robardin

I've wondered about these bits of info, which are true as far as we (the readers) know from comments from in-world characters, but may not actually be as true as we think they are. TenSoon did take OreSeur's spikes, but he didn't have them in him all the time. When he returned to the Homeland after Zane's death, he buried them in a cache, as MeLaan comments how he should have "inherited" the Blessing of Potency from OreSeur, yet it was not found on him when he was imprisoned. Later on, when he escapes and tries to return to Vin, he digs up OreSeur's spikes (in Ch. 39 of The Hero of Ages) while thinking to himself: "In addition to sentience, each Blessing gave something else. A power. But there were stories of kandra who had gained more than one by taking them from others... He now had four spikes, two Blessings, and was one of the most powerful kandra alive." As an aside, that implies he's not the first kandra to have done this. There may be other kandra alive with more than one Blessing, since TenSoon was become "one of" the most powerful, and a doubly Blessed kandra would be even harder to kill than they already are. And MeLaan wouldn't have spoken to TenSoon about "inheriting" OreSeur's spikes if that were a completely illegal and taboo concept. So whatever cultural reasons they have for not reusing spikes from "dead" kandra to awaken mistwraiths, apparently doesn't apply to existing kandra incorporating another one's spikes, at least under the right circumstances. What seems to have been the real issue was TenSoon's killing of OreSeur while on assignment and on orders from a human, implying there was some rarely invoked way for a kandra to do so legitimately (like in some kind of duel to the death). Anyway, TenSoon must have pulled out all four of those spikes in him during the Resolution. We can only assume that he re-acquired them all as well afterwards, but really, he only needs his original two two be TenSoon, and he's proven to be quite the maverick already in his life, so who knows what he's done with OreSeur's spikes in the past 300+ years? As for Bleeder running around with just one spike, and having to do this contortion to swap Metallic powers, as from F-steel (Steelrunning) to A-steel (Coinshot), both of which she exhibited in Shadows of Self: for sure, Bleeder only had the one Trellium spike in her before Wax shot her with the hemalurgic spike turned earring turned bullet. So shouldn't that mean there's a second Trellium spike somewhere that they haven't found yet, the one for F-steel? And if the Trellium-ness of the spike wasn't what was the key in letting her steal Metallic powers, but rather some advanced knowledge of hemalurgy she possessed from long association with TLR (possibly to mimic Allomantic powers in posing as an Inquisitor), then what WAS the Trellium-mess of the spike doing differently? Finally, was this "pull out one spike, lose sentience, and fall into another spike placed just right" trick actually how it worked? Because in Ch. 22 and 23 of Shadows of Self, she swaps REALLY quickly. At the end of Ch. 22, after Wax figures out she's been posing as Governor Innate and tries to jab the needle into her that would momentarily paralyze her and reveal her kandra nature, she knocks the needle aside, "became a blur", seizes it, and jams it into MeLaan - emptying her steelmind while doing so. After seeing to MeLaan and freeing Wayne, Wax goes out and tracks Bleeder-as-Innate to a nearby shed, only a few minutes behind, though he wondered just how quickly Bleeder could change bodies, as TenSoon could do it in "seconds". And sure enough, Bleeder had already swapped bodies, discarding Innate's body on the ground, empty steelmind next to it, and talking to Wax before flying off as a Coinshot. Swapping from Innate-as-Steelrunner to Lessie-as-Coinshot in just a few minutes, with only one Trellium spike at the end? Something doesn't add up.

And then the Ascended Sazed saying that Rashek, the Lord Ruler, ultimately had been a man with good intentions who had done the best he could, and had contributed mightily to the survival of mankind, with his work over hundreds of years of gathering and hiding atium from Ruin and preparing the storage caverns. A divine Sazed, who had been castrated and whose people had been enslaved and bred like cattle by one of their own for many of those hundreds of years, and who had been a key part of the crew who had overthrown him, judged him thus. And the same thing with the Ascended Vin, who recalled Rashek's last words, "You don't know what I do for mankind", while thinking, "And we didn't. Thank you." If Rashek was never the Hero of Ages, it seems he was at least the Hero of An Age, for all his cruelty and megalomania.

Both of these are lightly touched upon in the POVs we get from Moash at the end of Words of Radiance and then in Oathbringer. He hangs his head at the memory, shocking to himself when he thinks about it, of how "he'd tried to kill Kaladin. Kaladin! ... He was a traitor, twice over." And thinking back about how he ultimately killed Elhokar in Kholinar, right in front of a Kaladin immobilized with emotional conflict, he didn't feel exultation, only cold, "maybe a sliver of relief at being done". Because he had "given his pain" to Odium, to avoid feeling the guilt of seeing the look of betrayal in Kaladin's eyes at the act. So there was pain to be given, just as Amaram had lingering guilt for murdering Kaladin's squad to gain the Heleran's Shards. Note that Kaladin only then truly felt betrayed by Moash. Even trying to kill him, while failing and pushing him to the Third Ideal, yes, even that Kaladin could have forgiven him for. In his heart he had still tried avoiding thinking of Moash's betrayal, and invoked his name while slugging Roshone. Only with that act had Moash clearly made the choice not to "come back". And even given him the Bridge Four salute. Storming bastard.

You're certainly entitled to your viewpoints, but I'd put it this way: Kaladin does deserve a reckoning moment for his temporary dereliction of duty with respect to Elhokar, which cast in another light, in Skybreaker terms if you will, was treason. And Kaladin himself admits he had done the same as Moash, in their confrontation over Elhokar. The difference, and I feel this is a huge one and somehow you do not, is that Kaladin regretted it, and moved to correct that decision before it was irreversible, where Moash did not. Is it hypocritical for Kaladin to say Moash "stopped being a member of Bridge Four" while "counting himself as a member?" No, because he (Kaladin) added that "I'm trying to change that" - by re-embracing his duty. As Rock interjected when Rlain came back to Bridge Four (in stormform, no less), saying he had been a spy and was a traitor to their group, "Ha! Is little problem. Can be fixed." (One of my favorite lines from Rock, actually.) And nobody present, including Dalinar, ever contradicts that. Because despite his apparent "switching over" of sides, in his heart and in his ultimate actions, he remained loyal to Bridge Four. Anyway, it seems that you would cast Moash's "hot blooded decision to strike Kaladin down", which is an ACT and not a passive stepping back, as something as forgivable and reversible a decision as Kaladin's reversed and presumably (if not explicitly) forgiven move to let Graves' plot proceed. I would say it's much worse exactly because of what the decision represents: valuing vengeance over loyalty to a man he owes everything possible, arguably more so even than his grandparents. Forget oaths or Ideals that Moash never swore, or whatever Alethi laws either or both of them had broken. That line should never have been crossed. And I emphatically don't think "hot-bloodedness" is an excuse for poor decisions, not in real life, and not in fiction. And mind, you, I think it's pretty apparent from his words and thoughts in the first part of Oathbringer that Kaladin was, at some level, still willing to forgive him, if only Moash would come back and "try to change". But he didn't, he doubled and tripled down. That was not "hot-bloodedness" but stubborn cold-bloodedness.

"Obligator". Such a great word with so many connations built into it, and yet it was invented for Mistborn.

Yeah, and for that matter, Ati/Ruin. The guy was just following his Shardic directive, then got snookered by a lifelong friend into entering into a deal that Leras immediately moved to renege on, and in a way that could only end with both of them dead. It wasn't Ati's idea to create Scadrial, no, it was Leras who came to him with the idea, promised him that he'd get what he wanted out of the deal in the end and they could both walk away, and then BAM! Not cool, bro.

I get what you're saying, and you do have a point, but I think you're vastly overstating the similarity between Kaladin's and Moash's "betrayals". The whole crisis for Kaladin in the second book deals with the meaning of "protecting". Protecting, like attacking someone in aggression, is an ACTION: you deliberately put yourself in harm's way, between a threat and its intended target. Kaladin sympathized with Moash's bitterness towards Elhokar, and had it compounded by his own when he learned that another outcome of the "Roshone Affair" that led to the imprisonment and death of Moash's grandparents is what ruined Kaladin's life in Hearthstone as well, including conscripting Tien into Amaram's army. So he was swayed to believe there was a "third path": to attack, to protect, and to step back. So long as he was not present when Elhokar was attacked, he reasoned, he could not be blamed for not protecting him. Who would know he could have done so? The answer, of course, is that HE himself would know, and did know. That dissonance is what killed Syl. And he did intervene, despite having no Stormlight, to prepare to die in defense of Elhokar. Now, does he owe Dalinar or anyone other than Syl an apology, confession, explanation, etc.? That's an interesting question. Other members of Bridge Four were aware of Kaladin's (temporary) loss of Surgebinding. Eventually, if any other Radiant "backslides" on their Ideals and loses their Nahel bond, Dalinar may put two and two together about the way that "Stormblessed" got all busted up getting out of the chasm with Shallan yet didn't heal with Stormlight until days later, implying something similar had happened, and then recalling how Kaladin came back to save him from Szeth just after saving Elhokar from the attack. Or, I suspect Navani or Jasnah might want to collect and document the progression of Ideals from their current crop of Radiants, similar to some of what they found in the recordings at Urithiru, and put Kaladin on the spot as to how and when he gained his Shardblade. Given what happened later I'm sure Dalinar et al. would "forgive" Kaladin, but I bet the details of that will come out eventually. If it waits until Moash publicly outs him in a climactic moment, that could be very painful for Kaladin. But, I don't think it compares at all to Moash's betrayal, which is far more personal. Kaladin was guilty of moral cowardice, and realized and repented of it in time to prevent Elhokar's assassination. Both Kaladin and Moash had betrayed the duty of guarding the king, and Moash throws that in Kaladin's face ("and you're different?" -- "No, I'm not. But I'm trying to change that.") However, Kaladin had originally explicitly told Moash, as a direct order, to stop meeting with Graves and co. and to break off his plans with them. Which Moash disobeyed. That betrayal was pretty damning, until Kaladin found out that Roshone was at the center of both of their grudges, and was momentarily willing to let the plot go on... And he changed his mind. That, I think, is Kaladin's right. I think holding onto vengeance, repaying for the death of his grandparents, over the friendship and loyalty he owes a living man who he owes his own life in Kaladin - even going so far as to move to kill him - is far, far worse than Kaladin's dereliction of duty. Valuing vengeance over the life of his friend, his "captain, forever", who'd saved his life in the bridge crews, trained him, and made him a Shardbearer with a gift of Shards that Moash hadn't earned in any way, other than friendship and loyalty? And to kill him with those selfsame Shards? It's the exact reversal of "Life before Death", isn't it? Not "dope" at all. And it's not like Kaladin was telling Moash to "let go of your anger" or some Jedi thing. He said he'd discovered the true culprit wasn't Elhokar but Roshone, and that they could both seek justice against him. Moash didn't listen.

But in the mental conversation that Wax is having (he assumes only with Bleeder, but I think is also with Autonomy), while Wax is speaking aloud, it's not clear how it is that Bleeder can hear what he's saying. At the beginning, he tries modulating his voice's volume and walking around in various directions to see where Bleeder might start to not hear him as well or at all, to triangulate a direction and distance where the listener was, but to no effect - he wondered if Bleeder were using Allomancy (burning tin). But then when he finally does physically see Bleeder, she moves with Feruchemical speed, and she's limited to one hemalurgically stolen Metallic power at a time, so it couldn't have been that. ...Actually do we actually know that that is true? Now that I think of it (but not having the book in front of me), wasn't that limitation something posited or assumed by the kandra when explaining to Wax about her running around with just the one spike, as two would render her under Harmony's direct control, and surmising that she was swapping out that one spike for another one granting a different power as she switched between demonstrated Steelrunning and Coinshot abilities, pulling one out and then falling onto the other one? But then later they do find her one spike and it's an "unknown metal", that looks "godlike" and with red spots. So either that one spike could itself swap powers somehow, or there's at least one more such spike with the stolen F-steel in it (since Wax shot her with his earring spike/bullet while P/L/B was a Coinshot).

"That's why there are no stamped objects in Elantris." So not only does the "stamping" act of Forgery require proximity to MaiPon, but the ongoing effect of the stamping? I thought at least for an object, once "locked in" the seal would remain (they don't require restamping like a person's soul does). Or perhaps it's just that inanimate objects do require restamping, just so infrequently that the timescale is beyond a person's notice. So even something like a Forged vase would unravel if taken too far away from The Rose Empire? Yet the effects of Dakhor "warping" are permanent and portable. I guess we'll learn more about Drakhor in the next Sel/Elantris book, whenever that comes out.

As Aons are less strong in power the further an Elantrian gets from Elantris, I would assume the further from MaiPon that Shai gets, the harder it would be for her to do Forgery. The AonDor magic we see performed in the story of Elantris are the "one shot" type, producing a possibly massive effect, like teleporting Raoden from Elantris to Teod... From where he found it much, much harder to perform the reverse magic due to the distance. But from other examples, it seems the "ongoing effects" of Selish magic don't weaken with distance - the magic is "locked in". Like how the Dakhor monks apparently needed to be... Dakhor-ized in Fjordell, but could use the powers so acquired in Arelon, Teod, and elsewhere. So I assume a Forged object, like a painting, could be moved arbitrarily far. But could the Soul-Forged version of Ashravan travel outside the Rose Empire, into the Cognitive Realm, etc.? I think his Forged soul would travel just fine, but would his daily "re-stamping" get more difficult or become impossible to do with X distance from MaiPon? Or was the act of creation that needed to be done in or near MaiPon the making of the soulstamp, and using the stamp is arbitrarily portable (even though "refreshing" the stamp seems like it should be a new pull of Investiture)?

I've wondered about that "conversation". When he got close enough, Bleeder was able to talk to him physically. And it's not clear how that "voice in his head" conversation happened. Harmony and Ruin could do it for someone pierced by a hemalurgic spike, which apparently Bleeder was able to do as well... How does that make sense? More likely, it's another Shard, Trell/Autonomy, who has co-opted other parts of Ruin's magic as well in terms of creating that new hemalurgic metal/spike for Bleeder, that can "tap into" the spike to talk to Wax in his head. I don't see how Bleeder could use stolen Feruchemy or Allomancy to do it, it has to be Shardic. If you re-read that conversation with Wax (Chapter 16 of Shadows of Self), there are many times when it sounds a lot like what "Autonomy" would say rather than Paalm/Lessie/Bleeder, mixed in with stuff that P/L/B would know about and say to Wax. As if P/L/B had become a little bit merged with the Shard, or serving as a vehicle. The little speech she gives about the body's defenses (alluding to the immune system, white blood cells, and the potential for pathological autoimmune reactions, which level of biology Era 2 Scadrians would know nothing about) sounds very Shardic in nature. As does addressing him as "Waxillium" when B/L/P generally always calls him "Wax", the whole time. So I'd say the phrase "I wasn't talking to you that time" was Autonomy talking to P/L/B, in a way that the co-opted magic of Ruin required P/L/B to hear and be able to interject to, as well as Wax. Hmm, does that mean that Autonomy has also co-opted the magic of Preservation in terms of being able to hear Wax's thoughts (which Ruin could not do)?

Awww man. 1980s Era Mistborn feat. Kelsier and Marsh. Should be great. They've lived hundreds of years past their time, so their speech should be prone to the occasional anachronistic lapse in idiom or usage, as if someone you worked for today sometimes dropped a Shakespearean "Zounds!" or "'Sblood!" and then tried to pass it off as an affectation. Like saying "Lord Ruler!" when genuinely surprised and alarmed, which nobody says anymore, not even Sliverists. I can also picture Marsh going around with huge wrap-around sunglasses to cover his eyespikes as he prowls the gritty streets of New Yomend City at night, a Northern Scadrial enclave in the Southern Hemisphere that was an early boomtown now turned slumtown, trying to piece together what this underworld kingpin figure called "Longsleeves" (who he's increasingly sure is a resurfacing Kelsier) could be up to in spreading some new and highly addictive drug that triggers strange, temporary Allomancy-related effects never seen before. Along with introducing something else: "hammerpants." What is the deal with these enormous, billowing legs? Why, Kelsier... Why? How are these things linked? Two men in the alleyway stared as he strode by. He ignored them. "Hey, was that --" "Yeah. Inspector Korihart. Word is that he's going after Longsleeves." "It's almost midnight. How can he see?" "He's an Allomancer." "I've seen Allomancers before. He wears his sunglasses at night. I haven't seen that." "Don't mess around with him."

Couldn't they reuse spikes from a former Inquisitor? I think I read somewhere that kandra refrain from reusing Blessings, but obviously koloss harvested and reused spikes so all the time, and Marsh eventually replaced his missing eye spike with one from a dead Inquisitor (and per a WoB, that's apparently how he gained his spike for F-atium that keeps him alive). While creating a new Inquisitor involved freshly killing a collection of skaa Mistings, that was as much for the joy of killing (and whittling down illegal Allomancy) as for the freshness of the Allomantic spikes. For the much rarer Feruchemical powers, even if the power would be reduced with spike reuse, it just seems like a spike for F-gold would be too useful to let go to waste.

Hmm, can that work? Like when Shallan infused fabrial gems with Stormlight that she held within her, could another Radiant have drawn it out? It seems like it, right? So (a) can Lift infuse gems with "Stormlight" investiture that she gained from metabolizing food, and (b) would that be more investiture than Soulcasting the food would require? That's assuming you could convince Lift to spend a long time eating nothing but Soulcast food, which is supposed to taste noticeably different/worse than "real" food does.

That's basically what I suspect as well Amazing that a child Shallan might have progressed to the Fourth Ideal or further

Hmm, that would make sense for Jasnah's comment. That reminds me - Shallan's external projection of "Radiant" at Thaylen Fields (when she held hands with herself as both Veil and Radiant) appeared "in glowing garnet Shardplate", yet the other illusory Radiants she conjured up were without Plate (including Adolin as a Windrunner, which was an unintended stab in his heart). I found that interesting, since where would she have gotten that detail about Lightweaver Shardplate?

So, where's Jasnah's armor, per her own comment? I don't think she was portraying herself as a senior "full" Radiant, was she? Just pointing out that collectively, none of the Radiants in their cadre were advanced past the Third Ideal. As for who is a "Radiant" vs. "Full Radiant", Kaladin himself (and Syl agreed with him) didn't think he counted as a Knight Radiant until he gained a Shardblade, with the Third Ideal, even though he could use both Windrunner Surges with just the First Ideal (just not as efficiently or as powerfully). Same with Teft, who gloriously arrives at Thaylen Fields with his Shardspear through the Oathgate as "Teft. Knight Radiant." But Lopen is ready to declare himself a "full Knight Radiant now" to Kaladin after his Second Ideal was accepted. And who's gonna call him out on that? (Well, I guess Jasnah.) The Stormfather "accepts" Words, but he doesn't confer some kind of Radiant Diploma.

I don't know about Moash becoming a Bondsmith, but I hope you have room in your head for a potential redemptive arc for Moash, the kind that was offered by Dalinar and refused by Amaram (where I really liked that he said the man whose forgiveness he could never earn for the acts he regretted was himself). He's made the worst choices possible for any POV character. Making him out to be the Bad Guy Who Does Worse And Worse Things And Then Gets His Comeuppance In The Climax is pretty predictable. Whatever it is I think will happen with him in the Stormlight Archive, I'm going to say pretty confidently that it's not going to be simple... Nor will it be a Gollum Moment, either, where he ends up saving the world exactly because he DIDN'T have a change of heart. I just trust that it won't end up a massive "That was it?" moment like the fate of the massively foreshadowed "Tinker with a Sword" dude turned out to be for me in the Wheel of Time series.

Aha, so it is a matter of strength - that makes sense. So here's a theoretical question then: would you rather be a "weak Mistborn" or a normal strength Misting? Would Era 1 or Era 2 metal availability be a factor? I instinctively think being a "weak Mistborn" would be more useful/powerful than most kinds of Mistings; after all, you could flare and duralumin yourself up in many different metals. Being (say) a 1/16 FE Era strength Mistborn, with the ability to flare to 1/8 and duralumin up to 1/4 normal strength, would still be pretty cool. It could even let you pass for "awesome normal person" instead of "suspiciously superhuman person who should be captured". But unless you were quite small and light to begin with, you wouldn't be able to fly like an ordinary full-strength Coinshot. at 1/16 strength you would probably only be able to duralumin-jump up a couple of stories, and then have to replenish your metals real quickly.

I suspect there is a WoB out there somewhere that either directly answers or indirectly comments on this, so I turn here for the answer :). The nugget of lerasium that Elend ingests - the only one we've seen other than the one that Hoid takes in Secret History, whose use of it is still an off-screen unknown at this point - was described as a "bead", about the same size as a standard bead of atium. Which makes sense, since atium was also a "coaelesced god metal" that occurred naturally on Scadrial, as condensed Ruin as formed in the geodes at the Pits of Hathsin. Ingesting that bead made Elend a Mistborn, and a very powerful one, at that, second only to TLR. Now, atium can be melted, alloyed (as for "malatium"), and in one memorable trick, used to coat Allomantically inert metal of similar weight to fake a greater quantity. I'm talking about the large bead of atium that Zane supposedly gave to Vin as a gesture of trust, who then kept it secreted in her kandra wolfhound, that turned out to be a thin coating of atium over bead of lead. However, there was a "thin coat of atium" - Vin was able to burn it and see atium shadows, they just disappeared after only a few moments, when she expected much more from a bead of that size. I remember reading that making a lerasium alloy would make a person a Misting of that metal; ingesting a putative bead of lerasium + steel would make someone a Coinshot. So what if one were to do the Zane Trick and coat a bead of lead with pure lerasium? Would that make a very weak Mistborn, or even more curiously, make someone a Mistborn but only temporarily (not enough power to rewrite the sDNA of the person in question)?

He does say it, in so many words, to Shallan and to himself, that he's not used to feeling insignificant, which increasingly he does around Kaladin, Shallan, Jasnah, and Renarin (especially after seeing what those four were capable of doing with the Nigh Infinite Stormlight on tap at Thaylen Fields). He's also lost Sureblood, his Ryshadium steed, who form a bond with their rider somewhat akin to a sprenbond, so he had a "dangling bond plug" in his soul, you might say. I think that's a factor in what seems to be him reviving a bond with Mayalaran, in addition to having been one of the relatively few Shardbearers who talked to their Blades, maybe the only one who respected the idea that the Blade had a name of his/her own that was unnknown to him (and forebore from bestowing one of his own choosing or using a previous designation), and maybe just as importantly, he has "met" Maya in the Cognitive Realm due to Sja-Anat's twisting of the Kholinar Oathgate. (Her leaping to his defense to attack a Fused in Shadesmar was... Astounding.)

And then there's the matter of his breath. 4500 years later, people still talk about it.

Hmmm... I will have to rearrange my mind around this topic it seems! That's a pretty convincing WoB.

So you think the Oathpact is completely separate from what is holding Odium in the Rosharan system, that Honor created the Honorblades and bound the Heralds to fight Odium's forces in the Fused and the Unmade... To keep Odium from destroying mankind on Roshar? I don't think so.

Why do you say this? If "Oathpact" refers to the oath that the Ten Heralds swore upon being given their Honorblades, the Stormfather says that at least part of the oath that they broke was "to hold back the Voidbringers", and in describing the cycle of Desolations, he says "after each Desolation, the Heralds returned to Damnation... They had been warned that if any lingered, it could lead to disaster." So I would say that the Heralds knew what they were signing up for. The Desolations were absolutely part of the design of whatever compact between Honor, Cultivation, and Odium is binding him from leaving the Rosharan system. The Oathpact is only one aspect of that compact, that the Heralds are Honor's main pieces even as the Unmade and the Fused are Odium's, and those pieces are free to recruit and marshal lieutenants (Knights Radiant and Regals).