Pagerunner

And neither of the naming systems leave room for the 1940-s era story ideas that Brandon used to mention. There's just no winning...

Are you sure? WoP from a month back indicated 1.5, and that's how Brandon referred to them in the latest State of the Sanderson.

As he describes here, Brandon originally wrote Alloy as a standalone novel to keep Scadrial from gathering too much dust. After he finished writing it, he plotted out a full trilogy (SoS, BoM, and TLM). But Alloy is supposed to have some foreshadowing for the middle trilogy (1980s analogue), so Edwarn and the Set might be more relevant to the future of the Mistborn series than the present. That being said, I agree that it would be a waste to leave Edwarn out of the next few Mistborn books. His personal connection with Wax adds a great deal of personal conflict to the story, especially since he claims to have Wax's sister. I'm confident that Brandon will find a way to fit him in throughout the remaining Mistborn Era 1.5 books.

I've actually tried to limit myself from going too crazy on rereads, so I wouldn't burn myself out on Brandon. I've also made a conscious effort to not read Brandon's non-cosmere stuff, so that his writing doesn't start to get stale to me. (I know, I know, I might be missing out on good books. But, thus far, it's just been YA stuff, so I'm not too worried. And I can always go back and read them once the cosmere is finished, if I want.) That being said, I will skim through books fairly often to find a particular passage. (It's where I came up with my username, actually.) But I'm not counting those as rereads. So, here's my list. (Approximate. I've been reading since 2008, so I may have missed a readthrough or two of earlier books.) Elantris: 4 Warbreaker: 3 Aether of Night: 1 The Final Empire: 4 The Well of Ascension: 2 The Hero of Ages: 2 The Alloy of Law: 2 Shadows of Self: 1 The Way of Kings: lost count. At least 7, most likely more. (This is my favorite book of Brandon's, but during my last reread, before WoR came out, I realized that I might be reading it too much, and that I needed to give it a break so that it would seem fresh as I will continue to come back to it over the next 20 years or so.) Words of Radiance: 2 (Blasted through it in two days to enjoy the story, lent it to a friend for a few weeks, then got it back and read through it slower to look for cosmere stuff. I don't plan on doing a proper read of it again until I'm prepping for Book 3.) Cosmere novellas: 1 apiece. Short stories: 1 apiece. (For the most part, his smaller works haven't appealed to me. Sixth of the Dusk was really cool, but everything else felt too... small scale, I guess.) Outside the Cosmere, not much, as I said above. WoT: 1 each for all 3 books. I would like to read go through the whole series one more time, knowing how it ends, but I'm not willing to buy all the books right now, and my library doesn't have them all. Legion: 1/2 (I got the free audiobook a couple years back, and I discovered that I can't do audio books. I need to be able to jump back earlier in the book when I forget who someone is. Not saying it was a bad book, but it is not the format for me.) Defending Elysium: 1 Firstborn: 1

Thanks for the upvotes and kind words, guys. I was worried I'd get torn apart, seeing as most of this could be explained as "Can't Vin just be talented? Why try to cheapen it with a complicated explanation?" and the prediction parts of the theory are all pretty blatant speculation. Actually, as Dalinar bonded with the Stormfather, he received visions, memories given to him from the Almighty. Even within the Mistborn trilogy, we see burning Atium (pure investiture, the body of Ruin) expands the mind of the user. So, investiture has been seen to interact quite strongly with humans before, and since cognitive shadows are comprised of investiture, they might be able to do some crazy things to people if they know how. But I do agree that it would be a rare interaction. That's why I suggest it comes at a steep price to the cognitive shadow, much like Preservation expended his mind to trap Ruin. It would be a one-time event that sacrifices the cognition of the cognitive shadow. That's a great point, Vin snapping so young. Being a baby, and having experienced nothing but the womb and then pain, the cracks in her soul might have been much larger than those of an adult, which is why dead people aren't reincarnating left and right. They need a much larger crack than simply Snapping into Allomancy. That is interesting. "Incarnation" is a bit of a loaded term - when referring to a person as such, I can't think of any context other than reincarnation. (A franchise, whether a movie series or a sports time, is usually where I would think of using that word, but nothing like that for individuals.) The mechanisms I think are behind reincarnation (cognitive shadows, cracks in the soul) aren't exclusive to Scadrial, so it might be something we can see elsewhere. There are some hurdles to compare Hoid to Vin, though. Hoid has clear, distinct memories from the past, though, where Vin just has "instincts." So, if Hoid was reincarnating himself, he would need to take over a person much more... drastically than Vin's previous life did. Although, Hoid (who admits he would let Roshar burn to get what he wants) might be willing to sacrifice that one person. He might need even larger cracks than Vin had, so he might go for someone who's essentially brain-dead from shock. (Hmm... sounds like Taln. That makes me wonder... could the new Taln be a reincarnation of the old Taln? But that would require old Taln to have died... and since the other Heralds are running around, it makes me think the Heralds are immortal in a much more mundane sense of the world. Unless they're all reincarnating all the time. Oh, boy, now I've got something to think about when I reread WoK and WoR...) But back to Hoid. How would that help him with his apparent goal of gathering magic abilities? He would need to retain his abilities from body-to-body. Remember, Vin was stronger than other Mistborn of her day (except Elend, obviously); maybe some of her power came from her previous incarnation. So, if Hoid can keep abilities from incarnation to incarnation, he could jump into a body on a new world, and use that to access its power (reincarnate on Sel to become an Elantrian). Yeah, I realize now that I left it a little vague what I thought of Vin in the future. So, I guess I'll spell it out here: I agree that Vin's story is done. When she sacrificed herself to kill Ruin, she said that Elend was all she had to live for. She doesn't have a need to stick around to meddle. I don't view Vin as a Dragon-like figure (for those who haven't read Wheel of Time, the Dragon was a title for a prophetical figure who would reincarnate every Age to defeat the Bad Guy) who comes back time and time again, in a recurring cycle of death and rebirth. I think it was a one-time event, more like a ghost merging with Vin.

[bands of Mourning and Secret History Update: Appended to the end of this post. I have not edited the original text of the post, so no one can infer anything about SH based on what I cut, add, or change.] I just finished re-reading the Mistborn trilogy (got the hardcovers for Christmas), and it really jumped out at me on this read-through just how good Vin is at everything. If it had been my first time through the series, it probably would have bothered me how quickly she picks up Allomancy and other tricks. (I read it several years ago, and I don’t recall it sticking out to me, then.) As she’s learning Allomancy, all the Crew members comment on how naturally it comes to her – Marsh, especially, thinks she has already been practicing. Even mundane things, like how influential she is on Camon’s crew or how quickly she adapts to the nobility, stuck out. However, having read (and re-read) everything in the Cosmere, it seemed more like a clue. Mentions of how Vin was a quick learner or trusted her instincts were slipped in about as often as mentions of her earring, Reen’s voice, or how Sazed wore his copperminds on his arms. It made me wonder… what was the secret behind how quickly Vin learned? In the last epigraph of Book 3, Sazed speculates on Vin: Sazed speculates was special because she was chosen by Preservation as a child and possibly drew in some mists. But he doesn’t stop there; he says that there is something else special about Vin, something he doesn’t understand. So, what could it be? Can we figure it out? I kept this thought in mind during my reread, and some thoughts began to coalesce. The crystallizing point for this theory came to me after Kelsier’s death in Book 1, when Vin went back to Kredik Shaw and fought two Inquisitors. She prepared two tricks: arrowheads with rings on them (basically, the same thing Ranette would invent as anti-Coinshot bullets), and pewter dust to blind the inquisitors. It’s one thing if Vin has an affinity to learning how to use Allomancy because she was chosen to take Preservation or because she drew in some mists as a child; but I didn’t see how that would give her these kind of tactics. So, it occurred to me that maybe Vin had these experiences from a previous life. I know reincarnation isn’t a common thing in the Cosmere, but there have been instances of the dead not staying dead (in Warbreaker, obviously, and Kelsier hangs around even if he doesn’t take on a new body). What if an experienced Allomancer who died during the Final Empire hung around like Kelsier did, but instead of sticking around and meddling, she (assuming it’s a lady Allomancer, as I will go into more detail below) bestowed her experiences upon Vin? Before I dive in to the specifics, I’ll include a brief Table of Contents of the theory. Vin’s Unearned Experience: the instances of Vin’s surprising aptitude Vin vs Valette: Vin views herself as a combination of two or more people Déjà vu: the pieces required for a reincarnation are already present in the series Guess Who?: speculation as to Vin’s previous identity Hoid: maybe this explains what warned her away from him Kelsier: the ramifications on the future of the series Part 1: Vin’s Unearned Experience So, Vin obviously picks up Allomancy very quickly in TFE. Not only does she burn pewter and zinc on instinct, but she learns all of the metals extremely quickly. Other areas of her training, like acting like a noble or even her time on Camon’s crew, come to her naturally, and her instincts guide her. Instincts became the keyword that I looked for; anywhere Vin trusted her instincts (or, even better, her instincts told her something, an active-voice sentence with “instincts” as the subject). I also looked for instances where the word “instincts” wasn’t expressly name-dropped, but people remarked how Vin learned very quickly. (Or I thought she learned too quickly.) Basically, any place that her past life could be manifesting. See the full list below. It’s roughly chronological order, not by importance. I’ve italicized the points that are more circumstantial; the good examples are all un-italicized. On the first mission Vin went on with Camon’s crew, this quote jumped out at me when Vin first became suspicious: Ooh, an internal voice. We haven’t seen those before. Later on, she thinks something along the same lines: Two active voice verbs, where Vin is the object, not the subject. As if something else is acting upon her. Is this Ruin’s influence? I don’t think so. Her earring isn’t in at this point in the novel; she starts wearing it after they get back to the lair, and she prepares to sneak out. These “instincts” can’t be Ruin’s influence. So, to summarize, Vin’s instincts tipped her off to the Ministry’s tactics, even when Camon, an experienced crewleader, was falling for the trap. Experience beyond her station. She responds surprisingly well to Kelsier using zinc on her when he first meets her. “Somehow” is a squirrely Sanderson word for when there’s something behind the scenes. (Okay, not every time, but it’s still a red flag.) Vin could have recognized this from her previous life experiences. When it’s just just her and Kell and Dox, she also resists his Soothing: After resisting his soothing, we see another interesting sentence: There’s that dang “instinct-as-a-subject” construction again. Pushing her to stick with Kelsier and learn Allomancy. That last point aside, the main takeaway from this point is that Vin has experience in recognizing and resisting emotional Allomancy. Vin picks up being a Noblewoman very quickly. She sums up her experience during the first planning meeting with the crew: However, when rubber meets the road, she knocks it out of the park. A sampling of praise: And she keeps getting better. According to Sazed, in Chapter 24 of TFE: Maybe because she’s a reincarnated noble? Vin acknowledges in Hero of Ages how she took to the nobility naturally, because it was a part of her. I won’t quote that in-depth at this point in the theory; see Section 2 for a more in-depth analysis of what this means for her character. Just a quote of interest from when Vin trains in steelpushing. Circumstantial evidence; doesn’t support reincarnation, but takes on new meaning. The coin pouch trick is more substantial. Vin teaches Kelsier a new trick after only a few months of training, the first (of many) times she displays her Allomatic tactical ability. In fact, in Kell’s words: “Fantastic progress”… maybe because she’s remembering skills she had in her past life. The push-match also struck me as uncharacteristic of Vin. She had always avoided direct confrontation, but here, she throws her weight directly at Kelsier, getting in a Push-match. Maybe that’s an instinct from her past life, where she may have been larger and it was an effective tactic. Again, not supporting evidence, but something that takes on new meaning. The evidence from this passage is how Vin learns super-fast. As she thinks to herself: Kelsier is speaking with Sazed later. That last line is Sazed. Sound familiar? (It’s because he calls her special in the HoA epilogue epigraph.) So, yes, her instincts (*cough* past life experience *cough*) make her special. When Sazed is quizzing her as she gets her hair cut, he says: Add another tally mark to the “Vin, you’re so good at everything” comments. Remember when Kelsier said Vin only was good at the physical metals? Soon after that, she sits in on one Breeze session where she realizes how to Soothe subtly. She follows Kell as he goes to find Camon, and sooths him. He catches on, but only barely. His thoughts: I know how! It’s her past life experience coming through! Learning the spikeway quickly was another example of her Allomantic tactics. I won’t do the full quote, but the narration does say “She got the hang of it quickly.” When Sazed rescues her from the Inquisitors, he gives her some of Ham’s pewter to heal. He says: Vin was unconsciously burning pewter when she was on Camon’s crew – she recognizes it when Kelsier gives it to her for the first time. Her body has been familiar with Allomancy for a long time. As Marsh says later: Again, we learn that… Vin is special. “Instincts” pops up again, but in an interesting context, after Vin has gone to a number of balls. An interesting take on her part, since it doesn’t seem she’s losing instincts, but gaining new ones. Also, “Valette” is natural because her previous life experience was a noblewoman. (See the next major section.) Training with Marsh. A huge clue. Marsh gives the spiel, gets her burning bronze, and asks her what she feels: What takes practice comes naturally to Vin… it’s been the story of her life as she learns Allomancy. Again, I suggest that this is because she actually does have prior experience. This doesn’t really have anything to do with anything, but I suspect Vin unconsciously burns gold in Chapter 24. She just came from a ball, where I suspect they had gold-plated utensils (I looked over the chapter, and I didn’t see any mention of anything), and she’s sitting with the crew, having a good time. She imagines she sees herself out in the shadows, as she was before she met the crew. Sounds a lot like the gold shadow she sees of herself later. Anyways, it’s of no substance to this theory, except maybe showing she can unconsciously burn more obscure metals. Allomantic tactics. When fighting Shan, she extinguishes her atium a few seconds early, tricking Shan into thinking that she had run out. When she turns it back on, she confuses Shan, and Vin kills her. A nice bit of trickery for someone who has thus far only burnt Atium against other Atium-burning Inquisitors (and she got subsequently steamrolled by them). Again, unearned experience; tactics she may have learned in her previous life. Kelsier notices how good she is: He goes on to tell her that directly: Allomancy is nothing but tricks, and Vin comes up with new tricks time and time again, things that Kelsier and even the Inquisitors (coming up in another bullet point) don’t have figured out. Ah, the Inquisitor fight in TFE Chapter 36. The place where this theory came together for me. I won’t quote the passage directly, but Vin uses rings on arrowheads to launch un-Steel-able projectiles to shred one Inquisitor, then uses a cloud of pewter dust to blind another. These don’t come from being strong in Allomancy; these are tactics, tricks. Vin comes up with these all the time. Why did she think of these when others didn’t? She even thinks that she wasn’t sure how their eyes worked, but she knew a perfect way to block out their senses. How did she know? Here, more than anywhere else, when her soul is damaged by Kelsier’s loss, her past life begins to creep in the cracks, giving her the training and experiences of her past life to help her with her battles. Oh my, I’ve got this many examples, and I’m only starting WoA. Hoo boy. Anyways, we start off with some more talk about Vin being “special,” this time from Elend as she spars with Ham. She winds up beating Ham, a good thug. Vin is a quick learner when it comes to fighting, too, not just when it comes to Allomancy. He also remarks on her strength in Allomancy; she might have her Allomatic strength determined by her previous life’s strength, during a time when Mistborn were more powerful (not as powerful as Elend, though). She gives OreSeur dog bones. That’s another new tactic – no kandra had used animal bones before, as we find out in Book 3. Vin really does come up with these all the time. I wonder how she does it… She instantly picks up Duralumin-Steelpushing herself. She first uses it to go rescue Breeze, and she lands at just the right spot. A brand new skill, and she does it perfectly the first time. I think she might have past-life experience with duralumin. She wasn’t the only one to discover it; the Lord Ruler mentioned it in one of the storage caverns. There’s another very powerful clue for me when Vin was researching the Deepness. She starts the chapter being barely trained in writing: A very clear picture: Vin has little experience writing, and is not good at it. But, apparently, she can write very well anyways. Vin, of course, brushes it off and starts talking about the Straff’s army. But it seems a little heavy-handed to me. Perfect penmanship? What an odd thing to mention. The only thing more Mary Sue-ish would be… …oh, no, she’s also the most graceful person in a dress. When Tindwyl takes her and Allrianne shopping: *gag* I certainly hope this is indicating she spent a long (previous) life as a Mistborn noblewoman. Because otherwise, this is getting out-of-hand with how good Vin is at everything. And then, we have The Big One. Taking down Zane. Beating someone burning atium without your own atium. And what word shows up in the narrative? Instinct: that word keeps popping up. She let her body do what it wanted to. This is a crazy technique, and, again, it’s one she does perfectly without practice. It reminds me of the way she resisted Kelsier’s Soothing when she first met him. She has experience resisting Allomancy; mental metals, and now atium. Techniques I think she learned in her past life. Vin doesn’t think she’s the first to figure it out: If it was a technique she had done in a prior life… then, yes, Vin, you were the first to think of it. And the second to think of it, as well. Maybe someone else can take bronze… (that’s a reference to Olympic metals, not Allomantic metals.) Oh, and don’t forget the flying horseshoes trick. The annotations say that she is the first one to pick up that particular trick. So, that’s not one tactic that’s definitely not from a previous life. Oh, good, things are going a lot quicker through the rest of the trilogy. I’m on to Hero of Ages, now, and I’m 30 chapters in before Vin does something surprisingly well. It’s when they crash Yomen’s party. She dives in from a position of power, something she had never had in her previous ball interactions, and she instantly takes to it. Elend notices: So, there are three main categories where these examples fall in to: Learning Allomancy quickly, learning Tactics and Fighting quickly, and learning Nobility quickly. If it were just Allomancy, I could believe it was enhanced intuition provided by Preservation. Even the anti-atium and anti-Inquisitor tactics, on a good day. But all three categories? It seems too much of a stretch that being chosen as Preservation’s hero would give her penmanship and the mindset of a noble. So, I think these experiences come from a past life as a noble. Part 2: Vin vs Valette One major theme of Vin’s character arc is reconciling her two different personas. She wonders, is she Vin the street urchin? Or is she Valette the noblewoman? Eventually, she determines that her true self is a combination of the two. She needs to incorporate both the experience gained on the street with the noblewoman who goes to balls. This conflict is presented from the beginning, from Kelsier’s first training session with her: When she was thinking of how “Lord Renoux” adopted his persona: She begins to realize that she isn’t actually either of them, but something else entirely. From WoA, Chapter 35: She tries to push the “Valette” persona off as an act, but her conversation with Tindwyl when they were dress-shopping begins to change that. Vin says she sees a problem with wearing dresses because it wasn’t really her; Tindwyl asks, “And these can’t dresses be part of who you really are?” More pointedly: This conflict continues, somewhat, into HoA, Chapter 27: She eventually realizes in Chapter 32 that being a noble is an essential part of her: Since I was thinking about the context of reincarnation, this took on a different meaning to me entirely. Vin isn’t just a combination of her two sets of experiences… what if she is a combination of two different people? Vin the street urchin represents her current life experiences. Valette the noblewoman (and Allomatic experience) comes from a previous life. As she struggles with these two halves of herself, she’s actually trying to merge her current and previous identities, to create who she truly is. Oddly enough, combining multiple people into one is a concept that is presented elsewhere in the Mistborn trilogy. Koloss and Steel Inquisitors are both described as being multiple people combined into one. Steel inquisitors first, by Noorden, the friendly obligator. Immediately afterwards, Elend realized how koloss were created: I thought it was an odd way of characterizing the change; Hemalurgy has been presented more as stealing someone else’s attributes, not combining multiple people. But it gave me some insight into how Vin could be the combination of two people. Marsh was still Marsh, even though he had other people “combined” into him. Same with Human the koloss; the annotations give his backstory, so he is a real person. The reincarnation isn’t a Wheel of Time kind of reincarnation (like the Heroes of the Horn being spun out into new identities), but someone who has already died giving up her experience to Vin. I don’t think I’m saying Vin is a Hemalurgic creation; the experiences of a past life spiked onto an orphan girl. But I think it’s a similar concept, not necessarily carried out using that magic system. Part 3: Déjà vu So, conceptually, it’s a bit of a stretch to say Vin’s experiences belonged to a dead person. I get that – there isn’t a single hint of this kind of previous lives in the trilogy (or even in Alloy or SoS). But I think all the pieces are there in the trilogy itself. Dead individuals stick around. Kelsier sticks around. Vin’s previous incarnation could have stuck around in a similar fashion. Combining multiple people into one. I discussed this in Part 2, so I won’t go into detail here. The gods made Vin special. According to Sazed, Preservation chose Vin after she was born, because she snapped so early. Ruin also made his mark on her when she was young, spiking her with her sister’s Bronze ability. A third individual, “meddling” like Kelsier, could have also imparted past life experiences onto her. Souls can return to bodies. Sazed says that he didn’t figure it out in time to resurrect Vin and Elend, but WoB says it’s possible. http://theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727 Minds can be used to power magic. I’m not sure my Realmatics are quite right, but we saw Preservation turn his mind (soul?) into Investiture to imprison Ruin. It wasn’t his body, his Shard’s power; it was just his mind. The mind of Vin’s past life could be the power behind this reincarnation of its experiences. So, while the way I’ve assembled them may be novel, I think that it is a natural progression of what is presented in the novels. Part 4: Guess Who? I strained my eyes looking through the pages, trying to figure out who could have been Vin’s previous life. This person had to be dead before Vin was born (duh), and they had had to be born after Allomancy was discovered (because Vin knew tricks against both Steel Inquisitors and atium burners). And, lastly, this person had to be a Mistborn (since Vin had good instincts in all metals). I also think that her previous incarnation needed to be a noblewoman, because of how her internal conflict played out between orphan and noblewoman. I guess it could have been a nobleman, but Vin always sounds secure in her femininity. She’s a combination of Noble and Urchin, not a combination of Man and Woman. Now, gender and status aren’t deal-breakers; if I could find a character who met the previous three conditions who was a non-noble or a man, I would consider them a strong candidate. So, boil this all down, compare it to characters from the books… and I’ve got nothing. Gemmel is the only Mistborn who’s dead before the series begins, but he was still alive after Vin was born. (Also, not a girl.) Alendi crossed my mind, but he was only a Seeker, and he never fought Atium burners. Other than that, we don’t know much about the history of the world. So, I can’t point to an individual who I think was Vin’s previous life. But I can describe what I think she was like: a noblewoman Mistborn. Part 5: Hoid Now, the part where this really got fun was when Vin decided to avoid Hoid (hmm, that might be the Cosmere name for Tag. Avoid Hoid. It’s got a nice ring to it.) Uhh… let’s try this again. When Vin decided to avoid Hoid (stay on target), she trusted her instincts. Remember, Instincts = Past Life in this theory. So, something about her past life told her to stay away from Hoid. But what could it be? All Vin heard was humming. She didn’t even see Hoid. Just heard him. What was he humming, anyways? I wonder if Vin recognized it. Could it have been a song she knew in her past life. Has Hoid visited Scadrial before? Did he work with Vin’s past life, someone who knew that song? That’s a very Hoid thing to do; hum a song from a bygone era that no one living knows (except Vin has a vague memory of it because of her past life). And, hey, let’s go down the rabbit hole. Hoid was looking for the Well of Ascension to get a Lerasium bead. Vin’s previous life might have thought she was the Hero of Ages as well, looking for the Well of Ascension, even though the thousand years hadn’t passed. After she died, she stuck around, and saw who Preservation chose to take her power and use the Well of Ascension. And she (old Vin) decided to grant her experience and skill to the new Vin. Mad speculation, of course. We know precious little about what Hoid has been up to. I have no idea what Vin’s previous life was all about. So, please disregard the previous paragraph. (I’ll stand by the rest of this section, though.) Part 6: Kelsier So, this is a fairly complex undercurrent for Vin’s character. If Brandon was writing something like this into her arc, how is he going to get it across to the readers, now that the trilogy has been concluded? What are the ramifications on the future of the series? He doesn’t have plans for flashback books, so how would we ever learn about Vin’s past life? I’ve compared Vin’s previous life to Kelsier a number of times throughout the theory. That’s where I think it becomes relevant: not in learning about Vin, but as a key trait of a character in a future trilogy who Kelsier reincarnates into. He would grant his experiences, his motivations, to a new character, to aid them in… well, whatever a future Mistborn trilogies would be about. That way, we can learn about the circumstances of reincarnation, without going back to Vin. We learn it all through new eyes, and then someone like Harmony says, “I’ve seen this before. Although we didn’t realize it at the time, the Ascendant Warrior had the experiences of another to aid her. What you have is what remains of Kelsier, the Survivor. You can trust it.” Except, probably in much more epic language. That also would let us see some of that hinted-at Hoid/Kelsier animosity! Vin was known as the Heir to the Survivor. I don’t think she inherited anything from him, though; I think she was the Heir to someone else’s experiences. This hypothetical future incarnation of Kelsier, however… he would be the true Heir to the Survivor. Another mythical Hero who we thought was Vin this whole time, only to have the rug pulled out from under us. Again. Summary Okay, here’s the gist: Vin is so good at what she does because a dead person has passed along her experiences and skills. That is why Vin learn so quick and come up with her tricks, and it also contributes to her “identity crisis” between skaa and noblewoman. This might become relevant in the future if Kelsier reincarnates himself in the same fashion. Also, sorry for direct-quoting 30% of the text of the Mistborn trilogy throughout this post. Bands of Mourning/Secret History Update:

Hmm, I wasn't planning on asking for White Sand; I was gonna wait for the graphic novels. If I'm too weak, and I change my mind, I'll ask to get added. Thanks, though.

I recently received Aether of Night, and I am itching to talk about it. Is there where discussion of it is allowed? A hidden sub-forum, maybe?

It'll be coming in October 2016. There was already a thread about it here; you're not the only one waiting for that format, it seems.

In the US, mass market paperbacks are usually released a year or so after the hardcover, and they'll usually have the same cover. Amazon has a listing for Oct 4, 2016. Paperbacks are cheaper, but you have to wait longer to get them. A very effective way of getting people to buy hardcovers. (It worked on me, at least.)

If storing Identity gives a way to use others' metalminds, I think an A-Chromium/F-Aluminum would be the ultimate Hazekiller. He can clean out out an Allomancer's metals with Chromium. As for Feruchemists, if he could get a hand on their metalminds, he could instantly tap them dry, draining their reserves. (Although that is not without its pitfalls. If an unbathed Tin ferring had a lot of smell stored up...) I agree that A-Pewter/F-Brass make a good pair, and there could be some very... interesting applications by helping you survive all the heat you can put out. (Wish I could link to it on the creator's site, instead of a content aggregator, but I'm having a hard time finding the comic in question)

It's ambiguous. It could be just the Kandra, or it could be Harmony. And Wax's closing viewpoint doesn't say what Wax is thinking, no mention of Harmony or the new metal. A good point - the metal doesn't appear to be homogenous, so it couldn't be a true alloy. However, that same logic should exclude it from being a pure metal, as well. The spike is multi-colored, but it still functions in Hemalurgy (where we know that metals and alloys need to follow strict compositions). Maybe it is just patches of rust on parts of an otherwise homogenous spike. Maybe it was a poorly constructed spike, so the mixing was good enough to create a workable alloy, but there are still pockets of unmixed metals. I think the description is supposed to be a clue - silver and red, where have we see metals of those colors before? Oh, the book doesn't imply - MeLaan and Marasi straight-up say that there's another god opposing Harmony. However, we've seen characters in Mistborn be wrong before, especially if they're working on bad information from Harmony (more on that below). That's why I stepped away from their conclusions to look at how the metal functioned - to compare what their theory (god metal of another Shard) to how we've seen the metal behave. There's already a big hole in their theory: We saw Ruin limited by metal in the first trilogy. I unfortunately don't have the book to look at (anyone want to return the favor of finding a quote?), but I recall that Ruin couldn't read and change messages inscribed in metal, and he couldn't find the Atium stash. Marasi could have given a different answer: metal blinds a god. I just came across another piece of information that I think is relevant. In addition to the two aspects of the metal's function I listed in my previous post (steal any ability, hide from Harmony), one other unique property of this metal is that it grants the powers to Kandra. That's something we haven't seen yet; but we do have a WoB about it: The Metallic Arts already have a way to give Kandra Allomancy through use of Hemalurgy. All three unique things that this spike has done, they are already present elsewhere in the metallic arts. Furthermore, why would another god metal do what Atium does, and then some? SInce it's Ruin's magic system, why would a god metal be more powerful than Ruin's own metal? That's not to say there isn't a force opposing Harmony. On the contrary, Paalm was taking orders from someone else. She's talking about Wax, to whoever is giving her orders. What if she's talking to a Shard... or a Splinter? The conspiracy theory I subscribe to has pieces of a few other theories that have been floating around. I think Kelsier's cognitive shadow has taken over the extra piece of Ruin's power, and he's trying to overthrow Harmony the same way he did the Lord Ruler. It would tie together a number of different pieces: RAFOs about what Harmony did with the extra bit of Ruin (It's a Splinter, and could gain sentience on its own like the Stormfather if no one was holding it) RAFOs about what Kelsier has been up to (but we are going to find out soon) The WoBs about how Kelsier could have been a villain, in a different story The conflict between Pathism and Survivorism that Paalm was fomenting (the gods of these two religions are actually going at one another, as well) Where Marsh is (he's working with his brother against Harmony, and as the only person in the world with atium, he could provide Paalm with atium-alloy spikes) Combine that with Sazed being a less-than-stellar guy in this book, and I can believe that he would lie to the Kandra about not knowing what Paalm's spike was and not sharing how to give Kandra allomancy (he's using the Kandra, and doesn't want to give them tools against him). Yeah, it's a bit of a stretch, and it's way too specific of a theory to be 100% right, but I'm just trying to show that we can have opposition to Harmony without it coming from a new Shard. That means that Paalm's spikes can be something that's already a part of the Metallic Arts: Atium-Alloys in Hemalurgy.

Do we know for sure that the spike isn't from Ruin or Preservation? Or is that assumed since Harmony doesn't know what it is? Two properties of the spike make me think it is a new Atium alloy. 1) Color. Silvery, with dark red spots; two distinct colors. Atium was silver, and dark red spots could be indicative of the other metal mixed in. There is a red metal used in Allomancy; copper. (I don't have a copy of the original Mistborn trilogy, so I can't look up the description of Malatium; what did it look like?) 2) Function. The spikes were used to steal both Feruchemical and Allomantic abilities; we have already seen a metal that can steal both of those. Atium can be used to steal any abilities in Hemalurgy; an Atium alloy could potentially also steal all abilities. Copper in Allomancy hides the user; what if using a Copper-Atium spike lets you steal any ability, and also lets you hide the ability while you're using it? The outstanding question, of course, is why doesn't Sazed know about it? Maybe it's something that he has forgotten (or been made to forget); there's no guarantee that he's omniscient. Maybe it's something like the Twinborn phenomenon; a new development in the metallic arts, one that he doesn't know about because nobody has used Atium alloys for Hemalurgy before. I don't have a good answer, but based on how the spike behaves, it makes me think it's a Copper-Atium alloy.

To be fair, it's not calculus, because the abstract says this method differs from the "graphic method" by 0.4%. This method uses triangles and rectangles, while integration uses just rectangles. The key to this method is probably what shape to use for each case, or something like that. And apart from that, calculus deals with equations, while this is a purely graphical solution based on a response curve (i.e. we don't know the equation). (I'm not gonna say 1-for-4, but...)

I don't have the quote, but I believe Brandon has been more specific than that in the past. IIRC, he said that all the Shardholders are characters in Dragonsteel.

Back to the original theory: The stormlight being used to power Surgebinding and Shardplates in lieu of a direct bond to Honor makes a lot of sense. By inference, that would say that Honor wasn't Splintered until the Recreance. I don't remember where this line of thought wound up, but I recall some discussions about how there weren't any spren in Dalinar's vision. If spren are Splinters of Honor, this fits very well Honor being whole until after the Recreance. I'd even go so far as to take your theory one step further, Telcontar, and say that not only did they draw energy directly from Honor, but they also bonded directly to him instead of to spren. I'm a little shaky on my Realmatic Theory, but is it possible that spren like honorspren are cognitive splinters that a person forms a bond to through their actions, intents, and oaths to allow them to Surgebind, and stormlight is the remains of the spiritual energy of Honor? (I'm putting energy in the Spiritual Realm because I think that's how they talked about it in The Emperor's Soul, although I may be misremembering.) A Nahel Bond would have provided both the Cognitive and Spiritual bonds to Honor that allowed unlimited Surgebinding, while a modern-day Surgebinder needs to have a bond with a spren to gain the abilities and a stockpile of Stormlight to power them. Going back to Elantris; I think it's more of their counterpart to spren, the way they connect with their Shard and gain magic powers, that has splintered, not necessarily the energy source. The AonDor would be the spiritual energy, and that doesn't exist in bubbles. Whatever happened would make it more difficult to gain access to; perhaps those taken by the Shaod weren't random, but were chosen like the Returned in Warbreaker. Since I don't know exactly how or why people get taken, I'm hesitant to speculate more. (We don't know that, right? It's been a while since I've read Elantris.) What if the energy of Honor in tSA isn't shattered either? What if it's the source of the Highstorms, which are themselves furious and return constantly? That would be the resting place of Honor's energy, but Surgebinders can't access it directly. Portions of the energy go out with the highstorms, get trapped in gems, and are then harnessed by Surgebinders?

That's the point - if the Parshendi were Voidbringers, why would Syl dislike their deaths?

It all goes back to Newton's second law: Force equals Mass times Acceleration. Szeth is doubling up the 9.8 meters per second squared (acceleration) without changing his mass - a net doubling of force without changing his mass. Sazed would alter the effective force through changing his mass without changing the acceleration. It's like how things fall slower on the moon, regardless of their mass, because the moon's acceleration is lower than earth's.

So, I just finished a re-reading of Way of Kings, and I was keeping an eye out for anything that could shed light on the ominous quote, "Odium reigns." Or, as the exact quotation has it: To me, it looks like the phrase comes as a response to Kaladin's question. Why is there so much war? Because Odium reigns. And, if you look at the characters throughout the book, you can see that it is odium and hatred that rule mankind. Kaladin hates the lighteyes, the Alethi hate the Parshendi, Szeth hates those he is killing (something he views as an extremely irrational hatred), and apparently the rest of the world hates one another enough to cover the world in wars. Hatred is embedded in the hearts of mankind. Modern Vorinism (which I think is actually a tool of Odium) promotes rivalry among men, not sacrifice and unity. We see odium from the very moment that the men of Feverstone Keep slaughter one another for looted Shardblades and Shardplate. But was it always like this? Of course not - we know of the time before the Recreance, when the Silver Kingdoms were great, when the Knights Radiant were at their peak. They were not driven by hate then. In fact, although I can't find a quote, I recall someone speaking of how the Almighty used to live in the hearts of the people. Or, more directly, honor was in the hearts of the people. This now goes to explain the quotation that "three of the sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns." Now, the Broken One is widely accepted as Odium due to the parallels of the Stormfather's quote. I thought the Broken One may be Honor for a while, since that Shard has been broken, but then I began to consider what was meant by ruling or reigning. The Stormfather quote and the quote I can't find shed light on that: the place where these Shards ruled was in the hearts of men. At the present time, it is odium that fills mens' hearts, but in times past it was three different Shards. Of the three Shards, one is definitely Honor. Cultivation is a good guess for the second one; I see this in how the Knights Radiant, in one of Dalinar's visions, said that they preserved the arts of war in preparation for the Desolations. The intent of Cultivation is preparation for the future, and the Knights Radiant were very obviously focused on the coming Desolation, not on presently ruling the world. The third Shard, however, I don't know what it is. I'm going to say it's not Odium, but another positive Shard that fits with the ideals of the Knights Radiant. I'm not going to hazard a guess yet (well, maybe I will; Truth and Luck pop up a lot throughout the book, but I can't really see the latter as fitting with the Knights radiant), but I'm of the opinion that Odium is not one of the three that once reigned. Now, a lot of this may seem extremely obvious and not very deep at all, but I've been building to an examination of something the Almighty said at the end of his vision to Dalinar. The journey we've seen main characters - our future Knights Radiant - embark on has required them to overcome their Hate (Kaladin is overcoming his bitterness, Shallan will have to overcome her self-loathing, Dalinar is overcoming how he despises those he fights against) and move towards intentions in line with the three Shards from before. I think that the three phrases of the First Oath each correspond to one of these Shards. Teft's explanation on page 831 seem to indicate they all reflect Honor, but we know that his understanding of the Knights Radiant is less than perfect. I think that "journey before destination" refers to Cultivation. Present actions (journey) to prepare for the future (destination). Of the last two, I think that "strength before weakness" refers to Honor; the second ideal is about defending (strength) those who can't defend themselves (weakness). I'm not sure what "life before death" would refer to, but I don't see it as referring to Odium. But regardless of which shard goes with which phrase, the Almighty says that men need to say the Oaths to return to them the Shards they once bore. I don't think he's referring to Shardblades and Shardplates; I think that the "Shards" are the three Shards of Adonalsium that used to guide the lives of men: Honor, Cultivation, and Shshshsh. The oaths will guide their intents and actions, which will let them use Surgebinding by drawing directly from the Shards. Shardbearing isn't directly referring to the Plate and the Blade; it's referring to how the Radiants didn't need to get Stormlight from the highstorms, but how they drew it directly from the Shards themselves. As a secondary effect, that energy can permanently power Shardplate, but it would also strengthen the individual. To quote the back of the book: "Surgebinding and Shardwielding can return." We've seen Surgebinding without Shardwielding in Szeth's and most of Kaladin's experiences. We've seen Shardwielding without Surgebinding when Dalinar went toe-to-toe with a Chasmfield and when Kaladin did his epic bridge-jump. Note Kaladin, out of stormlight and not yet having said the Oath, on page 925. As we've learned from Vin's example, strength doesn't just come from "somewhere." Kaladin was acting honorably, and that let him draw directly on Honor as a Shardbearer. He didn't Surgebind then, so I don't think we've seen the two powers used in tandem. I'm not terribly well versed in Realmatic theory, but I would expect the Principle of Intent comes into play here. As people act in accordance with the Oaths, in accordance with the intent of the three who once ruled, they could draw directly from their power. If they act according to Odium's intent, they cannot draw directly on that power. (I haven't read that theory too in-depth, so I may be getting the details wrong, but the main thrust should still apply.) To summarize: the Shards are fighting a war for men's hearts in preparation for the physical war that is coming. Right now, Odium rules the hearts of men, but if Honor and his fellows can regain dominance of the actions of men, they can again give them the power needed to Surgebind and enhance their strength directly through Shardbearing. Bonus Theory 1: Dawnshards Jasnah notes part of a poem that describes a "Dawnshard," something that binds any creature "voidish or mortal." The Almighty also mentions that humanity would need the Dawnshards in order to fight Odium. What if the Dawnshards are Shards of Adonalsium: Honor, Cultivation, and the third one? They can bind men, or they can bind voidish creatures (like, say, the Parshendi, which appear to be Voidbringers [although I think they're just one of the Ten Deaths, corresponding to the Sinew essence, dealing with flesh] but act according to Honor). A holder of a Dawnshard can take even the Parshendi and have them fight for Honor; or, as you could say, "UNITE THEM" with humanity. The poem Jasnah quoted could either be a past instance of someone taking up a Shard whose original holder had been killed, or maybe even a future instance of someone reclaiming one. Bonus Theory 2: Odium Reigns on Sel When I reread Elantris last year, the knowledge that Odium had visited Sel made me look at things there with a new light. Dilaf especially caught my eye: he was described pretty consistently as "hateful." I thought that Odium may have corrupted the two true 'religions,' one following Aona and one following Skai, into the two brutal religions that exist now. (I don't have the book with me now, so I can't look up the exact names. There was the Mysteries, and then there was the one that ruled basically the whole world.) Both of them are quote odious, and their characters behave in hateful ways. I think Odium corrupted Sel in the same way he corrupted Roshar, so he can reign there as well by driving the people towards odious behaviors. Why he wants to destroy Roshar but not Sel is a question I can't answer, though. [/wall of text]

Here's a thought. In the last battle of the book, Syl abandons Kaladin when he is killing Parshendi. Kaladin's response (page 982 of the hardcover) seems to equate killing Parshendi with killing men, and he specifically paints it as a "terrible thing." Killing Voidbringers (using that as a generic term for a force of Odium during the Desolations) would not be acting against the ideals of the Knights Radiant, but apparently killing Parshendi is.