alder24

Reply to the title - no Shard is evil! Yes, I think that too. When I first read about Mercy being involved in the fight between Odium and Ambition I immediately thought they fought against Ambition (and killed her out of mercy), not against Odium. Mercy doesn't have to be a good thing - someone can kill a wounded/ill person out of mercy instead of trying to heal them and give them decades more to live - and that’s probably why I thought Mercy is more like that, a twisted version of mercy, not someone caring or good.

I find this idea very interesting, I like it, but I have trouble accepting this. It shouldn't work like this. Marsh isn't like a spren. He's still alive and self-aware, he has a physical body, his own, and won't be so easily influenced by perception, if even at all. Moreover he isn't a Cognitive Shadow - Kelsier is, Kel is influenced by perception (which still is slight over centuries/millennia), not Marsh. I don't think Marsh's Cognitive Aspect can "grow" like that. Realmatically this shouldn't work. However there might be a middle ground. There might be spiritual ideal of death, and because of Scadrial's religions this slowly shifts and turns to resemble Marsh, or maybe even merge with him, and thus when other people think of the personification of death, he has spikes in eyes, just like we think of the Grim Reaper with a scythe. Cosmere spoiler WoB: And the other thing might be that he partially kind of likes being the personification of death. So when he gets invested by Sazed, his body might use some of this investiture to change him to match his perception of himself, image of death, and this might spread in SR or something like you said. This certainly wouldn't work like that. He still has a physical body, he isn't like spren, he exists strongly in Physical Realm and can't just disappear from it. The easiest way to explain it is that he's using F-duralumin, which allows him to store connections and become unnoticeable to others.

They weren't controlled. Only within the year before his release he was able to whisper to them, push and pull on their emotions - that was so effective because they had so many spikes. He still wasn't able to fully control them (as Marsh was resisting his attempts to crush Sazed right outside of the Well).With someone with far less spikes, like Vin or Zane, he was only able to whisper a few words to them, not much more. The Well firmly limited his reach and influence. The bloodlust was the inherent property of those two hemalurgic constructs (possibly related to the nature of Hemalurgy and large amounts of spikes). But Koloss bloodlust was actually designed by the Lord Ruler, as he wanted them to kill themselves if he were to die or lose control over them, to prevent Ruin from accessing those Koloss or rampage over the Final Empire. Koloss weren't directly influenced or controlled by Ruin before his release. The only thing Ruin was able to do when imprisoned was to whisper to spiked and mad individuals, push/pull slightly on their emotions, and change the written text and memories stored in Copperminds. Not much more. The stronger the impulses from the Well got, the more he could do, as he was sending his power on those impulses - explained in SH a bit. And the strongest impulses were just in the year before his release, only then Vin was able to always hear the Well (she did it in TFE but she had to focus a lot to hear them). As the Well was fully filled, every Seeker or Mistborn was able to hear them, and thus Ruin would be able to do much more than previously, like force some level of control over Inquisitors, but not earlier. Also said in SH, Ruin couldn't control inquisitors, only talk to them (and push and pull on their emotions) - he was very limited in his actions. Controlling hundreds of thousands of koloss after his release isn't a problem - once you force your control over them, they're yours. But forcing that control is problematic - Vin was able to force her control over thousands of Koloss at once, Elend over tens of thousands, but once the control is established, the number doesn't matter. But Ruin controlled Koloss after his release, so this all doesn't matter, as he is a Shard, vastly more powerful than any Mistborn, it's like comparing a drop of water to the ocean. There is much more about Ruin, his limitations and his nature in SH. HoA epigraphs ch 40: ch 42: I think that's because the power left in the Well was Preservation's mind itself, not opposed by Ruin's power at all, or more likely allowed by Ruin as he saw every action Rashek took aided in Ruin's ultimate goal of destruction of Scadrial. If the former is true, then Ruin couldn't do the same without sacrificing his own mind, and practically killing himself, if the latter then Ruin also couldn't do anything more as Preservation's power would oppose those drastic actions. I don't understand your point here. Firstly Rashek thought he would be able to keep Ruin imprisoned forever, but feared he would get killed by Ruin's plot - that's why he created caves and all that Atium plan. If you referring to the previous "Rashek's use of the Well wasn't opposed by Ruin" I answered to it above. This is said in HoA epigraphs ch 48: Ruin literally couldn't do anything more because the balance of powers was preventing him from doing so. He used most of his energy that he could slip below Preservation's power to accelerate natural disasters and wasn't able to do much more than that. I didn't refer to this, I only talked about Ruin's direct control or his whispers or influencing Kelsier's emotions. Stories and legends about 11th metal were fabricated, and Ruin was influencing Gemmel (because he was crazy) but not Kelsier directly. Once Kelsier left Gemmel, he was freed from Ruin's influence, and all he did was only because of him, not Ruin. So Kelsier wasn't guided by Ruin, was only aided at the beginning - his idea to kill the Lord Ruler was all his, not given to him by Ruin. All of this he did over centuries or even millennia. He couldn't give new technology directly to people, he could try using crazy and spiked people to follow him (which isn't so easy, as they still can act differently - there was a nice example of this in SH), or change text to give them new stuff this way. But you severely underestimate how hard it is to create something new. He would have to select a smart individual first, change several books to explain for example the very basics of the gunpowder and how to manufacture it, create guns or cannons (he can't hand them modern handguns just like then, nor he can't give them knowledge to create them as they don't have manufacturing machines required to do so, nor they can create such machines), and hope this guy would be capable of creating such prototype and get fundings to create weapons on big scale (instead of getting burned on the stake for witchcraft after he explains that the knowledge of this suddenly appeared in books he had). But that's impossible to make under the Lord Ruler's rule, as he was heavily suppressing all new developments in the whole empire. Obligators would immediately find out about this, and the new "inventor" would get assaulted by inquisitors with Koloss' army. Obligators were a necessary component of life and every decision making among nobles (even trivial bets are witnessed by them), you can't hide something like that from them. Skaa would be of no use as he has no education nor money to create those things. As soon as someone tried to use gunpowder he would be dead - gunpowder wouldn't be that effective against Koloss as that's how Rashek was using them and succeeded. And even if Ruin didn't like Rashek, his harsh, deadly and destructive reign was certainly appreciated by Ruin - why destroying a useful tool who creates for you an army of Koloss and Inquisitors, when you can just wait patiently, develop a covered plot and take over those armies after his death?

That might work. Not as a Shardblade, as the shape and purpose of the object has a huge impact on the command and Awakening of it, but as a bandaid, syringe or stuff used for medical procedures might be the way to accomplish that. It would certainly require you to feed it with investiture like Nightblood, but instead of keeping all of that inside of it, it would push it into a body to heal wounds.

Divide and conquer. Jaddeth and Fjordell want to unite Sel under one banner and one religion. Inviding Arelon just as the disastrous earthquake had happened, and Elantris felt would produce the very opposite reaction Fjordell wanted - it would unite Arelon and strengthen their faith in Domi, making them protect fallen Elantiran instead. That's why waiting is better, as people of Arelon could witness decline of Elantris and Elantrians themself, treating them as outcasts and disease. They divided themself making it much easier for Jaddeth’s agents to aim their fear and hatred towards Reod Elantrians, using them as tools to destroy Elantris for good. And ultimately converting Arelon to Jaddeth. While it wasn't the main goal, converting them was still desirable. Moreover Hrathen's actions were more or less a cover up for Dilaf to sneak with Dakhor monks unnoticeable into Elantris - doing this early would expose them fully to Arelon making it just much harder to accomplish. To add more, there is mention in Elantris annotations that Fjordell gained access to the Dor quite recently - Fjordell might not be ready to launch a full scale invasion at Arelon right when the earthquake had happened. Also in the Coppermind it's stated that Fjorden were busy with conquering other nation, starting a second front is just a bad idea: Really? TLM spoilers: @ScarecrowBoat716 good job on this theory. I think it's very plausible that it was caused by Jaddeth and Autonomy was involved in this. After all, we saw her agents use a similar trick on Scadrial in SoS - Paalm destroyed a dam which caused massive flooding, raising food pieces in Elendel, destabilizing the city further, which almost led to another revolution, this time aimed against Harmony.

No, clothes Vasher Awakened had torn themself free from the corps and were fighting using a sword (which would weigh less than 1 kg), Warbreaker ch 56: For absorbing a fall damage we have a rope, acting something like a spring on Vasher's leg - and the fall wasn't from that high (3rd floor, but possibly taller than today's floors), without it he would likely break his legs but survive, ch 56: It's possible (under normal weight). We constantly see ropes, banners or cloaks pulling people up in Warbreaker. Making 4 Awakened scarfs acting like legs would be very doable, and even useful. Overall such ropes or clothing would help you to move faster when tapping a low to moderate amount of weight, mitigating the unwanted effects of F-iron, but as said by therunner, tension is different than compression, material would eventually snap if you were to weigh too much. You could increase the amount of ropes (ropes would be better under tension than clothes), but there is another problem - ropes would cut into your body trying to pull heavy limbs of yours, which would cause lots of damage. More ropes would help to spread weight around lessening how much each rope would cut into your body, but with lots of tapped weight, you would need lots of ropes, which would cover you whole (which possibly would tighten your chest too much preventing you from taking a breath). That isn't sustainable on a greater scale. For a Shardplate, I suspect Vasher's clothing would not allow you to move in the locked plate as fast as normal humans can - it would still slow you down, but that's more than 600 kg on both of your legs, 300 kg for each - regular trousers might be too weak and tear under that tension. If they can survive that, they might add something, but not enough for the plate to move at human speeds. Ropes would be better, but again, there is so much tension that they would block the blood flow into your limbs. That's not a good thing. Overall this idea, while it's useful on a lower scale, has severe limitations the more weight you try to handle, with high risks of injury. However on a lower scale of F-iron, you aren't slowed down that much, so Awakened clothes might perform even worse in fighting than with no mass increase (as they're using most of their energy to pull lots of mass, instead of being faster).

I don't think so, it would be like with trying to transfer it - it just doesn't stick to the person you give it to. But everything that kinetic investiture can do, a Divine Breath might be able to replicate - give somebody a sudden strength boost, or let him peer into SR to see the future or stuff like that, or if the other person is Radiant/Mistborn, you might power his art with a Divine Breath like it was A-nicrosil boosted power.

Let me ask you this - can you hold a train in the air just by hanging in on a t-shirt? The answer is no, it would break. You need several solid chains to do so. While an Awakened material can give strength to the Awakener, it doesn't become magically stronger or anything - it's still a regular piece of cloth. I don't think a simple cloth would make any difference if you tap yourself to the level of immobility - too little, too late. If you have Vasher's Awakened clothes and are tapping some mass, it would certainly mitigate the slowing down of your movements, on a smaller scale it would work.

Hard question. The nature of Breaths and a Divine Breath is slightly different. The main difference is that a Divine Breath is always turned into kinetic investiture when given and doesn't stick with that person. Breaths seem to be mainly static or innate, I don't know if an Awakened object would count as a kinetic investiture. Normally a Seeker can't sense that so possibly Breaths are always static/innate, not kinetic. They aren't used up or they don't change states/forms - maybe only when you Awaken something and Breaths are flowing into that objects, they count as a kinetic investiture, just like with summoning a Shardblade or breathing in Stormlight. This difference might prevent you from using regular Breaths like a Divine Breath and heal somebody. But there is this one WoB, which talks about Breaths and spiritual ideals - each Breath is a shade of Endowment, the more you have the closer you are to that spiritual deity and ideal. There might be a point (likely 2000 Breaths) where you have enough of them to reach into that spiritual ideal of a human health and heal somebody just like with a Divine Breath. If that's possible I would say you'd need at least 2000 Breaths to heal anything (as you need to break into Spiritual Realm and reach into that ideal which would be kind of like burning Atium with duralumin which allows you to look directly into SR), and of course you can't heal yourself, only somebody else. And you can't Awaken an object to heal someone, as that requires a transfer of Breaths and an Awakened object isn't sentient enough to transfer Breaths, nor does the identity of that object match yours and Breaths it's invested with. Of course this is a very big IF. Actually we do know more can be done with Divine Breaths, but people on Nalthis just don't know that: Intent defined the effect of his Divine Breath.

Don't do this! It's still fun! It's very likely that she will die in SA, there are many hints towards this, Lift being the main one. There is a popular theory that Lift is meant to replace Koravellium as the new Cultivation Vessel, because Cultivation touched Taravangian who was meant to be new Odium's Vessel, and Dalinar who might become new Honor's Vessel (he's already halfway to it). Cultivation seems to be cultivating new Vessels for Shards. That's impossible. As long as she lives, she can't reach into the Beyond. Even Shards can't reach there. If she dies, she will be reunited with Tanavest. But here is a thing - Honor left his Cognitive Shadow behind, it merged with Stormfather. Cultivation knows about it and has some feelings for him. Good catch. I don't remember this. Yeah, "with nothing to back this up" He is an Edgedancer type, but does this qualify him to Ascend to Cultivation?

I don't think it's possible to Awaken a living Aether - it's Prime Aether's essence, through which they are able to sense and see, Aether is certainly invested and thus Awakeneing invested object would be almost impossible. You could use Breaths to fuel Roseite like it was done with Dor, not by Awakening it however. I think you're wrong. Kalad's Phantoms are a mix of type 2 and type 3 entities. The bones inside are Lifeless, but the stone isn't, and it had to be infused with Breaths to start functioning again - Vasher left them without those Breaths in stone, which means he was able to retrieve his Breaths: I think because of how Lemex's death looked like, throwing waves of BioChroma around, Breaths are certainly going back to Endowment after death, and they don't stay in the body. Breaths are innate investiture, they are still a part of the soul, and soul is separated from the body in the moment of death. And this WoBs busts your theory

Welcome to the Shard! There are different levels and types of investment. Cognitive Shadows like Returned or Heralds are relatively high invested beings, Spren are even more invested. Normal people are low invested (compared to living, invested beings) but depending from where they are, some are slightly more or less invested - like people from Nalthis are more invested (because they have Breaths) than people from Scadrial, but Scadrian are more invested than Rosharan (because Scadrians has Preservation's fragment in them), but Rosharan are more invested than somebody from the First of the Sun (because the First of the Sun has no Shards while Roshar has 3) - what I'm describing is so called innate investiture, the additional part of the soul which is because of Shard's investment like Breaths, Preservation's fragment etc. Another important factor is all Connections that people have. For normal people it's relatively not much investiture (a soul is basically a web of Connections, Identity and investiture), but for somebody like a Mistborn, they have a very strong Connection to Preservation, which invests their soul more. That's why Kelsier was able to stay in CR for so long, because as a Mistbron he has this strong Connection to Preservation giving him powers and thus his soul is more invested than regular Scadrian soul. Elend, who became a Mistborn by burning Lerasium, had even stronger Connection to Preservation than Kelsier, and he was able to stay longer, if he wanted - he still would fade, unlike Vin (because she touched the power of Preservation directly and became a Sliver, she could stay forever). Surgebinders like Radiants are similarly invested to Mistborn, as they have this strong bond to their spren, they would stay longer in CS as well, because of that bond. Then there is additional investiture which also counts, like you suggested - if you die why having a lot of Breaths or having a lot of Stormlight, or burning metals as a Mistborn (keep in mind, a Mistborn burning metals provides low amounts of investiture, far lower than Stormlight or Breaths) you were more invested, therefore you will last a bit longer in CR. Spikes also count. Each spike is a fragment of a soul pinned into your soul, the more you have, the more invested you are, the longer you stay in CR - but if a part of your soul get stolen from you by a spike, you will fade quicker, as part of your investiture was taken away from you. Cognitive Shadows like Returned, Fused, Heralds or now Kelsier, are just on another level all together. They are so invested that they can fully resist the urge to fade into the Beyond. That's because their soul got overflown with Investiture when they've died - like Returned were given the Divine Breath, or Kelsier was invested by Preservation in the Well. They're different because of what happened after their death, but normally people don't experience such things. Well I wrote a lot here. To summarize, Cognitive Shadows are far more invested than Surgebinders or Metalborns, but they are more invested than regular people because of their strong Connection granting them those powers. If they were holding a lot of investiture when they died, they would be able to stay longer before fading into the Beyond - what you said is true, but there is simply more to it. WoBs on which I based this response:

SA:

Yes, but you split the charge equally as well. The more spikes you make the weaker they become. So that's not very useful if you want a power.

Not necessarily. She can unwillingly suppress them when changing between different personas, Warbreaker spoilers: Also the Heightening-like effects are native to all investiture, more intense color recognition happens when somebody is highly invested (which she could suppress too when changing personas). She doesn't have to have Breaths for it to work. But there is likely something going on here. If she's Chana's daughter, she would likely be more invested which might manifest as Heightening-like effects. But it also might be something really natural - Shallan is an artist, she has a good eye for colors, and that's showing up when she is Shallan. But Veil is terrible at art, she would just be far worst at that. It might be her perception shaping the abilities of her different personas, like Treamayne said.

I also add that Leshwi said that Moash is a Singer's name. Moash, by taking up the title of Vyre, abandons his old life and accepts the path he's on right now.

He does not remember, because his memories have been tampered with. in the same manner as Wit's as seen at the end of RoW. Other theories seen so far: Current Stormfather being a fake/SA5 Stormfather being a pretender-Ishar/Cultivation shenanigans. What? Awakened? Like he has Breaths like Hoid do? I doubt it, why and how? But he can't be Awakened, he's Tanavest's Cognitive Shadow, his full of Honor's investiture, investiture resist investiture, it would be impossible to Awaken something so invested. If he doesn't store his memories in Breaths, they can't be tamper with just like that. He isn't just a Stormfather, he's holding the biggest piece of Honor, only someone like Cultivation could try to mess with him, but that might be breaking some Oaths they made and be too much like a direct attack on another Shard - something Cultivation wouldn't want to do to Tanavest's CS (they were romantically involved). Also Hoid storing his memories in Breaths works weirdly, as they are part of him and he remembers what's inside them, that's why Todium destroying some of his Breaths destroyed his memories. Warbreaker spoiler: The easiest explanation is that he lied. Spren can lie. Honor isn't about telling the truth but about bonds. He's never told Dalinar that he was bonded with Gavilar, nor what Gavilar was doing and planning to do. He keeps so much information to himself and only talks about them when they get exposed (who Taln was, reasons for Recreance, identity of Ishar and many others). I find this behavior totally consistent with his character.

Of course it depends on the type of spren. Spren themself don't do anything in a gemheart - they're just bound. But they give a specific effect - Mandra gives a decreased weight, Windspren gives Singers a Nimbleform, Painspren gives a Warform, Lifespren a Mateform etc. In the case of non-Singer species the effects wouldn't be so visible. Some increase in strength, dexterity or libido (for spren mentioned above) would be the most possible outcomes. I doubt there would be any noticeable changes to the body, as even Radiants bonding with True Spren don't have them. Maybe bonding with Voidspren, who grats forms of powers, like with Stormspren, would grant some very rudimentary access to Surges (instead of shooting lightning they might be able to create an electric charge on their skin or something). Likely a Painspren. To what extent would it change attributes of a Kandra is speculative. Likely not as much as how Warform Singers are changed (because Kandra aren't native to Roshar), and likely below what the Blessing of Potency grants, but still the effects would be significant.

We don't know, but it was an inquisitor spike. But it barely gives anything after more than 350 years, so even if it's some power, Wax wouldn't notice it at all. Moreover this spike was made out of an inquisitor spike which was split into multiple smaller earrings, and thus the charge was divided into many spikes, weakening it even further. However because it was given to him by a Kandra based on Harmony’s order, it very likely contains a power that works with great synergy with what he has (e.g. A-steel, F-iron, maybe something like F-zinc, F-gold is always good etc). He still wouldn’t notice it but it would give him the slightest edge needed over his enemies.

No, that's true. Using Feruchemical metalminds, you can only store in bronzemind, but medallions have a bit of identity themselves which allows them to store everything when sleeping: So yes, you can use medallions when sleeping. But I don't think you can force a sleeping person to unwillingly use any medallion, unless they're wounded or in coma and you gave them F-gold medallion - their body's intent to survive will search and reach for it to heal itself. @Walter The Moral ideas are cool, but not possible with medallions - what you need is some kind of targeted Primal Cube that only affects a single person and is switched on/off by one person based on their identity. Medallions just don't work if the person won't start using them and there is no way to reliably force a person to tap a medallion. Good luck forcing a criminal to store his strength in a pewter medallion for "the safety of police officers". SA spoiler WoB:

They don't need a gemheart for that. They can form a bond with Lesser Spren just like they form one with True Spren. It's harder without a gemheart, but if a gemheart was necessary, then Brandon would say humans can't form a bond with Lesser Spren, because humans have no way of having a gemheart. Interesting question. I don't think this would work. Roseite isn't one of 10 polestones, so it likely can't hold lights and spren very well. Moreover it's invested with Aether's investiture, and investiture resist investiture. Forcing any light into that would be impossible under normal circumstances (Raboniel might unmade an Aetherbound), not to mention trapping a spren in that. And I wouldn't be surprised if Singer's gemstones were changing depending on which spren they bond with, to match with their type and accommodate them well. If that's true, you would need a specific type of gemstone to bond a spren, just like in Fabrials. Roseite isn't one of them. But Roseite would count as a kind of gemheart, which is already filled with a bound entity - Prime Aether. It would be more similar to Yelig-Nar, which grows gems and has a huge gemheart-like structure replacing chest, which functions like a gemheart. Edit: But there is this WoB:

Yes, number wise Radiants were very powerful, even if just 5% of them were at 4th Ideal, 3rd one with Shardblade would be a great adversary to most Fused (but some, like Fused of Regrowth, have their way of dealing with Shardblades). Radiants were likely having a numerical advantage over Fused but we have to also count Regals into that, as they would also be a troublesome opponent for Radiants, especially in large numbers supporting their Fused. We still don't know most of the Regal forms. While not as powerful as Fused, during the False Desolation, they were able to push with considerable force towards Rall Elorim, and cause very intense fighting - it's clear that Regals used to be much more capable Radiant's enemy then what they are in this Desolation. Therefore counting both Fused and Regals together, they would exceed numbers of Radiants with squires, making it a much more even fight.

Very likely you're right. But Savantism happens because so much investiture has flown through a soul that it changes it - this means while burning Allomantic metals investiture is flowing through the soul and spike might be able to hijack it as well. Would it be permanent or would it last temporarily depending on the amount of investiture stolen, that's another question.

I agree with most of your response but not this part. Before the False Desolation most spren weren't bound, they reacted to incoming threat and started to bond just as the False Desolation was starting (just like with all Desolations) - I wouldn't say most of Radiants were of 4th Ideal, it's usually hard to get there (as per Skybreaker's words, very few gets to swear 4th Ideal and it takes decades to achieve). To add more there was only a single Bondsmith during the False Desolation, so I think it's ok to say that the amount and the level of Radiants before the False Desolation wasn't so far off what they used to be in previous ones - we saw in prelude and Dalinar's flashback multiple 4th Ideal Radiants. How many were of 4th Ideal and above? We know 2000 Honorspren bonded during the False Desolation, and at the Feverstone Keep 100 of them left their Shardblades and Shardplates - that's at minimum 5% of all bonded who were able to climb that high in their Oaths. And I don't think many more Windrunners were able to swear 4th Ideal.

Welcome to the Shard. Because Allomantic pewter strength can be stored in a pewtermind, I think you can steal that together with base strength. So if a normal iron spike steals 1x human strength, a Thug burning pewter, who gets 2x stronger, will charge a spike with 2x human strength instead. Flaring would charge it 3x. This begs an interesting question - how strong would a Koloss be, who's made out of 4 spikes charged with Thug flaring pewter strength? That would be scary.