AbsentKeeper

I actually looked back, and I thought it had been addressed it more than it actually had been, it was barely mentioned. I agree with what you're saying here, I was just trying to express how I think (capital) Identity works and not doing a very good job. The problem with the words is that I think (lowercase) identity has a much broader use than the very specific way that it applies to realmatics. Same with 'cognitive' Edit: for reference, I subscribe to @The One Who Connects ideas about identity for the most part, which he so kindly linked just above.

If that is indeed what he meant, then most of my last post is pointless. However, before that, I had already clarified that the word 'cognitive' was just a slip on my part, and that I meant the real life usage (dealing with the mind and memory), not in refrence to the Realmatic Realm. With that understanding, I still dont understand what @Yata was trying to say. Edit: if its just more semantics problems, you can just ignore this. We've already established that I have a tendency to cause all kinds of confusion by picking the wrong word, all because I like to sound eloquent.

I'll have to disagree with you here. From what we know so far, Identity is definitely the thing that determines whether you can access a metalmind or not (if you already have that ability). If you don't think a Feurchemist needs to store his Identity to create unkeyed metalminds, how do you think its done? On the second point, you're right, just 'mind' probably would have been a better word. I hope for everyone's sake that Brandon doesn't ever decide to use terms as confusing as mine

Oversleep actually already pointed this out. It was just a case of me using the wrong words again. I was using Realmatic terms when I really meant the normal everyday definitions of them. By 'cognitive identity', for example, I meant 'the part of your spiritweb that holds things like language'. The stuff that people would consider part of your identity in real life. Just another reason I need to proofread more of this stuff before I post. We talked about this when everyone went on the nicrosil tangent though

I completely understand what you're saying, and I even agree that you're probably right. I just think that bindpoints as the focus also possibly fits with the information that we currently have. You could just have easily said: "In Allomancy the metal determines the power, but with steel, you choose what you push on, and when and how hard. With Feruchemy, steel determines the power, but you choose if your storing or tapping and at what rate. With Hemalurgy, the bindpoint determines the effect, but you chose how to modify that point." As far as the focus determining the type of investiture, I've already talked about why I don't think Hemalurgy fits that very well as we understand it (although I do like The One Who Connects' explanation for this better than any other so far) and I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point until we get more info. As for the focus being an application of how its used, isn't that exactly how Awakening works? The focus of Awakening is Commands, so each command should be its own 'type' (Sub-focus?) with a specific application.

Because it's causing a different effect? We don't really have any proof either way for whether creating different Hemalurgic constructs depends on the bindpoints, or just the metal and number of spikes (comparing the things in BoM versus Koloss since they both started out human, as opposed to Kandra) However, I don't think that Hemalurgy was ever intended to benefit anyone (as you've said before) so all of those "unintended negative effects" would just be different things that Hemalurgy does to warp the spiritweb. It's just that no one would want to use most of them, unless they've figured out some way to gain an 'unintended' positive effect from it. Edit: that second 'unintended' meaning unintended by Ruin, not the user. Edit again: On the topic of reusing spikes, we know that its possible because the Koloss reuse theirs all the way up to the Wax and Wayne era, possibly making them 'more human' over time, per the AoL annotations (I think, it might have been the HoA annotations, I'll look for it tomorrow if anyone wants.)

@The One Who Connects I'm just going to tag you here, so I don't have to quote the whole post 17 times. I agree with everything you said here, I was only dismissing Sel as evidence that there can only be one possible focus per planet, since it's Shards are splintered and mingled. This is probably the best explanation I've heard for this yet, but it still doesn't explain why pewter spikes are compatible with eight types of Investiture, while the others are only four each (as far as we know.) I know that you can say that it's because they're both physical quadrants, but its still twice the capacity of anything else we've seen. That still bothers me, but I might not be satified on that point until we get a canon answer. I understand how this type of thing could be frustrating, but do I think that there are a couple things that are generally accepted by the community that probably have Brandon snickering behind his hand. As for the 'focus' issue in particular, I'm sure its been beaten into the ground, but if we still don't know, then we still don't know. Like I said before, people had a ton of good reasons to think the Sun orbited the Earth for a really really long time. I did read this, and I don't see how it goes against anything I think. The bit that you quoted was a very short version, admittedly. We talked about this a good bit in the next couple pages though (see talking about storing stuff from the spiritweb) As for this point (I know I pulled it out of order, forgive me), I think you just misunderstood what I meant by 'type', probably my fault, I couldn't think of another word. What I meant in my head is whatever the next classification down from a system's focus is. Like, if Allomancy's focus is metals, steel is one 'type' of that focus. Likewise, if Forms are the focus for The Dor, then Aon Rao is one 'type' of that focus. The original argument (which I stated a few times that I'm very skeptical of now) being that Hemalurgy uses bindpoints as its focus, with the metals acting as modifiers do for Aons, determining which power is stolen (I think Calderis summed up my thoughts on the heart bindpoint thing pretty well) or what effect the particular investiture has on your spiritweb when you're spiked. For example, as Calderis said: You could fill a spike with human strength and do hundreds of different things with it, or you could fill that spike with one of three (seven?) other things and do nearly anything with it. Bindpoints however (not for certain, just as far as we've seen) have a one to one correlation with the Hemalurgic effect. Kandra spikes, for instance, are placed in the shoulders no matter what metal they are, or what bonus they give, because the 'blessing' is a modifier, with the real effect being sapience. Finally, on the point of Hemalurgy not being a metallic art: Like I said, it wouldn't be completely inconceivable for Brandon to refer to it that way because that's the in world knowlege, but I already agreed that I don't think he'd be that sneaky. Thanks for finally joining in . I was kinda surprised when you didn't show up earlier in this thread. Let me know if I missed any points, I tried to leave out the ones that other people got to while I was typing.

Those specific ones are chapter citations, and thus they are fine. You do have to double check stuff from the coppermind sometimes, as it tends to have stuff from the MAG, WoBs quoted that aren't very definitive, and other questionable claims at times. The coppermind is wonderful, it does have it's issues though. It was the source of my brass-duralumin mixup not too long ago in the GenCon thread, because they have the table listed with the metals as they appear in the MAG, for example. @FiveLate I wouldn't stop using it as a source, but I would suggest checking the refrences. Most of the info there is good though.

I, for one, am very optimistic about the movies! Brandon said in an interview (which I now can't find...) that they had read the entire canon of the Cosmere before they approached him to talk about a deal, and that makes me very hopeful for the films. I'm not sure about the choice to start with WoK, for the same reasons that others have stated, but it does include quite a few very impressive visual elements to play with on screen, and it's a good indicator of the Cosmere at large. Everything; from the spren, to the chasmfiends, to the Highstorm and the landscape itself are perfect fodder for today's beautiful CG, and the plot lends itself to a more epic movie adapation. Mistborn, however, is very dark by comparison, it doesn't include very much 'visible' magic, and would probably come out more like a fantasy action movie on screen. Honestly, I would have gone with Warbreaker first, it seems like a good middle ground. The screenwriters for the WoK adaptation are the ones who worked on 'Saw', which I don't see as a bad thing at all. The actual plot of the movies may not have been that strong, but they have Brandon's words to work with this time, and they did quite well with visual devices and obscure forshadowing in Saw, which I think will be helpful for WoK. Of course they won't be exactly the same as the books, but as long as they don't make the common book-to-movie mistake of leaving out the wrong things for time reasons, I'm very hopeful that we'll at least have a good place to shove our friends into the shardpool, if not a stellar motion picture. My only real concern? Who in the Storms is gonna play Hoid?!?

A lot of people didn't like the second two Mistborn Era 1 books as much as the rest, but I loved them, personally. As for novellas, you could read the 11th Metal any time after where you are, but I would wait for the other two until after you finish Era 2.

There is definitely more that we haven't seen much of yet. In one of the first visons that Dalinar has in WoK he fights against something called the Midnight Essence, and one of the radiants that saves the whole town from being slaughtered by them refers to them as one of the Ten Deaths. Presumably, there are seven other creatures just as destructive as Thunderclasts, Essence, and the Voidbringer Parshendi. Edit: Its also possible the Parshendi don't even count in that number, so maybe eight more?

Only if we were to give it eye spikes for steelsight. That is Marsh's signature look, after all.

I think it's worth noting that 'vibrant' doesn't always refer to color or vibrations, it can also be used to mean 'exciting' or 'full of energy and life' If we look at those definitions, it makes a lot of sense that 'vibrancy' would attract spren, whether it be to humans or to Parshendi.

I have really enjoyed the Lightbringer series (so far, the last book isn't out yet) and Brent Week's other series, Night Angel. They kind of have the same feeling as the Cosmere, story wise, just maybe not quite as deep. The hard magic system in Lightbringer is also very 'Cosmereish' to me. I would also recommend all the books by Jim Butcher, although the first couple Dresden Files are a little sloppy compared to his later stuff, they're still excellent, and they hit more on the worldbuilding side of what I love about the Brandon (in a more traditional magic setting).

if you're still interested in getting White Sand, its available in the newsletter that you can sign up for on Brandon's site. It may not be relevant for theorizing, but I just finished it, and it's actually one of my favorite cosmere stories now. Edit: Realized a few minutes after I posted this that you already know this... Oops? Might point someone else the right was I guess.

Only the Returned naturally have a large amount of breath, though 'normal' people on Nalthis are more invested than the average human. A drab is significantly less than the average person though, and the people on Roshar are naturally healthier because they are somewhat invested by the highstorm, making them more invested than average as well, so I do not think this is it. Have an upvote anyway though, because it was a good thought.

I posted that one, we started talking about nicrosil instead though. This thread has been going all over the place, I wouldn't worry about it. I half think Calderis should rename this thread "Deep Realmatic Crazy Speculation" Edit: You actually did.... Edit again: This is the WoB in question: Emphasis mine. This is actually one of the things that started to lead me toward the idea that Hemalurgy had a different focus in the first place. I only wish that it was verbatim, rather than secondhand.

You are correct. This WoB seems to suggest that there were plenty of Atium mistings in the Final Empire. I also just like this one, because it gives so much more information than most.

I agree, I just think that it would be so incredibly complex that they'd never be able to use thier powers instinctively the same way that someone using conventional metalminds (let alone an Allomancer) could. I think that a very skilled nicrosil ferring might figure out, at most, a couple applications well enough to actually use them safely. The complexity alone though should prevent anyone from ever becoming too overpowered in practice. All that is without considering twinborn though, let alone *gulp* a nicrosil compounder. Now I have this crazy thought in my head about a Nicrosil University on future Scadrial, where they have whole courses of study dedicated to teaching people to use specific applications of nicrosil Feurchemy without killing themselves.

This is pretty much what I was thinking, I really need to start proofreading and making sure I got everything I wanted to say before I post it, instead of editing nearly every post with more thoughts afterward. I agree that there are a few things that probably aren't spiritual in source, like weight, and the point about constantly warping yourself is very valid. I was thinking more of the direct consequences though. For instance, normally when you tap speed, your reaction time increases as well, so it seems likely that your reaction time also decreases when you are storing in steel. Reaction time isn't a direct effect of the speed your muscles move though, so I wonder if storing human speed in nicrosil would allow you to tap physical speed without that slight touch of mental speed that it normally has (to disastrous consequence) This would essentially put a cap on what a nicrosil ferring is capable of, since it would be a lot less intuitive to draw out a mix of 95% physical speed and 5% mental speed from your nicrosilmind than it is to just tap steel. Alternatively, they probably can't store mutiple things in a single metalmind and choose which to pull out(like a coppermind). It would instead be more like a tin ferring, where each subtype requires a sperate metalmind. I'll admit that I like the idea of nicrosil ferrings returning the old Terris style of being covered in different pieces of jewelry, though thiers would be all nicrosil.

Hmm... That's very interesting. I don't think I've seen that WoB before, but I guess in that case it would come down to what the actual difference is between 'human strength' and whatever it is you store in pewter. If they are the same thing... I don't like it at all, because, as I said before, that basically makes a nicrosil Ferring a full Feruchemist. Edit: Perhaps they just don't have safeguards either way? They might tap too much, as well as store too much, because they are storing something more specific?

If we've run out the 'Stormfather' discussion, do you have any thoughts on what Oversleep and I were talking about? Storing human attributes with nicrosil? I'm curious to see if the potential dangers of pulling investiture directly from your soul vs storing the excess from your physical body makes sense to anyone else. Unfortunately, I think most Realmatic discussion hits this point eventually if you go deep enough. All that means is that we need more starvin' Cosmere books! Edit: Another possible discussion inspired by @Yata's post. What do you guys think of the WoBs that suggest that a Shardblade could be used as a Hemalurgic spike, if it weren't full, when all the evidence seems to say that the same is not true for Allomancy and Feruchemy. Emphasis mine. This is actually one of the things that started to lead me toward the idea that Hemalurgy had a differenf focus in the first place.

I don't disagree with anything you're saying, I just think that the rules (caused by the Investiture interacting with the planet, like you say) would affect the Stormfather as well, from the point that he started residing on Roshar in the first place onward. I think we are gonna have to wait and see what information we get about what the Stormfather is actually capable of though. I'm just speculating based on what makes sense to me.

I don't necessarily think that he is bound by all the rules of Surgebinding (to name a system), I think that the rules that bind Surgebinders probably stem from the ones that already bound him. It's logical to me that the causation goes the other way, because, as you said, he predates any other use of stormlight. Edit: What this means to me is that the Stormfather should be the example of the most basic rules for all magics on Roshar, not that he is outside of them. Edit again: Except maybe the old magic, if it's all Cultivation.

I dont disagree with this, I just don't see why that means that he's outside the rules? All he's doing is dumping Investiture into the physical realm, just like he's been doing since before Tanavast's Shadow merged with him, and like he was doing before Honor's Investiture ever touched him.