alder24

cough cough 2 paragraphs lower cough cough:

True, they wouldn't be trapped in the well, like Kelsier. But we don't see them, I guess they just went into the Beyond, but the possibility is there.

This is not special, Navani can do that as well, every Elsecaller can do that too. That's a Bondsmith power, every Bondsmith can do that. The Stormfather and Odium were surprised not because of the perpendicularity, but because they were both seeing something else, something more than Dalinar. Odium later said that “Dalinar Ascended”, which is significant. The fact that Dalinar claimed to be "Unity", with uppercase "U" is also significant. There was something Shardic going on there, not a simple perpendicularity. Ishar didn't finish stealing Dalinar's connection. If this perpendicularity was the result of Ishar's stolen connection to the Stormfather, the Stormfather would have felt that! He didn't, because Ishar was doing this with his Bondsmith Unchained powers, which are far more dangerous than anything else in Cosmere. He was opening his own perpendicularity, without the Stormfather's involvement. Ishar most definitely opened a perpendicularity before because he must have sent his Tukari hunters into CR. Adolin fought them after all. Then why isn't anything lacking if something was stolen? The Stormfather would feel that, Odium would feel that. The simplest answer is it wasn't, Connection snapped back to its place. Connection is a line, it can't split and Connect several people at once, it's a line with two ends - you see this with Nale's Oathpact Connection, he is Connected with each Herald with a separate line, not one line. If Stormfather was connected to Ishar he would feel and know that and he could break that Connection at will. It would be like stealing Nahel Bond via Hemalurgy:

I was looking at that yesterday and I think it's fair to assume Nazh is from the pre-Evil Threnody (that doesn't mean his knowledge of Shades is also pre-Evil, he might have visited Threnody several times since then). As per WoB you posted (which might have changed since then as Brandon constantly tweeks his timeline to fit all books better) The Threnody story happens before SA but after Warbreaker and after Mistborn Era 1: First Mistborn trilogy (The Final Empire) Warbreaker Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell The Stormlight Archive We know SA happens around 340 years after Mistborn Era 1 (because Era 2 takes place in between SA 5 and 6). But we know Warbreaker is "a few generations" before SA. So around 100 years ago? 200 at most? The Evil appeared 4 generations ago, Silence grandmother was one of the first Forescouts to set her foot in the Forests of Hell, before the Evil appeared. That would be less than 100 years before Silence's story, 60-80 I would guess, the middle point is 70 years. This means that even if the Forests of Hell story takes place at the same time as Warbreaker, there is still 70-170 years of gap between the destruction of the Homeland and Era 1 - and Nazh is already with Khriss before the Evil appeared, it seems like they know each other well and have traveled for some time already, so he is probably even older. Nazh is definitely from the pre-Evil Threnody based on that. This makes me wonder why the Ire are worried about Threnody, have guards in the system and have devices capable of detecting Threnodite Shadows, if at the time of SH the Forests of Hell and Shades were not discovered yet? The timeline doesn't fit (if it's still accurate). This is a strong suggestion that Threnodites have a way of creating CS pre-Evil, probably some kind of Kelsier-like, self-aware Cognitive Shadows, not Shade-like, which is in line with Nazh's words. But then it makes me think that the Evil isn't some kind of "natural" entity, rather a failed experiment, something like what happened on Ashyn or on another planet (spoilers, you know which one), and it just went out of control, swallowing the entire continent. There is no proof for that but for me it makes sense that they were pushing the limits of discovery too far, in pursuit of becoming a significant power, to make a weapon, or to make a perfect Shadow maybe?

That's not true. Stormfather couldn't feel it, he thought that's "impossible" because of that. But that's very possible, Ishar has Bondsmith's powers, opening a perpendicularity is a part of those powers. Ishar brought many spren into PR, he sent Tukari to hunt for spren in CR, he transported his entire army into CR via a perpendicularity - something he must have done before, something his army must have done before and was prepared with boats on the other side (because land in PR means beads in CR - they need boats there). Ishar did this before many times. No, the transfer was severed before completion, no Connection wasn't stolen. The Stormfather and Dalinar are fine and nothing is lacking between them, nothing is lacking between Odium and Dalinar, instead their Connection grew more and Odium can show himself to Dalinar like to his own. RoW ch 112:

I don't have access to the book, but this was the impression I got when reading it. That's why they called those forests "of hell." And from Coppermind: Why? Yes, Threnodites are more invested, they have innate investiture (1 BEU) in them with which there is something wrong. That's why they turn into Shades. But only after being killed by a Shade. If there were no Shades on the Fallen World, no Shades would be made there their souls would just fade into the Beyond. It's just that simple. We don't know more than that, we don't know if people randomly turn into Shades or can turn without being killed by a Shade. But Silence never feared that those killed by her will randomly turn into Shades, so I think we can safely assume this doesn’t happen at all. It also requires "right circumstances" - like being killed by a Shade for example? TSM ch 7: Truthfully we don't know if Silence's grandmother is special or every Shade is capable of behaving like this. It was said earlier in the book that older Shades lose their human shape. Nobody would be insane enough to keep a Shade in their house, nobody would try to interact with it like Silence does. People coexist with Shades for a relatively short time, only 3-4 generations - that's short enough for people not to figure out that their close ones turned into Shades might behave differently than other Shades, and that there is something more to Shades than known of. At least I find it possible. It also might be because of perception - Silence's grandmother might have been shaped by perception of Silence to behave/look like this, because Silence thinks about her grandmother often. Yumi spoilers: What I want to say is that we don't know enough to make such conclusions. We don't know if all those Shades you listed are different and distinct from each other (except for the Chorus) or just one and the same regular Shades. Shades might be simply capable of more than known, they might be more susceptible to perception than normal CS, they might be more self-aware than we think, they might be simply more than just mindless ghosts. We don't know. No, the Chorus said, ch 22: Which is contradicted by observations - dead people don't turn into Shades, they are sometimes seen to be drawn into Reliquary: It may mean what you said, but also it can be that the Chorus said "all who die not from the sun will be turned into Shades" which doesn't happen at all. Now, after Nomad left, they have a way to make Sunhearts with no sacrifices, I doubt that they will overwhelm Reliquaries or suddenly start turning into Shades. I want to only point out that Nazh never mentioned Shades by name in SH. He was talking about becoming "a shadow", which doesn't mean a Shade-like Cognitive Shadow specifically. He is a very knowledgeable, Cosmere-aware companion of Khriss, he might have a detailed knowledge of mechanics of becoming a Cognitive Shadow, not native to Threnody. Or he might have a Threnody-originated knowledge of becoming a proper, Kelsier-like CS on Threnody without becoming a Shade. Once again, we don't know enough, there are many possibilities to consider. We have no idea what that is. We can't say they are CS/Shades at all. I highly disagree. Where are those Reliquaries? People should have them, people should use them, talk about them, try to make them work or have them working as nothing really changed for the majority of the population of the Forests. If those worked on the Fallen World, they would still work in the Forests - most people aren't killed by Shades. They would be present in the Forests - but there is a total lack of those items, no mention, not a single thought given to them. They don't exit on Threnody during Silence's times. Reliquaries on Canticle prevents people from turning into Shade - Reliquaries in the Forests would also prevent people from turning into Shades. Those things would be the first objects taken to the first settlement in the Forests. The lack of those proves they didn't exist pre-Evil. That's possible. They don't look very "Kelsier-like" to me. Even you quoted earlier that "sometimes after a death, we see mist gather and move to the Reliquary." It may mean that not every time a Threnodite on Canticle dies they will turn into Shade/Chorus. Threnodites don't turn themselves into Shade just with the amount of investiture they have in their soul. They need to be invested in the moment of death, like most Shadows, and this little corrupted part of their soul, this little "wrongness" plays a key role of drawing investiture in if it's activated (speculation). A normal Threnodite from Canticle has only 1 BEU, not 2000 like Returned. If nothing invests them when they die, they will just fade into the Beyond like every other person in Cosmere. What we know is: On Threnody you need to be killed by a Shade to be turned into a Shade. On Canticle people are drawn into Reliquary and join the Chorus, which is sometimes visible, and no Shades are made. This apparently prevents Canticle from being overrun by Shades. This makes even less sense as this ability/tech would be the first thing the Forescouts would take with them into the Forests before the Evil even appeared. This would be used all the time on the smaller continent. Every Threnodite has something wrong with their soul, every Threnodite can turn into a Shade in the right circumstances. The corruption is there. They don't need Chorus for that. Firstly, it's more likely that Zellion led Threnodies to Canticle after the story of Silence took place, not before (based on previous posts). Secondly, the Chorus only manufactures, they still need to make schematics and blueprints - if they can make those, they can just make the spacecraft themselves, there is no mystery here. The Chorus on Canticle said they started building ships on the planet based on the ships that brought them there BEFORE they died! Not after. So regular Threnodites were capable of constructing advanced flying ships made probably from scraps of the spaceships. You really don't need any Chorus to create a spaceship, just a bit of ingenuity. ch 22:

We suspect that's the case because of this WoB in which Brandon practically confirmed this is true: Kelsier isn't a Kandra (he just “possesses” a body of a Mistwraith), so I doubt he could shapeshift or eat other bones. However he is a CS so it's possible he can change his appearance a little bit based on his self-perception, just like other CS around Cosmere.

Vin felt the power, because it was investiture. Other Feruchemists feel that power as well. However she can't reach it because its identity isn't aligned with Vin's identity. She wasn't a Feruchemist. If this Feruchemical charge has blanked Identity, or better the same identity that an Allomancer has, then yes, they will be able to Compound. But they can't control this power or store it because they're not a Feruchemist - it would be just released as a Feruchemical attribute, making them 10x stronger for example.

As Ishar proved, a Bondsmith Unchained is even more dangerous than any Shardblade. A Bondsmith is able to steal a bond between a Radiant and their Spren. This is the power that Dalinar needs to master, he doesn't need any Shardblade, he himself is a weapon far more powerful than that. A Peakspren.

That's not what Preservation wanted. That wasn't a right thing to do according to Preservation. People should pass into the Beyond, not stay behind. SH: This is even more nonsensical because all of those CS would be trapped in the Well with Ruin, like Kelsier, unlike Kelsier they would not get free every 1000 years - only when the power was released by Vin would they get freed. Why made such entities only to be imprisoned forever? Preservation couldn't have made a CS that was freed from the Well, as that requires expending part of his power, which would have imbalanced him even more, making Ruin more powerful. This isn't something that Preservation wanted to do. Almost all of his power was already thrown at Ruin's to stop him, which made them both impotent - making CS would only give Ruin advantage. That would mean Preserving without Ruining. Harmony would use Preservation's power but not Ruin's power, that's not Harmony thing. Life is already Preserving, death is Ruin, making dead people into CS would be even more Preserving imbalancing Shards Sazed holds. Harmony is all about balance, at least in theory, actions like that would only harm him. Sazed already Preserves too much. And there is also the fact that most people want to pass into the Beyond, that's what rational people do. Living as a ghost in a desolate wasteland, with none to talk to, none to interact with, no physical things to touch is depressing. True.

Yes, it's a Threnodite thing. BUT Shades didn't exist on the Fallen World continent, only in the Forests of Hell. People on the Fallen World didn't turn into Shades when they died. Only when the Forests of Hell were discovered, only on that continent, did people start turning into Shades. People killed by Shades are turned into Shades - yes. Because Threnodites on Canticle know stories about Shades and Hell of Threnody, this means that those Threnodite left Threnody after the discovery of the Forests of Hell. I mentioned it only to figure out the timeline. Good question. What if they didn't turn into Shades? The Chorus claims they are not Shades, TSM ch 22: Yeah, those who die are drawn into Reliquary and join the Chorus, presumably. I don't agree that the Homeland had Shades because the information we have from the Threnody book specifically imply that Shades were first discovered in the Forests of Hell and no similar entity existed in the Fallen World. But what I think is that the people that first arrived on Canticle turned themselves into Shades, into Chorus, by using those "rites, requirements and traditions" to create a somewhat self-aware version of Shades, more safe, more controllable, more "proper" Cognitive Shadows, that remember and can help.

It's even worse when you look at this in percentages. Around 3% of the world's population (total ~2.3 bil) died during WW2. Less than 1%, 0.2% to be precise, of the Final Empire population survived Catacendre - 99.8% died. That's horrific. For comparison, Mongols conquests killed approximately 11% of the total world population, while the Three Kingdom war killed around 20% of the global population, both are nowhere near as high as Catacendre. The Black Death killed 30-60% of the European population, 17-54% of the entire global population. Still only halfway there at best. Let's look at the global extinction events. 66 mil years ago Chicxulub impact event killed an estimated 75% of all species on Earth. 250 mil years ago the Late Permian extinction event, the Great Dying, the biggest extinction event on Earth, killed 80-95% of all marine species and around 70% of all terrestrial species. This means that Catacendre was harsher to northern Scadrians than the biggest extinction event was for all life on Earth. The death toll among terrestrial species was probably very high too because of all the ashfall and later sun's heat. This is just wild.

The most preferable outcome for Odium is to make Dalinar break the deal, freeing Odium from Honor and Roshar. It's not about choosing the best champion, it's about choosing the one that Dalinar will refuse to fight, or doing something preventing Dalinar's champion from participating in the contest (without harming them). Odium might also choose somebody that would make a Dalinar’s party intervene to stop them from being killed, meaning Dalinar has broken the terms and the deal is void. That’s what Odium needs to do the most, force Dalinar to break the contract, not just kill Honor's champion. This means Gavinor as Odium's champion, as much as I hate this theory, makes sense because Dalinar would very likely refuse to kill his beloved nephew. Adolin, no matter how unlikely he is to be Odium's champion, is similarly a good choice. Moash too - Kaladin still treats him as a friend and if Kaladin were to believe that Moash can be redeemed, then Kaladin might jump between Dalinar and Moash, stopping Dalinar from killing Moash, which would mean breaking the deal as a third party intervened in the contest. Unlikely. Taravangian's thoughts after his Ascension were "nobody knows I've Ascended, nobody knows I'm Odium, I'm free to plan." Base on that I don't think he will reveal himself to Dalinar, because: he dislikes Rayse's terms of the contests, he had found a loophole already, his goals are much greater now, he wants to save Cosmere from foolish and chaotic rule of others. RoW ch 114:

Sure, but it's like saying that Sadeas was one of the most powerful and intelligent Highprice in one of the most powerful nations on Roshar. He should have had no problems with killing a single slave that destroyed his assault tactic and yet... It's just a what if scenario. Glad to be of help. I enjoyed thinking and writing about this as well

Shotgun blast to the head is miles away from literal decapitation. Feruchemy requires input from your mind. Your mind needs to start the process of tapping metalminds (conscious or unconscious). If your mind is gone, you can't tap your metalminds. There are some limits to F-gold and this is one of them. Information directly from books is biased as people don't fully understand the mechanics of it and some consider those abilities to be almost mythical. Rashek being burnt to ashes/skeleton is definitely an exaggeration. First, there is no body left, he is dead. Secondly he had F-brass, he could just tap it and walk among fires unfazed, as his Brassminds would be taking all of that temperature away from his body (WoB). Dismembering is a tricky one, because as long as his metalminds are connected to his body and head, he can regrow any severed limb. Being flayed or crushed would be fine for Rashek to survive. Decapitation? I think it depends on the circumstances. If done by a sword and if Rashek was tapping gold when the blade was passing through his neck, his wound would close just behind the blade. If it was done by a guillotine French-style, then his head is permanently separated from his body by a solid piece of metal and he can't heal. Unless he started tapping before the blade dropped, his body would regrow the entire head - if there was a space for that, but there wasn't, the blade would be in the way of healing. But it's fair to say that this is up to debate. The WoB is old and Peter isn't 100% sure if what he said was true without checking his notes. Also, as you pointed out, things might have changed when Brandon developed Miles.

Honestly no idea. We have examples of Vasher and other Returned who don't need to shave as their hair and beard don't grow, but I don't think we can say for sure that this is because of the 5th Heightening or their self-perception. I think that it would be more convenient for Brandon to include those types of things as a part of the aging process. Perception doesn't matter with Breaths and with normal Koloss-blooded. They don't grow because people think they should, they grow because of their genes. Breaths don't make them Returned thus people's perception won't change anything about them.

She was an illegitimate child. Children like Vin were persecuted and killed in the Final Empire. Their life was illegal, as nobles were meant to kill Skaa women they slept with. Sure, her father was a Tekiel but she was never accepted nor acknowledged into the family. She never considered herself as a part of Tekiel house. She was a Skaa.

If this is part of their aging, then Koloss-blooded needs the 5th Heightening to stop that - 2000 Breaths. If not, then Breaths won't stop that. I don't really see any reason why this wouldn't be part of the aging process. Breaths however doesn't allow one to change their appearance like Returned can. Their perception of themselves won't change how they look, therefore I think they would just stop growing immediately after getting 2000 Breaths, they wouldn't grow like Returned children.

Yes, as I said, you need a large concentration of mass or investiture in the Physical Realm or Cognitive Realm for time dilation to happen in both realms. A perpendicularity isn't large enough, it won't cause any significant time dilation. Perception doesn't cause time dilation.

Oh yeah, I know. I'm writing this from my phone and autocorrect must have changed it. Technically the smallest division of matter are quarks but I doubt that's what Axi are, or at least that people in Cosmere discovered quarks at all. They are not, they are Cosmere equivalent of atoms. I wrote "atoms" to make it easier to understand.

That's very unlikely. Taravangian only began to scheme after Gavilar's assassination. That's when he went to Nightwatcher, that's when he created the Diagram and that's when he started his moves. It's very unlikely he was in any way involved in Kal or Shallan's past as at that point in time he wasn't trying to save Roshar. We don't know. Even if they did meet, Taravangian had no ill intentions at that point and didn't play in the "conquer the world" game. He wouldn't really care about Lirin. He was just an old king back then. But this is an interesting question. What if Kaladin was sent to Kharbranth? He would end up in Taravangian's hospitals, and that would be after Taravangian went to Nightwatcher, thus bloodletting would be a thing. Kaladin might have gotten involved in this and exposed the king leading to his abdication. I highly doubt Kaladin would ever be ok with those practices. Very interesting. Jasnah stayed longer in Kharbranth because she wanted to gain full access to the library and books. That's not coincidence, but that's not Taravangian's doing. Jasnah was doing research and she needed to find sources. That was a test. While the collapse happened naturally, Taravangian thought it would be a great opportunity to observe Jasnah soulcasting, as he already had his doubts about her. That's not from soulcasting, but from days or weeks of frantic researching, reading and sleepless nights. Jasnah didn't sleep much, she kept searching for more information about Desolations and Voidbringers. It wasn't Taravangian's fault. Coincidence. He would be unable to mess with Kaladin as that would be all before Taravangian's meeting with Nightwatcher, Diagram was also not interested in Davar family, Ghostbloods were. Timeline also wouldn't fit - much of Shallan's story happened before Taravangian went to Nightwatcher. However Taravangian was interested in Jasnah, he was hoping that she would understand him and join the Diagram:

No, Hemalurgy changes the body. Even inquisitors didn't have to burn iron or steel to see, they just see steel lines, as Hemalurgy changed them allowing them to see in this manner. Spike through the eye will make you see steel lines. It might require a proper spike (physical quadrant of metals) but overall Hemalurgy will change your body to give you steelsight, as far as we know. It's possible that a spike through your ears or other sensory organ will grant you other "invested senses", like hearing rhythms. But steelsight detects matter, Physical Realm not Spiritual Realm. They see PR around them only. Kelsier doesn't see into SR. He can see Axis - atoms - the smallest elements making up everything. At most powerful applications steelsight can detect even fundamental forces acting on Axi. That's what Kelsier sees. TLM epilogue 4:

I don't think it was said in books. Elend and Vin created another empire, a singular entity uniting as much as they could, and they did it to save and protect, not to enslave and conquer. I think because of that, Survivorists wouldn't consider such a state as evil, they would base their opinion on other factors like who is the person who's ruling it, the form of government of this empire and goals and circumstances of its creation. This leaves them in a pretty gray area when it comes to deciding if a singular empire is needed or not. They are kind of doing it in Era 2 - Elendel politicians are forcing their control over outer cities of the Basin without giving them proper representation in the senate or equal rights. They're forcing them to be dependent on Elendel as much as possible, which is especially visible when you look at the railroad map of the Basin. This time it's Elendel who is like Rashek's empire and it almost ended in an open rebellion and utter destruction of Elendel.

It will, to some degree. Cosmere spoilers: