Oudeis

I'm confused by one thing... humanity at the time of Aharietam were wandering around in furs with weapons cast from metal they had no more access to. Are you saying this is more advanced than Meopotamia was at the time? Considering the devastation that would be wrought to any burgeoning civilization by a once-a-week storm greater than 99% of the storms Earth has seen during humanity's occupation of the planet, I see no reason to think human civilization is less far along that we'd have expected. I don't think they're up to computers, but they're not much further than, say, 200 years before us, now? Certainly within the margin of error when we're talking millenia. ...Though it only just occurs to me, 4.5K Rosharan years works out to closer to 5K Earth, so maybe they are pretty far behind... still, Highstorms. I'm not convinced that human civilization is behind where we'd expect without other outside influence. EDIT: Not sure when Dalinar's visions actually fall, but the woman in Starfalls literally couldn't understand the idea of a human cutting a cave out of the ground.

Interesting. I did miss that, or I thought they simply meant he was glowing, and maybe that made his eyes look brighter. Thank you for the head's up!

As to that last line... it sounds like something from the spoiler chapters, which I have not read. Is it something people are just speculating, or is that from the teasers? You provide exactly two examples... and isn't eye-color tied in with the Blade? Szeth's eyes change when his Blade is summoned; Moash's eyes change with the Bond. Don't Kaladin's eyes change because he Summoned his Blade? Someone mentioned to me once that an answer is in the spoiler chapter, so please do not reveal if that's the case. So... in short, we have one example. I read that WoB you posted and... well, it's not as clear an answer as I think you think it is. Remember, he answers in signing lines off the cuff. It's a question with an assumed premise, and I've seen him ignore those before to answer what he feels is the "root" question. Even if true, it's basically one (possibly two, if the eye color isn't just the same thing) point of data. And I'm just seeing a lot of circular logic people are using to assume confirmation on more points. I'm just gonna keep an open mind. No one else has to, if they don't want to.

So not opening this can of worms back up.

I suspect it's not specifically ennumerated like that, but lease is like rent. If you lease a group of skaa, you pay for those skaa. If you kill half the skaa, i doubt they'll give you a discount and tell you you now only have to pay half... Still, coupons in the Final Empire must've been weird.

And I still think your interpretation is an enormous stretch. We're just gonna have to agree to disagree until we learn more. Okay but... you know I'm right about at least some of it, though, right? The stuff that happens way, way earlier in the book? Like Kaladin being able to use Full Lashings for most of it? Do you not remember those parts, either? Well, yeah, many pivotal ones I, and several others, keep bookmarked for exactly occasions like this; as you've shown regarding the Tower part, our own recollections are faulty, so if we're planning to discuss whether or not a thing has happened, or what the relevant WoB is, it makes debates much more smooth if we're able to cite sources, or re-read them ourselves and make sure it says what we think it said. Shallan, for example, as is obvious from the books and was later revealed in WoB, had progressed far as a Lightweaver when she was a child; we're not seeing her discover her powers, we're seeing her rediscover them. She has the Blade not because Lightweavers get them at the First Ideal, but because she's spoken many more Truths long ago.

I... give up. Well... yeah. I mean, this is a story. It's not gonna be super interesting. "Could I save him?" "Totes! Regrowth is the easiest thing ever. Pop on over and breath on him, he'll be right as rain." Protagonists need challenges to overcome. The things we see them do have to be meaningful. Going back, risking everything, not even knowing if she had a chance to save him, told a completely different story than if she'd been told flat-out, you can save him easily, and if you leave you're choosing to let him die. It was a narrative tool to build sympathy for Lift. Also, Wyndle admits he lost a lot in the transition, and doesn't remember much, and isn't sure how she's doing things, anyway. Plus, we see he's got a remarkably low opinion of her, especially her maturity and dedication to the task at hand. Keep in mind, too, he might well have been aware that if he told her, "You can definitely do this," she would be even more compelled to go back... and she'd prolly die, and he'd lose his anchor in this world. The statement might not be devoid of context, is what I'm saying. It's like Lopen all over again. You can see the pieces, and interpret them all a specific way, and set them up so they make a nice pretty picture... and I just distrust any time someone invites me to make my own assumptions and build a nice, neat, tidy little package with no loose ends. Neither real life, nor good stories, work out that way. Your interpretation is valid. What it isn't, is conclusive proof that people get new abilities by saying Oaths. Relevant to this OP, this whole thing was brought up as, is it or is it not proof that Lopen is a Squire. But it's just another castle built on sand. Now, if we had seen her actually try to use Regrowth first, fail, then think the Oath, and then successfully use it, that would mean something. Idle curiosity; if you assume she's never said this Ideal before, then what words had she said previously to bind Wyndle to her? Not positive what you're saying here, so if I'm contradicting points you aren't making, I apologize and will retract. Kaladin is unable to heal himself because he's out of Stormlight. He does heal himself, he leaps across the chasm, and pushes all the listeners back with a wave of force, all before he says the Second Ideal... and all because now, he has Stormlight. Saying the Ideal didn't let him heal himself, getting Stormlight let him heal himself. He was always able to suck in stormlight intentionally; he had figured it out long ago in the book. The difference wasn't that he deliberately inhaled it, the difference was he had no spheres, but upon leaping at the listeners saw their rough cut gemstones glistening with Stormlight. And, again, this all happens before he says the second Ideal. And he'd been using Full Lashings for like, half the book by this point, so I don't know what you're talking about. This was not at all the first time he deliberately used a Lashing; he wasn't climbing that cliff in the Pits by instinct. And which Lashings did he use at the tower? He used the Reverse Lashing to get them to the chasm, but that was no less instinctive than any of the times he used it on the bridgeruns. I'm a little unclear on what you're saying here... but, to be blunt, I don't think ANY of it is backed up by what actually happens in the book. I fully admit that it's possible I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. Do you have this WoB handy? I admit I haven't heard it before, and would love to read it.

That is... exactly what I said. It's important, but not critical. Here's the WoB you refer to. Twice, Syl makes it clear Kaladin has to say the Ideal aloud, so it's important to speak it, but obviously there's some other method if speech isn't an option. That said, she clearly doesn't say it, or say it softly, or whisper it, or anything in this scene; it's thoughts in her head. And she does refer to having already spoken words to bind Wyndle to her. On balance, I find it as likely that she's already said these words as it is that Lopen is simply Kaladin's Squire. May I ask, what exactly about the scene makes you think this is the first time she puts words to the Ideal? And what makes you think saying an Oath "levels you up" so that you can use more abilities? As I've said, we have exactly three possible examples of a new Ideal (or Truth) triggering new abilities, and two of them are highly suspect; in fact, they're mostly based on the assumption that Oaths come with new powers. Saying, "These powers are new because they came after an Oath, and we know the Oath was just spoken because they were succeeded by powers" is circular logic. Logically, two things cannot be proof of each other; that's like saying two horses are taller than each other.

True, but do we have any other evidence of a Radiant ability "triggering" at an Oath? Kaladin was doing Reverse Lashings and taking in Stormlight before he said so much as the first Ideal. The day he said, I will protect those who cannot protect themselves, he started using his abilities better... but not actually any differently. And he learned how to Basic Lash just one day out in the chasms cuz he was trying. The only evidence is Syl the Shardblade. That's precisely one example, and since it was healing their severed bond, I think it makes even worse of an example than it might normally. Some people claim Lift could use Regrowth because she had just said the second Ideal, but I don't buy that. She definitely didn't say it aloud, which we're told is at least kind of important if not critical, and she makes reference to having said certain words already, so on balance I think it's likely she said that Ideal already. I know it sounds cool, like a level-up sequence in a video game, and people talk about how a "Third-Ideal" Radiant has this power or that power, but frankly there's not a ton of evidence from the books to support this model. If the Squires are a thing that happens expressly because of the Third Ideal, they provide our exactly second example of this phenomenon happening. Also, is there a distance thing? The Lopen must've been... something, before this Ideal, because he's never near Kaladin after the third Ideal is spoken. Either a Squire bond can be formed regardless of distance (and without conscious decision on either party; I'm gonna say the Lopen might have been trying to take in Stormlight but his Intent was definitely not, "I want to be Kaladin's Squire now"), or they were already something. Maybe when Kaladin was capable of supporting Squires, the Bond influenced spiritual bonds he'd already formed with people that could provide for Squireness, and upgraded them. Just randomly speculating. The OP asked, is Lopen a Surgebinder. The most complete answer I can think of is: Almost certainly not, but there is a LOT of wiggle room around the edges of that one. More than I'm comfortable with before dismissing the idea.

Here's the thing... people keep restating the same stuff over and over. Everyone is on board with the reasons it seems very likely that Lopen is Kaladin's Squire, and that Squires can take in Stormlight for the passive physical benefits and healing but cannot Surgebind. I even agree with everyone here that that's almost certainly what's happening. The only thing I'm pointing out is, however strong you want to make the assumption, however "obvious" or "apparent" you think it is, it isn't confirmed. If you don't wish to keep your mind open to other possibilities, no one is making you. I will respond to two points, real quick. First, we know that other Orders had Squires, and that Windrunners had more than most. Second, Kaladin was fighting with preternatural skill literally five years or more before he first started noticing an odd Windspren around, which was another almost-year before he exchanged his first words with Syl. Dalinar has been healing with Stormlight well before he Bonded the Stormfather. Ym was healing feet and barely saw his spren. You're saying that the lack of evidence is an evidence of lack, and that's a common logical fallacy. Unlike any of these other examples, Lopen already knows Surgebinding is a thing, and knows what the powers are and some of the basics of how to use them, and is trying them constantly. He admits he tests out taking in Stormlight once a day. We would expect him, therefore, to manifest his powers far earlier than most Surgebinders do, compared to the other elements of being a Surgebinder. There are at least five Nahel spren we know next to nothing about, and three besides we know barely more than that. There's actually not a single Order we know of where we can say positively, the Spren would have made itself known to Lopen in an obvious, or even subtle, way before he had the ability to Invest. Recall, the Bond is what gives a spren the capacity to think in the physical realm. It stands to reason that if Lopen is bonding a spren, it's only awakening to thought just as he's awakening to the ability to Invest, so we're only just coming up to the moment where it will start acting like anything other than just a common, run-of-the-mill Spren. Recall that Kaladin had been bonded to Syl for quite a while and she was acting barely at all different from a common windspren for most of that time. I'm just saying. If someone wants to point to the mountain of evidence again, you may all feel free. I don't mind re-reading it. But however "apparent" or "obvious" a thing is, it's not confirmed. Especially when it's about something like Squires, which we know next to nothing about.

Ooooh. Yeah I had assumed hafje was talking about this. Now I have no idea what we're talking about. But yeah I definitely believe Shallan's artistic talents are unique to the Lightweavers; if someone got the Elsecaller and Truthwatcher Honorblades and technically had access to both Illumination and Transformation, I do not believe they would get Shallan's capacity with art.

I'm not sure I agree with this line of thinking. I got the impression that the "mixed" power was... literally just using the two Surges in conjunction. For example, Jasnah. Many people suspect her ability to Soulcast at range is a mix of Transportation and Transformation. So, if she somehow got access to Gravitation, would she maybe be able to apply a Basic Lashing at range? How to put this... your reasoning assumes that each "mixed Surge" is, itself, a separate and fundamental power, like a special ability in a video game. In my head, I see them more like Wax's utility with his steelpushes; he doesn't get a "third ability" by simple virtue of being a twinborn, he just has two arcana which happen to interact in a way which lets him do things that no one with only either power alone could use. Now of course, there might be some Surges that simply do not mix well. It's possible that Cohesion and Abrasion don't actually do anything together. So it's not as simple as "every two Surges will grant a special third power". I see it more like, "Anyone with access to two Surges will sometimes be able to combine the abilities in ways that will appear to outsiders as a third, unique ability." Of course, there's an alternate theory, which is dominant Surges. Every Radiant we've seen much of (I'm trying to exclude Renarin; what few arcane things we've seen from him are confusing and up for much debate until some stuff about him is revealed) has shown a tendency to be superior at one Surge rather than the other, and it's always the Surge anti-clockwise to them on the Chart. Jasnah Soulcasts all the live-long day, but cannot Elsecall closer than a week's walk to literally any human village. Shallan can't force a stick to be fire, but Lightweaving comes as natural to her as breathing (granted she's a somewhat special case, but what we know of her before the mental block went up, she was always better at Lightweaving than Soulcasting). Ym uses Regrowth and doesn't even know he's got another Surge; by comparison, Lift has been slipping and sliding for weeks, is just learning Growth, and has never Regrown. Kaladin spends the first book using Adhesion, and even instinctively uses the Reverse Lashing which some people suspect is the mixed-ability, but doesn't Basic Lash until the second book. I think every Radiant has a main Surge. I think all of these "mixed" abilities are the lesser Surge somehow adding a modifier to the dominant one. Jasnah can Soulcast; her lesser surge of Transportation modifies this to let her Cast at range. Shallan can craft illusions; her lesser Surge of transformation, as Pattern comments at one point, lets her modify the real world to be more like her art. I grant it's not a terribly solid theory; I'm not quite sure if I wrap my head about the Reverse Lashing being "gravity helps adhesion", if that even is the Windrunner "third ability". And, of course, apart from Ym and Renarin, we've never seen two Knights of the same Order up close. It could just be that any given Radiant is going to tend to pick one Surge or the other and specialize, and it has just worked out so that the few we've seen have always gone anti-clockwise on the Chart. While I'm on the subject: I have bookmarked a post that used to have the full Chart with labels and everything, but I just checked and the post has been modified somehow so it doesn't show the chart. Does anyone have a good link to a labeled Surgebinding Chart I can re-bookmark?

Really? Can you provide an example of a time he says this? Because this quote makes it look like he tends to say, it depends on what you consider to be a "magic system". Turning the question around, so that we don't know what he considers to be a magic system. To paraphrase, is allomancy all one magic system? Or is each metal its own magic system? Most of the quotes I've seen from him on this subject equivocate like this; "it all depends on how you think of it." I feel, however, that you have to be consistent. If you say that each Surge is its own magic, I think you'd have to then also admit that each metal is its own magic, if that's your definition. If you lump all the metals which all obey a specific set of rules, in their own way, as one system, "allomancy", then you must keep that definition consistent and consider each Surge, all obeying a specific set of rules in their own way, as one system, "Surgebinding".

We know that stormlight can heal spiritual wounds. So let's say Kaladin is full of stormlight. But oh no, here comes Harvey, the Happy Hemalurgist! He uses an iron spike and steals Kaladin's mortal strength. But Kaladin can heal! Yay, he recovers from the wound, and even repairs his own spiritweb, so he's all good. But, what's this? Harvey has a second spike! He uses it and now has a pair of spikes charged with specifically Kaladin's physical might. Then he dashes off and finds his pet Mistwraith, sticking the spike in it. So my question. Would this newly elevated kandra have the Stormblessing of Potency?

For Lift, i was talking about her ability to metabolize stormlight. Is her generation of a power to fuel her Surges Compounding (i.e., two different types of arcana directly affecting each other) or simple synergy (two different arcana operating separately, yielding utility beyond the reach of either alone). The short answer is, because one is Surgebinding and one is the Metallic Arts, and there are many differences between those things. To expand a little, the mix of two Surges are all within one arcana. A Twinborn is someone with one power each from two different arcana. A better parallel would be someone with two allomantic metals. And again... this isn't the best answer, I realize, but Surgebinding just works differently. The default Surgebinder always has exactly two Surges, and they will always interact, and they will always be one of 10 pre-selected pairs. By contrast, all allomancers are either Mistings with a single metal, or Mistborn with all sixteen. That we know of, Mistborn do not get anything special for mixing their metals, beyond what simple utility would account for. There are far more differences between allomancy and surgebinding than just this, and the only real answer is, why would they be similar in that one specific way?

I mean, sure? But this is a phenomenal investment of resources, and time, and energy, and risk. From people who have shown shrewdness, intelligence, and calculation. I don't personally see (from what admittedly little we know of them) these men going forward with a plan based on assumption and hope. Of course, this doesn't rule out that somehow, someone they trust is lying to them, convincing them of things which will turn out not to be true, or some sort of miscalculation on their part. And again... what good does it do even if they manage to raise a Mistborn? One single operative based on the assumption they can "train" him from birth and control him? To do what exactly? It seems like an enormous risk for not very much gain. Ah... so wouldn't it be shocking if this time, they were?!?! Mostly just kidding. But I hop off the hate-wagon for unapologetically evil bad guys, used in moderation. In the Broadway version of the Little Mermaid, there's a song called "Good Times Back" where Ursula sings and it's... glorious. She's evil. She knows it. She owns it. She's not some crazy person deluded into doing bad for a greater good, she's not dispassionately convinced that people have the moral authority of whatever power they can take for themselves, she's not a woman who has been hurt and scorned in the past and now has power and has turned lashing out into a lifestyle (omigod Regina from Once Upon a Time, looking right at you, girl). As far as villains go, she's a pretty decent female role model. Own it. Don't accept the underlying assumption that you must have some kind of excuse or have there be something wrong with you to be evil. Let your villain flag fly. "I want to taste their tears. I want to hear their screams. I want that special rush you get from crushing hopes and dreams."

The map also makes it look like there's a river separating Kae from Elantris... I do not think this is the case, though doesn't one travel underground, going east, from Elantris to Kae? This map is... let's just say "in-universe".

Well, yes. I think most of us get that. Hrm. Would the Arelon-geography Aons work better if made slightly convex? Would stellar-based aons (ene, for example) work better if done in proportion to actual stellar distance (though presumably that would be unfeasibly difficult)?

I agree with Moogle. "Give birth to a Mistborn" is one of those comic book, "don't think about it too hard" plans. Logically, it's a goal composed almost entirely of variables. It's a phenomenal amount of effort for like a 10% chance of getting a superhero who will actually do what you say in about 20 years. And that's the best-case scenario which has, like 4% chance of happening. Given what we know, I'm still saying hemalurgy. Or, something we don't yet know. I'm trying to think if there are any clues from any Scadrial (or beyond) book that would make this make ANY more sense. The only thing I can think of is, there's another Inquisitor who wants to be the next Lord Ruler. Suppose that in the Terris Enclaves some full feruchemists are still being born, so he's got a spike for feruchemical atium. Maybe he wants to breed a mistborn, because there are no more seers, and he wants to live forever, AND the Pits of Hathsin are producing atium again, so a mistborn is the only way to get the other half of compounded atium he'll need to live for the next few thousand years. This seems WAY speculative and somewhat derivative, so I don't actually think it's happening. I am open to alternate suggestions. EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying Inquisitor as in, still around from the Steel Ministry. I'm saying, a person with hemalurgic spikes for most feruchemical and allomantic metals.

Welcome to the Shard! I've wondered this myself, more than twice. I have come to the conclusion that the second time is a typo. Perhaps there's something to it I'm not getting, however. (Second time chronologically, I mean, so when he's reading Goradel's note. Not your second example).

One pound for $18... We're given very little sense of physically how much actual metal is in a "vial". The best guess we have is when Vin says she will likely burn through five beads in an hour, when she's dragging. (E-reader is dead... looking up stuff in emergency back-up physical copy is not as fast.) I have no interest in performing experiments to determine what size "bead" I can swallow. He does write that she "begins" swallowing the beads, so presumably too big to swallow all five at a gulp. Quick internet search suggests there is not a standard size for "bead of metal". However... 24 hours at 5 beads per hour gives us 120 beads/day if you flare it. From an eyeball of the bar in the picture, I'm gonna roughly estimate that you could make it into at least 12 beads of roughly the size I have in my mind. (This is getting questionably accurate, quick). So, ten bars a day. You can flare, then, for a solid day, at $180 + S/H. I'm sure if it was important, and for bulk orders, you could find something much cheaper. That I know of, we have the foggiest idea of the difference between burnin and flaring a metal. The MAG suggests it's a 4x factor, which frankly I think seems accurate. I'm gonna be conservative and say 2X, so for under a hundred dollars a day, you could burn pewter 24/7. $700/week, $36,525/year. Super expensive, but that's a conservative estimate of 24/7 burning, if you can't find some kind of special deal. In conclusion, you'd almost certainly need to find a way to use pewter to supplement your normal income if you wanted enough money to burn it literally every moment of the day, awake or asleep. But possibly not by TOO much.

But that's my question. We don't actually know if it's obeying physical laws or not. There's no reason why black smoke might not rise in air. I just wonder, is it because of simple smoke, or it is something else? Again, questions, without answers.

It's not power lost, it's power used. Basically, your body isn't equipped to handle sight more than twice its normal, or might, or mental speed. In my head!canon, the extra power you're not getting is being used to "compress" the attribute so you can use it faster. I don't drive, but I believe fuel economy works a similar way. A net volume of fuel will give you a certain amount of force. If you drive slowly, that force translates into a further distance before you must refuel. Or, you can go much faster for shorter periods of time, but at the end of the day you will travel less far before you need to refuel. You're not dropping fuel by the side of the road, you're just using it in a way that's less efficient.

Ah. I concede to the 17. However, you are wrong about inefficiency in the system. If you draw out an attribute at high compressions, there is loss. You do not get back the sum of the power. Presumably, the extra power goes into allowing you to be many times your attribute. Source. (I will try to find a mention of it in the books. It is my fault for referencing something without quoting it, but the quote you mention is NOT the one I was thinking of.) Sidenote: Even when storing, there are traits you cannot or do not store 100% of, and a full hour every day is a long time to go fully weightless, as an example. Storing 100% of your health for even a few minutes, for example, might be fatal.

Aru? Not following your math. First, 32/2 is 16; if there were perfect efficiency, you could spend an hour at x16 an attribute for an hour. But there is loss. Sazed mentions this at some point. The faster you draw out an attribute, the more of it is lost. We're given no real sense of the multiplier or algorithm, but Sazed stores up speed near-constantly for five days, and goes through it all in a few seconds at not much more than maybe 6x or 7x. So the loss is non-negligible. Just pointing out that we don't actually know what feruchemical nicrosil does. Still, it is probably pretty cool.