Master Knapper

I believe he's dead, if for no other reason than Brandon has said he wants to avoid overuse reincarnation/fake deaths. Suit is a decent villain, but not significant enough to be worth reincarnation, especially with sequence still out there.

I don't know about the characterization and pacing issues, I trust Brandon more than myself to try to fix them. My thoughts are around how you can keep the majority of the story intact as cannon, with so much of the larger picture canibalized for other books. Assumptions: - Former is a Shard, short for Formation (borrowed/superseded by Preservation &/or Cultivation) - Decay is another Shard (borrowed to become Ruin) I like the idea of splinters of a shard being treated like sons by the shard, and the intent of the splinters being perpendicular, if not in outright conflict, with the intent of the shard (Formation vs Slaughter and Dispair). In my opinion, Formation is no longer available. Looking at Rider of Storms’ Theory in the cosmere theories board, I am thinking if Formation is replaced with “Justice”, you could have the same Fell Twins that the shard created and then lost control of. The splinters are battleing each other, and the people are forced to be the game pieces/ scorecards in the battle between them. I don’t know if you need another shard trying to manipulate the twins. If needed for the story, if could be Autonomy (Trell) or one of the unknown shards. I think Odium would be more direct. If there is a Chaos shard, it would be a good candidate.

Not sure how this would happen. Outside of murder, healing someone, or consuming their god breath, how can a returned die? The first has to be pretty rare, and the second and third would leave them without a breath.

No message, actually. No Marshmallows works as well.

I think Yata is correct, and that the emperor's soul went to the great beyond. At the beginning of the story, the emperor is essentially a Lifeless. A soulless corpse, animated by investiture. The wonder of what Shai did was to create a new soul; one that matched the old soul enough to fool everyone, including the emperor's corpse. If it wasn't close enough, the corpse would have rejected it, and the forgery wouldn't have stuck. If the soul was just disconnected or blocked, like Wrieth suggests, then Shai's task would have been different. She would have been asked to reattach or reconnect (find) the soul, not copy it. As far as what happens when the emperor dies, I think that depends on how well the soul sticks. If he has to re-stamp himself until the day he dies, then I think the soul will just fade away like the stamps on Gaotana's arm. If the soul becomes "realmatic" enough to no longer require the stamp, then the forged soul could probably hold together enough to pass to the great beyond, where there will be two of them. This would put Shai's accomplishment up on par with, if not greater than, the creation of Nightblood.

NM

What we are led to believe: 1) You need a genetic predisposition to snap (ie you must have noble blood line). 2) You are either born an allomancer or you aren't, but you don't gain you power until you snap. 3) The mists (as preservation's subconscious) will try to make you snap if you go out into them. If all three of these things are true, how do we explain Kelsier and Demoux? Kelsier definitely has the genetic predisposition. His father was noble, his brother was a misting. My problem is that I can't see how he made it all the way to Mare's death without snapping. As a world class thief, he had to spend a great deal of time in the mists. He had to go through a lot of emotional and physical trauma during that time. He is then captured by the Lord Ruler and sent to the Pits, where he spends at least some weeks/months on the edge of death. None of that was enough to snap him? Demoux and the other soldiers that became mistings in HOA. Are we supposed to believe that they all had noble blood? My theory is that to become an allomancer, you either have to have Preservation already attached to your spirit genetically, or you have to crack your spirit web sufficiently enough for Preservation to enter. Mare's death, and his guilt around it, was enough to open huge gaps in Kelsier's spirit web, allowing preservation to enter fully, making him mistborn. The soldiers spirit webs were cracked by the stress of the situation, and it was critical to Preservation's plan, so Preservation was able to force his way into their spirit web enough to make them mistings, even though they did not have the genetic predisposition. Am I making too much out of this? Curious as to what you think.

Well, I really don't expect to be in any battles, so I am going to pick the combination that would make my life better. Allomantic Bendalloy, Feruchemical Bronze. This would allow me to step away from my desk at work, burn a little Bendalloy while I fill my metal mind. I would end up with a nice pleasant nap, and no one would realize I was gone. Later in the day, when I start to feel tired again, I'd just drain some of the wakefulness from the metal mind, and I'd be good to go (or I could go take another Bendalloy nap, good either way).