name_here

Personally, I got the sense that he destroyed the school himself in a fit of Epic-fueled madness when his powers first manifested, since clearly he did something he regrets.

I think quantity is definitely an important issue. Ultimately, if there are only a few female characters in the story, it inherently sterotypes women just because there aren't very many of them. However, if it includes a broad selection of different female characters, then it does not make a general statement. I should note that lately I've been reading/watching/playing a lot of media from Japan, and for whatever reason female characters seem much more common. A good bit of it does still stereotype women to an extent, particularly in the "harem comedy" genre*, but there is a definite range. For instance, there is actually one with an "ordinary farmgirl" secondary protagonist, Attack On Titan. Mikasa Ackerman got basically adopted into the main character's family after a notably traumatic incident, and then a couple years later her adoptive mother died messily in front of her as the city got overrun while her adoptive father had left on a mysterious business trip and is presumed dead. She's pretty violently overprotective of her last surviving family, and she is incredibly competent. There are also some series that basically flip the ratio without particular explanation. For instance, there's Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, in which the main cast seems to get progressively more female-dominated as the series goes on and major male characters slide into the background. There's also A Certain Scientific Railgun, which is a spinoff of A Certain Magical Index and has only a couple male characters who aren't from the original or almost completely incidental. The funny thing is, I hardly noticed. Railgun is also interesting in that it's a perspective flip; the title character had come off as incredibly hostile and short-tempered in the original, but in her own story it turns out it's just that the main character of Index, Kamijo Touma is incredibly good at infuriating her. She's generally pretty friendly and easily embarrassed, with a fondness for cute things, and proud of her abilities and accomplishments but doesn't look down on people who lack them. However, she is a bit overly fond of getting into fights. Her temper in the original is because Touma can negate her abilities effortlessly (long story) and doesn't seem particularly impressed by them. We also get a better look at what happens when she's actually angry instead of just annoyed or frustrated. *Basically the setup is that for some reason the male protagonist winds up with a lot of female admirers, but for whatever reason doesn't realize they're interested in him, they're too flustered to admit it or he has a special talent for ruining moments, and wacky hijinks occur. There may also be robots, magic, and swordfights. Most of the time it's driven by the male character being incredibly oblivious and having terrible luck with timing.

It should be noted that the title system was defunct, so the others are not in use. We know that historically, one of them had responsibility for roads and trade and another for judges and magistrates. That leaves six; diplomacy and agriculture both seem likely candidates. Tax collection is also possible, although it'd probably be best to combine that with trade to avoid duplication of effort or endless turf squabbles over tarrifs and such. Another likely had authority over large-scale construction. It's possible another had authority over the Ardentia. Lastly, one of them could potentially have authority over currency; while that kind of overlaps with trade and/or taxation, if you include the gem mines it's a reasonably large area of responsibility and probably powerful enough to be trouble if combined with another position. Well, the Highprinces would presumably delegate the management and accounting the same way they already delegate logistics, and it would be useful to parcel out the authority to make important decisions. Actually, apparently the old system meant the Highprinces effectively had less power, because they possessed clearly defined areas of responsibility on a national level instead of essentially ruling independent nations. They survived so long precisely because the realm's powers are so divided. No one except Dalinar could plausibly have overthrown and replaced Elhokar without touching off a civil war, and none of the Highprinces can defeat the combined forces of the others. Also, House Kholin was, until the disaster at the Tower, the most powerful in raw military strength, well-equipped with Shards, and lead by the general who reunified Alethkar in the first place. Plus, wiping out the royal bloodline would require killing Dalinar, and, well, good luck with that.

I don't think it's Kelsier; from what I understand he could only give advice while Preservation was uncontrolled.

There actually was a gay male in A Memory Of Light. I liked how that was handled, really. Someone made a comment about how he had interacted with women, and was informed that he preferred men. Then the subject was dropped because there was an apocolypse to worry about. I'd say that doesn't really count as tokenism; sure, he might be the only known gay guy in the cast, but that is totally irrelevant to his plot importance. His orientation wasn't really relevant to the matter at hand so it only got a passing mention. Anyways, Jasnah is currently in quantum lesbianism, in that none of her actions or viewpoints to date indicate that she is not but there is no particular reason to expect that she is. But I don't think that her opinion on marriage says much on that count. I mean, she could always enter into a politically useful marriage with a gay male.

I'm pretty sure at least some mass gets created or destroyed, although the output mass is probably proportional to the input mass and the ratio likely depends on the amount of Stormlight used. That isn't how Shallan described it, but Soulcasting is highly secret so she might very well have been wrong. There are plenty of cases of things that got created in one material and Soulcast into a different one, which would be difficult if the mass remained the same. Metal or stone is far denser than wood, so Soulcasting should shrink it dramatically. Since wood grain is sometimes still visible, that does not seem to be the case. Also, I think turning a boulder of that size into an equal mass of smoke would result in a pretty substantial shockwave, although I have no idea how you'd calculate overpressure from particulate matter. Similarly, Jasnah Soulcast that one guy into fire. I don't know what the density of fire at one atmosphere is, but it's definitely low. I'll also preemptively note that mass-energy equivalence does not solve this, because the coefficent in that is the speed of light squared so accounting for the energy difference would only use a negligible amount of mass.

As a preliminary note, the Soulcasting Fabrials are generally only capable of limited transformations. Supposedly some of them can perform any transformation, but they may not actually exist. Also, since no one in the modern era can make new ones we don't know that they operate on the same principles, although the characters think they do. 1. Kinda both, I think. Size seems to be confined by conservation of mass, but it's apparently possible to defy that to some extent. Complexity is the main limiting factor if you have sufficient stormlight and raw materials. 2. Hypothetically. Organics are really complicated, and while the Essences seem to be easier you need three separate ones if you want a living result. Most probably you'd just kill the subject. Jasnah did manage to heal Shallan by soulcasting her blood, though. 3. In general, living things in the Cosmere have some inherent resistance to any external effects. I think you could perform any transformation but would need much more power. 4. I think so, but it would be really hard. 5. Theoretically, but you'd need to be really, really good at it and you'd need to understand the fundamental principles of how doing that would work. 6. No particularly clear limit on speed. Jasnah seems to do it once every couple seconds in her fight. 7. Depends on how good you are. New ones apparently do platonic solids. 8. Time dilation, I think. At least for Jasnah, the trip is short enough for observers that it isn't noticable, particularly if she isn't physically transported and there's no evidence that is the case.

Essentially, under the inherent mechanics, no one would be a Misting of a metal outside of the base sixteen, but the gambit absolutely required having Seers, so Preservation fiddled with the system, making it so people could become Atium and Malatium Mistings. He swapped them for the two external temporals because having 1/16th of the Mistings snap as Seers was a critical part of the plan. In order to draw attention to the effect, Preservation really pushed the numerological significance of sixteen. It didn't just tend to crop up a lot because it's Scadrial's special number; it was blatantly artificial. In any group that entered the mists, exactly sixteen percent of people who had not already entered the mists or snapped in the normal manner would be affected. Everyone who survived would recover in sixteen hours, unless they were in the 1/16th of cases that recovered in sixteen days. This lead to the Seers getting sent to the Pits, in close proximity to the Atium stockpiles, and because Elend knew about Seers he could then figure out that all of them had snapped as Seers.

I'm pretty sure it's not like Atium, because if it were then it would be outside the base system, leaving us with nine polestones and a very confusing surge arrangement for the orders. Plus I would expect it to produce a more exotic effect.

I get the sense that you have to know what you're soulcasting, particularly if it isn't one of the Essences. You might be able to soulcast something that doesn't actually exist, but only if you understand how it could exist. You know, with enough chemistry knowledge they might be able to create molecules that cannot be produced by chemistry because it's never thermodynamically favorable. Though most likely it would be extremely thermodynamically favorable for the molecule to fall apart, so that's of limited practical use.

Epics in general have their powers fouled by living things, apparently, at least with the more esoteric manipulation effects. Steelheart's transmutation has difficulty altering things people are holding/wearing and doesn't work on anything alive, but can transform corpses just fine. You are incorrect on both counts. Steel is almost entirely made up of iron; carbon is the most significant impurity but is only a couple percent of the mass at most. Organic means the molecule has a carbon backbone; an alloy cannot be organic no matter how much carbon it's got because it's not exactly bonded. I'm guessing it generally doesn't work on compounds that could be found in living things. Kind of an arbitrary distinction, but it would fit with the general living thing exemption. While it'd be hard to notice a metal-only limitation in Newcago, the Reckoners have used them extensively elsewhere and would probably have mentioned it. Come to think of it, we don't know that the tensor power doesn't work on non-living organics. I mean, the gifted form apparently doesn't, but that's with the full power split at least five ways. It might just be a lot harder. As for the other questions, he can probably burrow through normal ground. Lasers probably work fine. There's no evidence he can destroy heat.

Her illusions are present in photographs. That would generally imply they're not a telepathic effect. Plus, the photo showed an illusion flickering, which seems more likely for a photonic manipulator. And she's reborn in light with her reincarnation effect, so it would fit the theme. As for faking the destruction of the buildings, it's entirely possible that the sound was faked by more straightforward means hidden via her illusions. Certainly faking sound isn't one of her known powers, and it wouldn't fall under the photonic manipulation umbrella. If she does have that ability, it'd put her at three distinct powers. Prof has three (shield, tensor, healing; the dowser appears to be actual technology since Megan fooled him with an illusion over the screen) and Steelheart has between two and four, depending on how you count them (invunerability for sure, and he does steel transmutation, flight, and energy blasts, but multiple of those may fall under elemental manipulation). Nightwielder and Fortuity both seem to have two. So three is in the range of possibility. However, she didn't appear to actually use it at any point, making me think she doesn't have it. In the elevator shaft, she didn't hide the sounds they were making from the guards, and during the big fight she didn't try screwing with the Reckoners by messing with their communications, although that might have been because she was pretty out of it. Plus, if her theme is light as opposed to illusions, it wouldn't fit.

Because of how the caches are sited (that is, they were built in metal-rich towns a long time ago and the towns are well-known to be metal-rich and are still metal-rich instead of mined out) I generally assume burned metals slowly reaccumulate near where they were mined.

Do not underestimate illusionists. While illusions can't directly stop attacks or inflict damage, they make them nearly impossible to localize and thus essentially negate most man-portable weaponry. Firefight can also create illusions on a large enough scale to essentially render sight useless at best, although I don't think she can do sound. So essentially, everyone else involved the fight is practically blind in the best-case scenario where they know they're up against an illusionist.

I wouldn't read much into that. Going by the quoted article, LittleOrbit is looking for a new development studio to do a good portion of the work on the game, so most of the actual work will be done by people who have not worked on their previous games.

Even with the distraction, broad daylight isn't a good time to try it. The room probably wouldn't be completely unguarded, and the Inquisitors weren't all that far away.

No, in the distant past the Highprinces all had specialized roles and Dalinar has decided to bring that back.

Afraid not, "he" is a singular pronoun. It can only refer to one person picking up the fallen title.

I do think her reaction to the criminals in the alley indicates something bad happened to her and/or a friend or relative. I would guess that it was not done by any current characters, because her relatives would not react well. Possibly she got captured during the unification wars at some point. Overall, though, I think she's mostly just not interested. She gets on well with all the male characters who are not trying to murder her, but mostly just seems interested in her studies. And since men who are permitted to marry aren't allowed to read, she probably doesn't see all that much point. Though I would suggest she probably does have some specific grievance against Amaram, although quite possibly just that he was annoying, or she wouldn't have objected to a political marriage. Or it could be that if she married someone she'd be obligated to support them, which would include not being a legendarily outspoken heretic and doing their paperwork instead of researching. She might like Kaladin; he's scholarly as Vorin men go, so she could actually have a conversation on things she's interested in, and because he's a darkeyes he wouldn't be in a position to order her around and doesn't have authority to undermine. I would not say that women hold the reins of actual power. While women do perform much of the critical work to keep the society functioning, that is very much not the same as being in charge. I mean, historically Charlemange couldn't read or write with any ability, but he was most definitely in charge, and he was hardly the only illiterate ruler. In the warcamps, Dalinar decides what needs to be done and then his subordinates, male and female, do it. Ultimately, he's the one who decides where the army goes and who it fights. That's the highest form of actual power; if the person nominally in charge doesn't command the loyalty of the military they tend to get replaced.

Personally, I wouldn't read too much into it. Strong gender divides and various impractical cultural practices for women are really pretty common in preindustrial societies. It just seems weird because the split is different. I don't think it's particularly stronger than, say, ancient Athens, and while safehands are confining it's not nearly so bad as foot binding. Now, the Ardents specifically seem to be exempt from gender roles, with the possible exception of safehands, and can pursue any scholarly path and eat either type of food. Interestingly, women actually seem much more critical to military operations than in medieval Europe. They're needed to handle logistics records, combat engineering, sealed orders, and long-distance communication. Dalinar notes that effective lighteyed officers depend heavily on their wives. The historical antecedent might just be which Heralds did what, if there even is a particularly clear reason.

The Sigil of House Kholin is a tower-and-crown, so personally I think it refers to Kaladin working with Dalinar. The fallen title might be Highprince Of War, which Dalinar got thanks to Kaladin rescuing him. Or it could refer to Kaladin's future personal sigil, which could be a spear overlaid on the House Kholin sigil. Or it could be more diverse than that: Kaladin (the spear) rescued Dalinar on The Tower, leading to Dalinar making Elhokar (the crown) declare him Highprince of War (the fallen title). Personally, I think Dalinar will end up in charge of the new Radiants, by virtue of actually being an experienced ruler and general as well as a Radiant.

I would assume that the actual power is in the metal itself, and the alloying only alters how it can be used. So if an alloy is inert, you just have to separate it out.

It's pretty unclear how long things have been going on or how long Scadrial has even existed. Personally, I think there have been at least a couple previous cycles, and there must have been a hero for each of them. I got the impression that letting the fully-charged Well sit unused would be bad, since the original prophecies did say someone needed to go visit the Well. Presumably, not as bad as going there and releasing the power, since Ruin went with a complicated ploy instead of just murdering everyone who tried, but still bad. Probably the prison remains weak while the Well is full, allowing Ruin to intensify the mists and otherwise make life difficult but not fully escape. As for what exactly happened, I'm guessing that for whatever reason the previous cycles went smoothly. Most likely Ruin was less successful at tampering with events. For instance, if the prophecies were either written in metal or transmitted orally without using copperminds, tampering with them would be difficult, and even if written in paper people who didn't rely on copperminds would be more likely to notice tampering. With the prophecies intact, the candidate heroes would know to do something with the Well, and quite likely they'd be better-educated and less arrogant than Rashek. So they'd go to the Well, fix the problem in a controlled manner instead of touching off a new catastrophe and then repeatedly over-correcting, and then leave. Then they'd probably reign as the hero-king/queen of a golden age of prosperity before dying of old age if their personality was anything like Alendi. Either they assumed they fixed the problem forever, or they found out what was really going on but decided to leave it be because they'd won 1024 years of non-apocalypse, figured that next time would work out too, and were afraid they would break something if they tried to fix it for good. Probably at least some of them came back home and explained the situation, then instructed people to keep the prophecies around for the next iteration/the true Hero Of Ages who would fix things for good. Now, the cycle immediately prior to Alendi probably went somewhat poorly and set up his failure by destabilizing things badly enough that people stopped securely recording the prophecies. It might have been as simple as the Well user not figuring things out and people getting sloppy, or they misused the Well and inadvertently altered the climate enough that the existing cities stopped being suitable locations for settlement and the resulting turmoil made the prophecies a low priority.

It seems to me to imply that Realmantics are sufficiently complicated that ordinary people can't understand them. However, that doesn't necessarily imply they can't make or use Atium/Lerasium even without help. They're both metals and possess physical properties, so they could be alloyed in various proportions through ordinary methods. Figuring out how to use them might be a good bit trickier, but wouldn't require understanding Realmantics. So long as the effects are deterministic it's susceptible to brute force analysis; the set of things that could possibly be tried is finite and identical conditions will yield identical results. Given infinite time and material you could just try every single one of them. In practice, of course, time and resources are finite and trying things at random with no understanding of why they might work is the slowest functional method of solving a problem. They'll probably need to at least know what determines the results in order to get anywhere.

Aside from all that, the phrasing of the letter pretty strongly indicates that the recepient was alive when Odium trashed the Shards on Sel, and that was very old history during Elantris, which itself is set prior to every other released book by a fair margin.