robardin

See, I could totally believe (more than 70%) that Shallan’s mother is/was the Herald Chanarach. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the reason Shallan’s Lightweaving can do more than others’. The most notable thing about her, that we know for sure, is that she has two Nahel bonds, both to Cryptics. And the effect on her Lightweaver Surgebinding should be similar to what we see in Mistborn when an Allomancer gains a hemalurgic spike for the same metal/power, giving a constant boost factor. Yes, having a Cognitive Shadow Invested enough to be made flesh again as an ancestor has been seen to give their descendants some residual magical effect or inclination towards magic ability (e.g., the Idris royal family from Warbreaker). But that is not really making them “stronger” in what they can do with the magic. Perhaps being the daughter of a Herald - and Chana at that - is what attracted Testament to her as a child, but that’s going back another step or two in the chain. Certainly what attracted Pattern to bond her, even though she had already killed one Cryptic already, was because her lies to herself about her past and her nature were just too delicious. Hey, who knows, perhaps deep down she KNOWS her mother was Chana. Behind Formless is I Know What Mom Did Last Desolation. LOL

I'm pretty sure the "obvious reason" that we have seen her do things beyond what other Lightweavers might ever be able to do, as early as Words of Radiance, is that she's a double-bonded Lightweaver to Pattern and Testament. And WoR is when she began forming that second bond with Pattern.

Assuming our friend Connor is a kandra on Autocorrect or voice-to-text, I’ve wondered this as well. Has the sDNA for Feruchemy been passed down in mistwraiths to kandra, or at least was still latent in the First Generation (which we don’t know what happened to them in Era 2, nor any of the Seconds, we only read that the Thirds are now the most senior kandra around)? As I tossed out there in the “How To Make An Era 2 Fullborn” thread, if a kandra-mimicking-human has enough simulated biology to produce offspring via the human biomechanics involved, and if it’s not a one-directional pairing (i.e., a posing-as-male kandra could impregnate a human woman, but not vice versa)… how about TWO kandra mimicking a male/female pair making a bio-human-made “kandra”? Put the two concepts together - “mistwraith/kandra have physical sDNA for Feruchemy, but not expressed in shapeshifting goo bodies needing Hemalurgy for sapience” and “hey lookit, two kandra made a physically hooman form offspring” - and maybe we get a somewhat blobby human Feruchemist!

Anybody wielding the Bands of Mourning is effectively a Fullborn, and can use Compounding to refill its attributes, as long as they’re not drained of said attribute in one of the metallic powers. The fun part would be if such a wielder discarded the “unsealed” aspect of the Bands by Compounding the attributes without removing their Identity (assuming that would have to be done by filling an aluminummind at the same time), thus converting the Bands into a personalized Fullborn Engine. The downside to being a Fullbander (note clever neologism) vs. living Fullborn (Rashek) would be the need to pause to refill/recharge the attributes granting the Metalborn powers before they ran out; not sure how frequently that would need to be done. As for creating another Rashek, that would be harder, as lerasium only creates Mistborn. We have no knowledge of how to create a full Feruchemist at all, other than a Terris person being born one. I suppose Harmony could upgrade any Ferring of Era 2 to be one - but once you say “Harmony could intervene”, that’s besides the point as He could just make a Fullborn out of a raccoon or something if He wanted to, except that’s too unbalanced. So really, we’d need for a full Feruchemist to be born among the Terris again, and then to give that Feruchemist lerasium. Or, if the mistwraiths/kandra still carry some kind of sDNA for Feruchemy due to their distant origins as “Preserved” Feruchemists, part of the answer to the question of what his most recent WoB meant in response to “what if a kandra mimicking a human crossbred with an actual human” is that we might see Feruchemy in one as well? What if a kandra-as-human interbred with a Ferring in Era 2? In fact, my mind also goes to the question, “what if TWO kandra, mimicking a male and female human respectively, had a human-simulated-bio-created child?”

We don’t know yet. We see her mother crying and whispering to her spren, “We will try… We will see, see how far you can go.” (That was not to her daughter!) Indeed we shall see. My guess is that either she will have to release the bond (without killing her spren?) or stay behind on Roshar. We know it can be done, somehow, based on WoBs and glimpses from later-in-time Cosmere works with either directly in view or mention of the possibility of “oathed Radiants” being outside the Rosharan system. Of course, that could depend on Things That Happen In Stormlight 5 After The Duel of Champions.

Given the timing of other published Cosmere works, I would imagine the Fifth Land they are departing for is Scadrial, because in The Lost Metal, It’s just too bad the interlude shows Ym’s family using his former shop to sell tea. It’d have been a lot funnier if they sold chouta. Well maybe they do, to go with the tea? LOL.

Overall, I liked Defiant and the way it wrapped up the main original story arc set up by Skyward. I was far less surprised by the twists than in any of the earlier books or novellas, though; I remember being completely gobsmacked when it turned out Jorgen figured out they could teleport the entirety of Detritus - planet, platforms, and all - to another scudding solar system. But for me, there were no Big Reveals, just minor ones or plot wrap-ups, in Defiant. “Chet” being the Touched Delver from the end of Starsight was a big surprise to me in Cytonic; his “surviving” being “reintegrated” with the other delvers towards the end, another surprise development to me. Given that, M-Bot becoming a self-aware AI - well, I kind of assumed that could happen, and thus probably would happen, because HOW COULD M-BOT REALLY BE DEAD? Similarly, once we found that delvers entering the Somewhere automatically formed a “familiar shape” as an avatar in spacetime, I immediately had wondered if “Chet the Touched Delver” would now appear as “Chet Starfinder the Mustachioed Pilot”, and if “M-bot The AI Elevated In The Nowhere” would just reform a spacecraft. (Both of which happened.) The fact that Brade was puppeting Winzik seemed apparent to me in Starsight - the only real question was “why is she willing to destroy humanity to gain behind-the-throne power in the Superiority?” An obvious answer was “not all humans, just Detritus and Spensa’s group”; and the “why” being “to fulfill the ultimate potential of a Human Conqueror of the Universe” is actually not bad. If anything, I was a little disappointed at the end when Brade was just trapped and zapped. I mean yes, that’s what should have happened, but IMHO it would have been more in character for Brade to feign surrendering and “turning a new leaf” once she realized escaping to the Superiority was completely impossible, with the idea of then trying to take over the DDF from the inside by undermining Spensa… It wouldn’t have worked, because Brade the Lone Human Wolf underestimated the nature of the bonds of trust between Skyward Flight, but Brade should have at least tried to play that card instead of bolting and thus drawing Spensa’s fire. Gran-Gran’s end was awesome, and so was the “verdict” of letting the taynixes - full equal members in the alliance between them and humans, UrDail, and kitsen - judge when the abusive, formerly intergalactic “advanced” species could go off-world. As well as the delvers reaching their own accord directly with the taynixes and claiming dominion over the Nowhere. But those were more or less logical outcomes, not surprising twists. I would say the most “huh, wow” developments in Defiant for me were: Hesho being unwilling or unable to resume his former life/role and becoming Masked There being a faction of the Superiority already working with/for Brade in the Winzik charade Things that are likely to be setup for the next cycle of stories in the Cytoverse: There were TWELVE “human preserve” planets? Earth just disappeared at the end of the last war? Who made all those “cytonic traps to Nowhere” and why?

Yeah, despite that WoB, I think an Essence Mark either creating or changing a Radiant's Nahel bond would be really, really hard to do, because it'd have to also affect or create a sentient spren as a component of it. The latter of which may not even be possible, since the sentient spren kind of has its own cognitive "soul" separate from the Radiant, and its "type" is a core part of that identity (i.e. there is no "historical what-if choice" that, had it been different, would have made an honorspren come out as a cultivationspren - they are "concepts Invested to the point of life"). If at all possible, it'd probably have to be a Forger who's already got a Nahel bonded spren creating a Soulstamp for themselves, and not for another person; as we saw in TES, making a Soulstamp for another person, one that "takes" and lasts long enough to be restamped (indefinitely permanent), is REALLY hard. And one that affected the soul that conformed to how that person's soul "fit" with a spren's, to the extent that it also modified the spren's Cognitive identity, would be way, way harder. It'd be far easier, I think, for a Nahel bonded Forger to make a stamp that resulted in them being a higher (or lower) Ideal.

Well he is fond of the maxim, there's always another secret.

The "Continuity Chain" is very likely the same thing as Mraize gave to Raboniel, described in her notes as "a chain from the lands of the dead, said to be able to anchor a person through Cognitive anomolies" (which fits with the term "continuity" in the name of it). It's probably also the same chain in a locked-down and guarded display case that cost a thousand broams of Stormlight in the cultivationspren's shop in Celebrant in Oathbringer. The real question is, what are "Cognitive anomolies" that one might need "anchoring" through? If they are indeed all the same thing, one was displayed in a weapons shop in Shadesmar (the cultivationspren was otherwise selling axes, knives, etc.), and being described as a "silver, whiplike weapon rolled up and hung at the hip" of the Admiral of the Night Brigade. A weapon against what? Not against "sentient spren" but "anomolies" like Shades, Kelsier, or even Returned? But, Raboniel's notes refer to its use in "anchoring through" and not "defending from" or "use against" Cognitive anomolies - as if they were some kind of Shadesmar weather-like phenomenon.

Wow, some deep references I'd totally forgotten about in Shadesmar! I agree then, it's possible - and perhaps Sigzil "met" the highspren in Shadesmar to begin with.

The incurring of weight without the corresponding "strength to move at a normal speed" isn't what struck me as the most surprising thing about the obviously Feruchemy based mechanism of the Scadrian manacle. After all, he WAS able to stand up after being knocked down while wearing it, time and again; nothing was ever said before (I don't think) about tapping an ironmind for weight allowing for "normal speed of movement", only that one would still have the strength "to stand" (like when Sazed massively tapped his ironmind to hold fast a gate at Elendel against all the koloss straining to knock it down from the other side). No, the big head-scratcher is that such a metalmind was able to "push" weight onto Nomad instead of giving him a reservoir of weight to tap (with Intent). And even without him knowing what it was (a necessary component to using an unsealed metalmind as of Wax and Wayne). AFAIK, the only Investiture we've seen so far that could be "pushed" onto an unsuspecting or unwilling target is Breath, as in Warbreaker. Unless you count Marsh's forced conversion to being an Inquisitor, I suppose. And even then, what was given in that way was Investiture that granted abilities, not an attribute or effect. I wonder what other Feruchemical attributes so pushed might be considered an unwelcome burden? A tinmind that blinded or stunned someone with light or sound sensitivity? Could you make a similar device to enable, and also to force someone to put up a very narrow cadmium slo-time bubble around themselves as a kind of imprisonment? LOL. I guess that'd have to come with some sneaky or forced pre-ingestion of cadmium.

"The rocks here were dark and glasslike. Obsidian, maybe. It reminded him of another place, another world he’d once traveled. A place where he’d met Auxiliary." When I first read this, I took it to mean Braize: as an unbonded highspren he'd have been bound to the Rosharan system, implying it was Braize, unless however it is oathed Radiants can now leave Roshar by this time also allows unbonded sentient spren to do so as well. I don't think he was referring to Shadesmar, as by then he'd be super familiar with the Cognitive Realm and would just have thought "this reminds me of the sea of glass beads in Shadesmar". Besides, the "glassy beads" there are not only small and numerous, they are not dark (like obsidian) but glowing with the spren of the physical thing or being they represent. He might have met Auxiliary somewhere else on Roshar where the landscape is similarly dark and rocky, but then as a native of Roshar, he'd most likely think of the location's name on Roshar as opposed to "another world he'd once traveled".

Refresh my memory - what is this you're referring to? Also remember that Nomad mentions there are multiple factions on Scadrial:

I think you and I are basically asking the same question/thinking the same thing, maybe from different directions. We have only seen him arrive via Skip twice, and both times it's somewhere new to him, and neither time is he surprised by that. But he wonders where he has Skipped to "this time", suggesting many previous Skips - this is not his first, or second, Skip. So I wondered if it might be that Skipping ALWAYS takes him "somewhere new", because if it was random - even allowing for the Skip mechanics to guarantee him arriving somewhere on a habitable, and inhabited, planet with available Investiture - he should eventually end up somewhere he's been before, including Roshar, or eventually back on Canticle. Or, it's only semi-random - he can use anti-Intent to rule out destinations, or Vague Intent that has the same effect (i.e., "take me somewhere the Night Brigade hasn't and isn't trying to look for me"). Or, yes, he may someday Skip to Roshar or Canticle, and he's steeling himself to make as quick a getaway as possible in that eventuality, and to resist checking in on those he cares about.

According to Sigzil's recounting of his past to Rebeke, he'd given up his Windrunner oaths before (perhaps as a part of) taking up the Dawnshard, and somehow bonded with Auxiliary while holding it.

Let me rephrase - it's clearly not "random" for the reason you mention. However, he clearly is not picturing a destination in mind - i.e., providing Intent - because he ends up on Canticle where he's never been before to start the story, and ends up in yet another place he's never been before at its conclusion. And yet, at the end, he thinks to himself how he'll never find out if Rebeke, Elegy, and the other Beaconites survived or not, because he could never afford to bring the Night Brigade anywhere near people he actually cared about. Perhaps he's doing unconsciously doing some kind of semi-Intent thing, like thinking "take me anywhere safe and far away from the Night Brigade (instead of closer to them), but not Nalthis, and not anywhere I might put people I love in danger like Roshar and now Canticle"

So in order to use his Torment-linked, Dawnshard-derived ability to "Skip" (apparently to teleport at random to some other habited world in the Cosmere), Nomad needs a LOT of Investiture: if a "BEU" is a Breath Equivalent Unit (where one Breath = 1 BEU), and 1500 BEU is about 8% of the necessary level to use the ability, then Skipping would require the equivalent of at least 18,500 (if not 19,000) Breaths - nearly to the NINTH Heightening (20,000 Breaths), the level needed to Awaken something like Nightblood. He needs to acquire this much Investiture each time he Skips, in order to Skip away again, before the Night Brigade arrives to his new location - however it is that they track him, or how they physically travel between places in the Cosmere so quickly (via some kind of spaceship). And yet he's never gone back to Roshar? Nor (as he reflected) has he ever been to Nalthis, as "too easy for the Night Brigade to reach"? Is Skipping truly random? He certainly can't seem to control where it is he goes, and as we see, he is capable of arriving somewhere he's never been before - but does he ONLY Skip to new places? Because if it's really random, eventually he'd land somewhere on one of those two worlds, right? Maybe not in an area he's familiar with, though (like maybe he pops onto Roshar in Natanan or something).

Would the sunlight of Canticle not burn away a shade of Threnody (or a Threnodite descendant)?

Honestly it's probably just the grammatical use of the plural as a general statement about "men" and "gods". But maybe it isn't. Heh. And the Heralds, and the Fused... Yeah, you could argue that they should count as "gods", both groups having been referred to that way by their respective followers over millenia.

That's why Sigzil choked back a laugh when the Cinder King spoke of unity. He'd served under Dalinar the Bondsmith. He knew what a leader who sought to "bring unity" had as options. "Conquest doesn't remove countries," Nomad said. "It removes lines on a map. Unity requires something else." Echoing, Who knows? Perhaps after 25+ years, the Cinder King, like Dalinar, would have wised up. But probably not. Dalinar, even as the brutal Blackthorn consumed by the Thrill, was never a sadist and a bully.

Also that this story takes place many years after even SA5 (very possibly past SA10), where the Cinder King says the Silverlight guidebook taught him that Roshar is "where men become gods". That could just be the grammatical use of a plural noun as a general statement for the set of all the things named... ...or maybe it's gonna happen to more than just Taravangian on Roshar in SA5-10.

But why would he? In a first person POV, unless he'd held more than one Dawnshard or had some kind of choice in the matter ("which one do you want?"), of course to him it'd be THE Dawnshard (which is indeed how he thinks of it), given the way taking it up completely changed his life. We can infer it's the same Dawnshard that Hoid used to have, but whether he received it directly from Hoid or not is unknown - because there were WoBs already that Hoid himself no longer bore a Dawnshard in SA1-5, weren't there? That Hoid "used to" have/be a Dawnshard?

Actionwise, maybe not. Emotionally, I think it still did. Auxiliary's self-sacrifice to enable "Zellion" to regain flight and Shardplate for a while, while set up and telegraphed, was still a pretty powerful hit towards the end, especially Aux's monologue revealing why he'd referred to Nomad as his "squire" and himself as the knight all that time: not just to tweak/annoy him, but also to remind him of oaths sworn - oaths that Aux, as a spren, could not and never had set aside.

So you think it was Hoid? *D&R*