cometaryorbit

Oh hmmmmm I totally thought he appeared on Roshar in the WoK Epilogue. That would weaken the idea but I still think there could be a connection between Ishar's experiments and Herald re-embodiment. Kalak (in the Prologue) experiences his torment on Braize (Braize's Cognitive?) 'physically' so they may have their Physical and Cognitive selves be basically the same.

Don't Returned get superhuman reflexes etc too? Maybe not to the same degree, but then they're less powerful Cognitive Shadows (by Zahel's explanation in RoW). I think that might not really be a feature of their bodies, per se, more of the way they're Invested. I don't think they do get to create new bodies "at will", only on the Braize -> Roshar transition. If Ishar's arm got cut off I don't think he could get a new intact body without dying on Roshar, going to Braize, then returning again. We don't know how that mechanism works, but if we believe the Stormfather that Honor expected them to imprison the Fused forever, it must be a side effect of what they are vs a designed-in feature. Now maybe the Stormfather is lying or wrong, but... (Hmm, maybe they don't exactly create new bodies.. maybe they manifest their Cognitive selves physically the way Ishar is trying to do for spren... isn't Taln wet like a newly summoned Shardblade when he first appears?)

I figure the reason Dalinar's perpendicularity or a Radiant swearing oaths nearby helps is because it pulls them closer to the Spiritual - which helps either because their damage is Cognitive and it's now partially bypassed, or because the timelessness of the Spiritual allows them to tap into their former selves.

- I am starting to think he didn't, that the characters are wrong at the end of OB and that the original betrayal had nothing to do with invading Singer lands: that came much later. Humans possibly only conquered Roshar after the Heralds and Fused existed and the Singers had switched from following Honor to following Odium. The Eila Stele blames the humans for bringing Odium and a betrayal of "spren, stone, and wind". Not for physical conflict. And there's the whole spren betrayed singers/singers betrayed spren thing. And "Honor was the god of the Dawnsingers". - Herald immortality, imo, is just a result of being Cognitive Shadows. I think they had a direct link to Honor as soon as they became CogShadows.

I figured it was because Stormlight has the natural cycle, it's designed (by Adonalsium? The Highstorms predated the Shattering, so I guess its pre-Shattering Investiture assigned to Honor later?) to leak out and be recycled through the system. Yeah, that is weird. The Honor/storm oddity could be due to its being a pre-Shattering leftover, but Odium... there's this whole odd thing where he's both burning fury/hate/rage (or Passion if you believe Rayse...), experienced by both Dalinar and Venli as this overwhelming blaze, and also "the Void" that takes away emotion.

I think this really is a conflating of two meanings of 'nation'. In the way it's used when talking about many societies that didn't use the Westphalian sovereignty concept (eg the term 'First Nations') Germany (or, really, 'the German people') was (were) 'a nation' (a distinct people-group defined by shared language & culture). And that would be true whether it was broken into 20 separate states, unified as one, or existed under a larger empire. In the Westphalian sovereignty sense, each state was a separate nation (nation-state). Post 20th century we tend to assume the two are the same, and where they aren't that's an anomaly/problem. But that's a pretty modern view & wouldn't exist on Roshar. (It clearly doesn't, given the way Alethkar pre unification is discussed, and the whole thing with Azir kind of but not really having other kingdoms under it).

"Nation" or nation-state - in the sense we in the modern English-speaking world generally use it - is basically a concept originating out of 17th century Europe ("Westphalian sovereignty") and spread worldwide in more recent times. It doesn't necessarily apply on Roshar just as it didn't on pre modern Earth. When we translate say Latin or Greek words as 'nation', it's not really the same concept. More like a defined cultural & often linguistic people group, distinct from others - but not implying sovereignty (there were many 'nations' within the Roman Empire). Historically, sovereignty/rulership over people, sovereignty/rulership over territory, and the cultural concept of a nation didn't necessarily coincide, and ambiguous sovereignty was much more accepted. (It exists today, of course, but now it's generally seen as "not the proper state of things" - a territory is either an independent nation, part of another nation, or 'disputed'.) In pre 17th century Europe you had things like the Holy Roman Empire (nominally under one ruler but really many independent nations), the several layered levels of kingship in pre British conquest Ireland, the sort of independent status of the medieval European Church within otherwise sovereign kingdoms and its holding a sort of overarching authority which was (in later medieval European thought) distinguished from the kind of authority kings had. Native American leadership structures often worked in completely different ways. The Imperial model of pre 20th century China and Japan looks superficially like the nation state model but isn't quite the same. And so on, every part of the world had its own distinct system or systems.

This is a big mystery. The Stormfather claims Honor never considered that the Heralds could be tortured and break, so no Desolations were intended, no need for fighting. So what are Honorblades even for? I have a theory in my signature about two separate Herald/Honor oaths (one to get Honorblades and immortality early on, one to imprison Fused spirits). But I'm not sure I believe that any more.

Because he's still fully part of the Oathpact- maybe *more* strongly than when he was just one of ten equal participants (Dalinar sees one fully broken line [Jezrien's], one strong line [Taln's], and the rest weakened). The Heralds are suffused by, maybe made of, Honor Investiture. Betraying the Oath that defines their very existence as Cognitive Shadows has got to have an effect. I think Taln's madness is more like the nonfunctional Fused Venli meets. He hasn't changed his goals (his Desolation mantra), he's just not functional any more. Whereas Nale and Ishar are very functional but working towards radically changed goals which are reverses of their Attributes (Just-> twist the law to justify killing people for unrelated reasons while technically following the letter of the law, Pious-> I'm a god). Ash destroys art of herself (reverse Creative), Jezrien becomes a beggar (reverse Leading/kingship), Kalak can't make decisions (reverse Resolute).

Quite possibly it wasn't accounted for. The WoB about the calendar change vs seasons is much more recent, I think. Or maybe Era 1 Scadrial seasons are weirder than we think and not directly related to orbit around its sun (maybe the ashmounts have a seasonal cycle because TLR attempted to mimic the old seasons)?

Depends. I think a de facto oligarchy (though it's a de jure monarchy) is a decent description of the kingdom under Elhokar, since he was a weak king and the highprinces basically ran things. Jasnah is changing this, as we see in RoW. Though while it's technically oligarchic by definition, if the few rulers are hereditary it's usually called an aristocracy rather than oligarchy. I think Jasnah's goal is something like a constitutional monarchy, but not as democratic as say modern W European constitutional monarchies. Maybe more like 19th century Britain? I don't think democracy is really a concept on Roshar.

That post is from 2020 - RoW preview chapters

Well, Honor no longer having an intact mind was Odium's doing. But *how Honor acted in that state* I think is just the nature of the Shard. Leras-Preservation with full mind could see that Preservation alone was ultimately insufficient, and start a plan intended to end in Harmony's Ascension. Fuzz/near mindless Leras-Preservation in SH was all "the Lord Ruler is great". That's Preservation largely unfiltered by a functional Vessel, IMO.

Allomancy feeling more of both and Feruchemy feeling more Preservation has come up repeatedly. Elend is indeed super naive/foolish at the beginning, I think that's intentional because a lot of Well of Ascension is about that changing. As for Hemalurgy... remember that Kelsier held Preservation for a while (after Leras died and before Vin ascended). He's a Sliver with expanded mind ... just as TLR was. He references that at the very end of SH when he talks to Spook (saying that if he'd paid more attention when he held the power he could have figured it all out). So I don't think Kelsier's Hemalurgy discoveries are an inconsistency.

The way I learned it, the second group (calcium and on) were called "alkaline earth metals".

Honor was once pretty sensible, but during his last years he went crazy. I think there's a big difference between a Shard filtered by a fully coherent Vessel and a Shard uncontrolled or held by a badly damaged or dying Vessel. I think the same applies to Endowment. Part of what makes Ruin or Odium more dangerous IMO is that a good person will have a really hard time controlling that Shard. -- As for why I wouldn't like swapping the roles, from the Unpopular Opinions thread: Unpopular opinion: I actually think Well of Ascension is one of Brandon's best books. The whole, actually having to build something new to replace the old and deal with the difficulties of that, aspect - rather than just ending the story with defeating the villain as is typical. Destroying is always easier than building new things - even when something needs to be destroyed, fixing things afterward is nearly always the harder part. But also nearly always the ignored/forgotten part, both in fiction and in the way we talk about RL history (the rebuilding after WWII is much less known than the major battles of WWII).

I doubt you can store a Cognitive Shadow because I think nicrosil Feruchemy isn't just "store any Investiture" I think it's specifically "store Innate Investiture bits that are keys to powers". But who knows, we've only seen it used in medallions which may not be identical to the normal use of Nicrosil Feruchemy.

Given Apocalypse Guard was going to be multiverse focused, I think that means that while they are related in some sense, Skyward isn't in the future of the Reckoners-verse Earth, it's a different universe (but one that could conceivably be accessed via multiverse effects).

I do think Taln is a different case from the other nine. The other nine have spent 4500 years avoiding fulfilling the Oath their existence is basically built around, while suffused with Honor Investiture- thus they've become twisted. Taln I think is simply worn away, eroded. His goals haven't changed, unlike Nale or Ishar - he's just not very functional any more. I kind of think the solution is something Connection based, since the way they improve near a Radiant Oath or Dalinar's perpendicularity makes me think nearness or Connection to the Spiritual Realm helps. (Mistborn)

I think you're underestimating how much time passes in the first half of the book. The series in general, but especially the first half of book 1, actually covers more time than it "feels" like. - Unpopular opinion: I actually think Well of Ascension is one of Brandon's best books. The whole, actually having to build something new to replace the old and deal with the difficulties of that, aspect - rather than just ending the story with defeating the villain as is typical. Destroying is always easier than building new things - even when something needs to be destroyed, fixing things afterward is nearly always the harder part. But also nearly always the ignored/forgotten part, both in fiction and in the way we talk about RL history (the rebuilding after WWII is much less known than the major battles of WWII).

I think Taln is a different case than the other Heralds since he kept to the Oathpact. I think his soul* is more worn away and replaced with Investiture, like the Fused who are nonfunctional. Whereas the other Heralds have kind of twisted themselves by betraying their Oath while being essentially made of Honor Investiture, so they're twisted but highly functional. (Except Jezrien, I guess. He is a problem for any theory.) *or perhaps Cognitive Aspect; they benefit from Radiants swearing oaths nearby or Dalinar's perpendicularity, which suggests to me that the Heralds have damaged Cognitive and intact Spiritual, and a stronger link to the Spiritual helps by bypassing the Cognitive damage. One of the Heralds does say something to the effect of "we're getting worse aren't we? We shouldn't be getting worse", iirc. IMO they thought they would not get worse at the time of abandoning the Oathpact since they thought their problem was strictly due to repeated torture and deaths/rebirths - so if they stopped dying and avoided torture they wouldn't get any worse. But 4500 years of rejecting the Intent of the Investiture that had suffused/replaced their souls twisted them, plus the general wear and tear of so much time without Hoid's memory tricks.

Yeah. I knew Sazed was tall, but I always imagined him as a bit over 6' and Kelsier maybe 5'8" or 5'9" (still very tall relative to Vin at 5'). But then all my initial mental images were wrong. I still have a hard time seeing Kelsier as blond.

Autonomy is by far the most likely candidate given all the references to off-world meddling and avatars. Immediately after Secret History showed us the Ire from Sel, though, I figured that "Trell" was probably a group of Skaze working against Scadrial and "trellium" was probably Skaze 'godmetal'. I also liked this idea since the Dor is also two Shards so could be a power-match for Harmony if the skaze were able to develop a 'pipeline' to throw Dor at Scadrial. EDIT: those 'red-eyed kandra' do seem similar to the Svrakiss legends on Sel, though. So I wouldn't totally rule out a Sel connection even now.

Don't they also have grindy voices? I figured that and increased height were visible side effects of their being Hemalurgically transformed (there are large internal changes, their brain, heart etc. are rearranged). Thank you @Treamayne for putting the quotes together- I had thought Inquisitors were taller than that, 7+ to 8 ft.

Yes. *Every* Shard in isolation is dangerous. Some more immediately/obviously so than others, and Ruin is one of those, but they're all one concept taken to dangerous extremes. Brandon has said that no Shard is really good or evil, but I think that's because the Shard in itself (as distinguished from its Vessel) is basically a force of nature (or metaphysics) without moral agency. Ati was good and became evil, but Ruin in itself is neither. It's essentially entropy. So Ruin is definitely not "completely neutral" - it's definitely one of the more dangerous Shards (though according to Hoid less so than Odium) and combined with a human being, without the countering influence of another Shard, is very likely to lead to an evil result. But that's not exactly the same thing as "Ruin in itself is evil" - combined with Preservation it can lead to a better result than Preservation alone.