robardin

Hahaha, I like that idea of a Windrunner lawyer. I will defend those who cannot defend themselves! The courtoom went dark; and then Clarence Darrow burst afire with brilliant light. William Jennings Bryan gasped. "You... You've inherited the wind!"

Yes, it's different for an "intrinsically" immortal being, or a human who has upgraded to being one, as via Ascension. I would say what happened with The Lord Ruler was an aspect of what he'd done to himself as a kind of Artificial Approximate Ascension. I mean sure, even as a young man he was ruthless, domineering, cruel, etc., but his seeming bored or tired all the time, like he felt nothing any more other than a desire to continue dominating. Indeed, it would not be in character for Kelsier not to stay at that point. It's who he was/is. He's genuinely surprised when Rashek, Vin, and Elend all choose to move on, even though they didn't "have to go" (Rashek because he'd held the Power, as Kelsier himself has done by the end of SH, and Vin and Elend because Harmony gave them a way back that they didn't take).

Yes, and maybe it's because I've just re-read The Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time in my life, but it feels to me like a human clinging on to an unnaturally prolonged existence for its own sake (whether out of fear of death, or a never-ending sense of FOMO) is an intrinsically Bad Choice that will have Consequences. (And I can guess what your removed RoW spoiler in this regard was referencing, and it doesn't contradict that sentiment - not yet, at any rate)

They have bands. Just "bands" as "thin ribbons of metal intertwined". Which pun I pointed out somewhere as likely only working in the language of the Northern Hemisphere as an additional clue that The Kelsurvivoreign intended for the discovery of the Temple of the Bands to be when the North/South Divide was finally bridged. United in worship of him!

Well, who or what is it that he's got to live for? If Elend and Vin, young people in the prime of life, whose dear friends would greatly benefit from their aid in rebuilding the world as full Mistborn (including a lerasium one), refuse Harmony's own offer to return to their restored bodies before it's too late, because it is meet and proper to answer the Call of the Beyond... ...who is Kelsier to refuse the call, and more importantly, why? Even when he can sense that, on the Other Side, he would be reunited with Mare, in whose name he supposedly engineered the fall of The Lord Ruler and the end of the Final Empire? That was the meaning to Vin's parting words. Just as Kelsier's words to Vin long ago helped her to come out of her shell of bitterness and distrust, she wants Kelsier to reach a point of self-awareness that his actions have always had a strong element of egomania. It's up to him to decide what to do with that. And I guess we will/have seen what he does with that. He embraces it!

Perception is a huge part of Cosmere healing, which is why healing to one's self-image seems to be more "powerful" (can heal deeper or older hurts) than applying healing to someone else (which has an extra layer of another person's perceptions filtering the power). This WoB from 2018 hinted as much, in drawing a distinction between a Surgebinder using Stormlight to heal themselves versus a Radiant using Progression to heal someone else, with there being a "double filter" effect for external healing: And then this more recent WoB confirms that the Surge of Progression, as applied to another person, is not the same nor as powerful as a Radiant "healing" themselves. The bit about being "highly Invested" is probably why a Feruchemist tapping a goldmind for healing can do as miraculous things as Stormlight healing or Progression (immediately regenerating skin, body parts, etc.). So long as there is enough Investiture in the metalmind.

Well, Ruin was able to manifest as a "fake mist spirit" already in WoA to try to trick Vin, who was a Mistborn central to both his and Preservation's plans; you're saying, why would Ruin bother using his limiited touch on the world to try to deceive Elend, after Vin had departed for Luthadel? Well then, why would Preservation? Why appear to Elend at all at that point (either of them)? Anyway, if one were meant to triangulate between the two indicated directions - NE from Fadrex City-ish, and (due?) N from slightly NW of Luthadel - to land somewhere between the Ashmounts of "Torinost" and "Kalling" on this map of the Final Empire, ...and were supposed to piece this together from clues laid down in WoA and Secret History, when he wrote Mistborn before having the Cosmere "fully commissioned"... It feels like a distinct reach to suppose that as early as 2005-06 when he was writing the Era 1 trilogy, that he'd be laying the foundation for a "Dawnshard" on Scadrial. But it's certainly possible. Like, perhaps Elend were somehow more suitable for "taking in" the Dawnshard than anybody else would have been? And even more possible, that he as a writer left that as a dangling tidbit to be able to reconnect as he wished later on, and that by now what he wishes to connect it to is a Dawnshard.

But I would instead draw the conclusion that Leras was pointing to two different places, for two different reasons, in the two different scenes. The second time, when Elend was outside Fadrex City, given the rest of the conversation and what ended up happening with Elend and the Seers burning away just about all the atium available on Scadrial, I think it's pretty clear he was pointing towards the Pits/Homeland and the atium cache. (How Leras knew it was there but not Ruin is worth asking, though, as it should have been equally "blindingly hidden" to his Shardvision as it was to Ruin's due to all the metal in the area, and all the care that Rashek took to avoid ever saying aloud anything about the scheme, nor writing down anything about it except on metal.) The first time, which I hadn't as clear a memory of, in WoA... Where/when was that, again? I went back and looked - this is the part where Elend and Spook are slowly headed back to Luthadel on foot, after Vin had raced on ahead to go back (first via pewterdrag running, then by using the Horseshoe Trick with a mix of steel and iron). This was after Spook confessed that he had been sent with them to lead them away from the koloss assault on the city so they would survive (WoA Ch. 56). Physically, Elend and Spook were still near the place where Vin had realized the pulses were coming from Luthadel, as well as wanting to go back and to fight to save their abandoned friends - "only a few days ride from Luthadel" heading towards the Terris Mountains (of the Final Empire), and the "mist spirit" points Elend to the north. "Away from Luthadel." But is this mist spirit he sees even Preservation? Wasn't Ruin posing as the "mist spirit" at numerous points? Well, he's not above RAFO'ing questions to leave the door open to rampant fan speculation in a direction he doesn't care to shut down, whether because he has something in mind in that regard or just because that's the whole fun of fantasy worldbuilding and storytelling over a span of years and decades, yeah? Still, I hadn't known that, and a search in the WoB archives turned it up: So... It's not impossible, that's for sure, but also not really suggested (yet) by what we've seen/read. (Which is of course the best kind of semi-foreshadowing!)

Didn't P&R create Scadrial ex nihilo? So that would require one of them to have had a Dawnshard on them to cache in the planet somewhere, unless it was placed there later. Anyway, the whole final "move for yes, don't move for no" conversation that Elend had with "the mist spirit" that was Ghost Leras' Last Gasp, amounted to: Don't attack Fadrex City Head to the northeast The mists "are connected to all this"... and they aren't (just) killing people "Something about metal, like in my Allomantic vial?" We have a chance... A slight chance... To survive And to the northeast of Fadrex City are the Pits of Hathsin, the kandra homeland, and the enormous cache of atium he and his merry band of Seers were meant to burn away before Ruin could discover it. As for "the weapon" Leras mentions to Kelsier in Secret History, he rambles that it was linked to his numerical clue of "sixteen" - this was a reference to his twiddling the Allomantic table to allow the mists to produce atium-burning Seer mistings in exactly 1/16th of those it Snapped, so that more than just Mistborn could aid in burning away Ruin's body.

It was a Shardblade severing wound, and we saw from Bisig and Hobber that even several weeks or months later, those wounds can still be healed by a Surgebinder taking in Stormlight. And of course, the example of Lopen regrowing his physically severed arm of many years past might be even more impressive. It's an external use of Progression (as from a Truthwatcher or Edgedancer healing someone else) that appears to be more severely limited by a window of time. For "self-healing" it's more a matter of self-image (as with Kaladin's slave brands, for so long).

Ahhh, these are good observations... As Nightblood was created with Endowment's Investiture and magic system... The two of them could well have been in cahoots.

In Oathbringer, NB says to Szeth after the first time he wielded it to destroy the corrupt prison-running nobleman to swear the Second Ideal of the Skybreakers, You know, Vivenna never drew me even once? She carried me for a long time, too. Maybe a couple of days even? (Not that NB has any sense of time passing.) And then later at Thaylen Fields, Well, nobody owns me. Vivenna told me. I'm my own sword. That's the only oblique reference I can remember to Vivenna carrying NB and for how long.

Those last two points seem critical to me... When people agree with Taravangian's POV that Cultivation "has no idea what she's done" in engineering his Ascenion to Odium, I always have to wonder why. I mean, she's always been three steps ahead in everything and everyone she's manipulated: Rayse/Odium, Taravangian, Dalinar, possibly Szeth, possibly Renarin, possibly Sja-Anat... And the WAY that she engineered Taravangian's becoming Odium relied entirely on using his arrogance and calculating nature to manipulate him. She understood him to the core - after all, she IS a goddess, one who's seen many human lives already (and per WoB, she was a dragon before Ascending, so maybe even longer a life than most Vessels before that!). Cultivation successfully engineered the downfall of someone who'd held the Shard of Odium for millenia, specifically to have it not simply released but to transition it to Taravangian; do you really think she had no thought or no plan for what would happen after that, or "no idea" what kind of Odium Taravangian would make?

Well played, sir! Not sure if I'd posted theories to this effect, but I had long considered that Odium was likely to be defeated in the "first five" story arc of SA as the Roshar-specific antagonist (despite what happened on Sel and to Ambition), rather than him being some kind of ultimate Cosmere-spanning antagonist that would be introduced/dealt with in the "back five". In which case, someone else taking up the Shard of Odium could be anybody - and I did think Cultivation was playing a long game with Taravangian, just as she had been with Dalinar, so that didn't really surprise me quite so much. No, what surprised me was when and how it happened. In book FOUR, I got blindsided; and in such a casual way, too. I kind of assumed it'd happen at the Contest of Champions in Book Five. So, score another on the long list of Well Played, Brandon, I Was Looking For Your Twist And Still Got Twisted items. Now, mark me down for Team "Don't Underestimate Cultivation" in terms of what Taravangian may now do as Odium. It's part of Taravangian's nature as the Vessel (and fed into by the Shard's intent) to think, Oh, you wonderful creature... You have no idea what you have done in engineering his Ascension. But she's been planning two or three steps ahead of another Shard, over the course of lifetimes... Do you really think she didn't fully appreciate the nature of Taravangian, who she understood deeply enough to manipulate into forming the Diagram, employing Szeth, and ultimately into becoming Odium, in terms of how that would play out once he became Odium?

Well the ash comes from the volcanic "ashmounts", and IRL, volcanic ash is a pretty dark gray. (That is, it's a rather dark gray; not "pretty" as in "attractive", though to some it might be.) For example, at this paint supply website it's graded one shade lighter than black: https://www.ppgpaints.com/color/color-families/neutrals/volcanic-ash And yes, I think the "deeper, harsher" black ash produced by the Ashmounts described at the beginning of HoA is because Ruin is fueling them into overdrive with his power. If I search through the Era 1 text there is mention of Vin brushing off the "blackish gray ash" from her dress at one point, and the mixture of ash falling onto snow covered buildings in Luthadel is described as "gray and white, the snow stained by ash". Though the ash falling on the crowd at the skaa executions that the Lord Ruler personally comes to witness is described as "black ash". So again, maybe just a touch of extra Ruin, hmm?

I think it's interesting that he has repeatedly mentioned Ham as the character he'd most target for a retconned gender-flipping, even going so far as to do it for the Mistborn screenplay for a potential long-format serialization of the story; yet I think Marsh is really the best one to flip. (Not that they both couldn't be flipped, of course.) I think it feels off to me because the name "Ham" just doesn't sound like a woman's (nick)name to me, even as a shortening of "Hammond", which unlike "Vin" or "Marsh" isn't something that sounds unisex. I'd want to see the character's name changed as well, to what I don't know. I do agree that showing more female Pewterarms would be a good thing - for example, in the attack on Elend at the Council meeting in WoA, when a gang of undercover Venture Mistings including multiple Thugs go after him and Vin defeats them all without atium, at least some of them could or should have been women (including the Coinshots). And Beldre should have been much more practiced at Allomancy as well, given that she was raised as a noble and has one of the "prime battle metals" as her power.

Yes, I see your point, that the "something unexpected and special" about Awakening Nightblood was something they didn't intend or understand, which means his fears of there being an army of Nightblood wielders was unfounded and hence the murder was ultimately unnecessary. I wonder if Vasher has realized this by now, and if that plays into his mention of "do what helps you sleep at night" to Kaladin. As to what that "secret sauce" was, given the oblique nod to Endowment being "more involved", I'm thinking it has to do with not the quantity but the quality of the Breath used for Nightblood. That is, at least one Divine Breath, perhaps multiple, with a Returned saying "My life to yours, my Breath become yours" directly to Nightblood during its creation? Is that nuts?

Yes, I would imagine the reason the Davar Soulcaster was broken to non-functionality had to do with the spren inside of it being released (not killed) by a key gemstone having been broken by Balat's strike. It wasn't just that it wasn't reassembled properly, or refitted with the wrong gem, in its repair; it's that the jeweler was no artifabrian (with understanding of how to put the right kind of spren into a gem to make it go), and besides, even the best actual artifabrians didn't know how Soulcasters were created by the ancients (what spren to obtain, and how to put it in the gem). Odium refers to the Oathgate at Thaylen City being rebuildable based solely on the state of its gemstones. "Kai-garnis did well destroying the wall; tell her to return to the city and climb toward the Oathgate. If the Tisark can’t secure it, she is to destroy the device and recover its gemstones. We can rebuild it as long as the spren aren’t compromised.” When they cosmetically repaired the broken Soulcaster to look the same as before, it was obviously with a non-spren gem. And Jasnah didn't notice the switch because her own Soulcaster was a similar cosmetic replica.

If it would help the Shallan haters, try imagining her Veden accent in Alethi (and her laughing) as being exactly like Fran Drescher's.(Note that "help" could go in either direction) (FWIW I am also from Queens, so no harm no foul right?)

You know, I forgot about that reveal being an in-world annotation of Raboniel's. The curious thing is, how did Raboniel learn about "undertexts" in writing? It's something Vorin, as a corollary of separating literacy as a "feminine" art and thus a way for women and ardents to keep a parallel livestream chat window going on the side while reading aloud the text proper to a man. So the practice post-dates the Recreance, the Hierocracy, and therefore the prior Desolation by many millenia. And we know from Leshwi's reactions at the beginning of RoW that Raboniel is only just recently returned to Roshar. I guess it's something to do with her form being scholarly and how she learned Alethi so quickly, too - something Connection based. And why would Mraize give her such an object? It was extremely valuable, if it's the same thing (or type of thing) as what Kaladin saw in that Shadesmarket shop, but if she would neither recognize it nor have a critical need for what it could do for her, why present it to her as a goodwill gift? What are "Cognitive anomolies"? It's implied that Raboniel realizes it as something that would be useful in Shadesmar in terms of getting off of or perhaps after leaving the Rosharan system, which she is unable to do. Or useful in a place like Threnody, or perhaps to get through to Sel via the CR? My guess is that the gift was intended to impress Odium, who when he learned of it, would have realized (and would still realize) what it could do for him or one of his minions in effecting his will in the wider Cosmere. Perhaps not a Fused, who is bound to Roshar, but... Hmmm.... Vyre? Of course she died before ever passing on the necklace or knowledge of it to anyone else on Team Odium. Yay?

Heck, he's even retconned his WoBs, most notably about how it is that Rashek became Mistborn, which mechanism is never mentioned in the books. At first, it was implied in the books and borne out by a WoB that he did so by consuming a lerasium bead the way that Elend did; later, that he had collected the beads to distribute to others, but had directly modified his own Spiritweb while Ascended to be an even stronger Allomancer than a lerasium one. Why he'd bother to do that is worth thinking about. Personally I'd rather see him address the apparent conflicting stories of how Kelsier and Marsh grew up, how they were exposed as skaa, and how their parents lived and died - as mentioned in a recent thread, not only does Marsh's account to Vin not jibe with what Kelsier tells her in TFE, neither account jibes with Kelsier's own POV thoughts to himself about his past with Marsh in Mistborn: Secret History, which version you'd think the most accurate of all - because while Marsh and Kelsier might have reasons to want to sugarcoat or emphasize different elements of their past in talking about it to Vin, if he's dead and thinking to himself, why would he lie?

Right, I got that; I was pointing out that "whatever bronze is common on Roshar", in terms of having a Shadesmar bead convert itself into that form, implies a latent alloy percentage that doesn't need Jasnah to specify it (though she probably could force one if she bothered, at the cost of extra Stormlight and concentration). The bead just follows a kind of "cognitive grooved pattern" for forming bronze that is probably going to align with the Allomantic alloy for reasons of underlying Cosmere magic. In short - yes, I think the bronze that Jasnah summoned up to plug a wall in Thaylen City would be safely, even ideally suited for Allomantic Seeking, even though she didn't do anything to make that the case.

I don't think Soulcasting, as an external effect, depends on Jasnah's Identity; her Intention, yes, but when her Intention is to form bronze, her concept of bronze is probably not to the level of detail of a specific alloy. Even if she subconsciously imagined the bronze that she saw most often, and if that happened to be fabrial quality bronze, and if that happened to be the same alloy as Allomantic bronze (which seems likely), that still doesn't mean she'd be cognizant of X% copper and Y% whatever else, unless she'd personally done the metallurgy or read up on it at some point, which seems unlikely. It is interesting, though, because when we see Shallan try very elementary and beginner Soulcasting, Jasnah explains that it's easiest to transform things into one of the Ten Essences, which is what Jasnah later does most of the time in her offensive Soulcasting at Thaylen Fields: creating stone steps and walls from thin air, oil slicks, fire to ignite said oil slicks, turning enemies into smoke or crystal (that is a "catching" effect!), those are all of the Ten Essences (she never turns someone into blood, now that would be memorable). And Soulcaster fabrials that produce Soulcast meat for flangria use heliodors to make "flesh", exactly what kind of flesh I guess is up to the Soulcaster? And "metal" is one of the Ten Essences, which leaves a very broad field when telling a Shadesmar bead to transform. I can just imagine Shallan trying to replicate the feat at some point: "Become metal!" "What kind of metal?" "Something hard and showy... How about bronze!" "That's an alloy. How much copper should I use? 91%, maybe?" "Whuh, ninety-one percent? Why... Oh never mind, I hadn't thought much about it, I guess that's fine." "What about the other 9%? Tin? Lead? Nickel?" "I dunno, surprise me." "I... I will change. And you'll like the surprise!" How does Jasnah do this without an exhausting negotiation each time? Shallan wondered to herself.

Well, Allomantic bronze is a specific alloy of copper and other metals, most likely tin. We don't know the proportions, but Allomantic pewter is specified to be 91% tin and 9% lead, so perhaps Allomantic bronze is 91% copper and 9% tin (or lead)? (I wonder where that 91:9 ratio comes from...?) In any case, when Supercharged Jasnah soulcast that enormous bronze plug to a broken section of wall at Thaylen Fields, did she have to imagine a specific proportion of metals for an alloy like bronze? It'd be cool if there were a Cosmere Default Bronze alloy, due to its magical properties as with fabrial construction, such that magically asking/telling an objectspren to "become bronze!" results in a universally ideal magical alloy.

Per this update from a recent YouTube Livestream, Brandon has focused Nowhere as a Spensa-centric adventure, but not wanting to leave her Skyward flight so much out of things for another novel, has commissioned Janci Patterson as a co-writer to spinoff three POV novellas (presumably from different Skyward flight characters) to see parallel events happening without Spensa. That sounds pretty cool! I wonder if it will be three separate novellas, or a single larger volume with the three POVs interspersed? I kind of think the latter would be better in the long run, as a bookshelf management or re-reading kind of thing, but from a writerly POV I suppose it's easier to write three separate POVs in three separate streams?