robardin

Well, except that Dalinar’s soul had at least one “claim” on it and apparently two. It’s not so much that he could have been tempted not to go Beyond due to having briefly Ascended, but that he would have been eternally under the thumb of Retribution if not for that other claim. The reason I pondered The Nohadon Vision Question again is because of the other theory that that is an avatar of yet another power we haven’t seen directly, not Cultivation but another Shard or even Adonalsium’s Ghost or something. Though perhaps with access facilitated by the “piece of Dalinar” that Cultivation took as part of the “cost” of his “pruning”. It would be kind of beautiful if that was always planted as a backdoor safety chute for Dalinar to Go Beyond after doing what he needed to do to break the Roshar Stalemate that had caused, and would go on causing, so much suffering. Whatever Shard put that claim in, had no intention to use Dalinar as a tool, but simply wanted to keep Odium from being able to do so. Hmm. That makes me think of something else, another part of what Cultivation mused aloud as she “pruned” Dalinar: “IN DOING THIS, I PROVIDE FOR HIM A WEAPON. DANGEROUS, VERY DANGEROUS.” Who’s the “him”? On first read it was assumed to be Odium, but “pruning” Dalinar wouldn’t push him into Odium’s clutches; he was already headed towards being the Blackthorn casting Nine Shadows, all on his own, with his deep Connection to the Thrill and desire to have his pain taken from him. (Though at the last moment, he rephrased that as seeking forgiveness.) Cultivation has been mentioned several times by other Shards as the one most able to navigate seeing the future. She set up Taravangian to kill Rayse and take up Odium, which is incredible, and saw Taravangian BEFORE Dalinar, right? Could it be that she was already foreseeing a pruning that would result in Dalinar rejecting Odium at Thaylen Fields, taking up Honor at the Contest of Champions, and then blowing it all up… If she implanted these Nohadonvisions, or planted backdoor access for another Shard to avatar in as Nohadon? Is the “him” who now has a weapon due to this pruning, … some other power that now has that claim stub on Dalinar? Or is the outcome that Taravangian now also holds Honor to become Retribution the “providing him a dangerous weapon” she was concerned about?

Dalinar had renounced his oaths — ALL of them — so he was no Bondsmith at the time of his death. Especially since the Stormfather got obliterated by Retribution before that scene, right? So at the minimum he’d be like a Radiant whose spren had suddenly been destroyed, like Teft was in Uritithiru facing off against Vyre. I think the real question to ponder is, where do all these visions of Nohadon come from? Not from Honor. Is it of Cultivation? Did she merely enable a path to these visions, without providing the content? And who IS this Nohadon recurring in these warm visions he gets, even after taking up the Shard of Honor?

Yeah, at some point in another thread, I reasoned that this had to be the right interpretation because: (A) All people pass naturally to the Beyond after dying in the Physical Realm, with a "stopover" in the Cognitive Realm. (B) Highly Invested people like Kelsier the Mistborn "stick around" in the CR a bit longer, but will eventually get pulled Beyond anyway (when Kelsier initially runs after meeting Preservation's Ghost, "Fuzz" observes that "this is pointless"). [Or, if the person had ever Ascended, they cannot be pulled Beyond unless they wish to go or if they were "completely destroyed" a la Rayse via Nightblood; but very few people are in this position, and only Kelsier has taken this route.] (C) Shards can offer the option to return to the Physical Realm, but can't prevent someone from going Beyond without their wanting or agreeing to it (see Kelsier after begging it of Preservation; Vin, Elend, and Wax being given the choice by Harmony, with two noes and a yes; or Lightsong remembering being "offered the chance" to Return and taking it) (D) ...unless the person is "under their power": having put themselves under that Shard's power like the Fused did to Odium (on her next death, Leshwi is in for whatever Odium/Retribution wants to do with her soul and cannot just pass Beyond and collect $200), ... or making and breaking an oath to the Shard like Dalinar did. And Retribution clearly felt, like at a Shardic level not "I think this would be true", that Dalinar "belonged" to him due to clause (D). Only to find that his soul was "claimed by another". Meaning, one with PRIOR claim, also due to clause (D). Another Shard. And now recall Cultivation's comment about "IT WILL DO ME WELL TO HAVE A PIECE OF YOU", when performing her boon on him when he visited the Vale. And after laying out the terms, giving Dalinar the chance to affirm his agreement by asking, "SHOULD I FORBEAR?" (To which he replied, "Do it.") I think it's clear: as the "price" of a boon is NEVER returned, yet he got his memories of Evi back, those memories were only "part" of the price, as she also clearly stated: "WHAT I TAKE FROM YOU WILL GROW BACK EVENTUALLY. THIS IS PART OF THE COST". If you read that last sentence with an emphasis on the word PART, it all makes sense. The remaining part of the cost, was or came with a kind of claim stub on his soul. What Cultivation did / has done / will do with that, we shall find out. I hadn't considered her just letting him pass Beyond, I guess that is possible! But since Physical Dalinar is dead (left a corpse that didn't reanimate and all that), he's at best a Dalinarspren under some kind of direction by her.

The real advancement in "harnessing" hemalurgy (as of what we know at the end of Mistborn Era 2), IMHO, would be to facilitate the hot-swapping of spikes. In his notebook on hemalurgy, Spook was already giving some thought as to how to ethically harvest Metalborn spikes, by "encouraging" people with Metalborn powers who were very old or with fatal conditions to "donate" themselves (basically, a Metalborn power donor program). And given how Mistborn: Secret History ended, he was surely working with Kelsier at the time. So that knowledge and attitude, and access not just to Metalborn but wider Cosmere powers, are part of the Ghostbloods, from the top down and from the very beginning. Meanwhile, we've seen that while creating a spike means killing the donor (as tearing off a core piece of someone's soul generally proves fatal), one can remove a spike and safely just lose the power (Spook pulling out his spike for pewter in Urteau). Or what Paalm was doing in Shadows of Self when she swapped a spike for F-steel (speed) for A-steel (Coinshot), though as a single trellium-spiked kandra, she might have been a special case. So let's say the GBs do collect a little stash of hemalurgic spikes for various powers, and have found a way to preserve them without jars of blood. And the main thing to know about applying hemalurgy, once you've created the spikes, is "where the bind points are" to gain the proper effect from the matching spikes. So why not pre-prep a little surgical sleeve or something at the right bind points, or just punctures like Vin's or Wax's earlobe pierced for an earring spike? Fan theory holds that Wax's earring in Alloy of Law was a "very weak" spike for A-pewter that Harmony fueled directly with his mist, versus Vin's that granted her a doubling up of A-bronze. So maybe the earlobe is a general bind point, and earrings of various metals would allow for a little jewelry case of earrings granting different powers, or even one in each ear granting different powers? And in fact, this fairly recent WoB (Nov 2023) suggests Hoid, at least, has achieved this, if the Ghostbloods have not (or have they?): So Hoid has multiple spikes, doesn't always have one in him, and selectively chooses to use them. Now THAT'S the future of hemalurgy!

I assume we're limited to IRL metals here; no going for double atium Compounding and eternal youth, due to the problem of accessing a fictional element, LOL. All these people considering combat use, how often are you or do you anticipate being in a combat situation? And if you're imagining becoming some kind of Superhero... Feels like you're setting yourself up to be a high profile pawn of the powers that be. No thank you! I feel like the most useful IRL Feruchemical attributes would be F-gold and F-zinc, especially if Compounded for nigh unlimited reservoirs, and the latter means the Allomantic power is also pretty useful IRL if you're subtle with it (plus, zinc is much easier and cheaper to obtain for Compounding than gold). If I were willing to forgo being a Compounder, I'd go with A-pewter (strength, agility, stamina, healing factor) and F-gold or F-zinc. F-gold seems the most practical, for obvious reasons (as someone who's been hit by a car on a bike twice in my life), but man, I'd love to feel what it's like to tap a zincmind, it'd be like "me on my smartest day" but at will.

I just don't see the need to come up with a term for a 16x2 Metalborn when there has literally never been one, and it's now more difficult or unlikely than ever for there ever to be one. You may as well just use the term "Rashekborn" for the concept, LOL

I object to that term anyway (which I am glad to see confirmed is a fan-term and not one that has ever been used in canon), because nobody has ever been "born" with the full complement of Metalborn powers, both Allomantic and Feruchemical. There's only ever been one guy like that, Rashek, who was born a (Full) Feruchemist, and then twiddled himself to stack on (Full) Allomancy. The only other people we've seen hold all 16x2 powers were Marasi and Wax wielding the Bands of Mourning, which doesn't count as being "born", eh? We can assume that had Sazed or Tindwyl ever gotten hold of a bead of lerasium, that they would also have powerstacked in a similar fashion, but that's also not being "born" that way. We even have a WoB that it'd be very, very unlikely for such a being to be born naturally -- and barring another act of Divine Intervention (which is essentially what Rashek did to himself while Ascended) is getting less and less likely as time progresses, being as we don't even have Mistborn or Full Feruchemists in Era 2 and the powers, have kind of reached a stable level in the post-Catacendre population by then. Anyway, my two cents, from the POV of the end of Mistborn Era 2, the question boils down to: how would someone in Era 2 differentiate the term Ferring from Feruchemist? All Ferrings are Metalborn Feruchemists -- someone able to access a Feruchemical power (at least one), just as all Mistings are Metalborn Allomancers (someone able to access an Allomantic power). The distinction is one of innate (inborn) sDNA based power: not all Allomancers are Mistings. For example, Edwarn Ladrian exclaimed, "I made myself a Leecher!" to Wax, via hemalurgy. He was not, and never would be, a "metalborn" -- extract his spikes and he would lose those powers. And thus, in the same fashion, not all Feruchemists are Ferrings. A "full" Feruchemist is something the Terris community are apparently trying to breed back to (...?), and the Set may have been trying to breed back to a natural born "Mistborn" using the bloodlines of Spook, The Lord Mistborn. Constructing a full Feruchemist artificially, as with hemalurgy, might also be possible... In addition, "Ferrings" are usually referred to by a name like Brute for "Ferring with the power for pewter" in the way that an "Allomancer with the power for pewter" would be called a "Pewterarm" (or "Thug") rather than "Misting". Given that Metalborn people are all born with the power in just one metal per power (with Twinborn being an extemely rare confluence), I think the terms "Misting" and "Ferring" are very rarely used by Era 2: only in a semi-academic context of the Theory of the Metallic Arts either when contrasting with the "theoretical" being with the full powerset, or when speaking of a "natural born Feruchemist or Allomancer" in contrast to someone who's artificially gained it.

I have, once in my life, successfullly (and accidentally) pulled off the much more direct one-step "con" of contributing my cash share to a split dinner bill for a large party and saying to someone, "Hey, I gotta break this, do you have two 20s for a 10?" And actually got the person next to me to offer me two $20 bills for my $10. He was a math professor at Johns Hopkins University, LOL.

In addition to enhanced physical strength and stamina, pewter also gives you a healing factor and enhanced agility as well (balance). I am pretty terrible with the agility/balance bit, so that would be pretty nice to experience for once. LOL.

This is the biggest flaw with a what-if PvP Deathmatch between Hoid and any living, mortal, non-Shard character in the Cosmere that we've seen so far... Hoid could not hurt his opponent, but also could not be killed by his opponent. So the only winning scenario, if it truly was played out "to the death", would be the "outlive his opponent to death" one, which is pretty boring. And Hoid's got better things to do. He would just concede or run away and get to doing them. EDIT: ...assuming it's not Szeth wielding Nightblood. Or I suppose, anybody else wielding Nightblood. Per WoB, "Hoid would stay far away" from Nightblood. It's not a confirmation of "Nightblood would kill Hoid" from Brandon, but in-world, Hoid strongly suspects the possibility.

What is confusing about it? We've seen characters go to the Beyond and also not go to the Beyond after going to the CR "staging area" after physical death, especially in Mistborn: Secret History but also in other books. We have seen all these scenarios: People usually linger momentarily in the CR after physical death before naturally "fading away" to the Beyond Skaa were in the CR only briefly Koloss showed up as being human again, including the obligator that tells Kelsier about the spikes A highly Invested person (e.g., a Mistborn) lingers longer (as Preservation's Ghost explains it), and thus, like Kelsier, had the time time to try to run from being pulled Beyond (he wasn't the first one to run!) ...But without Shardic intervention (Preservation sealing him in the Well of Ascension), he would have been pulled to the Beyond eventually ("So you are a runner... this accomplishes nothing") A person whose physical body was restored and given the chance to return to life by a Shard, could CHOOSE to do so. Elend and Vin were given this choice by Harmony, and declined Waxillium was given this choice, and accepted All "Returned" from Nalthis are like this, but with memory lost Lightsong remembered dying and then hearing "a voice, calm and comforting, offering him an opportunity. To Return.") A person who has held the power of a Shard (a Splinter or Vessel) "could not be taken without consent" and could remain as a Cognitive Shadow. Unless they were "completely destroyed", e.g., Rayse's Vessel being consumed by Nightblood Most likely, whatever Rayse had done to kill Vessels and splinter their Shards earlier too. Rashek declined this option disdainfully and without comment Vin declined this as well ("No, Vin. You held the power. You don't have to go." -- "I know. ... Ah, Kelsier. You have a lot to learn about love, don't you?") Ati had the time to inquire after/about "Vax", then sighed and went Beyond after Kelsier slugged him We don't have any POVs or scenes showing Leras in his time in the CR, but it seems that... Kelsier alone(?) has embraced this option and has stuck around ever since. Note that he considered it being "taken" Beyond and not "going" Beyond, as others have put it. Which of these categories fits Dalinar? None of them! After all, what "claims" these souls to go Beyond? Nothing. They just go there on their own. Without some kind of consent to put oneself under Shardic power (including having once wielded the power of a Shard themselves), it cannot be prevented. (...Well, usually. I mean, what the heck is going on with the shades on Threnody? There's always another secret, eh?) The fate of Dalinar's soul, by all rights that Retribution knew about (with Shardic knowledge), should have been in Taravangian's control, because making an oath to a Shard qualifies as having given consent (Intent) to "put himself under Shardic power" once it was broken. ...but, despite that, Dalinar's soul was CLAIMED "by another". By another WHAT? Another SHARD, obviously! One that had "prior claim" to it (Cultivation), and involved his giving consent at the time! ("IT WILL DO ME WELL TO HAVE A PART OF YOU... SHOULD I FOREBEAR?" -- "Do it.") Note that he's still physically dead. His corpse was definitely still just that at Urithiru at the end of WaT, he didn't spring up all healed up with his soul reattached, thanks Mom! And Cultivation has fled the Rosharan system. Whatever "Whitethorn" Dalinar's fate is, it's not going to be a continuation of his former life the way Wax ended up. He's a... Spren of sorts.

Against "Parshendi" maybe, but not Fused. As we see at the beginning of HoA where Elend is a Lerasium Mistborn Emperor, he is still personally taking the field at Vetitian (as well as leading human troops, including with emotional Allomancy to inspire them and to quell their fears) because of the Invested enemy they are fighting: koloss. Rioting courage or morale can only go so far when a human squad is facing down a large force of koloss. Ultimately it had to be the Allomancers who stopped them.

Oh man I feel for you... Another victim of the wifely "this doesn't go with the look of this room" edict My wife is as much of a bookaholic as I am, but the look, size, and color (!!) of the spine matter more to her than "current reading vs. archival" groupings, drives me nuts OTOH she lets me do whatever I want in our bedroom (...with the books... ahem) and that does result in a pile of books heaped around my side, so all in all I'll take her imposition of order over my natural inclination to chaos

Hey don't harsh my buzz. I'm holding out for The Return of Haddek!

Well that would narrow it down to basically Kelsier, as someone who was alive and a character in Era 1, who is expected to Survive through to Era 3, who didn't have a spike until after Era 1 ended with the Catacendre... But, he already "returned" as a character in Era 2, not just obliquely as The Sovereign in a big reveal at the end of BoM, but a full-on in-person, face-to-face, in dialog meeting with Marasi and co. in TLM. (I'm still interpreting his mention of "marking the return" of an Era 1 character in Era 3 as strongly implying they did not make an appearance in Era 2) Unless Demoux has gained a spike, I guess? We've seen him worldhopping on Roshar for the 17th Shard in a timeline setting not too far ahead of Era 2 with Baon and Galladon, however it is that such worldhoppers extend their lives, so it's very probable he's gonna make it to Era 3, if not on Scadrial.

Well no, not when he mentions the "return" of "somewhat spike-filled characters" from Era 1 (the Final Empire). If by "characters" he means named characters, there aren't a lot of hemalurgically spiked characters from Era 1 that are unaccounted for: only a handful of kandra of the First or Second Generation that may not have ended themselves. Marsh is fairly unequivocally called the Last Inquisitor, right? If by "characters" he means a class of hemalurgically spiked beings who didn't really get any page time in Era 2, well I guess that's the koloss? Not counting "sidebar stories" from Allomancer Jak as "Era 2", we only see a few "koloss-blooded" guys like Tarson working for the Vanishers, or in a flashback of Wax meeting "Lessie" in the Roughs. I mean, we only had the one "named" koloss character in Era 1, "Human", and I don't see how he could survive to Era 3 without worldhopping or something, as koloss keep growing until they die of heart failure due to being too large, which wouldn't take all that long (certainly not 300 years).

Think about where this is all coming from, though. Mistborn did not exist until Rashek's Ascension: aside from himself, they were created by him giving 10 nuggets of lerasium to the founding "kings who knelt". Would that power have been useful in creating and consolidating The Final Empire, in those early days? No doubt. And that's why they were the founders of the ten highest noble Houses in the Empire. For all we know, the ten Lerasium Mistborn kings DID operate in that way (as battlefield commanders). Fast forward to about a thousand years later, to the time of Vin, Elend, and Kelsier's crew. Allomancers (Mistings) are rare, Mistborn are far more rare, the Steel Inquisition is meticulous, and skaa Mistborn -- well basically, there were three in their entire generation, in Gemmel, Kelsier, and Vin. Even so powerful a house as Venture has no Mistborn born into them in that generation, Straff himself being a Tineye Misting. Straff had to go to quite a lot of "trouble" (ahem) to engender even a single illegitimate Mistborn that he kept secret. And there we have the point of it all: what do you do with a Mistborn in your house/family? Like, even if Elend, his legitimate heir, had been a Mistborn, what would Straff have done with him, or (tried to) raise him to become? Use him to "take out an army on his own?" Or to be "a mobile command unit"? For what? The Lord Ruler ruled all, and the nail that sticks out too far gets hammered down. "House wars" were not supposed to be conducted as open field combat, army on army; the Lord Ruler would not tolerate that. The only army he needed was the one he already had, to maintain "stability" among the skaa, plus koloss. And if he needed multi-powered "field commanders" for the koloss or his armies, he had Inquisitors whose loyalty would not be in question. Since as far as they knew, only Mistborn could burn atium which made them all but invincible killing machines, and since assassinations and down-low killings were the kinds of inter-house "war" generally permitted by TLR (with the occasional larger flare-up shrugged off by him as long as it did not threaten the actual stability of his Empire), you would not want your headcount of Mistborn to be known -- lest it become obvious you were down to zero and thus it being "open season" on your House as targets.

A thrown bola cannot alter its own trajectory, Awakened or not. But as technology progresses, one wonders what would be possible in Awakening complex machinery. Like, how much Investiture and what kind of detailed Command or Intent would be needed to Awaken a flying drone to independent action (based on what kind of technical knowledge of its workings)? We see a little bit of this kind of thing in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, I suppose? That said, we've all but seen Awakened objects with Commands to lie in wait for specific stimuli to then do something, where that something could be to attack. Like, imagine if you set a coil of thick rope on a shelf next to a door and Awakened it with the Command, "strangle things that aren't me". Or when Vasher Awakened his cloak with the Command, "protect me", which rustled and then settled on his shoulders like normal. (Though I don't think we ever get to see exactly how the cloak would have acted to protect him?) And then later, that exact Command was an example that Denth gave to Vivenna to be careful of: How a simple "mercenary" with no perceptible Biochromatic Aura would have such intricate and didactic knowledge of Awakening should have been suspicious, if only Vivenna knew better at that point, LOL.

So in his most recent year-ending SotS missive, Brandon dropped this info: Is not saying that the Era 3 trilogy "will mark the return of some familiar (somewhat spike-filled) characters from Era One" implying that they did NOT make a return appearance in Era 2? Like, he's not talking about TenSoon, MeLaan, or Marsh. But what other "characters" from "Era One" were "somewhat spike-filled" by the end of it? Kandra as a class (rather than specific characters) were already in Era 2, as well... Koloss??? Or, what I'd find intriguing, ... do we finally find out what happened to the First and Second Generations of kandra? We only had oblique mention by MeLaan that TenSoon and other Thirds were the oldest kandra in their society in Era 2, with no further explanation. And several of them were named characters (e.g., Haddek and KanPaar).

huh, ok, I'll spoiler it, but I thought the Cosmere forum was open for "all non WaT" works, and I carefully didn't reference anything from WaT EDIT: oops, I see, I totally forgot where a tidbit of into came from

I always think the "let them live to death" victory in a one-on-one involving an immortal being is an underplayed card. Also: isn't the whole "Hoid (or Nomad from The Sunlit Man) can't hurt another person as a Dawnshard side effect" related to the particular Dawnshard held, its imperative? Do we know that "someone" who's held the Dawnshard of "CHANGE." would have the same taboo? Seems to me hurting or even killing someone would be a pretty big change effect.

Well at the end of the Final Empire, Allomancers -- even Vin -- were not really strong enough to Soothe/Riot over an entire squad or battlefield. It is after all a targeted effect for maximum impact, or a weaker, less specific area effect centered on the Allomancer. Only Rashek was able to mega-soothe over a large area, and he was kind of a Very Special Guy. And even he couldn't "project" it over a battlefield, he'd have to be physically in the center of said field. As far as using a numbing Megasoothe blast (as Vin did to Straff Venture) or Riotflare of fear (as she did to Kliss to make her tell what she knew about the assassination plot in motion against Elend, in a 1-2 soothe-n-riot combo) in personal combat to make the other person stumble, I suppose with training that could be done without taking your concentration off of your own physical motions. And in Straff's case, she needed duralumin to get that effect. (A lerasium Mistborn or TLR could probably do it without duralumin?) But, if you would have to stop and concentrate/focus on what it is you wanted to do with your emotional twiddles, that could end up being the "took my eye off the ball" moment of exposure that gets YOU in trouble in a fight. And since emotional Allomancy was something you didn't want people to know you could do (lest they reject their shifting emotions as unnatural), people were trained to use it with a fairly light touch. And in the most intense one-on-one fights she we saw Vin engage in, it was against another Mistborn like Shan Elariel, against Inquisitors, or TLR himself... All of who could just burn copper. No point in trying such a ploy.

How much mass would the kandra on Roshar have to eat to be able to take on the form of a chasmfiend? And, what can a kandra do to disgorge excess mass, so to speak? If TenSoon ate a horse and a pig to be able to form a (larger) horse, which would be upwards of 1500 or even 2000 lbs., wouldn't that affect his ability to mimic a human again unless he dropped mass? Maybe it's best not to get into too much detail on what that would look like, but the primary thing I'd be wondering is, would it have to look like mistwraith "protoplasm" (severed mass) or could the kandra form the mass while releasing it, to resemble something inocuous ("wow, where'd all these dead rats come from in this alleyway?")

So, ... the Whitethorn?

Notum being fully physical in Azimir in support of Adolin was already weird, even before Retribution Changed Everything. I mean, he was "fully physical" not in the Crazy Ishar Experiment way, he could change size and all that like Syl could do; but he walked around all the time fully visible by everyone, fully himself, and able to take up Shards versus being barely able to lift a pen in the Physical Realm like Syl was at Urithiru, even though Syl was bonded unto the Fourth Ideal. Most unbonded Radiant spren had a tough time manifesting enough to communicate with people briefly, and generally only someone already bonded, AFAICT. And his being "fully himself" mentally was in notable contrast to one of the things Kaladin held over Yunfah's head, the unbonded honorspren who'd lost his Radiant, to "consider" bonding Rlain: "you need a bond, or your mind will fade". So it could well be just something about Notum and his decision to cross over to the Physical Realm, but NOT "in search of a Nahel bond". He may be the first sentient spren ever to choose to do that?