Landis963

Case in point; Blushweaver's "mission" was to die in front of Lightsong at the crucial moment. EDIT: Anyway, if someone is Returned, then they are basically sleeper agents for Endowment, set to "awaken" at the opportune moment to divert history one way or the other at the price of their lives. In Warbreaker, those agents were Blushweaver ( dying by throat-slit to galvanize Lightsong's heroic sacrifice) and Lightsong (dying by giving up his divine Breath to heal Susebron's tongue). If an Idrian decided to accept Endowment's offer and Return, that means that trouble is coming to Idris in a way that this person can stop by acting a specific way that will end in their death.

For me: Szeth= Zeth Kaladin=Kahl-uh-din (Chaos' pronunciation) Sadeas=Say-dee-us Jasnah=Yahz-nuh Shallan=Shuh-LAHN Kelsier=KELL-See-Ay Vin=Vahn Renoux= Ruh-NOO Demoux= Duh-MOO Sarene=Suh-REE-nee Raoden=RAH-oh-dn (I give Arelish Aonic slightly different vowel sounds than Teoish Aonic - I thought an accent might develop over the course of Teod's history) There are more, but it's already far too late where I am.

That was my impression as well; the "charge-up" ritual sacrifices work the best within Dakhor's area of influence, and suffer inefficiency elsewhere.

That was basically my point. If an Idrian accepted the opportunity to Return, it would be much, much harder for them to actually do the thing they were tasked to do. Let's enumerate these difficulties, shall we? Assuming an Idrian (otherwise in the prime of their life) was killed by, idk, bandits, and Endowment showed them a bad future and gave them the chance to Return, like she did with Lightsong and presumably all the other Returned. The newly formed Idrian Returned, believing that Austre had sent them back for a reason and so trying to decide how best to use their newfound lease on life would need to: 1) find the scenario that Endowment had shown them, 2) without memories of their previous life to grant context, 3) within a week (because Austrism makes manipulation of Breath verboten, so no extra Breaths for you), and 4) without knowing the Command that would impart their divine Breath. The first is already needle-in-haystack enough for the Hallandren Returned, and they have people filing past 5 days a week during normal business hours presenting problems that a divine Breath would solve. The third puts a hard limit on where exactly the scenario where their intervention is required can happen (Radius of just under 8 days travel from where they died, minus sleep time and "tell the relatives what happened to Burnie" time). The fourth obviates any miraculous healing-type missions (like Lightsong's, and Mercystar's), while the second leaves them without any sort of direction ("You must have Returned so that Austre can make use of your skills at macrame!"). An Idrian who noticed all these obstacles would balk at the sheer difficulty of the task (which is an entirely different breed of difficulty than just "it's boring and long and Idonwanna!", which most Idrians are immune to by default), and an Idrian who didn't might shrink away from becoming one of "those Hallandren monstrosities."

Lightsong is my favorite, hands down. Then Siri, then Vasher, then Vivenna. (Something about her reminded me of pre-character development Sansa Stark, and I found pre-character development Sansa Stark grating, arrogant, and arrrgh where is your clue-by-four already?). However, I do see why Brandon might look forward to writing the Vivenna we saw at the end of the story, because I'm interested in reading her story. EDIT: Siri and Vasher are tied for second for me. I just know I loved Lightsong, I hated Princess Vivenna, and I liked the other two.

You could still burn a lerasium bead, it just wouldn't impart the feruchemical store like Compounding would.

WoB on Hoid's uncanny ability to be places where things are going down is that it's an unknown application of feruchemy.

She can still be recruited for her Nicroburst power, plus pre-mission hacking and tech stuff. The two aren't exactly mutually exclusive.

Then why does MaiPon have their own magic system, but the Rose Empire does not? (and before you say "Remembering" that's a subset of Forgery, like Resealing)

Plush "Soonie Cub" that inverts into a kandra/mistwraith? Yes, please. Perfect winter holiday gift.

Except, of course, if they died in a way that is statistically likely to produce a Returned: died in battle, died rescuing another, that sort of thing. I wonder how the Returned would be treated in this hypothetical Nalthian future-state (because I didn't see any banks during the events of Warbreaker), especially since they only have one, supercharged Breath to pass on, whose power expends itself when restoring someone to the Spiritual default. (Assuming of course that the local sect of the Iridescent Tones doesn't keep a few around as a paper pantheon) EDIT: Maybe soldiers are required by law to only have one Breath on them at time of enlistment, which would mitigate the Breath loss from fatalities but still keep the possibility of soldiers Returning open. EDIT EDIT: Or maybe they'd just use Lifeless. It seems neater.

The "my life to yours" command is all-or-nothing, but there are hacks you can use to be sure that not all your Breaths go into the recipient. Brandon mentioned one in an annotation: Awaken something with however many Breaths you want to pass on (And there are one-breath Commands), store the rest in your cloak or something with a muddled Command, retrieve the Breaths from the Awakened object, and then do "My life to yours, my Breath become yours." Once you've done that, retrieve your Breaths from the cloak (or something) with "Your Breath to mine" and you're back at square one minus whatever Breaths you've handed off to another person.

Suffice it to say: "It's not." Stormlight spoilers:

Unless the person knew how to split up the Breaths between however many heirs there are (admittedly, not a guarantee), or hired an Awakener to split them up equitably in the will. In fact, once law firms come into being on Nalthis, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't keep a few Awakeners on retainer, just for that sort of thing.

Maybe the information was disseminated that non-light Aons don't produce any effect? Aon Ashe on the coal is just supposed to be a good-luck charm, and the Aon Omi pendants don't really produce any effect beyond the normal ones produced by advertising your faith. That way, if anyone knew back then that it was shaped like Aon Rao, they would have discounted it because "everyone knows" that only the glowy ones work. Of course, once the Reod happened, maybe belief in the magic power of Aons was shattered entirely, or relegated to the realm of nostalgia. That would fit with Sarene's skepticism in the power of Aons, once Hrathen tossed her in there.

Arum still has a point in that it's only been 10 years since the Reod, which is less than a generation in which to forget that the shape of the city is important to the Elantrians' well-being.

After the Elantrian's fall, the city regressed to just Kae and the central district of Elantris was repurposed as, essentially, a leper colony. No one cared about the other 3 cities, not since they'd been abandoned. Maybe it was seen as hubris, so subject to the taboos that stymied Sarene. There are lots of ways the knowledge could have been disavowed or forgotten, despite the short time frame.

Ah, typecasting, how we abhor and honor it! It makes frivolous speculation on movie casting far too easy. Also, Timothy Hutton for Wax.

Why would they need to withhold it? If someone was to take you on a tour of Elantris, back in its heyday, they'd probably proudly proclaim the fact that Elantris was designed like Aon Rao. They'd probably even give a plausible reason why. Of course, what they wouldn't proudly proclaim is that the shape of the city is a magic sigil that makes Elantrians the sparkle-gods they were always meant to be, but still. (Assuming of course that our hypothetical docent would have made the connection in the first place) Of course, this secret is blown wide open now, with the new chasm line causing the city to glow and its people to return to glittery godhood, but still.

Steel and Pewter would be really really simple to overindulge and become accustomed to. Especially Pewter since you can store the pewter-burned strength in a pewtermind, for an extra multiplier on top of the already obscene levels of power you can get with normal compounding. Zinc compounding would have some serious withdrawal effects as well. I think you already got the most obviously dangerous ones.

This is the problem with casting Roshar natives - their ethnicities don't match Earth's in the slightest. Also, Colin Farrell as Straff Venture.

Eh, they probably find the nearest person who's at death's door, say the 8 magic words, and pop on back to the Spiritual Realm. Any long-term accumulation of Breaths would be blasphemous to Austrism, as far as I understand it. I suspect that they'll be far rarer, though, if only because Idrians given the chance to Return would probably turn down the opportunity. EDIT: Now that I think of it, they wouldn't know the 8 magic words to begin with, so there's that.

Language-wise, the Chasm Line probably wouldn't be implemented, unless Raoden included it in his signature or something. It's only when one tries to channel the Dor does it become strictly necessary to add the line.

As far as I can tell, Aon Rao isn't based on the land, beyond the base Aon Aon that is. (Remember, Elantris was created in the Aon's image, not the other way around) Aons that communicate concepts that would appear in nature (wood, water, etc.) would be based on the land, and would have components that are also based on the land (e.g. the squiggle that appears in the aon for Water, the three circles in the bottom half of the aon for Wood, etc.).

On Roshar casting: I was assuming the Thaylenah would have normal-shaped eyes, but would be on the darker side of skin tone. Maybe Don Cheadle as Mraize? I was thinking the other way around, actually. Affleck would be Denth, using his comedic talents to run interference for Tonk Fah, while Damon the action hero would play Vasher. (Yes, I know The Martian proved Damon's comedic talents, but it seems more natural, at least for me, for Damon to play the gruff action hero who's not good with people rather than the reluctant monster with the sense of humor. Also, It'd be easier for Affleck to make Denth not creepy as rust than it would be for Damon, IMO.)