ZenBossanova

Here are a few relevant WoB that suggest there is more going on. There was another quote about Kelsier that I don't see in the official list. But it appears he has been busy. Perhaps he became aware of the Set (the bad guys in Bands of Mourning) in the Cognitive Realm, and decided that for everyone to survive, he had to act, and that meant he had to travel.

That is possible, but it would seriously annoy me. I want to see Taln (or the Herald formerly known as Taln) overcome and have something to show for all his time in hell.

The man called Taln really is Taln but his 4,500 years fighting Odium has literally burned away his Identity, so that the Taln identity is literally gone. He is the Herald equivalent of an unkeyed metalmind. Hoid certainly seemed to think it was the same person, and that counts more than what Brandon says, in a manner of speaking. But if his identity is burned away, what does that mean will happen to him? If you can't get Identity back, what does that mean? He will reunite Honor, or unite parts of Honor and Odium in the end of book 10. He will have more power than the other 9 heralds combined.

I think another good question we have to ask ourselves, is Jasnah capable of going to Scadrial? I am sure she by herself is, but her spren Ivory is not easy taken from Roshar. She would have to be much more cosmere aware to figure that out. If she went to Scadrial, then she almost certainly went without her spren. So, as much as I hope Jasnah introduces gunpowder and cannons to the Voidbringers, if she does have firearms, it is something she from someone else, that was taken there by a worldhopper. And why would she go to Scadrial when she was interested in Roshar and the Spren there? Of course, Jasnah doesn't even realize that Honor and Cultivation are real people, and she is from Roshar!

My I expect that Adolin will move into the background for a long time, perhaps even until book 6 or later. He isn't going to get off easy. And why not an interlude? It is just enough to remind people he is still around, and to see a bit of the world you wouldn't otherwise. And if he is out of the main narrative, that is perfect. At least it would be perfect for book 4,5. I still think Dustbringer for Adolin, but that is really hard to argue, because we know very, very little about them.

There will be consequences. This is Brandon we are talking about. Everything has consequences. He did break the law. And yes, it will be against the law. You can expect the Alethi to be murderous on the battlefield, but especially prim elsewhere. If they could have just murdered him, they would have already done it. But Adolin is also a Shardbearer. How can you punish a shardbearer? That is a little tricky. Death is probably off the table, but exile certainly is not. That is probably the most likely. And it makes for a nice symmetry with Kaladin. Here, we have a lighteyes, forced into living among darkeyes. A very nice intro to him becoming a Dustbringer (my personal guess) or an Edgedancer, is him, in exile, forced to work for a living, and when cheated by some local lord,... well, outrageous odds will do little to slow him down, with or without a shardblade.

It took all this to mean (and I seem to remember a WoB to this effect) that Dragons are immortal, IF they survive to that phase of their life.

It occurs to me looking at this, that for Roshar, those are really thin walls. Even Earth cities would often have thicker walls. If you have storms that throw boulders happen every week or two, then you really do need thicker walls, on the city exterior. If course, if this is a purely internal wall, then there is no problem at all.

Call it "Convincing" and put it where I put Charisma (for lack of a better word), and it functions much the same.

I liked this idea. So, while I grouped according to Physical, Cognitive, Temporal, Spiritual, if you organize it right, you can also group it according to Authority, Desire, Sense, and Change. Each Internal/External pair will be in one of the first group, and one of the second group. My predictions are a little different, but what particularly interests me is how they are organized. If we can figure out the organization, then figuring out the shards will be relatively easy. I followed the Feruchemy chart organization. It gives a very natural way to group it in several different ways. I drew out the chart, because it is easier to see graphically. Or should I have written it out in text? Shards2.PDF

No worries, Ammanas This thought was partly born of wanting to see some of the more obscure unpublished works, and partly a desire to see how a JIm Butcher Cosmere novel would be. Or a Rothfuss Cosmere novel. or..... etc. And yes, just as long as they worked closely with Brandon.

I wonder if Brandon would let other quality authors work on parts of the Cosmere that are not quite as central, like White Sand or some of his unpublished works (Dark One, Silence Divine, etc). There was an interesting post over on Reddit, trying to predict how long it would take to finish the Cosmere, and if Brandon would last long enough to do it. There is a decent chance he won't have enough time to finish it.

Ok, the more I think about it, I think we are both right. Imagine the 16 shards forming a 4x4 grid. One quadrant would be Physical and another quadrant would be Cognitive, and the two Physical shards on the border, and 2 Cognitive shards on the border, would be Authority. The official image for the 16 Feruchemical metals is particularly suggestive. With the right folding, every shard could be in 4 different quadrants, each of which would be half Internal, half External, half Pulling, half Pushing.

I suspect, that it really is Taln, but his 4,500 years fighting Odium has literally burned away his Identity. He is the Herald equivalent of an unkeyed metalmind. Hoid certainly seemed to think it was the same person, and that counts more than what Brandon says, in a manner of speaking. But if his identity is burned away, what does that mean will happen to him? If you can't get Identity back, does that mean he is still a Herald? Or does that mean he can bond any of the spren?

But I like the suggestion that Adonalsium could resurrect, and that the entire cosmere could end with a Eucatastrophe (Tolkien's word for a good kind of catastrophe). I still suspect Hoid will be important, whether or not he is fully successful.

What I saw Rayse doing, was first, destroy a person whose ambition may have been greater power (combining shards) and secondly, to attack shards who were mixing their powers and investiture. (Dominion & Devotion, Honor & Cultivation). Thirdly, that explains his interest in Harmony. I think this goes back to his original interest in shattering in the first place. He just hasn't stopped trying to shatter Adonalsium. So whatever his original motivation was, I suspect that he thinks he just hasn't gone far enough yet. This might relate to what little we know of The Liar of Parthenel, though I am unclear if we can discuss that here.

I really wanted to organize it by Physical, Cognitive, etc, like Allomatic metals, but Authority is accurate. Could we say Authority = power in the Physical realm, or is that just shoehorning it in? And yes, about Charisma. I am not satisfied with that name either, but the general concept and pattern, I am very happy with.

I have really wondered if that is essentially what the Old Magic does. It takes a bit of someone's spirit web, and reuses it into what it is that the person asks for. For instance, the part of Dalinar's spirit web where he remembered his wife, was reused for whatever his boon was. The accompanying curse isn't vicious. It is just a consequence of what the magic is doing.

The more I thought about Preservation's clue about 16, the more it really made sense to me. Not only that there are 16 Allomatic metals, but also how they were organized. If you have a being of vast or infinite power, it makes sense that things have to be balanced. External is balanced with Internal, Pushing with Pulling, etc. So, I made a chart of Allomatic and Feruchemic metal properties, but it was not entirely useful, but it was at times suggestive. So, I am going to try the prediction game again, with a few of the allomatic and feruchemic metals and the corresponding properties. Physical External Pulling : Charisma - Control others give you (Submission, Convincing are other possibilities) (Unconscious) External Pushing : Dominion – to have control of others (Conscious) Internal Pushing : Autonomy – to have control of yourself, (Conscious) Internal Pulling : Dream - Internal Freedom, or unconscious freedom to think or act. (Freedom is another possibility) (Unconscious) This one also correlates with tin, which involves the senses. Cognitive External Pushing : Word or Language or Communication – Communicate thoughts & feelings with others This one correlates with Brass (emotion and warmth) Inspired partly by Rithmatist. Yes, I know it is not Cosmere, but it was originally. External Pulling : Feel (emotion, intuition?) - Understand others thoughts & feelings This one correlates with Zinc (enflame emotion, mental speed) Internal Pushing : Endowment – to give something to others (Bronze ~ wakefulness) Internal Pulling : Devotion – to give up yourself for others or for a cause (Copper ~ memories) Spiritual/emotional External Pushing : Honor – To bring together External Pulling : Odium – to hate (pull apart) Internal Pushing : Preservation – to never change, inertia Internal Pulling : Ruin – to break things down, entropy Temporal External Pushing : Cultivation – External Creation for others External Pulling : Hunger/Consuming/Metabolism – to take something from others and transform it (this is inspired by Sixth of Dusk, and a comment Hoid made to Jasnah, that may or may not be relevant) Internal Pushing : Ambition – Internal Creation, Self-improvement, personal glory (correlates with Electrum, which reveals your future) Internal Pulling : Transcendence/Paradox – Internal transformation (Ashyn big maybe, WoB that might suggest it) Transcend in the sense that Einstein transcends Newton, or Jesus transcended Moses. This one was inspired by a WoB, about if Alcatraz had a shard. He doesn't of course... but if he did... I think the organization is much better this time. But I am not convinced on all the names.

How much can we correlate this with Allomancy and Feruchemy? Internal vs External? Pushing vs Pulling? Just how good was Preservation’s clue about 16? I don't think I have this organized just right, but I wanted to apply the External/Internal and the Pushing/Pulling distinctions in both Allomancy & Feruchemy. And while the Shards correlate with attributes of Deity, they also IMHO correlate with attributes necessary for Civilization. I am going to use some of Extesian’s wording and organization here. Cognitive External Pushing : Honor – the obligation to do what you say you will do, to be consistent External Pulling : Transcendence/Paradox – to be inconsistent, to change from moment to moment (Ashyn big maybe, WoB that might suggest it) Internal Pushing : Word or Language or Communication – to seek knowledge and understanding Internal Pulling : Knowledge or Truth – to have knowledge Spiritual/emotional External Pushing : Odium – to hate External Pulling : Devotion – to give up yourself for others or for a cause Internal Pushing : Transformation Internal Pulling : Sight or Insight Physical Internal Pulling : Endowment – to give something to others External Pulling : Hunger/Consuming – to take something from others (this is inspired by Sixth of the Sun, and a comment Hoid made to Jasnah, that may or may not be relevant) Internal Pushing : Autonomy – to have control of yourself External Pushing : Dominion – to have control of others Temporal Internal Pushing : Cultivation – to work on something other than yourself Internal Pulling : Ambition – to work on yourself External Pushing : Preservation – to never change, inertia External Pulling : Ruin – to break things down, entropy

Wasn't there a WoB talking about the shard on Ashyn? It wasn't a direct identification, but it made it sound like the shard was Self-contradiction or paradox. And considering what little we know about the magic system on Ashyn (The Silence Divine) that really would make sense.

I think the biggest potential mistake would be what robbed Ender's Game (the movie) of its real emotional punch - you didn't get to really see Ender suffer or struggle. Yes, it was alluded to, and they spend a few minutes showing it. But a few minutes and an attempt or two at battle school was all we saw. In contrast, look at Inigo Montoya (The Princess Bride). You see him fail like 9-10 times. You know he really wants his goal and when he finally achieves it, it is even better than when Wesley succeeds at rescuing Buttercup. Ender's Game would have been better if they had spent more time showing Ender really struggling, failing and trying again, until his success is as sweet as Inigo saying his line, "you killed my father... prepare to die". Shallow emotional development is the rule in Hollywood, not the exception, when it comes to SF/F and action. Ok, so what does this have to do with The Way of Kings? A lot of its emotional poignancy comes from Kaladin's struggle. He gets beaten down, suffers, fails, starved, beaten some more, and then enters Bridge 4, where it only gets worse. You can't skimp here, or you will just yawn when he succeeds at the end.

Could Cultivation help Nightblood grow and learn? For instance, could she teach him, Love Good, and Understand the difference between Good and Evil? If Nightblood has a character arc, will she be at the crux of it?

That WoB suggests to me that Nightblood is a greater danger to Odium, than vice versa. If it can drain a person, how much investiture could it drain, with the power of an entire shard behind it?

The Red Rip is the fainlife from Yolen killing not only planets, but entire stars. And it is expanding out into the rest of the universe. It is only a matter of time until it reaches the rest of the shardworlds. That is why Hoid was so determined to reform Adonalsium. And why Autonomy doesn't let anyone onto Taldain, lest they break quarantine. He will fail, but his efforts will be important for when Adonalsium returns.