Observer

So Odium was secretly an alternate version of Elend, one that could actually pull of his plan? Yes, this is mind-blowingly amazing!

Possibly, though you may be overthinking it. It's possible Odium corrupted the two to figh tone another, but Honor said Odium killed him, and spoke highly of Cultivation. It just feels a bit farfetched.

To your first comment: This is somewhat beside the point. The fact remains that, whether it is "technically" breaking the wall or not, it has the same effect on the readers anyways. This line of thought is irrelevent, so I won't go into it. To your second comment: While it's quite possible for Brandon to be alluding to something like that, I was simply saying that "Words on a page" is probably a reference to Dragonsteel and/or events that will be revealed about Hoid's past, rather than a random and somewhat pointless meta-moment. To your third comment: I was simply establishing that this was not an April Fool's post. I'd waded through a massive helping of really bad jokes, and was rather sick of them. Discussions on immersion and how breaking the fourth wall changes it are irrelevent, so I won't go into it. Again, it may be Brandon's way of representing how far Hoid has come, but I find it far more likely to be foreshadowing for something else.

All I was saying was that if there was a way to stop Odium, namely seeing the future, and there was a shard who happened to be very good at it standing against him that might decide to give humanity it's abilities, Odium would probably use religion to outlaw it. We've seen Preservation use it pretty nicely, and Odium likely knows how powerful it is, so if he could find a way to give it a bad name (Namely, by making it historically named as "his magic") he could avoid the whole seer-fight with Cultivation alltogether.

Breaking the fourth wall can only ever really be done for humorous purposes, or else it just ruins the immersion. In this massive web of books, wrecking the immersion simply isn't worth it, and I find it unlikely that Brandon would make Cosmere characters self-aware like that. No, I think it's more complicated than this. On that note, however, this is a somewhat rediciuslous thread made on April first. My ability to take it seriously is at rock-bottom as is.

If he figures out how to MAKE shards? Unlikely as that is, that could be catastophic...

I'm fairly sure this has been discusssed, and there may even be a Brandon quote on it. I'll go look for it, and inevitably find it only to come back and find four other people already have it as well as six other links and Brandon himself to steal the glory

The simple prescence of a shard seems to start editing the sDNA of people on the planet, giving them a certain kind of magic. Voidbinding sounds like Odium's magic, and he probably has one, but why would his system simply involve seeing the future? Honor mentioned that was more Cultivation's cup of tea. If I had to guess, Voidbinding was a Cultivation system, and Odium gave it a bad name to prevent anybody from stopping him via futuresight.

Did anybody else read this as "Selfish Religions"? If Seons have Aons, we can assume Skaze have Fjordell characters. Where's the ChayShan version of them?

I am Hoid. I created myself, I was my creation, and my creation will be me. Bow before the circular logic of this epic theory!

Languages are spoken by thousands, even millions of people. What would that look like in Shadesmar? And if languages have a cognitive prescence, what other kinds of things do? More importantly, what happens if you used Soulcasting to mess with them?

I was always under the impression that Lerasium was made when TLR took some of the well's power and condenced it into a physical form.

Miles uses gold to notice his own slouch through the eyes of a hateful observer, so it could probably be used to do as he does and get "The best of both". Here's a somewhat OT question. If bendalloy and Cadmium cancel each other out, what happens if only parts of the bubble overlap? Does the whole bubble go down when touching it's opposite? If so, that could be a good way to neutralize a slider. In the other case, could it allow you to exit your speed bubble?

Yes, Szeth is a special case. However, one could consider his actions honorable. He holds to his orders and traditions, no matter what he himself believes.

W've seen shards make life before, and the amount of power required was equivilent to that a a massive Atium mountain. This is considered a small amount of power for a Shard. But what about a world? Maybe creating Yolen (And maybe the other shardworlds) took a lot out of Adonalsium? I'm just trying to figure out the dead gods thing. Either the people don't get it, or we never really understood how Adonalsium worked all along.

Hoid and a lot of people in TLoP mention how "The Gods are dead". He even mentions it to Siri in Warbreaker, which has always seemed a little strange to me, since we think that Adonalsium lived there with them. Just how long was Adonalsium "dead" before anybody picked up the pieces?

Well...I guess that's one way to get them under control...

Well, you could take the easy route and make it a magic system primarily based or at least overlapping with constructs. Such as making a dirt golem or a water elemental. Because I'm a punny person, I'm getting flashes of a time-based ability set. Letting the sands of time flow through your fingers and all. But since you probably want two directly opposing magic systems and water doesn't really fit in with space, we'll move on to idea three. Water is that which gives. Dust is that which takes. Using water, you can take an element of yourself and project it outwards. (ex: If you want a fireball, you can do it, but it'll leave you chilled to the bone and likely deprived of momentum). They could probably survive falls from absurd heights by projecting waves of force outward, removing the momentum of their fall. Dust would be the opposite. Taking an element of something else and bringing it into yourself, most likely via touch. While you could probably only take so much at a time (see allomancy), the lifedraining and hypothermia-inducing effects of your touch could probably kill as easily as any fireball. Just make sure you have a place to store all that extra heat. There would, obviously, be limitations to what this system could do. Life draining is a bit of a push without the limit on how much you can pull in at a time, and by introducing that you'd probably have to add it to the water system as well, creating more questions. Projecting an injury is out of the question, making you wonder what exactly dictates what can be magically transfered. By this same logic, pain is kind of pushing it, but possibly necessary to offset dust's lifedrain in the event that they have it. I guess it just comes down to how similar you want the systems to be, and how powerful. If they're going to be the same, you have to wonder whether or not "bravery" or "intelligence" should be transerfable. They work fine when you give them to another, but when they can be taken from you it feels a little overpowered. It's all up to you. Wow. I just pulled that out of thin air. I feel awesome.

A bit better with the clarification, but it's still easy to say something like "I have a power source from the god of murder, and I just teleported your heart a little bit to the left, disconnecting it from your veins/merging it with something/moving it outside of you, instakilling Mr. Importantdude. Also, merging with Brandon's thing on rare griffon feather potions, if it's at all possible to bring people back to life or heal spinal injuries, there's probably somebody out there making a killing off of it.

I have the Gift of Gab.

*FACEPALM x2 COMBO* I actually thought to myself, "What if that had been my last chapter for the day?" I would like to announce that I have somehow become infected with an insane disease that makes everybody I meet act like they're my friend. WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS!? etc etc etc.

Is there a clasdic D&D limit to how many times a day you can use magic, is it infinite, or is there a "magic pool"? How powerful can this get? (Can power directly affect life? If so, what about telefratricide and mind screws?) Erm...how can you create new energy and matter? How has society adapted to this? When your memories and thoughts can be manipulated, what do you do? Is there a way to shield yourself from that kind of magic? If so, what good is it? With essential magic, how will you avoid cheapening death? Is this a society where people just don't die? Well, that's my two cents on this. Try thinking on how this changes society, as that usually makes for something interesting.

Mistborn, is a big example of this. Something about Jasnah griping about how the Devotionaries suppress free thinking reminds me of something as well.

So, we have a lot of rampaging Dor or Sel. But if the planetary gap is so small, why can't it escape onto other planets via Shadesmar?

Loved that line. Mistborn (Particularly 2 and 3) has and needs a good mix of humor to throw off the depression. Breeze getting mocked by everybody Spook-style is another great one.