Elegy

Harry Potter being inconsistent and weird in terms of continuity isn't very unpopular, it's a fact tbh. It sorta adds to the charme though.

I actually considered capitalizing it, but figured it would be confusing. But I see that you got my Intent.

It depends on your priorities. If you want to read something really expansive, Stormlight Archive. It's his magnum opus, so to speak. Elantris and Warbreaker are (currently) stand-alone novels. There will be sequels someday, but they are self-contained as they are. Out of these, I'd recommend Warbreaker because it's more fleshed-out and shares some topics with Mistborn. Then there are the short stories. The Emperor's Soul is very special and explains some of the cosmere's philosophies rather well. It's set on the world of Elantris but with no direct connections whatsoever, so reading Elantris is not required for it. It can be found in the Cosmere short story collection Arcanum Unbounded which is a very strongly recommended read when it comes to cosmere stuff in general. There's also another Mistborn novella in there (if you already finished the three Wax & Wayne books that are out yet), so if you haven't read that one yet, that's also a possibility. Keep in mind that each series/book (aside from the novels within a series, obviously) is consciously written to stand on its own, so it's not like you HAVE to read one thing before another. Although I advise reading Warbreaker before Stormlight Archive because of some little things, but it doesn't hurt doing it the other way around. My vote goes to Warbreaker!

The blurbs on the back of the Stormlight novels are written from the perspective of the Sleepless. They are still a mystery at large.

Be sure to mark Mistborn spoilers, @Turtle373. I don't think there will be many deaths of Bridge Four characters in the near future. They have gone through so much, them dying in spite of that needs some proper justification, and the books won't have time for too many of those. Also, there aren't many Knights Radiant around at the moment, so I don't think the story would throw away a Windrunner at this stage. We can't know what book 5's end will hold. Anything could happen. But until then, I'd say most of Bridge 4 is pretty safe. Except for Moash. Most antagonists haven't lasted more than 2 books so he's losing sleep over book 4 I reckon.

They are beautiful! I like to think there's some artist in the Cosmere who creates these images of mythological events hundreds of years after the books and there are stained glasses by him all over the planets. For all who are unfamiliar with them: https://www.deviantart.com/breath-art/gallery/?catpath=%2F&edit=0&q=elantris+OR+mistborn+OR+"the+way+of+kings"+OR+warbreaker

I don't like the thought of a Stormlight book without Whelan's covers. It feels unnatural. Actually, it's one of the few cases where a book cover is the absolute book cover for me. Well, I like the Chinese cover as well, as with all other Cosmere books. Regarding Mistborn, the anniversary edition's covers are close to being definite to me, but Vin has a necklace on the Hero of Ages cover which makes no sense.

Yeah, definitely go with Arcanum Unbounded instead of the single volumes. There's no reason you shouldn't. It has the solar system essays, after all.

You're not far behind. From the big novels, all that's left is Elantris (which doesn't provide that much cosmere relevant information). Everything else you can find in Arcanum Unbounded. That one's a gold mine. Once you read that one, you're so much more in the know than before. So don't worry, you are almost there.

The sky blue idea is really neat! I thought the blue lines Allomancers see could possibly be a reason, but that doesn't make much sense. Now the idea with the sky is the first one that sounds plausible! Hm, now I'm not so sure about my ranking anymore.

It is possible that Trell was watching Scadrial closely all the time and just now is starting to act because of how close the planet's societies are to becoming more cosmere aware. I just wonder how he could have hid for that long without any of the Shards on the planet noticing. ------ Soo, let's summarize the possibilities coined in this thread: Possibility 1: Trell has Invested in Scadrial and a perpendicularity manifested OR he found a way to manifest one without being actually Invested (would break some rules we assumed but wouldn't be the first time). The perpendicularity is blue and lies in the Southern sector of Scadrial. Possibility 2: Harmony has changed the color associated with the Shard to blue and put a perpendicularity south of the Southern Roughs. Possibility 3: There's a random lake in the mountains. Mentioning it is just a red herring. By now, I believe that P3 is the most likely, although I find it odd for Brandon to put that part in there just to mess with us, but it's not beyond him either. P1 would call for a lot of explaining, but there will be plenty of time for that (like, four more books). It's certainly not implausible, just demands some tweaking. P2 is the most unlikely, as I see it. I just don't see a reason for Harmony to start identifying with blue as a color. I don't think it's a perpendicularity of Harmony. That said, it's not out of question either. A Shard might be able to influence the color of the perpendicularity and making a blue is a way to make it less conspicious, but I don't really see why Harmony would bother doing that.

The legends about him have been floating around on Scadrial for thousands of years, so who knows. I think we can't rule out the possibility of a Trellpendicularity, and IF the pool is a perpendicularity, it might very well be his - and if it isn't, why call it pool instead of just lake? Brandon is very aware of the things a lot of his readers connect with that term ...

Regarding the topic of Shards Investing and perpendicularities: And, later in that same WOB: So Patji is an avatar of Autonomy, Patji has a perpendicularity, yet Autonomy never Invested there. It seems to be very confusing and perpendicularities don't seem to rely on Shards being Invested in the planet to such a degree for Brandon to call it Invested.

It seems very plausible to me. If I were Trell, I would find it very valuable to have some way for my agents to get on the planet I want to invade without people knowing of it. And, as I said, the red eyed people at the end of BoM have to have gotten there one way or the other, and Harmony doesn't seem to have noticed them. As for the "blue = night sky" thing I said above, I'm not so sure about it anymore. We know that the perpendicularity on First of the Sun is green - maybe because Patji identified with the islands which have jungles. But that's the islands (which are autonomous), not the sea. In the same manner, it would make more sense for Trell to identify with the stars instead of the night sky between them, so the perpendicularity should be yellow instead. Honor has fended off Odium for a long time and he still seems to be somewhat Invested in Roshar. So I don't know about that. Admittedly, we don't know if there's an Odium perpendicularity on Roshar either.

I don't read much fantasy anymore. It's grown off me and I'm uncertain whether it's because Sanderson books have set the bar too high or if it would have happened either way and his books just happen to be the ones that still resonate with me. I guess me being as invested in the Cosmere as I am, it just satisfies my fantasy needs on its own. It's got all I ever wanted from the genre and makes perfect use of the things that identify it.

Thanks a lot! That clears things up! I only found this: So he's aware that people are wondering about it, but refrains from saying anything else about it. Edit: And there's this ... ... which is interesting because to me it sounds like he completely forgot he mentioned a pool right there. Okay. Unless I have overlooked anything important, this seems like a dead end.

I didn't find that WOB, but I'll take your word for it since it sounds plausible. But that only concerns the person at the pool. The pool itself is suspicious nonetheless. That's not "clearly" since "Red and Gold" can mean anything in this context. It might be a hint, but it's pretty ambiguous. We don't even know who these "men" are. They obviously seem to be associated with Trell, but that's about it. Yes, there could be a shifting of the colors by Harmony perceiving himself as blue. But why would he do that? It seems far more plausible for him to see himself as black and white since he still obviously sees Preservation and Ruin as oppositions (after all, they hinder him from acting like he would want to). With these things covered, the pool itself might as well be a red herring. Brandon definitely knew people would draw conclusions, so it either means something or he's messing around, or half-and-half.

The newspaper illustrations of the Mistborn Era 2 books are full of easter eggs and yet don't seem to get discussed much. As I was flipping through Shadows of Self again, I stumbled over this one that I didn't pay proper attention to before: (Be sure to click at the "Full Size" button at the bottom left to make it readable.) Specifically, I mean the article about "VISITORS from other WORLDS". It mentions a blue pool south of the Southern Roughs and an inhuman creature "by the pool". The implications seem to be obvious: The pool is a perpendicularity and the creature is some kind of worldhopper. This could mean it's Harmony's perpendicularity - or one of them. Brandon has been close-lipped about whether Harmony has one or two of them. However, blue being the perpendicularity's color irritates me. The colors of the previous perpendicularities on Scadrial were black and white, and while Harmony would be able to change the color, I don't see any reason for him to do. Blue wouldn't mean anything to him, would it? The logical conclusion is this perpendicularity being one of another Shard, as in Trell. It is very likely that Trell is an avatar of a Shard (and it's very likely that it's Autonomy), and avatars seem to be able to manifest perpendicularities (as happened on First of the Sun), so it doesn't seem unlikely that Trell's interaction with Scadrial has also lead to one manifesting - it has, after all, lead to another god metal. It's not clear what the creature mentioned in the text might be. But - while all kinds of characters could move through it no matter its origin - it seems likely that it's associated with Trell: After all, the perpendicularity seems to be in the south, and the south seems to be a very good place to hide things on Scadrial (it took them hundreds of years to even discover the Southern continent), so it might be a safe place to move his agents through (like the red-eyed visitor in Bands of Mourning's epilogue - they had to get to Scadrial somehow, and without Harmony noticing, ideally). As for the meaning of the color blue in this context, in Trelagism, Trell is associated with the night sky, which, being blue, could be an explanation for the symbolism behind blue as Trell's color. Anything else I missed? Let me know. Also, if you find other interesting things in the Mistborn Era 2 newspaper sheets, I might repurpose this thread to an "Era 2 newpaper discussion".

He's either pushing himself really hard or he's having a LOT of fun with what he's writing right now. I hope it's the latter.

Yolen had three sentient species and the sleepless weren't one of them, so doesn't seem like it ... Bavadin being a sleepless would have been very fitting though, nice idea! Since the sleepless seem to be a big deal for the cosmere, I keep thinking they might be from Vax ... since Brandon has handled that one like it was a big deal as well, and we don't know enough about it to exclude it.

Ok let's go:

We are the Ravenclaws of Silverlight! It has a certain ring to it.

This is a tough one given how consistent they are. I think I'll go with And the Story Ends, Punishment Divine and Sacred Worlds. And Then There Was Silence deserves a special mention for how crazy it is.

They don't need to be crustacean:

There's this: