Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

OB spoilerified:

Hahaha, totally different opinion on this one, but that's what's fun about life, you get to form your own opinion. I understand what you're saying about Roy's inconsistencies, but the gap between books 3 and 4 was 5 years, and the gap between books 4 and 5 was 6 years, and Roy was already pretty old when he recorded Storm of Swords. I love how he did Tyrion, Peter Dinklage is great, but for me, Roy Dotrice's Tyrion will always be how I read and hear that character. What type of comedy are you doing? Are you doing stand-up, comedy writing, or both?

Thanks @RShara, I modified some of the questions, I did have one question though about your answer to Question Chain 3, item number 4 (OB Spoiler):

@Mai Davika I really like the song Sound and Vision by David Bowie as my ringtone, it can ring for the full 30 seconds for an incoming call and never quite get to the point where Bowie starts singing. But I guess it really depends on what kind of effect you are going for, what type of ringtone are you looking to have?

Hahaha, rad! Here's a scene from to Kill a Larkin: SCENE: Yelig-nar figdets nervously on the witness stand, sweating black vaporous tendrils of sweat, and glances nervously at Odium who is idly playing with a pencil, looking bored at the Defense's table. His defense Attorney, Taravangian is noticeably tense as Sigzil approaches the witness: SIGZIL: So, how do you explain your recent behavior, Yelig-Nar? YELIG-NAR: (still glancing nervously at Odium): Well, it's like my daddy always told me, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”, Isn't that right papa? Odium stabs himself in the head with his pencil. SIGZIL: The prosecution rests your Honor, err.. I mean your Wit.

I agree with @RShara that this highly unlikely, but it's a very interesting theory. If you want to go down the tinfoil hat rabbit hole (which is highly improbable, but what the heck, it's also fun) I would suggest this highly unlikely scenario. We know that people with Hemallurgy have been to Roshar from this WoB (spoilered below): We know that a certain Scadrian Worldhopper named after a type of cloth has been with Dalinar at very key junctures in the SLA. (OB Spoiler) and he was also at the Shattered Plains during the battle of Narak. We know from Mistborn Era 2 that Sazed/Harmony has used hemalurgical spiked agents as active tools to push events in the direction he wants them to go. From a couple of WoBs we also know that Harmony is vastly more powerful than Odium and that he has being doing something with Ruin's power to balance out the larger amount of Preservation innately in the people of Scadrial (both WoBs spoilered below): We also know that prior to his ascension Sazed was a Terris Keeper, storing the accumulated knowledge of all the different religions that the Terris Worldbringers studied, and we've seen these religions pop up in other parts of the Cosmere. Upon ascension, this special foreknowledge could have possibly made Sazed (the most powerful existant shard) extra cosmere aware. So after the long preamble here is the super tinfoil hat theory (which I am sure won't survive 5 minutes on the shard): Sazed, upon Ascension, realized that Odium was probably the biggest single threat to the Cosmere. With his understanding of Cosmere wide religion and his mental expansion, he was able to perceive things like that the combined powers of Dominion and Devotion were trapped in the Cognitive Realm on Sel, and began to hatch a plan to Unite them. Knowing that Honor was likewise splintered and that a large chunk of his investiture was actually a Spren capable of forming a bond with a human, he and his agents kept a look out for people that were likely to bond the largest piece of Honor still intact on Roshar. Once they found their guy (Dalinar), Felt spiked Dalinar and it's been Sazed whispering into his ear this whole time to Unite Them, with the goal that Dalinar will first take up some of the power of Honor, and then using his ability to merge all three realms (this might grant him access through the Spiritual Realm to the Cognitive Realm of Sel) Unite the splintered shards of Dominion and Devotion. Wow, that is so out there, but your original post @kirerelllim was so interesting I had to think about it some... Some immediate objections to this are: Sazed's reply to Hoids letter in the OB epigraphs seem to imply that he is unaware of what is currently happening on Roshar It's a pretty shaky speculative superstructure, and I think if Dalinar had an unusual bit of metal stuck in him that was the fulcrum for a major plot point, we would have heard about it by now. If it was indeed Sazed talking to Dalinar all along, instead of "Unite Them" Dalinar probably would have heard "Unite Them, I think". I can't think of any known mechanism accessing the Cognitive Realm of a different planets sub-astral, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, just saying that it's something funky about how the spiritual realm isn't a real answer though. Seriously fun first post @kirerelllim!

@Weltall you're totally right, I just found the package that Yelig-nar comes in: And just like you said, the warning label is quite explicit (zoomed in view below): Your warning label text is some funny rust brother, currently out of upvotes but I'll get you one when they come back online.

Sure, that's what they always tell you. Loosing your heart and lungs is a pretty hard condition to come back from, even plucky "Let them eat cake" Asuedan would probably find it difficult.

@Steeldancer this is really amazing! I especially like the 12 elemental cities, that idea alone has great potential for extended visual metaphor that could be used to show rather than explain the divisions of the Elemental mages powers. Just imagining the Water Elemental city after reading your description of their powers made me visualize an expansive city, divided up into different burroughs, that are based on different aspects of the Water Mages' power. Like a district in the city where the buildings are gothic, fluted ice scultptures, with crystaline stained glass windows made of ice, lights could also be embedded in the ice, everything could be tall, grand and thin with lots of icicle like motifs of decoration. I also imagined a district, maybe the upscale center of commerce, the District of waterfalls, where water flows from multiple different sources into different fountains, into and out of buildings, etc, not necessarily obeying the laws of gravity. Also thought of a the outer favela like slum district, the mist warrens, where everything is shrouded in mists. This has amazing potential, totally think you should write this!

Yeah this is Nazh, @BlackYeti asked Bradon to draw a picture of Nazh's tattoo at the UK Oathbringer signing in Newcastle, here is his post:

@The Sovereign and @Farnsworth, I was answering somebody's question about Nazh's tattoo and tracked down @BlackYeti's post with the picture that Brandon drew of the tattoo: It says "I Heart Chulls".

Awesome thread @Oversleep, I would buy a shirt with almost any of those. I'm out of upvotes currently, but I'll get your slogan one on the Official thread when they come back on line, it's still my favorite.

This is probably just my own bias, but I think sate used as an imperative verb sounds like marketing language: That quote is from the Merriam Webster definition page of word sate. But this is, like I said, a minor quibble. I think the reason it sticks out is that is seems like a word chosen for the sake of a rhyme, and the rest of your poem is blessedly free of this cardinal sin of rhyming poetry (which is my favorite type, but when poorly done, quickly becomes my least favorite). I agree with you that it can be used to express what you are trying to express, but I guess it's just my opinion that it's still mildly jarring. I can totally be done talking about this now, other than to say I think your poem is amazingly beautiful, the meter is great, the extended metaphors are really nicely developed and the final couplet (with the better pronunciation of Ray-ah-din) is superb.

Official 17th shard t-shirt slogan perhaps?

I think it really comes down to one line, if it was changed (very slightly mind you) i think your poem would be perfect, again this a totally subjective opinion, but when reading the original the line that is jarring is: I really like how dense the meaning is in this line, and I love the idea behind this line, but I just can't get behind using sate as an active verb in the imperative. It's usually a passive verb that happens conditionally upon something else happening. Re-reading the whole thing, even with the line above, it's an amazingly pretty poem and I like it a lot! These are just my two cents, feel free to do with them as you will.

EDITED, Some of these have been answered already, they have been stricken out, thanks @RShara! Some have been updated and modified. Awesome offer @Khyrindor, I have some Cognitive Realm related questions, spoilered below:

@Mestiv the new copy button is awesome! I love that you get a source link too.

I really like this question. My understanding of how Nicrosil feruchemical storage works is not the best, but wouldn't the investiture of the individual spren get mixed together in the Nicrosil metalmind? If this happened would you have the ability for the Listener to become a super charged warform/nimbleform/storform/Xform hybrid? However this would work, this is a great question. I was just looking up WoBs on this in Arcanum, and your new question looks like a follow up to some of your recent questions to Brandon (the WoB chain is spoilered below): This part is brilliant, by the way:

I think the 2nd line was better in the original, on re-reading this a couple more times, the original line bothers me less and works quite well I think. I think this is really pretty! The walls to waterfalls is really nice! But I did like the original one, just not those two lines that I called out. I thought it was exceedingly clever to have the lines Elantris must not here forget Nobility and spirit yet Then have the emergence of Raoden (since his alias is Spirit when he's rekindling the Hope of the Hoed). I'm sorry if I am just confusing the issue here, but I think the first version of the ending stanza works better, it's a really good extended metaphor and it's very cleverly done, I think it just needs minor modifications, like Instead of: Your yearning for divinity sate Try: Yearn, now for divinity await Or something else, I think this is really the line that it hinges on, you fix this one and it will be exceptionally good! And your totally right that if his name is pronounced Ray-ah-din your last line needs no modification and is in fact perfect. I listened to the audiobook, and the reader (who was pretty underwhelming) pronounced it Row-e-don, I have no idea what official pronunciation is, but I like the Ray-ah-din pronunciation much better.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit, and I think that the questions that stand the greatest chance of being answered are questions that deal with some very specific mechanic of a magic system that has been fairly well detailed in the cosmere novels to date (so though I am interested in Voidbinding, that's probably a big, gaping RAFO hole to throw questions into). Or questions that are general realmatic questions that deal with some specific aspect of how the 3 realms work in a clear concise way. Or, and this is the type of question I am most interested in, a question that is somewhat vague but that hints at the general direction that something will go in the future of the SLA. This last category of question has to be somewhat vague for two reasons, Brandon is not going to spoil a big reveal of a future book with a question that is too specific, and a too specific question could run up against the wall of "I don't want to decide that right" because Brandon doesn't necessarily want to be locked into a specific implementation of a future event. Question A (it'll be one of the following two 2 part questions): A1a) Are the Dysian Aimians agents of Cultivation? (note the very flexible term agents, this is confirmation with a small c, and has quite a bit of wiggle room for interpretation, but it gives a general sense of a casual relationship) A1b) If not, are they in league with another group (excluding the Knights Radiant) that we have seen? (Again, this is intentionally vague but hints at something incredibly interesting that could probably be followed up on with further more specific questions) A2a) Say a 20 year old chair that was put into a storage closet in the Physical Realm were to be manifested in Shadesmar (like clothes the spren wear), and further that it stayed in the closet for 150 years without ever being moved, seen or even thought about. If a spren made a modification to the manifested chair in Shadesmar (painted it red lets say), would how the spren think of this chair in the Cognitive Realm affect the appearance of the chair in the Physical Realm? A2b) Would the manifested chair be destroyed if the chair in the Physical Realm was destroyed? I'm heavily leaning towards question A1 right now, I really want to know more about the Sleepless. Question B: "If a person held enough breath to attain the the 5th heightening, lived for a thousand years, and then sold all but their initial breath, would their spiritual age force them to rapidly age as we saw with Rashek, or would they resume natural aging from the point at which they ceased?" EDITED with the final phrasing of @Calderis's question, also modified question A1b based on @RShara's prescient observation that it was initially too vague.

@TheDwarfyOne, that is very beautiful, this is my favorite part: I don't know if you are interested in constructive criticism, I truly love your work, but there were a couple of lines that broke the meter or where the metaphor fell a little flat, I have these spoilered below (look at them if you want, or ignore them if you want too):

This is an excellent point, unless Cultivation is actively keeping her tools from mixing (which seems a bit like a paranoid delusion), then possibly the Dysian's aren't Cultivation's master gardeners. I can see the Sleepless as any of the following: Agents of Cultivation (actively gathering information, making small nudges when necessary to affect the outcomes that Cultivation wants for her long term plan) A totally Alien race, acting on their own initiative to affect as of yet unknown goals Agents of a different shard, intent on maintaining surveillance and affecting small changes for some other Shard (possibly even Autonomy). Honestly, I think all 3 are rad, I just thought it was interesting how different the Siah and Dysian Aimians were, but this theory linking them together and to Cultivation is probably a bit too much of a stretch. They are probably just both Aimians because they both lived on Aimia. Sometimes the simplest answer is the right answer. All I know is I am looking forward to seeing more of the Sleepless in SA book 4! Would love to see a Sleepless Bondsmith (unless option 3 is true).

As per usual @Calderis, great WoB, gotta think some more about this.