Glaring at the Survivor

Theory makes sense. They can see spren, and in OB, Rock is seen "humming his mother's song to a beat he could almost, just faintly hear" (p. 383). This seems like a Listener rhythm, especially when you add in their spren-seeing ability (even the 'invisible' ones), and their respect (calling spren gods, similarly to how Listeners call (some) spren gods).

It's entirely possible that Odium has created a chasm somewhere on Scadrial but even if there isn't Odium could be executing a proxy war and hasn't physically (spiritually?) shown up on Scadrial yet and acted directly.

I'd like to see the WoB on that though (not that I don't believe you, I'd just like to see his phrasing and the specific question or reason he said that)

And who is the Haunted Man? The name keeps popping up, but I don't remember anything like that from the book.

He was, I believe, the one from the broadsheets main story that we were shown.

Is it possible that you could use hemalurgy without killing someone? If you either did a surgical operation and a needle passed through the heart without killing them (somehow), or, more likely, you did something like passing metal through a gold compounder's heart (and they healed from it,

Yeah that's what I meant.

Aluminum

So can anyone tap or fill nicrosil?

Not eveyone names things the same way. And I dint think the same guy named all those places. So differences would happen in naming.

That's... actually very interesting.

So I wonder what Prof's weakness is.

David cannot be Epic.

That is a fact, and I will hereby prove it.

(wait for it...)

He is Gifted some Epic powers by Prof.

Also...

Megan is weird. And David, while not being Epic, certainly has something going on with him.

And I might know a big secret about Calamity.

And sorry if what I say doesnt make sense, it's near midnight and I just spent hours reding that book almost nonstopish.

That is all.

Well, except for this quote chain.

I can't believe I just sped read through all of Firefight! At least I have a first hand feel for the compulsion Epics feel.

First of all, this could be a Cosmere book. I know it's not, because Brandon doesn't want it to be, but Calamity feels very much like the Shard of Fear. Ironically, is what Calamity fears Fear itself? By gifting all these powers to fearful people, is he trying to empower them against their worst fears?

Second, I'm confused on the conquering fears aspect. Epics are fearful, it's in their core nature, like a soul being broken in a very specific way. David conquered his fear, and he lost (or rejected outright) his gifted power from Calamity. Megan conquered her fear and seemed to grow stronger in her powers because of it. Does that mean David still has access to his gift, but conquering his fear allows him to consciously choose not to use it or be ruled by it? And/or does it mean Megan can reject her gift as well through conquering her fear?

Also, something's totally strange with David. And not in a powers from Calamity vibe. His ability to instill confidence and warp others to his needs by sheer willpower is very ta'averen. In a Mat sort of way. Everyone else in the book remarking on this cannot be an accident.

I noticed David's non-Epic gift as well. Maybe... Maybe there's something else, and so instead of being an Epic he's... an Awesome or something? Lol. Dunno. Anyway, that was sticking out to me even before it was mentioned about 8 times.

My only complaint is that I want more and I want more now, lol

 

I was super bummed about Prof getting caught by Regalia's trap, but I still have hope for him, though ultimately I think it's going to end up with David having to put him down, just because of the conversation they had early on about it being a mercy, much like putting down a rabid dog. Though Brandon has been known to deceive us before, the foreshadowing implications there are pretty strong.

 

I'm curious about David too, throughout a lot of Steelheart I felt that maybe he was something of an epic-in-the-making because things things didn't always seem to add up, in addition to his ability to inspire people like Sparks said. Seeing how Calamity grants powers though, it kills a lot of my old theory/suspicion, but I do have the same question. Did he outright reject the power and get nothing? Or did something change in him, giving him yet unseen powers that aren't actually giving the typical moral decay that we see with other epics.

The other thing that I think is extremely curious is David's almost innate ability to pick up on how to use other epic powers. We saw in Steelheart that he quickly became one of the best in the team with the tensors, and in Firefight, he picked up the spyril, another epic power exceptionally quickly.

 

Can we theorize, now that we know that Calamity itself is an epic, that the ultimate end-goal is going to be to search out a way to kill the first and foremost epic of them all? I think Prof is going to be a huge part of the next book, but ultimately, bringing him down, or bringing back his sanity, whichever it ends up being is still going to be just a battle in the greater scheme of things, and as they mentioned several times, killing Steelheart, and now Regalia and Obliteration, they've started a war, and they've committed to winning the larger war, not just individual battles with singular epics.

 

Now to wait for the book Calamity

There's not nearly enough posts here yet to spend hours reading discussion to try to sate my thirst for more.

Again, I noticed a lot of this. So I'll try to put my responses in order.

I hope Megan replaces Prof with a good version, one that doesnt even remember killing everyone, because otherwise he'll still at least be.. different from that...

I noticed everything mentioned in the second paragraph you have their. Rather intriguing, actually. I noticed the Epic powers and how he uses them easily in the first book, and was furthered by his development in book 2. I figured something was going on with him the whole time.

And as I said above, I dont believe he can be Epic because Prof Gifted to him. Unless his power is absorbing other ones, or healing and shilding that for some reason randomly stopped working...?

Forgot everything else I had to say.

Also finished firefight. It felt a bit better than Steelheart, if only because less of the book was devoted to solving an obvious mystery. It was still fairly predictable in direction, though, and weirdly inconsistent in where it seemed to be going. Given Brandon's tendencies, I knew it was going to delve more into the basis of epic-ness and the origin/weakness of powers. It seemed really disjointed though, as if Sanderson changed where he wanted the story to go multiple times and never had it properly edited. It's odd, because I think this is the first time I've finished a Sanderson book and felt so equivocal about it.

So the big reveal is that Epics have weaknesses based on their fears, and if they face and overcome that fear then they don't turn evil when they use their powers (or that they can reject said power outright). That the second book hinges on fear again, after that was the key revelation of book one was a bit of a disappointment, but it's a secondary issue to the bigger problems with the plot.

Regalia is another city ruling epic who is Evil but not super duper Evil, and her city has some working infrastructure, similar to Steelheart. And she keeps trying to draw Prof to the city by trying to kill our plucky heroes, but explicitly doesn't try to attack Prof himself. What a mysterious situation! So we head to Manhattan to figure things out, and, coincidentally, the Love Interest is there.

At the start it looks like Regalia is at the least conflicted about killing, and clearly there are non-destructive powers being used in the city. Regalia repeatedly refuses to kill our heroes for some reason which is never really explained. There are all sorts of hints about the people in Manhattan being oddly passive in the face of danger, and new/changing Epic powers that I thought would be related to power-gifting or something related (and possible constructive uses of powers). Or that the emotional state or intention when using powers might influence the effect on character, and that was something Regalia was trying to manipulate in Prof, or control in herself.

But no, it's all a weird ploy to make Prof use too much power and turn evil, even though that already almost happened in book 1, and straight up attacking him regardless of locale might achieve the same result. Megan was specifically sought out to seduce David for handwavey reasons that are never developed, and aren't just contrivances to bring them into proximity.

The conflict is also devoid of reasonable motive - if she's dying, why on earth would she care about making him evil? Why not try and steal his healing power, since she's shown she can apparently manipulate and transplant epic powers? Or why not just kill all his buddies, then make him use his powers when he doesn't have help that might prevent her diabolical scheme from working?

If the idea is that she wants a successor to rule her city, its especially hokey given the reveal that she's goatee-strokingly evil when she tries to Epic-ise David.

By now I think most of us are used to Sanderson trying to put a redemptive spin on the major villains in his stories, and this might be his lead in to retroactive redemption of Regalia when this all ends up vital to defeating Calamity. I just feel like if that's the direction he's taking things there are just way too many weird plot holes and misdirections. I'm not used to this from Sanderson at all, and I'm honestly quite curious as to what happened when he was (re-?) writing the book, because it is really feels like significant changes were made to the direction of the story without cleaning up the dangling plot pieces.

She tried to make David an Epic to destroy a bunch of Rekoners, suspecting Prof would survive.

She did not kill Prof because she wanted a successor.

I just felt that David was getting a lot of new information and trying to process it all... Not like the book changed directions or anything.

Megan did really die, but it wasn't due to the fire. Suspecting a trap, she rigged David's gun up, pointing at the window of the room he was supposedly in. When she went inside, realizing the trap she used the remote control to fire the gun at herself, so she was killed by a bullet rather than by the flames, so she could reincarnate. Does that make sense? I personally thought it stretched the bounds of plausibility, but that's just me.

It makes perfect sense. And it's a lot easier and faster to push a button than it is to put a gun to your head and shoot.

Also, she liked the gun and didnt want to get it destroyed, and that way she could do it while carrying David if things got too bad.

I mentioned this is another thread, but I am pretty positive that David was granted epic powers, he just doesn't realize it, because he didn't do the usual "rending" that normally follows obtaining Epicness.

 

Megan faced her fire fear, risking death (even if she had a backup plan, she still knew she could die), and was freed from the corrupting influence of her powers, but she retained the powers themselves. She regenerated, and could still make dimensional illusions.

 

When David was being Epic-ized, he looked at the water and decided that he would drown himself (arguably his biggest fear at the time, and certainly he had had more than one near death experience in the water) rather than go on a killing rampage. Then he rejects Calamity tempting him, and assumes that he didn't get any power. I think he just rejected the corruption. He has the powers, he just doesn't know what they are. And he's a High Epic, because he has two miraculous escapes fromc ertain death between there and the end of the book.

 

First, on page 392, during his confrontation with Obliteration. There is a burst of heat so powerful it overwhelms the forcefield. Half of David is vaporized. A fraction of a moment later, he's regenerated. He never thinks about it again. Probably busy being overwhelmed, and if he put any thought into it, he'd just write it off as having imagined the forcefield failing or something. Certainly, as the fight continues, the force field fails more and more, and he is left with several injuries. But none of them are mortal, and like Megan, it's not unreasonable to assume that his protective/regenerative powers are only triggered as a final protection against death.

 

Then, on page 410, when Phaedrus tries to crush him with a force field, the way he killed Val, David magically teleports outside fo the field without seeming to move (or maybe he teleported the forcefield away from himself?), much the same way that Sims teleport out of their beds when they're blocked in on all sides and the bed catches fire....not that I would know anything about that. Anyway, right as that happens, Megan is regenerating, so it's put down to her interference. On the next page, Prof tries again, and the forcfield magically teleports itself to surround Prof. David credits Megan, and while she is supposed to be capable of greater feats right after she regenerates, I don't think she was there in time for the first save. Pretty sure it was David. He's just an unknowing epic.

The second time, it is Megan. She's there enough to teleport stuff away.

As I said earlier, David can't be an Epic because he was Gifted to by Prof. So... unless thats gonna turn out wrong as well.

By the way, I saw Prof going evil the whole book long. Before they even went to Glitter Land (I mean, Babilar).

Hey, what would David's weakness be if he became an Epic? Like, other than the water thing.

(And I doubt Calamity is quite an Epic. Just throwing that out there as well.)

PS I did not realise Megan could teleport.

PPS I hope they beat Prof by Megan switching him to a different him from an alternate universe thing. That would be cool.

I don't think we should call it Awakening in this case, since Awakening is more like animating inanimate object. These objects are already animated, so it's more like, uh, Altering?

The whole time I just thought Alcatraz would break everything he wanted to whenever he wanted to to imitate other Talents... break time to use G. Smedry's, break space to use his uncle's or dad's... etc.

So I was thinking he would break Oculatory abilities to get Bastille one/them.

On that topic, what if a heart did "skip a beat"? Would it count as no beat, or two?

Anyway, I heard one "Are you a Lurcher? Because I can't seem to stay away from you." somewhere.

My own:

"You strengthen me as much as a Highstorm."

"You're so witty it hurts, just like Wit."

White Sand (spoiler because it's unpublished...)

The Croods random thing I came up with just now:

"You make me want to Survive."

And the best one yet...

...

"I am a Stick."

My sister lied to me.

I told my mom sort of what she said.

She asked me, "Why did you bendalloy?"

"I will form lies out of cakes."

"I will be witty only in the presence of others of near-equal wit levels."

"I will do what is right, even when it should be left."

"I will destroy evil."

"I am a Stick."

I would break that oath the next night.

Nobody is perfectly innocent...

Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before destination.

I will follow Wit's example, even if nobody understands. (Especially if nobody understands.)

Ilsteel money puns from the puny. (Yes, I just did that. I'd do Arsteel, but thats a wee bit off. Change it if you want. In your own head.) (Ilsteel was the third of the three brothers, but he only existed in a parallel universe of Warbreaker.)

I will lead by example of wit, and kill those who are not led.

I will remain witty, even when I run out of oaths to follow.

And one for everyone:

I will use correct grammar, even if it takes two seconds longer.

Szeth had said no oaths. I imagine an Honorblade would give him about the potency of a level 0 surgebinder. But he was fine as well.

Besides, the stromlight still should've healed him more. Whether or not he knew of it, whether or not he could hold it for longer...

EDIT: The book (WOR) says the stormlight was healing him as fast as he was getting hurt (by the rocks and stuff, which were hitting him). And the same was obviously true for Szeth.

I understand he had said two or three more oaths, but I don't think that would affect his intake. So why did Kaladin barely survive the highstorm in TWOK but was... well, the opposite happened in WOR.

"The nasty spren, they picked my lock and let me out of prison!"

Hahaha, I could imagine how that would turn out.

So in the interlude "Lahn", we are introduced to a certain young ardent named Pai, who certainly seems to be the main point of the interlude - Pai and the changes she brings.

At another point in the book, we are shown an ardent named Zahel. Some of us know his true identity. Spoilers abound for those who don't! Now, someone said in a thread something about Zahel ending up in prison, as he did in Warbreaker, although it was mentioned in passing. Then they mentioned that wouldn't happen because he was an ardent.

Well, I thought about that for a bit. And then I remembered Pai. So yes, he may be an ardent, but I'm certain that we'll be seeing a lot of changes to the Ardentia now, and perhaps a certain ardent will end up in jail. And then say to Kaladin, who was bringing him to the jail, "Why am I so often in jail?" Which will lead to a very interesting conversation. . .

And I'm sick.

I wonder which Misting I will be?

I looked outside at the sun today. It was red, and the sky was filled with smoke. The beginnings of ash, perhaps?

Attached is a picture. Not a very good one since it was taken by my iPad. But I just thought, "Haha, red sun, Final Empire. Not too long before people walk around with spikes in their eyes."

Uh...

He... uh... When he did that, he got so high that he invented High Imperial...