Douglas

It's not a matter of Wax refusing to stop her, but of Wax being distracted and less strongly resolved, reducing his effective level of competence. And what if she was beyond talking out of it? If Wax knew her identity from the beginning, he might have planned to talk her out of it and focused on that enough to neglect or even outright refuse devising alternative solutions. Wax warned in advance could well mean Wax with no Hemalurgy bullet, because he might not have accepted in advance that such a measure could be necessary.

I'm a bit surprised no one has mentioned this yet: David is different from other Epics in that he was selected to be made an Epic for reasons entirely different from every other Epic in the world. Most Epics were selected by Calamity acting on his own, and it seems likely to me that he intentionally sought out people who had especially strong fears. Thus, typical Epic fears are really really traumatic things because if they weren't so strong Calamity wouldn't have picked them and they wouldn't be Epics. David, on the other hand, was selected by Regalia because of who he was and his position in the Reckoners, with no regard whatsoever for what he might fear or how much. Calamity had to work with the fears David had, however severe and traumatic - or not - they were. Thus, David's fear being a relatively minor thing is not surprising and does not strike me as a red herring. He's a normal person with normal person fears, Calamity tried to stretch that into making him an Epic on Regalia's request, and the normality of his fear made it easier for him to face it and refuse.

No, southeast works fine if northeast and southwest were what they went for first. It's Central Park that doesn't help, but that was more an incidental than a deliberate attempt to get data.

The key elements are that: a) only the most distant data points in any given direction matter you need distant data points in different directions, the more different the better c) if the suspected zone is long and narrow, you need distant points along the long axis most d) a data point in one direction is usually about as good as a data point in the opposite direction, but having both is much better If the initial suspected zone is "the island of Manhattan", that's pretty long in the northeast/southwest direction. Data points at the tips will be most helpful. If done at the upper extreme of the believed range, a pair of northeast/southwest data points would result in a strip about as long as the island is narrow, and proportionately narrow. Essentially, take Manhattan, rotate it 90 degrees, and shrink it so it fits inside the pre-rotated Manhattan, and that's a decent approximation of the suspect zone you'd get from a good pair of opposite-tips-of-the-island Regalia appearances. Once that's done, narrowing the suspect zone further requires data points in different directions from what you've already got. Something fully perpendicular would be best. Supposing that this is how the Reckoners went about it, wanting a southeast data point as the finishing touch actually makes pretty good sense. If they already got a northwest Regalia appearance to chop the smaller suspect zone in half, a southwest appearance at the right distance would do the most to shrink the zone without relying on how precisely you know her range. However, the northwest and southeast appearances would have to be well away from Manhattan itself to be meaningful because of how much larger her range is than the island's width in that direction. Also, any appearance in Central Park is practically useless data because it's too close to the suspect zone's center.

I would guess that attractive women are actually not his weakness, at least not in the sense usually meant when discussing Epics. As I recall his power doesn't directly protect him, but rather gives him the information he needs to protect himself. Close company with an attractive woman may just be one example of a sufficiently strong distraction, causing him to pay less attention to his power-provided information rather than actually negating the power itself.

*Cough*

Provided Brandon and Tor agree. Earlier today there was a panel at JordanCon about art in the Stormlight Archive. Michael Whelan was one of the panelists. At the end of the panel, I mentioned him being announced for Words of Radiance and asked if he planned to make the cover art for the entire Stormlight Archive. He answered, if I remember the exact words correctly, "I'm on board for that." I would be quite surprised to see either Brandon or Tor object to this idea, so heres to nine more fantastic covers.

There are two major things Rand did that really mattered for the Last Battle. One of them was, yes, preparing the rest of the world to fight. The other, which I would say is about equal in importance, is sealing the Bore. In that, Rand's success may have been aided by the continuing resistance of everyone else, but the actual act of doing it was done by Rand himself. As for the True Power, one of Lews Therin's lines from before Veins of Gold revealed that the most important problem with the way he sealed the Bore was that it required touching the Dark One directly with the One Power - with the heavy implication that doing so is what made it possible for the DO to taint Saidin. This time, all the One Power used was protected by a sheath of the True Power, so the only thing the DO could reach during the sealing to be able to try to taint was his own power. This was made possible by the combination of Callandor's unique abilities and flaws with Moridin, which is why Callandor was so specifically singled out in the Prophecies despite there being other sa'angreals of equal or greater power. Not quite. There are two ways to interpret Pevara's reply. 1) No, he cannot hear what we say. 2) No, your assumption that he can't hear us is incorrect. It's a bit of a stretch to think option 2 is what she really meant, but it is a technically valid interpretation and exactly the sort of word-twisting that Aes Sedai have been using for millennia.

RAFO You are on the right track Sounds to me like Atium and maybe some of its alloys are going to show up in the modern Mistborn trilogy, right along with a character who can use them all. Given that they'll likely have a monopoly on the metal and only the one guy who can use it, I'd guess he'll also be a lot more profligate in its use than anyone in the original trilogy. Plus, they could have much more reason to experiment with alloys of Atium because they'd have enough that losing quantities of the base metal to the experiments wouldn't be a big deal.

When Kelsier destroys the Pits of Hathsin in Final Empire, it is mentioned that they'll take something like 300 years to start producing Atium again. Do the Pits of Hathsin still exist in any form after Sazed reshaped the world, and is that timeline for them still valid? In Alloy of Law, evidence is uncovered that the bad guys are attempting to breed a Mistborn. The time span of the gap between this and the original Mistborn trilogy, perhaps with the interval I vaguely remember being stated for between Alloy and the next main trilogy added, is suspiciously close to 300 years. Does the organization Wax's father is part of know the location of the Pits of Hathsin, or otherwise have access to Atium, either now (as of Alloy) or in the time period of the planned second trilogy? And now some magic mechanics questions: 1) What benefit does compounding copper get? Exceptionally clear and detailed memories? Memories that can be split into a new coppermind while still remaining in the feruchemists mind? Something else? 2) How does Feruchemical luck work? If a chromium compounder tried his hand at day trading on the stock market, what would happen? Would it make him choose stocks that were coincidentally going to go up anyway? Would it change stock prices by altering the world around him? Would it fail because the required scale of action is too large? Something else? 3) This might have been specified in the books, I don't remember, but does Duralumin expend itself as well as the metal it's used with? If it does, I've got this theory that its effect is actually just to cause a regular flare, not a superflare, but it affects itself in a feedback loop that keeps forcing the flare higher until it runs out. And some silly: 1) What benefit does an aluminum savant get? Yes, I know this would normally never happen because aluminum burns itself up. Suppose a mad scientist with a willing Mistborn test subject shoved a feeding tube down the Mistborn's throat to pump in a continuous stream of aluminum, replenishing it steadily so there's always a new unburned supply. Add another tube to pump out excess water if necessary. What would he discover? Alternatively, what would Sazed with his Shard-granted knowledge know? 2) What about a Lerasium savant? Or would that require so much Lerasium that the person attempting it would ascend to become a new Shardholder?