robardin

Yeah, the Radiant of the Fourth Ideal is either or both of Jasnah (who had some geometric, armor-like afterimages surrounding her when Adolin turned a corner to see her having physically thrown some soldiers away from her, instead of Soulcasting them), or Shallan ("Formless" as a suppressed OG Shallan may have reached the Fourth Ideal - she certainly had reached the Third Ideal to be able to summon a Patternblade against her mother way back when). Odium wants the best tools and Vyre and Dalinar are certainly that. What I don't quite get is how crushing humanity would free him from his prison in the Rosharan System, or why would he ever agree to a contest of champions? (He didn't confirm or deny Dalinar's statement that defeating humanity would free him...) As for taking Nalan's pain - Nale's kind of numb already, isn't he?

Ehh, close. The Sibling was implied to be slipping into slumber (gradually) in the gemstone archives (OB Ch. 87 epigraph, "Good night, dear Urithiru. Good night, sweet Sibling..."), and Raboniel only considers the Sibling "essentially" a deadeye (functionally equivalent). Plus, the Stormfather, who is not shy about saying when a bonded spren have been killed by a broken oath and does not really consider reviving a deadeye possible, described the Sibling as "slumbering" to Dalinar, but also refuses to elaborate, saying "Leave them alone. You hurt them enough." (Careful use of a neutral pronoun, too.) Implying that if they did the right actions, they could "hurt them" further.

Loved this chapter. So, the Fused "slumber" between Returns but can still think and plan, so it is not senseless. And being trapped in a gem as a Cognitive Shadow... Is that what they did to Jezrien? (Reminds me of Steven Universe, too.) Leshwi hummed to Exultation and to Abashment in this chapter - are those the "old rhythms" of Roshar or of Odium? -- FWIW, I did a text search and neither rhythm was ever mentioned until Venli "attuned Abashment" in Oathbringer when a Fused searched her bag for Timbre shortly after the battle at Thaylen Fields, interrupting her swearing the First Ideal. So probably of Odium. Darn, I was hoping for a hint that Leshwi was... Re-attuning. Vyre holds the Honorblade in his lap at the conclave, no doubt to show off his identity and status. I mean, he can summon and dismiss it, as we saw in his little surrender scene with Kaladin at Hearthstone.

OK, I'll FREEZE the bag first! LOL. (I was kidding, of course)

Yeah, it's plausible but (I would think/hope) unlikely because of the cross-work nature of something as basic as a back story of a major POV character being completely off-world. I'm not sure the attracting of Dai-Gonarthis to the Davar household is what Shallan's repressing per se, but I wouldn't be surprised if whatever "really happened" may have attracted Dai-Gonarthis as a side effect. I still think Shallan's mother calling her "one of THEM" is not what Mraize assumed it was about - that she was associated with the Skybreakers who were on a mission to kill Surgebinders or non-Skybreaker Radiants. (For one, if her mother were a Skybreaker initiate on a mission to kill Surgebinders, and a firm enough believer to go after her own daughter, even she didn't know Shallan had advanced enough to summon a Blade wouldn't or shouldn't she also know that going after someone who can draw Stormlight with a knife is not likely to succeed? We never see Nale sending non-Surgebinders against one, he either goes himself or at least sends squires - it'd just be throwing away resources, for the most part.)

Iyatll definitely seemed to have the mask "growing into her face" to Shallan when she first saw her, and in any case Shallan wouldn't have known anything about Scadrial Hunters or anything, so it makes little sense to me to present that as a fake out. Fake out of who? The other Ghostbloods? Same thing with the whole thing about telling the ardents (when she accompanied Shallan into Dalinar's camp to check out the "madman" who was Taln) that if they removed her mask, she'd have to kill them. "That did not seem to be part of the act." Nobody on Roshar would know that her removing mask would be a mortal offense so who would that pretense be for, if it was a fakeout? Besides, no reader of SA as a standalone work would pick up on that anyway (if you consider it intended as a fakeout of the reader). In fact you have to have read The Bands of Mourning specifically, of all Cosmere works, to pick up on that detail. And of course the whole "are you hunter, or prey?" dichotomy that Mraize espouses sure sounds like it'd be derived from the Scadrian Hunter culture, as inculcated in him by his babsk. So the simplest view is that that aspect of Iyatil is one of those "cross-Cosmere background detail to add depth to the character while giving an easter egg to the right subset of readers" type of things; that Iyatil really is a sincere Hunter style mask-wearer; and that would seem to rule her out as being Ishnah. That doesn't mean Ishnah isn't someone with a possibly false backstory and hidden allegiance - she could well be a GB agent - I just don't think she's Iyatil.

Yes, I think we have hints in WoBs that the "easier way" to hack for extreme longevity if not immortality, without needing an exponentially greater magical effect over time like with atium compounding, has to do with hacking Connection at a Spiritual level. Which I think would be interesting to consider from a first person POV perspective. It must make you feel less human, but at the same time you wouldn't necessarily realize that because you've just disconnected yourself from that very core of what it is to be human: to know that you are mortal, and to travel through life with a fixed cohort of people rooted in the same time and place as you are. It reminds me a bit of the character from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, who had immortality thrust upon him via a freak accident. "Most of those who are born immortal instinctively know how to cope with it, but Wowbagger was not one of them. Indeed, he had come to hate them, the load of serene bastards." If you retain that Connection to being mortal while simply going on... And on... And on..., that is probably going to do something to your head. That's what wore Rashek down in the end, in addition to Ruin's constant whisperings. The long, dark tea-time of the soul.

Ishnah wears no mask. I cannot see Iyatil going maskless.

Pretty well put - particularly the part in red. By now, I'm sure at least some followers of the Diagram - if Taravangian has told them of the deal he swung with Odium, and if they're not from Kharbranth and thus their families and homes are essentially being left as sacrifices on the altar - are having a few second thoughts about if this is truly the "only way to save humanity" given that several things the Diagram forecast have not come to pass. The "entrench deeper and double down" instinct in human psychology is very strong, however. And if you ARE from Kharbranth, as the highest Diagram members like Adrotagia and Malata and I think Dukar are (Mrall being the exception... As a surprisingly, perhaps suspiciously hairless Thaylen...), you're basically playing with house money now. Odium wins, you and yours are relatively safe; if Team Dalinar wins, well, I'm sure they wouldn't destroy Kharbranth just because Taravangian and a small secret society plotted stuff, would they?

That had been my original assumption, but now I'm reconsidering because Mraize would seem to have more to lose than to gain by lying about Shallan's past, which he's just promised to divulge more fully later, and which she apparently knows but is repressing (and can thus recall at some point). So inasmuch as the letter contained what Pattern recognized as false statements, it's not (completely) misdirection on Mraize's part - it's also just something Pattern knows to be false, that Mraize may legitimately suppose or guess to be true (several of his statements in that letter are qualified as educated guesses or suppositions). In other words, the intersection of "Pattern recognized something in it as false", "Shallan is suppressing something from her past related to killing her family members (as a child)", and "Mraize might withhold truths from Shallan/Veil but would be unlikely to outright lie in a way that he could be caught in".

All right! I'd be able to block a Nightblood attack with a bag of chocolates!

Well, when Mraize says "[Investiture] is bound to a specific land", note that he himself has an Aviar and it's hinted in the description of how he always seems to sense when Shallan approached him from behind that he has the "life sense" associated with having enough Breath for a Heightening. So he's already in direct possession of a few forms of personal Investiture from other Cosmere worlds we've read about in other works. The "trick" to transporting Aviar and Breath off-world has been unlocked by the GBs, and Mraize straight up says they've already done the same for transporting Stormlight Whatever their plan is for getting Stormlight off of Roshar, Restares is somehow a roadblock. And the "you'll know what to do" thing that isn't (necessarily) killing him once Shallan gets to him in Lasting Integrity, well, I guess that's going to remove that impediment.

I've been wrestling with this for some time now. Mraize had accepted Veil/Shallan as a Ghostblood at the end of WoR, only to find her half-and-half on the association. He is still pressuring her to fully commit to them, i.e., to get the tattoo, while also treating her only halfway as a full member - she gets protection from the GBs and (some) information from him, in exchange for fulfilling missions that advance the GB goals inasmuch as they align with the Radiants, but only after this thing with Restares is he willing to trade full information for full membership - and even to let her walk away from the GBs with a promise of no personal vendetta (though he cannot guarantee other GBs "who do not like her" would do the same). If that information turned out to be false and more importantly, falsifiable, that would be a big blow. And it also feels like Mraize would consider outright lying to be... Beneath him, especially to someone he's basically still recruiting, and even more so if she were a full member. So, what does that mean for Mraize's letter to her about her family, in Oathbringer (Ch. 40)? The one that spoke of Helaran and the Skybreakers? Pattern had said after reading it with Shallan, "Secrets. There are lies in this letter." For a while, I thought that meant that Mraize was lying about Helaran - intentionally - to Shallan, and that Pattern as a "liespren" could feel it through the text. But now I suspect something else: that Mraize is giving information to the best of his knowledge, but that that knowledge is wrong in a way that Pattern knows about. Pattern is not a "lie detector", as we've seen on numerous occasions (he took a while to learn about sarcasm!). I think this ties into the related discussion topic about what truth Shallan is suppressing, which I will presume "Formless" or "OG Shallan" is surfacing with, and who has been there the whole time enabling Surgebinding of at least the Third Ideal. Earlier than that letter, in Oathbringer Ch. 18, Shallan has a sudden moment of doubt that I think is the earliest suggestion of what she's buried as "OG Shallan", while she was busy investing more depth into the Veil persona: While forming Veil, she mentally listed all the things that "Shallan" was or had to deal with, that Veil was not and would not have to deal with, and what froze her was the trail leading to "went crazy and murdered her own family". That she killed her brothers is not the lie... It's that Shallan killed her mother, all right. but not in self-defense. That's the lie she constructed in her mind. Her mother didn't just suddenly call her "ONE OF THEM" and go at her with a knife. Something else transpired. And that "going deeper" beyond the face that she is doing is not healthy, even (or especially) for a Lightweaver. It is blocking, if not weakening the bond (the "deep fake" that was the "Shallan Davar mask" persona actually knocked Pattern back almost to being unbonded, though OG Shallan could still break through occasionally and enable things like Soulcasting and Shardblade summoning in emergency situations). And so, coming back to what are the "secrets... There are lies in this letter" that Pattern saw there, I'm guessing it was this: Your mother had intimate contact with a Skybreaker acolyte, and you know the result of that relationship. Mraize actually believes that. But Pattern knows better, because he was there when things went down.

I would totally be on board with Mr. T's Twiddle having been done, like Dalinar's, as a long game "careful pruning" operation of Cultivation herself. Subvert Odium's intended champion on the one side, while building up an apparent tool for him that will turn and bite him when the time is right in Taravangian on the other side. The only thing is, when did Taravangian visit the Nightwatcher to ask for "capacity... to save mankind from what is to come"? Was it after Dalinar's visit for "forgiveness?" Because no less a figure than Cultivation herself said when appearing to Dalinar, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN CENTURIES I'VE COME PERSONALLY TO SPEAK WITH ONE OF YOU. ...Actually, a bit of searching shows that it's straight up given as a WoB that was the Mother herself: I guess that also means that Dalinar's visit predated Taravangian's!

Right, the way I read it, what a metalmind stores is a "positive" attribute, something the Feruchemist currently possesses at the time of filling the metalmind, for restoration later. (Except when using the Compounding hack that actually gets you back a net positive.) And this also explains why an atiummind stores youth and not age when you might otherwise think of age as the "positive attribute" (since it only naturally increases over time) while youth would be the negative and subtractive attribute (offsetting the age you've accumulated). You can only tap a goldmind to be as healthy as you've ever been, to your "ideal image of health", as Cosmere healing works. It can't make you "healthier" in a way you don't think of yourself as ever possibly being while still being yourself, i.e., to shapeshift into someone taller, more muscled, or to make your belly button an innie instead of an outie. (Though if you "earned" a muscled body by eating right and working out, I suppose you could maintain that with a goldmind in place of ongoing exercise?) And atium stores youth because you've been that young before. Thus, you can store it up. The balancing side effect of making you older than you have ever been (again, barring the Compounding trick), well that is a thing of gods, isn't it, to project your "image of self" forward in time? Which is linked to atium's Allomantic effect of seeing the future.

It feels like a magically binding vow to me, and is perhaps related to why he can't physically hurt another being (which based on his being satisfied as finding a release for his pent-up aggression in the Cognitive Realm that we see in Mistborn: Secret History, he used to be able to do). We know he has some kind of Fortune-based sense that dictates where he goes in the Cosmere, though as he himself says to Dalinar at one point, he often doesn't know why he's supposed to be there or why he's supposed to leave when he does. So I think I'll be there when needed is, at some level, being externally determined for him. If Fortune is directing him to "be there", that would imply some kind of algorithm (or even conscious agent?) behind its operation determining the basis of "needed" that is opaque to him. I'd infer there was Intent in the vow when he said it that is providing the "algorithmic determination" of what "needed" means, and it's powering the Fortune sense within him. And I think "needed" is less a personal thing and more a goal thing. Where he needs to be... To prevent/achieve something.

Agree that if you wanted to be known as an Allomancer but disguise that you were a Mistborn, a Coppercloud is the best cover story because you'd always have it burning when you did your other stuff. However, in a combat situation where everybody's in the dark or ninja-suited up or simply don't know each other, firing coins like a common Coinshot until the last moment is probably the best cover - or if starting out at close range, as a Pewterarm. In fact, didn't a Mistborn do exactly this early on in WoA? She was attacked by a team of Mistings, or so she thought, and she worked on offing the Coinshots and Thugs one by one until The Watcher (Zane) helped her out by sniping out the Smoker... Which left her to realize that she still couldn't sense the Allomancy of the remaining Mistings. One of them was a Mistborn who was also burning copper! And it was one of the Coinshots, who she wouldn't be as worried about closing ground with her like she would be with the Thugs among them, who pulled out a glass dagger and started burning atium (and almost certainly pewter).

Yeah, maybe it's a side effect of over-analzying what is, after all, only part of one chapter among what will be well over a hundred of them in the final book. But I doubt we'll see Shallan sent off of the Shadesmar Market to trade her Stormlight (only to come back with magic beans!). Shallan herself didn't seem very interested in pursuing that line of inquiry, "please to explain exactly how would you use Stormlight in another place to literally change worlds?"; when Mraize promises he'll tell her "everything" when she comes back after succeeding in doing whatever it is she'll know what to do with Restares in Lasting Integrity, she's more interested in more personal secrets she believes they know the answers to. That's which of Mraize's big hints really tantalize her. Sure, knowing more about the Radiants would be useful, and about other worlds interesting, but her and her family are the foremost questions in her mind. BTW refresh my memory- by now, she knows Kaladin is the one who killed Heleran, right? Or rather, that Heleran was the Full Shardbearer going after Amaram that Kaladin killed as a spearman, and whose Shards Amaram then stole (and are now in a box going to the Horneater Peaks)? Which Mraize had earlier told her was something he'd been commissioned to do by the Skybreakers... Which totally felt like a lie?

I would not equate "Formless is working with the Ghostbloods" with "Shallan was already a Ghostblood at age 11" (though that would be an interesting explanation for Shallan's mother decrying, "She's one of THEM!" - meaning the GBs). For one, it was pretty obvious Mraize and the others did not know Shallan Davar was a Lightweaver when they first met her. However, I think it's plausible that because at least two of the three personalities (Shallan and Radiant) have pulled back from cooperating with the GBs, and have also been suppressing the reawakening of those earlier memories that "Formless" represents, that that aspect of Shallan might yet embrace working with the GBs for reasons we don't yet understand - which may have to do with What Really Happened in Shallan's childhood. My guess is that Formless knows or recognizes something about the GBs, even if they hadn't known about her, and is simultaneously shielding The Three from it while also pursuing that line. And my prediction is that eventually, Formless as "OG Shallan" will emerge to "integrate" (if that is the right word) with "Shallan the mask" - perhaps leaving Veil and Radiant in place as useful constructs, but in any case, cementing a complete identity of "Shallan Davar" (with all her memories of past actions acknowledged) as the core one.

OK, but in what way do these hints about the wider Cosmere detract from the SA story arc? It's not proving to be an essential component of what the characters will need to figure out, to face, or to use to fulfill their story arcs regarding advancing in Ideals, avoiding (or embracing) a Second Recreance, dealing with the singers, the Champion Throwdown With Odium, the Final Desolation, etc. I personally think Brandon Sanderson is playing it pretty well in terms of SA standing on its own, while also tying it in to the wider Cosmere - first as "easter eggs" in the first five, then later - as he's said - more integrated as Roshar takes center stage in the wider Cosmere events he has planned. For now, you could view the primary purpose of Chapter 13 to be to illustrate the depth of the Ghostbloods' knowledge and breadth of their goals. Similar to all the off-world references that Wit makes all the time that makes it clear he's "not truly of this world", and that the Shards that are/were the Rosharan gods were originally human ("Tanavast was a fine fellow...", "Sixteen, actually"), you can decide to take them at face value ("OK, so Hoid is Something More than Rosharan"), or look deeper ("...which means what, exactly?"). The Ghostbloods don't just know things about Gavilar, Braize, Odium, Surgebinding, the Unmade, etc., but know about off-world things and places. Yes, if you've read all the other Cosmere works you can geek out over things like "Ooooh, they know about/have been to Scadrial (Mistborn) and Nalthis (Warbreaker)!", but it is not necessary to follow how those elements tie in with the Stormlight Archive. And as for the "back five" eventually having Roshar take "Cosmere center stage", I'm sure it won't be done in a comic book fashion where in an issue The Fantastic Four of there might be an asterisk and a box in the corner, "See Incredible Hulk #58!". You'd just recognize certain characters or groups or actions for what they are immediately, instead of "shoulder surfing" with the SA characters' POVs to figure out what the deal is.

The problem there is I don't see him (or another Lightweaver squire) being deft/adroit enough to pull that poisoning off with Shallan present the whole time. In Ch. 7, she's alone with Ialai, and then summons her Blade to kill her (with Ialai saying, "do it"), then dismisses it instead as The Three - including Veil - decide against it: Ialai's last words - she was silent as the disguise illusion was put over her - were said to Shallan before "Shallan emerged" as "soldiers rushed up to surround Ialai", and then later, only Ishnah and the soldiers were physically with her after the illusion was put on - by which time she was already poisoned. If Mraize was indeed telling the truth by denying the GBs had any agents in Adolin's team of soliders, it would seem the only possibilities are either a really fast-acting Ishnah, or... A version of Shallan. Either after Ialai said "they won't let me" and before the soldiers arrived on the scene, or while doing the Lightweaving. And what was the detail about Shallan's "hand going to her satchel" about?

Doesn't mean that "Formless" is a "murderer/serial killer" either, even if that proved to be the case; simply more willing to go along with the Ghostbloods, for now at least. As far as being an informant to the GBs in Dalinar's inner circle, we don't know what she's told them. As with Amaram's study, it could certainly be a selection of information she feels it's safe for them to possess, while gaining/retaining their trust.

Well... This has to be considered; is this in the context of me as a Twinborn resident in Scadrial Era 2, attempting to become a superhero in our world, or even just me being me as I am today IRL but boom!, I'm given the gift of being a real-life Twinborn in one of sixteen metals? I usually imagine these things in the last context... While the allure of compounded gold = infinite health, heal from and survive practically anything, is pretty attractive, it could also be hard to keep under wraps, if that were something you were concerned with. A spectacular case of emergency regeneration ("...he got hit by a car and just regrew his legs!") would avoid you a trip to the hospital or the morgue, but also get you a trip to some government labs or something, eeek. (Maybe not the US government... Maybe... But you'd probably get "studied" in a way you might not like...) Me, I'd take zinc. Infinite mental speed on tap would just make me seem really brilliant, which is plausible, and being a Rioter could be something few would notice was due to you if you did it skillfully, the way Breeze does with his Soothing. If I were to be a Twinborn in Era 2 Elendel, well, as you say compounded iron could be pretty terrifying, especially with airships being a thing. (We already saw Wax basically do this while using the Bands, to be able to hold an airship in place or even ripping it apart in midair.) But what would you use it for in daily life, or even for income, if you weren't already a House Lord with business interests? Let's think about that - you're transported to Elendel as a Compounding Twinborn of your choice, and no other means of support. What combo would feed and clothe you, and more? Feruchemical attributes all have internal effects (since they originate in tapping metalminds to regain one's own stored attributes), so monetizing the effects of Compounding would require something an outcome valuable to others or in service to others being infinitely available. Tin (senses) = A spy whose use of tin can't be detected by a Seeker and whose metalminds won't run out? Pewter (physical strength) = well, Hulking Out is never going to go out of style for a bodyguard... Copper (memory) = unclear what compounding memory can do, especially without unsealed metalminds being a thing Bronze (wakefulness) = so you don't have to sleep. What are you going to do with that, become a guard? Zinc (metal speed) = you could be a really clever calculator? Oddsmaker? Brass (Body heat) = unlikely, unless you could harness yourself as a dynamo of some kind Iron (weight) = As you mentioned, you could be a human black hole. Demolition Man! Steel (speed) = You'd be The Flash. And a Coinshot. seems very monetizable on both fronts. OK I'll go with steel in that calculation.

Yeah, so your math is saying the timing works out so that he COULD do this. Storms. This!!!

No I don't think his writing style lends itself to serialized writing - only serialized releasing, after it's been vetted for publishing. He does juggle order of POVs and so on as he writes. It's not like a comic strip