Weltall

Nightblood is the one of the most heavily Invested things in the Cosmere that is not a Shard but the Shards are infinitely more Invested and it sounds like some Perpendicularities would be in Nightblood's league per this WoB. One has little trouble imagining that Preservation's Perpendicularity (aka the Well of Ascension) would qualify as being equal to or greater than Nightblood's level of Investiture when it's 'full'. And @imriel452 is right that Nightblood drains Investiture. Brandon has mentioned that there is in-universe debate over what actually happens to the Investiture but that his current idea is that Nightblood is doing it to sustain himself. Essentially, he's not consuming Investiture because he's a black hole but because he's hungry. Since the one thing that we can be pretty certain is around Nightblood's Investiture level doesn't similarly drain Investiture (quite the opposite) it's unlikely that Nightblood's nature is directly related to black vis a vis Awakening, black holes etc.

In addition to several WoBs that Vasher is on Roshar because it's easy for him to live off of Stormlight, there's one that I've somehow not seen until just recently where Brandon says that Vasher has essentially made the planet his retirement home, so it's entirely possible he has no ulterior motives for being on Roshar. Of course, that doesn't preclude Endowment from having some plan that Vasher isn't aware of (we have no clue whether the vision of the future that prompted him to Return has come to pass during his six hundred or so years of life or if it's still in the future) but Vasher himself doesn't seem to have any intentiion of doing anything on Roshar other than living quietly.

One wonders if Renarin's Resonance will be the same as an ordinary Truthwatcher, since his powers aren't quite the same and he was apparently unsure if Glys could even manifest as a Shardblade (reading Renarin's comment during that chapter with the benefit of hindsight). For what it's worth (ie, not much) Brandon has RAFO'd whether Renarin can use Illumination. That said there's some reasonably compelling evidence that he can, since one of the recordings in the Gem Archive is from a Truthwatcher who implies that they also had visions of the future and thus in theory had bonded a 'corrupt' spren as well. They must have been able to pass for normal at a time when there were lots of Radiants and thus lots of people who knew what a Truthwatcher was supposed to be able to do. Particularly since the Radiants of old seemed really paranoid about spren touched by Sja-anat. For someone to be like Renarin at that time, they must have been able to avoid attracting suspicion and you'd think that a total inability to use one of the two Truthwatcher Surges would have been something of a red flag.

Uhh, not sure where you're getting this. We know that there are stages of progression and we know that the Skybreakers specifically consider the Third Ideal enough for full initiation, with the Fourth being accomplished by some and the Fifth being extraordinarily rare. However, there's no indication that among other Orders, swearing the last Ideal is such a rare thing and certainly not that it grants any special powers.

I rather suspect these are linked. They're great scholars in part because they can use F-Copper to remember huge quantities of information perfectly, but they also train to make the best use of their abilities. Brandon's mentioned this in the annotations and compares it to the Hafiz(a) (Muslims who have memorized the Quran and can recite it word for word) and that Sazed could hold several books worth of knowledge in his head even without copperminds, because of how the Keepers are trained.

Brandon has confirmed that kandra can have True Bodies made of metal. They can even do crazy hemalurgical things if they want to because their bind points are very flexible, but they don't have to. So there's really no issue and MeLaan could have used other metal. But if you're trying to not stand out, having a body that doesn't immediately identify you as Something Strange to anyone with A-Steel/Iron is obviously a good idea, hence aluminum. Even if an allomancer couldn't push a True Body without help from a Nicroburst, a Coinshot or Lurcher could definitely see the metal in the skeleton, as Wax does when he's able to locate TenSoon from his much smaller (and Invested, so even harder to spot) blessings. And an aluminum body is lighter to carry around when you're not actively using it too.

Demoux does not use atium compounding to extend his lifespan. Now consider that Demoux' travelling companion Baon doesn't have any 'natural' way of extending his life via magic (ie, there's nothing from Taldain where he's from that can extend life, or at least nothing he's known to have access to) but he's comfortably older than Demoux. Brandon has even said that Baon is not Invested, by way of establishing that this isn't a criteria for membership in the group. Clearly, one does not need a way of inherently prolonging their lives and whatever method the Seventeenth Shard uses will work for anyone able to learn it, Felt included. Worldhopping doesn't inherently do this. Case in point, Hoid was on Scadrial during the events of The Final Empire, then had to have left the world at some point in order to then return during the events of Well of Ascension (as seen in Secret History) which means he returned within a year of leaving, going somewhere else and coming back.

It's an interesting thought but I feel like I should point out that Oathbringer does establish that Felt has some of the distinguishing 'worldhopper cues'. When going to see the Nightwatcher, Dalinar notes that not only is Felt particularly short (ie, 'normal' height compared to Rosharans) but that he must have some Shin ancestry because of his eyes. So Felt does have the physical features we'd expect of a worldhopper, while a kandra could adjust their height and eyes so as to not stand out at all if they wanted to. But Brandon's comment that he should stand out more is intriguing.

No, because a metalmind and a hemalurgic spike are different things and because the kandra use their blessings to short-circuit the Cognitive block that mistwraiths have. If they don't have a blessing, they're not going to be able to use a metalmind anyways. Kandra blessings have to be specially created and the kandra do not know how to make more, or make them do different things although other blessings might exist in theory according to Brandon. Also, an unkeyed metalmind only works with someone who already has the relevant feruchemical power. It's why Wax can't use the goldmind he finds in Bands of Mourning but Wayne can, because the latter is already a Bloodmaker. An unsealed metalmind is the universal one that grants you a power and lets you store/tap in it.

You're definitely not alone in the observations. Outside the books, there's an attempt to explain the general Aes Sedai attitude (and maybe it got woven into the books, but I can't recall) having to do with the way the White Tower came into existence and the need to have a clear hierarchy where everyone knows who's in charge at any given time. Unfortunately, they got so used to being on top that most of them forget that there are other ways to get people to do what you want that don't involve unsubtle manipulation or even less subtle displays of the Power. Characters do start to recognize this and call each other out on it, more after Brandon started working on the series but with examples of it beforehand as well. And if you've finished book three, then you've just scratched the surface of a lot of these characters. Egwene for example becomes a much better character later on, but you're a book away before the point where she starts down that road, much less where she actually becomes really cool. Probably my biggest turnaround of opinion from start to finish though, but it took a long time to get there. Just within the parts you've read, Mat would be a pretty obvious example for how the series takes time with its characters. In the first two books, Mat does something phenominally stupid and from that point on he's not terribly fun to be around or to read about. Come book three when he's cured from the curse, he starts to become much more enjoyable to read about and develops from there. Now imagine this stretched out over fourteen books and dozens of characters... Wheel of Time is a funny thing. I enjoyed it (things like the way many but not all female characters are written aside) and if it wasn't for it, I may never have stumbled upon Brandon Sanderson's works or at least wouldn't have been as inspired to start reading them. And there are definitely parts of the series that I wouldn't trade for anything. It's just... it's a very very looooong slog and even knowing the endgame, I have a hard time recommending new readers to start on it because of it and certain hiccups along the way.

As the first WoB says, she's more focused on her little corner of the Cosmere, which probably has a good deal to do with her Intent. It's interesting to note that when asked, Brandon said that if he had to take a Shard it's the one he'd want (of the ones we know, apparently his first choice would be one of the unknown six) and it's also the one that Hoid would be tempted by under the right circumstances. For a bit more discussion, there's some Oathbringer spoilers: Nothing precludes her from having a very subtle Master Plan involving, say, certain Returned, but her own focus definitely seems to be on Nalthis and that's unlikely to change.

Yes, Brandon has said that it's possible to transfer only some of your Breaths using the standard 'My life to yours, my Breath become yours' command. However, most people don't know this is possible and believe it's all-or-nothing, which is how Denth is able to get away with lying about it to Vivenna. Giving away only some Breath has to do with practice and how you visualise the Command.

I don't remember the descriptions of how the Keepers learned their material but I imagine that the first Keeper to record a given bit of visual information could call up the memory of whatever picture they want to transmit, then draw it themselves and show it to their students, who could then store the memory in their copperminds and repeat the process when it comes time to pass the information on to the next generation. Runs the risk of losing some information over time if you get a Keeper who isn't good at reproducing the images but still safer than trying to keep all that forbidden knowledge in its original form. And some of the risk could be minimized if you have multiple Keepers recording a given bit of visual information. One taps the memory and reproduces it, then the second taps the memory and compares it to the newly reproduced copy and checks if it's accurate.

I belatedly realized that there's an even cleverer review:: 1/5, Welcome to the Hotel Roshar, you can check out any time you like but you can never leave! - Odium

Yeah, it's got to be Cultivation's currently unnamed Vessel. Hoid is old, really really old. The only person in the Cosmere who's older is the person who's exchanging letters with him in WoK/WoR and the only people other than that who are anywhere near Hoid's age are the Vessels. And since Hoid knew all sixteen before they Ascended, his mention of 'She and I never did get along' fits perfectly. Contrast with Honor's Vessel (Tanavast) who Hoid apparently got along with quite well, per his comment to Jasnah at the end of Words of Radiance.

@John203 Touche. <Uses Ruin's power to alter the written word>

5/5, would Desolate again. - Odium

Yeah, not only will you not have stored the memory 'Store X in Coppermind Y' so you'll remember that it's in a coppermind somewhere, but we've seen on multiple occasions that Sazed kept a separate coppermind for the purpose of indexing all his stored knowledge so that he could immediately find it when needed. So, let's say Sazed wanted to look up information on Larstaism. He'd go to his index coppermind and look for a memory of that name, then find which coppermind contains it, then go to that coppermind and get the information he wants. Or if he didn't remember the name but he remembered some tenants of the religion he might go for another part of the index, say 'Religions' or 'Art' and browse through those indices until he found the name, then look up which coppermind he needs to access for the actual information.

To add to @Yata we have what Brandon's said about the in-universe reason why aluminum had to replace silver as an allomantic metal: It's so common that if it had a magical application people would have inevitably discovered it by accident. Aluminum had to be used because it was rare and so could plausibly work as a 'secret' metal. The same applies to Roshar, except that it would be even easier to notice because spren are pretty much omnipresent and you wouldn't even need an Invested person to do anything with the metal, so it would be much easeir to notice the interplay of silver and spren if there was one. Even the cycle of Desolations wouldn't have a huge impact here because it would be an interaction that could easily be 'rediscovered' over and over again. And like I mentioned, there are forces on Roshar that should know this stuff if silver is seriously dangerous to spren or Cognitive Shadows and would be weaponizing it if so. In this case, the absence of evidence speaks volumes.

You said Ire, not Iri. There's a difference, especially as pertains to Investiture. Nitpicky, yes, but there you go. Your sDNA might not instantly change because you move planets but we know that sDNA does interfere with sDNA even between inhabitants of the same planet (see the examples I provided) with consequent effects on Investiture use, so there's no reason to think that the Iriali wouldn't have very different sDNA now than they did whenever they first arrived on Roshar, due to how many thousands of years of mingling with the humans who were there before them. For the Iriali to have a reasonable chance of retaining any Investiture-specific sDNA after 5000+ years (Iri was one of the Silver Kingdoms, they have to have been around since before Aharietiam) they'd have to have a very isolated community that retained something close to 'pure' Iriali genes. Consider again how the sDNA for full feruchemists became so diluted after only three hundred years on Scadrial. And we know that the Iriali can and have become Surgebinders, which come with heritable sDNA changes. So yes, there are assumptions there, but they're much more reasonble than 'the Iri have retained some pre-Rosharan Investiture after thousands of years' as an explanation for the weirdness with Dalinar and Evi's voice. Especially when we already have a mechanism to explain it.

Belatedly because I missed seeing your post count the first time, welcome to the Shard!

Well, there's Jasnah's suggestion of finding some Heralds and stabbing them in the face. If having a Herald actively participating in the Oathpact can strengthen it (because after 4500 years of just Taln, it was very weak and now he's reincarnated) then it may be possible to close whatever loophole Odium is exploiting to have the Fused perpetually reincarnate. Brandon has RAFO'd whether Nightblood perma-kills Fused but I suspect that even if he doesn't, he'd damage their souls enough that they'd be completely useless to Odium's plans. If not immediately, then after a couple reincarnations. And if Shardblades hitting a gemheart just so can damage the Fused soul directly, maybe they could as well, it might just take a few more goes before the soul is so damaged that the Fused stops being a threat. Brandon has said that Nightblood would try to feed on the mists in Scadrial if given the chance but the mists would also try to pull away, as a similar case. Given that the Everstorm has a clearly supernatural component (it's able to pose dramatically at Thaylen City, arrive at unexpected times and the lightning seems to target specific structures) it would probably try to avoid Nightblood the instant that whatever force is directing it notices that something is trying to absorb its Investiture. Trying to absorb Investiture through a holder would probably not work, or at least not for very long. Brandon has mentioned that an Elantrian trying to feed Nightblood with an Aon would die as Nightblood would basically eat the Aon and the power flowing from the Dor. So someone trying to draw on a replenishing source of stormlight or voidlight while weilding Nightblood would probably last a fair bit longer than normal but they'd still die.

The difference due to gravity and planetary speed is really small, but it would be a factor. Still, we're talking maybe a couple of minutes difference over thousands of years, so within the lifetime of a normal human the difference will be negligible and even for someone like Hoid, pretty much a non-issue. It's probably not something Brandon will pester Peter about since it's unlikely that such a small difference will ever affect the story. Now, once you start talking about traveling at relativistic speeds, then it becomes very important. But we're way off before we're likely to see how that applies. This is what Peter is for. Brandon thinks in real-world terms and then goes to him to make sure that the numbers all work out. They've got all sorts of conversions set up somewhere that they can refer to, and they're working out others like an exchange rate of Investiture between Breath and Stormlight, for when that starts to become significant. Oh, and it's probably worth mentioning that Brandon has been asked about Investiture and speed bubbles and pointed out that yes, an outside observer would notice stormlight leaking from a gemstone at a faster or slower rate if one were housed inside a bendalloy or cadmium bubble and they would observe a similar effect if an infused gem were located near a singularity. We don't have exact dates but given that Brandon told us about there being roughly ten thousand years since 'inciting events' (ie the Shattering of Adonalsium) and how much time has passed between Aharietiam and Way of Kings (just shy of five thousand Earth years) we can make a rough stab at it. But there's some material from Oathbringer involved in the latest timeline guesstimates and I'm not sure if you've read that yet, and I'd have to spoil-tag it anyways.

We know how to convert Rosharan time to Scadrian time (which is identical to Earth) so we can figure out how those worlds relate pretty easily, and we know a little bit about time on Nalthis. All dates mentioned in the books use the local measurements while Brandon generally thinks in Earth terms and then goes to Peter to run the numbers. Similarly, anything Brandon mentions about the big picture can be assumed to work in Earth years, so when he talks about the Cosmere currently having a span of about ten thousand years (with about a thousand years worth of events we've 'seen') we can use that to help refine our own big picture and how much time has passed between White Sand and Sixth of the Dusk, for example.

Roshar is a highly Invested world, which Brandon has mentioned in the context of general health (ie, why the common cold was seen as a terrifying plague when worldhoppers accidentally introduced it) and the general abundance of the ecosystem. The border between Realms is a bit thinner when you have the Highstorms passing through on a regular basis, opening up a conduit to the Spiritual Realm each time. That by itself probably accounts for a lot of the 'weirdness'. Nitpick, the Rirans are related to the Iri, not the Ire. While they have roots that don't originate on Roshar, the same is true for every human on the planet and Brandon mentioned that Evi herself is not Iriali. Even if she was, they're all now 'Rosharan' and would have sDNA to match. Any Investiture the Iriali might have had from wherever they came from would by now be so intermixed with Rosharan sDNA that it's probably inconsequential. Consider how the sDNA of magic systems from the same planet thoroughly interfere with one another (allomancy and feruchemy on Scadrial, Dayside/Darkside on Taldain) and add thousands of years and I very much doubt that there's any secret 'Iriali Investiture' waiting to be discovered.