Oltux72

Well, there is a grain of truth here. Harmony has a problem. As of the Bands of Mourning Waxillium Ladrian is approaching 45. The man lived most of his life without modern technology. He spent days on a horse. He has been shot many, many times. If he is to be Harmony's sword, that sword is already rusting and chipped. Unless Harmony wants to draw his swords within the next few years, he will have to get a new sword or do something about Waxillium's aging.

OK, let's look at what we know Kelsier reincorporated with hemalurgy (strictly speaking this is an assumption - we only know that he planned to) OreSeur ate Kelsier's original body Kelsier's bones remain OreSeur is dead Kelsier reconstructed his original body down to the scars The Southerners cannot make the Bands of Mourning and never could. After centuries of working at improving the technology. It takes aluminium and full feruchemists (or hemalurgic constructs) to make unkeyed metalminds. One can become a ferring without piercing an eye (Feruchemy was a later addition to some Steel Inquisitors and Telsin became a gold ferring.) That tells us that Kelsier could not have a Kandra take his bones and then just snatch the body. The result would not look like Kelsier, in particular the scars would be missing. Kandra need to digest the body and OreSeur is dead. Could he reanimate his bones in the manner of a lifeless and then do a body snatch? Presumably yes, but he'd end up as a walking skeleton. Could you use gold feruchemy to heal back from being reduced to a skeleton? We may assume so. But he would be no feruchemist, there was no aluninium to make unkeyed metalminds and no more full feruchemists to fill them. You'd have to propose a secret project to make aluminium and hemalurgic constructs to fill them and for that to stay secret with Harmony watching stuff in a very small community of survivors in which a room of your own was a luxury. Then why did he ram a spike through his eye? He made the effort to recreate his scars. Steel Inquisitors were figures of horror and revulsion. Why mutilate himself if you can gains some feruchemy by non obvious hemalurgy or medaillions? It makes no sense. I am afraid to explain the spike we need to assume that he needed it for reincarnation.

First, no this is not about a remake of a famous movie. I think we have stark clues. Let me quote the first one, the famous passage from Secret History: That is incompatible with what we saw in Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell. People in the forests don't generally decide to become shades. If one did, it would just involve going outside and starting to run. No rites or traditions. I think we must conclude that Nazrilof hails from another period or another place. Could he postdate the events from Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell? I am afraid we must reject that option, as Khrissalla writes about visiting one of the refugee cities on the other continent and about knowing Nazrilof in the same essay. That brings us to the second important source, her essay on the Threnodite System where she calls those cities new and unfinished. That is not compatible with centuries having passed since the Forescouts came there. That means that Nazrilof predates the evacuation of the Homeland and hence hails thence. Yet the same essay also says that he has information on the Evil, albeit in vague terms. How is that possible? Did the Evil arrive a long time before the evacuation of the Homeland? Apparently it did. Threnody is an upstart military power during the events of Secret History. That precludes it being a devastated world with people fleeing from the Evil across an ocean. The same essay also mentions that Khrissalla did not get her information about pre evacuation magic in person. So she wasn't there. Apparently they also aren't in a conventional romantic relationship. I would expect that if they met in Silverlight as researchers or student and teacher. So, on an expedition? Does he owe her his life? Or, even wilder, did she outright buy him?

The Hero of Ages came from Terris religion. Their god was Preservation. Preservation thought that The Lord Ruler was admirable for the stability he had created.

Aren't we assuming that he created this technology precisely because he had already become a feruchemist at that time? If not how do you explain that he used feruchemy of all things to save the Southerners? It looks to me that if you assume that the Savior had no feruchemy before he went south you will be open some huge logic conundrums.

I highly doubt that. They can catch something. I would conclude that they already have the Investiture and that it comes from their star. They just don't know how to use it.

Kelsier also has gained feruchemy. Do you really want to propose that these advancements are independent of each other? Bones almost scream Mistwraith/Kandra, don't they?

I am afraid you need to explain why Darkside magic works on Darkside only. If the power source were the tatoos that would be mighty odd. The most obvious analogon to a tatoo would be an Aon, only that Aons would not work as tatoos because they need depth. That would actually fit. The powersource is the white dwarf, it works by bioluminiscence and the commands are inscribed on bodies. Now the only thing we need to explain is why the Darksiders think that they have no Invested Art.

That explanation won't work because the wearer of a medaillion was involved and Waxillium remarked that this specifically happened to inexperienced feruchemists.

Well, we were seeing unconcious people burn pewter. And we saw somebody forgetting to stop storing weight.

Yes, but they are still in need of supplies. Vasher needs his weekly Breath and Vivenna needs to eat and drink. Hence the caravan they are taking needs to carry supplies and a useful payload so large that regular trade between worlds is feasible. Practically we are talking about weeks of subjective time as an upper bound here. Spren are doing it Ishar did it However Ashyn got evacuated Aon Tia presumably The Shards themselves can do it There is also the case of Dalinar opening perpendicularities. He does not contain all that much Investiture. He does it with Connection. Can Ferrings do it if they knew the trick? Aons? Well, no. You got that backwards. These cutters are plasma because they are so hot. Basically if you really go down to basics at a certain temperature entropy will win and chemical bonds will break down. The property of being plasma itself is fairly harmless. A fluorescent lightbuld contains plasma technically. You can touch them. The only danger of breaking them is mercury poisoning, nothing spectacularly hot or cutting. So we need to look at round trips or trips over multiple destinations to establish upper bounds, as a single trip cannot give us the time passing for an outside observer, while a round trip can. But we have such trips: Khrissalla - she went from Scadrial at the Catacendre to Roshar and back to Scadrial in time to meet Waxillium for a dance Nazriloff - the same route, even earlier so that he could be at the Ghastly Gondola Vasher - he went from Nalthis to Roshar and back in the time period between Vo (the first Returned) and the Manywar (they designed Nightblood after a Shardblade) Hoid's letters - here we hit a jackpot. He sent them after arriving on Roshar and got a reply from Harmony in time for Rhythm of War These examples leave room for considerable time dilation, but not enough for an outside observer to keep them slower than light.

Now, I am afraid this will be controversial. So I will start right away with a bold statement: The Final Empire was Brandon's boldest book, taking it as the first part of a trilogy. Note, I said boldest book, not best book. Why is that? I think for three reasons It took no half steps in its world building. It dared you to make a serious case that the extremist was right. On both sides. He had truly alien characters in the Kandra. If the world required you to let blood flow in rivers, so be it. If it required you to see commoner women as sex toys with very low shelf life, so be it. He pulled no punches. And I am sorry in later books, he does this. Szeth for example is sorry he killed so many people. Not furious because he was tricked or abused, but sorry. Contrast this to Kelsier. That attitude allowed him to have characters with extremely alien view points. To the Lord Ruler the Skaa were really lower life forms. He could , however, bring up some actual valid evidence for his point of view. He had part of the wisdom of a god and he had saved the world. Vin's noble sacrifice turned out to be a terrible mistake. The Stormlight Archives are far more conventional. Yes, the world is even more exotic, the cultures more elaborate and the human characters even more diverse. But the story is far more conventional. Note, conventional, not simplistic. The Singers still have a sensible point of view, as have the human factions. Within their respective camps things are fairly conventional though. Dalinar turned into a honorable man, Szeth is sorry and the traditionalist is so totally a literary device that I cannot remember his name. Raboniel in the end became a traitor for the sake of ethics. So let me ask this, is this an intentional contrast between the two major worlds, an inevitable side effect of implementing more diverse and complex human characters, or - horrible to even say - a man growing more mellow with age?

He had to. You really cannot build a huge army out of Singers. They cannot change forms outside Roshar, meaning they cannot reproduce. If you want an army large enough to conquer the Cosmere, it will have to be human for ecological reasons alone. Hence that tells you very little.

Provided a small child knew about and understood how a Radiant's Shardblade works. How would she? How would her blade surprise her mother if she had already displayed it? No, because we have no idea when Shallan became aware of these issues. Because it contains a great deal of Investure and a Soulcaster can sense such things. A Shardblade is extremely valuable and he could not explain that Blade at that time. How could he not lock it away?

How? How many people had she killed with her Blade?

Highly debatable, as the Metallic Arts have synergy. That is, it is better to be a Coinshot and a Lurcher together than the addition of both abilities would suggest. This again goes up if you add duraluminium and iron feruchemy. You could argue that medallions in part increase the attractivity of hemalurgy.

The Shards are the major religions of the Cosmere. Even Survivorism, as Preservation let Kelsier continue. They uniformly see themselves as gods. Freedom of religion does not come with a list of permissible or inpermissible religions. Well, no. If that were the case the Set's plan that involves abducting women closely related to the Lord Mistborn wouldn't make sense. Five Kholins and one spouse of a Kholin? Out of millions of people on Roshar? Before that he was a doctor's son. Upper middle class I'd say.

Jasnah has certainly seen them. As have Navani and Dalinar. Do you really think they'd marry their cousin respectively son to a foreign woman without checking her pedigree which would involve looking at a drawing of her mother? Or fail to notice that nobody knows her maternal grandparents?

Now you are discussing the ethics. But the point was the practical implications. I have never sad that. To reduce confusion let me again restate what I said. In the Cosmere the Shards are real and they have real powers and, most importantly, can grant extreme powers to their followers. Just consider the atrocities Paalm managed with a few spikes of trellium. Now from an ethical view point you would say that the people can believe what they want but are obliged to heed the law. But you need to enforce that. And you need to enforce it in a situation where belief can grant arcane powers. Hence I said that the dominant religion can't afford to grant religious freedom due to security reasons. Ethics never came into play. That is Dalinar personally, not the Bondsmith of the Stormfather. In fact in seeking unity he would find objecting to that contrary to his oaths. Now, I will not give an example of laws currently operative in the Western World which Radiants are likely to find objectionable, lest this degenerate into a match of partisan politics, so you may find the example I will give outdated or contrived. Suppose a realm on Roshar passes a law that requires people to report fugitive slaves. I hope you can live with that example. I find it reasonable as many countries on Roshar keep slaves. Edgedancers and possibly Willshapers and Windrunners will find it impossible to heed that law without deadeyeing their Spren. What would Dalinar do then?

The Vedish and Horneater look alike enough that Shallan can play a Horneater princess. The Horneaters arose out of interbreeding of humans and Singers. That can have happened only after the arrival on Roshar. Chanarach predates it.

Chanarach would be unlikely to look Veden, though.

You are referring to the organization that controls the fastest form of international trade has a monopoly on the most effective form of medicine has the only air force under human control has effective intelligence gathering capabilities everywhere has near perfect assassins that can look like anybody has more Shardblades than everybody else together Yes, they exert as yet little control. For now. Do you really want to cross them?

Yes, but the point is that outside Scadrial you will find few secular states. Well, the thing is that in the Cosmere, violating a religious law, does not just have consequences in the afterlife. If the Nine want to do something that Odium really does not like, they will cease to be the Nine, or even cease to be, period. If you want to pass a law on Roshar that the Knights Radiant think incompatible with their oaths, there will be trouble.

That is a theory, but does it hold up against observation? If it is true, they cannot jump. So do we see them jump?

Greatshells are in danger of collapsingdue to gravity. There are two ways of doing this they can reduce gravity they can reduce mass While a body is at rest the phenomena cannot be distinguished. Yet the wider Cosmere shows both phenomena. So what do Greatshells do? There are ways to tell them apart. Inertia would remain in the latter case but not in the former case. When do we observe the effects of inertia? Whenever a greatshell changes its speed, particularly when it falls. At reduced mass, an objected will fall at normal speeds initially, as gravity operates independent of mass. Terminal velocity will be different due to the cube/square issues. If gravity is lower, you will gently float down, just like in the movies of moonwalkers. So have we seen Chasmfiends jump, tumble, fall or sharply round a corner?