Govir

25 minutes ago, Chiri-Chiri said:

Sorry, but I think that the romance is crystal clear, though I'd rather Rig for her.

Fair. It seems trope-y though, which is probably why I won't like it. I'm kind of hoping a romance sub-plot isn't a thing. Brandon has said there is some in Skyward, but definitely not a focus:

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Questioner

Please tell me, is there a romance [in Skyward]!?

Brandon Sanderson

There is a LITTLE romance, but that's not the main thing on Spensa's mind in this book.

source

 

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Questioner

Is there a romance planned?

Brandon Sanderson

You'll have to wait and see! This is an action/adventure story first and a character study second. So know that if there's romance, it won't be a focus.

source

 

26 minutes ago, Chiri-Chiri said:

I don't know if I like it, It's kind of torture, a pleasurable torture but torture.

Since the Oathbringer previews, I've started to view these like TV Shows (on actual TV, not Netflix). i.e. each week of previews is like an episode in a weekly TV show. I always want to know more each week, but being able to come to these forums and make wild speculations from week to week is great fun.

On 10/17/2018 at 0:57 PM, OrangeJedi said:

Anyone have any idea how far through the books we are? I think Brandon said it was around 110,000 words; how many words are we at currently?

On reddit, during the first week of preview chapters, Brandon said that the preview will be about a third to a half of the actual book: Source

Assuming @Sandra's count is right, we're either 2/3 or 1/2 of the way through the preview.

Onto random speculation time!

My gut says Jerkface is going to turn out to not be as much of a Jerk. He seems to have a lot of pressures being put on him in his home life (always busy with formal events, i.e. no time for a normal childhood). He clashes with Spensa now, but I think they'll get over that at some point. I'm not going to say romance potential (because I'd probably hate it), but at least mutual respect. Spensa at least was getting over it while they were flying, but Jerkface messed it up afterwards.

16 hours ago, avaunt said:

It seems like the obvious answer, almost to the point of cliche.

I for sure think there's a reason he turned from the fight.

My gut theory is that the father had some sort of "spidey-sense" that was leading him to something, and he was attempting to follow it...but it happened to be the opposite way of the battle.

I'm also not sure of the pilot configuration: Mongrel was his partner, but were they in the same ship? I feel like they were in separate ships, but it seems like Mongrel was grounded (but not ostracized) around the same time. As if he played a part in his partner's running, but didn't get as harsh a penalty.

New theory (literally just thought of it): Mongrel was the one who shot down the father, and Mongrel was falling the letter of the procedures. And now he refuses to fly in combat (not sure he actually is doing that at all) because he doesn't believe in the letter of the procedures anymore.

4 hours ago, kikikakakuku said:

Somehow I don't see why they would send people who can barely fly. If they are that desperate, then they are doomed anyway. Pretty exciting anyway lol. Can't wait for the next one.

It's possible they just want presence. I'm not sure how the Krell fights normally go, but I could see wanting to have ships up in the air. The enemy won't know they are cadets in those ships, and could view them as a reserve (i.e. it's a bluff by the Humans).

I agree with you that it's a terrible idea though. Either one person is going to get shot down (hopefully not Rig), or one (or more) people will be too antsy and try to engage.

1 hour ago, Lady Radagu said:

the monumental problem that is The Coward's daughter.

Them's fighting words!

On 9/29/2018 at 8:19 PM, Kal-Eldin said:

On the other hand he seems to be related to everyone Herdazian somehow, so there's a fair chance.

I'm not sure he's actually related to so many Herdazians. I always assumed his "cousins" were just other Herdazians, with Herdazians being very communal and watching out for each other.

On 9/21/2018 at 8:07 AM, Yata said:

Be careful in stating stuffs about "shard numbers" as far as we know there isn't something like that in the Cosmere.

What would you say about Stormlight Archive then?

(Small Stormlight Archive spoilers)

5 hours ago, hwiles said:

I'm mobile now so I can't look the reference up, but I'm almost certain there is a WoB saying a fullborn can't be born naturally. It's left unsaid if mistborn-ferrings and feruchemist-mistings are possible. My understanding is that the only well supported ways to create a fullborn without dozens of spikes are lerasium + a feruchemist or a mistborn + whatever hemalurgic shennanigans Kelsier pulled off.

In 2015, he said it was possible.

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Windrunner

Is it is even possible for a full Feruchemist Mistborn to be naturally born, or will the genes for the two interfere with one another too much?

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible, but highly unlikely.

source

No hits on Fullborn that change this, but I didn't go through every WoB hit I got from "full born" either...

2 hours ago, Calderis said:

2 hours ago, 1st of Lunch said:

Not a big deal.

I don't think anyone knows what those words mean here. 

I do have to admit that the reason this popped into my head as possibly being Trell's metal was because I thought Trell's metal was also not able to be pushed / pulled by Allomancy. But then I remembered that Atium was pushed and pulled all the time, so it's not a property of the "God" Metals. The spikes we see later on are hard to push / pull because they are Hemalurgic spikes.

I think Calderis is right, it's an aluminium-scandium alloy, with maybe a bit of fantasy shenanigans (i.e. slightly different properties) to make it work for the whole gun.

@Calderis I think you're right. All the passages so far in this relistening have been about the gun, not the bullets. The way Wax mentioned Ekaboron made it seem like he was grasping at straws, and therefore was not likely to be true. But with real world knowledge backing up the existence of an alloy, and its usage, it seems like his hunch was right.

Thanks as always for the info!

I'm relistening to Alloy of Law, and something jumped out at me as being odd. It was the scene where Wax is trying to determine the Aluminum alloy used in the guns and bullets. It seems to be a metal that he's not familiar with, and it's brought up a few times later (like when he visits Ranette).

Do we ever find out what the other metal in them is (I've read all of Era 2, but can't remember it specifically)? It seems like a brand new thing (making guns and bullets out of aluminum), starting with the Vanishers, so I was wondering if it could be Trell's metal, since that group is involved with them.

According to WoBs, there both were and were not Female Inquisitors.

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Brandon Sanderson

Lots of Female Keepers (one of the main characters in book two is one), no female Inquisitors or obligators (since the Lord Ruler was pretty much in charge of who got to do both.) However, there weren't actually hard fast rules, so I could see a determined woman ending up in the Steel Ministry if she put her mind to it.

Footnote: Brandon has later contradicted this statement, saying that there were female inquisitors, just none on-screen.
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Chaos (paraphrased)

Does being female alter the spiritual overlays on a person, so that a Hemalurgically imbued spike would need to be placed differently than in a male body?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No. In fact, there are female inquisitors in the huge fight when Vin goes blasting through them, but he felt like bringing that out would have been distracting.

source

 

The second WoB, is from 2010 and is the more recent one. So I would say there were Female Inquisitors. It's possible for both WoBs to be accurate, if you assume that the Lord Ruler didn't create any Female Inquisitors, but more just because he chose not to. Whereas the Inquisitors that fought Vin towards the end were new Inquisitors made by Marsh being lead by Ruin. And Ruin wouldn't care who he turned, so long as he got Inquisitors.

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Couldn't they just make separate medallions and glue them together?  

I'm pretty sure it's said in the books that only one medallion can be used at a time, and that they have to be specifically made to grant more than one power at a time. And that it's difficult to make multi-power medallions. Which is part of what makes the Bands of Mourning so unique.

21 hours ago, Leyrann said:

The question, then, is what this means beyond making them an allomancer. Perhaps a Connection to Scadrial itself, that could allow you to influence your surroundings to a degree?

This is a good point. Although I don't know about influencing your surroundings, it could be possible that it increases your Connection to Preservation / Scadrial. I'm vaguely remembering an annotation that talks about how Allomancers are "closer" to Preservation or something, but it's been a long time since I read the annotations, and I didn't find anything after searching for about 10 minutes on Arcanum. That is to say, if burning Lerasium increases your Connection to Preservation, it could make sense that it would make you Mistborn (and also maybe have another side effect of if you were a Worldhopper, it could maybe allow you to speak and understand the local language).

I'm on board for this theory.

This is something I'm interested in doing as well (at least the reading it in order part), but never sat down and worked through it. It feels like something *someone* has done, but who knows where.

The issue with reading them "chronologically" is that there's a big section in Mistborn Secret History where it's not really interacting with the Era 1 story.

I definitely think the plan of attack would be to focus on Secret History, and where those events line up with Era 1.

EDIT: So actually, it looks like the Coppermind summary already has a breakdown of this. Although it doesn't appear to be an exact chapter reading order.

11 hours ago, Calderis said:

She does this via soulcasting, and she can't enter physically.

Are we sure she can't enter physically? It makes sense, because that seems to be the domain of the Transportation surge. But there's the scene in tWoK when Shallan is trying to prove to Jasnah that Shallan can Soulcast without a Soulcaster and Jasnah has to save her because she went too fully into Shadesmar and without enough Stormlight. My point being, maybe Soulcasters can get themselves *into* Shadesmar but can't get out on their own.

According to the related Epigraph, it seems like Elsecallers (with both Soulcasting and Transportation) were the main points of contact to Shadesmar and the Spren, but that Lightweavers (sharing Soulcasting) and Willshapers (sharing Transportation) *could* be used.

3 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

I think the size of the Stormfather is part of the reason he isn’t supposed to be a blade.

Obligatory (Spoilered for size):

(Also, I hope those links work since I'm at work and can't actually see them. I'm trusting to @WeiryWriter's old post).

EDIT: My phone tells me everything worked out fine

18 minutes ago, SzethIsBadAsHell said:

3 hours ago, Calderis said:

Dalinar essentially tried to force the Stormfather to become a blade. He succeeded enough to work the gate, even if what appeared wasn't a truly physical blade. 

Dalaniar was no where near the oathgate . Teft came thru the Oathgate .

I think you're referring to two different events. The quote is from when Dalinar is fleeing Azir (i.e. when he remembered how Evi died and had to get away), where as Teft came through the Oathgate during the big battle.

1 hour ago, Zape said:

we do not understand the oathgates because of that we cannot make any assumptions on what will or will not activate them

While we do not fully understand the Oathgates, we do know a little bit. We know the following:

1. "Dead" shardblades do not work.
2. "Living" Shardblades do work
3. Honorblades *may* work

To your original question of "What did Dalinar summon that allowed the Oathgate to work?" (assuming this is what you mean, and not what did he summon during the big battle). Based on what we know of Oathgates, the most likely answer is that Dalinar forced the Stormfather to manifest into a shardblade. The only assumption being made is that Dalinar *can* force the Stormfather into a Shardblade. It is possible that something else happened, but that would require more assumptions 1. that Dalinar can do whatever it is he did and 2. that doing that would allow the Oathgate to work. So until further information, I think Dalinar forced the Stormfather into a Shardblade in order to work the Oathgate in Azir.

Someone else mentioned about the Oathgate spren not allowing passage. If I remember correctly (and @Calderis will probably correct me if I'm wrong ), that was only disallowing passage between the realms (Shadesmar and the Physical Realm). Travel from Physical Realm to Physical Realm was still permitted. Therefore, the crew in Shardesmar couldn't get the Spren of the Oathgate to take them to the Physical Realm, but Teft was able to later use the Oathgate to get from Urithiru to the big battle (Thaylen?).

On 6/15/2018 at 2:46 PM, robardin said:

Well the First Generation of kandra have memories going back to before Rashek's Ascension; the Keepers, not so much

You're right that the Keepers don't have memories of before Rashek's Ascension. But they have the record of the religions and at least pass on the idea the world *may* have been green beforehand. The only direct link we know about someone learning this information is that Sazed preaches Larsta to Mare, and Mare begins to believe in the green world.

On 6/15/2018 at 2:46 PM, robardin said:

But there's another category of people with this knowledge that you haven't listed: worldhoppers.

You're right again that I forgot about possible pre-Ascension worldhoppers. It's a possibility, but as I've said already, I'm leaning towards Demoux having just picked it up as a general rumor.

Curse your use of actual text to back up your arguments yet again @Calderis! (and yet again, thanks)

So Mare definitely learned it from Sazed.

I'm leaning towards Demoux having picked it up from general rumor then.

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

Sazed finds it odd that these things have entered into the mythos of the church, as no one outside of the group knew of it, except for people that he himself would have preached the religions to himself. It's where Mare originally got the information.

I haven't gotten to a part where Sazed finds it odd, but I'll be on the look out for it. In the second part, are you saying that Sazed preached to Mare about the old world? Because I don't think that's the case. I'm vaguely remembering Sazed say that he joined up with Kelsier shortly before Vin did.

Here's some interesting things I found digging around the WoBs

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Phantine

What's up with Mare? Here's my Conspiracy Wall about her.

TL;DR Paalm was Mare. She spent most of Shadows of Self trying to imitate Kelsier.

Brandon Sanderson

This one is a RAFO, I'm afraid. As I've said, there are things about Mare I haven't gone into.

Phantine

Putting aside whether this theory was accurate...

Have you seeded anything else in the books that this level of newspaper-clippings-connected-with-string thinking would be necessary to figure out?

Brandon Sanderson

I have put things in like this, but generally I don't think I'm putting in enough foreshadowing for them to be recognized--I'm just working under an assumption on my part, which then reflects in the writing, which then people put together. (Which sometimes surprises me.)

So, I don't generally put in puzzles this complex intentionally to make people figure them out. But the puzzles do end up in the stories, and can be figured out, nonetheless.

source

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UndertakerSheep

Did Kelsier, after holding preservation and Sazed becoming Harmony, ever find out if Mare really betrayed him or not?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO, I'm afraid. There is more coming on this topic in the future.

source

Two different WoBs saying there's more information forthcoming about Mare.

I guess I should do some speculation of my own. Let's start with who knew about the pre-Lord Ruler world.

1. Ruin
2. Preservation
3. Kelsier
4. Vin
5. Presumably all the Keepers
6. The Kandra, maybe

I think Ruin is right out, since there's no reason for him to spread rumors of a world prior to the Lord Ruler. Similarly, Preservation probably doesn't either (although he's more likely than Ruin).

Vin is another one that's right out, since if she's the one who told him, she wouldn't be the one to question where he learned about it.

I could see Kelsier telling Demoux, but there are some issues. Demoux seems to have learned of these things after Kelsier's death. That may not be an issue, but during WoA Kelsier was trapped in the Well. Demoux was devout enough, but Kelsier wouldn't have been able to reach him. Prior to Kelsier's death, I don't think Demoux and him were close enough for Kelsier to talk of Mare's dream of a different world.

The Kandra were technically around prior to the Lord Ruler, but it's likely that only the First Generation have any actual memory of it (because we know that Kandra memories degrade when they don't have Blessings). And they're not very talkative. So I don't think it's from them.

The Keepers may be spreading the rumors, in so much as they are trying to bring back the knowledge of the world. This seems to be the most likely cause, and it's probably like Vin said: it's just general rumor that is becoming stronger now that the Lord Ruler is gone.

One last thing to think of is that Mare would have had to have heard about this stuff from somewhere as well. That means even while the Lord Ruler was alive, there would have been rumors. So maybe I'm just trying to look too deep into this.

Stormlight Archive spoilers to follow

In Well of Ascension, Demoux preaches about the yellow sun, the green plants, the blue and ashless skies. Vin asks him who told him about that, and I too am now wondering: Who told him of that. Vin chalks it up to rumors, but those rumors have to start from somewhere. Do we have any idea where they started?

I have read all of the books, so feel free to bring any evidence.

8 hours ago, Leyrann said:

Like, isn't the end of Well of Ascension the first time you hear about Ruin and Preservation?

Since I literally just reread this part of Mistborn (spoilers for Well of Ascension)

I've recently seen other fiction where a character is putting on a happy face while dealing with internal things. It always reminds me of this scene / quote from Shallan and Kaladin's time in the chasm during Words of Radiance.

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He saw it in her eyes. The anguish, the frustration. The terrible nothing that clawed inside and sought to smother her. She knew. It was there, inside. She had been broken. 

Then she smiled. Oh, storms. She smiled anyway. 

It was the single most beautiful thing he’d seen in his entire life.

In my head, I normally shorten it to just "Oh, storms. She smiled anyway."

58 minutes ago, Storyspren said:

What's the line about knowing which stories are false doing on that theory?

Beard always makes up or embellishes stories. Beard says he can tell when a story is made up. Religion is a collection of stories. Beard believes they are made up, and therefore no one is watching over and protecting them.