king of nowhere

another possible outcome would have been that

Not really sure what is the final goal, but assuming it's only for the sake of it... I don't think being a mistborn - or any allomancer - would be a good idea. it would be a huge risk at least. you have no certainty that you'll find metals once outside. and if you have no gym and rely on pewter, you'll have to burn pewter just to march one houre without falling on your face - staying 10 years locked will destroy your muscles. so if you can't find metals before you run out of pewter, sucks to be you, you can't even walk around. feruchemy is more reliable, since you can refill your metalmind as much as you want. So, my pick. - companion: better to have someone to watch your back, plus it helps spend the time and keep your sanity. Preferrably a girl, will help extra with spending the time and doing exercice (i assume the companion fits me personality-wise; otherwise one of us is going to kill the other sooner or later). 20 - bath: hygiene is needed to stay healty in any case. 8 (28) - gaming computer and 2X books: that's the main way of spending time in case the buddy is male or in case the buddy is female but i get friendzoned or in case the buddy is female but frigid. While I'd keep some entertainment books, most of them would be encyclopedias and manuals and such. I want to be able to preserve as much of our science and technology as possible. Also I'd fit in the pc all the useful informations that the hard disk can contain, for the same purpose. 7 (35) - holographic shooting range and gym: I need to be able to care for myself once outside. i certainly cannot afford to fall for exhaustion after marching half an hour, or wasting all my ammos trying to hit the broad side of the barn. 16 (51) - glock and M16 (extra bullets) and 2 swords: one for me and one for the companion. can't afford 2 M16. swords just in case the ammo run out. 29 (80) - me and the companion both bloodmakers: seriously, giving feruchemical powers for 3 points? that's extremely cheap. for the effect of immune system and medikit combined. also, 10 years is a lot to store charges. 6 (86) - rations: 1 month extra food in case we can't find it immediately. 1 (87) - trade goods: just to have more gold for feruchemy. i intend to store as much as i can during those 10 years. I'd take as much gold as i and the companion can realistically expect to fill, i have no idea how much that would be. That's it. a bit shy of 100, and while not as powerful as a mistborn, i can deal with pretty much everything i face without having to worry about hard-to-find goods. If I can the companion can't find food after the rations run out in one month, we both deserve to die. @pir2h: i count 104 on yours

i think it's a nice classification, albeit it is limited by the fact that epic powers are so varied that ordering them is quite difficult. different epics with an ippi could be completey different in difficulty to kill, and some epics with ppi can be relatively harmless otherwise. for example, mitosis had pis, but i found him to be the most terrifying of all.

I remembered that helaran had the ghostbloods symbol tattoed on him, but I can't produce a reference, so maybe I'm wrong. In which case, him being involved with a different society than his father makes lot of sense.

Those canyons are beautiful, but I think they are too narrow to work. chasmfiends would not be able to move in them. As for the budget, well, the only way to get the movie done properly would be if there was some filthy rich oil lord sanderfan willing to throw a few tens millions dollars to see the movie, knowing he won't be able to recover expences. Too bad we don't have one... Hey you! I know you're lurking there! It's pointless to try to hide now. you have no excuses. You are a filthy rich oil lord and you want to throw some big money to see a sa movie. just sign in and make a donation. We know you're here. Nothing? Well, was worth a shot.

the simplest explanation is that the ghostbloods and the sons of honor are rivals, so helaran was there to kill amaram. I doubt they knew about kaladin. he hadn't done anything radiant-ish yet, and the ghostbloods are well informed, but by no mean omniscient. there is also no sign that helaran was involved with nalan. unless i missed something about a nalan-ghostbloods partnership.

With our mentality, it is a stupid decision. However, with amaram's one, it makes sense. We believe that if kaladin managed to solo a shardbearer he can train and become as good as anyone. Because we come from a society puting a lot of emphasis on the idea that all men are born equal and can do amazing stuff if they apply. Amaram comes from a strictly stratified society where everyone has a place and darkeyes are considered inferior. that idea is deeply ingrained at all levels of society. men do not write. women do not do man's stuff. darkeyes do not wield sowrds. can we really be surprised if he don't consider the idea that kaladin may become at least his equal within some years? We think a general's place is away from the front, because in our world it is like that. we also believe the best place for a superweapon like the shards would be in the hand of some trusted soldier. amaram comes from a world where, thanks to the shards, generals are supposed to fight at the front. all the stuff about the glory of the fight and the thrill expect generals to lead on the field. and the quest for power and personal glory is the main goal of that society, so the idea that a shardbearer soldier can be devout to his leader instead of just trotting off with the shards or trying to take charge is difficult to accept (yes, a few highprinces give their shards to their most trusted bodyguards, but there is a difference between a bodyguard who's been with you since you were born and a soldier in your army; and also those highprinces are the owners of the shards, while in amaram's case kaladin would be the rightful owner and would actually outrank amaram himself). So, yes, amaram's reasoning is flawed, but it makes perfect sense given the context in which he lives. just like vin's reasoning for thinking kelsier wanted to use her for something was flawed, but it makes perfect sense in the context she comes from.

I'm also putting my money on "there are several kinds". I now remember having made a dream a while ago that revealed that while listeners could become voidbringers, if they resisted it instead they could assurge to a higher status, of which i don't remember anything. Ah, well, an almost-faded dream is not a good base for speculation anyway. given that it's been 7 months since the book release, I'm surprised they didn't merge the forums yet.

surprise, sadeas is not quite dead and has become one. gavilar also has survived and is now a radiant. And the first bridgeman that speaks to kaladin, the one giving him advice and from whom he took the clothes? he survived the arrow and the fall in the chasm thanks to stormlight, and has been living there all along. Tien is also bound to make a great comeback in the climatic moment when kaladin is going to give in to despair. What? there were enough people brought back from death in the end of the last book that I wouldn't surprise too much at that.

So joel will not be the protagonist?

yeah, but in this case you're not trying to store two attributes in a spike. when you spike a coinshot with a Allomantic steel spike, you get a stronger coinshot. if you can spike that, you can get a stronger Allomantic steel spike. it is still end negative, because the spiked coinshot would be less powerful than his power and the original donor combined, and the new spike would be even less powerful than that. say, if you have two coinshot with a power of 1, you spike one and give the spike to the other making him a 1.9, and then spike him and with that spike you gain a power of 0.8. I agree on that instead. As i said myself, it is highly unlikely for it to work. it just would be cool if it did.

I tought there were buildings on the dais too? but maybe i'm wrong. as for the crem being part of the ground, well, also a stone pillar can be part of the ground. the distinction between what's part of the ground and what's part of the palace can be a bit shacky. again, the only real distinction is cognitive. would depend if the spren of the palace sees itself as part of the place or not.

Huh. I am figuring a scenario where yes, it does work that way, and if you give an Allomantic steel spike to a coinshot and then spike him the new spike will get both powers, and then giving that spike to another coinshot and spiking him too and so on and so forth to have unlimited power spike. But, realistically, it probably won't work, ccause the power is in the sspike, not in the person.

More realistic? How'd you say that? How can it be realistic with that odd bumpy thing between his eyes? (in case that's too obscure, go read the third page from here and then this strip) And hey, I just had a vision where the guy who paid 5000 dollars in the kickstarter to put his character into a cameo in oots is actually brandon sanderson, who will insert into oots one of his characters. As a guy who absolutely don't like that kind of fanfiction, I recoiled in horror...

i don't know if the oathgate would transport the palace. after all, it didn't transport the buildings in the shattered plains, nor did it transport the crem. but it still can be used to transport equipment. i guess there is a cognitive component about it. maybe ho activates the gate can choose what to transport. or only what sees him/itself as something that can be transported is actually transported.

You are no more than the dueling champion of all the armies combined. what's wrong with you boy? you are a disgrace to our name!

I was going to answer to that, but then outis one popped up, and it's basically the concept I was trying to pass, but explained better than I could.

ok, true. still, it would be a calculated risk to give up a little bit of your atium if you got good stuff for it. also, if you are going bankrupt, and you can either sell your atium or move away from luthadel and go back too your plantation, it may be worth selling all your atium to stay afloat and just pretend you have more atium to scare off assassins. it can work pretty well. after all, cett had no atium and he didn't even have a mistborn, but vin was still too afraid to go after him for most of the book, because she didn't knew for sure if it was a trap.

Do we have proof of that? because i was under the impression that he never wanted to leave him the shards anyway. it's not like he was risking to pass for a thief: if kaladin gave the shards to one of his friends, no one would accuse amaram of stealing the shards from a darkeye soldier to give them to another darkeye soldier. it make no sense. although, it is possible he may have changed his actions if kaladin would have given him answers that touched the right spots, that stoked enough his conscience to pull him away from the plan he conceived in cold blood. maybe he was hoping to hear that kaladin charged the shardbearer for glory and to win shards, so he'd have felt less guilty. maybe he hoped to hear that kaladin charged the shardbearer to protect his commander, because he was a good commander, in which case he wouldn't have been able to bring himself to kill him and wouldn't have to feel the guilt. maybe he was impressed by kaladin's fighting skill and wanted to probe if he could have been rectruited in case he managed to get the shards. who knows? maybe we'll get the answer in the future, but i don't think amaram is important enough to delve so deeply into his story.

yes, you are right on the distinction between worthless and meaningless. still what i said about economics remain. if something is hoardable, easy to preserve and carry around, and there's enough people willing to barter for it, that something will be used for currency, regardless of its actual utility or meaning. it's quite a paradox, but it's a paradox stemming from understandable reasons. gold could be used to pay mercenary armies, to pay blacksmiths to make weapons, can be traded for weapons or for the steel to make them. everything you trade can be traded for weapons, so the distinction is not that easy. yes, you maybe should not pay that rival noble in atium, cauuse his mistborn would gain an advantage over yours. but then, if you pay him with money, he can simply use that money to buy more atium from tlr, does it change so much? and after all, atium rarely get used in regular time, so it's a calculated risk. as for using nukes as cash, well, not directly, but I see dismantling an old nuke because you can't afford the expence to keep it functional and paying taxes to the lord ruler with atium because you don't have enough gold as essentially the same thing: you are giving up a weapon of mass destruction because you cannot afford its cost.

"Atium is only valuable to be burned by allomancers, but when burned is exhausted very quickly, so it's nearly worthless" Real world gold wasn't good even for that and yet it made the fundation of the world economy. And let's not even start going into the value of the stock market, or of bitcoins. So, nothing strange here. or rather, it's strange, but no stranger than real life. the real world is much more strange than fiction because the real world doesn't need to make sense. Paradoxically, nowadays gold has several important applications in electronics as a corrosion-resistant conductor, and gold nanoparticles are a promising field of research, so gold is becoming useful, but the economy do not depend on gold anymore. "what happens if all the great houses were to boycott the atium" well, again let's draw a real world parallel. what happens if all real world nations were to dismantle their atomic weapons? easy one: it would turn out someone didn't really destroy them all, and he would say 'now i can nuke you and you cannot, so you gotta do what i say; suck to be you'. With atium is even worse. in the case of nukes, you only need a few dozens and even if the other guy has a thousand, the treath of your few dozens will be enough to prevent him from attacking. with atium, if the other guy has more than you, he can win by stalling the fight and wait for you to run out. that's not 100% foolproof, as you would then be forced to attack recklessly and hope to kill him before you run out, and you could succeed, but it definitely gives the guy with more atium a significant advantage. Or, back to economics, it would be like asking what would have happened if everyone stopped accepting gold as payiment, seeing as it was good for absolutely nothing but look shiny on jewelry, and that was hardly important. As far as I know, gold was considered worthy at least 4000 years before present, and in all that time the occcurrence of people refusing its value never occurred. The reason it don't happen, I suppose, is purely statistical. if everyone think gold has value, then everyone would buy gold if offered at a good price. if someone think gold has no value... then it still means he can sell gold to someone else; so gold still has value. it is a natural tendency of any newborn economic system, to find something to use as currency. back in the days I was playing Magic, virtually everyone would accept counterspells for trade, even if they never played a blue deck, simply because there were enough people using those that they were sure they could sell them to someone if they wanted. so they started using them, and a few similar widely used cards, as currency. in the real world, people started to use metals as currency because it would be easy to find someone who used them to trade with, and they were easier to carry around than, say, a flock of sheep. then people started taking metals even if they weren't using them, because they could trade to others. and gold, while used only by a few jewelers, was rare and sought after, so it became quite pricey, so rich people started to hoard it because it's easier to walk around with 100 grams of gold in your pocket than with one ton of iron. And so gold became the money standard for millennia. So, I can totally see it happening to atium. someone is buying atium and willing to pay a lot for it. even if you can't use atium, it's still worty to you because it would be easy to sell to those people. so atium becomes valuable for everyone. let enough time pass, and even if all mistborns died, everyone would still use atium for currency, because everyone would still be sure they could sell the atium to someone else.

Yes, totally true. But if amaram is trying to convince himself of being honorable, then it is part of him. Some people argue that we are what remains once we're stripped of our self-illusions, but I believe instead that what we think we are, and especially what we want to be and what we strive to be, are an important part of that. So, amaram is honorable, and amaram is a treacherous sob at the same time. It's not a real ccontradiction. people have many facets, and they can be at odd with each other. By the way, I hate to sound like I'm playing the contrarian. the fact it, sometimes in a discussion there are two opposite positions and both held truth, and in that case I feel both need to be represented, and so I tend to argue for the side that seem in numerical inferiority. If more people had came in this thread to claim amaram is a poor misunderstood sould thrust into a difficult position, I'd be arguing on the opposing side, just because I feel the need to balance the two position. I totally agree with everything you say, I simply think that there is also another side of the issue. I write this because I tought that maybe you are like me, and we are arguing around in circles when we actually both think the same thing.

yes, it makes sense. we can probably consider it as canon.

I did not believe that stones uunhallowed was finished, cause 6 months are definitely too little time for it (especially when writing other books at the ame time), but I did believe that brandon, or peter, wrote it as a prank. you can count it as half-fallen for it.

I don't remember those parts so well also, but the fact that he spared kaladin when it would have been easier to kill him, and the way he remarks that losing dalinar's friendship has been a hard price, make me think he is genuine on that. I wouldn't argue he is a tragic misguided villain, like taravangian is, but i do get the impression he cares for being good when he can. That's pretty much the point of being a realistic leader realistically honorable in a realistic context; you have to compromise somewhere. You can't afford to not make any sacrifice or you'd doom your people. BUt you can't afford to treat people as pawns*. you have to find a middle ground between being good and being efficient, and that's what i think elend did right. anyway I specified i was referring to hero of ages. the events of the siege of luthadel were in well of ascension, and I believe he did a terrible job of it there by erring way too much on naiveness. what he should have done there would have been to set vin to kill straff, after telling his generals that yes, straff left orders that if he was killed they should attack, but that equaled to suicide, while if they instead joined the city they would be treated as mercenary troops and keep their ranks. If they nevertheless attack the city faithfully with the late straff orders, then just kill them and make the same proposal to their underlings. and to their underlings too, until you find someone reasonable who will call back the attack. And then, after the enemy armies are routed or loyal to you, then accept the decission fo the council and step back from kinghood. That I would have called a reasonable compromise between being good and being practical. And if he had ever considered for a moment to give up a bead of lerasium to save the life of a single person and the book had let him get away with it I would have thrown the book out of a window. *well, you probably can and should treat people like pawns, but not in the stereotyped let's-sacrifice-this-for-we-have-reserves way, but the way a chessmaster actually do, by considering every pawn as important (games at high level are won and lost for advantages smaller than a pawn) and not sacrificing it unless it's for a really, really good reason.