rabidhexley

Seems a bit impractical lol. You'd need a crazy mass of Iron, even with the efficiency of metalmind storage, planetary mass is straight up ridiculous, Even if we were "just" talking the Earth's crust, and that goes for the momentum of the Earth's rotation/orbit as well. Would it allow one to fill an Iron or Steel metalmind instantaneously though? Is rate of storage based on the mass of the Feruchemist? If it's based on your "Spiritual Mass" (like what your Spirit actually recognizes as your body for healing purposes), then you'd never be able to fill a mind fast enough to have an effect since the mass change is just temporary. If it is, then maybe an international effort could get a contiguous lump big enough to make a notable difference for a fraction of a second.

Until proven otherwise I'd see this as the case. Stormlight has a very specific nature of naturally flowing within physical vessels, it's the closest thing to free flowing, unkeyed investiture around. Breath doesn't behave this way at all. As you note Breath is keyed to the owner's Identity and Spirit. And Breath never moves without Intent. The ground trick works because the Stormlight sees the Surgebinder and the Earth as the same Physical object, like their body suddenly grew in size, so it flows to fill the new container. The target's spiritweb isn't suddenly encompassing the ground, the trick works because Stormlight has physical properties of behavior. A-Chromium specifically targets investiture. The ground trick is just that, a trick. Edit: Even if breathe did move in this way, which I don't believe is the case, I don't think it would actually even matter. A Breath is a Breath. Even if you were suddenly a big, planet-sized person, you'd still have one Breath. And when the binding wore off you'd still have the Breath because it's tied to your spirit and Identity, not the ground. This is actually why I think the Stormlight trick actually works, because your spirit isn't part of the ground- even though your physical body is -the Stormlight that spreads into it is lost and inaccessible. Unless another form of investiture behaves in this manner I don't think this trick would have any effect at all. I think it would have physical effects on physical powers, like it would shift the center of mass for Steel/Iron pushing, or apply the effects of tapping Frechemical weight to the ground as well. But it wouldn't cause the investiture to suddenly be consumed faster or anything. It wouldn't effect burning Tin or other mental arts, for instance, the ground isn't a part of your spirit or mind, you're just physically attached to it, it's a part of your body. Most Investiture doesn't have this "flowing within a container" property Stormlight does. Burning allomantic metals is the spirit applying investiture, the investiture isn't a substance filling the container of the body. Unless we're talking about an application that directly related to physical size or mass, I'm doubtful it would do anything other than stick you to the ground.

/shrug, hard to argue one way or another. It's also kind of implied that the perpendicularity being open wasn't a good thing, though it's hard to tell (Dalinar does try to close it though). A Bondsmith fueled by the perpendicularity, directly connected to the spiritual, moving the bond of another, untrained Bondsmith (through physical contact, inside the perpendicularity). Due to Dalinar not being skilled enough to oppose Ishar, the situation and Bondsmith nature of the Connection may have made it favorable for Ishar. I'm also not sure if this could even be classified as Investiture resistance in action. It's an incomplete Nahel-bond, part of the specific domain of Honor's bonds, Bondsmith stuff. I'm referring to changing the nature or action of active Investiture. The Earth-bond thing is a trick, the Investiture is still doing what it wants to do in that situation.

This is the kind of thing I'm referring to with regards to the scope of their abilities. They're not "Connection Omnipotent" as far as we can tell, even with a buttload of Stormlight. Outside of there ability to be mostly about creating Bonds, they can't unilaterally create, manipulate, or destroy a Connection just because it's a Connection. Beyond specific rules their "Smithing" might need to adhere to, other magical rules still apply. Physical proximity (the Bondsmith is still a human in the physical realm), requisite Investiture, the strength of existing Connections and Bonds (Dalinar can't freely modify his Connection to Odium to any parameters he wishes, for instance), general power limits, Investiture resisting external manipulation. There may be ways around some of these, but they still have to find workarounds and facilitating factors in order to break the rules. Stuff like connecting to a Dawnshard or willing external source of investiture/power, the creation of powerful oaths, or other extenuating circumstances.

Bondsmiths are not omnipresent or omniscient, despite Stormfather spacetime Dalinar can't fully exploit Connection in all places or things. They have limited range. He can summon a perpendicularity, but that doesn't mean he has truly untethered access to nigh-infinite investiture all at once like shard does (at least not easily). The greater workings like the Oathpact are a clearly a pretty big deal and aren't the kind of thing a Bondsmith can just snap their fingers and do, but if manipulating Connection to straight-up create life was on the table this hardly even seems like some great feat. And while they can Connect with other surgebinders to access their abilities, that doesn't mean they can connect with literally anything and do everything. It's like saying he can just summon a perpendicularity, stand in the Everstorm and remove its "Connection to Rohsar", good to go, it's gone. Or form a Connection to someone and literally control their mind. Or change the form of their investiture. There are clearly things that would supercede the power of a Bondsmith, like the will of another Shard or opposing Investiture. As far as what they can do with the abilities of the other orders, we're more getting into a discussion of what Surgebinding is general is capable, and not really what the Bondsmith powerset specifically enables. Though I'm personally doubtful that Bondsmiths are able to freely emulate the various resonances specific to the other orders. I'm of the the mind this is referring mostly to things specific to Honor. Basically Honor's specialties like Oaths and Bonds. Potentially controlling things specific to Honor's domain, not anything within the power of a literal Shard. There's also stuff that Connection just doesn't do. You're not going to unilaterally change the fundamental nature of an object or person through Connection alone. They can't Soulcast, for instance, where with some of these proposed abilities it sounds like they almost should be able to just Soulcast. Or touch an object and basically "soulstamp" it with a flex of will. Or else Connection metalminds would effect their users in many more ways than they actually do. And a concept like Identity wouldn't really mean much. Bondsmiths are fortunate to have the means to overcome many of these limitations through more convoluted means (like Connecting to other Surgebinders, or binding a Shard to an oath), but that isn't saying these limitations don't exist and that there aren't things are very much pushing the phrasing of "Bondsmiths can do this". They're certainly busted by design. But I feel like many feats are definitely off the table without a novel's worth of caveats and workarounds, if possible at all.

The quote is actually "Then he proved to me that a Bondsmith unchained is capable of incredibly feats...You are a god. You hold vast powers, yet they bind you as much as they free you. Tell me, what do you think of a human bearing the weight of a god's powers, but without that god's restrictions?" I see this more like grandstanding on how Bondsmiths wield the powers of Honor (bonds), and verbal sparring to determine the degree with which he's a threat to Odium. He bears the weight of a god's powers because he can do things like make agreements with Odium on behalf of Honor, or potentially other feats similar to the Oathpact, binding cognitive shadows to a near eternal oath, etc. I don't doubt the potential for Bondsmiths is well beyond that of other magic-users, but I don't think that Bondsmith powers just let you hangout with Shards and Gods. It's more like you have the ability to create workings (like the Oathpact, which I don't think is a standard Bondsmith working) that can potentially be used even in contention with Gods. But there are still numerous limitations and caveats.

I feel like a lot of what I see in these Bondsmith threads is conflating "Ability to manipulate Connection" (which is an incredibly OP and flexible power) with "Absolute control over Connection" almost on the level of a Shard. I think Bondsmiths are fairly busted (that's why there's so few of them), but I feel like there are a lot of hypotheticals that are overestimating how much can be done solely with Connection at a baseline, as well as overestimating the degree of power and control Bondsmiths have over Connection. Their control of a fundamental Realmatic quality is on a level beyond what we've seen from any other magic-users currently. But I don't think that it's on the level of magnitude or granularity to do basically anything they want with Connection. And I don't think Connection is a catch-all that can just be used in any way imaginable, there are other fundamental qualities to investiture and Realmatic theory that they don't have any direct control over.

I also think it isn't that implausible that if the hair hanging over his face was getting too long Kaladin would just...cut it? Like literally just slice off some the hair in front so he can see. So just messily cut, long-ish bangs surrounded by longer hair.

A highly skilled Mistborn with all the metals (and reserves) is incredibly tough if they know what they're up against. There's a reason we don't see Mistborn in Era 2, Brandon knows they're ridiculous. Radiants are ridiculous too, but Mistborn have access to Leaching, Duralumin, and time hacks. These are basically what make the Mistborn a true threat when combined with their other abilities. Obviously a favorable scenario needs to work out for the Mistborn, and we're talking about a pretty high level of skill, but definitely possible even with Plate, and a potential stomp without plate. The Mistborn would have a much tougher time of it without Bendalloy and Duralumin. Bendalloy to constantly change position at range would make it very tough for a Radiant with no instant ranged abilities to actually setup a kill or even get close. I really don't see how a purely melee Radiant could even attempt to kill a Mistborn with ample reserves who doesn't want to get caught. It's only fair at all because the Mistborn is trying to kill the Radiant too, but time bubbles give them a lot of flexibility to set things up. Duralumin pushes and time bubbles to setup attacks provide offensive power to incapacitate Radiants or even bust Shardplate. Problem for the Mistborn is Radiant healing and the Shardblade one-shots, as well as other potential Radiant one-shots in close range. Any instant, ranged one-shots means the Mistborn is probably boned if they don't catch the Radiant off-guard and finish it very quickly. Problem for the Radiant is the Mistborn has time hacks and flexibility of range, and can theoretically purge their healing ability in the same moment they kill them. For a Radiant with no plate (or compromised plate) they become vulnerable to anything that exposes them, and Mistborn have multiple means of achieving this. As far as leeching goes, I'm of the mind that would think if the Mistborn is leeching as they make contact, they wouldn't be effected by Division on that touch. Even if Leeching isn't instant, I think the purging of investiture would take precedent over investiture acting upon them, worst-case I think they'd cancel out as the Stormlight rapidly drains. The other way of looking at it would be saying "Can you apply Division to a surface that is actively purging foreign investiture?", I'd think that'd be even more difficult than using it on something like Shardplate.

I agree, I think anyone using Kaladin (or Jasnah) as a measuring stick for what to expect from Radiants by and large is vastly overestimating their martial prowess. Kaladin cannot be seen as the standard for what we expect an "average" Windrunner (or average anyone really) to be capable of in terms of martial skill. WoK and WoR make it abundantly clear that he's a prodigy among prodigies, there haven't been any human characters even close in terms of raw talent. Everyone who ever witnesses him actually fight in the first two books basically has their minds blown. Before having access to any surges he was a historical figure in the making if it wasn't for cultural bigotry. And the rest of the cast seems pretty much in agreement that Kaladin is their best fighter (in terms of martial capability) by a pretty wide margin if it wasn't for his difficulties with mental health. But, he can't single handedly win a war against an ever-growing (more, powerful fused are still waking up to join the conflict) force of enemies that can't actually be defeated by strength of arms alone. Kaladin also doesn't have the power to stop Odium's entire force, like, not at all. He's a single, incredibly skilled guy who only needs to be killed once. He's made a very good showing, he's definitely better than any fused we've seen thus far, but it's mostly luck on humanity's part that Kaladin exists during this time period and hasn't been wasted by an unlucky fight.

I guess it's just a matter of opinion but I'll offer my perspective. I do think there are valid critiques to be made about SLA, but I think this critique is more of a personal view on what kind of stories someone likes. Stormlight Archive is a story that involves incredibly powerful magic users, this was always going to be the case. Kaladin's current power level was always implied, he's able nearly hold off an army with just Stormlight and a regular spear. The only Radiant power that striked me as surprisingly strong is Radiant healing (Renarin surviving getting crushed was probably the first instance of me being surprised by how strong the magic was), but even that was established fairly early on. Otherwise it always seemed to me that 4th ideal Radiants were going to be beings of incredible power. That's just the kind of world this is. With regards to the Heralds and the Fused, to me it seems that very few Radiants are actually capable of fighting the strongest Fused. Kaladin is meant to be the high-bar we measure (non-Herald) Radiant combat capability against. And the legions of Fused we have in the story are not the Fused of old, it's been thousands of years and they've felt the tole of time the same as the heralds. And this is the most humanity has been able to build up in the history of Roshar even if they'd lost the Radiants. The plot also isn't really about how weak or strong the relative characters are, like whether or not Kaladin can beat X fused in a fight. It's about the overall conflict and the interplay of power across a large scale conflict between not just armies but gods, and on a personal level our main casts' struggles with who they are. If the Radiants weren't powerful humanity would never have survived the Desolations in the first place. Having these incredibly powerful magic-users was their one saving grace. Humanity couldn't afford to lose even once, while the Singers sent Humanity back to the bronze-age from repeated apocalypse-level wars.

After doing some more thinking on it I do feel like it was an error on Brandon's part to not follow up on some of the BoM stuff a bit more. TLM is definitely the first time he's "finished" a story with this many hanging plot threads. This is mainly only an issue though because a bunch of these threads were introduced in the previous book. TLM resolves the Set plotline, the main plotline of the series, but BoM introduces what feels like major subplots; The Malwish, Nicrosil tech, the Bands of Mourning, and the Sovereign. These details are acknowledged, but otherwise almost entirely ignored in TLM, which definitely feels off given the way BoM ends. Like, we know the Sovereign is Kelsier, and we know Wax knows, and Marasi certainly knows if not just from Wax telling her then from having seen the statue of the Sovereign before meeting Kelsier. We then get multiple scenes with Kell that never talk about the Malwish or the Bands, and it's not really discussed in Kelsier's own scene where he's specifically talking about his work to increase the power-level of Scadrians. And we have Nicrosil tech, which is one of the biggest reveals of the entire Mistborn series so far only get nods in the plot. The meat was always going to be left until Era 3, but it really feels like we should have got something to actually nibble on. I still love Era 2 and TLM personally for the rest of it, but I'd consider this a sour point for sure. At least I can be confident we'll get our satisfaction in the next books, so that tempers my personal critique a bit, it's just a really weird pacing decision to leave readers hanging to this degree from Sanderson. Who tends to aim for maximum satisfaction by the end of an arc.

I'm not a fan of this ship, but I'm generally always pro-platonic relationship. And Syl is like a combination of Guardian Angel, Fairy God Mother, Animal Companion, and Best Friend. With romance you can add "Literal Manic Pixie Dream-Girl" to that list lol. But. If this ship does happen my theorized/preferred way would result in some way to turn Syl into a fully realized being that dissolves their Nahel-bond, or something to that effect. Kaladin gives up being Radiant in order to be happy, and for Syl to truly become an independent person rather than just an aspect of Honor/the Stormfather. Allowing them to relate to each other as equals.

Like you noted, Sanderson is in the type of position where his ability to telegraph/foreshadow twists is tempered by the fact that nearly everything will be picked up on. All in all, it's a good twist that I think was sufficiently foreshadowed. From WoK Taravangian has been built up as the ultimate puppet master, and his character interplay with Dalinar was always much more overt than it was between Dalinar and Rayse. And the more we've learned about Rayse himself has always had the vibe of building towards an anti-climax, with the threat-level on a downward trajectory. With the benefit of hindsight it doesn't seem that weird for Taravangian to have been the "actual bad guy" all along, up to Oathbringer his chapters had been some of the most ominous. Hard to say what's going to happen, but I'm also pretty sure Wit will realize/has realized he was bamboozled as well. The main issue is that he won't necessarily be sure how he was played. I'm not sure how he'll find out that Rayse is dead, and Taravangian has a alibi from Szeth. Even if he's not completely in the dark, he's still been put in a situation where he no longer holds all the cards or what his opponents are about to play. Hoid's a genius, but he seems like the kinda guy who's strategy always starts with "Always have the upper hand".

I mean there also does seem to be a pattern to his intelligence switches, as the averages change over time. As long as the pattern wasn't truly random, even if it was stupidly complex, transcendent intelligence would probably work it out. They had a significant number of data points at that time. There's also the trouble he could have ended up with if he had the wrong level of intelligence or disposition on the wrong day, like if he was a gibbering idiot on the day Szeth came to kill him. I'd think I was giving him too much credit if things hadn't worked out the way they did. Ascending to Odium seems like the best possible outcome that could be conceived by "Peak Smart" Taravangian given what we know about his disposition, and even up until that point the Diagram's goal's were still mysterious and unclear. He was also selected by Cultivation, so he probably had the necessary capacity and information (that is to say, he was the right person for the job) at the right time to work out what was required. If the Diagram wasn't written the way it was things would have turned out differently, which wouldn't have been according to plan. At the very least we do know that he had worked out the existence of the Shards, he even understood Odium's disposition since he makes a deal with it. He worked out the Everstorm and return of the Voidbringers (Jasnah did this too with mundane intelligence). He knew about Szeth and exactly what he was capable of. Some of the things we see on-screen in accordance with the Diagram are such long-shots that if everything wasn't going according to plan the Diagram would have gone completely off the mark years before the story started. Also, "letting the Voidbringers destroy the world while my one city is spared" just seems like a weaksauce goal for ruthless, absolutely unbridled pragmatism Smart Taravangian. The Diagram may have been "incorrect" any number of times, but the Diagram's job wasn't to inform anyone about the future or his plan. It was the means of controlling people to carry out the plan he cooked up, he didn't care whether or not they had the right information as long as they were doing the right things. If he really needed everyone who worked for him to fall off a cliff, and it was possible, he would have written whatever it took- right or wrong -in order to get them on that cliff in time for it to collapse. I also think the fact that the Diagram exists at all is a bit of evidence this is the case as well. It's noted that on other occasions of extremely high intelligence he went out and tried to get things done, highly motivated to accomplish (too many) things while he had the intelligence to do so. But on his smartest day he writes this inscrutable text without communicating its meaning or goal to anybody? So inscrutable that even on his smartest days going forward he never works out what the Diagram is truly getting at. At that point he only had the a day to make his goals happen, if he was even remotely that intelligent he wouldn't have wasted a single second. In terms of how smart he was I would hazard that he was likely about as smart as anyone could possibly be in the Cosmere, including Shards. Given the scope of his abilities on that day were limited to the mind, that seems within the capabilities of Cultivation's boon. And if anyone would have had the requisite information to make the required unseen connections, someone of his age, experience, and position would've been a good bet. The limit was that he only had a day to work with.

Too similar to Lessie in Shadows of Self. And this being wouldn't even actually be Evi. The "Hero has difficulty killing something with the face of their loved one" thing's been done.

Makes sense to me. I mean he was a super genius, why was he taking "notes" when the plan was already in his head? He's not writing them for himself. The Diagram wasn't Taravangian's plan, it was his means of carrying out the plan. He transcended human intelligence, and then immediately went to the job of making sure it happened, that was the Diagram. If you're super-genius, future sight Taravangian then you know the instructions aren't the only important part of the equation, but the specific way that those notes are conveyed. You're trying to control for a specific outcome, including against the actions of your followers and potential future self (wouldn't be surprised if his intelligence wasn't actually random, and on that day he worked out the mechanics determining the pattern it followed). So everything about everything he did that day where he created the diagram was in service to ensuring a specific sequence of events played out. You're not going to be so dumb that you make a crappy set of instructions. You're going to create the best set of instructions. One that not only tells them what to do, but controls their behavior in the ways you're able to anticipate. While also controlling the actions and obfuscating the awareness of those who aren't necessarily following your plan as well. I think it's also important to know that these aren't just Taravangian's goals, but his goals on that specific day. We know that this was likely the day he was the most amoral, ruthless, and perhaps evil since his morality functions inversely to his intelligence. So the goal of the Diagram's author being to ascend to become an Evil God underneath everyone's nose tracks.

I would wholly agree with Sazed if there wasn't a mounting threat from off-world, which pushes me towards agreeing with Kelsier. The kink in this line-of-thinking is Sazed being aware of the potential consequences of meddling. I don't really think there's an in between, I see it more as a lid you can't really put back on, if Harmony decides to contribute to Scadrial's technological growth I think he's making the decision for Humans and Shard to directly collaborate on their place in the Cosmere. Though who knows, Scadrial was barely progressed enough for Autonomy's agents to not completely crush them on tech, so maybe Sazed was already meddling just enough for them to be safe from incursion.

I agree. After a certain point (getting close to 10 books into an epic fantasy series), it becomes safer for Sanderson to assume that readers will be fans who appreciate the additional depth Cosmere-aware writing adds to the stories (even if they still function independently). I think TLM mostly ended up how it did due to the limited word-count associated with the Wax & Wayne books, and that this wasn't really decided on until Shadows of Self was written, TLM is the longest book and it's still notably shorter than The Final Empire. So we ended up with two books to wrap of the adventure of Wax & Wayne, but also serve as a delivery method for all this information Sanderson wanted readers to have before he started in on Era 3, while also getting in enough stuff in about worlds we're not going to be getting back to for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if Era 3's outline has barely been changed by the existence of Era 2, except now Sanderson doesn't have to work in nearly as much exposition regarding what happened in the post-Catacendre world. We already know about Harmony/Harmonium, Kelsier and the Ghostbloods, the Malwish and there tech, etc. Kinda like how Sanderson can keep the pre-Catacendre explanations light in Era 2 for possible new readers, but doesn't need to go in depth for returning readers who will want to know wtf is going on in the world.

I think the implication is that he is a weak Mistborn. The vials contained all the metals, if he was actually able to burn them properly Harmony would have told him what was up. And the final vial was just a contingency. But it was generally just an experiment on Harmony's part to see what had happened to Wax, but his plan wasn't contingent on Wax having anything other than his normal Twinborn powers. I agree with the critiques regarding the lack of overall consequence to Era 2, but that was kind of always going to be the case it seemed, Era 3 is still the real next Era. This was mostly an opportunity for Sanderson to get everyone up to speed on Scadrial couched in a Cosmere-flavored adventure. Though some of these discussions do have me wondering when we're going to see the Cosmere-fan Civil War. Where stories start having more consequence in the greater Cosmere, and we start to see debates on how much each series should be independent from the others and if Sanderson is going to far (Personally I don't think so, when we're 7-8 books deep in a series I think it's safe for Sanderson to assume people are fans to an extent). I've already seen a few comments very reminiscent of complaints regarding another franchise of interconnected stories.

I overall loved Era 2. But I will say that with it ending the way it did it's pretty obvious that this was still fundamentally "Era 1.5". A prologue as Sanderson stated, with Era 3 actually going to be a true "Mistborn trilogy", with status-quo shifting events. There's a lot of major revelations that occur, and information that will effect Mistborn and the Cosmere going forward. But it's ultimately all informational "how this came about" type stuff. We learn about Harmonium, Harmony's issues, Kelsier & The Ghostbloods, Southern Scadrial, Nicrosil metalminds, new Hemalurgy info, and other general Cosmere teasers, but basically none of this information actually plays out to any conclusion. Era 2 at the end of the day is still a transitionary plot that allowed us to get a bunch of information to better setup the original Era 2. Still worthwhile to me at the end of the day since I enjoyed the story and characters a lot, and now Era 3 will have a really good jumping off point without needing to get the readers up to speed on so many developments. If I had any major critiques it would be the anti-climax of Telsin, though I can see Sanderson's intention, she was more a symbol of Wax's internal struggles than an actual big bad in her own right. And the copycat characters did feel odd, though they made for good encounters.

They didn't mention Ati either. They're likely just talking about people they're aware of that actually took up Shards on Scadrial. They wouldn't know anything about Leras or Ati other than that they were the original shardholders.

I'm not really on board with this. It's an interesting theory, but I feel like the differences between mistcloaks and Vasher's cloak are greater than you make them out to be. The mistcloaks are stylized after the mists, which has always made sense to me. And in use the two cloaks are *nothing* alike. The numerous mistcloak tassels swirl around mistborn as part of their mystique, flitting about in different directions. While Vasher's cloak would appear mostly normal much of the time (only 4 large pieces, not numerous tassels), and in use the cloak would pretty much disappear, attached to the arms and legs of the awakener, not swirling around everywhere. The two bits of evidence presented are definitely not selling me on the theory. The idea of command phrases is a pretty big staple of all things mystical. It makes sense if you want it to, but it's just a bit too much reaching for me. Even more so taking the centuries that took place under the Lord Ruler into account.

Page 111 of the ebook I can't see Spook being allied with the Set simply because of their association with Trell. Even if his views don't really seem to line up well with Harmony's, Spook would know better than to trust a mysterious deity with questionable intentions considering his history.

I have this question as well, as it's the only thing about the nicrosil that I feel is left unexplained. Everything about the entire process of how people can input/acquire abilities from nicrosil makes sense *except* for the question of how is a non-nicrosil ferring able to tap into it in the first place. Without something to explain this the basic logic makes it seem like you'd have to be a nicrosil ferring at the very least in order to use something like the bands of mourning. The only explanations to me are that because it's investiture that's being tapped, identity-blank nicrosil metalminds somehow act differently from other types of metalminds. That maybe because the investiture itself forms the connection, a filled nicrosil-metalmind doesn't demand a prerequisite investiture in order to use it like other metalminds do. Instead acting as a sort of conduit between people and metalminds/magical capabilities that they can't naturally use. Or, alternatively, there's some trick to making these devices that hasn't been revealed to us yet. The issue being the book didn't really provide anything hinting that it's either of these explanations, which makes it feel kind of plot-holey (or worldbuild-holey). Hopefully we can get a reason from Sanderson at some point.