Oudeis

Good question. Someone else mentioned the hedonistic lifestyle. If Lightsong is only a little bit more extravagant than most Gods, every day they prolly go through an appreciable fraction of the cost to feed a peasant family for a year. I concur with both your implication and the above sentiment; Hallandren is insanely wealthy from its lock on a precious luxury good and the taxes thereby. Recall that the one fisherman fished at night to avoid having to pay a fee; granted he was insane and maybe not indicative of things as a whole, but it's not unreasonable to guess that taxes are pretty high. It does make me worry; money goes in and out very, very quickly in Hallandren, and a lot of it is wasted on frivolity. If anything ever happens to disrupt the trade of the dyes made by the flowers, Hallandren's economy would collapse faster than you could say, "Your Breath to mine." I think it's implied she really is. Even her father is amazed at her control. She makes a few mistakes when she shows up those first few days, but she expressly wears a shawl over her head most of the time. You make me wonder... how does her aura affect it? Are the changes even more noticeable in her aura? Actually, since we know the hair is changing color because she has a tiny spark of Divine Breath in her, is it possible it's already shifting the colors to perfect hues anyway, so there's nothing for her aura to enhance? People with 50 Breaths also aren't all that common. She'd pass few enough in the average day that it's not unreasonable to guess that if one of them actually did happen to be glancing right at her just as her hair changed color a little bit, he might not immediately assume he'd seen a Royal Princess walk past him. Mistborn WoB is that BioChroma and Awakening are end-neutral. Mistborn However, I don't personally understand what this means, since you are clearly getting benefit without personally losing anything. There must be some hidden mechanism, then, we do not see. The epigraphs of Hero of Ages will explain end-positive, end-neutral, and end-negative; if you haven't heard these terms before I'm happy to explain.

Also, Sanderson says the sensation of doing allomancy, any allomancy, is a warmth in your chest as though you've just had an alcoholic or just a very warm drink. As I think about it, metal vials are solutions of alcohol. So maybe it's really just that Mistborn are drunk all the time.

Well technically the world ended about a year before the eternal mists would have reached the city in any event, so that far out it's hard to determine where specifically they would have centered. With the margin of error, it could easily have been either Luthadel, the few days journey to the Pits, or some oval that includes them both. If someone had been SUPER paying attention they might have been able to determine if they arrive even earlier and leave even later at Luthadel or the Pits, but I find it eminently plausible that no one had the time or inclination to get that pedantic. What Rat said; per the WoB above, the Mists should have started Snapping allomancers on their own, unaided by Ruin. And Ruin was expressly helping them along. I don't know enough about Shards to say that it's definitely not the case that the collaboration of two Shards would work the least well (well well) near the center of their powers, but if we ever do ask Mr. Sanderson and learn this is the case, I for one will find it surprising. And it might have interesting implications for the rest of the cosmere... Warbreaker @Titan: So, in the model you describe (and yes, I acknowledge that you're just describing, not proposing), due to the Well, there's an aura of Preservation around the Central Dominance, and that as the whole world experiences the rise due to the Millenial Power, skaa who have lived their whole lives at the edges of the empire have built up no immunity to Preservation's aura and are affected by the low level of power within the air, while that same amount of power near Luthadel was unable to Snap people. This graph represents the model. As the red line rises across the board, the green point of intersection travels left, closer to Luthadel, indicating that the places where the rising Millenial Power is enough to overcome background Preservation is drawing ever nearer to Luthadel. ...Oh c'mon, you can hold Asia at four bottlenecks. Three, if you take Australia, too.

Ha, no, it's just for a costume. I sometimes mime drinking the vial but I would never really do so. EDIT: Check out the cosplay Gallery if you wanna see the end results.

Wax has known Wayne long enough to recognize both the interface, and the faster-than-a-bullet motions of someone in a time bubble.

Cracked.com has a list of "Five pop culture questions with an actual answer." In the very last line of the entire article, they make a reference to Brandon Sanderson's completion of the Wheel of Time. "We're sure we'll get a definitive answer when A Dream of Spring is released in 2047 by the son of Brandon Sanderson."

The official word on the MAG, per Mr. Sanderson, is that the history, society and such aspects of it are "canon until they're not," but that all the mechanics and everything about the metals are simply non-canon, whether they've yet been directly contradicted or not. As an interesting example, the MAG came up with the idea that you could use a bendalloymind to store hydration, and Mr. Sanderson, upon hearing it, liked the idea so much that he adapted it into his story. This, as well as the way many better-known powers work in the book as opposed to the MAG, underscores that the people who came up with the rules did so independently and with an eye towards fair and balanced gameplay. I concur with Titan's assessment; rules from the MAG should be left out of the Coppermind, as we would leave out someone's speculative theory without WoB. It'll just confuse newbies who read it, not knowing that the MAG isn't canon.

Titan: Interesting... but recall that in Hero of Ages, the daymists also start at the edges and creep their way inward. Luthadel, the site of the Well, is the last place free of daymist. natc: But then where's it coming from? Say I put a cup in the middle of a piece of paper and slowly fill the cup with water. When the cup overflows, it'll start wetting the paper. Why would the edges start getting wet before the cup was even full? Where would that water come from? Citation

If the Mists start Snapping people because the Well is refilling, why does it start at the edges of the empire and work its way in?

My first entire read-through of Warbreaker, Susebron was a black man.

WoB has clarified that the Shard we know as "Harmony" does, in fact, mean a balance between opposing forces and an inability to act.

Kay, can I ask everyone that if you're going to post from unpublished works, you put it behind a spoiler tag?

Vin buys a wolfhound body for OreSeur and is also offered a type of dog called a "bobbie". I don't know if there's a dog breed in real life called that. TenSoon later eats the flesh of a hog in order to imitate a horse (and there are a few horses throughout Final Empire). The Terris herd goats. Those are the only ones I know for sure. At the end of Well of Ascension, when Vin and Elend and Spook are traveling through the woods, is birdsong mentioned?

Started reading Well of Ascension, with Straff Venture laying siege to his son's kingdom, on Father's Day. Made me appreciate my old man just that much more.

I dispute your conclusions in point the first. Larger, cut gemstones are better because they hold more Stormlight. They get used because they're better. It does not prove that spheres wouldn't work. In point the second, Jasnah surely has a coinpouch on her, as most people do most of the time. We see Surgebinders Invest from their pouches all the time. She was not restricted to the gems in her "Soulcaster"; if she had a vinemark in her purse, not an unreasonable coincidence, problem solved.

...Does Nalan have other kinds of stares? To the OP: Remember that this is supposed to be profanity. Maybe the lack of correlation is intentional? Perhaps Kelek's Hand is actually holy, and Nalan's Breath is. Would it be a touch of blasphemy, just enough to be profanity, to call out, "Kelek's Breath!"? Maybe the almost-but-not-quite correlation IS why it's a swear-word. In America, at least, most of the religious swear-words are blasphemous.

Do we know for sure they do not? I read a debate some time ago where someone insisted that ONLY spheres could be used to Soulcast. Do we have definitive proof that if a vinemark were held at/near a Soulcaster, it wouldn't use the Stormlight inside to make grain? This took me a second to realize what you were saying. Yes, to other Radiants, one gem seems to be the same as any other. (Though I am going to point out the 'seems'.) However, I do not think we actually have an example of either Jasnah or Shallan, the only two people we've seen Soulcast, ever expressly use Stormlight from one type of gem to make something different. The times the gem is expressly stated, they always Soulcast that essence. Other times, we either don't get told what kind of gem it is, or they specifically Invest with stormlight of every color, and who knows how that works out (I've got some ideas but it might derail this topic). I'm going to try to find the quote I'm thinking of. (Also, thank you, Renarin, for also thinking you've heard this quot.) I'm gonna point out again that I believe chips are uncut, and this will likely throw off the ratios somewhat. I don't believe we know enough to do more than guess at how much a cut changes things. Also per Rat's comment below, I'm gonna try to find the quote I'm thinking of; I believe at some point in Words of Radiance Shallan takes a shattered gem and comments that someone could break it apart, cut the larger pieces into broams and marks, and use the splinters just as chips. Maybe a splinter is small enough to count as cut? What is the difference? This being Roshar, I wouldn't be surprised if it's mostly important just that the gem by symmetrical, which is incredibly unlikely to occur naturally without cutting. Concur. As mentioned above, I will try to find the quote. I'm pretty sure chips are expressly not cut, just weighed. Emphasis on "based on". Once, long ago, this was the case. It's been... well we don't know how long, but long enough for even the Envisagers, people who pride themselves on the lore of Surgebinders, to get nearly everything wrong. As Knight pointed out, by this point it's fiat. once, Ruby had this value compared to Diamond because magic, but for the lifetime of some Kingdoms, Ruby has had this value compared to Diamond axiomatically. On its own, I wouldn't expect this to change overnight because of some very niche powers. However, I'm throwing out this caveat again; the entire world is about to be thrown into chaos. Many things, money included, are going to change drastically very soon. How much or how little impact Surgebinding will have on the value of money will likely be impossible to determine. Eh... there's the matter of viability. Imagine there's a vending machine that produces unicorns, and only accepts $5 bills. Now imagine there are only ten of these vending machines around the world; barely more than one per continent, and almost every country on the planet will not have one. Now imagine you live in a world where the fastest way most people have to travel hundreds of miles across Europe to use the vending machine is in a cart pulled by a large crab, hoping that your math is right and you get to safety before one of two permanent storms sweeps by the kill you, and also keeping in mind that not everyone has the legal right to travel and that even the crab-mobile is more expensive than most people could contemplate... Either traveling to Urithiru will simply be an option, in which case the vast majority of people will not go. Or it will be a mass exodus, in which case it's hard to imagine very many governments telling people, "Die in the Everstorm, you penniless wretch". Sure, people providing as much Stormlight as they can themselves will be totally useful, but first of all it's a renewable resource and second, the Alethi nobility has a bunch of broams and gemhearts; The army had enough stormlight on them to transport literally everyone to Urithiru when it was weeks into the Weeping and they didn't expressly know to bring a ton of Stormlight, so presumably the amount needed is not so much as to change everything. And since every Oathgate but Stormseat is locked and we don't yet know how, people would all have to travel to one coast of Roshar, and cross all these un-bridged plateaus with no protection from the Highstorms or Everstorms just to use it. That trip would cost SO MANY MORE SPHERES than could possibly be needed to actually activate the Oathgate. Also, people aren't gonna be hopping in and out of Urithiru. If people go, it will be for sanctuary, not as a vacation destination. No amount of one-time trips are going to ultimately affect the economy of a planet very strongly. So imagine you're in Kharbranth. City of tens of thousands, for sure, who knows, maybe as many as a million. Surgebinders, for so many reasons, are not exactly common. Let's say there's a dozen in the whole city. Human beings love stability. Sure, people will admit that now money can do something different. And people will totally acknowledge that maybe some types of money are more useful, now, than others. But no one is going to start changing the price of all money because of a trick a score of people can do. I think you missed my point. The Stormlight does have value... and that's why clearchips are so cheap. Usefulness is actually already inversely proportional to value. It's stated in the first book that diamonds are worth less specifically because they give the best light. Both so that you can spend your highest-valued money and still have good light, and also so you can use diamond chips as a light source without tempting thieves with more than pennies, the Stormlight in a clearchip is currently too valuable to be worth much. It's not abstract, but it is INCREDIBLY niche. For every Citylord that Kaladin happens to come across and take Stormligh from, there will be dozens, hundreds, who never meet a Surgebinder and have no reason to think the stormlight itself within the spheres has any real value as anything other than a source of light.

"Ishar" is only mentioned three times in Words of Radiance... although one is a curse! Ishar's soul. None of them mention him being the Herald of Luck. Perhaps it was Way of Kings? I'll check that next. AH-HA! Found it. Way of Kings, Chapter 23. Ishi, Herald of Luck be praised! ... That's a quote, I'm not actually praising him at the moment. Also I forgot to say last time, I really like the staggered rows for Order/Surge!

Thank you, I had read this before but couldn't remember where. Bookmarking for the Mark 2...

I see what your saying... My gut says that every sphere is so small, it's unlikely a broam has that much more stormlight than a chip, but what do I know. Actually, Marks and Broams are cut, right? And Chips are literally just broken shards with sufficient carats. So yeah, Marks and Broams prolly hold a LOT more Stormlight than Chips. However, I disagree about the change in value. First, there are a few dozen Radiants total across the planet, not enough people to affect any economy. Second, the stormlight itself was never the value, it was the gemstone. The stormlight was just a convenient way to have some light if you need it. If anything, with Broams holding more light and thus being more useful for Oathgates and Surges, you might expect that chips will actually increase in value, since people will be far more willing to trade them. Recall that it's stated in the first book that one reason the diamond spheres are the cheapest is that they give the best light; they're simply too useful to use as currency. If you want to fill a goblet with clearchips so you can have the best light, you don't want to be displaying your actual best wealth for thieves to pilfer. Sometimes, a thing's usefulness actually gives it a lower monetary value. And, as Ham said in Mistborn, money is just an abstract conceptualization of effort. The paper money prevalent in our real world holds little to no intrinsic value. For the very long length of time without Surgebinders, the spheres themselves had little worth inherently. People will tend to be set in their ways, and things like financial institutions exist, in part, to make sure there aren't drastic changes in the value of money. And as a final note, the entire world is about to be thrown into complete and utter chaos. Well of Ascension spoilers: So, in short, I think you're right, that as the world governments destabilize the value of various monies will be impacted. I don't think, however, that the resurgence of Surgebinding will be one of the factors.

Very interesting. I don't recall where we learn Ishar is the Herald of "Luck", do you know where that's stated? From where do we know that Wyndle is a Growthspren? Is it worth adding a column of curses? "By Vedeledev's Golden Keys," I believe it's "By Talaniel's Hand", I'll look that up. Not many of them are stated, and I think Taln and Nalan both have "Hand", but it amused me to see how people profaned in Vorin kingdoms. Curse-words tend to have relevance in Sanderson works. Jezrien has been called the King of Heralds and the Herald of Kings... is that enough to show up in the Herald Of... column?

This is possibly why there is sometimes confusion about whether or not aluminum metabolizes itself. The instant she burns it, here's the line: "Immediately, all of her other metal reserves vanished." The phrase "other metals" seems to distinguish that aluminum itself didn't vanish. However, just a few paragraphs later, we have: "My metals! She searched desperately inside, but she found nothing. She couldn't feel any metals, not even the one she had ingested moments before." I see this as a slam-dunk. The first sentence is inexact, but doesn't state that aluminum is still there. The second is conclusive and concrete; aluminum metabolized itself. Recall that most mistborn vials have a few flakes of each metal, and even the fastest burning of them lasts for a few minutes. This is an entire bead of aluminum, large enough to be swallowed. If it doesn't metabolize itself, it burns so fast that there's no real difference.

I'm about to read before bed, and I'm just before that actual part, but at the end of the first book, I believe the only time anyone burns aluminum, Vin specifically mentions that aluminum metabolizes even itself. I'll post the quote in the morning.

But we know that it doesn't. When Vin first uses duralumin, it simply works without flaring itself. Several other times, she duralumin boosts one thing, then later boosts another, without replenishing metals. Aluminum does metalbolize itself, but duralumin is immune to its own effects.