Elegy

The god metal effects don't necessarily seem to have much to do with the Shard's intent, at least I don't see much of a correlation between Atium's effect and Ruin, except for both having something to do with time, but that's very vague. So it's hard to say. It would be cool to touch someone, burn a metal and make the touched person have the effect instead of yourself. Does that already exist? I might have forgot something. But anyway, that would be very "giving".

Huh, didn't know that. Thanks for pointing that out. But still, Connection isn't necessarily inherited, because if it was, accessing Selish magic would work genetically just like on Scadrial, while Elantris' Ars Arcanum explicitly states that accessing magic on Sel doesn't work as it does on Scadrial.

Galladon was originally from Duladel though, and became an Elantrian just as well. I believe Brandon included him as a rather exotic character in the setting (with him using all those foreign words like kolo and kayana) specifically to show that Connection can form after birth.

Being a cadmium savant sure must be bothersome.

Well that's another unique thing in the Cosmere at the moment: The story is not strictly canon, but it's canon that the text exists. It's the only Cosmere story that could be read by in-world characters just as we do.

Fair point, but Chromium requires physical contact to work, so I don't think it would help them much against Windrunners and Skybreakers, and Dustbringers and Edgedancers are going to be a problem as well.

Just stumbled over this relevant WOB:

We don't know a lot about how avatars function and what distincts them from other phenomena. There's "champions", which seem to be mortal persons that have been chosen to represent a Shard in a conflict, like Dalinar. The Heralds seem to be a similar case (although not the same), and Lift might be as well (too early to say). The avatars, however, are different from champions, as implied in here: The avatars are considerd as Splinters by "a lot of people", but I doubt anyone would have called Dalinar a "Splinter" of Odium had he chosen to become his champion, just like it would have seemed odd for someone to become a "Vessel" of Dalinar. So avatars seem to be more comparable to mini-Shards/huge concentrations of living Investiture, so like the Stormfather, the Nightwatcher, the Sibling, Cusicesh and the Unmade. However, there's obviously a distinction between "typical Splinters" and "avatars that would be considered Splinters by some". The Splinters mentioned seem pretty straight-forward to me and it doesn't look like it would be controversial to just call them Splinters, which makes it unlikely for them to be avatars - because those seem to be in a gray area. So that leaves only the Purelake, which hasn't shown any signs of awareness yet (which all the avatars we know of definitely have). It's more likely that it's "just" a place with strange things going on. I also agree that avatars are specifically Autonomy's area of expertise. I think non-Autonomy avatars are probably more of an oddity in the cosmere. It's one of many things Shards can do with their powers, and other Shards choose other ways, like Honor having the Heralds, Endowment having the Returned, etc, etc. - That's how it seems to me, at least. Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Well, noone could have guessed the worldhoppers in the Ishikk interlude in their own respective books, they weren't more qualified for it than others. Most of them have been side characters, but not all of them (because of Warbreaker), so even that doesn't mean much. Also: It's been confirmed that she hasn't (yet):

I think it's because without Hoid interfering, the spren would have been found and killed by the Fused (it was hiding from them and they were tearing down the walls of the palace to find him). The way it went now, it lived and could become another person's Radiant spren, making it possible for other Cryptics to find other Radiants. And that means a lot. The whole battle of Thaylen Fields was won by a total of seven Radiants ... so every single spren saved and every single Radiant more means a great deal of benefit for the alliance and a great deal of pain for the Fused.

It's this one (although it's paraphrased, so I'm wouldn't take it word-for-word): Considering this, I would guess that all of the techniques mentioned in the original post would work. Those are some really good ideas!

The "Almighty" was a man who was at the right place at the right time. He never was a God and never will be. We don't even really know what or who Adonalsium was exactly, but him being Splintered is enough to show that he wasn't strictly God either (at least Jasnah would argue that way). There might be an actual God Beyond in the cosmere, but Brandon has repeatedly stated that he will leave that open to interpretation as a riddle for the ages (well, just like in real life, so it fits). Jasnah will never be proven wrong, she will, as things stand, never support any religion, and if her behavior up until now is something to go by, she will remain openly atheistic in public even as a queen. And I feel, given how much her opinions add to the diversity in a story that's full of theistic characters, everything else would have been a huge loss, in my opinion.

Not really something that deconfirms anything about the theory, obviously, but I feel it's worth noting that whatever her powers, she doesn't have a grand plan for the other Shards:

The detail in the prose version that implied mind control was cut out in the GNs. Brandon either didn't want to give away too much information about him (unlikely since he knows a lot of people have read the prose version already), or he cut it completely. Either way, it's not canon as it is. The only "magical" thing about him that's still canon is his agelessness.

The complexity and ambiguity of the world and the struggle of people to understand it are major themes in the Cosmere (which is why a lot of conflicts, in Elantris and Mistborn in particular, are solved by understanding the workings of their respective worlds), so making it all straight-forward and understandable would be dishonest to what he's trying to get across with these books, wouldn't it? Things aren't simple, whether people would prefer them to or not. Kaladin would also prefer the simple "us (humans) vs. them (listeners)" situation, but understanding that it isn't that simple is very important to his arc. On how and why Brandon deals with complexity and ambiguity, he elaborates a lot on that here (spoilered for length):

I'm not sure about him having Invested into the whole cosmere, but it doesn't seem like he was only Invested in Yolen: He's most definitely refering to Adonalsium there.

I don't see why the quirks and tricks wouldn't be included in this Brandon's definition of knowledge about the cosmere. And it's not like Khriss is stuck in her Silverlight office. We see that she likes to try things out in person.

Yeah, he has answered this before: He isn't a walking Arcanum, so he doesn't remember every question he's ever answered, understandably.

It's paraphrased and those tend to be less trust-worthy, but still worth posting I think: Khriss would definitely have figured it out I think. That said, the encounters with the Spiritual Realm on page have usually lead to a "mind almost explodes" reaction of the respective character, so I don't think it's that easy. Just knowing how probably doesn't do. Edit: Ah, there's a recording of him confirming it:

The bars are back to normal.

Or he realized that the traditional 400.000 words won't do for SA4, instead pushing the bar to 1 million words, making the former 82% to ... 29%.

There is an ardent in Way of Kings who's confirmed to be a worldhopper, but not one of the above: Also: She's not from Scadrial but from Silverlight. Her heritage is from Southern Scadrial. And, on a side-note: Yes, an aviar from First of the Sun - this phrasing kinda makes it sound like it's the exact same bird which could be misleading. It's nit-picky, I know.

It's a great idea, but that civilization can't be too huge since that would manifest Roshar's Shadesmar to a notable degree and 1) it doesn't look that way on the map and 2) it wouldn't be a secret to the spren and worldhoppers - which would also include the Heralds and Fused, in a way.

I believe you can add another 0.09% to that - it's very possible that you're right, but it's outside of the story's field of interest, so to speak:

I have suffered through the story at Kaladin's side from the beginning on and there's just no forgetting that experience. He's my favorite character. He was by the end of Way of Kings and every book continued adding more conflict and depth, bringing him even further along his path. Simply stunning. Dare I say, he raised the bar for me in terms of character depth in fantasy in general. Then, of course, Dalinar, who feels like a character I've always known and only waited to find in a book. It's very weird, since Brandon always says the same about him, just from the writer's perspective. He was a pillar of trust for two novels (very refreshing in a world of traitors) before Oathbringer added new layers of depth and tragedy. Then it gets tough. I'm not sure if Wit counts since he's technically more of a Cosmere character instead of a Stormlight character, but he's very prominent in the books, so I guess you can rank him up there. Same goes for Zahel. Then there's Szeth and Jasnah which I adore for how original they feel, for very different reasons. Renarin and, to a lesser extend, Lift are two characters I can't wait to see what Brandon does with them in future novels! The potential! The mere thought of flashback books devoted to them in the second pentalogy! It's very exciting. The spren are a special case, since first and foremost, they function as support of their respective Radianct character. They do a great job at that though, and most of them are adorable at that. I agree that they are underrated. Syl has always been there on the journey due to her being crucial to everything Kaladin does, so she's close to my heart as well. Pattern and Wyndle are up there just as well, though. The sheer density of amazing characters in this series is unreal. It's got just as many of those as the rest of the Cosmere put together, which is insane if you consider that Mistborn is part of that - a series that really impressed me character-wise back when I first read it before Stormlight. I know I'm on the line of sounding like a rabid fan, but man, in some ways Brandon plays a game of his own, a level above the rest.