dj26792

I'm coming to this topic a bit late, but I think a lot of people are making the same mistake about harmony as they are Devotion, Devotion isn't quite the same as Love, Harmony is quite different from Balance, things don't have to be the same, or even in balance to be harmonious, think about music, a harmony isn't (generally) an octave out and the same note, but a 3rd or a 5th. Harmony has aspects of Balance but its more about agreement and acceptance, adding devotion and dominion to that would be difficult to make into one word, but it would involve leadership inspiring unity, adding Honour would make an excellent Monarch... it would also make for a combination of intents that would make quite a counter to odium, preservation of self, ruin of the enemy and the devotion to see the job done... not sure how Dominion fits in there.

A lot of people are struggling with ideas of what could be the focus because of things not matching the definitions given by Mad Scientist and Chaos at the start of the thread, not to belittle the genius of Chaos and Mad scientist but has anyone considered that maybe the definitions are wrong rather than peoples ideas, a while back a lot of people seemed quite comfortable with the idea of a spiritual focus for surgebinding and then someone said it couldnt be because it didn't match the definitions WE came up with, but I personally still think the spiritual focus could be right, we don't actually know all that much about what a focus is, we know what is used as a focus in allomancy, or in awakening, but the specific definition of a focus in Realmantic terms is still only a theory. The focuses we know the most about are the commands in awakening and the metal in allomancy, and from that we have a broad definition it specifies the power, the shape of the metallic structure of pewter allows the thug to be stronger while the tin shape lets the tin-eye see better. The cognitive loop of the command shapes the breath to form the desired effect of the awakening. The shape of the persons spirit determines what kind of spren they attract and thus what powers they get, ie a spiritual focus. The biggest problem with that theory is that our other known focuses are also triggers, burning the metal to gain the effect, saying (thinking) the command triggers the awakening, but we don't know for sure that that is part of being the focus or just a coincidence. I'm not sure I said that very well so if it makes no sense to you I'll try again but it makes sense to me.

I think that we've been told what the 2nd oath does, it makes your use of stormlight more efficient, Kalladin demonstrates all of the wind runner powers after taking only the first oath, and in fact subconsciously before he's even done that he is helping himself fight better and deflecting arrows into the bridge to protect himself. I think acting in the right way, and gaining the right spiritual condition get you the bond and the powers and after that the oaths strengthen the bond and focus the bond to make it more efficient and more powerful. I know this theory is about symbolspren for Shallan and potentially Jasnah and Elhokar, but I think the Radiant's powers all work essentially the same way, and so what we've seen of Kalladin's development will be true of Shallan's and was/will be true of Jasnah's.

And Peter has beaten me to it, but we actually know for certain that there was at least 1 desolation after the Radiants were formed, and thus presumably after Nohadon's time since he founded/inspired the Radiants. I personally think there was a lot more than one however, as the Heralds attitude to them doesn't seem to line up with someone who just got a new army of super soldiers to use in their impossible battles, which is what it would have been when the Radiants first fought in the desolations.

Thats really well thought out Satsuoni, I need to take some time to work through all of it more thoroughly but at the moment I think I like it.

They are, Kelek's thoughts are interesting, but they need to be rethought if they're based on a difference between shadesmar and the cognitive realm, although so far as I can tell from what he wrote, they still work even without any difference between the two.

There are some seriously good characters in there, I know its really decided by the voting rather than the actual character strengths, but there could be some cool fights in the Suvudu cage matches if they get a good writer.

I think that you're refering to the different gems being used for different types of soulcasting, but what Jasnah is talking about is an inability to perform complex soulcasting that creates organics, she is capable of soulcasting organics, she does it at least once in the books, but she repeatedly comments that she isnt very good at soulcasting organics, hence the objections to order 5

yeah I like that, emotion definitely seems more spiritual than cognitive in cosmere terms, I don't think that more breath would neccesarily add to the emotion you feel even if losing breath makes you less emotional, it could just magnify the effect of strong emotions, on your spiritual aura.

Well if lighweaving is pre-shattering and allows for worldhopping, obviously pre shattering some people could have had an understanding of magical theoryand as such named the planets that for whatever reason were capable of sustaining magic of the type neccesary for a shard to take up residence, even if they didnt realise what they were measuring.

Ok. Lots to talk about, not sure I have time at the moment, but I'll start anyway. There have been immortals of some form or another in all of Brandon's (cosmere) books, Elantrians could heal themselves of anything and continue to live as long as they chose, Returned so long as they could find breaths would live on, and any awakener who reached the 5th hightening becomes functionally immortal, Mistborn, compounding Atium, although rare makes immortality possible and the Kandra are also immortal. The shardblades will cut through anything that isnt alive, so cutting through the shell of the pupating chasmfiend is understandable, after its dead the sword will begin to cut through rather than just killing. However I do like your argument, and I was wondering if you had any more reasoning behind the chrysalis being made out of stone? We know that soulcasting is a subset of surgebinding, and that surgebinding covers all the magic of the radiants. The current theory (as far as I'm aware) is that the Dustbringers are an order of Radiants. We have no idea what surges they bind, or even what number they are in that regard, your guess is as good as mine, or better actually since I haven't actually made one in regards to this issue... (wow, loading up on the pretention here) Thats an interesting spin on the Oathpact, I still haven't read a theory on the Oathpact I like, but yours comes awful close. Ok, I think I'm done for now

the bi-products like a small little bit of steam that would have been diffused by the force of the fire as it burnt almost invisibly? We're talking about an 02 H2 mix, we're going to get water, in the form of steam and it is very easy to imagine it diffusing invisibly after combustion.

If he was transformed to a burning particle he could have easily burnt before he had a chance to diffuse, I dont think it causes any difficulties that diffusion wasnt noticed in that particular case.

I think that the same 10 types of surgebinding have always existed and always been powered by bonding with the same 10 types of spren, it makes it far too complicated otherwise, there is no (currently known) mechanic in the magic system that would be able to change the nature of the magic system itself. So I think all he is saying is that not all the qualities that you can have to gain surgebinding necessarily require wisdom, or even common sense as prerequisites, I know some pretty stupid people who are a brave and obedient, and some even worse who could be considered to be loving and healing, and don't even get me started on order 10, pious and guiding, that covers every religious nut job the world over (note, I am a christian, not all religious people are crazy). Without some kind of framework of honour and training to ensure that the surgebinders were intelligent well rounded individuals, such as the orders of the Knights Radiants there was no way to ensure that surgebinders would be 'good' people. So what I think Nohadon was saying was damnation I wish all the spren would pick people as determined to help their communities as the people that the honourspren choose.

yes it is very possible that he lived out his natural life with his wife before he started worldhopping. When he compounds age he stores youth in atium metalminds making himself older, then when he burns the atium metalmind he can either burn it as atium, or he can burn the age stored in it, when he burns the age he gets back more than he originally put in making himself younger than when he started and giving him more age to store in another metalmind, and repeat. If he used some of the excess age released to make himself younger he could theoretically gradually make himself younger and younger until he was satisfied.

but you might be able to use the zombies to create spikes for turning your 'friends' into Koloss to unleash on a large hoard of zombies, 10 Koloss could do a hell of a lot of damage to just about any number of zombies.

I'm thinking more as a get out of jail free card than as something to use all the time, don't run around getting into fights, even for a full mistborn that would be risky, and in any kind of apocalyptic scenario you want to avoid risks where you can, but sooner or later you're going to be caught out and when that happens it really is the best way to do a lot of damage quickly, whatever weapon you use.

It might be cheating but I think i would have to go for (HoA spoilers)

I think thats a very good point, magic must have been around before adonalsium shattered, as much as they are anything else, the shards are pieces of Adonalsium and that has to be the crucial fact of their existence, Preservation was the piece of Adonalsium that preserved things, ruin was the piece of adonalsium that ruined things, Odium contains all of Adonalsiums capacity for hatred, and either also or as part of that they control a portion of the magic he made available to humans in some form or another, but however they have the control it is warped by their intent... and I typed all that before I really thought where I was going with it, but when I stopped and though about it I had an idea. I realised that all the intents we've seen have matched up with the method of gaining power, to gain preservations power you have to see a chance at being destroyed and choose to preserve yourself, a cognitive process for a cognitive intent, Honour is more of a spiritual condition, an honourable man doesnt think about being honourable, his spiritual state doesnt allow him the choice, and to receive honours magic system you have to fit spiritual criteria, Kalladin didnt choose to protect people or lead people he literally couldnt live without protecting and leading those who needed him. The others so far as I can tell seem to fit too, ruin is fairly cognitive, and to get access to it all you have to do is choose to ruin someone the right way, endowment, endowing is cognitive and so is the choice to give away your breath, whether to awaken or to give away/sell. We don't know about cultivation, or Skai (assumed to be dominion), Aona as devotion is the only one where we really know the magic that I'm not sure about, because devotion could be considered to be spiritual or cognitive, but then I suppose you just have to be devoted to something so it doesnt really matter whether devotion is spiritual or cognitive, but I think its more likely cognitive. Obviously none of this is earth shattering, these are all things we already knew, phrased a little differently, but I think thats the point, Brandon obviously thinks he's given us the next clue, so we just need to look at what we know differently, as Belgarath the sorcerer (or perhaps Eddings?) taught me everything has a why. I've suggested a reason for why methods of gaining access to power are what they are, what are the whys for other things we already know?

Nice to hear from you, if you need help you'll be right at home here, but we may just make you worse.

And didnt he also say something about Demoux couldnt die/die yet because of a promise of some description anyway, so it really doesnt make sense for it to be anything other than Demoux real and in the flesh.

their economy is (probably) more primitive than ours, meaning (somewhat ironically) that it is more robust and less susceptible to that sort of problem.

yeah, I always just assumed he was being whiny, we have a culture where Sadeas is a model man, and Dalinar is crazy for being honourable, the knights being honourable (we assume) would cause a lot of whining, if people didnt have the power to fight it.

Im not sure it matters, I read Mistborn first and then WoK, then I think Elantris before Warbreaker, i read them both on the same day, the order is a bit blurry in my mind now... But I think in hindsight while it wouldnt make any difference I would read them in the order they were written, Elantris, Mistborn, Way of Kings, but that would just be to have a logical starting point rather than for any real reason.

I've seen both sides argued on the shardplate feeling, so I figured I'd include, and I've seen coherent arguements for all sorts of things regarding the gyroscopic section, which is rather ambiguous, hence I mentioned them both stating that there is no definitive explanation for them as either special or generic plate abilities. The plate enhances speed and strength, balance is a bit of a gray area, and whether that includes a gyroscopic effect is even more so, as I already said in this post, what I'm referring to is the crazy extra strength Dalinar shows off, eg: catching the chasmfiends claw when getting there should have been impossible even for a shard bearer, and also catching it should also have been impossible, even for a shardbearer... hence point 2 being exceptional speed and strength as in, even more so than normal plate, I'm suggesting that Dalinar was drawing in stormlight and that was making him personally stronger and faster and causing him to glow, and thats where the extra was coming from rather than merely being good with plate.