HSuperLee

The word of the Propagandist has been taken on this. The conditions have been set, and the consequences shall be observed.

I feel like this is a real "what is the most important step a man can take" question.

I'm going to say yes. That's probably part of why they need so much mental training, since otherwise they might accidentally reinforce and thus accelerate the nightmare's stabilization.

Yumi's Planet How does the water cycle work? Presumably on a smaller scale. There are likely massive underground aquifers on large sections of the planet that feed the geysers that we saw in the reading. These geysers eventually erupt, sending tons of water into the air, where it eventually rises high enough to form clouds. Once the temperature massively drops in the evening, these clouds likely condense into rain or snow, or the water merely becomes dew on the ground. From there, the water either finds paths in the ground back to the aquifers, or it evaporates again and helps form the next day's clouds. Are the plants and animals themselves using Invested arts? Based on how big their plants are and the fact that to fly by "riding the thermals" alone would require that the plants be incredibly lightweight and have an immense surface area, I'm going to say they're likely invested. Probably some interaction with the spirits that helps reduce their effective weight to significantly below what it should be (another thing they'd have in-common with Roshar.) Painter's Planet What precisely are they eating? How does agriculture work in a lightless world? It was mentioned that plants grow towards the hion lines, which means they produce enough light for the local plants to thrive. Its possible each city thus allocates a large area to specialized farm space using the hion lines to maintain a food supply. How is oxygen made without photosynthesis? Said plants growing off of hion lines likely generate the oxygen for the planet. It has yet to be seen if the darkness is permeable, but I assume it is. What is the point of having many cities? There's probably a couple reasons related to logistics and infrastructure that would make a megacity more difficult to sustain, but probably the most significant reason is that having that many people together would mean that there'd be a constant flow of many nightmares, and that the city would be so complicated that patrolling and defending it from them would be exceptionally difficult if not impossible. Why isn't the planet covered in ice? How does thermoregulation work? ILuvHats provided an excellent explanation for this. Especially since this planet seems to share a system with Yomi's world, and thus the sun seems to be very hot, which might offset the coolness caused by the darkness. Further, the darkness might have an insulating effect, again going back to its permeability, which would possibly then cause the opposite issues with heating, but I'm not sure how that would work out over such a massive scale.

I'm fascinated by the idea of this Shard. I know we can't really ascribe any one Shard to be the embodiment of a spiritual trait, but we've seen that Honor seems to be, or at least tends to manifest, close to Connection. It seems like Virtuosity might then be just as closely entangled with Intention. After all, the only difference between a pattern created by the wind or water eroding stone and the artist cutting it away is the intent behind the act of creation. The implications are fascinating, and this book may end up teaching us quite a lot about the mechanics behind Intent, just as from Stormlight we're learning more and more about the mechanics of Connection.

Alright, I am extremely excited about this one. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did, but now I'm going to be on pins and needles until it is released. I love the world building, and the feel of both of the planets, and I'm fascinated by the implications for the broader Cosmere. Also, I'm worried about Hoid. I understand that people seem to think Hoid froze himself in time, but there's no small part of me that is worried it was inflicted on him. Especially since this might be one of the only ways to incapacitate Hoid since he can't be killed and can probably escape most forms of entrapment.

Apparently I am that fan that was making it not a circle.

I think it comes down to the fact that F-Gold heals the damage a disease or sickness can do to you, but it doesn't actually enhance your immune system. The result is that whatever is infecting you might die out faster, since it isn't able to alter your body enough to use as a breeding ground, but it isn't actively being wiped out by anything but a standard immune system. F-Gold can keep you from getting sick, and can allow you to act healthy when you're not, but as soon as you stop tapping, the remaining illness survives and progresses as normal. In the case of parasites, you'd probably only gain a benefit if you tapped long enough to starve them out, and even that might not work depending on the progression of the parasite (its a rather complex and diverse category of creatures). Other medicines would almost certainly be better at dealing with them than F-Gold. Heck, depending on how exactly Identity works with microbial organisms, F-Brass might be better, since you could potentially heat up your body to the point they burn alive inside of you.

Man, now you're making me think about what could happen if you start storing Identity while wielding Nightblood. I wonder if a feruchemist could feed Nightblood enough that you blank your identity, and thus allow Nightblood to temporarily "possess" them while being wielded. Hm. That's a terrifying possibility.

I believe its specifically mentioned that after his death an autopsy couldn't find any hidden goldminds on his body. I'd need someone with access to the book to check, but I believe that we're supposed to find it really odd and disturbing that he could keep healing for a while even without his goldminds. Checking the WoBs, the best answer I could find is that he'd become some kind of feruchemical savant, and that's why he was somehow able to heal without metalminds. Which is weird to me, since in allomancy we see people get weaker when separated from their power source, which I'd think would apply to feruchemists as well, but apparently that might not be the case. WoB in question:

You'd need some way to "tune" the stormlight for a specific metal effect. Theoretically this could be done with Intent, like when burning the Mists, but I suspect it is more likely that you'd have to find some way to trick the stormlight into being more like a metal. Perhaps giving it Harmony's Tone could work, but I have no idea if that would hold once its removed from a laboratory setting.

Its implied that kandra can control their DNA, so they'd just undo any damage done to it. Yes, this bothers me greatly, but it is what it is.

I didn't necessarily think he was going to die, but I could see a situation where the Honorspren condemned him to some kind of life imprisonment. Which I figured would lead to Shallan created a breakout attempt, and then Adolin refusing to go with her, hoping that by accepting the condemnation, he might be able to honorspren's minds, as well as not wanting to further alienate them by going against their laws. I wasn't sure exactly how that would end, though.

So, its kinda hard to answer all your questions without spoiling stuff, so just keep going. One thing that's safe to answer is the rapid aging thing. And the truth is, we don't know, and last he was asked, Sanderson doesn't know. Mistborn Final Empire Spoilers: Note though that this was 4 years ago, so things might have been settled by now.

The fact they're electrically resistant to me seems to be the largest indicator that they likely can adapt to resist radiation, though it might not be possible for dead plate.

I'm actually okay with Aon Dor. That takes years of study and practice to master, and often requires dedicated time to set up specific or especially powerful effects, plus its balanced by being location-locked. And even without the location lock, I'm not sure I would dislike it as much as the win button that is soulcasting.

And here we got Trusk, giving me even more reasons to dislike how powerful soulcasting is written.

People often lean towards Devotion being the opposite of Odium, which makes a lot of sense to me. We also do know that not all Shards have opposites. Now, I do hope that more Shards have actual opposites, because I find the idea really interesting. Especially since all Shards used to be one being, meaning that all the opposites are inherently complimentary, even if they don't always seem like it.

I believe, though I cannot check, that they also remark on how humans are basically in all forms all the time. Which means that perhaps a human growing a gemheart would actually cause a reduction, or better said a specialization, of human traits. So a human who grew a gemheart via hemalurgy might find that their secondary sexual characteristics decrease when not in mateform and return to their original manifestations when they enter it. Now, there might be some heightening effect, as the energy that humans normally put into "being all forms at once" can suddenly be focused into a more narrow field, but I doubt that it would be as bombastic as what happens when singers go from dullform to any other.

This should probably be moved to the Cosmere thread if you're going to talk about general spoilers.

Yes. Each builds off of the previous. It really is easier to consider them as being a novel in three parts rather than three separate novellas.

I actually agree with pretty much everything you said here, but I think it suggests that there's more going on with the Set than Sazed allowing them to exist because it in some way leads to more Harmony. We can't forget that somehow Trell is involved, and a lot of Sazed's attention is directed to whatever that red mist thing is. But Sazed also said (or at least implied) that, in general, he does prevent the worst outcomes from ever happening, so that most people were never aware they were possibilities to begin with. Because we only see things from the human character's perspectives, we don't actually know what exactly Sazed has done in his time as god of Scadrial. For all we know, he has prevented some really really bad stuff from happening and his inability to deal with the Set is due to the intervention of other Shardic activity.

I do think Harmony has more freedom of action than he lets on. It seems to me that at least part of his hands off approach to Scadrial is by choice rather than by inability. He defines the combined Intent of his Shards as, "The point is Harmony, creating a way for as many as possible to make their own choices." There are a lot of possible directions this idea could be taken, and Sazed seems to have chosen the one that will allow the Scadrians to "grow up" the most. When he first ascended, Harmony meant creating a world where people could make decisions, opposed to being, you know, dead due to volcanic destruction. Unfortunately, he believes he overdid it by creating a paradise, and now, when people have all the resources necessary to make whatever decisions they want, they instead choose to be relatively stagnant. There are many paths that create ways for people to make their own choices, but Sazed now seems to want them to have an incentive to make the right decisions. He and Wax discussed a hypothetical situation where Harmony makes all resources unlimited, replenishing anything that is taken and erasing the consequences caused by the overtaxing and pollution that results. I genuinely believe Harmony could do that. It wouldn't violate his Intent because he'd be giving everyone more resources to make more decisions. But instead he has chosen inaction, which seems to be something he can do as a result of holding two opposing Intents. This is where I agree with KaladinWorldsinger, in that Sazed's sanity is a massive over other Shards in that he can choose not to act. I'm not so sure other Shards are capable of that. I won't go into Cosmere spoilers since this is in the mistborn fourm, but basically, the fact that Sazed isn't constantly driven to act out his Intent like Ruin was is probably more of a blessing than we'd usually consider it, simply because we're used to being able to do nothing. Sure, there are many things Sazed can't do, but he does still have the option of saying, "My Intent isn't helpful here, so I'm going to pull back slightly and let others do what must be done." That is not to be overlooked.

Interestingly, this does have some more potential once we get to space age for Kandra to start expanding once they get yo 0-g's. In 0-gs, they wouldn't need to worry about weight at all, and if they can find a way to survive in a vacuum, possibly by having a double cadmium medallion, then they can really spread out their volume, giving them a large amount of control over heat retention and radiation. I don't know quite what the implications of this would end up being, especially since they'd run into lots of other problems, such as an increased need for food, but otherwise, Kandra in space can get big.

I've been having those exact thoughts for years. In general, Sanderson seems t want kandra shapeshifting to occur on the genetic level, and I really hate that because the implications for that level of control is that kandra really should be able to make their own bones. Among many other potentially really powerful possibilities.