Red Ferring

I’m thinking the third sibling is stone-themed. The way that nightwatcher is about life and plants, stormfather is about the wind and skies, I think the third sibling is about the stone. A couple of reasons: the shin worship stone. We know now the Shin are a more pure lineage from the original humans that arrived on Roshar, nestled in a little pocket of terrain made for them that was more akin to their homeworld. and they have their own unique religion that has a reverence toward stone being sacred. Having a major spren (like one of the Siblings) being about the stone would make sense to capture the religious focus of the Shin to worship it. the Stormfather did that for the rest of humanity with the highstorms which we know don’t reach the Shin. Plus, Szeth’s oathstone. What if it’s more than his loyalty and discipline to obey the holder of that stone. what if it’s more about the fact it has something to do with their deity being all about the stone. And it being a spren that tries to inspire men to keep oaths just like Stormfather. Thoughts?

This. I think this happened already. In the scene when Adolin was waiting for Maya when fighting the thunderclast. He counted off the heartbeats and in-story he only got to 7 before she emerged. Now whether that was just how Brandon wrote it, that the full 10 beats lapsed and it just wasn’t mentioned or whether it really only was 7 beats before she came, I’m not 100% sure. But I’d wager it was only 7 and Adolin didn’t notice because of the chaos around him. So maybe that’s part of Maya regaining herself and utilizing whatever form of bond she shares with Adolin, beyond the gem bond

I think this line of thinking makes sense when it’s humans involved and they’re using investiture for healing abilities. But Maya is investiture herself. Who’s to say the rules are a little different for her healing. As her death isn’t a human death and her wounds aren’t physical, I don’t think the laws governing conventional Cosmere healing apply in the same way. I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this sudden collision of realms right next to her was enough to reunite those torn pieces with her broken cognitive self. And give her back the ability to form bonds. Then again, I can totally see the healing coming from a fledgling Nahel bond with Adolin. Maybe it’s restoring her slowly as Adolin makes more of an honorable man out of himself. And maybe that was helped too by their very close proximity to each other in the cognitive realm where she’s more of herself, albeit her dead spren self.

I agree. Even if it wasn’t the magic cure to her being dead. And Brandon explaining that something was ripped out of her when the oath was broken, where did that piece go? My thinking is that piece of her is being filled in from the spiritual realm as the spiritual realm was brought together with the others at the perpendicularity. When normally that realm is not really accessible. Which would leave a spren dead normally. And I’d consider what Dalinar did in unifying the realms to be very difficult and rare, which Brandon says it would take, even though he didn’t specify how exactly

When Dalinar created Honor’s perpendicularity at the battle for Thaylen city, he brought together all 3 realms. Cognitive, physical, and spiritual. Adolin walked through that perpendicularity with his Shardblade aka Maya. Maya is a spren who was killed by her Radiant when the Oath was broken. I’m guessing a spren death is just spiritual because she manifests physically and in the Cognitive realm too, but still considered dead. But later we see her reaching out to Adolin with small impressions and feelings. My guess is that when Maya passed through Honor’s perpendicularity with Adolin, a part (or all) of her was resurrected from the spiritual realm and reconnected to her and she can now think and interact again with the world. And the explanation for her limited engagement with Adolin during his fighting being that she, like other spren newcomers to the world, takes time to regain her self and mind Any thoughts?

The spren are forming bonds with humans because the humans left Odium (their first god who they brought with them from the world they destroyed) and decided to serve Honor instead. I think the spren bond with whoever follows Honor and makes the oaths. And There may be an explanation in the book that I missed but my guess is Odium is using the singers to destroy the humans out of vengeance for abondoning him or maybe also because as long as they live he’s trapped by the Oathpact. Not 100% sure on that and is probably one of the mysteries to solve in future books

-Clod the Lifeless. Like a dirt clod. Plain. Dull -Breeze. Figurative for his smooth talking. -Hammond/Ham. Because he's a muscle man. Ham is just a big chunk of muscle. -Dox. He's a peace maker and responsible fellow of the group. A healer of sorts. Dox. Doc. I know I'm reaching on that one. Those are all I can think of right now. Not exactly what you're talking about but it's what came to mind.

What would happen if you gave a Koloss additional Blessings of Potency? It takes 2 of those blessings in the right spot to make the Koloss to start, but would it just get stronger and stronger with more Potency Blessings? Because we see TenSoon get Oreseur's blessing added to his own and he just gains the ability when the initial Blessing turned him from Mistwraith to Kandra.

Can Lifeless wear Shardplate and have it move for them? Like would it not work for someone who doesn't have a true "soul"? Also, can they bond to a Shardblade? Could you imagine a Lifeless in Shardplate and Blade on a battlefield? Depending on the command, they could be very ineffective or dangerously effective. Can a Lifeless be Hemalurgically spiked and given Allomancy? Would they know what to do? If a part of a person's body is cut by a Shardblade and the soul dies, can that dead part of the body be Awakened and given a command?

So that last part was kind of a tag on. In my head, these Brutes aren't being tortured or held against their will. Or at least, they comply with their "commander" through coercion or whatnot. Maybe they're wearing the collar to fool the enemy that they're just poor slaves but actually hidden Brute warriors. Or maybe the collar is there as a symbol or just for dramatic effect as personal choice of the Brute. More sharing a scene that seemed cool to me than a practical capture method.

You don't "need" it really. It's just for dramatic effect. And also because it's ironic. The very receptacle of all the power that could help them in this situation, is actually what's going to kill them. And how you got the collar on them to start? I just like the idea. I pretend it's an element of a story where all that was explained to my satisfaction.

No. Because Feruchemical pewter doesn't work like Allomantic pewter. It's just strength and the "swelling" effect is the muscles growing. There's no "invulnerability to harm" effect like there is (to a degree) with Allomantic pewter. A real life muscle man couldn't flex out of a metal collar so neither could Feruchemical pewter. That's my opinion at least.

I was thinking of the atrophying effect of storing strength in pewterminds and realized something horrible you could do. Torturing a Brute ferring using his/her Feruchemy. If you got them storing strength, their necks would atrophy, then you'd fasten a pewter collar around their necks which would fit tight around. Then they'd be compelled to continue storing, otherwise their necks would swell to normal size, and the collar would strangle them. This could kill them eventually if you don't give them new pewterminds to fill when they fill their pewter collar. The other application for such a collar would be great imagery in a story in which a commander would "unleash" a pack of Brutes by removing the collars and they then start tapping strength and charging together into the fray of a battle. How cool is that!? feruchemy is my fave

I really think Ettmetal is the Lerasium/Atium alloy. Considering the 2 intents of the shards of those 2 metals (Preservation and Ruin) I think it makes a lot of sense. The cube (made from ettmetal right?) copies your allomancy (Like stealing. Like hemalurgy) yet you keep your own power (like preservation).

You start, but then give up because, "who cares. I don't want to do this anymore". Storing determination is like tapping apathy, right? food for thought.

We don't actually know why this happens yet. Or whether it's because they're from different people.

HA! I love it! Oprah would totally give out unkeyed Chromiummind-medallions.

With the medallion technology, is there now any inherent limitations to how many metalminds you can fill and give/sell to any random Scadrian? I was first thinking of using hemalurgy shenanigans to make a bunch of unkeyed goldmind medallion-tech that you filled from gold compounding but as I think about it, there's now no limit to what kind of metalmind someone can fill/tap and how much of the attribute that can be created thanks to unkeying metalminds and compounding. As an example, for a ton of unkeyed health: Through one or a combo of medallion/hemalurgy manipulation, you store your identity in an Aluminummind and then compound the stored health from a Goldmind into a lot of new Goldminds. Then do the same but with a Nicrosilmind to grant Feruchemical gold. Would that not work for any reason? What would stop people from doing this? If there aren't any issues with this, the Lost Metal and Era 3 and 4 just got a whole lot crazier.

Yeah it definitely wasn't the way it all started. We don't have that much info on what the sovereign taught them or advised them to do. (I haven't read SH and it might have info there. Don't spoil anything!) Compounding definitely would make more sense for the replenishing heat and to make enough of all the attributes for everyone, especially nicrosil. That could be all what the FireMothers/Fathers are doing and just called "Fire..." symbolically because they're producing the heat for everyone, like a fire would. But who knows, since compounding does consume some brass, they may stand in a fire to avoid consuming anything. And since Allomancers seem to be much more rare in SoScad, a Misting for each power might be harder to come by and so they need other means to quickly fill attributes, especially heat. Because we really don't know how much Investiture from a Nicromind needs to be tapped to grant Feruchemy. It could be very little and so they don't need a compounder for it.

This may be old news to everyone but I haven't seen it as a topic so I figured I'd throw it out there. We learned from Allik that there are persons in Southern Scadrial society called FireMothers and FireFathers who store body heat in brassminds for the rest of society to use and survive the cold. This next thought is what immediately came to mind when I read "FireMothers and FireFathers". These men and women are literally standing in raging fires and just storing all the heat that would otherwise burn their bodies to a crisp. The reason I think they're literally in the fires is because that would be the fastest way to store a ton of heat for an entire nation. Granted, they could just be really close to the fire but it would be way cooler to have them in the fire and be unharmed. I think the reasoning is sound that they can do this since Marsh probably only survived the terrible circumstances of the Catacendre outside of a cave because he could withstand the terrible heat by storing in a brass mind. And if the heat from the sun can reach your body and be immediately stored to prevent your own demise, then I think it makes sense the same can be done with standing in a fire and immediately storing that heat. Plus, how different is it than Sazed storing in a brassmind on a hot day? The heat from the sun reaching his skin and he's storing it away for later. The Marsh example is more of my reasoning why it'd work in such an extreme condition. Anyone else think this?

I appreciate all these responses. I think they all make sense for what the title could mean

What does the title "Shadows of Self" mean? What is it referring to? Alloy of Law was referring to (I believe) the in-world term of alloy meaning a person. Like "he's a bad alloy for sure". So it could be like the alloy of Miles and Wax. Or of Wax and Wayne. Or just Wax as a person mixing his city vs roughs life. Bands of Mourning is literally the name of something. But what shadows of whose self is the title referencing? Did Brandon ever say?

I second this!

its an interesting idea. I think it definitely works for any Trueself if you can tap and store the same attribute from two metalminds. Because if you dump your identity in a metalmind then the other persons metalmind doesn't know you're the wrong person. But I don't think you can make an unkeyed aluminummind, because you have your identity which you are storing into it, so it knows it's you. While other metalminds are filled whilst identity is already being siphoned into some aluminum, so the other metalmind gets no identity imprint. So my thoughts, it works if it's possible to unkey yourself while simultaneously keying yourself with someone else's identity. But not possible to produce an unkeyed aluminum mind. But I will say, in BOM, it says Wax tapped "everything" when referring to the Bands. And that could mean all the metals there, including an unkeyed aluminum mind. It could mean "everything" he was able to access (which might exclude the aluminum). Or just mean "everything" as a way to express his tapping a ton of powerful attributes

I had considered that and it's an interesting idea. Like with storing tin, you need a different tinmind for each sense. You need a separate duralumin mind for people and places