Weltall

Did I miss a reference somewhere to men eating sweet desserts somehow? Because right now one of those sounds really good and I'm wondering if it's okay to eat. xD And I suspect that wines aren't subject to the same gender restrictions because they're not food.

I'd definitely suggest giving Alcatraz a try as well. I too am above the age of its primary audience and I still love them. They take themselves a lot less seriously than Brandon's usual faire but for all the goofiness in some of the Smedry Talents, they do operate according to some internally consistent principles like magic systems in other works. More like Reckoners-level consistency and scope than a 'scientific' system like allomancy or forgery, but still consistent within those bounds. And setting aside that, the books are just fun to read. And Brandon invented a word to describe how godawful fish sticks are, that absolutely has to count for something. And he pokes fun at 'important' books aimed at children having a bad tendency to kill off mothers, pets or both. And he jokes about who killed Asmodean. And... oh just try reading them already. Yes, I'd also recommend tracking down Aether of Night (ask here) and White Sand (sign up for Brandon's newsletter) as well. They're not as polished as his published works and you'll probably be able to tell why they're unpublished if you compare them to his other works, especially the newer ones. But by the same token they're also a neat look into Brandon's writing process, how he's developed various concepts over time, borrowed ideas from himself and reworked them in interesting ways and generally grown as a writer. And of course, both works are still fun reads even though Aether's story is explicitly non-canonical (pending the rewrite) and White Sand's is subject to whatever changes are made in the graphic novels. Personally I had a lot of fun with Aether even though it's not canon and it's fun to try and guess what's going to be kept and what will be changed when he eventually rewrites it. White Sand's also worth reading even if you've got the graphic novels for all the material that the latter had to trim, ranging from interesting worldbuilding details to funny conversations to entire chapters worth of material, backstory and motivations. The only parts of Liar of Partinel that you can read are the ones Brandon shared on his site (which are linked to in the stickied topic in this subforum) and Brandon himself has discouraged people from reading them, but he hasn't removed them. They're kind of interesting but at the same time, he's mentioned repeatedly how unhappy he was with the book, how we could get the wrong idea about certain characters from it and how it's going to be massively rewritten, so I'd put them way down on your priority reading list. The sample chapters he's released from Dragonsteel are similarly kind of neat, but mostly for the insight they give us into Brandon's development as a writer; the released ones are the segment he cannibalized for Stormlight Archive, with the Shattered Plains setting and the idea of Bridge Four. And if you've got time and don't mind that it's an unfinished project, there's also Mythwalker, aka Warbreaker Prime. That should about do it for Brandon's unpublished but available works. Be happy to provide more details on any of the above if you want. As for author recommendations, off the top of my head I'd name Ursula Le Guin (RIP) and Jim Butcher as 'must try if you haven't already'. I got into the latter because Brandon recommended his works at a signing I attended. He's also got a Goodreads account that he uses to talk about books he's liked, for some additional ideas.

We don't know it was caused by surgebinding as such, but Brandon did make an annotation on someone's map at a signing that pointed to the Plains and said 'great magic unleasehd here' which more or less implies manipulation of the surges in some way, whether it was human surgebinders or Odium-aligned voidbinders. Same fundamental forces being manipulated, just by different means. Either way it doesn't really matter because the humans who fled Ashyn weren't using the exact same magic system as the Rosharans but they still ruined their world with it, it all comes down to evidence that magic can have cataclysmic effects if misused. But as others have mentioned, it's likely to have been a number of factors adding up rather than any one thing that drove the Radiants to do what they did.

Well, it has to be a place (whether it's the name of a planet or just a place on one) since Khriss mentions it in the context of Initiation into a magic system. That she mentions it in the same breath as Initiation into Taldain's system (and one sentence after mentioning two other planets by name) heavily implies that it's the name of a planet specifically. This is likely to be one of those RAFOs intended to just keep us giessing since it has to be a place-designator of some sort. It's clear that whatever Vax is, Brandon doesn't want to reveal any more about it than he absolutely has to right now.

Vax is a planet (or at least a place on a currently unknown planet) confirmed in the Elantris 10th Anniversary Ars Arcanum where Khriss mentions it as a world where Initiation works differently than on Sel. Approaching it from a different angle, Mistborn Secret History also makes it very clear that Leras was the original Vessel of Preservation; he knows Hoid by the same alias that other Vessels do (Cephandrius) and refers to the same 'rejection' by Hoid of the Vessels and of Ascension which requires him to have been among the original sixteen. There were theories for a while that Vax could be the setting for The Dark One, but Brandon has since indicated that it's not going to be a Cosmere work so that can't be the case any longer. He's RAFO'd questions about it so we know very little more than 'it exists'. My own thinking is that it could be a new name for the setting of the eventual rewrite of Aether of Night, which would be a cute nod to the fact that the conflict between Preservation and Ruin in Mistborn was cannibalized from the earlier work. But it could also be something completely unrelated and until Brandon gives us more to work with, all we can do is guess.

Yeahhhh, the power was already 'spread out' among hundreds or thousands of surgebinders by that point, compared to having it concentrated in ten people before the spren started forming Nahel Bonds and (so far as we know right now) maybe a couple dozen people in the present day. The Recreance didn't spread out Honor's power as channeled through humans so much as it practically snuffed it out. Which is exactly what they were trying to do, per Oathbringer. They saw evidence that their power represented a massive threat to Roshar (the Shattered Plains, plus hearing that they did far worse to a world that humans used to live on) and Honor's mad ravings just made things worse. The idea that the Radiants could somehow convince Odium that Honor's power isn't a threat any longer and to stop concentrating attention on it is, unfortunately, kind of laughable. Rayse says outright that he knows he can't afford to leave behind any splinters of Honor if/when he becomes able to finally depart Roshar.

I'd definitely read a hard 'n' sound in there, like the actual French word vin (wine) has. But it's a bit more subtle than an n at the end of a word in English would normally sound. So... somewhere between 'Vah' and 'Van' maybe? I dunno, I'm terribly out of practice at describing the sounds of French. Random aside since it's on my mind from another topic, the Japanese translation of Mistborn has her name as ヴィン which is close to French-sounding but not quite identical. It sounds like the letter V with an n-sound at the end.

I've seen some other theories that the hyphens symbolize different things, depending on what argument the creator wants to advance. I don't think we've got any conclusive evidence one way or the other, so Occam's Shardrazor would suggest that there isn't any deep significance to the presence or absence of hyphens. But that's only a tool for assessing probability and we can't actually rule out the 'hyphens are important' idea. In terms of hyphens versus sentience, while Hessi and apparently the sources she consulted declare Ashtermarn to be mindless, it's worth bearing in mind that what we see of this Unmade seems to suggest it's actually somewhat intelligent. OB spoiler So it's possible the in-universe scholarship is simply incorrect in this instance. We also don't know enough about Chemoarish to say whether she fits or does not fit any apparent pattern among Unmade names. Though in terms of your specific argument, her name lacks hyphens but she isn't counted among the 'three great mindless Unmade', for whatever that's worth.

I can't speak for how it was received personally as I'm not from there but I've got Japanese copies of all of Brandon's works that have been translated so I can perhaps generalize a bit on the State of the (Translated) Sanderson. There are complete translations of Elantris, Mistborn Era 1 and The Way of Kings in Japanese, as well as The Gathering Storm (but not the last two WoT books). Way of Kings appears to be the last of his works to be translated; I don't know the cause of this and don't want to speculate without any basis. As it stands, there's probably not much discussion among Japanese readers of Warbreaker because that's one of the works with no translated version. A very quick check confirms however that there is a bilingual fanbase that's discussing books with no official translations. I might be able to get a secondhand impression of how the books have been recieved by reading online reviews and discussion threads in more detail, but like I said I can't offer a firsthand one. There appear to be translations of some of Brandon's works in Korean and Chinese, but not being able to read either language, that's about the limits of my Search-fu. In the former case, it looks like the translations include Mistborn Era 1, the Reckoners, Elantris and The Emperor's Soul (I mean, if you're gonna translate anything of his into Korean I figure that's gotta be the one given Brandon's inspiration) but not anything from Stormlight Archive. So yeah, if there are Sharders able to give you a personal take on the books that'll do more for you. The best I can offer if you're interested is to have a gander at what the Japanese readers are saying online.

Atium is only 'good' at future-sight for a couple of seconds, in the immediate vicinity of the person burning it. The example in HoA didn't look that much farther ahead, on the timescale of minutes probably. Ruin's future-sight presumably went a lot farther than that, it just wasn't as good as Preservation's own abilities in that respect. So I'm not really seing anything strange in the properties of atium versus Ruin. Related to Shardic foresight, while we don't see it happening directly, we can assume it to be the case for Endowment and all indications are that she's quite good at it. The Returned all see visions of the future before they're sent back and the one example we witness personally involved events that wouldn't happen for five or so years. They could possibly extend much farther if at least some of what Vasher saw before his Return is still in the future, as of Stormlight Archive's timeframe. Harmony has the combined powers of Preservation and Ruin so we could deduce that he has future-sight without having to see it. But Brandon did mention that the radio comment is a combination of future-sight and Ascension providing an understanding of the universe. In terms of indirect Shardic foresight where one of them is empowering it in others is Wyrn in Elantris. Brandon has mentioned that he's associated more with Dominion. Also, OB spoiler And we can add Autonomy to the list of Shards that are indirectly granting future-sight, with the WoB that Patji is related to her in some way. That means that the only Shard that we haven't seen either seeing the future directly or granting some form of it in others is Ambition.

@Calderis Oh good, I'm not the only one then. xD

Serious Answer: It probably wouldn't exist on Roshar as such because of the combination of sweet and spicy, but take the hot sauce off and I'm guessing it would be women's food (never had one myself so I'm not sure how 'sweet' it is). Nonserious Answer: You are a heretic whose soul risks being cast down into Damnation for defying proper Vorin gender roles. Speak to your ardent and come back to eating only sweet or spicy foods (gender-depending) as the Almighty demands of you.

Like Extesian said, they're earlier novels which in some way contributed to later (published) works but they aren't necessarily early drafts. The Way of Kings Prime is an early version of the book we now have but Mistborn Prime isn't. Here's a quick rundown of the 'Prime' works. Mistborn Prime: A novel that has allomancy as a magic system (or a version of it at least) but not the story. Its prologue can be found on Brandon's site. Final Empire Prime: A novel that has some of the story elements that became the Mistborn we know (early versions of Vin and the Lord Ruler) but not allomancy. It apparently did have proto-feruchemy. Two chapters from it can be found on the website. This and Mistborn Prime were combined to form Mistborn: The Final Empire. The Way of Kings Prime: The first version of this work, which is much more recognizable as an early draft than the above two books are to their end result. Brandon has mentioned some of the differences, the most obvious is that Kaladin (then called Merin) had a very different story arc, which can be seen in the released excerpts. Other changes we've been told about include Jasnah and Taln having major roles and the Epilogue scene in WoK involving the latter was apparently the Prologue of WoK Prime. Surgebinding was also something different and there were far fewer spren. Shallan is noted to have been a character specially created for the revised work, replacing someone who didn't really work in the Prime version. White Sand Prime: Brandon's first attempt to tell this story in prose form, along with a sequel called Lord Mastrell. The two were eventually rewritten and combined into White Sand (prose version). Mythwalker: Aka 'Warbreaker Prime', it's a work Brandon never finished but you can read everything he did write on the website, and you'll probably see why he decided to drop it. Several elements from it were cannibalized for Way of Kings and Mistborn: The Final Empire, but its main contribution is that one of its plotlines (involving two princesses getting stuck in each other's stories) was taken and used as the basis for Warbreaker. Dragonsteel Prime: By virtue of the work being slated for a complete rewrite before it's eventual publication, the existing version gets this designation even if it's 'Prime' to a work that doesn't yet exist. As I mentioned earlier, Brandon lifted the Shattered Plains setting and Bridge Four from this work when he rewrote Way of Kings and it's this segment that you can read on the website.

@TheHeadHancho@Leyrann FYI, Braize being a cold world is stated in Arcanum Unbounded in the Rosharan System essay; Khriss' description calls it 'cold and inhospitable to men'. As noted, the scene in Oathbringer isn't about Braize.

Yeah, it's nothing to do with requiring a mix of powers and everything to do with some technical limitation that the Southerners do not (currently) know how to overcome that prevents them from combining too many powers in the same medallion. Allik mentions that they've tried and just haven't gotten it to work yet, but we know it's possible because the Bands of Mourning are essentially a super-medallion that grants thirty-two powers. The 'three power' thing as mentioned is simply the maximum number of hemalurgic spikes a human can have without opening themselves up to Harmony taking control.

That could be a possibility but it's also at least as possible that none of the Kholins have done anything that would allow Nale to legally execute them. Well, except for Dalinar, pretty sure that wouldn't be hard to make a case for but he's got other things that keep him out of the Skybreakers' grasp. But Renarin doesn't seem likely to have done anything that would give Nale the opening he needs (also, by the time he started surgebinding it was probably too late for Nale to notice and react) and Jasnah might be the same. She must have been on his radar given her use of a soulcaster; he may not know she's actually a surgebinder but she was high-profile about having one so she must have caught Nale's attention sooner or later. But the one thing we know she's done that might be grounds for an arrest and execution warrant is also noted to be justified by almost all the ethical systems she has Shallan research and since the 'crime' was committed in Kharbranth, Nale would need local permission to carry out a sentence. It's unlikely Taravangian would allow that; it was legal self-defense and even if it wasn't, I'm fairly certain he doesn't want to incur the immediate displeasure and attention of the Alethi royal family while he's still setting up all the pieces of his Diagram Master Plan. Elhokar you could get on the very deaths that actually got him killed, except that there's not much evidence he had a Nahel Bond until after the point that Nale's Surgebinder Murder Party became moot, so he probably never came to the Skybreaker's attention.

He was in the gentleman adventuring business before the onscreen events of Era 2 so you could probably read the Pits of Eltania story (the Elendel Daily segment first, then the Arcanum Unbounded one that follows it chronologically) before The Alloy of Law. The story segment in the Shadows of Self broadsheet likewise must have happened before its 'publication' contemporary with that book, so read the Allomancer Jak story before the book it's contained within, ditto for the Nicki Savage broadsheet story in Bands of Mourning. That would be my way of tackling it if I were to try to read everything chronologically.

The Edit button beneath the post. You can check the big stickied announcement currently at the top of every page to see where Oathbringer information is supposed to be limited to, for now.

There does seem to be a distinction between the Heralds and Radiants in this respect. In the Aharietiam vision, Dalinar is shocked when he sees that Jezrien's eyes are dark. That said, the one example we have shows that Jezrien's Honorblade does cause the same glowing effect and in the same color as a Radiant of the Order that imitated his powers so the Herald's eyes are likely to have glowed as well when using them. The effect just isn't permanent like it is for a Radiant. This probably has to do with Radiants having a deeper bond and more changes to their Spiritweb than what the Honorblades do on their own.

His use of 'devised' and such in that WoB is intended to talk around the big reveal in Words of Radiance. The spren weren't 'built' to become shardblades but the fact that they were consciously imitating Honor's Investiture in the form of the Honorblades meant that when they did form Nahel Bonds, their default form in the Physical Realm was 'giant sword'. And only some types of spren can form Nahel Bonds, and not all who can will. Spren also predate the appearance of surgebinding (some even predate the arrival of the Shards) so even those who can form bonds weren't 'built' to do so. FYI

Brandon has RAFO'd the question of exactly what the Vessels knew when they were taking up their Shards. He's also described Harmony as taking that name because 'it felt right' so if they didn't know in advance what they were getting, they would have gotten an impression upon Ascending and would have decided what to call themselves based on that impression. The WoBs that Adonalsium could have been shattered in different ways (here's a recent example) is open to a lot of interpretation so we don't know if it means that the Intents formed by some conscious choice of the Vessels, if it was determined by how many ways they split Adonalsium's power (ie hypothetically if there had been eight Vessels, perhaps Preservation and Ruin would have remained a single chunk of power) or something else. Odium is something of an outlying case but we probably shouldn't try to generalize from him for a couple reasons. One, we have Frost (who's the oldest living being in the cosmere and extremely cosmere-aware) explicitly stating that Rayse's Shard does primarily embody the idea of hatred. He's apparently quite wrong in his assumption that Rayse has been entirely subsumed by his Shard contra Hoid's opinion, but he seems pretty convinced by the nature of the power Rayse took up, at least. Second, the name had to come from somewhere and it's ubiquitous among the cosmere-aware, given that Khriss uses it in her essays. So there appears to be some sort of consensus on what that power represents, even if it's only secondhand from people who have seen the aftermath of Rayse's visits to various worlds. Third, Brandon has mentioned that he originally planned on calling Odium 'Hatred' but changed it to a better word with the same meaning. Lastly, there's the context in which Rayse mentions finding the name Odium limiting, which makes me question just how sincere he was there. I'd take anything Rayse says with a hefty pinch of salt, and I'd examine his words backwards and forwards, while looking at them reflected in a mirror, hanging upside-down, before I'd trust them. The Stormfather also mentions that Rayse is incorrect in his claim that he's the only Shard that cares and we have our own observations on other Shards to back this up.

@tabitreader @Skip Hates Dragons Pssst, Oathbringer spoilers don't belong here. On a general note, everyone possesses some innate Investiture (Brandon's called it the spark of life on occasion) but some peoples naturally have more than others. Nalthians in particular are an example due to their Breath and Rosharans have the constant passing of the Investiture-saturated highstorms, which is why they're generally such a healthy bunch.

This is a good point. I implicitly assumed that 'all sixteen metals' meant the sixteen normal metals known as of Era 2 and excluded the godmetals, but if you gave Spook atium then the situation becomes much more decisively tilted in his favor unless Vasher is able to adapt quickly like we see Vin do when fighting Zane. Not impossible but it's a lot less likely to happen since he'd lack Vin's advantage of knowing in advance how atium works and what its potential limitations are. Without that knowledge or having one's own method of peeking into the Spiritual, atium is pretty much an 'I Win' button so long as it lasts.

Round one would go to Vasher, I think. Brandon has said that he's actually a lot better with a sword than Warbreaker might make it seem, but between his circumstances in that book (tired of fighting) and having Nightblood he had no real desire or need to fight with all his skill. But the fact that he could take on Denth and Arsteel and not be instantly slaughtered was a hint that he's really good, he's just not as good as those two. Combine that with being able to change his size to give himself a reach advantage, dodge attacks or otherwise mess with his center of gravity at will, I think Spook would have a very hard time competing since he's not very combat-oriented. Round two's a lot harder to call. As a full mistborn in Kredik Shaw he has a huge mobility advantage. Since you didn't specify it, I'm going to assume he isn't carrying around a bag of coins to use as projectiles and also that there isn't a convenient stockpile of impromptu missiles he can use. Otherwise it wouldn't be hard for Spook to continually dodge while showering Vasher with Steelpushed objects until one of them does the trick. Returned don't get any special healing powers and they're just as vulnerable to injury as a normal human so that would be a pretty risk-free tactic. So assuming that's not the case because it would be too easy and Spook needs to get just as close to hurt Vasher as Vasher needs to hurt him, let's look at his options. He can push/pull on any metal Vasher's carrying other than Nightblood itself (massively Invested and thus resistant) or its sheath (aluminum) which could give him a weapon if Vasher's got metal on him. Otherwise he saves those metals for mobility which is still a huge deal and would let him run rings around Vasher. Electrum could be used in lieu of atium to predict Vasher's actions, but that would partially come down to how experienced he is with the metal. Bendalloy would also be useful to throw Vasher off at range, but once Spook got close it would be harder to use without catching Vasher in the bubble as well. Still, could be a serious shock if used at the right moment. Chromium isn't a big factor because while it could probably do bad things to Vasher, it takes time to work and requires you to be within arms reach... at which point you've already been Nightblooded to death. So, Spook has no coins but can still maneuver rings around Vasher, he's got a couple powers that can be used to surprise Vasher and he's got super-senses and reflexes from tin and pewter, enough that if he can land a good hit on Vasher he can end the fight. Vasher too needs just one hit (and unlike Spook he doesn't really need to aim) but he's got to be careful about when he draws Nightblood and he's going to be at a bigger disadvantate in terms of being able to anticipate his opponents actions. His best chance would probably be to Awaken his belt or cloak and hope to tangle Spook up with it long enough to bring Nightblood into play. I'm not sure which way this one would go. I'm tempted to give Vasher a slight edge since he's got a personality better aligned towards fighting and Brandon has pegged him as one of the two most likely protagonists to remain standing in a no-power brawl (the second being Kelsier) compared to Spook, but the latter's mobility advantages and surprise factor could easily tip the balance. I vote that we schedule a cage match to determine the issue. Maybe get the bookies in Silverlight to take bets on the outcome and have some Lightweavers on standby to illustrate the action and stream it to the cosmere at large.

@hoiditthroughthegrapevine Haha, nice job there. @Heir of the Void That sounds awesome. In fact, you could turn it into an entire legal thriller series. The Skyeel Brief. To Kill a Larkin. Twelve Angry Listeners... And it all culminates in the explosive finale, Ardent Attorney, in which Odium is tried and sentenced to splintering as a result of the heroic arguments of Sigzil and his co-counsel Venli and Hoid is the presiding judge.