HSuperLee

I would actually argue the other direction, and say that a feruchemist halfborn would do better than a mistborn halfborn. Namely, because while yes, mistborn are generally more inclined to combat, radiants are hard to kill. Killing a radiant is essentially a war of attrition, and while a halfbloodmaker could theoretically outlast a radiant's healing, I'm not convinced they could do enough damage to get past a 5th ideal Windrunner's plate, and at that point the radiant barely would even need to use stormlight to beat them. Gold compounding or not, a sharblade cutting through your spine ain't going to do much. For those pointing out that a mistborn can basically fire a coin like a bullet and then point out there's a WoB that says Wax could break through plate with one bullet, that's also Wax and non-living plate. My arguement would actually be for a halfcoinshot. Steel compounding means that a halfcoinshot is basically never going to get hit (though they'd have to be careful for unexpected uses of adhesion to slow them down) and drawing upon weight means that they've got a ton of power behind their pushes. The issue just becomes then actually doing enough damage to overcome a radiant's healing, but I believe that once you get the plate out of the way, a halfcoinshot could use their super speed to just keep the pressure up at all times and not give a radiant time to recover their plate (however that works, we don't know yet.) For a close second, I'd argue halfleacher. Though they'd need some serious feruchemical reserves to do it. They'd have to get in close to the radiant so they can touch them and drain their stormlight without getting instakilled by the shardblade, and then get out, as radiants don't need stormlight to use said blade. But ultimately in a fight between a feruchemist and what is essentially a non-radiant shardbearer, steel + pewter = victory.

I mean, Diamante's kind of the reverse, since he makes things that are already hard flexible. So, for those that aren't familiar with One Piece, the dude has the power to make anything into a "flag" which makes it move like fabric. The most Tension thing he probably does with it is turn a sheet of steel into a cape and then when he needs to defend himself turns it back into a sheet of steel, basically creating an instant shield. I do believe Tension could do something similar but in the reverse way, taking a normal cape and making it rigid and durable as steel. But anyway, as for the Tension being like Pewter, I guess if you can use Tension on yourself you could theoretically harden your skin (which would actually be fairly like armament haki from One Piece) or make your joints and muscles more Tense to support greater weights. So maybe if you used it very carefully and precisely you could simulate super strength, but frankly it seems kind of unlikely. Other than bones, there's not a lot in the human body that likes being rigid. In general, flesh likes being able to bend and stretch to do its job. But, if you're made of crystals, I guess that isn't much of an issue.

I like halfborn, but you definitely might want to add a small descriptor for which half they have. Yeah, I'm sure us being the 17th shard we'll just default back to a-halfborn or f-halfborn, but I kind of like the idea of contrasting it with their one power. So a mistborn bloodmaker would just be a half-bloodmaker, a feruchemist coinshot would be a half-coinshot. Yes, you could extend that to halfborn-bloodmaker and halfborn-coinshot, but I'm lazy, so let's not do that unless we're being formal.

I always hear the voice of Russell from the movie Up. So yeah, Nightblood is a kid in my mind.

In my head I've always seen it as pulling in extra information and details from the world around you via your senses. Is that just me justifying it away? Yes. But that's how it makes sense to me to think about it.

Ah, so you found that problem. Yeah, I considered that, that's why I have the " though it would definitely cause upheaval in Shinovar and would need to be pursued carefully." I hoped someone would catch that. But yes, sharing land is the much better solution. It's just the harder solution, because generally creatures don't like sharing if they don't have to.

My issue is not with wanting to defend the actions of the human ancestors of modern Stormlight characters. What they did was wrong. They spat in the face of kindness and became conquerors and killers. But the issue is, there descendants, the modern Rosharan humans had nothing to do with that. I believe very much in not punishing the son for the sins of the father, and the truth is that the modern humans are benefiting from the crimes their ancestors committed, but I can't be angry at modern Rosharans. At least not for being born and living in land that they didn't know was historically stolen. I feel terrible for the Listeners (still not sure what the best term for them is,) but the truth is that the ones that wronged them are all dead now (except maybe the Heralds, not sure on that one.) Simply kicking the humans out of what has become their home would be just as wrong as the original taking of that land from the Listeners would have been. There's no easy answer to this, which is I think what Sanderson is trying to convey. As much of a skybreaker as I am, I don't think this is a situation where justice can be satisfied, because the victims and perpetrators are all dead already. This is moving into the domain of forgiveness, and unity. And no, don't take that as me saying the Listeners need to just get over what happened, that's not what I'm saying at all. But it might be time for them to share the land. Some humans, upon learning the truth, might decide the Listeners are right, and want to return to Shinovar. It's great if that happens, and ideally all the humans might decide that (though it would definitely cause upheaval in Shinovar and would need to be pursued carefully.) But you also can't just force humans to leave their homes. Thus, we need some kind of peace to form between the two, and even more, for them to learn to live with each other in peace. That might not be satisfying, but frankly I don't care whats satisfying or what feels right, I care about what's actually right. Roshar has tried war and vengeance time and time again to the point that its basically their whole history. And to be clear, Odium needs to be stopped, so the present war might in some ways be necessary. But once Odium has been stopped, Roshar needs to find peace. Luckily, we're now getting people like Kaladin that genuinely care about both sides, so maybe peace and unity can actually be found. Sorry for the long rant, but I agree this is a deep topic that requires discussion, and I know how easy it is to demonize the humans because we're also human, and sometimes its easier to make ourselves feel guilty than actually address the problem, so I figured someone needed to make the case for something other than their total destruction or displacement.

Is Dalinar a monster? At one point, yes. Does he deserve to die for what he did? At one point, yes. Is he worse that Sadeas? At one point, yes. Can he ever be forgiven? Yes. Could Sadeas have been forgiven? Yes. But the unfortunate thing about life is we don't all get to live as long as we could have and we don't all get to experience redemption. I can acknowledge that it was right for Adolin to kill Sadeas, but that it would have been better if he had a chance to redeem himself. Unfortunately, he never saw a need for redemption, which led to him getting killed. But a person's life is not just the sum total of their sins. Nor is it a sum total of their virtues. Its a chaotic mix of people living how they want to live, often with little regard as to what truly is the best way for them to live. All that to say, Dalinar has become a better man, and that can't be ignored. I wish Sadeas had become a better man as well, but I won't mourn his death, just as I would not have mourned Dalinar had he died at the rift.

Sure, just don't read the spoilers I wrote about in the margins. What's the worst thing to say when a server asks for your order?

But then you'll still have those naturally born with the power, thus circumventing the need to pay for it, and thus they might be seen as even more elite. After all, an bloodmaker would only need to buy the power to burn gold while others would need to buy both allomancy and feruchemy. Plus, if they have "safe" hemalurgy (which I'm personally against, but I understand its probably at some level inevitable because it's too tempting of a hack) a bloodmaker could sell their services. Essentially, you could have a bloodmaker born with nothing raise themself to prosperity by the time they're a teenager. Yes, F-gold is the most obviously useful, but even duralumin gnats would have their powers being sought out to make more medallions. The only power that seems like it wouldn't lead to wealth is A-aluminum, and that's only because we haven't yet found a use for it.

Copper, by far, followed by gold, then bendalloy.

Going back to the original question here, atium doesn't just provide a cosmetic change, it actually does make you younger. Yes, a person's spiritual aspect knows how old they should be, but it is temporarily suspended by the use of atium. If you have an infinite metalmind, you theoretically could stave off the effects forever. The issue comes in with this math: Say you're 40 and you want to be 20 again. Well, you draw from your supply of compounded atium and reverse your age 20 years. Easy enough considering atium seems to be very efficient with storing and tapping. 10 years later you're now 50, but you still want to be 20. Well, now rather than 20 years, you need to draw out 30. Again, not an issue, atium is still very efficient with how much you can tap. Move this forward to where you're now over 1000. To be young you need to tap centuries worth of youth. But, if you have a large enough metalmind, no big deal. But what happens when that metalmind is full? suddenly you have to add another one, then another one, then another one. Because you have to be drawing that youth 24/7, you need more and more metalminds to feed it. Think of it like gas powering an engine. A car's tank lasts a long time when you're going at 20 mph, but a much shorter time at 80. If you wanted to keep going though, you can just add another tank. By this logic, Rashek probably wasn't anywhere near his upper bounds, because he still only wore one (maybe two) metalmind(s). Now yes, there's the argument that maybe he couldn't compound fast enough to create the youth he needed, but I think that's drastically overestimating he amount of youth he needed. Yes, he theoretically needed 1,000 years per year of youth 24/7, but compounding is explicitly broken, as we see later in mistborn with some insane person that tapped speed a few hundred times to go super sonic.

It almost sounds like we're saying that frustration can be applied to almost any Shard. In other words, frustration is the true Intent from which all other Intents are formed!

This is an amazing explanation, great job. I'm reminded of the WoR letter, where Odium is described as, "He bears the weight of God's own divine hatred, separated from the virtues that gave it context." I've always found this quote interesting, because it implies that all the Shards hold (as I would describe them) "broken virtues." Divine hatred (also called wrath) often means justice, with the idea being that it is good for evil to be punished. Odium seems to be just the punishment without the justice, which actually might mean that if the Odium Shard merged with the Honor Shard you might have a possibility to get a Justice Shard. But that's neither here not there. The point is just that, as ftl said, the complexities of the Shards actually improve each other rather than hindering each other. It just happens the human (and possibly non-human) mind is not good at balancing the overwhelming presence of the intents.

It will be explained later.

I am aware he survived explosions. I mean, Miles would carry dynamite for the specific purpose of blowing himself up to escape bindings, But with a high enough power explosion, you could theoretically blast their body and their gold in different directions. Or just get the gold hot enough to evaporate it (though that would have to be very hot to do quickly.) I'm just saying that's more reasonable than other methods of harm. For example, basically no amount of bullets is going to hurt a Fullborn, but powerful enough explosions might. As for the bindpoints, I know those are hemalurgic. I'm pointing out that our current belief is that aluminum spikes remove all a person's powers, and so an aluminum frag grenade might hit a bindpoint and make one of the fragments a spike.

I think the only real way to kill a Fullborn by force alone is with powerful explosives, as you need to blast their gold away from them. The problem is, if a Fullborn knows what they're doing, they'll basically be living in bullet time and with beyond Daredevil senses as well as the ability to see trace metals. Its kind of hard to hide something from them and still get it close. I do think Elantrians could do it, but I think they'd need to set up a giant aon that turns gold into something else. But it would have to be huge, to the point I'm imagining Era 4 Elantrians having what are essentially orbital defense cannons designed to deter Fullborn, and that being considered the safest place in the Cosmere. I legitimately don't know that a radiant can hold enough investiture to soulcast a Fullborn's metalminds, and I certainly don't think they could do it fast enough to not get slaughtered. The best mundane option I can think of would be to create some kind of aluminum frag grenade and hope that when it explodes, one of the fragments hits a bindpoint and spikes their powers away. But yeah, Fullborn are terrifyingly powerful, and as I have said many times I shall say many more. They will be the Cosmere Equivalents of Kryptonians in Era 4.

Isn't it possible Renarin taught himself to read? He's a fairly clever guy, and if you know the basics of how reading is done, you might be able to work it out. Alternatively, he may have had a woman read a book he knew really well or something and then paid attention to where she started each time she turned a page, then reconstruct it in private by separating out the words. It would take a while, but I think it would work.

You may hate this answer, but potentially he saw what he was going to write in the future and them mimicked himself doing it without actually knowing what the writing meant, and so he learned to read so he could understand it.

I'm actually not so sure about this one, because I mean, where is the Stormfather? At some level I feel like at least part of him is joined with Dalinar's soul, and we know aluminum doesn't block all connection period, or walking into an aluminum room would clear your accent and friendships as your spiritual connections are left behind. But at the same time, spren are mostly cognitive entities and so I imagine their communication is as well, so I can't say with certainty if Dalinar could be cut off from the Stormfather or not. And if he can, would he lose his powers? or are those too deeply a part of him? I have to say, you asked an excellent question, Wadehart.

I do have to wonder if we here at the Shard occasionally put too much emphasis on the cognitive filter. Yes, I do believe its important, because otherwise everyone with healing would become a "biologically perfect" human, meeting the ideal of a perfect biological entity (I'm carefully avoiding the statement perfect human because I feel like that's too impersonal and has to much variety from individual to individual.) That said, healing is tapping into the spiritual ideal, and so that probably has some level of importance. I almost want to attribute the difference in regrowth and stormlight to them doing different things with the spiritual aspect of a person. For instance, let's say that regrowth works like what Dalinar did with the stones. He didn't regenerate the stone outward from itself, he reattached two pieces, and then removed the crack. What if (and I'm not saying I necessarily believe this) regrowth merely heals cracks in a spirit web, and reattaches two pieces together? Essentially, it takes connections between two parts of the spirit web and strengthens them, acting like stitches that pull the wounds together. Then you could potentially have stormlight healing work more like a lizard regenerating its tail or a scab forming, where new material is pushed over the wound, rather than old material being pulled back in place. It's not a perfect theory, but it essentially creates Mistborn style push and pull healing types, and might go to explain some differences inother wise very theoretically similar functions.

He might not need any more investiture during those times. Sure, we don't know the exact conversion of breaths and stormlight, but its fully possible that on Roshar he's actually having a gain of investiture over the year by drawing more than a single breath worth of stormlight each week. In which case, he'd have a decent stockpile for when he's in situations where he can't reinvest himself every week.

He fully held the Shard, he just wasn't physically, cognitively, or spiritually compatible with it.

Agreed on all accounts. I'm wondering if Sazed told them about Kel surviving the Catacendre or if he doesn't say what happened to him. If so, I could see the survivorists basically portraying him as a forerunner for various activities. Something like, "He survived the mists, and now he's claimed them for us. He survived the pits, so the Lord Mistborn survived the flames. Survived death, so Vin and Sazed became the Ascendants. Now he's surviving the Beyond, and one day we will too." Or something like that, I'm just coming up with this off the top of my head.

We are told that it does in Shadows of Self I believe. It's in the bit where they talk about MeLaan having not read any of Sazed's books. It is in fact used as a defense for Survivorism. Frankly I've just always been confused, because I figure Sazed would have included Kelsier starting a religion specifically to start a revolution, and it seems like that would create some theological issues. Not that they're irreconcilable, I just want to know how they deal with the record basically being, "Oh yeah, your god made that stuff up about his own divinity." Survivorists probably use his brief divinity to elevate him, showing that he is a good enough person to step down from divinity to allow someone else to follow in his footsteps or something. Really, I just want to know more about the religion in general.