tmnsquirtle

The only way around this that I can think of is that, like copper, the compounding somehow creates more of the 'same' ability. So having one and having two of them are essentially equivalent; they don't stack, in video game terms. The advantage is that if you have two, you can continually store one of them, then bring out the other when the first starts to degrade due to overuse.

I suppose technically it would be the Awakener's. But to be fair we're talking about a fairly niche case here. In order for it to work the way I'm imagining, the Awakener would probably have to be of a pretty significant heightening. And I'm not even sure that you could drain green out of a mirror in the first place, since 1) it's a very faint color, which would probably mean that the 'amount' of color you can drain out of it is insignificant, and 2) I was being pedantic when I linked that video. The circumstances required to make this happen are so specific, and pointless, that I can easily see it never coming up.

Isn't Sanderson pretty adamant about how much perception matters in the cosmere? That's pretty much the whole basis of realmatic theory, after all: the way an object is perceived in the physical affects its cognitive representation and spiritual self. So while it's definitely possible that you're right about that, my money is on the possibility of color draining being impacted by perception in some way.

All the ferring would have to do to get their ability back would be to stop filling the metalmind, I believe My initial impression was to disagree with what you were thinking here, but since we know now that nicrosilminds work like copperminds, I'm not really sure what to think anymore. It seems really counterintuitive that you can fill a nicrosilmind completely with all your ability, then lose the ability to even tap that nicrosilmind to re-gain the power you just dumped into it. I do have to say, though, that you can still use compounding to surpass this effect. At risk of further derailing the thread, I definitely disagree with this. Why would the southerners worship allomancers if they had enough lerasium lying around to make a relatively common implement for their magic use?

In many cases, mirrors are actually very slightly green. That being said, because of how perception works in the cosmere, I highly doubt that the 'green' part of the metal would get taken out while awakening, since that's not the color that comes to mind when you think of a mirror!

Of course, this is assuming that the owner of the orphanage is naturally benign and generous. And if literature has taught me anything, it's that the owners of orphanages are naturally cruel and sadistic people. /s In all seriousness, I do like that idea. It would certainly reduce the overall cost of the shelter, and probably have some overall cultural effects. Hard to tell if those effects would be positive (caring for children is cheap, so we should support organizations that do it!) or negative (children come with several years of food built in, so we don't need to feel too bad about abandoning them!) though.

I suppose that kandra fall into the 'not human' category, which makes them an exception to the rule?

To be fair, Wax&Wayne hasn't yet touched on anything that big. The biggest thing they've got is a cultural first contact, which to be fair is pretty tame compared to the things that Kelsier has seen. Also, it's entirely possible that Kelsier doesn't have enough spikes to be controlled. We only know of a single spike, but I could have sworn that there was a thread somewhere that posited that four was the minimum number for control...

Trell is cast as a bad guy in current Scadrial novels. We know there was a group trying to destroy Adonalsium back in the day. Adonalsium must have been evil, since there was a group trying to destroy him. Trell is a bad guy. Adonalsium is a bad guy. Therefore they are the same entity. ... Has anyone ever seen them at a party together?

Like @Dryone_2 said, the bonds are different. Having a spren in your gemheart and bonding one aren't even in the same magic system, though since they both dramatically affect your spirit web, I'm curious to see how that will turn out as she progresses as a radiant...

I see. Yeah, I do agree, now that I actually understand what you were trying to say. Which unfortunately raises more questions than answers. He had to have known about it, right???

I think that what makes the most sense, assuming Nightblood does contain the investiture from two shards, is that there was some Ruin investiture hanging out on Nalthis for some reason and either his creation ate it, or he somehow came in contact with it pretty early on. The idea that one shard's magic system, which we know is already very well-defined because Brandon Sanderson, just happened to suck in some investiture from another shard without a ton of explanation seems pretty dubious to me.

Well, yeah. The question was pretty poorly phrased IMO. I do personally think that it is either a large-ish splinter of a shard (like the stormfather) or something of an 'organization' of smaller splinters. In the latter case it would probably take the form of an council of cognitive entities, like we see with spren in the CR, but evil.

I'd also argue that a lot of trust was placed in humans. Probably too much. Pretty much everything hinged on Preservation's champion (Vin) ascending to preservation's power, then using it to destroy ruin, and finally a single individual coming along and picking up both shards at once. It's easy to see how any of that could go badly: Vin might not have had the balls to do it, she could have died at some point, literally anyone else could have been chosen, etc. Even having sazed come out with any other individual and let them pick up one of the shards could have foiled the original plan.

I have to disagree with this. While some high level inquisitors and obligators probably knew (roughly) how TLR was doing everything he was doing, I sincerely doubt that they knew about compounding. Letting knowledge of that out would be a major strike against his 'godhood.' Also, I have to point out: he created this image of himself as a being of unnatural power. Unfamiliar metals would probably be attributed to that, especially if we assume that he kept compounding a secret. I would be willing to bet real money that there will be a point in time where Sanderson answers questions like this without any hints of a RAFO, just because of how far the series has progressed. Maybe we'll get to run a bunch of questions by him in his nursing home some day.

That's a good point. One of the strengths of Oathbringer was that it really made me realize that the conflict was real. There's a desolation going on, and Dalinar has to play the political game in order to succeed. Szeth is a good fighter, and potentially a valuable source of information on the radiant front, but.... it turns out he is also a huge monkey wrench politically.

Have we seen rockspren? Like, the classic element. I think that usually whenever Sanderson describes the ground he uses cremlings instead of spren.

Well, The Evil isn't a shard, so it's maybe a bit more complex than that. I also found this wob: So I suppose it's possible that The Evil is a splinter, in which case it would probably act like a shard when it comes to co-opting investiture. But honestly.... we know so little about threnody that it's going to be hard to really make a good judgement about what's going on.

You misunderstand. Those two examples were meant to be a metaphor: a resolution is a promise to oneself, which would be Honor's purview, while a marriage license is an agreement between two parties, which would not. Though you could probably argue that a promise between two parties is kind of like a promise to oneself, just with two people... but that's an argument that falls outside the scope of this comparison.

Here's hoping he gets around to answering those questions in Nightblood! (And gets around to writing it soon! )

To add to what @Scion of the Mists said, this is actually completely untrue, at least the first part, due to a previously quoted WoB: Agreement implies some form of consent between two parties. What Sanderson is saying here is that Honor's game is closer to, say, a 'New Year's Resolution' style of agreement than a 'Divorce Paperwork' kind of agreement, if that makes sense. For what it's worth, I do think that you have a good thing going by quoting philosophy, since a lot of what Sanderson does is bring interesting concepts and ideas from our world and twist them in neat ways in the cosmere. But the philisophical arguments that you bring to bear don't really seem to be quite as relevant as the data that we actually have.

@Argent Thank you so much! Edit: I just checked back on the website and it looks like the captcha works again. I would bet that it was a problem with the captcha software and not their website. Either way, thanks again.

Hello! I've been trying for the past hour to sign up to the Sanderson newsletter via the website, on all the official channels, but the captcha stubbornly refuses to work on every browser I've tried (the newest versions of chrome, firefox, and edge, in addition to those three on mobile) so I figured I'd come here and make a post about it at the very least. If anyone knows of another way to get on the newsletter, specifically for notifications on signings near me, I'd really appreciate it. Otherwise I suppose I'll just try again tomorrow and hope it's temporary.

It's also possible that Frost has recently gained another 'level' of immortality, moving him from the 'unaging but can be killed' category to the 'unaging can't be killed' category. Sanderson has spent enough time clarifying what he means about immortality that it wouldn't be too far of a stretch to suppose that his characters might be vague about it as well.

I could see this going either way. Would the king donate his shardblade to the treasury in times of peace to help them cut gems more precisely? Probably. Would it be a practical way to cut gemstones? Ehhh.... From my experience in manufacturing (wood only, so take this with a grain of salt) that kind of tool would be fairly easy to use. Imagine chopping vegetables with the sharpest knife you've ever used and make it even sharper. The shape is the only prohibiting factor, and if you're smart you might be able to mitigate that with a housing not unlike a chop saw and some vice grips for the gems. But on the other hand, it's a silly use for a blade and probably not financially viable. And also not as elegant as conventional tools. So I'm a bit torn.