TheOneKEA

I believe there are also WoBs and WoPs which state that the Rosharan system has a certain degree of artifice to it, and that Roshar has been altered in some unspecified way by the Shards. Based on that data point I think there is room to wonder if the Listeners are truly native to Roshar or if they, or the planet, came from elsewhere.

In the Oathbringer prologue, Gavilar refers to the Listeners as once being "vibrant". We also know that the southwest corner of the map of Rosharan Shadesmar is supposed to be labeled the Expanse of Vibrance. Knowing Brandon, I think this is exceedingly significant, but on the face of it, the connection seems very tenuous based on the belief that this Expanse leads to the Nalthian Cognitive Realm. Is this just a genuine reuse of a verb that has meaning elsewhere or is Brandon foreshadowing the reveal of where and how the Listeners made it to Roshar?

39 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Considering how Sanderson has some vaguely Lovecraftian horrors in Stormlight Archive (at least by implication, when you have things like 'Re-Shephir the Midnight Mother') I wonder if the planned Threnody novel will have a character discovering a hastily scribbled letter written by someone who went mad when they encountered Things That Man Was Not Meant To Know.

But to the original question, Threnody's perpendicularites are noted to be difficult to predict in Khriss' essay. Since she's talking about traveling to the planet I don't think that's really a problem for your theory so it could be that doing something to set off a lot of Shades at once could indeed be what she's talking about in terms of the morbid origin. That would result in a gathering of large-ish amounts of Investiture in a single location, perhaps enough to make a perpendicularity form briefly before the Shades disperse. No idea what that would look like in the Cognitive Realm and I volunteer someone else to go find out for us. I'll stay here, thanks. xD

I don't feel like being around to find out either...

If this theory has any plausibility, I think it's entirely fair that the perpendicularity would only be there for a brief moment and that it would be very hard to use, since you'll be appearing in the Physical Realm surrounded by very angry Shades.

I was rereading the essay written by Khriss about Threnody and continued to stick on her statement about how the perpendicularities on that planet have a morbid origin. Having mulled it over a lot, I believe that a perpendicularity can begin to form when a bunch of Shades are all gathered in one place at one time and are all aroused by an action which breaks the rules of the Forest.

With that in mind, I naturally went to an extreme scenario - how many Shades could be gathered if someone beought napalm to the Forest and began deploying it? What would actually be happening in the Cognitive Realm if someone was merrily burning everything in sight and attracting every Shade within shouting distance?

I couldn't help but notice the absence of an essay from Khriss on Nalthis and its magics in Arcanum Unbounded. The real-world reason for its absence is obvious, but what in-world reason could there be for Khriss to not include an essay on one of the core Shardworlds of the Cosmere?

I really, really like this theory a lot. I've been pondering the cause of the Recreance after reading some of the WoB on Reddit, and this neatly explains many of the thoughts I had on just what could cause the Radiants to behave in the manner that they did.

In particular, it very neatly explains Pattern's insistence to Shallan that she will kill him someday.

Someone with access to the manuscript has edited the TV Tropes page for White Sand and included an entry for the "Well Done Son Guy" trope, and suggests that Kenton lost and gained his sand mastery because he was not acting autonomous. The trope entry suggests that Kenton's overwhelming desire to be a sand master to please his father was not an autonomous act, and thus didn't give him the same access to the magic; when his father died, he literally lost the reason he became a sand master, and thus lost the magic. The entry then claims that every time Kenton tries to wield the sands for their own sake, to act autonomously, he gains more power and access to sand mastery. If this person's theory is accurate this has HUGE implications for Kenton's adventures on Darkside.

I actually thought Hoid was either Nilto/Gevin...

This suggests that it is not the UV radiation from the sun that is responsible for investing the sand, but something else. It also makes me wonder what color invested sand versus expended sand will be when exposed to UV light.

The graphic novel was wayyyyyyy too short! The pacing also felt uneven early on, like the artist and adapting writer were struggling to figure out how to show instead of tell.

The single biggest defect is that this is only the first issue of three. That means that this one has most of the exposition and setup and not as much in the way of action, and that is going to make many Cosmere fans feel disappointed.

Round 2 questions!

Is Threnody in the same planetary system as Sel?

Yes it is.

WHAT WHAT WHAT WHATTTTTTTT

HOWWWW did he not RAFO this???

Is the Investiture that trapped the Shades in the Cognitive Realm yet another mainfestation of region-locked magic? Did the Shades arise as a side effect of the Investiture raging through the Cognitive Realm in Sel? Are the Shades the leftover remnants of cognition of the former Elantrians prior to the chasm, or are they the leftover remnants of the Dakhor victims, or are they something else entirely?

So many theories...

It sounds to me like you're suggesting Harmonium might be able to grant Feruchemy if burned by a normal person based on the idea that since Harmony combines the powers of Ruin and Preservation, and when Ruin and Preservation worked together to create the people of Scadrial they (either intentionally or unintentionally) made some Feruchemists.  I was searching to see if someone had posted this theory already, so congrats on beating me to it!

I think it's more plausible that harmonium can grant Feruchemy by Connecting yourself to it and attempting to store something in it. Since we know that god metals are mundane pieces of matter with Investiture attached, the Connection and subsequent attempt to store might transfer the Investiture into your spiritweb and turn the harmonium into an inert chunk of slag.

I suspect that if a pair of kandra swapped their spikes that they would be afflicted with the same problem that ReLuur was afflicted with, and would become very unstable cognitively.

I will be very interested to see someone in the Cognitive Realm try to perceive a kandra, and see what they "look" like in that place. I suspect that mistwraiths and kandra may actually look exactly the same from a Cognitive perspective and that the spikes are the sole Connection between realms for those species.

I am also very interested to see if a Feruchemical medallion can affect a mistwraith.

I think the part that I still find the most amusing is Kelsier's punching. I will probably laugh out loud if Kelsier punches another god in the Cognitive Realm in a future book.

i don't think its a spoiler but just in case...

 

I don't know if its been discussed but since SAZED ascended he will have a metal and since he is harmony combination of preservation (a metal that anyone can burn) and ruin (see the future).  so does that mean anyone can burn harmonium and see the future on how they can achieve harmony with everyone and everything?  a true utopia?

Wow. That's a fascinating theory. It makes a lot of sense, and I can imagine this actually being a thing that Sazed thought would be necessary.

What I don't yet understand is the mechanics of the Connection needed to pick up a Shard. Brandon has provided multiple WoBs which state that anyone can take up a Shard, yet the requirement to be Connected to the Shard clearly serves as a restriction. I will be interested to see how Brandon reconciles this.

Do we know for sure that The Lost Metal refers to exactly one metal?

Perhaps all three of the god metals will return, and we will see all of them used for their various purposes. I don't think we have to restrict ourselves to only one metal.

Brandon Sanderson stores his works in the cloud. Not an electronic cloud, an actual cloud. He uses it to keep the sun out of his eyes when he is writing.

Brandon Sanderson made a bet with himself that he could create a real life spiritweb. You may know it as the Internet.

In the broadsheet included in BoM, there is a first-person account of a Leecher successfully draining Investiture from a device wielded by the person who may be Nazh. The description in the broadsheet explains how the Investiture is drained away in the Physical Realm and passes elsewhere, possibly into the Spiritual Realm, from the perspective of the Leecher.

Prior to this, all we knew about Leeching was that it could destroy the metal reserves inside of an Allomancer. We have multiple WoBs stating that the metals themselves don't have any Investiture and that they are only a key that allows an Allomancer to use Investiture to get an effect. How do we reconcile the WoBs with the story in the broadsheet?

The real question is how/why do people gain the ability to use unlocked "double metalminds" only when they realize it might be a metalmind? As soon as Marasi was told the medallion will make her lighter, she became able to fill it. Same with the coin at the ending, it only started working when Wax thought it might.

 

Actually, can those iron medallions not be tapped? We never see anyone increase their weight with them, do we? Maybe these southern doubleminds are one way? But then, where does the stored power go to (or come from in case of tapped doubleminds)?

 

Also if heat medallions can't be recharged, then that's another question: why are iron doubleminds fillable by anyone while brass doubleminds aren't?

I believe that it has everything to do with cognitive perception. Basically, if you believe that it is a metalmind with a Metallic Power, then you become connected to it and are able to use its power.

For the same reason, I believe that the brass doubleminds are fillable, but that no one understands how yet, so the metalmind isn't connected to them in the manner needed to fill it.

In The Secret History, she's pretty clear that she thinks Scadrial is going to be destroyed. Unless you think she was lying, (I suppose it's possible that she and Nazh were agreed on nudging Kelsier towards the IRE in order to save the planet...) she's probably very surprised that the planet survived, and she outright stated her only reason for not leaving completely was that she wanted to observe Preservation's death.

 

I doubt she had any clue that they'd go on to figure out FTL.

I think Khriss wasn't necessarily lying, but I doubt she was being completely truthful either.

I still think that her second visit to Scadrial was specifically to find out about the use of the Metallic Arts for FTL though.

I would not be surprised if Marasi is the first character to join one of the world hopping organizations "on screen". Based on everything outlined above I think it will fit her character arc quite nicely if she became a world hopper.

As for misty Shadesmar instead of glass beads, well I do believe Scadrial is presumed to be in the direction of the Expanse of Vapors on the Rosharian Shadesmar map, right?

Or was it a different one?

No, that's it; we have a WoB that the Expanse of the Vapors is Scadrial.

Someone should ask if the fortress in the novella would be able to be plotted on the Rosharan map.

Good question!

Given the time frame she is in at the time it makes sense that the planet isn't reachable in the Physical Realm, and hiding it in the Cognitive Realm is something we haven't seen before.

Could Khriss be on Scadrial, before and after Harmony's Ascension, because she wants to know how FTL works so that she can reach Yolen via Physical means?

The Ire are Elantrians right? I'm pretty sure we just got a look at a society of them centuries after Raoden and Irene. Very strange, this novella is packed with Cosmere info.

Edit: Did we also seer then use sine kind of AonFabrial? Veeeeeery interesting. It seems to involve geme stones, which reminds me of Roshar. Thoughts?

I never even noticed that the people in the fortress were Elantrians! I knew that they were powerful and clearly possessed great cognitive abilities (which is something that AonDor practitioners would be good at IMO) but I didn't notice the connection.

To be honest the device they brought made me think of Roshar too, with its various fabrials and other technological devices.