Elegy

Someone needs to make a gif of 12:36. It should be posted under every big Brandon announcement.

It's the story of a piece of God that was trying to understand the pain of a human and went to a god to ask for help, but he couldn't give it to her. So she went to a human that experienced pain himself, and he made her look into herself to find a way to understand. It's a fairytale with Stormlight characters. I've been in a somewhat emotionally fragile state since I read it.

Peter's comment is kinda confusing in that regard. My interpretation of his statement would be: The foot is still the same measurement as Brandon said, but is not divided into 12 equal inches as it's the case on Earth, but into 10 equal inches. So Peter's statement only means that the inches within a Vorin foot are larger and fewer, not that the Vorin feet are smaller. After all, Peter says that a Vorin foot "has" 10 inches, not that it "is" 10 inches. But it's not entirely clear. So, if he really meant that, a Vorin foot would be 1.06 Earth feet, and a Vorin inch would be 0.106 Earth feet. Well, but it's all an estimate anyway. There's a lot of "probablies" involved~

The best moment in Edgedancer, in my opinion, is Lift is one of the most heroic characters in the cosmere, the fandom just hasn't caught up on it yet.

Yes, it's different: @paintweaver can probably say more about this. She has done some research on it.

It's kinda confusing and I don't know what to make of it yet, but there's this WOB:

The shots of a spray machine gun would be random. Hemalurgy requires Intent, and I think you have to be conscious of the exact spot you're spiking. So shotgun Hemalurgy would only work with someone who know's exactly where the bullet will hit, right? So just cover someone in bullets would practically have no Hemalurgic effect whatsoever, from what I understand. I mean, shooting someone and getting the Hemalurgic effect is possible, of course - after all, Wax did it - but you really have to hit exactly where you want to. (Except I got something wrong.)

It's Vasher for me: He has a lot of Nightblood, the most interesting stuff with Awakening, and the duel at the end with an finish that I like a lot (I think Brandon is generally amazing when it comes to ending duels in a satisfying way! There's just so much out-of-the-box trickery involved sometimes, it's just fun to read). I also generally enjoy reading characters that know a lot more than me. It makes me feel like sneaking a peek of something large and important, and everything they think or say could potentially contain something very important. The Wit scenes in Stormlight have a similar effect. I like them all though! Lightsong is the most entertaining, Vivenna has the strongest character development, and while Siri doesn't develop as much, she makes Susebron develop and that's just as beautiful to see!

It's safe to assume that it's a place at this point, since Khriss talks about it like a place. It's also safe to assume that it's a planet, since she compares it to Taldain, Sel, and Scadrial. It wouldn't make much sense for her to say: "It does not appear to be tied to family descent, as one finds on Scadrial, nor is it a specific Shard's Decision, as on Nalthis. Even Taldain's and Urithiru's methods do not seem to apply here." That doesn't really work. The farthest it could be from a planet would be a place in the Cognitive Realm. Khriss talks about it as having a notable form of Invested Art, at least notable enough to be mentioned in one breath with Awakening, Sand Mastery, and Allomancy. That Invested Art is obtained by people in some way (a way we don't know, but know to be different from the other ones mentioned). That highly suggests a major Shardworld, since minor Shardworld's magic seems to be more of an environmental thing. Brandon mentions this in this WOB: That means that it's unlikely for a minor Shardworld to have a magic that can be "Initiated" (as Khriss calls it, capitalized!), so Vax would presumably be a major Shardworld, which in turn means that there is at least one Shard there. So, the information that we can deduce from all of this is the following: It's a place It's most probably a planet It has an Invested Art that can be Initiated in people The way it's Initiated is different from the AonDor, Allomancy, Feruchemy, Awakening, and probably (the phrasing is kinda vague there) Sand-Mastery It's probably a major Shardworld, so it should have at least one Shard, although it might or might not be Splintered Leras and Ati have been there --- Also: This WOB seems to suggests otherwise: It could still be, but looking at that WOB, that would presume that he doesn't know what to do with Vax yet (since he's undecided whether to put Aether on it or not), and since he's making such a mystery out of it, I doubt that. And: Ati and Leras are from Yolen (but I agree that it's a Shardworld!):

So, these are some things I’d like to add to what has already been said: I agree that Stonewards and Windrunner are the main military Orders, but there probably also would have been a Dustbringer in a lot of Knights Radiant assault forces, given that their text mentions them working as artillery. That said, there are obviously other functions for them as well, like as tacticians. So, it doesn't seem to be as clear-cut as one Order, one function. But Dustbringers were used for military purposes, among others. Truthwatchers are described as secretive, so I doubt they let the other Orders particularly near them. I think of them as kind of an isolated group that will deliver information and new research results if necessary but is mostly concerned with themselves. Maybe the scholarly among the Elsecallers would communicate with them, but I'll say a bit more aobut those below. Lightweavers were artists and spies ... you can’t really be near the other Orders and work with them when you spy, since you’re in the enemy lines (although I’d like to know how that worked during the isolations, given that they would have had to imitate the Rhythms to pretend they were Singers…). Being an artist can also be lonely work, especially when you have all the abilities you need, which they have due to Lightweaving. So I guess they wouldn’t interact that much with other Orders, except from being at odds with the Skybreakers - which is kind of a logical conclusion of their powers. Being able to make things appear differently with your powers is certainly something that would be easy to use for all kinds of illegal purposes. I wonder if the Truthwatchers had the same issues, to a degree ... Illumination is really tempting, after all. The Elsecallers seem like strategists and organizers to me, in cities as well as on the battlefield. To quote the Quiz text: For example, I could imagine them making battle plans for the military Orders. That said, as mentioned above, some Dustbringers were strategists as well, so they might have shared that duty at times. Also, the highest ranking Elsecallers might have been the Bondsmith’s consultants - they could use their wisdom to help them make decisions. Jasnah being a scholar notwithstanding, I personally see Elsecallers more as an Order with political functions as of now - scholarly Elsecallers are only mentioned incidentally in the text, so that might not have been their main assignment, but only one of them. So, Orders that might have shared duties, assuming from the things above: Stonewards, Windrunner and Dustbringers as warriors Dustbringers and Elsecallers as tacticians Elsecallers and Truthwatchers as scholars ... maybe the engineers among the Dustbringers helped them out sometimes as well Elsecallers as the Bondsmith's consultants Skybreakers as all the other Orders' overseers (possibly including the Bondsmiths, which is a fascinating thought to me)

These are some things that we know about how some Orders tend to think of one another: That last one is from the Words of Radiance epigraphs (I'll add a comment about how I think the Orders relate to each other in their functions a bit later, I think.) Edit: Also this one:

That would indeed be interesting! I wonder what it would do with the bond and the abilities it gives, since the spren wouldn't be the same kind as before. But for the same reason, it would also change the spren's personality in most cases, which is why I it seems kind of unlikely that Brandon will do it ... he knows that the readers have come to know and love the spren as they are. And making them change throught learning/character development (as Pattern has done over the course of the last two books for sure) is different from changing them by adding new Investiture. But it sure is a fascinating thought!

It's possible:

(Mistborn) That said, it would be theoretically possible to piece the thing back together, in one form or another: I agree that it would logically be Dalinar or Taln (Taln being my favorite guess), but then again, I could imagine a lot of smaller chunks of Honor being pieced back together so that several main characters have Shards (like, Stormfather-sized ones).

I don't think Autonomy needs a reason to interfere. The second letter in Oathbringer states that there are "many realms" of Autonomy, so I'd guess that it's probably more notable when she didn't interfere.

Dropping a relevant WOB:

(spoilered for Reckoners)

I agree with the above, a Shardblade is too Invested. Similarly, it's hard to push/pull on them with Allomany, Awaken them, stuff like that. Also, on a side-note: It would always be an alloy, but of varying degrees:

This is very dependent from how Shardblade as a term is defined. Now, it's very important to consider that Shardblade is a Rosharan term and the Rosharan language tends to use very, very broad definitions: All birds are chicken, all Shards are spren, Adonalsium and Nightblood are spren. So it's pretty safe to say that by Rosharan standards, magical blades would probably be called Shardblades by default. So that's my answer: When a parrot is a chicken, Nightblood is a Shardblade.

Welcome to the Shard! Brandon has stated that Cosmere and non-Cosmere will never merge. But, that said, Brandon seems to toy with the idea of including a bunch of the non-Cosmere stories in their own multiverse. So there might be crossovers of sorts between those (like Apocalypse Guard seems to point at). But not between Cosmere and non-Cosmere.

Kinda relevant WOB: It doesn't mention the situation on Roshar being different or not, so make of that what you want. I personally believe that - as with many things in the cosmere - it's probably possible with enough Investiture at hand and the right mindset. I would guess it's one of those "theoretically possible but not realistically plausible" cases.

First, that's an interesting idea and I like the thought. That said, it might be hard to make the first film feel strong on its own with Shan surviving and then staying important in the series. It would be a loose end and it would also make her have way more presence than Lord Ruler, which I wouldn't like. Still, a good idea. But second, the whole concept of the Final Empire politically sensitive, it's an oppressive, brutal dictatorship that enslaves the largest part of its population. That's the point of it, that's why it's evil and that's why the audience is inclined to see Kelsier as a character worth rooting for despite his maniac tendencies. So, I don't see much inherent profit from removing the parts that make the empire's actions potentially offensive to the viewers, because they should be.

Yep, they existed before the Shattering:

Yeah, the atium change seems a bit weird. It should be possible that Harmony already changed the mechanics of Allomancy so that anyone (edit: well, Mistings!) could burn atium - noone has atium, so noone would have noticed by now. I don't really see how the atium change is necessary if it's already so easy to make it canon in the books. Other than that, I don't mind the changes at all. Sure, the feeling of the story will be very different, but I think these changes fit with the new medium. A film adaptation should be way more focused than the book due to its length, and having more of a clear-cut antagonist in the center is a good way of doing that, in my opinion. That said, I've never been eager to see Mistborn adapted, so I'm probably generally less affected by the changes than those who really want it to happen.

I don't think Trell necessarily wants to conquer Scadrial or something like that. He could just destroy enough so it's not as close to modern civilization anymore. Of course, that would indirectly take a lot of people's autonomy away, but Preservation giving Rashek the power of the Well also caused a lot of destruction, so the restriction seemingly only apply to direct actions. It should work as long as the intent is not explicitly to unite. That said, the WOB above does seem to imply that this other interpretation of Autonomy would very well have been possible, Bavadin just didn't interpret it that way.