Morsk

It could be allegory rather than actual self-awareness. I'm uncomfortable with it though. "Hoid started out as a fictional character, then became real," seems mutually exclusive with "Hoid knows he's in a work of fiction," and I really like the former. Unless this is Inception and it's turtles all the way down, but I don't think I like that either, heh.

This theory was my attempt to salvage a hunch I had when reading the Liar of Partinel sample: that Midius was one of (the original) Hoid's illusions, and that Hoid faked his death. Since Hoid is an illusionist, him dying at the start of the book was "proof" he didn't die, on thematic grounds. Or so I'd like, except for the obvious, obvious problem that illusions are incorporeal. Instead, say the original Hoid forged his soul, convincing it he's actually a young apprentice Lightweaver, not the old master. This could have taken years, with Hoid maintaining the illusion of Midius so long that it took on a life of its own. Eventually there's no (original) Hoid left, only Midius, and Midius is using Hoid's body, which has become younger and changed. Midius experiences this as Hoid dying; Hoid would have experienced it as fading away. I don't think Hoid used Sel's Forgery, or a pre-Shattering equivalent. Forgery rewrites the past, and there's no plausible way to rewrite the past to make yourself younger. So Hoid used something else. Maybe Lightweaving alone is enough to do it; maybe it took a bit of something else. But the realmatics came out the same. Hoid convinced his soul he was someone else, and he became that person. Now for the interpretation of some quotes under this theory... This has a dual meaning. Midius didn't realize everything Hoid was doing for him (to create him) until later, and missed his chance to love him as something like a father. But also, Midius may morbidly wish that he'd loved himself a bit more as Hoid and never changed at all. He may feel guilty that he exists instead of Hoid. Thanks to TES, we know a way this can happen in the cosmere. The Emperor's replacement soul did start out as words on a page. But Hoid says he "stole himself", which is a bit more than just being born oddly. Maybe orignal Hoid only created the illusion as a companion to pass boredom, or as a lesson for another apprentice, not intending on going all the way to becoming it. But over time the illusion just became more compelling, and Hoid decided he preferred the fiction to the truth. In effect, the illusion stole control of itself from its maker. Alternately, maybe this is normal for Lightweavers. As they get older, they create more fictional apprentices until they find one they're happy with, then work on the slow process of becoming that new person. This would explain some of their eccentric reputation, and why they stick to storytelling instead of finding mundane ways to make money off Lightweaving: if they're born from fiction, they'd come to consider fiction a sacred calling. Also, learning to be better storytellers is really learning to be a better person in their next life, so of course it interests them. I'm being sneaky here, and guessing wildly, but isn't that an awfully intricate realmatic explanation to get into for just this novella? I think Brandon already had the realmatics worked out, and why work it out except to use it? If what's true for the Emperor is true for Hoid, this is telling us casting Dispel Magic (or the local equivalent) on Hoid won't turn him into a vegetable, a corpse, or his old identity. After a few years as Hoid, the identity is stable and no longer requires magic to maintain. And this may be a difference between magic systems. Forgery changes the soul suddenly, but requires daily stamping for years (at least) afterwards. If Lightweavers gradually feed more identity into an apprentice over the course of years, that may suffice for the "waiting period".

I think of the Shard intents as aspects of the creative process, and it's important none of them be too close to just "creation" otherwise they'd be Adonalsium not a Shard. So I see Cultivation as very limited: "I like this one thing. I'm going to focus on this one thing, and make it grow." If we give Cultivation any more than that, it stops feeling like a flawed and isolated aspect of creation to me. Cultivation should have trouble creating things from nothing, or changing things into something completely different.

Definately one of my favorites. The first thing I did after reading it was read it a second time.

Maybe Odium can disrupt the balance between the two Shards, attack in a way that makes Sazed use Ruin exclusively to counter him, and not Preservation, or something like that. If Sazed used the power in a one-sided way, the whole thing might blow up on him.

If it's a magical effect making the audience hear it without accent, what happens when the voice doesn't sync up with lip movements? Accents involve rhythm as much as they do pronunciation. Does everyone get hallucinated lip movements and body language too, to go along with unaccented speach? If Heralds can force individually-tailored hallucinations on an entire audience, isn't that an awesome combat power? I figure they're super-talented at learning languages, like one of the characters in Mythwalker / Warbreaker Prime. I don't know if Brandon had come up with Realmatics at that point; if he had, there isn't any explanation in Mythwalker about how it works. But the power was to learn real, mundane skills super-quickly and super-well. I like that kind of explanation for the Herlads' language skills, because it can't be abused as a combat power.

Szeth hates himself, hates his masters, and still serves dutifully. He's practically custom-built to be an Odium champion, enough that I wonder if Odium corrupted the Shin religion. What human could come up with a punishment as nasty as Truthless? I know some people believe Cain was punished similarly by God, although more as a folktale than as a doctrine. (I'm clueless as to which religions it's most popular in; I only encounter it when an author uses it in fiction.) Brandon is probably drawing on that as a mythological parallel. But even then, no human punished Cain that way; it was a divine punishment for the first murder. I can't see human Shin ever coming up with something so horrible either, but a divine entity that's only Odium and nothing else -- that sure could. And since we know Odium is selfish and a schemer, he'd need a motive. Grooming Shin culture to produce a perfect champion could be the motive.

Oh, this looks fun!

Most of them are just a little too young for me. I find Steris' "badness with people" charming and a little cute. A little problem is she's already in love with a man who can fly. If I could just convince her to use her family's money to open the first fast food restaurant on Scadrial, and laugh all the way to the bank, she'd know I'm the right guy for her. "See, we don't need to be good with people. We just need to add fat and sugar and put bright colors on it, and they'll buy anything!" We'd be so happy together. edit: I was reaching a lot to come up with anything, which is why it comes out a bit silly. There aren't a lot of choices. I do think Steris would be happier finding a way to appreciate herself and find a sense of humor that fits herself, rather than apologizing for being bad with people.

Didn't he add the Tears later, in response to beta readers? At first they were just described in exposition about their place in trade, and readers asked why they never appeared or something, so he added in an appearance? I unfortunately can't find the reference on that and googling things like "brandon tears of edgli appearance feedback" gives me mostly nonsense.

Oh... sleeves! See, I'm so oblivious to clothing that I could only imagine a man's button-down shirt, with one sleeve that was too long past the hand. It was ridiculous! I knew it couldn't be right, but nothing better came to mind. Thanks for sharing the nice picture. Fan art really helps when my imagination just can't come up with anything.

I also can't wait to see this. I have some of the dumbest ideas in my head about what the sleeve looks like. At first I pictured it as just a long shirt sleeve that went out too long and was folded shut.

I've thought he was a construct ever since I read TES, even wrote up a theory about it. But I was too lazy to find some of the quotes so it's been sitting on my desktop in a text file called hoid.txt... since Nov 1 2012 apparently. Wow I'm good at procrastinating. But you've inspired me! I'll try to post it today.

What if spren are made of Stormlight? They can be trapped in gems to make fabrials, so it's a definite possibility. And Stormlight seems to be the fuel on Roshar. If we find out in WoR that spren are made of it, that would be a big point in favor of this theory.

There's an old TWG thread where someone says Nohaden is inspired partly by King Benjamin. I don't know enough about LDS to understand the reference, but it might be interesting to you. (The rest of that old thread wasn't so great. I kind of don't like the overly "omg it's all Mormon allegory" thing that pops up every few months. But looking for little specific parallels is interesting to me, especially since I'd never recognize them on my own.)

I love how you actually calculated the words/dollar value.

I'm so happy I guessed this one although it was one of the simpler things to guess at. Maybe it'll inspire me to guess weirder things... I wonder what effect it has on cities vs. countryside? Are cities in Shadesmar just huge? Or maybe only a little bit bigger, because all life has cognative presence, not just human life.

I like the General Brandon Discussion ... whoa. I was just trying to cut and paste the phrase into my sentence, and it came out like that... Anyway! I like it as first before Cosmere Theories, might get more general character-based discussions going and stuff. edit: Editor is a bit odd. When I pasted "General Brandon Discussion" in here it came out HUGE. Then when I posted it was just normal words again.

I could live with Taravangian's boon/curse as a megalomaniac schemer, but it would make social life really unfun. As a schemer, waking up stupid is like "You have the day off, go watch TV. You can take over the world tomorrow." But socially, he must have no friends or hobbies. I guess as royalty he can pass the time walking around and waving at people... edit: Actually it's kind of like involuntary Feruchemy.

I'm not a fan of these chalkings. Also, at first I thought that was a 30-year-old woman's face, not a teenage boy's face. I like the colors though.

I think it's legit, just going on writing style and quality. It's a professional advertisement by someone with years of experience. The only thing I saw as "new" to us is "restored Knights Radiant". Still, the reviewer could be taking liberties. It says Kaladin was a KR by the end of Book 1, and that's not quite true. "Restored Knights Radiant" could also be slightly misleading. Also, notice no mention of Szeth's assassination attempt? I wonder if it'll happen before these main events, or after, or during.

But gems can hold Stormlight for several days, and still give off light. So I think even "perfect" holding doesn't preclude glowing. Also Szeth said that about Voidbringers with bodies of stone. It's a big mystery how that relates to Parshendi.

Yes, and I think Jasnah exemplifies Just/Confident when she kills the men in the alley, and by being confident in her atheism while still being fair (just) to theists and not thinking they're all stupid. I don't like Learned/Giving for Jasnah. It's too gentle for her.

There's long been difficulty over how to reconcile Jasnah as #2 and Shallan as #6; one or the other has to budge, so they can be next to each other and share Soulcasting. I see the (old, proposed) book title of Lightweaver as a small evidence that Shallan budges and Jasnah keeps her #2. Of course it's very difficult either way, since they fit #2 and #6 so well. My case for Shallan as Brave/Obedient is that her creativity is a personal gift, not a moral virtue, so it's a red herring. She creates pretty pictures, not solutions to people's problems. Bravery is the main virtue she exemplifies in the story, and obedience is what she struggles with and learns to accept. (Oh! Also, "Shallan's first apprenticeship" which someone else mentioned. This character is going through multiple apprenticeships. Obedience is a major theme!) Some lesser, suggestive arguments are that Creative/Honest is the best fit for Navani as an inventor, and that makes it "taken" for major characters and Shallan won't get it. And I actually think Shallan / Shash and the red hair / Blood / garnet thing are arguments against #6, because it makes her such a stereotype that Brandon would've renamed her or changed her hair color to tone it down. Less sure about the last part, because Brandon liked stereotypical names in Elantris, and didn't mind making some of the Mistings stereotypes in Mistborn.

Yeah this is the other thread, Shardic Future Sight. It's one of my favorite theories. It's in the Cosmere forum though so it has spoilers for all Brandon's books.