Govir

So if Nale really thought that the bonding of spren could bring about the return of the Desolations...why is he training people to become Skybreakers? People who have clearly bonded with a spren since they can "fly"...unless both people had Honorblades, but that is unlikely; especially ones that allow them to "fly".

If I were to throw a guess? It might be from Scadrian mythology in an analogue to the Labyrinth mythology of Earth. Kelsier probably learned it from his interaction with Sazed, given Sazed's huge collection of legends, lore, and mythology from before the Final Empire.

 

I could be totally off-base, of course, since this is just supposition!

 

This was my thought as well, mainly because I vaguely remember a labyrinth being offhandedly mentioned in another of the books (either SoS or BoM).

I don't think the three clips themselves will really matter (although she will probably find them). It's more likely setting up her skill as an accountant to they can come in usefull later without looking like a deus ex machina.

 

I don't think this will be specific to accounting. I think it's further emphasizing Steris's ability / tendency to take in every detail and think of it. Perhaps even an ability to notice differences between two things that are supposed to be the same, like maybe something written in metal vs something written on paper...

And I have questions. How did Spook have a hundred-year rule? That would require living over a hundred years, obviously. Do the people of Scadrial have slightly longer lifespans than normal? If so, is it because of the Preservation in them?

Also there's got to be some sort of Phantom Menace joke I could make about all this talk of trade disputes.

Yep, that jumped out at me as well. I'm thinking it may be something specific to Mistborn, or at least Pewterarms. Or as someone else pointed out, he may have gotten a spike that gave him Feruchemic Gold...but I find that less believable based on what we know of the character.

 

It is true that he wrote the book on Hemalurgy, but I think that was more to preserve the knowledge so future generations would know about it (i.e. know the enemy). Based on Spook's history of being spiked, I doubt he'd want to be spiked again, or that he'd kill to get the power.

Maybe the time varies, but for Lightsong, at least, a few seconds wouldn't have worked, because he died at sea during a storm.

They would have had to wait until the storm was over to start looking for him, and then they still had to fish him out of the drink.

 

About the mechanics of Returning, I think it's similar to snapping or the Shaod. Trauma causes cracks in the soul and something can slip in and add stuff to the spiritweb. In the case of Allomancy and AonDor, what's added is a little bit of investiture that allows access to a lot of investiture. But on Nalthis it has to work differently, because the entire huge divine breath has to be added to a mortal soul, so the cracks have to be correspondingly huge, and probably the only thing that causes cracks that huge in a soul is dying.

 

So a person physically dies (and their soul gets cracked, but this is just a personal theory), but it takes a little while before the soul moves on to the "next place" (heaven/paradise? the tranquiline halls? reincarnation? we don't know). Endowment uses that window to shove a giant splinter up the soul's big crack (sorry, I couldn't resist) and sends the soul back to its former body after it's had a vision of the future. Or possibly the power of the splinter allows the soul to make its own way back into the body.

 

I like the idea that the reason people need to die is because the Divine Breath is too large to be stapled onto their spiritweb. Is it possible that it works the other way around, i.e. the normal spiritweb is attached to the Divine Breath? This could be why the Returned don't remember their former lives, because their spiritweb is dominated by the Divine Breath. I'm not sure how this interacts with the Returned who aren't "Gods" but I don't really remember much talk of their lives before their Return.

 

And this is where I admit that the magic system in Warbreaker is the one I understand the least and I'm about 3/4 of the way through a reread, so take this with a grain of salt.

I agree with you. I feel like Bleeder/Paalm is only using one spike at a time.

 

I'm still new to posting around here, so I'm going to be super cautious and post this behind spoiler tags. Spoilers all for Shadows of Self.

 

I had originally pointed out the phrasing Marasi uses to indicate that there were multiple "Trellium" spikes, but I'm not sure if I was so clear with implying she was using one at a time.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Bleeder have two spikes at all times (one a shiny new metal which didn't allow Harmony to control her through it), and Wax's bullet was her third spike?

 

I should really do a re-read...

 

Edit: Re-read the scene in question. It's not clear. But my assumption is that the new metal was not capable of stealing Feruchemy/Allomancy, but was responsible for hiding her from Harmony. She would have had other spikes which granted Allomancy/Feruchemy. Harmony thinks she only has one spike and is insane as a result, but I'm thinking she was entirely too sane and had two spikes.

 

Here's what Marasi says:

 

Wax’s eyes flicked toward it. A small spike, long as a finger, made of some silvery metal with dark red spots, like rusted bits.

“That’s one of the spikes she was using, Waxillium,” Marasi said softly. “MeLaan wanted me to show it to you.”

Wax closed his eyes. They thought he wanted to see something like that?

“Waxillium,” Marasi said. “We can’t identify the metal. It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before. It certainly wasn’t one of the spikes she started with. That means she removed both, and stuck one like this in instead. Where did she get them? Who gave them to her?”

 

 

So my first thought was that Bleeder had two spikes at all times (because I thought that the Era 1 books said Kandra needed 2 spikes for thought, i.e. a Blessing). So that would mean this "Trellium" spike and a spike that gave her powers. However, I think I'm wrong about the 2 spike thing, as multiple times in SoS it's explained (by Kandra) that the first spike gives thought.

 

Based on the quote from the book you provided, I now think *all* of Bleeder's spikes were of this "Trellium" (or at the very least she had multiple). Here is the last part of the quote, with my emphasis as to why.

 

“Waxillium,” Marasi said. “We can’t identify the metal. It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before. It certainly wasn’t one of the spikes she started with. That means she removed both, and stuck one like this in instead. Where did she get them? Who gave them to her?”

 

Each of the underlined sections implies there is more than one "Trellium" spike (and that the characters know that).

 

So my conclusion is that the metal of the spike itself was granting Bleeder the detection protection from Harmony, and it has stolen a power. I also believe that "Trellium" is definitely a God metal up there with Atium and Lerasium. It is unknown as to what all this new metal can steal. I believe we've only seen Feruchemical Speed and Allomantic Steelpushes.

 

 

P.S. Hello. I'm new here. This is my first post.