alder24

That's NOT what the WoB is saying. What you steal is decided when you spike a Donor and since then the power in the spike is fixed. The wrong location in a recipient produces some interference, but doesn't change what the spike has inside (you should have highlighted the very last "questioner" question). The location is super important when stealing from a donor: "if you aren't precise about how you spike, you risk taking the wrong thing within the same family." Hemalurgy is hot wiring powers into your soul. If you place your spike incorrectly in a recipient, it means you've connected the cables wrongly: "Taking a spike and putting it in the wrong place in someone is not going to make them have a different power." What spikes holds is soley decided when you charge a spike. I disagree. Shai provided investiture with information about what it has to do, which was written on her soulstamps. It's part of her invested art. The latter, but this situation is not comparable to the one proposed in the WoB. We're talking about someone with a massive amount of investiture, a proper and strong Connection and no identity at all. None of those requirements are met in this example, but Brandon clearly states that the questioner is close to getting what he wants but needs one additional step to tell investiture what to do. The question is how do you replace the spren who tells the power what to do, how do you replace metals in Allomancy that tells the power what to do, all without being an Allomancer or being bonded in the first place? Maybe it's humming, maybe it's a Command, or maybe something else, but you need to make a "keyhole" for this investiture somehow. How to turn static investiture into kinetic? I've never even imagined this question as a way of finding a practical solution that will be used in the future, more like a way of understanding the magic system - it requires you to hold a massive amount of investiture and Connection while being Blanked. That's not practical, that's not probable to happen in the first place.

I think because Wax still has his Identity it would be enough to access his powers. Why? Because Allomancy is part of his Spiritual Ideal and that is connected to his Identity. If he were to blank Identity he probably won't be able to do that. But it's really hard to say what Brandon had in mind with this additional step. No. It's no different than Intent which by WoB is not enough. Possibly. We theorize that enough Connection to Harmony can allow you to draw in the Mists. But in the average Scadrain that won't do anything, as per WoB they lack something to tell the Mists what to do. None of your proposed situations are analogous to the one in the WoB - all three of yours still have Identity attached to them. I think the simplest thing that one can do to access powers in the situation presented in the WoB, with Blanked Identity and all, is to hum the tone of the power you want to use. Hum the Soulcasting tone, hum the Steelpushing tone etc. This will tell the power what to do, and Intent will tell it how to do it - push off the coin, not off everything around you. It was said in WoK that humming helps during Soulcasting, Venli hums to the combined tone of Odium and Cultivation when she was Stoneshaping and we know that all pulses detected by A-bronze are different from each other and a Seeker can distinguish between different Surges as well. Every time you're using an invested power you are resonating with a very specific tone - hum this and it will tell investiture what to do.

If you take two cups of water, both 1 L each, each of them have 5% of salt diffused in them, and then you mixed them together, will you get a solution with 10% salt in it? No, you get a 2 L solution with 5% salt. You need to first do the work, use some energy to get this 10% solution you want - like by heating up and vaporizing some water, so the remaining salt will be more concentrated in the solution. The water is the time for how long you stored, the salt is the percentage of attributes stored during that time. You want to have a higher percentage, you have to use some time to compress the attribute. Sure, it’s not a perfect analogy but it’s something. You have to use investiture to compress your attribute and because Feruchemy is end-neutral - nothing comes from the outside sources - you have to use what you stored in your metalminds. Your own attribute has to be used to compress it to higher percentages. That’s why you get less and less of it with each iteration of compression. That's why 5% for 20 min doesn't equal 20% in 5 min. Sure, some of your attribute is siphoned for your spirit web to adapt, that’s also a contributing factor for your loss of the attribute, but it’s one of two factors. And because you get only some minor effects from this siphoning, the vastly more influential factor is the loss due to compression.

It's not because he is a Radiant, it's because he is bonded with a Spren who can't leave. They are both trapped, but a Radiant is trapped because of their spren. Spren are like Cognitive Shadows, they are made out of pure investiture and this binds them to the system. So yes, a Radiant can't leave because of their Spren, but Hoid somehow managed to overcome this issue and keep his Radiant powers. That's not true. A Mistborn can leave with no problems because he isn't bound to a chunk of pure investiture, which a Spren is. Before Hoid formed a bond with Design he was not bound to any system, he wasn't invested enough. Him being a Dawnsliver (a former Dawnshard) doesn't bind him to any system in particular. Him being a Mistborn doesn't change that - we've seen Mistings and Ferrings traveling off world, like Demoux on Roshar. Kelsier's soul was infused with investiture when he entered the Well and this bound him to Scadrial. His investiture didn't fade in any way after he became a CS. Then he held Preservation but he already was a CS bound to Scadrial. His Ascension didn't really change anything in his ability to leave Scadrial. CS are invested with pure investiture when they die and that ties them to the system - Spren are pure investiture that came alive, this ties them in the same way. People aren't pure investiture. They can leave. Evan a strong Connection to a Shard, like to Preservation which makes you a Mistborn, isn't enough to tie you to the system, because that's not a pure Investiture of Preservation - a dead Mistborn fades into the Beyond in CR, like Kelsier discovered. Mistborn aren't invested enough to be tied.

Probably not on 1 Breath but the stone remembers being alive very, very well, it would be cheap. It's still a stone though, the 9th Heightening is required. And they would function like Phantoms.

What about Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians? It's a series aiming for this age range and it's very fun to read. Elantris and the Emperor's Soul feel ok, Rithmatist is a great fit. Reckoners starts a bit dark and is set in the post apocalyptic world, but I don't think it's hard hitting. It's quite fun, especially if your kid likes superheroes/supervillains. I think it's fine. That's a Disney classic then In my opinion it's more or less in the same tone as Tress and Yumi. Closer to Nikaro than Yumi/Tress. TSM is higher on that scale.

Hoid isn't a Cognitive Shadow like Kelsier or Fused/Heralds, nor he isn't as invested as Spren are. The ONLY power that prevents him from traveling is the Radiant bond, which is because he's bonded to a spren who can't leave Roshar. All other powers have no effect on a person's ability to worldhop. It's being bound to a highly invested entity that prevents people from leaving, because this entity can't leave. A Cognitive Shadow can't leave their system (except for Returned), Splinters can't for the same reasons. But powers like Allomancy or Sand Mastery are just written in your Spirit Web. Breaths are highly invested and they should act like Stormlight, but because they are tied to a person's identity and because by nature Endowment gives them with "no strings attached," they can be carried out of Nalthis with no problems. Hoid has huge knowledge of Cosmere innerworkings and thus was the only Radiant who managed to leave Roshar at the time of TLM. How he did that we don't know, most certainly by manipulating Connections with his collected powers. And this is a wrong place to post this, it should have been in Cosmere Discussion, I will ask mods to move it for you

The Essence doesn't have to be actively controlled, it can follow commands and it has some intelligence. It wouldn't be like Tress controlling the rat-Essence, it would show up driven by the command to protect the Spore Eater from any harm and then just disappear. The Spore Eater would be unaffected unless he would want to control it directly, but Crow can't control her vines, so I doubt the Midnight Spore Eater can control their Essences spawn to protect them. Overall I don't think this would mentally influence them in any way.

That's probably a bit too big. Crow isn't overgrown by vines, she just popped a little one from her face to stop a bullet. A Midnight Spore Eater would likely just sweat a little Midnight Essence that would do the same. It doesn't have to be in the shape of a living thing.

The part about Sylading was mainly a bad joke, I'm not concerned about it. Do they sleep? Yes, they have closed eyes and are unresponsive, but I'm not entirely sure they are comatose or this is just the way they manifest. They weren't bound to Radiants during the Recreance because their eyes are fine. They seem to be in the same state as the Sibling, self-induced slumber rather than a true coma caused by the Recreance. Or their unresponsiveness might be a simple choice - the suppression fabrial spren was more responsive but didn't talk, when pressed further it closed its eyes. Keep in mind this was a corrupted spren, the power of the fabrial was not Surge-related and because this fabrial was being developed during previous Desolations, it seems highly unlikely that this was a corrupt True Spren - it's probably a Lesser Spren. The Surge Fabraial spren are said to look like Radiant spren and they likely are, but if that's true then why the Oathgate spren, which uses the Surge of Transportation, are in pairs? While the black spren looks "somewhat" similar to an Inkspren, the white spren looks like no other spren, not even close to a Lithgspren, who has metallic bronze skin and also grants this Surge. Moreover the Oathgate sprens claim the Sibling to be their parent, which is a weird statement to make if they are True Spren. This all makes me think that they actually aren't True Spren but they are some kind of species in between True Spren and Lesser Spren, made with assistance of the Sibling specifically to manifest as Oathgate fabrials. Other Fabrial spren are likely made in a similar manner. And that gives some credibility to your theory, either that the 5th Ideal Radiant can manifest a fabrial, or that a human and a spren can make a "child" spren - let's call it that. Or the Fabrial spren are made out of Lesser Spren, who are more "sapient" and take humanoid forms either because of manifesting in PR, or because they came from the group of spren bonded with a Radiant. Lesser Spren has limited access to Surges and that also might explain why a Fabrial Soulcaster causes Savanthood.

You're thinking too restrictive. If there is a single word in some language that means "acting like fingers and gripping" then you use it as a part of your Command in this language. Simple, that's a set of instructions expressed by a single word. The Command "Protect me" doesn't give a specific set of instructions, it is really vague and unclear - only your visualization gives it a specific meaning and set of instructions - catch arrows, swords and people that threaten to hit me. It's precisely because Commands are so ambiguous that it's so hard to discover new Commands. It's not about how sentences are formed in a specific language, all Commands follow different patterns in different languages. It's about how well the words match your intent and visualization, and that's why certain words won't work for the task you have in mind.

Yeah, no, I'm still a firm denier of the Stormfaker theory and nothing that I've read ever since convinced me it's true. My two main problems are still unresolved: Ishar can't feel a Herald returning to Braize as evident by the Prelude to SA, Ishar acquired his Honorblade in between OB and RoW, thus long after Gavilar's assassination. But let's see what you have to say. No, those two things are completely different. The Dawnshard Torment is not the same as the Cognitive Shadow's madness, actually the second one still affects former Dawnshards like Hoid, but Hoid is smart and crafty enough to avoid this by using Breaths to store his memory. The Dawnshard Torment is a leftover residue that binds a person and restricts his actions, while the Cognitive Shadow's madness is the result of strains placed upon a human soul that wasn't built to last that long - their soul is just worn out. KoWT Jasnah reading: That's most likely about Sigzil abandoning Windrunners Order because he thinks honor is a sham now. That explains him getting his powers back, but that's highly unlikely because the Stormfather was in total opposition to getting himself bound and killed. He wouldn't allow himself to get bound, especially to a person whom he doesn't like - and the Stormfather has never liked him. He has no reasons to agree to bond Ishar. And there is Nale, who is bonded with his Highspren for millenia, who has followed his Oaths ever since and who is as mad as any other Herald. Just being a Radiant and following Oaths doesn't cure Heralds' madness. They can be brought back only for a short while when a Radiant swears an Oath, which brings him closer to SR. Just being a Radiant is not enough. And we know Ishar was showing signs of madness before Gavilar's assassination - it was him who convinced Nale to hunt and kill Radiants and Nale started doing this decades before Gavilar's death. Nale even said that to Venli during the night of Gavilar's assassination, RoW ch 77. Not to mention if the Stormfather were to sever his bond with Ishar, he would have ended up as a Deadeye. There is some merit to this, Ashyn was destroyed with the use of a Dawnshard and Ishar was involved. Ishar was the one Odium tricked first with experimenting with the Surges. But it was never confirmed he was a Dawnshard. Or not. In OB ch 38 the Stormfather said: We know Ishar made the Oathpact, but Honor was involved as well. To me it suggests that Heralds went to Honor having the solution, he gave them the power to make the Oathpact - Honorblades - and Ishar forged it using his Honorblade. The Honorblades were not a part of the Oathpact but they only represented it, they were a gift, it seems reasonable that they were given to Heralds so they can make the Oathpact in the first place. No Dawnshard is needed, especially since Dalinar hopes to reforge it and Ishar said he can help him. We have no indication that the Torment itself makes people insane. It makes people immortal and that makes people insane. But if one is already immortal because they are CS, it won't make them more insane if they have a Torment as well. As I said before, this insanity is the result of the soul wearing out because it wasn't meant to live that long. Being around someone who follows Oaths doesn't work - Nale, Ash, Taln etc. Nale should have been totally sane because he's constantly around his Skybreakers. Yup. That's Bondsmith Unchained for you. He has thousands of years of experience with Bondsmithing, he can see Connections just like Dalinar could see them and that's why he recognized Dalinar's Connection to the Stormfather. But wait - Dalinar literally admitted he’s bonded to the Stormfather a moment later and only then Ishar reacted and tried to take this bond. Intent matters, it was a child play for Ishar. RoW ch 111: Or maybe because Ishar invokes the name of the Stormfather it forges some kind of weak Connection which allows him to sense Ishar? Bad experience with Gavilar you mean? It's an interesting addition to the theory. It didn't convince me but it was fun to read

I don't think there are some specific mechanics of the Commands like you propose. They are based on the language you use and that's the core of it. They are meant to focus your visualization and your intent. They are simple sentences because you're using a language, so a verb is needed there. Just like officers ordering soldiers, they use simple commands like open fire, hold your fire, advance or something like that. They are meant to be clear, short and well understood by others, there is no mystery structure behind them, this is just how language works. That's it. The Command can't rely on the follow-up Command, that's why a Command "grab what I say" doesn't work but a Command "hold that brunch" does work. That's a mechanism to consider. However there are more complicated Commands which rely heavily on your intent, and dynamically reacts to your actions like “Upon call, become my fingers and grip that which I must,” or “Become as my legs and give them strength” - they seem to be vague and unclear, requiring some sort of follow-up input to react to, but the intent is simple - "I want you to be an extension of my hands/legs." That's a mechanism to consider, if you want your Awakened object to respond to some stimuli, you need to smartly include that in your Commands, but more importantly in your visualization - like "be my fingers and grab what I must," but only when I need you, not every time, thus "upon call." This Command isn't even the same every time Vasher said it, he said it also in a shortened way "Upon call, become my fingers and grip" so why do both of them work in the same way? The Command for Lifeless is even more complicated “Awaken to my Breath, serve my needs, live at my Command and my word. Fallen Rope" - the intent is be alive, do what I told you to and follow my Commands, and my Commands only. The structure by which you create Commands is the same by which you form sentences in your native language. If there is a single word in some language by which you can express the entire 10 word long Command in English, this single word will form a Command. But you need to be smart and use precise words and visualization - that's the mechanism of Commands.

It's sad to hear that, I really enjoy your thread, but the most important thing is that you enjoy it as well. If it doesn't work for you then it's fine. I had a mixed experience with OB myself when I first read it. The first 2 parts were slow, different and while there are some fantastic chapters there, overall I expected a bit more than this. But later it picked up momentum and OB turned out fantastic. It includes some of my favorite scenes in the entire SA. Still, it doesn't have to appeal to everybody. I'll see you in TSM thread

Sure they won't expect to know Kalak how to remain sane, but he still knows what can be helpful. They can at least observe him, see how his insanity is manifested and how his soul looks like and that will help draw useful data. RoW ch 84: That's not Ghostbloods specific. Most or almost all worldhoppers can do the same, at least when it comes to speaking native languages and looking like natives. But they still lack sufficient investiture reserves. They have only a few jars of Dor, and Shai turning into an Elantrian is, while it's very powerful and helpful, is permanent and she doesn't consider herself to be a part of Ghostbloods - they can't use Elantrian-Shai except for very critical situations. What's your source on duralumin Feruchemists and compounders? Either he doesn't know her precise location but has some very important clues to where and how to find her, or it's his insanity, which makes him indecisive, that prevents him from doing anything with that knowledge.

Not devoid of all Connections, but the Nahel Bond. So you not only propose Syladin but also a happy Syladin family? Or rather unhappy because they have a child only to make a slave out of them? Yeah, I don't think it works like that. It raises more questions than answers. Correlation doesn't mean causation as said in the WoB. You aren't meant to read anything specific into that and this is mostly narrative:

I don't think there is any specific set of rules for wording in Commands, you have to keep it simple and in your native language. The most important thing is visualization and your intent - Command is the focus for both of those. There are verbs and subjects in Command because they are words, thus they form sentences which have a meaning.

No idea. Syl doesn't know it. RoW I-1: I think she once said that they go to a place where there is investiture and come back with another spren. Can't find it. A brain child? A newly created spren would be devoid of Connections and Nahel Bond so that won't work. It's a new entity. So... the idea is that while this isn't the case for all True spren I had no idea how this WoB connects to your idea

Yeah, something like that. The word "Intent" in the context of Shards has a very specific meaning and when you say "Vessel's intent" it implies the overall drive that Vessel has, similar to Shardic Intent. But that's just Vessel's will and decision they made, not some grand driving force like Shardic Intent is. The Vessel perception is important, just like everything in Cosmere, your perception can change a lot. Well, nothing as long as this perception fits within the boundaries of the accepted terms. Like he can't say that "I will continue this war" or that "the Contest will happen on the 11th day" or something like that. Those terms are clearly defined and he can't change that. What his perception can change is for example the meaning of "maintaining peace and not working against Dalinar and his allies" and deciding "Azir isn’t your ally because xyz" or something like that. No. Odium isn't about "tricking" in following Oaths or something like that. Odium is about hatred, conflict and emotions. But yes, he can probably follow the letter of Oath and bend the spirit a little bit. I would say the spirit is still binding to Shards in general, but there is some wiggle room for perception. Vessel's perception is just that, perception, how they view things. "Vessel's intent" is what they mean and Shardic Intent is what the power is. Yes, because Taravangian has a brand new and fresh perception, unaffected by Shardic Intent to the overwhelming levels like Rayse was.

Then it's easier to take a single spike and charge it with multiple powers from different people or steal multiple powers at once. Even if we don't know how to do it, it would be much easier to figure out than what you propose. It is, as per WoB identity can influence the entity created with Awakening. And when you're stealing powers drom different people, then you have a problem. Can you tear yourself in half by walking? No. At best you can make it deny powers if certain conditions are not met. Spren can't destroy themselves, they can't even change their "content." They are what they are and you need something external to destroy them, like Nightblood. They can deny powers, Syl did that to Kal in WoR.

I think you misunderstand the difference between general intent and Shardic intent. In general intent is just a will to do something - you want and mean to do something and that's the intent. Shardic Intent is its name which encompasses whole ideas which defines what Shard can do or can't - Honor, Odium, Cultivation those are Intents. Shards are made out of two components - the power and the Vessel. The power has no mind on its own, the Vessel is the mind of the power. However the power has its Intent, which pushes on Vessel's mind slowly changing it and aligning it with power's Intent - like by the end Honor stopped caring about meaning of oaths, he cared only if they were upheld. So yes, the general intent is a free will, a choice and decision, a Vessel can choose and there is intent behind every action a Vessel makes. But Shardic power has no mind of its own, it can't choose, it can't act, it is bound by its Intent and that restricts what the Vessel can do with the power - like Cultivation can't promote stasis because that defines her Intent, even if its Vessel wants it badly. But it's not like a Vessel has a specific Intent like a Shard does. The Vessel IS the mind of the Shard, they decide and act. Power alone has no mind on its own. It doesn't act. It's Vessel's desires that spark action which are filtered through power's Intent. The Vessel's personality is slowly changed to fit power's Intent over years, the mind is shaped by the Intent of the Shard. However a Vessel can influence Shardic Intent and even change it - that was what Rayse was trying to do with Odium, change it to Passion and wasn't really successful with that. Mistborn spoiler: No because the Shard was bound by contract and just what Rayse meant when saying terms doesn't change Odium's Intent. When I said "intent matters" I was talking about that when Dalinar and Odium were speaking the final terms, they meant what they've discussed a 1 or 2 page earlier, and thus they wanted to end the war for good. Odium made an Oath, a binding Oath, Taravangian can't change it because he is now Odium, he is still bound, which was said in the quote I've posted. All of this really doesn't matter in the context of what I said back then. It's not about "whose intent matters" it's just what they had in mind when setting the final terms - that's it. "Vessel's intent" can't push against Shardic Intent, Vessel can't do something that opposes power's Intent. What Harmony was talking about in the letter was that Odium as the power is very hard to control. It drives its Vessel to seek destruction and it's selfish by nature. Rayse is ambitious, crafty, selfish and wants to be the sole god of Cosmere - which is a bad combination with the power like Odium. He chose it deliberately thinking it matched his personality the best. RoW ch 114:

It's probably some change of appearance some worldhoppers are using to blend with the local population. At least that's what I think is happening because a Feruchemist from Scadrial living in Alethkar on Roshar would not have Epicanthic folds and thus he would look very Shin-like and be easily recognisable. They need to change their appearance somehow.

Ok, that makes sense and I like it, but the question is who is the Febrial spren? Is it True Spren bonded with Radiant? Were they also hurt and deadeye during Recreance, but instead of being locked in a Shardblade form they were locked as fabrials? They don't look like deadeye, they are True Spren but they aren't dead. Which to me suggest they are unbonded spren simply convinced by people to manifest as fabrials, rather than 5th Ideal spren - Voidspren can be convinced to manifest without Nahel Bond. RoW ch 9: RoW ch 46: Oathgates. They are fabrials. Soulcasters use Stormlight which is in gemstones of the Soulcaster, not souls of people. That's not how savantism works. Savantism is when investiture from an external source flows through your soul infusing it and merging it with the power. OB I-4:

As said before, a Hemalurgic spike would resist being Awakened. Anything invested resists being invested. A bond stolen by a spike can be broken by a spren. To get Surgebinding powers via Hemalurgy you would need to spike connection out of the Radiant and spike the power out of the Spren. And because spren grants two powers at once, you have the same problem as with stealing powers from a Mistborn - 1 spike for 1 power only. But going back to the core of this idea, it's not true. You've seen in TLM, a single spike can collect multiple spirit webs at once. Set was making a single spike out of 20-30 people. But they were able to make it grant only 1 power for a short time. The problem with stealing from different people is identity contamination - each fragment has a different identity and it doesn't mix well with others. The second one was that they were stealing raw investiture, possibly hard-coded to different powers - what powers lay in your genes is determined at birth, thus it's hard-coded into your Preservation's fragment, likely even if you don't have enough to actually be Snapped. You would need to code this investiture to a specific power - so you are on the right track. However it's possible to use one spike to steal multiple powers and to grant multiple powers - at least that's been theorized. Identity is the biggest issue here. The "Respect me" was not an Awakening Command. This was just a security phrase that can change. We don't know what was the Command for Awakening the lock but it partially resembles Lifeless as you can change what is the security phrase. It's some advanced Awakening and I doubt what you proposed as the Command to actually be a Command because it doesn't really mean anything. And how can an Awakened object destroy itself? Making a spren out of a spike is ridiculously expensive. You would likely still need to get rid of all of those different identities, because they will influence the entity and you would still need to steal powers you want this spren to give you. But in general it can work, but it's a very overengineered solution to something that can be partially achieved by blanking identities of your donors. Coding it to specific powers is another problem. But it would be like Nightblood or Vivenne's sword, not Lifeless. Not additional commands can be given to them, you need to imprint them during the Awakening process. And if you're using Breaths for this - Endowment's investiture - then this mixing of investiture would likely corrupt and change the way powers are manifested, which is another problem. That Command actually means something and I like it. However it more or less means it will only give you powers if you're using them to protect Scadrial, which is very vague at best. But why" I"? Just "live" as "you-the-spike live." Vasher doesn't Awaken Lifeless with "I Awaken," it's just "Awaken to my Breath" - you're Commanding the entity and investiture, not yourself.

Both option 2. and 3. are most likely to me. Khriss is unlikely to be involved in such a political thing, she is a scientist and doesn't want to be involved like that. To make Bands you need to have someone with the access to all 32 powers, both Feruchemical and Allomantic. You can have 32 Mistings and Ferrings, but 1 Mistborn and 1 Feruchemist will suffice. Spook is a Mistborn so he needed to only find a full Feruchemist - Marsh would be handy, he has many Feruchemical abilities, both others are needed too. Hemalurgy makes making medallions easier, thus I assume it's easier to get all those powers needed in the first place - preserve them from death. Spook is either dead or nowhere to be found right now, Marsh runs low on Atium, Ghostbloods are working from the shadows, carefully choosing whom to accept into their ranks. Kelsier probably can't afford to recruit 32 metalborns of all powers, many of whom are extremely rare and expect all those people to be loyal to him. Kelsier doesn't work like that. He lacks people to make Bands, but also knows that giving every metallic power to random people is a bad idea. Additionally from TLM epilogue 4 it seems that Kelsier himself has never used the Bands - he's desperately longing to be soaring again, he's hoping to find a way to touch metals again - if the Bands were working on him, he would have KNOWN the way to use Allomancy. The Bands seems to be a failed experiment rather than an actual solution to both of his problems.