Ripheus23

But I don't think any of that is what's going on. Nothing *seems* like any of that. It's more like I'm supposed to do something, and I don't know what, but it has to do with reenacting a scene from a book, like all the other things in this pattern. Like there is an attempt to trick me into not using the book on the gate (I mean that literally, as in pushing the book against the gate), or whatever. I know it sounds deluded but from the inside-out it makes perfect sense, and I'm so frustrated that I'm not doing it. (Like, I don't even know if the thing with the medication would go as expected, or whether I'm supposed to do that to test this notion that anything I've been told, is true. Because several people have periodically told me that I have become involved with something that's "way over my head.")

So I have this book, A Theory of Justice, which is like my own Way of Kings. I live in a naval city. In fact the largest known concentration of nuclear weapons is nearby, so in my book, I feel like I live in Mordor. There's even a tower a block or two or so from the house I'm at, that has red lights that glow atop it at night. I feel like my life hasn't gone anywhere, and I lost hold of everything I tried to be good for, like I feel like abandoned the guy I talked about in that post "A pattern" and so on. I feel like I was caught up in something beyond what I expected, growing up. Like somehow this strange plan or design sucked me into itself, and I have to do something about it. I know my faith tells me to "have faith" but what I keep thinking of doing sounds so... like magical thinking to the nth degree. Take A Theory of Justice and use it on the gate to the naval shipyard in this city? As some way to protest the existence of this demonic weaponry? While making a scene? They gave me some medication, too, that I've refused to take, but if I took it all at once, IDK, I don't know if it is so dangerous, but it would be one way to send a message, I suppose. I don't even know if I should ask whether I should do this. Why don't I already know? Or maybe I do already know. Who knows...

The Black Sphere is

IDK, maybe I'm not so... IDK. I think it's fine if there are multiple super-good characters. There have been multiple super-good people IRL, I believe. If we think it's unbelievable, maybe we have too harsh a standard of goodness? But anyway, we have multiple super-evil/super-negative characters (the Lord Ruler, Ruin, the Citizen, Zane, Amaram, Sadeas, Rayse, others I've probably forgotten from MBE2 or elsewhere) so why not just as many antitheses? The other point I would make is "able to resist millennia of torture" does not a saint a person make, or at least if that's his only example of a saintly trait, Taln still has plenty of room for flaws and so on. EDIT: This is totally hypothetical and probably has no bearing on Taln, but let's suppose a person fluctuated between pain asymbolic and normal. Then they might periodically feel massive pain and at other points would notice the abstract sensation but minus the urge to move away from the cause of the pain. If someone resisted mass torture using such a process, they wouldn't even have to be that much of a pain-saint at all.

The Black Sphere is the Sibling.

This is fine as far as it goes but as a placeholder character-situation for, "Why did it take 4,500 years for the Desolations to start up again?" I think Taln being super-resilient is fine, too. And with the Cosmere saga spanning dozens of books anyway, having one of these preoccupied with the POV of a "perfect" person would be fine. It's not like Sanderson is going to come up with dozens of mental illnesses or weaknesses or whatever just so he can avoid having one "perfect" main/POV character as such. IDK I've never really been into the idea of, "The main character has to have a flaw," or at least a moral flaw. As long as they're not omniscient or omnipotent, being omnibenevolent doesn't strike me as making for an uninteresting tale. So long as the problem around which the story revolves is complex enough, whether the character slated to solve it is "morally perfect" doesn't put me off from reading about the scenario. (Actually, I wish more authors would try harder to come up with believable morally-perfect/near-perfect characters. There are nuances that can be explored, especially given all the details of moral philosophy, where you could even work in quasi-classical "flaws" without cooking up a simpleton protagonist with the recipe.) In all reality, I really wonder if Sanderson or anyone else for that matter can adequately imagine that many years of torture, or even consciousness in any form. I mean I'm not going to deny it, either, and I favor Sanderson having a good enough grasp of the concepts to play the themes out well enough, too. IDK...

Well he's not absolutely perfect, since he did finally break. Other than that, well, I wouldn't mind if he happened to be perfect. There are a ton of characters in the SA. Having one goody-two-shoes wouldn't be that much of a problem, especially as he's not much of a POV character.

Please don't zap me for saying what I am about to say, but in theory Jesus never broke under torture. And some people think He went to Hell while He was dead, and was tortured there, and still didn't sin. So who knows... On behalf of Taln, I will suggest that being a Herald helps with physical pain. Also knowing he's quasi-immortal, like, maybe one subconscious reason for IRL people to all crumble under torture is a persistent subconscious recognition that death is possible. But Jesus and the Heralds in theory know that their pain is not a death-indicator, so maybe that mere belief bolsters their stamina. (Also, is it known 100% that torture is 100% compelling? I feel like I've heard this theory advanced before, but I've never researched it well enough, and the history of various religious martyrs makes it sound false to my ears (unless the hagiographers were overzealous in their depiction of their subjects' endurance)...) EDIT: Because in principle, depending on the kind of pain in question, dosing on painkillers of different forms could render a person impervious to torture (advanced psychedelics if it was like cluster-headache pain, normal endorphin-like or anandamide-like stuff if it was "normal" pain, or whatever), and sometimes the power of belief/cognition vs. pain is surprising (as with analgesic music during surgery). EDIT 2: And what about people with "pain asymbolia"?

Wikipedia on silver: Based on its role in superstitions, I am going to speculate that silver has become Invested generally due to the prevalence of "belief is reality" dynamics in the Cosmere. Or, Adonalsium himself Invested it in a special way, or some such thing. But the "belief is reality" dynamic allows it to be more important versus Cognitive Realm entities, so it's not (as such) an Allomantically viable metal.

But not a joke thread! I read a book called Answer to Job in late 2013 and I noticed this interesting passage therein [I had already begun to learn of the Cosmere, having read the first and third Mistborn books]: I can't help but assume this is relevant to the story of the Cosmere. EDIT: Wikipedia says this of the number 16 in Judaism: Also the # of the sephiroth is given as 10 or 11, with 10 and 22 emerging as relevant here (22 is not, though, a # of sephiroth). 16 is the average of 10 and 22. So, I think we can decode some of the unknown Shards, by comparing a list of the sephiroth to the list of the known Shards: Crown Wisdom Understanding Kindness [Devotion] Severity [Odium] Beauty [Endowment] Eternity Foundation Splendor Kingship [Dominion] There are 6 sephiroth that do not seem to match up to Shards we know of. So I will propose that the 6 unknown Shardic Intents correspond, at least roughly, to the unpaired sephiroth [although the exact place of the "wants to survive" Shard is not clearly indicated yet, here, since we don't know its direct Intent, wherefore it might be on this list]. EDIT 2: So let's suppose that Adonalsium contained an immense evil in himself. This evil has been transferred to the Shards. To defeat this evil, each Shard's Vessel must be broken/killed. Rayse is thus "on the right track" except he's not going to break/kill himself. If not all the Shards are broken/killed, the evil that was admixed inside of Adonalsium will re-emerge and corrupt/destroy/w/e the Cosmere. QED

Or in this case Isaac Stewart. Not sure if this has been posted here before but: Little Wilson Can you give us any hints about Vax's magic system? Brandon Sanderson No. Little Wilson *sighs* Okay. Brandon Sanderson Nope, nope, nope. Big RAFO. *interruption* Isaac Stewart It's a magic system based on RAFO. The more RAFO you get, the more Investiture you're able to bestow. source

Different races isn't too much of a problem since didn't we find out Horneaters and Herdazians are part-Parshendi or what? Haven't met is okay; Syl and Timbre will show the way. 3, well, you could almost say Kaladin also caused the apocalypse by becoming the first new Knights Radiant [well, Jasnah might've been the first of the first or what, but IDK].

The Black Sphere is John Galt.

No, I literally suspect all of this. The scene near the end of OB where the guy gets eaten by "the Pig" or w/e, and the incident with the Reshi island in one of the earlier books (I don't recall which), suggested the theme of greatshell feeding to me. Also the image of a greatshell stampede is captivating, I think, and since we're not gonna get a planetary gemheart (i.e. Roshar itself does not have a gemheart at its core, apparently), the next-best thing would be a greatshell cascade, I think. As for uniting humanity, well, it seems as if a lot of countries are falling under the sway of Odium in some way or other. Like, Iri I think? Alethkar, Vedenar (as per Taravangian), the two biggest regions. Shinovar is too secluded to help that much (yet), and Azir seems too vulnerable. So, Dalinar is gonna have a heck of a time fulfilling Honor's wish. At the least it seems as if an Odium-led human front is in the offing and Odium will turn on the Singers out of convenience/for a magic-related reason/w/e. EDIT: Also the common cold is gonna pose a problem, now or later, I wouldn't doubt that much.

Two basic predictions: (A) there will be monumental unrest among the greatshells, leading to a new vector in the True Desolation; (B) humanity will use Voidbinding to try to "bind" the Parshendi, resulting in some kind of genocide. Inferences, if so: Odium will feed off the genocide somehow. I would guess that overall he's trying to escape Roshar so he can continue his greater quest. Whether he will try to kill Cultivation before leaving the planet, or come back later to finish her off, I don't recall whether he's indicated. I think he did say something about killing her but I don't have my copy of the book right now. Anyway, in some way Odium needs humanity to be filled with hatred in order to escape, so the genocide of the Parshendi will correspond to him being slowly freed (like a really horrific version of the heartstone decay in The Wheel of Time). It might even be that humans try to feed the Parshendi/parshmen to the rampaging greatshells. At least that might be part of what ends up happening. Maybe Voidbinding will mean sending the souls of the Fused into still-living gemhearts (into the gemhearts of still-living greatshells), or some such thing. Someone---some faction---will propose trying to hide humankind/part of it, in Urithiru. However, a massive number of human beings will serve Odium, possibly even becoming his majority soldiery. 10% of Azir will end up dead. Again. Actually there might be a planetary death toll on this scale, from some specific event. At least Alethkar's population might decrease by 10%, too. Who will Szeth use Nightblood on? I'm gonna guess Nale. Then Nightblood will absorb the Investiture of a Herald and become even more stormin' powerful. Taravangian will do something super-stupid, like lead the global genocide, maybe even using his hospital as a kind of Auschwitz (as if he hasn't already!). Dalinar will die and be Soulcast by Jasnah.

The Black Sphere is what they saw at the end of LOST. The Black Sphere is a three-dimensional rendition of my profile picture. The Black Sphere is the Last Dark from the Thomas Covenant novels. The Black Sphere is why there is more matter than antimatter. The Black Sphere is the cause of dark matter. The Black Sphere is the cause of dark energy/cosmological constant. The Black Sphere is the Erehps Kcalb.

All the spren-of-different-parts theories don't strike me as likely, since we're talking about one object with two spren. If the guards were spren of the Oathgates' parts, then wouldn't we see lots of objects with multiple parts having multiple spren, as such? I mean as far as spren work I imagine this is possible but it seems as if only some concepts/forces/feelings/w/e get tangible macroscopic spren, and those don't tend to be partitioned. IOW there's something about the spatial duality of the Oathgates that gives us the two spren, I think. I keep getting an image of circles trading places, and the spren duality mapping onto the event of the trade. Like wave-particle duality except not really, I guess.

My impression, especially since OB, is that Odium is not trying to set up a Minas-Tirith kind of battle between Urithiru-secluded humans and an international Parshendi inspiral. He tried to Thrill the human army to do the main work of the Voidbringer faction during the Battle of Thaylen City and has chosen humans (Dalinar and Taravangian) as candidates for his championship. One form of hatred is racism, now imagine if Odium's goal is to provoke humanity into committing genocide against the Parshendi? Maybe in a way humans have always been the Voidbringers.

I wonder if we might make use of the difference between contradictory and contrary descriptions, here. 'Cause normally an English-speaker might take those two to be the same deal, as when someone says, "You're contradicting me!" to mean, "You're being a contrarian [towards me]!" But there's a subtle difference. So it could be that all Shards come in Intentional pairs/ranges but sometimes the antithesis is contradictory, other times contrary, and Sanderson's denial is just of all Intents being paired as contraries.

IDK, he gets overwhelmed by lust, freaks out on the Defense Department, wanders under the influence of amanibhavam, gets dosed with venom, jacked up on Waynhim blood, personal blood-loss from slit wrists, zapped by the Elohim, etc. He might not've been "clinically" insane that often, but he was often enough in an altered state of mind that, by comparison, I don't think he was too far gone during his de-Timewardened interlude to have made note of this "Indifference" thing for no good reason. Anyway, I know the Haruchai weren't actually indifferent or apathetic. It was the paradox of their ideal, though, that they had to try to be indifferent towards *some* things (romantic passion, for example) to be as far from indifferent as possible, towards others.

I suspect this, to be honest.

In Miyazaki's Nausicaa graphic novels, at one point a horde of the insects go on a crusade and "accidentally" devastate the world. I feel like Odium might be gunning to do something to provoke a "greatshell stampede," like maybe one of the Unmade causes a Thrill-like effect on gemhearted animals, or they can be incited to mass violence elsewise, or whatever.

There was an itch in my mind that Shardblade sharpness wanted me to scratch... it was memories of the Subtle Knife from His Dark Materials.

If spren usually only manifest part of their distinctive bodies in the Physical Realm, then what the Braize does Cusicech's full form look like?

In his defense (sort of), he was almost never exactly fully sane, was he? To say nothing of half the other characters Anyway, though, I sort of felt that the Elohim were keyed to Creation and the Haruchai (and maybe the Insequent) to Indifference, which is why Stave was able to resist Infelice at Muirwin Delenoth. But this wasn't headcanon on my part, just fanfic materials (that I never developed).