Spoolofwhool

Wasn't it stated in the Warbreaker that the previous God Kings weren't dead? They just gave up their trove of breaths to the next God King and were retired to an island. The God Kings were just normal returned, as far as I'm aware, except for the fact they possess a large trove of regular breaths that most other returned didn't possess, except for the Five Scholars. Their Divine Breath is the same as other returned, and can only heal one person, unless you're somehow suggesting that they're also using the trove of breaths to heal? But that doesn't make sense either. If she's dead, how is she suppose to get the power? Shardholders, last I checked, need to be alive, and dead people can't hold onto the power. Even though cognitive shadows are bound to a source of investiture, and can possibly influence it, I don't think they can actually become a vessel for it. So, my thoughts on that are that your theory is self-defeating. Overall, it is an interesting theory. The main assumption it relies on though, is that it requires that the priests are both realmatically aware, and aware of, and able to communicate with, Endowment. I don't think this is the case though. Vasher and the other Five Scholars appear to be the knowledgeable and realmatically aware Nalthians that we've seen, and they don't even seem to be aware of Endowment, so I doubt the priests have somehow managed to. As such, I don't think their use of the term "vessel" has any underlying meaning, and just meant, as @The One Who Connects said, the vessel for the next God King. Continuing from that, as I don't think they are realmatically aware or aware of Endowment, there's no way they would know about Sel, or its precarious situation there with the the Dor. My question regarding this power, furthermore, is how you expect it to occur. The implications you're making seems to be that the priests are able to force the current holder of Endowment to relinquish the shard and give it to the next person they have chosen. I find it extremely hard to imagine a way for the priests to do so, even if they were aware of realmatics and Endowment. Endowment's power would exceed their's by magnitudes. In addition, I think you're over-empathizing the effect of a shard's intent on its holder. I doubt it would cause them to self-destruct, instead of just more deeply limiting their choices towards a specific extreme. . I also don't think that investing further into Nalthis in order to increase everyone's innate investiture would cause Endowment to shatter either. As long as the shard has a holder and a cognitive mind to hold everything together, it will be still be, in some measure, possessing its investiture. Based on what we've seen of shattering, it seems to involve a lack of control of the shard's investiture, following the shardholder's death. Final thoughts: I was under the impression that the divine breath was consumed to fuel the healing process, not that it turns whoever it is healing into a pseudo-returned. I suppose it's possible that the person would be receive it, but then there would probably be a lot more talk of 5th Heightening people and going to petition for healing would be a lot more widespread and popular. This is a fair thought. However, it seems to be more directed towards explaining how her child is more likely to be returned, versus explaining how she and Susebron are going to conceive a child in the first place. I agree that there is the possibly that the child being of a Returned and someone who is part-Returned would increase the chances that it becomes a Returned. After all, IIRC, the first God King had a child who became the second one, but after that the priests didn't bother, or were unable, to continue the bloodline, so the problem is more about conceiving the child. I think you make good points, but the overall conclusion you have drawn from them feels unlikely. Hopefully all the refutations I've made aren't too daunting. However, just keep in mind that anything I don't comment on I agree with, although I can't actually agree with anything regarding Secret History as that's the only Cosmere book I haven't yet read.

My point though was that if there were cognitive shadow(s), there would be more control of the Dor, especially since for either of them to be cognitive shadows they would have to be anchored to a large pool of investiture. Since, as far as we are aware, the only large pool of investiture on Sel is the Dor, it would make sense for the cognitive shadows to be anchored to it. While it is true that just because they are anchored to it, they may not have control over it, I don't think this would be the case. We've already seen one case where a cognitive shadow of a shardholder is able to manipulate the investiture that they are connected to. The Stormfather can manipulate the highstorms. While it's true that it's a weak example, since we know there were other factors likely at play, I think it's still likely that if there were cognitive shadows, they would be controlling the Dor so it wouldn't be as wild. Do you have an example of a collective belief affecting a shard or something of the like?

Cultivation's holder is alive though, and I don't think someone can have a cognitive shadow and still be considered alive. [WoB] Doesn't impact the overall theory, but just pointing out the flaw there. Domi is more connected to Devotion though, if you look at the origin of the name. Domi was formed using the Aon Omi as a base. Omi means love. Moving past the corrections. It is an interesting theory. However, I have read a WoB which seems to counter the idea that there are cognitive shadows on Sel. As the WoB states, the investiture on Sel is mostly raw and uncontrolled. In other words, there are no greater cognitive entities to control it. On the other hand, if Domi and Jaddeth were the cognitive shadows of Aona and Skai, then I feel like at least one of them, or both, would have a role similar to the Stormfather's where they would be controlling the investiture. While there is still the difference between Sel and Roshar where the number of lesser cognitive entities (spren, seons, and skaze) is still relevant, I think there would still be some control. However, as Brandon said, there is a general lack of controlling entity for the Dor.

I thought the reason she died was because the clash of Ruin's power against Preservation's just was too great a surge for either holder to withstand, so it killed both. The equal powers could only ever achieve a double loss, never one with a victory against the other, and Vin elected to take the double loss.

An aluminum ferring cannot tap metalminds of other metals. They would only be able to tap other feruchemist's aluminum metalminds while fully storing their identity. The only instance we've seen in BoM with people tapping metalminds without possessing the appropriate feruchemical power was the nicrosilminds to gain other feruchemical powers, but it has been stated that those metalminds were different than normal to allow that to happen. [WoB]

Some sort of changes to the spiritweb. Non-significant ones, but changes, most likely rips or tears, following the balloon analogy, which were not present before the investiture was accessed. Similar to the rips or tears that result in savantism, but like I said, without any noticeable effects. I understand that we haven't seen any described, but I still contend that there are some minor effects on physical and spiritual. I do not have any proof, since as you've said, none has been observed. I just don't think having such a massive amount of investiture in someone would warp only cognitive, but leave spiritual and physical intact, especially since we know lesser amounts of investiture effect those aspects. Edit: We even do have a known cases of where just holding somewhat significant amounts of investiture cause physical changes. KRs eyes glow, people with breath affect the colours around them. It probably would degrade. The act of recalling the tapped memory so you can store it would probably cause a slight change in the memory, even though you're only remembering it for an instant.

I guess this also explains how the Divine Breaths are considered splinters since they are the source of consciousness which Returned have. Nice thoughts. I think I saw someone else talk about this very thing some time earlier though, but can't remember who.

So what you're saying is just because we haven't had physical or spiritual changes described to us as part of a sliver's description, you're assuming that there are none, despite the fact that we have other proof that investiture can cause physical changes and generally usually causes spiritual changes, and that a sliver has probably held magnitudes more investiture than these causes? I can agree that there is a lesser case for physical changes, and any it makes would be slight, but there are most definitely spiritual ones.

He's saying that slivers aren't people who just had their minds expanded by a large amount of investiture, as you stated, but rather someone who has, in their entirety, been changed by the investiture and its subsequent release. In other words, they are changed physically, cognitively, and spiritually while holding the investiture, and maintain some changes afterwards, not just cognitively which is what your initial statement implies heavily.

Yes, I know they are all changed, I said so. I was just discussing what causes the most changes. I didn't specify that mistings receive spiritual damage, but I didn't not.

You mean, most of the major shardworlds only? Possibly. However, it is confirmed that SA will be mostly self-contained and not consist of much reliance on Cosmere so I think it is unlikely that Rosharans will be spacefaring in SA. If Rosharans do achieve space travel, it will only be see as an aside from another serie's POV.

I believe it is mainly the internal physical metals which cause the most direct change on a misting, as a result of the fact that they change a person's physical, the direct investiture changing it. I believe it was said, either in annotations or HoA epigraphs, that copper and bronze mistings usually become savants often enough because they burn their metals constantly.

Don't worry, I'm just talented at remembering useless details really well and forgetting the important ones which let me pass university.

There's a Shin proverb about doves, so I'm assuming they have doves there.

I thought of that, or at least aluminum coatings for melee weapons as well. I don't think it will though. I think the aluminum would just be invisible but the meat sack inside would give off a good shadow. Unless, of course the idea that aluminum creates dead spaces in speed bubbles is properly corroborated, then I would think that they would stop aluminum shadows from whatever was inside. I don't think Aluminum Gnats on their own would be invisible, but if they were burning metal then I think they would be invisible. True, forgot about that with tin.

Well no, people will still give off Atium shadows. It would be definitely way harder to fight with atium if everyone is using aluminum guns and bullets, but people probably won't and since it would probably be mistborns using atium, they could be using tin and focus on hand movements, to better predict where the opponents will shoot. People probably wouldn't be using aluminum dueling canes either, so atium would work against that regardless.

No. Omi is the Aon for Love, and was chosen to be base of the name for the god of the religion Shu-Korath because the religion is about unity through love. Edited fix. Omi, not Domi.

I'm under the impression that Jaddeth and Domi are just conceptual theological figures.

I'd assume the reason why Odium and Cultivation don't have blades is because they haven't found a need for them. Honor created the Honorblades for the Heralds, to empower them. Since neither Odium nor Cultivation seem to have something quite of the like, there is no need for them to create shardblades using their power.

I don't see how emotional allomancy would be doomed to irrelevancy, at least soothing. We say in SoS that soothers had an occupation of soothing people of their troubles, so as long as there's a demand for that, it will not be irrelevant. Perhaps it will become irrelevant so far as subterfuge, but not for general occupation.

I'll clarify: it wasn't common knowledge that aluminum and duralumin were allomantic metals. I'm aware that TLR knew about them, as well as cadmium and chromium, but I was referring to what was known to the masses, and how it could translate to knowing the feruchemical metals. The extension was that since no one (except TLR) knew aluminum, duraluminum, chromium or nicrosil were allomantic metal, no one (except TLR) made the translation that they were feruchemical metals, and therefore never stored their appropriate attributes.

Probably to make the narrative more varied. That's pretty good method of making the story more interesting.

Shinovar has chickens and doves. The main thing about shell creatures is that they are adapted to survive in highstorms, like the plants. Once again, we can see in Shinovar that there are more earthlike creatures as they do not have to have evolved to survive highstorms. Horses probably originated there and were spread across Roshar by the other kingdoms. I don't see any reason why they would have to be kandra, not to mention that if every single horse were a kandra, chances are someone would've figured it out ages ago. You would also need some reasonable explanation as to why a bunch of kandra decided to go to Roshar and be horses, instead of people, once you've gone over why they've gone to Roshar in the first place.

Why does changing the main characters require killing off the previous ones? There is nothing in writing rules that say that you have to.

I don't think Scadrian metal has abnormal investiture. It's just made directly from Ruin and Preservation, which I guess is a bit different than how metals on other worlds were made. As such, I don't think it matters from which world the metal you burn comes from.