Jazzy Kandra

It doesn't have to be magical in nature, I have a feeling this is...just how Hoid is (for some yet to be disclosed non-Investiture reason related to his past)...

No it's not that odd, actually... As someone with autistic siblings, I've found that they are a lot more willing to touch family (me, their sibling) than others. The relationship between Adolin and Renarin feels accurate to me. That is, it's quite well done and realistic, I've seen similar relationships between autistic and non-autistic siblings, too...So, based on my personal experience, I believe that it has little to do with stuff that isn't mundane... This doesn't mean that their closeness/Renarin's willingness to touch Adolin isn't related to something else (like their childhood relationship/lack thereof with their dad...perhaps?), though... I think it is related to something that happened in their family in the past, but well, we'll just have to wait and see. xD

I'll be honest, if Brandon hadn't said he was a psychopath, I wouldn't have considered it a possibility. Even with that WoB, I'm still iffy about it and I don't particularly like it. It still feels a lot more like a complex form of PTSD (made even more complex by Era 1-snapping) than psychopathy to me. Partially because he doesn't have most of the behaviors, also he didn't seem to really have the childhood misbehavior things either. He never hurt/bullied Marsh as a kid and he can't imagine abusing his sibling, I doubt that Kelsier would harm small animals, and, finally, playing card tricks on others as a kid really doesn't count... Plus, he doesn't always score that high on all the core personality traits, either. In other words, you're right, I think, even without "revocation of conditional parole" (heck though, I'm not sure he would even break that...Kelsier would just wait for his parole to end then go back to being a thief...hehe).

Wayne does a good approximate of Marsh in Bands with fake spikes, so, if Marsh doesn't appear as Ironeyes all that often...it might be that he fakes it. Having one eye is better than none, I guess. Or, even funnier, sometimes it's Marsh, but other times it's Kelsier pretending to be Marsh...

It wouldn't surprise me if it was secretly that jerk, Gemmel (the guy who trained Kell), and that Gemmel used to be lot more sane before well...things went down and they killed his (unbeknownst to him) skaa mistress causing him to snap. Probably not though, but it is a more reasonable suggestion than Hoid, Ruin, or Rashek. Just because a guy (Gemmel,) claims to be a half-skaa doesn't mean that he's telling to the truth, and Gemmel is old enough for this to be a possiblity...

TBH, I partially forgot about where Hoid got his "fortune" from... It happens. Thank you. Hmmm, I'm pretty sure that the only other unkeyed metalmind that the Set had is the golden bracelet Kelesina originally had and that Wayne gets from Wax later. Is there anything saying that Kelesina and the Set had unkeyed metalminds before they captured the Southerners?

There's more evidence for it than against at this point, I shouldn't have to tell you that.

It should work, though, there would be (very minute, mind) loss as compounding does have a ridiculously high upper limits (like Rashek's Atium-based immortality). I doubt there's a ton of these coins around, since, it just doesn't seem like the kind of story that Kelsier would want a lot of people to know, so all of this is a moot point...:P Anyway. My best guess, OP, is that Hoid stole it from the Southerners who the Set captured or from one of the corpses in the Temple. How did he know what it is in it without losing said memory...probably Compounding, he's a Fullborn too, after all.

Considering how much I like puns in certain situations (less obvious and expected, more subtle than most), it was indeed meant to be "weary" in this case. But you've already caught me, I'm ashamed.

Not to be rude, but unless there's a WoB saying that Trellium acts as a blank slate, I would be weary of jumping to that conclusion. Atium is a lot "closer" to a blank slate because it can steal anything (more or less), so, Trellium probabaly does something else...like editing sDNA in interesting ways (and allowing kandra to use feruchemic/allomantic spikes). It probably also connects you to Trell and lets them into your head. How fun, more insane gods. I'm of the opinion that Kelsier got back through a more mundane (read: Scadrial-based) metal. It could be atium (since that can act as a "substitute" for other metals that are...more rare), but I think that because spren in the Cognitive Realm can be spiked (source; while this is about granting them spikes, the opposite is most likely true too), Cognitive Shadows can be spiked as well because they are also Sapient Cognitive Entities. It might be more useful to figure out how to aim to spike the Investiture that Identifies as Kelsier's Cognitive Shadow while in the CR (Intent). There's also no guarantee that spiking a Shadow/spren wouldn't work differently (I've got a feeling once you spike them they're completely inside the spike with no "corpse). The biggest hurdle to the above, I think, is figuring out which mental can spike Identity and where to put it afterward... I'm still of the opinion that Kelsier made a deal with Sazed in the end in exchange for helping the Southerners. He received knowledge (binding points; Intent; etc for this specific use of Hemalurgy), a new body using his old bones (Connection), a spike from Marsh, and Feruchemy so that he could create the medallions and the Excisors. It seems unlikely to me that he used a mistwraith more or less because kandra don't work that way and cannot use Feruchemy or Allomancy without help. It's extremely in character for him to do something like this, while also caring (on some level) about the Five Nations. I doubt he lost his sense of compassion overnight somehow, being egocentric doesn't mean he can't care for others on...a lower level. --- Anyway, none of the above means he couldn't have drastically changed and become leader of or created the Set. I'm just throwing this out there (so you will ignore the theory above. Sneaky, eh?). The Set, Arrays, Sequences, and Suit, are actually terms used in math, computer programming (what, it's true!), and cards (for Suit). And I know that because Kelsier made references to Card Tricks as Cons in SH, there's a theory that he created/runs the Set as Trell's right-hand man. This is a bit of a counterpoint to that idea. I also find that, based on what we know of Kelsier's character, it seems somewhat unlikely. What the Set did to Allik and the other Malwish in BoM would probably piss Kelsier off (if he was aware, and he probably would be). Plus, the Set is also ridiculously slow on the upkeep. They barely understand how the medallions work, and they have no idea how to make them. If I was Kelsier, I would give my minions this technology and knowledge. It's useful. Even though the Set knows a ton about Hemalurgy, there's probably other ways they could have gotten that knowledge (somehow getting their hands on a copy of Spook's book seems like a possibility...) Finally, I doubt that Kelsier is all that interested in destroying Scadrial. That doesn't align with his agenda, or at least, didn't, and I don't think he's changed that much. Whether or not he's "in charge", or at least, encouraging the other cities of the Basin to rebel...well...I could see that. I think Kelsier could easily (and rightfully) be disturbed and angered by how Elendel has treated the Outer Cities and try to encourage them to fend for themselves (even if that means wars). Those two "allies" in BoM (the Outer City Rebels and the Set) seem like strange bedfellows to me, however. It's a marriage of convenience, and one that I think will...break apart once/if the former find out what the Set wants to do. So...Yes. Kelsier is being a damnation problem, but I think if he's on the Set's "side" it's less that he's in charge of them (or aware of their actions), and more that he's trying to help the little guy (through bad methods, but eh, it's Kell). I think he's far more interesting as a person who's just really bad at doing good but still wants to do it anyways (he just doesn't get that methods matter)... I also think that the Set is...well...something he doesn't like. At all. And will like a lot less come TLM...

I...doubt that will just "go away" because that's not how it works in real life, either. It needs to be a major point, as it's central to his character, and would be actually really bad if it was just swept under the rug (or less focus was put on it)... In short, it's an amazingly rare thing for people with depression (or other mental differences) to be represented, and moreover, to be represented well. I love it, seeing as I also have it, and it that respect, relate to Kaladin immensely.

Maybe it has to do with purposefully making a Shade? Since, you know, you can't get much more morbid than killing someone in the Forests to draw the Shades so that you can worldhop out of there...

It would probably have some medical uses under the right set of circumstances...why am I thinking about this?

Couldn't Hoid be using Allomancy because he brought some Southern Metalminds to Roshar? He does not have to have had eaten the Lerasium to use it, all he needs are the right unkeyed metalminds to play with people's emotions...It's just a different hypothesis, since Wax and Wayne does happen in the gap between the first five SA books and the second five (so, around the same time period), and we don't know when Hoid went down and stole his S. metalminds, it's possible that this was the method he's using instead (I don't really think it is what he's doing in the WoR scene, but it is another possibility that you guys should consider...)

I think there should (eventually) be three...two doesn't really make logical sense to me (but maybe I'm not logical, ha ha). What I mean, though, is that because Harmony has a Perpendicularity in the South where Ettmetal is being produced (and where his "pool" is). Supposedly, the other two would be where Ruin and Preservation's pools are, and while that might seem at first, Scadrial has Perpendicularities, and they'd probably be related to the two Shards that make up Harmony's one Shard...*shrug* I feel like I've theorized this before...

Alright, that sounds amazing. Now I'm not nearly as busy, so, I didn't notice your response until now (which is pretty sad, but it's a really crazy month for me).

Other than the 2 dimensional? nature of the Shadesmar (I'm guessing this is that Shadesmar is a plane and not a sphere, because none of the characters are literally 2 dimensional when they're in it...hehe...), hasn't it been said before that spren have a difficult time leaving Roshar's Cogn. Realm in an earlier WoB? After all, spren are a part of the Investiture Invested in the world, so...it doesn't make sense that they could easily leave it...

Preservation did mention that there were "runners" before Kelsier (when he starts to run towards the Well), so, no, it's not like he's the only one. So, I don't think him running from death is such a rare thing or a mark of something wrong. Kelsier was just much better at running than most people ever were...xD I think that though, what matters most to Kelsier is self-preservation. He misses Mare, Dox, and Vin, but he's deathly afraid that there's nothing beyond death, and if there's nothing, all the people he misses are gone too. Worse, if he dies, the way he remembers them will die with him. He's probably more afraid of nothingness than he is of himself, and even more than his "psychopathic tendencies", I think his fear of no longer existing is what drives his actions. Kelsier calls himself a coward in the Well, and, in a way, I think he's right. If he was certain there was something Beyond, if he had proof of it, he would be far less afraid of what comes next...If he saw (or thought he saw) into the Beyond and found something there, he'd probably have a whole different set of priorities, though, for staying put... Beyond all that though, Kelsier also has plenty of reasons to stay, I think. It's not just about discovering delicious secrets about the cosmere/investiture (go from murdering anarchist revolutionary to mad arcanist!), or protecting Scadrial from outside threats, he also has plenty of people to stay for too. Marsh is still around, and arguably, Spook, Sazed, Breeze and Ham matter to him too... While yes, he's afraid of death (afraid of there being no more Kell), his lesser priorities still matter a ton to him, too. Plus, it would be interesting to see if he ever gets to a tipping point (or matures...), and chooses the survival of others above the survival of self. He has a lot of Investiture, I've always wondered how much of that stuff it takes before it has it's own Intent and starts to effect the possessor's actions...