ftl

She would be clued in to who they are, but I think would have no reason to connect the Sleepless with "advocate for Spren".

That one, I think, is more metaphorical than literally. She feels like she's always acting. "Shallan" is a persona, "Veil" is a persona, "Radiant" is a persona. Shallan is only pretending to be a functional human being, sending out fake puppets into the world while she herself is whatever is hiding inside them. I think literally speaking, Shallan is a normal human, the daughter of Lin and (unnamed mother Davar). Mentally, she feels like the persona she projects to the world is entirely fake/pretend.

Yeah, the comment that "Some of the metals the fused are using aren't aluminum" definitely implies that some of them *are*. So probably the shardblade-resistant metal is aluminum, and the investiture-draining one might be duralumin, or chromium, or something.

Huh. So maybe they'll all be revived. Brandon DOES like raising the stakes faster than you can ever think they can be raised. So that's one possible end of RoW. *ALL* deadeyed radiant spren get revived, somehow. Which will be be necessary to counter some massive equivalent power injection Team Odium is going to get.

It's 2D in the sense that the world is flat instead of round. You can walk from one planet to another, like from Roshar to Nalthis. The Cognitive Realm itself is three-dimensional (you can see characters moving up/down/left/right normally), but there's clearly weirdness about how you map multiple round worlds into a single flat plane.

I'd say Dalinar dueling Fen's son. It's basically as straightforward of a definition of a flex as you can get - he shows off his strength in such a way so as to communicate I am so much stronger than you in so many different ways. First, he shows that he can win the duel under ridiculously unfair terms - he stays in the ring, unharmed, for the requisite amount of time. Offering and winning that duel would itself be a flex, but he takes it even further - he lets the guy impale him with a sword, and goes "Yeah, I suppose you could stab me. So what? Don't care." Doubleflex. I think that makes this the best one.

Adventurous spirit would definitely suit her well. Immortality seems likely just because of the level of Investiture involved.

I totally agree with the four proposed Dawnshards (Change, Unite, Survive, Care). Care might have synonyms used instead (feel?) but the idea is there, it connects to why passion comes up as a special word for Odium and Ruin. Since 4x4=16, is there any way to think of each Shard as embodying two of of the Dawnshard Commands? In a primary/secondary way, or a physical/cognitive way, or some other way of distinguishing the effects of two Dawnshards. I'll have to think about it and see whether I can make that grid fit.

Hahaha, that was great! Also was great how Nikli's reaction was basically "Umm.... what?"

Warbreaker talks about the distinctions! To awaken something you need to have the Intent: visualize what you want to happen. Then you give the Command: a word or phrase, clearly said aloud. And then you supply Investiture: enough Breaths to do the awakening. That's Nalthian magic. But based on Dawnshard, I think I can try to extrapolate that to general principles of the Cosmere - to do magic things, you need Intent (a mind visualizing/intending what you need to do - the cognitive component), a Command (some physical interaction - a phrase like in awakening, a gesture like in Elantris) and Investiture (from the Spiritual realm - supplied differently in each magic system.) The combination of Intent and Investiture is clearly common to all magic systems. The Command part... is a stretch. Not sure how I'd apply that framework to Surgebinding on Roshar, Feruchemy/Allomancy on Scadrial (though maybe the interaction with the metal counts as the physical component there?). But it fits for Awakening and all the Selish magics pretty well. Radiants tend to do some gesturing with their hands as they do various things, but it's never been made explicit that they have to do these things. The Dawnshard is, apparently, the Command portion of this, on Adonalsium-scale. Somehow saved into a thought that could be passed on, from person to mural to person. Really not sure how that works.

People call them luckspren. They're also the ones found around greatshells, chasmfiends, and skyeels (anything that shouldn't be able to fly or support its weight, but can do so anyway.)

Instead of Remain.... have it be SURVIVE. (mistborn spoilers)

Yeah, I figured there'd be a sleepless saboteur, but I could not figure out who it was because everyone involved with the ship seemed to have been with it before they went on the journey. The explanation of that at the end made sense - Nikli was sent to watch over the larkin.

Aren't the "pirates" a fabrication of the sleepless? That's what I took out of it. That Rysn was supposed to find another misdirection.

I suspect it's because to use the Command to the fullest extent, you need to give it Investiture. Without being a Radiant, Rysn has no way of getting Investiture to do much with the command, so she can just keep it safe. If she were to become a Radiant, she would have the power to actually use the thing she holds. And that's exactly what the Sleepless are trying to avoid.

Oooh. Now THAT'S interesting. Sja-anat has in fact been the only force/being that's been shown to be capable of modifying a spren's nature. I like it.

It is absolutely a sad moment for Kaladin - he sees this like giving in, like giving up. That comes through in his PoV, where he's feeling resigned and sad. And it certainly isn't the place he'd fit in the long term. I think it's clearly a place where he might take some steps forward - learn new things about leading and protecting and helping that will help him advance further in the oaths. So I feel positive about it though Kal clearly doesn't.

The one thing I've thought - the oath has to involve some commitment to do something in particular, it has to be active. I don't think it can just be "I will accept..." or "I will let go..." or something like that. It needs to provide a course of action for the Windrunner to take. That makes it harder to swear, too. I think it'll be a situation where not only does Kaladin have to accept that he can't save everyone, it'll be a situation where he deliberately has to send someone into danger. Something like "I will send the strong to protect the helpless, even at the cost of their lives." Or maybe one where he extends the "I" to a "We" as a leader: "We will protect those we must, together, with all our lives on the line." Not sure. I haven't found a good phrasing of that oath that completely makes sense to me.

The ghostbloods' assassinations of all of the Sadeas-aligned highprinces in the warcamps probably also count. Highprinces are likely to give Jasnah's scheming the credit/blame there, if they don't know what's actually going on. They may well believe that any of Jasnah's proclamations come with an implicit "or else you will be assassinated in the night" threat.

Could it just be a misclassification? Atium, being a god-metal, doesn't actually fit in the table the way the Era 1 characters thought it would. None of the god-metals do. So attempts to classify Atium or its' alloys as internal/external, pushing/pulling might be a bit misguided. I mean, how would you classify Lerasium (which turns someone into a Mistborn) or Lerasium alloys (which each make someone into a misting of that metal, from WoB)?

Yeah, Kelsier's definitely a morally grey hero. I think you get more people actively discussing the "kelsier is bad" side because the "kelsier is good" side is just so obvious that there's no need to write long posts about it. Obviously there's lots of good stuff about Kelsier - given how he instrumental he was to beating both The Lord Ruler and Ruin, the story's supervillains. It's the contrary side that is more interesting to discuss because it's less obvious.

Actually, that's an excellent point about the Sibling, and I kind of have a followup thought. One challenge - story-wise - with Adolin reviving Maya is that it feels weird for a minor character to accomplish something so significant without much more growth. That's kind of why people sometimes post about how he hasn't earned it, or isn't interesting enough for it, etc. He's a supporting character. But if "Adolin reviving Maya" is treated in the text as a dry run for "(someone) reviving the Sibling", then that actually continues to fit. He stays as a supporting character - him reviving Maya would be used in-text as something that helps the main characters accomplish something, and so it wouldn't overshadow their achievements.

We know what Brandon's plans for the broader Cosmere are - https://www.brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2019/#Cosmere . There's going to be several Elantris books, more Mistborn and Stormlight eras, a novel on Threnody and a trilogy on the Aether planet, as well as Dragonsteel as the prequel to it all. So there isn't room there for each new Shard to have a new Series. If I had to guess, the Aether trilogy would introduce 1-2 new shards. But the other series already have Shards associated with them. They'll probably interact with new Shards, though. I assume when "Dragonsteel" gets written we'll know the identities of all the shards, but it won't necessarily focus on each one equally.

I think by the back 5, the conflict will have shifted. Urithiru's big role will be in this book and the one after; the back 5 will concern themselves with fighting elsewhere, one way or another.

We don't know; we've only interacted with Malata. Different spren of the same order might tend to think pretty similarly, but they're still individuals, and the first spren of an order to bond someone is probably pretty unique. So no way to tell yet how similar Spark is to other spren of that order, or how similar other Releasers are to Malata. My opinion is that whether someone has "ulterior motives" and whether align with Odium or not or not doesn't have much to do with their order, but more with themselves. I think over the next books we'll see a mixing - the battle lines will be drawn between team Odium and team Honor/Cultivation, but that won't always neatly map to radiant orders or species. We've already seen humans on both sides, and a small number of Singers on both sides (well, just Rlain). We've seen Skybreakers split, with most but not all of them for Odium at the moment. Malata's with the diagram, but that doesn't mean all Releasers will be.