Duxredux

Talked with my brother about the thread on safely burning Harmonium, including @Trusk'our's idea to Plate the outside with another allomantic metal. While Duralumin allows for massive bursts of power of other metals, instantly burning all available metal, Duralumin itself burns at a constant rate. Combine this with this WoB that Trusk'our found: Here's the idea we came up with for a Mistborn or Hemalurgist with access to A-Duralumin and other Allomantic powers, for this example we'll use Steel. You have a sizeable bead made of concentric layers of Steel sandwiched in between layers of Duralumin, and for consistency a rod of Duralumin that runs through all layers to the core of the bead. The idea is that as you burn Duralumin, the thin layer covering the Steel burns away giving you access to a Duralumin-enhanced Steelpush. This burns the Steel immediately reducing the bead to the next thin layer of Duralumin. Burn that thin layer of Duralumin away and you have another charge of Steel at your disposal. This would let you rapid fire charges of Duralumin-enhanced Allomancy. It would even let you alternate metals or burn two simultaneously. Here's a rudimentary cross-section: D:Duralumin S:Steel DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD SSSSSSSSDDSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSDDSSSSSSSS DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD SSSSSSSSDDSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSDDSSSSSSSS SSSSSSSSDDSSSSSSSS DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD SSSSSSSSDDSSSSSSSS ... Or D:Duralumin S:Steel P:Pewter B:Brass DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD SSSSSSSSDDPPPPPPPP SSSSSSSSDDPPPPPPPP SSSSSSSSDDPPPPPPPP DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD SSSSSSSSDDSSSSSSSS DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD BBBBBBBBDDBBBBBBB BBBBBBBBDDBBBBBBB DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD PPPPPPPPDDSSSSSSS PPPPPPPPDDSSSSSSS PPPPPPPPDDSSSSSSS ... Fly over with Pewter and Steel, land with Steel, blast the area with massive Soothing, go to town with unenhanced Pewter and Steel unless you decide to use Duralumin again. etc. Thoughts?

As I consider this further, spanreeds are the equivalent of exchanging email addresses. If the goal is to eliminate a target and get away with it, then things get more complicated, since you're basically leaving a signed note "I killed this person from this address". Stealing another person's spanreed is possible, but that's the equivalent of figuring out someone's contact list, tracking down someone on that list who contacts them enough to have a direct line and stealing their email account. Possible, but hard. For assassinating the paranoid, this gets even harder since the only truly important part of the spanreed is the ruby setting. It wouldn't surprise me if Jasnah pre-Radiance routinely replaced the shaft of her spanreeds with something designed to fail if used with excessive force. Without knowing the exact state of the spanreed on the receiving side, using the reed itself as a weapon is highly risky. On the other hand... you might be able to load the spanreed into a crossbow and fire it so that the ruby of the spanreed would hit the general torso or head of the target. Since the ruby is designed to act as an indicator that someone wants to write to you, the ruby itself is almost always left exposed. That seems to have less failure points, though I don't know how big the ruby is and how brittle it would be. If a crossbow doesn't work, once they give you control of spanreed communication set the ruby into a spear shaft or other weapon that would give you sufficient leverage to kill someone in any circumstance. Wouldn't even surprise me if someone with enough combat experience like Dalinar or Kaladin could tell by the impacts what they were hitting if they were to blindly fight with their ruby-tipped weapon of choice, though you'd be hard pressed to convince either of them to do something like this these days. It's worth noting that the upper Alethi dahns tend to be quite familiar with assassination, and as seen with Navani writing with the Sibling's intermediary, they have already developed forensic techniques to triangulate the location of an unknown conjoined fabrial. Navani's scholars already had the equipment, techniques, and mathematics to get her an answer in the middle of a conversation, so I'm guessing they weren't coming up with the methodology on the fly. It wouldn't surprise me if spanreed or conjoined fabrial assassination was a thing, did happen, and precautions have since been implemented even if they aren't overtly mentioned. If precautions haven't been made, forensics already has a start on tracking assassins down.

Yeah, I can see that. That all makes sense. As I consider, I think my resistance to Shardplate is how across the board it's overpowered or presented as such. The debate for me at this point I think boils down down to whether Brandon will go with his 2nd law of magic system: limitations are more interesting the powers, or the 0th law: when in doubt always err on the side that is more awesome. It might depend on if he gets his fill of powerarmor doing awesome stuff by the end of SA and once we hit Era 4 or if he wants more awesome punchy-punchy whacky-whacky.

A continuation of the Spanreed assassination thread in the Stormlight board. I realized that we have people who can make drawings that literally explode. What happens if an Elantrian attempts to draw an Aon with a Spanreed? We can do variations on if the Elantrian has done whatever Moonlight did in Scadrial, if they are using the Spanreed in Elantris and the other reed is in Fjordell, or if the Elantrian is out of country and the conjoined spanreed is in Elantris. The two biggest questions are if the Elantrian can draw a valid Aon remotely and how close one or they other has to be to accessible Dor. If we can figure it out though, then an Elantrian could stash a few spanreeds in key locations and remotely activate Aons. Thoughts?

Traps would work pretty well, however for spanreed assassination keep in mind that for a substantial number of people you could be communicating with you may be writing through a scribe. There are important people, generally women who write their own communications, Queen Fen, Jasnah, Navani, Shallan, and others, even then you need to get a direct line to that person. The spanreed communication can't go through an intermediary in Tashikk for example.

I immediately thought of Twinborn Metalminds. This makes sense, but it also feels like some aspects of this should have intuitively been discovered or noticed by people. Wax at least should have noticed that his Ironminds never get any harder to push on the regardless of his storage level, but it never comes up. Maybe he noticed but didn't think anything of it? Maybe Khriss asked the wrong questions when she had access to one of the few Crashers ever born, but there have to be more Twinborn Coinshots out there right? Maybe they all never said anything? On the flipside if it does work this way, if Ranette had a small bit of iron that Wax saturated with weight, she could make a gun safety that only Wax could push on, and not even another Coinshot. You could do some interesting applications of Twinborn Identity locked metal.

I'd guess that we would get Radiants or Fused invading Scadrial before Marsh goes off world. At present, Marsh considers himself the third leg to a tripod / stool to Sazed and Kelsier, neither of whom look particularly stable. Since Sazed and Kelsier are currently restricted to Scadrial, it would take extreme extenuating circumstances for Marsh to choose to leave at present. As a side note, I wonder if we'll get any other mythological personifications persisting in the Cosmere. Maybe Soonie pups will end up as the Cosmere's version of teddy bears to the great annoyance of TenSoon.

Here's some background information to setup the context for my question. In the context of taking control of Hemalurgic Constructs, emotional Allomancy is additive. There's a threshold where a single Mistborn burning Duralumin can Soothe a Koloss and take control of it, or a group of Soothers can jointly Soothe the Koloss to get the same effect. Strong enough Soothing or Rioting could be considered sufficient trauma to cause an Allomancer to Snap. Ruin's control of Koloss and Inquisitors operates on the same principle as emotional Allomancy. If a stronger force Soothes or Riots a group of Hemalurgists competitively then the stronger one gets control of the Hemalurgists. It's worth noting that Set Hemalurgist determined that the number of spikes they could use to grant powers without opening themselves to Harmony's influence was 3, unless they had a Trellium spike where we saw at least 4. With that information as back drop, for a normal Scadrian what are the limits of their resistance to Emotional Allomancy? Worded differently, if you had one person in a room and added progressively more Soothers Pushing on their emotions, if necessary adding in Nicrobursts to enhance the Soothers, would you ever be able to break and control a regular person the same way Hemalurgists are controlled? If not, what would happen to the person placed under that much pressure? What if the person was insane from a standpoint that they could hear a CS talking to them? Alternate question, when fighting the Set, would it have been possible for a group of powerful Soothers to lower the threshold of the Hemalurgist's resistance and allow Harmony to gain control of them? Thoughts? Imagine if a Scadrian Soothing parlor decided to become terrorists with the help of a Nicroburst, what could they accomplish?

Internet forums are places for offering unsolicited advice right? Or have I been doing it worng? (misspelling intentional) I thought I'd offer some of the thoughts that I've had over the years of lots of first dates, handfuls of second dates, a few pen pals, and periodically floating in large groups where it seemed like a lot of people were dating - and I'd be the guy who somehow found himself sitting on a roof drawing moths. I've been married for five years now, but I remember first dates and how stressful they are, particularly when my track record indicated that this next one probably won't develop into anything other than mutual awkwardness when running into the person again. Here's a few things that kept me looking for someone and why I'm glad I stuck it out. I appreciate this following quote and it helped me at least with my mindset when dating: “The same God that placed that star in a precise orbit millennia before it appeared over Bethlehem in celebration of the birth of the Babe has given at least equal attention to placement of each of us in precise human orbits so that we may, if we will, illuminate the landscape of our individual lives, so that our light may not only lead others but warm them as well.” - Neal A. Maxwell As I said, I've had friends, pen pals, and first dates, plenty of them, and not surprisingly I didn't marry 99% of those people I interacted with (I have no idea how many first dates I went on, probably not actually 100, but you get the idea). Had I come up with the analogy back then, I would have felt an affinity for Halley's Comet, where it seemed like I would spend most of my time in drifting isolation, a point of light in a sea of stars, and then my orbit would intersect with another's orbit with what felt like a once-in-a-lifetime event. And then we wouldn't quite fully connect and my life would resume as it had before, leaving me warmed by their light but more acutely sensitive to the nature of my isolation. What I ended up deciding was that if there was a very low probability that I would get a girlfriend or engaged from getting to know someone or asking them on a date, then my goal was to help that person I was dating become a better person, to treat them well, and perhaps to help them learn what they were looking for in a relationship - even if what they were looking for wasn't me. My criteria for myself was if I became a better person, more considerate, a better listener, and if I learned not to do that really dumb thing I did on that date again when I was dating my future wife (because it obviously she wasn't going to be the person on that date), then it was a success. I figured there was a very high chance that I would be going on dates with someone's future spouse and I would have wanted my wife to be treated well on dates - even if I wasn't on that date and hadn't met her yet. If I had longer relationships and at some point we had outgrown each other, if I had become a better person, and helped them become a better person, and if my goal truly was to see them happy even if that wasn't with me, then that was okay. I was still glad that our orbits had intersected for a time. If it fell apart because we weren't making each other better people and we were becoming miserable, then it was good if sad for us to separate. All the dating with bad match ups was like trying on a bunch of gloves until I found that fit me as well as I fit the gloves. I considered it a painful honor when I got a non-trivial number of wedding invitations from girls I had dated. Once, I had recently gone on a second date with a really cool girl, found out an old boyfriend was moving back from out of state and she was super nervous on whether or not reconnect with him again in case things had changed too much or if they had changed too much. I shared the above quote with her and it really helped her calm down. They've been happily married for 6-7 years now. I'm glad I played wingman for that guy because I hoped that other people would help me out when I finally found my wife. I've since found out after the fact that my wife's bestie and housemate at the time when we were dating helped me out a lot, for which I am grateful. It's not always the case, but for me what went around came around. I'll also note that all the skills that you develop as an independent single pringle like cooking for yourself, doing dishes, laundry, cleaning, shopping, tax forms, budgeting, working, etc. really helps out the relationship even if the other person is better at it than you are. I'm glad I can make tomato basil soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for my wife when she gets sick, though admittedly last night's soup was from a can. I used to make homemade soup before we had our daughter, but my wife is fine with Progresso when we're both beat after college, work, and raising a toddler. Even single life can help you in a relationship if that's what you're looking for. Edit: I posted this then realized I didn't state some of the reasons that I was glad I stuck it out. It's nice to wake up next to a bestie every day. It's nice that I don't have to drop her back off at her house at the end of a date and drive home alone (when we started dating I lived about 75 miles (120 km) away from her as she was attending a different university). Now I don't have to wait for special occasions to decide I want to get her flowers. I wasn't going to start with it, but in the U.S. there were tax breaks we got for being married which is nothing to be sneezed at. I also was able to get a full-time job working at the university she was attending and get half off tuition for her as a benefit. This has been another essay from Duxredux. As always, I remind you that I'm just one longwinded point of data. Thank you for reading, hope this helped someone.

I'm leaning Elantrian. I'm looking at the end of Elantris and the Dakhor got pulped. Yes, surprise and a decade of complacency were on the Elantrian's side, but with the exception of Eondel's soldiers the entire country of Arelon was woefully unprepared for any sort of military conflict. The vast majority of Elantrians had little or no combat training, a couple of Aons that they had learned by rote, and they were facing Dakhor monks literally trained as super soldiers. They wiped the floor with them. Raoden had what, barely 3 months to learn and accomplish everything that he did? We've only gotten bare glimpses of fully trained Elantrians with full access to their power in action and we still consider them formidable. At present the only personal enhancement Aon we only know of Ene which removes mental fatigue, provides clarity of thought, and accelerates memorization. If there are more that can grant other abilities similar to A-Pewter, A-Tin, or anything like that, they'll become even more formidable. Basically, with how little we've seen of them and how poorly trained most of them were, unless Brandon has been hiding something that nerfs them, I expect them to get more powerful than what we've seen, not less.

As I look at this the question really boils down to at what point a swallowed metal becomes burnable and what degree or method of isolation is accessible. First note, does anyone remember if Wax made a comment on the result of testing Harmonium with hydrochloric acid? Group 1 metals, also known as the alkali metals, are the ones that famously explode when dropped in water. That's lithium, sodium, potassium, etc. The thing is, they're even more reactive when introduced to an acid, such as the hydrochloric acid found in the stomach. Think acid and base (alkali) reactions. If the alkali metals are a good analog to Harmonium then trying to bypass the mouth to the stomach with openly exposed Harmonium probably will get you blown up. That WoB at the top is specifically talking about metal, so I think nonmetals may provide even less restriction for an Allomancer to burn a metal in their stomach and that's where this gets a lot easier. It actually isn't that hard to get Harmonium into the stomach. Taking a note from Steris swapping the whiskey in Wax's metal vials out for cod liver oil, put the harmonium in a dietary supplement oil soft gel capsule. The real question is whether the gelatin and oil provide too much isolation for the person to burn the metal once it hits the stomach. Considering the stomach is a vat full of acid, having a bit of gelatin and oil probably won't make that much of difference. This wouldn't even be that hard to safely test as gelatin capsules can take 20-30 minutes if not more to dissolve enough to let the contents out. Get a regular Misting, stick the metal they usually burn in a capsule and then record how long it takes for them to get access to the power. If it's at all possible to burn a metal without it contacting stomach acid, this is the best and safest way I can think to check. It'd probably get RAFO'd but I think it's worth asking. Maybe we can frame it as a question on if an Allomancer can get a released time dosage of metal (for fighting Leechers) or if would all be immediately accessible, burnable, and Leechable despite the gelatin. "If an Allomancer were to put their metal flakes in one of those timed-release medicine tablets, would that work for them to slowly gain access to their metal as a solution to fighting Leechers or would the the tablet not provide enough isolation and they would be able to burn it and get Leeched anyway?" If answer is yes they could burn it immediately: "In that case, what if the metal was Harmonium? Would this be a viable way to safely burn Harmonium?" If gelatin capsules haven't been invented yet or the metal has to contact the stomach itself, then get a Kandra to do it. Kandra can burn Lerasium, so presumably they can burn Harmonium. Just have a Kandra rework their digestive tract to not have anything reactive and have them swallow and try to burn it. Hm. This is from 2014. I wonder if this statement is still accurate. If Kelsier really is a Kandra and this works... and if get his hands on Lerasium... I'm guessing Kelsier's needed power level for the story will determine if these methods are viable or not. Otherwise, Fake Secret History 2 opening as a call back to SH1: "Kelsier burned Harmonium."

I acknowledge that my views on critiquing are heavily influenced by how Brandon and Dan discuss critiques on Intentionally Blank. I also acknowledge that I am biased in favor of posts that improve a reader's enjoyment of a story. At any rate, here are some thoughts. First, what is the goal of your critique? Is it to highlight a potentially damaging misstep or omission on how a group or science is portrayed? Is it to get something that was bugging you about the story off your chest so you can let it go? Are you bugged by something that isn't really about the book but is about a personality trait of a character that rubs you wrong and you are seeking validation in your dislike? Is it to take one of the top fantasy authors who you think may get too much hype down a few pegs (if it is, you're probably on the wrong forum, just sayin')? Is it to explore the piece of media from the eye of an author to discuss what worked and what didn't with the goal of creating your own story? Is it to discuss how a piece of media fits in with the rest of media currently being produced? Is it that there something was wrong in a book and you found you had an irresistible urge to correct it and are one of those people who corrects textbooks that you don't own (nothing wrong with them as a human being, I married one)? Is it to showcase what you thought went well and why you liked the story? Is it meant as feedback for the author? It might feel like the goal of the critique is obvious, but signposting whether you are looking for support, advice, validation, or discussion can be useful in a forum. I'd have to find the exact episode(s) that he talks about it, but Brandon doesn't have a typical view on plot holes. His view is that a plot hole is an error that is immediately recognizable while reading or watching the story and throws the reader out of the story by breaking immersion. These are major plot holes that can break a story. These are separate from what he calls "refrigerator logic" where you finish the movie, enjoyed the ride, get up to get a sandwich and then the mental penny drops. You absolutely need to eliminate the first to have a good experience and you do your best to reduce the second so that rewatching the movie is enjoyable, but no author can make fiction as seamless as reality. There will be holes, and sometimes Brandon just choses to err on the side of what is awesome. Foreshadowing is an art and finetuning when exactly people put the pieces together for the "aha" moment is something Brandon works hard on. I think he has like 5 different stages to his revision process, and his branded "Sanderson's Laws of Magic" are really about proper foreshadowing. The thing is people have dramatically different life experience and will put together the pieces at different rates than others. In the groups he has pre-read the drafts I think he has them try to describe when exactly they put the pieces together and then he tries to tweak the information he doles out so that he gets the peak of the "aha" bell curve where he wants it. Regardless, there will be some people who figure out the big reveal a quarter of the way through the book and some people who will need it explained to them even after they've finished the book. Those "aha" moments are really satisfying for a lot of readers, and Brandon tries to get that experience to as many readers as he can, but sometimes you'll just be off the bell curve when he has hundreds of thousands if not millions of readers. I'm one of those take took an embarrassingly long time to figure out that Ruin was actually an evil god that corrupted religion and was trying to destroy the planet (I was young, I've since learned not to skim Brandon's epigraphs). Some books the initial read is just rough for me, but more often when I have the whole story in my head I can go back and pick out all of the tiny details that were hinting all along. I usually enjoy my second reading of Brandon's books more than the first because he goes to the effort of putting in all of the foreshadowing for the climax, character decisions, magic system reveals, and more. Brandon's annotations and WoBs probably wouldn't work for most authors because Brandon's fandom isn't like most authors. As of my writing this, there's almost 40,000 members of 17th Shard and 800 currently online and those are small subsets of his reader base. The annotations and WoBs are there for the people who fly all over the country chasing his book signings to go and ask him the question: "Why does Hoid like bacon so much?" If you're not in that group, that's fine, but there's not an insignificant number of people willing to do that. Most don't have to do that to enjoy his books (I've only gone to one local signing and only because a friend dragged me), but he does do quite a bit of catering for the huge fans, being a member of several fandoms himself considering how often he says on his podcast that he will promote Magic the Gathering cards for Wizards of the Coast if they send him free cards. The existence of the WoBs and annotations are there because people have begged him for them and this is one of his way of engaging with his fan community, but shouldn't necessarily be taken as a sign of laziness as a storyteller. It's for the people who for years repeatedly ask what the exact metal Wax's earring is made of - even if it only needs to be a Hemalurgic spike to fulfill its role in the story. Lastly, Brandon's profession is author. He's not an astrophysicist, biologist, chemist, field surgeon, fighter pilot, drill sergeant, orphan girl, or emperor. He gets a lot of feedback from experts in their respective fields so he can accurately portray things, but unless I'm very much mistaken, his goal isn't to make breakthroughs in chemistry, astrology, or psychology. He wants to tell stories and sometimes that's trying to get into the head of a leader who feels out of their depth. Sometimes he tries to show the life of a repentant murderer or a broken widower. Brandon has a lot of people playing backstop for him so he doesn't have to get 30 doctorates just to tell a cool story with minimal departure from known science and psychology sans Investiture. I think it's worth asking if an error in the science diminishes the story or Brandon's ability as a storyteller and if so, to what extent. If only a scientist in the field could spot the discrepancy is it a failure of storytelling? Well, that's my essay on criticism as it relates to Brandon Sanderson's work as an author. Thanks for reading, I'm just one longwinded point of data.

I could see a few factors playing into this. The average Shade almost certainly will be easier to shape than spren but I'm uncertain on how they would compare to Nightmares. On the easier side: > Shades seem to be far less self-aware than the Nightmares had potential to be. A Cognitive Shadow's self-perception probably affects how mutable they are to outside Cognitive influence. > Unless enraged, Shades are far more docile and may sit still longer than Nightmares, allowing more time to shape them. On the more difficult side: > Shades generally resemble the person they were in life though this fades as the Shade ages. Nightmares regained their awareness when shaped into the form they held in life. The fact that Shades look like what they used to may make them more resistant to being reshaped. > Directly related to this is that humans are really good at seeing human characteristics. Seeing a Shade that already looks like a person may make it harder to see it as something else. This can be overcome with practice and training, but even then could be really difficult if it's someone you knew, i.e. your buddy who just got killed by a Shade and became a Shade. > Nightmares specifically seek out and feed on fear and other Cognitive emotions, actively forming a Connection to the minds of those they interact with. I'm guessing this Connection makes Nightmares particularly susceptible to being reshaped by a Painter. Shades are disinterested in people and the PR in general unless they detect a violation of the Simple Rules. They also don't need (or at least don't seem to seek) sustenance from the minds of the living by forming a Connection with them. There's probably other factors, but I'm guessing Shades would be generally harder to shape than Nightmares but still easier than spren.

Would you consider the Skybreaker statistics and views from the past 4500 years noting the plateau at the 3rd Ideal and the rarity of the 5th Ideal as evidence? I'm addressing this concept but directing my thoughts to the thread in general, so no, this mini-essay isn't aimed at you therunner. It's about how the Oaths intrinsically are about self-improvement. I think there's multiple ways of viewing the concept of the difficulty of a task or lifestyle, and they come from different angles. Here's one viewpoint. Belief and who a person's contemporaries are have powerful influences on what people achieve. For years a human running a sub 4 minute mile was considered impossible. Despite Olympic athletes training and aiming for it, no one seemed to be able to do it.. it seemed beyond the limits of human will and endurance. Between 1937 and 1945, seven world records were set, the one in 1945 at 4:01.4 which held for nearly a decade. From a purely mechanical standpoint it should have been feasible, yet no one could do it, athletes repeatedly almost breaking 4 minutes but not quite. 9 years later in 1954, Roger Bannister did what many considered impossible and ran a 3:59.4 using other runners to pace himself. His record lasted less than 2 months when he was beaten by John Landy who knew Bannister, knew he was faster than him, and he broke the 1945 record by a full 3.4 seconds. Landy had never been able to break 4 minutes before he heard Bannister had. That 9 year gap is the longest gap in records set for the mile from then up until the current world record which was set in 1999. Notably the previous record set in 1993 was beaten by both the first and second place runners in the same race in 1999, their times are 3:43.13 and 3:43.40 respectively, and they remain the top two fastest mile runs recorded. Considering they finished within 0.27 seconds of each other, I find it plausible that neither would have broken the record had they not been running together. Brandon has a similar story with the writing group he was in back in his college days. A huge percentage of his group went on to become professionals in the writing industry, if not authors, and he considers it not too surprising that once one person broke out, so many others were able to as well. Who you are with and what you think is difficult or impossible affects how difficult something is to achieve. It's why what Roger Bannister did was so noteworthy - and it happened in part because he looked at his objective and believed it was possible from a purely mechanical standpoint, prior history not withstanding. It's not that surprising that Bridge Four became the core of the Windrunners considering who they were running with. That said, what Kaladin finds difficult as a Radiant probably will effect what the other Windrunners consider difficult. From a purely mechanical standpoint yes, it's possible to swear all 5 Ideals in a row, but we're not just talking mechanics, we're also talking about how people and spren perceive the Oaths. I won't discourage people from thinking from a purely mechanical standpoint - it's what let Bannister do what he did and can be a powerful mindset, but dismissing how hard it can be for one person to accomplish something because it was so easy for another - particularly regarding self-change - that can be incredibly damaging. Another viewpoint. To take the moral from Disney's Ratatouille, not everyone can become a 5-star chef, but a 5-star chef can come from anywhere. Not every Skybreaker is suited to become the embodiment of the Law otherwise there would be far more 5th Ideal Skybreakers flying around, but that isn't to say any given individual Skybreaker couldn't do it. Being a Radiant is a hard lifestyle and not every person who swears the Oaths will want to swear the higher Oaths. Look at how many debates there have been on which power a 17th Shard member would want and how many pass on Radiance. From a juggling standpoint, Oaths are cumulative, not substitutive. Experts can juggle over a dozen balls, but I have major difficulties going from 2 balls to 3. 5 is impossible for me right now. It's why being a part of two Orders is technically possible but very difficult. Sure, I can throw five balls into the air, but keeping them in the air? Juggling world records are measured not only on quantity of props thrown but also on duration of successful passes. Swearing 5 Ideals in a row is different from living and maintaining all 5 ideals. I'm sure there are other perspectives, but when talking about the Oaths and their relative difficulty, don't forget to consider that you're also talking about self-change, the permanence of the change, and what that topic means to people.

I've got a few additions to magical senses. I see A-Tin is conspicuously absent, though we see them in conjunction with other abilities and not just sensing. Are we looking only at supernatural senses rather than enhancement of conventional senses? Elsecaller or Lightweaver ability to look into Cognitive Realm. Ability to read the "minds" of souls (Shadesmar but also Kelsier in SH). Whatever supernatural thing that Shallan has where she sketches accurate depictions of things she has no normal way of knowing. Willshaper ability to converse with stone. Bondsmith Connection sense. Aetherbound information gathering through Aether.

If I remember right, it wasn't Snapping that was deadly, it was the Mists that had been left to their own devices once Preservation gave up his mind, and those Mists are what Ruin enhanced to become more deadly. Is this what you were remembering? It's the trauma to the soul that allows a person to Snap. Snapping itself is not a trauma-causing phenomenon. The mists caused sickness and trauma to activate powers, but were not the direct mechanism that allowed a person to manifest Allomancy.

I've read a few people talk about how Snapping seems weird and messed up and wanted to share my take on it. If you disagree feel free to share your views. At the core, Snapping is about self-preservation. Nature in general and for the purpose of this thread humanity specifically can do amazing things when put under extreme conditions. Mental and physiological changes happen when people are in a survival scenario, where they not only learn that they can make themselves do things that they would never consider doing, but that they are physically able to do extraordinary things. Under specific conditions people can lift cars, survive in freezing water for hours, cut off their own arm, or live off of seals for months (yes I've heard stories of each of these). Narratives of these experiences not infrequently describe hidden reserves or wells of energy that the person didn't know that they had, and snapping might not be a bad term for suddenly deciding you need to cut your arm off to survive. This is much deeper than simple adrenaline. In the Cosmere however, when the soul is reaching out to survive, a Shard responds. What Scadrians have that is different is the innate spark given to them by Preservation, sometimes the power of Preservation instilled in their bloodline, and with that Connection when they reach out instinctively in desperation to survive they gain access to Preservation's power. Allomancers get an even deeper Connection to this power. Harmony who has access to both Ruin's ability to crack souls and Preservation's ability to reinforce souls likely has options available to Snap new Allomancers that Preservation alone never had. Like with many aspects of Allomancy in TFE, Snapping in of itself is not evil, but the conditions it sets on obtaining power lead to horrible things done by the likes of Straff Venture. The old mechanism of Snapping is probably still viable after the Catacendre though unnecessary for those with access to Allomancy and is likely the reason why the Set's non-lethal Hemalurgic spiking was more effective when the donor was tortured. If you think about it, Allomancy doesn't restrict you at all from killing others, but it generally makes you better at surviving. Pewter, Iron, Steel, Copper, and Tin are the more obvious exanples, but even metals like brass help you survive as can be seen with Vin's "Luck". Perhaps even the seemingly useless Allomantic abilities will prove advantageous in the context of all the ways to get killed in the Cosmere on a physical, cognitive, or spiritual level. How does this relate to Snapping in other magic systems? I'll let others discuss that as I'm nearing the end of my posting time.

@TheFrugalWizard, Alder24 and Firesong both gave good information on the magic systems themselves, I'll address why I wouldn't expect Brandon to adopt any changes you or I would suggest without futher work on our part to integrate into his process. I don't think he even reads his own mail directly, I suspect he has too much of it. I'm mostly talking from what I've heard him say on Writing Excuses and Intentionally Blank. For Brandon the magic system will always be developed to tell the story he wants to tell, if the magic ruins his story, then he will change it, but the goal is to tell a good story. If despite reading the entire Mistborn series, it didn't work for you, that's okay, not every part of every book will work for everyone. That said, changes of the nature that you suggest for books some of which were released over a decade ago would require a tremendous amount of work in rewriting plot structure, foreshadowing, and other revisions for a series that has passed 1 million words. Then there's re-educating the readers on the way they have remembered the magic for years, and more. That's not even covering the cost to republish. What alder24 said about Feruchemical brass and electrum, is a relatively small thing to change that would still take a huge amount of work and money - to the extent that Brandon knows about the mistake and hasn't blown the time or money to rectify it. Realistically, it would be better to publish a new series with new branding than try to replace the ten million books sold in the Mistborn series. As it is Brandon already has alpha, beta, and gamma readers who read the various drafts of each new book and give him feedback to help him craft the stories he wants to create. Brandon will almost certainly work with those early readers who know his writing process and are already part of the structure of his organization than with someone who hasn't been integrated in. If you want to try to become one of his early readers and give suggestions in the format that he can use, then go for it, but Brandon says it's not as cool as most people think.

I'll note that if the validity of the Oaths are up to the interpretation of the spren in conjunction with whomever is the arbitrator, generally the Stormfather, then it may have been far easier and more common for Radiants to progress to higher Oaths - when there wasn't a major risk for the spren to become a Deadeye if the Radiant violated the Oaths. For modern spren if the Radiant dies, the spren keeps their mind. For pre-Recreance spren, the death of her Radiant was enough to put Syl in a reaaaally long coma, so it seems that there may have been incentive for the spren to accept higher Oaths more readily to grant greater protection for their Radiant. These days spren probably are more cautious when binding their Radiant to additional Oaths. I'll also note that near Honor's death, it sounds like he wasn't very picky about whether or not someone could keep an oath when they made it. I'm not great on Rosharan timelines, but between Honor and the Stormfather protecting spren, Oath arbitration may have been more lax pre-Recreance as well..

My take is that this is an expected potential outcome of what happens when you put the powers of deity into the hands of ordinary people who do not have the knowledge or vision of a deity, which is a fundamental idea of the Cosmere. There's going to be a higher incidence of people trying to get something to work and because they hadn't anticipated a quirk in the process, there's side effects - larger than you would find on an unInvested world. Vin breaks in her Mistborn powers by nearly impaling herself by burning Iron without knowing how exactly it works. Dealing with power that becomes sentient if left alone probably makes it even more complicated. Add in Shards both alive and dead leaving around massive sources of power relatively unsupervised and some other Shards coaxing the inhabitants into doing dangerous experiments and I don't think it's too surprising that so many worlds in the Cosmere almost got themselves annihilated. Nightblood, rampaging Koloss armies, Scadrial's too-close orbit during TFE, Elantris short circuiting at the Reod, the destruction of Ashyn... most potentially have Shardic machinations in the background and humans messing with a lot of Investiture. And that's just the mostly well-intentioned people, leaving out people actively trying to nuke a city like the Set. Edit:I found one of the fundamental reasons for why Brandon consistently has planetary scale calamities. It's in the Elantris 10th Anniversary edition in the forward written by Dan Wells. Apparently Brandon used to not write major conflicts as we used might consider them (Ruin destroying Scadrial), more on the scale of "some people want to shut down Kenton's sand magic school" and that's about it. His writing group would ask him when the real villains and conflict were going to show up... and Brandon wasn't planning on any bigger villains. Wasn't going to happen. It's his first writing agent, Joshua Bilmes's fault that Cosmere worlds are in peril and that Brandon started selling in the first place as he said something that became a mantra to Brandon's writing group when giving feedback - "The fabric of the universe needs to be in peril". Brandon really just wanted to write about people who flew on sand and ate giant insect tofu and fired air-powered wrist darts, but no the fabric of the universe wasn't really in peril enough. Brandon hadn't sold yet and then got published, so apparently at some level it worked and stuck. Dan's forward is beautiful and well worth reading, but there's the answer. His agent, his writing group, and probably his publisher and editor thought that there needed to be more conflict than just watching a guy keep his school open.

I'm content with the ending. Brandon gave Emily a happy ending to her romance story and I will not begrudge either of them that. Thematically, Yumi is the sun to Painter and I'm glad he gets to bask in the sun's light after living in darkness. Sure, structurally or setting-wise it would be cool to leave the Shroud in place or let Yumi die and leave Painter melancholy for life, but I'm far more likely to reread this book knowing I'll put it down with a smile. I also read this not long after listening to Brandon and Dan talk about their memories of when the Iron Curtain fell on Intentionally Blank, so that may have nudged me towards accepting this ending. The Cold War is a fascinating time in history and lots of stories have been written about it, but it's also a terrible time. As Yumiya said, there's 1700 years to explore the Shroud if a prequel is ever written, but I'll also be fine if the society and technology persists - just without a nightmare of a curfew.

I really enjoyed Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and when I have time after finishing a project and can sit and really think, I may come back and update my post concerning the aspects of YatNP that struck home from a Japanese mental culture stand point. I'm not sure if I've processed the book enough to address that well. I'll say for now, that for what has been filtered down to me as a fourth generation Japanese American, some of the mental patterns were very familiar, and I appreciate how Brandon handled them. I'll probably start a different thread for that though. I did get a minor spoiler that Your Name was an inspiration for the story, though I would have guessed that by the second chapter. First, I appreciate that even the names Painter and Yumi are indicative of their story arcs. For Yumi who was the paragon of a yoki-hijo, someone who should not be a person, she nonetheless was Yumi. For Nikaro the supposed washout, he was Painter. What they considered themselves in their minds is who they ended up becoming, and it was appropriate for them to grow into their names. I'm probably odd, but Liyun is a compelling character to me, though I don't intend to imitate her in any form, particularly in teaching or parenting. Liyun helped me understand some of my family members better and appreciate the good in them, though I'll expand more on that in a different thread. I will confess, when Izzy was talking about hot aliens, I immediately assumed that she would be ecstatic to know that Kaladin exists and would make fan art that would horrify him and delight Veil, if Veil was still around. Perhaps horribly unfair on my part, but there it is. This book felt more character driven than most of Brandon's, and I really liked how it turned out. I'm also fine with the extent that Hoid was in this book, not as an active participant, but giving commentary. Some aspect of Hoid as narrator reduced the mental citations that I have started tagging everything (for lack of a better term) whenever anyone in-story makes a conclusion about the magic system - because odds are it's probably only partial accurate if accurate at all. Pretty much a hallmark of Brandon's writing is that characters make inaccurate assumptions about how the magic really works. However, I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that if Hoid says that something works the way it does, then probably only a Shard might be a higher authority on the matter and not even then. For other people having Hoid be the narrator probably detracted a bit from how the romance played out, but for me it allowed me to let go of my mental cataloguing with citations. All in all, a book I highly enjoyed and anticipate rereading for decades to come

I'll add in another character that shows up in SA: That said, the biggest reason that I can think of for reading White Sand deals with Shards and may be more important for the books you haven't read yet and what looks to me like the direction Sanderson is going with the Cosmere.

In support of @Treamayne's EMI model, multiple Smokers burning in a room will make the resulting cloud harder to pierce. As for Smoking blocking emotional Allomancy, I found this tidbit: The fact that this is plausible is informative. It says something about how both Copperclouds and emotional Allomancy works, though I'm not sure what that is just yet. Makes you wonder if this Smoker could disrupt other cognitive abilities. Both of those examples are for Hemalurgists. To reference Treamayne's comment on the Smoker being immune to emotional Allomancy being Jossed by Vin feeling TLR's Soothing through her Copper, this may be more a handicap imposed by a Hemalurgic spike giving another avenue into the soul, rather than on a limitation of Copper. It seems probable that Kelsier who said that it was impossible for Vin to be feeling TLR's Soothing could not be Soothed through his Copper. I think it's quite possible that a natural born Coppercloud with no cracks in their soul could block out an Unmade's influence, particularly if they do not invite in their influence by swallowing sketchy gemstones.