Duxredux

One thing to remember is that despite being an ancient era, they were close to steam power in the days of Kwaan. I could believe that Scadrial may have developed metallurgical technology faster than IRL if Feruchemists were seeking metals that could expand their powers and could retain information better through the ages. No idea what insights they could gain from Realmatic Theory, but they also knew about it. Pure speculation here, but we know that the Terris Prophecies were a thing and that they predicted perfectly a tipping point well over a millenia in the future. This may indicate that they had access to Chromium, the Feruchemical metal for Fortune, and Chromium is the major additive for stainless steel. Tapping Fortune allows for serendipitous occurrences, so perhaps certain things aligned for the necessary techniques to preserve Kwaan's plate to be invented at an earlier time frame than expected. Otherwise the technologically available preservation options include a maintenance routine by applying oil to the steel to prevent atmospheric contact and keeping the plate in an underground environment (which they did). Galvanization came later. There is also a very simple solution: it's not the original plate or the original etchings. Rashek himself or a random ministry scribe could have deepened the original etching, or simply copied it to a new plate when the old one was getting hard to read. It was written in an old Terris dialect, it's not like the ministry workers could read the inscription anyway. Rashek oversaw the preservation of the information, which didn't necessarily mean the original plate or his uncle's handwriting.

I'm genuinely curious, and I got some really cool viewpoints and discussions when I asked a similar question on how people view a certain Scadrian. Why do so many people hate Moash so much that they make T-shirts declaring how much they despise him? When I searched Google for "I love Moash" t-shirt for a recent thread, I couldn't find a single product that matched that description, but dozens of hate shirts, and quite a strong reaction on Reddit to Dan's shirt "Moash, I can fix him, no really". In a similar vein, I made an AMA on the forum and the one and only question I got was "what do you do about the Moashs in life?" No idea, I've never had a best friend try to murder me or my parents, push me towards suicide, or try to recruit me for a organization that commits brutal assassinations. If I did, I'd probably call the police, but clearly that wasn't really the question. With so many threads about Moash, it seems like the fandom simply cannot not comment on Moash. Why? Some ground rules, because I know that even saying Moash can get a reaction from some people. First, remember that each reader's experience is their own, and that their experience is not invalid because it doesn't match your own. I hope to open a safe thread where we can openly discuss why we feel so strongly and spend page after page on threads discussing Moash, his actions, and how others respond to him. Moash has generated probably dozens if not hundreds of hours of people discussing him. I intentionally made the poll anonymous to see if there are distinct patterns in why we debate him, perhaps the reason we bring up Moash isn't the reason that people respond, or if the response is secondary in nature. Second, people will have different responses to the text and subtext of the story, please keep corrections strictly to factual information. Just so it's here, I'll grab his bio from the Coppermind and put it in spoiler text. Early Life Bridge Four Attempted Regicide and Desertion Servant of the Fused Occupation of Urithiru What do you think? Justice and mercy? Knowing when to turn your back on a friend/loved one? How close are we to this point: Thoughts?

If I remember right, Jasnah taught Shallan a shorthand for use when scribing notes in meetings. For it to be functional, this script has to be information dense enough to keep pace with spoken Alethi, which seems phonetically compact with terms like "ado", "khokh", and "shash". Since it is referred to as shorthand, it likely skips steps to increase writing speed. Same concept of improving information density, different application. That said, all books are hand written on Roshar to my knowledge. Once someone undertakes writing something that can last for generations, then the script itself can become an artform, like calligraphy.

Not really my favorite debate method but... we'll see where this goes. There are quite a few things here that are value judgements, which I won't deeply debate because I've seen too many of those run around in circles on the forum without either side coming to consensus. The counterpoint question though would be, what is the differences between Moash "getting even" and Navani's "petty revenge"? Does Moash's own moral framing vindicate him or invite retribution on his head for seeking to murder? Another fact check stop here would be asking how much power or authority Navani actually had during Gavilar or Elhokar's reigns. During the first, Gavilar mocked her and hid his machinations. During the second, she was the court oddity, the mother of the king when the valid queen held court in Kholinar. Once she did gain power with her marriage to Dalinar, she solidified the coalition of monarchs, built airships, and kicked off an inventive Renaissance by sharing state technologies. Was she culpable for what Elhokar did to Moash and his family? If you had said that before he went blind, I would have laughed. He holds Jezrien's Honorblade, the most infamous weapon in recent Rosharan history, that tore through the defenses of nations and monarchies. It's basically impossible to stop the user of that Honorblade short of killing him, as he can still fly around even if the soul of his legs are severed with a Shardblade. Not even Urithiru's suppressive defenses could inhibit those abilities. Beyond that, it's what Moash has chosen to do with the Blade: kill random bystanders just to provoke a reaction from those sworn to protect the defenseless. Unless you have suggestions on how to non-lethally stop him should he decide to go on a mass murder rampage again, he fits the bill for "too powerful to let live" if he retains the Honorblade. I'm not sure if he's less dangerous now that he's blind since he hasn't seemed to care about collateral damage when using a sword that can cut through almost anything. There are techniques that you could use to imprison him, but I'm not sure if anyone in the Coalition except Wit knows them. Not everyone is the hero within their own story. It is not a good feeling to suddenly realize that you are the bully. That you are the person parents tell children to avoid or to not grow up to become. Full Cosmere spoilers: There are plenty of IRL stories of people who had so much potential to do so much good, and then directed their energies towards causing pain and destruction instead. The story of the person who could have been a hero, but chose to reject self-reflection and change, to put it off until tomorrow, put off doing something about the guilt until tomorrow, until tomorrow, forever, unfortunately is as real as the redemption arc. No, it wouldn't be a satisfying ending, but that unease, discomfort, and wrongness is why it would work. Again, I think Brandon has laid the groundwork and will give Moash the choice to rise or fall, but it will be Moash's choice.

Depends. How satisfying are we talking about? We've had some rather ragged ends to character arcs already. Elhokar rather abruptly had his arc cut short halfway through the book. Eshonai's arc also was rather dismal. She fights Adolin, she loses by falling into the chasm while Bridge Four saves Adolin, and all her people are hosed - it only retroactively became triumphant. The story arc of ____ who was angry, bitter, vengeful, gave his allegiance to Odium and when he lost his usefulness he was discarded like crem could pretty well sum up Moash Lezian. Sadeas and Amaram also had rather ignominious deaths. There have been plenty of warmongers, murders, torturers, etc. over the years who have been killed over the years where people rejoiced - not because they gloried in their deaths, but because a terrible danger to friends, family, and community had been stopped - as likely would have been the case had the Blackthorn been defeated during the unification of Alethkar. So... where does Lirin who got thrown off of Urithiru on Moash's orders just to hurt Kaladin fit in? Bridge Four who lost Teft or Navani who had her son murdered as an act of regicide? Navani who got stabbed in the chest by Moash? Alethkar started a 5-year war for vengeance/genocide last time their king was assassinated - and it didn't really end but exploded into a global conflict with far greater stakes at the advent of the Everstorm. Again, some people change, some people don't, but if capital punishment exists in Alethkar, Moash has earned it. It will be at the mercy of a grieving mother who was herself attacked if he lives should he surrender himself to the Coalition.

Yeah... you have a controversial opinion. You might be able to message Dan Wells who does a weekly podcast with Brandon and see if you can get one of his t-shirts (see below). Just uh... don't be surprised if people react strongly. I think Brandon could pull it off, and I think there's sufficient groundwork currently in place for Moash to have a redemption arc, but... I suspect that Moash would need a tremendous amount of pain, suffering, and life-altering work for a decent fraction of the fandom to accept it or him. Sometimes people turn their lives around, sometimes people don't. One of my favorite songs of redemption, "Amazing Grace", was written by a slave ship captain named John Newton who by his own testimony transported 20,000 slaves in his career. He wrote an autobiography denouncing his former profession, joined the clergy, and went blind later in life. He taught and counseled William Wilberforce, the member of the British Parlament who was instrumental in the abolition of the British slave trade over 50 years before the American Civil War. So, yes, people can change. Many do not.

Elendel Basin has already installed extensive Coinshot routes in the form of their railroad. It works quite well whenever we see Wax use it, even letting him push an entire train car fast enough to catch up to the main engine. Those tracks are designed for much higher stress than a Coinshot would provide, barring Duralumin. If IRL is anything to go by, trains are here to stay as they are the most efficient way we've learned to transport cargo over land. A Coinshot should be able to travel to every major hub city connected by the trains as Scadrial develops. That said, Wax has good reason to ride the trains - it carries all of his equipment and does the work for him. As for if conventional roads double as spike roads, there's a decent chance you'll also have light poles, rails, fencing, and/or signage, all of which commonly use steel. In most cases when people use high speed ground transportation, they also want to see where they are going, how they need to navigate, and have some sort of barrier to prevent larger wildlife wandering into traffic. Not all stretches of IRL roads will have this at intervals necessary for a Coinshot, but Scadrial will have people who will pay good money to install them. Particularly as most travelers would probably prefer to pay a little extra for each road to install anchor points rather than the Coinshot simply Pushing off of their vehicle. They could even impose a toll system on a Coinshot roadway if anchor installation substantially increases cost. For the most part though, I expect these to only be necessary for cities that do not already have a train, tram, skyrail, etc. system. Once you get to the city proper, then you'll have plenty of lightpoles and street signs as anchors.

Ah, the spectrum. That's my family along with my wife's family, though only some of went out of our way to be officially diagnosed. Min-maxers, all of us. For some of us our minds have been highly optimized for specific tasks, like researching vacuum cleaners, music theory, writing children's stories, and more, but as grown adults still regularly forget to tie our own shoe laces or have difficulty holding a conversation with someone not on the spectrum. My audially hypersensitive brother is the music theorist, whereas I, the tactically/audially/olfactory hyposensitive one in the family with a high pain tolerance, went out for cross country and built up my endurance for manual labor and heavy lifting in the family. Among us all we have phobias, hyperlexia, depression, linguistic polyglots, anxiety, programming polyglots, suicidal ideation, perfect pitch, probably hyperthymesiac, mnemonists, and I could keep going. With all of the ups and downs, life on the spectrum seems to rarely be "average". Let me know if you ever want to chat about it. Actually, dairy allergy is a separate condition from dairy intolerance. An allergy provokes a response from the immune system, whereas dairy intolerance means the body doesn't produce enough of the enzyme necessary to digest dairy products, generally lactose. My dairy allergy means I get congested and lethargic as if I had suddenly contracted a cold but without any of the symptoms of the cold itself, though if I'm unlucky it can progress to anaphylaxis where I would need to start carrying an epipen. I don't have any of the bloating, cramps, nausea, or vomiting that you often see with dairy intolerance. As for my family, I would still put myself in the category of "weak but trying". I'm still trying to identify what my food allergies are, as things got better than dipped/plateaued after a few weeks dairy free, so unfortunately I think I need to keep searching for what else I'm allergic to. Hopefully it's not gluten, sugar, or something else hugely prevalent in the U.S.. I got a lot of benefit out of being hyposensitive when I could just ignore or push through most discomforts with apparently little ill effect, but now I'm getting the downsides as well as I can apparently get major allergic reactions that wipe out my energy without even noticing. We're getting there, slowly, sometimes much more slowly than I would like, but we're not even close to exhausting all of our options. I just really hope I don't develop or fall back into too many bad habits during this period of unemployment.

Well, Allomancer Jak ostensibly got some power from licking a cave wall for Tin, so Allomancers are obviously aware of naturally occurring elements. That said, assuming my geology memory is holding up, you'll find certain minerals in bands throughout the crust because they follow the same layering pattern as most of the crust. Strata are exposed through active digging, tectonic activity pushing up a ridge of land diagonal to the strata, or other land movement like a landslide. Basically the only time you would get more than a line (rather than a plane) of a specific strata poking out through tectonic activity, is if a group was strip mining. That is when all of the upper layers of soil and plants are removed to expose the horizontal strata of the desired material, and it is extremely invasive to the planet, and has widespread ecological impact, so don't expect to see it too often. In other words, and as others have said, metals do not occur in abundance on the surface - if it's on the surface, someone either brought it there or removed the top layers to make it happen.

Hm. A question then for @DrPhysics, if I understand the previous posts and scenario of Kaladin experiencing g-forces, g-forces are experienced when there is a pressure differential in the body. Based on the WoB posted by @alder24, the questioner thinks that we may see this effect because Lashings are not affecting the whole object simultaneously. Could we explain what we see in the books based on instinctual reflex and if Lashings take time to spread through the object? I know for Steelpushing physics, quite a lot of what we see that seems odd can be explained by subconscious reflex, like Kelsier and Vin's Pushing match working if they are aiming above center, and I was wondering if we could use similar conjecture for Lashing. My first assumption is that humans can withstand compression far better than shearing or tension. Lezian's final defeat by Kaladin seems like a decent example of what can go wrong if Lashings are not applied fully or simultaneously across the body, though those were not basic Lashings. My assumption is that the Windrunner would instinctively Lash from the side opposite the new direction of motion, so if Lashing forward, the back would get Lashed first. This should make the forces experienced compression, rather tension. This isn't too different from pushing off with the back foot when beginning to walk or using the lead leg to slow down when stopping, as opposed to stopping by going into the splits by dragging the rear leg. I might also expect Lashings to spread externally to internally, since again, our body is accustomed to our legs propelling our body and our ribcage moving internal organs rather than our body being dragged along by our internal organs. Would this be a decent explanation for what Kaladin experiences, and mechanically how to Lash things with minimal damage anyway? It seems like a natural result as well for Lashing other objects, since most of the time someone would reach out and Lash something away from them, rather than directly toward them, and requiring the power to move from the outside in also makes sense. The complications of Lashings transferring throughout an object seem more interesting as well. What if a dozen Windrunner tried to Lash a spaceship but were unsynchronized? What if a Windrunner or a Skybreaker tried to create opposing gravitational forces on opposite side of an opponent?

First off, for this kind of possession stunt, the host doesn't need to be a shape-shifter to still gain the characteristics of the Cognitive Shadow. With Yumi and Painter, Yumi's incredibly strong Spiritual aspect molded Painter's body rather painfully into her image. Leshwi possessed a malen body and retained her generally feminine appearance but she still grew a wispy beard that required shaving, so presumably she is not as strong as Yumi. Beyond that, the Fused have basically no Connection to Mistwraiths, so a chull is a more likely possession candidate than a Mistwraith in my opinion. Intelligence or the lack thereof seems less important than valid Connection. If memory serves, the Listeners had been prepped to enter the Storm in the same manner as inviting a spren to change forms as a species with a symbiotic relationship to the spren of Roshar, so there may have been an implicit, even instinctual invitation. The Fused as the gods and ancestors to the Listeners and Singers also have greater Connection to their target hosts than anything foreign to Roshar.

I keep coming back to this post and wondering if I have something I should add. I hope you don't mind me getting out my soapbox, @Trusk'our. Something that I think is worth noting is that Painter never hears Yumi defend him, nor does he ever get the opportunity for a rebuttal. There is room in the story for Yumi to be wrong about Painter here. That said, I don't think she is wrong in that he fundamentally regretted his actions and wished for a good way out of his perceived obligation towards his friends who trusted him. Good people feel bad about unintentionally or intentionally being a jerk, stringing someone along, or lying to people they care about. It's different if the person has zero guilt, qualms, or regret when they do that kind of thing to friends and family. Yes, the obvious response would be: "well, if they actually cared or loved them, wouldn't they just do the right thing?" Well... ideally yes, but I've learned for myself that there are a host of things in life that can cripple someone's ability to actually do what they feel like they should. Addiction, depression, anxiety, poor physical care, disorders, emotional trauma, the list goes on and on. It can take months, years, a lifetime for some people to learn the principles of how to manage their own environment, schedule, and personal idiosyncrasies in order to consistently do what they really intend to do. For some, it's learning to manage and overcome guilt to seek restitution. For some, it's fighting addiction and learning to live a life in perpetual recovery. For others it's learning about their own mental landscape and learn what can be changed through medication and therapy, and what gaps in the mind that they must live with that others do not. A bit of my story: Long story short, in my opinion one of the hardest life lessons on self-mastery is learning what truly is within your volition, and what is not. It's soul crushing to want to do the right thing, but for whatever reason find that you cannot make that decision. It's easy to make the assumption that the task is just too hard, or perhaps you're just not a good enough person, but this is not the whole story. Physical, emotional, mental, or social well-being in addition to our environment can have tremendous impact on our ability to make the decisions that we want to, but generally we don't start looking for these issues until things fall apart. Some handicaps are easy to both see and attribute difficulty to, such as amputees, blind, deaf, Down syndrome and more. Some handicaps are not so easy to see or know what they affect, but that doesn't mean the aren't there, be it depression, anxiety, allergies, chronic illness and more. I believe the absolute hardest to identify are patterns of thought that feel like our own decisions, but are built on childhood fallacies, trauma, or mental illness. I guess... what I really wanted to say is that a weak or ill person is not necessarily the same thing as an immoral person. The result of their actions can be the same, but the treatment is entirely different. If anyone finds themselves in a similar loop of making decisions they hate for reasons they can't describe, then my advise is to look for other factors that may be hindering your ability to choose and perhaps give yourself a bit of grace. Some wounds need years to heal, and odds are you'll make the exact same hated decision when given the opportunity until you have healed or built the necessary neural pathway around the damage. I'm glad that you were able to find professional help, @Trusk'our, my friend. I think that both you and Painter were more of a weak person than a bad one. It sounded like neither of you gained a hint of satisfaction for what had been done, and deeply regretted it. That is not an evil person seeking to abandon morals and become comfortable with evil, but a good person wanting to live morals they are not yet able to. If this feels like it is a good addition to your thread, let me know, if you feel like it is detracting from what you really had to say and get off your chest, let me know and I'll take it down.

Even without looking at the results I would expect more people to vote for Wayne because his character arc has already finished with a bang. We know just about everything Brandon wants us to know about Wayne and he has all of his loose ends tidied up including lifting the little toothpaste artist out of poverty. In contrast, The Lopen is midway through his character arc and still has plenty of potential to set off an even bigger explosion than Wayne. Basically, the best of the Lopen is yet to come, and so this isn't as much of an apples to apples comparison as you might think. As it is, Wayne would get my vote in large measure because I've seen his story and I know just how hard he tried to make restitution for a mistake he made as a teenager that gave in to peer pressure from his friends. It's hard not to admire someone who tried to make things right his entire life even though he felt like he never could and fell forever short. It's never outright stated as such, but I just had the thought that perhaps a significant factor that he moved to Elendel was so that he could continue to deliver his payments in person to Allriandre Durkel after she was came to the Elendel to get an education from the money. I think we're supposed to assume that Wayne's relocation was because of Wax and Ranette, but... now I wonder. Wayne has been given far more depth at this point than The Lopen, so again, not an apples to apples comparison.

Yup, that's the quote I was thinking of. Thanks!

I wish I had the text in front of me, there are major downsides to primarily consuming the Cosmere in an audio format, particularly searching for specific phrases and transcribing quotations. We get in-world confirmation of what @Treamayne was describing in RoW when Odium explains that he cannot agree to the terms of the contest as designed by Wit. I'm going off of memory, but it was something along the lines of "Odium cannot agree to the terms, breaking his word would create a hole is his power that others could exploit." Something like that. It should be in chapter 112 of RoW.

Not quite sure why I've been more or less cool with F-Steel for the last decade only to wake up look at it and no longer have it make sense to me. Well, there you go. At the core, I'm wondering if we're skipping some crucial steps when we try to calculate Feruchemical storage and tap utilization. I suspect this realization subconsciously came from a YouTube video about how we're bad at teaching rates and averages, but let me talk it out. Feruchemy is the power to convert an attribute such as heat, weight, calories, physical mass, or speed into Investiture, store it in a metal, and then at a later date withdraw the Investiture and convert it back into the original attribute - boosting the practictioner beyond the norm. Feruchemists can store discrete blocks of power in the form of memories, but they seem to measure it in a percentage of a whole - like Wax walking around at 30% weight. Here's where I think we're starting to cut corners - we talk about percentage weight stored and then tapped, but I think it would be better practice to view it as total Investiture stored and then utilized to produce an effect. In the Cosmere, energy, matter, and Investiture follow the laws of thermodynamics - none of the three are created or permanently destroyed, they simple change from one form into the other. In other words, we can broadly assume that we can plug Investiture into the energy requirements needed for physics equations. Here's the thing, some attributes may follow what appears to follow a straight linear relationship. Memory is stored at a 1:1 ratio and weight seems to be fairly easy for Wax to recoup. An Allomantic example of this is how gram for gram, different metals have varying burn rates with Copper and Tin being some of the slowest burners and Pewter, Iron, and Steel the fastest burning metals. This utilization rate is determined by the work being done by the Investiture. Sensory enhancement requires much lower energy costs than launching yourself through the sky via Steelpushes. I assume that this is how Feruchemy works as well, you spend time siphoning off mass, energy, or Investiture of one form or another, storing it for a time, and when tapping the effect you get is based on the work the Investiture is required to do. This becomes a problem for an attribute like speed - the energy requirements are not linear, they are quadratic. If running at 5 kph, your kinetic energy isn't doubled when running at 10 kph, it quadruples. What complicates it more is that if you run at half speed, 2.5 kph, it follows that same quadratic relationship (I assume) so you are not exerting anywhere close to the full energy you would use at full speed. It also wouldn't surprise me if speed storage was actually related to the extent the muscles were in motion during storage - or in other words, perhaps you could get more attribute if storing while running a marathon and siphoning off the energy used to power those muscles in contrast to sitting on the couch and watching television with only unconscious muscles used for systems like digestion or respiration slowed down. In essence, in Feruchemy the power needs to come from somewhere, even if it's just storing heat while sitting next to a fire. That said... it doesn't look like storing strength requires you to have been doing anything with those muscles, nor do I see Sazed eating the same diet a body builder would need to use gigantic muscles without tiring out. Maybe Investiture is divided between huge muscles and the equivalent caloric needs. I'll ask the more physics minded Sharders like @DrPhysics or @therunner if this matches the energy requirements they would expect as well as if there are any other storages that shouldn't be calculated linearly. Thoughts?

Eye spikes are great walking propaganda that TLR had power over life and death as a deity. Having his servants flaunting fatal injuries adds to the general mystery and fear that cloaked the Steel Ministry. Even well informed and educated Skaa like Dox weren't entirely sure that Inquisitors could be killed - and people who believe they cannot win won't try as desperately to best an Inquisitor like Kelsier. Eye spikes also provide indisputable credentials. To imitate them you would need to understand the working nature of Hemalurgy, kill an Inquisitor and know to steal their spikes, or somehow prove an indepth understanding of the doctrines and practices of the ministry and get inducted into their ranks legitimately while bypassing all of their security checks. You'd need to incredibly adept and skilled far above the norm to be able to pull any of those off. Someone would need to obsess over that challenge for decades. My old Hemalurgic Nose idea has resurfaced! I assume it may be just too dorky for the Steel Ministry. Edit: ...what just happened when I started writing my post?

"You may fire when ready." -Star Wars Episode 4, Grand Moff Tarkin giving the order to fire the Death Star "Good... good." -Star Wars Episode 6, Darth Sidious "We'll be watching your career with great interest." -Star Wars Episode 1, Chancellor Palpetine addressing young Anakin Skywalker "That's rough buddy." -Avatar: the Last Airbender, Prince Zuko "Dignity, always dignity." -Singin' in the Rain, Don Lockwood reminiscing about his career as a stunt double, including running into a building which exploded "Bring it on. Booo-yaaa-haaaa!" -The Emperor's New Groove, Kuzco

@therunner, @Treamayne, and @alder24, I totally agree that millenia of torture will cripple anyone mentally or emotionally, there's really no disputing that, nor do I minimize that in my original post. However, I'm still looking for an explanation for why Taln and Ishar regained a degree of lucidity when first Dalinar, then Navani became Bondsmiths. Why do they think more clearly when another touches the Spiritual Realm? That's one factor that I'm seeking to address. Anyone have an explanation for why touching the Spiritual Realm will help Cognitive Shadows cope with torture or thousands of years of memories? I submit an Invested block between the mind and body of the Heralds as an additional complication, not the primary issue, but something that also would need to be addressed before they could be healed - and I'm guessing they will be healed to at least a certain extent since the back 5 books focusing on the Heralds. It's not too different from cancer killing a person, while not minimizing a secondary pneumonia infection - both need to be addressed and healed to bring someone to full function. Beyond that, if we're looking at coping with trauma which is a major theme of SA, many sources that talk about mental and emotional healing list denial as a stage that must be moved beyond and rememberance as a key component to healing. This is huge component to Shallan's progression as a Lightweaver as she is digs out truths that left scars on her soul. I expect the Heralds to carry PTSD in one form or another the rest of their days, but to heal they will really need to come to terms with what was done to them - and how they abandoned Taln to recover. Ash really was not expecting Taln to proclaim her betrayal a gift to Roshar and I think that guilt broke her - knowing that he does not blame her may help her heal. Invested and/or psychological block, I assume they will need to address that block to heal. I assumed Investiture was a component because the Spiritual Realm contact affected it, but perhaps the exact nature isn't important - the Heralds certainly have plenty to repress or hide with denial.

Hypothesis: Mistwraiths, Reod Elantrians, Parshmen, and Heralds all suffer from Realmatic blockages that cripples their ability to function. Mistwraiths are the confirmed case, where they have a block between their Cognitive and Physical aspects that leaves them as mindless creatures of Instinct. Reod Elantrians were in an in-between state where the Shaod would begin their transformation but due to the mostly invalid Rao Aon forming the city, the transformation was unable to run to completion, leaving them invalid targets for any other Aon. Next the more speculative cases. I suspect that what happened to the Parshmen was very similar to the Elantrians when the chasm made them all invalid targets for AonDor's power. I suspect that when Ba-Ado-Mishram was captured by the Radiants, the "Invested hardware/Connection/thingy" that let BAM grant forms of power was left in place - but was unable to complete the process of granting forms of power. What was left was an entire people left with that invalid connector - unable to adopt any form for a people that had made a symbiotic relationship with Roshar's native spren. I suspect the Everstorm tweaked that invalid Connection by realigning them to Odium (perhaps Odium took back BAM's influence, I'm not sure on the mechanics). As for the Heralds, I suspect that on top of the natural damages thousands upon thousands of years of torture will do to a psyche, I suspect that each either deliberately or subconsciously in desperation set up blockages between their minds or emotions and their body that was tortured. They straddled a line between functionality and experiencing trauma no human could ever survive. This is why in part when the Heralds touch the Spiritual Realm as Radiants swear Oaths, this blockage is temporarily bridged to bring even Taln to lucidity. I suspect that healing the Heralds likely would require removing, bridging, or circumventing that gap. I don't think this is what will happen, but I wonder if placing an F-Copper spike in Taln (which would be nearly impossible without him reflexively annihilating whoever threatened him like that) would forcefully reconnect his mind to his body and bring him to lucidity in addition to a method to compartmentalize his millenia of suffering. Didn't expect to come up with therapeutic Hemalurgy when I started this. Thoughts? Any other Realmatic blockages or methods to remove or circumvent them that people can think of?

Hi all, I know we've been trying to figure out Kandra spikes for over a decade, so apologies if I'm rehashing something. In fact I'm sure someone made most of this theory, I'm just adding a couple of pieces that I don't remember being addressed. To start I'll begin with the events that led to the creation of the Mistwraiths. Rashek, a Feruchemist, took the power at the Well of Ascension and Ascended. During this process he learned of Hemalurgy along with the mechanism to create first Inquisitors, then Koloss. He also discovered the concentrated power sitting in the Lerasium beads near the Well, the power of Allomancy that could grant incredible abilities to an entire lineage. He found a way to give favored allies power - but also a terrible risk should Allomancy ever be combined with Feruchemy to enable Compounding. I assume he also learned the secrets of Atium that would grant him extreme longevity. He was immortal and planned to use again the Well of Ascension after a thousand years, what should he do to ensure that no one would rise to challenge him? He needed to get rid of every other Feruchemist, lest a descendent gain the power of Compounding. Rashek reached out to all of his closest friends and offered them immortality - and was shocked when his uncle Kwaan rejected him. Rashek learned that while holding Preservation's power he couldn't bring lethal force against his uncle, but he could still forcibly Preserve, manipulating all Feruchemists into the long-lived nigh-indestructable Mistwraiths. This is where I get into speculation. Rashek was faced with a conundrum. He wanted to make sure that none of these terrifyingly capable beings could oppose him, but he also wanted to keep his closest friends near him. I suspect it is at this stage that Mistwraiths had their Cognitive aspect blocked from their physical body and reduced to mindless beings of instinct. Hemalurgy which pierced the Realms could forcibly connect the mind to the body as well as provide a lever to control the Kandra. Wait a moment, we've gotten nearly straight confirmation that Kelsier stapled his soul onto a Mistwraith wearing his bones. If a mind can supplant a Mistwraith what would stop the souls harvested for the Kandra Blessings from influencing the recipient? Presumably the donors were prisoners, executed, or others viewed as expendable to Rashek and unlikely to view him kindly or with loyalty. We know that there is an element of Identity to Hemalurgic spikes, even if the spike in question does not specifically harvest Identity, memories, or Connection. Rashek would want to preserve the minds of his friends, not replace them. Here I wonder if Identity was stripped from the donor, leaving not even a hint of a grudge toward the being who came to be known as the Kandra's Father. The next thoughts are speculation as to why Kandra are so susceptible to the Hemalurgic Flaw. First assumption is that the Hemalurgic spike itself creates a foothold in the soul, a conduit for external influence that is separate but related to the fissures in the soul. My example is Spook ripping out his A-Pewter spike and immediately becoming unable to hear Ruin despite having a soul cracked enough to receive a dream message from Kelsier. Next thought is that Kandra are Hemalurgically fragile because they themselves have to influence their body via their spikes - they are also an external influence that must compete for control rather than naturally from within. This is likely why the Blessing of Prescence allows Kandra to resist the Flaw as it strengthens their own control over their body. Last thought but is likely the least contributing factor, we know that when a Ferring stores their Identity, they become more susceptible to emotional Allomancy and other changes like Forgery. What if the Identity keying a spike provides some interference that is absent from an unkeyed spike? Perhaps related to this is that I suspect Hemalurgic spikes always provide a foothold - possibly even more so should a spike degrade (with maybe the Identity keying also lessening) as was the case for the old Inquisitor spike that became Wax's Pathian earring and the bullet used to stop Paalm. I'll also add that if Identity-free spikes are how Kandra Blessings are made and that there are further ramifications, that would explain why Brandon has RAFO'd it all these years. Looking ahead to future Cosmere interactions, we may see Mistwraiths uplifted to full intelligence without Hemalurgy. Perhaps a Bondsmith or hijo could form a Connection bridging the block between Cognitive and Physical. Thoughts? Most of this is not new, I'm simply trying to put the pieces together. It did lead to the thought that perhaps the Heralds have formed blocks between their tortured physical selves and their minds, but I'll make a separate topic for that.

@Trusk'our covered it fairly well, but it's worth noting that the limits on Hemalurgy aren't solely based on how many spikes you can have before you open yourself to Harmony's influence, it's also about how much stress Ruin is willing to allow on a Hemalurgist's system. Back when Ati was Ruin, he pushed on the system creating much more stress and warping in the Inquisitors than humans were ever meant to deal with. In Harmony, Ruin is subservient to Preservation's powers and the warping that was possible in Era 1 is theoretically no longer possible. Whether or not that limitation can be fully circumvented via another Shard's influence, such as using Trellium spikes, remains to be seen. Marsh probably holds the record with 22 spikes, and we haven't seen anything close to that since the Catacendre. Beyond that, Feruchemy sometimes can be a poor choice for a Hemalurgic spike because the Law of Hemalurgic Decay results in reduced storage efficiency. Unless the Ferring that the power was harvested from has full stores on hand, you'll have to spend a considerable amount of time storing useful attributes. This is the reason that Era 1 Inquisitors needed to rest often to recharge their F-Gold spikes - which let Marsh wipe out all of the ones at Kredik Shaw. Until Identity contamination gets consistently solved, it doesn't allow for Compounding either. Don't get me wrong, F-Gold and F-Steel are still extremely useful, but those are two of the hardest attributes to store before the cut in efficiency.

Let's see. Intuition via Connection is a bit tricky to confirm since by definition, it's the person arriving at conclusions, so it may be hard to conclusively reject the null hypothesis. We also only see a handful of artificially reinforced Connection to a Shard, so it's hard to say. Kelsier didn't seem to get an immediate and intuitive understanding of the nature of Preservation when Ascending. I think Connection could help with Hemalurgy and Awakening, but instead of Connecting to the respective Shard I would suggest Connecting to the target of the magic. Hemalurgy presumably will have the same complications as acupuncture in mapping the respective points to each person's proportions and physiology from small and petite, to big and fat, to long limbed. This complication is humorously used in Kung-fu Panda when Mantis tries to use acupuncture on Po. Connection probably will help you intuit those Bindpoints by using your existing knowledge and applying it to your target. For Awakening, Vasher talks about how Breath sticks to the target. Perhaps Connection could lower the threshold of "pounding down the door" for something to be Awakened. In fact, I wonder if Connection would let you become stickier than the Awakened object or Lifeless - is Nomad's Command "Your Breath to mine" Connection based? Maybe you could more strongly imprint a Command with Connection... If you're hoping that Connection will help people learn more about how Hemalurgy and Awakening fundamentally works, I give a possible, for the straight application I would say probable.

There's an assumption here that the Radiants weren't formed into teams combining various orders - and I don't see any indication that this didn't happen. Dalinar's vision of Starfalls where he fights Midnight Essence shows that Radiants were sent on missions outside of Order blocks. Honor did make mistakes, but the org chart is by no means the underlying cause or the most egregious example. The most obvious is the Oathpact designed to seal away Odium that relied on ten men and women to withstand every temptation, pain, and torture that the Shard of Hatred and his minions could devise. This misstep highlights Honor's greatest strength and weakness - that he believes in people. "Honor is not dead, so long as he lives in the hearts of men" is the belief of some of the Honorspren, and it is Honor's belief that honor exists in mankind, that they will keep their oaths. The Knights Radiant by design encourages ordinary people to do better - to protect even those you hate, to obey the law, to listen to the forgotten. If you have to rely on your Bondsmith/supervisor to break up every dispute, that organization is doomed anyway because there is no trust. Perhaps Honor believed that the Windrunners would protect everyone they hated - so long as it was right - even the Skybreakers. That the Skybreakers would uphold the law and the orders of the Bondsmiths even when clashing against the Windrunners. Maybe Honor believed the Edgedancers would listen and help negotiate. In essence Honor believed in the honor of the Heralds and Radiants but planned poorly should that honor fail - and that is very much a logical blindspot for his Intent.

I actually came to the exact opposite conclusion that the throughput of Godmetal was intentional for Ruin and Preservation but less so for Harmony. Consider that Preservation bound the Shards' naturally accumulating Investiture into two distinct cycles in order to imprison and weaken Ruin. Atium was locked into a cycle alloyed with electrum, siphoned off and stored away in the Trustwarren. Preservation's power slowly accumulated in the Well of Ascension to imprison Ruin - power sufficient to move planets that I assume was rarely if ever diverted to form metal. What of Harmonium? The Well of Ascension was opened, no longer to accumulate power to resist Ruin. Kelsier had destroyed the Pits of Hathsin and Sazed wanted to ensure that no one would again be forced to crawl through crevasses seeking Atium geodes. Freed from Leras's machinations, I assume Harmony's new perpendicularity would have the combined throughput of the Pits of Hathsin and the Well of Ascension. Perhaps too bold a hypothesis, to claim that during all of the known pre-Catacendre history, Investiture had been forced into abnormal cycles and had simply been been restored to a more natural state, but it makes sense. That said, the Perpendicularity placement in Southern Scadrial seems unlikely to be incidental as Sazed records his respect in Rashek's clever decision to move the Well of Ascension. As for the original topic... I'll ask a few questions and maybe pull out a few scenarios as I wonder if some of the problems and challenges of everyday life are not made any less complex with the mind and power of a Shard. I agree, Sanderson is great at bringing up some of these questions of morality without necessarily giving a straight answer. In Harmony calling Wax from the Roughs to Elendel or going back to the retired Sword who has never failed him when others proved insufficient, I see every supervisor faced with an imbalance of demands and available human resources. I think it is not so different from the working parent with no money for a babysitter hesitating to ask the eldest to once again put off spending time with friends to babysit younger siblings. Not so different from when I called in sick and my boss asked me if I was able to cover my shift anyway because there was no one else available to run a branch. It's an odd thought to think that a Shard could run into resource constraints, but when it's people trusted to do the job well, it makes sense to me. Do you use and burn up the people who do the job well or risk sending someone you believe is woefully inadequate for the position (see VenDell trying to fill MeLaan's shoes in TLM)? I've seen a lot of people say that Sazed messed up with Paalm and I ask: what would have been the right way to handle Paalm? Paalm is set up to be the sympathetic sacrifice and Wax's resulting hatred is understandable, but as a parent I find myself trying on Harmony's shoes and wondering what I would have done, and I'm not convinced Paalm left him any good options. We see Paalm flee Harmony's control to seek Autonomy to become... a mass murderer and I wonder if Sazed knew more about Paalm's history as TLR's agent then is ever revealed to us. In the relationship between Harmony and Paalm I see the dilemma of every parent, friend, leader, sibling, family member, associate, etc. watching someone else intending to do something likely to mess up lives, their own and possibly others. A quote from Howard Taylor's Schlock Mercenary, "A vast and perilous gulf lies between knowing how people will act, and getting them to act differently." The parent stopping the child from running into the road, talking to the teenager hanging out with friends doing hard drugs, or the adult taking out loans for risky investments. Sometimes you can let the person make the choice and take the consequences, but sometimes the consequences are incredibly far reaching. It's like Vin trying to follow Kelsier into Kredik Shaw. Full Cosmere Spoilers: