king of nowhere

I'm with kurkistan here. somehow it strenghtens your body so that you can lift that wheight without being crushed, but at the same time without becoming impervious to bullets

I don't think we know how adesion works. suction produces adesion, but chemical bonds also do, and we don't know what causes it in a radiant. a good experiment would be to try to use the adesion surge under vacuum and see if it still works. As for going to the moons, that does not prove a radiant can get the air to stick aaround them. it's just as likely that they calculated how much it would take a radiant to reach the moons assuming he had a pressure suit on him, or maybe stormlight can keep him alive in the vacuum (he doesn't need to breath, after all, and the lack of outside pressure would be uncomfortable but not fatal in the short term, and probably within stormlight healing capabilities).

no idea. the levels of female channelers were kept under control because their status depended on it, so jordan had detaiiled notes of which aes sedai was to submit to whom. with men there was no such constraint, so he didn't kept such a close attention on them. also, androl is entirely sanderson's creation.

I'm with grey pilgrim here. While brandon in no way lacks creativity, still there are common themes and ideas in his books. that's what works for him. I don't know if it would be possible for an author to not put a piece of himself in their creations. I don't think I've ever read an author whose books could not be said to have similarities.

I would definitely want to donate my power to my family if it had no ill effect on the afterlife. That there is an afterlife is kinda proven, sazed said it, and there were thousands of people who witnessed the ascension, and moving stuff around like that is hardly something that can be accused of being a trick or a misunderstanding. I'm not sure what the effect of death by heamlurgy are, and I'm not sure how the scadrians coulld find out (save for asking directly to harmony and hoping for an answer). that should decide whether hemalurgic donation is feasible or not.

i doubt they'd be biologically immortal, because accidents and sickness take their toll, especially in a preindustrial society. they'd never could afford to send a parshendi to the bridge crews if there was a limited nnumber of them. on the other hand, the fact that they can reproduce don't prove anything, except that they're fertile (but must have a difficult time breeding, if they are rare and expensive). it is said that you cannot rape a man, but there are ways around that. I'm not going to describe it because I''m not sure it's appropriate and anyway it's not a nice way, let me just say that men with erectile disfunctions have been uusing them to have children before there was artificial insemination. and the parshendi probably had to be ordered to do that. now, trying to bring back the thread on topic, one has to note that the majority of the cast in mistborn is male, and especialy everyone else in the crew is. I think vin being a girl balances that a bit more, and paves the way for gender equality in the modern scadrial. also, I think vin in her initial appearence of a broken bird would work much less if she were a boy. as much as a small boy can be small, he can hardly be as small as her. her status of being the only girl in the thieving crew also meant she had to be wary of rape. A man in her place wouldnot inspire as much simpaty.

I don't know, I've read statistics putting them at anywhere between 2 and 10%, which I would call fairly small. Although that would still be at least 140 million people in the world, so only small compared to the general population. But then, similar people bond with similar people, so most queer people would know many other queer people. Certainly those two gays I knew had no shortage of boyfriends, even if they could pick their partners only among less than 5% of the population. I wasn't particularly close to either of them, or I probably would have been introduced to their friends and boyfriends too, and I also would know plenty of queers. So, like many social groups, they tend to aggregate. part of it is necessity; it would be awfully difficult for them to find a love interest otherwise. Also, while most people nowadays have no prejudices, some still do, and coming out is always risky. But you can be sure another queer is not going to discriminate. This brought to the situation where, regardles of statistics and numbers, most people know queers exist, but have hardly met one, while others are aquainted with dozens of them, and very few stand in between. From the point of view of a book, it would mean that, if in the main cast no one is queer, then it is unlikely anyone will be - at least, anyone whose orientation will be seen on screen. If one main character is queer, or is close friend with a queer, it would be realistic for a consistent part of the main cast to also be queer, unless there was something preventing that character from forming a net of social relationships, like a secluded youth, or having been abduced and brought to another continent away from anyone he ever knew. So, the gay bridgeman (was it drehy? I don't remember) was ripped away from his previous life the moment he was made a slave and is unlikely to know others - we also don't know if queers are discriminated in alethi society, it may be that he needs to keep a low profile. But Ranette, I expect her to have some other queer friends (not many, because she doesn't seem the kind of person who has many friends in the first place) and we could see them if her part in the story is expanded. Huh, now I'm seeing a scene were Ranette is telling Vayne "Sorry I have no interest in you, but I can introduce you to some nice friends". Except all the friends are lesbians and vayne is surrounded by nice and beautiful women chatting amiably with him, but shooting down all his attempts for more... #listenerasexuality: eshonai said her time in mateform was terrible, so it seems she is asexual even by their standards. Plus, they probably have some spark of attraction in them that tells them "I want to go in mateform with this other guy", and eshonai seems to be lacking that too. Anyway, I've seen her refferred as "asexual" in other places, but I'm not sure if it is canon or if it was only referred to the fact that all listeners are asexual outside of mateform.

We know that lerasium has an allomantic effect, and turning you into a mistborn is "only" a side effect. But we have no idea what that effect is. So, if we knew that, we could answer both your questions. As for the side effect of becoming mistborn, I'd guess that you'd still become a mistborn just the same, because the amount of investiture you consume is the same. just a guess, though.

HE also said one of the bridgemen is gay because he's based on a gay friend of his. And eshonai is asexual, even when in mateform. So I don't think Brandon has real troubles writing gay characters, and if he can write so well an atheist and a guy with depression he probably could write gay people too. I think the reasons we don't see more gays in the cosmere are two: 1) gays are a small minority. there aren't that many of them. so, it makes sense that we don't see many. Among all the people I met, I know of two male gays and one male bisexual. that's pretty much in line, statistic-wise, with what we've seen in the cosmere so far. 2) we know from his own admission that brandon is uncomfortable with writing sexuality. So, there are probably some more gays in his books, it's just that we never learned of their orientation. Another reason that would be very depending on the setting would be whether gays are discriminated. If that was the case, we would be unlikely to ever see one in those worlds, simply because they would hide it. I expect the final empire, with its rigid image of what a succesful noble should be, and the alethi society, with its rigid gender roles, would be a pretty bbad place for a non-heterosexual to be. on the other hand, hallandren seemed pretty open-minded, and aol-era scadrial also seemed ok. don't know enough about sel or the rest of roshar to say.

At first thought I was thinking szeth, cause he can heal almost everything while vin cannot. but then I figured out that the only thing that coulld kill szeth would be his head exploding, and that would be exactly the result of a duraluminium push. Szeth can try to doddge or deflect such a coin, but consider that it would be going faster than a bullet, so I'm not sure he can manage. Even if she doesn't hit szeth in the head, a duraluminium-pushed coin on any other body part is going to do damage enough that it would take a long time for stormlight to fix it. I think it could easily sever a limb, and that would disable szeth enough to allow vin another shot. if she misses some, she can scatter coins all around, and then pull those behind szeth. he cannot sense them with allomanccy, he has big troubles dodging attacks from every side. So, my idea is vin wins immediately by scattering some coins and duraluminium pushing them. repeat a couple of times until szeth is too broken to defend himself, then close in and go for an headshot. IIf szeth can survive this unschated, then he wins. I am under the impression that stormlight speed is faster than pewter speed, so szeth could hit vin more or less with impunity. plus he can regenerate. plus his weapon is a one-hit kill. OOf course an important part of the fight is whether the opponents are aware of each other's abilities. If they aren't, Vin may not try it because she'd assume szeth can push back the coins, and szeth would not know to prepare for projectiles when vin throws some coins in the air. I'd say iff they are not aware of each other's powers, then szeth wins, cause it is more difficult for vin to figure out how to kill him for good.

or maybe he was already plannning to keep marsh around. I at least hope marsh is having a goodd time. he already did far more than his share of duty, and deserved some rest

I really don't understand all that concern for the lastest consoles. Actual technology has been working perfectly fine so far, and it was state of the art only a few years ago. I refuse to accept that something can go from the most advanced technology to obsolete junk in just a few years. Not everyone can afford to change a device every time the latest version comes out, and many of those who can just don't care enough for it, especially since the only difference is some marginal improvement on graphics. Personally, I'd rather prefer they spend less money on graphics and more on bug fixing. many of the newer games had been released with serious issues, and that's the hallmark of a dishonest or at least flighty business. if they sell a game with poor performances and bugs, I take it that they did their best but are not very skilled; but if they released a game with excellent performances that still have bugs, I assume that they just didn't care enough to put on bug fixing the same amount of effort they put into everything else. which further lead me to believe that they didn't because once a player noticed the bugs, he already bought the game, so they didn't care anymore about him. Anyway, nice to hear that they havven't give up on releasing the game yet. and if they are still putting money and effort into it, then they are unlikely to pull out.

I also suspect that because of allomancy they put more research into metallurgy and less into redox reactions. which is ironic, because it ended up causing them to be less advanced in metals for a while. also less reseach in electricity. long ddistance communication with the telegraph was one of the earliest uses of it, and since they were all concentrated in a small area they didn't felt much need for it. I suspect in general all their elecctricity related research is behind compared to our world.

I don't think you can use iron or steel to prospect for metals, because in most cases metals are not present as such in nature. they are combined with oother compounds, mostly oxygen or sulphur. there are only a few metals that are found as oure ores, mostly the noble metals who are inert enough to not react with anything else. otherwise, they are not in metallic form. while there are some pure nuggets of metals here and there, industrial extraction of any non-noble metal is digging some other chemical form of the metal.

I don't think you can draw such easy parallels. Each cosmere religion is only vaguely connected to a real world one, and often there are several themes from different places. For example, while there are obvious parallels between survivorism and christianism, the figure of a prophet leading his people out of slavery is present in judaism. And connecting vorinism to hinduism just because of caste is a big stretch. putting aside that vorin castes are much more mobile, and it is usual for many people to change caste both up or down, with nothing like the pariah, but vorin theology is strictly monoteistic, has "fall from grace" as a centra theme, and put emphasis on doing well in one's job. I don't know enough about buddism to comment much about pathism, and we also have few informations on it. Still, I don't see many connections. pathism is a very open religion, its only real tenet is "be a good guy" which is a common message of virtually every world religion. Anyway, if it was that easy to draw parallels between cosmere religions (or cultures in general) and real world ones, then sanderson would not be as good a writer as he is.

I am not a fan of teen fiction either, because often "teen fiction" is confused with "fiction written for dumb, unsophisticated people" but I absolutely loved sanderson's teen fictions. alcatraz, steelheart, rithmatist, alll of them. so you should definitely give it a try. at worst, you'll have wasted a few dollars. As for the bots, if the machines ruling the planet will keep us appeased with bread and circus sanderson books... well, then, all hail our machine overlord!

And I have heard that it tastes of horse, bassed from interviews to survivors of disasters that were forced to resort to cannibalism. And I also have heard that it depends on one's dietary habit. So, maybe a human fed with soulcast meat will taste of soulcast meat. which, of course, tastes of person fed with soulcast meat. it's a bit like the paradox of a chamaleon on top of another chamaleon...

when, while at a meeting, yoou see a girl drawing stuff (mostly flowers) on the empty spaces oof the paper she was using to take notes, and you think of her as "shallan" for the rest of the meeting. And then someone said something you really wanted to support and you were annoyied that you could not upvote him.

"I needed to write a wax and vayne novel, but I could not get back into the characters and the world... so I wrote another wax and vayne novel to get into it" "I needed to relax from writing books. So I wrote some different books" I cannot decide whether brandon is more ridiculous or more awesome when he comes out with those kind of statements.

that would not work. you only see a few seconds into the future, so you can see your oopponent's move only after you made yours. even if you could see it before making your move, if you're skilled at chess you're already seeing several moves ahead, so seeing his next move won't tell you anything you don't know already. by the time you see the surprise, it will be too late to do anything about it. So, burning atium to try to win at chess would be even more useless. iit could at most help a bit in speed chess; then, many times you are expecting your opponent to make a certain move, and since time is short you are moving your hand to make the next move even before the opponent has completed his. sometimes, the opponent makes a different move, but you are already too set in your course and keep making the move you were pplanning. atium would fix that. iit would be extremely useful in internet speed chess, because there you have the option of fastmove: when your opponent has the move, you can play a move, and once the oopponent has moved, if the moved you made is a legal one, it will be played automatically without decreasing your time. it will be played even if it is a disastrous move, so you can only use it when you are absolutely sure what your opponent is going to play, or when it doesn't matter at all. but if you have atium you can fastmove every time, and you will never run out of time. on the other hand, burning atium+durluminium should let you know whether a certain mmove is winning or losing. but probably you won't be able to understand why,, or at least you won't remember it once you finished the burning, so you'd have to burn every few moves to keep on track.

We have confirmation that the lord ruler was toying with vin instead of killing her immediately because of ruin's influence. And I can see how he may grow far overconfident exactly because I know how compounding works. AS for vin thinking under pressure, simply some people are better at it than others. and in retrospect, knowing what kind of power he has, he must have been terrible at thinking under pressure. Back when he was conquering the world, he almost got beheaded, and he almost got burned alive, two things that could actually kill him if they go far enough. The thing is, simply touching him should have been utterly impossible for his enemies. if he actually got close to being killed a few times, he wasn't doing things right. After all, there is no reason to assume he's anywhere near a competent fighter. he just had so incredible powers that he was practically invincible, and didn't need any skill to top that. Also, all his fighting experience came over 900 years before. That's more than enough time to become rusty. ANd I doubt something like "combat experience" can be stored in a coppermind. So, I can totally see someone like him panicking and not realizing he could simply recover the bracers with airon. Last point, burning the mists is extremely powerful. vin had all her limbs broken in the third book, but after taking the mist in she was able to stand and fight easily. I'm not sure even compounding can overcome that. it is possible that with the power of the mist she may have been able to defeat the lord ruler anyway. Which make me think... (spoiler for mistborn 3)

1) I don't reallly know, but I can theorize: the spies stay in the warcamp, mostly. sometimes, one of them will go out of the camp in the direction opposite to the chasms. no one would question a parshmen, they just assume he's doing some job. then, some other listeners would be there, hiding in the countryside. while the alethi sentries would easily spot an army, i really doubt they can see a lone warrior moving by night, so this guy could easily cross the plain, come into a secluded place established before, debrief the spies, and come back the night after. other ways could be arranged. 2) to cross the chasms one need warform, so I assume rlain waited a highstorm and took warform before moving back to narak. while he claims to have never arrived there, he must at least have been close enough to see that his people took stormform. after that, he remained on the plateaus. maybe he was too afraid to go back to the alethi for fear he was recognized and executed, or maybe there were no more storms to take dullform. anyway, he survived a few weeks on the chasms by himself, apparently. that's hardly impossible. the shattered plains are teeming with life, I suppose some of those rockbuds are edible, or maybe he would snatch cremlings after a storm that he would have wheatered in some crack in the rock. hardly a luxurious life, but I'm confident he could have survived.

ah, well, truth to be told, it's not completely unnreasonable that the lord ruler, upon losing the bracers, panicked and simply forgot that he could use iron to get them back. he wasn't used to keep a clear head under pressure, since he hadn't been under pressure for some nine centuries. and i doubt he practiced much in the way of fighting/using his powers either. for all his life, his reaction to dropping some trinket on the ground would be "servant, fetch it". Same goes for not tapping zinc to think better in that moment. After all, I myself, when playing league of legends, keep forgetting about my own activated abilities once a fight begins. even when, just before the fight, i'm thinking "i must remember that I have the locket of the iron solari to activate to give all the team a 200 hp shield. This time I absolutely will remember" and then i die and i think "oh, damnation, I forgot about it again". or maybe i remember using it after all my teammates are dead and i'm the only one left standing. So, maybe I am the only dumbass who even after four years of playing almost daily keeps forgetting to activate his items, but from my point of view it is perfectly reasonable to forget something vital under pressure. And, after all, that's part of suspension of disbelief. Yes, we all know that in any book or movie the villain could have triumphed many times over. after all, in all those cases at the beginning the villain is much more powerful than the hero, otherwise there would be little suspence. If the writing is good then those errors from the villain will be reasonable. and if they are reasonable enough, suspension of disbelief is not challenged. Sometimes they are too much of a stretch, but with sanderson it has never been the case, at least for me. If I had to pick one villain mistake in a sanderson book that came close to that, it would be the listeners not summoning the storm the way the op had suggested. they had weeks to think about it, and every one of the commanding guys of the listeners could have had the idea. maybe stormform makes them more promne to direct confrontation and less to sneaking? we know that a listener form influences the way one think, so that for example considering violence as a viable option is difficult in workform. EDIT oh, man, that was so brilliant. I just love the way you built that exchange. I find particularly funny the contrast between saze's flowery speech and the bluntness and directness of the mist spirit's actions.

Vin burned the mists Suddenly new allomantic lines sprang up, connecting her with the atium bracelets piercing the lord ruler's arm. she pushed on them, and they ripped free, rashek screaming in pain. She further pushed them out of the window, but they suddenly seemed rooted in place. Of course, he's still an allomancer, he's pulling with iron. the bracers then slowly crawled towards the lord ruler's hand "well, now that's a smart girl. You know, I see that kind of rebellions every century, but no one ever tried to do that before. not that it would do any good. it would still take a few minutes for me to die, and i can recover those bracers any time i want. Vin flared with everything she had. the bracers remained still, and she smashed on the far wall. saze said he could increase his wheight, right? i'll never win a pushing match...she noticed cracks on the floor benheat the throne. He must have become really heavy. "sorry girl, it's a pity, but there is a world-destroying abomination trapped that someone else might release. nothing personal" there was a blur. a moment the lord ruler was on the other side of the room, the next he was in front of her with an outstretched arm. vin numbingly realized that he had punched her, crushing her chest and ripping a hole in the wall behind. his own hand was broken beyond recognition, but it reknit back into shape within seconds. she did not feel pain. she was beyond that. she wondered why that creature didn't show off his powers more often. they would have never tried to rebel if they had known just how invincible he really was. really, it would have just saved them a whole lot of effort. her last thought was a happy one. at least she was going wherever kelsier was, and she was sure elend would follow soon. It's just so easy to escape the tiranny of the lord ruler. all one had to do... was... to die.

well, my concern about shedding the leaves at every night was the energy cost of it; i wasn't sure a plant could afford it. but thinking about it, there are several plants that are capable of soubling their mass within a few days in favorable conditions, so I guess a leaf only takes a day or two to repay its cost. as for organisms surviving freezing, several small animals can, and seeds of course, but I don't know of any big one with that capability. On the other hand, life is amazing. Life thrives wherever it founds favorable conditions, and if the conditions aren't favorable it thrives anyway. So I wouldn't be too surprised if that was possible. As for organisms living in colonies on silica skeletons, that's practically what coral reefs do. except that coral uses calcium carbonate. there's no reason it could not use silica in a different environment.