alder24

I don't fully agree. Yes, Radiants are very combat oriented, and they will become proficient with Surges in just a few years or short decades. However, Elantrains are ageless. The average Elantrain will be hundreds if not thousands of years old. Even if they master one Aon per year, by the time they reach their average age, they will become extremely skillful with every Aon.

Yes, but on Scadrial. I didn't want to bring up non-Scadrial examples as I don't know which books Atlas read.

Merciful Domi, here we go again. Where are they? Can Elantrain draw Aons without worrying about the Dor? Did they do the Shai thing and connect themself to the local area? Or are they working like Riina with an unspecified source of investiture? Or they are simply near Elantris with Radiants and their spren there? Without access to the Dor, Elantrian can't really do anything. Does Elantrain have a bonded Seon? Elantrians are very versatile, they can replicate any invested art with Aons, It takes them few moment to draw proper Aons, but in Elantris there are plates that you need to only touch to activate Aon - they can either have pre prepared ones for some basic abilities, or draw them to work like that behind a force shield (an Invested shield of light - Aon Edo). The force shield is another thing - we saw Hoid using it in Tress, and Shai used something similar, which sdfd very effective and could be drawn very quickly. I think that would be a good tactic to raise a force shield around them, draw more complicated Aons and attack Radiant with them. They can even drain Radiants out of investiture, immobilize them. They can soulcast, lightweave (per TLM ch 54 it takes only a second to create a lightweaving of a person), elsecall and even manipulate connection or curse them to leave them powerless. They need a few moments to draw proper Aons, but that's what a force shield is for. But on the other hand Radiant has a Shardplate, which would provide protection from most direct forms of attacks or manipulations. That's a big advantage. For Elantrian to win they would have to crack the plate open to leech them out of Stormlight, manipulate their connection and curse them out of them. That would be hard but possible, like maybe by drawing a very powerful Aon Daa? Overall I think that would be generally a very even fight. It's hard for me to decide who would win, especially when I haven't read Elantris in a while.

I think it is because those powers are not physical. No part of your body makes coppercloud or hear via bronze. They are more cognitive or even spiritual in nature, and won't really disturb you in such a way. Like you don't feel the effects of a Coppercloud at all. With bronze you're hearing spiritual rhythms, so it isn't really something that affects your life that much. Tin or pewter savantism are the most drastic examples of savanthoods, because they affect your body the most. Savanthood is still warping your soul, but there aren't any noticeable effects of this because of the nature of those powers (but there are some effects).

I've never heard of that. Bronze? All inquisitors must have A-bronze to pierce copperclouds. HoA epigraphs ch 37: It just makes the most sense to give inquisitors all 8 base powers, as they would need them for their work and to rival Mistborn. Even copper to hide when approaching some hideouts or unsuspecting opponents, brass and zinc for interrogation or intimidation.

So you claim that the linchpin spike holds no A/F power but also that Marsh has double A-steel? Math doesn't check out. Marsh had 11 spikes when made into inquisitor, the linchpin spike would be -1, so 10 spikes for 10 powers - 8 base physical and mental Allomantic powers (4 steel and 4 bronze), 1 for F-gold and 1 for A-Atium. There is no room for Marsh to have double A-steel in his eyes, as those spikes were given to him under TLR, so he needs all 4 physical powers to be included in those 10 spikes. His eyes have to contain both A-steel and A-iron. He could get additional A-steel under Ruin's control but do we even know he had double A-steel at all? Technically, from the list of powers in spikes we could exclude chromium, nicrosil, bendalloy and cadmium (metals were unknown back then) - that's 8 power so 34-8=26. 4 more powers are also needed to be taken away to match his 22 spikes - but that's assuming he doesn't have double powers. The most likely candidates in my opinion would be both electrum powers, A-aluminum, and therefore possibly F-aluminum too. But if his linchpin spike holds no A/F power, we need to subtract another power from 22 - no idea which one. But that's really speculative and under the assumption that he doesn't have spikes doubling his powers - we don't know that.

Shalash lacks epicanthic folds too. Ishar came with the rest of them. Only one migration from Ashyn happened as the atmosphere was probably ignited, killing most people there - Ashynites that arrived on Roshar had burn marks all over them, and their animals - there was no time for a second migration, when the whole planet was on fire. All different races came from Ashyn, but only Shins remain in Shinovar, while the rest expanded and conquered Roshar, gain new resources, new living space, which spark rapid population increase and intermixing, while Shins remain isolated in Shinovar - that could explain why their population is relatively low and while they are so different. 7000 years is a lot of time for Cosmere's faster evolution to work. I don't think we know for sure if humans were forbidden from leaving Shinovar at all. Why would eastern Rosharans have mythology that they were supposed to stay in Shinovar when they've disobeyed that and invaded, causing the First Desolation? They have mythology about the First Desolation and that's enough. Why would they remember a bit about Shinovar, when most likely their ancestors wanted to mislead future generations about who is to blame for the First Desolation? Shins worship Heralds too, they hold their Honorblades. But we still know too little about Shins and their culture and religion to say what they know about past events. Honor actually did tell every generation of Radiants that humanity came from Ashyn and caused the First Desolation - this knowledge seems to be at least available to Radiants - but Recreance happened, Honor died, and there were 2000 years without anyone straightening facts - it's easy to turn those events around and forgot about the real cause in 2000 years. And then Hierocracy happened, this would influence Vorinism even more. Not to mention that during those 2000 years humanity forgot who the real Voidbringers were. If they forgot Voidbringers, why would they remember about Shinovar, 3.5 times further in the past than Recreance? 7000 years is a loooot of time for religion to change and forgot about the beginning. Shins know where Urithiru was as Szeth visited it shortly after being exiled, and knew that he could walk on those stones, while rest or Rosharan simply forgot about its location and even claimed it to be a myth. So people forgetting something important from the past isn't really any argument, as we were proven time and time again how fragile are human memories. Horneaters are part of this group too. But again, there is no single planet in Cosmere where all would be speaking in the same language (maybe except Threnody, but they are on the edge of extinction) so why would Ashynites all speak in the same language, all look the same etc? No, Heralds prove that proto-Alethi, proto-Makabaki, proto-Azish, proto-Shin appearances were present on Ashyn already. They would have their own Ashynite languages, influenced by Dawnchant, that would develop into modern languages. Why would you think they would all speak in the same language? We know nothing about those events, we don't know what happened and why. But Leshwi suggest that Dawnsingers offended or betrayed spren, which might suggest that Honor switching sides could be because of actions of Dawnsingers, RoW ch 109:

I don't think raw power and abilities matter anymore. He still lived for 350 years and his mind and soul is very strained, spiked by 22 times . He may feel better by the end of TLM, but he still isn't well and won't be. Not to mention he feels he needs to atone for all destruction he had caused under Ruin's control. Yes, he can do a lot with his knowledge and powers, but does he want to fight? I don't think so.

We don't know how nicrosil Feruchemy works. We know medallions are different, more restrictive, and the nicrosil portion works like a coppermind, but F-nicrosil most likely works like other attributes - you can't store 100% of it and it only weakens or increases your ability. We don't know if you could store powers from spikes, but if it works like other attributes, then you could never store all of it, so it should work with spikes. I don't think this is possible.

Well, Thaylen believes in Passions, that's a big connection to Odium - however we know from Dalinar's visions that humans fought on the side of Odium in every Desolation, this belief could just develop during one of such moments and later spread over the whole Thaylenah. Iriali came to Roshar in separate migration, some time later from migration from Ashyn, from a different place - they are a worldhopping group of people. They would be even less influenced by Odium than the rest of Rosharans. But they are. Look at Heralds - Ishar looks like Shin, Nale looks like Makabaki, Taln looks like Makabaki, Jez like Alethi etc. All except for maybe Ash, came from Ashyn. Stormfather and Raboniel also confirmed that humans came from Ashyn and settled in Shinovar. Look at the Earth - people of different races evolved in different regions of the world, and then spreaded out and mixed with each other. Why wouldn't the same thing happen on Ashyn and Roshar? Especially that evolution in Cosmere works much faster than in the real world. We know why Shins looks different - they were isolationist for most of history, they were xenophobic and weren't mixing with different races: The human history of Roshar encompasses more than 7700 Earth years, with dozens of end of the world events that destroyed written records and technology - do you know what happened on Earth 7700 years ago? They have a decent mythology of Desolations, Heralds, Recreance, Scouring of Aimia, Hierocracy and even "recent" Sadees invasion. Even Shins worship Heralds, calling them "son-god". I don't really get this point. They are to some degree, like you would expect from 7000 years of linguistic evolution: OB I-2 That's unsupported by evidence. We know Humans from Ashyn were the first to come to Roshar. We know Ishar looks like Shin and came from Ashyn with other Heralds that looks like eastern Rosharans. Iriali came from separate place, in different migration, but not Shins.

It would be disastrous. Worse than what happened on Sel, where investiture of Devotion and Dominion got pushed into Cognitive Realm after Odium Splintered them both. Yes, it would Splinter the Shard.

Yup, it was

No, Rashek wouldn't risk something like that. They posed a direct threat to him. But regarding claims of the ministry, Steel Ministry knew Keepers kept getting born - they were hunting them and taking Feruchemical gold from them, to give Inquisitors healing powers - and that was before Rashek's death. So while the "official" story was that Keepers were dead, both Rashek and Inquisitors knew that's not true. Edit: already answered but somehow new posts didn't show up.

Windrunners would just refill the Lashing. He died after hitting the ground. Well, not so much it seems. Adolin traveled with Kaladin to Kholinar with Highstorm in OB, Navani flew with them in RoW without Highstorm, others were also traveling like that in a few moments - it seems like traveling over the Highstorm doesn't cause immediate danger to non-Radiants. Weird.

Questionable: They evolved from Ashynite horses, they weren't created pre-Shattering. Not true. They invested in Roshar and the system, they created more Splinters, developed sapient, True Spren (all sapient spren are post-Shattering, including Stormfather), Honor invested in Highstorms, changing them, while Cultivation created Nightwatcher. They also became gods of Dawnsingers. There is no information about it anywhere. Dawnshard was involved, Odium encouraged Ishar to experiment with Surgebinding. Also Odium got permission from Honor and Cultivation to settle in the system: For all we know that was just Bondsmith-boosted Elsecalling (keep in mind Rosharan Surgebinding didn't exist in that form on Ashyn, that's just what Rosharan would call it). What? Where did this come from? No. Herald had to return to Braize after some time, because if they didn't they would risk another Desolation. They either just died or knew they needed to go, without humans asking them to go (as humans would likely had no idea how Oathpact works). Radiant were founded by Ishar after spren started to bond with people and mimic powers granted by Honorblades. I wouldn't call it "a better way", they just couldn't bear it any longer. And it was 4500 years, Aharietiam was 4500 years before WoK. Check WoK prelude or OB ch 38. The Last Legion abandoned Odium before or during Aharietiam - most likely, most evidence seem to point to that date, not during the False Desolation. He invested in storms way before. But this time Tanavest's Cognitive Shadow merged with Stormfather. The Shattered Plains were already Shattered before Recreance (as the Oathgate wasn't locked) and because Listeners songs talk about it, so it has to be before the Last Legion went into that area. Actually there was a storm around Braize in CR, Odim separated a piece of it and slowly moved it towards Roshar, which became the Everstorm. But it isn't a perpendicularity, just a way for splinters to get to and stay on Roshar. RoW ch 86:

I think that would be way harder than you think it is. A Scadrian soul is composed of both Ruin and Preservation's investiture, not merged together, but separate. A spike would steal both of them. How would you turn them to corresponding anti-tones? What about native Rosharan, which are likely composed of all 16 Shardic investiture? How would you turn them into anti-tone? Wouldn't a piece of the soul resist it, as it is very different from pure investiture in gaseous form? Wouldn't spike itself prevent it? I think it would be way harder to do if even possible.

Whatever it was, Vahr gave 1000 Breaths to Vasher, and for Vahr it was too small to have any effect as well as for Vasher. So you would probably need multiple thousands of them or tens of thousands to see any effect.

There are some questions about it, arising from unknown mechanics of F-duralumin. Can you tap connection to somebody that isn't connected with you, or do you have to first create that connection in a regular, non-invested way? Would you have to use a blanked connection to people (Malwish medallions use blanked connection to places, which connects to the nearest land when tapped) and stand as close to spren as possible, so it wouldn't connect to the nearest person, or could you decide with whom do you want to connect? While the idea seems theoretically possible, we don't really know what it means to connect to somebody via F-duralumin, and what could it achieve. I don't think so. If you spike them first to get their powers, they would be a deadeye now (at best) and you would likely connect to the fragment of soul in your spike, in a way spren can't sever that bond. When Brandon talks about spikes and Surgebinding, spiking just the Nahel Bond from Radiant would allow spren to break the bond, but when he talks about spiking both Radiant and spren, he never mentioned that and he presents it as a viable way to get a power - so I guess spren can't break the bond for multiple reasons (like being a deadeye, or that piece of their soul is gone now and stuck in the spike).

I agree, I argue that you can do it with any type of investiture, as long as you figure out how to Awaken with it. I disagree. Lifeless has its own Identity, different from a body and a person Awakening (but using Breath of the person to whom that body belongs might help to reduce the differences in Identity). I disagree that Investing or healing Lifeless more, or whatever, would somehow connect that Lifeless to the spiritual corpse, spirit web, lingering in the SR. I don't think it would be that easy, I don't think this connection would be restored and souls reconnected. But maybe something can be done around it in some way. It's hard to say, now, we can both be right, after all Brandon said this, so there is something to your idea. Yes, that's what I'm talking about. I think the Breath you were born with has some connection to you, greater than any Breath you receive later, and thus this connection helps in those situations. What also helps is that Breaths carry something from you into the next person, a small piece of your mindset, your personality etc (I don't know how to call it, but you're influencing this Breath in the tiniest way). But it's up to question if that's applied to only original Breaths or every Breath you have - if this is happening with every Breath, would that fragment of the previous owner get overwritten by you when you gave this Breath to another person, or would it hold two fragments, one of your and the other of the previous wearer (that doesn't make sense).

It has to be in your body, not necessarily in your stomach, you can even burn spikes. Good idea with capsules, quite a simple one actually.

I disagree. Per WoBs you can use something like Stormlight to Awaken, so there is a way to make Lifeless without Breaths. Plus, while Breaths are innate investiture - part of a soul - they are also more physical, stuck mostly in the Physical Realm. That means Breaths themself don't reside primarily in the SR, but when used they reach through to the SR - which can be done with other sources. Moreover any investiture left alone would eventually develop sentience - and with that a soul. So I believe any type of investiture could be used to replace Breaths in Awakening, but it's really hard to get there. I'm not sure what you're suggesting here. Do you say that the Breath reconnects the entire spirit web of a deceased person that resides in SR? No, because upon death the spirit web and mind are separated from their body. However this body would be considered an inanimate object now, with some sort of cognitive manifestation and traces of soul - that soul will have some connection or be tied to identity of a deceased person, but will be completely lacking the ability of invested arts - as that part of the spirit web was separated from it (that part is the spiritual corpse now - Breaths don't reach there when creating Lifeless). I disagree it's about identity, I think it's about healing - if you provide Lifeless with a method of healing, they could rebuild the original soul from the traces left in the body's soul - or maybe grow soul from Breath given to it (as per Arsteel, for his Breath to help in becoming a Lifeless, it must have some connection to him or his body, not important, but it remembers to whom it belonged to). Of course that's a bit speculative. I think "their own Breath" refers to the Breath they were born with, not some random Breath they had for a few weeks from some random dude. In that case Arsteel, as Returned, wasn't attached to any Breath like that except for the Breath he was born with before Returning. So this WoB suggests that he was made into Lifeless with the Breath he was born with. I think that's likely, considering the origins of Idrian and Hellaran religions - Idrians value their Breath like their soul. It might be that back in the days similar religious practice was present and Arsteel was always careful not to lose his original Breath. Of course, yes, that's speculation.

Deserts on Roshar are rocky, not sandy. Do I need to remain in the Highstorm? Because Windrunners and Skybreakers can fly me above it so I can just wait through it. Lightweavers and Elsecallers can soulcast a storm bunker around me, Elsecallers and Willshapers can transport me into CR where I can safely wait for Highstorm to end, Edgedancers and Truthwatchers can heal me constantly, Willshapers and Stonewards can build a storm bunker around me. Maybe even Dustbringers and Edgedancers could reduce my friction to 0, so winds would just slip around me. And Bondsmith, well, he can connect me to the ground like Ishar did or open perpendicularity to transport me to CR. Highstorm itself would provide limitless Stormlight for Radiants.

That is actually possible. It is possible to Awaken with different types of investiture, like Stormlight, but it is so hard that not even Hoid knows how to do that. The easiest way is to convert Stormlight into Breaths, but then you're Awakening with Breaths. There are ways you could Awaken with different types of investiture, but both the means and effects of that are yet to be known. Maybe something like pure unkeyed Dor could be used, as it can fuel any invested art. That won't work, at least not like you want it to. Investiture resists investiture, so you can't use sentient soul, like an Unmade to Awaken. However, maybe you could do something like Kelsier - stample Unmade's soul into a physical body - in that case you have an Unmade with a body or something like that. Weird, but not what you're asking for. Kind of possible. Like it can certainly be invested, but it's hard to say what would stick to the Breath, expanding its artificial soul. Basically that's what reinvesting a damaged Lifeless with another Breath does, or Awakening Lifeless with more Breaths than necessary could do. You could give a Lifeless Malwish medallions, and that could make them "stop being a Lifeless" which likely means it would expand their soul to sapient levels. Nope, Divine Breath doesn't stick to the soul, it becomes kinetic when Returned transfers it and you can't invest a Lifeless with it. Unless you're Endowment: Not to corpse, but to the soul. If Lifeless were to somehow inhale Stormlight it would be stuck in his body, and won't affect his soul (unless he would be able to heal) - medallions do that. But if you get investiture to attach to his soul, that's game changer. They kind of do have, their Breaths are artificial spiritweb. This WoB isn't about that, as Mistbornness comes from the spirit web, which is separated from the body in the moment of death - therefore a Mistborn body turned into Lifeless won't be a Mistborn as the whole soul of a Mistborn is gone. I'm not really sure if that's what Brandon meant - Clod is Arsteel, who was Returned. He died while dueling with Vasher, who transferred his Breaths into Arsteel and killed him while he was incapacitated with pleasure. Those Breaths are gone, but they somewhat help him become a better Lifeless. For Clod to be Awaken with Arsteel's original Breath it would require him to gave up his Breath before his first death and Return, reclaim it somehow (Returned lose memories), and then gave it to someone again before Vasher killed him (to Denth, a person needs to receive that Breath to Awaken him into a Lifeless, but why would he do that, when he wasn't expecting to fight Vasher) - that's possible but very complicated and unlikely, so I hardly believe that was the case, and Brandon might just made a mistake. But again, that's possible, so who knows. But then if they knew who they were before death (at least to some degree), and were real siblings, and Arsteel's original Breath was preserved for so long that he was turned Lifeless with it, I think that they might have tried to turn themselves into Returned purposefully, without Endowment's involvement. They would need to gather thousands of Breaths and then kill each other, becoming a Cognitive Shadow. This is possible: Create Lifeless, no - investiture of Unmade would resist being changed like that - you would basically need Odium to kill an Unmade, take their investiture and use it to create a Lifeless of some sort. But I think Unmade would be able to possess or influence a Lifeless - like Thrill for example. Lifeless is very little invested, he wouldn't resist Unmade's influence that much, but I don't know how hard it would be to create specific emotions in Lifeless, but that should be somewhat possible. Vivenna saw emotions in Clod, so they can feel but it's weirder for them - Warbreaker, ch 31: But Yelig-Nar doesn't possess, he consumes the soul - and he would consume Lifeless single Breath almost immediately, so that isn't a very useful host for him. If BAM would find a way to Awaken with Voidlight, she could create her own Lifeless with Voidlight she can access, but once again, that's very hard to do. Maybe Sja-Anat too, depending on how she accesses investiture.

Maybe, but we see from BoM that there are different types of connections stored, you would likely have to store Nahel Bond connection in the first place. Even if not, tapping regular connection will only grant you Nahel Bond as long as you tap metalmind - you need to have a constant connection if you want to use your powers, when you stop, you can't use your powers - and because you stored a trace amount of connection between you and spren in the first place (if "general" connection to people won't work), you would need to tap ridiculous amounts of connection, so large that diminishing returns would just keep draining you out of attribute. Compounding would somewhat help, but it's easier to spike both Radiant and spren, than be born as duralumin compounder - spiritual quadrant Ferrings are extremely rare, not to mention compounders. It's just a very inconvenient way to get powers, highly dependent on your access to metalminds, it's much easier to just spike a Radiant. Nahel Bond isn't just a regular connection - it's a merger of souls, spren's soul fills cracks in Radiant's soul - if you could replicate that with regular connection to a spren, you would likely need to tap a lot to gain that. Compounding would be required to maintain that connection, and you would have to constantly burn your metalminds to get the necessary amount to counteract diminishing returns. Just like what Rashek did with youth. It's possible, but it's so much easier to spike a Radiant than be lucky to be born a duralumin compounder.

Highly unlikely. Those are people's interpretations of Honor, not Tanavest's. It's what they think Honor is about, not Tanavest. That doesn't matter for Honor. A single word, like Honor, can't fully describe the scale of its Intent, Brandon was talking about in some WoBs, but yet in Cosmere people try to give precise meaning to Shards, which often simply miss most of their intent. So who is right? Skybreakers or Windrunners? Odium or Raboniel? Maybe all of them at once? There are even WoBs in which Brandon claims different things about Honor - he is about bonds, oaths and keeping them, later he's about justice and order, or the sense of being bound by rules, or maybe representation of natural laws. This simply means that Honor can't be defined that simply, and he encompasses many different aspects.