dj26792

I only started reading them last year, I've read lots over the years but I held off on moving up out of YA books lots longer than I should have, and then stuck to older authors like Gemmel and Eddings, finally one of my mates who reads basically the same stuff I do read them and loved them, passed them onto me, after Towers of Midnight came out, and 2 weeks later I'd finished the series and started hating on him for making me read something that wasnt finished, I hated waiting for authors up until very recently... thats how I found Brandons books, he was finishing WoT

this is what I posted before in the other thread were you mentioned this. Just thought I'd explain it better here cause I've been thinking since I posted that... A better explanation of ^ that, is the investiture is the connection to the shard through which the power flows. Most people (I would say all but that hasn't been confirmed to my knowledge) have a small innate connection to a Shard, which would explain why they block physical Allomancy, Shard blades and awakened objects also have investitures, the power of honour, or breaths in them respectively which is some kind of open conduit giving them power to do things they normally couldn't (clothes don't jump up and grab swords on their own) Hemalurgic spikes would then work by stealing one persons investment, and giving it to someone else. Feruchemical storages arent invested, they can hold power but there isn't really any sort of shards power flowing through them. I think that makes sense, but I've been known to be wrong about that sort of thing before... what do people think?

It has been mentioned in this topic before, but I honestly think the body focuses we've been given are the focuses, either that or there isnt one, Szeth doesn't do anything in particular, he just throws lashings around, they could be focused by particular parts of his body, ie the body focuses in the Ars Arcanum, or there could just not be a distinct focus, the user them self could be the focus, which would be effectively the same as the thought based focus idea everyone else seems to dislike so much EDIT: my wording was terrible and contradicted itself, so I changed it, distinct focus rather than focus

Jennifer Fallon is a great author, she tends to write sexually driven cultures which is irritating, but she also avoids putting non plot related sex in her books, which somehow works. You should try Wolfblade which is the first in her Hythrun chronicles trilogy which also has a sequel trilogy (Demonchild, which you could probably read first since I think Hythrun is actually a prequel, rather than demonchild being a sequel, the first book of that is Medalon)

I voted for the number of books in the series, because when I read it doesnt tend to matter how long the book is, I will read it in a day, 2 at the absolute most, at least the first time through. So I dont consider the length of the books when Im looking at a new series, except that longer is generally better, up to a point, because it means the story will tie me up for longer (I nearly died when I picked up tWoK, that good, and that long... it was a two day book, I forced myself to make it last that long, also only started at like 8pm)

(emphasis mine) Thats why I, and presumably also why CrazyRioter both said incapacitated rather than shattered, neither Ruin nor Preservation were shattered but both had pools, however they were both largely incapacitated. I personally now like Darniil's idea that the pools can be formed by active shards, but when the shard is incapacitated one aspect (which we assume is the cognitive aspect) of its power just sort of oozes out and gathers in a pool (at least I think thats what you're saying)

could investiture just be an object having and using magic, people included. Every example of an invested object we have is something that has an amount of a Shards power in it, like shardblades, or awakened objects, or hemalurgic spikes, but feruchemical storages aren't invested (they can be pushed) maybe its because they're batteries, rather than invested and if you could make some kind allomantic robot that burned steel and iron and flew around the place it would be invested too. we know people and things inside them cant be pushed or pulled, maybe thats because of the piece of a shard inside them, they are invested people, and if you have a significantly greater investment you can over come your targets investment and still affect them

Because I'm not sure what you're saying there, this might actually be exactly the same thing said again: When we first see Kaladin using stormlight he has already attracted a Spren quite some time ago, and has been using it subconsciously for months or even years (I honestly can't remember how long it was since he was in the army). His powers are well developed and he has finally noticed (or been told) that he actually has them and is beginning to use them consciously. He has displayed honourable traits, and changed and is now noticing the change and learning to live with it. What I'm guessing, and I think Kelek is also trying to get at it, is that maybe Dalinar, is being honourable, and is attracting a spren, and will in books 2 and onwards go through the process of change we find Kaladin at the end of. I could probably say that in more words, but I already feel like I used too many to say not very much

Really? Hows being a chopped liver work out for you, seems like it would be painful umm, So I completely missed your theory when I read through it again before posting, obviously you're just more intelligent than everyone else, cause you came up with your theory before I did, and now apparently Cromptj also agrees.

So I honestly have no idea what I'm supposed to be saying about myself in this topic, but here goes nothing anyway. I am Australian, currently studying Maritime Engineering (Naval Architecture) (it means I draw pictures of boats, except not yet, cause I only just finished first year) in Tasmania, which is a hole, so terrible it was cordoned off from the rest of Australia by a whole ocean, and is generally bagged out by the rest of Australia at all opportunities, despite the fact that its not really all that bad. As you can probably tell, Im not actually Tasmanian, I'm from Sydney. I only started reading Brandon's books last year after starting to read the WoT series and coming to the end to find some new guy writing it, after that I saw tWoK on the shelf and read the prologue to see if the rest of his books were any good, worst move of my life, because it was the day of my first exam for the end of the year and I had no money... so my friend bought it and I borrowed it off him when he was done, I've since bought the ebook, but still want the hard copy because seriously ebooks are crap. And I think thats about enough, because I can't be bothered to type any more.

This is more on the original topic than the current discussion, but haven't all the shardpools we've seen belonged to shards that were at the time in some way out of action, preservation was tied up restraining ruin, ruin was trapped with his power massively restricted (by preservation) Aona was shattered, somewhere I read a theory that mentioned the tears of Egli being related to Endowment's shardpool, if thats true, well we know that Endowment was shattered as well. If this is right it would make sense that there is an honour shardpool somewhere, but we've only seen the first book in a 10 book series, its unlikely that we'd have seen everything thats important yet.

The question I have with all of these theories, is would it be believable for a society which has developed with ready access to Soul casting to have developed them, we know they can soul cast large and complex structures into different, materials eg: barracks from air, and that they sometimes carve things from wood before transforming them to stone eg: the hand rail in the Palanaeum (chapter 33) but do they have the understanding of physics necessary to construct a proper arch that would support it self, or would they just be able to soulcast arches from wood. I think the main reason they haven't soulcast bridges and fortresses as forward defences is the restrictions on their use of soulcasting, done only at night under strict guard, they would probably have to have guards down in the chasms to make sure there were no spies in the bottoms of them, as well as having secure control of all surrounding plateaus, it would be extraordinarily expensive to field that many guards over night, especially since they don't even know which direction to advance in, they dont know where the Parshendi base is, they wouldn't want to charge out and get cut off after all, that would be extremely expensive, and cost them troops and soulcasters as well. Considering that most of the High Princes don't care about the war all that much its hardly surprising that no-one has considered these options. We might see some scouting in force now that Dalinar is taking complete control of the war effort but even so the cost and difficulty of building forward bases makes the reward negligible, until they know exactly where the Parshendi base is the manoeuvrability of temporary bridges is vastly superior strategically and much cheaper. After they find the Parshendi base a need for secure supply lines and the likelihood of some kind of siege developing would probably prompt them to make more permanent bridges and forward forts, at least, I would were I running the army, but they might have very different methods of waging that kind of war than we do.