Oudeis

Minor point of clarification. Mraize says that Shallan's brother sought out the Skybreakers; she does have three others. I personally happen to believe he's talking about Helaran, but I'm trying to keep my mind open. You say Helaran didn't seem fast or glowing... he was on a horse, so he might not necessarily have looked fast since the horse was the one galloping. And he's enhanced by Plate at the very least, meaning his motions should have seemed faster than possible. Also, apparently Kaladin can walk into the middle of an arena filled with hundreds of people staring right at him, and get right up in the faces of five people, four of whom are specifically observing him because they want to kill him, and not a single person noticed the faintest glimmer. So... apparently you can be QUITE Invested without anyone noticing a glow. However, I also agree with you that he was unlikely to be a Radiant. Just pointing out the facts. I'm thinking about Helaran's mother. She wanted to kill Shallan for the crime of being an abomination. This sounds to me like the Skybreakers. So... now a whole slew of possibilities open up to me. Let's suppose she was a Skybreaker. Did Helaran seek them out because he knew she was one? Did he not even want to join, he just wanted to find the people his mom associated with? Let's say he found them. Did they know Shallan was a Surgebinder? Would they have told him? If he knew his mom wanted Shallan dead, wouldn't he have started to at least consider that the father killed the mother to protect Shallan? If he thought the mother was sick for wanting to kill Shallan, wouldn't he have a bit more sympathy for the situation? If he agreed with the Skybreakers, wouldn't he stop being so nice to Shallan? So... if the mom was a Skybreaker, and if Helaran did find them, we pretty much have to assume she didn't, or never had the chance to, tell the Skybreakers about Shallan. No other scenario I can think of is plausible (though I admit to human fallibility; maybe there remains a reasonable scenario I've yet to envision). I can imagine her being too embarrassed that she'd borne one of these monsters and wanting to handle it quietly, or maybe learning of the problem and grabbing a knife before she had time to write a note. So... did Helaran seek them because he wanted to join? Did he seek them because he just wanted to learn more about his mom? Was his mom even associated with the Skybreakers?

Was it Tien? Was it Tien? Was it Tien? Was it Tien? It says it didn't count my upvote for you; would someone else mind giving him an upvote in my stead?

Emphasis mine Source. ...Did I do it right that time?

Zomigod I'm terrible at finding quotes. BUT HERE IT IS. Number 52 on that list. I know there's a way to link directly to the question but I can't recall what it is.

Miles commented that his two sides hated each other; if violence was an option, I can't think of a reason they wouldn't have chosen it.

Specifically, he says that his abilities would interfere with the gems that power the Plate, not the Plate itself. He also cannot directly Lash Shardplate. This, however, might not necessarily be a trait of just "things with Investiture". Remember that the Stormform lightning was at first able to at least harm Shardplate, but then Adolin's Plate adapted. It's possible that beyond it being difficult to Lash any Invested thing, Plate might specifically have a feature that protects from arcana. Or, alternately, it might only protect specifically against whatever the listeners were doing, having been made for that purpose.

Not that I actually expect an answer but... can you give us a few absolute data points? Like, if a clip were as Invested with memories as it could be, does that mean it couldn't be pushed by an Era-1 Coinshot at all? That it would require effort and concentration but not be impossible? Cuz "harder" might mean that you can only apply 49.5N to the clip rather than the full 50N. (Admittedly pulling these numbers out of a hat; not sure if we have non-MAG sources on how fast coins can actually fly).

We've had this discussion before. That's like saying a man trained to trap and kill bears would be equipped to raise one from a cub. There would be some overlap in the skillsets, but it's still a very weird thing for Taravangian to say if all he meant was, they must know enough about what not to let Radiants do to impart some incredibly basic training to a fledgling Radiant. Also, what exact training did he think Shallan had? She actually had almost none. Jasnah taught her practically nothing, not even how to Invest, before they were separated. What things does Taravangian suspect Shallan did, or is capable of, that he assumed she had to have been trained? Additionally, getting back to the point of the original post, my confusion about the whole event remains. The Skybreakers are trying to kill Radiants to prevent the Desolation. It looked like Helaran was trying to kill Amaram that day, slaughtering far more random soldiers than he had to simply to accomplish that task. Moreover, if he wanted Amaram dead, why hasn't there been another attempt in the intervening year? Nale doesn't strike me as the "give up" sort. Frankly, I think it more likely than anything else that Helaran wasn't actually working for the Skybreakers at the time.

Several contributing factors. Not all that many people are Mistings at all (Yes, more than in the Final Empire, but not exactly common), let alone coinshots and lurchers. Let alone Coinshots and Lurchers who have frequent occasion to get into armed conflict with Ferrings of any flavor. True, there'd be an upspike because people with power in a society like that will more frequently try to skirt the law, and be in conflict with other criminals or empowered law enforcement, but it's still a rare enough circumstance. You also presuppose a common acceptance of true facts. This is a world without even telegraphs, with newspapers used as much for fanciful tellings of stories that spread disinformation about the Metallic Arts as they are for factual data. Even in today's world, with scientific institutes and a general level of education far above what would be common in Elendel, there are people who think vaccines cause autism or that global warming isn't a real thing. In conclusion, there would be a small group of people who have direct knowledge of the fact that it's more difficult to Push on a metalmind. These people might even feel a compulsion to share this information. The average person on Scadrial might or might not get this information, or one of a dozen other completely inaccurate accounts claiming to be just as accurate, with no way to know which are correct and which are false. Now, the specific people who would care about this data are within the subset of people who'd be best able to get direct knowledge. For example, if I were a Coinshot who wanted to grow up to be a lawman (i.e., someone who would expect to run into feruchemists and possibly exchange fire with them), I would likely try to learn from a man like Wax, who could tell me from direct experience. I'm just pointing out that it prolly isn't common knowledge, just specialized knowledge. That said... we see Wax Push on Wayne's goldminds at least twice, once to give him a boost during the Wedding fight and again when Marasi observes them check out the warehouse. So "harder to Push on" might not mean "hard enough to Push on to warrant potentially wasting a reserve that takes time and effort to build up, also my gun is now made of inferior quality material." I'm no gunsmith, but I suspect you can't swap out enough pieces of your gun to make it worth your while to Invest them without making serious sacrifices in quality. Which would you rather have? A gun of decent quality, with the trait that it has a very slight advantage over a very, very small percentage of the people you'll be fighting? Or a gun that is good quality no matter who you're fighting? On the flip side, remember that Sazed was able to charge an iron grate and a steel lock. Presumably the jail was not built with "let's make it easy for feruchemists to break out" in mind, so it's doubtful that either of them were all that specifically pure. Meaning, a firing chamber made of Invarian steel might make a lousy metalmind, but it can still be a metalmind. If you're lucky enough to be a Steelrunner, and you don't mind wasting days or weeks inefficiently storing a bunch of speed you're never going to get the chance to actually use so that a Lurcher will have to put a bit more effort into pulling your gun out of your hand... well, then have at.

Huh? Where do you get this from? Do we even know the Artisan Script is simply a code for the typical Halladren alphabet?

Kaladin's brand (lowest one is shash) Surgebinding chart, with the glyph for Lightweavers in the lower left. As is mentioned in the book many, many times, the problem with glyphs is that they can basically be shaped however you want them to be. It's like hearing a french person say a word you don't understand with the hard A sound in it, then trying to spell it. Er? Et? Ez? One of half a dozen other ways that phoneme is written? The two could be very similar. Or they could be nothing alike. A lot of Aons meanings have changed over time. Ehe once meant simply fire, but due to a cultural association with fire meaning danger, the aon has that meaning now, too. Or it can represent warm food for sale, or artists sometimes take it in their own names to represent passion. Ene's meaning has shifted over the years, too. So, to basically answer your question, I wouldn't be surprised if the glyph for "blood" also has connotations of "danger" (perhaps some of the subtleties to how it's drawn change the meaning from "blood" to "this is something that will make you bleed".

Can I point out how weird this moment was for me? "You just killed my girlfriend! You're the best gun ever!" EDIT: Am I the only one who totally found it implausible that Megan could have fallen for Prof pretending to be David? No one can possibly fake a bad simile a la David.

Feruchemy. When Shards Invest in a planet, the system(s) of Arcana arise, and are not designed specifically by the intention or will of the Shard. Feruchemy, per the Hero of Ages telling us this in the book, is the balance between Ruin and Preservation. It is "of" both Shards. Per WoB (I will try to find them), Preservation gave feruchemy to the Terris. Per WoB, Preservation is able to power Allomancy directly more easily; Ruin is able to power traits of either feruchemy or allomancy, as long as they were stolen hemalurgically, most easily. Both Shards are equally good at powering feruchemy, and each are better than they are at powering each others' arcana.

Vin does physically touch, and believes she feels, her gold-shadow.

Maybe I'll try for a middle ground. Have twenty or so index cards with me with questions, and just mingle with people and hand them out if I talk to someone and they mention that they don't have a question. Not as invasive, not as crazy, but still more people asking questions, which seems like something everyone wants, from the author to us here on 17s. EDIT: Also, ccstat, my event is on the 27th, so you'd actually be going before me.

I have an upcoming project planned whereby I'm going to leave a stack of notecards on his desk with suggested questions for people who don't have their own to ask. If you'd like to articulate one, I'll add it to the group.

Thanks, Windrunner. Chaos, I suppose I should have been more explicit and listed the four I was talking about.

I can't recall if I've asked this elsewhere... are the "ten interlocking rings of the path" the surgebinding chart, which is also ten interlocking rings?

?? Huh? It's possible you misunderstood. By "swag" I wasn't referring to any attitude on his part, I meant physical loot he brings to events in order to give to fans. The one time I stayed past the end of a signing, he showed us what he had left and let us descend like ravenous vultures.

Well... if you're talking currently, not at-the-time, four Shards we know of have been killed by Odium, so it's more like 11 large-ish pieces.

New idea for an Epic... still fleshing it out. Haven't decided on any secondary powers or his weakness, but I know his primary power, how he uses it, and his name. Atlantis. His primary power is polymorphism with few limits. The biggest one is that he has be matter, he cannot be energy. Beyond that, he can change into any shape. The reason he's called Atlantis is because the shape he's taken on, and pretty much never leaves, is that of an enormous ship roughly the size of Manhattan. He is the entire ship. Part of his shapeshifting allows him to construct mini-brains throughout himself, so for example he has the pumping station where he uses his massive muscles to force water through turbines to provide limitless electricity. This whole section is controlled by a very, very simple brain. Its job is to basically keep this one simple motion going forever, to deal with four or five common, simple issues, and if a set of heuristics tells it that something has "gone wrong" it halts the entire operation and sends a signal along the nervous system to his primary consciousness asking for more direct assistance. He travels the oceans of the world, occasionally attacking coastal cities for fun. Perhaps he's a trade magnate. I'm still working on secondary powers, his weakness, and a cast of lesser Epics who work for him on the ship. Trying to avoid the urge to go munchkiny and give him complementary secondary powers... his main power is pretty OP as it is. His Prime Invincibility is basically his size. You'd have to hit him with enough nukes to vaporize all of his mass at once. As a polymorph without limit, if even just as much of him as it would take to make a person survives, he can swell back into a city within an hour. He can also survive as smaller than human, so he could turn into a hummingbird and try to escape. Smaller than a hummingbird is problematic. Technically this means you don't need to know his weakness to kill him, since he's theoretically killable as-is, but it's functionally impossible through conventional means. I do know he tries to obfuscate his weakness by enacting a long list of arbitrary restrictions. No gemstones other than green ones are allowed on board. Whistling "Camptown Races" is punishable by death. In fact, if you observe someone whistling Camptown Races and don't personally try to strangle that man until he dies, you are to be put to death. No pet birds over the age of five and a half or Dachshunds younger than four are allowed on board, and just no cats period. That sort of thing. Maybe one of those hundred things is his weakness. Maybe one of them is a part of his weakness. Maybe they're all just a trap to trick people into looking into the wrong things.

Pour yourself a beer every time a mention is made of Tia and her obsession with cola.

I, too, have benefited from lurking this thread, and I wanted to pop up and thank everyone who offered valuable insight! This will be my third event. The first one was in the middle of NYC and was an event for three authors and was fairly lightly attended. The second one was at an inaccessible mall on the outskirts of DC and there were hundreds of people; I was on line (not counting from the start of the event, i.e. the reading and the general Q&A) for a solid 3 hours, and there were over a hundred people still behind me. The nearest justification I can see is, the first was for Steelheart, and the second was for Words of Radiance, so perhaps since this is the Firefight tour I can expect less-than-overwhelming attendance. Obviously it's a dichotomy. You want as many people as possible to show up and buy and be fans of the Man, but if the line goes quickly enough he'll hang out with us afterwards and talk to us and open his box of swag and say, "Have at!"

Mr. Ahlstrom: Would you consider posting in the Firefight Full thread or starting your own to let us know which events you'll be going to, so we can be sure not to miss the opportunity to say hi? If you're in Philly on the 27th, I'll say hi. And it seems to be a smallish venue so I can't imagine I'll miss you.

How do we know they haven't?