StrikerEZ

Oh, I know that. Which is why I'm so excited for this series. I really wish I'd started it sooner.

Personally, I think the Stormfather was just using a word that is close enough so that Dalinar and the others could understand. As far as Rosharans are concerned, all sapient (and even sentient) beings made of Investiture are spren. Heck, they would call Honor or even Adonalsium a spren. So yes, they are spren in the vaguest sense of the term. But they are more specifically Cognitive Shadows, and I believe that is the far more accurate term to call them.

I'm almost halfway through book 4 right now and I'm at the part where Rand is in the thing at Rhuidean (how the heck do you pronounce that?) and I'm blown away at how insane the worldbuilding is for this story. Also, yeah, Perrin is getting really interesting so far in this book.

Lightsong is not my favorite, but he was pretty awesome. He was just so freaking hilarious. Vivenna is definitely my favorite though. Her first few chapters were a little slow at first, but I quickly grew to love reading her chapters. It was so interesting to see her grow as a characters. That's what makes me love her so much. Most of the other characters stayed relatively the same throughout the book, but she had the most character growth.

@Mark_Confidant Wow, this is a really well-composed theory, especially for your first post! I really like the first part where you theorize on the effects of the other hemarligic effects. I don't really try to think too much about how hemalurgy works because it's so confusing. Not much to comment on there, good job. One thing I'm curious about is why you think a feruchemist can tap a hemalurgic spike. All a hemalurgic spike does I see bestow that attribute onto the person. There's no real power or energy that is stored there, like in feruchemy. What's stored there is literally the piece of someone else's spiritweb that grants them strength, for example. It increases their base amount of strength. They could then store that feruchemically (assuming they're a pewter feruchemist) and do all the same stuff they normally do with feruchemy, but there's just a little extra for them to use. This wouldn't drain Investiture from their spike, the same way that a feruchemist can't drain energy from their own spiritweb. Yeah, that sounds about right with the compounding stuff. Overall, this was an awesome post to read. Welcome to the Shard! You'll be a great addition to our theorizing community if you keep this up.

I'm sure Aona, Skai, Uli Da, and Tanavast do.....

I was originally gonna say it is probably because of the foreign Investiture, but a certain scene in OB at the very end with Hoid has me questioning that. (Can't remember if OB spoilers can go in spoiler boxes here, so I'm not even gonna go into specifics). It could because of the fact that it's ripping apart spiritwebs and it just creeps the spren out.

I don't have much else to say, but I think this is a very plausible theory. It's probably somewhere between your theory, Calderis's, and RShara's.

This post is severely underrated. People need to upvote this.

Yes, you are correct. Probably. I would assume they're dead for good, but we don't ave complete confirmation on that. It would be a good question to ask Brandon.

Yeah, that makes sense. If Faile is important in those later Perrin books, I'm intrigued in her. Yeah, that's the quote I was thinking of.

I wasn't saying her mental health issues were over. I'm just saying that I think the love triangle is over. Shallan will definitely have to realize that all of her personas are her. She'll have to deal with her feelings for Kaladin, but I doubt she is just gonna straight up leave Adolin. It'd be far more interesting, to me at least, to see her and Adolin work to make their marriage work. It's so much more interesting to see that marriage is not a happily ever after, that there's still so much to do in a relationship after marriage. I also can't see Brandon writing a story where Shallan either leaves Adolin or cheats on him with Kaladin (who probably wouldn't want to do that to Adolin anyway).

Yeah, I'm about a third-ish through Shadow Rising and Mat is starting to get interesting. I'm excited to see where he goes from here. Okay, that's good to know. When you mean bog down, do you mean like there's just so much of him or that it just feels boring to read? The former doesn't sound so bad, and I could probably deal with the latter. Before I started reading the Wheel of Time I heard/read Brandon say that Mat is one of his favorite characters to write for WoT because he says one thing, thinks a different thing, and does another thing.

@Barbarian AL I know it's been a month, but if you're still looking for fantasy books, I just ave to re-recommend both Powder Mage and Abhorsen/Old Kingdom. Both of these stories are really good. Powder mage has a similar feel to Mistborn Era 2, but more gritty and focused on war. Old Kingdom kind of feels a bit like Wheel of Time, but with necromancy. That's about all I can say about it without getting too spoiler-y.

I'm a Svrakiss. Even after looking it up, I'm still kind of confused what the heck this is. Some sort of ghosty demon thing.

I have to second @ScarletSabre's recommendation of Snapshot. It's a reeeeeaaaaaallllly good story. It's a pretty quick read, too.

It's not necessarily my favorite, it's just a really fun story. The mixture of the metallic arts with guns is just so cool. Plus, the characters are really fun. The two main characters have a bit of a buddy cop dynamic and it's hilarious. Plus, in later books in the Era 2 series, you get to learn some interesting Cosmere stuff.

Brandon has talked about this before in other places, but this was just the first one I found. It doesn't always take horrible, traumatic events to make you susceptible to Investiture suffusing your spiritweb.

Yeah. I don't know anyone in real life, besides my little brother (and he doesn't talk with me about Cosmere stuff often), who knows about the Cosmere. It really sucks.

This is exactly how I feel. Adolin, even though he doesn't get it completely, understands Shallan and wants to help her. He is willing to help her solve her problems. Kaladin loved the fact that Shallan could do the one thing he was having problems with: pushing aside emotions and pain. Except, that's Shallan's whole problem. She pushes aside her pain in order to not have to think about it, but that only makes the problem worse. If Shallan and Kaladin had ended up together, they would've just exacerbated each other's problems and Shallan would've gone done a much worse path than she went down in OB. Getting married to Adolin wasn't the perfect solution, but I'd much rather read her work to make their marriage work (a much more compelling story, imo) than read a continuous downward spiral as her mental health gets worse and worse. That's why I felt satisfied with the love triangle's resolution. Do I think the love triangle could've been handled better? Yes. But the resolution was what was needed for Shallan, even if getting married was a bit hasty.

That's awesome! I wish I could do that. Both my parents have told me that they don't understand fantasy and don't care to read it at all.

This is a little old, but I could totally see Kelsier bonding an ashspren.

Well, I think this is primarily a semantics thing. You and @Weltall are saying the same thing, but s/he is saying it more accurately. Like, even though that Investiture is currently not under Autonomy's control, it's still her Investiture. To say that it's Adonalsium's Investiture means nothing; all Investiture is Adonalsium's Investiture is all the Investiture there is (that we're aware of, at least). For the type of Investiture you're talking about, I think it'd be more accurate to call it unclaimed Investiture. Adonalsium's Investiture means nothing; it's like saying the sky is made of air.

Honestly, I'd completely forgotten about that trade route. I don't really know what goods Herdaz has that would create a trade route. I spices and silk are probably the best bets, from what we know about Herdaz. I'm leaning more towards spices, because Brandon has said that's kind of what makes Herdaz food so much better. They're able to make soulcast food taste good with whatever spices they've got up there.

Hey @DCA, welcome to the Shard! Have a free upvote and a spiked delicious cookie! DISCLAIMER: Side effects include, but are not limited to, hearing voices, gaining supernatural powers, having the sudden urge to kill everyone, and completely losing control over your mind and body. The Dark Alley™ claims no liability for any damage done to/by the eater of this cookie. Have you read any of Brandon's other fantasy books? Did you know that all of his fantasy books are all in the same universe called the Cosmere?