Weltall

Well, they're two colors that combine really well when you want to look all regal and such, so it's not a huge surprise to see various nobles and/or gods using them. As for the more specific reference that Miles makes that really draws your attention to the colors... well, there's a couple of options. One thing that's come out in WoB is that red in the Cosmere represents co-opted or corrupted Investiture so it's something to keep an eye out for and it's eye-raising. And then in Oathbringer we learn that So there's that to consider as well. But like I said, I strongly suspect that many (though not all) instances of these two colors appearing together are just a coincidence.

@Khyrindor Brandon doesn't seem to draw that distinction. If you're looking at the future, you're using Fortune whether you're 'seeing' something or you're 'sensing' it. There's also two examples in Oathbringer where Fortune is explicitly mentioned and in the context of seeing specific things.

This is really only a factor in Surgebinding because that magic system is of Honor who is all about oaths, including not only making and keeping them but the perception of what the oaths mean and whether they've been kept. It's really not a factor at all in any Selish magic, which only cares about whether you draw the right symbols while intending them to 'do magic'. What you think of your actions is functionally irrelevant. Then you have magic systems with no direct human involvment, like Aviar talents and Ashyn's disease-based magic. It sounds to me like you just really like Stormlight Archive. xD Nothing wrong with that and it's an entirely fair opinion. Not to mention that it's safe to say that Brandon has improved a lot as a writer between starting Mistborn and the publication of The Way of Kings; he's even admitted that his work on Wheel of Time was a huge factor for him. Allomancy is just as deeply connected to Scadrial as Surgebinding is to Roshar, it's just connected in different ways. It has to do with how magic systems in the Cosmere aren't consciously created by the Shards but are the result of an interplay between them, the worlds they've Invested in and the sDNA of the people who will be using the magic. In the case of Surgebinding, Honor and Cultivation wound up adapting their Investiture to something that had predated the Shattering and which was thus in place when they arrived, so it feels very integrated to Roshar's ecosystem. Other Shards have either not co-opted preexisting conditions or if they have, it's so subtle that it's not obvious to us. Scadrial is somewhat apart from the other worlds because it was created by the Shards who are Invested in it, and consequently they permeate the world in a way beyond what we see anywhere else in the Cosmere. Allomancy and feruchemy may not be as spectacularly tied in as Surgebinding being linked to a planet-spanning storm and sapient Investiture but it's every bit as deeply connected to its world.

As mentioned, it's not Invested and we don't know why it has the property it does in-universe yet. Out of universe, Brandon has mentioned that he wanted something in the Cosmere to have its properties and aluminum happened to be it. That it allowed him to make tinfoil hats a functional item was a happy accident. There's probably also the factor that aluminum was historically hard to come by and consequently valuable, meaning that it's something whose use in the Cosmere he can reasonably limit for the time being. Relatedly, he's mentioned that there will be dramatic effects on the Scadrian economy from the ability to acquire aluminum cheaply, even moreso than the impact on Earth when the same thing happened.

Yeah, under 'normal' conditions with the various caveats others have mentioned, AonDor is probably the most 'powerful' system in terms of both raw output (it's able to draw on the combined Investiture of two Shards and doesn't consume any 'fuel' from the practitioner other than time) and variety (there's a lot you can do with Aons and a sufficiently educated user can do all of it, contrast say a Surgebinder who's limited to two of the ten possible powers and has some potential restrictions based on their Ideals). That said, since their power also drops off substantially when they leave the immediate area surrounding Elantris and vanishes completely offworld, it's more limited than Scadrial's magic (usable anywhere, with metal sourced from anywhere) or other systems that still work offworld but require a bit of work (or system hacks) to get the Investiture needed to power them. If on the other hand you consider exceptional cases then yeah, Rashek has the currently unbeatable combination of two magic systems that synergize really well, plus being at Savant-level in most if not all of the powers, plus being a Sliver. So to summarize my thoughts, Rashek is an exceptional case but if you include him, he beats everything in terms of 'power'. Then an Elantrian in sufficient proximity to the city, then things get open to debate and argument over exactly what's meant by the 'strongest magic system'.

Yeah, it seems like aluminum is immune to Shardblades having the power to magically cut through nonliving material but would still be affected by the whole 'sharp bit of heavy metal swung with some force' aspect, so a tinfoil hat will not protect you from a Shardblade but a sufficient mass of it (say, a sturdy shield) would. Other things we know with regards to aluminum and Roshar specifically: It supposedly doesn't occur naturally on the planet and must be found per the legend Taravangian refers to or it must be Soulcast. Brandon said that the 'Soulcasted only' thing from WoR isn't 100% truth but it's possible he was thinking of Taravangian's legend as the key exception. Soulcasting indeed seems to be the most common source of it on Roshar. Taravangian has either not made the connection between this Soulcast metal and the 'legendary' one or he's deliberately hiding the fact from Dalinar. We also know that aluminum cannot be affected by direct Surgebinding (Brandon was specifically asked there about Gravitation and Adhesion but it's safe to assume it would also apply to other things like Division and we know separately that it's immune to Transformation) and from Oathbringer we see that it can be used to prevent Spanreed communication and prevents the 'Screamers' from detecting various forms of Investiture.

Brandon has said that Vivenna's blade shares some features with Nightblood but is different. He has RAFO'd whether it's the same sword that Vasher gave her to use in Warbreaker and he hasn't decided on a name for it yet (he had some ideas, apparently none satisfied him in time to make it into publication) but it's definitely Awakened. The way that it creates grey wounds (much like Nightblood creates black ones, and matching the color of the Lifeless) is a pretty strong hint in that direction, along with the obvious differences that the Rosharans observe and Vivenna has to explain away. As for the Command, I don't think you'd need something as explicit as 'Cut things well' to get something Shardblade-ish. Brandon has implied that other magic systems can be hacked to create similar weapons, so it's probably more to do with the amount of Investiture than the specific quirks of one magic system. Brandon has for example implied that you could make a feruchemical Shardblade, though it would require something more than just dumping a lot of Investiture in a sword-shaped nicrosilmind. But still, if it's possible then the Command in an Awakening-created Shardblade is probably not hugely important so long as it isn't something completely opposite the idea of swordiness (totally a real word!) or ridiculously specific like 'Slice bread and only bread'. xD

Harmonium may have alloys but given how reactive the godmetal is, it's quite possible that while they may technically be usable they're not really viable in a practical sense. Complex theorized workarounds aside, it's rather hard to use a metal allomantically if it blows up as soon as you swallow it (taking your head with it) or wear it as a metalmind if it explodes as soon as you sweat. As for godmetals by non-Scadrian Shards, Brandon has stated that while they are potentially usable in the Metallic Arts, normally people won't have the Connection to the Shards in question and thus they won't be able to use them. So while the potential number of viable metals is ridiculous, for most purposes we're limited to the sixteen base metals, atium, lerasium, the thirty-two possible alloys of the godmetals+base metals, the atium/lerasium alloy and harmonium. And given how rare atium and lerasium are, it's entirely possible we'll never even see most of the potential godmetal alloys to begin with, though it's been guaranteed we'll see some of them and Khriss raising the topic in the Ars Arcanum was a pretty big hint even in the absence of a WoB.

As far as magic goes, Scadrial only looks simple. The way humans interact with it is easier than on some other worlds we've seen but there is so much you can do with the magic and so many ways to apply it creatively that it's a lot deeper than just 'have metal x, gain power y'. For example, we know that A-Electrum is more versatile than we saw in Era 1, but Vin and Elend never really needed to explore its potential because they had atium, so they only used it as a cheaper counter to atium rather than trying to use its power for its own sake. Similarly, Kelsier dismisses A-Gold but as we see in Alloy of Law and Brandon has clarified in WoB, there's actually a lot you can do with it if you're willing to practice, not to mention what you can do by combining systems. And we know for a fact that somehow, the Metallic Arts have a means of creating FTL travel which is a pretty damned impressive accomplishment. And we don't know how it's done yet. There's always another secret... Another example I could raise is Elantris and AonDor. Yes, it seems more 'mystical' but that's largely because the book in which it appears is one in which the magic hasn't worked for a decade and nobody knows how to use it properly. When you strip away the flashy visual effects however, it's not terribly different from allomancy in its underpinnings, it just uses drawn symbols to channel power instead of metal. In both cases, the power is being drawn from a single external source (Preservation's Investiture versus the Dor, aka the amalgamation of Devotion and Dominion's Investiture) and shaped by the user. The Aons and their modifiers are just doing for the Dor what the metal and the will of the allomancer does for Preservation: Tell it what to do. In fact since AonDor (like all Selish magic) is likened to computer programming, it's even less 'mystical' than allomancy, since the only thing that matters is whether you draw all the symbols properly, while there's a degree of 'unseen' mental effort involved in the operation of many allomantic powers, picking which metal lines to push/pull, deciding which emotions to soothe/riot and how lightly or strongly to do so etc. With AonDor, it should be the case that anyone who knows the system sufficiently well will know exactly what any given Aon drawn will do before it activates, just by looking at it. Case in point: Southern Scadrial which has its own very unique culture (actually, a combination of multiple ones as Bands of Mourning makes clear) which developed completely apart from the Final Empire but was still around the whole time and which Brandon hinted at for years before we got to actually see them. We get the occasional glimmer of regional differences in the Final Empire itself when we see people from other Dominances or hear about things like different architecture styles. Then you have the obviously distinct Terris culture and people aside from that. And Scadrial's past is simply full of a variety of cultures, religions and so on which Sazed and Alendi's journal occasionally give us a glimpse of. It's just that we don't see a lot of this diversity onscreen in Era 1 because Rashek has spent the last thousand years actively supressing as much knowledge and as many of these differences as he could get away with.

Quite simply, it won't. Shards are too powerful for them to 'run out' of Investiture in any plausible way, to the point that even Nightblood isn't capable of seriously jeapordizing one. Brandon has on multiple occasions described the Shards as possessing essentially infinite power, it's just that an originally mortal and decidedly finite Vessel can't possibly access all of that power at once. Here's an example: So compared to the infinite power at its disposal, Preservation isn't even going to notice the drain caused by someone drawing on their power, not even for hacks like compounding.

Yeah, what seems to happen is that his Hoid-sense starts tingling and tells him 'Hey, you need to be on this world!' so he goes there. Then his Hoid-sense (which is some means of manipulating Fortune) draws him to specific locations where he'll hang out untl he figures out what he's supposed to be doing there and does it. Repeat until either his Hoid-sense stops tingling or it tells him he needs to be on another planet and he leaves. Though he's clearly willing and able to visit places or hang around after the fact for reasons not related to his compulsion to be 'where he's needed', as in his visit to Scadrial during the events of Alloy of Law. A couple of things of interest to the scholars of All Things Hoid. He has a base of operations somewhere in the Cosmere. Brandon has implied that it's only accessible via the Cognitive Realm and probably exists only there, a la Silverlight. It's implied that he spends a lot of his time there. Also, Hoid has sometimes shown up on worlds, waited around for a while and then left without doing much. Whether this is because he missed whatever opportunity his Hoid-sense was telling him about or never figured out what it was, we don't know. But Brandon has mentioned that Hoid is drawn to worlds because of what happens on them so it's unlikely that these 'Hoid shows up, no novel-worthy plot is happening' incidents are complete coincidences. Does he? We see him enter the Perpendicularity at the end of Elantris (10A edition) so he probably didn't hang around the planet the whole time until unwritten Elantris sequels/The Emperor's Soul happened (whichever is first, IIRC it's the former) or between the two. But he does appear to spend years at a time on some worlds, as with Scadrial and Roshar. In the latter case, he seems to have spent at least one of those years in the stomach of a greatshell for... some reason that probably makes sense to him. Probably.

Lift is a great candidate because she'd have the fewest problems Surgebinding offworld. Another good option is Jasnah, who would need a hack to power her magic (or a sufficient supply of flawless gemstones) but has two added advantages that make her a good worldhopping candidate. First, she's a scholar and would go wild (well, as wild as Jasnah can be) at the prospect of all the knowledge she could acquire. Second, her entire powerset is attuned to interacting with the Cognitive Realm and with travel, so it would probably be easier for her to get around than just about anyone else. Oh, and she's also been primed to handle knowledge of other worlds through her interactions with Hoid. Granted, she's a little busy now but hey, maybe at some point in the timeskip between halves or after SA10 (depending on what goes on and assuming she survives to either or both of those points) I could imagine it being possible for her to take a little Shadesmar road trip. And I really really would love to see her and Khriss meet at some point.

- Along with Vax, Obrodai is another world that we know exists but we know very little about it at present. Brandon has actually danced around the question of whether Vax is an entire world or just a place on a world, but given the context it's almost certainly the former and he's just being trolly. - Hoid apparently has a base of operations somewhere in the Cosmere when he's not hanging around any particular world but we don't know where that is. - Actually, let's just say 'Hoid' as a general category. We know for example that he's the second-oldest living being in the Cosmere and he started out as human but we don't know how he's managed to live so long. We know he was present for the Shattering of Adonalsium and knew all the Vessels personally but we don't know most of the details, we certainly don't know his motivations... but that may be getting off track for what you're thinking of in terms of 'known unknowns'. - Brandon has left open the question of whether we've seen dragons 'onscreen' (setting aside Frost and Hoid exchanging letters) but told us that there are dragons off of Yolen and if we have seen one, we wouldn't recognize them. So sort of like the kandra worldhopper we may have a dragon worldhopper lurking in the pages. We know the answer to this one is 'No' with an asterisk. Even if Brandon hadn't told us so directly, it simply can't be canon as-is because he lifted the Shattered Plains sequence from it to give Kaladin the story he needed when he rewrote Way of Kings Prime into the book that we know today. Here's a representative WoB: The asterisk comes from how some of the worldbuilding in the revealed Dragonsteel material is still canon to some extent (like the Sho Del) but the individual characters aren't, anything to do with Yolen's gods is up in the air, Hoid's role apparently is too and even the titular dragonsteel hasn't been firmly nailed down in Brandon's head yet.

Here's one of several points where Brandon has stated that the Metallic Arts work with metal from anywhere in the Cosmere, all that's important is metal purity and for alloys, the ratios. We know that hacking magic systems is possible so you can use the Investiture of one system to power another, but this is not required to use one planet's magic system on another. The only world where location is actually a limitation is Sel, becuse of what happened to Devotion and Dominion's power. Oh, and on the 'Focus' thing, you're getting it confused with fuel, though to an extent the two can overlap. Metal on Scadrial is the 'key' that tells the magic what form to take and it just happens to be consumed in allomancy so there's sort of overlap there, though the power isn't actually coming from the metal but from Preservation directly. On Roshar while Stormlight is the Investiture 'fuel' you use to perform magic, it appears to be bonds that serve as the Focus. Without a Nahel Bond you can't Surgebind and what spren you bond with and how strong the bond is determines what Surges you have and how efficient you are at manipulating them. On Sel the Dor is the 'fuel' while it's the symbols you draw that tell that power what to do, etc.

Been asked before. I really don't think this is the case. Anthropomorphizing the concept of wisdom (and virtues generally) as female is a very old thing.

Depends. I can understand Japanese so I'll generally watch brand new works straight up without subtitles. If it's got a dub at the time I pick it up, I'll generally give both a listen to see how they compare and then stick with whichever I like best. If it's something that I've already heard in Japanese and it's just gotten a dub I'll almost always go for the English audio for a fresh experience. This applies to games as well; if I've played it once in Japanese and liked it enough to buy the localized version, I'll always start with the dub if one exists. If I haven't played it before (like with titles that get worldwide release and dubbing to match) I'll try both.tracks as with anime. There's lots of really good dubs out now across the multimedia spectrum. I'll also occasionally watch/play something I know has a really bad dub if it's of the 'so bad it's good' type, for fun. Case in point, Macross: Do You Remember Love. Or if it's in the wuxia, jidaigeki or kaijuu genres, because I grew up on those dubs.

Yeah, Resonance effects are specifically due to the combination of two powers so a Radiant by default can only have a single Resonance. We know that having 'too many' powers drowns out the effect so even if you have multiple powers that would get you known Resonances on their own, they won't if you have too many others. For example, though we know that Wax and Wayne have Resonances, a Mistborn who also had F-Iron and F-Gold would not get those Resonances, or any others. Brandon has liked the Resonance effect to wave interference. Brandon mentioned that despite the Windrunner Resonance being 'more/stronger squires' (a fact he's confirmed several times) Jezrien didn't get this as none of the Heralds had squires. This leaves open the question of whether Honorblade-granted Surges would count as additional powers or not, for purposes of trying to create new Resonance effecs. And relatedly, whether having three or four Surges would hit whatever invisible barrier there is beyond which the Resonance effects don't appear.

To add to the discussion of Szeth, the Fourth Ideal of the Skybreakers seems to be a two-step process. First you decide what your personal crusade is going to be, then you have to carry it out to the satisfaction of your spren. Until they've decided that you fulfilled your oath, it doesn't actuallly count for purposes of Radiant progression. So while Szeth has stated his intention, until he actually cleanses Shinovar of its false leaders (or if Dalinar disagrees, swears something else in its place) he won't advance beyond where he currently is. The Skybreakers are also different in that you don't actually form a Nahel Bond until you've sworn their second Ideal, which presumably has to do with the Highspren and what they look for in a potential Radiant.

It's possible I'm forgetting a line by Azure but the only thing that immediately springs to mind where someone mistook Kaladin for a worldhopper is Riino, who knows Kaladin is Invested when he's able to see something with the Fortune sphere. But his initial assumption that he was from Nalthis was based on his isolation and thus not knowing that spren had started forming Nahel Bonds again and Syl not being present helped with that. As soon as he realized that surgebinders were returning, he immediately corrected himself.

@Vissy Sigzil doesn't so much have a problem with it conceptually as he does that Drehy hasn't filled out the proper paperwork, It doesn't really seem to be an issue with Azish cultures, so long as you cross all the t's and dot all the i's on the right forms. Going back to the main topic, I doubt that Brandon has intentionally written Kaladin to come off as having romantic feelings for other men but it's possible he did so unconsciously. This happened with Shallan, who he's mentioned he didn't consciously plan to write as bisexual but that's how it worked out when he put words to page. So it could have happened with Kaladin too, or it could be he didn't intend it at all. The reason I'm fairly certain Brandon didn't consciously write Kaladin this way is that he's been asked about homosexual characters in his books on multiple occasions and he specifically called out Drehy as an example of one he's written, before the books made it explicit. If he went in thinking of Kaladin along those lines, I'm fairly certain he'd have mentioned him first as a leading character, then the secondary characters.

@The One Who Connects This one, I presume.

Yeah, Radiant Blade and Plate glows with the color of the Order's associated polestone. We see it in Dalinar's visions (with Stonewards for example) as well as Syl, Pattern etc. The actual metal is uncolored; when Shardplate is described as being colorful it's always dead Plate and it's explicitly been painted to achieve that effect.

The Shards are power, the Vessels are the beings controlling that power. Over time it's possible for the power of the Shard to override the personality of the Vessel (which is more or less what happened to Ruin) but there's still a distinction between the two. It's why the Shard Ruin didn't vanish when Ati was killed. Here's Brandon making it clear that the Shards are Investiture. In addition to @RShara here are some more WoBs that Cultivation is actively working against Odium. Odium has a fully living and fully aware Shard opposing him|. Hoid calls Cultivation 'Slammer'. Dalinar is bonded to the Stormfather, the largest single Splinter of Honor. Who also happens to have merged with Tanavast's Cognitive Shadow. And Bondsmiths are known to be able to do ridiculous things with their powers. It is entirely possible that he can 'speak for Honor' in terms of the Oathpact and release whatever influence Honor's power is continuing to exert on Odium. That might not be enough to let him leave the Rosharan System all on its own (and it's implied that he wouldn't want to just yet, he doesn't want to leave a potential threat at his back) but it would make it a lot easier for him. Technically Ruin isn't exactly 'neutralized', that aspect is still there and it's something that Sazed has to deal with as Harmony. For example, the reason harmonium is so unstable is because the two halves of his power don't mesh well. Brandon has stated that the powers are not combined and Sazed could split off some of Preservation or Ruin's power specifically. Brandon has also mentioned on multiple occasions (and Sazed says so himself in Bands of Mourning) that the two conflicting impulses make it hard for to act at times. But yes, if someone were in a position to take up Odium and some other Shard, it's possible that the end result could be a great deal less destructive than Odium has been. This would of course depend on what the other Shard is, what sort of person the Vessel is and whether they could handle the tension between their two Intents.

Well, not necessarily. While space between worlds is heavily compressed, there is still emptiness between worlds so it should be possible to go between any two planets without having to cross the Cognitive zone of any intervening planets. It would be impossible for Silverlight or the Ire's fortress to exist without this 'empty' Cognitive space.

In addition to RShara's WoB, we still have Frost calling Hoid 'old friend' multiple times in his letter and making a point that he does truly consider him a friend, albeit a frustrating one. Given his apparent association with the Seventeenth Shard and his status as the oldest living being in the Cosmere, I think it's safe to number him among the big players. xD