Djarskublar

Ah, but if you let the Intent go as far as you are willing and no farther, then perhaps you could resist it. If you directly oppose it, then it will break you. If you focus it and channel it into constructive purposes, then you could at least last a lot longer. Also, I think Sazed and Kel holding the Shards were really both special cases. Kel didn't have a physical form, and Sazed was threatened to get torn apart by the opposing powers. Sazed needed to be balanced between them so he could meld them.

... Whoa. Mind blown. While one of your points about spren doesn't really hold up well, it doesn't really affect the theory. Spren do have a solid presence in the SR seeing as they are Splinters, and therefor made of pure Investiture. On the other hand, when the spren gets attached to you via the Nahel bond, that may rewrite their Connections somewhat such that they resemble the focus person/thing of the Radiant. In your example, Syl would get rewritten as Tien somewhat. I really like this line of thought. Edit: what I said isn't strictly true either. Spren do live in the CR, but they still have a solid aspect in the SR.

I don't remember for sure. I think his name was different in the two drafts. Oh yeah! He also mentioned that Pattern actually got stolen from one of his Dark One drafts.

Yes, this is true, however it doesn't really apply to how well it fits a curve. Assuming that breath strength is approximately random, it really only makes a difference for the first few Heightenings. After that, the Law of Large Numbers starts to really kick in. By the time you hit 10th Heightening, it should be pretty darn close to average. Also, they know the average number of breaths it takes to hit the first few Heightenings because a relatively large number of people hit them. That gives them a solid sample for the ones that experience more variation. The numbers for Heightenings are probably very close to accurate because of those two facts. I would expect less than 1% variation for the upper Heightenings.

@RenegadeShroom that WoB means something different from what you are saying. It means that there was something about the metal that was different. He can find his other Kandra from their spikes (IIRC). Something about Bleeder's spike made it so he couldn't. I am positing that it's because it is an alloy with either copper or aluminum.

I think that he was also implying that if Investiture is 'blank' it won't have a say. That was an excellent summary @Argent. Where do I need to post to get this added to Theoryland? The signing thread?

Yeah it was really small. There were maybe 50-75 people there. It is telling that I was towards the end of the line for the signing, and I got #37 for DT. I got the feeling from what he was saying about his Dark One drafts that he has tried to write it around 5-10 times. More on his inner Heckler. He was saying that he has this inner voice telling him that he just lucked into his success so far, and that he isn't really all that good. It also makes fun of some of the things he happens to do in his writing. He talked about how he named that voice Alcatraz, and that he likes the name because he like how Z sounds in words. He then talked about how eventually Alcatraz ended up as the main character of a book. Now that I have read DT, I can say (without spoilers) that this is definitely going on. He makes fun of himself through the whole thing.

I think some of what I was saying may not be totally clear to everyone. I am saying that the spike that Bleeder had was not of Trell, it was of Ruin. Because the spike is of Ruin, it is of a Shard we know. That means that Trell could be anything. If the spike isn't 'Trellium' then we don't really have any WoB that I know of stating that Trell is a Shard we know, or really anything about it for that matter. I am just thinking that Trell might be something completely different from anything anyone has guessed so far, and if this theory is even possible, it adds some credence to that idea.

Djarskublar: So I could be wrong, but a Hemalurgic spike, when you use it and become a savant it does damage to your Spiritweb, right? Brandon: Yes Hemalurgy always hurts you. (I think he was saying that the Hemalurgy itself hurts you more than being a savant, but I'm not sure how to interpret this) Djarskublar: So say you go to Roshar and you give somebody a Hemalurgic spike for some Allomantic power, don't care what, and you use it to become a savant. Does that qualify them as 'broken' enough to become a Radiant? As long as they are also following the Ideals to attract a spren. Brandon: So becoming a Radiant is a spectrum of terminologies. It... probably, but you would have to find a Radiant who would, or a spren who would be willing to touch that, okay? It's going to drive them back. Djarskublar: So would it also affect your probability of becoming an Elantrian? Brandon: Yeah it would affect your ability to become anything else, yes. Djarskublar: Okay, so would it be a positive effect, negative effect...? Because I was like, it gives you cracks in your Spiritweb. Brandon: It does give you cracks in your Spiritweb. Djarskublar: So it's easier for Investiture to get in. Does it make it easier for other Investitures to get in? Brandon: It would make it... yes. It's going to drive spren away. So what it's really going to make easier for, there, is spren and Investiture that doesn't care. Djarskublar: Okay, so Investiture doesn't care but spren do. Brandon: Investiture might care depending on if it's part of a Shard-- if it has intent and things like this. Djarskublar: So it might let Stormlight in easier than a Breath, type thing. Brandon: I'm saying it might let Odium in easier than Syl. Because Syl would care, and Odium would not care. Djarskublar: Okay cool. Brandon: Alright, so it could be a really bad thing, is what I'm trying to say to you. Djarskublar: Yeah that's cool. I just want to know more about gold too. Gold Allomancy too. Because Miles was doing some funky stuff. Brandon: Miles was doing some funky stuff. And that is what I got. It is verbatim because I was recording it. I'm not totally sure yet if it was interesting enough to warrant the question, but I got to chat with him for a couple minutes. It was great and nerve wracking. The signing was amazing because it was really small. There were maybe 50-75 people there, so he could afford to spend a couple minutes just chatting with me. *wigs out a little* I also asked Isaac why the Julia Set was chosen for Roshar, and he said that he couldn't say because he didn't know what Brandon had or had not said. I guess it's more significant than just an Easter egg. I just figured it was a question I could ask Isaac while he was signing my DT copy. I don't know if that is useful or not. It seems to me that Brandon was saying that being a savant would make it easier to acquire other powers, but that Hemalurgy has an effect as well, so it just depends on whether the power cares that you have Hemalurgic spikes more than if you have the cracks in you Spiritweb that makes it easier for it to get in. I almost got him to confirm if Stormlight is blank Investiture, but it didn't quite get past him, so he started being much more careful with his wording. Because of his wording at the end there, I think he was saying that a Hemalurgic savant would be easier for Odium to influence. Trell, anyone? The implications for how one would go about acquiring other Manifestations is quite interesting. Another man also asked about if Kel had been Rosharan, if he could have communicated with the living after he died via Death Rattle. I didn't overhear the answer, but he said that Brandon said that it would be a similar mechanic, but not the same. If he wants to post a more detailed answer, go for it, but I figured it would be better to get it out there. And kudos to @Peng the Just for finding out that Dalinar's wife is named Eevee. This is apparently subject to change, and he didn't get an exact spelling, but still! Go here and give the lucky man an upvote!

Oh. My. Goodness. That was great. Since I was at the signing I know what he said about the book in advance. I am truly amazed he didn't burst out laughing with all the foreshadowing he was saying! He basically said to not read "the last page" this time. He said it as Brandon not Alcatraz. Now I know why. The REAL last page. Ah you are a true genius Brandon. The puns man... Best thing ever! Maybe reading this book will make people realize how great it is when I wax punny. Footnotes. Good stuff. It was confusing on those couple times when they crossed over into another page, though. The sentence shouldn't have ended to let us know or something. Overall excellent. Easily the best of the last four. I need to re-read book one to decide on that count. Good on Hayley Lazo. It fit the book quite well. So many people are going to be pissed off by the end before they find the Bastille note. I wonder if they celebrate Bastille saving the day on July 14, since France doesn't exist

I was with him. It is apparently subject to change so it's not 100% confirmed.

Ahhh but you misunderstand. Somewhat. I did think about how the metal was reddish, but that didn't bother me much. Just add water to certain chemicals and they change color. Why would a godmetal necessarily behave like normal matter anyway? I guess it's not impossible for the alloy to be reddish. The misunderstanding is that I don't think Trell is Ruin. The faceless immortals of Trell are really just using an aluminum alloy that makes it hard for Harmony to influence them. Trell is something else entirely. This 'Trellium' people are talking about may not actually be from an off planet shard. That is all I'm saying. Its just an Atium/aluminum alloy. Trell could really be any Shard (not R/P or a few others obviously). On another note, if you want it to be reddish, maybe copper? I don't recall its Hemalugic effect.

So something hit me. We know Bleeder's spike is of a metal from a Shard we know. What if that Shard is... Ruin? So here is how it may work. The spike is actually an Atium aluminum alloy. Sazed is doing something with the extra Ruin power. I presume he remade the Pits and just hid them really well. Trell came along and studied the perpendicularity that is there, as well as all the magic present/known. He/She realized that a Kandra made from aluminum or an alloy of it may not be as susceptible to manipulation. Atium may grant the ruinous intent that they need. I can't recall enough about SoS right now to say what it would entail. I just saw that WoB about Bleeder's spike again and this idea came to me. If (and I recognize that this is a massive if) this spike is actually just an Atium alloy the Kandra don't know about (not necessarily likely seeing as Sazed also appears ignorant), then that fits. This could blow the discussion about who Trell is wide open. Even though I do think that this is unlikely, I felt the need to present it as a possibility.

Vessel is Brandon's term for someone holding a Shard, I believe. I still think we need a term for 'highly' invested people. An Invested person just has access to a Manifestation. I'm talking about people who have a large quantity of Investiture that isn't 'normal'. I'm also not talking about people who can get stuff done, but people who passively hold a lot of Investiture. So Elantrians and Mistborn don't qualify. Their power is great, but external. Susebron, on the other hand, has a TON of Investiture. Many times as much as would be required to make a Splinter (divine breath). He doesn't even come close to qualifying as a Sliver, though. We don't know enough about the Heralds or Hoid to say, but my bet is Heralds yes, Hoid no on the the high passive Investiture front. I just feel we need a term for this, and Shaving fits the theme so far.

Alright, so a Sliver is someone who held a large portion of a shard, and let it go. This leaves marks on a person. A splinter is a piece of Investiture that is large enough that, if left alone, could gain sentience. Shards are one of the 16 pieces of Mr A. So, going along with the convention of using words that start with s and are synonyms for piece, I posit a new term for everyone! I think we should call higly invested people (Heralds, Susebron, and Hoid are all potential candidates) something similar. The term that fits best in this case is thus: Shaving. Shards are big, Splinters and Slivers vary but tend towards medium, and Shavings are usually small. I like this idea. We need a term for this after all. This one also happens to be moderately amusing. Discuss! Mock my silliness/seriousness to your hearts content!

Emphasis added. There are a couple major flaws with your reasoning. First off, how would he even know about the Honorblades in the first place? He may know some legend from the Vorin religion... that felt a pretty strong influence from the Heirocracy. There is no way he knew what the Honorblades actually do. That will not be in any book. For all he knew they were just regular Blades held by special 'people.' Second, that first explanation needs a serious logic slap. Honorblades Invested? sure. Investiture interference? sure. Highstorms Invested? sure. Highstorms don't hit Shinovar? yeah... they hit a mountain chain and lose their force. And the investiture fueling their travel starts to run down. No spren in Shinovar? ummm... yeah there are. The flora and fauna are different, but spren are a planetary thing. The second explanation makes more sense. The shin do have soldiers though. Not that that really affects your point. My point is that if there is even one thing the Diagram explains/predicts that can't be explained by sheer intelligence extrapolating from prior knowledge, then we have proof that something else is going on. Hence the added emphasis in your quote. I submit his knowledge of the Everstorm as one of these things. I will admit that the Death Rattles may have provided that knowledge. I don't think that is likely since the Rattles we saw tend to focus on a named character's future or past or the desolation itself. There probably isn't much in there about the LIsteners that differs greatly from the kinds of things that Jasnah found in the library. I do not think that he could have figured out the Listeners with any accuracy without a lot more knowledge of the cosmere/SR/Investiture than he could have had. WIth a peek into the SR and enough intelligence to understand it, he could have figured out the Listeners. I think that Occam's Razor doesn't really apply to any argument here. That kind of deduction from sheer intelligence gets destroyed by the Razor in my mind, but so does just about any other explanation to some degree. I just think that my explanation makes far more sense, and is much more likely.

Ah another Tolkien fan I see... I already hashed this out with Kingsdaughter. I disliked those books. I will send you a message why since I dont want to derail the thread. On the other hand, the books focused on Frodo's struggle with the Ring. Sam was literally support cast. He carried Frodo around after all. Adolin is support cast. He carries Renarin's and Dalinar's burdens when he can. Without Adolin the duels wouldn't have happened and there would still be a stalemate. Sadeas would still be plotting and alive. Adolin is useful, but not important. Ooh I know. I'll start a thread over in a non cosmere forum to point people to.

Heh... You can draw on Saidin and you can draw on a guidebook. You don't get a guidebook, though. That would be two boons. You get to learn Saidin via hard work and experimentation.

Alright @maxal time to set you straight. Brandon isn't dismissing extroverts. He is dismissing Adolin. There are other extroverts out there. Galadon, Rock, and Lopen come to mind. Denth is extroverted with Vivenna, but he has layers to him. That extroversion is a mask. With Adolin, on the other hand, what you see is what you get. He isn't extroverted to compensate for something. My brother is a lot like Adolin. Nice kid, but not much to him really. A book about him would be boring. Adolin would be more interesting, but he is really just a one or two dimensional character that Brandon created to fill a need. Even extroverted people can have secrets and depth. It sounds to me that you are really just disappointed that Brandon isn't focusing on the minor character you relate with most. That's fine, but please don't push it onto Brandon. Just ask him at a signing to write another book where an Adolin like character is important. You just see more in Adolin than is really there. Again, that's fine. Just like a certain feathery person likes Renarin a bit more than is probably healthy. I imagine that Brandon is aware how popular Adolin is, so my bet would be that a future book would feature somebody like him as an MC. Adolin is an extremely good extroverted duelist. Full stop. He killed a man recently, but he is a soldier. The consequences probably won't be that bad for him. Be was written as a foil and that is what he will remain as. I liked Sam far better than that whiny prick Frodo. Did Return of the King have any chance of him being more important? Nope.

While I take your point on the death rattles, the library is literally irrelevant. How many ancient texts about experiencing Celtic mythology first-hand have you read? Neither has he. While he likely has more free time than most rulers, he is still running a kingdom. Any books he has read are more likely to be about how to be a good Vorin king, not about Honorblades. He is more likely to read ledgers/finances and books of practical information. Take also the fact that the Heirocracy concealed much information, and I come to the conclusion that there is no way he could have read the books he needed to for this to work.

That is not the case. If I lived in a culture that didn't like seeing the future and this day happened to me, I wouldn't say I saw the future even to myself. I would see a few things that I could understand from my level of connections and assume that smart me had just figured everything else out. I wouldn't want to be associated with seeing the future, even to myself. Where would he EVER have figured out when the Everstorm would hit? He knew that event in advance. He can't have 'figured out' first that the pashmen were just formless Listeners, that the Listeners would decide to use a form of power, that this form would be Stormform, and the exact date they would summon the storm. That goes beyond intelligence into foreseeing the future. Whether I am right and he got that because he saw the SR and therefor knew the Listeners, or some other future sight, he definitely did see the future. You cannot explain him knowing when the Everstorm would happen as intelligence. There are other reasonable guesses he could have made about them that have totally different outcomes. To go back on topic, I agree this epigraph is talking about Hoid. He is THE wanderer after all. Him being present opens up many possibilities depending on how he meddles.

Lol I posted more or less the same topic with a similar argument just a couple days ago. Great minds and all that I guess. One thing though, he didn't just know that the Everstorm was going to hit then, that means nothing out of context. It's like saying 'winter is coming' ... It's pointless without knowing what that winter is. He had to have understood the Listeners well enough to know they would enter Stormform. That means understanding them on a Spiritual level. They didn't know about the form at the time. That means he learned all the mechanics of forms, and decided that Stormform was the one they would end up using. I also don't believe he could have read all the things you mentioned in books. Sure, sure, greatest library in the world, but does he have time for serious scholarly study like Jasnah? Nope, and besides, would Jasnah have found those books if they existed? I think that since Jasnah didn't read about the Shin and Honorblades then Mr T couldn't have. Nice job on coming up with the same theory. You did provide another perspective, which is good. And it makes me feel better, since people in the other thread didn't like it.

Sorry if this is kinda necro, but this is definitely something I can add to. I have some sword training (I used to fence) and I can say with confidence that there is no way Denth could have pulled that off without Feruchemy. Just watch Olympic fencing some time. You can follow that with the naked eye fairly easily. Those are excellent specimens of humans. I agree that a Returned would be a fair bit better than a normal human, but even if you are twice as good, which I consider to be a very generous estimate, that simply isn't enough to do what he did. I just reread that passage, and he killed two men before anyone else could even do more than grab their swords. If they were random peasants, I could maybe see it, but these were hardened thugs and someone with around 500 Breaths watching. On top of that, they weren't even at the same table. They had slid another table up to the one Denth was at and were sitting there. To stand up from his chair, draw his sword, move over to where he could hit them, slash one man, and then stab another on the other side of the table in the neck before anyone else could do more than put their hand on a sword is not twice as fast. That is at least ten times faster. I cannot accept that a basic Returned could pull off that feat even with some weird physical enhancement like some have suggested he might have. And the fact that this takes place after Sazed's ascension only adds to this theory IMO. How would they have found a Feruchemist before that? On the outside, I guess that life sense might do it, but still, there weren't many of them left at that point. After, on the other hand, makes sense. You just find the correct Ferring. They don't need to be nearly as secretive about their power. I can see them figuring out Hemalurgy in either age. On the other hand, Vivenna does see 'a flash of color,' so maybe there was some funky awakening power going on here. I think Vivenna would have noticed if he had used awakening though, so this one doesn't sound terribly likely. It also shouldn't be enough to make him that fast. Also, if Tonk Fah has some Hemalurgic power, why not Denth? It doesn't make sense for the one and not the other.

Kandra alone win it for TFE. Every time. Just assassinate the ruler or some high ranked officers. If you can get the ruler, it's basically over. If you get some officers (generals) then you can give bad orders and win. Even if we restrict the inquisitors to mostly brass/zinc they still do tons of damage. I don't see the koloss losing to any army that doesn't have large shotguns and cannons. The Romans or Macedonians probably have the best chance of the older armies. A phalanx would perform modestly well against koloss, but the Romans would need to figure out something fast.

Like I said in my post, I am fine with D&D being a part of it, but I think the intents of the Shards are reflected more in the way (and where) you manifest the magic. I am strictly talking about how you access the Dor. It is location based. I am talking less about where you get the power and more on where you use it. Selish magic tends to be extremely non-transportable. I think that is because your cognitive aspect needs to be in close proximity to the Dor to easily access it without a hack. For example, ChayShan is probably usable anywhere on the planet if you know it. It probably works at the same power level. Leave Sel and it won't work properly since it is too far from the Dor to access it properly. That is my guess, anyway. Dakhor monks we don't know a ton about, so I can't speculate how they would work off planet. I think I saw a WoB that Forgery will wear off when off planet, and maybe even outside MaiPon. I don't remember which. I think it is because the seal loses its connection to the Dor, and therefore its trickle of power from it. I would guess that the potions are actually really transportable, but you can only brew them in your homeland. They are already imbued with all the Investiture that they need, and you get the effect on quaffing. I think this because IIRC there wasn't any real ritual or form to drinking it, and it wouldn't really make sense for there to be anything the end user needs to do. The brewer already did the magic, the effect is just delayed. And finally we come to AonDor. Elantrians appear to have a base power level when inside the Dor's influence. Using the massive Aon Rao known as Elantris buffs up the power. They just have it in their homeland for obvious reasons. I know Elantris was already there, that doesn't affect this point much. Once you leave the planet, though, and leave the Dor, you will run into problems. Galladon probably has to pull some hackery just to survive if he leaves. Does that make more sense? I guess my first post was a bit detail sparse, but I wanted to see what some people thought before I typed something long, and I was in a rush. Also, I think D&D may contribute to this as well. It may be why some of the magic is only usable in a certain area.