Duxredux

Going back to the original post, what exactly are you attempting to do here, @Trusk'our? There's already an existing 1 spike Hemalurgic transformation with the Chimeras, though it doesn't seem as if Bleeder was attempting to mold them towards another person. I'm not sure why using only 1 spike is that important. I'm not sure if you necessarily need to spike out their Identity to make the change, just have them dampen it with an Identity medallion (unless we are trying to do this without the victim's consent). At any rate I'm trying to understand where you're going with this and what new you're trying to bring to the conversation. At any rate, with Identity manipulation, healing, and Hemalurgy, making drastic physical changes is quite possible. Apparently growing wings isn't out of the question.

Well, Brandon has Rafo'd a piece of that, so it's potentially viable but unconfirmed. Something in me says that there would need to be some kind of limit to how powerful this can get, but then I would have said that about Componding in general and here we are. The next thoughts are possible extrapolations of how insanely broken this powerset could be. If this Twinborn Radiant (a powerset that is possible to get naturally) were given the equipment and knowledge to make Unsealed Metalminds that granted the ability to Soulcast, store Investiture, and burn Nicrosil, then you could mass produce this busted powerset and make an army of Soulcasters that have the ability enhancements and healing of Stormlight. If Breaths can indeed be Compounded, then you buy some Breaths with Soulcast valuable metals and then Compound enough that we can give our Investiture Compounding army immortality and enough extra to Awaken a newly Soulcast Awakened army of cloth soldiers with Soulcast weaponry. If the Awakener decides not to sell, then you use your Nicrosil to spike out the general Investiture from them, taking the Breaths for yourself. Either burn the Nicrosil Hemalurgic spike filled with stolen Investiture and use it for Compunding, or if that doesn't work, stick the spike in, withdraw the Breaths and Compound them before removing the spike while healing with your infinite Stormlight. Somewhere in here, considering Breaths are transferrable off Nalthis, I think something needs to make this not viable, or space age commerce and conflict is going to be insane once anyone figures this out. Edit: Talked with my brother and a potential issue that we came up with is whether or not Compounding allows you to duplicate Investiture that is not of Preservation. Technically, Compounding doesn't give you infinite Investiture, the stored attribute is the focus that determines the form that the magic manifests, this process being fueled by Preservation. I could see it just not working or consuming a percentage of the Investiture to convert Preservation's power into another Shard's Investiture. Depending on the percentage this could make this impractical. An alternate option is you get a burst of Investiture from Preservation that is not Stormlight, unkeyed to a specific ability, you might be able to fuel your Surgebinding with that, then we start coming full circle. You wouldn't get the intrinsic benefits of Stormlight though. This is complicated stuff, and it doesn't addressing things like the rate of Stormlight decay from Nicrosil.

I actually was just wondering how Kandra bind points work, particularly in the case of TenSoon. Did he swap out spikes, use all four, and did he experience massive mood swings and changes to his personality during the process? I didn't pick up on differences in his temperament while using the Blessing of Potency. As for the difficulty with adding spikes or altering Hemalurgic Constructs, I think there may be a distinct difference between granting Allomantic or Feruchemical powers to someone that remains more or less human in shape compared to creating a new entity like the Koloss, at least that was the sense I got from the excerpts we get from Spook's book. Somewhere, additional experimentation had to have been done to figure out the bind points for A-Chromium which we know was found. I'm not sure why, but granted powers seems easier for some reason than making a Kandra or a Koloss. I think it's totally possible to create Hemalurgic constructs that aren't sustainable, sapient, or particularly useful. Warping the soul likely has really weird effects, and we know that Inquisitors at least require a linchpin spike to keep them alive for some reason. I think it's totally possible to just kill or warp a hemalurgic test subject without knowing exactly when such a linchpin or pairing of spikes is necessary. It wouldn't surprise me if TLR and the Inquisitors' experiments created the Chimeras that Bleeder set on Wax and TenSoon but never considered them useful compared to Koloss or Kandra. Yes, the Chimera's spike was Trellium and it has weird properties, but I find it a bit more probable that Paalm witnessed some of the experiments than just came up with them herself, considering her own spike still allows her to operate as a Kandra.

The time table is too short, the contest of champions takes place in 10 days from the end of RoW I think. If those Death Rattles about the child refer to this contest, the best candidate I've heard for Odium's Champion is Gavinor Kholin, the rightful king of Alethkar. If Dalinar is his own champion, and the contest requires a fight to the death, I don't see a way right now for him to go into combat with Gavinor and not lose in one way or another, either breaking his agreement with Odium or breaking his Oath to unite instead of divide (I can't see killing a child or the rightful king of Alethkar not being divisive in one way or another), losing his Bondsmith status and possibly making the Stormfather into a Deadeyes. I also believe that Taravangian would send a child to die in this contest, it's no worse than harvesting Death Rattles. Gavinor is acting rather hateful and vengeful for such a young child.

My experience may be unusual, but I took a very systematic approach to spirituality as a child. I'd been taught that if I prayed I could receive an answer from God. So I did, and I tried to learn from a Boolean logic perspective, by asking what was "yes" what was "no". From there I tried to discern if anything changed, regardless of how long I waited, and once I decided on what I thought was "yes" or "no", and then tried to apply it to decision making and looked to see if there was a difference. However, talking with a deity when the only two responses that I could recognize were "yes" and "no" is an incredibly inefficient communication method, and I'm sure I misinterpreted things. I suppose this could be seen as confirmation bias, except to me I was receiving direction to do and say things that I myself would have no way of knowing through conventional means. I know exactly how bad I am with interpersonal relationships and understanding people even when I try my best, and when I try to follow directions from deity things go better. I've since concluded that my approach, while it worked for me because I was earnest and really wanted to know, was perhaps a bit demeaning or limiting in the communication I could understand from God. My life experiences have led me to believe that there is a Deity that can and will communicate with me. In what areas I get direction and the content of the direction leads me to believe specific things about Deity. First that the end goal is not for me to simply go through life with a spiritual "Google" that I can look answers up without having to make my own decisions, but that I personally need to grow and choose to become a better person. Second, that I very rarely get answers that direct me to disregard another person's ability to choose. Third, is that the answers I get seem to have a vested interest that I become someone who is kind and helps others. Within the context of a spiritual experience, this may show my bias, but I do think that God is an intelligent being, and as such it is a relationship that a person has with God as another intelligent being. In the same way that my teacher will interact with me differently compared to another student, or how my parents communicate with me differently than my siblings; because I am a different person and have different needs, interests, and struggles from my neighbor, God may interact with me differently. To use an analogy with my best friend who I ended up marrying, when I first met her I did not know much about her, why she did what she did, but she seemed nice. Over the course of 15 years, intentionally and deliberately I have learned more about my wife, and now we can communicate whole concepts with a look, a nudge, a pause, or a word when once we had long conversations or interactions that built the foundation of our relationship and ability to communicate (we still have those longer conversations). To me, a spiritual experience, is just that, an experience with Deity. If we don't work on building up a relationship, focusing on Deity and attempting to retain information on how Deity interacts with us specifically, then it's about the same as having an experience with a commuter on a bus that you have had hundreds of interactions with, but never bothered to remember or take special note. Alternately, it's picking up the free sample at the grocery store every week, enjoying the good food but never stopping to find out who prepared it for you. I recognize that my worldview and the way that I think will color the way I view God's relationship with humanity and I may be waxing too theoretical or philosophical. With that preamble, I think that God is a being powerful enough to create the universe and consider the lives of every person and that God does love humanity and wants us to be happy and have free will to boot. To me, it's not just that God can create worlds, but that God cares about whether or not I get along with my neighbor and if I'm making their life better or miserable. Perhaps this will get some flak, but I think precisely because God is powerful enough to create a universe and has the attention to hear a prayer, God has to work under specific limitations to get this desired effect of happy humans that treat each other well and retain their ability to choose. I'll ask the teachers and parents - can you force a child to be happy, to learn, or to be nice to their peers? Will they continue to do so without your intervention? At times you have power over their whole environment, who they interact with, where they can go, and what they can do. Do displays of your power and authority help that child choose to do things that will make them happier or learn to be a better person or does it alienate them? What happens if you solve all their problems for them? How does the child behave when you leave the room? Those have potentially negative connotations, but there are students that love being able to go and ask the teacher questions and grow from their knowledge, and there are children who really value being able to ask a parent for advice, get help with something, or play a game. I have a 2-year old that occasionally will decide to start banging her head against the wall repeatedly. At this point, I use my superior size to physically restrain her, but at some point I hope to help her decide that slamming her head against the wall is not good for her. My toddler will not be able to gain autonomy, self-confidence, or grow socially if I have to be present constantly so she doesn't bash her head against something. There is a limit to how much I will normally grow and change in my job if my supervisor is constantly in the room looking over my shoulder. To tie back this analogy, any time Deity overtly and directly uses divine power, I think there is an accompanying ramification of The Teacher or The Parent stepping into the room, at least in terms of the relative power and authority between God and man. If you believe the story of Moses and the plagues sent on Egypt, even overt manifestations of divine power may not make a person choose to change their mind, sometimes the opposite occurs and people become more stubborn when faced with displays of power and authority. Because Deity is powerful and knowing, manifestations of power have a possible intimidation factor involved and that can drastically affect how people respond. In essence, I do think that there are very good reasons for Deity to hide or reveal the evidence of their presence based on the relationship of each individual and how they would really respond to varying levels of divine interaction. This is why I think so often religion and "divine aid" comes through what can be viewed as very normal means if not viewed in the context of spirituality. To me, much of religion is about how to be a happier person and avoid the pitfalls either individually or collectively associated with interacting in a system of intelligent beings with physical objects (something that by the very nature of those prerequisites can include change, possessions, interactions, conflict, settling disputes, and more) but a lot of problems come in based on how people use, distribute, or enforce that information, sometimes violating the very principles they are attempting to uphold. It's complicated trying to help someone be happy not just immediately but in the long term and I screw up all the time. I'm sure that there is more to this and other religious viewpoints that I haven't considered and that I am still short sighted, but it's something that I've thought about over the years. I will say that sometimes it feels distinctly weird to write something like this while feeling as if the person I'm writing about is reading over my shoulder. I should note that I don't think that the religious have a monopoly on truth, goodness, or happiness. I think that truth, goodness, and happiness can be found quite naturally through normal everyday life and experimentation. What I do think is that there is a distinct benefit of going to the Creator of it all, learning from them, and developing a relationship with the kind, good entity I call God. My life experiences have led me to believe that the entity that responds when I pray is worthy of trust and is of sound character, and to me I have had experiences with more overt displays of divine aid that I consider personal proof beyond confirmation bias, though they are personal and not ones that I would share on a public forum. I recognize that others have had quite different life experiences, perhaps ones where if there was a God then it felt as if it was as an absent parent or maybe as a stranger that others talked about. I'm one point of data and I hope to not discredit or discount others experiences by sharing my own.

Let's look at known examples. In SoS, Wax mentioned that he was given the option to join the ranks of the Koloss and he turned them down (no, I'm not talking about Allomancer Jak, this is Wax. Jak's story is indicative as well, though I consider Wax to be a more reliable narrator). A few options from that, Koloss managed to figure out the changes that were necessary to transform an Allomancer into a full Koloss which as noted is highly unlikely, the spike placement is exactly the same for a normal person and an Allomancer, or they could have spiked Wax and had it go screwy. I'm guessing it's the second option, that the spike placement is exactly the same between a Metalborn and a non-Metalborn. The WoB might not be about the spike placement, it could be figuring out how to have the new Koloss retain their knowledge of how to use Allomancy. It's more of a stretch, but Brandon may have been referring to giving a Koloss Allomancy with an additional spike, in terms of "if you built them right" and not that the spike placement changes based on if you know your target is a normal Scadrian or a Metalborn. Another case is from Secret History, though I may be reading too much into this. At any rate, let's assume for the sake of discussion that you could make a Koloss from a Lurcher by pounding one spike in at a time and letting them burn each spike before adding another. At some point in the process they may forget how to burn Iron, but you'd end up with less spikes. The Koloss no longer has 4 spikes driving a wedge into their soul, but I suspect that there would still be some sort of warping or scarring that weakens the soul to outside influence. You don't need a spike to hear a Cognitive Shadow, you just need to have a cracked or damaged soul. This effect may be less than the original spikes, but I'd guess it would still be there.

Hopefully 2 months doesn't count as necro-ing a thread. We take some of the structure around future sight and precognition in fiction for granted perhaps, but there's characteristics around Cosmere future sight that I think should not be overlooked. First, many cases of future sight we see is relevant. Without much practice and sometimes without any voluntary action at all, extremely important information is gleaned from future sight. Renarin's vision of Dalinar and his own death was very, very close to accurate. Kelsier was able to identify on the second look into the Spiritual Realm that he could never defeat Ruin. That does not have to be the case, but it seems to be for the Cosmere. Second, it seems as if future sight is almost always focused on people. The Prophecy of the Hero of Ages. Renarin's vision of Odium's champion. Atium enhances the mind to be able to process the additional information. Lightsong's visions of Llarimar, Blushweaver, Susebron, and a coming war. Returned coming back for a purpose: Blushweaver and Lightsong to stop the war, Calmseer to heal her daughter. Cultivation's longshots with Dalinar and Taravangian's boons. The death rattles given through Moelach. It could be that those are the only things that people write home about, but that is way too much future sight around people to be coincidental. The biggest exception was the Everstorm which was definitely summoned intentionally. Where do we see future sight fail or not happen as predicted? Zane falling to Vin as he himself is reacting to something that has not yet happened yet. Lightsong saw Hallendren destroyed in a second Manywar. In this case he was given the choice to try to prevent it. Renarin's vision of his own death and Dalinar's corruption (at least, neither has happened yet). He may have influenced his own death by looking at Jasnah and nodding for her to kill him. Cultivation probably didn't guess that Taravangian was going to have the attitude we see him with (or she didn't try to see further than Rayse's death), unless she is playing a much longer game than it looks. Oh, and the odd duck, Aluminum does not create Atium shadows. I'm not going to touch this one yet. Notably, future sight visions seem to be related to major decision points. We think Kaladin's Oaths are death rattles, Lightsong choosing to heal Susebron, Sazed thinking about the detail of the prophecy before Ascending, Jasnah about to kill Renarin, and Dalinar resisting Rayse. This could be just a writerly reason, but I think it's more than that. Atium usually doesn't give enough information to change what someone else will do, unless you're Vin. At any rate, I wonder if future sight, by touching the Spiritual Realm, helps you glean insight related to people Connected to you, or perhaps in the case of Atium, Connections to you based proximity and Intent. This insight is similar to if you know your buddy well enough to predict their order at a restaurant, and depending on if you mention what they will order if they will spite you or not. As for if free will is lost, honestly I can't see Brandon ever canonizing that, and I don't think it is an aspect of the Cosmere. It undermines so much of the concept of people being able to change, redeem themselves, or start anew. I don't think he would ever want to canonize that someone was always going to be a murderer and never had another alternative.

So, I have a Spiritual mumbo jumbo idea. To preface, I agree that Singers and Spren both seem to be able to record and retain memories even when they are Parshmen or Deadeyes. I think the current theory is that this is tied to the Connection stuff from Ba-Ado-Mishram, and that when BAM was locked away a portion of their Connection or possibly their ability to access a part of their Spiritual Identity was lost. The idea I had is that though we think of their malady as having lost their minds, I wonder if it isn't directly related to the Cognitive Realm, instead they lost a part of their Spirit or Connection. Their mind is technically working, but it's their soul or perhaps their Connection to their Cognitive self that is damaged. For Kandra, I'm just theorizing for now. My guess is that the natural state of the Mistwraith doesn't allow for the same memory storage that a Kandra has, and that maybe Kandra are writing memories to the portion of the soul in their Blessings. When a spike is removed the Hemalurgic charge degrades and anything that was stored on the spike also degrades. Alternately, it's just the degradation of the spike that weakens their ties to the Cognitive or the Spiritual realms, or in other words this weakens whatever it is that makes Kandra sapient with their Blessings. Different mechanisms for their lost minds and different "default" states. There are two things I'm not sure on, first is that I can't remember the specifics but I think MeLaan was storing something memory or cognitive related in a metal container in her leg and an emergency canteen in her head in BoM. That may be relevant. The second is that Kandra must maintain a minimum mass in order to retain their intelligence. Does anyone know why this is a requirement?

I've probably been overusing this WoB as a boundary for Shallan is _________ hypotheses but... I don't think Brandon has ever deliberately lied during one of his Q&A sessions, though he has on occasion changed his mind after making a statement. He can be frustratingly specific with how he answers or only respond to a portion of a question. I've never seen him intentionally lie when he can just RAFO someone. This quote makes the logistics of the Davar family very difficult to explain if Shallan was a Cryptic. At any rate, without it being your fault, I've seen several "Shallan isn't really Shallan" posts recently that people have already hashed over. That's my guess at least for why you haven't gotten a response. My take on Testament's name is that Shallan chose that name as a condemnation of herself. Testament the deadeye isn't able to communicate and most likely did not choose the name in the context of the story we have seen.

Regarding the Set's Faceless Immortals, I'm pretty sure it takes decades for a "newborn" kandra raised to sapience to gain any skill at consuming and mimicking a body. I'm not sure on the timetable that the Vanishers and Set have been operating after kidnapping those women, but I don't think it's enough time for a newborn kandra to be useful yet. Unless Trell is skilled enough to just take over a new Kandra and manage all of the detail work with the new puppets. As for the other points from the original post, I can come up with an established explanation for all the points like the other comments have shown except I don't really know why Kandra blessings must come in pairs in order to grant the power. Vin's baby sister was killed with an earring and that got enough of a Hemalurgic charge to let Vin pierce Copperclouds and find the Well of Ascension, so I doubt it's the extent of the soul harvested or Hemalurgic charge of the spike. Have we found any explanations or WoBs for why kandra blessings must come in pairs? I did have thoughts about the other discussion that's going on too:

Probably not, unless something you can somehow work it into this WoB, which would make things far, far more complicated to line up. Worth asking though I'd say, considering how convoluted this is looking to get.

Well... Brandon did write a Cosmere book about creating an artificial soul, though I'm not quite sure how this lines up with what sections of the Spiritweb were lost. I'm taking an alternate route to crafting a soul. What do we think Ashravan lost upon death and the subsequent healing of his former body? What was created with Shai's stamp in recreating the Emperor's Soul? Can the new Ashravan persist and grow in the same ways as if he was alive, including gaining Invested abilities if he were to go worldhopping? What happens if he gains an Invested Healing ability that can heal the damage done to his Spiritweb, such F-Gold through Hemalurgy? What happens if you take an obscure braindead person, heal them to full physical function, then write a compelling soul to stamp on to the person and send them on their way to form new Connections and relationships with other people, stamping themselves as often as they need to? The new persona should become more and more believable and plausible as time goes on, right? That seems viable. If that works, what happens if you start with something that just looks like a person but never was? I might argue that Returned are artificial souls, and there's a parallel between their needing Investiture on a weekly basis to persist and Ashravan needing to be stamped on a daily basis to persist.

Here's a few bad descriptions: Elantris - there's this guy. He dies, his death sucks, and then he dies. Mistborn - Wealthy politician fails to adjust for discontent among lower class populace. Way of Kings - Guy gets thrown into a team of misfits, classic underdog sports style. The team is too good at catching the "ball" so with the new leader guy's help, they get better at not catching the "ball". Also, a girl tries to steal another girl's bracelet. Older man deals with family issues and has some beef with an old drinking buddy. And in a dramatic reveal, we find out that an elderly man has a cool rock. Stormlight - You have to breath just right and the color of your power can change what you can do sometimes. BioChromatic Breaths - Lets you infuse objects and people with power. To get more powerful you have to find the right words to say. Get really good and you can get a powerful talking sword buddy.

So... anyone else suddenly get disturbed by realizing that if the First Generation had their original skeletons... that meant that Rashek transformed the living Feruchemists into Mistwraiths while excluding their bones in the transformation process? That more or less means he melted the flesh right off their bones before restoring their sapience, but also indicates the level of control he had over the power at that phase of his Hemalurgic experimentation if he had already planned for Mistwraiths to be able to copy and shapeshift to match a target. I think it took centuries of practice before the kandra pulled off that kind of transformation. Shards just got creepier to me, and that was with Preservation's power (probably with some influence from Ruin since he was doing Hemalurgic design).

If I look at it from a writerly perspective, which is more interesting, the Kandra can use certain skeletons that do not cause Feruchemical side effects or the Kandra have to adapt and change to limitations imposed on their skeleton being excluded from Feruchemical reinforcement? I think Brandon could convince us of either option. I'm just throwing out a few options without really considering realmatic theory yet. Kandra must have their original bones to be able to have the bones included in Feruchemical/Allomantic reinforcement (limiting this to the 1st Generation if any are left) Kandra must have consumed an organic body to have the bones included in reinforcement and have enough of a Connection to feel that they can become that person. Random castoff bones would not work. Kandra must specifically consume a skeleton accustomed to the trait (bones of a Skimmer or Thug for example) to have the bones included in the Feruchemy/Allomancy If the Kandra can consider their skeleton to be part of themselves, any skeleton other than ones that specifically interfere with Investiture can be used (I'm guessing Aluminum won't work, just intrinsically. As it is, MeLaan already could give a Shardbearer a surprise without needing other abilities) Kandra cannot include anything other than their own mass as part of Feruchemical or Allomantic abilities. I'll note that as material engineering progresses, human bones are probably on the fragile side for Era 3 or 4. They might need to keep a few more specialized skeletons in their closet, but I think Kandra could do just fine if their bones weren't included in Feruchemy. It does put a few limiters on what they can do, but they should still be able to pull off most stunts, just not the really dangerous ones. On a mostly unrelated note, just have MeLaan make her skeleton out of whatever Wax's shoes are made out of. Those things are incredible to stand his weight.

I'll throw this out there, Brandon's writing lectures on YouTube indicate that he thinks about 3 sliding scales for developing a character, that also can indicate how much a reader likes the character. If you don't want to read the writerly behind-the-scenes stuff, similar to not wanting to know the details of how a sausage is made, then feel free to skip this comment. Brandon has a simplified model of how characters have 3 basic sliding scales that influence how readers perceive, like, and relate to them. Scale one: how proactive the character is. We like characters that try hard, even if they fail a lot, such as Wile E. Coyote. Do they drive the plot, or do they react to others driving the plot? Scale two: the competitance of the character within the plot of the story. We generally like to watch characters who know what they are doing and show their expertise in the plot. James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and many superheroes are examples. Scale three: how sympathetic the character is. This is the extent that we can relate to the character or the character does things that we would laud. The cliche is if you want the audience to like a character, you have them pet a dog. If you want them to hate a character, you have them kick a dog. If other characters like them, or hate them can influence the reader. The fourth aspect of this is how these sliding scales move throughout the story. A character that is always top of competence, proactivity, and sympathy can end up feeling flat or boring if we never see them challenged or change. People can start with generally unlikable character that becomes a favorite as they grow in sympathy and competence, the example being Luke Skywalker transitioning from a whiney teenager to a padawan that saves the day in Episode 4. You can also have characters that regress on a scale, and watching them lose sympathy or competence can also engage a reader, though that's harder to do well. My point in bringing this up is not to prove one way or another how likable Shallan is, have other posters build their own scales for why Shallan does or does not work, or to have people suggest from their interpretation of Shallan on these sliders that Brandon deliberately designed Shallan to be liked or disliked. What I do hope to indicate is that what makes a character likable is multifaceted and for someone as complex as Shallan, her likability is similarly multifaceted and complex. I will say that unreliable narrators and a character that has their personality get more fractured and unstable as the story progresses will be harder for the general audience to relate to. Brandon's trying something tricky here. Different readers can have wildly different personal experiences and perceptions of her role in the plot, which is also complicated. Based on the three scales, different readers may have been focusing one one scale more than the others, for example if the humor fell flat and pulled the reader out of the story compared to someone that was engaged with her proactivity in trying to outthink the Ghostbloods while developing her Lightweaving abilities. Basically, I think it's obvious that different people had different experiences with Shallan and that she is not a universally sympathetic character. Just... be careful with threads like this that you don't tell someone that their experience was wrong. It's probably obvious that I'm biased towards input that increases or broadens how much a reader enjoys and understands a character and a story. Shallan isn't my favorite character like many others and I still don't get what makes her tick most of the time, but I'm glad for the insight I've gained. Thanks for reading, I'll get off my soap box now.

The one that I thought of is when Vin and Kelsier sprinted for 16 hours straight, no breaks, from Luthadel to save the army at the Arguois caverns. Arguoiser? The episode doesn't have the same connotation of triumph as Marathon, but it is a set measurable distance and about the Suvivor and Ascendant Warrior. If Demoux found out about that run you bet it got retold.

I've seen the theory that Siah Aimians are Honorspren successfully transitioned to the Physical Realm where they were able to create hybrid offspring with humans seen in the people of Natanatan. The characteristics of Siah Aimians is really reminiscent of Honorspren, especially with what we have learned in Rhythm of War. If that is the case, Axies the Collector seems to be able to function just fine and doesn't appear to need to be bonded to a human in close proximity to himself to remain sapient. If Syl can become functionally like Axies, then you just have the issue with immortality. It may be viable for Syl to become her own, independent, mature being in the Physical Realm separate from a Nahel bond with Kaladin. If this happens, then I'm guessing Kaladin would probably have to retire and settle down if his abilities are at all tied to physical proximity to Syl, and if Syl can't fly anymore. Bringing her into combat situations with Anti-Stormlight is way, way dangerous when Kaladin probably can't summon her as a Sylspear. The current relationship and format just seems weird and unbalanced in the context of a romance. I think Brandon probably knew the fandom would look in the direction of Syladin the moment he decided to make her appear full size when she remembers that she is an Honorspren and Kaladin decides to rescue Dalinar. Someone at Dragonsteel or the one of the alpha readers had to have thought of it, right? That isn't to say it's what's going to happen considering Wax and Marasi. In the end I'm not sure where I stand on Syladin, because if it happened I'd expect to be as weird as (Mistborn spoiler) Okay, maybe not that weird, but you get the idea. Either outcome wouldn't really surprise me. If Syladin becomes a thing, I definitely want her to have developed into a fully matured individual, mentally and emotionally. If Syladin doesn't become a thing and they still remain best friends, I'd be just fine with that. If Syl or Kaladin die, I might cry, but I'd trust Brandon to make it satisfying to the readers, though I would probably still hate it without any impact whatsoever on if I keep reading.

Uh... Duck. Dux. Sitting Duck. Quack. Quackers. Depends on who is in my flight, since it has to sound distinct from everyone else.

Break free of the insanity. or What do you call voluntary madness?

Anyone else notice how Wayne is uncannily good at picking up information before it happens or doing the exact right thing at the exact right time to save the day? I'm starting to think it's supernatural. Here's a few off the top of my head. Alloy of Law Came to Elendel right before the wedding that Steris was kidnapped at. This could be a writerly reason. Comments on how innocent looking stuff is always exploding around Wax a few minutes before Tillaume blew up Swiped the tea that Tillaume had poisoned for Wax When Wax shot the bullet in midair, Wayne dropped the bubble at exactly the right time (okay, there's been discussion on Wax's accuracy, but the timing on that is insane the more I look at it, unless they have specifically practiced over and over with this kind of stunt, which is likely. This is the closest they have to firing out of a speed bubble) Bands of Mourning Finds and steals the Bands of Mourning within minutes of arriving at the Sovereign's Temple Swaps the Bands of Mourning for ReLuur's spike in Marasi's bag, right where and when she needed it. This is just after thinking about how he doesn't pay attention to what society says something is worth, unless by itself it's worth more than a house. This one is really suspicious to me. I'm sure there's more, but those are the ones I remember easily. Anyone have any others they can think of? Are these coincidences or does this have something to do with Wayne's resonance? Does Wayne just have insanely good instincts? Is Wayne's mind broken enough that Harmony can nudge him (Wax would probably say so in jest, but I dunno)? Here's what has been noted about Wayne's resonance: I'm wondering if something about his accelerated time and tapping into his Spiritual self while storing and withdrawing health is giving him a bit of instinctive future sight, but I'm not good with resonances. Thoughts?

Uh... @Frustration, no offense but I think you get some tunnel vision when you get into defending your stance on these debates. Did you really say that droideka are heavy so Duralumin Pushes are ineffective against them? Canonically, what can Vin do with Duralumin Steelpushes, starting from the very first time we ever see Duralumin in combat? You're the expert that people summon to see if there are any WoBs to settle disputes, because you're really, really good at pulling out this kind of information, but... do you think droideka are heavier or more solid anchors than everything that Vin has ever thrown with Duralumin Steel despite being one of smallest Mistborn we've seen? Droideka weigh 75 kilos, or 165 lbs.

Yes, that's my question.

We learn from TLR's storage cache that multiple Soothers or Rioters working jointly can take over a Koloss or Kandra. Who gets control? I'm assuming it is not Twitch Plays Koloss as funny as that would be. A couple options: 1. The "last" person that breaks through the control resistance after the others have weakened the Koloss. 2. Whomever is Soothing or Rioting the strongest. Maybe I should put my next thought into a new thread, but it's related. I'm pretty sure Inquisitors during the days of TLR could take control the Koloss and direct them for battle, even before Ruin's escape. It looks like Ruin could later direct Inquisitors to take over Koloss armies, though Ruin could I suppose do this directly and give the illusion of ceding control to Vin and Elend. I can't remember if any of the Marsh viewpoints has him directing Koloss. It does look like you can Hemalurgic creatures controlling other Hemalurgic creatures though. At any rate, assume you are able to capture an Inquisitor and break its resistance and control it by either a Duralumin Soothing or Breeze's whole Soothing team working together. Could you then direct the Inquisitor to assist you with Soothing the next Inquisitor as you try to convert the Steel Ministry to be under your control until it becomes a Soothing control war? That's a different conflict, but in essence I was wondering if the Steel Inquisitors had a hierarchy not just in authority but in emotional control over their peers. When Marsh was made into an Inquisitor why didn't they jointly bind him to their service, particularly before giving him Copper? Why hasn't TLR been directing everything this way? Maybe he did and it didn't matter when Marsh killed the Inquisitors in their sleep, though apparently TLR didn't feel the Inquisitors die. Maybe Ruin was weakening TLR and Karr's control over Marsh to get TLR offed. What I can't tell is if Hemalurgic creatures need to be constantly Soothed, Rioted, or mental control exerted over them to maintain the mind control bond once you take over anything other than the mentally crippled Koloss. Vin deliberately severed her bond with TenSoon to not control him and everything else was probably affected by Ruin. That could explain why this doesn't work for anything other than Koloss. Thoughts?

Yup. What @Treamayne said, in particular what Harmony may have omitted from the Words of Founding is a diagram of Hemalurgic bindpoints. If you don't know spike placement, everything gets much, much harder, especially if you don't have Marsh and his 21 power-granting spike bindpoints willingly cooperating in letting you study him. It's also possible that Harmony or the Kandra went back and revised the Hemalurgy sections after they saw Spook's experimentations. In his former life, Sazed was very free with information (at least until he stopped preaching religions) and he may not have considered withholding much of what he knew when he remade the world. Hemalurgy in good hands is still messy to use and experiment with, Hemalurgy experimentation in the hands of an organization like the Set is extremely dangerous.