Wherethewindgoes

WoR Spoiler:

So healing with Stormlight doesn't return you to your "natural state", but to the state you believe to be "you"? That actually makes a lot of sense. Kaladin views slavery as a part of who he is, so his natural state has those scars. Lopen still views himself as missing an arm, so in order to complete himself he must regrow that arm. Szeth views his "correct" state as one in which he suffers, so healing with Stormlight makes him suffer. I suppose this is a slight Mistborn spoiler:

I agree that Renarin's blood weakness might have more to it than we think. Also, am I the only one who thinks that during a Szeth vs. Kaladin fight Szeth, in a glorious character climax, will "make a mistake" and let Kaladin kill him?

What if you only need the Eighth Heightening (10,000 Breaths) to Awaken metal, but you also need the Eighth Heightening to be able to retrieve that Breath once you've Awakened it? So you need 20,000 originally so that, after Awakening the metal, you still have 10,000 left to get back that Breath? Edit: Oh, also, they do say that the higher-level Heightenings aren't well-researched, and that people of the Ninth Heightening being able to Awaken metal or stone hasn't been studied or confirmed.

Thanks! But at that point he didn't know Szeth was sent by the Parshendi; he thought it was someone named Thaidakar. Admittedly, when Kaladin kills that Shardbearer while in Amaram's army, Amaram hints that Thaidakar could have been part of the Ghostbloods (I don't have the book with me but that's what it says in the Coppermind), so I guess what Gavilar did that Thaidakar didn't want probably had something to do with the Parshendi and the Desolation. What if the Desolation is coming because something about them is going to change? With Jasnah deciding that they're the Voidbringers, I doubt people are going to want to keep them as slaves anymore. Oh, that's possible; what I said was just a guess. Maybe they didn't stay on Roshar the whole time, but instead went to Damnation and have just now returned with the task of starting the next Desolation? Admittedly, most of these are kind of thin ways to fill in holes, and the theory's probably completely wrong, but, well, I might as well try.

Why hello. Hearing the reading of Eshonai's viewpoint, as well as tossing the whole Parshendi situation around in my head, has caused a rather complicated and far-fetched theory to form, so I decided to share it with all of you to see what you thought. To start, I'll list a few of the things we know about the Parshendi based on Way of Kings and the readings: 1) They bond with spren to create different forms. They used to know hundreds, but now only know of five. 2) They killed Gavilar because he told them he was going to do something that would bring back their gods. 3) According to Jasnah, they are the Voidbringers. 4) They are of the same species of the Parshmen, who are in slave form, which is really just a lack of a form. So, going off that, I'll start with Gavilar's murder. If Gavilar was telling the Parshendi something, presumably it would have had to do with them. What if Gavilar told them he was going to release the Parshmen? He saw "wild" Parshendi, "Parshmen who could think", and realized that maybe the Parshmen were similar to the Parshendi and might have the capacity to think as well, and maybe the humans were wrong to enslave them. That makes sense, right? Seems logical? Well, probably that's the only part of this theory that's going to. One might wonder why releasing the Parshmen would make the Parshendi gods return, and why the Parshendi wouldn't want them to. In order to figure this out you have to take a few steps back. Consider the forms the Parshendi have. They mention that the forms come from bonding with certain spren. It is theorized that spren, being of Honor, bond with people based on honorable actions; for instance, Szeth has Surgebinding because he follows his oathstone. So why would the Parshendi be able to bond with spren? Because of an oath they have to their gods. Then look at another thing: Where the Voidbringers come from. People say they are formed in Damnation. But what if they are like the Heralds, and are immortal but return to Damnation between Desolations? This might explain the respect they have for their dead--the "souls" of the bodies aren't actually dead, so they don't want to disturb the bodies, or something like that. Imagine hundreds of years ago, at the Last Desolation. The Parshendi are in "Voidbringer" form, a very powerful and dangerous form, and are fighting the humans by order of their gods. The humans defeat them, like before. But what if, this one time, like the Heralds, they decide they don't want to go to Damnation again? What if they abandon their gods, refusing to return to Damnation, instead letting themselves be enslaved by the humans? They betray their oaths to their gods and get stuck in slave form without the ability to bond with spren. But not all of Parshendi did this. Some stayed with their gods, returning to Damnation. But there weren't enough of them to fight the humans in another Desolation. So their gods took away the knowledge of their other forms and left them on Roshar, giving them the task of getting the other Parshendi back from slavery. Over time they stopped striving toward this or began to avoid this duty (this could also have something to do with them losing forms), living in the forests of Natanatan, away from the humans, never coming in contact, hoping they would never have to fight in the Desolations again. They kill Gavilar because if he freed the Parshmen, the gods will return and there will be another Desolation. Any thoughts?

I believe atium isn't necessary in the alloy; according to the Coppermind it's just alloys of Lerasium and another metal make one a misting in that metal (there isn't a source for that part of the article, though, so it might just be speculation), which means an atium-lerasium alloy would just make Seers. Are you sure he had two copies of each memory? I was under the impression that the Keepers read everything from their own metalmind to the new Keepers (still leaving the memories in their own metalmind as well), not physically gave the metalmind to new Keepers. Where did you read this?

I mean...we already know what Atium does Allomantically. Lerasium is of Preservation, so it gives someone Allomancy (which BS has mentioned is actually only a "side effect" of the metal, and someone who knew what they were doing could do something else). Feruchemy isn't of Ruin, so I don't think atium would give you Feruchemy. If you are talking about an alloy, I doubt it, because alloys of lerasium and another metal make you a misting of that metal, and alloys of atium produce different mental and temporal effects. Maybe two god metals together would be a different story--Lerasium makes a connection to Preservation, atium presumably to Ruin, so a 50/50 alloy might create a balance, giving you Feruchemy. I imagine there's going to be something more to this in future books, or else Brandon wouldn't have put it in the magic system. Maybe they could not have magic for a time, and then later have super-charged magic or something? Although I'm not sure how you manage to access the metalmind if you've literally stored your Feruchemy in it. If you were a nicrosil compounder, though, I imagine you could increase your Feruchemical or Allomantic strength by a ton. I'm not sure there ever will be one, since there doesn't seem to be any lerasium left on Roshar. And if there was, I doubt it would be used in Feruchemy (once you store something in a metal, it changes the metal so you can't burn it anymore. I imagine this doesn't hold if you take out all of the storage, but what if it's something you don't want to take out?) Maybe multiple memories of the same thing? Or more vivid memories? Or memories of things you never saw?

Hmm. Although Hoid did disguise himself as a lot of other people with completely different appearances, so one would think he would be very skilled at it. I decided to look through the forums and see if I could find anything more on this. Here someone asks Brandon this very question and he sort of dodges it. He did, however, say that Hoid "had been to the Well--getting there just before Vin--and had retrieved something from it." (Presumably Lerasium.) I wonder if this has anything to do with it? It seemed kind of unrelated to the question. I imagine Vin would have had more than just a bad feeling if he was burning metals (although if he ate Lerasium, this brings up an interesting question: Can Vin pierce the copperclouds of original Mistborn, or are they too strong?) It was also mentioned that there could possibly be a future book in which it's explained, so I suppose it may not have even been something that was guessable. There's also this. One of the main ideas of that thread was that Hoid was using magic (possibly Lightweaving) and Vin could sort of sense it with her hemalurgically-enhanced bronze. Another possibility was that he was humming something that corresponded to the rhythms of an Allomantic pulsing. Along the lines of humming, someone suggested here that it's possible that Hoid was also one of the guards at Elend's army who was talking about the cold weather right before Vin went into the city, so Vin recognized his voice with tin-enhanced ears. It also occured to me that there doesn't seem to be any music mentioned anywhere except for at the noble's parties. So maybe Vin thought it was strange that a beggar was humming (or maybe she recognized the tune)? Well, anyway, I suppose I'm just offering answers to my own question, but...yeah. Any speculation about those possibilities?

And BS specifically said it was because of something Vin observed, which pretty much rules out any outside forces influencing her.

Oh yes, I understand who Hoid is. I just thought that this was too specific of a thing to be addressed in a later book (since Vin's dead and Hoid probably didn't know why, or even that, she skipped over him), and it seemed from what Brandon said that it was something logical that could be guessed. Admittedly, the quote from the Q and A does seem to hint that there might be more going on that it seems... If it was Ruin that stopped Vin, that might be addressed later because Hoid may have had some motive that Ruin disagreed with. However, Brandon said that it was "something he does" that spooked her, which implies that there was actually a logical reason for it, not just Ruin influencing her. And saying that she was too observant implies that the thing she noticed could be noticed by readers, as well as that it was something that was actually noticed. It just seemed to me that there was something there that could potentially be figured out, and that it wouldn't ever be addressed in the books, but it's entirely possible that neither of those are true.

This is something that I've never been able to figure out, and it doesn't seem as if there's ever going to be anything more about it in any future books, so I was wondering if anyone has any ideas as to why this is. From Hero of Ages: And from http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=727#24: Does Vin's apprehension have to do with his humming? Or maybe something to do with the fact that Kelsier met with Hoid in the first book? Any ideas?

Hallo. So, I just finished re-reading The Final Empire and was confused about a few things. I haven't read WoA or HoA in a while, so forgive me if any of these are really obviously answered in those. 1. When Vin explains to Kelsier that she, as well as Inquisitors, can pierce Copperclouds, he claims this isn't true because then Inquisitors would be able to find Allomancers much more easily, and Smokers wouldn't be able to hide them. Evidently Inquisitors (at least the ones that started out as Seekers) can pierce Copperclouds, so why aren't they finding all of the Allomancers so easily, as Kelsier says? 2. There's probably a simple answer to this, but why are the Inquisitors able to heal so quickly and age so slowly? It's mentioned that they do age, but very slowly, so I imagine it's not compounding? But what gives them the ability to be pretty much invincible unless the spikes are separated? That seems to be all, for now. Thanks in advance for any help in clearing up my confusion!

I think you're right; it's been said that the first Mistborn weren't there, and the first Lerasium were not ingested, until the Lord Ruler went to the Well. Although, it is strange that no one else had Ascended before. The Well wasn't created until humans were, and since humans were created in their present forms by Ruin and Preservation, they wouldn't need time to evolve. It's possible that Rashek's Ascension was the first ever. If that's true, though, how would the Terris people know about the Well in order to write prophecies about it?

Ah, I didn't think about the Deepness. However, do you think there would be any actual effects on Ruin and Preservation if the Well was left alone? Other than the Deepness, which was Preservation's own doing in order to fight Ruin.

In terms of the power in the Well, we have seen two possibilities: 1) Using the power, and Ruin stays imprisoned. 2) Letting go of the power, and Ruin is freed. But what if neither of these happened? What if no Hero of Ages went to the Well? If the Well's power returned, and no one took it up or let it go, would it simply stay there, or would Ruin be freed? I would presume something bad would happen if no one went to the Well, because if not, why would the Terris prophecies saying someone needs to go to the Well exist? Sazed says in the HoA epigraphs that Ruin changed the prophecies, but did not fabricate them. If nothing happens when the Well's power is left alone...how did the Terris people figure out about the Well and think there was a need for someone to do something with the power there? Any thoughts?

Ah, that makes more sense. I didn't realize that Adonalsium originally was on its own planet. Thanks for the help, everyone!

I don't think Ati and Leras held the shards when humanity was created, because, well, they didn't create themselves. Unless the creation of humans by Preservation and Ruin wasn't original, only based on a model from other planets? Although, it would still be improbable for humans to all be the same on various planets. Unless humans originated on one and traveled across shadesmar to colonize other planets?

Well, this is my first post. Greetings, everyone. This is something that's been bugging me for a while, and perhaps there's a simple answer to it that I've missed. From the epigraphs of HoA: This seems to suggest that Preservation and Ruin created humanity together, as an almost-compromise. How, then, are there humans on Sel, Roshar, and other planets? Unless, of course, Ruin and Preservation traveled through the universe, putting humans on multiple planets; however, I was under the impression that shards generally stay on one planet, and the epigraphs seem to suggest that. The other option, although less likely, would be that humanity originated on Scadrial, but later humans invented space travel and populated other planets, only to later forget about it. Any thoughts?

Greetings, fine people of the 17th shard. Well, I've been reading stuff on 17th Shard for a while, and just recently decided to make my own contributions. Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors; I've read Elantris, all three Mistborn(and Alloy of Law), Alcatraz, and Way of Kings, and have greatly enjoyed them. I look forward to discussing Sanderson's books, and perhaps reciting some poetry.