Pagerunner

All audio is up for transcription on Arcanum. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/367-skyward-release-party/. As is usual for release parties, there's quite a bit in there.

You'll see some more on this subject as the audio from the Skyward tour continues to be transcribed. Brandon did say at San Diego that he's incorporated some of those themes of doubt into Szeth's story instead. Which I presume is how he was treated by the other Shin.

I asked that back in April at JordanCon. Got a RAFO.

New canon glyph on a dog costume. Anyone have any idea what it is? I don't remember; did Bridge Four get any fancy new patches, other than the classic Bridge Four one? EDIT: Mystery revealed on Twitter. It's for the Cobalt Guard.

Looks like a mistake; hopefully, they'll update it and send out a link.

It's a good question, but there's nothing concrete to go on. There are a couple other standalones that Brandon plans on writing. Threnody will get a novel (but we can expect Shardic influence there to come from Ambition or potentially Odium). There's a chance of Brandon rewriting Aether of Night (although it sounds like currently he doesn't have a Shard planned to go with that magic). And Silverlight is on the list to get a novella (although that may or may not have a Shard). There are lots of theories about how some of these remaining Shards could be revealed: Odium killed them before they Invested in a world. So the Investiture is out there, but not impacting anything at the moment. Stormlight could involve more Shards in the future. Hoid wrote a couple letters in Oathbringer asking Shards for help (Endowment, Autonomy, and Harmony), all of whom rejected his offer. But did he only write to those three? What if another one actually comes to his aid? The last era of Mistborn could involve more Shards. As they they travel off-world through "conventional" spacefaring means, the main characters (whoever they will wind up being) could interact with planets and Shards the readers haven't seen yet. They could be behind other Cosmere phenomena that we haven't gotten a good look at yet. The Scar on the Star Chart, or Vax (which has Investiture, a strong indication a Shard is involved). I'm not sure that guarantees that Darro will be a worldhopper in Nightblood from the Aether planet. He's a cameo for Brandon's brother, so that might just mean Brandon changed the character to a Nalthian so that he could use him in another story. Same way Rock moved from Yolen to Roshar; he's not a worldhopper (as far as we know), Brandon placing the same character in a new world.

TWG 100%: Brandon 100% (116/116), Peter 100% (116/116), Isaac 100% (75/75), Ben 100% (38/38) 17S 51%: Brandon 100% (93/93), Peter 100% (99/99), Isaac 0% (0/99), Ben 0% (0/88) Reddit 43%: Brandon 100% (122/122), Peter 11% (10/95), Isaac 0% (0/13), Ben 0% (0/76), Adam 0% (0/4) Twitter 36%: Brandon 100% (115/115), Peter 8% (9/115), Isaac 7% (9/122), Adam 20% (9/46) Blog 100%: Brandon 100% (202/202) Social Media Total: 62% (1013/1634) Theoryland Review: 3% (35/1183) Events and Signings Review: 0% (0/397) We're cruising right along with the social media backlog. I wasn't able to find my old tracking spreadsheet, so I had to make a new one, but I was able to make it better this time since I remembered some things I had done inefficiently before. I don't have to do any manual math anymore for percentages, I've got Excel updating it all automatically. I've got all my percentages based on how many months of activity I've reviewed, and they all add new activity at a rate of around 1 month per month, but Excel is updating those numbers for me as the goalposts keep moving. I just gotta mark in X's when I've finished a month, and then copy-past over here. It really is a very nice spreadsheet. Green indicates it's progress made this past month. So I did a lot of checking on TWG and on 17S. Some of it was easier than others (Brandon's forum posts were all in already, as expected). But I've only got a little bit left before I close up the forums and move onto Reddit. I also got a count on the threads in the Events and Signings forum (I don't think I'll update that as new threads get posted, but rather stay on top of them the old-fashioned way. These are just old ones I want to review and double-check for late reports or claimed questions.) I did add some things from Peter in the TWG event and the year-by-year Miscellaneous events, but the most interesting thing was something you won't be able to find in Arcanum. It would just cause too much confusion, but it is fascinating to see some really old misinformation, a misunderstanding of what Shards were. Apparently, people thought there were a couple of Shards in Dragonsteel; Hoid had a Shard, the main character had a Shard, there was a Shard opposing them. I guess the assumption was that anyone with magic had a Shard. Peter had this to say about them: That second part makes me think of "giving up on the gemstone, now that it is dead": Hoid was known as Topaz in that book. It almost seems to me like he absorbed the Investiture of the Topaz, rendering it useless. (And bestowing the term "selfish" upon himself.) Basically all of this got officially walked back; Brandon stated that some of the people who had Dragonsteel were making too many inferences. But it's still an interesting insight into the unreleased book, and always fun to see what other crazy corners the fandom had managed to get itself into over the years. You can read the full threads here and here, if you're interested. So, that's all I've got for this month. I'll try to polish off the rest of the 17S posts this month, but the Skyward tour begins next week, and that will keep us really busy staying on top of the new signings.

Everything has received at least a first pass at a transcription. But it can always use another set of ears. (And people claiming their questions, for those who were there.) https://wob.coppermind.net/events/364-the-great-american-read-other-worlds-with-brandon-sanderson/#

A recent WoB that's got me thinking about our mysterious kandra worldhopper and bringing this thread back up: Brandon's phrasing there strikes me as a little odd. He doesn't say the phrase will help us find Terris people; he says "people who have been socialized like Terris people." It comes across a little verbose; why is he being that specific? It makes me wonder if WalDo has been exposed to enough Terris influence that she has picked up on this trait, and that's the specific person that Brandon had in mind at the end of his answer. Because she wouldn't strictly be Terris; she'd have some Terris-influenced speaking patterns. So, do we have any characters in Oathbringer who have that particular affectation? Because remember:

Pagerunner asked Brandon a question in an AMA on a Sunday. As he eagerly awaited the answer, Brandon told him, "I will reply to your question some day this week. But I will not tell you on which day I will reply, so when I do, it will come as a complete surprise to you." Pagerunner began to ponder what Brandon had said. If Saturday arrived, and Brandon had not yet answered his question, then he would know that Brandon could only reply later that Saturday, and the answer would not come as a surprise to him. Therefore, Pagerunner knew that Brandon would not respond to him on Saturday. But if Friday arrived, then there would only be two days left for Brandon to reply. Having already eliminated Saturday as a possibility, then he would know that Brandon could only reply later that Friday, and the answer would not come as a surprise to him. Therefore, Pagerunner knew that Brandon would not respond to him on Friday. In a similar fashion, Pagerunner eliminated Thursday, then Wednesday, then Tuesday, then Monday, and last of all Sunday. With no days remaining where Brandon could answer his question, Pagerunner dejectedly closed out of the AMA, saddened that he would never receive his answer. And on Wednesday, when Brandon replied to Pagerunner's question, it came as a complete surprise to him.

Looks like a good question to me. I'd say make sure you think ahead to try and anticipate a couple ways he might answer, to keep a good conversation running. Like if you get a "yes," to ask if there's a marbling pattern or color that's akin to Veden hair; not as unusual as crystal nails or harder teeth, but indicative of a piece of cross pollination. Or if you get a "no," to swing over and ask if singer races are as distinct and varied as the Vorins, Makabaki, and Iriali are for the humans.

That's not necessarily true on Identity. You're making assumptions about how Identity Feruchemy works. If it's in the style of copper, as well, then Identity could also be something that's removed wholesale or restored, as well. This fits with the way the term is used in Oathbringer to refer to parshmen. But to not get dragged too far down a rabbit trail, I think we're in agreement here. Even "useless" powers have an important place in the context of the broader metallic arts. But... that is right there in those scenes. There's an initial Intent, where they realize that the medallion grants you power. There's an initial effect, where they gain an ability. There's a second Intent. And then they use the ability they're given in the first place. How is thinking "This medallion will give me power" not a conscious action to gain that power? The books aren't lab reports. One of the common complaints I've seen leveraged against the first Mistborn trilogy is that there are too many repeated explanations of the basic details, going over and over how the abilities work to the detriment of the scenes. "Yes, we know how Steelpushing works Brandon, you don't need to stall the fight scene to explain it for the tenth time." Don't expect to see it in overwraught detail every time it's used. Theorizing off of what isn't said, trying to undermine everything that is said elsewhere in the text and in WoBs, runs up against the concept that things aren't called out in the narrative for other reasons than keeping secrets. Like pacing. No. Those two things are nothing alike. We have Wax's "understanding," that the medallions use nicrosil Feruchemy and that the Bands are a medallion with all sixteen metals. And then Wax uses the Bands. If we're theorizing off of what isn't said, why doesn't he realize that he was wrong earlier? You do tap Investiture (emphasis added): The power level is called out in the books. There are indeed "reserves" that change Wax's "level of Investiture," which would run out. He's using that to enhance his Steelpushing. But, like you said, the medallions work differently. They grant Investiture, they don't change the level of Investiture. There's a reserve that makes you more powerful, but is that the same phenomenon gives you power in the first place? And since it says "reserves," what other metals may be involved in that? It's not just nicrosil; that's been asked and shot down: And you're already forgetting the new WoB I got. In a medallion, something is "taken, used, and returned." That's how I defined "like a coppermind" in my question, and those are the same words that Brandon fed back to me in the answer. The phenomenon of increasing your power is something that runs out. The phenomenon of gaining power is something that does not. Medallion creation is complex. There are a lot of questions to answer. The hint we're given in Bands is that there is some sort of Investiture manipulation, using "skill" to add your Investiture to an existing medallion, altering what is already there. How that's done is what's hard to understand. But why does using it have to be any more complicated than tapping? To follow up on your comparison, blank connection is complicated to create. But is tapping it, like they do when using medallions, not duralumin Feruchemy? The final step may be straightforward, even if the entire process is complicated. That makes even less sense. Wax hasn't said anything "generally right." By your view, he just completely whiffed on medallion mechanics. The scene itself is not inconsistent with Wax being right. I will grant you that the scene itself is also not inconsistent with Wax being wrong. But man, you have to turn a lot of things on their head for the latter to be the case. The scene itself has no indication that Wax is wrong. If the goal is to fit a scene to a theory that appears to be contradicted, it will almost always be possible to do so. But this is just too many hoops to jump through for me.

Audio is all out for transcription: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/364-the-great-american-read-other-worlds-with-brandon-sanderson/

One more relevant Ingenuity WoB:

What do you mean by "categorize"? Everything is being captured in Arcanum: we have an event for the recent Skyward AMAs, and we have an event for all the various comments Brandon drops in threads. If you're wondering about tags, tagging is an ongoing process for all events; lots of the recent signings and cons are still waiting on tags. But the search feature will still give those entries as results.

Full text of the WoB: I think he thought I was asking about the flashback character, not the main interlude character. Seems weird we'd be getting interludes and flashbacks from Eshonai. I asked a followup about it, and we'll see if he gets back.

I'm not sure about Google Play, but the whole thing is actually up on Brandon's website. You can use the Navigation drop-down in the top-right to go from chapter to chapter. https://brandonsanderson.com/warbreaker-introduction/ There's also a full Microsoft Word doc you can download, from this page: https://brandonsanderson.com/warbreaker-full/ (unless that was what you were trying to download already?) I don't believe either of these versions have been kept up-to-date as typos were found over the years and subsequent physical printings were updated. But none of that will affect the story itself.

I'm not seeing that in our Awakening examples from the text. Cloth, regular cloth, has the ability to keep itself from being torn apart. If you use cloth to lift something, tie a sheet around something and raise it up, all the cloth's doing is is keeping itself from coming apart. Lifting something on its own, coiling up like a muscle or gripping things, seems like something completely different to me. And other Awakened objects do things well beyond physical applications. Vasher's straw man could observe and determine what keys are. Straw can't perceive, but that Awakened construct had the ability to find things. He says he's not talking about how Ruin's Investiture is "everywhere." So perhaps all swords everywhere in the cosmere have a little bit of Ruin's Investiture, since they're used to destroy. Maybe not that sort of a specific situation, but this concept (emphasis mine): There are things on Nalthis that are associated with Ruin in the very fabric of matter and existence. But that's not what Nightblood has. I don't see that as disqualifying the mists or Feruchemical Kinetic Investiture, since those are specific manifestations Ruin is involved in through Scadrial.

To the contrary, earlier in that scene, this exchange happens: So, when Allik says on the very next page "You know much about this, Mysterious One," as a response to Wax's explanation of tapping nicrosil, that's the truth. A confirmation that Wax is correct in his assessment. Sure, he gives him some lip farther down the page by saying nobody had ever tried using two metals together, but he makes it obvious and over-the-top, and Wax catches on right away. There's just no comparison between the two exchanges. I don't see that in either scene. Marasi's scene is inconsistent with other descriptions of storing weight, as well - she was able to "feel" the metal, so what is she feeling? Not the unfilled ironmind; there's nothing in it to feel, and other Feruchemists always feel a "store," not the metal itself. The point of view is in the middle of a climactic action scene, and the pacing of the narrative couldn't get bogged down with a technical explanation. (That had to come later, once things had cooled off.) So that's why there's no in-depth explanation of everything being tapped in that scene. It's quick and dirty, but the scene needed quick and dirty, so it communicates to us, the readers, that Marasi can store weight. And for the second, I do see Wax tapping nicrosil there. The "metalmind" started working before he tapped copper. So what metalmind is working? It must be the nicrosilmind. Brandon doesn't lay out step-by-step everything that happens here, either, because he already did it earlier in the book. The same way sometimes Vin just "takes to the skies" without steel being explicitly mentioned. She doesn't gain a brand-new, unrelated ability to fly. The reader knows from earlier how she flies; through using steel. And here, we know how Wax uses the metalmind; through tapping nicrosil. Sure, I'll grant you that these scenes don't say "He tapped nicrosil. He got a power. He felt the other metalmind. He tapped the other metalmind." But to say that their lack of detail somehow negates the in-depth explanation that Brandon gave us is a stretch. To step back a little bit from the word-by-word analysis, I want to reiterate what I mentioned in my last post, which you didn't respond to. As an author, Brandon has clearly designed this power to be a method of transferring abilities. It's there to allow for anyone to gain powers; medallions are the whole reason nicrosil Feruchemy exists. He spent a lot of time in Bands of Mourning explaining it to readers, so that we'd understand and buy in to what's happening. Because he had to; that's his First Law, that readers need to understand the magic. So he included a scene where he very clearly stated that you tap nicrosil to use medallions. The author can deceive readers. Brandon has certainly done it a lot in the past. But what's the payoff in this situation? Nicrosil Feruchemy was introduced for this specific purpose; what's to be gained by having medallions not actually use it? It'd just be a twist for the sake of a twist, which isn't a good reason for an author to intentionally mislead readers.

I've included everything we know above, so it looks to me like Division has to be touch and Cohesion can be ranged. All of the potential Tension usages are tough, as well. But since we've seen so little of these three in use, I can believe that a skilled Surgebinder could potentially learn to do these at distances. Jasnah can Soulcast at a distance, after all, when everyone else we've seen has to touch things. I think the rest of the discussion has covered this well, but I'll just restate my conclusions on Unity, since I may not have been clear enough. I see it as one of two things: An advanced application of either Tension, Adhesion, or the two used in concert. A direct Realmatic effect, outside of the Invested Art of Surgebinding, that Dalinar performs during his Ascension. That assumes that all three Unity instances I described are, in fact, applications of the same ability. The Thaylen Field is explicitly more than a Bondsmith could do, which is what set me down the path of the second conclusion, but it very well could have been based on Bondsmith Surgebinding. Good points. With regards to Surges in different Realms, I've never been a huge fan of that idea (even though we do have a canonicial Spiritual Adhesion, so my objections have been sort of hamstrung). I will be waiting to see if we get any other Spiritual or Cognitive applications Surges, especially Transportation (which is an expliclty Realmatic Surge, moving things between Realms. A small part of me hopes that Spiritual Adhesion is something like slatrification, a power that was added for narrative concerns instead of a natural outgrowth of the magic system. (Bondsmiths need to be able to talk to people all over the world, so Brandon worked up a Connection application for them.) But it's not a hill I'll die on, at least until seeing if we actually get any other Spiritual or Cognitive Surges. For the second, I'm not so sure it's always one-way. Soulcasting appears to enact a Cognitive change to accomplish a Physical transformation. And even Dalinar's Spiritual Adhesion could be a Spiritual change that affects his Cognitive self (there is no Physical change when he uses it). But an interesting observation, nonetheless. I'm actually going for both. This specific example, I'm seeing it as a catalyst (which, per the technical definition, creates a different reaction mechanism with a lower activation energy), since there are times when Division doesn't release energy. But making stone burn does require adding the activation energy. It just depends on what goals the Surgebinder has in mind. I'm not sure there's any disagreement between us here. Spring constants and stress/strain curves are empirically determined; you'll do a bunch of experiments and plot the data out to determine the properties of a substance. But what determines them? Why are they different from substance to substance? The way the atoms and molecules of that substance interact with one another. At a higher level, with an application-based perspective, you're quantifying that using meaningful parameters. I'm looking at theory, what it would take to accomplish those changes. And I agree that these aren't first principles of the magic. That's the point of my fifth section; starting with what the fuzzy Rosharan pseudoscience says, what would real-life physics need to actually do to accomplish that? They are super inconsistent, and I've had to jump through a bunch of hoops to inscribe the intent of the Surgebinder to these applications. But I think that on its own is important to understand. If you're trying to understand what these Surges do, there's not going to be a "simple" Physics answer, the way you might get with Steelpushing. It'll be driven by perception, what the Rosharans believe (and therefore what the author wants to write) about the magic doing. That's an interesting thought. I don't interpret the god surge WoBs to mean that; I think that the Rosharans think some Surges are more connected to Honor (like Tension or Adhesion) and others are more like Cultivation (like Progression). But I also don't think additional god surges have been conclusively disproven either; or even that the Rosharans would call all magic a Surge, so they'd call a direct Realmatic application of an Ascended individual a "god surge." So there may indeed be a connection there.

As opposed to what, exactly? Wax describes tapping nicrosil and gaining Investiture when he's talking with Allik about how medallions work. It's not just Wax; Allik is agreeing with his assessment. And Marasi's point of view in that scene explicitly calls out Wax as an expert about the Metallic Arts. This is a topic that came up in some other threads around release, but if Wax has incorrectly identified how they work, then you have the author being intentionally deceptive during an essential infodump, and you have an in-universe character lying for no apparent reason. Nothing is impossible, but I don't see any indication from the text that Wax's interpretation of how the powers work is mistaken. Memories from copperminds degrade, but that is not due to the use of Feruchemy, and they don't degrade while they're in copperminds. It's a problem with the human mind. That being said, Breath decays in an older individual, so I guess it's possible that Metallic Arts Investiture could also decay over time in a normal individual. If older Mistborn get weaker in their powers, that sort of thing could also happen when the Investiture in a medallion has been passed around for so long. That's an interesting point. The other possibility is that Investiture "snaps back" in a way that memories do not. When Sazed is described as using his copperminds, he's not actively tapping the whole time he's got a memory out. Feruchemy moves it from one place (his coppermind) to another (his brain), and it stays there until he takes a step to put it back in the coppermind. But the medallions create temporary Feruchemists; you have to have the medallion. When you stop tapping, the Investiture snaps back to the medallion. So a nicrosil Ferring storing their nicrosil-Feruchemy-Investiture may not lose it permanently; it could snap back to them when they stop storing. Another potential side effect of not needing to be converted to Investiture; that lack of conversion requirement could allow it to move more freely. That would raise another question (how do medallions get a permanent nicrosil charge in the first place), and it still doesn't address how anyone can tap a medallion. I myself am partial to what you suggested; if nicrosil medallions are useable by anyone (only held up because of Identity issues), they would be able to get it back. But there are some other alternatives that I can think of. But this kind of gets down to the deeper picture of the limitations of medallions. When you start hacking and patching like this, is everything available to a natural metalborn going to remain available? Can you make a compounding medallion? (I think everything would be too broken if anyone could compound, so I operate on the assumption that you can't.) Or do all of the nitty-gritty behind-the-scenes spiritweb/Investiture/Identity things not line up perfectly anymore? Maybe blanked Identity on Investiture in a nicrosilmind is enough to tap, but not enough to let you compound. Identity as a bridge that lets you mix and match parts of your abilities (power from one, effect from another), so without Identity there is no bridge. That might be what causes the snap-back in medallions; because the Investiture isn't aligned with your Identity, it's not going to stay with you when you're not actively tapping. Man. Lots of good questions raised by this. I'll definitely need to keep mulling this over for a while. We've got just enough hints that I feel like we can work it out, but there are a lot of gaps that can be filled a number of ways. Aluminum Feruchemy looks to be another one of those powers that's only useful in the context of a broader Metallic Arts application. Storing Identity on its own as an aluminum ferring wouldn't accomplish anything, since you're not storing any other Feruchemical traits that you're looking to unlock. Nicrosil Feruchemy is the same way; not terribly useful on its own (maybe some edge cases if you need to avoid a skilled Bronze misting or something like that), but the way to transfer powers and enable the "medallion age" where anyone can become Invested. And from what we know know, it's miles more useful than aluminum Allomancy, which is useless for a Misting, no known applications for a compounder (since we've only seen practical benefits from removing Identity), and for Mistborn... well, it's good for a one-time trick against an ignorant one, so it's an actual liability.

I am digging this topic back up from the nether regions it had been abandoned to because I have finally obtained validation for my initial interpretation! So it is not a nicrosil-hours type of situation. Nicrosil lets someone who is a Misting store their ability entirely in a metalmind, and they'll lose that ability entirely. (This will still require nicrosil compounding, as I stated above, to result in a net increase of Allomancers and Feruchemists.) I think the quantization of "Investiture" in nicrosil connects this to the very Investiture that enters a spiritweb when you Snap. A piece of Preservation's Investiture fills in the cracks in your spiritweb, and that Investiture produces an ability. It's not Kinetic Investiture; it's more along the lines of Innate Investiture, but an extra helping of it. Akin to Breath on Nalthis or spren on Roshar; there's some kind of permanent piece of Investiture that becomes a part of your soul when you Snap as an Allomancer. That Investiture doesn't power your abilities; it is the ability itself. And that is what nicrosil Feruchemy stores. Not Kinetic Investiture or an all-purpose Feruchemical Investiture, as the MAG theorized. But Investiture in the sense Khriss often uses it (like saying she thinks there's Investiture on First of the Sun), the abilities that compose an Invested Art. This is also an important piece in how I think the medallions function. Feruchemy has two aspects to it: it transforms a trait into Investiture (more like Kinetic Investiture, although that is only Kinetic while being stored or tapped); and it places that Investiture into metalminds. I recently did some training for a control system we have at my plant, and it got needlessly complicated with how we adjust some control parameters. We need to edit them in a .txt file on our interface; but the control software itself can only read hexadecimal .dat files. So we run a compiler to convert .txt files to .dat files. That's the first thing Feruchemy does; convert from an attribute to Investiture. And the second thing it does is the download; on my control platform, we have a separate command to download information from the interface to the control computer. That's like placing the converted Investiture into a metalmind. I think the Investiture that nicrosil stores doesn't need to be converted. It is already Investiture; in my control system terminology, souls already are "programmed" to use it as a .dat file. I think that distinction is what makes it possible for anyone to tap it; they don't need to do any file conversion, so it's easy for their soul to interface with the ability stored in the metalmind. So. Feels good to finally get this question answered. Hopefully, we don't have to wait another two and a half years to get Lost Metal and some reveals of how all this stuff works. But I feel like I managed to get a little bit closer with this WoB.

Not Leatherbounds, but I had a good haul from the store's summer sale, and this seems as good a place as any to share them. The medallion one, in particular, has been something on my mind since the Bands of Mourning release. I tried to work towards this question at JordanCon, and got what I felt was a time-saving RAFO to keep the line moving. And it looks like my instincts were right, since a slightly reworded version got an answer here! I'll track down a medallion thread and expand on why I asked this question and what I think it means. I'll come back here and link it once I've done so. EDIT:

Can you elaborate on the distinction you're making? I'm having a hard time understanding it. Like for Nightblood, what exactly is the "capacity," and what is the "thing that is being done?" Or for a more mundane instance, like Vasher causing the drapes to lift him up? I also think it's important to note that the WoB does not state the Nightblood was "created" with Ruin's Investiture. Just that he "contains" it. Another recent WoB about Nightblood: If Nightblood is growing stronger, becoming more Invested, then it stands to reason that he is absorbing Investiture from somewhere. If this occurs as he is used, then he could have acquired Ruin's Investiture sometime after his creation. He may also now have some of Honor's Investiture, absorbed during the events of OB. So it could indicate that he was used by someone with Feruchemy, drew on the mists directly on Scadrial, or maybe even was used against a Scadrian and absorbed their innate Investiture.

Being "of" a Shard is an interesting turn of phrase, since even early in the books it was never used strictly to refer to Investiture's association. From the HoA chapter 80 epigraph: Kandra are created through Hemalurgy, Ruin's magic system. But where their Investiture came from did match who they aligned themselves with in terms of purpose. They were on Perservation's team, so to speak, not on Ruin's. And I think that's the way to take Sja-anat's statement here, as well. Not that her Investiture is no longer aligned with any Shard; but that she no longer serves Odium. She hasn't done a full-on betrayal to the other team, like many Highspren and at least one Ashspren. But she has goals of her own that aren't served by either of those Shards. I'm not a fan of this idea, mostly because I have a hard time reconciling the Unmade with this passage: That same generation of Knights had at least one Unmade imprisoned: Re-Shephir. And depending on how soon after the Recreance Honor died (it is the furthest historical vision Dalinar experiences, though that may merely be due to lack of subject matter than any chronological association), Re-Shephir may have still been imprisoned; so when Honor says "without the Dawnshards," that would indicate to me that the Dawnshards and Unmade are two separate things. Dawnshards and Unmade both being some of the biggest ongoing mysteries in Stormlight, I'll admit that it's difficult to convince anyone about any interpretation regarding these subjects; there's just so much blank space that any number of theories can fit. But I've found myself being influenced more and more by the Diagram's dismissal of the Unmade as "a deviation, a flair." They're visceral, they're pretty nasty, but there are a lot of things over the course of the Desolations that changed the status quo. I've been thinking lately that the Unmade are "merely" a product of the Desolations, something new from Odium's bag of tricks. Which wouldn't be unprecedented. The Desolations aren't one war - they're a series of wars, dozens of them, and just like real life, I think there were major advancements in warfare. Even in the brief 200-odd years of American history, you compare the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to World War II, the tactics and technology are so completely and utterly different as time progresses. When the first Desolation began (the human invasion of Singer lands, before the Fused and before the Oathpact), there were no Surgebinders. (Except perhaps the Heralds, if they had their Honorblades before the Oathpact.) There was no Shardplate. There were no modern fabrials. The Fused couldn't Surgebind. There was no Everstorm. All of these things rolled out over centuries of warfare, new strategies that each side unveiled to try to gain an edge. And my current thoughts put the Unmade as another of these phenomena; created during a Desolation, but eventually became part of the status quo. Like Radiants or Surgebinding Fused. Potentially as extremely twisted Singer souls, which is why Kai-garnis (a Fused or thundersclast at Thaylen Field) has a name so similar to Dai-gonarthis. This is also partly because the Unmade were left behind on Roshar after the Final Desolation. (Which I know runs counter to the idea that Unmade are super-Fused, as I mentioned out above. I'm just tossing out some possibilities that point to similar conclusions.) The Fused returned to Braize, but the Thrill and the Death Rattles stuck around on Roshar and became accepted parts of some cultures. I don't recall a single mention of an Unmade on Braize. And this is the point I've been building towards: can you find any indication that the Unmade came from, went to, or were ever on Braize? Knocking down the idea that the Unmade are a purely Rosharan phenomenon, through placing one on Braize, would give some credence to the idea that they could have hopped over from another world.