Pagerunner

Hoo, boy... a difficult question to answer, because of some interesting assumptions you made. I'll try to give an answer, but it's a topic that I think we need a lot more information on. I, personally, have a lot of confusion over the specifics of these magic systems. Here's where I'd question some of your statements: I don't think Old Magic, the gifts that Nightwatcher bestows, is a full-fledged magic system of its own. I think fabrial science fits the bill for that, and might have the 10 aspects that you're referring to. Surges aren't necessarily just of Honor. Surgebinding might be of both Honor and Cultivation; some spren are of Cultivation (like Wyndle, Lift's spren). It is possible that the magic is drawn entirely from honor, while the spren can be from any Shard. (Kind of like how atium can be used in Allomancy.) I lean towards agreement with you, that Surgebinding is of Honor, but we have a lot to learn yet. Spren copied the Honorblades. The original Surgebinding magic system, it appears, was limited to just the Heralds. Spren copied that - it looks like spren are the hack to the system, not the Honorblades. The other magic systems might utilize spren from the get-go. We don't even know if we've seen Voidbinding at all; the Listeners bonding spren might just be something natural to them, and Voidbinding is something else entirely. No idea how it works. So... I'm not sure we have enough info to answer that question (heck, or even ask it). But, at first glance, it appears that Honorblades give an alternate Initiation to Surgebinding than bonding spren. Without knowing what the Initiation is for Old Magic or Voidbinding, who knows how they could potentially hack their way into it. Fabrial science might be like Awakening, where there isn't a specific Initiation required. A Cultivation analogue might be a blade that can function as a universal fabrial, with any number of functions. Voidbinding... well, I have a funny feeling its Initiation isn't too pleasant, so any way around that would be nice. Who knows - if Voidbinging enslaves its users, Odium might have blades to give to those who willingly follow him a way to get in without the unpleasantness. It's a good question to ask, but it might be going too deep for what we have seen. Two books in out of ten, and with Brandon's books discoveries about the magic systems are always doled out slowly. So, it'll be a good thing to keep an eye open for in future books.

Don't worry: they'll still be prevalent in the second half of the series. Here's a WoB that confirms it. Characters like Renarin and Jasnah aren't 'main characters' for the first five books, per se, and they still play large roles. Other characters like Taravingian, Navani, and Adolin won't ever be the 'main character' of a book (at least, according to the current plan), but they are still important characters and get PoV passages. The ten 'main characters,' also referred to as 'flashback characters,' have a specific function to play in how Brandon outlines his books and who he is exploring in flashback sequences; they're not the only important characters in the story. Brandon has spoken of why he's giving each book a different main character: one reason is to give each book a distinctive flavor, to distinguish them from one another. He's also using the different books to explore different orders of the Knights Radiant, so some of the later PoV characters will definitely fit better with later orders. And, don't forget, Brandon likes to play the long game (some might even call it over-plotting), so some of these characters (Taln, especially) have secrets that we'll be slowly learning, over many books and many years. As others have said, this doesn't mean they'll everyone will survive; some of us subscribe to a theory that there's an ongoing battle in the afterlife, and that we'll get PoV of deceased characters. But there will be much more continuity with characters than we saw between the original Mistborn trilogy and Wax and Wayne. A time gap is planned between books 5 and 6, but it's only planned to be something like 15 years.

Aside from what you mentioned, the Ars Arcanum was the only other big item. There was a big fix to the geography, of where Raoden drew the chasm line to finish the city's Aon, but I don't remember the specifics of it. It either moved inside the wall or outside the wall, I don't remember which. There is a list of minor changes here. The editing was more about minor continuity (making sure people weren't teleporting across the city), as opposed to major. Brandon wasn't adding anything to the story itself, just polishing the continuity to the same level his current books get. As far as the new material, there was the Hoid story, and there are deleted scenes of the Mad Prince (Raoden's brother, I recall), which are non-canon. You might find them interesting, but there weren't any Cosmere revelations. The Ars Arcanum wasn't too mind-blowing, but it did give us the term Initiation for how a user was inducted into the magic system, and it seems to mention Vax as a planet. By the way, $100 is the cost for the leatherbound 10th anniversary. You can get hardcover or paperback 10th anniversary, too, with most of the same content. (Leatherbound has international covers, where the other anniversary versions don't.) Looks like the paperback is going for $16 on Amazon.

Didn't Ruin manifest as a Mist Spirit in Well of Ascension after Vin, Elend, and Spook left Luthadel? Because he was trying to get them back to the city?

Cultivation is alive. The Unmade are voluntary splinters of Odium. Collectively, they fill the role of Stormfather for Honor, and Nightwatcher for Cultivation. (Stormfather is special among them, since he absorbed Tanavast's cognitive shadow.) Also, you're not the first to suggest bonding an Unmade, though I think you may be the first to tie them to the Bondsmiths. Based on Brandon's surprised response, I don't think he is planning on using an Unmade to fill a Bondsmith role, but props for a well-considered theory. I definitely agree that an Unmade could be used for a Bondsmith; just not that the specific turn of events you outlined is likely.

Interesting point. Two thoughts: Aluminum might not be as common on Scadrial as it is on Earth. It is a fictional world, artificially created by the Shards, and might have a different composition. Emotional allomancers are rare, and getting rarer. Sure, everyone might be able to get an aluminum hat, but here in the US we need to enforce laws for people to wear their seat belts. If people don't consider something a risk, they won't take action or spend money to prevent it. So, I think it will be a lot like it was in the original trilogy, where Soothers and Rioters keep their abilities secret so people don't get suspicious of everything they say. Modern Allomancers need to have a careful and subtle touch so as not to tip off their targets that they're being manipulated at all.

Can you link to any good posts about it? I thought it had to do with Fabrial science (gemstone in the middle for capturing spren, presented with the Shadesmar map because that's where spren live), but I haven't done a ton of research into the subject.

Since you can still steelpush on an item in a coppercloud, I would think no. Copper has a very specific effect of blocking Allomantic pulses, not stopping all Allomantic power. IIRC, it can be used to hide from an Awakener's Lifesense, though, and now that I think about it I wonder if it could be used to keep someone from imprinting on a primer cube... so there are some specialized applications, but I think they're a little more specific than what you've proposed.

Oh, man, that Trell quote is tantalizingly vague. Does he mean that Trell as a name has been used in many different places over the eons (Trellism, Trelagism, etc), or is he saying that whatever is using Trell's name now to fight Harmony has gone by many names before?

Well, we have confirmation [2:52:00 in the transcript] that the broadsheet image in SoS was of a SoScad, intentionally done so we the readers would think it's a Parshendi. I think it's just continuing that red herring into this book. Here's how I've interpreted it: the quote is saying that hiding from Harmony is not an ability stolen by the spike - the spike stole F.Steel, A.Steel, A.Brass, etc. Bleeder didn't find someone with a natural ability to hide from Harmony and spike that ability out of them. In other words, the Hemalurgic Charge didn't let her hide, but it might be a Hemalurgic Property of the metal that, when used as a spike, it can also let her hide, regardless of what ability was stolen with it. So, yeah, I don't think any of us are disagreeing on the effect, just on where to draw the line on where Hemalurgy stops and where the metal's natural abilities kick in.

Welcome to the Shard, and good catch - capitalized words when we don't expect them can be big clues to something interesting going on behind the scenes. There was some discussion over in the Secret History subforum about this a while back, here and here. The consensus we came to was that the Ire have a way to manipulate luck that is similar to Feruchemical Chromium in the behind-the-scenes Cosmere mechanics. There's a parallel to Identity: different magic systems key into Identity in different ways (in Warbreaker, you can't recall someone else's breath; in Mistborn, you can't use another Feruchemist's metalminds). Same for this concept of Fortune: it's the same Fortune we've seen on the Feruchemical Table, but the Ire can apparently interact with it in a different way.

So, this is an idea I've been tossing around in my head for years, and I finally got all the math worked out to the point I feel comfortable putting it out somewhere. (Yes, you heard me right. There's math in this bad boy.) The concept started off as a way to quantify different Elemental Powers in BIONICLE, and quickly spiraled out of control and recently sucked in some color theory to help bind the whole thing together. Since I'm not active on any BIONICLE fansites anymore, I figured I'd might as well post it here, since some of you all appreciate complicated rules-based magic systems. It's in a Google Doc, so here it is: The Elemental Tetrahedron: Twenty-Five Elements Explained and Codified I'm still toying around with some minor images in the doc, but it shouldn't make a difference in understanding it. Assuming you read the whole thing (now's your chance...), I figured I'd try to fit this into the Cosmere somehow. So, this is Harmony's magic system if he ever Invests in Nalthis. There's a balance between all the Elements; Primary Elements being of Preservation, Anti-Elements being of Ruin, and the other seventeen Elements all due to the balance between the Elemental Sources. Color is the focus on Nalthis; to use an Element, you must match its color. Right now, I'm thinking Initiation would involve bleaching your skin and dyeing it to match that color to give you powers, although I might be open to a hereditary ability that lets you consume flowers of a particular color and burn them like metals on Scadrial. (That actually might make a nice parallel... Elemancy? Colormancy? Allocolorelemancy?) Anywho, I still consider this to be a Work in Progress, especially with naming many of these Elements. So, feel free to pitch in suggestions.

I subscribe to Atium-Copper, actually for one of the reasons Yata doesn't. The 'Trellium' spike can steal anything. Either the new God Metal functions exactly like Atium, or it is a form of Atium. It steals anything, and also lets Bleeder hide from Harmony, which made me think Copper. (That, and the metal was silver and red, just like atium and copper are.) The Kandra say that Harmony doesn't know what the metal is, but we can explain that away. (I'm not a big fan of 'explaining away' quotes, but I'll bear with myself for a moment.) There are forces working to limit Harmony's knowledge. Maybe even knowledge of himself. Do we believe the Kandra? Maybe, maybe not. Is Harmony lying? He's lied to Wax about Bleeder before, or at the very least he has had his servants do so. Before Secret History came out, I thought it might be Kelsier; Sazed could have given him the extra bit of Ruin, and Brandon has said in interviews that Kelsier could have been a villain had the story gone different. I thought there was a real possibility Kelsier would wind up as a bad guy at some point. Now, with Bands and Secret History, I've had to reevaluate that, considering... all that stuff. So, I don't have much of an idea as to who could be messing with Harmony (maybe the Ire?).

I mean, it's not the only place he's referred to Adolin as a potential flashback character. Can you link to any of those WoBs about Adolin? Or any about Renarin having always been a flashback character? I've been looking through Theoryland, and all I found was one that says Adolin wasn't a viewpoint character in 2002 Way of Kings Prime, and he was given an expanded role in the 2010 publication to get a look into Dalinar's conflicted character. That's all pre-WoK, though; since we don't have any interviews about the series prior to it's publication (duh) or annotations that might be give insight, I don't think we know who Brandon's original ten characters were, since they've changed with each book published. Similarly, I don't see anything about Renarin as a flashback character prior to 2014. Actually, I don't see anything at all about Renarin prior to 2013, and in fact we didn't even known Renarin had a spren until that point. There's an unsourced edit on the Coppermind that Renarin wrote the Diagram in Way of Kings Prime. It looks like Elements of the original Renarin might have made their way over to Taravingian, and are slowly going back to Renarin. Again, that gets into speculation on who the original ten characters were, which we have no way of knowing. (Aside from asking, of course.) Even leaving the lists aside, there are multiple times Brandon has said he hadn't nailed down the list of flashback characters, of who gets books. It's possible he's come to his final decision, but it's also possible he hasn't. He rewrote his Mistborn megaseries outline when Wax and Wayne turned out well; he's not afraid to deviate from his plans if chaning them would make for a better story. I think it's obvious that's what he's been doing in Stormlight, as well, changing who his flashback characters are as he gets farther into the series to characters who will make for better books. If it turns out that Gavilar's cognitive shadow would be the best flashback character to show the reader a war in Shadesmar, I don't think Brandon would hesitate to change his outline. However, we do have other characters who could probably fit that role better, like our two Heralds, so I'll agree that I don't see a good reason for Gavilar to become a flashback character. But it definitely would be a cool twist.

He also referred to Adolin and Navani in a partial list of flashback characters (2011), so I don't think we're twisting the meaning. He even admits, in this link, that he's been toying around with who gets books.

The 10 main characters have never been set in stone, and Brandon has said way more than 10 names over the years. It's important to have up-to-date WoBs on this topic. It looks (at least to me) that while writing Words of Radiance, Brandon 'promoted' Lift, Eshonai, and Renarin (2015 interview) and 'demoted' Adolin, Navani, and Taravingian (2011 interview). Brandon's also discussed the possibility of giving Kaladin a second book (2010 interview), but that's much older than the current lists. But, it all goes to show that, even if Gavilar hasn't been mentioned as a book candidate, it's still possible for Brandon to change his outline and fit him in somewhere if he's not dead and gone. But, there's also the possibility that Gavilar has been on the list the whole time... as the man who claims to be Taln. The Stormfather merged with Tanavast's cognitive shadow; if Gavilar merged with Taln's cognitive shadow, then his current body might look like Taln (remember, healing is based on perception, which is why Kaladin's scars aren't healing) with Gavilar's mind buried deep underneath. I think it would require some way to bind Gavilar's cognitive shadow to keep it from going Beyond... I don't think he had a spren bond to do so, and I don't think there was a Shardpool near his location... But, to stop from going too far down that rabbit trail, I do think it's a great idea that Gavilar might come back. If death is not the end for characters (and Brandon has confirmed that he could still do a flashback book after a character has died), then I think it would be cool to see a Secret History-style adventure for Gavilar, or for him to be a major influence in the second half of the series after we've spent the first half learning about him and his secrets.

Hey, no fair! Get ninja'd like the rest of us! Aluminum appears to 'destroy' Investiture, but if Investiture is a form of energy, then it can't really be created or destroyed - it flows from Shards, and back to Shards. I've always interpreted Aluminum as being a 'short-circuit' in the Investiture cycle; it goes straight back to the Shard it came from, doesn't pass Go, doesn't collect 200 dollars, and doesn't produce whatever effects it normally would. So, the Investiture that would normally be used to see the future of the object gets short-circuited, and the atium-user doesn't see anything. Same for other effects - F.Gold healing Investiture gets sucked into an aluminum bullet, instead, so you can't heal while you have one in you. The blue line from A.Steel or A.Iron gets absorbed. The Investiture from A.Brass and A.Zinc gets absorbed by the foil-hat. That is just my speculation - aluminum does hold a Hemalurgic charge, so it definitely can't absorb all Investiture. We don't yet know the specifics of how Aluminum functions (or if there's even any deeper mechanics going on). There has been some theorizing that aluminum itself has greater significance in the Cosmere as a whole - some think it was used to form a weapon that shattered Adonalsium, which is why it has screwy affects on all magic systems. I personally don't subscribe to that approach, but it does illustrate that there might be a lot more going on than we recognize with aluminum. Brandon is quite fond of foreshadowing and hiding important information in plain sight. On the other hand, it might just be a neat, natural worldbuilding opportunity to have a substance that is invisible to Investiture. It could have started in Mistborn as an outrgrowth of its Allomantic properties, and Brandon could have expanded it into other stories (Emperor's Soul, Shadows for Silence). Or, it might have started even before Mistborn, in White Sand; in the first graphic novel, we see certain creatures' shells are immune to Investiture, and there has been a lot of discussion that the shells might have aluminum in them. This might have been the first occurrence of aluminum, or it might be a retcon that the shells have aluminum in them. Regardless of the specific development of the idea, it provides a nice detail that can consistently tie together all worlds and add an easy tool to all Cosmere magic systems. Brandon's philosophy of magic is that if you define it thoroughly, you can use it effectively as a narrative tool. Without rules, there are no rules to bend, or even break, and aluminum is an exception to many rules. But it might be the case only because it makes for good storytelling and worldbuilding; any explanation for why it's inert could sound extremely contrived, because it's a fictional situation in a fantasy series and is the definition of contrived.

The backerkit is live, in case anyone wants to preorder and get add-ons. Might be something nice to put on the front-page as a news article...

I had always thought they were artificially created using Soulcasters. They seem far too regular to be natural.

Well, I'm not a frequenter of forums myself, but one tool here that I've gotten a lot of use out of is the Unread Content page. It's the button to the left of the search bar. It'll show you any unread content (new topics, or new posts in existing topics) that was posted recently. There are a couple of other common filters; here's one that limits to topics you've posted in. I made a custom view to filter out the forums I'm not interested in (sorry, Reckoners!), so anything that comes up in my feed is something I'd consider relevant to Cosmere discussion. (I think I can link to it as an example: here it is. If the link doesn't work, it's as I said above - I'm not a pro!)

First of all, welcome to the Shard! Here's a post that talks about Iron Feruchemy. Someone asked Brandon at a signing for Bands of Mourning, and he confirmed that it is actually changing the mass by altering the Higgs field. I think I know the scene you're talking about (Sazed slowing his fall in the Conventical of Seran), but I don't remember too many details. I did see a couple of issues with the calculation, though: Density of Air is 1.225 kg/m3 [source] Drag Coefficient of a long cylinder (rough approximation of a human slowly falling feet-down) is 0.82 [source] Surface area of an adult male is ~1.9 m2 [source] Also, you forgot to close a set of parenthesis in your terminal velocity equation [source] The different density and drag coefficient basically offset each other, but the change in surface area will have a significant effect, since you're using a value that's almost 75% smaller. If we backtrack the math, then to fall at 8 mph (3.6 m/s), I calculate 1.26 kg as Sazed's target mass. The record speed for a human is 12.4 m/s, and Sazed would achieve that terminal velocity at 15 kg. So, it's a good analysis you've performed, but I'd check a couple of your assumptions. Why did you limit Sazed to 1 kg? Is based on the weight of his clothing and equipment? And where did you get your value of 8 mph for the target speed and 0.5 m2 as the surface area of a human body?

That's actually a really interesting observation. It's not the only time that you'll see something a little anachronistic; I think Wax and Wayne have a lot of metaphors that don't quite make sense given the history of their world. I expect it's for the benefit of the readers (especially the casual readers), so not throw off the pacing of the story. Brandon plays with that concept in Stormlight, with Wit intentionally making references to creatures that nobody on Roshar would be familiar with and totally derailing the conversation. But in terms of the text of the book, it can be treated as a 'translation' to English, with phrases like that meaning more like "the planet's final sighs" said in a way that seems natural to the readers. It does use earth with a lower-case-"e," so it's not specifically referring to our home planet.

It makes me wonder what's going on in the second half of the Cosmere story... if Modern Mistborn happens ~100yrs after Wax and Wayne, and Future Mistborn is the finale, then that leaves about 5000 years between the two. Unless Future Mistborn will take place over a long period of time. (A possibility, depending on how the space travel winds up working.)

Good catch. I've suspected that the medallions are filled with Nicrosil Compounding, so they wouldn't need to lose their ability while they're filling the medallion. This further cements it, in my mind.

Don't worry, I've seen it already. I'll admit, I had forgotten about it when I posted the idea, but to me the pattern still seems too strong to ignore. With 10 'main characters,' we know 6 of them correspond to 6 different orders (assuming that there's nothing devious going on with Renarin), and then there are strong implications that Szeth will become a true Skybreaker (7 of 7) and not-as-strong implications that Eshonai will join an Order. The quote in question says that the main character won't match the Order being explored in the book. It does not deny that each of the main characters belongs to a different KR order. Subtle distinction, and one that gives Brandon the freedom to mix things up if he wants to (Like how the list of main characters once included Navani, Adonlin, and Taravingian in place of Eshonai, Lift, and Renarin!). At one point, he even discussed possibly giving Kaladin a second book, didn't he? So, I don't think it's necessarily essential that each character represent an Order. But the main character list has continued to change up, and it's possible one of the reasons for Brandon's choices is to get one main character from each KR order. It's more an intriguing possibility that's been tickling my mind and would provide some nice symmetry, along with a subversion for Ash's character (was the Herald of one Order, now a member of a different one, something that I found intriguing when something similar was done for a supporting character in the Wheel of Time). But, overall, It's not something I'll defend to the grave. This is the thread of minor theories, after all. [Incidentally, I just stumbled across a WoB that says Adolin's blade used to belong to an Edgedancer. To carry on my suspicion of 10MC=10KR, that could mean Adolin was replaced as a main character by Lift. I think Eshonai replaced Navani in the front 5, so they might share an Order. Renarin might have replaced Taravingian, meaning that T could become a Truthwatcher. I gotta do some more digging, see if any of them were mentioned in any of the same lists. I might even make a crazy-person diagram of when Brandon referred to each character as being a main character to determine when he made each switch, but that doesn't seem like it would serve any useful purpose. But why would a little thing like that stop me?.]