robardin

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*

We have a few clues: He gave up his bond to his honorspren BEFORE taking up the Dawnshard. Maybe just before, or as a condition of or part of doing so, we don't know. He says he bonded Auxiliary AFTER taking up Hoid's Dawnshard. Oooh, I forgot the part @tbug33 just mentioned - he says he was 38 when he did that, "when time had finally stopped tracking him, his soul bending under the Dawnshard's influence". (Ch. 11) Sigzil was bonded with Auxiliary for "decades" before the "accident" that nearly killed the spren. "Aux might have started their relationship hesitant to show his true self, but after decades together, his expressiveness had grown and grown. Until... that day." (Ch. 6) He still held the Dawnshard when "the accident" happened, as he remembers "The Dawnshard" and not "the Torment" as the agent and reason for his "reaching out for any energy source" resulting in eating Auxiliary's "very substance" to fuel it. (Ch. 20) The Night Brigade only started pursuing him AFTER he gave up the Dawnshard. Aux recalls he "turned himself in" to the NB at first as "clearing up a misunderstanding", i.e., "I don't have it any more, please stop following me around!" (Ch. 28) "A similar attitude had originally landed him in the army on Roshar, carrying siege equipment." Hmmm! I don't think we have clues as to how long ago he gave up the Dawnshard (nor how/to whom), though, or how long he's been Skipping ahead of the Night Brigade. He also seems to half hope to see Kaladin on the deck of Beacon when it turns out to be a "Connection ghost" of Wit, -- that might indicate that Kal is not necessarily dead yet, as it doesn't seem particularly in character for Sigzil - or Nomad - to be hoping it's a pleasant hallucination or vision.

Well, the presence of a Shard influences the expression of the magic - mostly on how it is acquired/performed. But Investiture is a Cosmere property, dating back to before the Shattering. So the availability of Investiture on non-Shardic worlds should not be surprising. For example, Roshar had Investiture-laden highstorms even before the Shattering - but, both the arrival of Honor / Cultivation / Odium to Roshar, and the subsequent Splintering of Honor, had an effect on the nature of highstorms. And just because there is no Shard on Canticle (no singularity in Shadesmar) now does not mean there never was one. Just that we never learn of what that former Shardic presence might have been, or how it left.

Highspren have come off as rather weird and distant in the Stormlight books so far - in fact, I don't think we'd ever seen or heard a highspren talking to their Radiant yet, and Szeth mentioned that his spren "rarely showed itself" to him, much less converse with him constantly as most other spren do with their Nahel bonded person. And their approving and enabling of hundreds of years of Skybreakers hunting down and eliminating all other spren bonds under direction of a mad Herald has always made the whole group of them seem bonkers. And we see them through the POV of how the honorspren and all other Radiant spren regard them for siding with Odium in the Final Desolation. But Auxiliary... Even as a monotone fragment of a highspren, he comes off very, very well. This is even more moving than Maya's declaration of WE... CHOSE! to the court of honorspren in Lasting Integrity. Aux chose. HE CHOSE. Not "with" his Knight, Sigzil, but FOR him.

They're not actively "evil" but they're certainly very Ghostblood-like in attitude, especially with regards to "lesser" people on other planets. Which sadly fits in with how human history generally progresses in similar situations. Advanced tech group arrives to new location, hooks up with local strongman as proxy to maximize resource and knowledge acquisition, hey it's not our fault this strongman's a cruel tyrant, we're just here for the resources.

And nobody helped out whoever those "few captives" the Scadrians said they had in custody, who they used to make them "give some of their heat to prime a drained sunheart" to be recharged again. I mean, who knows how poorly they're being treated - are they in cages, like the Set had done with Allik and his crew in Bands of Mourning? - but at a minimum, they're held in an underground facility against their will, probably supplied by the Cinder King.

Actually, a worldhopping Thaylen carring an "outdated" but still spoiler-ific Worldhopper's Guide To the Cosmere, 2nd Ed., Silverlight Press isn't the most interesting thing. It's that this Thaylen had a Scadrian entry key to the research station. But there are only Scadrians in there, I think? If the Thaylen were part of that research group, wouldn't they have acted to save him from the Cinder King (who at that point, was not a "Cinder King" with a Master Cinderheart from a partial transformation, a technique discovered by - and granted him by - those Scadrians he hadn't met yet)? And why would such a researcher have a book like that, anyway? More likely, the Old Thaylen Guy was a 17th Sharder tracking down the Ghostblood-y cell of Scadrians on this planet, who saw this power-hungry guy learn about the Cosmere, and figured hey, we can get sunhearts from him more easily, and showed themselves to him. Since it's such a one-sided relationship, it would make more sense for the Scadrians to have initiated it.

Oh yeah, I wanted to bring up all these points too, so I'll just respond to your post then! The Night Brigade - they're Threnodites who have "tamed" or somehow "recruited" Shades. So that's how they destroy entire planets, if need be. They "Hellify" until they get what they want. Though they're a mix of living people and Shades. So, how many of them are there? Are they all on that one spaceship, or is that ship just one of some Armada of the Night? Sigzil having a past as a Windrunner AND as a Skybreaker - By his own reckoning, he gave up his Windrunner oaths while or before taking up the Dawnshard. We don't know if that's related, like if he could only take in the Dawnshard if unbonded, but he retained enough of the Windrunner nature for him to reflect on them as oaths with meaning to him still (to protect), and when ghostly remnants of his armor start appearing towards the end of TSM, it seems to be that of BOTH orders. He "almost totally killed" Aux by bonding a highspren AFTER taking up the Dawnshard, which had given him the ability to use Investiture of any source to fuel some kind of innate Dawnpowers (healing and agelessness among them, as well as Skipping, and hopefully he can do the Connnection-forming without Aux overseeing the mechanics, because he's not got that any more). And then one time he invoked some Dawnpower without enough Investiture and it "ate" his spren, The question is, how long had he had his Skybreaker bond? Had he reached the Fourth Ideal as a Skybreaker (achieving a Crusade)? Or is the nature of becoming a Dual Radiant that your level transfers (i.e., he'd been a 4+ Ideal Windrunner, so when bonding a highspren, he's now a Skybreaker of the same Ideal, even if he'd given up his honorspren bonds)? Awakened Steelmind / Metalminds: I assume this was done by first Awakening steel, and THEN filling it with unkeyed speed? Would this mean the Steelmind could tap and fill itself? Also, as we saw with the Father Machine in Y&NP, Awakening is a generic Cosmere magical term for "Investing an object with enough power and Intent as to function independently", not that it had to have been done with Breath. The Scadrian Deadweight Manacle: Nomad acts like he's seen this exact type of thing before - for people to wear on low-gravity planets to move more naturally, but here turned up to the point his body was working under 3-4 times standard gravity. So it's some kind of involuntary metalmind that pushes unwelcome (and unkeyed) weight into the wearer, without the wearer's Intent! That's... Terrifying technology? (As for the manacle being "one-sided" in Feruchemical effect, that's not true: tapping an ironmind always did slow a person down, but the person would be made physically stronger to be able to stand upright and whatnot. Which Zellion does.) As for the "callousness" on display by the Scadrians: seems very much in line with the ethos of the Ghostbloods, doesn't it? Non-interference, or "not taking sides in a local conflict", as an excuse for sitting back and taking up the bits of power and knowledge that are of service to Scadrial, while telling themselves they retain a kind of moral high ground. As Kelsier continues to prolong his existence, after all, he becomes more and more like a spren. Of Surviving.

Yes, I referred to that as falling under the umbrella of some "whatever changes on Roshar in the wake of the Duel of Champions in SA5 or later may well have magic-system-altering implications for Rosharan Surgebinding such that one could now easily take a deadeye Blade off-world", but where "oathed" KRs going off-world may still be rare - though the Scadrians seemed to realize that's what Zellion was, or likely was, when he started "talking to nobody". So maybe both are equally possible by that point. And I would assume that means "oathed" Shardbearers would not be mercenaries, seems like most orders wouldn't cotton to such a thing, right?

Actually, if Hoid is actually telling the story of Yumi, on Unnamed Sho-Del Occupied Planet to Sigzil in a meetup there, after he comes around from being magically petrified, that would explain everything! The target listener was, after all, expected to be familiar with Rosharan terms/things as a baseline comparison, like saying how the listener would say that Nikito "looked Veden", but also "more advanced tech" things than we see in the Days of Kaladin and Dalinar. And also to not need explanation of things like life on other planets, or what a Shard was.

Ah, I see, maybe that is what the OP meant about "deadeyes still exist" - the implication that people expect a Rosharan with a Blade and gallivanting around the Cosmere to be a mercenary. That would make sense, as having a live spren bond is supposed to make getting out of the Rosharan system very difficult. We've seen that Hoid has managed it by the time of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and what appears to be a full KR with livespren armor on a spaceship in Sixth of the Dusk, but the technique may well still be only known to a select few. OTOH most or all the "deadeyes" from the Recreance being left in that state forever (more or less) seems quite possible, and whatever changes on Roshar in the wake of the Duel of Champions in SA5 or later may well have magic-system-altering implications for Rosharan Surgebinding such that one could now easily take a deadeye Blade off-world (where up to SA4 that appears not to really be possible).

What do you mean, "deadeyes still exist"? If you mean what happens with Aux after giving up the last of their identity/consciousness and becoming a "dead Shard", one that would appear next to Zellion after he dies, that's still NOT what we see as "deadeyes" in SA through Rhythm of War. Because he's still able to summon the "corpse" of Aux without waiting ten heartbeats, and to reshape it at will - including giving it an "external power source" like the sunheart sliver to give it extra Investiture to convert into "magical mass" to make that giant All-Day Dome-Shield for the remnant Beaconites. Unlike with Mayalaran in RoW (as a window into all other "deadeyes" of the Recreance), Aux is now "burned away entirely... truly separated from the soul that had inhabited it", but still a useable pile of moldable, bonded Investiture.

Kaladin, regaining his bond with Syl - Learning To Fly, Pink Floyd Above the planet on a wing and a prayer My grubby halo, a vapor trail in the empty air Across the clouds I see my shadow fly Out of the corner of my watering eye A dream unthreatened by the morning light Could blow this soul right through the roof of the night There's no sensation to compare with this Suspended animation, a state of bliss Can't keep my mind from the circling sky Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I Hoid - I've Been Everywhere, Johnny Cash (but substitute in some Cosmere location names) Allik Neverfar: Down Under, Men At Work.

I am not sure the Oathpact of the Heralds affected the "Proto-Radiants" who first formed Nahel bonds with sentient spren. It's not necessarily a reliable source, as even in-world Words of Radiance was compiled 200+ years after the Recreance, but it does mention that Ishar threatened to destroy the first holders of Nahel bonds "unless they agreed to be bound by oaths and precepts" (the Five Ideals). And Syl says those first bonds caught even Honor and Ishar by surprise. It wasn't originally part of the whole Oathpact / Fused / Heralds / Braize design for Desolation cycles.

No, we haven't seen anything like that. I was just pondering the what-if scenario. Like, Brandon referred to Hoid going all HAM on poor Kelsier at the Well as stemming from him having a LOT of "pent-up aggression" from his living with his non-aggression condition for so long. So maybe if Hoid had been hungering for a little time in a boxing ring or whatever, he could have hopped over to Braize and challenged Lezian the Pursuer for a match (well, not any more). Of coure that would have exposed him to Odium's awareness, which he was eager to avoid on Roshar until he gained a protection clause via Dalinar, so presumably that was a good reason to avoid Braize as well.

Wh...what? Who would bother to "troll" the Coppermind Cosmere Wiki? WOW!

Right, but see, since he DID punch Kelsier at the Well, all it could take for him to consider Kelsier still an "allowable target" is to consider Kelsier "fundamentally just as not-alive as he was then (nothing has changed, so what if he's using a hemalurgic spike to hold some kind of form on Scadrial, that's a function of the spike and not of him)". It's not clear to me that Kelsier being corporeal on Scadrial the way he is (which is less "present" than Vasher is) would change that, but I suppose it very well could... Even as it would (?) prevent him from targeting Vasher, a Fused, a Herald, etc. Alternatively if being in the CR vs. planetside IS important to him, then why couldn't he fight a Fused on Braize that hadn't been "called" to Roshar via the Everstorm?

Ooh, and doing a little digging in the WoB Arcanum archive, I found this: Which sort of implies that if Hoid were to consider Kelsier "still in that gray area between dead and alive that I can fight with him" as he was at the Well, that could well be enough.(Unless part of that, consciously or unconsciously on Hoid's part, was the encounter being in Shadesmar.) And this, where Brandon calls Hoid's conclusion as to why he could pound on Kelsier there and then was "as educated a guess as possible", more or less (without actually giving the Writer's Nod) This point still confuses me. He quite handily puts Kelsier on his rear in The Well. So he can harm someone if he's provoked? Or is it because he knows that regardless of what he does to Kelsier it won't actually harm him? And a lot of "harm" is in the mind. Even without a corporeal body, it would still register as pain, thus harm? And wouldn't it still be considered physical harm, if Hoid was there physically? Applying physical harm? Brandon Sanderson If you re-read that scene, Hoid himself is shocked he's able to do what he does there. Let's just say he himself doesn't quite understand the issue as much as he once assumed. ice_royale Can we assume he cannot harm a LIVING being, but Kelsier is at that point not a living being? Brandon Sanderson This is the conclusion Hoid came to, so it's a pretty solid assumption. Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 9, 2020)

Does either or both of Hoid or Kelsier know/believe that, though? Because Hoid did throw that out there - either as a real threat, or just as a taunt ('"hey, don't forget that time I kicked your ass"). Perfectly in character for the latter, but interesting to consider that it may not be completely empty (or that neither of them know for sure, at least as of the time it was given).

Yeah, that's the point of this discussion. Even Hoid was surprised at the time, and he had already had millenia of Cosmere experience, including with "no physical form" beings like spren and whatnot. Maybe he just never tried. Anyway, I'd say there's a spectrum of possible candidate opponents: A being that has never had a physical form, say, like an honorspren guard at Lasting Integrity A Cognitive Shadow of a being that once had a living body, but no longer - like Kelsier, or an unhosted Fused on Braize A Cognitive Shadow of a being that would have a link to a living body, not its original one (a "hosted" Fused) A Cognitive Shadow of a being that had died, but reattached to its own body, with loss of identity/memory (e.g., a Returned) A person that "had just died" but was "restored" with Regrowth, retaining identity/memory (e.g., Szeth; maybe even Gawx -> Yanagawn) And the setting being either Shadesmar/Cognitive Realm, or the Physical Realm ("planetside"). The only example we have is that Hoid was able to slap Kelsier around in the CR, where Kelsier falls into scenario #2 on that list. And intuitively, I would not see any reason to distinguish between a physical fight in the CR (as Hoid was in MB:SH) and "planetside". It's the nature of the being he'd be fighting, not the setting. So, starting with that example of Kelsier, then: as of TLM, he's physically on Scadrial, but still not "present" enough to access Allomancy or to leave the planet. Is he then still Scenario #2 or #3, or in between, like 2.5? His physical host has the appearance of his original body, but requires(?) a hemalurgic spike, and isn't "all there". Can Hoid still fight with him? If so, would that be only in the CR, or even in the streets of Elendel? (I would think the answer is either "no" or "yes" to both, equally.) As for the later scenarios: Vasher/Zahel, among the most Realmatically Aware POVs we have in-world, considers scenarios #4 and #5 as equivalent - he refers to Szeth as being like him, except that "she" (Endowment) had removed his mortal memories when he was Returned Nalan also considered Szeth as having "died", describing him as having "your soul cut through, dead for certain" before restoring him (thus counting him as having paid a death penalty for his crimes, Skybreaker-style). Gawx was also revived by Lift at the point of death or just after, but he seems fully normal, unlike Szeth whose soul is now visibly "trailing" him. I think "the Hoid Line" falls between #2 and #3, but where Kelsier in RoW/TLM falls seems to be somewhere in between. So the threat may not be empty. I also never considered scenario #1 before, whether or not Hoid could have a fight with an honorspren in Lasting Integrity. Maybe not, because the spren would be as fully alive as it'd ever been. So maybe it's not a "Hoid Line" but a "Hoid Zone" with lines between #1 and #2, and another one between #2 and #3. (...or maybe a deadeye? LOL)

We have never really seen any Allomancer burning electrum for its own sake, just mention in THoA that Vin and Elend had discovered it could function as an atium blocker because it caused probability shadows for an atium-burning opponent (which they desperately needed, as Ruin's Inquisitors still had access to atium while they had run out). And we never see an electrum Misting (an "Oracle") in action or even mentioned in Era 2 (nor a Nicroburst). If you read Sixth of the Dusk, you'll see him linked with an Aviar (the magic system of that world involves bonding with a bird) that grants visions of dangerous/deadly scenarios in his near future; the more probable it is, based on what he's doing or thinking of doing at the time, the more intense the vision. Burning electrum is a lot like that.

Hoid/Wit's message to Kelsier at the end of RoW, passed via Shallan to Mraize and confirmed as received by him in a WoB, told him to "mind your own planet" and "don't make me come over there and slap you around again": So do you think that was just bluster, or is it something Hoid could actually do? Of course, Hoid is referring to his throwdown with Kelsier at the Well of Ascension in Mistborn: Secret History, when he was on his way to taking the lerasium bead hundreds of years earlier. At the time, Hoid was surprised - and somewhat pleased - to find that Kelsier being dead "means I can hurt you", because he was a Cognitive Shadow. Does that loophole in whatever prevents Hoid from doing violence to living things (including eating meat) carry over to Spiked Kelsier Physically On Scadrial? I mean, he's still not "alive" - otherwise he could probably do things like burn Allomantic metals or travel off-world. But Kelsier is physically on Scadrial (even if he can't leave) when we see him in TLM: he travels over the ocean physically (not through CR), he sits in a chair with his shoes reflecting light as shadows fall on his face when offering GB membership to Marasi, and so on. (He wasn't yet at the end of MB:SH when he appears to Spook only after he dons a hemalurgic earring.) So was Hoid's ability to "slap Kelsier around" at the Well due to being in the CR, or just Kelsier "being dead/having died"? Because if Hoid really can still physically attack Kelsier on Scadrial because "he's dead", shouldn't that also apply to say, the Heralds and the Fused? Maybe the Heralds and Fused have never "really" died (debateable with the Fused, whose original bodies are long gone and they are reborn in the vessels of "willing" singers/listeners), but what about a Returned like Vasher?

That's a good catch. We do know Aona and Skai immediately broke the common agreement not to Shardically shack up on a planet; and presumably the same is true of Honor and Cultivation, and if he could have gotten around to it, Preservation and Ruin. How he killed Ambition, though... Per the epigraph in Ch. 27 of Rhythm of War, we learned that that was actually a three-way battle between Odium, Ambition, and Mercy, the latter of who survived, and Odium (instead of going after Mercy) left to pay that visit to Aona and Skai in the Selish system instead.