Doonl

So obviously this is like 80% speculation, but hey that's what makes it fun right? We generally assume that reforming Adonalsium is possible, partly because its been mentioned by Hoid, who is by far the most reliable source of information (at least when he gives it) on the past and the deepest workings of the cosmere. However, even Hoid seems uncertain as to the possibility, as shown in his conversation with Daliner. Personally I think he have yet to see any convincing evidence that the possibility exists. Starting with the most obvious, Sazed is the only example of a combination of the 16 original shards held by one person that we have seen, and I think its fair to say that as an experiment in combining the shards, he has been less than successful. Not only is he incapable of really taking action, but he is actively struggling to hold the two together. I have to assume that no successfully recreated version of Ado would include the vessel working that hard to keep the whole together, and if it did it sounds profoundly dangerous. However, even putting those things aside, describing Harmony as a combination of the two shards of Preservation and Ruin at all is generous. We (and everyone else) have always understood Harmony as two distinct shards that happen to be held by the same vessel. The same is true of Ettemetal, which is immensely unstable and, despite god metals acting like elements, can be split into Atium and Lerasium as if it was an alloy. I actually have made a post before about whether this is a state inherent in holding 2 shards or not, here: Also to consider, is the ongoing question of whether there was a vessel for Adonalsium or whether it was literally just sentient magic goop. If it would need a vessel to recombine Ado then I think there is a significant question of who could serve. Its a question for another thread, but long story short, single shards need people with specific traits that align with the shards to be effective bearers, and the requirements seem to have been even more demanding for Sazed taking up 2 shards. So, would Adonalsium have requirments that are just so absurd that only the perfect person could ever hope to do it, or would the intent of all sixteen shards be a wash and just any old guy could pick up the divine power of all creation? Alternativly, if Adonalsium does not need a vessel then that opens up a whole other can of worms. Vasher says something along the lines of "if you leave magic alone for long enough it becomes sentient" (I dont have the book on hand sorry for the vague quote) in RoW while talking with Kaladin. So, I assume the theory would be that you just kinda drop all 16 shards in one place and wait, but that also leaves a lot of problems. The Dominion and Devotion shards on Sel were dropped after odium did what he does, and now they are kinda just chilling in the cognitive realm, apparently making it super dangerous to go there. This raises the question of whether you need to leave the 16 shards alone in a specific way to get adonalsium and not just an apocalypse, or maybe D&D are somehow unable to merge together as Ado would, but either way surely they should have become sentient by now, something we have had no indication of. Also, some of the shards have intent which is directly opposed to reforming Adonalsium, which surely would be an obstacle. Most importantly, Autonomy is deeply opposed to mixing with other shards. I have to assume it is still possible to mix autonomy with other shards but it also must be much more difficult, similar to how Bavadium is repelled by Ettemetal. Would the presence of all the pieces of Adonalsium make a difference there? Odium also does not want to be mixed, but if im honest I have always been unclear on how much of that was Odium and how much of that was Rayse. Finally, the way that Adonalsium was shattered probably matters. If it was just that enough force was applied to separate the shards (however the heck that would even be possible) that sure, but I cant imagine it was that simple, and it seems more likely that it involved a fundamental changing of the way that investiture exists to acomplish Long story short, it seems like one of two things needs to be true for Adonalsium to even be a possibility on the table. 1) The boring answer, that simply the fact that all 16 shards are there and not some combination of a few changes the way they interact with each other, simply bypassing all these problems, or 2) The way in which we understand both how shards combine together, and how investiture acts when it is left alone are deeply flawed. As a final note, at the end of the day I do think Adonalsium being reformed is possible, after all it would kinda be narativly unsatisfying if it was just "sorry about the years of speculation yall, it was never even an option," I just don't see how its possible given our current information

So I could just be remembering wrong, but in RoW doesnt Navani do some experiment where two different lights repel each other. I think it was anti-light and its counterpart, since the fact that stormlight and voidlight dont react is a big deal in that book, but I dont have the book on me so I cant be sure This has already been mentioned, and I still think it is not at all plausable that the set managed to produce atium and Lerasium, which we know they were trying to do, and either just didnt realize they succeeded, or never used it. Also more atium was created than lerasium, and given there was enough Lerasium to make Wayne a full mistborn and Wax is at the least kinda mistborn (its unclear exactly how powerful he is now) there would be enough Atium to keep marsh going for a while. I actually love that idea that Autonomy made Ruin and Preservation more independet, it makes a lot of sense, especially since there is a question of whether Sazed is already discord at the end of the book. For making Ruin gain influence, 1) Ruin has always been more powerful since Preservation is more invested into humans, and we see this in BoM where Sazed is using the extra Ruin power to hold back trell. So I agree that we are getting something that is at least very very close to a nuclear explosion. However, I think there is a question of exactly how similar. God metals are elements, but also Ettemetal split into Atium and Lerasium, which implies an alloy. Here is where I acknowledge that god metals behave like elements but also are weird magic rock and dont exactly follow physics so maybe this is wrong, but what it specifically Ettemetal is an alloy and not an element. We and everyone in the cosmere have always perceived Harmony as one vessel holding two shards, as opposed to one vessel holding one big shard. Perception is important in the cosmere, it shapes the spiritual realm. As such, what if Sazed holding two shards changes the perception enough that Ettemetal does behave like an Alloy in that it is made up of atoms of Lerasium and Atium. If this is the case I dont have an explanation for why it explodes when split, but it is at least an explanation as to how an element is made up of two other elements

Telsin's comment implies that, should Autonomy and Whimsy be held by the same vessel the change would not be stagnation like with Sazed, but instead a removal of Autonomy's obsession with control (ironic as that is). Instead, Telsin seems to think that there would be an improvement if the two were combined creating something like Independence (the name is pure guesswork). My point is just that the two seem to be a far more complementary and stable shard combination that Preservation and Ruin, who's intents are at best conflicting and at worst diametrically opposed. I could obviously be wrong on the specific combination of Autonomy and Whimsy but the main point is just that Sazed got incredibly unlucky with the two shard combination he got and that there are many intent pairings that are far less inclined to cause a crisis of personality for the vessel.

Inquisitor already mentioned this, but yea the implication of the quote was clearly that kelsier would leave the airship and travel by steelpushing himself it he wasn't over the ocean I am not arguing that Sazed is not going to turn into discord, or that he will not be some type of antagonist in the future, only that his final statement to Kelsier do not make sense with our current understanding of Sazed as he is now unless he is telling the truth. He has no reason to deceive kelsier into thinking he will never be a threat to kelsier unless he already is, which I dont think is the case. Pretty much the only scenario I can imagine where Kelsier is defending Scadrial from Sazed is if Sazed is Discord, something Current Sazed should and would work against, even if only by verbally warning Kelsier against causing it. What other reason would he have for making Kelsier believe that he is the deciding factor on their conflict. We have been told before that the more a vessel acts against the intent of the shard, the more the intent will take over, so Sazed taking action is very likely to be what causes him to finally turn into Discord. That said, who in this book is constantly complaining that Sazed needs to do more? Kelsier. I'm not saying Kelsier will want a fight with Sazed, only that it will be his fault.

My problem with this idea is that Current Sazed would not support the theoretical actions of Discord Sazed, so why would he be so cagy and try to warn kelsier away from this? If this were the case Sazed would be doing everything he could to set up measures to defeat his future self. This is a great point that I had forgotten about, but we also have to remember that the prophecies from TFE never ended up being easily predictable, and also that we have seen all kinds of horrible dictators who's people love them. It is very possible for Sazed to be a threat to the people of Scadrial while they still love him. You are right that Shallan and Marasi are noto actually in the ghostbloods, so the rules Kelsier laid out are not technically being broken, but it still feels like a breach in the spirit of the rules, especially in Mraize's case. However more importantly, Sure kelsier does not need to answer to Marasi, but why would he not just say "no of course I tell my organization everything" unless it is not true. He dodges that question very specifically. Also, Kelsier for sure could have told the crew about his master plan. They would not have liked it but their not knowing about it was never a requirment. For Kelsier steelpushing he literally says that he is in an airship but steelpushing would not be faster cause he is over an ocean. Idk how that isnt implying he can steelpush, otherwise why bother mentioning it in the first place. It would be like me, a regular person saying "yea the flight lands in 3 hours. Running there using super speed would be faster but im over the ocean." It makes not sense unless he can steelpush

I think the key here is that Sazed does not want to fight kelsier. Unless Sazed has changed more than I think he has since Era 1, he is not the kind of person who actively plans ways to subvert his friends. Sure, he lies to kelsier to keep his fingers out of certain pies, but also seems to more or less let kelsier do what he wants. Beyond that I read it less as manipulation and more a warning to kelsier to be careful, not only because Sazed would be a dangerous enemy, but because Sazed has kelsier's best interests at heart and probably sees any path involving Kelsier and Sazed fighting as a loosing one. Also, Sazed does not want to be discord. He very likely will do anything in his power to avoid in. That, combined with the fact that conflict between the two would require either Sazed to be discord, or Kelsier to take some genuinely evil actions, I think sazed is telling the truth. In either scenario he is trying to avoid a conflict, and an attempt to change kelsier's actions is the best way to go about that. That last part of kelsiers half of the quot is very important. In the future Sazed is alluding to, Kelsier is defending the people of Scadrial from Sazed. This is something that almost certainly requires Sazed to be Discord. If that is the case, it is very likely that current Sazed would certainly be against the actions of his future self, and thus give Kelsier any help he can. Sazed's statement does not apply to if Kelsier and Sazed are in opposition over something else, but in that case kelsier is probably still the responsible party, knowing him. If I had to guess at the source of the conflict between them, Kelsier is going to somehow pressure kelsier to take action, whether that be to stop kelsier or to work with him. We already know Kelsier is frustrated with how little Sazed does, so him pushing a change to that makes sense. However, the actions taken by Sazed because of this will the final straw to turn him into Discord, who's intent then forces Kelsier to defend the people of Scadrial against him.

He told kelsier because the atium from Wax's experiment was how they stopped Marsh from aging and even if Sazed was cruel enough to not tell Kelsier his brother was no longer dying, which I doubt, Kelsier would have noticed before to long anyway. I assume he is lying about having successfully recreated Wax's test in order to stop kelsier from trying himself. Alternatively, he could legitimately have succeeded. A decent amount of time has passed between Wayne's death and the conversation between Sazed and Kelsier, so while I doubt it, Sazed could have just fully succeeded in the experiment and we are not told.

Marsh looking for atium is not evidence that the set actually succeeded, only that they tried to create it. Also, as both of us have mentioned, it seems supremely unlikely that the set managed to create either atium or lerasium and did not use it. And given they were clearly trying to create it, as from the quote you gave, they clearly did have intent, which invalidates this: As for Harmony having bad information, I guess its possible, but he had no reason to front for Wayne, and while its unclear exactly how long he has been blinded for, it seems to be less that the 5-6 years that the Set has been doing experiments with Trellium and Ettemetal for. More than that, his vision is cleared at the end of the book and we still are given no sign that he is worried about the Set having any atium or Lerasium. Also, it seems absurd to assume that the set, who are both extremally competent, and careful, just missed the atium they created. They would have scoured each and every experiment unless they were absolutely certain they would not find it, which would have been long after it was bomb tests and not experiments. Further, if they had ever managed to create any at all they would have recreated the exact circumstances of the experiment until they got more, and then made as much as possible. Unless we want to entertain the idea that the Set did in fact create atium and/or lerasium, and then for some inexplicable reason just never used it during the most crucial operation they ever undertook, and to defeat their most dangerous adversary, Wax, then they cannot have had any.

We have absolutely no evidence that the Set managed to create atium. They were certainly trying to, but I think they clearly failed. You yourself gave the reasons why we would have seen it used, and as you mentioned, they would have gotten Lerasium as well. However, Marsh being on their trail is not proof that they create atium, only they they were working against the interests of Scadrial. We are also told that the set tried exactly the experient Wax did to try and seperate Ettemetal, but without the same results. Sazed specifically mentions that there was something different about what Wax did, but that he isnt sure what.

I think its safe to assume the set failed to create Lerasium since we never saw it used, or saw them have a mistborn. If they had had access to that kind of power they would have used it to stop Wax and Wayne. We just saw their big plan. There is no reason they would have saved it. Plus, Harmony has a clear reason to lie to Kelsier, where as Wayne was not only about to die, but also utterly lacking in the kind of desire for power that would make lerasium dangerous. That combined with the fact that he offered Wayne the answer to literally any question indicated he had to reason to lie. You might be right but I think we are at the point where its complete speculation. Personally I think that if anything this would have required Intent, no lack of it, given basically every single piece of major investiture manipulation requires intent, but you might be right. We probably just need more info

Wax burning steel near the Trellium, not even pushing on it, before the experiment even starts, seems unlikely to be the cause. Firstly, its ridiculous to assume the Set never had anyone try to push or pull on Trellium, let alone happen to be burning some metals kinda near one of the bomb experiments. Second, Trellium's reaction to Wax burning steel is identical to how it responds to Ettemetal, or the other spikes, it just is repelled by Harmony's investiture. If Wax burning steel near it caused the difference, the same thing should be caused by being near Ettemetal, which is obviously true of every single experiment with the bombs

This makes sense, but only if the Atium and Lerasium are being fully seperated every time. The set was able to create the bomb, but not the separation between the two. Also, do you have a quote of Wax burning metal at the time, I could not find it

I honestly had not considered the point about Autonomy wanting to remain uncorrupted, and its a great one. I just cant get over how similar it behaved to anti-light. I mean repelling other investiture, causing a big explosion when mixed, both almost exactly the same. As a note, did we ever find out what happened to the bit of Bavadinium they used in the bomb in Wax's lab? Cause that could matter. Also whatever was different about the experiment Wax did that created Lerasium and Atium.

This is kinda what I was getting at in my 3rd guess, like maybe Sazed just got crazy unlucky with the shards he picked up. I mean there are a whole lot of combinations that at least seem like they would be a lot more stable. Ex: Endowment and devotion, Cultivation and Endowment, Autonomy and Whimsy (as mentioned in TLM), Dominion and Ambition, etc. So Adonalsium would be perfectly stable. I could imagine that Harmony would function a lot better if say Autonomy got added, maybe creating an intent to preserve the autonomy of people, and destroy(ruin) anything that threatens that autonomy

I agree that we are getting something very much like a nuclear explosion, but I disagree a tiny semantic detail that has big implications This is a true statement, but I think they why of it is super important. There is no evidence that different shard's investiture should act in this way. In fact, we have seen the opposite in RoW, where a big deal is made out of Void light and Stormlight not being oppisites. They don't repel each other, they just don't react. So what is different about Bavadinium, or I suppose Ettemetal? The only similar effect we have seen is from anti-light. I also think that the reason Ettemetal is so reactive is because Harmony himself is completely unstable. I wouldn't be surprised if Sazed's transformation into Discord completely changes the properties of the metal, or if, should Sazed ever bring the shards into an alignment where they are not in conflict, Ettemetal loses much of its reactivity

I agree that Sazed becoming Discord could lead him to be an antogonistic force in the future, but right now he is not, and his statement at the end of the Kelsier Epiloge in TLM is very clear: There is a clear implication that if Kelsier ever has need to defend the people of Scadrial from Sazed, it will be Kelsiers fault, not because Sazed's inevitable decline into Discord forced him. Given that Sazed has always chosen his words carefully even before being a shard, and the fact that this is the last conversation in the last book of Era 2 between two of the most important characters to the cosmere, I am inclined to believe that the exact wording is important. If a conflict between the two happens, it will be because of choices Kelsier will make (but has yet to do so).

A big deal is made, especially in LM, about how Sazed not only has trouble acting, but very likely will be entirely changing the nature of the shard he holds. On first glance this is not terribly strange, but when considering the larger implications, it seems problematic for the future of the cosmere. When Adonalsium was still around, there were not shards, there was just Adonalsium, and the shattering split his essence into the various shards, representing facets of their self(?). This part is a little hazy, and the exact nature of what determined the split is unknown. However, it is important because one of the core ideas that has been thrown around by many people, especially hoid, is the possible recreation of Adonalsium through the reassembly of all the shards. Unfortunately, Sazed's situation may imply this is impossible. Sazed's situation hinges on the fact that the two shards he holds are in opposition. It is not just that the two shards, in combining, have reached a middle ground intent that is essentially "do nothing," Preservation and Ruin are both still very much separate, and seem to be fighting each other. Their powers are still distinct from one another, as shown by the different magic systems, along with various specific examples. Sazed must struggle to maintain a balance, which he does by doing nothing. Harmony has never been referred to has one shard. It is always two held by one vessel. Yet if the idea that Adonalsium can be reassembled is to hold water, the different shards have to be able to marge back into one thing. Yet if I were to guess, sazed, should he be killed, will drop Preservation and Ruin as two separate shards. Now I have four guesses to a possible reason behind this: 1) The two shards have not merged yet. We have been told over and over that Sazed will become Discord. Maybe this is not just because he has failed to maintain the balance he has so far, but instead because of a fundamental change in what the shard(s) he hold is. Harmony has been a sort of transition period, and Discord will be the "settled" shard, the two truly becoming one for the foreseeable future. In this case the settled shard would be Discord because Ruin is the stronger of the two chunks of investiture that Sazed holds, and thus would have a slightly greater infuence on the total intent. In this case Adonalsium could still be formed, but would probably go through a very dangerous period of transition for every shard added. 2) The continuing split between the shards is because of cognitive perception. We have heard a lot that perception of stuff shapes it. For example, in Emperors soul, a wall made up of many stones is still, in its soul, one object, because people (and thus the wall itself) see it as one thing. This principle could very well apply to shards, since it does to spren, which are (through the right lense) just much smaller shards. If this is the case, Sazed still holds not one big shard, but two distinct ones, because people believe him to. If for example everyone in the Cosmere began believing that the shards of Ruin and Preservation were not distinct, and that Harmony was just a single mass of investiture with a single intent held by a single man, then that might very well become true. The intent would still be somewhere between Ruin and Preservation, but the inner conflict that Sazed struggles with would likely become far easier to deal with. If this is the case, Adonalsiums reconstruction is theoretically possible but would require the majority of people to not just know, but believe, that Adonalsium is back. (This theory also creates that cool possibility that the shattering was caused by enought people just... not believing in Adonalsium). 3) Sazed is doing it wrong. He seems to view his efforts to hold both shards as a battle of sorts. But what if he found a way to balance them towards the same goal. The best example of this I can think of is actually Rashek. TLR worked incredibly hard to keep scadrial alive (Preservation) by doing some truly horrible things, such as genocide, eugenics, slavery, and Hemalurgic creations (Ruin). He straddled the line between the shards enough that both Leras and Ati seem to have viewed him as one of their best agents in the world. Maybe Sazed just needs to direct the conflict between the two shards instead of trying to tamp it all down until it explodes into Discord. If this is true, then I actually suspect Adonalsium would be easier to combine than Harmony. Given that all the shards were parts of Adonalsium's essence, their intent when all put together probably ends up being null, whether that is do nothing or literally a complete lack of intent for the vessel. (This could also be effected by if Adonalsium had a vessel or was just a bunch of magic goop that was together enough to become sentient) 4) Finally, the possibility must be considered that the shards simply cant be recombined, at the very least not as they were. I'm of two minds on this. Narratively, this might be unsatisfying, and we have recieved enough speculation about the rebirth of Adonalsium that I think it must be possible. However, it also would be fitting to several of the themes of the cosmere if you could not just undo the shattering. A core idea is that the cracks in a person dont just go away, they remain even after healing, and that space leaves room for something new to be born. I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this since it could very well be the biggest question mark we have in the cosmere right now

We finally got an in person meeting with ghost! kelsier, and while we already knew he was around and running the ghostbloods, we still learned a lot, which naturally leaves us with a lot of questions, which are as follows: 1) This meeting has rekindled my interest in a question from RoW, that being what the deal is with transporting investiture and invested beings. We knew that Kalak cant world hop, and are told my Mraize (who might be lying) that radiants cant either because of their connection to the spren and roshar. Mraize also says his goal is to figure out how to transport investiture, seemingly to be able to get kelsier off of Scadrial. However, not only do we meet several highly invested ghostbloods from different worlds on other planets (twinsoul, maybe moonlight, and several Seons), but given kelsiers stated goals it seems like leaving Scadrial should be lowish on his list of priorities. 2) A big deal is made about how the ghostbloods are a brotherhood. They keep no secrets from each other, they do not have infighting, they trust each other. However this seems to be demonstrably false. Most obviously, on roshar Mraize actively encourages conflict between his underlings to vye for position, and several of them attempt to murder shallan during her early initiation. And while this could maybe be excused as something Kelsier is unaware of given his restriction to scadrial (though that seems far feched given the apparently fanatic subservience to him by nearly all members of the ghostbloods), kelsier himself is not following his own rules. He pointedly avoids the question Marasi asks him of whether he himself keeps secrets from his underlings. 2.5) Kelsier can no longer use Allomancy, for reasons that we can only speculate on. However, he seems to imply in his Seon call with marasi that he can use steel. Is he lying to her and his followers, or does he have a work around? 3) and finally, the biggest question to me, is why Sazed very clearly does not trust Kelsier. Sazed has, from the moment he took us Hamony and learned Kelsier was alive, obstructed kelsier, even if only by withholding information. He not only refused to, but lied about being able to return Kelsier to his body. He lied about the production of lerasium in the explosion in Wax's lab (As a note, sazed has clearly gotten better at lying to kelsier, probably through practice). He seems to have obstructed access through his perpendicularity, as the ghostbloods imply using it is difficult. He hides how dangerous the set and Autonomy are from Kelsier, despite an implication from Marsh that the three of them work together regularly. And, the very last line of their conversation in LM is a very strong implication that Sazed believes kelsier will one day be his enemy. Given Sazed has displayed a not inconsiderable ability to see the future, and holds the combination of two shards that could do the same, I find it hard to believe this was just an off handed comment. Not only that, but the potential conflict between the two is not because of a transformation into discord, but instead, "entirely up to [kelsier]." In summation, given the future sight, hiding his agenda, lying to his underlings, and inconsistent nature of the ghost bloods goals, it seems reasonable to assume that kelsier will be engaging in something notably beyond his usual level of morally questionable murder, very likely entering full on villain territory.

So basically the biggest thing that happens in Lost Metal is that if you do the right things, you can create basically a nuke by touching trellium to Ettemetal. My question is, why? Maybe this is just a thing that we have never seen before being revealed (since we have never seen the electrification of a godmetal before) but that doesnt seem right to me. This is especially true since even just the metals with no added experiments repel eachother. By contrast to that explosion, we have seen many types of investiture mix, or at least be near eachother, before and never seen anything like the effect this had. Voidlight and stormlight dont mix, but they also dont repel eachother, or even really react. We have seen loads of worldhoppers with more than a few different investitures in close proximity. The description we get of the explosion in Wax's lab sounds a lot like the explosion in RoW that happens in the lab where they mix voidlight and anti-voidlight. The two also repel each other in a way very similar to how trellium repels others invested metals. Trellium clearly has some properties that are eerily similar to what we have seen of anti-investuture, and while it seems unlikely that Trellium is anti-investiture, since autonomy is using it, the relationship is too present to just ignore. I would almost be willing to write the whole thing off as the electrification of ettemetal being the key here if it wasnt for the spikes repelling each other. I also want to just add to the end of this ramble that Autonomy as a whole seems to be working off a set of rules just the tiniest bit different from the other shards. After all, she seems to be leaving bits of herself everywhere, without being weakened, even though we know that shards are weakened by investing stuff. What's more, those avatars seem to be very nearly as powerful as a shard, without any drop in autonomy herself's power.

I dont have the books on me to check, but didnt she "create" some voidlight as well, and also she got anti-voidlight with huming

So in RoW, we see Navani learn A LOT about investiture, mainly how the rhythms work as maybe just another part of what makes up investiture. She also figures out that if she creates the right tones, that she can create investiture (create may not technically be correct, I suspect she is not adding to the net amount of investiture, just pulling it from probably the spiritual realm but for the purpose of this post I think that is a semantic difference). The obvious question that is brought up by this is "Can anyone do that?" Can anyone have a functionally unlimited source of investiture if they just figure out the right pitch to hum at and have the right intent? The only other option I can think of is that it is just a bondsmith ability. The only similar ability we have seen before is Dalinar with honor's perpendicularity. Also, Navani likely would have could have been showing powers as a proto-radiant at that point. However, Dalinar isn't really creating investiture like Navani is. As far as I can tell, all he is doing (not that it isnt impressive in its own right) is pulling a preexisting source of investiture to his location. By contrast, Navani is the source of it. If Dalinar is just summoning the perpendicularity, Navani is becoming one in a sense. Additionally, even if Navani was using proto-radiant powers, Dalinar needed to be of the third ideal to summon the perpendicularity, and I dont recall exactly, but I remember us getting quotes that even then the stormfather thinks it should not be possible. There is no way Navani would have that kind of power before the first ideal. So, in the next book, should we be seeing music classes become far more important? Are radiant with perfect pitch super strong? Are singer radiants like Venli and Rlain way stronger than the average human radiant as long as they have the right knowledge? Or do we think this is a Navani only ability?

Sure Vin snapped early, but she also didn't even know what Allomency was until Kelsier told her. She simply cannot have been providing the intent for her pewter burning because 1) Its unconscious, and 2) She does not even know she can do that. As for Radiants, it does not seem likely that the spren are giving intent since they are just as unaware of the powers they give as the person they bond to is. Syl didn't know what she was doing, or even that she was doing anything, or that it was strange that she was sentient, until after Kaladin started Surgebinding. I suppose its possible, since syl obviously did want Kaladin to survive, but we run into the same problem of not knowing that the powers are even possible. At that point, I just think it is more likely that the investiture is providing/shapping the intent. We already know Investiture "wants" stuff, and has some level of what seems like innate intent already.

I like this idea, but I feel like Intent by definition cant be instinctual. Also, characters talk about it in a way that seems like it has to be a choice made with at least some level of understanding, like how the Amians wont tell Rysn how to use the Dawnshard, or even what it does, because it requires intent so if she does not know what it does she cant use it.

The point about the Dor is actually true, but for Allomency, you explicitly DONT need to know you can burn metals. We see this with Vin, where sure she thinks she has "luck" but 1) she didnt just start using it one day, she must have been doing it, and then realized it, and 2) she is burning pewter completely unknowingly, her "luck" is only Zinc and Brass. Same thing with Surgebinding, for a while Kaladin has no idea that he can use stormlight, but is still doing it during Bridge Runs. It definitely becomes more useful to them once they realize what they are doing, since they can choose when to use it, but they are able to use investiture without knowing that they can.

iirc they were doing it to interrogate him, they knew that it would kill him. They wanted to get him because he was also trying to get off of Roshar, and I think its implied that he was close to doing it.