ZenBossanova

I am not sure where to put this, but I noticed that Amazon has Dragonsbane on sale for $1.99. This is, famously, the book that got Brandon into fantasy, and into reading in general.

If you are hit by lightning, you are pretty much dead already. But the real advantage, is that we don't have to wait for people to become Radiants. Any man, woman or child with a decent aim, could be worth half a Radiant. Maybe that is a little generous, but the point remains, that you really could arm everyone, and then the Voidbringers are going to be outgunned, and Heralds and Cultivation won't even have to raise a finger. Which is probably good, because I don't think the Heralds are going to be fully-powered in their current state.

Considering their enemies are sometimes made of rock, I think they will find this to be tremendously useful, though the higher oxygen content does mean they have to be extra careful about it.

Agreed on the unconfirmed part. In my mind, it makes a nice pairing with Endowment. Endowment - External: giving gifts Ingenuity - Internal: solving problems

He will finally get his hotdog, but when something takes his attention for a moment, the girl decides to have a bite.... and then another. He gets back and the entire thing is gone.

What has me curious, is the leather bandolier that Jasnah returns with, for guns? If so, could she be bringing firearms and gunpowder to the physical realm of Roshar? That could make things significantly different from previous Desolations. I imagine an army of thunderclasts being ripped to pieces by cannon fire. All the advantages of Void-forms could be partly negated by a good rifle. We all know the old saying, "God made man, but Colt made them equal." Perhaps we will have to rephrase that, Jasnah made them equal.

Sight would be God's kind of sight, and sensing - The All-Seeing Eye. Transcendence overcomes, and changes things, bringing them to a whole new level. That makes it related to Cultivation, and a bit to Ruin. If I had to guess, I would use Wisdom as a alternate name for the Cognitive quadrant. This is really a good idea. You can get really complex behavior with very simple things. You can be pure unpredictable chaos with very simple rules. So, a magic system with a few simple rules, that can be used and applied in a million different ways. You bring the ingenuity in how to apply it.

I just about started another post, but this is a fine place to discuss, just what should we expect from this shard? What kind of a magic system would it have? The organization I had for the shards, put Ingenuity with the quadrant with Ambition, Cultivation & one I called Transcendence. Its other quadrant would be Ambition, Endowment, and one I called Sight. That seemed to be the most natural place for it, since it appears to be involved in a kind of cognitive creation and change. What do you expect to see about this shard? Are there any hints of this in books? Yes, oh, yes. Now, I am making myself paranoid that I am leading everyone astray, and Brandon is just having a really good joke. It isn't like he is above that!

I think that is a non-canonical yes! Not quite a verification, but certainly not a refutation.

Fair enough, but we know that he was on Roshar enough to affect the Parshendi.

But did it have a shard in the distant past?

Perhaps, but let me explain myself and maybe you will like it more. A shard of Paradox / Transcendence is IMHO the best candidate for Ashyn (The Silence Divine). If the shards are attributes of Diety, or of Civilization, then this works much better than Chaos does. Where Ruin would destroy, and Cultivation would create, Transcend would replace. It would upend things in a kind of creative destruction, and not one that would be easily predicted. The 4th in this quadrant would be Ingenuity (if that one is verified), so all the shards would be involved in creating or upending somehow.

Interesting theory, but the biggest problem, is that the spikes were described as metal. Soulstone was NOT metal. In its native state, it could be easily carved by hand.

That sound a lot like a wormhole, but that would also mean that if you traveled far enough, physical space would become cognitive space. I don't think that is quite going to work, but it is an interesting idea.

I had a Shard of Paradox / Transcendence in that slot. It is is things that appear paradoxical, but can give us greater things, like how mathematicians let parallel lines cross (which sounds like a paradox), and that gave them the kind of geometry that Einstein's theory of General Relativity used.

Perhaps we should say that Investiture is more available and more easily used, or applied, now. Evidently, there has been some kind of a change.

There is a lot of room for splitting hair here, especially as we know so little about things before the Shattering. But there is that WoB I appreciate that clarification. I was referring the the three most important events. I can DM you some references if you like.

Mostly, it is just reading between the lines, but there are some WoB Emphasis mine

I had a shard of Hunger / Consuming, but that was the most natural one to replace with Ingenuity because it was in the same section as Endowment, Ambition, and Cultivation. (Not that Ingenuity has been verified yet)

Of course, Brandon is a Mormon, and in Mormon thought, the 3 most important things are the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement/Resurrection. Adonalsium is the powers of Creation. Let's refer to this as Adonalsium 1.0. There seems to be some suggestion that the shards of Adonalsium were more powerful after the Shattering. Perhaps that is just the result of more Investiture being available, because of his death. Let's compare this to the Fall and refer to this as Adonalsium 2.0. We know that cracks and damage to people's souls are ways that the magic can take hold. Perhaps this is also true of Adonalsium. Brandon has said that one of the themes of the Cosmere is Resurrection. (This seems like an appropriate Easter post!) If Adonalsium is resurrected, let's refer to this as Adonalsium 3.0. I propose that it will be more powerful than any of the either pre- or post- Shattering magics that we have seen.

Two things to keep in mind, since people live on the surface of Roshar, they are effectively living in 2 dimensions, plus just a little bit up and down. Second, you can still make a one-to-one mapping from each point of a sphere's surface, to a plane. The most straightforward mapping is called the Mobius transformation. Spoiler: some points on the sphere map to infinity on the plane.

It does sound too good to be true, but that really sounds like what he is saying. He was asked for a shard, and he gave one. It didn't sound ambiguous at all. It certainly isn't one I have predicted, but I suppose there isn't a good reason it couldn't be. You could see it as a characteristic of God, like the other shards are. Or, you could see it as a characteristic of Civilization, like the other shards are. Further, it would sound like Brandon to give some earth shaking fact, in some place people don't normally think of. It is surprising, but I don't see a good reason to completely dismiss it. Perhaps we should get some clarification from Peter. (I sent him a tweet. We will see if he replies) Edit: Peter replies That is news to me! Maybe @IzykStewart can ask him.

I read Kaladin in the Way of Kings, when I had been pretty depressed for years, and that really spoke to me. I could really see myself in Kaladin, both in how he struggled and how he overcame. Well, except for the spren and surgebinding part. But still... Dresden Files by Jim Butcher helped a lot too.

According to the original LoP, god died and the skullmoss (fainlife) grew out of them. And nothing anyone had found could stop it, except from some small circles were people could live. Whenever Christmas comes around, I hear one song as, "Baby, its mold outside". But that is just my mind. The fainlife also imitated life, somewhat. So, we know that the powers of Adonalsium as the people knew them, were in capable of stopping it. It grew from dead gods, and presumably killed them. It devastated Yolen, where Adonalsium lived. If something can do all that, and is that resistant to magic (that includes fire), then why can't it suck the life out of a star? I have heard (in other books, depending on the book) of balefire, which is magic burning. I imagine fainlife as Investiture molding. And that can include the investiture that is your own life spark. True, you are relatively safe if you don't eat it, but it still destroyed a world and the devotees of Adonalsium were unable to stop it. We know of a Shard that lives in a star, so stellar temperatures may not be enough to destroy something once magic is involved. Imagine of the Fainlife as the mold equivalent of Nightblood. It consumes Investiture, while being impervious to it.

Why is that far-fetched? Something that killed as much as it did on Yolen, is a significant danger. The one spot on the map where Yolen is suspected to be, is full of dying stars. Coincidence? Maybe, but I doubt it.