NovaSeeker

So, after another reread, I began to form a theory about Taravangian. His boon from the Night Watcher was to gain the capacity to save the world. As we know from Book 2, this manifested in his "condition", where his intelligence varies by day. But so does his compassion and empathy. While super intelligent, he is amoral. On his most intelligent day, he was so unimaginably brilliant that he was thousands of times smarter than the average man, and created the diagram. This, ostensibly, was the blueprint by which he could save the world. But that day of unparalleled brilliance must have also been, comesurately, his most evil. The most evil a man can be. The most devoid of compassion, righteousness, or morals. Such is the nature of his curse/boon from the Night Watcher. I think the most tragic thing is that Taravangian was given the capacity to save the world. Truly and honorably. I think he's just decided to follow the wrong plan. Everything he's done, every evil action, has been the result of following a plan he decided on in one single day. A single day in which he was an utter, complete sociopath. On his dumber days, when he's not so dumb as to be drooling, he's consigned to anguished sorrow over the evil he's done because he's followed that one day's plan. But what if, on his less intelligent days, he was given the capacity to care enough that, using the resources he has as a king, he could really make a difference? But since he started following that damnation diagram, he's too paralyzed with guilt to do anything useful now when he's that compassionate? More than that, why is he trusting his most ethically bankrupt self with the safety of all humankind? I just think it's a massive mistake. He should be following a different plan. I dunno, this isn't really that important an observation. But it's about 4 am and I just needed to share my thoughts, haha ^^;

I think it was earned, because David used Calamity's own ego against him. He convinced him of the truth using his own "mastery" of his powers. "You are the master of your power right? Then you know exactly how this Dimension Hopping works. You know this dimension is real. You know this is one where you left. And you know that not all epics are evil here. And you know that's because you're not here."

He was waiting around for the Well of Ascension to fill again, roughly 1,000 years from when he first used it's power. Perhaps he determined with Double Zinc that he could use the Well's power to make himself truly young again, and "reset" the amount of Atium he needed to stay young.

Wait, what's Profs? ...it's Swiss, isn't it? Cause of the holes? Right?

The way I understood it, what what SUPPOSED to happen was: Calamity arrives and creates powers. He's supposed to leave after impartially observing, and the powers stay. Humanity does what it does: be a group of individuals with their own thoughts and actions. The problem with Calamity is that his explanation for what his purpose was is colored by his own hatred and disgust over the physical universe and the people living on it. He believes that others of his kind were sent to observe the same thing he's been observing: human begins drunk on power and destroying themselves. He says that he won't abandon his duty like they have, because they left before human beings finished destroying themselves and that's obviously what happens when you give humans powers. Clearly. Look what those filthy disgusting mongrels are doing with his powers. He doesn't understand (yet, at the point in which he's describing his species's motivations) that humans are destroying themselves because in giving them his powers, he's also tainted them with his warped perception of everything and everyone.

I'm with the "Calamity's defeat was psychological" camp. Pathfinder did a wonderful job of spelling out exactly what I believe Calamity's motivations and reasons were. Calamity is a being from another dimension. This is not in dispute, right? We're all agreed that Calamity is not human, yes? Okay, then. Calamity was not an Epic. Epics are human beings that are granted a portion of Calamity's powers. Calamity was not a human being. Calamity is The Source. Ergo, any assumptions you have about the Epic/Power/Weakness system cannot rationally be assumed to apply to him. Does Calamity have a Weakness? Perhaps. Does he react to it the same way a human being does? Who can say. "Well, I can say," you respond, "Because I clearly read it on the page." Ah, but I read the same pages as you, and we are having this discussion, so it seems no one can actually say for sure. "But it's more awesome if David found the magic bullet that solved the problem, instead of just talking the monster to death!" My friend, I would like to be the first to introduce you to a marvelous roleplaying game from the 90s: Planescape Torment.

Gotcha. Thanks. I thought that might've been the case, but there's no indication of the discrepancy on the Coppermind wiki, so I was starting to get worried I was confusing the issue.

Okay, so, we learn that the Stormfather is some sort of Cognitive Shadow/Splinter of Honor, and that Honor = The Almighty Does that mean that Jezrien was Honor's shardholder? He is a Herald of The Almighty, and thought to be the Stormfather. Sooo... Honor consider himself one of his own Heralds? Is Jezrien's place as the "leader" of the Heralds indicative that he was something more? Or are there intentionally (on Brandon's part) two different beings attributed to being the Stormfather, and we're not supposed to think that Jezrien = Stormfather = Honor?

Of course he knew what he was doing. What did we learn about coincidences?

My understanding of events is that Lessie, even if she knew what the letter was about, didn't say anything because she knew her husband well enough to know he'd ignore it (which he was going to, if I recall his internal monologue correctly). Because Lessie wanted Wax to stay in the Roughs, because Wax was happy there, and she wanted him to be happy. I assume you're saying that Pathfinder has a point about the letter. My point was that the letter is literally the only information we have about Ati's pre-Ruin personality, so if we are to draw any conclusions about what he was like pre-shard, it would have to trust this information, or otherwise be pure conjecture. Your question "if he was so kind and generous, why Ruin?" can have a million different answers if we don't accept that Ati was kind and generous. He could be a secret serial killer, he could be power hungry, he could have secretly been The Devil. We don't know anything. But if we do accept that Ati really was "kind and generous", then we can make an informed hypothesis. Perhaps he thought that, being the kind and generous person he was, he could hold the power of destruction responsibly and fight its influence. Which makes his corruption tragic. Unlike Rayse who embraced Odium whole-hog and was seeking that power, as mentioned in the same letter.

I know I'm just being silly now, but the science nerd in me is making me type this: Actually glass is resistant to acid....

Well... there's contact, and then there's envelopment.... I'll stop talking now.

I could be wrong, but I think it was mentioned that the crevasses that would have been filled with sharp crystals (the things Keslier got his scars from) had not reformed. Plus, Shadows of Self takes place 346 years after the Pits were destroyed. Give or take a few decades, and you still have decades that the Pits would fill up with atium geodes, undisturbed and unharvested, if they were still working.

yeah, page 375 does pretty clearly imply he has no idea what the metal is made of, and hasn't burned it yet. You win.

See, I think that people assuming the Shattering was a bad thing is the misdirection. I think the sneaky thing for Brandon to do would be to make it actually be the thing that saves Adonalsium. (And I think that Miles was being influenced by this Opposing Force.)

I'll have to read that again more carefully. May have glossed over facts to preserve my pet theory.

So we know that Ruin + Preservation = Harmony. Let's pretend that other shards may combine in the future. What will they be if they do? Odium + Honor = Righteousness? Autonomy + Endowment = Generosity? Anyone have any other ideas? Maybe some funny ones?

Pallonianfire

Coincidence? Yeah right. -puts on aluminum foil cap-

Yeah, I was gonna say The Final Empire but... world-wide vortex of Mist pouring into Vin = THE BEST.

Whoops, sorry echohansen, I lost your post at the bottom of page 1 for me. Your theory is a descent explanation. I don't agree with it, but it works. (Honestly, I didn't notice the discrepancy of it's origin between The Final Empire and The Eleventh Metal) I'm not sure that I agree that Trell had anything to do with malatium. I'm pretty certain it was Ruin trying to get TLR's origins as a terrisman revealed so that he could be separated from his metalminds and killed.

Well, depends on if the Cosmere runs on Back to the Future or Dragonlance time travel rules. How's this for another benefit: Without burning the alloy itself, you can conjecture that might do exactly what Electrum does (produces a cloud of all your own possible futures), as that's the true alloy of Gold. But what if it also had the same perk Atium grants, the increased cognitive ability to DEAL with all that information? Then it allows the perfect defense. You burn Atium and this thing at the same time, and now you know every move TLR and YOU will make, and you can instantly figure out which is the best course.

Vin thought there was the ability to actually interact with his past, to kill him before he became the Lord Ruler and kind of erase him from the timeline. That wouldn't be a bad quirk. And Pathfinder may have bowed out of this argument, but I'll just respond to his points anyway. 1) I didn't ignore the quotes you posted. I acknowledged that they indicate that Kelsier was confused by the metal. 2) If you have a quote that clearly says the Kelsier has not burned the metal yet and/or is unsure what it's made of, go ahead and post it and I'll shut up. But the quotes you posted do not imply that he has not burned the metal. In fact, they imply that he has burned it, but just can't see it's usefulness, and isn't sure how it could possibly benefit him in fighting TLR. This is very different from him not having any idea what the metal even is. (While he's confused and not sure it's THE Eleventh Metal, it's definitely AN eleventh metal. Otherwise it wouldn't be safe to burn at all.) 3) Naming it "malatium" or not is irrelevant. Just because he didn't give it a name gives no indication about whether he knew what it was made of. 4) Just because he calls it "The Eleventh Metal" and nothing else is irrelevant, but, go ahead and post every mention of it in the book. If one of them includes mention that he has not burned it and doesn't know what it is made of, again, I'll shut up.

I have not heard of him. What's he about?

Sorry, Navy, I didn't see your post as I was typing my reply. That "you" was directed at Pathfinder. As for your observation on the zinc/brass immunity opposite, I would still disagree there. Copper's ability to grant immunity to these two metals is above and beyond it's ability to hide allomantic pulses. It can hide all alomancy in a given area, but there is this odd quirk, and perk, that you personally become immune to two other metals. Bronze doesn't have a quirk. It does what it does for all allomantic pulses, and that's that. Again, it's not about what's more, less, or equally useful, its about the actual effect(s) being displayed. So my point is, by looking at the composition of malatium, without burning it, you have no idea if there's going to be an extra quirk, an additional benefit, to a gold/atium alloy that would do more than just "the opposite of gold". (Not to mention, why would you assume it's only the "opposite of gold", when it could just as well be the "opposite of atium"?)