J-max04

Woops, sorry about the spoiler tags, I'll remember that.

I couldn't find a post directly discussing Trell and the metal from the end of SoS, so I decided to make a thread to show my theories and promote discussion. Here are some things to consider. Brandon said there was a shard that just wanted to hide and survive. Harmony is able to see kandra with normal metals, and presumably with the god metals from preservation and ruin, so its possible that the metal is: a. From a shard from another planet, but I feel like he would likely still be able to see a kandra with such a spike OR b. From the hiding/survival shard. This might explain how bleeder is able to hide. Trellagism might be an ancient religion. The two gods Trell and Nalt might be referring to adonalsium and its counterpart. Trell, being the god of the night, if it (he?) was a shard, might be able to hide bleeder. We know that the 4th book in the Wax and wayne series is called "The lost metal", which appears to refer to Atium. Miles talks about "the bearers of the final metal" before he is killed, which sounds similar. Is it possible that this title is meant to confuse us by making us think of atium? Does it really mean the metal that bleeder uses? Secondly, The third book will be called "the bands of mourning". The titular metalminds are said to give the lord ruler's power to anyone who wears them. I've always believed that feruchemy and hemalurgy are linked, and remember that the lord ruler's bands pierced his skin. Vin believed this was a protective measure, stopping people from pushing/pulling on them, but its possible that they were more than that. Hope something I said was interesting, and merry conversing.

I'm not so sure that there are so much opposites, as categories. One might say that cultivation and this secret "hiding/survival" shard are counterparts, because they are similar in many ways, trying to nurture and protect something, but cultivation wants to do so externally, and hiding/survival wants to do so internally. To put it another way, tin and pewter are counterparts, but they are very similar in most ways, except one is a pushing metal, while the other is a pulling metal. They aren't complete opposites. Devotion and dominion are two ways of trying to get people to act a certain way, but one is pulling them to do it, while the other is pushing them.

The metals are all split by two categories. They are either pushing or pulling, and either internal or external. But the number 16, being a power of 2, could be split four times. Is it possible for there to be more categories? the table here just splits this into 4 categories, rather than 2 sets of 2. Is there a common grouping? Moving on, the same category system, I believe, may apply to the shards. Already, we've seen pairings of shards, like ruin and preservation, and devotion and dominion. Notably, in each pair, there appears to be one "loving" shard, that "Pulls" people together, and one "aloof" shard, that "pushes" people away, or one "good" and one "evil" shard. Endowment would appear to be a "loving", along with cultivation, and honor, while odium, autonomy, and possibly this "Hiding/survival" shard appear to be aloof. Of course, I wouldn't suggest that these are the proper intents of this division. Another way we could try splitting these shards into categories is by the fact that some can see the future and some can't, suggesting another division. Already, we know that preservation and cultivation are good at foresight, while ruin and honor aren't so good. What other divisions can we glean, and could we use this to predict other shards? Could "survival" be the counterpart to cultivation? Could there be a counterpart to "Autonomy", "Society"? Only Brandon knows.

Guys, if thinker was a Kandra, I think that he would have picked up speaking selay much quicker than thinker apparently does.

Anyone else remember anything else that glows black? Nightblood. Just suggesting a correlation.