Pagerunner

"Alive and kicking."

Looks pretty good. Remember, this isn't the main story - each book has its own self-contained story, and there's something deeper hidden in the background. So, yes, some of it has been intentionally obfuscated. A couple points of clarification: The technical term for a Dude or a Chick is a "Vessel." We called them Shardholders for a while, before we knew the official name for them. It's possible to separate the Deified part (Shard) from the Dude or Chick (Vessel). Odium is the Shard, and Rayse is the Vessel. The Shard influences the Vessel's behavior (as we see in Mistborn: Secret History). Odium is killing the other Shards in two ways: murdering the Vessel (who controls and guides the power), and Splintering the Shard (which makes the power unusable, so nobody else could become that Shard's Vessel). He can't destroy their power completely, and he doesn't want to take it up himself. (A wise choice, if you recall Harmony, where we see someone holding two Shards starts to act pretty funky.) We don't know if anybody is actively opposing Odium. Honor might have started the fight between them, trying to stop him. Some other Shards may have fought back, and been killed. (We don't know the exact number of Shards that Odium has Splintered.) Some people think Bavadin (who holds the Shard of Autonomy) is actively helping Odium. The only other Shards we've seen in-depth, Ruin and Preservation, were busy with their own business in Scadrial, and didn't seem terribly involved in the rest of the cosmere at large. There's a whole worldhopping community, a place called Silverlight that Khriss vaguely references. There will eventually be a novella or full book written about it, but for now, we've only seen a few people from there. Khriss is one, Iyatil (Creepy Stormlight Chick with a Wooden Face) is also from there. If you look closely, you can see other people crossing from world to world: there's someone named Nazh, who helps Khriss (he's been an Ardent watching Kaladin, and he's mentioned in one of the Bands of Mourning newspapers), there are some people trying to track down Hoid (Galladon from Elantris, Demoux from Mistborn, and Baon from White Sand), all working together (we see them in one of the Way of Kings interludes). So, there are a lot of people who know about the overall cosmere, but we just haven't met them yet. There are 6 Shards who we don't know the name for yet. It's possible one of them could be Stupidity, but to make a good guess, we first need to ask: what is the pattern to the 10 Shards we know? Some of us believe they are all Divine Attributes, literal pieces of the mind of a god to go along with the power. (Even ones that seem bad, like Odium, are corruptions. If there's only one true God, then the commandment "Don't worship other gods" makes sense. But if there are 15 other Gods, well, there's only one thing to do... eliminate them all.) I don't know any serious religious views that view their own god as being stupid, so I don't think it would make a very good Shard. But you never know...

I can make a simple function on my trusty TI-83. That's the extent of my knowledge.

Hey, I've made a blog, and it has a very specific purpose in mind. I'm been toying around with creating my own Word of Brandon database for about a year to collect cosmere-related tidbits, and I finally got the ball rolling in some key ways and like what's going on with it. I'm gonna try and use this blog to make monthly updates, for two reasons: Structured updates are a great way to make sure I keep working on a project, and if anyone's interested in following/helping it can give them an eye into what I'm doing. Talking something out often helps me in problem solving, so I might post a problem I'm having just to air it out, even if I don't actually expect to get any help. (It's the way I theorize, as well.) So, scope of the project. Phase 1 was building a structure that, first and foremost, can assist with theorizing. I had toyed around with Microsoft Excel, or using a wiki (like actually on the Coppermind), but I settled on a Microsoft Access database. I like the way it's letting me use tags and searches, and I've got a database structure that really works for me to parse WoBs in many different ways and potentially provide a lot of end-user functionality. I won't go into detail yet about the structure and what I would like the interfaces to look like; for now, I have tables and relationships arranged the way I like, and a good data entry sheet that allows me to efficiently add, source, and tag WoBs. I'll worry about getting the data out of Access later on. Phase 2 is data collection. Theoryland is going to be incredibly useful, but I'm focusing right now on the stuff that they don't have, Brandon's social media. We've got years of Twitter and Reddit backlogs, which I'd like to get in a format that is concise and removes the *chaff* of status updates and fan interactions. (I actually really enjoy reading them, don't get me wrong, but this database is supposed to be a theorizing tool, so they don't belong here.) The only way to do this is go through, manually, and copy-paste each quote into the database and add tags. It's somewhat slow going, but right now, I can go faster than 1 per minute when I'm focused. (Most of the time, I'll be eating or watching football, so it doesn't have my 100% attention.). Right now, Phase 2a is Reddit, Phase 2b is Twiter, Phase 2c is Theoryland. Phase 3 is publication, and will probably begin during Phase 2b. It will be investigating how to share this database. I'm not doing this just for myself (although I do enjoy reading through WoBs, and have actually learned a lot from the little work I've done on actual data collection), I'd like to make the database available in some form to everyone. However, I don't know if most people will have Microsoft Access, and there's no free online version like Word, Excel, etc., so I'll have to do some research in ways to 1) get the database in a form I can share and 2) make useful ways to quickly and efficiently execute searches. Phases 4, 5, and 6... I have ideas that go beyond WoBs, to include cross-referencing with theories and questions. But they won't be useful without Phase 3, and they would need community buy-in, so let's cross that bridge if we get there. Right now, I'm beginning work on Phase 2. (I have a little bit of rework on Phase 1, but it should be easy, I'm just creating a couple new tag categories.) I'll mostly be working on Reddit, but I'll be jumping around, since I am actively using the database as well and would like to get the AU tours in. My monthly progress updates will be against 3 metrics: Reddit Progress, Twitter Progress, and Theoryland Progress. Reddit, I unfortunately don't have a goalpost, since I don't know how many posts Brandon has made, but I'm steadily working backwards. So, this metric will be how far back I have gone in. I will be including new posts he makes, probably on a daily basis, and then going back to the archive. Twitter, there are 93 months of backlog. His assistant Adam maintains Tweet Archives, which is going to be unbelievably helpful, so I'll mostly be adding tags. I'll be staying up-to-date, so this metric will be months of backlog I have gone through. This will probably go in chronological order, start at the beginning and go forwards, and should go pretty quick, since it seems it's promotional links and status updates that are mostly on Twitter, as opposed to the deeper questions on Reddit. Theoryland, I'm cataloging how many of their entries are relevant to the cosmere. I want to have numbers and links, in case anyone actually wants to help, so I'm gonna do a quick review to get the actual number of Theoryland interviews (not actual entries, but signing/interview entries) that have relevance to the cosmere. My rough estimate is that they have 600 interviews with Brandon; likely, many of them either are author-related stuff (no cosmere bits) or Wheel of Time related, so the actual number of sources I'll have in my database will be smaller. And I don't want to use Theoryland as a primary source (except for signing reports that literally don't exist anywhere else), but try to go directly to the Signings forum here. But, first things first, I need to see how many of them I'll be drawing from. So, here's my first progress update: Reddit, Nov 2016 Twitter, 0/93 Theoryland, 0/600? So, yeah, no idea how long I think this will take me. I would like to get onto Phase 3 before Oathbringer is released, but I literally have no experience in judging this. So, we'll see. And welcome along for the ride!

Check out this Annotation.

It's his original Blade.

You can contact the store and ask. I just used the contact form to check when some posters were coming back in stock. It took a week or so to get a reply, but Kara eventually got back to me. If they have specific plans for when it will become available, she might let you know a ballpark date.

Like the ideas, don't have a ton of time to comment on the implications. Just one quick thing to point out for now: Melishi is probably Ishar himself. The holy (palindrome) version of his name is Ishi, and we've seen suffixes "Talenat'Elin, Sword-Nimi) in some other Roshar cultures, so I think that we're seeing Mel'Ishi.

Have you checked out the Theoryland interview database? It's primarily a Wheel of Time site, but they do still update with Brandon's signings, so they've got a lot of juicy tidbits that were obtained at signings that you can't find anywhere else. If you look in peoples' sigs, you'll see some of us have an "Espoused Theories" section. If they're following the suggested format, anything without an asterisk would be someone else's theory that they like. If you see a theory popping up in multiple peoples' sigs, you know it's a good one. You could use the search bar to filter by forum (Cosmere Theories has more overarching ideas, while for now Edgedancer/Secret History spoiler forums tend to be the most cutting-edge about those topics) and search for a topic you're interested in. But, probably, just start clicking away through a forum. If you find someone referencing a theory that you're not familiar with, quote them and ask for more info. I doubt anyone will complain about being 'forced' to talk some more about an idea of theirs. Posting theories of your own usually brings us out of the woodwork, saying "Cool idea, I think that fits with my theory, too."

That would imply he's changed his mind about Wayne, since last he said he hadn't written it as of October 2015. (Remember, even though SoS and BoM hadn't been published yet, they had both been completed and turned in to the publishers.) It seems more like a generic answer that he gives out when someone looks for similarities between, say, atium and Aviar, that the magics all work on the same principles, so while he might not be specific call-outs, there will be similarities.

I'm not exactly sure what that means; I'm not well versed in IT terminology. It's more of a 'if you have a hammer, every problem seems like a nail' situation, where I've seen some utilization of databases at my job (not Access, but that's what I've got on my personal machine), and the idea popped into my head. So, I'll try and explain myself, and you can tell me if it makes sense. One concern I have with Theoryland's Interview Database (aside from not including Reddit and Twitter, which is understandable) is that there isn't a really good way to approach it without being too granular; there's no Advanced Search that would let me say "show me everything relevant to Stormlight Archive." But keyword searches won't necessarily be good for those kinds of things. Let's say I'm looking for information on the world of Roshar, and I do a keyword search for Roshar, I'm getting stuff like Entries 31 and 154, which isn't what I'm looking for, but missing an important piece of history from Alethkar. If they were going to put in enough keywords into Theoryland to allow this kind of dividing of the information, there would be a lot of tags floating around at the bottom of WoBs, and users would need to know exactly what to search for, like "World-of-Roshar." In Access, I can do these cross-references in their own table, and it's all going behind-the-scenes until you actually use it to search. When I narrowed down the ways I would want to parse WoBs, I thought of five main ways: Character (done well in Theoryland), Magic (reasonably well), Planet (lacking), Series (impossible), and Shard (well). Giving them each a table of their own, and then adding in a cross-reference table between the WoB table and the tag tables, lets each WoB have a ton of tags. It also allows consistency with the tagging, so you don't miss stuff that got tagged "Surgebinders" instead of "Surgebinding." Although, I did allow for free-text keywords, for stuff like "Cognitive Shadows" and "Future Plans," since there will be plenty of stuff that won't fit neatly into one of those categories. Oh, and filtering by date, in case you want to see everything said about Kelsier after BoM came out. There's some other minor functionality that I'm planning on using from the get-go. I'm putting in the ability to archive WoBs without deleting them. (At some point, the WoBs we have about Vasher using Stormlight will make their way into the books, so I won't include them automatically in searches.) Tagging RAFOs, so you can exclude them if you're just browsing for cool information. And marking WoBs as 'Notable,' for the ones it feels like I keep having to pull up and quote (like the 'Survival' Shard's intent, or the force that opposed Adonalsium.) And I, personally, want to exclude all the "Conflux" questions from signings that are along the lines of "what would happen if a Surgebinder with Breath tried to use Stormlight to Awaken an electrum metalmind that was made with silver from Threnody and imprinted with a functional Aon that was drawn using invested sand from Taldain and..." (I exaggerate, of course. There's a lot of good value in some of these questions, but there's also a lot that I don't find terribly enlightening.) And then, I have some longer term plans in mind. I don't expect I'll be working on the WoB portion of the database for years and years (either I'll get it, or I'll give up), but I've got some further phases in the unlikely case things turn out well: Notable passages from the books will probably be the first expansion, utilizing the same tag structure but having a different source structure. I can always find an excuse for a reread. Then, I'd like to create a List of Questions, which can cross-reference to the existing tags, and then to a WoB or a passage once a question has been answered. That way, it's not just "what are the open answers," but could turn into a FAQ as stuff gets answered. (This would greatly utilize the Conflux marker that I mentioned above, and would probably have a hidden FAQ marker I could use to put together an actual FAQ query for newer users.) If I'm really feeling ambitious, I'd make a theory database, too, that draws from multiple WoBs and passages. It's kind of like what I said above for Theoryland's database, I don't think there's an easy way to see what theories there are (i.e. what theories are there about Kelsier). And the only way to browse to see the best ones is to find a good theory and track down Espoused Theories in peoples' sigs. Some good old ones get lost as members become inactive. These aren't priorities, but they would need to utilize the connections that Access makes available. You'd be able to think of a question and go see that it's been answered, read the WoB, say "Wow, that's a cool fact! I wonder if anyone built any good theories off of it," run a theory search on that WoB# and see what theorists have said about it or see what passages can influence interpretations of that WoB. That being said, I'm pretty sure I can get all of the functionality I could possibly want for that kind of cross-referencing in Access, and most of the struggles I'm coming across have to do with forms, queries, and user interface situations. Buttons are nice, but I have no idea how they work in Access forms. (Incidentally, I managed to solve my original question about forms using sub-forms, so now I can add a WoB and all its tags from a single page, and it all fits on the small screen of my Surface 3. With no buttons whatsoever. And I got variable queries down, as well, so that's 2 of my 3 original questions solved.) But, even if things fall apart in the long run or this isn't the most effective way of organizing the data, my current focus (collecting Twitter and Reddit cosmere tidbits into a single location) has been greatly enhanced by what I have working so far, and push comes to shove I can export the quotes and links to Excel for someone else to play with. Sure, maybe someone smarter than me could come up with a better system. But, I don't have any skills outside of relatively basic Microsoft Office, so that's why I'm using Access. Granted, I'm not sure how well an Access desktop database could transfer to other people using it over the internet, since there's no Access online like there is Excel online. Web Apps look like queries and forms change pretty drastically, but the database structure wouldn't change. Also, I've saved a link of a company who says they have a free option that can convert an Access database to something embeddable online, so I have hope it would fit that need. But, if you know of anything better that than Access that 1) is free, 2) enables collaboration, and 3) can do what I'm looking to do, by all means, help me out before I go too far down the rabbit hole.

Rock didn't mention seeing one when he caught Hoid worldhopping, so I don't think he does have one. It is possible to take in Stormlight without having a spren. Vasher is able to do this, as is anyone with an Honorblade. Using Stormlight, on the other hand, would require some way to 'channel' the Stormlight, like being bonded to a spren. Vasher isn't able to Awaken with Stormlight; he can take it in, he can consume it, but he he hasn't (yet) figured out how to use it like Breath in all fashions. I believe at a recent signing, the Chicago one I think, there was a discussion with Brandon about spren and Shadesmar/Physical Realm travel. It's hard to circumnavigate the planet with a spren, because of the way Shadesmar is mapped to a planet (they can't jump across from one edge of the map to the other, since Shadesmar isn't connected that way. The International Date Line would be a barrier to spren.) But, if Hoid was bonded to something else (like a Seon, or Nightblood) that wasn't bound to Roshar in the same way, there shouldn't be any problem with him worldhopping with it. (Although, like I said, Rock didn't see one with him, so I don't think he's got one.) But, deep down, I would like to believe that Spanky (from Secret History) wasn't just a corpse, but was Hoid's spren. He's just not a very lively spren.

Not gonna lie, this is pretty much my entire personality:

Welcome to the Shard! The earthquake in Arelon that caused the Reod is a fairly recent event in the cosmere timeline, thousands of years after Odium splintered Dominion and Devotion. So, it wasn't caused directly by him, but it could have been an aftereffect. The splintering of Honor, however, seems to be a much more recent occurrence, since Dalinar's visions show the Radiants giving up their powers, an event remembered by the people of Roshar while the original deaths of Aona and Skai were in Selish prehistory. Of particular note is the pattern to the Shattered Plains. Some of us find it reminscient of the cymatics that Kabsal showed Shallan about how the patterns mapped out several cities. That's probably the stronger connection - whatever vibrations caused the patterns that form the cities, could have been amplified at Stormseat to create the Shattered Plains. So, yes, I think you make a good point when it comes to Stormseat possibly being destroyed because of a lot of Investiture. I don't think we can tie it back to Elantris, however, because we don't know exactly what caused the Chasm to form. (Although, it is interesting to note that the Fjordell prophecies say Jaddeth will rise from below the ground.) But it's a good idea, and a good parallel to note. I definitely agree that both are likely due to Odium's influence, if not through the exact same mechanism.

Nice work.

I think that's how it works in the MAG.

Yeah, that's what prompted my idea. They just dismiss it as 'Voidbringers are the worst. Chasmfiends are the worst. Voidbringers must look like Chasmfiends.' But it could be deeper than that. What we've seen so far with the Parshendi, I don't think bonding Voidspren is a magic system, as defined by an interaction between a Shard and a Planet with an Initiation. All the other magic systems in the cosmere that we've seen need a user; if Voidspren just bond and change, then who is actually using that magic? Is the spren using itself? Rather, I think it's a Realmatic phenomenon. Brandon has made parallels to a situation in Mistborn, where users of a certain magic system (Hemalurgy) would become open to the influence or even full control of Ruin, that magic's Shard. The magic of Hemalurgy isn't opening someone to control - but creating openings for a Shard's control is a side effect. Same thing I think is happening here: the Parshendi naturally bond spren, no magic required. (There were spren before Honor and Cultivation arrived, and there are hints that the Parshendi predate the Shards as well, so before the arrival of the Shards Roshar would have been more like Threnody or First of the Sun, with Realmatic behavior but no formal magic system.) But, when they bond an Odiumspren, it opens them up to Odium's control, in addition to the normal effects of that bond (whatever form they gain). Chasmfiends have natural spren bonds as well. Thunderclasts, I'm not as sure how they would fit into this, since rocks don't naturally bond spren. (I think.) The only info we have on Voidbinding proper, at least that I can recall, is that it lets you see the future, and that there are ten levels of it. (Uh... at the start of the Mistborn series, there are 10 known metals, one of which lets you see the future. I'm sure the parallels are entirely accidental.) So, it implies that Voidbinding is something people use to create prophecies, which doesn't seem similar at all to what's happening to the Parshendi. Although, the Lashings are very different from Soulcasting, and they're all part of the same overall magic system of Surgebinding. So, you never know, they might be part and parcel. But I don't think so.

Yeah, that's the approach I take, as well. The Odiumspren are basically controlling the Parshendi, and that terminology allows for Thunderclasts to be Odiumspren who have inhabited rock bodies, and possibly chasmfiends could even be in symbiosis with an Odiumspren to be called a Voidbringer.

No. I can't go into detail outside the Aether forum, but you're assuming Aethers were of Decay.

I sure hope they treated Brandon better than that!

I've started playing around with Microsoft Access to try to create a WoB database of my own. The online help tools have been fine, and I've got the database structure down pretty well. (Main table for WoB's, secondary table for interview/signings, and then five tables of tag categories, Series, Shard, Planet, Character, and Magic. Each WoB can be associated with a signing and any number of tags.) It's to the point where I'm comfortable actually putting some data in, so I've got two months of Brandon's Reddit comments and one AU signing in there, and the information is structuring the way I want it. But enough about the good stuff. Right now, data input is extremely clunky; I have to switch between up to six tables in order to get all the tags in, so I'd like to be able to get a form together to put everything on a single page. However, I can't find any good training on forms, either on Office.com or on Youtube, since it's probably all done in macros and that's beyond the scope of just forms. I have some experience through my job in designing InfoPath forms, and I was hoping this would be similar, since I can envision how to build all the functionality I want in InfoPath. However, Access forms look like there are a lot more behind-the-scenes macros, so I'm not sure how to go with this. Improving querying is another item on my agenda. I think I can get a functional query, to sort by a single tag, but it's a little clunky (need to go into design view every time I want to change the character), and I don't think I have the ability to combine multiple tags (i.e. everything about Hoid on Scadrial with the Candlestick), since my queries are using junction tables and it's literally separate lines for the WoB#13/Hoid connection and the WoB#13/Scadrial connection. So, is there anyone out there who has any experience with Microsoft Access, specifically adding functionality to forms and queries? Anyone know any good training tools? Like I said, I have some experience with the now-discontinued InfoPath, so I don't think what I'm looking for is outside the ability of a database tool like Access. I'm just not sure how to actually implement the functionality.

It's in there. He'd like to fit it in somewhere, but he's not sure he'll have the time.

Rust and Ruin, the man has enough on his plate! He needs to sleep sometime!

I remember to the contrary: anyone with Breath can Awaken. You might be thinking that not all Innate Investiture can be used for Awakening.

I think I found what you're looking for: I'll admit, I can still see some wiggle room to say that the 'natural state of the world' comes from its location in the cosmere, as opposed to the planet's Spiritual component. Like I've been saying all along, I don't think we can definitively rule on the specific mechanism.