intent. That moral imperative might or might not align with the human moral imperative, and in fact, if a shardholder's personal code of morality differs significantly from that of the intent of the shard he/she receives, then the shard's intent will be the dominant force. (Of course, this is dependent on how long the person holds the shard. The longer you hold a shard, the more the shard bends you to its intent.) EDIT: And this makes it even worse for Sazed, because the two shards he holds pretty much functionally have opposite intents. So he's forced to maintain a state of "balance" to, in a sense, maintain the peace between the shards of Ruin and Preservation.

Ooooooo, I somehow missed that WoB from 2013. So, logically drawing from that, we could probably presume they have things that I'm just going to call "Scadrial fabrials" because it sounds cool. That could be pretty useful, too. Having every soldier, or at least your "best" soldiers (because of the scarcity of metal), being protected by a Steel bubble like the one Wax can throw up? Pretty dang useful in a war. Not to mention the potential for having things like a portable copper-cloud fabrial that anybody can take with them anywhere to prevent from being rioted/soothed... that's a big, big advantage, in my opinion.

Yeah, as a previous comment said, Sazed/Harmony definitely seems to have a "Destination Before Journey" worldview. Of course, the "Journey Before Destination" maxim comes directly from Honor's worldview, so it's probably not all that surprising that a different shard would have a different viewpoint.

So... perhaps the "power brokers" in the Set might be southern Scadrians? Given that the Set is: 1) kidnapping Mistings (and maybe Ferrings, too, who knows?), and 2) trying to take power in Elendel (by Edwarn's own admission), that would seem to align with those two goals you posit that the southern Scadrians might have.

It might also be a reference to the new spikes from the unknown shard. Just a thought.

I honestly don't think we have enough information to make a fair judgement, so I gave Harmony the benefit of the doubt and voted Yes. First, we know that Harmony is both Ruin and Preservation, and those must be in balance. So he can't just "help" the humans. It would be at odds with his "balanced" nature to do that. And for that matter, it's been my experience that we tend to think of "balanced' as being, basically, all good and happy. That's not the kind of balance Sazed has to have. Ruin is destruction, and Preservation is... uh, preservation. Those two intents are naturally at odds, and the "balance" has to include both creation/preservation and destruction. Second, knowing that, we can assume that in order to "nudge" things in the direction he would like them to go, Sazed has to use some methods that we might consider immoral by our code of morality in order to do so. That could easily include murders, manipulation, and outright lying to the people you want to do whatever thing you're getting them to do. Third, we don't know the endgame. Sazed at least implies to Wax that he, essentially, knows the outcome of all the actions he might or might not take on Wax's life. He also says he's not omniscient, though, but perhaps that just means Cosmerically omniscient. It wouldn't surprise me at all to know that he has prescience as it relates to the timeline on Scadrial and how his actions will affect that timeline. Of course, that could also be limited to knowing what his interference in the Scadrial timeline will cause to happen. He might not be able to see what would happen if, for example, another shard were to show up and try to create havoc... Bottom line, I return to my original statement that I don't think we really know enough to definitively judge Sazed's actions, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now.

Just make sure you don't ask the SoS spoiler question during general Q&A time. That would be severely frowned upon, I'm sure.

I guess I'll put this in a spoiler block, just in case, but that makes it less funny.

Given how technologically advanced Sazed seems to imply that the southern Scadrians are compared to the northern Scadrians, I don't know how "competitive" of a war it would be. Unless the southern Scadrians don't really know much about Allomancy and Feruchemy, but that seems kind of unlikely.

Let's swerve this to the left for a moment... could Kelsier be involved, but by leading Bleeder (or someone from the Set... or heck, even Miles) to visit Sel and pick up splinters from either Devotion or Dominion? Or, for that matter, could the "real power broker(s)" in the Set actually be a worldhopper from Sel? Perhaps a Shu-Dereth worldhopper?

(I can't believe I'm posting in a shipping thread... ) We have a WoB stating that Ranette is a homosexual character, so I think that pretty much settles it, yes? No Ranette for Wayne. Now, Marasi, however... (trails off) I was very happy to see Steris really come into her own in this book. Instead of being just a cold, calculating facade, to me she seemed to really be... ok, still extremely calculating, but at least not "cold." And she really gained depth to me in her interactions with Wax and Wayne. She's making a 100% all-out effort to "be the perfect wife/betrothed" for Wax and to reach out to Wayne as more than just a comic foil. Wayne seems to honestly not like Steris, but maybe he'll eventually get over that (or not, who knows). However it works out, though, I came out of this book really, really liking Steris. (It also helps that I identify with her social awkwardness, so there's that, too.)

I wouldn't assume that it's just an easter egg. He implies that they might even have aviation and be incredibly aggressive compared to the northern Scadrians. That seems like a... problematic combination... and also one that could lead to a meeting/confrontation sooner than we think.

/light goes on Oooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh! That makes perfect sense. I can't believe I didn't realize that... if they've figured out hemalurgy, then yeah they actually could create someone who at least has multiple allomantic and feruchemical abilities. And they could elude Harmony's control by using the "Trell" spikes.

Well, the shard on Nalthis is Endowment, and that would be quite an odd shard to be coming into play here. It seems that this new shard controlling Bleeder is doing something clearly at odds with Harmony, and I don't think Endowment would be naturally at odds with anything Harmony is doing. Bavadin's Autonomy shard and Rayse's Odium/Hatred shard seem to make a lot more sense. But hey, for all I know you're right.

Are we spoilering book stuff in this thread? Spoiler block just in case (1st-era Mistborn spoilers)

I haven't seen much discussion of this (though, to be fair, I haven't waded through all 6 pages of the reaction thread yet, so I apologize if this is discussed at length there), so I thought I'd create this thread to talk about it. Sazed delivers what could almost be discarded as a "throwaway line" in his little heart-to-heart with Wax. He sort of mourns the fact that his desire to make life easier for the humans after/during the Catacendre has had side effects that he didn't intend with respect to their technological advancement and growth outside of the Elendel Basin. Or, to be more precise, their lack of those things. During this little soliloquy, he specifically implies that they should have had things like radio, aviation, and advanced methods of irrigation and fertilization. But, obviously, they have none of those things. "Yet others, who were nearly destroyed..." (pg. 134) It seems obvious to me that Sazed is referring to the mysterious inhabitants of the southern continent of Scadrial, of whom we know almost nothing at all. Except, perhaps, now, that they might have significantly advanced technological capabilities compared to the northern continent, which is still, in a sense, "fat, dumb, and happy" sitting in the Elendel Basin... and they might be looking to grow aggressively, as they learned from their ancestors, who might have had to do so just to stay alive. So we have a mysterious shard encroaching on Harmony's power at home, and potentially a very aggressive, technologically superior culture waiting somewhere else on the planet. (But probably not for long, if they already have aviation.) I, for one, hear mysterious organ music playing in the background all of a sudden...

I haven't really seen anybody talking about anything other than the spike that Bleeder had. But what about the spikes in all the human/hybrids? I'd assume that Bleeder had more than just one "trellium" spike. She might have had a lot of "trellium" spikes, using some to steal allomantic and feruchemical abilities, and others to somehow transform the humans she spiked into those deformed creatures that were chasing Wax and TenSoon.

This is the biggest thing that's been bothering me throughout the entire book. What happened to the women that were kidnapped in AoL? I always figured that the Set was trying to breed a full Mistborn, since they were gathering women who directly descended from Spook. Of course, you don't just pop out a Mistborn... logic says it would likely take a generation or two, or perhaps even several. Maybe that's something that will become a plot line in the next era of Mistborn books? At the very least, though, they might be able to succeed in breeding some Twinborn, if they know they have allomancers and they are breeding them with feruchemists. It's all rather disconcerting and disgusting to even think about, really.

It's a conspiracy!! And we all know who's behind it... S teris A radel D rim E dwarn A llriandre S ophi Tarcsel

I half-expected the next words to see after this theory to be something about "Illuminati." That's some next-level digging for hidden meanings!

Wasing the screwing up are the newing people of all the good ways the olding people doing it. (Hope the message comes across well enough. I'm not that fluent in writing High Imperial.) :-)

Well, that was pretty pointless. 3 questions, if I counted correctly, and none of them really useful. Well, unless you count (sort-of-spoiler!)

Ah, thanks Weiry! I feel like I should have caught that before now.