KidWayne

We really need a tin foil hat wearing emoticon.

See a part of me thinks that there is more going on here. Secret History spoilers: ... perhaps Sazed's power is centered on the northern continent of Scadrial and his vision of the Southerners is restricted.

It's my understanding that a slave/prisoner working the pits did well to find one atium geode per week. So, it the pits had just recently started producing atium, its reasonable to assume that it would be hidden well enough that Wax wouldn't notice while he was climbing through them as he was fleeing for his life.

Yes this WoB has me liking your interpretation, but I think that this is most likely a factor of Autonomy's affiliation with Odium. Elantris spoilers:

Really? I was thinking that his new intent, Harmony, was his goal. Sazed is trying to balance opposites and allow them to co-exist in a collectivist sense. For example, Sazed would very much like the concept of multiculturalism in the real world and he would likely meddle to try and balance out extremism of all kinds.

Revisiting this after BoM... Apparently the Seran Mountains were high enough. Theory debunked. Although, I was on the right track with the strange script belonging to the Southerners, so there's that.

Three things: [#1] Thank you for this observation. I really hate the theories and the concept of Kelsier (i.e. Trell) as an embittered soul working against Sazed. [#2] Elantris spoilers: [#3] Apparently not, see the WoBs referenced posts #2 & #3 in this topic: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/52298-is-trell-a-new-shard/ According to this, the metal in Bleeder from a Shard that we know. Although, I searched for this WoB pretty hard and I couldn't find it. All I found was a lot of people referencing it. So I'm starting to wonder about its authenticity.

Check out http://www.sandersonmetal.ca/ Sanderson Metal Recovery: Specializing in Scrap Metal purchasing, processing and hauling They're a legit Canadian business outside of Toronto. The coincidence was just too much for me not to give them a shout-out on the shard.

It's interesting that this came out in October 2015 but Brandon RAFO'ed this exact question in January 2015: Interview: Jan 17th, 2015 | Firefight Tour - El Cerrito, CA (Paraphrased) Question: Will you tell us the Intent of Bavadin’s Shard? Brandon Sanderson: The Intent of Bavadin’s Shard? No. But good question. Have a RAFO card.

This whole thing makes me wonder about the nature of the potential rivalry between Nalthis (Awakeners) and... Very minor White Sand spoilers: EDIT: Added spoiler tag

Yeah, but Demoux's group is hunting Hoid - someone Kelsier might/probably have a grudge against - and for all we know Kelsier instructed Demoux to align himself with the 17th Shard folks to act on that grudge. [punchy, punchy ]

That red patch of stars is named "Taln's scar." The name "Taln" leads me to think that this abnormal astronomical anomaly (upvotes for alliteration, anyone? ) has more to do with the Heralds than it does with Trell. There is a lot of speculation on the possibility of a mass exodus from Taldain (the planet where White Sand* takes place). Some think that all of the Heralds from The Stromlight Archive ("SLA") might actually be Taldainians. Others think that Taln's scar could be the remains of an event that destroyed Taldain. Some others think that the Shardholder on Taldain (see SLA spoilers below) may have even destroyed his own planet. Anyway, people seem to have divided into three camps when it comes to the identity of Trell (look under the first spoiler tag, there are general Cosmere spoilers): * White Sand is an unpublished book which is soon to be released as a graphic novel; in the past Brandon has emailed White Sand to those who request it from the contact page on his website. Spoilers for White Sand and the origin of Khriss ------ Stormlight Archive spoiler. EDIT: Spelling error

[a] First, it's not that the shards and/or splinters "cannot leave the planet." Rather, they have the OPTION to remain in the Cognitive Realm or to exit the Cognitive Realm into the Afterlife. Kelsier became bound to the Cognitive Realm only after he had "become a part of" the power of the Well of Ascension (i.e. he got stuck only after he attached his mind - or whatever you call a person's Cognitive aspect postmortem - to a source of investiture). I like where you're going with the shades are "basically human minds riding investiture" thing. It seems to me that it is reasonable to assume that the glowing liquid that the IRE ancients (Alonoe, Maod, Elrao, Riina, and the other unnamed Elantrian) are drinking is some sort of Selish investiture. So, does the nature of the IRE's conflict/concern with Threnodites have to do with the Threnodites' attempting to steal their imported investiture from Sel? Perhaps foreign investiture enables the Threnodites to sever their Connection to Threnody and reestablish a new Connection that would allow them to leave their planet and become more like Kelsier. [c] I'm not sure about the IRE being located on Threnody. It seems more likely to me that they are camped out in the space between planets (i.e. the "Expanse of the Vapors") in the Cognitive Realm. Since the IRE fort is on solid ground in the Cognitive Realm it has to be in the "space between", the ocean on Scadrial, or on the ocean on Threnody. If it was the ocean on Scadrial I find it odd that Kelsier was beyond the reach of Ruin, if it was the ocean on Threnody, I find it odd that the location of the IRE fort is described as beyond the point where Kelsier saw plants or fish.

No, allomancers had to snap, and the reason for that was to supply the cracks. I think the bit about shoring up cracks was to [a] reinforce the ruin talks & preservation listens concept and to explain that preservation can't widen cracks which would presumably be necessary to enable communication.

...it is what it is...

Thank you! It's much more satisfying to have a not-quite-so-good guy going around punching deities in the face than it is for a bad guy to go around doing it...

I'm going to stick to my guns here. The 1st generation kandra tell Sazed in HoA that the mists are Preservation's body (no ambiguity). We are also told that Atium is Ruin's body. Therefore, since we only see a very limited amount of Lerasium (and Mistborn were unheard of before Rashek), it only makes sense that Lerasium is a distilled and concentrated form of Preservation's power made by Rashek during his time at the Well of Ascension. Now a better question would be - if not for the Pits - how would Ruin's power/presence manifest in the physical realm? Would it still show up via Atium or would there be dark mists?

Yes, you get both (but only a limited number of downloads for each one (2 I think). I used the .mobi to make a PDF and then used the .epub to read it on my nook.

Seems more like a literary analysis that it does a comment on connection. What practical implications would a connection between these characters have? The only two of importance you reference - as I see it - are Shallan & Hoid and Kalladin & Vasher. FYI - i'm not trying to be a jerk, I'm just trying to understand your purpose.

Yeah, I had the same thought about Sazed. I chalked it up to the memories of the Preservation shard giving Sazed some insight into Kelsier's mind, as well as his double-shard future-reading powers instructing him on what responses will have the desired effects on Kelsier.

@ Argent: So wait a minute, preservation's power replenishes at the WoA but ruin's power doesn't replenish it continuously gathers instead?

Ok, that makes a certain kind of sense, but why is spook communicating with Kelsier via earring in the first place? Connection to Spook or possession of excess Ruin? And is Harmony in on the 3-way call?

Ha ha, Keliser formed an organization called the "Ghostbloods"... That's funny if you think about it.

So, does anyone have any thoughts about how/why Kelsier visibly appears when Spook makes the decision "against his better judgment" to put the hemalurgical earring in his ear? This seems like it could be proof that Kelsier holds some portion of Ruin. However, it could just as easily be that Kelsier's greater Connection to Ruin and/or Spook enables him to use certain Ruinous abilities (like being in the Cognitive Realm and talking to people in the Physical Realm who have spikes and/or broken minds). I put forth that this strange occurrence is a function of Kelsier's strong Connection to Spook as well as his disproportionately larger connection to Ruin (compared to his connection with Preservation). Kel was able to influence Spook because of Spook's broken mind and the addition of the earring allowed Kel to appear to Spook and communicate with him fully. The only thing this doesn't answer is how the earring affects Spook's connection to Harmony. Thoughts? Other Questions to Consider: [1] Shouldn't using a hemalurgical earring connect Spook to Sazed? [2] Shouldn't the earring experience be audio-only (like Wax's conversations with Harmony in Era 2)? [3] Does Kel's visibility have to do with the physical proximity of Kelsier's Cognitive Shadow to Spook in the Cognitive Realm? [4] If #3 is "yes", does this mean that Spook's earring would allow him to see a nearby Shade visiting from Threnody? Why or why not? [5] What influences Connection? How is it increased or decreased? Are there different rules governing how it affects people vs. places? Full Disclosure: I really loathe the 'Kelsier holds Harmony's excess Ruin' theories, so I'm hoping someone has a way to explain this event that doesn't involve that. It helps me to note that even though we see a good amount of interaction between Sazed and Kelsier in MSH, we DO NOT see Sazed bestowing Kelsier with any powers or portions of his shards. If anything, we see Sazed withholding information from Kelsier that would enable him to affect the Cosmere in a more meaningful way.

I thought that had to do with Kelsier's comment in MSH about the mists being the representation of Preservation's diffused power. The mists do regenerate and represent a huge source of Preservation's power that manifests itself in the physical realm, just like Atium. Also, there is a quote in MSH where Kelsier comments on how Atium connected Elend and the Atium mistings to the Spiritual Realm which is exactly how drawing in ALL the mist allowed Vin to ascend. It's a pretty solid analogy, I think. However, assuming that I'm correct, that does still leave the question of why the beads of Lerasium exist in the first place. My only thought on that is that the Lerasium beads were TLR/Rashek's means to create allomancers. That is to say that Rashek used the power of Preservation granted to him at the Well of Ascension to copy Ruin's physical realm manifestation. Put another way, he made Lerasium beads as a complement to the naturally occurring Atium beads to hack Allomancy. Edit: corrected a grammar/syntax problem.