Radiant Returned

7 hours ago, CaptainRyan said:

Good point though I seriously have doubts if Martin will ever finish ASOIAF. Rothfuss I have a little more hope for (I just started rereading for, like, the 12th time). Name of the Wind is, hands down, one of the most beautifully written books I have ever had the pleasure of reading.

Rothfuss and Sanderson are my favorite authors. I can't choose. Sanderson I love the scope and individually his books are amazing. The only books I've enjoyed individually more are the two Rothfuss has written. Like you said, so beautifully written and an amazing story. That last book is going to be amazing. 

4 hours ago, Drake Marshall said:

One way or another, I think the general arc of the cosmere might be approaching the reformation of a single God... Which is partially evidenced by the fact that we see that shards can be put back together, we say Sazed do that.

With Sazed we've seen the powers of Shards being taken up once their hosts were dead, but is that the same thing as a Shard being Splintered? Because if not we haven't seen evidence of someone taking up the powers of a Splintered shard, which is what Honor is.

The more I've thought about it the more I agree with you, it's not going to be an issue (at least early in SA3, though I still think there is potential for that being an issue in the future). I do think though, that if Szeth had acquired Nightblood earlier in WoR, like right after he came across Kaladin for the first time, Nightblood would've killed him.

4 hours ago, Yata said:

But as far as I know you will probably reach the TLR's level and not beyond. (TLR made himself as strong as it's possible to be as Allomancer)

To be fair, we never really saw TLR go full boss-mode, fight as hard as he could. So we still don't know how much he was able to do. 

Just because there is a symbol doesn't mean it has to be well known. It's like the Cosmere symbol. 

To be fair, the ending to Martin's and Rothfuss' series haven't come out yet, but The Hero of Ages is right now the best ending to a series I've ever read. So much awesomeness. 

The book explicitly states when a still born is Returned a new God King is chosen, what they do with one if the God King bears a child is unknown, but they could either send them to the same place they send retired God Kings or just stop feeding them breath. There's not any evidence in the book I don't think that indicates one way or the other, but the fact that the God King being mentioned as the exception, the still born Returned, multiple times indicates that no, there aren't any other Returned gods who were still born. 

As far as there not being a female God King, that's not too unexplainable. It could either be determined by Endowment, but even if it isn't there have only been 4 God Kings I think. Over 300 years. So by completely normal stats yes 2/4 would be female, but it's not a statistical stretch for 4/4 of them to be male. 

15 hours ago, Eki said:

I think maybe Nightblood could just absorb Stormlight directly from spheres though.

I think so too. NGL, finding out how Nightblood interacts with the magic system and seeing his interactions with Szeth might be the #1 thing I'm looking forward to finding out in Oathbringer. 

I had emailed them a couple times over the last few years and never got a response, but emailed them last week and got a reply two days later!! I'm reading it right now, but couldn't wait to join the forum lol.

Shin can't naturally hold Stormlight, but Knights Radiants can and Nale made Szeth one at the end of WoR. 

As far as Zahel (Warbreaker Spoilers)

From annotations I read it implied that the bond Nightblood had with people, at least on Nalthis, wasn't exclusive. It was more like once you used it and survived you were bonded, so both Vasher and Denth were bonded to the sword to an extent. 

Yeah I agree with @Sam Script I've always thought it obvious that Hoid used the bead. He has Feruchemy and has shown signs of using Allomancy, and the "protect it like my own skin" seems most likely to be literal, he's protecting his own skin because he used it. 

5 hours ago, Khyrindor said:

 A while back, people realized that "Balderdash" is an anagram for Shardblade, which is another gibberish word that Hoid brought up. I totally agree. I theorized once that Hoid wanted Dalinar to be that Vessel. People apparently didn't agree though.

That's pretty cool, but Balderdash isn't gibberish it's a real word, relating to lying or making stuff up.

Also, one thing I think is being underplayed is how valuable Breath is. Being a drab kinda sucks, and you have to remember every Breath was taken from a person. So it took 20,000 people becoming drabs just for Vasher/Shashara whichever actually made Nightblood to have the Heightening, and then another 1,000 people becoming drabs just to create Nightblood. This gives him sentience, but he still has to feed off breath to actually fight. Every time he's used he's corrupting what was formerly someone's only spark of Investiture. So aside from Nightblood's awesome powers, there's also the cost of how he gains those powers to keep in mind. That's pretty "overpowered" and "dangerous" to me. 

5 hours ago, Eki said:

I think babies Return outside Hallandren too though. Presumably, those babies mostly die after a week, or a few weeks if the parents give their Breaths away. Maybe some rich parents actually manage to travel to T'Telir and make their babies Gods, if they know enough about the Iridescent Tones.

Also, I don't think all babies are attempted to be made into God Kings. If the current God King has only been around for a decade or so, I bet they just make the baby a normal God.

I think you're underestimating how rare a baby returning is. From what I remember the book isn't vague at all on this subject, it says that the priests see the Returning of a stillborn child as The sign that a new God King should be created. So while outside of Hallandren there may be stillborns who Return, if one is Returned inside of Hallandren all the mother has to do is find their local priest and the baby will be transported with their mother to T'Telir (This is what happened to Susebron). 

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I suspect that there will be a LOT of regulation on how abilities may be bought and sold though.

Any time there's regulation there's black market. I'd be willing to bet that that plays a major role. 

Mistborn is my favorite trilogy ever. If you loved Final Empire, Book 2 "Well of Ascension" is just as good IMO, and Book 3 is even better.

Annotations make re-reading a story incredibly more fun IMO.

I also think it's possible that due to her willingness to interfere with world events, Endowment herself chooses when to return a baby when she thinks its best to have a new God King. 

To this point, with the exception of some Hoid chapters, Sanderson has been very careful about limiting the interactions between separate books series. He's continually said this will be the case until much later series. But SA seems to be on a track to more and more references to other stories that will need to be read by others to fully understand the series (Hoid and the worldhoppers being the biggest issues here). 

But something that hasn't been brought up a lot are interactions Nightblood has with Szeth. Vasher/Zahel aside, there was this annotation from Warbreaker. 

Quote

Nightblood, however, dwells quite heavily on the past. Though in some ways his mind is very capable, he has the quirk of being an Awakened object. The first hours of his life - during which time he met Shashara, Denth, and Vasher - imprinted heavily on him. It's like a part of his mind is hard forged in that moment with read-only memory that cannot be changed. Much of him can learn and grow, despite what Vasher says, but he cannot overwrite those initial concepts, states, and understandings that were burned into him during his birth. Shashara was alive then, so he will always think of her as alive, even if thousands of years have passed. Denth will always be pleased with him. Vasher will always be friends with the other two. Those things were some of Nightblood's first impressions. 

This isn't a huge deal, and as a reader of all Cosmere novels I'm loving the idea of more Cosmere blurbs, I know some people only read SA. So it could be interesting when Nightblood is talking with Szeth and says "Let's go talk with Shashara!!" and SA-only readers are waiting for an in-world explanation that's not coming. On a bigger scale will be if/when Vasher reunites with Nightblood. 

2 hours ago, Erklitt said:

You made me wonder: how do skaa Mistings discover their Allomancy at all? How do they realize they've snapped, if they never imbibe their metal by accident and no one tests them? After the mist sickness it takes Elend's sudden idea to find the new Mistings. What was it like for Clubs, for example? How does one discover that one can burn copper?  That may actually be a hole in the Mistborn world building...

For skaa I think a lot of them simply didn't. At some point if they reach a certain amount of wealth or rebellion I'd imagine they buy a vial of metals and try burning all of them. Go from there, I assume that's what the nobles did. There aren't a lot of Skaa mistings in Mistborn besides those that are already rebelling. 

As far as Sigzil goes, I hadn't noticed those passages and it's an interesting theory. But while there isn't anything substantive I can think of that proves the theory wrong, I think it's more likely based on Sigzil's personality that he's just a good listener and understands humans and so is easy to open up to. 

3 minutes ago, happyman said:

I'd only change it by saying that it's "really" a merging of the worship of Dominion and Jaddeth---Dominion was real, Jaddeth was not, but for probably political reasons, the two of them were claimed to be the same.

I could get behind this, but even if Jaddeth was just a name for Dominion, it still results in the same thing. Dominion has been splintered, there is no sentient god on the planet that is really directing Wyrn or the Derethi. So while Wyrn might have some magical powers (he definitely seems to have some semblance of foresight) the religion seems like a sham and a front to me. 

I don't think Jaddeth is real. He's obviously not a god, the gods are Devotion and Dominion and neither of their Vessel's names are Jaddeth. Also it's mentioned in Elantris that Jaddeth was originally a minor rock god from another religion, that Shu-Dereth turned into their main guy. I think the whole point of Shu-Dereth is how a peaceful religion like Shu-Keseg can be twisted by dangerous people to be used as an excuse to dominate others and gain power. 

Important note: Vasher, who probably knows more about Awakening than anyone else alive, told Siri the most important thing to know was how little they truly know about the magic. I don't think even Vasher understands how Nightblood works off of "only" 1000 breaths. 

Question: I've been trying to get it from context but what does "FTL" mean??

I'm not so casually waiting anxiously for Arcanum Unbounded and the explosion of Cosmere debates the star charts are going to inspire.