KSub

I don't recall if this refers specifically to Sazed. At the end of Hero of Ages we would assume that it does but now? Kelsier is the Savior. It could be a prophecy of things we have not yet seen.

I was surprised so many people would be willing to give up their Breath knowing that it is actually harmful to do so. But then I don't think they did know it so maybe it's not that strange. Still, it's pretty dark that Awakening requires that people give up their connection to Endowment and make themselves weak. Basically Awakening is fueled by suffering. So every week the Returned are alive requires another person to suffer. I wonder how much that weighs on Vasher?

It worked! Thanks

Who do you think will be the adversary at the end of the Cosmere storyline?

It was spelled out that Endowment chose Returned for a specific purpose using futuresight. I realised that Cultivation did the same thing. Honor and Odium seem to grant surge binding to anyone they feel is worthy. Aside from Vin and Sazed, Preservation and Ruin don't seem to be selecting individuals. My point was that Cultivation and Endowment seem to only use people who have a specific purpose. Of course those with better futuresight will be able to do this better than the other shards, but isn't RODIUM supposed to be good at this. He doesn't want to spread his power, so wouldn't he also prefer to select a few individuals?

I tried to create a poll today but I just keep getting an error message when I try to submit it. Are polls broken?

Cultivation is using her powers to grant people surgebinding. She also uses her futuresight to grant the boon and bane that will help them at a critical moment. Cultivation is using these individuals to shape events. Someone else in the Cosmere has the same plan. Endowment grants people a Divine Breath and uses her futuresight to show them an important moment in their future then erases their memory. The Returned get little glimpses of that moment to push them in the right direction. How many other shards are using the same strategy? Was Odium selecting Unmade who would achieve something in a specific moment? That doesn't sound like something he would do. Harmony does speak to some people and is trying to control events but he does not grant any gifts, unless we count the Kandra.

As we understand it a Breath is granted to every Nalthian person when they are born. When I read Warbreaker I wondered how Vasher and other awakeners got so many breaths but didn't think too much about it. But there are a lot of Breaths Susebron has at least 50,000. The story kind of explains it away by saying the Godkings were given the breaths by Peacegiver. AKA Vasher. So where did vasher get so many breaths? The 5 scholars also burned through a ton of Breaths in their experiments. Nightblood used 1000 breaths to Awaken it. Kalads phantoms are said to be better than normal lifeless. If they required the traditional 50 Breaths each and there were only 20 phantoms that would be another 1000. And that's just two of their experiments. The scholars must have taken every Breath in Hallandren. Did they require the people to give up their Breaths? Remember that the Returned also expend a Breath each week, so the 5 scholars are using 250 each year. Also, when someone gives up their Breath it makes them weaker than someone who had never possessed a breath in the first place. They are more prone to illness and depression and typically have a shorter life span. It really makes Nalthis a lot darker. So are people being forced to give up their Breath? On whose authority is it happening?

Despite the quote Quantus provided I think Endowment selects all of the Returned to fulfill a fairly specific purpose. Brandon seems like he's trying hard to not be specific when he's answering that question. I think Endowment is using futuresight to select Returned that will further her goals. When one of them dies before fulfilling their Purpose it could throw a wrench into her plans. She is playing a long game however, so it's like losing a piece in a game of chess. She didn't plan for it but she just needs to adjust her plan.

That just broke my brain. I'm even more excited for a silver light book!

One of my all time favorite games. Amazing story, a wild cast of characters that somehow work within that crazy world, so much world building hinting at all of these other planes of existence. The game play was okay at the time but would seem slow and dated today. However, walking Sims are a thing so why not. What can change the nature of a man? planescape:torment

Yeah Xerun you're right about the way in which the shards died, but I think they become cognitive shadows after picking up the shard. I don't think you could remove the power after that and go back to normal. But the shards do leave corpses when they die so who knows. Also, I'm not sure if Brandon talks directly about Adonalsium in any of his unpublished work, but I don't think we have confirmation that Ado is a person.

Glad you caught it. My out there prediction: the merchant is one of the sleepless.

It definitely read like someone using atrium and I believe there was an atrium industry in the cosmere. That being said I don't think ishar is using atrium, but could have some crazy bondsmith equivalent. Of course we can't rule out the fact that the heralds are... the heralds, individuals who have been battling the fused and who knows what else for thousands of years.

I found Shallan to be very frustrating too, but I think Brandon did this intentionally to illustrate how difficult it would be to deal with multiple personalities. That being said I wasn't particularly fond of many of her chapters because of that. Also all the times Shallan would hide made me want to scream. Get your $#!* together shallan!

The dark haired merchant fished through his pockets, retrieving his pipe. He watched as the soldier walked out of his shop, one of the strange creatures zipping around him. 'So, that's the one they call Stormblessed,' he thought, 'a hard name to live up to.' And he knew the burden of a name better than most. He hadn't met the man before this but he felt a strange kinship. He absently searched his pockets again, looking for his flint then frowned at the unlit pipe.He looked around the shop and, finding himself alone, raised the pipe to his lips. A wisp of smoke curled up from the bowl.

I've wondered this before, but from everything we've seen losing that kind of investiture doesn't usually end well.

Its a good theory as far as things on Roshar are concerned. I think the rhythms are likely connected to cultivation. But when it comes to the other worlds in the cosmere I think its a bit of an over reach. Brandon based all his magic systems on real world physics which can generally be described by frequencies. That doesn't mean that the real world is influenced by music and neither would scadrial or sel. I've also wondered whether its music or just rhythms. From the scene in RoW where they are learning to grow plants, the ardents are beating a drum, no melodies needed. And of course the singers talk about the rhythms not music.

Page runner, have you seen a WoB that states there are no other shards in the Taldain system because I've only seen this one: http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1076 It's #18. He specifically says Autonomy is the only one ON the planet.

Hoid likes bacon.

I thought it was a 50 year gap

We all know there are 16 shards. Harmony is 2, endowment 3, devotion and dominion 5, honour, cultivation and odium 8, autonomy 9. So that leaves seven we don't yet know. From WoB we know that there is a shard that does not inhabit a planet. There is one more already splintered. And there is one that just wants to hide/survive. That leaves 4 officially unaccounted for. What else do we know? 1.There is a red (was it mist) surrounding Scadrial. There's the red spike made from a metal Harmony can't identify. These are presumably from the same shard. Who that is, will hopefully be revealed in the Lost Metal as Brandon teased us with that at the end of Shadows of Self and basically hasn't mentioned it since. 2.Brandon has answered a few questions regarding Taldain, the planet to be featured in White Sands. He had said that Autonomy is the only shard ON Taldain(my emphasis) and when asked whether Autonomy is the sun god of Taldain Brandon RAFO'd it. This leads me to believe that there may be a shard on Taldain's sun who is not autonomy. But if this is the shard that is not on a planet then that means the red stuff around Scadrial is from a shard on a planet. 3. There is a shard that just wants to hide/survive and there is a planet that can't be located. There may be another reason why Yolen can't be found as we know literally nothing about it at this time. But it is a bit of a coincidence. 4. There is another shard world, Vax, which we know nothing about. That's all I can think of. Let the theories fly!.

I'm pretty sure the focus is bonds

Confused, I think that if you received down votes it was either something people Very strongly disagreed with or they were just trolling. The Internet is full of chulls. In regards to the shattering, I believe that splintering a shard is exactly as it sounds. Get a shard to divide their power until they are sufficiently weaker than another shard(odium/ruin) and then the second shard can forcibly break the remainder of their power.