Extesian

Ha! This is a dangerous place for this thread to go. "Well, I'm back". And then the murders began.

Brandon is pretty scientifically astute and often uses fundamental scientific principles (with a lot of the detail I think ironed out by the indivisible Peter Ahlstrom). There's mathematical patterns (Roshar is a slice of the Julia Set), fundamental forces, relativity, astronomy and many others. It's one of the best things about the Cosmere, he takes fantastical idea and scientificizes them (totally a real word). I spent a good deal of time trying to formulate a ridiculous theory where Adobalsium was a star and the Shattering was an accelerated supernova that created the metals, each of which was one of the Shards. I totally failed but the point is he makes readers actually really delve into the science yo come up with theories. So whether or not the Shattering is based on that it's a nice way to think about it

And it feels, yeah it feels like the world has grown cold, now that you've Gyorn away. Edit: wait, this isn't the bad puns thread. Look what I've gyorn and done. Edit 2: I'll stop now.

Yep I stay faaaar away from politics here and now so for something lighter There was Eru, the One, who in Arda is called Iluvatar; and he made first the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made. And then the murders began.

Everyone is entitled to their view. I love Lift and I love awesomeness. Luckily it's irrelevant. We take ourselves waaay too seriously here if we think that Brandon will not only change his writing style but actually go back and change published books just because some fans ask him to. He has far too many fans and far too much integrity to do that. We're so lucky that we have an author that listens or responds to us at all

Nah I totally understand the pragmatist argument with uniting, I made it myself on the Oathbringer Prologue thread. But the wording of this WoB is keep the peace, and that's quite different to unite. Sure it can still be interpreted in a means justifying ends way but that's harder for a peacekeeping mission than a uniting mission is all. Bribery could still fit. But creating war is harder to fit with keeping peace.

Patrick Rothfuss IT WAS NIGHT AGAIN. Shinovar lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts. The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the grass, set the chickens crowing for the sun and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of Shin left alive, they would have filled the silence with prayers, the clatter and clamor one expects from a religious people. If there had been music…but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained. Inside the burnt out house a pair of men huddled at one corner of the bar. They drank with quiet determination, avoiding serious discussions of what they had just seen, why they had been spared. In doing this they added a small, sullen silence to the larger, hollow one. It made an alloy of sorts, a counterpoint. The third silence was not an easy thing to notice. If you listened for an hour, you might begin to feel it in the smouldering wooden floor underfoot and in the rough, sacred stone surrounding the ruins. It was in the weight of the silver sheath that held the black blade leaking dark smoke. It was in the slow back and forth of a shattered Oathstone rubbing along the blade of a dead Herald. And it was in the hands of the man who stood there, sharpening ancient weapons with noone left to kill. The man had no hair, his head shining in the flames. His eyes were black and distant, and he moved with the subtle certainty that comes from hearing many things, seeing things no man should. Shinovar was now his, just as the third silence was his. This was appropriate, as it was the greatest silence of the three, wrapping the others inside itself. It was deep and wide as autumn’s ending. It was heavy as a great river-smooth stone. It was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man who is waiting to die.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. And then the murders began. (And please, to my American friends, no offense is intended :))

I understand the view, it's shared by many. But to my mind the bonding is what provides the innate investiture. To compare to Scadrial, heredity gives you allomancy or feruchemy; on roshar you don't get the ability to use investiture from birth, you get it from a bond. In Scadrial once you have innate investiture (the ability to use the magic system) you use metal as the focus for that investiture; on roshar once you have that ability (through the bond) you use the spren you are bonded with add the focus ie the way you use that investiture to create an effect. i think the honorblades are simply a different system? That was all Honor, it was directly accessing his investiture and the focus was the particular Honorblade. When spren mimicked the Honorblades it created a new system that used the investiture of both Honor and Cultivation. And the spren mimicked the focus system from Honorblades. Like on Scadrial allomancy is of Preservation, hemalurgy of Ruin, but feruchemy is of both and a different system despite using the same focuses of allomancy but to different effect.

I agree with you on both these points @Djarskublar (and should assure you I wasn't having a go at you or misunderstanding your points). I don't think TLR could have maximized his awesomeness while using the Well with the plan to then boost it further. The Well provided everything he needed. I think it's possible he did what he had time to do while using the Well (which, as we know from Vin, is short and you are not omniscient) and then afterwards used the knowledge he gained to boost himself more than he was able to at first because he had way more time to dwell on it all. But yeah I still think this probably isn't the case, even if it is possible.

I found this WoB from 2013 that may be relevant. I know it's about allomancy and the lerasium beads but I'm focusing on the word "in all of this". That sounds like he got all of his abilities from the Well not from things he did with investiture after his ascension. It's by no means decisive and I feel less skeptical than some that one couldn't use hemalurgy in this way to do useful things post-ascension, but I do lean towards it all being from direct access to Preservation's essence in liquid form.

No worries. My understanding is that Honor alone provides the intent that enables a bond to be formed with spren who are then, as a combination (to varying extents) of Honor's and Cultivation's investiture, are the focus for the manipulation of different surges (forces). In other words spren are both investiture and the focus (but the investiture being drawn by the surgebinder is of course from Stormlight rather than from the spren itself). I'm not great on the caonized terminology for this, and I haven't read the whole way through this thread, so forgive me if I've used the wrong terms or repeated/contradicted what others have said. But I'm also curious whether the Oathpact fits into this. I feel that's more about Honor giving the Heralds direct access to His investiture (which was also outlined at the same signing) and the Oathpact was the rules Honor imposed to allow that direct access.

I believe @Spoolofwhool is referring to this one from the Boskone signing.

A small addition to this thread. There's a recent Reddit comment from Brandon indicating that death by Nightblood is final. I think we already knew this really, but I feel that indicates that TLR facing someone wielding Nightblood would be instantly killable if they can actually hit him ie no healing or 'resurrection' is possible.

I'll add a recent addition to this WoB, but focused on the mostly dead issue rather than the Adonalsium issue. I'm sure we knew that death by Nightblood is final due to severing in all three realms but I thought theexplicit confirmation is good, especially if there's any question of healing from a Nightblood wound.

Good on you @Firerust the Terris Gyorn for having a go with the theory and taking the scientific method approach - learning from the input of supersharders like Yata and being happy to be corrected. Not everyone on this site is so open to that. Your theory has some good thoughts even if it's probably not spot-on. You may be interested in a similar thread that goes over some of these issues.

A related WoBs (though we're getting away from the OP, I hope @TheCremling doesn't mind). There is debate about whether Hoid uses feruchemy to store fortune. We know he uses an analgous power to be in the right place at the right time but I believe there is no definitive WoB on whether it's feruchemy or another system. There is an old one that says it's feruchemy but it's paraphrased and still up for debate. We know he at least has access to unkeyed metalminds so his feruchemy may be limited to that. He may not actually be a feruchemist.

One point about this - that power requires accessing Aon Dor (unless it can be a lasting change, which I don't believe is possible but I'm happy to be corrected). The Dor however is heavily location dependent and cannot be accessed on Roshar without hacking the system. This may have been done by a worldhopper but it is an important distinction. @Lwarch we know Hoid has that many breaths not from Warbreaker, but because he refers in SA to having perfect pitch. And @TheCremling (SH spoiler) Note that there should, I believe, be spoiler tags for some of these posts, I think this forum requires them. Someone more experienced than me will correct that if I'm wrong.

@Bugsy6912 I mentioned it on the other thread where you posted this but I think you need to put that summary in a spoiler box with heavy spoiler warnings, especially for Mistborn. It's a great summary but if a newbie reads it before having read all the Cosmere books they could have a very bad day. But otherwise nicely done. And welcome @Lwarch! Deconstructing the overarching mythology of the Cosmere is one of the best things about this site, as you have to be very astute to pick up the references in the books.

You may want to hide this post (click on options) to make sure you don't get two different threads of replies I've the same thing myself!

This is a nice summary! But unless I misunderstand the rules, you should put it in a spoiler box with a heavy warning of spoilers for every Cosmere book, particularly Mistborn (which has a huuuge spoiler). And welcome, @I am Witless, enjoy the conversations and speculations

Very interesting! Makes me even more surprised that Gavilar was on that path given that (Oathbringer prologue spoilers) Also makes me suspect even more that 'Unite them' was talking about all peoples of Roshar, humans, Listeners and Aimians.

There's a couple of relevant WoBs. So you're right that they've probably both been to Roshar, and certainly Denth. I still feel we need more to be sure but you've written this further evidence nicely, good job.

A brave larkin, spiked with brass allomancy and wielding Nightblood, saves Roshar from Szeth wielding every Honorblade.

I think Bondsmiths can use their binding powers in all three realms. They can bind matter, they can create bindings of some sort in the cognitive realm and they can forge connections in the spiritual realm. I believe their powers will prove to be extremely strong as we have this I think they didn't just agree to the rules of Nahel bonding (where the power is limited by the saying of oaths) but that agreement was used to Spiritually connect them in a truly binding way. We also have this. It's been suggested that this was the bondsmiths altering the nature of parshendi bonds to prevent them from binding spren any longer, creating parshmen. I'm not committed to this theory but it would show even more the bondsmiths ability to make highly significant, almost unbreakable bonds. The fact there are only ever three bondsmiths also indicates there powers must be incredible, otherwise they'd be too insignificant an order. And the fact that one of the has bonded the fracking stormfather backs that up.