manavortex

True. I'll adjust my post.

Yes, and I think that's the beauty of him as a character. What if the nightwatcher is setting him up against Odium?

A second oath... a second oath... I need to think about this. Meanwhile...

So - umm - since I've bonded this Theoryspren I figured I should probably progress a bit. You know. Working towards the Second Oath, and all. also, Tricorder isn't talking to me yet. I've been doing some reading - there's a bunch of threads about this already, but since I wasn't certain how the perspective on thread necromancy was here I thought I'd throw in a few lines of my own, just some wild thoughts. This is about the Godspren and Odium's Investiture on Roshar. The following is an attempt to keep things more organised. I'm autistic, we're great at organising. This is a suggestion, something I'd like to try: I'll add a big fat Presupposition tag, so that we can actually discuss everything under the presumption that the premises are axiomatic. If you want to speculate under other presumptions, please make a new thread - you link to this thread and/or write me a PM, and I'll link them right in the first post. Please forgive me not being big on quoting sources here. I usually do that, but I want to get that theory down and not get sidetracked while trying to find quotes that back it up. I'm determined to add these later, if I talk some utter crem, let me know immediately, I'll alter this. Presupposition(s): Odium didn't Invest in Roshar, unlike Cultivation and Honor Honor is dead The Allmighty is Honor. Honor is dead, Cultivation may not be (Source: Hoid). Whenever there are two gods, there are three magics to go with them (see Ruin and Preservation vs. Dominion and Devotion). So, there are two gods on Roshar, one dead, one hiding (Nightwatcher), what if there's a third..? That brings me to the Odium-spren or not-Odium-spren. If my presupposition stands, then Odium has not Invested into Roshar and instead corrupted native spren, like he most likely corrupted Venli. What if there's a third spren? Cultivation's godspren, trapped in Gavilar's black sphere? Corrupted by Odium? What if this is one of the Listener gods, one they were right to be terrified of? Looking forward to hearing your ideas.

Yeb, he does. But his intentions are pure. What was it they said about the steps to hell..?

Hailing from IT here, I have some arcane knowledge about the Diagram, mostly due to the fact that it is how AI works. *makes an important face, then corrects seating of hood* You're right in that part where the diagram gets increasingly more fuzzy the more outdated it is. But obviously super-brilliant Taravangian has planned for that and is trying to limit the fuzziness by removing chaos factors. (By "removing" I mean "assassinating"). I hereby theorise that he glimpsed in the Cognitive Realm, similar to the aforementioned Duralumin-enhanced Atium burn, and saw all the possible futures lined up before him. I also believe that he then chose the one path that he judged the most beneficial - the one with the highest chances of success and the least casualties. He then wrote down the tipping points where that path would be at risk, so he could influence them later. Yes, that's totally how this works - if you want to look into it more deeply, google "finite state machine" and ascend from there (or descend into madness). Hence the "if Dalinar does A, assassinate, if B, ally". Yes! YESSS! How could I not see this? Oooh! \o/ Wellllll. From his POV, he was thinking straight. If you're fast enough, you'll warp curves into straight lines. If you're brilliant enough, then your thoughts will seem erratic to others. I have a fairly high IQ myself and seem entirely erratic to others, yet I've met a few people who's trail of thought I couldn't follow straight, so I had to hurry after them and hope that the bends they'd taken were shortcuts that I just couldn't see. So, I guess, straight or not is a matter of perspective. I bet on most days he'd agree with you. It's probably normally distributed, some extreme spikes would still be within the limits of plausibility. But the idea of Odium influencing that diagramstrikes me as incredibly charming, I think I will be on board of that theory until a Highstorm blows me off. It's exactly the kind of oh-so-subtle manipulations that those fetchers are up to. That's - but - it's brilliant! What if Odium set him up, but the Nightwatcher anticipated Odium setting him up and gave him exactly what he'd need to be successful _despite_ all this? My eyes are round with wonderment!

Hmm, let's check which order I'd fit in best. Clear nope. Theories who need defence should be discarded - if they aren't strong enough to stand with no backup but facts, they should not stand at all. Yes, I can see how that works. It's also the order I was put in. But it sounds so... destructive! D: That sounds as if they do it for the attention. As I can imagine people being attracted to that, those people would not be me. Sadly, no. I have a good memory for where I read things, but I doubt that qualifies. That would work, yes. Also it would mean that I get to say the line "I could tell you, but then I had to kill you" more often. I like "what if"-theories, and I do like detail a lot. Maybe this is where I could feel at home? That sounds suspicious. I mean, that's how this works, no? It's what _all of us_ do. I feel like they are... deluding us, somehow. What is it they really do? Like Theoryweavers, only that they do it to boldly venture where no (sane) person has theorized before? Are they doing that on purpose? Stressing their boundaries? Personal development or some such? *backs away nervously* That sounds like more egoistic Theoryrunners. I always thought those guys were defending our right to do what we do from indifferencespren? Maybe.. maybe.. *gasp* .. they bond THE SANDERSON! I guess I'd make a good Theorybreaker, but maybe I'd also fit in with the -watchers? I mean, if the Spren is okay with that. *nervously glances at the hovering spren* *whispers* Is it supposed to look like a Tricorder? Also, why doesn't it say anything?

I vote TenSoon! Or Jasnah!

That doesn't consider the laws of maths and genetics enough. Yes, random Mistborn popping up is an extremely rare thing, because the genetic pool is so diverse. If you narrow that pool further down, you'll end up with much higher chances!For example, look at (recessively hereditary) albinism. Having an albino appear among a bunch of bunnies (or disgusting crab-things with too-many legs) out of nowhere is extremely unlikely, but as soon as you take some of them who are related to albino bunny-things with too-many-legs, the population will explode. Edit: Look at Straff and his army of Mistings! The breeding-thing is actually my favourite ever-since I had the idea before Wax did. (I'd make a splendid Evil Overlord - I look at things and get ideas how to abuse them best..) It would even make some kind of sense, politically speaking. If the Set could pull a Mistborn out of their hat the political landscape of New Elantris would become clay in their hands. Of course I'm somewhat excited to see what the brilliant and evil plan is that I'm not creative enough to anticipate. I do so love my surprises... *rubhands*

Hello everyone, I score 41 myself. Hey Stormgate, I'd think that that's "children" as opposed to "not-children". My husband often tells me that I am treating children "wrong" because I basically treat them like people with less experience who aren't very good at things like making abstract connections and the like. However, children themselves have never-ever complained, and the kid says that he sometimes doesn't get me, but he wouldn't want me to be any kind of different towards him. So I guess you qualify. Hey Voidus, Yes, modesty. It's an important trait to have. So important that you must make sure to inform everyone about it! How would they ever guess, otherwise?For me, "being on the spectrum" means that you have a brain that works in a certain way. Before I was diagnosed I had a honorary members' badge in the autism club, because I got along with those so well. It's only when people find that they don't fit in with society that they go and see someone to sign their writ of eligibility. Hey Anamaximder, yay, congratulations! Let me be teach you our secret handshake! Hey Meg, I didn't try to ignore you, the forum just hid your reply to me! Well, that connections thing might be a thing, but - maybe you just haven't discovered your talent yet? Your Devotion waits, chose your Path! \o/ *waves*

I dont think that 'treatment' equals medication, surgery and personality wipes, more likely therapy to help the one who cannot cope to find ways and workarounds. Look at Renarin, I bet he is the high Lord of workarounds. Try walking over a medieval court and not get flash-banged by someone's fancy armour to cause the next epilepsy fit... Yet he copes.

Hullo everyone, thank you for the nice welcome - I will probably dismiss the Shardblade now Hey warriormark16, so say we all! Hey EagleOfTheForestPath, Well, they have a somewhat high cut-set - for me it was the other way around. I like the idea, both of my cats are spayed. I don't hate you, though, if that makes you feel better. Hey Anamaximder, Hey Stormgate, Yes - very much. I find speech-communication far more exhausting than chatting! My husband says that it's exactly the other way around for him, which makes me feel bad for him at times... he's reading Mistborn for more than two weeks now! Hey Shardbearer (which shard?), Your son sounds a lot like me there. If you want to do him a favour, you could start teaching him other languages (or giving him the means to do it himself). It's something I regret not having done myself. Languages come to me fairly easily, which makes it all the more annoying that I'm by now far too lazy to make myself learn them. If your daughter is really autistic, then I'm fairly certain that she'll surprise you one day. Another thing that gets often confused with autism is a short attention span / some form of ADD-ish, which is sort of a filtering problem on its own. But to stay with the pen and paper RP-metaphor, she has a lot of character creation points which have to go somewhere one day. Hey Argent, I recommend languages, crafting skills (leather and woodworking, for example), knowledge skills or arts! Also, loving your sig! Hey Femme, I would point out to them that I was in a similar situation (and thus qualified to talk about it), and gaining clarity about what was - or was not - "different" with me has been a huge help for me. I've always put myself under a ton of pressure because I felt that with the gifts I had I should be able to be far more successful at, like, everything, than I actually was, and I kept struggling to enjoy "normal" recreational activities, finding them rather exhausting. After my diagnose I knew that I was not somehow failing at life - which is how I felt, because I saw everyone else do it more easily. Also I would make a note about that the diagnosis not changing anything on itself. It will open a few doors that are locked now, like getting medication or therapy (which aren't accessible when you don't have the sufficient writ that entitles you to getting them, at least not in Germany), but nobody has ever tried to patronise me because I am autistic, so the choice was always mine. I hope that helps you - if not, feel free to have her contact me. Hey Kaymyth, I'm running what I call a "support guild" on ESO - half of our members are autistic, and the other half has anxiety issues. We keep two neurotypicals around for the quota though. I'm not sure if it is best practice to move the thread, though - then we'd have two! That somehow makes my skin itch. Hi Mashadar, given that you're a Mistborn, can you burn anything? If yes, what? Hey Stormgate, Yeah, my guess would be the lists as well. What you could try was to find a person who works with autistic people (children or grown-ups) - since my company specialises in autistic employees, they have coaches who help us with things like going to a new office for the first time and the like, and my coach says that she can almost always tell if someone is on the spectrum. Hello young Bard (can I say Bard?), The guy from Rain Man obviously is a savant - he doesn't portray the average autistic person very well, much like Jasnah would be a poor representative for the average Roshar female, she's just too exceptional. My favorite Aspie is Sheldon Cooper (Yes, his actor said he wasn't autistic, but I call chull-dung on that one.) I've actually gone to university with several people like him. Without the canned laughter, the Big Bang Theory would be a documentation about the autistic spectrum. I also liked "As good as it gets", although I suppose that guy wasn't necessarily autistic. But did anyone else notice how he'd had to change "always look on the bright side of your life" so that the number of syllables matched? Looking forward to spending more time here. It's always awesome to bump into people who actually understand what I'm so excited about. See you in the library!

Asperger's is somewhat outdated though - these days we're all on the spectrum.

So, this is where I say hi - I wanted to stop hijacking this thread about Renarin with me talking about myself, so I figured I'd make a thread in the appropriate board to talk about myself some more. I'm manavortex, currently twenty-eight, married to an awesome husband who has just recently yielded to my constant nagging and started reading the Mistborn trilogy, he's already halfway through the third. We share a tiny flat in Germany with two ginger cats and my bonus child (12), who didn't read either Alcatraz or the Rithmathist yet. I grew up bilingually, so my English mistakes will be twice as embarrassing. I'm also autistic, which is why I found a job at IT at a company who specialises on autistic employees, and since there's usually quite a fair bit of confusion about autism, I thought I'd give you the opportunity to shoot questions. I'm fairly impossible to insult, as long as you don't suggest I'm getting euthanised (and are serious about it), so ask anything, I can still refuse to answer if it's too personal. My short summary about myself being on the spectrum: Autistic people (I'll probably end up writing "autists", because that's a word in German) are not suffering from a disability any more than a hammer does for being bad at screwdriver-ing. Our brains are highly specialised - as everyone who ever played an RPG knows, you need to buy a lot of handicaps to get really high on the perks, so we "pay" for that with penalties on our dice rolls on everything social. Autism boils down to impression filtering. Our brain is, in each second, flooded with an extremely high number of impressions. We can process only a trickle of it, so most of it gets discarded, and the human brain is very good at telling the important bits from the less important bits. The autistic brain is... less efficient at that. One thing that makes living easy for "neurotypicals" is the pattern recognition. For example, when you visit a doctor, you visit a doctor. Your dentist moves, you need to see a new one? Unpleasant, but it's still a dentist. Well, less so for me - even if the doctor I used to see moved office, that's something completely new for me, and it's stressful. That's what makes autistic people so good at IT problems - trying to apply standard patterns as "I've seen something similar before" often just makes these worse. As for the social ineptitude, being a woman and the female brain being better-suited for social interaction than the male brain due to different wiring (for nonverbal communication with babies and the like), I'm somewhat "better off" than I'd be if I was a guy. Also, I have a fairly high IQ, which comes with quick thinking and an extremely high information processing rate. (I don't say that to disrate anyone, by the way, it's just a fact!) With that I can somewhat make up for the lack of intuitive understanding of nonverbal communication, but it is of course rather exhausting for me, which is why I prefer text. (At least a smiley will give a clear indication whether or not my opposite is joking!) The ability of consciously substituting my poor intuitive grasp of nonverbal and indirect communication patterns has ensured that I slipped through the unusual behaviour net until I was 18, when I got myself diagnosed with ADD. The medication (stimulants) gave my brain an additional boost to help me with the tiresome effort of filtering, which is how I made it through university, until I finally shipwrecked on my bachelor thesis and slipped into a depression. Fortunately it was a bipolar one, so in one of my manic episodes I managed to get myself help, and during that help I was diagnosed with the autistic spectrum class specialisation. I don't consider myself disabled or handicapped because I'm highly gifted in several areas. I'm a fast learner if I set my mind to something, and cutting through piles of information is something I can do easily - I'm also well-equipped for understanding highly complex and/or complicated matters. I wouldn't want to trade those skills for a "normal" brain, even if it meant that I could enjoy parties and be like all the other children. Since I know that I'm entitled to being like I am (like, there's a reason for it, I'm not just being "weird") I allow myself to seek enjoyment where I find it instead of where everyone else finds it, which is - mostly - online, but also in books. The character I feel most connected to is Jasnah. I can see me in a similar position, had my upbringing been different. So, umm, one novel later, nice to meet you.

Hey, No, I don't mind you asking at all. Also, feel free to send me as many PMs as you want to. After all, only information will help you understand things, and I am happy to provide these. I'm also not taking offense, in fact, offending me is rather difficult I can interact with people fairly well, but I usually communicate strictly on the factual level. I had it at least once that I was talking to someone, growing irritated about them being somewhat irrational about making their point, only to have them burst into tears mid-conversation because I had utterly missed the point where they had become so emotional that they weren't even arguing anymore, but only trying not to lose face. Since I'm aware of my condition I usually point it out, and nobody has ever reacted in a negative way to this. People find it easier to deal with me when I tell them that I'm not making indirect statements and am being literal about things. (For example, when someone says "you're very talented because you learn thisandthat so fast" I usually reply "I have a fairly high IQ and am gifted in this area". Apparently, this could be misunderstood as "I am awesome and you am stupid", which is by no means what I meant - or I would have said it.) I'll make an own thread about this, maybe - ask the autistic person To slowly start getting back to Renarin, I have to talk about myself a bit more: I'm extremely self-aware in a sense that I know exactly what my strengths and limitations are and, most important, I know that I'm allowed to be as I am, supposed to be as I am. I had the support of my parents against society, and when I made it through adolescence, the scorn I experienced slowly turned into admiration as people realised how awesome my brain was when I was allowed to use it on things I'm good at. I believe that almost nothing of that holds true for Renarin. Autism is also called "wrong planet syndrome". I can see how he would think that, and he probably did all he could to protect his father. Also, in the war-like Alethi society, Renarin would be even more a misfit than any of us could ever imagine. He is the son of a noble and due to his epilepsy he can't fight. That basically marks him as a complete failure according to society standards! I imagine that he considers himself a burden to Dalinar and Adolin, and he probably is as secluded to make it easier for them.

Being autistic myself (not epileptic though) I agree with the faction who doesn't want a cure. Maybe the world could just be a little less.. Chaotic, and overwhelming? That would be nice...? Seriously - by taking autism away you would take that away which makes me the person I am. Even if I got a full-scale healing I would definitely want to keep it, but the glasses would have to go. Epilepsy, however, is nasty and I would not want it. If I recall correctly it is an overload of the brain with electric impulses, which can be somewhat fixed by adding additional 'grounding' in form of gold wires etc..? To stop hijacking the topic, I think that Renarin didn't come out because he already was a misfit. Or, something I remember from my own childhood, maybe he assumed that everyone had a Glys, but since nobody was talking about them, they must be some sort of taboo. (for me that was the fact that I was faking to read facial expressions and give the appropriate reactions, so the whole communication thing required a ton of effort for me just to blend in. I found it incredibly exhausting and always assumed that everyone secretly hated parties because they would have to sleep for the whole next day, but nobody talked about it because that was how it was. Since I know my brain works differently I just stop forcing myself to pretend to enjoy what society deems appropriate, and rather stay at home and read cosmere.)

In that case I swear consideration before condescension.

Probably the same way farmers raised their children in the dark ages, or the slaves on the plantations in earth's history. I assume that they would carry the babies around with them, toddlers would probably be supervised somewhere and as soon as they are old enough to help, it's help...

Does bonding a theoryspren help with those powers? I'd love to be a theorydancer, but I am afraid that I'm more theorybreaker material... Or -caller, if i'm lucky... Theoryweaver, maybe. I like what if.

First of all, please excuse the brevity and the shitty quoting - I'm on my tablet. >> What do we know about gold and red though? Lightsong! kaelloc, I really feel with you there. The mass effect ending was such an epic betrayal... Not even Denth could have pulled that off. (Yes. Been re-reading Warbreaker.) After reading the entire thread (instead of sleeping... Again), I agree with people that someone is out of character here. However, I feel that it's not Kaladin. I see his "the assassin!" as an "Oh rust and ruin, that guy is falling into a Highstorm". I am convinced that, without Syl's intervention, he would have gone after him. So my question is... Sylphrena, what the..? (i didn't do anything bad!) Interested in your thoughts about this matter.