Observer

Say...does a hyper-compassionate person need to be anything more than barely sentient to attract a spren of some kind? I guess I'm just taking over the dreaded "Space right after the awesome post" spot, but seriously, would it be possible?

Nice interpretation Leuthie! I like it a lot! You have any similar thoughts on this one? They break the land itself! They want it, but in their rage they will destroy it. Like the jealous man burns his things rather than let them be taken by his enemies! They come! -Delivered by bridgeman Maps as he died after a bridge run, probably around 5 seconds pre-death. The "They come!" sounds like the Voidbringer warnings, so this could be insight into how Odium himself works, but I've shown myself to be cripplingly farsighted in this matter. Also, fixed those embarrassing spelling errors that have been sitting in the OP for over a year. EDIT: Line breaks again.

Honestly I always felt that it was a cognitive influence, something that Aluminum wouldn't be able to touch properly.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but check out your rep page: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/user/8444-robot-aztec/ You appear to have been downvoted quite a bit between now and when you last checked.

Harmony seems to have a Shardpool in the form of the vented Atium he needs to get rid of to say even on both ends. A for Cultivation's Shardpool, Purelake doesn't have that odd, glassy quality that most have. Everybody seems to just see water, making me think that we have it wrong. The Cultivation pool is in the peaks, creating a rich spot for life. Honor's Shardpool is probably the one we haven't seen yet.

I don't think so. The metal itself is stated to do weird things to Investure, but I don't think that burning it would produce those same effects, though I won't deny the possibility.

The operator is actually Hoid, and he calls out insults to anybody who connects.

Hello, and welcome to the Cosmere Investure Hotline. If you are from Scadrial, Pull away from the receiver and Push one -- Remember, your call will always have a consequence. If you are from Silence Divine, don't bother speaking, nobody has ever heard of you. If you are an Honor-based Surgebinder, your friends are lazy, and you do not need to call for those who will not call for themselves. Else - call the next hotline to receive some Cryptic advice. If you are from Nalthis, mash the five button and go find the answers for yourself, only to Return later with more questions. If you are from Sel, feel free to push any button, but you'll have to fix the phone first, it's missing a critical wire that will take Aons to fix. If you are a Shard, please verify that this is the hotline you Intended to call before pressing the Invested 16 key. And if you are a Worldhopper, hang up quickly, you have plot-critical events to mess with in an hour. But before you do, the Seventeenth Shard encourages you to Invest in Hoidhunting stocks on your way to work. Hoidhunting: The only way to protect nonintervention is intervention. I should make this a thread...

Obviously, salvation lies in the hearts of the everyday man. Hoid and Jasnah are totally onto something there.

IIRC it takes place after all 3, but don't quote me on it.

I had no problem with Jasnah herself, since, as many have stated, there was basically no way she could have possibly died unless she was actively trying for it. As for Szeth, I was surprised, but after I got over my Nightblood shock it occurred to me that I probably should have considered Shardic influence. From a contained perspective, I agree that it's annoying. From a Cosmere perspective, I have fewer issues. I still agree with Brandon that Szeth probably shouldn't have died, but that there wasn't much else to be done.

Somebody needs to tell Navani to refine her son. He's got way too much pride and it needs to be worn down, repeatedly a brutally, with a methodical rhythm akin to a highstorm. I guess I'm saying that she and somebody else need to do something. Sand-er-son.

512 is the hard barrier for King's Wit people. I am now authorized to insult everybody who passes.

So, if hitting them hard hasn't helped, maybe we need to.... Punt it?

Weiry is saying that Ruin and Preservation cancel out if I'm reading correctly. WoB seems to contradict this, since he feels the pull of both Shards. EDIT: I feel the need to point out that I do in fact believe that Harmony could become a real thing. Shards are meant to fit together, but I don't think it is within Sazed's current power to reforge the broken pieces. He can hold them at once, side by side, but they're not one piece yet IMO.

We sure they're merged? Seems to me he's just a single person holding the two of them apart using their own intents. We only call him Harmony because Scadrial does.

I'm just saying, would he still have his compassion problem if he could leave instructions from his more compassionate selves around? Like, the Diagram, but for his own self? EDIT: Problem is, I'm at a loss. We have something that looks like a curse, but no obvious boon, and they're not even supposed to be related. I'm working with what I've got, but do know that I don't believe a word I'm typing.

Can you deny that his smarter selves could probably spend a little time finding a use for their dumber ones? His compassionate self isn't going to help on his own, his intelligent self can't help on his own, but if they could just find a way to collaborate, things might actually work out. EDIT: So....maybe Vargo's lesson is true trust?

To Shallan, he spoke of two blind men, awaiting the end of an era, contemplating the nature of beauty. Now here Hoid is, awaiting the era of endings, contemplating the beauty of nature. He's really proud of his terrible joke. Anyways, no, I don't think he is. Our resident WoB user will probably drop in with the quote, but Brandon's mentioned that Hoid is using Feruchemy to get where he needs to be, so he definately can do that. I'm pretty sure he's being figurative.

Son of Honor at 495, but I can't say if it's a hard boundary thanks to sudden +10 jumps. Also, nice job Meta!

I suddenly went from awesome cosmere-aware Ghostblood to completely out-of-the-loop Son of Honor. I need to shoot higher.

Keep this in mind people: Curses are always cognitive, while boons do not have to be. Vargo hasn't mentioned a physical thing he was given, so we can at least strike that from the possibility list. Up to this point, it's seemed like the Nightwatcher at least makes a token effort to make a Curse that a person has to grow around as a person to accomplish things in life. This says to me that She gave him the power to save the world, but gave him a block to force him to grow around it and become a better person. In this, I suppose we need a pro/con tally. Compassion could: - Lead to him deciding to not enslave the Parshmen. Much like when he is intelligent, he likely would not give a pile of chull dung about what works, and would do what he could to free them all. This would actually help a lot, though by now it's probably too late, and has been for a while. - Inspire. Odium can't gain a purchase on a mind that feels no hate, and so it is quite possible that as a compassionate leader, Vargo could help pull everybody out from underneath Odium's heel. Intelligence could: - Save the world through logic. This assumes that Nightwatcher is chill with everybody dying, despite her usual preferences. This doesn't feel like her to me, but everybody will have an opinion. - Help him see what is to come and stop it. Pretty obvious. The solution here is, obviously, just to give him both at once. The growing comes in the inversion. He can't just save everybody with limitless compassion and intelligence, he needs to learn how to balance them out, and to learn self-control. When intelligent, he butchers pretty much everything because he can't use it properly, and he can't see his compassionate selves as useful, and doesn't even bother preparing anything for them to do. For lack of a better conclusion, I'm going to say that the Nightwatcher threw Taravangian out there as a last gambit, somebody with potentially Shardic foresight, but without the power to piss off Odium. She decided to give him the two attributes needed to save the world, but made them come seperately, so that he would have to learn to work with himself, and to control both sides. Just my $0.02

Logicspren, angerspren, and the combination of the two in passionspren, for those moments where you're logical and pissed, but not quite either at the same time.

Sazed certainly has a certain level of control over himself that no other Shard we've seen has accomplished. If I had to guess, that extra Ruin is being vented as Atium for Marsh to stay alive with, which means that Sazed is making active decisions regarding the amount of Investure and influence he holds. Granted, it hasn't been long enough to erase him, but it's still impressive and dissuades the OP's nightmare.

Worth noting, Hoid mentions in The Letter than the Seventeenth Shard probably wouldn't even know what to do with him if they ever caught him. In the HoA Ars Arcanum, Hoid is listed as "A mystery yet to be solved". I don't know if that part of it is in-universe, but if so it could be that the Shard is several centuries behind everybody else in terms of knowledge, and is probably made up of people who caught on to the Cosmere and have brought a few others along for the ride. Kind of meta now that I think of it.