Subvisual Haze

Welcome to Rishir - Kingdom of doing huge cannonballs off the back of monsters into the ocean, clothing optional.

Theoretically there needs to be some sort of general investiture recycling system in the cosmere with it leaking into the physical realm at perpendicularites and then returning the spiritual realm (where the bulk of it should be) after its free kinetic form is used to power magics. If true, I wonder if the "solution" is for residents of Sel to use as much Dor as often as possible to speed its mysterious return to the spiritual realm.

Well I should hope not! My faith is dependent on my utterly unique set of characteristics, experiences, and existence itself. I couldn't even clarify it in rational words, let alone expect someone to "agree" with my entirely subjective experience. Like I said, I believe the best we as individuals can do is try to live an authentic life, and judging the authenticity vs. bad faith of another's beliefs is utterly impossible without living their entire life experience. Jasnah herself seems to approach the world with great personal moral authenticity, both standing fast in her beliefs in some points but being willing to challenge them (with Renarin) when she views it as the moral thing to do.

It's a series of troll questions, I don't actually believe that's a useful question to ask. As a Christian existentialist I understand quite well that people can't be "gotcha logic'd" into faith. God, much like existence itself, defies rationality and thus we can only take a leap of faith to provide authentic meaning to our lives and this absurd world.

I think it's coming alive in the same sense that Stormfather came to life. Its concept that has been thought about for a long time in a relatively stable manner, thus it begins to develop a sort of awareness. Also I don't think "the land" means all of Sel, but particular chunks of it. Areleon especially is constantly being drawn to power magics.

If I turn around faster than the speed of light could I see myself facing the other direction? Can I go blind by looking at a painting of the sun? Why doesn't Roshar fall down? Doesn't the fact that you say you don't believe in God means that you believe God is real!?!?! Do you find yourself oddly intrigued by that infuriating tall Windrunner from bridge 4? Do you find yourself unintentionally thinking about him and how mildly flustered he makes you feel?

Hoid was Nohadon and wrote the Way of Kings. It doesn't make any sense at all plot-wise, but they talked in a pretty similar manner and love parable type stories and Brandon has used character "voice" as clues before.

I like Kelsier because he feels the most human to me. Almost all of Brandon's characters feel a little too...nice? Brandon has a very optimistic view of the inherent goodness of human beings, and his characters feel like comic book heroes in that there are moral thresholds that they seem artificially restrained from crossing (see the rewriting of the Szeth and Kaladin battle so that Kaladin no longer delivers a killing strike). Kelsier though is a hero with a clear dark side that he struggles with and thus I find it a lot easier to empathize with him. Honestly if I grew up in a society under a rape and murder at will aristocracy and was suddenly freed I imagine I would be a lot more in the Kelsier "nobles deserve to die" camp than everyone else who seems to want to immediately ally with them. The fact that Kelsier is actually capable of doing morally dark actions makes him feel so much more dynamic and unpredictable than other characters. Kaladin though I would follow into hell.

Okay, I've refined the theory and now I feel it works better with the timing question: It's all about the Atium baby! Others smarter than me have pointed out that the current series is set almost perfectly for the reappearance of Atium on Scadrial. Given that this is Brandon "there's always another secret", this strikes me as a clear Chekov's Gun. Why would this be mentioned, and the next series be set ~300 years after the Catacendre unless this promise was about to be fulfilled. And the last book being titled "The Lost Metal" and Kelsier's being teased at the the very end of the previous book, it all points to a confluence. We've never had a situation quite like Kelsier's before, a human becoming a cognitive shadow, then jumping into a new body for long term use. I think that Kelsier's "new body" was really just healed by his soul to match his old body at the point of first death in all manner including age. From that point forward he functioned like a normal human being with his new physical vessel spiked to his soul resulting in a body that functionally was exactly the same as his old one including arm scars and mistborn powers. His "new body" for all purposes was his old body and resumed all natural processes including the process of aging. At that time Kelsier had no answer to the mortality problem and his body grew old while he role played the Sovereign. And spiking himself into a new body would still just resume old aged Kelsier's body, no improvement at all. He needed to do what the Lord Ruler did, he needed Atium to artificially manipulate his age and cheat the laws of the physical world. Atium is currently gone from Scadrial, but the time is conspicuously matched up, and Brandon has been rather vague on questions whether Atium will return to Pits or a different location. That's why Kel left, and that's why he has set up this elaborate mythology to come back. He knew the Atium returning would mean he could return long term also. Kel loves being a God and showman though, so he didn't want to reveal the limitations of his power, hence the elaborate obfuscation to explain why their God-King needed to disappear for a while.

I like your analysis and theory! I wasn't aware of the recent opening of Taldain, and the union of Harmony certainly seems like the sort of cosmere level important event that could trigger a sudden change in Autonomy from isolationism to preemptive strike mode to preserve it's own independence.

To quote a great Christopher Nolan film: Kelsier is a stage magician at heart. There's always another secret, another aspect in his plans that we thought were already complete. He's given us a pledge and a turn, but our question now becomes what is his prestige? The Bands of Mourning were sort of cool and helped turn the tide of a battle, but hardly world shatteringly powerful, especially considering how they were just stored away at the end. There's a 3rd act yet to come with this half-hidden, rumor-circulated, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade-style temple enclosed relic. It needs to do something new and cool, not just let Wax mimic a mistborn for a few minutes as we the readers have seen plenty of times before. The relic itself being the tied to Kelsier's return is the best way I can see to tie the loose story threads together. I find the story structure questions more interesting than the diegetic nuts and bolts of how such a thing would work. I blame my primary cognitive function being Introverted Intuition

Kaladin's definitely becoming a cognitive shadow so he can spend eternity with Syl.

Nohadon's ghost hinting to Dalinar the Bondsmith's second oath.

Kaladin isn't sent, he pretty much does whatever he feels like. His force of personality and drive to do what's right coupled with the ability to fly make him a bit hard to order around. Dalinar is a good leader because he accommodates this by like acting like his previous trip to check in on his family was actually an intelligence mission.

I try not to dig too much into the magical obfuscated rules that Sanderson has, as much as I do enjoy them. The bands of mourning however seem to contain a large number of metals skillfully interwoven in layered striations. It would be possible for multiple effects to be saved in different layers of the spike, and it is possible for a spike to carry both feruchemal and hemalurgic charges. The actual spike may be to just grant the feruchemal power necessary to tap the metalmind that opens your body for Kelsier's possession. 1) I suspect Kelsier saw a coming catastrophe when he briefly ascended. He wanted to a create a society strong enough to survive this catastrophe. He came as a savior but then also had to leave so that they could grow and learn to be self-sufficient (to avoid the lack of dynamic growth that seems to afflict the northern continent). The tool is a disguise, when tapping the powers of the band I suspect you are also forming a connection with Kelsier somehow. The mere use of the surface level powers allows Kelsier's spirit to start badgering you in your sleep and give you further instructions (as he did with Spook, encouraging Spook to craft a spike to talk with him). Be very watchful for Wax suddenly having strange dreams and unusual thoughts/inclinations. It's also possible that the top levels of Kelsier's priesthood have secret instructions to implement Plan X when they hear the bands are recovered. 2) I suspect Kelsier is walking a very thin line with Harmony. Although Harmony dissapproved of Kelsier and Spook's research he did not disapprove enough to directly intervene and stop them, presumably there would be moral lines would he would feel it was necessary to oppose Kelsier if he crossed though. Widely disseminating the knowledge on how to cheat death using magic would have catastrophic side effects on society as every rich lord would start practical research on the lower classes on how to become an immortal body hopping lich. 3) It died a natural death. Atium is functionally gone from the world outside of Marsh, thus the Lord Ruler's immortal youth body trick no longer functions. Hopping into another body just gave him a normal lifespan in said body.

Ohhhh was Jasnah's vaguelly alluded to past incident with "madness" and the traumatic treatment of it also the evil machinations of Nale and the Skybreakers? Lacking a legal way to prosecute a young member of royalty he manipulated things to get her declared insane in an effort to break her spirit psychologically and stop the formation of her nascent spren bond?

Why would our brave and overly meddling hero Sovereign/Kelsier build a temple on a faraway continent and imply that there was a weapon stored there? Because Kelsier himself is the weapon. Specifically his cognitive/spiritual aspect. He banked on the known legend of the Bands of Mourning to set up a method for him to return to the physical world when the need was dire. As Kelsier stated to Spook at the end of Secret History: Spook proceeded to spend a great deal of time researching the application of Hemalurgy (as revealed in his book passed to Wax and Marasi via Marsh/Ironeyes). Kelsier later acquired a body with a single spike through the eye, traveled to the southern continent and saved their civilization from cold-death via medallions likely derived from careful application of hemalurgy and feruchemy. The most elegant theory to link this is that Kelsier's "new string" connecting him to a physical body is the single hemalurgy spike in his eye. The book BoM spent a good deal of time demonstrating the usefulness of manipulating storage of Identity to create non-keyed, identity empty invested objects, but what about the opposite? Shouldn't there be some way to use stored identity? For example to invest a hemalurgic spike so that its use staples "IDENTITY=KELSIER" onto the spiked body, granting Kelsier a new physical vessel? We have of course seem similar body possession magic at work with the Fused on Roshar. I thought this image on the walls of the BoM temple foreshadows the true nature of the temple and the power that lies there: First off, this mural is bizarre if we assume it depicts only the Bands of Mourning. Why the corpse? And why the spear? I think this symbolizes death and resurrection. The corpse "at his feet" is the supplicants own. Indicating that one must sacrifice their physical body (the corpse) to ascend and obtain the sovereign/survivor's power (the spear). Although not directly depicted, this is ultimately accomplished by jamming the "bands of mourning" spearhead/spike into your eyesocket, effectively granting Kelsier's mind and spirit a new body to walk the physical realms. I think the timing of this all is important. Timing helps answer the major unanswered question: why would the Sovereign make a weapon and then hide it, but not completely? What was he hoping to accomplish by this convoluted plan? In the brief time Kelsier ascended in Secret History he gained a great deal of understanding of the Cosmere and likely many hints about the dangers that lurked in Scadrial's future. I believe he glimpsed that Scadrial would be acutely threatened during the current time-period. The intrusions of Trell's minions seem to be linked to the "threat" posed by Scadrial's people to Trell. As Trell's immortal reveals at the book's end: By creating the rumor of a great weapon, hiding the temple on the northern continent, and including murals with instructions written on them in the Southern language Kelsier essentially set a timer on his resurrection temple. It would open when the Southern continent civilizations technologically advanced enough to explore the remote areas of the Northern Continent, essentially when flight was mastered. This was also likely the technological milestone that Kelsier sensed would draw the dangerous intervention of Trell. Thus Kelsier sets up a resurrection gambit to return him to the fray in a fresh physical body just when he is most needed. He gives his priests some half riddles to disperse and instructs them to disguise his spike as the spearhead on his own statue in the temple. The allomancy and feruchemy powers granted by the spearhead are secondary, it's true purpose is to get Kelsier back a new body. I suspect those that use the Bands/spike just for the allomancy and feruchemy powers connect themselves in some way to Kelsier, allowing him to whisper thoughts and dreams to them and encourage them to finish the process. And now the really scary question: which one of our heroes is going to offer their body to plays host to Kelsier at the end of the final book of this series? Is this what Marsh meant when he said Wax was "doing his brother's work" and was giving Wax the diary intended to start him down this path?

Nale always goes through proper channels. He didn't immediately kill Ym when he suspected Ym was binding a spren, he first did his homework and found a legal justification from the very distant past to execute Ym. It's a twisted sense of moral logic, but it does make sense considering his need to adhere to the Skybreaker oaths. He identifies those who are danger of bonding a spren, then digs like crazy to find a legal justification to kill them (or in some kingdoms just gets laws past making surgebinding illegal), and then executes them legally. Lift being legally pardoned and Jasnah being royalty (effectively above the law) put them beyond his ability to legally execute, so he chose not to pursue them. Shallan was likely a similar case. Once her bond with pattern appeared to be broken by traumatic events Nale no longer needed to pursue her as an immediate danger. Nale's will also isn't perfectly adhered to by all potential Skybreakers. During the first Lift chapter, one of his minions kills Gax in an improper and illegal way and Nale does not seem pleased and implies the minion will be punished later. In a similar manner Shallan's mother and friend were likely taking a more direct approach to the danger of Shallan than Nale would have approved at the time. Personally I think Shallan's mother wanted her children to become Skybreakers and had them swear the first oath of the radiants in hope of attracting a Highspren. Unexpectedly though Shallan did not attract a Highspren, but rather a Cryptic.

The human being Tanavast who was trying to direct the power of the Honor shard cared about people. The honor shard though is probably pure Lawful Neutral (follow the letter of the law and fulfill the letter of oaths at all costs) and has little inherent compassion. And the pattern over time seems to be the nature of the shards gaining dominance over the nuances of the individual shardholder's personality. Remember that young village burning Dalinar was mix of both Odium and Honor. In fact the Stormfather (current holder of Honor's remains) saw nothing inherently wrong with Dalinar's actions at the Rift. The Rift was in rebellion against their rulers and betrayed a safe parlay to lead Dalinar into a trap (un-lawful), Dalinar punished the entire city for the fault fulfilling a prior oath (lawful). Honor and Odium can be quite mutually compatible for a Lawful Evil individual.

It could certainly be possible that the Order glyphs are just stylized names of the Herald patron. Hell, the numbers themselves are based on the Herald names. Jezrien was the original Windrunner before there even were Windrunners. In addition, the in world artistic image of Jezrien has the Windrunner glyph emblazoned on his armor. That would make sense if the glyph was literally just his name.

It might be a double fake-out with Dalinar. First we're surprised that Dalinar was planned to be Odium's champion (scary, nine shadows, nine is Odium's magic number). But it could just as easily represent the opposite right? Dalinar acts as a beacon of light to gather the 9 other radiant orders. The shadows symbolize the other people/orders that he has united by acting as the focal point.

Right, it would be utterly unscientific to test for it also as it would be completely reliant on the patient self-reporting a vague sense of something in their stomach that has no observable effect. The placebo and nocebo effects would be enormous.

I bet Steris is a Duralumin gnat. Completely worthless by itself, but scary useful for a group playing around with hemalurgy.

She forget to remind herself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.

I think they reuse the spikes quite a bit though for inquisitors. In fact I imagine the Lord Ruler prefers his inquisitors to have powers that while still impressive, do not make them nearly immortal. I imagine having fresh spikes for allomancy is more important as those seem more directly practical to their job (seeking, pushing, pulling, etc.). Also there are a fair amount of skaa mistings to eliminate and provide fresh spikes. The feruchemy spikes like gold will still "do the job", even in a diluted state though. A little bit of gold from a few generations back can still accomplish impressive healing, especially in combination with allomantic pewter. In fact that might explain why the inquisitors need to rest so often, inefficient or low capacity health storage as a result of hand-me-down gold spikes.