Jondesu

Electric guitars can also play chords behind things too, and acoustic guitars can be used for incredible solos, and…yeah, I agree with you. EDIT: An amazing example to me is "Perspicuity" by Phil Keaggy, Wes King, and Scott Denté, three of the most amazing guitarists I've ever heard (though there are of course many others who are equal or better). This is it on Spotify if you want to hear:

Here's something random and very weird to me. Last night, I had a vivid and engaging dream that had a scary number of details that were entirely accurate. It started with me planning to go to some event or conference (my brain never filled in the detail of what) that Brandon had also decided to go to, and somehow, he contacted me and invited me to spend the night at his house before heading up to the event together. I think about this point I was actually beginning to realize that this wasn't real, but it felt very real except for the fact that large portions of time just skimmed by without me realizing it (but in a dream, you're rarely aware of that happening, and I was aware of it). Then, on the way up to whatever event it was, he stopped for a signing at a little bookstore, but there was hardly anyone there, and the only person I saw ask a question before me asked whether there was a bisexual character in the Stormlight Archives, to which Brandon responded "Shallan", and I commented that he'd already told us that in a previous event. Which is totally true, basically. Then, I started looking around for a book to buy and have him sign, since I hadn't brought my copy of The Way of Kings (which in real life is the only book by him I own in a physical form), but the only book I could find of his was Elantris, and I really wanted to get Arcanum Unbounded or White Sand. Failing to find those, though, I went back and picked up Elantris, and took it to him to sign, and asked him the same question I had posed in the Ultimate Questions thread: "Have any Shards been shattered without Odium being involved?" Unfortunately, my dream ended about there and he didn't answer. So yeah, very weird to me.

Bam, that's amazing, @Rasarr! Thanks!

You know, I've been a proponent of the lesser/cousin spren idea for a long time, and had never really thought about that detail. I don't think it's exactly like the measuring idea we saw, but there may well be a connection, and you're right, that may be why it doesn't scream (instead of just them being non-sentient spren).

Transformers

I checked out White Sand from the library and read it, but I already returned it. I'm planning to run a Sanderson Elimination game set in Lossand, though, and wanted to see if ya'll could remind me of the names of places and characters we see (and were there any specifically involved in criminal activities?). Thanks if so!

I would think that all depends on how you define Harmony. In the case of the Shard combining Ruin+Preservation, I would argue that would still be very physical in nature; the harmony between decay/entropy, and preservation. Remember, just because Sazed calls the Shard Harmony, it doesn't suddenly have a new Intent unconnected to its parts. It's merely the sum of both, which does give something a little bit new, but not changing the Intents of the original Shards, merely melding them.

Hmm, I'm not familiar with those religious beliefs, so that's interesting to know. That does put that one back on the table potentially, though in the context of Adolnasium and the information we have, I still don't feel like it quite fits.

I suspect that turning someone into a koloss is more complex than simply giving them four human strength spikes. Like with the creation of a Hemalurgic spike in the first place, I would assume there is a Cognitive aspect to it: you need to have the Intent of creating a koloss (or whatever other Hemalurgic construct applies, like an Inquisitor). Putting four strength spikes in a human without that intent would just give them the strength of a little less than 5 people (depending on the power loss), but wouldn't turn them into a koloss, but you might be able to make a different type of construct with fewer spikes if you had the right intent. Kandra only have two spikes, after all, though they start out as mistwraiths, which were specifically designed for that by The Lord Ruler, so that doesn't necessarily mean a human could be made into any type of Hemalurgic construct with only two spikes.

I think I'm probably in the minority camp (with you perhaps, it looks like) that really wishes Szeth had died and stayed dead. His part in the story seemed like it was over, and now it's just being stretched out. I'm sure Brandon has a very cool purpose for him, and I may completely change my mind once he reveals it, but I find myself wishing both that he'd left the original ending (Kaladin killing him) and that he hadn't been resurrected.

You can just put [*spoiler] in front of the spoiler text, and [*/spoiler] after (remove the asterisks), and that works no matter what type of browser you're working in.

The only way I can see it fitting into the narrative is if Helaran is somehow involved in Shallan's progress as a Radiant or else in one of the secret societies. I do agree that it would push back against the idea of death being more final; in any series like this there will be characters that come back from being apparently dead (Brandon certainly set the scene for that with Kelsier, albeit in a unique way), but the more often he does that, the less impact real deaths will have, so he knows to avoid it (he's said that, of course). I would be very surprised if Helaran turns out to be alive.

There's a whole host of new details we learned, and many we haven't really placed yet. I mean, we learned about The Beyond, and what seems to hold or draw Cognitive Shadows to it or keep them from going to it. We learned a whole host of new information about the Cognitive Realm, since we hadn't really seen it except in Jasnah or Shallan's experiences in Shadesmar, which is a very different looking version of it, and we didn't even know how the Cognitive Realm would appear for different worlds, if it was indeed different (clearly it's very different). Just the very layout of the Cognitive Realm and how Kelsier was able to travel off Scadrial's actual surface while running straight, though he was apparently unable to truly leave Scadrial (I think the Ire were in the space between Scadrial and other systems, but in the neutral zone close enough that he wasn't restricted, though Ruin was by virtue of being Cognitively hampered as well as more bound to Scadrial). There's so many possible things we can draw from it, and yet none of them will be fully understood until we see them put in context in other stories, probably.

I will say, while that's true for me and many readers, if Penny feels strongly that she needs to know and be prepared, and has experienced it before, that may simply be her personality. After all, some of the movies and books I've enjoyed the most (outside of Brandon's works) have been one in which I already knew the story from the other medium, like Lord of the Rings and The Hunger Games, where I read the books first. I didn't need the stories to be unspoiled; I needed the stories to be engaging and compelling.

That was a great analysis of another way to classify the Shards, and I think it's good insight, though I wouldn't want us to rely too much on any one specific model, since Brandon probably has a more complex concept already in mind (I'm thinking less of a spectrum or grid, and more like a tesseract ). It's really helpful to get those new perspectives to help us narrow down (or expand) the possibilities for new Shards. I do have to note, though, that neither Caution nor Revolution would be considered Godly Attributes by any of the religions I'm familiar with. God has no need to be cautious since he's all-knowing (granted, Adolnasium wasn't all-knowing, as far as we can tell, but it's still an unlikely attribute for a God), and Revolution would in fact be what killed him, but again wouldn't be something a God would do, even just as an aspect of himself. We need to keep that guiding idea foremost in this process, I think, since that's one thing Brandon has made very clear: the Shards are aspects of Adolnasium's personality and power, separated from the others that gave them context, but part of the whole. The others I like, except I would suspect that Judgement would be Honor or Honor plus another Shard, rather than a distinct Shard, but that could be viewed a few ways, so it's certainly possible.

I'll say this, I think the reason you're catching flak is because your theory ignores many things people have come to take for granted, but at the same time, I'm not sure those things are necessarily true. You're challenging the status quo, which shouldn't be something causing you so much trouble, but it typically does. Don't stop, though! That said, you have been a bit abrasive at times, so that might affect it too. I really do like your ideas, and it does make sense if you throw away some of the basic understandings we decided we believe, but that may be misinterpretations of Brandon's statements. I'm still semi-new here myself, so I think some of those things haven't sunk in as much for me as those who have been around for longer.

Exactly, Vasher not knowing how to Awaken with Stormlight wouldn't mean much if he was totally separate from the Five Scholars and the first God-King, but… he was the first God-King. If he doesn't know how, and obviously the treasure isn't just Investiture, but Breaths, because he doesn't know how to use other Investiture (or at least Stormlight) to Awaken far into the future from that time, so he obviously couldn't then either.

Sorry, DA, would have worked one up myself, but I started feeling sick and have had to come home and sleep it off. I probably won't post again before rollover.

Honestly, I don't even know how ridiculous that is. It might not be what Brandon is planning (in fact it probably isn't), but it's awesome nonetheless.

@randuir, did you just...cut off Eshonai's hand? *Vader flashbacks* As for the lynch, it seems people don't have a lot more to say, but I do still want to see people vote. No point in tagging them again, but let's not let this wonderful game die due to inactivity.

Freddie Mercury

Actually, The Lord Ruler didn't make them. It was Kelsier, though I assume he intentionally told them that's who he was for some reason. The memory from the coin that Hoid gives Wax along with some other descriptions gave it away, though I don't recall if we have a WoB confirming it.

Huh, hadn't heard of it. http://brandonsanderson.com/dreamer/ for those who also hadn't heard about it.

@Rage, just so you know, the forum rules (and the members) frown on posting in threads that have gone dead, and since the post before yours here was from Feb 2016, it's pretty well and truly dead. We don't tend to like Lifeless threads around here. Just one of those things I know you have to learn when you're new, so no big deal, but try to look at the dates in the future.

By my count we have 6 votes to free Drake, but we need...12. 11 if Aman rounds down. Yeah, sorry, Drake, but the Unjust wouldn't let us get to that based on numbers. Not changing my vote of course, since I want to see Arin's alignment, but I do find myself a bit sad we didn't pull it off largely due to inactives. @Elbereth, @TheSilverDragon, you were here, can you please come back and play? And if we didn't have a strong lead on someone, I'd say we'd have to imprison the inactive @JUQ and @The lazy anarchist, since they're going to make it difficult to even execute someone, which means we'll have virtually no hard information except from Elim kills, which is a bad situation. Hopefully the Dustbringer will be village and can help us out. EDIT: We also only have 7 votes to execute Arin. With 15 free players (I almost said active players ) we need 8 to execute, so we're okay with my vote manip, but it'd be nice to see that more decisive to avoid any shenanigans beyond the Elsecaller blocking us (but they'll be revealed if so, if I understood Aman correctly). EDIT 2: @A Joe in the Bush, I just wanted to let you know I did go back and confirm that I was just somehow way off on your Honor count. I think I counted 6 instead of 5, but that just means Aman must have been stricter on something one of those rounds. Didn't want you to think I'd forgotten, though. EDIT 3: While I'm tagging people, we need votes from @Assassin in Burgundy, @DroughtBringer. and @Shqueeves as well, in addition to the people I've already tagged. EDIT 4: RP! Kintas pulled himself up short as he noticed the storm. He shouted to the nearest of the Alethi soldiers, telling them to go warn the others that the storm that was nearing was the Everstorm, in case others hadn't noticed as well. It was easy to get mixed up in this type of fighting and not notice something like that, especially since the stormwall itself wasn't visibly different. He turned back to determine what Shallan was doing, exactly. It seemed she was headed for an area near the top of the Rysharock itself, and as he watched, her arm disappeared around a perfectly smooth cut in the rock. That must be where Kaladin was; if he'd managed to cut himself a windbreak and a hiding spot before running out of Stormlight completely, he'd still be up there but could be in bad shape. Shallan had spheres with her, though, so he was certain Kaladin would recover soon. In the meantime, the storm was far too close, and they had to either drive away the Voidbringers or flee themselves, and either way, they would need a miracle to help them weather the Everstorm. There wasn't a whole lot of cover out on the Plains, and he certainly didn't want to be down in one of the chasms during this flood; it would make the flash flood they'd experienced the day before look like a puddle. He looked around and noticed the strange spren sitting on his shoulder again. He felt it pushing him to do something, say something. "I will go where others will not, and learn what others have not." He felt something shift, and drew upon his spheres, and inadvertently, the spheres of a number of Alethi solders around him. His skin glowed and when he exhaled, Stormlight flowed out with it. A faint glyph appeared in the stone beneath him, one he recognized now as the glyph of the Willshapers, stylized to look like… a flower, perhaps? He dropped to his knees, acting on instinct and the spren's urging, and pushed downward. The stone flowed as he did, molding itself into a new shape, rippling around him and causing short walls to appear between the soldiers and their opponents. It wasn't much, but it would throw the Voidbringers off further. He didn't know exactly what he'd done, but his mind filled in the basic conclusion: that was the surge of Cohesion! He'd come to study the Surges, among other things, but had never dreamed of experiencing them first-hand, considering the strict requirements of being Initiated here. He shoved aside his scholarly mind again, with more effort than before, and began to hunt for ways to use this new power. He wasn't sure exactly how he'd done it, so he hoped he could repeat the feat again.