Oudeis

I think I figured out how Bloody Tan killed Lessie. I don't think it required the Metallic Arts. They said that they've been in this situation before. Possibly, someone knows what they do. Lessie was counting down for Wax; it was a timed move. If Bloody Tan somehow knew that Wax would fire on the count of three, and if he was somehow able to get in the same time as them (obviously difficult, since she was blinking and he was behind her), he would only have had to jerk at the absolute right moment, no allomancy or feruchemy required. Granted, this isn't a perfect theory yet, I still need to figure out how he knew Lessie was blinking. If there had simply been a mirror behind Wax, someone would have mentioned seeing it, I would think. Still, it's a theory that doesn't require magic of any kind. Sometimes bad guys don't need special powers to be clever and evil.

Endowment was my college nickname. Hoid specifically says, The wording is odd yet specific. Essentially immortal. There are few enough things that fit that. And "as you are now essentially immortal," clearly indicating that this was not always the case. A Shard would fit the bill. So, technically, would a Herald or anyone at the fifth Heightening (though not really a Returned, though I could see someone making the case. It's not a very stable immortality). I don't think either of those fit cuz I doubt either of them could (or at least do) apply to a dragon, but we have proof that systems of Investiture allow for "essential immortality" of those who aren't Shards, or even Slivers or Splinters.

mmmm... only if we learn that you can "store" your ability to use a specific trait, meaning that while "stored" you wouldn't have access to it, I would think.

Interesting... why wouldn't it have been brought up before? Also I feel like we've got WoB that the introduction of allomantic genes is what splits the feruchemical powers up... I suppose that doesn't mean that, by definition, you can't be both. Um... hrm, I might be remembering it wrong. Something about the larger quote made me think he was... I thought it said something about, "my dad was a feruchemist, so I knew I'd have feruchemy" or something. I had the impression that just having a ferring as a father isn't an automatic guarantee, so his dad had to be a full Keeper for Wayne to know, "I will absolutely have a feruchemical power", which due to the aforementioned WoB I thought meant his father was full Terris. Looking back, this was far more speculative than I'd at first realized, and I apologize for not marking it as such. EDIT: for a bit of clarity.

People seem to have come up with a way to say, "we can't prove that you can feruchemically store an allomantic trait" which isn't the same as saying you can prove it false. I suspect that when Sazed said, "he began storing, the process turning it into a metalmind" he was speaking semantically. The process of inauguration turns a specific natural-born american citizen over the age of 35 into the President. There's been no real fundamental change in the man, he's just got a new title. I think copper without anything stored in it is like a dead rechargeable battery. When you charge it, the process turns it into a charged battery. That doesn't mean it's not feruchemically reactive until it's already got a charge. An augur burns gold; as a default, this reveals goldshadows to him. If the metal happens to already contain a feruchemical charge attuned to the augur, he can filter is a second way. Likewise, I think a bloodmaker can choose to start putting health into gold. The average bloodmaker doesn't currently possess the trait of "seeing goldshadows", so there's nothing to store normally. I understand that I can't prove it, and maybe it doesn't work, but I don't see why, if a bloodmaker currently possesses the trait "sees goldshadows" he couldn't choose to store that trait in a gold ring, the process turning it into a goldmind, the way a Windwhisper can choose which specific sense he stores in a tinmind.

Perhaps that we should keep the Terris religion in mind when we think about Wayne? If I recall (and I'm currently re-reading Alloy so hopefully I'll see the quote soon enough), he doesn't simply have some Terris blood, like Wayne; his father was full Terrisman. Making him not just genetically Terris, but maybe even culturally. Whatever religion and other cultural identity Terris currently has (and correct me if I'm wrong, but we didn't see a lot of that in Alloy) Wayne might be affectd by it. Do we think it plausible they went back to the ancient Terris Religion after the Ascension, the one that the Keepers spent a thousand years trying to recover?

Why bother? It's what everyone else around here does. The answer is "that's hooey and capable of being safely ignored."

People conflate two terms a lot, and I realize I'm spitting into the wind here, but I wish people would be more exact. To me, "Cosmere Knowledge" or "Cosmere-aware" should refer to the knowledge that there are other worlds out there, Invested by other Shards, and perhaps the specifics about those worlds, not just their metaphysics but their culture and evolution. People use it on these fora when they mean "realmatically aware," as in, they are aware that three realms exist and how they interact. I realize that there's a connection, because all the worlds have three realms and because you apparently can more-easily travel to them via the cognitive realm than you can via the physical realm, but that's like saying that someone who majors in calculus has an "understanding of philosophy". Sure, there's a connection, and if you squint your eyes and turn your head a bit it's even slightly true, it's just ridiculously misleading and off base. So basically, unless this whole thing started with a WoB, I really wish people would say what they meant.

Perhaps each Honorblade ended up going to one of the Silver Kingdoms? Szeth could be carrying Shin Kak Nish's Blade, and Sunraiser might be the one given to Alethela, passed down via the royal line? (though there's a flaw in that, didn't Gavilar have a different Blade? Maybe they added a second, and grandfathers pass their Blades to grandsons, so it staggers). Maybe either Natanatan or Aimia was the only places not to get a Blade (there were only nine), hence why one of them fell? And then the other fell for some other reason. If it's an honorblade, which one do we think it is?

Yes, her own notes on the "west, closest to honor" discuss how suspect the translation is. I don't think she'd be so firm if that was all she had.

Part the first: The chronology goes like this. First, Sazed writes the transcription of Kwaan's words, including the phrase "I considered myself the Announcer". Second, a skaa tells Sazed, "You were the Holy First Witness." Last, Sazed reads the book, and sees that the words are, "I considered myself the First Witness". Feel free to re-read and try to prove me wrong, but there's no way Ruin could have known the specific words the skaa would have used to describe Sazed when he was first writing them (and if he could control the skaa and force them to say it one way or another, why not just have it be "announcer"?). He had to have changed the already-written words. For the second point, I disagree on two points. I think that Tanavast suspected his death was coming, and "wrote out" the visions in preparation, then left them behind like a will to become active after his death. I don't think his "Odium killed me" is proof that it's already happened, any more than a Dear John letter saying, "By the time you read these lines, I'll be gone" means that she didn't write the letter until after she'd left. If, somehow, Tanavast had survived by some miracle, he'd've dismantled the visions. Preservation set up a bunch of stuff, like the Pits and the Mists, well in advance of his sacrifice to betray/trap Ruin, and they carried messages (granted less explicit ones) to people in the future. On the other point, Vin was shown being able to tell when Ruin was directly affecting things, and oppose them. Granted, they are still able to slip through a tiny bit and it's possible he could have done so, just not without her knowledge, and we see the moments of their death from her perspective, and she doesn't notice anything. Again I say, technically possible? Fine. Likely? No. Actually foreshadowed? Absolutely not.

Is the constant pain of Inquisitors because they are actual hemalurgic creations, while Vin, Penrod and Spook don't feel theirs because they're simply human Hemalurgists?

Hrm... is the theory viable? Sure. You sorta say something I want to express outright: This only works if we ever get it confirmed that the damage done by a Shardblade is very similar to the damage done by hemalurgic theft, which I personally find to be unlikely. Because, your assumption that Feruchemical gold can heal spiritwebs is predicated on our knowledge that it can heal Shardsevered limbs, and upon the assumption that a shardsevered limb suffers from only and specifically a severed spiritweb. Possible? Yes. Plausible? I personally don't think so, but maybe. If you can confirm the specific realmatic mechanics of shardsevering, you'll shore up the only gaping hole in your logic that I can see. EDIT: Typo.

Totally misread that: I'm currently reading Alloy of Law, with all the allomantic colloquialism (take it with a pinch of copper, rust and ruin, that sort of thing) and I thought you said, "Word on the steel". Like Kwaan's, "only words written in metal can be trusted". I thought for a second that "words on steel" was gonna be our new version of Word of Brandon.

Kay... but you do agree that Ruin can alter written words, right? Not just words "as they're written"? As proven with the Holy Witness. I had this debate with someone before... sure, that's technically an option, but I don't see it as plausible. Ati's plan was "win". Vin, with her Godly mind, was able to see that Ruin truly believed his own victory was literally inevitable, so I'm not sure I buy that he'd have a "back-up plan" at all. In the annotations, Mr. Sanderson says there existed literally only two ways for Ruin to die; he could sacrifice himself, or Preservation could kill him, and he's lived millenia knowing that Preservation cannot kill, believing it the way rocks believe in gravity. His shock at Vin's actions is palpable. Based on that, and his own limited (if it exists at all) future-sight, I personally don't see him thinking, "hey, let's plan for what happens if I die". Even if he did, why would it be, "let me plan for this depressed, unassuming steward fellow to apotheos"? If he did suspect it, why didn't he kill of Sazed at some point? Have Marsh pick him up when he spent days riding TenSoon across the ashes to the Homeland, and steal, I dunno, Feruchemical nicrosil? That way, no one would have taken the power, and the world would have ended. Technically possible? Yes. Plausible? Not even slightly. In my opinion, admittedly. It could happen, but it would feel forced and contrived, with no foreshadowing, and in fact in utter defiance of everything Mr. Sanderson did foreshadow, and from his annotations he hates when authors do that. Which isn't to say he hasn't admitted that he's stuck in a contrivance or two when the story truly demanded it, but they're rare. Minor point on "copperminds that haven't been accessed": That we know of, Sazed is the last living Feruchemist. More were surely born from the genetic potential latent in terrismen, but the instant of his Ascension there prolly stopped being feruchemists around, certainly any with the full Keeper copperminds. So while it's interesting to consider, it's unlikely to come up. Also Ruin has been able to alter text and information since before there were people up until his death, so since he could clearly change whatever source information was gained from, there's not really a possibility for any "pure" information to exist to be saved until the Ascension. That said... this new book in called Shadows of Self, and that's the term that the First Generation used to describe the mist spirit. Perhaps some remnant of Ati still exists? Harmony could easily snuff him, but maybe he's enough of a person to fall into Harmony's "let people do what they want" mandate. Not to mention, he might realize that Ruin is a necessary part of existence, but find doing it himself distasteful... if Ati wants to stick around in a small capacity, destroying things, policed somewhat by Sazed, that might be a win-win-win. If so, he could still be out there changing words. In conclusion, I find your points to be interesting in terms of thought experiment, but extremely unlikely to be of any consequence in anything going forward at this point in the series.

This is an interesting point of speculation. Having just re-read HoA (which has a ton of hemalurgy, and the annotations have even more) I'm fairly confident that every instance of hemalurgic theft that we see is through the heart. I've heard this referred to as "the universal theftpoint" though I don't know if that's simply fanon or if it's been confirmed. Considering that we've seen a number of allomantic and one feruchemical power stolen through the heart, I think it's safe to assume that any Metallic power can be stolen via the heart. Does this mean it's the only "theftpoint" for powers, or even the only theftpoint for anything? Maybe, maybe not. It's possible the "human attributes" have different theftpoints, or that, like bindpoints, there are specific ones all over the body, but the heart is simply useable for any trait/power. Minor spoiler: There's reason to suspect hemalurgy might be addressed again in Shadows of Self so we could potentially answer some of this, or this might make an excellent question to ask Mr. Sanderson.

Also make sure the characters understand that balance is not adhered to as strictly in this game as in others. Everyone will have more fun if you make your characters with a mind towards what would be fun and interesting, and less about "what will prolly win?" In DnD, almost everything is a dice roll. If you do nothing but roll dice in MAG, only the people who "min/maxed" their characters are going to enjoy it. Maybe there can be quite a bit of crew downtime where everyone just sorta hangs out and it isn't a competition. Or maybe if someone made a character who is more interesting than overpowered, if he comes up with clever ideas the Narrator can give him easier rolls, while the guy who just maximized a character for combat will typically get a string of big scary bad guys. Just a thought.

I'm not positive I understand your question. Are you saying that if someone is spiked for theft, but the spike wasn't removed, would they be able to act like nothing had happened? If that's what you're asking, I would say not. I think the analogy is something like this: If you strap a man down to a table, put straps within an inch of each other on his arm, and cut through his arm between those straps, his arm would still function, right? I mean the severed arm is being held right up against the place where it had been severed. So no problem, right? I think once a piece of your spiritweb is sliced off from the rest, even if "leaving the spike in" would mean that the chunk of spiritweb is still near your own spiritweb, it's not even slightly the same as having a non-bifurcated spiritweb. Just my two cents, I understand I've got a minority opinion on this one.

Not necessarily. Sazed wrote out the words copied from his rubbing into the book he wrote with Twindyl, with Kwaan calling himself the Announcer. Then a skaa called him the First Witness, and when he next checked the written words, it said First Witness, proving Ruin could change actual already-written words, not just "words as you're in the process of writing them". Kwaan could have had something similar. If he and a colleague both studied from the same text, he memorizing it eidetically and his companion putting it into a metalmind, and then a month later that same colleague drew upon that coppermind and recited it out loud to Kwaan, then it was never changed while written or anything, and Kwaan could have had proof that it was changed in the metalmind. Obviously it's conjecture that something like that happened, but it seems people are saying that it's impossible for Kwaan to have proof that it's being changed inside metalminds, when a simple scenario like this would be all the proof he needs. Unless you're saying that they're not changed in the copperminds themselves, but they're adjusted as they're drawn out... in which case... isn't that just semantics at this point? It's a little Shroedringer's Cat. The information is perfectly safe inside the metalmind, as long as you never access it or try to read it. What's the point, then? And how could anyone shy of Sazed ever learn the difference? The only way to check and see if information in a coppermind has been changed is to access it, so there's literally no way for anyone who isn't a God to figure out if it's being changed in the metalmind itself, or when it gets accessed.

Thank you! That is a better connection than i'd realized. Very interesting.

It's possible there's a threshold: you have to burn a certain amount of lerasium before it does anything, and once it does the default effect is binary. A single flake might not do anything at all.

I just finished a re-read of Well of Ascension, I feel like I read Sazed saying at one point that Ruin can change words which have been written, and words in copperminds. Cannot recall where, I'll see if I can't search it at some point.

From Sazed's perspective we frequently see (in the third book) him feeling his emotions get Pushed and Pulled by Breeze and Allriane. He isn't immune to it magically, it seems to be more of a scholarly thing. First, he is well-schooled on the subject of emotional Allomancy and how to detect/resist it, and second he is used to making decisions based on logic, regardless of emotion. I would suspect this is what Tindwyl means. Also, don't forget the time in Well of Ascension that Breeze successfully Soothes them both into knocking books. (Bow chicka wow wow. Get a library, you two!) So they might not be as immune as she said, maybe it was a bluff to just try to get him to stop. We've seen more than one person guess right by simply assuming that Breeze is currently Soothing, since he always is. THAT SAID. I agree, this is an interesting topic and I want to discuss it. What about nicrosil? I've got a theory that a Scadrian's Innate Investiture is why you can't Push metal inside his body, and that Copper Pulls on this Innate Investiture, making it stronger and that's why it let's you resist emotional Allomancy. What if that's what Nicrosil let's you store/tap? Perhaps if you've got some innate Investiture stored up, you can tap it, effectively duplicating the ability of Allomantic copper to protect you from emotional Allomancy. Or let's just go crazy with speculation; maybe she wore her aluminum hairband that day.

Where did you see that a copper compounder is called a Recaller?

With the way 16 is a Scadrian number of power, is it possible that by the "modern times" trilogy, someone will have made a mobile app allowing Mistings to check-in at places where it's especially cool to use Allomancy (like outside a good-smelling bakery for tineyes, or a gym for Thugs) called, "Four, Squared"?