Vortaan

We know that Hemalurgy charges decay when outside of a body. So, two questions: 1) What does this mean for kandra Blessings? Do they become less effective if they are removed and re-inserted at a later date? Would that change the sentience of the kandra in question? 2) Can a Hemalurgic spike with an Allomantic/Feruchemical charge be kept inside a kandra body to prevent decay indefinitely, or does it actually have to grant power to not decay further?

Was actually discussing this with the wife on the way home from Thanksgiving, and we decided on: Kelsier: Ewan MacGregor Vin: no agreement. Dox: Jeremy Renner Marsh: Matt Damon Breeze: John Barrowman Ham: Mickey Rourke Clubs: John Noble Spook: Joseph Gordon-Levitt Elend: Chris Pine Sazed: Benedict Cumberbatch Lord Ruler: Daniel Radcliffe Proceed to tear said castlist to shreds.

True enough. I assume that all the Terris people moved in one big group, but I guess there could have been stragglers.

Still. That's enough time for the Terris people to walk most of the way from Terris to Luthadel. Probably a few months?

No real evidence for or against. If Aslydin is after Hoid though, wouldn't she have been able to catch him when he imitated a Terris elder? Presumably the agents the 17th Shard are sending after Hoid are able to recognize him despite his disguises.

The interesting bit is that 16 and 10 have direct relations to Shards, with the magic systems and shard worlds. 3 only directly references the basic underlying nature of the Cosmere's reality, seemingly independent of any Shard, magic system, or world.

You would think he would have hopped onto Preservation's power then, since he was more familiar with it than Kelsier, knew about Ruin, and had a thousand year plan to keep Ruin trapped.

Just nit picking, but Luthad could have been the name as well, with -el being an indicator of name. Either way, probably someone important to Rashek, however... the RAFO makes me curious if this person is dead or not. I wonder if Rashek trusted any other Feruchemist enough to give them Lerasium as a backup plan. Perhaps someone far enough away that they couldn't be a threat. The other side of the world, maybe?

Not quite true. Odium could not do things against his Intent, neither can Ruin. It seems like there is probably some overlap where Odium would be able to do things that Ruin can't, and vice versa. For example, I think Odium could try to found an empire to last forever, based on hatred, whereas the whole concept of that is the opposite of something Ruin could attempt.

From what I remember, it wasn't the kind of series where I was looking for more. It was written, I read it through, it was alright young adult fantasy, and I moved on. The characterization of a lot of the latter books was... odd. I'd be curious to see if he could head back towards the relatively interesting universe of the first book.

Did not consider the atium angle. He mentions having seen iron or steel lines, though, on his return to the Pits. Combined with the fact that Elend mentions that after Kelsier's escape, House Venture was having trouble meeting their quotas and I feel like he must have used a LOT of Allomancy, and probably steel/iron as well as atium and pewter.

Agreed, up until the part where she takes Preservation and Ruin is actively trying to prevent it. Until we have more information about how Odium kills Shardholders, you have to assume that they are on the same power level and that there is something unique about the Shard of Odium itself, or Rayse as the Shardholder. Long story short is that Rayse at the very least has killed three Shardholders, splintered at least two, probably three Shards, and is the only Shard we know about so far that is worldhopping. Just by evidence of what he's done, Odium is the more dangerous of the two.

There could also be something to Demoux's theory that Kelsier should have Snapped prior to the Pits, and something helped him along. It's interesting to note that Kelsier Snapped while basically surrounded by the power of Ruin. Also why Mare got sent to the Pits is a really good question. Apparently there was enough metal where the skaa could get at it that Kelsier was able to break out. Tin is a pretty useful metal in this time period. Since Mare couldn't burn aluminum, there was no way to dose her to wipe out her reserves. Hrm... I'm going to go with unintended plot hole, unless we get some information to contrary, like the Lord Ruler specifically made sure no Allomantic metals were used in the Pits. EDIT: Which still raises the question of how Kelsier got out.

Hrm. Then I got nothing. Maybe Denth/Shashara and Yesteel/Arsteel were extremely prominent people before they died? It wouldn't have been too hard to find out about their past lives without the whole sheltered Court of the Gods lifestyle. Kind of leads me to believe that Vasher was really no one special prior to Returning.

This still doesn't explain why Ruin wouldn't kill Vin and shatter the Shard. He'd be able to destroy Scadrial then without any opposition from his direct opposite. Also, the pact was for the creation of humans. I can easily see Ruin agreeing to such a pact, then backstabbing Preservation as soon as he was weaker... yet he didn't kill Leras or splinter the Shard. It seems like Odium might have, not necessarily more power, but a better way to utilize it against other Shards. It might even be that because Ruin and Preservation are representative of two physical aspects of the universe (stasis and entropy), that Odium is more of a manifestation of a spiritual aspect of the universe, and this might give him more leeway in attacking other Shards.

Then why do none of them consider Vasher a sibling? Second question is why we assume all five of the Scholars are Returned. Some could simply have had huge reserves of Breath.

Actually, there's a pretty good example of something Odium has done that Ruin hasn't: Odium has killed Shardholders. Something about the nature of the Shard Odium allows Rayse to kill Shardholders. This seems to be something that Ruin could not do, or he probably would have to Preservation, or failing that certainly to Vin. Note: I am not counting the death of Leras as Ruin killing him, since the Shard was not Splintered, and Leras's Cognitive aspect was a shadow of what it was by his own design. At best, it's assisted suicide.

It could be the motivation factor. Ruin wants to destroy things, but really that's just a function of the Shard. Odium, however, has a motivation to be the only one at his power level. While the endgame of Ruin will inevitably mean the end of everything, that is something that will happen anyway. A universe where Odium is the only Shard could be a very dark place where death might be the best thing that can happen to you.

Dakhor monks could be a bit like a coppercloud. In fact, it's almost got to be a passive ability to be useful, otherwise you depend on the reaction time of the monk in question.

You know, it could very easily have been Nohadon's father. That would explain the quotation being passed down, the easy life after the Desolation (Dad did all the hard work of uniting), and a few of the other inconsistencies. It also parallels nicely with Dalinar's current situation. Strong leader that unites people followed by son who apparently follows in father's footsteps. The difference being Nohadon was a much stronger leader than Elkohar.

Some kind of creation or building spren seems a bit more likely to me, since the Dawnsingers supposedly made a lot of the major cities. However, it could explain Kasbal's little music trick.

This is interesting... is it possible that the KR are humans trying to mimic Parshendi? EDIT: This also lends some credence to the Dawnsingers/Parshendi thing, since their current songs could be Dawnchant that's suffered a couple thousand years of change.

The problem here is that if the Lord Ruler hadn't been influenced by Ruin so badly, the Final Empire would likely have been a lot more stable and secure society. Yes, no religious freedom more than likely, but the main horror of the Empire was the treatment of the skaa. If they were treated more as human beings and less like cattle, the Final Empire could possibly have been a very good and stable way of preventing Ruin's release.

I doubt you'd be able to breed specific Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities, just the potential for such abilities. Unless they figure out some way to predict sDna... which would be an interesting moral point.

I'm a fan of the three Shard explanation, but I tend to think Odium isn't one of the Shards. I don't believe he was native to Roshar, and that in fact there is another Shard on Roshar that is a contributing factor in the highstorms. Keep in mind that besides crem, the storms bring vast amounts of water to a planet with next to no topsoil or other ways to contain said water. Without the hightstorms, water on Roshar might become an extremely rare commodity.