Tglassy

I think y'all are underestimating how quickly a round from a tank is moving. A bullet from a Tank is shot at over 4,000 ft per second. That's nearly a mile. Per second. Despite how they are written, Radant's are not anime characters. They will not be swinging their swords and slicing missiles and bullets out of the air. There will be no "I soulcast the bullets into nothing as it's flying towards me". 4,000 ft per second. PER SECOND. It's just too fast. A Fullborn, sure. A Bondsmith who manages to slow down time by a factor of 15 as Frustration is always talking about, maybe. 4,000/15 is 266.57 ft per second, so that way it's onlyl crossing a freaking football field in a second's time. May have some time to move out of the way if they're a thousand feet out. But anything else? I'm sorry, but there is no response to Tanks on Roshar. There is no response to jets. Or computer controlled drones firing self guided missiles. Reverse Lashings work on free flying arrows, but those are flying at fairly slow speeds compared to a tank bullet or a missile from a jet, and even if it could veer the missle off course a bit, it would just correct itself. At the current level of tech on all the worlds, there is nothing that can compare to what mankind has made in the last hundred years. Now, that will change, as shown by the new Tress book. Once they start having personal computers with usable AI's, things will change dramatically. Once Brandon gets into Era 3, this entire conversation could very well up and change course. But as of right now, if you bar Earth from the CR, then the only thing they can do is attack us from the CR. If Earth is like Roshar, with all the beads, then good luck finding things to soulcast, but it probably isn't. Not sure what it WOULD be like. Roshar is beads becasue spheres are their currency so that's always on their minds. Scadrial is like mist because the Mists play such an important part of their mental state. So our world would be...no idea. Probably exlectic. Our cultures are too diverse. Also, pretty sure Radiants would have a hard time just breathing in our atmosphere.

Well, what happened in Sel was their Souls were no longer Connected to the power correctly. Aons are natural phenomena, they are tied to the landscape. When the landscape changed, so did the Aons. The City was meant to funnel and harvest that power, and those Connected to it could wind up being chosen as Elantrians. When the land changed, the Aons changed, and thus the City was no longer complete. The Connection was there, but broken. It was like a power cord with a chink in it. Enough got through to start the change, but not enough to finish it. So if that's what's happening in Roshar, then EVERYTHING was connected to BAM. Except the Listeners. They broke off. And apparently she could generate Voidlight. That meant she had a direct connection to Odium's power. She...could create Voidlight...like teh Sibling creates Towerlight...or the Stormfather creates Stormlight... Wow. BAM is Odium's child. Huh. That makes so much sense. Anyway, that's a side point. BAM was like a little Odium. She learned to touch the Spiritual Realm and draw Voidlight from it. But...how did she learn this? Did she, perhaps...figure out how to add Odium's song to the Pure Tones of Roshar? Perhaps while Odium was gone, during the False Desolation, she actually managed to Connect Roshar to Odiuim's power, thus creating a new Tone. One that she Connected to, and used to Connect to everything else. Maybe that's why the Sibling can't hear the Tones. She doesn't accept that Odium's Tone is one of the True Tones of Roshar. Also, Honor's dead, but still. So if BAM Connected Roshar to Odium's power, then she fundamentally altered the way the world worked. But she was the centerpoint. She was what connected Roshar to the Tone of Odium. That Tone then saturated the world, altering things, like the Spren. No longer were the Spren just a mix of Honor and Cultivation. They are now all three. Then BAM Connected herself to all the Singers, to grant them Forms of Power, like Odium did. And then...she was captured. Cut off from everything. But the world had already been altered. Only, it no longer had access to Odium's power. The third True Tone, the one that had permeated and Invested the world, was no longer present. The Spren, who were now a mix of all three powers, could no longer hear Odium's Tone. Which meant they were missing a vital part of themselves. It would be like if you grafted a second heart to your body, and your body became dependant on that second heart to survive. If it was then removed, then you are now missing something vital, something you had adapted to rely on. For most Spren, it didn't do much. But to those who broke their Oaths, they became Deadeyes. They couldn't recover, because they are already missing a major portion of themsleves. Ripping out the Nahel Bond became the final nail in the coffin. The Singers lost their Connection to their Cognitive selves, because they were all Connected to BAM and the True Tone of Roshar. They no longer can hear it, no longer can think. It was only when Odium himself came in the Everstorm and reconnected to them that they regained access. And...the Deadeyes are responding, now. Maybe it isn't just that Adolin is Connecting to Maya as to why she is waking up. Maybe she's waking up faster because of it, but the other Deadeyes were acting strange at Lasting Integrity. Maybe it's because the third True Tone of Roshar is now, feintly, being heard again. The missing part of their souls. But this would mean that the Sibling was also likewise corrupted by the third True Tone. Having Honor die and the Third Tone silenced hurt its ability to generate Towerlight. Freeing BAM may fix a lot of those issues, but could bring Odium even closer to Roshar, restoring that connection and all three Tones.

Denied. This isn't balanced, this is basically saying "Obviously Earth would win because we have a bigger population by many orders of magnitude, so we're just going to arbitrarily give everyone else an arbitrary boost in numbers that their cultures and societies can't sustain becasue reasons." No. They get the populations they have. Then we're doing the same for Earth, which means Earth can access the CR through our technology. Great. Infinite Investiture for everyone else, which is the primary limiting factor for all the other worlds. So what I'm hearing is that the only way for anyone in the Cosmere to win is to artificially increase their numbers, basically cheese the CR, in a fashion we haven't actually seen anyone do even though they've had war after war, assume that each planet has infinite access to their own Investiture, can come and go from the CR at will, but doesn't have to because they can just kill everyone from the CR. Based on a deleted scene. No, you can't say we're getting rid of location locks and then say the Earthlings can't get to the CR. We can say it was uninhabitted before the Cosmerenauts got there, but earth has to have the ability to get to and from the CR if you're going to give all the other planets infinite amounts of investiture and free them from their respective worlds. So in this case, here's what I'd say: Earth wins. Every time. Just start tossing Nukes into the CR until everyone is dead. The end. Explosions in the CR don't affect the PR. They'd have no way of countering. "Oh Oh Soulcasting!" No, i'm sorry, but no. It's difficult for a soulcaster to soulcast a freaking rock. How the h*** are they going to soulcast something as complicated as a Nuclear Bomb? I don't buy it and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise. Baring nukes, Earth would wind up creating military bases in the CR, and set up missiles, air force bases, and other such defenses. Within a year our CR would be well defended against invaders. The only chance anyone in the Cosmere has would be to surprise us and nuke the planet or something, and you only get that if you give them infinite investiture and infinite ways to get to and from the CR, which is unrealistic. I'm sorry, but nothing in the Cosmere will be able to compete with what we can do. Elantreans have laptops! So do we. Nalthians have Returned! We have grenade launchers. Mistborn! Grenade launchers. Feruchemists! Grenade Launchers. Radiants with plate! Grenade launchers. Or just replace Grenade Launchers with satalite guided missiles, and no, they don't have to "Check the satalite and that takes time." The computer handles all that. You tell the computer "Target the enemy and launch a missle" and they do it. We can send a missle five hundred miles away and shove it up some poor dude's cornhole. There's nothing in the cosmere that can even try to go against that. The only way to even remotely make it fair is to give so many advantages to the other worlds as to ruin any kind of comparison.

That's it. I'm done. @Frustration, you have frustrated me for the last time. Your arguments are circular, you fan boy your favorite so hard you are actually incapable of seeing a point that makes the subject of your fanboyness be anything less than perfect, you twist the very definition of words to fit your criteria and to make sure your answer is correct and everyone else is "just being illogical." You say, at the same time, that having access to more investiture measn youu're more powerful, but that Miles isn't more powerful, even though he's been compounding his Investiture for years and basically has an infinite battery while Was only has what is in his steel at the time, but for some reason having a near infinite battery vs an extremely small bettery isn't more powerful. I'm done. I'm muting you on this forum. You can't have an intelligent conversation and I can't resist answering when someone is being intellectually dishonest, thus giving myself high blood pressure. Thank you for making the "Ultimate who would win" thread, as that took a lot of work and I absolutely love that kind of thing, but I can't read your posts anymore. Enjoy the books in your way. I'm out.

The visions? No. Those aren't senses. They're glimpses into the Spitural Realm. But Lifesense, yes, I believe there's a WOB about that. Balance, possibly. Pain, yes. Who knows what else. A Tin Twinborn is insanely powerful. You basically become Daredevil, only with amazing vision as well.

Pewter is just too powerful. Steel is a close second for me, but Pewter gives strength, healing, speed, balance, toughness, everything. You literally just get better at everything while burning it. And it isn't that expensive, so you just keep it on a low burn at all times.

WE might SPECULATE that Dalinar has powers, but DALINAR has no freaking idea what he can do, and thereofre, cannot do them. You do not KNOW that as a 3rd Oath Bondsmith that he can just strip someone of the Oathpact. That may take the 5th Oath, for all we know. It is entirely speculative. However, we KNOW that Nale not only has access to Plate and Division, but he also KNOWS how to use them to the utmost degree. If you didn't fanboy Dalinar so much, maybe we could have actual conversations. Miles LITERALLY has access and the ability to use more Investiture than Wax ever will. So by your own definition, yes, Miles is more powerful. But Dalinar is limited by his Oath level, and Ishar isn't. Ishar is unchained. Dalinar still has abilities he can't access because he hasn't said the right words. That's not Unchained. That's litearlly, actually, not even figuratively chained. Even if the Stormfather said he WOULD be a "Bondsmith unchained", that doesn't mean he currently is. And even if he was, as said before, Dalinar has no freaking cluse what he can do. he's stumbling along by accident, while Ishar has been an "Unchained Bondsmith" for thousands of years.

And yet, you added "can make a singularity" into a list of assets.

If Misting, Iron probably. Just useful to have. Flight's not a big deal, but being able to pull metal to your hand is cool. Lots of uses. If Ferring, probably Copper. But maybe Zinc. Hard to say. For Compounding, Tin. Having an infinite amount of every sense, but only when you want it, is insane. You basically become Daredevil with super vision.

If a Misting, Pewter. Just so much there. And it isn't all that expensive. If a Ferring, I suprised myself and went Electrum. Determination...yeah, that's something I need. The ability to Focus. I can store some of it most of the time and tap it when I want to write. If Compounder, I went with Steel, even though I usually say Pewter. Reason being is if I'm Compounding Steel, I also have Steelpushes, and having those twos great. Pewter is a very, very close second right now, though.

It's not entirely clear, but we do know a few things. The theory is that when storing it, your Connection to people and places degrades quickly. That's your bonds with people, such as friendships and relationships and the like. People would kinda forget about you, your bond with them becoming weaker. Or at the very least, your ability to MAKE such relationships and bonds would be harder. Someone or something trying to connect to you would be difficult. One thing that comes to mind is that if a Spren were to try to bond you while storing Connection, it would be harder to do. On the other hand, tapping Connection makes you able to form these bonds faster. People will connect with you easier. One thing we've seen this used for is the Medallions, where they used Connection to learn new languages. If you tap Connection while in a new area, your soul will Connect with the area, and you will speak the language of the area. There could be other uses, such as creating Spren Bonds easier, but that's all we've really seen.

Pretty sure I didn't. I'm still wondering what your definition of "Power" is. Did you read the same book I did? Even Kel was afraid of Inquisitors. Having a variety of powers doesn't make one MORE powerful. Nale is a herald with 5000+ years of experience. And Nale ALSO has Division, and is of the 5th ideal. Which means he has Plate that he apparently keeps invisible. Right, casue that obviously worked in the books. I forgot that chapter. How does...how does that even make sense? Oh, the Inquisitors didn't display all their abilities, so they obviously didn't have them. My goodness. Why do I even get into these conversations with you? He adapted to fighting people who were stronger and better fighters than he was. Only she didn't, because she didn't draw from it. She was wearing her earing. He displayed more powers, but Power has more to do with than how many powers you have. Power has more to do with than just the amount of Investiture you can draw on. This was not the first time that a character faced off against someone who was objectively more powerful than they were. The books are littered with characters fighting people way over their pay grade. Some times they win, sometimes they don't. AND EVEN IF Dumad was "more powerful" than Wax, if that's the case, he was also "More powerful" than Wayne, and Wayne beat him. The amount of power has nothing to do with it. It's how that power is applied that matters.

You keep using the word Sacrifice. I do not think that word means what you think it means. She didn't sacrifice anyone. She got them killed through her naivete. That's not the same thing. And each time it happened, she changed her tactics. She's not even twenty years old. She has no idea what she's doing. She's stumbling along trying to figure it out. Hell, she doesn't even know who SHE is at this point. Most of the stuff she's "Done for the Ghostbloods" were things she was already going to do. If you're getting ready to go to the grocery store, and I come up and say "Hey, I need you to go get yourself groceries. It's part of my plans. All you have to do is what you were going to do in the first place", does that mean you're "working for me?" No. You were already going to the grocery store to get yourself groceries. What does that have to do with me? Just because I was a creep who for some reason wants you to go get yourself groceries. Beside, she can always honestly say "I was trying to root them out so we could expose them." Cause that was the original reason she joined up with them.

And...when exactly has that ever happened in any of the books? I wasn't aware the Spren could just manifest themselves as anything you want even if you're not touching them. Silly me, every time i've seen them manifest it was into something the Radiant was holding, but I must have missed all those other chapters where they randomly manifested elsewhere.

Imma call bull on pretty much all of that. What exactly is your definition of power? How, exactly, does Tonk Fah not have more power when he's twice her size and knows more than she does? The Inquisitors clearly were more powerful than Vin at that points. Yes, they had the actual powers, but by no means was Vin their equal. She got her a** handed to her, and there would be no other outcome. And how on Earth does Dalinar have more power than a Herald of the 5th ideal with his own Honorblade? He has DIFFERENT powers, but by no means is he stronger than a Herald. There are Twinborn and there are Twinborn. Nothing Wax could do could even inconvenience Miles for more than a second. And he tried. For an entire book. Wax literally had nothing that could stop him. In the end, it wasn't Wax that stopped him, but Marasi. How is that "being on the same level of power"? I get that if you're talking pure amounts of Investiture then sure, these match ups had similar amounts, but that isn't what "Power" means. Power is a lot of things. The Inquisitors were very much more powerful than Vin in many ways. Their Allomancy was stronger, they had access to some Feruchemy, and she was untrained. In every way possilbe, they were more powerful, in book one at least. For Denth and Vasher, yeah, they were both Returned and Vasher had more breaths, but that didn't matter. Denth should have won. He was the better swordsman. He was faster and more talented. Therefore, Denth was the more powerful of the two. Vasher had to use a trick to win. Technically, he had to make Denth more powerful, investiture-wise, by giving him Breaths to shock his system, in order to beat him. But not everything is measured in the amount of Investiture you have. And even so, Dumad wasn't more powerful than Wax in that regard, etiher. He had more abilities, but Inquisitors have more abilities than a Mistborn, and you're apparently thinking that doesn't count. So what exactly is your point?

Alright. Well, tapping Connection to learn languages and creating Invested Armor/Weapons doesn't require other people.

Did...did y'all read the same books I did? I feel like this has become a regular question for me. First, I thought the fact that he was no longer fit for duty was kind of the entire point of RoW? Like, it's a massive plot point. The whole point, actually. He can't do it. He freezes up too much. He can't separate his Oaths from his Duty, and he can't help but see everyone as someone he needs to protect. The moment in OB when Moash kills Elokhar, Kal was literally watching his men kill his men. They were all his people. He'd decided to protect all of them, as his Oath required. So who was he supposed to fight? He broke at that point. His mind literally broke. That's what Mental Illness is. He couldn't cope. He couldn't deal. He broke. He was not fit for leadership from that point on, and should have been relieved from duty on the spot. But he wasn't, not because he's a Coward, but because he's an amazing, inspiring, extraordinarily talented leader. He took men who were less than nothing and made them into one of the most elite fighting forces on the planet. He constantly puts himself into harms way to save others. And g**d***it, he was in the grips of the most severe Depression of his life in the Tower, and yet he still found the courage to stand up and became Kaladin Stormblessed one more time. I don't know if you understand the courage it takes to do that when you have to deal with the things Kal has to deal with. I don't have PTSD, but I do deal with Depression on a daily basis, and makes you believe you are worthless, that everything you do means nothing, and there is no point to moving forward. Sometimes simply standing up and washing some dishes takes so much mental fortitude that I nearly give up. Kal deals with that AND the PTSD, which has scared his soul to the point where he can't make decisions anymore. If there's any ambiguity on who he's supposed to protect, he can't function. And that's literally the point of the fourth book. It isn't to show he's a coward, and quite frankly I am extremely insulted, personally, that you would make that insinuation that someone dealing with mental heal issues is a coward. It's to show HIS COURAGE. It was to show what he's dealing with, that his pain and his scars are real, that they are affecting his life and his men, but that IT"S OK. THERE IS NO SHAME in being asked to step down becaues of your scars. War wounds all people. It is a horrible, horrible thing. And yeah, others went through things that could be considered "Worse" than Kal did. But that doesn't matter. They didn't have Kal's heart, nor his experiences, nor his mental health. They didn't make the same oaths he did, meet the same people, come to care for them, and then watch them murder each other, all while having the heart of someone who CARES. By the end of book four, Kal is the most brave character I've read. Not because he stands up to the Fused or can beat the Pursuer without powers. Not because he swears the fourth ideal and becomes a god among men. But becasue he stood up, at the end, to become Kaladin Stormblessed one more time, while in the grips of Depression and believing deep in his soul that he just didn't have anything left to give. Because all he wanted was for it to be over. And he could have it be over any time he wanted to. And when he lept to his death...that's not cowardice. It's despiration. It's being so overwhelmed that you just need an end. You just need to be done with it. Nothing matters. Nothing is real. It all just needs to end and he just couldn't deal anymore. He had just lost his best friend, murdered by his other best friend, who he could have stopped if he hadn't been so broken. So his friend's death was his fault. He completely understood and internalized this. He may as well have been the one to kill him. Then he watched his father thrown over the side of the tower. The man who taught him, the man who was always there as a child. The one man who stood up to Rashon, who helped people regardless of who they were. The one person in the Tower who didn't deserve to be killed, and he was because of Kaladin. If Kal had listened from the begiinning, Lirin would have been safe. And so he lept after him, knowing he couldn't save him, and welcoming the end at the bottom. That's not cowardice. It just isn't. It's brokenness. It's being unable to see or think clearly because the Darkness inside blacks out everything else. It's the REASON Dalinar took him off duty. Because he understood what was happening. That this Darkness would consume Kal if he didn't have a chance to heal. If he ever did heal. He needed that time, and he needed that closure that the conversation with Tien gave him. He needed to forgive himself, which is something those going through Depression need above all. They need to have compoassion for themselves. To understand they are not worthless just because they are broken. That's what the fourth oath was all about. Forgiving himself that he couldn't protect people. "I accept there are people I cannot protect". It's the same thing as "I forgive myself for not being able to protect them." Do you know what that tells people who read this book who suffer from the same things Kal does? It tells them there is a silver lining. That they can become better. That pushing forward is worth it. And those people can use that to help push against the Darkness when it tells its lies. If you are unable to understand the Darkness and what it is like to live with day in and day out, then I guess you can look at Kal and think him a coward. People have often told those with Depression "It's all in your head" and "Just get over it". As if their feelings aren't real. If you've never been there, then I envy you. But the courage shown by Kaladin Stormblessed may very well have saved my life when I was at my lowest.

So I hate to burst your bubble, cause having Awakened Wings does sound super awesome, but there's something else Awakening can do that would do this better. It can make things spin. That's it. That's the cornerstone of all of our technology. Or at least, a large portion of our technology. Make something spin on command, and at different speeds. The basic Motor. Put it on an axle of a wagon and you have a car. Put it on a few blades and you have a fan. Put it on a generator and you make electricity. But get this. Awakener's don't need fuel after using the Breath. It's self sustaining. You might have to come up with a way to do it not using metal, but if you could make an Awakened Motor, simply making something spin, fast enough, you could make a car without the need for fuel. Just something that allows for resisstance. Breaks, basically. The gas petal releases the break, allowing it to spin. The brake petal increases resistance, making it slow and stop. That's it. A car that runs perpetually without fuel. An electric Generator that doesn't need fuel. It just continually generates electricity. Infinite energy, via the power of Awakening. If the object itself ever wears out, you just take the Breaths back and get a new object. Which is honestly just a length of cloth. Then just make helicopter blades. Add in some controls that let you determine how fast it goes (pull this lever makes faster, pull this lever makes slower) and the rest is all about aiming, which doesn't even need to be awakened. You can make an Awakened Helicopter. An Awakened Jet Engine. An Awakened Motorboat. None of it needing refueling after using the initial Breaths, which you can probably take back. So if I have my own car, and I know the commands, I can awaken it or not whenever I please. No need to leave your Breaths in a vehicle when it could be stolen. Again, I'm not sure exactly how you'd make the motor. It would probably have to do with cloth or wire or rope or whatever designed in such a way to spin something. But, I mean, we can make a hamster wheel with something inside designed to spin it, I'm sure you could make something like that and not need the 9th Heightening's ability to Awaken Steel.

A few things I would note is that you don't need bracers, you need metal. A Feruchemist can create an entire suit of armor that would be resistant to Shardblades, as long as it was invested enough. For someone who is not compounding, Iron would be best, as storing weight isn't much of a detriment, but a Feruchemist with what is essentially plate armor made up of various metals would be extremely difficult to defeat. They can also create weaopns that can deflect Shardblades. I don't think it would make them supernaturally sharp, but at the very least Shardblades wouldn't cut right through them. And they'd be repositories of attributes, for an emergency. And let's not forget Unkeyed Metalminds. A full Feruchemist can create an Unkeyed metalmind of any kind of metalmind they want to. Medallions are iffy, becasue we don't know exactly how they're made, but at the very least, they could have a team of Feruchemists or Ferrings storing attributes for them. In fact, I'm sure there are all kinds of things a Feruchemist could do allon their own. They can manipulate Connection, Identity, and Investiture. Pretty sure they're the only ones in the Cosmere who can naturally do all of them. Oh. Tapping Connection lets them learn the language of the area they are visiting, making them perfect Ambassadors or spies. They can also heal from being spiked, if I'm not mistaken. So technically, you could spike one while they're tapping Gold, creating a Hemalurgic Spike, and they'd heal right up and you'd still have a Hemalurgic Spike. No need to kill anyone. They can create an army of Ferrings. Ferrings they can use to store attributes for them without even making an Unkeyed Metalmind. I feel like Feruchemists have a lot more going for them than Allomancers, evne if Allomancers are the more flashy ones.

Well, not exactly. Vin tries fighting Steel Inquisitors and nearly dies. She spends weeks recovering, even with Pewter. Kel, too. He barely gets away after fighting them. Later, Kel kills one, and Vin and Elend wind up going toe to toe with many, but that's later. Vin was barely trained, and the Inquisitor took her apart. Vin goes up against Shan Elarial, who has been a mistborn longer than she has, and is therefore more trained, and wins. Everyone is surprised, but Shan is able to counter everything Vin can throw at her, and she has to adapt by turning off her Atium, tricking Shan into thinking Vin had none left. So she used her wits to beat her. They may have had the same powers, but Shan was the more accomplished Mistborn. Kal, before he was aware of his bond with Syl, fought a guy in Shardplate with a Shardblade and killed him straight up. I'd say the guy was a lot more powerful than Kal at that moment, even if Kal was just starting to draw in Stormlight. Terevangian fought Odium, though in a different way. A little old man, with no intellect whatsoever, saw the flaw in Odium's plans and manipulated the situation to get Nightblood and Odium in the same place, even if it didn't quite go off like he wanted, and he managed to basically kill a god. Kal, Dalinar and Adolin all fought Szeth, and were taken apart. The only reason they even survived was because Szeth saw Kal use stormlight and freaked out. If he'd kept his cool, he could have taken them all apart. All he'd have needed to do was leave Kal on the ground and fly back up to get Dalinar. Kal won the next time they fought, but only because he'd ranked up to 3rd Ideal with his own Blade. Vasher fought Denth, who was the better swordsman, and won by sacrificing Breaths, something no one ever even thinks about doing. He figured out an adaptation to beat those who are better fighters than him. Otherwise, he'd have lost. Vivvena used Awakening to awaken Tong Fa's coat to get him off her. Tong Fa is a lot stronger and more powerful than she is, she just surprised him. She also used the Command she heard to tell the Lifeless guy to attack Denth. Everyone there was more powerful than she was, but she still managed to fight them off. Hrathen against Dilaf (forgive my spelling, I'm an audiobook listener). Dilaf was a full Dakor Monk, Hrathan only had one arm. Hrathan won because of surprise. Miles Hundredlives was arguably more powerful than Wax. Nothing Wax did affected him hardly at all. They had to trick him with Marasi's power and overwhelming numbers to take him down. Lift vs Nale. He's a Harald, and she survived him twice. He vastly outmatched her in every possible way. Heck, Dalinar vs Nale in RoW. It was quick, and Szeth was there to help, but still. So no, this isn't the first time in the cosmere that the characters went up against someone who was more powerful or stronger than them and it required them to adapt on the fly. It was a good fight, though. I think it was so good because they were equally matched, not that Dumad was more powerful. Dumad had different powers, but those powers together matched Wax. It wasn't Kal vs Szeth or Kel vs an Inquisitor. In those cases, it was basically two people with the same powers fighting to see who was better. In this case, they had DIFFERENT abilities, but those abilities were complimentary. Wax could increase his weight to steelpush, Dumad could use Duralumin, etc.

Perhaps there is water on the Spore sea floor. It's constantly feeding the Spores. That could be where the Seething comes from. The Zephyr Spores turn into air. They hit the water at the bottom of the sea, explode into air, and are compressed throughout the planet. Or perhaps fall through a cave system into a vast underground ocean litered with cave systems, turn into air, and explode out all the cave systems into the rest of the world, thus creating the Seething.

I think that stems from the idea of having a "Unfair advantage" on people, but in the end, life just isn't fair. Some people have unfair advantages. I can reach the top shelf of pretty much any store. My wife can't. But she can get out of a police ticket a lot easier than I can. It's sort of like Adolin saying he has an unfair advantage when it comes to dueling. He has a large build, so his reach is further. He's had the best teachers money can buy. He's a nobleman, so he has time to do nothing but pratice and doesn't have to deworm fields. And he's naturally talented at it to boot. Someone famous said that there are thousands upon thousands of mozarts, picassos, and utterly brilliant artists out in the world, but the vast, vast majority of them will never be discovered because they never picked up a paintbrush or tried learning to play the piano. Adolin has the perfect storm when it comes to Dueling, and much of it just isn't fair. But that's life. That's just how it is. You use the talents you were given. If you know your spouse gets anxious and overwhelmed by a dirty bedroom, but because they're overwhelmed they can't summon the energy to clean it, and therefore are always overwhelmed, then you could clean the room for them to relieve their anxiety. Or, if you were a Soother, you could just ease the Anxidty directly, thus allowing them to clean the room themsleves and overcome that hangup. The only area that I sort of agree with you is sex. While the analogy does potentially hold, as some people are just better at arousing other people than others are, it does feel a little like drugging someone if you're spiking their arousal and dampening their reservations. Getting a date may be fine, but anything further and I'd feel like I was doing something wrong. I think the target would need to be aware before I'd use it for those purposes. Like, informing them you can do this and asking for permission to help them get in the mood if they're the type to always let other emotions and feelings stop them from enjoying themselves. Which does exist. Some people just can't get out of their own head enough to let themsleves go, even when they want to. Having a Soother as a partner would help with that, but I think Consent is a little more necessary in that situation. I think the effects would be more psychological. If anyone was a savant, Breeze would have been. He Soothed everyone he came into contact with. I know Spook had to flair tin for a year or two before he became a Savant, but Breeze had been Soothing every person he came across for decades. He had a psychological compulsion to do it. He could never just let people be.

I posted this a while back. I stand by it.

Honestly, I kind of agree with breeze. There are charismatic people who can do this with words and actions. They can talk you into anything. Some people who make their living selling things literally study the psychology, so they know how to act and talk to make you trust them so they'll buy your goods. And before you say "That's unethical", the advice you typically get when trying to learn how to sell is "Be honroable, be respectful, and believe in your product. Don't sell something you think isn't a good product, and make sure it's something they need." It isn't about manipulating people, it's typically about showing them they have a need. A person well studied in sales techniques can get you to buy pretty much anything they want you to, because they understand how you work, and show you where you have a need you didn't know you had. This isn't unethical. It's the way everyone is. Everyone is trying to get everyone else to do something for them. Sales people just have a leg up because they study. Same with mechanics. Many people have cars, they all break down, a mechanic can fix it himself. Others have to pay for it. It's not an exact analogy, but you get what I mean. Just because they study doesn't make it unethical. Emotional Alomancy is basically the same thing, except you go about it a different way. Instead of lowering your blouse so the guy stares at your cleavage while you take his order, you nudge his emotions one way or the other. People who are slaves of their emotions will be more affected, just like the guy who doens't know how to hold on to his lebido will tip the waitress more. People who control themselves and don't follow their emotions as much won't. And you can't CREATE emotions. You just reveal them. They were already feeling that way. There's just so much going on in our heads that sometimes things get crowded out. Tindwil and Sazed, for example. She did like him. He liked her. But their other emotions crowded those feelings out. So Breeze pushed them down, so those other feelings would have a chance to come through. This isn't unethical. It's not like he forced them together. He just helped them feel what they were already feeling. If you're trying to get a date, you're going to dress a certain way, act a certain way, talk a certain way, to try to get the individual to go out with you. You're trying ot manipulate them. You're tilting the scales one way or another. You're hoping whatever you say or do or wear helps them decide to go out with you. You're using what you know about their emotions to try to influence that. What makes one way better than another? Because you're acutally touching their emotions? Again, you aren't creating emotions. You're just revealing them. How many times have we been of two minds about something, only to regret the choice we made because one emotion, usually fear or anxiety, crowds out everything else? If an Allomancer were to go up to a potential date and riot their sense of attraction and sooth their doubts and worries, how is that any different from trying to act in a way that will sooth their doubts and worries and wearing somethinig that will make them attracted to you? I honestly don't think it is. It's just easier. Besides, if they don't HAVE doubts and worries, and they don't HAVE attraction to you, you can't create it in them. Also, Emotional Allomancy doesn't HAVE to be about getting people to do what you want. It can be about helping people be the best people they can be. Sooth away their fears, anxieties and worries. Help them feel more confident and have higher self worth. So much of what we want to do is stopped because of fear. I'd hire a Soother just to follow me around and help me not feel so anxious about things. Literally no different than taking anti anxiety meds, but a lot more reliable.