Duxredux

Oh man, this will date me. I'll confess that some of this idea came from someone else's question on making fabrial mecha, but once I thought of it... if this wrecks anyone's view of Stormlight Archive, I apologize, and if comparing SA to something incredibly campy bothers you, turn back now. No, I don't think Brandon stole anything, any more than when a fan came up to him and told him that they loved Mistborn because everyone was Magneto. I'll need to set some things up first though. The main conflict really kicks off when Venli and her researchers accidentally release Rita Repulsa Odium and her minions the Fused from the moon (Braize). In preparation for this, and in response, Zordon Honor commands his servant Alpha 5 the Stormfather to find teenagers with attitude those with cracks in their souls who would fight for their world and sent them archetypal powers that would eventually allow them to fight in a united front, though for a long time those with powers got into conflict after conflict with each other. In the climactic showdown, this core team of the Power Rangers Knights Radiant, their bonds and friendships forged together through the war, they Unite the spren of their respective Shardplates into the Megazord and in the cockpit of their new armor, they strike down the champion of Odium, their Spren joining to form a massive Powersword Shardblade. Dalinar sits back in his seat, his hands dropping from the controls, his task to UNITE THEM, finally complete.

Well... any mundane method of bending someone to your control against their will should work. Weakening the mind, will, or spirit, so torture would probably work, particularly if it causes more cracks in the soul. Probably any sort of Pavlovian conditioning, what you do after you have control and how you train them in their own mind to obey you. Ruin had a bit of a heavy-handed approach of trying to twist Marsh into loving death and ash. Raw power would probably do it, give yourself additional Emotional Allomantic powers with Hemalurgy or augment your Rioting with Duralumin. 8th Heightening probably fits into this.

There may be something to this, that Hemalurgic abilities are powered by Ruin. If you think about it, there should be a power difference between Ruin and Preservation based on how all Allomancy is fueled by Preservation, unless there isn't a "cooldown" for the Investiture after an Allomancer utilizes the power. The second option seems unlikely to me, as Preservation's end plan was to burn away Ruin's body to weaken him, even with the fact that Investiture can't be lost in the system. If all Hemalurgic entities are to an extent powered or otherwise enabled through Ruin's Investiture, that would explain why there isn't a disparity from the Shards based on power consumption from using their Invested arts.

Question, how does weaponizing Hemalurgy play into this? Anyone can use it, meaning that any of these combatants could take a spike and use it to inflict damage directly to the Spiritweb, possibly removing their opponent's healing abilities. Healing this type of damage is possible, and some systems are better at it than others, comparing F-Gold and Stormlight, though I'm not sure how this works if the piece of the Spiritweb that enables healing is spiked out (spren bond, F-Gold). (Spoiler to compact WoBs) If this comes into play, then Speed, even more than before, is king. To address @Staenbridge, I'm fine with including Fullborn in this, considering the existence of the Bands of Mourning. I'll throw in another combatant not listed that may have been specifically crafted to fight in this kind of arena. We never saw it, but this seems like it was a very real possibility: Dalinar as the Blackthorn joined with Yelig-nar, the Unmade that grants all Surges. Scadrial has a relic that grants Fullborn status and Roshar has an immortal entity that grants all the Surges to a single individual. There's a very real possibility that these two powersets will end up clashing eventually. Yes, I know that Amaram got trounced, but as far as I know he had absolutely no prior experience with using Surgebinding and frankly he isn't the Blackthorn. Give Dalinar time to practice, and he would be terrifying. Who would you vote for, Dalinar as the Champion with Nine Shadows bonded with Yelig-nar sent as Odium's agent, verses Kelsier equipped with the Bands of Mourning defending Scadrial? I'd probably vote for Kelsier, but I believe Brandon could write a satisfying conflict and victory for either side. Both of them fight really, really dirty, but Kelsier is more clever than Dalinar.

Pretty sure this means she had multiple Trellium spikes.

Fair point, though I will note that directly after removing a spike Paalm doesn't have any control whatsoever then either, as she would revert back to a Mistwraith. Each time she removed a spike she would have had to position everything so that she would naturally reacquire a spike immediately after removing the one that gave her sapience.

There is that, where did the name "Nightwatcher" come from? My initial thought was that something about the name just made people have a similar association with some process of death, similar to Scadrians referring to However if the Nightwatcher was named by Cultivation, then there may be greater relevance. I at least haven't noticed any sort of connection between the Nightwatcher and the deceased, no souls making a pilgrimage, nothing when we get a dying viewpoint, though many of those have other influences.

Scenario: during WoR, when Rlain is still acting like a Parshman, Kaladin is given a new servant that looks kind of weird, has completely gray skin, and for some reason requires saying "Bridge 4" before and after an order before the servant will do anything, even rest. Kaladin, being Kaladin, attempts to befriend "Gray" as the other bridgemen have cleverly dubbed the fellow, as clearly Gray has had worse trauma than most, maybe he went and did something with the Nightwatcher and the Old Magic. Later, in Oathbringer when members of Bridge 4 are becoming squires, Kaladin pulls aside Gray and Hobber, the two most crippled bridgemen, to give them direct coaching on breathing in Stormlight. Hobber succeeds, the Light healing his soul-dead legs, enabling him to stand. Gray when ordered to breath in Light ______?

Actually, yes for the original post @Tamriel Wolfsbaine, and for @Quantus, confirmed that Lifeless can use Medallion tech, and doing so may be dangerous for keeping your Lifeless a Lifeless. Do we think Brandon is implying that specific Metalminds are capable of restoring a Lifeless either controlled by their or personality or the personality of the Breath that had made them Lifeless? If that's what that last comment means, then there may be similar issues with giving Lifeless access to Stormlight healing, more with a Radiant bond than through an Honorblade which cannot heal Shardblade wounds to the soul. If a Lifeless can use a medallion, I think there's a fair chance they could use an Honorblade. My initial though was that while mechanically it seems possible for a Lifeless to bond with a spren, it seems very unlikely for a spren to bond with a being that must do as it's owner Commands, obeying even Commands that are violations of Oaths. However... Okay, very possible scenario: Radiant Vratim dies in combat, Honorspren Yunfah remains sapient in the Physical Realm after Vratim's death. A passing Awakener takes pity, revives Vratim as a Lifeless with a single Breath and gives Yunfah the core security phrase. The Awakener tells Yunfah that if they can reform their bond with Vratim to the extent that Vratim starts drawing in Stormlight, then Vratim's soul could be healed (let's assume that this is stated but not confirmed yet). What happens if Yunfah Commands Vratim to speak again the Oaths?

Actually, there may be something to Rosharans having slower heart rates. Roshar is at about 70% gravity and has a highly oxygenated atmosphere, though this doesn't really come up in-world. Their hearts may not need to circulate blood as quickly as earthlings to provide sufficient oxygen to the body. Veins below the chest have to force blood up back towards the heart, combatting gravity, so with reduced gravity, blood pressure and heart rates decrease. They've discovered this to be the case on the space station. Yup, dramatic tension, and yup, their hearts may actually beat slower.

Not with that approach. Conjoined fabrials don't multiply force or the distance of travel, they transmit it, meaning that to move your pilot suit you would need to be able to physically move the mecha's joints with your own muscle power, and that's just if it's the same size as you. If you try attaching the conjoined rubies to Shardplate it makes it so that you can pilot something with the Plate's strength enhancment, letting you remotely control something similarly sized or weighted, which could be useful but probably not as useful as just using the incredibly durable Plate in the first place. To make it control something larger, you would have to use the trick of using conjoined rubies that are sized to the proportional scale between the pilot suit and the mecha, and you would need a similar proportional increase of force to move the joints of the mecha the distance that they need to move. Not terribly feasible, at least with the current tech and understanding. However, dead Shardblades allow for manipulation of the form to a certain extent, at least with the installation of gemstones allowing the Shardbearer to bond with the Blade. Plate will also respond, resizing itself to fit you more perfectly, up to Kaladin using a helmet as a gauntlet. We even see Kaladin summoning his living Plate around other people, Fused, children, etc.. I wouldn't worry about fabrial tech to get the mecha motion working because the existing Shardplate is already powered armor and I could very well believe that you could get Plate to accept additional fabrial armament, though I wouldn't expect dead Plate spren to be able to fire or otherwise trigger the use of weaponry. Not sure if live lesser spren could manage triggering a shoulder mounted cannon, though the Radiant spren would be smart enough. Depending on how the sizing works, since we know that there is Plate for people as big as 7 feet tall, perhaps with enough of the lesser spren you could form supersized armor, just mentally commanding it to scale up. Who knows, maybe a Radiant with living Plate can actually command it to move remotely, we haven't seen it yet.

I've heard the term "Divine Investiture of Authority" before, and in that particular usage it was referencing when someone, particularly a prophet, operates and talks as if they were the being that they represented, doing so by delegated (or invested) authority. For example, in order for a diplomat or ambassador to have any effectiveness whatsoever, they have to be given authority to act as if they were the organization, group, leader, or other source of authority, meaning that the entity that they represent will back or otherwise make good on whatever the diplomat or ambassador does in their name, to the extent of the authority that they are given. How does this relate to the Cosmere? Investiture is more or less the 3rd component of the Cosmere, along with mass, energy, but beings that have more Investiture (or another way of looking at it, authority over Investiture) can influence or otherwise command Investiture to respond. A Coinshot can move a metal (and at the high end, maybe even fundamental forces), and a Shard can move a planet. The amount of Investiture or "authority" also impacts the extent that you can influence others, the God King for example can break Commands. All of this we know, but what struck me, and is probably obvious, is that if we look at this as matters of authority, there can be a distinct difference between the quantity of Investiture in an object and the "authority" it has. My example would be Vasher's Lifeless squirrel, which only had a single breath but Lightsong's priests noted that had an incredibly strong Command. The squirrel took weeks of torture and Breath to break. Why does this squirrel matter? It means that the amount of Investiture does not have to correlate with strength of the Command, though sheer Investiture can overwhelm a Command, and this becomes relevant because of Dawnshards. In essence, I wonder if there has been a division between the Power (Investiture of the Shards) and the Authority (Dawnshards) in the Cosmere, and if a Dawnshard can override, augment, or break the Commands of people manipulating Investiture. I'm not just talking the Commands of a Lifeless, but something to the extent of altering a Soulcaster commanding something to change. There's a bunch of jargon that has probably resulted in hair being pulled out, but this is related to all the ideas that Invested abilities are related to Intent/Commands/focus/etc., that a Dawnshard with Invested abilities can influence even those Commands that you wouldn't think are a Command and wouldn't consider breakable, such as a Coinshot Pushing on a clip. Basically, I'm wondering if Commands and Intent are a fundamental component of the Cosmere and when a Dawnshard has Investiture they can manipulate those Commands that are related to the Dawnshard. Anyway, that's my rambling from your interesting term. Interesting thought!

I do think that this portrayal of what and why Kelsier did what he did is a bit unfair. By no means am I disputing whether or not Kaladin is a better person than Kelsier, but the original post is excluding some important components. Major spoilers for Kelsier's story. Long post hidden behind the spoiler; I think Kelsier is getting slighted a bit much, but yes, Kaladin is quite likely a better person than Kelsier is. In a different context, Kelsier could have been a terrifying villain and may not make the best decisions. That's foundational to the Brandon's original vision for Kelsier.

There's about three different ideas to this question, and we'll see if it's already answered. First, we know that Allomantic metals seem to be relevant in different magics, particularly in fabrial construction, with the metals seeming to correlate with Allomantic abilities. Second, Allomantic metals operate as catalysts, filtering the power from Preservation producing the Allomancer's abilities, the metals themselves do not grant the power. Third, when harvesting attributes from a Mistborn, it seems as if the power granted is based on spike placement on the recipient more than the donor. So... the question is if you have spikes of the same size but made of the various metals, do they take different levels of Hemalurgic charge in terms of Investiture based on what attribute is stolen, or does each spike take the same sized portion of soul with the power or attribute granted filtered through the metal as the soul gets spliced into a specific section of sDNA? In essence, I'm wondering if like Allomancy and Feruchemical Compounding, Hemalurgy also is a filter for power. Regardless, the question of amount of Investiture harvested could be relevant.

What level of difficulty are you looking for? On the scale of character portraits to Thunderclast smashing through Kholinar, flinging soldiers into the sky? Here's some ideas: Lift with her Shardfork (Edgedancer chapter 20) Considering what is coming next... Kaladin parting the Highstorm with windspren to protect that random village (Oathbringer chapter 31) Adolin fighting off the Tukari bandits with Maya in Shadesmar (RoW Chapter 35) Adolin teaching Maya how to groom Gallant (RoW chapter 22) Shallan at the end of Hoid's version of "The Girl who Looked Up" (Oathbringer chapter 82) Taln coherent and reunited with Ash (Oathbringer chapter 119) Szeth and Nightblood hitting Ishar's Honorblade (RoW chapter 111) If none of these strike your fancy, a good way of looking for material would be to go through the Coppermind and see if you can fill in any of the articles that are low on artwork, and it would be really cool if they used your artwork. For example, there isn't much for the different Brands of Fused.

Well... the debate is based on semantics. It's whatever Dalinar and by extension Brandon thinks is the difference is, no matter how we might interpret the distinction between the terms. It really only matters what Dalinar thinks, and Dalinar is still really bad at letting go of any responsibility. Unless something major happens, Dalinar is quite likely to try to see things through himself for the contest of champions. Off the cuff here's my distinction, though it may not matter: Kaladin as a soldier - he is there to protect: his people, his squad, random singers, etc. Until he more or less snapped at the end of RoW (and Dalinar wasn't there to watch), Kaladin doesn't really think like a killer, nor does he fight like a killer (though when he started targeting to cripple with the scalpel, that's a bit closer). He fights with a code of conduct and will hold to honor on a battlefield. Kaladin does not inflict unnecessary casualties because he generally wants to accomplish the goal while keeping as many people alive as possible. Kaladin is terrible at dealing with casualties. Look at the start of RoW, Kaladin's focus was primarily on keeping Bridge 4 and the civilians alive, to the extent that he was adopting the combat etiquette of the Heavenly Ones. Kaladin makes a fantastic frontline soldier, but for most of his story he would make a terrible field commander. These days, if there were peace, I doubt Kaladin would get bored like Dalinar used to. Dalinar as a warrior - until he adopted the Codes, there was no honor on his battlefield. Dalinar was fantastic at killing, and would use any and every trick he could think of: shooting the horse out from a combatant, cutting the ground out from under someone on a cliff, burning a city with oil, or using whatever weapon that came to hand to dominate a battlefield and slaughter his foes. The way he thinks is about besting his opponent and killing them, about overwhelming an opposing force by sheer momentum and by terrifying the opponent until they will run away, using fear as a weapon as he would a halberd. Dalinar will knowingly throw tens of thousands of soldiers into a conflict knowing that many of them will die in order to obtain an objective. Dalinar today will get beaten in a fair fight if he doesn't use dirty tricks, as seen when he wrestles with another soldier and loses without the Thrill, but that's not why he was terrifying as the Blackthorn. In essence, though Kaladin can kill, he is not a killer in the same way that Dalinar made it his life and career. Kaladin watches for his men, Dalinar wins contests as he has his whole life. This is not me saying that Dalinar is the best choice, it's just the distinction I'm making. Brandon would probably say something quite different if asked next Q&A.

@Treamayne, I see the logic, but that doesn't play out for other circumstances of people directly fueled by Preservation. If that was what was happening we should see compounded F-Gold level healing in each case, but we don't. 1. Vin's broken bones healed in an instant as she draws upon the Mists in the process of Ascending. Notably her broken leg was not healed when drawing on the Mists to defeat TLR, prior to her attunement at the Well of Ascension. 2. As a benchmark for F-Gold, TLR could casually walk around with three spears stuck in him and was reported to survive beheadings and immolation. 3. Elend, fueled by Vin as Preservation, killed by an obsidian axe blow first to the chest and then the neck. Vin's case in particular makes me think it is something to do with the level of power drawn in while Ascending, otherwise the level of healing available from F-Gold probably should have kept Elend alive. Alternately Vin was simply too inexperienced and was just giving Elend general power without focusing on augmented healing similar to (Elantris spoiler) I could believe that with practice Vin could have figured out how to focus her power into healing with F-Gold, but I'd expect you would need to be drawing on a huge amount of health at the moment of impact to survive decapitation just through sheer speed of healing. Sazed was able to restore Elend and Vin's bodies after their deaths, though I don't know if it's been confirmed if they could have been resurrected, but Sazed certainly thought they could.

Hmmm... Misting or Ferring... both have intrinsic advantages and disadvantages. For theoretical IRL usage, do I gain Scadrial's resistance to heavy metal poisoning? If not, that complicates things somewhat, and I would be far more hesitant to go for A-Cadmium. Attention isn't usually drawn to it, but Ferring are constantly carrying around heavy pieces of metal that by nature have to be touching the skin. That has to be cold in the winter if you don't have F-Brass. Sazed at least had a care and maintenance routine for his metalminds, and knowing myself, even if I had it as part of a superpower I may not be the best at maintaining a metalmind. Most of the metals these days are relatively cheap, including Cadmium and Chromium, so using or owning most of them wouldn't be that much of a stress on the budget, with the exception of Gold and Electrum. I worry that if I were a Bloodmaker and wandered around with gold bracers on my arms I would need to be way stronger to be able to carry enough Gold to have an appreciable storage, and I might need the healing if I became a target for that wealth (assuming I could afford it in the first place). In the end, I might go for A-Steel, because Steelsight alone could be incredibly useful and seems to have less drawbacks sensory-wise when compared to A-Tin. If I wanted to be a structural engineer, an inspector, or get into the metal refinement industry, being able to develop my skills to the point that I can identify metals with Steelsight, that all has far more application to improve the world than a lot of the abilities that are mostly of personal use. There's also being able to always find my phone, car keys, and wallet, which is nothing to be sneezed at. Being able to do heavy lifting with proper equipment and Steel could be useful at time as well. If I decide to go on a crime fighting spree, fly, or any of the more dangerous stunts available to a Coinshot, the option is on the table, but there's a lot that I could do with this power without having to do anything risky. Steel rather than Iron because while being able to Pull my keys to me would be useful, I'm way more likely to accidentally injure myself as a Lurcher.

A bunch of semi-related questions: Does Investiture have some sort of issue with dwellings? Why did the Mists evaporate when entering a tent or a building? Why do spheres have to be hung out in the Highstorm in order to be infused? Is there a boundary at the window, or could spheres sitting just inside an open door on the leeward size be infused? Does a bit of canvas or a wall really prevent Investiture from the Spiritual Realm seeping through to permeate spheres and people, or is it because this Investiture is locked in the Physical Realm and cannot pass through even something that thin? Why was it that Dalinar could enter Urithiru but the Stormfather could not?

A phenomenon similar to a Investiture pressure differentials definitely exists, it is important, and in fact it's foundational for how fabrials are made. From Rhythm of War Epigraphs: It does seem as if higher stress applications are more likely to break gemstones, for example Jasnah predicting that a focal gem would break when she was preparing to free Taravangian's granddaughter at the very start of Way of Kings by Soulcasting the fallen stone. However, most often gemstones seem to break when the Stormlight empties from them, not when they get infused by the Highstorm. If gemstone failure was caused by a burst pressure exceeding their maximum capacity, I would expect them to break when they were infused, not when they were drained. I'd guess it's those small cracks that @Quantus mentioned that vibrate and widen as Stormlight infuses and leaves the Gem, perhaps creating stronger vibrations from the kinetic Investiture? I think both concepts may be at play. Edit, here's a WoB.

My standard wardrobe is grey semi-formal pants similar to regular khakis, and a polo shirt, so I fit in the above-average dress category. I'm pretty even-keeled so most people are surprised to find out that at age 22 I broke my first bone (my pinky) by trying to do a breakdance windmill on grass (bad idea, don't try it. You need a nice smooth and slippery surface to do that kind of spin well).

The more I look at the intermediary alphabet, the more it starts looking like it was designed as a point of reference. Every single character has a horizontal line at the very top and Pewter really makes it look like the spike placement is based on something proportional to the whole. Agreed, this is a fascinating idea. At least by The Final Empire it was altered to be a stylized bead (Allomancy), bracer (Feruchemy), and spike (Hemalurgy), confirmed here, but I think at least the intermediary could be a Hemalurgic catalog. However, there are other things that I don't get quite yet. What's with that floating spike for Malatium and Brass? Is there a reason that this doesn't catalogue bindpoints on the head? I'll have to think about this. I'll include a few WoBs that seem relevant, collapsed for convenience. As I dig deeper and look read the WoBs, WoIs, and WoPs, the parts that I'm not sure on is on what changed or was lost based on the Steel Alphabet, and how closely we should align in-world Hemalurgic knowledge to what was developed as both a metallurgic symbol and a writing system. Take Bendalloy, Cadmium, and Nicrosil, did Ancient Terris really have those or were they later arbitrarily assigned one of the alphabet letters? What about The Final Empire having a symbol for Ettmetal, did they somehow make a viable alloy of Lerasium and Atium and figure out how to stick it in someone without it exploding from making contact with blood, or was this assigned after the fact? I could see this perhaps working for the basic metals that were preserved, but I'm iffy on if the metals that only became known after the Catacendre were appropriately matched to the symbols that indicate Hemalurgic bindpoints for those metals.

... this seems like a fantastic way to accidentally kill a city. If you replace your Identity with DESTROY EVIL and Nightblood himself starts to consider you part of himself... well, you might still be consumed but not by being converted to Investiture. Even just by blanking your own Identity you would be far more susceptible to Nightblood's influence, and even normal people can become puppets to his Command. How exactly were you planning to remain in control with this method? The result that I see most likely is that this would give an unchained Nightblood a body to use that may not burn itself out as fast. I doubt Nightblood unsheathed would remember to let go of the puppet, feed it, water it, or let it sleep. But wait, there's more! Looking back, @Ixthos mentioned this too. When Ishar Connected Sigzil and the other Windrunners to the ground, their Stormlight drained into Roshar as they tried to infuse themselves. If Nightblood still makes a Connection with you while you have a similar Identity, what are the odds that you would get flooded with the corrupted Investiture that fills Nightblood? Would Nightblood simply eat the kinetic Investiture as you attempt to tap your Nightmind and then overwhelm you as you blank Identity? Absolute worst case scenario, and it's rather improbable, but you somehow become one with Nightblood, get flooded with power and your soul changes from the massive influx of Investiture. Somehow you survive and change to become more like Nightblood, and begin persisting like a Cognitive Shadow. This new being becomes known as Nightblood, superseding the original sword, as this shadowy entity mindlessly wanders the Cosmere to DESTROY EVIL. Best case scenario, tapping the Nightmind makes it so that Nightblood can't form a Connection with the wielder and doesn't go active when drawn. What I quote next is tongue in cheek, considering I came up with a Hemalurgic nose and asked about a week ago what would happen if you tried to draw Nightblood while wearing Aluminum plate armor. Hopefully no one takes this too seriously. But seriously, this is a really, really bad idea and if you blank your Identity, I'm betting you only have one try to get it perfectly right or you and possibly everyone around you ends up dead.

This is a slight tangent from the original question, but ten years is a decent time gap between books. Let's see what ages people would be at approximately: Kaladin: 32 Rosharan, 35 Cosmere Standard Navani: 65 R, 72 C Shallan: 29 R, 32 C Dalinar: 65 R, 72 C Szeth: 47 R, 52 C Adolin: 35 R, 39 C Renarin: 31 R, 34 C Jasnah: 46 R, 51 C Lift: 25 R, 28 C 10 R Gavinor: 15 R, 17 C Oroden: 12-13 R, 13-14 C Taln: old Ash: old Hoid: different old than really old boots There's a lot that can happen in that time frame, and for those ages. Jasnah and Szeth are about the right age for a midlife crisis, Kaladin could be married with a midsize family, Lift would be older than Kaladin is now if she wasn't 10. Something pretty much has to put Dalinar and Kaladin out of the spotlight, as they have a way of dominating scenes even when they aren't the viewpoint, but there's plenty of ways for characters to simply leave the spotlight or pass on normally. SA 5 will be climatic, so it's pretty much guaranteed that will be losses on screen that will hurt, but I kind of hope some people get to sit out the battle after this. In essence, Brandon doesn't need to kill a character in SA 5 for them to not be present in SA 6-10. Navani could totally retire or just die from old age (Mistborn spoilers)

I've started to think that there is such a thing as reverse fundamental attribution error. Fundamental attribution error is where a person attributes another's behavior to their character traits while attributing their own behavior to environmental or situational factors outside of their control. Often this is in a negative context such as "that person who is speeding is a reckless idiot" compared to "I had to speed because my alarm didn't go off and I can't afford to be late one more time to class". However, I have also seen the reverse in people, where they attribute another's success to environmental factors and their own failure to character flaw while ignoring the circumstances. This can appear as "they only won because their rich enough to get the best equipment" or "I'm just no good at this, I'm not gifted/smart/athletic like other people are (while ignoring circumstances like amount of time spent practicing when comparing a beginner to a veteran, poor equipment, coaching, support, etc.)." A bit of a downer beginning for uplifting words, but I hope that pointing out that these mindsets and viewpoints at the extremes are so very incomplete. Sometimes things really just don't go your way, but that doesn't mean that you can't succeed when circumstances support you. Sometimes other people succeed in spite of their circumstances and we just never see it. Realizing that they way I saw the world was incomplete helped me at least to try to stop comparing my weaknesses to other's strengths. So... if you'll forgive my pedantry, I have a tendency to lecture. I would guess that most if not everyone who has posted something uplifting on this thread has been discouraged, felt like a failure, but believed that failure need not be final. If you came to this thread feeling kind of silly because you wanted something uplifting to get you through the day and felt a bit weak for needing that support, then you're just like the rest of us who sometimes need a bit of a boost. Believe that you can do great things, and you just might prove yourself right.