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I feel like the practical uses of allomancy aren't given enough credit. Soothing and rioting would be extremely handy in almost all situations. Cadmium and bendalloy would both be extremely useful for certain things. Being strong and having energy is still definitely a useful thing, pewter is good for more than just punching people. Plus you could burn a pinch of tin to help wake up in the morning.

A blind tin savant who trains in martial arts. So basically daredevil.

Odium has two meanings, meaning both to hate others and to be hated yourself. Brandon has said (I don't have the quote right now) that Odium's intent encompasses both meanings. I'll also say that, as I see it, when you hate someone, you don't just want to destroy them. You want them to suffer. It may be that Odium's goal is not to destroy the universe. (It's already been pointed out that he certainly doesn't seem to have obliterated life on Sel after splintering Devotion and Dominion). The Desolations are consistent with this Intent - he gets to cause a whole bunch of suffering, then he goes away for a while so the world can put itself back together some, then he comes back and twists the knife some more. If he pushed much harder, he would just wipe everyone out, which may actually be a worse outcome from Odium's perspective. I think there's a lot more going on with the Oathpact and the Desolations than we realize. I don't think Honor was the nice guy we all think he is, and Odium's goals are more specific than to just destroy.

Good theory. Rashek made the original Lerasium beads and used most of them immediately. Before that, Allomancy was like what the Southern Scadrians have, very diffuse and rare.

I just realized, I forgot to put Secret History spoilers in the title, so I'm spoilering all this until I can get the title changed

Random thought: what if Threnody tried to be a player on the stage, and the destruction of the homeland was the result of some sort of cross-cosmere assault or retaliation?

I think the key thing thematically is that Kelsier is the Survivor. He survived the pits, and now he's survived death at the hands of the Lord Ruler. He's all about just keeping on no matter what.

Hoid could be doing something like this, but keep in mind he is incredibly old, incredibly skilled, and extremely smart. It's plausible that, with how much time he's had, he's just good at picking up new languages and dialects, and already knows most of them anyway.

I really like this idea of relating Kelsier's plan to Preservation's plan. The parallel even extends to how both had to die to see their plan work correctly.

I'm all about Spook still being alive, but the timing is off. I think that it makes more sense that eye-spike man is Kelsier. He has the scars, and there's no mention of Spook having an eye-spike at any point in his rule. If my understanding of the timeline is correct, the visit to the south would have been right in the middle of Spook's rule, and I feel it would have been hard to hide a giant spike in his face.

I personally like to think Spook wouldn't go so low. It might be that Spook has died only recently, or lost control of his organization. That would explain why the Set seems to have switched tactics recently (assuming they've been around for a while before AoL).

So in chapter five of BoM, we find out that Spook chose to step down after a "century of rule": Spook was already in his late teens by the time of the Catacendre. Depending on when he took over (possibly right after, maybe after some time), it seems like Spook was remarkably long-lived, at least 120 years or so. It's also interesting to note his rule didn't end with his death, but instead ended with him choosing to step down. I searched through AoL and SoS, and couldn't find any reference to Spook's date of death or tomb. To me, this raises some questions: when did Spook actually die, and how was he so long-lived? We know that Spook was very interested in Hemalurgy, and we find out in chapter 6 of BoM that he had some disturbing thoughts on how to use hemalurgy. Marasi learns this from reading his book on the matter: It is of course possible, even probable, that Spook's longevity came for the same reason he became a full Mistborn and stopped being a tin savant: Sazed's tweaks right after his ascension. It might be that Sazed just gave Spook a little boost to let him live somewhat longer than an average person. Or alternately, Mistborn powers naturally lead to longevity as long as they manage to avoid throwing down with other metalborn on a regular basis. The more interesting, if less probable, reason is that Spook was up to something with Hemalurgy. To be clear, I don't want to raise this to the level of a full-blown theory, just some interesting speculation. It might be that the full release of BoM in a few days will deny this bit of speculation (or who knows, maybe it will confirm it!). If Spook did extend his life with hemalurgy, what does it mean? Well, I think that if Spook figured out a way to extend his life through hemalurgy (either by stealing powers and compounding, or by some other unknown means), it is surprisingly plausible that he might still be around. He would be about 360 years old at this point, not nearly as old as TLR became, but definitely very old. I'll also point out that what Spook proposed when he wrote his book isn't that far off from what the Set seems to be up to now, although the Set is somewhat more coercive and violent than Spook initially suggested. I think it's plausible that the Set has some relation to Spook, either directly or indirectly through reading his book. So what do you think? What happened to Spook after he stepped down from power? Did he go off to live his final years on a farm, or was he up to something else?

I mean, if they did, would you necessarily know? But seriously, Big T has what amounts to a vision of the future and the resources of a prosperous city-state at his disposal. It seems reasonable he's able to run a competent spy network, particularly in the genre of epic fantasy where people are allowed to be a bit more awesome than in real life.

With Hoid, I strongly think it was Ruin's influence. I imagine Ruin was fairly terrified of the possibility of Vin and Hoid teaming up, so when it seemed like it might happen, he sent her plenty of bad vibes to convince her to back off.

This might be the key to understanding what's going on. My current theory to resolve this apparent contradiction: TLR, always very sensitive to the potentials of compounding, used his knowledge of Hemalurgy to deliberately block Inquisitors from being able to compound. That way he could safely give them Allomantic and Feruchemical powers, and prevent them from accessing the most dangerous aspects of Hemalurgy. Edit for followup question: Do we have any reason to believe that inquisitors ever compound? I can't think of any right now.

Oh crap, I missed that somehow Well if you were a certain kandra who could store speed and burn steel, but not do both at the same time, it could potentially come in handy

I feel like we've come across two solid questions here that someone should ask Brandon directly next time they get a chance: 1) Is it possible to compound aluminum, or would the aluminum allomantic effect cause the aluminum to dissappear before any feruchemical effect occurs? (I think the current WoB leaves this issue somewhat unresolved) 2) If a steel compounder spent a minute filling a very large steel building with speed, would they be able to compound almost indefinitely by collecting small flakes from that building? I will add that, on a practical level, scenario 2 is unlikely, since allomantic steel is a special alloy, and it would be unlikely for you to find allomantically perfect steel in a regular building (or any other very large quantity).

Wow, that could be a super cool character. I'm imagining a tineye who got caught doing something he shouldn't have been doing, so they blinded him and sent him stumbling out on to the street. Years later, he's become a full tin savant, he still can't see, but his other senses are so incredible he's ready to go get some revenge.

I think the easiest way to understand what's happening is that "weight" is a cognitive idea, while mass is a physical property. So when Wax stores weight, the cognitive action is simple, but then the physical world is made to do some real gymnastics to catch up to what Wax sees himself as doing. Edit: This doesn't really tell us much about conservation of momentum though. It sounds like what's going on is more complex than a simple change in mass equivalent to the weight change.

Something that I find at least worth considering is that Lessie's death was not strictly "arranged." It could have happened as an accident, and then became an opportunity to make a "clean" break with Wax. All of the following are interesting scenarios for an "unarranged" death: 1) Paalm had been arguing with Harmony about it for a while. She was resisting his urging to leave Wax. Once she was "killed," Harmony convinced her that this was the right time to end it. 2) Paalm herself decided to end it then, afraid of what Wax would do if he found out she was kandra. Her anger was only given to Harmony later on as she went mad. 3) Harmony convinced her, or took control of her at the last second, to pull into the gunshot to fake her death. It was still opportunistic, but also involved a deliberate choice to get shot.

My theory right now (supported only by a single read of SoS, so I may be missing crucial details) is that Lessie was never intended to be with Wax long term. I don't think that's really Sazed's thing - he prefers to have his servants slip in at the right time to do something important, then disappear. I think Paalm was supposed to protect Wax for a bit, help him figure out the Roughs, then find a reason to leave. Her personality was designed to intrigue Wax and get him to trust her, not originally to get him to fall deeply in love. I also think, however, that the kandra, and in this case specifically Paalm, are given more latitude and independence than some people are assuming. It's more like a collaboration between Harmony and the kandra, not a direct moment-to-moment or even day-to-day set of orders. So at first, Paalm's decision to stick around a bit longer and interact more with Wax was not especially notable. Later, Sazed realized what was happening and encouraged Paalm to break it off, but she didn't want to, and Harmony chose not to press it further. I think that eventually, Harmony convinced Paalm that Wax needed to be on his own to live up to his potential, and she reluctantly agreed to allow Lessie to die. Later on, she came to deeply regret this decision and the pressure Harmony put on her to do it, but it was too late. That is what drove her to sever ties with Harmony and go rogue.

There's also WoB that anywhere you have multiple shardic influences, you are likely to see a naturally arising "blended" manifestation of investiture. This obviously has significant consequences for our understanding of Sel and Roshar.

I'm fairly certain the Mistborn final trilogy will involve traveling to Roshar, among other places. For what it's worth we're already aware of Scadrians who have made it to Roshar using some magical means of travel.

I see the "God Beyond" to be something more akin to Brandon's conception of God in the real world. An all-powerful, all-knowing force that predates existence and is mysterious in overall purpose and means.

I felt that in terms of construction, WoK was stronger than WoR. Kaladin's flashbacks felt extremely potent, and fit the story perfectly. The final climax was absolutely perfect in almost every way. I also liked the stronger sense of mystery and somewhat lower stakes in WoK. The powers were mysterious and weak, the danger felt very real all the time, and the world felt like there was more left to discover. Now, it's inevitable that sequels and continuations will lose some of this magic. The story is necessarily going to broaden, and the arcs are going to become bigger and less concentrated. That's the way of epic fantasy. But WoK is just beautifully constructed and will always be a little bit special to me.