Pagerunner

I put everything we know in a pinned topic, over here. I'll be updating it as we learn more dates. Right now, they haven't said anything other than there will be some stuff in England.

'Trellium' is from a Shard we knew as of August 2015. Since then, we've only learned about Ambition. Every other Shard we knew of is currently Invested in a planet, so regardless of who Trell is, we will have that same problem. There must be a way for a Shard to un-Invest, or at the very least send a portion of their power away. Harmony was still the only Shard on Scadrial as of Shadows of Self, so Trell wasn't even there personally. I'll admit, there are edge case theories that can fit all these quotes in a way for Trell not to be a Shard (like Kelsier has gone to Sel and is sending pieces of Dominion back as Trellium), but they are much more complicated. Autonomy doesn't need to leave Taldain to be Trell; she just needs to be able to send pieces of her Investiture there to create Trellium. (There is also the question of who was speaking to Bleeder, guiding her, but again, since there was no other Shard on Scadrial by that point, that means that either a Shard was communicating from a distance, or a Shard's agent was actually doing the communication.)

We've seen Hoid worldhop in several places (Secret History, Elantris Bonus Scene, Way of Kings), and he always does it through a Perpendicularity (a.k.a. Shardpool). He goes from the PR to the CR through a planet's Perpendicularity, travels through the CR to where he wants to go, and transitions back through the local Perpendicularity. This isn't a magic system, per se; anyone can do it, it's just wonky cosmere Physics. Before Kelsier destroyed the Pits (and their associated Perpendicularity), there was a whole 'mercantile ecosystem' through there. Worldhopping isn't a form of teleportation to literally 'hop' between worlds; it's just hyperspace where you have to walk. So, it looks like you do have the gist of the idea, just without catching that that's all worldhopping ever was.

Welcome to the Shard! First of all, you might be better off looking in the Mistborn, Cosmere Theories, or Cosmere Q&A Boards; this board is (ostensibly) for non-spoiler discussions, and these sorts of questions get into some deeper stuff (especially when you're looking at crossovers). To address some of your specific questions: Lift has the ability to convert food into Investiture, to power her Surgebinding. Atium is not food, so she wouldn't be able to convert it. Atium, as Ruin's physical body, is already Investiture, but it's not useable by anyone. Normal Scadrians cannot use atium, they cannot access its Investiture, so Lift wouldn't be able to either because she isn't a Mistborn or atium Misting. This was actually discussed on the forums when Bands of Mourning was released, due to a line from Wax's uncle near the end of the book. Not sure how far you've read, so I won't go into too much detail, but some people thought that exact thing was happening, that they had combined Hemalurgy and Feruchemy to literally steal these Feruchemical attributes from someone else's body on an ongoing basis. (You're always storing gold at 50%, I'm always tapping that gold.) I disagree with the idea; I believe it is referring to another phenomenon that is already accomplished through the use of aluminum Feruchemy. (Again, not sure if I should be going into detail. Let me know if you'd like any more elaboration on my end.)

The Feruchemical Spiritual properties are not unique to Feruchemy: things like Investiture, Connection, and Identity are properties that play into all cosmere magics. Fortune is a similar property; you can do stuff with it through Feruchemy, but it's also something you can work with in other magic systems (I believe "drawing upon Fortune" was the phrase used in SH). (For what it's worth, I think Connection was what they were drinking, to maintain their power as Elantrians when they were far from their homeworld. But that's neither here nor there.)

It has been noticed, but no one has followed up on it at a signing, so we don't know anything more. Some people think they're trying to find Nightblood. I, personally, think that they're looking for Scadrian Splinters that might manifest as metal (whether or not such things actually exist).

http://www.torforgeblog.com/2016/04/21/announcing-the-stormlight-archive-pocket-companion/ It was a little something Tor threw together for Independent Bookstore Day.

The Stormlight Archive Pocket Companion had new information on the Bondsmiths, namely that the Stormfather was one of three spren that could bond to one. Concerns were raised, and it was confirmed by Brandon that the new information was indeed true, and that he had provided it. There are indeed three Bondsmith spren.

No, I'm saying that the spren we've seen aren't knowledgeable enough to talk about anything important. But elsewhere in the cosmere, we've seen people stick around as Cognitive Shadows (what passes for ghosts in the cosmere) when they were tied to a sufficient amount of Investiture. There might be something going on that makes everyone on Roshar stick around as a Cognitive Shadow, or maybe just the Radiants, which is the original meaning their mythologies of the Tranquiline Halls were built from. Syl and Pattern aren't in a position to know any of that... but the Stormfather would be.

There's the big mega-theory about the Rosharan Afterlife, that I'm hoping will get some love in this book. The spren we've really spent time with, like Syl and Pattern, both have lost memories when coming over from the other side. With Dalinar and the Stormfather (who is himself partly comprised of Honor's Cognitive Shadow), I'm hoping we'll get some juicy info about what's actually going on with the system as a whole. I'm hoping that Bridge Four will pretty much all be Windrunners. I think Windrunners are a very structured order (with ranks and what not), and that Kaladin has been building his whole Order through his training. They might be squires now, but they might be able to 'upgrade' from squires to Radiants proper, and them the other bridgemen that Dalinar rescued from Sadeas could stay as squires. (Or work towards Radiants in their own right.)

Relevant quote from Secret History, as Kelsier sought out the Ire: He's going towards Sel, so the sun he left behind can't be Sel. It looks like each subastral does have their own 'sun,' whatever that means.

It must have saved the last filter I used. You should be able to clear it; I'll need to clear it so nobody sees it. Thanks for pointing that out.

I recently reread the prose version, and I tried to substitute Ais as a woman in my head. It became quite problematic during middle portions of the book, when Ais was struggling with keeping his emotions under wraps. A man hiding from a battle because he's overwhelmed with fear comes across very differently than a woman doing the same thing; sure, maybe it's only because of what culture the individuals come from, but in the United States that kind of portrayal will be found offensive. Unlike Stormlight, where the parshmen slavery has offended people even though it's pretty clear that Brandon is writing it as a bad thing, the patriarchal society in general in White Sand is accepted pretty much on face-value, so I don't think it will fly that well anyways with many readers. Removing it so a female Ais can fill the same role as a male Ais will have a side effect of removing some of Khriss's experience and some pretty blatant middle-eastern comparisons, but I don't think the problem for the story comes from losing Kershtian sexism. I think the problem is from the real-world gender conversation, and that a woman whose defining character trait is attempting to hide her overwhelming emotions will hearken back to perceived long-standing misportrayals of women as creatures overcome by emotion. Ais would literally suffer from 'hysteria.' I guess I won't try to stumble too much farther along in this conversation, since I'm not well-versed in the topic, but it appears to me that Ais has no agency, especially at the end of the story when Kenton saves his daughter. In today's society, a story about a man with no agency is acceptable, but I don't think the same story about a woman would be found appropriate by many readers.

I'm pretty sure those are both from State of the Sandersons or other blog posts.

Harmonium is not an alloy - we have learned that it is actually a single metal. We also know that its reaction with water may leave behind something important to the cosmere (just not Harmonium oxide), so that might be atium or lerasium. I would expect that any sort of nuclear transformation would be too energetic. But the Set may believe differently, so they might indeed experiment with Harmonium. I just don't expect them to have much success.

Mortars are the most fun, because they're the ones you light off one at a time out of a firing tube, as opposed to a box that has a single fuse that will split and fire off a lot of smaller fireworks. When I was in charge of putting together the show last year for my camp (we always do a show for our campers on July 4th), I blew like half the budget on mortars, and only picked up a few boxes. Boxes can be more flashy, so it's good to have some for a finale, but I'd rather have six larger shots than 19 tiny ones real quick in a row. (Or, heavens forbid, a fountain.)

I think Teft's understanding of the First Oath is very flawed. Like what happens in many religious instances today, I think the Envisagers assigned new meaning to the particular phrases, which actually have nothing to do with the original meaning of the Oath when it was spoken by the Radiants. The First Oath applies to all Radiants, the only one that does so. But they are not united in action; the epigraphs in WoR imply conflict among the Orders, specifically Windrunners and Skybreakers. The Radiants are united in mission, in the fight against Odium, so I think the First Oath has more to do with their grand purpose than their behavior. I've been struck by a similarity between the First Oath and wedding vows. Specifically, the whole "in sickness and in health" bit, where it's a commitment to both situations. I think it's notable that the First Oath isn't "life until death" or "journey until destination," but that Radiants may be committing themselves to the defeat of Odium even in their afterlives. Whether it's their Journey of Strength during their Life (a.k.a. being a Radiant on Roshar) or their Destination of Weakness after their Death (if their Cognitive Shadows help the Heralds in some fashion), Radiants promise their very souls to the fight. So, that's my interpretation, that the First Oath binds a Radiant's Cognitive Shadow. Modern understandings of the First Oath have made it into guidelines for daily life, but I don't think that's what the Oath originally meant. (That's also what I think the secret was that broke the Radiants in the first place; they didn't know what they were actually signing up for until after they were dead.)

That is indeed a shrine. Spend a lot of time around Kakariko; I think it has some time-of-day dependent stuff. Have you beaten Ganon yet? You get a progress counter for your quests, so you can see how many Shrines won't show up on the tracker. (Although you can find some shrines without starting their quests.)

Which one do you think you know where it is? Make sure you finish side quests, not just the shrine quests. One of the last shrines I found was near Dueling Peaks stable, and I didn't stumble across it until I had to walk right past it to finish a quest. (I eventually had to look up 3 shrines. I somehow never stumbled across the Thundra Plateau...)

Well, guess who has a Shardblade now? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1078.html

Forget Surgebinding. I want to get the full workup for fabrials! It's not that Dustbringers are weird - it's the question of whether or not we have met a Dustbringer. Or someone who will be a Dustbringer. (Maybe it's part of the weird things going on with Ash.)

Yes, Facebook will have all important announcements like that. Sometimes, Brandon or Peter will let something slip in a more informal conversation on Reddit or Twitter. (That's how we know about the England visit.)

Unfettered II was an anthology (for a charity, I believe), which has rough drafts of Dalinar flashbacks in them. If you look in the Oathbringer spoiler board, there is a pinned topic that has all the excerpts that have been read at signings. We have the prologue, two interludes, a Kaladin scene, and a couple of the Dalinar flashbacks (but not all that was in Unfettered). Don't fret about spoilers - topic titles need to be spoiler-free anyways (since they appear on the forum main page when they're posted), so as long as you don't click into any other threads, you'll avoid any unwanted information.

So, it looks you're describing the Intent as playing out multiple ways in the effect of the Shard on the Vessel. You have both the steady-state (what the Vessel's personality is changing into) and the transient (how the Shard does the actual changing). I.e. Ruin is Ruininously changing the Vessel's personality to be more Ruinous, so he has a quick effect. Preservation will Preservatively (not a real word, let's go with Conservatively) change the Vessel's personality to be Preservative, so it happens slowly. Autonomy will Autonomously make the Vessel more Autonomous, which... really doesn't mean that much. But beyond that, neither of them explain the actual way we've seen an Intent affect a Vessel. In Secret History, Kelsier tried, but literally could not act in a method against Preservation's Intent. This wasn't a change in his personality, it was a restriction. The Shard itself wasn't acting; it was limiting the actions of the Vessel. So, I don't think Ruin acts Ruinously; Shards don't "do" anything, unless they develop a mind on their own. I think Ruin requires its Vessel to act Ruinously. Which will result in a changed personality on the part of the individual; you are what you eat. Vin was able to act directly against Preservation's Intent in killing herself, her personality did not completely match Preservation's Intent. At the end of the day, Shards will affect the Vessel in multiple ways, both through restrictions on actions and by warping the personality. But I think the Shard's Intent determines the placement of the goalposts; I don't see anything that indicates the Shards affect their users in different methods.

I think you made a good point, that it's all about your experience. Why does Tor release the chapters? To get people talking, to raise awareness of the release, so they can move more product on release day. Practical considerations, but it works, and it's a business approach. Why do we read them? Do they actually increase our enjoyment of the books? For me, I read the preview chapters. The chapters they release will not spoil the book (except if you're Amazon, and release the end as a preview, but I think Team Sanderson got that whole thing cleared up), and they let me get to the end a little quicker (since I'll be able to skim through main sequence chapters or just straight-up skip Interludes and such). I'll be rereading important passages later anyways for theorizing, so I don't mind seeing it again. And, let's be honest, knowing something is out there and not reading it is painful. But that's me, and just for books. Maybe it's a structure thing - I don't like binge-watching TV shows, since I feel it takes away from the experience. For novels, I guess the books are more like episodes, and not the chapters in that book. To truly know, you'll have to hold off and not experience anything until release. This is a "to each his own" situation, so you probably won't be able to know unless you actually try it. But for me, I'm here to theorize, and I've already developed some theories I'll watch for from the Prologue and the two Interludes. (And I dusted off an old idea about the WoK back cover!)