Caevita

We know what a marsh is, but what is a mallow? But yeah, what Calderis said.

Ya know I actually just put a thread forward on this. To summarize that discussion... We have WOB's that 1. there are not, in fact, 10 Unmade and 2. Braize works in nines the same way Roshar works in tens. Also, while there is nothing contradicting the theory, that may just be due to the lack of evidence one way or the other. All we have are a few reasonable-sounding deductions. It's still, in my opinion, extremely likely that the three Bondsmiths have a representative from each Shard. This places an Odiumspren as by far the most likely candidate for Siblinghood; the Odiumspren in question still seems to call back to the Unmade since they are the most powerful Odiumspren we've seen by a longshot. Perhaps they are the enigmatic ninth Unmade, or perhaps when the Sibling became a Bondsmith spren, it forfeited its Unmade tag. Or, it could be that it was never un-made in the first place. Personally, I still believe the theory to be reasonable, but what you and I both have to accept is that it's almost entirely speculation. Which I am fine with.

"It will not take a careful reader to ascertain I have listed only eight of the Unmade here. Lore is confident there were nine, an unholy number, asymmetrical and often associated with the enemy." "I'm not certain yet how the ten levels of Voidbinding... fit into this paradigm." The first quote is from an epigraph, the second is found in the Ars Arcanum. Taken together, they paint a pretty strange picture. On the one hand, Odium breaks the Rule of Ten. On the other hand, he... doesn't. Frankly, I am not at all convinced that nine is the correct number for Odium's creations. It would certainly be unprecedented that two Shards hailing from the same planet would have magic systems featuring different magic numbers. Which, of course, brings me to my theory. I believe the "Sibling," the enigmatic third Bondsmith spren to be the tenth Unmade, a spren from Odium. It's a bit of a stretch, but bear with me. Firstly, I'm operating under the assumption (since I couldn't find a direct confirmation of it) that the Nightwatcher is Bondsmithable Number 2. The Sibling, then, rounds a set out twice. First, the three Bondsmith spren now hail one from each Shard (Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and now Sibling). The claim that Odium has a role in in surgebinding (while he still has Voidbinding of his own) may sound unlikely, but we already have precedent with Glys. Besides, if not one of the Unmade, what other spren even comes close to the power level of a Shard's cognitive shadow? Certainly nothing we have yet discovered. Secondly, as I alluded to at the beginning of all of this, I believe it makes far too much sense to ignore that the Unmade would initially tally to ten. Again, at first glance, it may sound strange to claim that a spren created directly by Odium would abandon him, but the precedent is already in place with Sja-Anat. If this theory has already been spun out, I apologize, and could you please point me to the original? If not, what do you guys think of it?

Honestly, I think it's most likely that parshendi in stormform are a bit like the Inquisitors in books 2 and 3 of Mistborn. If Ruin wasn't directly controlling Marsh, then Marsh had some degree of free will, but Ruin's influence was still a lot more significant that making Marsh "prone" to certain actions/feelings. Also, Eshonai's decision to keep the strong-willed away from stormform may have stemmed from her desire for absolute power more than anything. She might have killed Venli if she thought she could get away with it - not because Venli feared stormform or even because Venli was so strong-willed, but because she was a threat to Eshonai's authority.

One thing that really irked me on this front was when James Dashner's comment on Bluescreen (by Dan "I was writing postapocalyptic before you" Wells), a futuristic/scifi book listed his work on The Maze Runner (which, sure, is a fine series) but not The Eye of Minds which is itself futuristic/scifi and gives him a much more informed opinion. To more directly answer the question, I was never super impressed by Ender's Game, but every other book in the series (the sequel trilogy, Ender's Shadow) were all great reads. Just a very different experience, which led to everyone who liked the first book losing interest, while everyone who might have legitimately enjoyed the later books never explored them because the first book didn't grab their attention.

This. Also, it's *sense. (Sorry).

I should probably have put that less strongly. True, it is not confirmed. All that is confirmed is that magic systems other than the ones on Scadrial are capable of creating savants. That said, Vasher held an enormous number of Breaths for an extended length of time and, in your own words, has extensive practice with Awakening. If he isn't a savant, no one on all of Nalthis ever will be. He has repeatedly done things which fly against all conventional knowledge on Awakening, but you make a good point that Awakening cannot be used constantly in the way that metals can be. I guess we'll both have to wait and see.

I don't know about "advanced commands," but I understand Vasher has been a Breath savant for a while now. It may be that his output is different due to that, not due to his specific input. (To clarify: Spook doesn't burn tin differently. Tin burns differently for him. Unless there's a WoB that says Vasher's commands are unique?)

Welcome to the shard! 1. Bands of Mourning, Hero of Ages, Way of Kings 2. Syl, Vin, Elend 3. Roshar, Edgedancer 4. I'm just gonna wait and see what Brandon gives us. Less pain that way.

It has been said in-world that nothing happens when a Rithmatist writes with chalk. Intent is the driving force here. See the new Rithmatic lines, they don't work until you know what they do, and are actively trying to make it happen.

It is widely fan theorized that Adolin will become a Dustbringer someday. There's a WoB out there saying that "some orders" would be very okay with Adolin's actions at the end of WoR. I don't have a lot more beyond that. On the other subject though, good point. I'd always assumed Eshonai to have one of the spots, when I was tallying them up in my head, but we'll see.

I guess I was just faked out by Nin's line about "Your bond to your Blade severed, all ties-- both spiritual and physical-- undone." Maybe he was just speaking metaphorically?

So, I was rereading Words of Radiance the other day (I gotta find a better intro seriously) and I was thinking about the fabrial which Darkness/Nin/Nalan uses to revive Szeth. At the time Words of Radiance came out, I just kinda accepted it as a thing that apparently happened in the cosmere but I didn't know how. There's a lot of that in the Cosmere. Then Secret History came out, giving us a behind-the-scenes look at death in the cosmere, people's cognitive shadows briefly hesitating in the cognitive realm before moving on to the true afterlife in the series (the Tranquiline Halls or whatever you want to call it). People with a significant amount of Investiture can stay a bit longer, but will eventually get pulled in. Unless you're a Shard, of course. Szeth isn't, which is why I figure Nin's fabrial works via pulling someone's cognitive shadow back in their body before they can move on. It explains Nin's comment about "seconds later, and it would have been too late." Szeth was about to move on, but Nin decided he wasn't done yet. Always assuming my assumptions are correct, this raises two lines of thought in my mind. Firstly, I assume something similar happens for Kelsier. I am very curious just how similar. We know he's spiked now, and we know Hemalurgic spikes can transfer power from other magic systems. I mean, it's always possible that two distinct magic systems happen to share an ability, but I'll believe that when I see it. And yes, fabrials are as much technology as they are magic in the traditional sense, but they seem to imitate other magics as often as not (see Oathgates and the bonding gem in a Deadblade). Time will tell on that one. Second, just how far can this ability stretch? The only known limitation is that Nin needed Szeth's body for the fabrial to do anything. It puts a stopper on some of the more outrageous possiblities (i.e. resurrecting Tanavast or bringing a spren fully into the Physical realm), but Kelsier suggests that rule may not be hard and fast. His body was eaten by a kandra, yet here he is. Maybe it isn't his original body he's in now, but that just raises more questions. I don't know what to make of this many possibilities, but lemme know if you guys do.

Actually they're really not. When Shallan is reading up on the Parshendi, she (via the narrator) says that the chasmfiends being the Parshendi's gods was an assumption made by the Alethi, not something that the the Parshendi explicitly explained to them. It's far more likely that their "gods" are the spren, especially considering Gavilar was apparently talking about the return of their gods. Chasmfiends never exactly left.

I agree, and I think I may not have explained myself well if this correction was necessary. They are exactly as dead as Syl was. And Syl was as dead as a spren can get. Kaladin fixed himself back up, and quite literally brought her back to life. It is possible to revive a Shardblade, because spren don't die in the same way as humans do. They do not have cognitive shadows that move on to... wherever cognitive shadows go. The Tranquiline Halls, I guess. They are native to the cognitive realm in the first place, and it is only the Nahel bond which renders them "mortal" at all. I guess I just don't see how "Dead. Then they live again a little when someone summons them, syncing a heartbeat to their essence." can be interpreted to mean "mindbroken and stuck in an endless cycle of pain." Dead is dead. Spren corpses just aren't the hardest things to revive, that's all.

I know plenty of people have already said this. Saying it anyways. Nicely done on the quiz, man. Lightweaver. And hooboy do I have a long way to go on the self-awareness front. But I think it suits me.

This. Also, please note Syl's line about "Break a rock, and it's still there. Break a spren, and she's still there. Sort of." Spren are concepts, so when she says that she "was only as dead as (Kaladin's) oaths," she means that very directly. She was dead, by the "conventional" sense. But when the event which caused her death was reversed, so was her death. Also, the one correction I would have for you, Yata, is that Deadblades (nice term btw) are well and truly dead. Syl explains that the ten heartbeats it takes before a Deadblade materializes are the Shardbearer linking the dead spren to his/her own heartbeat, bringing them back to a very painful life. They do not, so far as I can tell, experience this pain while dematerialized. At least, we have no evidence to suggest they do.

I was rereading Stormlight Archive the other day (I swear all of my posts start with some variation of that line) and I was thinking about Syl's statement that she, without a Nahel bond, was essentially a windspren, but other windspren did not have the ability to create a bond. This is confusing to me for a bit of a convoluted reason. Per Jasnah's explanation, the more abstract spren (emotions, concepts) are generally of Honor, while Spren of nature are generally of Cultivation. Previously, I had assumed that this meant that Syl's main difference from windspren was that she was linked to Honor, while other windspren were not. This would mean that the Nahel bond was unique to Honor, which would make some sense given that he was the one to create the Heralds, and surgebinders are, after all, basically Herald fanboys. However, Wyndle is a bit of an odd duck here. I couldn't find any instance where he was called a Vinespren, which makes me wonder if Brandon isn't just trolling us and he's secretly been an abstract spren all along (much like Syl and windspren), but he certainly thinks very well of Cultivation, which makes sense considering he's a gardener. Also, if the difference between Syl and windspren is as simple as which Shard they hail from, does that mean that Odium's spren are direct counterparts to the spren we already know about? Is there a "windspren" out there somewhere that is of Odium? Also, how would Odium's spren go about gaining the sentience which Syl has shown? Is that what is happening to the Parshendi right now? So, my question is, do we have a WoB on any of: Wyndle's nature, whether the Nahel bond is unique to Honor, or the nature of Odium's spren?

I mean, I loved the book. That said, I think a lot of the complaints stem from the fact that Brandon took a few deviations from what Robert Jordan had been planning. I couldn't tell you everything (half the reason I read the series was 'cause I was a Sanderfan right from the start) but one thing I did hear had to do with the re-opening of Logain's storyline. In Jordan's version, he was not supposed to be once again struggling with angsty selfishness which, in AMoL, very nearly got a whole bunch of people killed before someone snapped him out of it. It's something I wished Brandon had left as-is, since it felt a little out-of-place with the rest of the book; it wasn't something that was noticably foreshadowed or an established character trait. Still, like I said above, I still really enjoyed reading the series. And if parts of it were only thirteen and a half times better than what I can write, instead of the usual twenty? I can deal.

Dang man. First theory post and you're already making posts I can only dream of. I love the idea that the Heralds were gods to the Shin more, even, than the Almighty was. I love the deduction about their refusal to acknowledge the coming of the new Desolation. My only hesitation is on the worshipping of Stone. I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense that the Shin reverence of stone preceded the Heralds' abandonment of duty. Imagine, instead, a scene in which two glowing men appear wearing armor the proto-Shin can have no grasp of (considering Taln assumes he will have to teach humans bronzeworking, it's safe to say the proto-Shin would have been quite primitive, by the standards of modern Roshar). Now, so far, we are in agreement. But if those inexplicably powerful beings come to you over the most sacred medium, if they walk over stone to reach you? What can they be except gods? From there, I want to go just one step more. We know that to take up an Honorblade, like Szeth did, is to be shunned, cast out. But what if the very taking of the Blade entailed blasphemy? What if the first Truthless was a Shin who simply walked over the stone to reach the Blades? It's an easy enough scene to picture. Some young Shin looks out over the sacred ground, sees what was left behind by the gods, and says, "They left it behind for us, didn't they? They must have intended one such as I to do the unthinkable one day." So he does, he comes back to his village and announces all he has seen and done. His village is horrified, he has lost all grasp of the truth (truthless); they cast him out and he, in his frustration, self-loathing, and loneliness, becomes a sellsword surgebinder with a very loose moral code. The story is told as a tragedy and maybe a few generations later a Shin commits an unthinkable crime which his people are searching for the right punishment for. Someone brings up this story as the worst possible fate a Shin could suffer under. They go back and say "You are to walk across the stones, take up a Blade, and kill for the sake of others, but never for yourself." Rinse and repeat for thousands of years, and that could sum up the Truthless tradition pretty well too.

Hm. Yeah, maybe just an assumption on my part. I was drawing a connection between the mentally unstable (who can be influenced by Ruin) and those affected by Hemalurgy. But, thinking about it, probably just a correlation there. Two different but unrelated ways of reaching the same thing (a damaged Spiritweb). Sorry 'bout that.

Actually, it's been my understanding that taking a spike does import some measure of the spiked person into your own Identity, making you less mentally stable (and more easily influenced by Ruin). When Kell, as Preservation, saw Spook, Spook was cracked as all heck. Ruin had been enlarging those cracks, sure, but he didn't create them, that Hemalurgic pewter spike did. I could be misinterpreting that though; it certainly wouldn't be the first (or last) time. Well argued, hwiles. I still don't fully agree with your interpretation of Straff's experience, but hey, who said I was so smart? I leave you to your opinion, knowing it very well might prove closer to the truth than my own.

I have to question your implication that one's sense of self is a matter of the cognitive realm. A friend's compliment pleases me, not because I think, "I am a person who cares what my friends think of me," but simply because that is who I am. I do not think about it at all; it has no place in the cognitive realm. Unless you were only trying to argue against my last point that Rioting and Soothing may touch on the Spiritual realm? It's a fair point. If I were to suddenly find myself happier because of a Rioter, it would have nothing to do with a reaction to my surroundings based on my Identity. It is simply a transitory state of mind which I happen to be in. So, consider me corrected.

It's a fun idea, but it doesn't quite go one for one. I think the case study here is Straff Venture, who had all his emotions duralumin Soothed by Vin. His description of the experience, I think, made it clear that, while he did briefly feel no emotion whatsoever, he was never any less... Straff. That lack of emotion felt horribly unnatural to him, indicating that his Identity was still at full strength; he knew that he ought to care about his experiences, even though he was momentarily incapable of doing so. I think that, had his Identity been suppressed, he would not have seen the experience as something so horrific after the fact. That said, I agree that Soothing and Rioting probably happen at the Spiritual level, but they are invaders to the other person's Identity. In other words, they do not shrink or grow said Identity, so much as they graft bits on (or chop them off).

So, (I think) Bands of Mourning told us that storing Identity Connection lets you speak the language of the country you are currently in. You're not from anywhere, so the world auto-corrects you to the land you are currently walking/flying around in. This raises two questions in my mind. 1. If Identity is stored in an unkeyed metalmind, couldn't an Identity Connection Ferring then (now, bear with me) store their own identity into one metalmind while tapping an unkeyed metalmind into which Allik had stored his own Identity in order to speak Allik's language? I know Marasi's attempt didn't work, but she was trying to simply store her own Identity Connection, which left her country of origin auto-corrected to the exact same thing it always was. 2. Would tapping Identity Connection allow for use of the Metallic Arts off-world? Backing up for a moment, while the various Shards and planets do have different magic systems, their power sources are- on some level- compatible, as evidenced by the art of Compounding. So, if you're really, really sure that you're from Scadrial, would the resident Shard's power be "fooled" the same way that you can "fool" the power behind Allomancy into fueling your Feruchemy? EDIT: Okay, so first off, it is apparently Connection, not Identity, which I was thinking of. Thank you for the correction, and my question has been fixed in that regard. But you have also challenged a second assumption of mine. Pagerunner and Belzedar, you said that it was actually tapping Connection, not storing it, which let Allik and his people speak the language of Elendel's inhabitants. 1. Is this what you meant, or a simple mistyping? 2. If it was, what does storing Connection do? Would it be possible, say, for Marasi to forget her own language if she had tried storing, instead of tapping, that unkeyed Connection metalmind?