Extesian

Woohoo! No more cutting my waffles with a glass knife. Unpushable metal for the cooking win!

Interesting theory. Folding space is essentially how the Cognitive Realm works in the gaps between planets, where you can walk from one planet to another without passing through the space in between (mostly). I...personally don't feel it involves the Spiritual Realm precisely because there is no space in the Spiritual Realm. I don't think a physical body can enter and exit the Spiritual Realm, things like Elend glimpsing it was just that, seeing into it, not entering it, I think. But I do struggle to figure out how instantaneous teleportation works. Elsecallers can enter the Cognitive Realm, but how do they actually get to the next planet or location? Do they run like hell? Do they teleport into the CR and then teleport within the CR? I find it a bit baffling. However I still think it's the Cognitive Realm, not the Spiritual Realm they're using. On the Oathgate question, this questionable WoB makes it really sound to me like it's a cognitive thing Everything we've heard about Elsecalling has indicated it's Cognitive Realm stuff. So I'm at a bit of a loss as to the realmatics of instantaneous teleportation. But I still feel that it doesn't involve the Spiritual Realm, at least not 'physically', that it's all in the Cognitive Realm. Maybe when someone is physically in the Cognitive Realm it changes the way space and time works for them.

@hwiles your thinking is interesting but it is predicated on Harmony now being one intermingled Shard, with the investiture from both Shards actually having intertwined to create a new intent. I don't believe that's the case. The WoBs are a bit vague, but it sounds to me more like Harmony now has one Shard in the sense that if he dropped it, someone else could pick up that one Shard, but that the relevant investiture from each Shard is still essentially separate. Some WoBs But I agree it is unclear. I just feel like Harmony, even if he's holding 'one' Shard, he's balancing two separate Intents, two separate packets of investiture each with opposing Intents. I don't think he can just put the combined Intent of Harmonic investiture into people. I think he has to choose whether he's using Ruinous investiture or Preservative Investiture.

We should do a kickstarter and go into business bro. Imagine the money we can get from the rapidly growing economy. And once we reach the rank of Scadrian Instant Noodle Maker, we can diversify! Oh and this rank lasts a while, you don't need to be too careful about screenshotting in time

Yeah those photos are up there with the Cassini fly through Saturn's rings! I love Jupiter's Highstorm but my heart goes to Enceladus. (And Europa and Io) I have a thing for moons /geek mode sustained

In Honor of little Juno's recent trip into the clouds

I remember when I did a theory on the realmatics of Elantris and the AonDor, and no less than Weiryfreakingwriter liked it, and I lost my mind just a little

@Jonathon your idea intrigues me. I’d been putting the religion of One (no matter how close to my heart it may be) down to manipulation by Bavadin. Of course I’m not committed to the Bavadin idea, but she’s in the business of hijacking and inventing religions so I see it as classic Autonomy. Perhaps she is even able to remain Connected enough to her worshippers that she actually does ‘learn’ their experiences upon their death. I wasn’t looking at the religion so literally. But the idea that a Shard could have expended its power completely to create a race of people is really interesting. I feel like it’s less likely than religious invention, and I have my doubts it’s realmatically possible – but I like it nonetheless. Thanks! I feel less warm to the Ambition idea for a range of Shard-related reasons. But again, your argument has coherence to it. @FiveLate your analysis of physiological reasons for eye colour is pretty interesting. I think it is maybe less applicable to the Cosmere because of how much funky business goes on with something like eye colour, particularly on Roshar. Even on Taldain, as I noted, Kenton's eyes change when he's using large amounts of kinetic investiture. But of course Roshar is a whole other barrel of chulls. It's the place where a person's eyes change colour completely with bonding a sentient splinter. I suspect the Iriali colours are much more due to realmatic reasons than biological. But thanks for the input as I too often only think realmatically The fact that eye colour, genetically, could be a good indication of Iriali descent is good though, it makes my slightly flimsy way of exploring linkages a little less flimsy!

DESTROY. EVIL. Roshar was not their first world. Yellow eyes and hair oh so gold. Iriali move through Worlds invested, for truly All One, they'll return to the fold.

s’all good babybabyyyyy (It was all a dream! I used to read Word Up magazine) It was good of you to help Calderis, and then you hid the posts anyway J Glad you got it sorted @FiveLate Though I guess we should stop derailing by talking about previous derailments. Derailception

The Long Trail of post-editing. Eventually, all posts will be gathered back in – when the Seventh Post is attained - and they will once again become one. Many people did know this, once. It’s not talked about as much as it should be… (edit - refers to a series of posts that are now hidden)

And it was a senior member of Government. Sometimes all you can do is laugh. Laugh til you cry. Cry til you laugh.

Rashek – Destroy them! Hrathen – When? Taravangian – Mummy? The next day Rashek – I am god Hrathen – Prove it Taravangian - Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The next day Rashek – Things must not change, we must hold off the powers of transformation and buy time until this world can be ransomed. Hrathen – And what then, what kind of world will we build? Taravangian – Change must be forced, we have no time! The next day Rashek – Comfort is not material. Survival is material. Hrathen – Comfort is not material. Unity is material. Taravangian – Mummy? The next day Rashek – I killed my friends and broke my people? Do you think death troubles me? Hrathen – Never have I felt like I did for her. And she chose Captain America. Do you think death troubles me? Taravangian – YouMustRemoveTheirPowerYouMustGainTheirPowerYouMustConnectToTheLivingGodYouMustFindTheSource.TheCostIsNot.TheDeathIsNot.TheyMustReconnect. The last day Rashek – Preserve all! Hrathen – Devote yourselves! Taravangian – Daddy!

Yeah with all the weeping and tearing of garments and gnashing of teeth about Taravangian, to me he's just an agent of Cultivation. Culling some folk to make for a better new world is pretty cultivationy.

I couldn't resist the chance to use the single stupidest quote in recent politics (it says something that it's from Brexit rather than America). Which is about as political as I'm willing to get in this here forum

I think people on this site have had enough of experts from organisations with acronyms. All you academics and intelligentsia with your fake news. Long live permanent loss of mental acuity!

Thanks for the responses so far folks. I’ll do some individual responses first. @Toaster Retribution I agree that looking for blonde/yellow/gold hair generally is pushing it, but it is the only option I could think of given it’s such a distinctive trait of the Iriali. Other mastrells on Taldain do not necessarily have the same hair, Drile for example has brown hair. But then Khriss also notes that “he wasn’t the same race as the villagers – his hair was light, instead of the uniform black”. Ais also notes that Lossandins have lighter colour hair, so while I can’t find enough references to more hair colors, that I think indicates that for Lossandins, light hair is normal. Whether it’s metallic gold is a different matter, but that comes to the point later on about Roshar being investiture-rich, as hwiles pointed out. People who have pointed out that there are several remaining Shardworlds we don’t know are right, the gap could of course be any of them. But since we can’t do any kind of informed theorising there I’m just going with the ones we know. Obviously it doesn’t imply those are the only possible ones. @hwiles I didn’t spell it out specifically but Iriali eyes are also passed down along with Iriali hair. General Khal, for example, has yellow eyes, as do quite a few random Iriali we come across. But perhaps it is more recessive than hair as there are certainly some golden haired folks who have different eye colors. That should be no surprise though, eye color is pretty distinctive and we see of course people with two different eye colors. I tried to find if there was anyone in Threnody with similar hair but couldn’t by searching. If anyone’s reading it though I’d be interested in references. But my take is that it’s “Shardworlds”, not just planets, as Peter said in the WoP. Same with Silverlight. @The One Who Connects I know Peter said ‘planet’ but he also said they travel through different Shardworlds. I see that as meaning they only settle on Shardworlds, but maybe we’re just disagreeing on phrasing. (Oh, and you have a very fair point about the timing with Vo and the Silver Kingdoms. I’m finding it hard to nail down exactly when they split from each other as the different epochs don’t seem to be well defined. But that could require some rejigging of the ‘story’. Hmmm. But again, this: "As a note, Renarin/Adolin are a Riran/Alethi mix--not exactly Iriali/Alethi, as there's some slightly different genetics going on there. Q: Oh I thought Riran and Iriali were the same... Where did I go wrong? A: I can't say much without giving spoilers, but there are small differences" @maxal you’re right about the boys being half Ririan, but it was part of the Silver Kingdom of Iri before it broke off in the modern era and I think we have every reason to believe that there would be sufficient interbreeding (if indeed they were ever separate races) to have that bleed through to Ririans. And @ccstat thanks, and great point about Hoid's flute. I need to do a more expansive search of every book for 'trail'

Well I thought so but Kobol was not what I thought it would be. Looking for New Caprica now.

From WoR ch 2

We know Cultivation remains very powerful. Frost also believes that containing Odium is enough so my guess is Cultivation didn't see the need to destroy him immediately or simply wasn't strong enough for that. But more than that I think most Vessels don't actually know how to splinter a Shard.

The sweetest, tastiest rank of them all. Though it seems like One is trying to speak to me, tell me...something

There have been a few past debates on this. I can't believe Ruin can hear Zane, no matter what combination of magics is involved. It's a limitation in the Intent. This is from the annotations, it's not 100% clear, Brandon could be talking just about the appearance to the reader, but it's something.

Thanks Pagerunner, that's what I was looking for!

He is possibly one of my favorite fictional characters compared to the screen time he got

That first one sounds an awful lot like the Bondsmiths only have one spren, the Stormfather, and yes that 3 is not a maximum. My head canon forever has been clearly that there are 3 bondsmiths bonding with 3 different spren, and I feel like WoBs have been consistent with that. I don't have time now to search but... Could the Stormfather be the only source of Bondsmith bonds??