Weltall

We don't know but I sure hope it's the former; I can't hear 'Odiumium' and keep a straight face.

Stick is eternal and unchanging, everyone else is fair game. I really don't care to speculate too much on seven books worth of potential developments, especially as Brandon loves throwing curveballs at us. We can't even be sure that the planned flashback characters will survive to their books as Brandon has repeatedly mentioned. I think it's fairly safe to assume Lift is going to survive to her book as Brandon has mentioned seeing her as an adult, though he also didn't rule out the idea of her being a grown-up ghost so.... even that's not completely certain. So let's just stick with my original response. Worship the almighty Stick, ye unbelievers! Actually, I could totally see Taln becoming the next Vessel of Honor, or the combination of Honor and Odium should Rayse not make it to the end of Stormlight Archive. Brandon's very fond of exploring what it means to be divine and played around with the idea of worthiness. It's a definite factor for the quasi-divine Returned (you have to be chosen by Endowment) and seemingly for the Elantrians at least, but there are no inherent qualifications for Shard-hood other than 'being the first one on the scene when a Shard is up for grabs'. Taln would be a refreshing change of pace and if anyone we know of could be said to have earned a shot at divinity through their actions, it's definitely him.

Honorblades are made of Honor's godmetal, which we've been calling Tanavastium as it fits the pattern of atium from Ati and lerasium from Leras (Harmonium only exists as such because Sazed didn't like how 'Sazedium' sounded) but that's not been canonized by Brandon. Common Shardblades are also godmetal and are likely an alloy of Honor and Cultivation's godmetals, depending on the particular spren involved. Brandon has described Honorblades as working on the same principle as an unsealed metalmind, but they're not the same thing.

Brandon has said that Devotion can be seen as a synonym for Love, so it would be highly unlikely for that specific Intent to emerge from a combination of other Shards when it's already accounted for. Honor plus Odium equaling Justice isn't impossible but I suspect that combo would be more Honor/Dominion, while Honor/Odium seems like it would be more a 'righteous anger' sort of thing. Indignation? Anyhow, the thing with Harmony having a drastically different possible Intent likely stems from it being a combination of two existing Intents and how they interact as mediated by the Vessel. I don't think that Odium could genuinely be mediated in a way to turn it into a synonym for Love or anything nearly that positive. Brandon has hinted that Odium is to an extent lying to himself when he thinks of his own Intent as Passion and we have Frost's own description of the essence of that Shard as 'God's own divine hatred' which is pretty cut and dry.

All very good questions. Tanavast's messages tell the listener to convince Odium to a contest of champions, which suggests that either the parties agree to the terms when Odium agrees to the contest, or the terms are something already agreed to which Odium has just opted in to for this cycle, but they must be sufficiently obvious that Tanavast was confident that whoever saw the vision could figure out the details without needing to explain them in any depth. You'd expect that if there were some important condition, he would have taken the time to say 'Oh by the way, the chosen champion must beat the other in a Horneater drinking contest while balancing on the back of a charging chasmfiend' or whatever the case may be. Taravangian's conversation with Odium at the end of the book suggests that Dalinar may have taken up the mantle whether he proclaimed himself humanity's champion or not. Either that or Dalinar can name a champion at a future date. What's clear is that Dalinar retains some power over Odium which requires the latter to act through intermediaries if he doesn't want to get into trouble. This makes it sound like Odium can't encounter Dalinar again without being forced into a potentially disadvantageous situation. Given the literally infinite difference in power between a Shard and a human (no matter that it's Dalinar) it sounds like there's some preexisting 'rules' in place that mean Odium can't simply squash Dalinar like a bug and call it a victory for his side. It's probably related to the explanation that Odium would agree to such a contest in the first place to avoid having to confront forces (ie Cultivation) who could potentially harm him. My guess is that the exact terms are still to be decided, and refusing to meet Dalinar will allow Odium to preserve as much in the way of advantage as he can, for as long as he can. I'm almost certain Dalinar's refusal to accept Odium's control means he's permanently out of consideration for the 'Odium's champion' gig. Otherwise, Dalinar could technically 'win' by jumping off a cliff, or appointing someone else as humanity's champion and letting them kill him. That would be a bit anticlimactic. As much as I'd like to see Moash beaten repeatedly with a Sylbat, I suspect that some form of redemption isn't impossible. If Odium has any sense at all he's not going pick a champion with such a potential weakness. He was blindsided by Dalinar refusing to give in, but there was a Shard involved there. I don't think he'll make a hasty decision in appointing his new champion. We're not supposed to get the Big Cosmere Crossover until Mistborn Era 4 at the far end of the timeline, so I doubt that the back half of SA is going to widen the scope by all that much. Obviously whatever the outcome is there's going to be huge Cosmere-spanning implications as three Shards are directly involved but I don't think we're going to see the battle taken to other worlds or anything of that nature.

Welcome to the Shard! There's no evidence in the books that she's ever visited the Nightwatcher and no indication that she's suffering from one of the Nightwatcher's curses. We have some big gaps in her personal history (like the childhood illness that's mentioned in Oathbringer) but nothing that indicates a Nightwatcher visit. And from what we can tell, Jasnah hasn't gone through any radical personality changes, with Navani joking that her daughter was 'born old' or something like that; I don't remember the exact wording.

Here's the specific WoB: The Radiants of old were well aware that their spren could take other shapes; Wyndle mentions that there were definitely some which became bows (string and arrow sold separately, stormlight batteries not included) and in Oathbringer we see a Stoneward summon his spren as a hammer during the Aharietiam vision.

The two times we've seen A-Steel training, the mentor's approch has basically been 'throw the trainee off the highest available structure and let them sort it out on the way down', though Kelsier at least started Vin off with grounded pushing and pulling before taking her to the top of Luthadel's wall and then leaving her to make her own way back down. It's evidently something you can learn pretty quickly with the right pressure. In a less extreme situation, I can imagine people teaching in an environment with at least three stable anchors so that coinshots get used to holding themselves up (Kelsier mentions that having a tripod of supports is the easiest way) before graduating to single anchors. And Kelsier does provide some advice to Vin on how to slow her descent, even if he leaves her to figure out the actual mechanics on her own. Of course, as a mistborn she's safer to train since she also has A-Pewter. And he was there to catch her when she did botch her first landing attempt, then mentioned that since steelpushing and ironpulling are inherertly dangerous, letting a trainee face that danger from the start helps them adjust. Does Scadrial have pizza? If so, definitely the best planet in the Cosmere. I know Hoid likes it in part because it's where he's likely to be able to satisfy his craving for instant noodles but come on, pizza. xD

But why would you want to see Kaladin suffer so? I mean, he already has the same Surgebinding powers that Jezrien did but he's more efficient with his Stormlight and his healing is better, his Blade can talk back to him, change form to whatever he needs and offer unwanted romantic advice and he gets Squires which the Heralds didn't. Assuming you could take whatever the dagger stole from Jezrien, all it would seem to do for Kaladin would be to grant him a particularly sucky form of immortality that's already broken nine of the Heralds (who presumably started out with the best intentions) and drove the tenth quite insane. Now, assuming you could give Jezrien's connection to the Oathpact to someone via that dagger, I could maybe see it used in theory to buy Roshar time between halves of the story, with new quasi-Heralds keeping the Fused from returning for a time. However, I'm not really sure that would be a good idea from a writing perspective since it would suggest a degree of plot recycling between halves.

On the amputation thing and Autonomy, it's probably good to note that what Bavadin does isn't conceptually unique, though her way of going about it does seem unique so far. She's creating Splinters, which we know that any Shard can do. It's what Endowment does with the Divine Breath for example, or any of the spren on Roshar that were created after the arrival of the Shards (or unintentionally with the seon and skaze on Sel). What Bavadin is doing that we haven't seen other Shards do is intentionally create Splinters on other worlds and then leaving, Splinters with a high degree of sapience. We know that Investiture left on its own will eventually develop sapience and that how much Investiture determines how close the emergent entity is to human-level intelligence. Bavadin seems to be intentionally aiming for this result but it's theoretically something another Shard could do too. I'd say the odds of this are somewhere in the vicinity of 100%. We know at least one Vessel wasn't human and it would be surprising for Yolen to have three sapient races with one completely unrepresented at the Shattering. We also know that at least one dragon (Frost) was around back then, was aware of the Shattering and possibly present for it despite not becoming a Vessel. One can make a reasonable argument for Edgli and/or Bavadin being dragons. In the case of the former, her name stands out as being a bit unusual, though she's not alone among the Vessels. However, we also have evidence that the Nalthians have a word for 'dragon' in their language (Dedelin refers to the city of T'Telir as a 'dragon's nest') which raises eyebrows. Brandon has said that this is not a translation quirk and there's a reason they have that word, but declined to answer whether Edgli was a dragon. Then there's Bavadin, who has a couple points of interest. Most obviously, we're told by Brandon that we shouldn't get too hung up on the idea of gender where she's concerned. We know that Cosmere dragons are shape-shifters and we wouldn't be able to spot one if we saw one, so it's possible that human gender isn't an applicable concept and they can appear as whatever they want to. Doesn't mean Bavadin is a dragon, just an observation that might support it. Oh, and the same WoB that talked about Bavadin's gender also mentioned that we shouldn't get too hung up on human appearance. Obviously this could just mean that some of Bavadin's personas take nonhuman form without saying anything about Bavadin directly (ie, maybe some of her avatars are non-anthropomorphic) but it's another interesting point. So yeah, I feel very comfortable betting that at least one Vessel was a dragon and it may be one that we've already seen. And even if not, we've got six candidates to go.

Pre-Catacendre Scadrial didn't really have a place for schools; Education for the skaa wouldn't serve Rashek's purposes and the nobles could hire tutors for their children. It's mentioned that a number of Terris stewards served this role. Post-Catacendre we know there are public schools and Marasi attended a university with a very modern-sounding curriculum, club activities and so on. We don't know a lot about Sel and education isn't really much of a focus, but we do get references to characters feeling like schoolboys/girls so the Aonic peoples clearly have institutions. In Hope of Elantris we see Matisse teaching how to draw Aons, which is likely part of the regular schooling though it's obviously more relevant to Elantrians (even if the magic isn't working at that point) and we know that the Aons are part of the everyday world through Brandon's Aonic dictionary. We also know there are religious schools in Fjorden for the education of priests and there's probably some form of public education to go along with it, organized by the church. Teaching on Roshar depends on location and it seems like the Ardentia does most of the teaching in Vorin lands. We know there are private tutors for those who can afford it. In addition to what Sigzil has to say about studying for the Azish exams (which sounds a lot like the Confucian exam system in historical China) we have Lift making comments about children attending lessons, so there appears to be some form of public schooling as well. We don't get much of a look at education on Nalthis and we saw that Vivenna and Siri were educated by tutors, not too surprisingly. There's probably some form of public education in Hallandren but I don't recall if this was ever formally confirmed. But they're got a thriving economy that's able to support a restaurant trade so it's a safe assumption that they've got educational systems as well and we just don't see them. We know there's higher education on Taldain (Khriss was already a scholar before becoming a worldhopper after all) though we don't get much detail on how it's done on either Dayside or Darkside. Probably depends on where you're from, with the different cultures and kingdoms in each region. We can assume there's formal education on First of the Sun and Threnody but we spend all of our time there in locations on the fringes of 'civilization'. And we know there's a university in Silverlight. So education is there, it's just never been a huge onscreen factor.

For what it's worth this line of thinking isn't exactly incorrect, it's just perhaps that you took it a step too far. We know for example that the seon and skaze didn't exist on Sel before the splintering of Devotion and Dominion, so in that case their existence is a sign that something 'went wrong'. But on Roshar they've always been present in some form, even if their role has changed over time. There pretty much is one already; right at the top of the forum you can see links to the Coppermind (the wiki, not always up to date but still a good resource) and Arcanum (the WoBs, all the WoBs). From there, it's pretty intuitive. Not all of the older WoBs are in the database yet but they're being added and not every relevant tag might be applied to every WoB so you might have to try a couple of options before you hit on the ones you're looking for, but for the most part you should be able to find them pretty easily. And if all else fails, just search by event, read everything and lose track of time as you dive into the Sea of WoB. xD

Some time before Rashek's death since the stories refer to the Lord Ruler in the present tense. And that's assuming that they don't take place in their own separate continuity where the events of Mistborn: The Final Empire don't happen, which is something that the MAG suggests as a potential campaign idea. Since they're not canon, the question is ultimately moot.

Brandon has said that the House of Ashes stories aren't canon, so trying to place them on a timeline is sort of academic

Because the visions are based on real events that Honor witnessed (with the exception of the final vision in WoK) and because in both versions of the vision, we see the Windrunner. We know he's a Windrunner because his armor and eyes both glow blue. He in turn mentions by name someone we also hear about in the Gem Archive, which suggests that this was taken from a real conversation that Honor was recalling and not made up on the spot for purposes of the vision. Who a participant in the visions appears as to the people in the vision may be up to the Stormfather but they're required to play the role of someone in the vision that Honor set up; the Stormfather can't create new participants. It requires more assumptions to think that this scene proves that Shardplate can fly when everything that we've seen in both repetitions of the vision matches what we've already been told and shown, that Lashings don't work on anything in Shardplate and so the second Radiant wasn't wearing it during the flight. That Windrunners and Skybreakers can fly while wearing Plate will undoubtedly be explained when we learn exactly how the stuff works.

Fortunately, Brandon did it for us. And according to a signing report, he enjoyed every minute of it. Whether this was part of RJ's original notes or Brandon added it on his own, at least someone did call her out on the bullying attitude.

If you take a look at his post history (as @RShara did) you'll see that while he's only made seven posts, he's been a member for well over a year and people have tried to gently correct misinterpretations about Hoid, the Seventeenth Shard etc in those past posts. That he still made this post suggests that he's either never read anything that anyone has said to him or that this topic is indeed trolling. Or being as charitable as possible, that it was an attempt at tongue-in-cheek humor that went badly wrong.

Brandon implies as much with the description of Obligators being tested using more atium than the 'party trick' method. Presumably by the time you get that far within the Steel Ministry hierarchy, you've been vetted and are considered trusted enough to know that Seers exist. Then, you've got an Obligator with a slight but crucial edge as Yomen demonstrates. As for the regular testing, yeah, unknowing Seers make a pool of potential spikees if the Inquisitors ever need more A-Atium spikes. And the trace amount of atium that they use to detect Seers is probably so little that the person doesn't even realize what they just did when they burned it, or they're so nervous about an Inquisitor that they pass off any atium shadows they did see briefly as a product of that nervousness.

@Vissy No, you'd just waste a lot of atium that way; it isn't like lerasium where anyone can burn it so the only people who would gain any potential benefit from that would be mistborn and atium mistings. This is in fact how the Steel Ministry located Seers among the nobility.

Ruin would have to consume it the same way a human does. The thing is, for most of the time the atium was hidden in a cavern surrounded by metal, meaning that it was effectively invisible to Ruin. Once it left the Trustwarren, it was inside of people (harder to spot) and Ruin was kind of busy dealing with the newly Ascended Vin. So he didn't have the opportunity to make a grab for it and by the time he realized his mistake, it was too late.

Psst, double-posting is frowned upon. Anyhow, the Breaths aren't lost when you fail to properly Awaken, they just sit in the object without doing anything but they can be retrieved with the proper Command. Vivenna's problem isn't that Tonk Fah was moving at the time but that she doesn't know enough about how Awakening works; she doesn't know the proper Commands to say or how to visualise them, so her attempt fails.

Huh, I don't think I've ever seen a review insist that the Hero's Journey must be a part of a story or followed to the letter. And if I did, I'd probably say 'Okay, why?'. But the internet being the internet, I'm sure that someone has made that argument because people can argue about anything... But onto the reasons you proposed, and with the caveat that I generally don't read reviews so I'm just looking at them as abstract ideas without having any specific reviews in mind: - Too long: Yeah, I can see why some readers might think that various Brandon books are a bit long; Brandon himself jokes that they're doorstoppers in Alcatraz. I suspect that most people here think that any given book is actually too short and we want more more more!, but even then I doubt there's anyone who hasn't at some point thought 'I'd rather see less of Plot A/Character B/Setting C and more of Plot/D/Character E/Setting F' and so thought that some subset of a book was too long versus some other subset. I had the Wheel of Time books as my gateway drug into doorstopper fantasy novels so I was ready when I started Way of Kings, but I imagine that someone who wasn't already used to big novels could have thought that book could have used a hundred fewer pages while working through it. Until they hit the avalanche at the end, at least. xD So yeah, understandable complaint depending on the specifics of it, even if I doubt many of us would see it the same way. - Tells more than he shows: Uhhhh, I'm trying to think of some good examples off the top of my head and most of what comes to mind would be from his earliest works. I can think of authors I've read that are definitely guilty of world/character-building by omniscient narration but not Brandon. - Bizarre: Depends on context, I guess. He's got a lot of really imaginative things (just take Roshar's ecology) that take getting used to but... isn't that a lot of the fun of speculative fiction? I'd have to see some specific reviews to comment on this one, I guess. - Unoriginal: See above. I mean, I know that Mythwalker would qualify but Brandon abandoned it because he wasn't able to take a typical 'chosen one' story and make it work. And humans have been telling stories for thousands and thousands of years so there's only so many ideas that haven't been used in some way, shape or form by now. I'd reference my favorite JRPG series (Trails/Kiseki by Nihon Falcom) which has a similar 'shared setting' setup to the Cosmere and isn't going to win awards for stories you've never seen before, but they're told so well and the worldbuilding is so neat that it doesn't really matter that any given game's plot is something you've already seen variations of before. Sure, we've all seen something that Mistborn: The Final Empire reminds us of (whether it's a heist story, a Rebels versus Evil Empire story or anything else you could pick) but I'm pretty sure none of us had seen anything exactly like that, with one book for the plot that could have occupied a trilogy unto itself and two books dealing with the fallout of the first. - No plot: I'd ask what illegal substance the reviewer is abusing and where I can get some. For research purposes of course. - Too complex: Yeah, this is one I can definitely see where people are coming from. I love really intricate worldbuilding but at the same time, you may just want a 'turn your brain off' book from time to time and don't want to have to deal with five big factions, three secret societies and two dozen characters getting between you and the plot. So if you're in that state of mind, something like Way of Kings probably isn't what you want. At the same time, I think one of the strengths of Brandon's writing is that he's set up all these different worlds within the Cosmere that can be read in isolation, so you're almost certain to find something you like even if any given book or series within it isn't your cup of tea or if you're not as into the huge shared universe aspect. And I suppose I shouldn't limit this to the Cosmere. - Characters not written well: Eh, case by case definitely.

German for 'Cosmos', seemed appropriate.

I think Forgery would be a lot of fun to have. It's a very intellectual power which appeals to me in a 'what would I like to be able to do' sense, it's got a lot of flexibility and Shai's Essence Marks show just how powerful it can be. If anyone here has read Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, there's a brief discussion about various hypothetical ways the protagonist might have become the biggest badass in the world, like finding he had a year to live and dedicating it to eliminating crime, or losing a family member and swearing revenge. Now imagine that you have a magic system where you can fake that these instigating events happened and you did train to become that badass. And imagine that you can also create a 'what if' version of you who followed different passions; you can temporarily become any sufficiently plausible version of yourself that might have existed, as long as you can properly envision it and create the appropriate stamp. Oh, and you could also Forge yourself to have made a different choice when asked which magic system you'd like, within reason. xD

Yeah, while Edgedancer mainly builds off of Lift's interlude it takes place after the end of Words of Radiance and so includes some important material from later in the book. You definitely want to wait until finishing the latter in order to not spoil anything. And Arcanum Unbounded is totally worth everything you'll spend on it, even if you've already seen the other stories it's compiling.