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I wonder if we can get something other than a RAFO for the following question: * What is more dangerous to Cosmere: the danger Odium poses to Roshar (as of WoR), or the danger posed by "Trell" to Scadrial?

Unlike a lot of other "out there" theories, this one is actually elegant and compelling. But if you do go for a question, why not just ask if Threnody is a moon of Sel? ... And very carefully what Brandon's reaction before you get a RAFO. Another possible question is something like "Is coming of Evil to Threnody an event that involved more than one planet?" Or "How long after Aona and Skai were Splintered did Evil come to Threnody?"

To Paladin Brewer: an upvote and a thank you. Awesome questions! This, I think, is an honest to God Beyond genuine new piece of information. Also - a really scary one. Implications galore. I never liked this theory, so I am glad that Brandon chose to put a couple of nails in its coffin. Thanks for asking this question! I have a nagging suspision that most of Adonalsium shattering questions from now on are RAFO. )-: PS: if you are going again, I have three questions (one of which I mentioned quite a bit elsewhere, sorry for repeats): 1. What would Hoid think of Ym's religion? 2. If a Shard's Vessel dies and drops a body and two people step in to take up the power, what would happen? 3. Based on what we have seen of Cosmere so far, some Shards are very important to what is going on in the world and to the core Cosmere story. Are there Shards that are not and will not be important? Are any of them still whole?

I am not entirely certain the second question is well-formed. What is "enough Investiture"? Why does it have to be from all Shards? and so on... I'd rephrase it to something like: After the Shattering, would it have been possible for the 17ths person to become a vessel for a new Shard by taking something away from some (or all) of the existing Shards? I had a similar question brewing for a while (the anti-Sazed situation): If a Vessel dies and drops a body and two people attempt to pick up the Shard, what will happen? I myself prefer the first of the three questions above. The answer, if we can get something other that a RAFO is actually very important to understanding what heck was going on there.

Basing the suspicions that Trell = Dominion on svarkiss is a bit of a fallacy, as svarkiss, as it has been mentioned, were the enemies of Dominion, and most likely, part of Odium's invasion and splintering of Sel's native Shards. Given what we know about how Odium fights on Roshar, a parallel between the svarkiss and the various Odium-side participants in the Desolation battles is pretty straightforward. The second issue with the Trell=Dominion theory is that last we checked Dominion was Splintered and did not have a vessel. Now, a recent WoB said something like "we have not seen a reassembly of a Shard on-screen", which can be interpreted both to support the Trell=Dominion theory (it is possible to reassemble a Shard!), as well as to refute it (there is no reason for us to believe that it is part of the current narrative - if it were, Brandon would have probably just RAFOed the question). Based on this, my personal belief is that this is a flimsy theory. Significantly flimsier than Trell=Autonomy (my personal favorite, albeit with some reservations), and Trell=Odium theories. It is also possible that Trell equals none of the above, but is something else (a joint construct of Rayse and Bavadin having access to the powers of both, for example). I feel that we won't get closer to figuring this one out until we answer a few more background questions. For example, the Trell religion (Trelagism) Sazed mentions on multiple occasions in the original Mistborn series has none of "men in red and gold", "kneel in front of Trell", apocalyptic mythos. Trellism - the whatever Wax&Wayne contemporary cult that shares the outright name of the god with Trelagism, sounds nothing like the religion that worshiped the night and the stars. The only link between the two that I can find lies in the hints that the Trell-related organizations during Wax&Wayne times are interested in scientific progress (albeit in a "for me, but not for thee" manner), which is consistent with the idea that followers of Trelagism were excellent mathematicians and astronomers. So, one religion or two? If two - why would someone choose specifically Trell - out of 300 possible religions documented on Scadrial - to impersonate? I have a theory that uses some knowledge from White Sand to support the idea that all of this is consistent with Autonomy trying to meddle with Scadrial affairs. Using only information publicly available (White Sand graphic novel promo, documented Khriss appearances in recently published work), let's just say that Darkside is a very reasonable place where a religion worshiping Night could arise, and the only Darksider we have so far seen in the books appears to be one of the most knowledgeable and smart, and is, in fact, an actual Scientist with a capital "S". Questions for Brandon: * Has anyone from Taldain ever reached Scadrial in pre-Final Empire time? * Would Khriss recognize any of the religions from Sazed's archives? And just because I am naturally curious about it: * Does Hoid (circa Bands of Mourning) know who is responsible for Sazed's "red haze miasma"?

It is not even clear that Devotion was an enemy of Dominion. I suspect quite the contrary: one does not preclude the other. They chose to settle on Sel together.

Isn't Frost supposed to be on Yolen?

A-ha! While this does not exactly confirm it, I nevertheless think that this is a very strong hint that the "force that opposes Adonalsium" from the previous WoB is indeed the folks who brought him down and took up Shards (plus whoever helped them). I also liked the question (not yet finalized, I think) about the opinions of vessels vs. non-vessels - from the context I take it the question was roughly about whether offing Adonalsium was considered a good idea? The answer makes a lot of sense.

See - now you spoiled it and he would have to come up with a brand new idea.....

We have now canonized the Stick!

Freuchemy. Top two abilities on Scadrial are Healing and Connection. Very few people go around or jump around punching other people in the face. And even then, Sazed tapping steel and pewter gets to beat up a Steel Inquisitor. But Allomancy has no substitutes for being able to heal oneself and being able to communicate with pretty much everyone in the world.

I think that in response to this question Brandon is likely to play coy. As of the moment there has not been an official WoB confirming that the broadsheet appearance in question is who Khyrindor names him to be. The official part line so far has been that Allomancer Jak stories are fiction. I would start with questions about that. If/once we get some official word, the equipment question becomes feasible.

Yes, Brandon is /u/mistborn on reddit. I keep a tab open and reload it daily to see if he commented on anything. Back to OP: some people occasionally get WoBs from private communications - via email, twitter, reddit PMs, etc....

I think he's made it pretty clear that it was Hoid coming from that pool...

Prior to mists starting to snap people at 16% rate, in my mind, Snapping was a bit of a stochastic process - perhaps not from the Preservation's point of view, but clearly from the point of view of people. But this is a very minor point....

I am thinking that it is not what the magic does that is associated with Fortune, but rather how one acquires it. To use Fortune's Invesiture, one must have Connection to it. Perhaps people acquire (temporary) connections by, well, being lucky - winning a lottery, getting a royal flush in poker, not being asked a question they did not know the answer to at a lesson, having an anvil drop to the ground 10 inches away from them.... Now, once they acquire Investiture - they would be able to do pretty much whatever the magic system does - fly, be able to talk to people at long distances, throw fireballs at enemies, etc... Preservation does not grant some special abilities to Preserve things - in fact, Mistborn have been known to destroy stuff. But people become Mistborn because for one reason or another they get Connected to Preservation. Ditto, for all other Shards we have seen so far. How people obtain Investiture and who is granted it is based on the Intent, but the powers granted are ... well..., whatever Brandon feels is cool...

If there is a Shard that pulls on the entropy, why not a Shard that plays with the laws of probability? Think Mat Cauthon from a certain sister universe who always rolls what he needs in dice. We know that some other processes in Cosmere do follow laws of probability (we've seen a normal distribution somewhere I think, and we've seen Preservation play with what used to be a random process to make it more deterministic). There may be many ways in which Fortune can manifest its properties. Since a person can perform Cosmere "magic" only when Invested, Fortune may choose to grant Investiture to people based on a certain random (or not so random) process. Imagine getting a very temporary boost to your abilities that comes at random. This would be doing things Endowment-style - everyone is equally subjected to bouts of Fortune. Another option (Preservation-style) is to pick certain people and grant them access to Investiture. Given Brandon's style of magic systems - you'd need some sort of a trigger: so, for example certain people acquire Investiture when they perform certain actions - roll dice, or haggle at a marketplace, or try to catch a fish. Remember also, that the actual things one can do with granted Investiture need not have anything to do with the Shard's Intent - why a walking piece of rope is of Endowment, while a flying piece of iron - of Preservation? Similarly, the actual "magic" that Invested by Fortune people can do may be completely unrelated to Fortune/Luck - maybe they can scry, maybe they can fly, maybe they have a mean battle cry. (now this is largely me being Devil's advocate - I am actually not that certain that there is a Shard named Fortune there, just thinking out loud what they Shard would do).

I believe there are followup WoBs to the original "There is a Shard that just wants to survive" revelation that pointed out that "Survival" is not necessarily the actual Intent of the Shard, it is more like the Shard/Shardholder are smart enough to see that everything is going to hell in a handbasket and wants nothing to do with it. My money is on the Intent of the "Survival Shard" being something like Knowledge, Wisdom or Understanding, because getting the hell out of there (with Odium, Trell, whatever the heck else is going on) sounds like a very smart thing to do.

...and then it wasn't.....

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/53063-questions-for-brandon/

Sounds like a confirmation that the 17th Shard does indeed have an intent (if not an Intent). Which would be consistent with why they named it that way. It also should be an intent/Intent different than that of the 16 actual Shards.

The questions I would love to see asked (pulling from a variety of places where I mentioned them) 1. If a Shardholder dies and two people try to take the Shard at the same time, what would happen? ( or "... will each take only a part of the Shard's original Intent"? if you want a yes/no rephrasing) 2. What would Hoid think of Ym's religion? 3. Can you give us a(t least a partial) list of secret societies that have nothing to do with Kelsier? 4. Is there a Hoid appearance in Aether of Night? 5. How many more Shardholders does Kelsier get to punch? 6. How much distortion is in modern Vorinism's description of humanity's origin on Roshar? (Or "Is expulsion from Tranqulline Halls a distorted description of Honor/Cultivation's settlement of Roshar?")

Well, there is that.... I still want to ask the question of what happens if a Shardholder dies and two people try to pick up a Shard. Anyone on the tour willing to help out?

In his responses to little wilson's questions Brandon basically gave us HIS way of assessing whether a Shard is whole or not: is there a mind ( = an actual Shardholder) associated with the Shard. By that standard, Honor, Dominion, Devotion are toasts, while Ruin and Preservation are not. He is very slick about Cultivation. That part of the answer raises more questions than it answers. I always assumed that Cultivation is alive, but then.... On the other hand, I think it is totally fair game for Brandon to screw with our heads and troll us, because, heck, who wouldn't?

I am going to do my usual observation here.... Kelsier loves Scadrial, and has gone to great lengths to protect it, once he understood what was going on. Under the most probable scenario, he has saved numerous peoples on the South Pole. Now, how does that square with "Trell's" desire to destroy Scadrial and all people on it? We also have the postscript to Secret History stating that Kelsier is still around, and hinting very strongly that his attempts to influence the characters in Wax and Wayne books can be guessed at (my personal favorite is Wayne shooting the shotgun). Going around punching Shards - yep - I can see that. Trying to take one for himself? Not in the current timeline. (Plus, in order to take up a Shard, you need connection).