Weltall

The discussion between Jasnah and Shallan about how the repair should be 'simple' occurs when they're on the Wind's Pleasure in WoR so whether the device was in Shallan's possession or Jasnah's at the time is academic, it ended up on the bottom of the ocean either way before any repairs could be attempted. That said, the context implies that Jasnah did give it back to Shallan since she refers to it as 'your Soulcaster' and talks about how they can send it back to the Davars once it's fixed, meaning she sees it as Shallan's property and not hers.

2 minutes ago, mathiau said:

This wob say they have their own intents distinct from the one of their Shard

Yes, and? We know from the spren themselves and from the Skaze (in a WoB I linked to) that Splinters are also influenced by the intent of their Shard. You'll note that the questioner explicitly made that assumption in the WoB and Brandon didn't contradict it.

F-Zinc lets you think really fast but it doesn't do a thing to your reflexes. If that's your only power then unless you're in a situation where you can dodge out of the way of an attack with your natural abilities, all the feruchemy will let you do is contemplate what's about to happen to you for a good while before it actually occurs. Bullet time is F-Steel's thing, as Brandon says here:

Quote

Alteroden

With [Feruchemical] zinc, you get mental speed. How is that any different from [Feruchemical] steel, except without [physical] speed?

Brandon Sanderson

I think of the mental speed actually turning you into... Let's say you sped up your body, and you wanted to figure out some really complex equations.

Alteroden

So it lets you have intuitive leaps.

Brandon Sanderson

Right. It basically turns you into Ken Jennings. That's how I imagine it.

Kurkistan

So it's not like bullet time?

Brandon Sanderson

No... It'll bullet time a little bit, it certainly will, because you're thinking faster than everyone else, but it has applications beyond bullet timing. Bullet time is really--

Kurkistan

That’s steel’s thing?

Brandon Sanderson

That’s kind of steel's thing. They kind of overlap on that one, because the steel thing... But yeah. It's more like "I think fast, but my reaction speed is not sped up".

Shadows of Self Chicago signing (Oct. 12, 2015)

Note that Ishar is explicitly stated do be average in skill among the Heralds by the Stormfather; that means that there are some (Taln, Chana and probably Jezrien and Kalak) who are better than he is. None of the others should have any Connection hax powers that would let them get a peek at the future, or at least none that can be exploited in the heat of battle. If Ishar really has some method of combat futuresight, you'd expect him to be one of the better fighters, not baseline.

So yeah, I think it really is just thousands of years of skill and no special power he has access to that made him so good in that fight.

To go with the above point, we know that you don't need very much Breath to start getting influenced by Endowment's intent (even one might be enough) and a Divine Breath is a rather large chunk of Investiture. Brandon has said that Splinters often have their own intents and we know from spren and from WoBs on the Skaze that Splinters are also strongly influenced by the intent of the Shard that created them.

So yeah, by being sapient Investiture, a Cognitive Shadow does experience a degree of influence from whatever Shard's Investiture is enabling their continued existence.

For whatever it's worth, Brandon has RAFO'd the question of when someone on Nalthis gets their Breath so it's clearly something he wants people to debate and it's probably being debated offscreen by Silverlight scholars. My guess is that since your spiritweb is, well, Spiritual and we know that can be extremely wonky with regards to things like 'time', the essential Investiture that makes a child in the womb a distinct individual from the mother happens early, possibly even at conception because at least in some contexts we know that spiritwebs don't care all that much about biology when it comes to their operation, though they are quantifiable with the right knowledge.

With all that, I suspect that once the child has their spiritweb in place, nothing the mother does with stormlight healing (or other self-targeting magics) can change the child's body because their spiritweb is not their child's spiritweb. Caveat to this, an Edgedancer or Truthwatcher might be able to do more if they use Regrowth, but it still wouldn't work on genetic issues. Basic stormlight healing might be able to prevent things that could be transmitted from mother to child Physically (ie, what can happen in the real world with, say, drugs or alcohol) if the healing is able to prevent the underlying cause though, and exposure to stormlight whether used by the mother for healing or not probably means the child will be healthier than normal since we know exposure to it makes Rosharans a healthy bunch on average. I definitely don't think that stormlight or other healing could terminate a pregnancy however, for the same reasons that it can't prevent aging, certain genetic conditions and the like: Spiritually-speaking there's nothing wrong with the mother for the magic to operate on. One point in favor of this take: Shallan notes that despite being a Radiant, she still gets menstrual cramps. Also, Lift freaks out when she gets her first period in Edgedancer and as far as she's concerned at the time something is wrong with her, but her magic (which includes the more powerful Regrowth) disagrees.

Nice thought. I suspect that the idea did make it into the canonical Cosmere in at least some form since we know from the Stormfather, Odium and WoBs that Shards are absolutely bound by capital-o Oaths that they make. Breaking things that don't qualify as proper oaths is okay though.

To go to your idea about Investiture 'promising' to carry out a Command, that's kind of how Awakening works. We're told that if you break apart an Awakened object, the pieces of it can still try to carry out the Command if they're able to do so.

Probably not, because it seems like it would be the most inefficient way possible to go about spiking a spren. We know from this WoB that stealing something from a spren can be done in the Cognitive Realm and that you can't really use a spike to give anything to a spren. If you're trying to get something from a spren, there's no need to try and draw them into the Physical and make bodies for them; we don't know how that works yet but it can't be easy and it clearly doesn't work very well. Much easier to pop into Shadesmar and stab them over there. If you're trying to spike something into them to make a Sprenquisitor, well, apparently that just can't be done.

As @Inquisitor #5 mentioned, 'Hoid' was originally the name of our Hoid's master. It's seen in Dragonsteel Prime and confirmed to still be canon in Frost's letter to him in Words of Radiance when the former asks whether he's stopped hiding behind the name of his old master. He does go by that name on occasion on Roshar (he tells it to Dalinar in WoK and Kaladin more or less exclusively refers to him by that name after their meeting in WoK) though he's more commonly just known by his title of Wit.

Anyhow, point being that Hoid isn't his original name and we don't know when he started using it, so trying to find deep meanings in it is likely a fool's errand. While Dragonsteel Prime isn't canon, we know that he went by Topaz then and the canon books confirm that all the Vessels knew him as Cephandrius, so if he was using Hoid as one of his aliases before the Shattering it certainly wasn't in the company of the people who actually participated in the event.

Oooh, very nicely done there!

I feel like Autonomy is 'complicated' because her avatars are still considered part of the Shard and are how Bavadin prefers to interact with people, but they can be different things depending on what Bavadin wanted when she created them. With entire pantheons consisting of avatars, Autonomy probably has at least some representation in every possible color combination; The way Autonomy's response to Hoid in the Oathbringer epigraph suggests the avatars all over the map when it comes to their outlooks.

And I like the placement of Valor as mono-Red, as the one Shard we know about other than Harmony who seems like she might be willing to take a stand against Odium, the confirmed mono-Red.

You might start here, you'll see a lot of interesting discussion on the book.

We got a stealth update with some 'new' characters for Kuro, which is to say two characters already introduced in previous games and a bit more detail on a Kuro original.

23 hours ago, NattyBo said:

Started Act 3 of CSIV last night. A certain boss was a major roadblock for me, but I was pretty sleepy. Hopefully I can manage tonight. I’m not under level AFAIK and I’ve got great gear and equipment, but.,,

boss spoiler:

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Crimson Roselia as the Holy Beast in the Luna shrine is no joke. Since I was tired I didn’t mess with changing accessories to prevent status effects and pretty much got delayed into oblivion. 

 

Man, that battle was a real trip. Especially since Falcom threw an eleventh hour mechanic into the game as part of it. xD

Welcome to the Shard!

Scadrial is the Cosmere's major Earth analogue (one of several example WoBs here) so expressions that would be familiar to the readers are more likely to show up with no special importance attached, simply because it's meant to feel the most 'like our world' of all the ones that Brandon is writing. Brandon also uses the word a bunch in Elantris, which predates Mistborn and in fact predates The Way of Kings Prime, much less the published version. So there's no particular reason to assume that because Breeze uses the word as a curse, that it means anything special; people use it frequently in English without intending to reference the Stormlight Archive. In fact, it only appears once in WoKP and only as a generic term, so Brandon wrote the published Mistborn trilogy (including that curse) before he decided on captial-d Damnation as a significant concept for Roshar.

Also, we know Breeze's backstory and it doesn't really leave him room to be a secret Rosharan worldhopper, nor does he exhibit the most obvious sign that would set him off as being from Roshar: Those people are really tall next to everyone else in the Cosmere, which is why one easy way to identify worldhoppers on Roshar is when they're noticeably shorter than average.

All that said, you're definitely approaching this in the right way, so keep your eyes peeled and you'll spot all kinds of interesting things, some of which are definitely intentional hints.

Autonomy's Vessel (Bavadin) is primarily based in the Taldain System, though rather than being 'on' Taldain itself she seems to have her Physical nexus in the system's main star. We know that it's the sunlight that provides the Investiture that charges the titular sand on Dayside and that you could make use of that Investiture with the right technology anywhere that the light of that star is visible. Oh yes, gender, Brandon has said that Bavadin is female but that we shouldn't get too hung up on gender, race or even human appearance where she's concerned. Bavadin herself seems to change how she appears (gender included) frequently.

The other big thing about Bavadin/Autonomy is that she likes to create what are referred to as avatars. These are separate personas from Bavadin herself but they're still part of her Shard and they can be created unconsciously or by a deliberate act, in which case Bavadin has the ability to shape certain aspects of the persona, which she did with the one on Obrodai who is mentioned in the letter in the Oathbringer epigraphs. This is apparently something that all the Shards can do but Autonomy is the only one that we know has done it. Patji and the Sand Lord are both avatars created by Autonomy, the former demonstrating that a Shard doesn't have to physically visit a world to manifest an avatar there. Bavadin prefers to interact with people through her avatars rather than being the focus of attention herself. One amusing thing we've learned is that there is at least one world out there which has a pantheon where every deity worshiped is actually Bavadin, through these avatars.

Skathan may be another of these avatars but that hasn't been confirmed, only that she does influence things on Darkside. Likewise, Trell is very strongly hinted to be connected to Autonomy in some way, since we know that they're an extension of the unknown Shard attempting to influence Scadrial and that it's one of the Shards we knew about back in 2015 which includes Autonomy. However, Brandon hasn't confirmed that Trell is an avatar of Autonomy's yet, it's just a very well supported theory.

Yeah, this is something publishers tend to do once there's an adaptation. You'll see the same thing happening with A Song of Ice and Fire if you've looked at any version of those printed in the last decade and it will probably happen on reprintings of Brandon's books if/when any film or television adaptations come out. So grab 'em now while they're still clean of advertising!

Speaking of which, the art for the newest release of Eye of the World is quite nice.

We've got a teaser of the Mini OST for Kuro with the usual accompanying images. There's a postgame Reverie spoiler in one of them:

35 minutes ago, mdross81 said:

I don’t know that the Bondsmith spren have a collective name other than Bondsmith spren. 

'Godspren' has been used in discussion but it's not a canon term.

EDIT: Ninja'd by WoB

Aside from AquaRegia's points, I have one more: Killing TOdium literally one book in would actually do more damage to the narrative than keeping Rayse around after several prominent failures. While the latter lost some of his mystique after being handed two solid defeats, he at least had the whole 'I'm incredibly ancient and Know Things and have had thousands of years to plan' factor that Brandon could have fallen back on to make the fusion of Rayse and Odium remain a threat. If you have TOdium killed so quickly, not only is so much of the setup that got Taravangian to that point wasted but Odium itself ceases to represent a credible threat if its Vessels can be killed off in back to back books like that. It also makes the Shards as a whole look less impressive.

The idea's not too bad but I can think of two potential issues. First, we know that at the point in time when Khriss shows up in Secret History she doesn't know much about Yolen and has only heard stories about it. We also know that the Ars Arcana reflect Khriss' knowledge at specific points in time and (as the Elantris one shows with her comments about testing) she likes to be thorough in her study before coming to conclusions. While we don't know exactly when the essays are written are we can assume they're not radically displaced from the events of the books they're included with since they sometimes make reference to extremely recent events. In the Elantris AA she knows enough about Vax to be able to compare its Initiation mechanics to multiple other systems. Elantris however takes place before the time of Secret History when she admits her lack of knowledge on Yolen, which means it's AA should predate the events of the latter story, While it's not impossible since we don't have an exact timeline for all the relevant details, it seems unlikely that she could know enough about Vax's system of Initiation if it's part of Yolen and thus a world she lacks firsthand knowledge of.

Second, Ati was a human before his Ascension and Scadrial is explicitly modeled after the non-fain parts of Yolen. If he's misrecognizing what he's seeing at as being the world of his birth (or its Cognitive representation at any rate), it should be those same non-fain bits he's used to, which would be the very parts Jerick calls Yolen in the Dragonsteel Prime excerpts.

Neither of these is an absolute bar to the idea since we can't rely on the excerpts to reflect the current state of canon and the timeline of Khriss' knowledge and writing is fuzzy, but I'm hesitant right now to buy the idea.

3 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

Kuro

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Why does Kasim look like Carna

 

People were wondering if they were the same person when the Web CM came out, when you only saw him in profile and partially obscured.

Presumably it's about Intent. Hoid can't intentionally cause harm to himself but he's perfectly capable of provoking someone else to harm him knowing full well what will happen. Brandon has also said that there's a Cognitive aspect to Hoid's inability to eat meat, which is related to his 'no harm' deal. By extension, if Hoid is putting on a show and isn't actually hurting himself (and knows he won't really be hurt) it probably won't trigger the whole 'becomes debilitatingly nauseous' thing.

Kuro's website got updated with a whole bunch of new characters, plus the profiles of the five who were recently revealed. Reverie spoilers:

1 hour ago, Lesser spren said:

Theoretically how tactically useful would an aluminum or aleast aluminum plated thunderclast be? Could such a thing even be possible?

Assuming you could somehow get enough aluminum to armor a beast that size and have it be thick enough (ie, Nightblood's sheath-level thickness, not just a thin film) then you'd end up with a very large monster that's very resistant to the weapons that were intended to kill them. Aluminum will stop the magical cutting properties of a Shardblade as long as it's thick enough so it would do a pretty good job protecting a thunderclast from attack, as well as from most other forms of Investiture like the Surge of Division. The end result would be that you'd likely need to find a way to chip off enough of the aluminum to expose its body before you could attack it, or find gaps in the plating. I suspect that sufficiently massive objects and Basic Lashings would do the trick at the end of the day, or a lot of extremely brave people with hammers..

Now, aluminum is expensive and rare on all known Cosmere worlds at this time so how you'd get a sufficient quantity of the stuff is an entirely different matter, as is how you'd apply it to a thunderclast in the first place. But if you could, it would be pretty storming dangerous for a while.

1 hour ago, NattyBo said:

Finally finished CS3 last night. Def my favorite of the Erebonia arc so far.

Enjoy the conclusion, it's quite a ride to the finish!

8 hours ago, aneonfoxtribute said:

I beat Hajimari for real and for true! Did the last three Episodes and damn those were some hype.

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I loved the Renne Episode. I mean it's me, I love Renne, so of course I did

 

Yeah, the final Episode is really something. You wonder how they're gonna top the earlier one that you unlock at the start of the postgame (and end of the game as it was at launch) and they answer. One of the music tracks from there is apparently meant to be a Kuro teaser too, because it's not on the soundtrack. And congrats on beating the game!