Aethling

The more I think about it, I do not feel spren are from Honor. My thought is that they are the physical representation of Cultivation. Syl grew more sentient as Kaladin did his thing, that to me is more an effect of Cultivation than Honor. She might have been feeding off of his honor, but her growing and the plethora of other types of Spren leans me toward Cultivation.

Can the universe really afford for the shards NOT to be reunited. Look at what Odium alone has done. Ruin left alone would probably have been even worse, but it had its direct counterpart on the same world to limit.

Vin was still extremely skittish. She still had part of the street urchin in her. He might not have done anything directly, but the overall situation she was in at the time would have made her extremely cautious. Afterall, would YOU want to go into a dark alley in a besieged city to meet someone that you had never met?

We might just be reading too much into her reaction. Remember, she was going in little sleep, creeping around an encircled city, looking for an admitted spy, AND she had a history of being stalked by some mysterious creature. Under those circumstances, who wouldn't be a little jittery. She knew by this time that even the most powerful mistborn are not invulnerable, and she was used to living by her gut. It might have been something really serious or it might just have been a little normal human reaction. Unfortunately, we will never know unless Sanderson actually states it outright, which he will probably never do just to keep up the speculation. Most of his actions he has been more of a watcher/guider than taking any direct action on screen. Sanderson has stated he went into the cavern before Vin and Elend, but that was off screen. Elantris, he helped smuggle in the weapons that had been provided. Mistborn he has mostly just hung around the edges watching or giving information. Warbreaker he gave Siri the information she needed to make her start considering the true nature of what was going on. WoK is by far his longest appearance, but probably the main event was his conversation with Kaladin. The conversation at the end was more of just something to show what potential/power he has. It is almost as if he is around checking the worthiness of the main protagonists in each series. He attended the wedding in Alloy, but was that to watch the wedding or to watch Wax?

Well, as an example of a ruler with dominion and honor we can look at Elizabeth I. I chose her because I happen to be attending a weekly event at the library about her for the next few weeks. Others would perceivably work just as well. Any lawful monarch by defintion will have Dominion. She refused to turn Mary over the the Scotish lords because she new Mary would probably die.-Honor Her main goal for much of her reign was to bring about stability and preserve the nation-Preservation She was not above executing disdents or traitors (see Norfolk and northern Lords)-Ruin She deeply cared about her people, nobles and commons included-Devotion. Yes, it is not exact, but seemingly antagonistic shards can work together under the same umbrella/holder.

Some of the stuff compounding allows would be pretty hard to do with the budget of a TV series. Alloy for TV would essentially be Gunsmoke with powers. No, I am not old enough to have seen firstrun episodes of Gunsmoke, but the reruns were very popular in the 80s. The CGI/special effects required for a Mistborn,Elantris, or SLA based series would probably be prohibitively expensive. While I would prefer a Warbreaker movie, it could probably be done rather inexpensively for TV. Almost no special effects would be needed other than the occasional costume or the color change during awakening. Whether or not we actually want it to happen is another story. Hollywood has a habit of butchering good books when turning to movies or TV. Do we really want a tall, blonde, buxom girl playing Vin or having Vin and Kelsier being father/daughter, brother/sister, or even lovers? How about Vin and Kelsier being the same age? All of those would probably make more fans want to puke, and there wouldn't be much Sanderson could do to stop that stuff either. Also, Hoid may not have to be played by the same actor across different series. He is describe quite differently at times, if I remember correctly.

I would really rather Vin and Elend than Kelsier. Kelsier was too dogmatic in his views. His overriding goal was to kill nobles. He never really grew in the series until right before his death. Vin and Elend, on the other hand, grew quite a bit through the trilogy. Also, I hate to have stories end with the good guys dead, even if it is handled like it was. I held off reading Alloy for several months just because of the way the original trilogy ended, lol.

Probably nothing more than coincidence. Almost every movie or book (fiction, and nonfiction) about knights I have seen or read have them taking oaths of some sort. Anything loosely based upon something that actually occured in our world is probably going to have some shared stuff.

Odd, my college dictionary and dictionary.com both have Love as an antonym for Odium. Love is a direct synonym for Devotion, a shard that has already been mentioned. Honor and Odium may affect each other tangentially, but I will not believe they are polar opposites until/unless Brandon specifically states they are. Modern defintions actually specify that Devotion is Odium's direct opposite. Also, I do not think you can equally compare snapping and shaod victims with breathtakers or people acting honorably. There is just a major difference between snapping and being able to take breaths. I might equate returning with snapping and Shaod though, but that would not explain the non-returned people that could take breaths.

IF you can do LOTR as a series of movies, you could do Mistborn, Elantris, or Warbreaker. Of the three, Warbreaker may be the easiest as you wouldn't really require all that much CGI. The returned are essentially human. You can do Clod with makeup. About the only thing actually requiring CGI would be the changing colors and the final scene with the palace battle. I do not know how well it would work as a series for any of them. Just look at how Legend of the Seeker butchered the SoT books. The series itself was a good little diversion, but anyone that had read the books could tell MAJOR differences.

Isn't there a scene in Elantris where one of the main characters states the the Chaysan resembles something they can't just place their finger on? As for the monks, the only ones we see that actually have any power are the ones aready twisted. The process of doing so may actually be their form of the Shaod. Hrathgen left before completing the iniation, so he would not know the extent of their powers. The teleporting trick may just be something internal of the monk being sacrificed.

I can't really credit Preservation for the prediction of the HOA. He set the prophecies to be vague enough that anyone might fall under the heading. After Ruin got his hands on them, they helped Ruin more than they advanced Preservations goals. Vin only won the battle because of Elend's death. At that point she had nothing to lose. I do give Preservation credit for realizing that it would take a creature of Ruin and Preservation to defeat Ruin, but that would have been all for naught if Ruin hadn't had Elend killed. Given Preservation's intent, I can't see him sacrificing that many lives. That sounds much more like Ruin. Ruin actually states that sometimes he builds to facilitate later destruction.

How about a shard named Fidelity? Dual aspect of truthfulness and being faithful to others or originals. The knowledge/learning idea is probably already covered by Cultivation. One of its meanings can mean cultural refinement or gaining knowledge.

Spren could be a physical representation of Cultivation.

In the battle for Elendel, Breeze soothes fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and restlessness. Those are the ones I found after only a few seconds of looking. It seems pretty much any mental construct of the such might be able to be soothed or rioted.

I still do not see where Preservations foresight was all that good. Other than figuring it would take a creature of both Ruin and Preservation to end the conflict, almost everything else went to pot. 1. The prophecies were completely hijacked by Ruin to tempt someone into releasing him. If Preservation had decent foresight, why create the prophecies at all? 2. Preservation's pawn was fairly well controlled by Ruin for most of the trilogy. It was Ruin's mistake in killing Elend that caused his downfall. 3. The main thing that kept Ruin from ultimate power was that he could not find his body. This had nothing to do with the prophecies 4. Preservations ultimate purpose is directly opposite to all of the deaths that took place under TLR. 5. Preservation created the mists that Ruin then corrupted to create a reason to resort to the prophecies. 6. Even before the Alendi's death, his status had already caused war to run rampant. Because of Preservation's "foresight", the planet was moved from its goldilocks zone to one that was inhospitable to life. The remain population was placed under a millenium of oppression and genocide. A thousand years of cultural and technological advances were lost or hidden. That is the equivalent of going from Rome to William the Conqueror. The people had to be genetically changed to even allow their survival through the disaster that was Preservation's plan. If anything, Preservation's goal was reached inspite of most of its actions. Preservations very name means basicailly staying at the status quo. Why would something that had a goal of remaining the same have a powerful ability to see into the future? Cultivation on the other hand has a reason to have powerful foresight as it's goal is growth, not remaining the same. Odium could be double edged. Like someone said, it could entail the revenge aspect. More likely to me, is "blind hatred". Its hatred would be so intense that it wouldn't even care about the future, only the present. That might explain why it killed Devotion-its direct opposite, Honor-something that often prevents hatred from taking over, and Dominion-good rule is generally antagonistic to hatred.

As for rioting or soothing animals. I thought that was brought up in one of the books, but I may be mistaken. I doubt that is possible because they aren't sentient like humans, kandra, or koloss. Koloss would be the closest to them, but even they started out more sentient.

Wasn't the point made though that Ruin completely hijacked the prophecies for his own uses? If preservation was that good at reading the future, a complete change of meaning of the prophecies would be fairly easy to detect.

Everyone seems to be discounting the effect that the soothe had on Straff. If he had actually been fighing someone, the momentary distraction would have caused him to be killed. That is a pretty potent offensive weapon when you do not even have to be in the same room. As it was, he allowed Vin and Elend to make it back to the city. Vin and Elend did not soothe the Koloss armies one at a time, they grabbed blocks of them. Special case, but 50 or so Koloss would be a nice advantage in battle. For anyone that has read SoT, imagine having a Rioter placed at the match where Richard causes the army-wide fight. Now imagine doing the same thing to one of the camps at the battle of Elendel. Hide a rioter in an enemy camp to cause them to attack prematurely. Have a rioter cause friction inside of enemy camps. Have a rioter subvert a disgruntled captain into killing the general. Riot someone's paranoia so that they go postal inside the enemy camp. Every soldier killed by the enemy in their own camp reduced their morale and the number of bodies that will be attacking your walls. Have a rioter inflame suspicions and then slip poison into the camp water or foodsource. After a few weeks of that and sieges, eventually someone is going to snap hard. By risking one allomancer, you stand the potential for causing all kinds of damage to your enemy.

Sanderson also has a tendency to pick words that have broad or several meanings. Cultivation is the perfect example. It can mean anything from cultural refinement to growing stuff. Devotion could lean toward love or blind faith. I think I can see why Odium would want to kill the three specific shards mentioned. Those three really do make some sense as being something that could step in the way of hatred. I wouldn't really be surprised if it came out that Devotion and Dominion were actually working together at one point much like Ruin and Preservation had the bargain.

Didn't Straf become fairly disoriented when Vin hit him with her Soothe during the negotiations? That could come in very handy during any fight. A mistborn could make an army turn on itself with Duralumin. Find a situation someone like the fight Richard started in Jagangs camp, hit it with a super riot, and you have half of the army killing the other half. Perfect for siege warfare.

Well, it looks like Odium has already killed his direct opposite in Devotion. From dictionary.com Odium intense hatred or dislike, especially toward a person or thing regarded as contemptible, despicable, or repugnant. its direct opposite is Love. Devotion is a synonym for love. I think we are all looking at Dominion as a relatively negative shard because of its use in Elantris, but Dominion need not have a negative connotation. It just means control or power. That should not make a ripple for Harmony. It might even help balance the equation. Love and control are not direct opposites, but they should minimize each other's effects. Honor and Dominion would actually make a good good reinforcing pair. Right to power tempered by honesty and fairness. Someone with a negative view could turn Dominion bad, but someone with a positive view could just as well use it for good. Harmony should have no problem picking up either Devotion or Dominion after he reforms the splinters. He could probably get help reforming from Endowment or Cultivation if needed. Ruin and Preservation are the only two that are completely direct opposites. Devotion and Dominion are not direct opposites, but I can see them offsetting each other enought for Sazed to have very little additional effect. Honor mixed with Devotion, Preservation, and Dominion would reinforce reinforce each other. Ruin would temper the protective tendencies of Devotion and Preservation enough to allow a life cycle to exist and would allow destruction when needed. Cultivation and Endowment would still exist unless Odium or another shard managed to kill them as well. If that did happen, it would further open the way for Harmony to become a supershardholder. With just Harmony and the vacated shards, you would have 5:1 in an Odium showdown. With Cultivation and Endowment, it would be 7:1. After the fight one Harmony would hold 8. at that point, the unknown shards would come into play. Someone would have to kill or pickup all 8 of them just to have a parity with Harmony. At that point, if anyone even makes a move toward collecting the remaining shards, Harmony should not have any problem changing their mind about those actions. Will any of this actually happen? Well, we have 9 more SLA, 6+ more Mistborn, 2? more Elantris, and 1 more Warbreaker to find out. So, roughly another 20 to 30 years before everything plays out.

Wayne states several times he can't just drop the bubble and put it right back up though. It takes some time before he is able to redo the bubble. Simple idea would be to hold the flamer in reserve until he actually puts up the bubble. Once he puts up the bubble, you have him. The heat should penetrate the bubble more efficiently than a bullet. He is unable to relocate while the bubble is up. If he drops the bubble, he gets broiled and shot multiple times.

You could also look at it like the more shards Harmony picks up, the easier it would be for him. We already see some of this in his holding Ruin and Preservation. The shard act directly against each other to make a virtually neutral, but with enormous powers. Adding Devotion would increase his powers even more, and it would be a three-way battle between the shards. Since Dominion is on the same world, he can pick that up as well. The issue has been raised about the splintered shards. That is a good point, but I do not believe that it would be very hard for one shardholder to reform the splintered shards. The big side-effect is that it stands a chance to drastically change the magic systems We already know that Ruin and Preservation are direct opposites. Sanderson has set the ground for Devotion and Dominion to be very close to direct opposites as well. Just look at the two major religions in Elantris. In many ways, I see them as functional opposites of each other while still holding the same core idea. Harmony picking up those two would give him two sets of shards acting as almost direct opposites. The tidal pulls on Sazed's personality would be basically neutralized by the two sets acting against each other. Unless Odium is powerful enough to fight 4 shards in one entity, it wouldn't be much of a contest. Of course, this is all speculation and it does rely upon splinters being able to be remade.

It just seems that is a little bit shortsighted on his part. The increased power he just left behind seems like it could be more than worthwhile. Unless Odium is way more powerful than any of the other shards, Harmony would already be more powerful. By not taking up the shards he has killed, he has essentially set in place the basis for his own destruction. Of course, that could have been what Sanderson is trying to set up. A Harmony/Odium battle would effectively bring about the reunification of the shards anytime Harmony chose to do so. Team up Harmony and Endowment and you have someone capable of creating an army that could be resurrected as quickly as they could be killed. If Odium kills Endowment, then Harmony could pick up Endowment and Aon's shard. Four against one doesn't seem like a decent fight unless Odium also has "bad" allies, but then Ruin would have been a perfect ally.