alder24

It does require - a shape of a person, to make it cheaper, which would look very strange on a curtain. That was referring to Ala being in the box: Yeah, WoBs hinted at this too, but I didn't think it would look like Awakening:

Wow. Kalak and Taravangiang’s interludes. That was a lot. Rust and Ruin, we all underestimated Felt - I blame Brandon and his WoBs! He was a spy all along, hiding in plain sight without even trying to pretend that he’s not from Roshar - how could such a person be a Ghostblood spy? And yet that’s a perfect cover. Nobody suspected him, not even here. Wow, that’s great. Not only is he a Ghostblood, but also Ala was all along - don’t ever underestimate sapient pieces of gods. Poor Kalak, at least he’s not dead. But it looks like Felt is answering directly to Kelsier, rather than to Mraize or Iyatil. That’s interesting, looks like Kelsier doesn’t fully trust his Rosharan cell, or at least doesn’t believe in their methods. But then we got Taravangian’s PoV. That early? Wow. His boon and curse still affects him, but it looks like he controls it now and can decide which side to be. He feels the pain of everyone in Cosmere, which is a lot to digest and he wants to save everyone, yet knows he can’t directly do that no matter what. That leaves him with only one option - be the only god in Cosmere. Welcome back Rayse’s idea. He also treats Odium not like hatred, but all/most emotions. I think he has a real chance to change Odium into Passion, or maybe even something else. But also he refuses to treat himself as a Shard, he still wants to be Taravangian, who just holds Odium. I wonder how that would end as that doesn't look very healthy for a Shard - the conflict between power and Vessel doomed Rayse. At least at the beginning it would definitely allow him to assert more control over the power and its will, but what would happen after 1000 years? Would this constant and drastic struggle of wills make his situation even worse than that of Rayse? Can this division between the Vessel and the power be good in the long term and actually be the solution to all problems Vessels faced with control over the power? Don't consider yourself as a Shard and the power will never change you? And immediately I can see two death rattles which now clearly refer to Taravangian:

Just read the quote once more. They are bound to obey the Sibling and their nature prevents them from breaking that rule even though they wanted to. They were forbidden to allow Shallan to pass, yet their nature didn't stop them from wanting to let them go. The quote proves the exact opposite of what you claim. Oh, this one. It doesn't say "they aren't people," they say they don't think like a person, but it doesn't mean they don't FEEL like a person does and desires are feelings. No, I'm not. Honor stops them from breaking rules, but they can still feel and desire whatever they want - including freedom. And that's a very bad example, there are plenty of mothers who don't care about their children and even abandon them. The nature of humanity doesn't stop them for this at all. This is pointless. We're moving nowhere. I think it's time to just end this and agree to disagree.

Didn't see you quote anything, you just said they aren't humans - which is true - but they are still people. Being a person is different from being a human. Singers are people, Sleepless are people, Spren are people too. A person is someone who's sentient, intelligent, with the capacity to speak a language, the ability to make moral judgments, has consciousness, free will, self-awareness and the ability to feel emotions. Spren are all of those things, they are people. Yes, they are ideas, but they are LIVING ideas and with that living part comes all of the above. With free will comes a desire for freedom. They are able to feel it, there is nothing in their nature that would prevent them from feeling this. Is this really that hard to understand? What makes Inkspren, out of all types of sapient spren, so unique that they can't feel any desire for freedom? Nevermind, they did feel it in OB. The Theylen city Oathgate spren felt a desire for freedom to allow Shallan to pass. So books directly contradict your claims! It's very relevant, you yourself made claims about what they want to be free from. And they couldn't have that freedom because the bonds and Honor prevent them from having it. They MUST listen to the Sibling.

The Oathgate spren never said that they want to get away from being fabrials, they said they want to be free of Honor and Odium. You wrongfully assumed that being free means not being a fabrial. I cannot even start to describe how wrong you are. Every single interaction with thinking spren, 2 PoV chapters from Syl and Sja-Anat, all chapters from Shadesmar and more is in total opposition to your claims. Freedom is a concept, a concept that's fully comprehended by spren - literally all spren of Celebrant are thinking about freedom right now as they are under Fused control. How about Honorspren's failed conquest of CR? Spren back then clearly fought and defended their freedom successfully. Did you forget how the Sibling was screaming at Navani for imprisoning all those lesser spren? They were clearly thinking about freedom with ease. How about we look at the Honorspren's nature? By "their nature" they shouldn't be allowed to be unhonorable or to lie? Sekier clearly had no problems with doing either of those things during Adolin's trial. Inkspren don't have to follow rules unconditionally, they had broken those rules during the Recreance. The list goes on and on. Spren are people and they think like people do, they understand what freedom is and despite being manifestations of forces of nature, they aren't restricted to being just that. They are people, they are sapient and with sapience comes understanding of abstract concepts such as freedom. Sometimes it's harder, sometimes it's easier, but they are fully capable of thinking of this because they are sapient. Time and time again books are showing us that True Spren are equally as sapient as humans are. I have no idea why you would think that they can't think about freedom.

Well, it's even more complicated. Rashek moved the Well by moving the entire crust of Scadrial, then he flattened Terris mountains and created new ones up "new" north. Based on that, it seems that the entire region of the Final Empire used to be on the geographic north pole (which wasn't really inhabited), so every nation that existed before Rashek's Ascention was located much further south, towards where today Malwish are.

They explained it's about not being of Honor, or of Odium - it's about being something else. Please read once more the conversation between Shallan and spren quoted by Lews earlier - the answer is right there. The analogy is only meant to say that you can't always get what you want, just by wanting it, you need someone else's help to achieve that. You're focusing on the wrong things. Spren can't just change their nature - their nature is tied to the investiture that makes them up. Sja-Anat changes that. I didn't say anything about them being forced to be Oathgates, so I don't know why you are bringing that up. However, the Oathgate spren are BOUND by Honor to obey words of the Sibling - they might have wanted to be able to decide on their own who gets to pass through their gates and Enlightenment breaks them free of this bond. So yes, they are indeed kept in prison by a bond and Honor - they can't just be free by wanting to be free. OB ch 116:

Obviously, that's what Enlightenment is. It's corrupting them, it's infusing them with power - it's changing them. I'm saying they wanted freedom but they couldn't just change and be free for some reasons. Their desire for freedom predates their Enlightenment - that's why they agreed to be corrupted in the first place. Sja-Anat doesn't corrupt intelligent spren without their consent. If they didn't want to be changed and free, they wouldn't agree to be corrupted. RoW ch 54: This is very flawed logic. Just because you want to be healthy, it doesn't make your cancer go away - you need a doctor. They said they didn't want to be just of Honor, or of Odium - how does a spren achieve that on their own? How can a Honorspren stop being of Honor just with their own willpower? They can't. They need help. They became free by accepting the change offered by Sja-Anat, by becoming corrupted (which is mixing of investitures). They said they accepted this liberation, which means they wanted to be free before they were corrupted. Their words prove you're wrong.

I'm saying that having desires is often not enough and you need help from someone else to achieve them. The Oathgate spren wanted to be free for millenia, but they simply couldn't have done this on their own. That's why they agreed to Sja-Anat's offer to get what they wanted. Sja-Anat didn't have to corrupt them to make them want to be free, they already wanted freedom and that's why they agreed to be Enlightened. They needed to be corrupted to be changed and gain freedom they desired for so long but couldn't have previously - just like you go to a doctor to treat your cancer because wanting to be healthy isn't enough.

Your logic is very flawed. It's like saying that if you want to be healthy, just be healthy and you won't need a doctor to treat your cancer. Just because they wanted to be free, doesn't mean they could be free. Enlightenment gave them the opportunity to become free, something they couldn't do on their own for some reason. External help is often needed to fulfill your desires.

The Vessel IS the Shard, he's the mind of the Shard. The Shard is made out of a power (raw investiture) and a mind that controls it (Vessel). The Vessel and the Shard are intertwined. I don't fully understand you here. This is partial Splintering and it affects only the power - just like Honor creating Spren doesn't split his mind among them, it's just his raw power that's separated. The Vessel might have been wounded, but not broken into pieces as that would just kill them. So Ambition's power was thrown towards the Threnodite System, but her mind, the Vessel, wasn't fractured because Ambition escaped and was Splintered somewhere else - the Vessel wasn't killed in the Threnodite system. Physical Vessel? The body of the Vessel it's their investiture in the Physical Realm - like Mists, god metals, or Stormlight. The Vessel doesn't have a body like humans have, they are no longer humans after Ascension, their body got vaporized by the power. They are the mind of the Shard (Cognitive part) and their Spirit Web (Spiritual part) was merged with the power. The Vessel isn't physical, it's mainly Spiritual and Cognitive. Well, per WoB I posted in the previous point, sapience in investiture that is left alone will develop very slowly. But this also requires special circumstances. Unwillingly or not, a pile of investiture left alone will take a long time to develop sapience - and it will gain its own identity. A Divine Breath is also a Splinter, but it isn't neither sentient, nor self-aware. It takes time or intent to create sapient spren. This generally requires people thinking about investiture, which makes it alive. Yes, it's possible for Splintered pieces of Ambition to become self-aware on Threnody, but I doubt they would retain memories and feelings of their former Vessel, as they were separated from her. Seons and Skaze were also created during Odium's clash with Devotion and Dominion, yet they do not have any memories of feelings passed down on them from Shard's Vessels. A Splinter can have its own intent. The Stormfather is a huge Splinter of Honor, he's Honor's Cognitive Shadow, yet he isn't Honor - he's his own thing. She's 100% Splintered. That's what Splintering is, separating into pieces and killing the Shard. Ambition is killed, whatever existed on Threnody before the battle was twisted by waves of power flowing over the system during Ambition's fight. Even the Evil existed before the Splintering but wasn't Evil yet, it was changed because of Shards fighting. Yes, there can be sentient pieces of Ambition left over on Threnody, they can do stuff, but they aren't Ambition. The Vessel is dead, the power is in pieces. It's a RAFO, not a hint, not a confirmation, it's Read And Find Out. Here is a WoB in which Brandon confirms there is a reason for why Ambition hasn't been picked up since her Splintering: So while it's possible to Ascend to Ambition (I have no doubts about it), it's definitely very problematic and it would require a lot of work - Odium made sure of this. It wasn't the Evil that made Shades, they were both made during Ambition's fight. The power washed over the entire system and twisted everything in it - including people and what ever the Evil was before. Every Threnodite has something corrupted in them that makes them Cognitive Shadows after they die from Shade's hands. The Shades existed on the smaller continent before the Evil became active in the Homeland and there were no Shads on the larger continent. AU the Threnodite system essay: He is very direct about this, he even confirmed something similar to D&D happened to Ambition. AU: RoW letter: Please avoid double posting, it's against Shard's policy. You can simply edit your previous post by clicking the three dot menu in the top right corner and choosing the edit option.

Oathgates and Elsecalling are FTL, they could use some portable fabrial or maybe Roshar have ships and bases scattered around Cosmere that Radiant can fly to. Elsecalling isn't just teleporting in and out of Shadesmar, you can also move around the Physical Realm - that's what happened during the Ashyn migration.

She was the first, but he didn't find her so he went and killed Devotion and Dominion on Sel first. He also learned how to do it better after Sel and he did something similar to Ambition, but better. That's why Sel is so messed up because Odium didn't really want this to happen, but took advantage of a situation and did it anyway. Are you proposing that Uli Da left a Cognitive Shadow of herself and it merged with some investiture present on Threnody? Possible - Tanavast did that with the Stormfather after all. Maybe that's what the Evil is? I find it unlikely, more on that later. I wouldn't count on that. It takes a really long time for investiture to gain sentience on its own and emotions just won't do the trick. Those large chunks of investiture in other places in Cosmere were created deliberately as sentient Splinters. It is explained. They are Cognitive Shadows of people who died. It's their consciousness, although greatly corrupted and mostly destroyed. The problem with Uli Da's Cognitive Shadow being on Threnody is that she wasn't killed there, she escaped the system and was killed somewhere else. That's why I find it unlikely that her Cognitive Shadow is on Threnody, even though it's theoretically possible. While I do subscribe to the theory that Mercy tried to Mercy-kill Ambition and helped Odium, I have to say that it's just a theory. We actually don't know which side Mercy fought on.

I don't think this would work. Firstly, investiture of Devotion and Dominion is now merged into the Dor, which is like Towerlight or Warlight and I don't know if a pure tone of only one Shard would affect it, or even separate it. Maybe if you were to first sing the rhythm of Dor with another person and slowly reach discord and end up singing tones of Devotion and Dominion - the reverse of what Navani and Raboniel did to create Warlight. Secondly, investiture doesn't return to SR, it returns back to CR once used. It may be possible to use a perpendicularity to return Dor to SR, but I don't think it would be that easy. I suspect we won't find a way to fix the Dor until we understand how Odium created the Dor in the first place and for that we probably have to wait for Elantris sequels.

Ambition is probably the least likely to be reformed, considering that a significant fraction of her power was ripped out in the Threnodite system and that she was Splintered somewhere else, with Odium doing something similar to what he had done on Sel to prevent anyone from Ascending to Ambition. We don't know that. We don't know what are the ultimate goals of the Night Brigade. We only know they want to get Nomad's Dawnshard (which is a powerful weapon on its own and would be useful in destroying planets - something that they've done before) and possibly even Hoid. They definitely aren't good guys. Whether they hunt for this specific Dawnshard, or because it was the first one which appeared on their radar and was the easiest to grab is also unknown. Yes, it's possible to restore a Shard, a Dawnshard would be a good tool to start with, but we don't know what's needed for that. Two Dawnshards might be a little overkill in my opinion. And accidentally recombining the entire Shard is probably unlikely. Why? A Shard is a combination of raw power and a Vessel. A Vessel is the mind of a Shard, a person making decisions. It's impossible to bring back Uli Da, the former Vessel of Ambition, because she's long dead, killed during the Splintering of Ambition. Recreating the power of Ambition wouldn't revive Uli Da - someone else would have to Ascend to Ambition and that new Vessel would have their own goals and own motives. We know how Autonomy is able to do that. Investiture of any Shard is everywhere in Cosmere, but because Vessel's mind isn't infinite, it's not able to comprehend and reach all of that. If a Vessel were to try to expand their mind and search for their investiture outside of their home system, they would be able to discover it and use it. That's how Autonomy is operating, but this requires some mental gymnastics. Trying to use another Shard's investiture would require corrupting it, which would still require expenditure of their own power, which would require being aware of it. Spoilers:

His metalminds were piercings, it wasn't just about earrings. Before his Ascension, he would probably wear many of his metalminds as earrings, like Sazed. But there were WoBs suggesting he had a Hemalurgic spike, however Brandon didn't remember if he had any spike later. Both held the full power of the Well and could do anything they wanted.

Adding to this, Ruin didn't predict to be imprisoned at all. He didn't predict that Leras would use his own mind to imprison him, but might have anticipated Leras would want to use his power to attack him. This is probably because neither of them knew what effect using the mind to forge a prison would have on them. The knowledge of a Vessel is a limiting factor for their future sight. That's 100% true. Actually, Ati would be unable to support such an idea because of the intent he chose to represent. Ruin embodies the idea of entropy - the unstoppable decay and death of the universe. Creating humanity so they could be locked in the state of perpetual warfare is against Ruin's intent, it's in fact more of a Preservation thing as that's just a status quo. Ruin had to push for the eventual destruction of Scadrial because his very intent drives for the end of everything. So while humans are excellent agents of Ruin, unless there is an end to all of this, Ruin’s intent would never be satisfied. It was the opposite. Instead of killing rulers like Penrod or Quellion, he chose to spike them so they could cause more destruction in the long run. Overall it's an excellent analysis.

I have a soft spot for Awakening, I just love how creative, innovative and fun it is, while not being overly powerful. It sparks my imagination to think outside of the box. Awakening is my favorite. Metallic Arts in general are my second favorite to read because they're really dynamic, there are a lot of abilities and combining them in different mixes creates a lot of interesting possibilities. And while I do love Surgebinding too, it's really fantastic, the fact that literally everyone can heal even the deadliest of wounds lessens the stakes for me. It's just more interesting when healing is either not possible or limited to a selected few. Still, Surgebinding is very fun. As for the least favorite, I have to choose Sand Mastery only because the graphic novel format didn't really work for me. I don't feel it's fair to compare lesser invested arts to those from major Shardworld, like Aviars vs Surgebinding, so I only choose from major magic systems.

Not a cognitive component but a spiritual one, that probably predates the Shattering itself. This spiritual component makes metals special, but not every metal, just some that have specific molecular structure. The molecular structure acts like a shape of an Aon in AonDor - its a filter for investiture that determines what the power does. Aons, just like metals, don't seem to be influenced by perception and cognition, otherwise the chasm wouldn't cause a total collapse of Elatrians as almost nobody would have known a chasm appeared.

No. That doesn't work with all alloys. What effect has carbon in Allomancy? None, you can't burn carbon, it's not even a metal, yet still is just iron and carbon. How about pewter which is tin plus lead? Lead is an Allomantically inert metal, you can't burn it, it has no effect. Nicrosil is an alloy primarily of nickel with chromium and some silicon - three components, two of them can't be burned. For this idea to have any merit, all alloys should be paired with Allomantically viable metals, or at least metals that interact with investiture, which isn't true.

This map has the option of measuring distances (bottom right): https://roshar.17thshard.com/#/en

Then Yolen would be frozen to death, so cold that even the atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen would turn into snow. Isles of the Emberdark spoilers:

Maybe not a tsunami, but it should cause coastal flooding. Highstorms are a low pressure environment and they would raise the water level because of that. That water would then travel inland as far as it can. This is called a storm surge. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 produced a storm surge around 8.5 meters high, while the highest ever recorded was 13.4 meters created by cyclone Mahina in 1899. Yes, it would be comparable to a tsunami at least by height and it would cause massive damage to low lying coastal settlements. However this is Roshar we're talking about, they battled storms for 7000 years, I'm sure they are well aware of this phenomena and build their cities higher to prevent flooding (for example this image of Kharbranth, which was once included in SoS - just look how high the cliffs are and how tall are walls in the port). Not supersonic. 370 mph or 600 km/h, which is half of the speed of sound. It's ridiculously fast. Twice as fast as the most severe storms on Earth. From Wikipedia:

Time dilation would work the same as with mass (because matter=energy=investiture) and because the mass of Canticle is smaller than the mass of the Moon, you can safely assume there is no time dilation on Canticle.

That's a weird coincidence (or Fortune) - someone else asked the same question few hours ago here, so I'll just copy what I've written there: Kaladin also saw them during his time with Shallan in chasms, when a Highstorm hit. WoR ch 74: We have also those two, short WoBs: That's all we know about them.