Weltall

Welcome to the Shard! As mentioned, the timeline doesn't work out for Hoid to have had a copy of Kwaan's writing and that had nothing to do with him whatsoever. He's dropping objects related to the story he's telling, paper with writing when discussing the discovery of new Commands, metal when the Manywar begins, leaves when talking about Hallandren's environment... no reason to read any special meaning into any particular examples. Also, we know that what Hoid does here is related to Yolish storytelling/Lightweaving. Timeline-wise, Hoid has visited Taldain and Scadrial prior to his appearance in Warbreaker but again, no relation to what he does when telling the story of the Manywar. However, keep an eye out for future Hoid appearances and you might just spot things of interest... Oh, and two unrelated FYIs. First, you don't need to put a spoiler warning in the title for anything posted in Cosmere Theories, except for Oathbringer since it's new. Second, double-posting is frowned upon and it's considered polite to edit new thoughts into your most recent post if nobody has yet replied, instead of posting a second time.

Yep. Splintering is a process that can be reversed and in theory all sixteen Shards could be held by a single Vessel since we have Harmony as an example of it happening once and Brandon has mentioned that Rayse could pick up other Shards but has chosen not to because he fears this would change his personality. However, he's also mentioned that whether Adonalsium could be reformed is a subject of debate in-universe with some believing it to be impossible. And even if you could get all sixteen Shards reformed and in a position where one individual could take up all of them, what you got from that would not necesssarily be Adonalsium reborn and it definitely wouldn't be the same entity, as whatever consciousness Adonalsium had before the Shattering is gone.

Like I said, it's not likely but we can't completely discount the option that one of the Inquisitors was for some reason spiked with F-Atium and that another either had an atium spike of any attribute that could be melted down, or was carrying atium... or that Spook got some another way, like Zane's missing stockpile. That the atium mistings were mostly killed at the end of the book isn't really a factor because as a mistborn, Spook can already burn it allomantically. But yeah, it seems the least likely explanation for Spook's long life next to everything else. Just tossed it out there because it's a known method of life-extension and not completely impossible.

Jawbreakers, invented on Roshar. xD Actually, we know candy exists on Roshar because it comes up on occasion. Very early in Way of Kings, Syl is trying to figure out what Kaladin is clutching in his fist (it's the blackbane leaves) and he thinks that she's inspecting his hand 'like a child expecting to find a hidden piece of candy'. It's a fairly safe bet that the Horneaters have some of their own. And that it's not meant for airsick lowlander consumption, at least not before a couple mugs of Horneater ale. Or a thimbleful of Horneater White.

Oh, they're definitely beatable in theory, just... not with Awakening. It's not really a combat-oriented magic system and everything it can do could be easily countered by something a fullborn can do. A Fused would depend greatly on which surge they have access to and that's still one power versus thirty four (if you include A/F-Atium) so you'd need some exceptional circumstances for there to be a remotely reasonable chance. A Herald or a full Radiant could be a much better matchup but it would depend on which Herald/Radiant Order you're talking about. Bondsmiths for example are not very combat-oriented and a highstorm would be just as dangerous to most surgebinders as it would anyone else, given that only two Orders and two Heralds have access to Gravitation. However, I would bet on The Lopen any day of the week, on the basis of 'being The Lopen'. Lopen once won a chainsaw juggling contest with only the one arm. True fact. Not really. Kaladin survived exposure to a highstorm with unintentional stormlight healing. A fullborn has access to much better healing than Kaladin did at that point and they have F-Zinc, F-Steel, A-Bendalloy and the 'I win' button that is A-Atium to avoid the most dangerous bits of debris that could be coming at them in the first place. Not to mention A-Steel to push themselves above the stormwall. And the possible hax of compounded F-Chromium, depending on exactly how it works. And these are mostly independent powersets so running out of one metal still leaves the fullborn other options.

Yeah, he's got potential access to feruchemical powers through hemalurgy so he might have gotten access to F-Gold. That wouldn't make you immortal (just like Miles remarks that he still ages) but it would keep you at peak health until your soul's insistance on its true age finally caught up with your Physical self. Brandon goes into the mechanics here. It's also possible he could have used the atium compounding trick to extend his life, but that would require first finding a spike that grants F-Atium and then finding some spare atium (in beads or in a spike) to create the compounding loop; even very a limited supply could give him decades of life. There were a bunch of dead Inquisitors so it's at least possible he was able to find what he needed off their corpses, especially since he knew about those Inquisitors and salvaged at least one spike from them. Another possibility that doesn't require hemalurgical tricks (or A-Cadmium, which is certainly a viable method as well) is that Harmony Did It, leaning on his Preservation side a bit more. Having a single stable ruler certainly couldn't have hurt things in the immediate aftermath of the Catacendre, so it's possible Sazed did a little tweaking to give Spook a longer lifespan. We know he did some massive tinkering to revert all the changes that Rashek had made to humanity and he also healed physical infirmities and genetic defects to give the best chance of survival so a bit of extra tweaking of Spook to let him live longer doesn't seem impossible.

Shadows of Self confirms that the Second Generation survived the Catacendre. TenSoon mentions to Wax that he and Paalm are among the oldest kandra "now that many of the Seconds have taken the escape of ending their own lives". By necessary implication they had to have survived to be able to later commit suicide and he says that many of the Second Generation have done so but not all of them, so there must be some still around.

Sorry, what exactly are you asking/proposing? The reason Stormfather is a curse in Stormlight Archive is because the planet has big honking storms that regularly sweep the world and this storm is embodied in a sapient spren (the literal Stormfather) because of how Investiture manifests on Roshar. I'm not sure what that has to do with Mistborn or swearing or cross-Cosmere connections.

That's less an insult and more how you challenge a fellow member to a Sharder Duel. Very ritualized competition, involves trying to make theories out of random prompts while downing shots of Veden Saph. Last one able to make a coherent theory wins. So... is 'I just Sharded' supposed to be something Awesome or is it meant to be deeply shameful? Because I could see that one going either way. xD

@Zellyia How about Vorin-styled curses like 'by Pagerunner's Memory'? Or if you want Sharder insults, how about "May thy theory be Shattered"? And of course, one can't forget swearing by the Ultimate Reality, the avatar of the God Beyond: "Stick!"

Let me chime in with another 'Read Warbreaker, you won't regret it!'. As noted, travel between worlds isn't difficult conceptually. You can even get multiple hints how it's done in SA alone. Remember Rock's story about meeting Luna'anaki in Words of Radiance, how he appeared out of a pool in the Horneater Peaks? That's Hoid, Brandon's most obvious worldhopper and cross-Cosmere actor. Oathbringer confirms that the Peaks contain Cultivation's Perpendicularity. Other worlds have these Perpendicularities as well and they're areas where it is extremely easy to transition between the Physical and Cognitive Realms (Shadesmar as the latter is more commonly called on Roshar). Because space on the Cognitive is mapped to space in the Physical and is formed by thought, the areas where no thought is occurring (ie, the interstellar void) are compressed and it becomes possible to literally walk between worlds. There's more to it than that but those are the basics. Azure confirms that she got to Roshar that way when she describes her last experience with Shadesmar. Now, one thing we do not know from Warbreaker is where that world's Perpendicularity is located, but we know it has one so travel from Nalthis to Roshar is indeed possible. There are also a couple of other characters from other worlds that you might be able to spot if you look for the clues.

Brandon has said that the Ones Above are from a world we knew of when the story first came out. Scadrial is the most obvious guess because we know they're getting FTL at some point but there are other options as well. Good job making tge connection on your own and welcome to the Shard!

Welcome to the Shard! Enjoy your stay, watch out for any hemalurgic cookies people may try to offer you. Brandon has said that what Hoid does to know where he needs to be uses the same underlying mechanism as feruchemy, not that he's actually a feruchemist. The WoB that appears to say so was a paraphrase and has been superceded by newer ones that are more clear. That Hoid has been involved in Scadrial for longer than we've been able to directly observe is pretty much a certainty but that he's the origin of feruchemy is farfetched. Brandon's also directly stated that it's a system that arose as a balance between Scadrial's two Shards which means an outside influence was not required. Why it's only found in one specific population is certainly a valid question but this is one case where I don't think Hoiddidit is the answer.

@RShara Well, I'm basing it on an interpretation of a line in the text and I admit that it's open to interpretation, but I think it's a fair assumption.

The 'Halfshards' are explained in Oathbringer. In any case, they're basically fabrials that resist on the basis of 'Investiture interferes with Investiture'.

You can Awaken with a Divine Breath but 'Investiture fullness' isn't based on Breath counts but rather total Investiture in the system, so there should still be an upper limit to how much Investiture you can shove in any given bit of metal whether you're using a lot of ordinarly Breaths or a small number of superpowered ones. Also, Brandon was asked about whether a Divine Breath could heal the mental damage Leras was suffering from and mentioned that such a thing would be well beyond the amount of Investiture it could provide (source) so extrapolating to other uses it's unlikely that multiple Divine Breaths in an Awakened sword would grant it the power to splinter a Shard. The things are powerful but compared to a full Shard we're still talking 'ants on a runway' level.

Awesome compilation. I'll have to think about some of these, but for now a couple thoughts on the ones I think I have answers for, off the top of my head. Possibly, they chose not to lash him because it would be more painful for him to be carried that way. He did just kill one of them, even if it didn't stick because the Fused can resurrect Could be petty sadism rather than any weirdness with their ability to use Gravitation. Though by the same token I do recall Kaladin thinking there was something different to how the Fused were flying compared to what he's used to (I don't have the book handy to check for the exact quote though) so it seems like there's something going on either way. Odium is from Yolen rather than Ashyn and was born thousands of years before the exodus to Roshar, so he's not necessarily related to any particular group on Roshar on an ethnic basis. If you took a Rosharan to Scadrial, they'd probably say that a lot of people there 'look Shin' as well. That said, Tanavast and Cultivation apparently both have the epicanthic folds, or at least Dalinar doesn't comment on their appearance the way he does when he sees Rayse. There's definitely things going on with the Shin but I'm not sure we should take Rayse's appearance as an indication of what that could be, at least not just yet. Could be a coincidence. And we'll probably have to wait for Szeth's flashback book to really get into the details. Assuming that Tanavast and Cultivation's Vessel have the epicanthic folds and don't stand out from Rosharan humans in that respect, possibly they actually changed the people of Roshar at the point when humans started worshipping them as a sort of 'you are ours now, let this be a sign' moment, while the people who remained in the original lands that became Shinovar were left out. Doesn't require them to be followers of Odium, just that they didn't actively seek out other gods to worship. We know that modifying an entire planet's population is well within the power of a Shard. It's Hoid, it could easily be 'all of the above'. xD He's already a Lightweaver (albeit not the Rosharan variant at that point), he seems like he's going to become a Radiant at the end of the book and between his love of lies/his tenuous relationship with the truth and the fact that he's apparently got a crazy spiritweb (and is sort of timeless, in the way that spren are) he might well seem like a Cryptic or a spren more generally from Pattern's perspective. He even self-describes himself has having 'begun life as a concept, a thought'. I was going to say something about maybe Kaladin's own innate Investiture is interfering with the Lightweaving even if he wasn't drawing on that sphere's worth of stormlight or doing any surgebinding, but then I remembered that the earlier illusion where she made him look really ugly stayed so... got me. Spren aren't really supposed to be able to die. She mentioned in Words of Radiance (IIRC) that even when you 'kill' a spren they're still there, look at the deadeyes for example. But actually and permanently ending the existence of a spren seems to be something very different and it probably doesn't happen often. Nazh seems confused by this one too, mentioning in his annotations to the alcohol illustration that he sees them all the time. There's probably a conceptual thing at work, where they appear in some places but not others because of the way that they think (or don't think) about alcohol or intoxication, which attracts the spren. While it was the process of transitioning into the Physical that damaged her memories, the end result is the spren equivalent of neurological damage rather than a location-dependant thing. Dunno, I never got the impression that transitioning fully back to the Cognitive would automatically restore her memories. Given what goes on in that lighthouse, maybe she's got a strong aversion to people trying to see the future? She's Honorspren so maybe that sort of thing bothers her more than it does Pattern, as a reflection on the general 'seeing the future is of Odium' thing that the series has going on? It doesn't have to be strictly true for Syl to feel uncomfortable about it. This... is a very good question. I've seen some theories (like this one) but I haven't sat down to read them yet in detail. I should probably do that... This could depend on exact words. I can imagine several ways Preservation could have phrased a promise that would allow for what happened in Mistborn without him technically breaking his word.

In-universe, Cynder and Acron argue over where Dayside fits in the intellectual framework that Darkside academics have come up with. They've got enough technology to forge steel, plus various applications of carapace that doesn't fit neatly into any classification we (or the academics) could use. They are however quite impressed by the airgun-crossbows. But electricity and radio is far beyond anything seen in the prose version, either in Dayside or Darkside. We know the latter has gunpowder but it's relatively new. All that said, Brandon has told us that Taldain is currently the most technologically advanced world, so perhaps the change isn't a goof on the part of the adaptation but was a deliberate change to introduce this to the setting. Proof of Taldain's clear technological superiority is in this recent WoB where Brandon confirms where Hoid learned about instant noodles from: His interest in Scadrial vis a vis instant noodles thus appears to be a result of no longer being able to get to Taldain for his fix.

Hey, how do you know how big my boots are? Have you been spying on me with a spren?! Spook thinks that even after 'all these weeks' he's not quite used to his sense being baseline-human again, so we're probably looking at a month, maybe two at the outside. We know that being a Sliver does things to the body as well as the soul and the implication that the bodies would have been useful to have around (minus Leras and Ati's Cognitive/Spiritual aspects) leaves open that there's something about them that would be different from any old human corpse. So it's possible they would have been viable for a while longer than an ordinary corpse would have been.

Yeah, as soon as my copy arrived and I saw that scene, I became pretty certain the man with the musical instrument is Hoid. He's appeared in both issues so far and seems to be keeping an eye on the protagonists. Won't be surprised if he does something (slightly) more prominent in the last volume, even if it's just pulling a 'they went thattaway' to guide the characters to where they need to be.

Good point (@Govir too) that it may not have been mentioned, though I have a feeling that it really should be considered 'masculine' under the one hand/two hands thing because of all the fine work required, needing to hold things in place with one hand while working with another, switching tools with an off hand... but I suppose it could go either way as long as there are qualified assistants available, as can happen in the real world. As far as Vedel training surgeons goes, she predates the tradition of dividing arts by gender. If the Vorin church can handle the idea that the female Heralds used swords, they could probably wrap their minds around the idea of female Heralds practicing 'masculine' arts or vice versa. So I think that could go either way too.

We don't really know. I think this WoB is the most that Brandon has said about that particular scene, or at least it's the only one I was able to find. So his 'corpseboat' didn't get pulled Beyond because it was a Cognitive Shadow and able to resist that pull. As for what Hoid coated his oar with, we have no idea. We know he has Taldaini sand (maybe not at that moment in time, but we know he has some centuries later) but it would have to be mixed with some binding agent to actually stick to the oar and that might mess with the Investiture, since pouring water on the sand is enough to release it. Limits the range of methods he could use. Similarly, stormlight is hard to take off Roshar so it probably wasn't that. The same novel shows an Invested liquid of some sort used by the Ire; they drink one form of it and another is used to create enough Connection to Preservation to allow someone to take up that Shard when they might not be able to do so normally. Hoid may not be using the exact same substance but it could be something similar.

Welcome to the Shard! Enjoy yourself but watch out for any cookies you may be offered... We've known about this for quite some time. About a year before that WoB, Brandon wrote that 'Adonalsium shattered because he was killed' which was also implicit in the summary of the Shattering that Khriss and Nazh gave Kelsier in Secret History, published right around the same time. That said, just because Brandon uses 'he' doesn't necessarily mean that Adonalsium was male as we would understand the term. Brandon has also used male-gendered terms for Nightblood, who as a sentient sword doesn't really have a set gender identity and is apparently trying to work this sort of thing out in 'his' spare time. Adonalsium may well have emerged as a discrete entity due to the known property that Investiture left alone can develop sentience, rather than having started out that way. Whether this emergent mind self-identified as male or whether that's what people in the Cosmere think is another issue.

She could be an ardent and the text just doesn't mention it? We know the normal rules don't apply to them, which is why Ivis can learn swordsmanship and male ardents can read..

Yeah, that ancient Vorin treatise on masculine versus feminine arts used the number of hands required as the distinguishing feature, which is why surgery is considered masculine.