Oudeis

First, welcome. Second, good catch on the difference between the Aons in the center being the splinter, not the Seons themselves. It's a subtlety many miss. Third, I don't personally buy your theory, but it's not without merit. This link has some minor spoilers for other works, but to summarize, it refers to Seons as "power which has become self-aware", so I'd suspect that, like other things we've seen in the Cosmere, they simply grew into self-awareness. But that's simply my interpretation; your theory is as good as any I've seen.

Zane comments of his spike that he's "always" had it. And he talks of being given his Mistcloak when he Snapped, as though that was a day he'd remember (and not, like, his birth). How long has he had the spike? Did he have it before he Snapped? Did he have the power of steel before he got all the others?

I hesitate to start this topic as I don't know what, if anything, there is to actually discuss. It's just kind of an observation I'm making. In his final moments, Zane mentions how he realized Vin could pierce his copperclouds, and assumed she had a new metal. Odd how Zane had TenSoon search for a new metal, which Vin coincidentally had, in order to explain Vin's ability which was actually explained via hemalurgy. Zane, who had a spike for allomantic steel, and who goes on and on about how similar he and Vin are, never thought it might be that simple. And TenSoon, an actual hemalurgic creation. I can understand TenSoon not explaining it, but surely he's been alive long enough, and had enough context, that even if he didn't have someone literally explain it to him, he'd be able to deduce that hemalurgy can increase allomantic abilities. Yet Zane, at least, wrongly assumed it must be a metal, and thereby happened upon an actual new metal. Who says two wrongs don't make a right? Interesting that he'd be able to question enough about allomancy to guess that there are other metals, but not to actually know duralumin. Please keep in mind; I accept these facts. I don't even say they're especially unlikely. I don't require anyone to point out various factors that might or might not have happened off-screen that could have made such things inevitable. It is the case, and not unreasonably so. I'm simply pointing out a few amusing coincidences and ironies. EDIT: Clarifying a pronoun

Straff tells Zane he's buried a cache of atium where only he knows. Shortly thereafter, he dies. Did Straff retrieve it, was he lying, did Ruin find it and metabolize back a tiny bit of his own power, did Harmony ultimately find it, or is there a little bit more atium left in the world than we realize?

I just explained it. Yes, they are referred to as "he". I'm not saying we, the readers, were never told and assumed maleness. I'm saying Shallan is presented with an intelligent entity, has no framework to consider gender-neutrality, and without conscious thought assigned it a male gender. Your math assumes that there was a perfectly even chance that they'd randomly be assigned male or female. I disagree with that premise. That said, you are right, this might warrant thought. I think however that by tying it based on practically nothing to a hotbutton issue like sexual preference, you're derailing what might be a serious discussion before it can ever even start. As you suggested in your very first post when you talked about your bridge, you just seem to be trolling. Warbreaker. I found once a story where someone had clearly just written a story set in modern-day Seattle where two guys went on a boring date, and the author just renamed the characters Kaladin and Renarin despite absolutely no similarities, in a veiled attempt to get cosmere fans to read their original story.

There's something related I've wondered forever. WoB is that Ruin could power allomancy, or Preservation could power hemalurgy, but that it involves expending power in ways Shards are hesitant to do. What does that mean? If Ruin chose to directly power an Allomancer, would that power leave him permanently and permanently join Preservation? If Nightblood feeds on something, would that power recycle into Endowment?

Nope, Eco was pretty specific.

I wonder if you'd need a model, somehow. If you're not a Seeker, have never Sought in your life, how would you know how to Awaken something to use allomantic bronze? Intent matters. A normal Awakener couldn't tell a straw man to Fetch Keys, Vasher has to have something incredibly specific and very complicated in mind. Presumably, then, you couldn't just say, "Sense Allomancy" and think about the way someone described bronzepulses to you once; you'd need to actually understand the mechanics of what, realmatically speaking, a Seeker is doing and form a mental construct.

Yes, in one of the earlier flashbacks. She hasn't spoken since The Incident, Helaran shows up and threatens their father with his new Shardblade, and Shallan speaks for the first time to stay his hand.

Also, as someone has already pointed out, a crossbow has multiple parts. I don't think Spren can be made into machines, just single solid objects. And yes, I know most actual spears are a head bound to a shaft. I suspect Syl just turned into a single long stick of metal sharp at one end.

Okay but... then you tie this all directly into, "So they're probably bisexual"? This is the part where you lose me. You also assume that gender assignments would happen at random. That any given Radiant, presented with a gender-less spren, will have an equal chance of assuming either male or female. I do not think this assumption bears up. My friend did a study in college, and when told of an entity but not given actual clues to gender, almost all participants assumed male, as indicated by exchanges such as, "What do you imagine the bus driver wearing?" "He'd be wearing jeans and a t-shirt," using the male pronoun by default. So Lyft's assumption about Wyndle, and Shallan's assumption about Pattern, perhaps Renarin's assumption about Glys, it's not safe to assume that any of these were decided with the toss of a coin. So, basically, we've got Kaladin and Jasnah who seem to have bonded a spren that self-identifies with the opposite gender, and Dalinar, whose Nahel bond we already know is atypical of other Radiants, bonding a spren that self-identifies as male. If Jasnah and Kaladin both did bond opposite their own sex, it's the odds of tossing two quarters in the air and having them both land heads. Not outside the realm of possibility. Do you have anything else to support your theory that every non-Kholin has bonded the opposite gender, or anything at all to support your assertion that this somehow implies that all Kholin men are biologically bisexual? Despite the fact that of the three Kholin men we've seen show any romantic interest at all, all have been firmly heteronormative? If you're just trying to imagine Adolin in bed with Kaladin, I'm sure you'll have no difficulty searching tumblr for some fanfiction.

There's a WoB saying that Honorblades don't disappear when dropped?

Just because they were trying to emulate function doesn't mean they replicated principle. Doesn't Dalinar or Navani say something about how, even though they can stop a Shardblade, Halfshards operate on a different principle than Plate? If someone from the past were somehow able to watch a car drive along, they might get inspired to make a similar vehicle. But, since they never saw under the hood, let alone had the complex process of internal combustion explained to them, there's every chance they would come up with something that fits the outward appearance of "a four-wheeled horseless conveyance" but operated on an entirely different principle, like clockwork or steam. Or, think of it another way. An electric car and a diesel car both perform the same function in outwardly similar ways. Yet the motors are incredibly different. Since it's stated in the books that no one has the first idea how Plate or Blade, or any of the ancient Fabrials, work, I think balance of evidence suggests that the Halfshards probably have almost nothing in common with Plate.

Pulse: Metal objects can be made into Type III entities, it's just very hard. According to the Ars Arcanum, you have to be at one of the extreme Heightenings.

Sharderang.

Eh, I don't believe this to be a valid assumption. It's both shown and stated throughout the books that "ancient" fabrials (Soulcasters, Shardblades, Shardplate) all operate under very different basic principles than "modern" fabrials like spanreeds, heaters or half-shards.

You're still kind of missing my point. I have a light switch that controls 8 bulbs at once. I could flip that switch a million times, get as skilled at flipping that switch as possible, and I'll never be able to use it to turn on three specific of the bulbs, leaving the other five off. Yes, I understand she's better. I'm not trying to say, "This book is clearly lying, she can't do that." I'm saying, this is the model we currently have from direct experience in the book, yet Jasnah does something that, however skilled she gets, shouldn't be possible within that model. I was asking if anyone had an alternate model that might explain what she did. Saying that she's more skilled and more precise is something everyone already knows and agrees with and doesn't tell us anything new.

Do we know that they don't? Is there an example of someone dropping an honorblade we know they are bound to and it doesn't disappear? Also, my own question. Pewter burns faster than tin. If I were compounding strength, would I compound it faster than I compound senses?

Eh... it all depends on your particular censorship decisions. When Vin fights Zane, he stabs her in the breast. It's non-sexual, but do you just want to avoid mentions of breasts? When Vin and Elend meet Straff the first time, the turning point in their conversation is when Straff talks about bedding Vin. It looks from your choices that you're censoring things of a sexual nature, not excessive violence, yeah? When Elend and Vin are on the run, she wakes up naked next to him. After Zane gets all his half-brothers killed, Straff thinks to himself how making them was decades of "pleasurable work." There's a scene of Breeze waking up naked next to Allriane, and one earlier than that, our first Breeze viewpoint, where she walks up to him and he experiences her Rioting his desire. Vin is talking to Sazed at one point and we learn about Tindwyl's past as a Terris Mother.

Hrm. So... if he's at a ball, he could have a large amount of copper in his system. He meets someone, instantly stores the face/name in the metal flakes floating in his stomach. Burns it, compounding the memory for perfect recall. Quick way to remember things forever.

However, he didn't have simply "more pewter than before", from an objective measure, he had a LOT of pewter. Enough to leap from tall places, drink all night without getting drunk. This isn't based on Spook's self-assessment, but on an objective measure. Hrm. This raises additional interesting questions. Let's further compare stitchbits to metalminds. We do know, per WoB, that two different feruchemists could use the same steel bar to store speed, and the charge would be in different physical locations on the bar. So then... let's say Steelrunner A charges the left half and Steelrunner B charges the right half. Could Steelrunner A touch the right half, and still access his charge in the left half? What I'm saying is, are feruchemical charges conductible? (Also, would this mean that you store in the part you're physically touching? It spreads outwards from your hand on the bar, like heat from your keister onto a chair?) Expanding the comparison, does the charge concentrated in the tip of a stitchbit conduct throughout the whole metal? As long as any part of the spike is piercing the bindpoint, does it access the Investiture stored in any specific part? Expanding the comparison. Can you take one long steel rod, "charge" it by killing a Thug (which would only charge a small quantity of the rod) and "charge" more of it by killing a Lurcher, then stick the whole thing through a host's bindpoint, gifting him with pewter, then stick the rest of it through a second host, granting him iron? If two different feruchemists can store attributes in two physical parts of the same metalmind, can two hemalurgists use two different parts of the same oversized spike? This tantalizes me, because I've always been troubled by how feruchemy, the supposed balance power, seems to have so much more in common with allomancy than with hemalurgy. If it turns out that the placement of "charges" within metal is something feruchemy and hemalurgy have in common, it would provide an aspect of the balance that supposedly exists but that we haven't seen yet.

Kaladin does believe he killed Helaran; when Shallan tells him about it, he realizes the connection, but also that Shallan still thinks Amaram was the one who did the killing blow. Shallan does not currently (apparently) know that Kaladin actually killed him.

People seem to be talking at somewhat cross-purposes... I feel like most people are saying, "Headblows happen all the time, so it's not just this one example, clearly something is keeping people from being concussed." You, Patrick, seem to be repeating that whether or not the helmet is strong enough not to be crushed, it's still odd that people don't suffer concussions. Neither statement is contradictory, and both are very true. I think we all agree more than is currently apparent. I'm just gonna repeat that Plate strengthens your body, and I suspect this is a large part of why you don't get concussed. Your brain is just physically more resilient while you're in Plate, the same way your muscles are stronger and you heal from leg wounds faster.

Specifically, Spook's. What was up with the sword point? When it went through that Thug, it was clearly still an entire sword. So was the whole Sword charged? If so, when just the point broke off in Spook, was his pewter at almost full power? It looked pretty powerful to me. More than the fraction-of-a-sword the point was. Did the whole thing somehow concentrate in the point when it broke? Was Ruin able to do something to concentrate all the charge in a spot? Is the tip of a spike, the first thing through someone, always the bit that charges first? Could a feruchemist decide where, specifically, in a metalmind to store an attribute? Could Miles have held a bar of gold, filled it specifically from one plane inward, shaved off that one plane, and compounded all his stored health, leaving most of a bar of gold with no feruchemical charge? Do other things affect it? If a spike or a metalmind (there should be a cool word for a charged spike. Soulbar? Spiritspike? Stitchbit?) is charged but there's still empty "room" in the spike, would some sort of energy field manipulate where in the spike the charge is physically located? A magnetic field, sound, gravity, a steelpush, bronzepulses?

Untrue. Yomen was spiked, knew something was up, and took the spike out of himself, realizing that the Lord Ruler he was seeing wasn't the real deal. Since we know very few people got spiked in the first place, even just a few people able to realize what's going on and overcome it are statistically significant. Now, sure, Yomen didn't deduce "Your name is Ruin", that we know of, but that's a fairly specific detail. He might not have realized it was a fraction of a larger God. But he was able to deduce, hey, this metal stuck in me is related to a supernatural spirit that's trying to manipulate me, which is a large part of the basic premise. Zane's whole thing confuses me. We have a bunch of evidence showing that Ruin wants Zin and Elend to stay together, from the end of the first book when Ruin whispers that she should go back to him, to the final book where Ruin flat-out says, "The two of you were finding my atium for me." So what was with Zane? We know Ruin didn't want Vin dead, since she was days away from fulfilling Ruin's plan and freeing him. It doesn't seem that he wanted her to leave Elend. What exactly was he doing with Zane? Did Ruin know Vin was going to be able to kill an atium burner? Did Ruin influence it somehow, via Zane's spike, would it perhaps have been more difficult for Vin to manipulate the future on her first try if Ruin hadn't been there? I guess the one thing is, Zane was encouraging her to leave the city behind and seek out the Well. But... surely Ruin knew those things were contradictory? He may not have known where the atium stash was, but he must have known where the Well was, if only because his mind was right there. Was he afraid Vin would die when the armies took the city? Did he think he could get Vin out for a few days, trigger the attack, so she'd come back with no one to fight, no one to be killed by, before she came back and found the Millenial power? I guess it's plausible but it seems like a stretch. Surely it would have been easier to, one way or another, ensure the safety of the city. Manipulate Zane into manipulating Straff into warring with Cett, per the original plan. Who does Ruin care rules Luthadel, so long as Vin is there to do her thing at the Well at the right time? Whisper to TenSoon, convince him to betray Zane, whisper that the First Contract is no longer valid and he's free to protect Vin. (Though I guess this last one is something else Ruin couldn't understand.) I dunno. I just don't get it.