Oudeis

I find nothing logical about your assumptions. She did successfully Soulcast, twice, and has no related supressed memories. Also, once upon a time, she had no abilities, but stating the Ideals and her original Truths granted her the powers. She wasn't born able to Lightweave but instinctively supressed it and had to uncover it. Also, if she's a Fourth Ideal Radiant, she has only one Ideal left to say. Also, the Truth she spoke at the end of Words of Radiance came immediately after she was able to up her Lightweaving game by making solid constructs. And again, we know of no other Radiant whose power works this way; say an Ideal, get a specific power. Basically, I see no reason to assume that the Knights Radiant operate under World of Warcraft principles. Though it would explain why Shallan couldn't make Stick into Fire; clearly, the ability was still on cooldown. Pattern himself specifically says, if you won't remember how you once did it, you'll have to learn anew. I don't agree that every Truth she says will be a recovered former memory. If that were the case, couldn't no Lightweaver ever say any ideal in the first place short of traumatically repressed memories? Which three memories had she repressed as a child in order to speak as Truths in order to get the initial powers?

Masterfully summated. You seem to be assuming that the only "sin" to which she could be referring is her father's death. Personally, I took it as, her mother had an almost religious fervor when it came to the Lost Radiants; I see it like a kid being sent to Pray Away the Gay camp. "This thing about me is dirty and it's because I'm sinning." Because the Blade isn't the "fruit" of killing her father, it's the "fruit" of her bond with Pattern, and we know her mother saw that bond as an evil thing. Just my impression.

You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how botany on Roshar works. There is no soil. Anywhere but Shin. Rysn steps onto the soil of Shin and cannot comprehend it. The grass grows out of pores in solid rock. Plants on Roshar (again, outside of Shin) are as unlike Earth plants as chulls are unlike cattle. You grow pods full of grain by spreading them on solid rock and letting them drink the dampness of highstorms. If there are beaches, they aren't sandy beaches. Now I want to re-read the scene with Shallan after the ... wow spacing on it's name. After that animal saves her and brings her to shore. If there were sand, it would all be blasted clean after a single highstorm; there is no way it could be enough to feed Highstorms for millenia and get replenished once a week.

Disagree. From what we can see of Kaladin's perspective, it was like being taken over by an otherworldly force. That's not a "lucky hit." And it is the opposite of clear that "not all of Kaladin's talent comes from Syl." The times he displays incredible skill, the wind can be seen visibly warping around his body, and he feels like something else is using him. Kaladin's fight with the Chasmfiend is not astounding prowess and impossible skill. That was luck and some assistance from Shallan's Lightweaving and Shardblade; part of it was him being in excellent shape, and part was the training he did have. And use of the terrain to his advantage. So, after many years of intense training, he was able to accomplish something pretty good with a lot of assistance. As a young boy, the first time he ever touched a weapon, what he did could not be confused for natural skill. Do we know this is how this works? Kaladin didn't know how to do a Basic Lashing, but then just figured it out one day, without saying an Ideal recently. Surgebinding doesn't come with a video game tutorial, and it's not as simple as just trying different combinations of buttons until one of them works. Without a teacher, it might be insanely difficult to figure out what the trick is. And remember, she did Soulcast, twice now, once an entire boat. She clearly has the capacity, just not the skill.

Shallan is able to stuff Pattern full of Stormlight because of their bond. It's noted that she, or he, has to be near an illusion to maintain it. If she could stuff Stormlight into a rock and leave it in the middle of an illusion, she presumably would. I'll re-read the passage, but I don't think Kaladin stuffs Lopen full of Stormlight. As has been pointed out, it's a specific Lashing, and one that doesn't work that way. Basic or Reverse lashings seem to go inside of an object, but Full Lashings go on surfaces like paint. It's noted, I believe, that it was on Lopen's shirt, which was stuck to the wall, with Lopen hanging suspended in his shirt. This... doesn't seem at all like Kaladin to me. He's something of a snob in certain ways, but he's not a healing snob. He never once comments being annoyed at Dalinar's light-eyed surgeons. He likes healing and wants there to be more of it in the world. If literally everyone on Roshar had access to Regrowth, I imagine he'd be ecstatic. If Renarin saves the life of a wounded soldier, I cannot imagine Kaladin, as he's been portrayed, seeing that as anything other than a purely positive thing. It would be out of his character to resent that a "light-eyes" had been "allowed" to heal someone. I mean, he makes some grumbling about the apothecary charging a lot for antiseptic but he doesn't decide not to use the antiseptic. I don't really see why you'd expect a doctor to get Regrowth. Kaladin was never trained to make things fly through the air or stick things to things, Jasnah did not apprentice to someone who manipulates the molecular structure of things. There's a degree of connection between Shallan's Lightweaving and her art, but as has been seen, it's actually almost backwards; a corollary would be if Lift saw Gawx and instinctively knew how to give him a tracheotomy.

"The deals Wax negotiated would determine their wages, their privileges, their lifestyles." This seems to conflate business with government (in a way that makes me cringe deep in my "small government" bones, but that is neither here nor there). Wages, and to an extent lifestyle, are the sort of things you'd expect from a CEO, but what exactly is privilege? Do these people all live in one place? If you work in a Ladrian foundry, do you have to live in a Ladrian neighborhood? Does he get parks, pools, libraries built in Ladrian neighborhoods? Do you have to marry a nice Ladrian girl? If my niece is a Ladrian seamstress, but meets and falls in love with a fine Tekiel lad working at the new Tekiel Tower... but Tekiel doesn't employ seamstresses, or isn't hiring right now... does she join his House? Does their family split Houses? Which school would their kids go to? If they do employ seamstresses, does she have to leave House Ladrian? What would that mean for her relation with me, her uncle still working in a Ladrian foundry? Does the woman always join the man's House? Does the man always join the woman's House? Do they get to choose which of the two Houses they prefer? I wonder how many intrahouse marriages there are, and if they affect the dynamic of the Houses very much. That's a fascinating sort of political strategy I could see happening on old Scadrial; what if there's one specific woman who is an absolute genius and is basically the reason the Ironspine tower is a challenge to Tekiel Tower? What if Tekiel employs a young man of medium wit but surpassing beauty, and what if he could be incentivized, for the good of the House, to "randomly" meet her and sweep her away in a whirlwind romance? Also, just putting this here cuz I read it and I wonder. House Ladrian started at the Origin with "a few thousand" people. There were roughly 200K Originators. 40K were Terris; let's assume the majority of them went off to form their own Enclave. So originally there were something like 165K humans. Prolly a small percentage went off on their own. I wonder how many Houses there were, originally. You'd expect people to flock to the prestige of the people in the Crew, especially as most living people at the time of the Final Ascension were some flavor of Survivorist. So if anything, you'd expect Ladrian to be one of the larger Houses. Sidenote: I wonder if anyone researched the Ascendant Warrior and discovered she was a Tekiel by blood, and if this affected Tekiel's prestige ever.

Is there any other example of a spren specifically evolved to work with the fauna of Roshar, except for this one type of spren with skyeels/greatshells?

...Are they not the exact same spren? They both dart around their host like arrows, and they both have the affect of making their host weigh far, far less than they should. Since their description is almost identical, I had just assumed they were the same thing.

Would not explain its hard-setting or nutritional properties. Rock dust in water would solidify to an extent as the water ran off/was evaporated, but not to the degree or in the specific way crem does.

... I disagree but that's irrelevant. How do I divide it up the other way? Metal Group 1 and Metal Group 2? i.e., how do I indicate the difference between tin-and-pewter, and iron-and-steel?

Wouldn't the majority of us be Shin?

I'm trying to sort the metals themselves. Tin and Steel are both in Feruchemy's "physical" quadrant; how do we tell them apart? Within allomancy, we know that Tin is Internal and Pulling, and Steel is External and Pushing. I should have made that clear earlier; when I talk about the metals themselves being internal or external, or pushing versus pulling, I'm referencing where they are in the placement of the metallic chart. In other words, in feruchemy, copper and zinc store memory and mental speed. There's a commonality, which we might expect since they're both Cognitive metals. However, what about copper and gold? Is there any connection? They're in different quadrants, but they're the same member of each quadrant; within allomancy, they are each internal and pulling. I am going to consider switching it to "base" or "alloy" and... I dunno. Pair a, pair b? Because the order is not an allomantic construct. The two Pulling metals will always be unalloyed elemental metals, and whether "internal and external" or not, each quadrant can be split in half to get two sets of "a base metal and its alloy". Does that express my meaning more clearly?

I'm confused. You're saying the Highstorms get enough crem from the hills to cover the entire continent, but not enough to noticeably erode them. These seem mutually exclusive. I don't believe there's any overlap in the venn diagram you suggest. Also, what makes the granite of the unclaimed hills so special? If it's so good for plants, why aren't the hills covered in plants? Something being "good for plants" doesn't just happen. What would make the unclaimed hills so fertile in the first place? The Hills do not extend fully north and south. Why does Thaylenah get Crem, if there are no hills East of them? For that matter, the Shattered Plains get crem, and are directly south of the Hills, even somewhat east.

Except that... we're talking about it's lack of existence. So in one specific instance, the lineage of a Returned got a unique thing we don't fully understand yet. In this potential second speculated instance, neither it nor anything else immediately obviously usual happened.

It's curious and I want to discuss it. I'm reading through the book again in preparation for the next one, and I'm collecting the data as I find it and trying to dissect it. Please, no spoilers for the next book, if the spoiler chapters even mention the government. Wax is mentioned to have a seat on the City Senate. Is that meant to imply that it only rules the city? Do the laws not extend to the Roughs? It is from Wax's POV. Maybe he thinks of the Senate as a "city" thing, whereas other Senators would think of it as being all of known Scadrian civilization. It's been too long since far too few people gathered to rebuild civilization for me to believe there are seriously splintering nation-states yet, so close. Koloss culture is to one side, obviously. Perhaps the Terris Enclaves are a distinct nation, or just a moiety withing Elendel. Either way, I don't believe there's either a cohesive government controlling every other settlement, or that Elendel doesn't at least claim jurisdiction everywhere, regardless of whether this proves enforceable. With trade, shipping, and taxes, much law has to be uniform. In the broadsheets, House Tekiel mentions that it's going to take action, not wait for the other House Lords to solve it via endless debate. Yet, we know that more than House Lords are in the Senate. The Orchard-Growers have a seat. The seamstresses and factory workers hired by House Ladrian have representation based on their occupation. Why only call out the Lords? Is the Senate bicameral? Also, why would this even be the Senate? It doesn't seem a matter of legislation. Is it not yet illegal to kidnap and steal? This strongly implies that, unlike our world in either America or England (or most governments I know of) the Senate is not a purely legislative body; law enforcement is typically part of an executive branch. Yet I find it odd that Wax considers himself removed from the process of law enforcement if he has executive powers. Surely he must have some influence in law? Also, the constables are down-right rude to him, which you wouldn't expect of someone talking to someone who might have oversight powers. So what is it Tekiel is expecting the House Lords to be so slow at doing, and why aren't the Senators for occupations mentioned? How does this occupation thing work, anyway? Does House Ladrian own the families who work for him? If my father is a factory worker, does that mean I have to be a factory worker, too? What if I want to be an orchard-grower? What if the House my family belongs to doesn't own orchards? It's mentioned that if House Ladrian collapses, its workers will go to other Houses but be second-class citizens for a few generations. If I decide to be something other than what my father was, does that mean I'm condemning my lineage through my grandchildren to second-class status with our new masters? On a smaller scale like that, are there ways for me to be taken on as an orchard-grower and accepted as a full citizen without the stigma? Is there a difference between profession-based Senators? If there are more orchard-growers in the city than seamstresses, does the orchard-grower seat have broader powers? What if it's a critical job? People working on railroads are critical to civilization in a way that no other single industry is. Does the Railway senate seat take this into account, even if it has fewer people than the fish industry? Is population not taken into account? How do you prove you work a specific job to be able to vote for that senate seat? If you work two jobs, do you get to vote for both? What about niche industries? There cannot possibly be enough zinc therapists to warrant an entire Zinc Therapist Senate seat. Are they lumped in with another category? Are they marginalized for not having the same needs as the more mainstream members of their profession? Wax is referred to, once, as a High Lord. Is that the title for a Lord with a Senate seat, rather than a normal Lord? Wax, for example, was presumably technically a Lord for being in the line of succession, even before he was the Senator. Is Lord Harms a Senator? No one ever refers to him as High Lord, but Wax is only called High Lord once that I can see, and Lord a lot. As I read more I'll try to keep my eye out for other bits of information. Any thoughts anyone has, or things I've missed, please speak up!

Actually not true; in the first battle of Hero of Ages, Vin takes control of Koloss without duralumin. It does require getting them afraid first, loosening the control from the Inquisitor, and taking over. She takes over koloss one-by-one in rapid succession, with absolutely no chance of drinking extra vials, even if she didn't have an odd and constant tendency to only carry two or three spare vials on her at a time. So, Vin is strong enough to take a koloss without duralumin. However, we never see her take a kandra without duralumin. Since Soothers could do that in the past, there have been Soothers more poweful allomantically than Vin. Unless... that's not how power is decided. Unless you add up all of someone's metals to get total "power" levels. However, I believe that the children, or maybe grandchildren, of the original Lerasium Mistborn would be powerful beyond even Vin, a thousand years of watered blood later. So my personal head!canon is that ancient Mistings were more powerful than current Mistborn. However, technically I do not think we can say 100% either way. There is powerful evidence to at least suggest it, however.

He could have been a descendant of the man VaraTreledees was while he was still living his first life. EDIT: Also we know not every descendant of a Returned has the Royal Locks. Only the heir of Idris will give his children the Locks.

Sorry, I obliquely referenced this early as it's somewhat distasteful and I didn't want to offend, but let me clarify. I'm saying they will use these women, with strong allomantic lines, impregnate them by men with strong allomantic lines, to produce a large number of offspring, statistically likely to have allomantic powers. Then, as soon as the powers are confirmed, use hemalurgy to steal the powers of these children, and give themselves additional powers. Just an idea. A very repulsive one, but a plan that is intelligent with a high chance of actually succeeding. At the moment, I have not heard of nor thought of myself another likely scenario, so right now my personal theory is either this, or there are factors at play we don't yet understand.

EDIT: The actual chart can be found here. As of this edit, it remains a work in progress. Ideally I'd like to find a way to let people call up any two (or several) tables they'd like and compare them; well, ideally, I'd like the capacity to make proper four-dimensional sortable tables so people can compare every statistic at once, but if I figure out more coding I'll go for the first thing. With a bit of time on my hands, I've constructed a series of tables in Excel to map the metals of the Arts, and their effects in all three known systems. We obviously know the most about allomancy, and for the purposes of my chart we know nearly as much about feruchemy, but little about hemalurgy. I don't believe the code of this site supports tables, but if someone can instruct me on how to make one, I beleive I'll be able to recreate my collated data. I've come to nothing even close to a conclusion, but a few random ideas and hypotheses. And much conjecture, speculation, and occasional assumption. One thing which may or may not end up meaning anything... are the quadrants in order? Is there an order to quadrants? By quadrants, I mean what's referred to in Allomancy as the Physical, Mental, Enhancement, and Temporal, which in feruchemy are called Physical, Cognitive, Spiritual and Hybrid. For ease across all three Arts, I am calling them, respectively, Quadrant 1, Quadrant 2, Quadrant 3, and Quadrant 4. Each quadrant has one metal that steals a Feruchemical imbue. They are, in order, the internal pushing, the external pushing, the internal pushing, and the internal pulling. In other words, internal, external, internal, internal And: push, push, push pull. Or, ABAA and AAAB. We only know three of the quadrants for allomantic imbues. External push, internal push, internal pull. BAA? AAB? So... time for my first assumption. Let's suppose that feruchemy is revealing to us a pattern. This pattern I call "one of these things is not like the other," meaning it will be 3 A's and a B. To fit this, we assume Allomantic imbues will finish as: BAAA AABA So the last metal will be Internal Pushing; Electrum. It happens to be free already, no great coincidence since we currently only know what one of the four Q4 metals does, hemalurgically. But what of the traits? There are as many human traits as metallic imbues combined. So should we look for a bigger, super-pattern? Or do the human traits divide somehow into two distinct patterns? So. Keeping in mind that it's already an assumption that every quadrant will have one feruchemical imbue, one allomantic imbue, and two traits, we already know that in Quadrant 3, both currently-unknown metals are External, one Pushing, one Pulling. Assuming that we're looking for two different "patterns of traits", we currently have all four from Quadrants 1 and 2 as Pulling, and evenly split within each Quadrant internal or external. And again, our only options for Q3 are both External, one Pushing, one Pulling. So, one pattern has to be pulling, pulling, pulling, ??, and the other has to be pulling, pulling, pushing, ??. To match the "one of these things is not like the other" system, that means we assume pulling, pulling, pushing, pulling, and pulling, pulling, pulling, pushing. We have two options for externality. The first two are either matched, or switched. That is, external external, internal internal, or external internal, internal external. Regardless, the third will always be external. So, external external external ??, and internal internal external ?? OR external internal external ?? and internal external external ?? The first option would require both options be filled with internal metals... and we know Gold steals feruchemical Q4 imbues, so there are not two internal options. The second one requires both to be external, and there are two external options. Incidentally, that would leave Electrum free... the metal I previously surmised would steal Q4 allomantic imbues. So. In conclusion, I have failed to prove my assumption false. This obviously doesn't mean my assumption is true, merely that as far as we currently know, it's viable. In other words, I suspect that the following is true: Four metals steal feruchemical imbues. Pewter, Brass, Duralumin, and Gold. Four metals steal allomantic imbues. Steel, Bronze, Aluminum and Electrum. Eight metals steal human traits. Tin, iron, copper, zinc, nicrosil, chromium, bendalloy and cadmium. I have further thoughts, but I've rambled enough. This would all possibly make some sense if I knew how to build tables and charts on this site. Any thoughts? Anyone out there interested enough to hear my further thoughts on stealable human traits?

I'm not going to concede to this rather blanket statement, but it's irrelevant. I didn't say he thought he was 'less', but he was definitely different. There's no way not to be affected by what happened. Banishment. Functional death. Damnation. Eternal torment. We don't need to have the words "identity crisis" flat-out told to us to recognize what happened. No one would get through a crucible like this unchanged. Spirit may have had some things in common with Raoden, but that doesn't mean he didn't suffer a shift of identity. I still maintain that one of the reasons he didn't feel comfortable revealing himself as Raoden is because part of him still believed Raoden was dead. As for what you mentioned above, you have the benefit of hindsight. You, looking back and seeing that outcome A happened, is not proof that the person making choices should have assumed Outcome A was going to happen.

I forget the exact phrasing, but the way I read the blurb, it made it sound like the protagonist believes the target is a Mistborn. I wish I had the words right in front of me but I remember thinking it could describe a situation where a hemalurgist with many powers was mistaken for a Mistborn. The Lord Mistborn himself had over a dozen children. If not one of them bred a Mistborn child, I find it difficult to imagine that 300 years later, a breeding program will have a very good shot at managing. Distasteful as it sounds, given what we know of the Set, I think it seems like their goal. Or, they have some additional secret we do not have, something that would make the birth of a full Mistborn likely. What specifically is it that people think they'll do with a Mistborn, though? Assuming you can raise it and train it like a horse and control it utterly seems... unlikely? It's the kind of trope in fantasy that Mr. Sanderson usually subverts.

They are 10 "interlocking" rings. It is on my list of questions to ask (if his tour comes to the East Coast) if the two symbols are the same/related.

WoB says that Shallan had advanced very far as a child (implying she was somehow broken even before the event that shattered her. Meep) so we don't actually know how many Oaths she had said at the time. That said, we also don't know that every Order gets their Blade at the same numbered Oath. Or that all Windrunners do. Or that Kaladin couldn't have summoned Syl as a Blade earlier if he'd thought to try.

Actaully, while there are several metals we know nothing about hemalurgically, we do know that atium can be used to steal any attribute.

I think it also ties into the fact that he doesn't tell any Elantrian he's Raoden. He's got a crisis of identity. In moments, everything he ever knew was taken from him. To be taken by the Shaod is equivalent to dying. And then, he died. And was thrust into the afterlife. I don't think he's ready to be Raoden yet. I think he might have come up with reasons, ways to explain it, but deep down, he just didn't want people to know he was Raoden. He eventually reveals himself because he has to, but he simply didn't want to. Raoden died. Now, he is Spirit.