robardin

Swallowing it also hides what metal(s) you have and how much. Imagine if you could tell if Wax was running low on steel because his steel earrings were literally burning off of his body, or the type of Allomancer they were from a similar effect. Plus only the part piercing into the body would intersect "into the body" enough to do the Spiritual mingling... It's just easier, quicker, safer, and more natural to just swallow stuff to get it completely encased in your physical self that to surgically or traumatically insert it. Agree that coating metal would be to disguise it, like when Vin was fooled by swallowing a bead of lead with a thin veneer of atium

Haha, that's great. BTW we've seen "mink" used a number of times already in SA; I guess there are minks (little furry mammals) on Roshar the Land of Crustaceans, or it's "local translation" like the word "axehound" standing in for some "disgusting crab thing with seventeen legs" that gets called a mink. As for eye color, "soft green" doesn't necessarily mean "light green". Moash also has green eyes as a darkeyes, but not the kind of "light" eyes that matters for Vorin purposes, right, so basically dark green eyes? -- Whoah, according to the Coppermind, that was a continuity error in TWoK and he does in fact have brown eyes, so perhaps this is another example of it.

Well that is still Investiture, yeah, and not... As I would think of it... An expression of Investiture. Or "flavor" of a metalmind. Like, hemalurgy can steal a Feruchemist's ability to fill and tap a given metalmind with a property that they can then reclaim, including the very power to do so, in a nicrosilmind. So you could use hemalurgy to steal F-copper from a Feruchemist, and even with that spike, access that Feruchemist's Identity-keyed copperminds. But, I don't think you can spike out a person's memories and take them as your own. Like an ordinary non-Feruchemist, who hasn't stored their memories as Investiture. That's kind of how I think of Vin's "flavored" Connection to Preservation.

If you haven't read MB:SH I won't spoil it. But hemalurgy was not involved, and what was shown doesn't appear to be something hemalurgy could effectuate as it wasn't a "theft of an ability or property" so much as a temporary "faking" of one. I think there is a WoB that if you spiked a Feruchemist to steal their power you could then use their (keyed) metalminds as the "inheritor" of the Identity, but that's different from being able to spike out Identity and Connection on its own, I think. Here's a related question: if you gave Vin whatever mechanism creates Era 2 medallions, could she store her (flavored, Identity-keyed) Connection to Preservation into a keyed duraluminmind and a separate unsealed aluminummind that anyone could tap for "Vin-Identity" (two powers in one medallion, with two metalminds)? I am not sure, because the "Connection medallions" we see in BoM work by giving a kind of "raw Connection" to Allik that allows him to "connect" to his physical location in a way that lets him speak and understand the local language. It's not a "flavored Connection", which we haven't seen at all - e.g., could Allik or another Southerner create a medallion of "my Connection to my Malwish homeland", give it to Marasi, and then have her understand his native speech with his crew mates even while in Elendel? I suppose it's possible and we just haven't seen it, but the only other Connection-based magic we've seen (in Oathbringer) also yields the "sudden understanding and use of the local language" effect. A "sharing of my own existing Connection to X" as opposed to "the ability to form Connection to who/where I am in the presence of" are different things.

I don't know about hemalurgy, but if you've read Mistborn: Secret History you'll have seen... So the type or level of Connection to Preservation needed to take up the Shard can indeed be "faked" with the right kind of Investiture magic.

Maybe she got all the way to the Fifth Ideal, which for a Lightweaver is to nest it all inside a Russian Doll and start over as a new Lightweaver. Shallan's not crazy in the head... Just crazy precocious!

Whoa. You know, I totally missed that. Put that way, it's like the voiceover to a telenovela. HIGHSTORM IN MY GEMHEART He bore the brands of slavery upon his forehead... She bore the brand of Odium across her very soul. For thousands upon thousands of years, their peoples have been at war. Can these two kindred yet opposing spirits meet in the battlefield that is... Love? (theme music plays)

Mistborn Bart Simpson attempted it once...

I suppose that's true. But what if you burn duralumin... And then burn duralumin?

I dunno. Again, Leshwi has been through many previous Desolations and presumably has no problem with replacing the lives of her "sacrifices" to regain physical form. The Everstorm merely shortens that cycle, instead of coming back once per Desolation she comes back once per Everstorm, and clearly has already done so many times (Moash killed her, and by now I'm guessing so has Kaladin - at any rate, as of Chapter 11 of RoW she was in a malen body that she has to shave, which annoys her, which she wasn't when we last saw her in Oathbringer giving the knife to Moash). If that bothers her enough to defect from Odium, it would not really seem believable as a character development thing vs. her known (historically in-world, very long) backstory and previous thoughts and actions unless it's gradually worked in with another theme involving either Kaladin, Venli, or both. A Fused of her stature and tenure and history would not just wake up one day and say to herself, that's it, I can't do this anymore, what have I become? or something like that. ETA: The more I think about it, the more I suspect that Venli, the Nascent Willshaper approaching the Second Ideal, being her major-domo is going to be a big part of what we're seeing going on with Leshwi. I mean, this is "The Willshaper book", right? Which Brandon has said was one of the first orders of Radiants he came up with when imagining SA?

That's a bit of an understatement, considering she's the one who handed Moash the Special Knife and told him exactly who to go stab and where to find him, and very likely was one of the ones who watched from the sky as the deed "they dared not do themselves" was done.

Yes I can see that, but I also felt that was unrealistic initially ... I mean Leshwi has fought in how many Desolations? And now she gets all compassionate about humans and singers and whatnot? Is Kaladin really so exceptionally different from Windrunners of the past? I think to believable a lot more would have to be invested in sketching out exactly why a Fused like Leshwi would be particularly swayed to compassion for or through Kaladin when literally hundreds of prior iterations with "Kaladin equivalents" have not... Either they were not Kaladin equivalents - and she thinks about exactly how/why (perhaps the "without god or Herald" angle is the key)... Or maybe something about Venli is moving Leshwi towards singer-ness (listener-ness) and away from Odium (some nascent expression of the Second Ideal of the Willshapers?)

This is a good point... Whatever grants them access to Voidlight and Surges, is it simply from bonding a voidspren in their gemheart or something more? Venli can access Voidlight, but we don't know if that's because she's a Regal or some kind of combo effect of her also having a Nahel bond (thought to be impossible for a listener). From the way Venli thinks about singer society being stratified between "regular people" singers who took on forms from taking in normal spren to their gemhearts, Regals who bonded voidspren, then the Fused and then the Thunderclasts and Unmade (note that T-clasts are a separate class from Fused, though having names and identities that suggest they were originally singers...). So there are other Regals than her - can they touch Voidlight? And can they use it to wield Surges, or just to heal with it or something? We know that during the False Desolation, the one after which came the Zombification of the Singers and then the Recreance, Ba-Ado-Mishram did something unprecedented and not only was able to grant singers "forms of power" to make Regals (voidspren), but to "grant access to Voidlight" - but not to actually trigger a full Desolation and bringing back the Fused and the Thunderclasts. Did those Regals Surgebind, or not? Is that something of the Fused only? I don't think we know yet, right?

Well I am not in full shipping mode, but I must say seeing Leshwi "at home" (and presumably unguarded and acting naturally) blunted a lot of my suspicions from the Chapter 10 discussion thread about the motives of the Heavenly Ones, and her in particular. She does appear to be "fascinated" by Kaladin in a way that suggests she'd rather continue to study and spar with him than to end him. Specifically, Venli thinks of him - in terms she must have been told by Leshwi, after all - "Leshwi was fascinated by the Windrunners, and in particular their leader—the young man who had forged a group of Radiants without the guidance of god or Herald". As a Fused, Leshwi has surely fought Windrunners in the sky through many, many Desolations. So she's not "fascinated by the Windrunners" in the sense of "wow, look at what they can do!" No, she's fascinated by the current crop of Windrunners, who are different from what she's encountered in the past in one very key way: they were self-founded this time, specifically by Kaladin, and not (as she probably saw it in the past) "commissioned" by Honor or Jezrien. What does that mean? It means Honor is dead... But that humans... Can have honor? Can have nobility? Without having it thrust upon them to use as a weapon against the singers?

BTW as far as Nightblood goes... As terrifying (but appropriate) as it is for Nightblood to be wielded by Szeth, what about Dalinar himself? Szeth now has a living Shardblade of his own, having sworn the Third Ideal; Dalinar "has no Shards" as a Bondsmith, but not only could he wield Nightblood in battle instead, with his innate Perpendicularity he could probably wield Nightblood the longest of anybody. And he certainly knows his way around using a Blade.

Not sure what you mean. I'm certain that there will be people on Team Odium who could draw Nightblood - the built-in nausea test functions as a measure of self-evaluation: "am I evil?" in the sense of, "is what I am eager to do with this sword something I know is wrong?" So Moash and Amaram, who are filled with self-loathing and who "gave their pain" to Odium to be free of it, no, they cannot draw Nightblood... ...But I could see a regular singer, particularly one from Alethkar, being indoctrinated in a way so as to pick up Nightblood in service, in a righteous fury to destroy the humans who stole their very minds and identities and enslaved them for centuries! And if you recall the backstory from Warbreaker, remember that Nightbood would have no problem being wielded against people who formerly wielded it... As for Warbreaker elements being an "Easter Egg" in Stormlight Archive, that's at least a little bit unfair. Warbreaker was intended to dovetail with SA from the get-go, as the very inspiration for the creation of an sentient, Awakened Sword was from when Shashara and Talaxin (Vasher) went to Roshar and saw Shardblades in action, and I think Vasher hints at that in Warbreaker itself while speaking to Vivenna? (Not sure any more)

I noticed that too. "[His spren] did not appear to me." Did that mean this time, like she's seen Syl before? I mean, Syl was there in their fight - in her physical form as a Blade - so that's not what she meant. As for my theory after Ch. 10 that Leshwi was playing some kind of deep/long head game with Kaladin, from her conversation with Venli that doesn't appear to be the case. She doesn't use whatever Rhythm would communicate "rubbing one's hands together in glee, or cackling while twirling a moustache" about manipulating Kaladin into the burning manor; and Venli reflects that "most of the shanay-im disliked such physical punishments [as whipping servants]", which does seem to reinforce a certain kindred-ness of spirit to the Windrunners.

Hmmm. You don't suppose this is a re-used name of a lost (to insanity) Fused ... Or even the Thunderclast that was Nightblooded away?

That's basically how I read it: the Fused have essentially become a fusion of a singer's cognitive shadow and a voidspren, one that can live in a singer's gemheart, where the Identity as a singer themselves (e.g., "I am Leshwi") has no room to share in the gemheart for that of the original singer. The Fused, effectively, ARE the new "form" taken on by the erstwhile singer. I find it interesting how many of the Fused are now "insane". What proportion? And what happens to them? It seems unlikely that they'll get killed if they're too insane to fight and to die? We have seen ones just sitting there giggling or something, right?

Are the "secretspren" the same thing as the yellow "screamer" spren that were seen in Kholinar before its fall?

Yes, but this could be a lack of opportunity. It's an interesting idea, but I personally doubt it - Venli can use both because the voidspren bond grants access to Voidlight and the lightspren bond grants access to Stormlight. They're two separate spren with two different affliations. For Renarin to be able to use both "lights", it'd have to mean that a corrupted Radiant spren becomes "dual" in nature and not just "changed" (or "enlightened"). I mean, he DOES have access, with Stormlight, to two Surges, so it's not like he is using Stormlight for Regrowth and Voidlight for Illumination. It's just that his (Stormlight powered) Illumination is... Enlightened.

Good question. I would interpret it as "right now", allowing for re-reads, and in my case (given how many times I've re-read most of the Cosmere works) factoring in the number of times you decide to go and re-read some part or other of a given book as evidence for deeming it a favorite. If it was "reaction after first reading", my list would be ordered considerably differently.

Yeah, but I think we can all agree that The Well of Ascension is the one we all skim on re-reads. I can do without a play-by-play revisiting of Wussy Parliamentary Procedure Elend Getting Bossed Into Shape By Tyndwyl, or POVs from the deeply scuzzy Straff Venture or the unlikeable (if somewhat tragic) Zane. Scenes most worth re-reading: The whole "the Venture kandra infiltrator was impersonating... OUR OWN KANDRA" build-up and reveal Vin gradually getting in good with TenSoon was well done Vin inventing "the cycling horseshoe Mistborn trick" was awesome So was Vin getting offered cute widdle puppy dogs when she wanted a wolfhound Elend kinging up and regretfully executing his own friend, Jastes, for crimes against humanity (on questionable authority, TBH, as he was no longer actually king, but it was still a kingly thing to do) Vin basically doing a Rand Al'Thor "Kneel... Or you will be knelt" moment with the other kings on the field Vin figuring out a way to out-maneuver an atium burner without atium Our first insights into Ruin's machinations Elend becoming Mistborn just like that? NEAT! Where do I get me one of these pellets? Though I will say that Ruin's I AM FREE! moment when Vin "releases the power" got a big HUH? WHAT JUST HAPPENED? reaction for me the first time, which is exactly what it should have felt like because that's also what it was like for the characters in the book.

It was a great ride, The Final Empire, and I was really thrilled at the way Sanderson did "hard magic system" in a way I hadn't seen in epic fantasy before - it felt like he was spooling out a really good role-playing session with the detailed mechanics of Allomancy and then Feruchemy. But in the end, when I finished it, it felt like it ended on the expected cadence where the good guys won and the Dark Lord was cast down. Standard fantasy stuff, really, though it was a neat twist at the end about Rashek being TLR and not Alendi turned into a megalomaniac with power... Until I read the next two books and I was like, wait, there was an even deeper twist buried there the whole time? Sazed was the one I liked and personally identified with the most as a character, so seeing him end up as God was amazing as well. It wasn't the Action Hero who ended up being The Hero! Any of the possible ones (Kelsier, Vin, even Marsh)! It was the scholar who carried the fate of the world... On "his" [neuter possessive] arms... WOW! And even more amazing, it was RIGHT THERE in the epigraph to THE PROLOGUE of BOOK ONE! (I'd even thought that phrasing sounded odd when I first read it, then shrugged and moved on). He deftly arranged it so that that odd phrasing, "on his arms," would not resonate until much later, when we learned about Feruchemy and Sazed wearing his copperminds as arm bracers. But by then the prologue's epigraph would have faded from memory. But it would still have been odd enough to resonate when it was the aha moment for Sazed himself.

The Emperor's Soul is the one work I'd recommend as a standalone example of Sanderson's style to anyone new to it, especially someone not deeply into epic fantasy already. I ended up naming Words of Radiance as that is the one I find I've re-re-read the most - Kaladin reviving Syl with the Third Ideal is the most epic and emotional scene for me yet in the Cosmere - but The Hero of Ages and The Final Empire are a very close second and third. I actually didn't like Oathbringer that much the first time I read it through, I thought the pacing was way off and some of the scenes disjointed or jarring, but I've come to realize that that was largely because I skimmed so much of what I'd already read in the Dalinar flashbacks already released in other collections, plus doing the one-a-week chapter release readings a little too closely. I like it much, much more on re-reads, to the point where it is one of my favorites as well, but still behind TWoK and WoR. (Also when I realized on a re-read that the scene with Lopen reaching the Second Ideal not during but after the battle of Thaylen Fields, and cursing out the Stormfather for saying YOU WEREN'T QUITE READY, wasn't there (just) for comic effect in a context that really isn't a laughing matter at all, one of the scenes I ;mentioned that I found jarring... In fact, the Stormfather doesn't prank about Ideals, as a spren he cannot - it was actually a subtly deep statement about what the Second Ideal meant for Lopen, and I just missed that the first time, which is on me.)