Jofwu

@Oversleep, excellent point about Mistborn. But maybe it should be marked as a spoiler? Wheel of Time is another case where the protagonists face a similar decision.

The orange is a bit much imho. Kind of drowns out everything else. Maybe it's just the shade of orange? Don't have much helpful advice, just throwing out an opinion.

Lots of good points here so far. Everyone seems stuck on the idea that it has to be one movie. Hollywood turned The Hobbit into three movies. Stormlight books can definitely be broken up into two movies each. I don't see why they wouldn't be. One movie per book risks stripping too much of what makes them good, and there's definitely enough engaging content in each book to fill two movies. That gives us a good 5 hours (plus or minus) to work with. Movie 1: Movie 2: Notes: 1. Skip the Prelude. The key points of information gathered there can come from other discussions and Dalinar's visions. 2. Scrap MOST of the interludes and flashbacks. Szeth is the notable exception. 3. Sprinkle short glimpses of battle with Parshendi before/after Dalinar and

Definitely Gavilar in book 5. For book 4, put me in the Nale (or Kalak) camp.

I've only read bits and pieces of the prose. What makes you say this? I thought she worked really well as a woman.

I'm with @Blightsong as well. It's too easy to judge Gavilar here without knowing everything he knows. I mean, I definitely suspect he's not an innocent angel. But if nothing else, I think he's convinced that he's doing the right thing. Is it not evident that Odium will win under the status quo? He's already touching the world, and it's only a matter of time before he's free on his own terms. Stormfather's comments about Dalinar being too late come to mind. Can you blame a guy for taking extreme measures when impending doom is the alternative? And we don't know his full plan. He obviously knows things that we still don't. Maybe he had a serious, legitimate plan to contain the Parshendi gods. Maybe the Listeners were completely manipulated (hello, rhythm voice?) into doing precisely what was necessary to stop Gavilar's plans? You can't just pretend that the Everstorm coming (as it did) was Gavilar's end game. Seems to me he wanted to confront an imminent problem head on, on his terms, rather than let the world flounder in misdirection until it's too late. I still strongly suspect his plan wasn't perfect. But I disagree with the heavy judgment at this point.

Act 1 I like this idea about a scene with Reen and Vin that sets up the basics of the world. Then cut to Kelsier arriving in Luthadel; introduce him and Dockson. Dockson leads him to Vin... We skip the Steel Ministry bit. When Vin and Camon are trying to get their meeting in the first place, the Obligator is already on to them. People come in to arrest them, including an Inquisitor (hooded for dramatic effect?). Kel and Dox show up in time to help Vin (and Camon, inadvertently) escape. We introduce Allomancy and head straight to the hideout to meet the crew and start planning. Vin can't be quite as defensive and skeptical in the movie. She joins the crew because she wants to train, and that's that until she becomes more invested. We get some Allomancy training that night, and the next day Vin heads out to become Valet. We're introduced to mysterious Sazed as Vin is preparing for balls. Meanwhile, we see Kelsier working to get the house war started. Need to start seeing that he's not a simple "good guy" here. Act 2 First ball happens. Less political shenanigans. First ball is about establishing Elend, Shan, noble society, and getting Vin comfortable with her persona. More Mistborn training. Eleventh metal hints. Heart to heart between Vin and Kelsier. He wants her to train with other crew members. Next day, Vin trains with Ham on using Pewter. Maybe something brief with Clubs as well, on Copper? Another crew meeting with updates on how their plan is going. They need Vin to pull out something useful. Vin goes with Breeze to learn emotional allomancy. Meet with Marsh, and find out Camon and crew are dead. Second ball. We don't get a lot of time here. Just some brief build up on Elend, Shan, and Sazed. Vin spies on Elend and meets Kelsier. Introduction to atium. They infiltrate Kredik Shaw and are caught. Vin finds journal. Sazed saves Vin. Act 3.5? Vin wakes up in bed. Ham teachers her to use Bronze to get up and moving sooner. Kelsier feels guilty, acts hardened. Sazed has started translating the journal, and we get a few snippets. Elend shows up and Vin acts like she's sick; need to develop their relationship here. Skip the whole thing where they go to check on the army. Kelsier does that offscreen. Maybe a mention from Ham about what Kelsier did there. (would be nice to see Demoux sometime) More bits from journal come up. In another conversation with Sazed about Kelsier and Feruchemy perhaps? Third ball, again, time at the actual ball is fairly brief. House war is starting Vin discovers early that Elend is in trouble. Fight with Shan. Vin draws on the Mists here (ear ring subtlely gets taken off somehow), as @Belzedar suggests. Act 4 The crew gets caught the next day. Big fight. Kelsier fights and dies. Brief sadness during the aftermath. Then the kandra shows up and rebellion gets started. Vin goes to Kredik Shaw. Marches straight in on TLR talking to Obligators and Inquisitors. Find out about her father and Reen. Burns 11th metal. Doesn't last long. Brief scene of Elend surrendering to Dockson? Wakes up when Sazed is thrown into prison. They bust out. Fighting through when Elend shows up. Kiss kiss, gotta go. Final battle with TLR. Notes: I'm missing a few important plot points... Marsh's "death" comes to mind. I think I hit the biggest stuff though, so that the rest can be squeezed in naturally and breifly. Agreed with those saying epigraphs can't really be done properly. Just got to throw in what you can from the journal and leave it at that. I think that's enough for the first book.

This seems to be a common point of disagreement/misunderstanding that I've seen. The books aren't absolutely clear. I asked once and got lots of answers on both sides. @Dunkum, I thought the way you did at first, but I think there's quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. Though it's easy to miss. A few things... Eshonai mentions (first or second interlude?) that Stormseat once occupied the center of the Shattered Plains. She then goes on to wonder if the craters where the Alethi are camped were outskirts of the city, or maybe even separate towns entirely. This all makes it hard to believe that the entirety of the plains made up the city, if Eshonai is correct. Another point in this argument is the vast size of the plains. It takes hours for the armies to march out as far as the Tower plateau. Toss out all of the gear and the need for bridges and it would go faster, but the Tower is hardly a long ways into the journey to the center. It would quite a few hours to cross the plains if you move at a pretty rapid pace. The plains are just too large to be a single city. Heck, compare the plains on the map of Roshar to the locations of different cities. There are whole Alethi princedoms not much larger than the Plains. And if the Shattered Plains make up a single city, you can't just pretend the edges are just the far outskirts of the city. The plains are pretty tall from one end to the other. Tall enough that you'll absolutely die if you fall down. This would imply that they are multistory buildings all the way across. The elevations also don't match up. Doesn't make sense that the tops of the buildings on the outskirts would match up nicely with the surrounding terrain. Not unless Stormseat was a supermassive version of Yeddaw. All of the mentions (or suggestions) of crem covered buildings are on top of the plateaus themselves. You'll notice a rock spire here or there, like the one Dalinar and Elhokar climb in the beginning- a rem covered tower of some kind. There's a battle that takes place on a strange stepped plateau- it's a building, or collection of closely spaced buildings. In the battle at the end of WoR, Adolin cuts his way into some ruins- they're on plateau level when this happens. You'll often see mentions of strange variations (hills, mounds, slopes, etc.) out on the plains. There's a notable mention that the plains become more rough like this as you move toward the center. These are the ruins that once occupied the Plains- not the plains themselves. Lastly, a point about Kabsal's argument and the other Dawncities. We know from Dalinar that Kholinar isn't merely patterned after something. The city is built around some strange, magnificent rock formations. It's these formations that Kabsal's argument is referring to. They are what give Kholinar it's unique shape/layout. Assuming the same is true of the other cities, Stormseat wasn't just layed out in a pattern for aesthetics. It was somehow guided by the geology of the place.

I disagree. Isn't that what Brandon is referring to about needing a spiritual connection? Identity being the thing that provides that connection. The argument here is that you can only compound with metalminds keyed to your identity- not that you necessarily have to have the both sets of powers. In the examples in the WoB, the person burning the metalmind is the person who created the metalmind. Different situation.

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1088#3 In short: the number is fixed, and it's not ten.

Edit: Feel the need to add two warnings. Like Brandon said to preface the reading, this isn't a final draft and there may be changes. Second, there are undoubtedly mistakes. Words that we/I couldn't figure out at all are generally marked with question marks (or a guess). But there are almost certainly a number of words that are just plain wrong and we don't even realize it. So if you're coming up with some theory or whatnot and it hinges on a particular word or phrasing, then you might want to check it against the recording. /u/RyanEl on Reddit put together a fantastic transcript. I did my best to fill in the holes of his work (and make some corrections). Then I compared it with @Kanrei's work above, and made a few more corrections. Here's what I got: (The bold text is whatever was add/changed from /u/RyanEl's work.)

I'm sure he'll answer every last one, if he can. I'd simply prefer to get a question in early, and maybe be in the thread while he's actively answering.

Do they have a time down for it? I see it on the sidebar, with the date. Curious if they've announced when the post will be up to take questions or for Brandon to start answering.

Re: Aluminum as a god metal... don't see that this theory has any weight. The few god metals we know of aren't real metals. Atium, lerasium, ettmetal/harmonium... These aren't real things. ALL of the "normal" Allomantic metals (and their alloys) are real. You could argue that, for whatever reason, Adonalsium or a Shard decided to "take aluminum as it's own" in some sense. To basically modify a "normal" metal rather than having it's own metal. But I don't think that's consistent with what Brandon has done. God metals are simply a natural, physical form that their power takes. It's something "unreal" finding a place in the physical world. So this feels very wrong to me. You could also argue that the people are just wrong about the metal actually being aluminum. Meaning, it isn't really aluminum at all. It's some incredibly pervasive god metal that is very similar to aluminum, or something like that. This also feels pretty wrong. Brandon likes to pull out surprises, but he doesn't normally outright deceive readers. He calls the stuff aluminum inside and outside of the books. It would be pretty lame if he suddenly revealed that "surprise, it's not actually aluminum."

Considering Brandon was okay with the transcript being shared, and considering this whole thread is built around the shared audio clip, I would assume that this is okay to post.

Until someone provides a transcript (or until an admin wants it removed), here's a very basic summary: @Oversleep

If anybody needs a question to ask... I'm super curious if Trell has been speaking to people in Scadrial. See link in my signature.

I assume it would be okay to at least summarize it? I feel bad that @Oversleep is left out.

Isn't there a WoB (prior to AU) that Trell is a shard we know of?

This drove me crazy too. There aren't any clues. The only reason we know it's Hoid is because Brandon came right out and said it. That cameo wasn't so much a "see if you can find Hoid" so much as it was Brandon wanting to include Hoid in there for himself. Apparently he was up to something in Terris when the Inquisitors attacked.

@Spoolofwhool , thanks for the correction. Yeah! I've read it twice and been all over the fan sites, and I still don't have it down perfect apparently. Then you throw in the crazy "Allomantic grenade" tech, and everything else involving ettmetal... BoM scratched the surface of a LOT of new magic stuff!

Aluminum Feruchemy allows you to store Identity in an aluminummind. Metalminds are normally "keyed" to their creator by Identity. Nobody can use my metalminds because they don't have my identity. But say a person has two Feruchemical powers. If he stores Identity while storing the other power, that other metalmind won't be "keyed" to a specific Identity. Now anybody can use it. So that's the first part. The Bands of Mourning were created while the creator stored Identity in a piece of aluminum. The result is that anybody can use the Bands... if they have the power to do so. That's a big IF. Take the "unkeyed" goldmind that Wayne was making use of. Only Wayne could use it, because he is a gold Ferring. Wax couldn't use it because he isn't one. This is where nicrosil comes in. When it says that nicrosil Ferrings store Investiture, what that means is apparently that they can store their ability to perform Allomancy/Feruchemy. So, a nicrosil Ferring can essentially store his very ability to be a nicrosil Ferring. On it's own, this isn't very useful. BUT if he can do this while storing Identity, he can make a metalmind that others can use/draw from. AND if he has other powers, he can stores those as well. The Bands of Mourning were a melding of unkeyed metalminds (so anyone can use them, if they have the ability) INCLUDING nicrosilminds for all of the powers. This enables somebody to tap the ability to do X magic in the first place.... And then to make use of the associated X metalmind, or to swallow and burn the associated X metal. Make sense? Nicrosil Feruchemy (dealing with Investiture) is something we don't super understand at this point. So it's not surprising you're confused. Most of what we know is buried in the details or is straight from Brandon. The weirdest thing in all of this is... how do you tap a nicrosilmind if you don't have the ability? (even if it is unkeyed) We don't really know. Apparently it's just... allowed in that case. (edit: apparently this is wrong! See below.)

Great questions. I'm under the belief that Harmony's investiture being used by people doesn't mean he's losing power of his own. I think it just makes him more... invested in Scadrial. More connected to it. Society would definitely have to evolve to accommodate it. This is true, but it's also not quite a modern society. I think in Era 3 we'll see MORE rules, laws, regulations, etc. The days of coinshots damaging streetlights to get around will be mostly over. At least in the nicer parts of town. Hooligans in the hood will still do it. You make LOTS of good points, many of which I was considering as I started this topic. Yes, calling it "ethical and humane" is very controversial. I went ahead with the wording for the sake of making my point though. The whole idea here is that society will have to change to accept the use of Hemalurgy. My goal here was mostly to paint a picture of what that society might look like. The change (if it comes) definitely won't come easy. Euthanasia was strongly in my mind as I started this, and you can count me as someone who's very uncomfortable with the idea. But I think society IS pushing in a direction where it's more acceptable. The same thing is happening in many scientific areas. Things like stem cell research, cloning, any kind of human enhancement... Our society is ultimately going to become more comfortable with these things to some extent. Euthanasia in particular has gained more support in Western society. Throw in the incredible benefits of Hemalurgy, and I wouldn't be surprised to see this being a real controversy in the Era 3 timeframe. By the time of Era 4 I think it will be considered acceptable. I definitely don't mean to wrap it up nicely and pretend this is obvious and clean and easy. It's a fascinating ethical problem. But I DO think this is where Scadrian society would eventually head. The benefits are tremendous, and it does boil down to euthanasia. (with a big bonus) I don't imagine this... procedure would be incredibly common. But with the potential of unsealed metalminds it doesn't have to. Surely you're going to have somebody with powers now and then who's moments from death. Why just pull the plug on life support when you can (with their permission) put them to sleep and take their powers (for the good of mankind) first? This is a really fun concept. It's highly possible that ettmetal (and other unknowns) will generate some incredible ways to get around the need of Hemalurgy. If that's the case, Hemalurgy would definitely not go the direction I've described. But until we see some other proof of concept, the uses of ettmetal are pretty mysterious. This is true, but then criminals can do that anyways if knowledge gets out (which it probably will before long). If it becomes more common it will require laws. My pleasure!

Works for me, on desktop.