ecohansen

For some reason Theoryland isn't letting me search right now, but I'm sure I remember WoB that Ruin's actions represent the "least harmful" interpretation of Ruin's intent. That would seem to imply that Ati still had a bit of influence on Ruin, which in turn would seem to imply that Ati wasn't completely comatose. I think.

A technical issue rather than a typo: when I read in Google Play, the book freezes after page 97. There doesn't appear to be pps 98-99: at page 97, I hae to manually type in page 100, and the text picks up from page 97 without a break. Did anyone else have this issue?

Welcome, Trampador! so wow. I've definitely got a lot more clarity on a number of aspects of the Cosmere now. Is Trell *Devotion*?!!! I never saw that coming. It's interesting that we never saw any direct interaction between Kelsier and Demoux. How do we explain Demoux' almost-miraculous knowledge in HoA? I've always loved the genre-hopping in Brandon's short standalones: Shadows for Silence let him tell a ghost story, Sixth of Dusk was a tropical adventure, AoL was a western, etc. I felt like this novella was a Grimms-esque fairy-tale, or a myth about a trickster-god. The genre choice let Brandon play a little more fast-and-loose with character continuity than he usually does. At first, I had trouble with the Ire section: these are people who have set up the most advanced outpost we've seen yet, and who are planning to steal a Shard from a living Preservation, under the nose of Ruin at the height of his power. Khriss, the most knowledgeable entity in the Cosmere, doesn't want to mess with them. And they're acolytes of Devotion, which we should expect means that they're utterly committed to their cause. In other words, they're the ultimate badasses. But Kelsier gets them to scatter and run with some spooky voices and some fire under his shirt? --It didn't seem believable. But then I realized the story Brandon was telling was the story of a trickster-God, like Coyote or Raven or Loki or Renard. Standards for believability in this genre are different from standards in other genres, and a lot of the best stuff ever written was in this genre--if you've never read Amos Tutuola's "The Palm Wine Drinkard and his dead Palm Wine Tapster in the Deads' Town", go read it right now. I have to admit I was a bit less immersed in this novella than in Brandon's others--there seemed to be a bit of tension between the plot and info-dumps. That said, the info was incredible, and I'll definitely be doing a re-read soon.

We have WoB that Nazh is from Threnody. The haunted-man's magic seems like a ighly-developed version of the system in Shadows for Silence, which takes place on Threnody. And the Haunted Man is actively trying to acquire a map, which is a very Nazh-ish thing to do. The white-haired man probably was Hoid, though, as I read it.

I thought Devlin was Nazh because I was an idiot. People were mentioning that Nazh was in the book, and Devlin seemed like the only person that remotely fit, even though there were tons and tons of difficulties. Then someone pointed out that Nazh was the haunted man in the broadsheet, and everything made sense. Ignore my blithering.

Two more thoughts. I'm assuming that the passenger who died, and who Mr. Suit promised would be so interesting, was the dead man who Marasi found together with the wounded man at the end of the second-class car. I'm assuming he was carrying the grenade. Any speculations on him? Templeton Fig, the albino-animal taxidermist, had a wife who was becoming progressively more gaunt. It was a very intriguing sentence. Any speculation on what's up with her?

Wow. Wowee. Second on the New Seran Hotel scene being Brandon's funniest yet...Although was Auntie Gin a Set spy? If so what did she do? So, were MeLaan and ReLuur a thing?--I'm assuming that that was why MeLaan was so sad that ReLuur would permanently lose his recent memories. Will Wayne have to compete with ReLuur in the net book? If we assume Devlin is Nazh and Braid-woman is Khriss, did they bump into Hoid at the party? Braid-woman seemed to only be interested in facts but Devlin had an agenda--does that mean he has motives that don't align with hers? Are there any other world-hoppers that either of them could be? If OreSeur had Kelsier's bones how could Kelsier have been spiked? Could The Lord Ruler's arms have been scarred when Vin ripped off his bracers? Could the person who came to the South Scadrialians still be TLR? After all, Allik said "he told us he was your king first. And your God." Kelsier was briefly God, but I don't recall that he was ever king. I'm assuming The Deniers of Masks are not one of the Five Nations--would it be safe to assume that they are a second Trellist faction, or something new? Allik seems to imply that Wax could power the airship fans with steelpushing--are they turbines running on push-flow, or are they rigged up to pistons or something, or is there a better mechanism I'm not thinking of? If they're turbines, what's the maximum efficiency they could have--would it be reasonable to guess that pushing on fan blades would give you as much as half of the forward energy that pushing on a solid anchor would? Allik's language seems to be germanic-ish, and 'ett' means the number one in Swedish and Norwegian. Any chance that ettmetal is "metal number one"--i.e., lithium, the first element on the periodic table that counts as a metal? It would be an interesting parallel to our world, where lithium batteries transfer energy from one place to another. Eh, that's all for now.

BOM spoiler

Yeah, no evidence on fllings--the Myth Busters gave a 'nope' to that one. But plenty of other things can pick up radio. For instance: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090205220913AAcnVCh

The minimum requirements for radio reception are an antenna, a ground, and something that can rectify the signal. Rust can rectify: WWII foxhole radios used rusty nails as rectifiers. Accidental radio reception occurs often, particularly near AM transmitters: you can find all sorts of stories from people whose fans act as radios. Certainly, a hammer will never act as a radio receiver, but it's established that there's electricity in the outlying cities, and if there are electronic devices lying around, they might act as accidental receivers.

So, everyone seems to be assuming that the talking metallic objects in the broadsheet are Awakened objects like a certain sword we know. But there's another way that you can get metallic objects to talk. We already know that the South Scadrians are "more technological" than the people in the north. In SoS, Harmony brought up the radio while specificall addressing the differences between north and south. So, how likely is it that the talking metallic objects are picking up radio waves broadcast from the south?

Spitballing here. So, there isn't an easy way for VenDell to have directly placed the earring from his pocket into the file. He gave the file to Wax early in chapter 4: It is only at the end of that scene that he pulls the earring out of his pocket--and the earring is not in a pouch. We don't know how long VenDell stayed afterwards, but the train left four hours later, and Steris would have had to have time to write a 27-page provisions list and go over it with Wax before leaving. Vendell would have to give them time to do that, and it seems unlikely that, in the space of a few minutes, he would have the chance to smuggle the earring into a pouch, and smuggle the pouch into the file, all under the nose of the word's best lawman. The next time we see the file is in chapter 6, when Marasi has it in the dining car. We don't know what happened to the file in the meantime, or how it was transferred from Wax to Marasi. Marasi chats with Wayne, then packs up the file, and an earring in a pouch slips out. How did it get there? Confusingly, when Marasi gives the file back to Wax, the narration says "She held up the pages VenDell had given *her*" (emphasis mine). Is this a typo, or does it mean something? So, there are three obvious questions: Is the file Marasi is reading the same one that VenDell gave to Wax? Is the earring in the file the same one that Vendell tried to give to Wax, or a different one? And who put it in the file, and when? Some possible scenarios: 1. VenDell somehow found a way to sneak the earring into a pouch, write the note, and sneak the pouch into the file which Wax already had, all during the visit. This would require a bit of prestidigitation, and it would make it super-cute that VenDell, like a magician, specifically had us pay attention to his hands by revealing that they were originally Breeze's. 2. VenDell gave one folder to Wax at the start of the visit, and another to Marasi at the end of the visit. 3. VenDell knew that Wax would turn down the first offer of an earring, and had already placed a different earring in the file before giving it to Wax. 4. MeLaan planted an earring (either VenDell's or a different one) after meeting everyone at the train. This would have some symmetry, since it was MeLaan who gave Wax his original earring. 5. Steris wanted to bolster her fiance's faith, and hid an earring for him. 6. Wayne slid the pouch into the folder during the conversation. Wayne definitely had the skills to do this, and we know that Marasi had been going through the folder for some time before Wayne came, but only noticed the pouch after he left. But what would be Wayne's motive? 7. Marasi has a haemalurgic spike, and the entity controlling her spike compelled her to plant the earring, and then forget about planting it. 8. Some completely unknown party did something completely offscreen between the two scenes. So, does anybody have a sense for which scenarios are most likely, and which can be ruled out?

We can be pretty sure that he didn't tell everyone he was Rashek: if they knew he was a Terrisman, that would give them a clue about the powers of ferruchemy, and encourage challengers. So the only people who knew he was Rashek were the Kandra and maybe the Inquisitors. For everyone else, he would have pretended to be Alendi. Alendi's friend network would have already helped Alendi conquer the world, and would be the most powerful people around. They would be useful tools. So, I think the in-text origin story for the nobles is correct: they are descended from the people who helped Alendi rise to power. Rashek just had to remain powerful and aloof, so they would think that Alendi had changed at the Well, rather than realizing he was someone else.

What about something like the medieval "doctrine of signatures"? Medieval herbalists believed that all plants were created for a purpose, and they would reveal that purpose with a "signature"--a clue hidden in their shape. So, liverworts have leaves shaped like livers, so they must be good for the liver. In other words, maybe potion-makers look for naturally-occurring glyphs in their ingredients. For instance, maybe pistils represent circular Hrovell, and your magic system is based on the arrangement of petals, sepals, and stamens around the pistil.

page 112, Kindle edition: There's an altercation between a customer and a price-gouging food-vendor: “I could get these at Elend’s stand for a fraction of the price!” the customer said. “Well, why don’t you go see if he has any left?” the cart owner said, nonplussed. The customer stormed off, leaving the cart owner with her sign proudly proclaiming the ridiculous price. "Nonplussed" has become an inherently confusing and irritating word. In the original French, "non plus" means "no more"--as in, "at wit's end." That's still what the word means in British English and in formal writing in America. But now, persistent misinterpretation of the "non-" part means that in America it's informally become synonymous with "unfazed". So, I'm not sure if the cart owner is at her wit's end, or unfazed. From the rest of the scene, I'm 90% sure she's unfazed, but I had to re-read, ejecting me from the narrative. In the US, this is just confusing, but in the UK it would definitely still be considered a typo--at least in the UK edition, it should definitely be changed. Even in the US, it'll cause readers mental pain and confusion. Also, page 80 refers several times to "a candelabra". 1 Candelabrum, 2 caldelabra.

One more society that we are definitely due to learn more about: the Devotary of Sincerity, the original followers of the Book of Endless Pages. I know they're a subgroup of the Ardentia, but they seem sufficiently distinct to merit mention.

I hate to keep riding this, but vindication, by the very definition of "statistically meaningful", it IS statistically meaningful. Our sample size is now five. We have one-tailed, two-category categorical data, and a spread of 5-0. Our p-level is therefore 0.03; the probability of the null is 1/32, and by the commonly-accepted definition of statistical significance as "significant at p=0.05", our data simply IS statistically significant. And now we have WoB that spren gender is significant. I don't know what this means aout Renarin, but by WoB, it means something. I am certainly not convinced that the Kholins are intersex or LGBT. But if the easy explanation goes away, can anyone propose an explanation that accounts for the consistent opposite-sex assortment early on, and also account for the same-sex assortment with the Kholins?

Oudeis, I'm not saying that the only two options are random gender association or association based on sexual preference. In the first post, I gave biological sex as an option, and in my last post I added gender identity. If nahel bonds didn't consistently result in opposite-sex pairings, I would have no reason to assume that sex or gender entered into it at all. But, in the order we were given evidence, they do: Thanks to Emerald's input, the probaility of the null hypothesis is now 1/32, which is statistically significant. A process that yields gender-sorted outputs must take sex or gender or some co-correlate of sex or gender into account at some stage. I have no idea why it yields these results, but i do know (with what is now 97 percent certainty) that explanations of the nahel bond won't be complete without explaining this gender assortment. So if all spren of a given order are the same gender, (all honorspren are female), then we still have to explain why they consistently choose opposite-gender radiants. If spren gender is chosen based on the psychological needs of Radiants, then we still have to explain why those needs so consistently manifest as opposite-gender. I don't know the root process, but I do know that the process must take gender {or something closely correlated with gender, if someone wants to propose what that might be} into account somewhere, because it gives gender-sorted results.

Vindication, from your earlier set of questions, I just found a partial answer to the other half of the Koloss question. AoL p. 170

9. We've seen several interactions between presumably-invertebrate chasmfiends and shardblades. What specifically do you want to know? 10. Your signature-line quote is from latish on in HoA, and refers to "my brother" singular, so we know he only knew about Zane at that point. I don't get the feeling that Elend would have had much time to learn about his other brothers before dying.

Oudeis: Mistorn: My basic position was that there seems to be some correlation between Spren bondmate choices and gender. Assuming spren sex is preexisting, it seems like they must be influenced by one of the following, although I don't know why. 1. Biological sex. This would imply that the kholins are XX, hermaphrodites, or intersex. 2. Gender orientation. This would imply that the Kholins are gay or bi. 3. Gender identity. I am sorry I neglected this one. This would imply that the Kholins are transwomen, and self-identify as lesbians. This could perhaps be supported by both Adolin's and Dalinar's preoccupation with fashion (in, as Sadeas pointed out, opposite ways). However, I don't really see this either. Those are all the options I can see. So, if we find all of them unlikely, do we conclude that we have proved that non-anthropoid spren sex is only perceived? edit: add'l speculation One speculation on why spren might choose to have this criterion: they want to maximize partnership and minimize rivalry, and so choose bonds that minimize the nastiness we commonly observe between hetero members of the same sex

Mistborn/Warbreaker

Emerald, I missed that. Thanks. To be clear, in the first post, I saw wallowing in the specifics of possible relationships as minor trolling, but the rest of the thread is legitimate fun and curiosity.

I noticed a process (Nahel bonding) that seems to sort people into opposite-gender associations. There is another very obvios process (sexuality) that generally does exactly the same thing. Before we can move on to other options, we have to dismiss the obvious one. As I said, I'm having fun with wild speculation. I'm also very drunk. I should probably shut up. I apologise. So if we assume that sexuality of non-anthropoid spren is only percieved, then we've got our explanation. If we assume their gender is innate, We could also move the null hypothesis in the other direction. Most of Brandon's characters are male. Therefore, the chance that two randomly-associating characters would be same-gender is higher than 50. Therefore, the fact that the first 4 nahel bonds are opposite-gender is even more striking.

I'm not being serious. I know the WoB that implies that Drehy is the only semimajor SA LGBT character to date. As far as I can tell, I'm pretty much straight hetero myself. However, I noted a statistical oddity, and I'm aware of the WoB that coincidences are uncommon in the cosmere, and thought I'd have some fun stretching both statistical and gender horizons. I'll start looking for exact quotes, but I'm absolutely positive Wyndle and Pattern are referred to as "he". Does anyone have a serious explanation for this statistical anomaly?