Lewis Nethur

Okay, this is a lot to unpack, but many of your points of contention are valid on some level. I know some folks find it annoying, but I'm gonna start by listing important points to bear in mind here: 1. Scadrial has the earliest and hardest and most ruthlessly defined magic system. None of it existed pre-shattering, and all of the known "rules" are made up by people who have survived (or orchestrated...) live-trial human experimentation. Some of those people were clinically insane in a traditional non-magical sense... 2. Ruin (Ati), very seriously, did stop caring. This point cannot be underscored enough. It's implied that he and Leras were at least best-friends, and possibly lovers. He wanted to kill the whole planet and watch everyone die while cackling like a madman. That was the whole game for him; he was willing to commit suicide over it and murder his best-friend/lover. That's bat rust crazy. Hemalurgy is that maniac's personal legacy. 3. For non-scadrians to practice hemalurgy, they need to understand it. It's a knowledge-based system instead of a birth-based system. One cannot buy knowledge of nuclear physics, one can only learn it through studying or trial and error or pay someone to do it for oneself; so too with Hemalurgy. One could very simply argue that, possessing adequate knowledge of Hemalurgy to utilize it is itself an innate form of Connection to Ati's insane system. It's likely that the Night Brigade simply ran into Keliser, or Spook, or the Ghostbloods, or just read one of their books... 4. In a truly horrifying way, Hemalurgy is the most fair and egalitarian of all the Cosmere's magic systems, which I believe is exactly why it's fair and sensible for it to be so universal. It simply revolves around killing (and sometimes just maiming) people and giving their things to somebody else. This is ruinous practice is, quite frankly, as old as mankind... 5. From a philosophical perspective, i would argue that the laws of Hemalurgy should not be satisfying and should make one want to cry. They came from a suicidal man who wanted to watch his friend play Sim City and start spamming the "trigger disaster" button every 1024 years. I hope that helps. Some reading on the ancient practices of acupuncture may lead one to additional insight into the nature of Hemalurgy as well, but I maintain that understanding its origin is the easiest way to appreciate why it's so messed up (and why that's technically and Realmatically consistent with what we should expect)

I have a sneaking suspicion that an augur who burned gold continuously would eventually begin to see multiple gold shadows simultaneously, most likely by weighted statistical probability. If that ends up being the case, then seeing themselves as various alternative hemalurgic constructs should theoretically be possible, and the shared consciousness between minds could potentially grant enough knowledge to replicate the construction. It probably wouldn't help with the harvest and charging side of the equation though.

This is insanely cool to see modeled out. Excellent contribution.

Let's explore some extremes for a thought experiment: Consider: Identity naturally and gradually evolves and changes over time, this is established in the Cosmere as a hard fact for sapient creatures. Capturing and recording a manipulation of Identity via Forgery requires persistent updates or a built in self correction and calibration method to allow an assumed Identity to continue being viable (which is shown to require a world-leading master of the art to perform using the methods shown thus far on page). Question: can a feruchemist child store a memory in a coppermind and retireve it when they are 100 years old if they still possess it? Let's assume that they don't even have awareness of its contents, only vague knowledge that they stored something. Is it possible for an individual's Identity to change, evolve, or become damaged so much over a lifetime that any bonded metalminds, shardblades, honorblades, dawnshards, Breath, ect. No longer recognize them? From what I have observed, I would assert: no, almost certainly not. This would imply that spiritual keying is, in some sense, far deeper, and technically independent of, whatever it is inside a soul that makes a sapient creature feel and behave as themselves. Posit: damage done to the singers is widely theorized to be due to artificial damage to their spiritwebs, primarily in the forms of targeted damage to their Identity and Connection sectors. Question: would a singer blessed with the power of feruchemy be able to accidentally revert and trap themselves in slaveform by simply storing Identity and Connection? Again, I would assert, almost certainly not. Would a "human" feruchemist blank out their sapience by performing this same feat? Dear lord I hope not, or those southern scadrians seriously have a civil war coming at them for what they've done to themselves...

This is a fair critique, I acknowledge that. I'm not quite sure what the right words are to describe the phenomena. I typically think of an individual's identity as their connection (little c) to themselves (their past, present, future, thoughts, beliefs, values, ect.) on a spiritual level (but it functions differently than normal Connection(s) (big C). The control mechanism is essentially a means by which to forcibly overstrain the construct's already artificially weakened sense of self to pump external influence directly into their mind and overwhelm self-awareness and intelligent action, reducing them to obeying the whims of an external force. (That's how I see it though; again, getting that to fit a real world metaphor ((which...I know it does not technically have to)) and realmatics simultaneously is a challenge) It does help, thanks. I would dearly love to see the Cosmere evolve beyond these types of abusive and exploitative forms of command and control is the main point I would like to get across, but we shall see. Regardless, as understanding of the various systems becomes more widespread, I expect constructs (at least the one's which are technically organic) to gradually behave with greater autonomy (little a) and resistance to emotional manipulation, either by removing spikes, resorting to suicide when spike removal isn't possible, inserting new spikes which specifically guard against exploitation in a larger scale than what has been seen thus far, or by armoring themselves in aluminum if all other options fail. Back to @JustQuestin2004 's question: my expectation is that if, for example, 3 soothers were required to breakthrough a koloss in era2, the first two would put pressure on it, and the third one would breakthrough and assume normal full control until they mentally relinquish it or travel too far away. If the bond were somehow shared evenly, they could very quickly and easily drive the beast insane with conflicting mental commands, which...would be very bad for all of them.

I could only imagine this being successful for prospective Squires who already have some level of Connection developed to the Radiant who might deputize them, and I expect that while it could be circumstancial and temporary, that probably wouldn't be the Radiant's decision to make. For example, a random soldier who had been training with a windrunner and their squires for several months and was taken into frontline combat side-by-side with them, might find snapping into the role of squire very easy to do if wounded or after witnessing a few friends get wounded/killed, as intense emotional trauma can trigger radical and sudden changes in a person's behavior down to the core of their self. These changes can be unpredictable and are not always necessarily permanent in nature however, so...I could imagine a person who simply isn't a very good candidate for developing as a Radiant being battleshocked into living and breathing the first Ideal well enough to draw on Light as a squire, then regressing back to their more true-to-self beliefs and losing Squire status after some combination of time, therapy, peace and quiet, time away, ect. The concept of Skybreakers deputizing local law enforcement is extremely intriguing. I would find it difficult to believe that such a process could work in front-half Roshar simply because their legal codes are so fractured and divergent in their fundamental values...however, if all nations adopted changes that called for them to recognize and cooperate with Skybreakers as a legally recognized organizational body, and Skybreakers and Highspren codified their recruitment methods to specifically prioritize individuals employed in law enforcement roles in those nations, then...yeah, those people would all begin to gradually develop a shared Connection on a spiritual level that could reinforced iteratively. It would be really weird and difficult to get to that level of transparent international collaboration, but I could totally imagine a back-half 4th-oath skybreaker walking into any major Rosharn city, explaining their purpose to a local lord/governor/mayor/queen/ect. And requisitioning and swearing in a dozen temporary squires for some defined duration or until some particular goal is met. Basically like live-fire recruitment exercises where any deputies who show particular promise, might get invited to quit their job and go back to Urithiru for a very peculiar and dangerous internship.

My general understanding is that emotional allomancy functions on hemalurgically augmented creatures by essentially invalidating and stripping away the target's identity (magically, of course...); multiple weak mistings pulling at the same string can break through just like one very strong mistborn. I suppose the real world analog would be like if a cult began feeding and housing a homeless person to build them up, then began relentlessly criticizing their every characteristic and compelling them with demands while threatening to kick them back out on the street. It's worth noting that, since era2, a koloss who loses control, or feels themselves about to, or who otherwise has exceptional natural Determination, should be able to simply rip out a spike or two. I don't expect to see any Koloss being controlled emotionally in era3&4...I would think that just one broadsheet story about an enraged koloss violently beating to death a half-dozen rioters who were trolling it would be enough to make folks realize that, to overwhelming degree, volunteer soldiers are just safer, more reliable, and more effective than even the best emotionally manipulated super soldiers... For narrative purposes, I would find it super peculiar if any of Autonomy's future Constructs can be controlled by anyone (except via normal non-magical means, like personal threats, desirable incentives, shared sense of purpose, love and affection, security, ect.)

This is an extremely shrewd and astute observation. From a philosophical perspective, one could even argue that every bridgeman on the crew is, in some sense of the word, far more heroic than Kaladin, for, while they may have partially lacked his personal physical and spiritual acuity in warfighting, they charged in anyway, with none of the validated or verified magical protections which he expected to guard himself. He taught them to improve themselves, and the only thing could think and feel to do when faced with overwhelming odds of defeat and an immediate death-sentence, was to attempt to protect and uplift others anyway...that is, quite frankly, a devastatingly poetic rendition of what it means to be human...

Hmmm...I don't normally do this, but I'm inclined to disagree with the premise of this thread on a fundamental level. While, yes, some of the unique innovations of Roshar, particularly those relating to vibration and resonance, are incredibly powerful and derived from centuries of legitimate scientific engagement and have developed organically into magic systems, they should not be assumed to be relevant or predictive of the outcomes or results of unique systems developed and evolved around totally divergent principles. The people of scadrial are so artificially good at metallurgy that much hand-waving must already go into their every achievement and exploit. Could some new insights be made into the allomantic arts by exploration of tonality? Maybe...but...probably not in a meaningful way. In real life, when vibration and resonance criteria simply do not apply in any meaningful way, we generally set a product's vibe-profiles as a full spectrum flatline across all frequencies and multiply it by an order of magnitude to, hopefully, ward away anyone from fixating on it or questioning it when they should take it as a warning. I'd like to think Scadrians would have enough mastery of their arts that they wouldn't have so glaring a blindspot.

Agree to disagree. I have met men and women like taravangian and jasnah in real life and that colors my perception deeply. A powerfully self-aware old man with near infinite authority inside his domain is perfectly capable of being abusively passive aggressive and non-chalantly kindly in nature while simultaneously maintaining blood-harvesting death farms for the homeless. That's not cognitive dissonance you're hearing; it's an extremely manipulative person who understands the thoughts of others well enough to distort their realities, even without magic. If jasnah properly respected taravangian, she would have taken what he said seriously. But...he knew she didn't, and he couldn't have cared less because he was aware that he was fully in control and not doing anything illegal by ordering all those people to be killed so that their last words could be harvested and considered prophetic. Please be aware that real life ICU's typically record the last words of the dying too and, while mankind's healers never intentionally accelerate a death, they do prioritize peace and comfort over unsustainable acts of Preservation...

Er...Q & A is a bad place for discussion, the sort order and nature of the space is intended to make best sense for readers rather than contributors is all. It's interesting to consider that bondsmith spren might behave fundamentally differently than normal spren in how they treat oath-violations if they do not manifest as deadeyes though, that would be a very important discovery if proven.

I'm going to offer the unsolicited opinion that you would probably fit in well with and be appreciated in a live discord thread with these types of questions and considerations. You're poking at some rather esoteric material; the armies of Discord absolutely love and thrive on that kind of nourishment. Hopefully that helps.

There's a good thread over on the Wind and Truth spoiler board exploring Ishi's and the the other Heralds' insanity following Honor's death that briefly mentions her, you may be able to get a good piggyback ride over on that thread if you interject nicely Knowing what i know, I try hard to not trouble them, but, realistically, folks on discord are usually surprisingly open and inviting to any random adhoc topical discussions about very nearly any character for any exploratory reason if you prefer that path. The search button in your upper right is powerful for reviewing and understanding previous discussions, but there's no substitute for a good living thread and this forum, by necessity of available manpower not out of malice, maintains strict discipline against reviving "dead" topics. It's perfectly fine and acceptable to re-initiate conversations with new fine tuning or a fresh perspective, and nobody here hates zombies per se, but the products of necromancy on old posts are objectively filthy and exceptionally difficult to properly care for. Otherwise, Good luck and welcome to the Shard! I'd like to think that the sibling's bitterness and resentment are scars born of immaturity and misplaced feelings to be perfectly frank. They were revered as a god, when they seem like they only ever wanted to be a friend, and treated, abused, and exploited like a naive child, when they should have been respected, and probably feared, as a borderline divine creature. There's a complex story there with a lot of well-glossed-over and masked traumatic, manipulative, and exploitative undertones lying all over the place if you ask me.

This is an interesting one. So, for a realistic-style artificial intelligence, which exists as a massive distributed network entity, a shardblade may simply not be capable of harming them in the sense that no one physically manifested object or computer might contain enough of their soul for said object to count as being in possession of a living and severable piece of a creature; IE: all pieces, once assembled, are temporary, removable, redundant, and in some sense interchangeable by nature. What I suspect we'll see on page eventually in the cosmere is more like star wars and classic sci-fi type, IE: self-contained sapient little rascal droids with personalities that are loaded onto and containered within a single dedicated metal body. If this ends up being the case, then I would expect that cutting them between any segment where information is processed, sensory data is aggregated and streamed, or actuator commands are issued, will function exactly like cutting through a person's brain or spine. What's going to be really interesting, is that this would mean that the sapient robot's casing, and indeed, most of their body, might be treated by a shardblade as non-living tissue, shearing through it physically, but only cut wires, actuators, circuitboards, and silicon bits cognitively, treating them as full-blown living flesh for all intents and purposes. What is the cause of death for sapient computer hardware severed by a shardblade? That's...difficult to say. It might depend, but I'm gonna guess electrical overload, because it makes the acronym funny, which I absolutely hate: EOL (end of life) caused by EOL (electrical overload).

I promise and personally guarantee that the forbidden knowledge of hemalurgy has, unfortunately, already penetrated every magic system in the cosmere. Agents on every major world have begun assassinating, harvesting, and re-applying the souls of the Invested in unique, arbitrary, exotic, and even absurd ways. This is neither a threat nor a warning, it is simply what has already gone down too far to be prevented from spreading. May Adonalsium forgive us...

Ahem. This degree of articulation and linguistic understanding definitely did not leave me salivating for more. Definitely. The singers language is the language of the gods, but it is not without flaw, sadly.

Totally agree, Singer writing should either work unambiguously perfectly each time every time with absolutely zero capacity or capability for lying, deception, or misunderstanding...or else be almost perfectly incomprehensible and arbitrary in the extreme. The trouble is, Singers on page are showcased as being almost hiveminded in nature, making intent of spoken words very very very easy for them to intuit all possible intended meaning out of Totally on the fly in real-time. However...they are shown to have the capacity to degrade in intelligence or capacity and have some meager capability to engage in sarcasm, deliberate aloofness, or (minor) deception and manipulation. This means that they absolutely have free-will and could record a thought in a tone other than what they were feeling and believing (at least with practice; it's implied that their written language is highly intuition-based otherwise the level of math involved in every character would be beyond absurd for speech and intuiting something which one doesn't feel would be like hacking your own brain). Dawnchant is definitely the apex of written language, and it is also still flawed in that it absolutely still allows for lying and poor interpretation, it simply requires radically more work and understanding to do.

First, I very much hope that the true and full capabilities of hemalurgy are never documented on page. Mastering the intricate rules very seriously and specifically requires nazi death camp levels of human experimentation and trial and error...it's sick and twisted beyond all possible extremes... That said, yeah, I have little doubt that ramming an Inquisitor spike into just the right bind point that it was never "intended" to be compatible with on a metaphysical level could produce some novel horrifying results that are technically stable enough to stay "alive." What on God's green earth such a monster could/would want or be capable of is anyone's guess though until it is done successfully at least once. And again, every incorrect arbitrary guess will represent at least one, and probably several, gruesome and torturous murders while every success shall represent the creation of a monster which is just as likely to wish death on its creator as obey or serve any purpose which is assigned to it post-hoc. The problem here is that, in order to "know" what one is doing with hemalurgy, they have to already be a monster and have created monsters themselves...

I read this one more as just an interesting exchange than true foreshadowing to be honest. Jashna believes that taravangian is soft in the head and slow of wit when he is objectively the smartest person on the planet (when he isn't having a psychotic break). She attempts to patronize and placate (again...the smartest man in the entire freaking world by a massive margin) by deflecting his comment criticizing and critiquing her actions by citing a vague religious truism meant to calm down children and the feeble minded who have been gaslit or made to feel guilty by teachers or misbehaving parents. His level of snark-back simply demonstrates that he sees her the way she sees him: as an idiot who thinks that they are wildly more intelligent than they are, grasping at things they couldn't possibly understand, and who simply needs to be brushed off and diverted. Mr. T's mind is not a hermetically sealed box, he occasionally lets slip a mean comment, joke, or passive-agressive retort, and he also only prophesies on his absolute best-of-the-best days. Honestly, I think they were just having a completely normal conversation showcasing exactly who they are to eachother on a totally middle-of-the-road kind of day. Hopefully that helps; not every word is intended or warranted to be one of prophecy or oracling. Only the best (worst...) ones on the best (worst...) days.

Do we know for a fact that the Heralds go to, and return from, Braize instantly? Asking because only Spiritual Realm effects ever seem to be instantaneous in the Cosmere and the Heralds are classified as cognitive shadows. While it may sound horrible in the extreme, it would not surprise me if the Heralds took any amount of time between a few seconds and multiple years to fully die-and-transition to Braize, and then break-and-transition back to Roshar. Whether they remain conscious and aware during this period would also then be an open question; it might be like a gentle cat nap or a prolonged dissociated psychotic break.

Yeah...okay, I may be abusing the terminology too far on this one, fair point, I appreciate the correction. No, Sazed could not have known about the southern scadrians during the first moment of his ascent. I do still find it shocking that he seems to have spent so much meticulous effort on the basin prior to realizing how many people he had doomed, but...a mistake and incompetence are not the same thing. I retract my vile complaint; Harmony is the best Shard thus far. And they're all flawed by design (small d). Which does technically give us all something to talk about.

Don't be so sure...sure, a shardblade can kill an inquisitor just as easily as a normal person (assuming they don't have gold healing) but shardplate is ungodly heavy when dead and disconnected from a Radiant and it requires stormlight in order to remain mobile when worn. That means a shardbearer who was hunting inquisitors off of Roshar would probably only have a few days worth of fuel to get their job done before they have to either spend an absolute fortune in liquid Investiture to recharge, or else strip naked and helpless before returning to Roshar (during which time they could be ambushed!!!) On the flipside, Inquisitors can recharge insanely easily. They can also essentially fly and just stay out of range to kite the shardbearer until they bleed them dry; a single penny can function like a bullet in the hands of an Inquisitor, which should be enough to cause small cracks in plate. Pinging them 500 times might be annoying and time-consuming, but there is no reason it shouldn't work just fine. Bigger projectiles would work better and faster, but they would also introduce more risk to the Inquisitors. Inquisitors are not cowards, but they do demonstrate themselves on-page to be highly risk-averse. Once the plate is bled dry, the shardbearer would be as helpless as a newborn before an Inquisitor... A full Radiant, however, could probably kill a dozen Inquisitors just fine, assuming that none of them were full mistborn prior to their transformation, don't have access to era2 metals, have no feruchemic metals, and all came to Roshar for some reason. If any of those caveats weren't true, I could see it going either way still.

Please do not assume my intent or pretend to put words in my mouth. I do not hate Harmony's decisions, I cannot. Like I said, he's the best of the best of the shards. However...he's still only a man with an insane amount of Investiture and only a couple rules that he must obey. That makes him flawed at his very core as a deity, like a diamond with hollow void or crack in its center. Let's focus on Harmony's one most unforgivable transgression: he absolutely ruined the lives of every Sounthern-Scadrian and killed most of them, period full stop. Would they have died eventually no matter what he did? Of course! But he made their lives a frozen hell when he had the power to uplift and protect them...was there any malice in his actions? Almost certainly no. Was there the total ignorance of a billionaire exploiting resources to forcibly change things he doesn't understand and inadvertently triggering an uncontrollable genocide and subsequent civil war? Yeah...that's basically exactly what happened, yes. From a philosophical perspective: Can a man trigger a genocide by accident and still be a good man? I would argue, "yes," on the basis that no one person can reasonably be expected to have the infinite futuresight required in order to predict all of the cascade consequences of their actions. Can the living embodiment of a God trigger a genocide on accident and still be a good God? No...it would mean that he/she/they is still only human. The most powerful, compassionate, and far-reaching human to ever live perhaps, but not a true God. What do I believe the solution is? Better guarding against the Shards forcibly executing such ham-fisted and ghoulishly inept non-negotiable changes to other people's environments. Stepping down as Harmony would only leave scadrial crippled and weakened at this point, but that in no way means that Harmony's actions have not been partially selfish...he knows the Investiture keeps him alive when he should otherwise be dead, and he seems to draw legitimate peace, comfort, and satisfaction from being treated as a divine entity, which is sort of a peculiar reward considering how many people he brutally murdered in his incompetence and flailing when he first ascended and had to act while rushed after being given total unchecked power in a suddenly Godless world. The worst part is, there is no real solution, Harmony himself appears to recognize and be fully capable of articulating more or less this same philosophical decomposition himself, and what he has done is basically the best compromise that's possible without causing even greater harm now than he did during the first hour of his ascension. That's the rub though, playing God always causes men to die or kill others horribly. It's why humans throughout time and across every culture have always fixated and idealized about what a perfect and fair being would be and how it could be created and allowed to rule and protect people from the unjust actions of eachother. How does one create a persistent and inexhaustible deus ex machina in, of, and for their world? Well...that's the ultimate question by my view.

I'm not. By the definition of the words, Harmony killed innocent people on purpose, committed genocide against southern scadrians, and deliberately manipulated and ruined the lives of his declared swords and shields. It's in the books. I have no hesitation in declaring that Sazed was a good man in a traditional sense of the word. A paragon of understanding, faith, fidelity, intercultural and cross-language communication and Harmonization, and justice in the truest sense of the word. The best and kindest and most well intentioned Shard by my opinion. And also a totally incompetent God. i...feel like that should be self evident. If it isn't, then I agree to disagree.

I dunno why autonomy gets such a bad rep. She just wants people to be totally free, her angels ought to be the absolute best one's...