robardin

Not "planned" as in "from the beginning" - I didn't mean to compare Tanavast/Honor with Leras/Preservation in that sense. I think the Oathpact, and the associated earlier cycles of Heralds vs Fused, was always Stage 1 of the "game" somehow mutually agreed to by Honor and Odium that has rules that bind Odium to Roshar, and presumably at some cost to Honor as well. And this True Desolation is written in those rules as the endgame. Certainly it's not a surprise to Honor, the Stormfather, or the Heralds - they know what's afoot. I don't think Honor planned on his getting Splintered from the get-go, but when it became clear that was going to happen, created the visions and shoved them along with his Cognitive Shadow into the Stormfather. I'm suggesting that Honor's instructions to offer Odium a CoC doesn't make sense if you assume his goal is to stop the Desolations once and for all. His goal, I think, is to reassemble his Shard in a new Vessel.

Right, yes, I got Last Desolation (the inaccurate Vorinist term for Aharietam) mixed up with True Desolation to get Final Desolation, a term not actually used in the books. But I still think that it's strongly implied that this Desolation is special (the "True" one), that the Heralds know about it (and presumably what's special about it), and that the Everstorm, which is new to the inhabitants of Roshar (was not a part of any of the earlier cyclical Desolations), is a known component of it (as Honor says it's coming in his visions). That this True Desolation was always part of the rules of the endgame. And, Honor specifically says that Odium would accept the CoC "if he's convinced he can lose [the True Desolation], as he has before [the regular ones]". That, to me, implies that if Odium were to lose the True Desolation, he wouldn't get to try again - unlike the cyclical ones - otherwise, why would he ever accept an alternate endplay to the game? That's why I've been mentally thinking of the True Desolation as the True Last Desolation, the Final one if you will, as opposed to Aharietam, which was the false Vorinist "Last" one. What else would be "True" about this one, if it were not the clincher? And, if that conclusion were correct, that also raises an interesting question about Honor's directive, because it means he's telling his Bondsmith "heir" who's seeing the visions (the first Bondsmith to do so) that they can't beat Odium conventionally and have to go the CoC route, and it's up to the Bondsmith to figure out how to "vex and convince" Odium that "he can lose" (conventionally)... Which seems impossible to do, since convincing an enemy they will lose a war generally requires gaining a significant advantage in the war, i.e., actually be close to winning it. And to "trick" a Shard into that, like fielding an army doubled up with straw men or something to look more massive? That's a joke, right? Given that Honor never mentioned anything about what Dalinar did at the end of Oathbringer - "uniting" three realms, reopening Honor's Perpendicularity, etc., - I think Honor may have been nudging the Bondsmith to challenge Odium to the CoC, thinking Odium would accept for his own scheming reasons (though maybe not the detail that that scheme involved subverting the Bondsmith in question), having set up the pieces to groom that Bondsmith into taking more and more of Honor's power through the Stormfather... Perhaps at some point to Ascend to reincarnating the Shard of Honor.

I agree with all this, but I'm pointing out that there is an inherent contradiction in what Honor says in his vision. "Convince Odium he can lose" in order to get him to "agree to a contest of champions." But wouldn't the most obvious way to convince Odium he could lose the Final Desolation be to actually threaten to beat him conventionally? Otherwise, not from Odium's actual POV (his plan to subvert Dalinar the Bondsmith into becoming his own champion), but Honor's POV, how is the Bondsmith viewing the vision supposed to "trick" Odium into thinking he can lose? Since it's clear this contest is an alternative to fighting the Final Desolation out to the end? It reads like Honor anticipated that Odium would likely be very receptive to a CoC... And so was Honor. Each Shard thinks he's got an ace up his sleeve here. We've seen what Odium's was, but what was/is Honor's?

Odium has "lost" every previous Desolation, and losing the Final Desolation would apparently be a Final Loss. Otherwise, why would he agree to a "contest of champions" instead of just trying again later? This offer of "a contest of champions" must be unique to the Final Desolation, as other aspects appear to be (such as the Everstorm). BUT, if Odium thinks he can lose, why doesn't Honor think so, too? Why not use the visions to tell the Bondsmith more about the special upgrades he made to the Stormfather before dying, whatever it is that allows Dalinar to create the Perpendicularity and infuse spheres, and say, "whup Odium but good this time and it's OVER BABY!" I think Honor's got a longer game in play, similar to Preservation in the original Mistborn trilogy. Various WoBs suggest that Honor isn't fully Splintered, though his Vessel in Tanavast is probably well and truly dead. I'm thinking that a "champion" for Honor would be very close to forming a new Vessel for the Shard, and that Odium hadn't expected that (from his exclamation at Thalyen Fields). As for that Splintering, Odium wasn't able to do it until after Aharietam, yet wasn't able to start the Final Desolation until Taln broke it as well. If "90% broken" was good enough for him to go after Honor directly even if still bound to the Rosharan system, it would have happend 4,500 years ago, yeah? Or was the weakening a gradual thing, as implied by the Stormfather using that exact word? If this Final Desolation is for all the marbles, what was the point of the earlier cycles of Desolations? It would seem the torture cycle was basically meant to do what it eventually did, to break the Heralds into forswearing the Oathpact, in order to avoid being sent back to Braize for torture. Which doesn't necessarily mean unbonding their Blade, as Nalan has reclaimed his, and Taln still had his at the gates of Kholinar. Actually, what are "the marbles" at stake? It seems if Odium loses the Final Desolation, he loses for good; that's what "Final" means, right? So then what, he's stuck in the Rosharan system forever? Why would humanity want this? Would Odium also be forced to stop trying to destroy mankind? That's probably not even what he's really after, despite his title as the Father of Hatred, it's just a side effect that he couldn't care less about. And when, in fact, was Honor Splintered? It was after the Recreance, and before the onset of Gavilar's visions that began just before he was assassinated. Could it even have been very recently before then? Maybe it's his Splintering that triggered the Final Desolation, and not some terminal weakening of the Oathpact (though the two may be related)?

But a battle of champions is like an alternate winning move for Odium. Honor advised Dalinar to "vex Odium, convince him he can lose", in order to get him to agree to "a contest of champions". But if Odium could be convinced he could lose the Final Desolation - which apparently would mean Game Over for Odium, or why would he care, he'd just go at it again like all the other Desolations - then isn't that a curious thing for Honor to say, as it implies that Honor himself thinks it wouldn't happen? Why is his advice to "convince Odium he'll lose, so he'll accept the contest of champions", instead of saying something like, "Hey, here's how best to beat Odium: I'm adding a big Splinter of myself to the Stormfather even as he's killing me, so when you bond him, you'll be able to create a Perpendicularity and infuse spheres and he will crem himself when he finds out, and you'll kick his golden chull shell right off of Roshar for good"? Or does Honor want to arrange a contest of champions for his own reasons (to re-create a Vessel for Honor, even if Tanavast is dead)?

I really like that mechanism for re-embodiment - it greatly simplifies how any Cognitive Shadow could become fully physical. I guess that lines up with "hemalurgy in his own body", though technically it would be "hemalurgy done in the CR that results in him getting his own body when he steps into the Physical Realm". Somewhere in those threads I posited that Kelsier wouldn't have to kill someone to steal Connection, that perhaps a kandra Blessing spike would suffice (since one of the things they do for a mistwraith is to form Connection as part of making them fully sentient), and they would have an "extra" set of those from OreSeur. TenSoon would have pulled them out along with his original set as part of the Resolution. I have also posted elsewhere my guess that Kelsier is not a Fullborn nor hemalurgically enhanced for Feruchemy, but that he's re-embodied as a Mistborn (as he was in life, and as his Spiritweb would dictate) and used the Bands to access Feruchemy, refilling it with Compounding. After all, the key bit to making the Bands seems to be F-nicrosil and F-aluminum, so he just needs to teach a Full Feruchemist about those new metals and have him create a set of F-Bands with 16 F-abilities and associated unsealed/unkeyed metalminds in it, then he could then tap and add in the Allomantic abilities. (Who that Feruchemist could be or could have been would be the big question.) But I hadn't ever thought about his "expansion" from having held Preservation as a Cognitive Shadow making his Allomancy stronger as a result, once physically embodied again, probably to a Lord Ruler like level (who had Allomancy not through lerasium but "direct Spiritweb twiddling"). And it would explain the power in the Bands. That's really cool. I'll get on board with that. However, I find it hard to picture him physically anywhere on Scadrial. Similar to Marsh, his physical form is too recognizable to pass for someone else, unless they discovered some Metallic form of Lightweaving. I'm already wondering where Marsh is sequestering himself that he flew off to in Alloy of Law after giving Spook's book to Marasi... And by WoB they're not in cahoots, at least not as of MB Era 2. So I chose "worldhopping" though that's not really what I think he's up to - I think he's mostly operating in the CR (Shadesmar).

I think one of the things we'll only get in flashback to what happened in the "gap time" between books 3 and 4 will be exactly what happened or was going on with Rock. What "lies had he told" to Bridge Four about his family or clan? Why did he say he was a fool for "letting" his brother go on his foolish quest to challenge Sadeas for his Shardplate, implying he could have stopped him? What was the real reason he refused to enter combat before, and what does it mean now that he has done so? I bet we'll see him either on his way back to the Horneater Peaks, or already having gone back, on something related to his having taken up the Shardbow and killed Amaram (and becoming a full Shardbearer - which if he really is Going Radiant, he won't be able to touch). But he won't just come out and tell Bridge Four what the deal is, either. Now, Rock was already a Windrunner squire who (only) drew in Stormlight when Kaladin was near, as recently as his arrival through the Oathgate to the battle at Thaylen Fields; does that make it easier, or harder, for him to bond a spren other than an honorspren?

Interesting, I don't remember reading that thread before. So in a nutshell, living people (with Connection to the Physical Realm) that pass through the Cognitive Realm, as with worldhoppers or Elsecallers, are basically "transported" like in Star Trek in a physical disassembly and re-assembly, with their passage through the CR like being a "data stream" but with a Spiritual component. So someone (Spook, presumably) would have to use hemalurgy to steal Connection from someone in the Physical Realm, then bring that Invested spike into the CR to then staple it to the shadow of Kelsier, who could then pass through a Perpendicularity back into the Physical Realm... And would then reform his body from "background Investiture" via Connection? Seems like a pretty dark thing for Spook to do. We've seen what "stealing Connection" looks like in the Cosmere - like what's already happened to the mistwraiths on Scadrial, and the parshmen on Roshar. They're blocked Hey, wait a minute. Mistwraiths are (among other things) Connection-blocked, needing a hemalurgic spike to "go kandra", so kandra Blessings must give Connection. A lot of the Second Generation kandra committed suicide, leaving their spikes behind - do they retain Connection? And then there is the somewhat unclear fate of the First Generation. And didn't TenSoon have FOUR spikes instead of two at the end of The Hero of Ages, taking OreSeur's Blessings on top of his own? Does he still have OreSeur's spikes in Era 2? Hmm.

So... This means the way physical transport through the Cognitive Realm works, whether worldhopping or Elsecalling, is essentially like how transporters work in "Star Trek"? Disassembly and re-assembly of physical matter on both ends, with a "data matrix" that passes through the CR which is equivalent to the person (with a Spiritual component in the Cosmere)?

I don't think he is... But at a minimum, he had the aid of a Full Feruchemist to create the Bands, after which he could just use Allomancy to Compound by burning metalminds and then to continually recharge the nicrosilminds for Feruchemical abilities. I have a private crackpot theory as to where he found a Full Feruchemist within 10 years of the Catacendre that I mention in that link, but I admit it's pretty crazy

Thanks @RShara that was the perfect collection of WoBs on the topic

Well, if you really want the Reckoners to "go Cosmere" despite what Brandon himself has said, here's what you can do: Get four (4) thin but very pointy spikes made of pure iron Get four (4) paperback bound or hardcopy printouts of canonically Cosmere works; the shorter, thinner ones would be easiest: Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell Sixth of the Dusk The Emperor's Soul Warbreaker Wet them until the ink starts to run Stab them each with one of the iron spikes, right through the ink Quickly pull the spikes out and pierce your copy of Steelheart with the spikes You now have as close as you'll ever get to integrating the Reckoners into the Cosmere in the form of a hemalurgic transformation into a "bookoloss".

An e-book search confirmed my suspicion that never in any of the Mistborn novels (Era 1 or Era 2) do the native characters refer to their planet, created ex nihilo by Leras (Preservation) and Ati (Ruin) working in concert, as "Scadrial". The name is never used at all in the original trilogy, and in the first two Era 2 books, only the Ars Arcanum notes use that name for the planet. Interestingly, Mistborn: Secret History contains the first in-world use of the name we see (in character dialogue no less) when Hoid tells the shadow of Kelsier at the Well of Ascension that his destroying the atium geodes at the Pits of Hathsin "basically ended traffic through Scadrial". The second time (and the only other one, so far) is in Bands of Mourning when Khriss dances with Wax and questions him about being a Crasher, commenting that the "infant mortality rates on Scadrial" are shockingly high. Both times it's used by a worldhopper and it seem to confuse the local, though neither comments on the name, either ("Sca-wha?"). Meanwhile, at various points in the Stormlight Archive books, the in-world characters themselves use "Roshar" for the world they live in/on. In addition, "Damnation" is mentioned in one of Kaladin's POVs as being "known as Braize in the old songs" in Words of Radiance. (This may in part be due to the fact that humans came to Roshar from somewhere else, and the fact that Roshar is mentioned in various WoBs as existing before the Shattering of Adonalsium.) But the names "Nalthis" and "Sel" never come up in the stories themselves that are set there (Warbreaker, Elantris, The Emperor's Soul) - only in the Arcanum section of Elantris, where it's clear "Sel" must be the name of the world in a few of the entries, and the ability of the reader to infer that The Emperor's Soul takes place on the same world due to some hints in the story text. So, where are all these names for the worlds coming from? If Scadrial is unusual in that all the other inhabited worlds in the Cosmere pre-dated the Shattering and thus, have some kind of history to them (even if no longer really remembered by the people on them), OK, but "Scadrial" for the World Created By Preservation And Ruin? Shouldn't it have been "Lerattia" (a double T to change the pronunciation) or "Atilerasia" or something?

I think it must be significant that they got Moash to do it - that the Fused would not, or could not, do it. Whatever component of the Oathpact recycled the Heralds (Honor's primary agents) and the Fused (Odlum's) between Roshar (Honor's "home turf") and Braize (Odium's), while limiting Odium to that system until the cycle could be broken, clearly still has humans in the middle as free agents. (Though with the listeners' history as those "who fled their gods" and Venli becoming Radiant even with a Voidspren in her are any example, they also have a choice, though the Fused are already committed to Odium.) That, plus the fact that this Desolation is notably different from those previous. After all, if Odium could just drop some godmetal dagger and go stabby on the Heralds to whittle down Honor's pieces in play, he'd have done it long ago - and he's had human minions before, even if Voidspren-fused singers were somehow barred from the task. What's the reason for the differences this time (the Everstorm, Sja-Anat going rogue, Dalinar's being a super Bondsmith, probably more)? (a) 9 out of 10 Heralds had abandoned their Oath, (b) Honor has been Splintered, (c) something we have yet to learn about... I also don't think it's a coincidence that they gave Moash/Vyre the Honorblade of Jezrien after he personally offed Jezrien in that manner.

AHA! ... is the Aon for "Breath". (Seriously, I looked it up.)

Well you see, it all started way back with Charlotte's Web and The Little Prince and proceeded from there... I don't think Brandon Sanderson's books have made me full on tear up, but I'm much older now. The ending of Mistborn was pretty wringing, but as much in appreciation of Elend and Vin's heroism as sorrow at their fate. Oh, and what happens with Kaladin at Kholinar (and then Elhokar and Moash) in Oathbringer... OK, I may have teared up at that one, out of the mix of feeling outrage, betrayal, and sorrow. And helplessness. In other recent fantasy works I've read, I guess various points in Robin Hobb's epic Realm of the Elderlings series (at least, for one set of major characters) had me pretty moved. Maybe to tears. I dunno. I have allergies, all right? In my younger days it happened a lot more often. I remember crying at the ending to The Elfstones of Shannara, but I was only 13 years old and had also stayed up to 3am to finish reading it past my bedtime under a pillow with a flashlight, so I was kind of strung out by what to me was a surprise twist.

That raises an even more interesting question, then: why Marsh, as the super-spiked Inquisitor that was apparently Ruin's favorite, didn't have the F-atium spike initially, but had to harvest it from a dead Inquisitor killed by Vin. It's highly improbable that the spike came as a mandate from TLR, right? It must have been a spike created from a Feruchemist taken in the Inquisitor raid on the Synod after Rashek's demise. Which brings to mind another issue I've always wondered about: aside from plot reasons (that Marsh would be strong enough of will and originally in league with Kelsier, and also be the main pawn of Ruin), it seems an odd choice to me that Ruin would settle on Marsh as his primary piece, as he was an Inquisitor originally created from a Seeker Misting. The Steel Ministry would value such Inquisitors as it would mean their A-bronze would "stack" with the hemalurgic spike to the point of being able to pierce copperclouds (as we saw with Bendal following Vin on the rooftops, until Sazed rescued her), but shouldn't there have been at least one Inquisitor who had been made originally from a full Mistborn, and thus require far fewer spikes, or who would "stack" multiple allomantic powers instead of just A-bronze, that would be more attractive to Ruin? Or was there something about Marsh's strength of will (in betraying TLR at the end of The Final Empire) that attracted Ruin?

Perhaps. We don't actually know how Elantris was built - it may not even have been built by humans. Modern day Arelonians came to uninhabited land and found the city abandoned. Only after settling in Arelon for a generation did the first "Elantrian" of that era get taken by the Shaod (the king's native-born daughter). I mean, sure, it's in the shape of a giant Aon Rao, which Aon signifies "spirit" or "essence", and was presumably built with the power of AonDor. But whether or not it had to be placed exactly where it is, we don't know. Maybe Elantris-as-Aon-Rao could only be built there, and if you wanted to make another City Powered by A Giant AonDor somewhere else in Arelon, it'd have to be shaped like a different Aon.

Wouldn't they be 16 Sporks?

"Drawing on the power of the mists" must do something more than just fuel Allomancy, though, because while pewter can "let one do some awesome things" in terms of withstanding injury, it does not actually HEAL injury - that's why Vin's knife to the throat or arrow shaft through the heart were still killing blows to Zane and Shan. But at the end of The Hero of Ages, Vin had her legs, arms, and finger bones broken by Marsh as he attempted to torture her into revealing where the atium was, until Marsh (with an assist from Kelsier) was able to seize control of his own body and push out Vin's earring spike... Allowing her to draw in the mists... After which she rose up and started beating down the Inquisitors with kicks and stuff that should have been physically impossible with broken bones. She was not just "pewter flaring" away the pain or increasing her constitution to buy her time to heal normally (if accelerated by pewter), as an ordinary Pewterarm or Mistborn would have done, she was full on healed. (Of course by the end of that fight, she'd drawn in all of the mist and Ascended, her body burning away completely.) I guess maybe Lerasium Mistborn or Mist-fueled pewter (especially flared or duralumin-boosted) burns at such a high level of power that the "increased stamina and accelerated healing" effectively becomes like tapping gold? Except for the "pewter drag" effect that would kick in eventually.

Well, sure. That'd literally be la crème de la crem.

I'm eagerly awaiting the opportunity to try a good crem brûlée.

Well, Allik's folk do, anyway. There are five nations/ethnic groups in the South, all mask-wearers: Allik named his own (the Malwish), the "Hunters" whose faces grow into their masks and who had been the first to reach (and die) at the temple of the Bands of Mourning, and the "Fallen" who wear plain masks until they are recognized as having done some great achievement. Two more are still unnamed/unknown to us readers. They do speak different languages, too. So, what might "Malwish" mean in Danish or Norwegian?

I was walking down Eighth Avenue in Manhattan just south of Columbus Circle, and saw this convenience store offering what must be a worldhopping imported item, straight from the undiscussed North or South Polar regions of Roshar!

After all that he has been through, whatever else, he's come out with hemalurgic spikes for F-gold, A-pewter, F-pewter, F-steel, and A-steel. Even if he was never spiked for A-gold (which purpose would only be to let him compound for infinite goldmind based health - I can't see Rashek's original design adding A-gold to Inquisitors who weren't Mistborn to begin with), he probably still would have enough of a goldmind stored to survive an immediate slashing, followed by tapping speed, flaring pewter, Steelpushing, Bruting up, and generally destroying whoever tried to give him a closer shave than he asked for. In short, I doubt Marsh has "trust issues" in the sense of "afraid of strangers wielding razors". He probably can't relate well to mortals any more, though. All his friends (those he didn't personally work to try to kill as Ruin's puppet) are long dead, except maybe Kelsier, whose actions he may not approve of.