Silarn

Okay, who, exactly, has defined the "technical definition"?

Sure, but then lightweaving is also 'different' between different Lightweavers - so why point out the difference between Truthwatchers specifically? Besides that, also supports the idea that there are differences, even if small, in how the powers combine.

This quote isn't exactly a refutation. I feel like this assumption of exactly what a resonance is equates to groupthink. I might be willing to concede the point if it weren't for this quote: Which more or less gels with your last quote - but is Brandon elaborating on what he considers a "resonance" to be. So again: I believe it's possible there's both resonance in the sense of alterations or additions to how powers work due to the combination as well as spiritual side effects such as the mnemonic device. In addition, if there are different forms of the mnemonic device, then that suggests it isn't the main reason why the ability would be "different slightly" for a Truthwatcher. If your mnemonic device is not visual, it wouldn't aid you in making elaborate illusions. In effect a resonance is anything that happens due to a small set of powers merging.

@Djarskublar I think that's a reasonable theory. At the very least we can ask better questions now - if they aren't RFAO'd.

@Jondesu I agree, for the most part, though it's hard to say with Kelsier. We know that, as a cognitive shadow, he couldn't fully absorb Preservation's power. However, he was transformed a bit by holding it. Perhaps being a Sliver now makes him a bit more compatible - and I suppose if he does manage to regain a body then perhaps that's another facet. Brandon has cloaked both Hoid and Kelsier's drives and actions enough that it's hard to know where they're going to fall in the end. Hoid seems more than happy to ignore a world's problems or attack strangers when it suits his purposes - but he's also shown a measure of compassion, giving advice and even physical help on several occasions. I tend to think he means well in the long run but is a bit Machiavellian. But he may also be misguided and is clearly gradually collecting powers for his own purposes.

@Thanatos I agree that this is a possible path for Kelsier. His Snapping turned him into a better man, but he was also still after revenge to some extent. He only barely empathized with the nobility by the time he died. In death, he has also become obsessed with Survival. He still cared enough to help stop Ruin from destroying everyone he loved, but that didn't put him above potentially using Spook to experiment with hemalurgy and return to the physical realm. (Despite considerable pressure to pass on.) It remains to be seen if he'll end up being a force of good or evil now that he's a sliver. It's not clear how much Sazed can see into the future as Harmony, but it's interesting that he tried to dissuade Kelsier from finding a way back into a body.

"This project would help everyone, but we just can't get through all the red tape!" "Just give it a Stamp of Approval!" --- Why did the kremling cross the chasm? He was lashed to the other side. *cue groans* --- "I don't know if I can get out of bed, the world is just really bleak these days." "Hey, it's not so bad. Just slow down, take a few Breaths, and things will look brighter in no time!" --- A guy walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a stiff drink so he can drown away his pain. He's a regular, and the bartender asks him what's got him so bent out of shape. He says, "Don't ever fall in love, my friend, you'll only regret it." The bartender nods knowingly. "She really let you down hard, huh?" "Oh, she really let me have it. Girl like that? It was too good to be true. I should've known." "Hey man, I've been there. You'll get over it." "Not this time. She changed me. There's no going back." Letting out a slow whistle, the bartender pours him second glass. "Well, have another on me. Tomorrow's always a new day." He shakes his head sadly. "I might as well be dead. You just don't get it. I'm ruined." Losing his sympathy just a little bit, the bartender responds, "Come now, it can't be that bad." The man pulls up his shirt, revealing the terrible truth. "Look, see! She knew just how to shove a spike through a guy's heart!"

@The One Who Connects That may simply mean that becoming a Vessel in and of itself transforms you into something that's not really human anymore. I'm not sure that answer necessarily speaks to their personality or individuality. Certainly, over time your decisions are going to be bound more and more to your Shard's intent, but I thought it had been pretty established already that having a personality much more inline with your Shard's Intent would allow you to preserve far more of your original personality and drives. Basically, at this point Rayse isn't going to have a change of heart. His Hatred is absolute. That doesn't preclude him from, say, hating certain individuals more than others - based on his past life. Being totally consumed by his Intent would probably mean he couldn't really work with another Shard to further his goals. The pure hatred wouldn't allow it... But I think it's likely he was/is willing to work with Bavadin because he had a connection to her as Rayse. He'll eventually kill her too, but he'll work with her now to kill those he hates more.

Thanks for the quote. Yeah, and that's what I'm getting at with my last post here. A spiritual resonance helps to explain the more random-seeming perks - personal benefits that aren't directly related to the abilities of the investitures. But pay attention to Brandon here: His first response is not "the bubble" - the questioner brings it up assuming that's what it is, but Brandon specifically says it's that he "is really good at sculpting bullets and things away from him." The bubble is a part of it - "and things like this." This all implies that resonances can be both the ways how different magics interact and blend together in use - as well as secondary spiritual effects that extend the person's own capabilities in perhaps unexpected ways.

I suppose. But then, if I am you have to assume Brandon is as well. That quote directly contradicts the idea that the powers are going to be exactly the same with different surge combos - even if core mechanics remain the same. Is there a source on the 'too many' thing? I haven't seen one yet, just speculation. Though I'm not against the idea, I think someone with a lot of powers could still manifest a resonance if they are much more invested in a smaller combination of powers. I'm of mind that resonances can take multiple forms, both on a power level and on a more innate spiritual level. Wax's ability to instinctively pop up his deflection bubble would be a spiritual effect - something affecting a person's innate capabilities. While the ability to bend trajectories (rather than simply repelling, as most Coinshots do) is the manifestation of the powers combining.

@Yata I'm not sure where to find it in WoB, but Brandon's direct quote doesn't seem to support that idea: I think it's possible that, without Connection, perhaps you can only lash a given object in a direction. But by adding connection, you gain the ability to connect gravity to a specific object. Or it could change the nature of lashing altogether, since lashing implies a connection of sorts. Edit: Closest I can find is here: however, the answers are less detailed and paraphrased much more. Also added a little to the op about merging powers being a little requirement - rather than simply having the two powers independently.

Hmm. Those may be yet additional forms of resonance. I should have linked to the correct qa questions. I can edit my post shortly. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1182#41 is a big one, though, and Sanderson says quite clearly that Lightweaving/Illuminating is a bit different for a Truthwatcher than for a Lightweaver. We have yet to see two Orders use the same surge ability from a PoV character, so you can't say for certain that they are identical for different Orders.

@Yata I linked it in the op. "This q&a". Also, I don't believe Windrunners and Lightweavers share a common Surge type, so you can't really compare them beyond basic Surgebinding mechanics. There's no common Surge ability you can compare between the two. We do know that Nale is capable of flight, akin to a Windrunner. However, since he has not yet been a point of view character, we can't be certain his version of flight is identical. That bring said, it could well be the ability of Windrunners to draw multiple objects to an invested object that is a true "resonance" effect. It seems to subtly combine both connection and gravity without requiring a direct lashing to each individual object.

I hadn't noticed this until now. So I'd guess this is a pretty good sign that this Shard is involved. Still, Sazed and this Shard are both invested in planets, which would make it hard for a direct assault, and you'd assume Harmony would have the upper-hand. I still think it's possible there's at least a temporary alliance of Shards working against Harmony. The Shard in question is now known to have worked with Odium, but I wouldn't count out working with other Shards, if the alliance was beneficial.

Okay, so I initially proposed this as a possible Coppermind article, but I think the theory can apply to quite a few things we've seen so far in the Cosmere. Based on some recent interviews, particularly [1] these [2] questions from this Q&A, Brandon spitballs and generally agrees with a concept called Resonance - whether or not that ends up being an official term. In essence, it's the interaction between, and side effects of, the combination of two or more magic abilities. The abilities don't necessarily have to be from different Shards or even systems, though I imagine the side effects could be even weirder in these situations. This initially came from the suggestion of Lift having some kind of Perk based on her two Bindings. We don't know what it is yet, but Brandon more or less agreed with the concept and extrapolated that the Lightweaving of a Truthwatcher and a Lightweaver would be fundamentally different in some way. We can thus extrapolate that a Skybreaker's Gravitational bindings are going to be different to those of a Windrunner. Think about the combination of Gravitaion and Adhesion. Essentially - you're adhering gravity between different things. This thing will attract that thing (using gravity). I think Skybreakers may actually cause objects to repel with their lashings, and they may fly by essentially removing their connection to gravity and then repelling from a surface. One force is the same, but their interaction with it is totally different because of how the two Surges combine. This concept extends to other systems though. Much later on, someone asks if Waxillium has a Resonance, and Brandon suggests specifically his ability to bend projectiles around himself. His shield is related to this but not the totality of it. Wax himself is approaching or has reached Savant status with perhaps both of his metals - steel and iron - and this allows him to even more finely control this ability to bend trajectories - in addition to his reflexive use of the 'shield'. In a sense, he may actually be, perhaps even subconsciously, adjusting his weight on the fly to more carefully adjust his pushes and pulls - allowing for these feats. It's also stated that Wayne indeed has a Resonance, but it's not "as obvious" and is then RAFO'd. Moving back to Lift, we also know that she has some sort of Curse and Boon from the old magic. The interactions between this magic and her Surgebinding is probably also a kind of Resonance - which has caused her partial presence in the cognitive and ability to metabolize Stormlight and touch Spren. I think it's unlikely that these are her actual Curse and Boon. Are there any other combinations we know about where we can detect effects of "Resonance" such as these? After considering Brandon's answers more closely, I believe "merging" is a key word for Resonance, in this sense. A twinborn is going to have little to no Resonance if he or she is very new to their abilities. They're essentially going to be using them as individual powers. However, since Wax is at or approaching savant status with his abilities, they've started merging at a spiritual level. This merging brings out the Resonance between his abilities and allows him to bend trajectories with precision.

Brandon also specifically mentions that while Truthwatchers and Lightweavers are technically able to Lightweave - due to the binding of Illumination - this power manifests a bit differently for each combination.

Alright, boss! It's one of those conundrums I think. I think More is Good if it hews closely to the core topic of a particular subject. In terms of the events of the Cosmere, I think the major important stuff is the major movements and actions of the Shards - not necessarily the fine details of what happened in a specific system to lead to those actions/events. Those can be better covered by articles that deal specifically with that subject-matter. In essence, my idea was to stick to fairly basic facts about the Catacendre: Leras died, due to a gradual loss of cognitive power in his ongoing battle against Ruin. Preservation was briefly taken up, in a limited sense, by Kelsier, himself only a cognitive shadow, until he was finally able to pass the power to Vin, transforming Kelsier into a Sliver. Kelsier was unable to personally defeat Ruin, also due in part to falling under Preservation's intent. Vin, still mostly unchanged by the Intent, eventually sacrificed herself to kill Ati and defeat Ruin, leaving both Shards briefly Unheld. Both were finally claimed by Sazed, merging the two in power and Intent to form a combined Shard of Harmony, who still presides over Scadrial within the Scadrian System.

So in some of the recent WoB, such as this recent q&a, a newish concept of Resonance has come up. That may or may not be a final, cannon name for the concept. From what we've learned so far, a Resonance is a sort of side-effect, alteration, or improvement on a core investiture gained by the combining of two different magics. The two merge in some way, causing a change or extension in how the magics work. It's also suggested that Waxilium's ability to carefully bend projectiles around himself, such as the bubble, or carefully guiding projectiles to a new path. His potential savant status with both steel and iron greatly improves this ability - but without the interaction of both powers, this ability to bend and direct the projectiles may not exist. I think it's also possible this can explain Lift's unique traits: her ability to touch Spren and create Stormlight by digesting food. It's been heavily implied that these are only tangential affects of her Boon/Curse by the Old Magic - they are side effects with how the Boon/Curse of the Old Magic interacted with the powers of a Surgebinder. I'm not sure if this is fleshed out or non-theory enough to put up on Coppermind, but I thought I'd suggest it.

Okay good, I was afraid I missed something! Do we know anything about where a kandra's personality / memories originate? If it was an aspect of the blessings, then you need to explain how TenSoon didn't suddenly gain some of OreSeur's personality. But the hemalurgic decay also seems to have affected the post-Catacendre kandras' memories. Unless, perhaps, those memories simply began to break down without the blessing helping to retain them...

Hello all. I've been realmatically aware since reading the Way of Kings, and I recently reread the original Mistborn Trilogy after having been a massive pile of ignorance years ago. Since it's quite fresh in my mind, I feel I can flesh out a lot of the Era 1 content. I've recently done so with Catacendre and Marsh, but soon discovered that there's also a Catacendre section under Cosmere that includes several things I added to the main article. However, I feel some of it is a bit extraneous for the Cosmere article and was thinking about culling it a bit - especially since we can link to the Cosmere article proper.

I agree insofar as to why Adonalsium was originally shattered... What we know about the original Vessels seems to indicate that they were far too diverse a group to have been merely after power. However, I'm not convinced that Rayse has a bigger reason beyond wanting to be the most powerful guy around, and he doesn't want to risk losing the Intent he agrees with by merging with another Shard. It might change his persona too much. So, best to shatter the other Shards and remove the possibility/temptation while eliminating the competition.

I think that's possible to an extent, but remember that the people that retain the most autonomy over their Shard's Intent are those that have personalities that gel with that intent. Rayse was selfish and hateful, in addition to desiring absolute power. He doesn't want his Intent to be muddled by the Intents of other shards. Since his personality is so compatible, he's quite dangerous because he's less controlled by his own Shard. Contrast that against Ati, who was originally kindly, and his psyche was almost entirely perverted by the Intent of Ruin, his original personality supplanted because it basically wasn't very compatible. Note that he's extremely confused before 'passing on', after being killed. You get the sense that he just doesn't remember much about being Ruin. His mind basically just became the intelligence for Ruin to use. So the more innately benevolent a Shard's Intent is, the less likely they are to be villainous. That being said, there are several shards we know of that are fairly neutral, in that sense, and they could be swung one way or another with a highly compatible Vessel. I have the feeling Bavadin fits this bill - and that she may well have worked with Odium/Rayse when it was in her interests - in keeping with Autonomy. However, I can easily see her switching allegiances if Odium became a threat. I still don't necessarily feel that this makes sense as a motivation to oppress Scadrial's technological growth, however. I can't help but feel that we have an as-yet-unknown force driving that conflict. I feel like Odium would be extremely wary of Harmony - particularly since it inflames his worst fears about the merging of Shards.

Thanks - yeah, I've been keeping an eye on the theories since Way of Kings came out (and I started to really catch on to the Cosmere stuff) and just finished a reread of the original Mistborn Trilogy (which was originally loaned to me and I didn't have my own copy for quite some time) after which I decided to fully jump in. Since Taln's Scar etc. etc. has seemed to be cropping up more and more in the last few years, I think it's a significant foreshadowing that it's more than just some random constellation. Exactly what that means is hard to say, though! -- Made a few additions and alterations to my OP. Particularly in relation to the driving power behind the Set and the 'red force' confronting Harmony. -- However, I've just read some more stuff regarding Autonomy and I could be convinced that she may be behind "Trell". The fact that she meddles didn't seem strong enough to me to equate to destroying the whole world, though. I'm still somewhat of mind that it may be Autonomy working with another shard. Again, it seems foolhardy for any one shard to go up against Harmony, with the power of two shards. This could be Odium, but something just tells me that it's not Odium's direct hand at work there - even despite the red eyes. Maybe I'm wrong.

Fair enough, I hadn't seen that particular info from him yet. On the other hand, I see some problems with throwing cultivation into the mix with Harmony. Their duality is strongly implied in Hero of Ages. Preservation, by itself, is a bit closer to stagnation, with less negative connotations. Without ruin forcing decay and change, there would be no room for cultivation. Adding cultivation to the mix, then, would allow that change to flourish. Cultivation is more of a guided growth, but growth can still happen without cultivation. Oppression may be a truer opposite to cultivation.

I think we've already had a lot of hints that the investiture system on Scadrial was modeled closely after the nature of Adonalsium and the Shards. 16 powers, each with opposing pairs. It's heavily implied that Ruin and Preservation were not just happy partners but indeed perfect opposites. Two sides of the same coin. They belonged together - not just as two parts of the same overarching power but as aspects in their own right. I think this is further supported by some recent answers by Sanderson about the theoretical matchup of Honor and Odium. He says they would pair well but were not a perfect match. We also know that there are supposedly a total 16 shards in the Cosmere, with only 10 currently accounted for in some manner. However, even with four Shards totally unknown - we should at least have two perfect pairs. Even if the remaining four paired 'perfectly' with those we currently know about - that leaves four that we already know. In this sense, though we may not have a perfect definition of all of these shards' intents, we can at least make some decent guesses based on their names alone. While this is conjecture - I think the best pairings I can come up with based on our current knowledge would perhaps be Dominion/Autonomy or Devotion/Ambition (though I could easily see the pair of Ambition being the Shard that just wants to hide). But that leaves us with a lot of Shards with no obvious pair. I'm not sure what the opposite of Endowment would be, though it would seem to be something about taking rather than giving. But we can make some interesting inferences about other Shards. Since Honor is not a perfect 'pair' to Odium, we don't have a good opposite for it. But Deceit/Betrayal/Subterfuge seem like some of the best alternatives. Yet I don't know of another Shard matching those words just yet. Similarly, Cultivation implies growth, and an opposite might be Stagnation or Repression (not necessarily destructive or hateful like Ruin and Odium). Not all is negative though, as we have no opposite of Odium. Devotion seems close, but better would be Compassion or perhaps Empathy. I think these missing 'pairs' have quite a bit to do with what must follow the Stormlight Archives... I find it unlikely that we will have not dealt, in some way, with Odium by the time the series ends. I don't doubt that things will likely get a lot worse and maybe Odium will even survive. But the missing Shards leave open a lot of space for perhaps even graver Shard threats and alliances. The mysterious red constellation - the red rip - taln's scar. This could well be a threat that predates Adonalsium or the Shattering - but it could also be a home to several negative Shards - the pairs of those we already know. If there is indeed an opposite of Honor as yet unknown - a Shard of Deceit, say - this seems to fit quite well with the mysterious Set and their seeming connection to Trell. The Set works with a network of subterfuge and secrecy. They also imply that they don't want Scadrial to advance, technologically, and must cleanse the planet. Perhaps a force of repression? It make sense to me that there may be more than a single Shard confronting Harmony. After all, while one aspect of Harmony may be slightly weakened by giving the spark of intellect to Humanity on Scadrial, he still wields the majority of the power of two shards. That immediately makes him far more powerful than any one other Shard, probably even a determined Odium.