Elegy

It should also be noted that basically the entire cast of Mistborn consists of atheists. Them not believing the lies (of Lord Ruler, in that case) is actually the point of their whole mission in Final Empire, which I guess could be read as a sign that Brandon is aware of this and consciously reflected on it in that story.

I suspect Jasnah's flashback story will take place between book 5 and 6. There's 10 years to cover between them and the stuff before Way of Kings won't be as relevant for what is currently planned as the last book of the series. Same with Lift: I'd be disappointed if we get her childhood story instead of her being awesome Edgedancer style in between the two 5 book arcs. (Although I guess both would be possible with a time skip in the middle.)

We have a WOB on this:

Woops yeah. That's what happens sometimes when you know something has been confirmed, search for a WOB and settle for the next best one because you read the things you searched into it. Sorry for that. But anyways, no worldhopping Kelsier as of now. Regarding the original post: I now see the possible clues for it, so I was kinda rush - sorry for that as well. I intitially thought Brandon meant some 17th Shard member that was hired since he previously confirmed that that's a thing the Ghostbloods do. Although I still don't think he means "close" as "someone close to Kelsier" in that WOB.

Kelsier has not left Scadrial yet, so him being a Ghostblood is highly unlikely. I also believe that for speculations like these, there has to be some basis for it, and there is nothing that half-decently suggests Spook being a Ghostblood. I understand why people tend to go overboard with guessing worldhoppers and connections between the stories, but you basically end up with every second character out of two being a possible worldhopper/founder of organizations/historical figure in other cultures. I personally don't think fruitful, although, like I said, I understand why those leanings would be there. The origin of Spook's name has nothing to do with ghosts btw:

Well, he has a body by the time of the Era 2. You're certainly right about cognitive shadows slowly fading into the Beyond without a physical body (some more and some less slowly, depending on the amount of Investiture they carry around), but he has one now, so that shouldn't be a problem.

It admittedly gave me a good chuckle to read people criticize a Brandon Sanderson book for being too "sexual". Regarding Warbreaker as a book, I think that out of all Cosmere works, it's the least consistent in tone. I love the idea of an epic fantasy story of kingdoms and Courts of Gods serving as a framework for an Arabian Nights inspired romance, all of that enriched by a color-based magic system ... yet there are undead and sociopathic serial killers that make the story divert from its otherwise colorful tone. It might have felt more complete without incorporating those dark fantasy elements that Elantris and Mistborn had prior to it (and, in contrast, succeeded to imbed well). That said, while not everything it does fits perfectly together, the things it does are amazing. Some of the best main characters, one of my favorite Invested Arts, a lot of good dialogue, and it always felt more fleshed-out than Elantris from a literary perspective. It's really great and I see no reason to hate it, two or three weaknesses notwithstanding.

Google gives me the following definitions, which I wholeheartedly agree with: None of that is synonymous with greed or is of a distinctly physical nature, I'd say. After all, an ambitious athlete doesn't want to win competitions for the physical medals, they're hardly worth anything. If anything, I think that physical is the only one that can be explicitly excluded as a possibility. Although I see why you'd think that Ambition has something to do with greed, I guess.

What @Karger wrote. Those are chapters 25 and 83, respectively.

Regarding the story itself, rather than the question in the original post, I agree that it's a great novella. Kelsier is one of my favorite characters ever and it was a gift to have this. I cherished every second of it. It doesn't stand on its own well though, as it introduces and tackles diverse conflicts in a rather messy manner, making it never quite find its own identity. After all, it has to work off one key event of the trilogy after the other, making it feel like a compilation at places. I'm not saying that's a weakness - it just breaks with the precedent of the trilogy's main novels, all standing on their own rather well, every book disclosening and completing conflicts over its respective course. Secret History is more of an addition, not a self-contained whole, so rather than telling its own story, it feels more like an overview and thereby first and foremost makes the reader re-live certain moments of the story. And it's fantastic in doing that. The ending in particular had me with tears in my eyes and finally made me realize just how obviously Vin has always been one of my favorite protagonists ever. As an aside, I'm really fond of the Ire sequence. It has a great, eerie atmosphere and Kelsier messing with some dubious worldhopper organization is something I'd always wanted to see. It's also the most spicy, new thing introduced and works well as a conclusive arc (which most of the other things going on in the novella don't). Also yeah, Fuzz is a darling.

I agree and I have come to the conclusion that the prose version (which I highly recommend) remains my headcanon, at least up until it irrevocably clashes with other cosmere things. We'll have to see what changes are made in Vol. 3 once it's out (... might take a while it seems ...), but I sure hope it doesn't stray too much and I'll be able to keep my White Sand novel canon intact. Like, seriously, read the prose version instead, it's much better. Rough, obviously, but much better.

That is true,. Well, the Beyond exists, but it might as well be nothingness. Brandon will never actually canonize what lies there, which is the perfect way of dealing with it in my opinion ... That said, in his own mind, the Beyond as an afterlife seems to be a thing, as apparent in this WOB:

He'll see her again once he leaves the cosmere for good, which will presumably take him another few hundred years. When people die in the cosmere, they leave it for the Beyond, Kelsier however has stayed in the Cognitive Realm (and also seems to have found a way to get a new body by now), so he's never been where the actual dead people go. That will take a while, and he'll pass that time with a lot of mischief, I'm sure ..

I'd see Dominion as cognitive since the act of owning something/ruling over something presumes the cognitive process of claiming it. Ruin and Preservation seem to be the best two guesses for physical as of now, but there's an argument to be made for them being temporal (although I, personally) believe the former. However, as with most of these kind of things in the cosmere, we'll probably never get definite answers. Brandon will probably always insist that several interpretations are possible and different scholars in-world disagree. (Edit: Not that that stops us!)

Like I said, I don't believe the metals (and/or their allomantic effects) have specific according Shards. So parallels like those two would only be tangentally related each other. Although it's very likely that Odium would be a "spiritual" Shard since his Intent deals with emotion and a sort of dis-Connection, which are things that happen in the Spiritual Realm. Devotion seems very spiritual as well.

There's this WOB: So there is a possibility that the Shards could be categorized in the same way as the allomantic metals - 4 physical, 4 cognitive, 4 spiritual, 4 temporal -, since the allomantic metals followed a pattern that was previously established by the Shards. That said, I don't think the metals are "based" on the Shards, or "their" metals in any way. They just take a similar place in a similar pattern. This is particularly apparent in the fact that every allomantic metal has an opposite, while not all Shards have a specific opposite. So, at the most, it's the general concept of 16 being divided into 4 sub-sets of the same kind of pattern (... and which Shards fit into which sub-set is another topic).

It's not confirmed, but very likely. The lower half Orders' Divine Attributes seem to lean towards the respective Shard's Intent, too (so Wisdom, Creativity, etc. as Cultivation-related attributes). That said, I don't think an Order is strictly "of" a certain Shard, except for maybe Bondsmiths (Honor) and Truthwatchers (Cultivation). I imagine there's a smooth transition. But yeah, as likely as it is, it's not a fact (as of yet).

There is an elaborate discussion about this here: And according to a WOB, it does have a meaning.

As it stands now, Lift would be book 6's main character. It's also been said that there's much, much more Lift to come, but she'll be grown-up.

I don't think a Sleepless could have survived an explosion like that. They are immortal as in, not aging, but if all their hordelings are killed, that's it. So it doesn't make much sense for him to blow himself up in that situation. Good idea though.

Iyatil is not from Scadrial: And she was once part of the 17th Shard: That's pretty much all we know about her. She's most definitely not a character we've seen before.

This is an idea that once came up in some Trell-related topic, and it's really fascinating and thought-provoking and has had me concerned for a while now. That said, we know that the metal at the end of SoS was Trell's and not even Harmony and the Kandra knew what was up with that. So basically, it has to be a Shard beyond the two he's holding, or else he'd know the metal. But it's a really neat idea.

Stick is the non-fire of Ages.

We're only like a third into the Cosmere sequence, so I don't think we've even seen the big problems of space opera era cosmere yet, but Bavadin outliving Rayse is a very good guess I'd say. That said, Odium has been breaking stuff for 10,000 years now, so he's definitely a very significant villain for the whole thing, no matter how things go for him in the future. However, Odium as a "Villain of Ages" would more or less imply that he would have to be beaten by the "Hero of Ages" as his counterpart, and while believe (given the hints) that Harmony will do his part in the battle against him, I doubt that he will be the one to beat him, since Harmony is and remains a Mistborn character and Stormlight problems will presumably be solved by Stormlight characters. Let's just say that Odium - from what we know - seems like the most destructive of all Shards and Harmony has the best potential of messing with his plans, so they represent opposing things in the cosmere.

How about the Scadrian Planetarium, a place where people can try their best screwing with a planet's astronomy, pushing it around and stuff like that. If you succeed harming only the southern cultures, you get a plush TenSoon! If you mess it up, you get punched by someone dressed as Kelsier.