FeatherWriter

DID SOMEONE ASK FOR KITTEN PICTURES Also, this is how she wakes me up in the morning: Double bonus: here is a picture of her with everyone's favorite god of death Inquisitor. (She's the one in the back looking startled.)

Ayyy you'll hear me mention the word "anteverdant" when it comes up later down the line. I apparently missed it in this chapter, which is lame because it is also my fave. As for predictions, Bands is one of the few times that I actually managed to make some good predictions heyyy. I'm so pleased. STERIS DESERVES THE ENTIRE WORLD I WILL FIGHT FOR HER. And yep, oh god Markarth is the worst.

I warned you guys that I'm evil, right? I have all too much fun when my faves are in distress! Also, BoM will kick off next week, though I think we might move to Wednesdays rather than Tuesdays because it's easier on my schedule. Can't speak for the other podcasts like Shardcast though. That's a question for the other admins!

I ended up recording the two times that I was in line to get books signed and the questions I asked, so I've got pure transcriptions. Finally, Feather does something right at a signing for once. I didn't get through all the ones I had written down, but I got a few interesting tidbits! Feather: Is something wrong with Roshar's afterlife? Brandon: Uh, why do you ask? Feather: Because of the Tranquiline Halls stuff? Needing to reclaim them? Brandon: Um. So, I'm... not going to answer anything about Roshar's afterlife. Feather: Kay, alright. Feather: Do you know what color, off the top of your head, the soulcaster is supposed to be? First book said gold and the second book said silver. Brandon: It depends on the soulcaster. Feather: Is that a Peter...? Brandon: I believe silver is the accurate one. That's a PAFO, though. Feather: Is Iyatil from Southern Scadrial? Brandon: Iyatil (he pronounced it like yah-till) has heritage along those lines, but she is not. Feather: Is her mask Invested? Brandon: Mmm, no. Feather: Do the Ire age because they're not on Sel? Brandon: (uncertain) Uh, they do...? They... they age, but it's not the sort of aging that you and I do. Feather: Okay! Interesting... Oh, and because I must brag:

Eh, it's less expensive than flying to Salt Lake for the midnights and I've done that twice already.

Alas, San Antonio is a six hour drive for me, so no luck.

I'm in line as well, where are you?

Hello Sharders, I am here, live from SA. Planning on asking Brandon some questions later, but for now I'm just hanging out. I'm in a mistcloak if anyone wants to come find me. Anybody else here?

Khyrin, you know I'm nothing if not the queen of bad decisions when it comes to sleep.

Yeah I find it more likely that one of the other numerous Ventures is probably Douglas' ancestor, rather than there being some secret unknown child of either Zane or Elend. I mean, Elend, for certain, only slept with two people, Vin and the skaa girl his father forced him to bed, and the skaa girl was killed right afterward. Vin certainly didn't have any children. Zane might have conceivably had a child, I suppose, but he doesn't mention it all through WoA, and he dies at the end of that one, so we know he couldn't have had children afterward. With Ventures all over Urteau and Straff's numerous illegitimate kids, I just think it's more likely that one of them survived the Catacendre than that Zane or Elend managed to secretly have a kid. Also, welcome to the forums, Ones Above. Always fun to see new faces. (Quick note though, feminine pronouns for me, please!)

Actually, it's confirmed that Straff has lots and lots of children. He intentionally beds a significant number of mistresses in hopes of breeding Misting and Mistborn children.

My reaction to steelrunning was similar, considering it extremely broken as a power. Going into these books I'd always assumed that the steel just sped up your motions, but didn't actually change your perception of time. Like, driving a car really fast on the highway. Normal people can go 20 mph, but a Steelrunner could go 60mph. But driving your car faster doesn't give you more reaction time, in fact, you need to be more careful when going fast because you've got more momentum. I always assumed good Steelrunners would be those who could use their powers with precision and learn to control themselves at fast speeds. Having it actually change one's perception of time... it's incredibly broken, actually. Like was said earlier in the thread, it's basically a personal bendalloy bubble with fewer drawbacks. Not to mention, if you're thinking about compounding, then not only do you have unlimited speed, but you can also use that speed along with Coinshot powers. Terrifyingly effective, honestly.

Remember, Straff wasn't the only Venture that existed, even though we only focus on him, Elend, and Zane in the books themselves. They were a Great House. The Venture house was large, and historically based in Urteau, I believe. Though Quellion did try to do quite a bit of noble-exterminating, it serves to reason that there were possibly some Urteau Ventures who escaped. There's also the fact that Zane wasn't an heir. Elend was the only legitimate son. Zane was a bastard from one of Straff's mistreses, but he was one of many. Straff fathered quite the brood, and conceivably, any of them could have taken up the Venture name, feeling they had a right to it.

That reminds me... I'm gonna go word search it... Huh, it actually shows up in quite a few. Including Alloy of Law and Secret History. Go figure.

Fret not, I'm always here to drop some citations. For your perusal, times when it's mentioned that future sight is of Odium, bolding mine: And from Words of Radiance: So, yes the Vorin adherents are fairly convinced that future-sight is evil and of the Voidbringers. Hence why, even if Renarin's powers aren't Voidbinding, he'd have more than enough reason to keep them hidden from everyone. Nobody wants to get denounced by the church as a heretic and Voidbinder. Renarin doesn't have the protection of Dalinar's confidence and status as a Highprince. He's already an outcast, and terribly unsure of himself. When he starts seeing the future, he does everything he can to hide. Now, just because the ardentia says that future sight is of Odium, I don't necessarily believe that means it's true. There's a long and proud tradition of in-universe religions not knowing what's really going on. That said, that belief came from somewhere. Was it passed down from people who actually saw Voidbinding? Was it a teaching picked up after the Hierocracy? Did the Heralds warn against future sight? Is there something about it in The Arguments? We don't know. I am a proponent of the idea that Renarn's abilities aren't Surgebinding (or at least not Surgebinding on their own or a normal expression thereof) but that has less to do with what the ardentia teaches and more to do with the fact that his visions don't line up with what is known about Surgebinding. The fact that the church specifically warns against it only reinforces the theory, in my opinion.

[suicide Discussion Content Warning] I'm... not entirely sure where the idea of Kelsier moving on as suicide came from, but I assure you, I don't. I see this far more as a ghost moving on to be at peace than anything like suicide. Cognitive shadows are very much the "ghosts" of the cosmere. It's not suicide, because they're dead. They don't possess a body. They're in a space in-between life and the final resting place, but they are very much in an afterlife state. I don't think Vin choosing to go to the Beyond was suicide, as Kelsier made it clear that her moving on was a choice. I see it as a natural progression of life into death into the eternity. I'm sorry if I came across sounding like I wanted Kelsier to commit suicide, but, well I don't. And from my point of view, it's a little late for that. I mean, he kinda already did suicide via the Lord Ruler. (Though honestly, I don't really count Heroic Sacrifice on the same level as regular suicide either.) You could say that Vin committed suicide by throwing Preservation's power up against Ruin, but I'd say that's more sacrificial. Anyway I forgot where I was going with this, but I think you've misinterpreted my intent. If that was a fault of my wording, I apologize. [End Content Warning] SLEEP YOU DUMB NERD. (Also thank you.) While I appreciate new members of the Salt Brigade, having helpful, unsalty bystanders is also good. I like a lot of Pathfinder's answer to this. For me, it's very much a principle of intent. Kelsier's motivations are what I have a problem with more than anything. It isn't so much what he's doing as the reasons why. If Kelsier had decided to stick around for the good of his friends, because he didn't want to leave them yet, because he wanted to watch over them fondly from the other side, that would have been different. I also think there probably would have been less Hemalurgy involved in that case. I'll jump back to my ghost story trope that I used above. Kelsier's state has a lot of parallels with the traditional ghost story, and I think that's an intentional part of the way Cognitive Shadows are supposed to be. The cosmere has a technical reason for ghosts to exist, which is cool, but all in all, they're pretty much still ghosts. Secret History is a ghost story told from the ghost's point of view. Kelsier is the restless spirit who cannot move on because there is lingering ties and work holding him to the world. He has a task which must be accomplished—defeating Ruin— and he cannot go to the afterlife and be at peace until it is done. He must wander the world and attempt to help the living solve it before he can move on. Perhaps then, it was the subversion of the trope that gave me such a knee-jerk reaction. I felt like at the end of Secret History, our ghost's problem has been resolved. Ruin was defeated and Kelsier played his major role in it. Beyond that, a great number of the people who he was sticking around for were now moving on and passing to be at peace. It was time for our ghost to have his conclusion of release and fondly look back on what he did for the world while moving on to the next. And instead of that, we got the ghost saying "Well, thanks for helping me solve that. Sure feels good to have it accomplished. Now, I'm going to go bug my living friend until he figures out a way for me to come back to life for real, alright? Cool. Thanks." Like, not only was Kelsier messing up the end of his story (in a truly spectacularly Kelsier fashion) but he was doing it for his own selfish reasons and with no good justification why he wasn't following the script. Other than "Nah, don't feel like it." Looking back on it now, I'm wildly impressed that Brandon managed to tell a ghost story in which the ghost "nopes" out of moving on after his quest is solved like that because I think it's kind of a cool twist. But just because the literary analyst in me loves the trope subversion doesn't mean I think the character subverting the trope was being dumb, from an in-world perspective, to do it.

Please, never apologize for long threads, they're wonderful. I say so because I too often write them myself! That said, I disagree with this interpretation. I think when Brandon talks about being respectful to readers of all beliefs and making sure he doesn't alienate them, I think he's more focused on the portrayal of those kinds of characters. When he writes atheist or theist characters, he wants them to feel like real people and not have judgements passed upon them for the kinds of beliefs they hold. I don't think he is avoiding an outright establishment of an afterlife system in the cosmere. I have a feeling that most readers can understand that this is a fictional universe and Brandon's declaration of whether there is or is not an afterlife for the cosmere doesn't have any bearing on whether or not there is an afterlife in the real world. It's fantasy and the way their world works is not the way that ours does. We have no Investiture or Realmatics here. We as readers are not going to feel that our beliefs are judged because they don't line up with the cosmere. Which is to say, it's kind of a moot point anyway. Brandon has explicitly stated that there is an afterlife in the cosmere, and he's even explicitly stated that it's a happy one. We've known this since Hero of Ages annotations came out. However, in talking about Kelsier, there's no way he could have known this the way that we do. He didn't read the HoA annotations, obviously. That said, I still don't get the sense that Kelsier fears the Beyond. I'll admit it might be a small part of it, but I still read that his main motivations are curiosity and partially due to his own ego and desire to be involved still. And, again, just because good came out of it eventually in the helping of the Southern Scadrians doesn't change the initial decision. Kelsier wasn't thinking about/didn't know about the Southern Scadrians when he decided to stay. As they weren't a part of his decision making process, they aren't a part of my consideration of his motivations. I feel like I should also clarify, because I perhaps haven't made this clear: my salt monument being constructed over here isn't for Brandon. I don't have too much of a problem with Kelsier, as a fictional character, being kept around for narrative purposes. Yes, I think it cheapens his death in TFE a bit, but that's not enough of a qualm to make me hate the decision. On the contrary, I think Brandon executed this decision masterfully and, as I said, in a way which was completely in character for Kelsier. However, I certainly think this expression of Kelsier's character is one which highlights one of his flaws, that being both selfishness and ego. While it makes sense for Kelsier to have made this bad decision, given his motivation and personality, I still think it was a bad decision, and I'm annoyed at him, the fictional character, for it. Even if he later made something good of it, I think the wiser and "right' decision would have been to move on. If Kelsier wasn't so focused on himself all the time, he might have seen that. I love Kell. He's a great character and wonderfully complex. He's usually a joy to read about and he's fascinating. But he's got issues, and I think deciding to stick around shows one of those issues. Problematic fave, certainly. This decision of his falls squarely into the "problematic" category for me.

A point of clarification: The "seeing the future is of the Voidbringers" thing is definitely a Vorin teaching. Though they do denounce the Radiants as a whole, this seems to be the only power which they have specifically condemned as being of Odium. Ardents don't teach that walking on walls or creating illusions are of Odium. I think there's something to that teaching against future sight. It came from somewhere, and there's a reason behind it, I'm sure.

Chances are likely that I and my housemate will be at the San Antonio signing, if anyone will be attending there! Finally, a stop in Texas that only requires me driving five hours to go to... It's funny, I heard some people on other sites complainng that Texas got three stops, but well... we're kind of huge. Even the nearest to me is 5 hours away. On the tours where he only hits Houston that'd be closer to 8 hours for me. Texas, why must you be so gigantic?