Radiant Returned

Was just re-reading Bands of Mourning, there's nothing spoilery in the text but just to be safe because it is a quote I'm going to put it below

So it's official. Harmony has a True Name, and is going to show up in Book 3 of the King Killer Chronicles. My prediction is Kvothe is so awesome he ascends to godhood and becomes Adonalsium and sets off the entire Cosmere story at the end of Doors of Stone. 

5 minutes ago, Rasarr said:

Just a random question - how long, do you suppose, have Trell been hiding right under Harmony's nose? He's obviously been Investing in the planet, as the existence of Trellium proves, but do you think he arrived with his Fakeless Immortals to found the Set, or did he send the Fakeless first and only showed up shortly before the events of W&W books?

Based on the fact that Harmony is only "distracted" according to the Kandra at the start of Bands of Mourning, I think the Trell force whatever it is only started directly interfering then. The Faceless Immortals have been around for a while, at least a few years before AoL.

3 hours ago, Ciridae said:

Hello everyone kinda new here, been lurking for a bit though. 

Does anybody have a link to the preview chapter? Been chomping at the bit for more of Lift ever since the interlude. Thanks!

The Lift preview-chapter was only included in the quarterly newsletter from Sanderson's site, it's not available online anywhere I could find. 

19 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Honestly, I don't see why they need to. They're god-entities who can see anywhere and in most cases talk to anyone anywhere directly in their thoughts. Why waste time moving a physical pawn to interact with people when you can move them directly?

None of the Shards can just talk to anyone they want that we see? Sazed (and before him Ruin) had to have the person Hemalurgically Spiked to be able to talk to them, in SA Honor is able to talk to Dalinar but it seems that there's a special connection there that enabled that, he wouldn't have been able to talk to anyone. The shattered power of Devotion only talked to people when they were in her Shardpool, and Endowment has only done it when a pre-Returned dies. I think it's safe to say that as Cognitive aspects, Shards can only talk to people if they're spirit is damaged in some way, like Hemalurgy or minor insanity. So a big upside of being able to manifest as a physical avatar is actually talk face to face with anyone. This brings me back to the point of a possible God-King in the future, who's definition of god hood is direct control so he rules in a physical form. 

Sazed couldn't find Bleeder because her spike was made of Trellium, not a metal associated with him or his magic system. He was able to talk to her apparently but couldn't find her or see where she was. 

As far as Sazed tracking Hoid, why would he want to? As far as we've seen Sazed and Hoid haven't had any interactions, Sazed probably isn't even aware he exists. I'm not sure how far away from a Shard's planet they can look or track, as evidenced by Sazed's limited understanding of Cosmere events. At this point, Sazed has more than enough on his plate before he starts worrying about some worldhopper he's never met using allomancy on (mostly) other planets.

1 hour ago, The_God_King said:

also there may be more Lerasium laying around somewhere, waiting to be discovered

I don't think there is any more Lerasium or Atium to be found. They were there and kept re-growing because the two Shards naturally created physical embodiments of their power while they existed, now they don't exist separately like that, so I would think all the power would pool into the Physical Realm as Harmonium, which's effect we don't know. 

5 minutes ago, PallonianFire said:

I just remembered this, but I'm pretty sure that a human body isn't capable of containing the power of a Shard. It's why Vin's body vaporized when she Ascended. Same with Sazed. 

I didn't think they're bodies vaporized, just transcended. Maybe the body is inaccessibly while the Shard is alive, but it isn't destroyed, as Ati's body falls to the ground when he's killed.

2 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

However, I assume you're talking more like the complete shard creating a physical avatar which they can use to interact with the world.

Yes this is what I'm talking about. 

Yes Shards seem to be opposed to directly interfering in day to day life. But WHY? What do they do all the time that is so interesting? Harmony makes sense, his Intents explain why he can't take an active role in things. But the other Shards don't have such a hold. Cultivations Intent is the opposite, to cultivate is to tend to something until it improve and to continue to do that. It makes sense that she would want to be actively involved in her world. The Navani thing is just something I thought of while typing this post so I'm not big on it, but it IS possible. 

Until we find out why other Shards haven't actively been in a physical avatar on their planets (which we don't know for sure they haven't), we can't rule out that it could have a role in a future book.

All the books are canonical and follow a timeline. So if a character has died already they're not going to have a place in the final Mistborn trilogy or Dragonsteel books. Those are chronologically still at least hundreds of years from the second Stormlight Archive cycle. So even the characters that haven't died in books, a lot of them will have died from old age or whatever off screen by the time of the final Cosmere wrap-up books. 

The individual series are awesome and can be enjoyed standalone. But the Cosmere is a story spanning thousands of years. You can go crazy with Avengers-style mashups in fan fiction, but it's not going to happen in real novels (with the exception of Worldhoppers perhaps). To me, characters are only real and relatable if they are mortal, if they have a real life that like ours could potentially end at any time. I loved Vin, but I'm glad she had a beginning and ending to her story. Same with people like Lightsong and (probably) Raoden. 

If it makes you feel better, people like Kelsier, Vasher, and Galladon don't seem like they're gonna die anytime soon, and very feasibly could last all the way into the last series. 

Interesting idea, but all the evidence from WoBs and books say that Adonalsium is the only God. Haven't seen Hoid say anything that really points to this. The element is definitely Lerasium. 

The only possibility is if the God Beyond has that kind of power. But as of this moment the theories about the 16 Vessels making a plan and somehow Shattering Adonalsium with a weapon of some kind that's whereabouts are as of now unknown is a lot more supported and makes a lot more sense. 

How much can Shards manifest in the Physical Realm and have we seen them secretly appearing in books? If not, why don't they interfere more? 

It's been a while since I read HoA so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe we ever see a Shard fully in the Physical Realm. Sazed's body only appears in the Cognitive realm, and Ati's body falls to the ground in the PR once he is killed. Ati at one point physically is one Scadrial, but because his power isn't fully awakened he can't fully manifest in the physical realm. This is I guess why he only appears where his power is focused. If he were able to fully come in the Physical realm, I would guess that his weakness of not being able to read metal (presumably because it glows to bright like that of the soul in the Cognitive realm) would be overcome if he had a physical body that could just read the words on the plate as opposed to sending Marsh (though if I'm missing/forgetting something here please let me know). 

The Sel Shards are obviously shattered so they're ruled out. Hemalurgy never takes a physical form we see in Era 2 Mistborn, but I think this can be attributed to his zen, non-interference approach. Honor is Shattered so the only Shards who theoretically could take a Physical form in the books so far are Endowment and Cultivation. Endowment I'm not sure about, because her Intent seems to drive her to share her power and do her goals through endowing people on the planet with Breath. But Cultivation on the other hand, if she has both the ability to manifest in the Physical Realm, as well as no restrictions we know of to prevent her from doing this, is it possible that Cultivation is living on Roshar and having a hand in the events there? She could be cultivating new leaders for the war that is coming. This leads me to my theory, one that I'm not sure I actually think is true but is one worth pondering: Could Navani be Cultivation? She not only could be cultivating Dalinar as a leader, and before him Elhokar and Gavilar, but it would make sense that she could fall in love with Dalinar, who is very Honorable and even bonded to the Stormfather. 

Lastly, if a Shard can take a Physical form, how likely do y'all think it is we have a future book with an actual Shard as a major character? Obviously would be way down the line, but facing not only an evil entity like Ruin was in Mistborn but the possibility of a Shard taking control and ruling as a literal God-King would be insanely interesting to read about. 

15 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

I'm not saying Ati wasn't one of the originals, but that Rayse is new.

Sorry, I read you completely wrong, brain fuzzed there for a second. I don't know if Rayse was the original holder but I think the Letter almost (though not completely) confirms it: 

Quote

While I mourn for the great suffering Rayse has caused, I do not believe we could hope for a better outcome than this. He bears the weight of God’s own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context. He is what we made him to be, old friend. And that is what he, unfortunately, wished to become.

19 minutes ago, Djarskublar said:

On a side note, Ati got shaped a long time ago. Does that mean that even the Shards that were stronger mentally have been fully shaped by now? Not counting Sazed of course.

Yes I think so. The Recipient (presumably Frost) of the Letter says that he believes Rayse is more force than individual now (though Hoid disagrees). And like you pointed out the only Vessels we've seen in Ati and Leras were both fully consumed by their Intents. Ruin could only destroy and Ati couldn't bring himself to harm a soul. Tanavast is the only other Vessel we've kinda seen in person and his Intent of "Honor", while it probably kept him from doing anything dishonorable, probably didn't warp his personality as much as an Intent like Ruin or Preserve IMO. So Vessel's like Endowment and Cultivation probably have had similar-to Honor warpings in that they must do their Intents but they're personality's haven't warped drastically, while Odium (and possibly to a lesser extent Autonomy) have presumably been completely warped, though in Rayse's case he definitely wanted that. 

Are we sure that an Allomantic spike would actually work on Sel? We haven't seen anything (we think) like this in an actual novel, and Sanderson has said that while Hemalurgy is designed to work across magic systems he has also said IIRC that magics may not cross exactly across worlds. Also, I have problems with how the Connection would work here. 

In The Emperor's Soul we see that Soulstamping will only take if the change is plausible. While this hasn't been absolutely proven to transcend across all magic systems, it certainly seems like one of those Laws that would. You can only change a person or objects Spiritweb to what is historically plausible to them. This works in Allomantic Spikes on Scadrial because Allomancy is genetic, so while it is damaging what a spike theoretically does is change your Spiritweb slightly to where you now inherited the "Allomantic gene" per say from some distant relative. It's not a big stretch. But to be taken by the Shaod, all data as of right now points toward having to have a strong Connection to the land of Arelon. It's not 100%, but it is close to genetic. 

So you're asking this Hemalurgic spike to recreate a person's history that they were born on Sel and have a strong Connection to the land of Arelon, while also trying to make it plausible that you have the genetic makeup of a Scadrian allomancer. So while we've never seen this happen, I think the spike would actually be rejected and do...well whatever that would do. Main point: while Hemalurgic spikes can change people's Spiritwebs, based off the magic in Emperor's Soul I don't think they can change someone's Spiritweb without limits pertaining to Connection and feasibility. Problems like this are possibly why Hoid, despite all his knowledge about Investiture, has not been able to gain the powers of all the places he has visited (we see from the new epilogue in Elantris 10th anniversary that he tried and failed to become an Elantrian, and while he gained a piece of God basically in Lerasium, we don't know if he has used it OR, a bigger question that I haven't seen asked, if he tried to use it and failed). 

1 hour ago, Djarskublar said:

Wait, I thought Rayse killed the first Odium holder and stole it because it matched him... I'm not great at remembering things like that, but I'm fairly sure of this one. I thought the original Odium holder was a decent fellow. May be confusing that with Ati being shaped by Ruin.

You're confusing Ati with being shaped by Ruin. I'm pretty sure there's some WoBs but also the letters pretty much confirm Ati as one of the original 16. I'm fairly certain that Sazed (and briefly Vin and Kelsier I guess) is the only non-original Shardholder we've seen.

On 8/12/2016 at 5:32 PM, Rasarr said:

Maybe he'll grab another orphaned Shard, freeing his movement a bit (I admit I'm quite fond of the latter, if only because it would keep Sazed a larger Cosmere player rather than being limited to Scadrial). 

I love this as a fan. but doubt that's the direction Sanderson goes. Unless his plan is for Sazed to ultimately reform all the Shards of Adonalsium (which would be epic I have to admit), giving Sazed 3 shards with no restrictions would make him 3x more powerful than the next strongest being in the Cosmere and would kinda defeat the tension of any Shardic-power encounters with someone like Odium (or Trell).

5 hours ago, jofwu said:

Wax proves that this isn't the case for the object itself, unless I'm mistaken. I seem to recall that he is able to break down a metal object into "smaller pieces" mentally and push on a single element out of a large piece of metal. (Edit: Someone on Reddit corrected my memory of this example and I no longer think it applies) Seems like Kelsier might also have done something like this by spinning spears (Edit: metal bars) midair?

I am re-reading Bands of Mourning right now so spoiler alert but here you go

Aside from that, I am not at all a science person so my head started hurting when I tried to follow your formulas, but I enjoyed the post a lot regardless. While there's a lot of science behind the magic in this series, more than any other fantasy series I've read, it's definitely still magic and Brandon has talked before about finding what science should allow him to do and then find what he is willing to break/limit to make it semi-functional scientifically while still interesting literary wise. I've only seen direct comments from him on this about Wax's weight-tapping and Wayne's bendalloy, both from the Alloy of Law annotations, but I haven't read the annotations from the original trilogy yet so there may be something in there about the science behind Pushing and Pulling.

It shouldn't drive him insane if that's what you're suggesting. It will make it harder and harder for him overtime to interfere with events, to a point where it's conceivable that God is completely hands off and his only role is fueling the magic of the world. That's a lot of wasted Shard power, and with enough time and passivity, I could see Harmony being re-Shattered. 

22 hours ago, geralt said:

I guess Adolin could be getting more viewpoint chapters than before, as he hasn't had many so far and there should be quite a few plot threads to explore with him. For someone less obvious

Adolin actually had almost as much wordcount POV as Dalinar in WoR, so while Dalinar's role will increase, I don't think Adolin's will increase that much since there won't be a lot of room if Dalinar's word count is increasing but Shallan's and Kaladin's stay about the same. 

16 hours ago, maxal said:

Brandon has stated Zahel would remain a very minor character within the Stormlight Archive, so I do not expect anything but a few appearances from him.

Was this statement just for Book 3, or the first cycle, or the entire 10 book series? I was really hoping he'd start doing some more stuff later on...

I also think it's fun to look at how many words, instead of chapters, each of these characters has gotten in the first two novels. In Way of Kings, the primary characters had Kaladin-167K, Dalinar-87K, and Shallan-66K, with the secondary characters had Adolin-22K, and Szeth at 17K. Considering it was Kaladin's book and 40K of that was flashbacks, while Kaladin has the edge Dalinar and Shallan still take up a large role. 

Words of Radiance was a lot different. Kaladin still had about 124K (about the same minus flashbacks as WoK), and Shallan, as her book, went all the way up to 147K. But Dalinar fell all the way to 30K while Alodin rose a bit to 29K. However, the list of side characters with bit chapters grew, as Eshonai received 15K and Lift had 10K, while Szeth fell below people like Rysn, Taravangian, Jasnah, Sadeas, Ym, Lhan, Navani, and Wit to a measly 1.6K from his POV. 

So how this will work out in Oathbringer will be interesting. If Kaladin stays at around 120K, Dalinar increases to at least his WoK word count at ~90K, and Shallan stays over 100K, that's already over 300K of the supposed to be 400K novel. Adolin, Eshonai, Szeth, Jasnah, and other characters will have to fight out the remaining 100K.

On 8/9/2016 at 6:25 PM, CaptainRyan said:

Lucky for you, I am bored at work and own the Kindle version. That quote it is from Kelsier; it is an inner monologue musing. Full paragraph:

"Though, it would be best not to trust his narrative too closely, Kelsier thought, running his fingers across the page. Men rarely see their own actions as unjustified."

12 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

The following has huge spoilers, so be warned.

  Hide contents

'Hey Dox, I'm planning to inspire the first major Skaa revolt by starting a religion around me, becoming a martyr, then cheating death, recruiting a God, conning a bunch of people from another planet in order to become a God, ascending to Goodwood, conning a different God, then wrapping it all up by coming back to life, and taking charge of a civilization we didn't even know existed. Oh, and I'm just getting started... My story has a long way to go yet.' Just picture the look on poor Dox's face... (The last line is paraphrased from the Suvudu cage match.)

This was awesome.

I can't find definitively who says "Men rarely see their own actions as unjustified", it's either Kelsier or Sazed. Anyone know?

Dueling as a calling isn't meant to be to the death when against your own allies, but it's excellent training for swordsmanship, and therefore increases your abilities as a warrior. It's a form of war, makes perfect sense to me how it relates to taking back the Halls. 

I think it means wife, or greatest female love, or something along those lines. Rock says this to Kaladin

Quote

When you are able to travel that far without being eaten by chasmfiend or killed in floods, I shall name you my kaluk'i'iki.

The Coppermind also states that only a woman can be called a kaluk'i-'ki

5 hours ago, goody153 said:

considering that he disapproved of Marsh giving spooks autobiography to Wax but he still allowed Marsh says something about how lenient he is

Where was it said Sazed disapproved of this? I just finished re-reading Alloy of Law and I didn't catch that, is it in SoS (starting that re-read right now)?

SH Spoilers 

In another theory, Sazed used the old star charts to position the planet. It's possible that that area was always cold due, and only after it became more inhabitable because of what TLR did did he put people down there. So Sazed may have made a mistake not doing more for them at first when re-aligning the planet. Though now, it seems, he probably did things or put things in motion to help them. It's also possible as others have said that an outside power is keeping him from doing all he would like to. 

4 hours ago, Oversleep said:

BTW, I wonder what was Sazed thinking during Catacendre. I mean, if it weren't for Kelsier, they'd all freeze to death. Why didn't Sazed reverse their adaptation to a hotter world? He knew about them, although I can't say for sure he knew that they're gonna have problems.

What is going on here?

For a time at least, Sazed and Kelsier can talk to each other. It's possible that Sazed sent Kelsier to them.