robardin

Oh, I never came back to comment on this! Your point about it being easier to use A-steel or A-iron to move metal around to make electricity is a good one, but you can't Compound for free Allomantic power, right? So we have to work on nigh-infinite Feruchemical attributes here. So, the reason we don't see a lot of over use of heat->power IRL is because the return is low. As I understand it, energy gained back from processing waste heat is not much more than the cost of the processing, and of course is nowhere near the energy cost to do the work that produced the waste heat in the first place. But compounded brass means FREE net positive heat, which is free net positive energy. That has to be harness-able. Like, how is geothermal heat used for power generation? And space probes like the Curiosity Rover are powered by thermoelectric generation, could one not hack a way to drive that with brassmind derived heat instead of radioactive decay, and at a far higher level?

But remember what Kelsier said: there is always another secret.

In my opinion it's a change for the better, though the ship has long sailed for going back and editing the written material (pulling a George Lucas). Yes, we lose the Seer Mistings Are A Thing twist, but that was never really that big of a reveal - more of a confusion point. Having 16% of the people who went out in the mists falling to "mistsickness" actually being Snapping is good enough, without the added "and 1/16 of those struck by mistsickness were atium burners". And it would allow for Elend's little army of atium burners in the final battle with the hundreds of thousands of koloss to be composed of all Allomancers, instead of a fraction of a fraction of the people. Even the aluminum and duralumin "gnats" Snapped by the mists, who would otherwise have nothing particular to do in that fight. Yomen's an interesting enough character, being able to trap Vin the Baddest Mistborn of All Time and being a faithful following of TLR years after he died, without having to be a supposedly impossible type of Misting. As for "battles with regular Allomancers" - the biggest restriction on facing an atium burner can simply be its rarity, not its rarity PLUS its supposed exclusive use by Mistborn. You don't need atium to justify why the noble houses were so keen on having Mistborn - they're "armies unto themselves" in a way far beyond simply the Mistings of the prime "battle metals", pewter and steel. Which of course, also means that a Mistborn with atium is far more dangerous than just a Pewterarm or Coinshot with atium, much less Joe Aluminum with atium.

Ah, that actually makes a great deal of sense!

Hmm. He's envisioning a television show (long format serial) set between movies 2 and 3? Are movies 2 and 3 supposed to map to The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages? Because I'm not sure I've ever sat there and wondered what happened/wished to see more of what happened between Ruin escaping the Well and Vin forcing the other would-be Kings of the Final Empire to sear to Elend as Emperor, and Elend showing up at Fatren's gate as the Emperor Uncalled For. Then again I've always felt the pacing of The Well of Ascension could use some expanding or adjusting; I guess 2/3rds of WoA could be in Movie #2, and the other 1/3 plus more material put into the serial?

Yeah, I felt like I'd read that somewhere but I wasn't entirely sure. I could have done a WoB search at the coppermind, but I feel like it's more fun to let other fans chime in! Also interesting is that it's a Shard we haven't yet seen in the Cosmere.

I find it interesting from another POV - would there have been 17 Shards if he'd said yes, or did Shattering Adonalsium require 16 people to pick up exactly 16 Shards - in which case, which Vessel was essentially a "bench player" for the Shattering Crew who only got one because Hoid declined, and does that color how that Shard feels about Hoid later? (And would that be feeling grateful for the chance, or envious/resentful at being a second choice even after all that time and, you know, becoming immortal and whatnot?)

Whoa, that's a HUGE change. For one, the whole surprise reveal about Yomen will have to go bye-bye... To be replaced with what, if anything? OTOH from another perspective it makes a lot of sense - it's a "god metal" after all, and Scadrians especially all already have some Ruin in them in a very literal way. And it relieves later parts of the story, in Era 2 and so on, of having to explain somehow that Preservation had modified the Allomantic Table to allow for atium Mistings, and then Harmony changed it back to re-add Chromium (and Nicrosil), and also avoid the question of if there were therefore malatium Mistings as well.

Going back to an earlier thread discussing genderbending Mistborn characters, I still feel that making Marsh Kelsier's sister would be the best candidate. Their sibling dynamics don't change all that much; you could leave in the history that they were romantic rivals for Mare as an LBGTQ angle. Best of all, when Marsh(a) becomes an Inquisitor, I think it'd be even more jarring since up to them we wouldn't have seen any female Inquisitors (on top of being a sympathetic character becoming apparently "turned to the dark side" ... who then instead remained a hero... But who then actually gets forced to turn to the DS.... And so on). In my mind, Asia Kate Dillon (who played The Adjudicator in John Wick 3) would be a GREAT Marsh.

-- That Shard That Just Wants To Hide and Survive, in reply to Hoid's Letter

Does someone burning gold have any control over the specific variant of themselves that they see? Maybe you need to burn gold enough to develop that ability, and it's an unsettling enough experience that few people do, as it appears the default version is the one that is most opposite (such that the two versions always seem to despise, fear, or hate the other one)?

Well, Yelig-Namaram had all ten Surges and still got beaten by one and a half Windrunners. I guess maybe he hadn't had the time to familiarize himself with them all. Plus, when not powered by Voidlight, there are only so many Surges one can use in a given time window based on the amount of Stormlight on hand (and Honorblades are inefficient).

Correct. Any Augur Misting could burn a piece of Kelesina's bracelet and get a bunch of healing. But with no ability to shunt off any excess to another goldmind, or back into the original one inside them, and I'm not sure what happens to someone who "overtaps" a goldmind.

Well you see, I came up with this non-serious theory in reverse, after a conversation about playing Truth or Dare as kids. One person said they always chose Truth because they were afraid of an unknown Dare, and admitted to not always telling the full or actual Truth in so doing, but hey, who could call them on it? And I wanted to say that was very Lightweaver-ish, but couldn't because they wouldn't know what I was talking about. D'oh! But it also tickled me to imagine a Radiant who had to do Dares to advance, who we'd seen advance but not exactly how, and Renarin seemed like a good fit. Yes he wanted to join Bridge Four, but clearly had to work himself up to making that move in reality. He had to Dare to make it become a Truth! That description might fit a Willshaper POV, actually!

well they're one of the few orders we don't know any of their further Ideals...

Like Lightweavers, they do not swear Ideals but have to admit things to themselves about themselves. ...But instead of Truths, it's Dares! They have to force themselves to do something they wish they would do. Glys dared Renarin to join Bridge Four, for his Second Ideal! (OK so this is mostly a joke about Truth or Dare, but hey, it's possible...)

I believe Brandon left her Nalthis essay out of Arcanum Unbounded because it ended up being mostly a bunch of restaurant reviews. Half of it was a comparison of places to get spicy Tektees fried rice before reluctantly concluding that the place Vasher chose to meet with his blackmailed priest in Chapter 5 of Warbreaker was indeed the best, and speculating that the Life Sense of a Returned (as she knew him to be one of the Five Scholars) extended to detecting flavors without first having to eat.

I've been thinking about Radiant Hoid and I can't help but feel he's got some explaining to do wrt the First Ideal. Journey Before Destination was basically summarized by Teft as "the end does not justify the means." And while different Orders or individual Radiants may interpret the Words differently between themselves and their spren, like maybe that's how an honorspren interprets that phrase but not necessarily a Cryptic, ultimately the Nahel Bond is something the spren are doing in reaction to Odium's intentions for Roshar... And Hoid flat out said this to Dalinar's face not long before he fully assumed the role of Bondsmith: Sounds a lot like Destination Before Journey to me!

Well NB still poofed a section of the floor when cast aside, unless that was a residual effect from having recently been held (he was thrown by hand, after all). And maybe that explains why no further parts of the floor or wall got "puffed away" and he just rested quietly, if unsheathed, in the corner.

An interesting question about why hasn't Vasher invested in making an aluminum glove or gauntlet. Probably because walking around all the time with an unsheathed Nightblood is a terrifying experience for all involved? I did a bit of WoB-digging (normally your bailiwick :)), and there is definitely something about Nightblood being wielded by hand and draining Investiture from its wielder versus simply doing whatever it does as a physical property. ...when [Nightblood] is fully consuming Investiture he can do some really freaky things, and Nightblood requires constant input of Investiture in order to realize his full destructive potential. So yes, NB does have a "poofing" effect even when not wielded that goes beyond an ordinary Rosharan Shardblade's "severing on all three Realms" bit; but, when he's feeding off of a wielder's Investiture is when he goes fully into Beast Mode. And what would happen if Nightblood was blocked by a Shardblade (or vice versa) is still a RAFO as of right now. And, if an aluminum lined steel gauntlet would allow a Mistborn or Wax-with-his-winching-claw-gadget to swing around an unsheathed Nightblood at a distance, that still seems pretty scary. (I guess it'd better be an aluminum chain on Wax's winching gadget, too, to avoid accidentally cutting Nightblood free!)

I think it's just an aspect of how NB functions, and of course its Identity as a Blade. There is a double-edged blade, and a hilt with a crossguard and a pommel. Anything that makes contact with the blade is severed on Three Realms; anything gripping it by the hilt has Investiture drained out of it. For example, in Warbreaker when Vasher was wielding Nightblood and cast it aside just before it could drain him completely: While "skidding" from being thrown clear from Vasher, the unwielded naked blade still puffed parts of the floor into smoke. So I assume it hit the wall hilt-first, and balanced on the floor by the point and crossguard? What's not shown is how Vasher manages to get Nightblood back into the sheath without picking it up again. After defeating Denth with his little Breath-donating trick, we next see Nightblood back in the sheath when he goes to free Vivenna. Maybe he brought the sheath over to where Nightblood was against the wall, and kind of wiggled it on?

Kelsier never proclaimed a "fundamental truth". He did not preach. Instead, he declared himself to be something even The Lord Ruler could not kill: "I am Hope." He exemplified. He had been sent to the Pits of Hathsin, as so many skaa had been before him, to be brutally worked to death. But he alone SURVIVED the ordeal, and came out stronger. When he defied The Lord Ruler to his face, he was killed. And yet, Kelsier SURVIVED. Even death! He somehow, while beyond death, took up the Shard of Preservation, enabling it to SURVIVE being Splintered by the newly freed Ruin. I don't know how much of the events of Mistborn: Secret History are related in the Words of Founding - possibly none, since it's not something Harmony can see in the past as it wasn't done with the power of either Shard - but what he was shown as doing to attain that goal is still very impressive: He refused to succumb to Ruin's taunting him towards despair. He struck out into the CR, found the Ire, discovered the Connection Bomb thingy, and schnookered them out of it. He later released the Shard so that Vin, his Heir, could fully take it up - which she needed to do to "bring destruction to the destroyer", and to save the world. So venerating Kelsier, the Lord of Mists, is to remember his many sacrifices for the good of the world, and just as importantly or even more so, to embrace perseverance of action and hope, faith in one's abilities, and always to fight on and to reach for the future. I don't know how much Spook, the Lord Mistborn, spoke of seeing or working with Ghost Kelsier - possibly only in his secret notebook - but if/when the Survivorists learn that he operated for years after the Catacendre in the Southern Hemsiphere as The Sovereign, there being responsible for their Surviving as well while Harmony sat back and watched events unfold, that would only further illustrate why they venerate the Survivor over Harmony. What is Ruin in their theology? In the past tense, the defeated enemy of Scadrial's very existence, as he sought to destroy it and every living thing upon it. As such, he's invoked as a curse for invective (Rust and Ruin!). And in the present tense, an aspect or component of Harmony.

Really? Where is this explained or mentioned? Because I would think the "severing on all Three Realms" bit would be a property of the Blade, not a facet of its use driven by Investiture (NB certainly has absorbed plenty already). I would imagine an unbonded (deadspren) Shardblade left lying around exposed and blade side up, like after its previously bonded bearer died, would still be a threat to anyone's limb (at least) who might accidentally fall upon it, even without it being wielded by a living person?

The point would be that he wouldn't need to expend ever increasing amounts of Investiture to remote control Nightblood. Heck, give Wax a medallion or spike for A-iron to add to his A-steel and he could do it, too.

Well we do see from Vasher's POV of wielding Nightblood in Warbreaker that it was eating his stockpile of Breath faster and faster the longer he wielded it. But was Nightblood also getting more powerful as a result, or is Nightblood's strength simply a matter of all the Investiture already sucked into it? I guess that's kind of the same thing, in the end. As for whether or not Rashek could Push/Pull on Nightblood directly - how about simply putting Nightblood in a fisted steel gauntlet? And if Nightblood would simply destroy any non-aluminum encasing touching it... How about steel-wrapped aluminum around the grip?