Light In the Darkness

That's fair! There is likely a lot more nuance to it than what I originally put forth, especially considering the amount of damage the Bands could do in the wrong hands.

Interesting thought. I don’t know that he could have, though; he would have needed to make them very shortly after Ascending for that to work, and it doesn’t seem like he could have put that investiture into them; the shards don’t seem to have direct access to change the contents of metalminds, from what we’ve seen. Ruin was only able to change Sazed’s memory because it was in transit between his mind and his bracer, iirc.

I’m afraid I don’t understand; black holes have mass. Things falling past the event horizon, by definition, are moving faster than light, despite having mass - the speed of light stops being so rigid of a speed limit when it’s the fabric of space that’s moving instead of an object in space, which is kinda what you’re doing with surgebinding - tricking space into bending in a different direction. So I think it should work, with enough stormlight, which is of course the caveat. It probably would take quite a bit.

This ^^ We know that Kelsier, accessing the Well of Ascension to an extent, forced his current situation. The Lord Ruler, Vin, and I think Elend all deliberately chose to move on faster than they needed to, though how fast it actually happens is a bit hard to grasp, especially since time is irrelevant in the SR to some extent - hence why Dalinar can make the vision with Tien in RoW for Kaladin. So we have a lot of unknowns there, but it is unlikely that Sanderson will allow people who have already fully died in linear time be re-born or resurrected - that would defeat too much plot. So it's unclear how the timelessness of the SR impacts this. With these, it seems to me that there is a bit of Connection impact going on. If we look through Realmatics, I believe it compares people to "rays" that originate in the beyond/SR, pierce the cognitive, and control a body in the physical. "Death" seems to be when the body is damaged enough that the passive investiture in the CR manifestation of the person - their mind - can no longer identify strongly enough with it to maintain the connection to the physical realm. The connection weakens to the point of being broken, and the mind creates a manifestation of itself in the CR for a moment before the connection to the SR fades and the core "person" component gets sucked into the SR just before fading into the Beyond. This is when we call it "death." Reconstitution seems to have several points of potential, and we see it occur in a few situations. 1. Full death, but with potential for normal life and unchanged Identity and core "person" component. We see Sazed offer this to Vin and Elend, but don't know what problems would be faced by them. It doesn't seem like this was an offer to make them functionally immortal or involve cognitive shadows; it seems like they would have had normal lives, with full access to their old Spiritwebs and Allomantic abilities. No weird light-shadows, no missing access like Kelsier - and Sazed seems confident that he can do it. 2. Partial death. Wax was dead enough that without intervention from Sazed, he would have finished dying normally. He was invested enough, by WoB above, that he could have left a cognitive shadow, though I think Sanderson might have been mixed up slightly, since Wax was not yet invested by the bands? But maybe he meant in the act of returning he would have had enough investiture, between the Bands and Sazed's interference. Either way, this seems to be an offer of the same sort as Elend and Vin's, though the time since death was lower, and its realization seems to be more caused by a brief connection to his body created/strengthened by Sazed, and then an immense drain on the goldmind in the Bands. Either way, it seems to have the effects we would expect the offer to Vin and Elend to involve: no weird shenanigans or Cognitive Shadows. Also seen when Lift heals what's-his-face after he was made pretty dead. 3. Full death, with side effects. Return involuntary. Seen with Szeth. Forced, not chosen, and using a fabrial and much less investiture than the earlier cases. Cognitive aspect, which somehow is visible in the PR in this case (maybe the fabrial pulled it over?), lags behind the motions of his body and is improperly Connected to his body, "stapled," almost, similar to Kelsier. Somehow, though, he is able to fully use Surgebinding - maybe because the connections to it are much more strongly housed in the SR? unclear. 4. Full death, Cognitive Shadow return. Voluntary, hacked. Seen with Kelsier - forced the creation of a Cognitive Shadow, then abused Hemalurgy to "staple" it onto a new body. Connection with the body seems stronger than in Szeth's case, but different. He can't burn metals, whether acquired through medallion tech or Hemalurgy, seemingly, despite already having the coding for being Mistborn in his Spiritweb. This may be because it's not his OG body since that was eaten by a Kandra. As a result, magic he should have that strongly relies on physical components, e.g. burning metals, may not have enough connection to his body to access those components. Note that Sazed did not offer to restore him either, that we see on screen. This might be because he was already a cognitive shadow; Sazed either did not want to send him back because of weirdness with that, or couldn't put him back in a normal life because of it, the way he could with the others. 5. Full death, Cognitive Shadow Return. Shard-mediated. The Returned, duh. Seems to occur after an individual is able to see into the SR for a moment, so potentially later in the process of "death" than the others. Might be facilitated much more by a cognitive/investiture "cast" of the person making the shadow as the CR component, as opposed to it being the same CR component but revitalized, which could explain the lost memories. Traits: constant use of investiture to maintain a connection to the physical body. This is either passively obtained/present (e.g. Yumi or the Heralds) or actively obtained (Returned + Breath/Stormlight). The side effect is that the body is heavily influenced by the perceptions of the individual, as opposed to the other way around; potentially, in a normal person, their CR component is mostly brought into the PR, which would explain why it looks like a little ball of light to people in the CR, roughly where the person is in the PR, and why the physical body normally has a significant impact on CR-based self-perception. In a Returned individual, this might be less heavily true; the amount of investiture needed to force the connection to a body is significant, and more of it might remain in the CR, and the amount of it would make changes in PR presentation easier due to CR perception changes. Early worldhoppers might have taken advantage of this; while in the CR, the same effects may manifest, and their perception of themselves could have a significant impact on the reality of their physical forms, which could be one of the means behind their extended age - e.g. Demoux being around still in SA - and similar effects. It's hard to tell why this isn't true for Kelsier, but it likely involves Shardic influence/lack thereof IMO. Any examples I missed? or Thoughts on mechanics?

Nice One! I'll add it to the topic posting.

Interesting thought. I do agree that this probably is not the thing that Sanderson was referring to; Malata is the one who opens the Oathgate for the invasion of the tower in RoW, IIRC, which could very easily be the event referred to. However, the King from the moving island who physically transitioned via Sotrmlight healing that we see come to Urithiru in OB or RoW seems much more trustworthy, and much less likely to be traitorous - he's even instructed to keep his distance from the other Dustbringers, to avoid contamination.

I don't think I agree with this one, but I suppose it's possible. What do you mean by this? Veil saying the decade of experience is made up is about Veil's fake past, not Shallan's youth (as far as I can tell).

Not necessarily; the thing the Everstorm did that fixed the Parshmen was re-Connect them, both to Odium (obviously) and the world itself. Slave-form has no rhythms, it seems, which implies their connection to their world (and therefore sanity) was broken. I do wonder how slave-forms managed to exist for so long, though, if they never adopted mate-form, which should have had rhythms. I guess maybe they can reproduce anytime, but the passions and desire to do so are only in mate-form? Odd to think about. I don't believe we have full confirmation, except that when the Oathpact was abandoned, Taln had died that very day, and that started the end of the desolation (or so it seemed, IIRC). It may take some time, but the Heralds seem to act like the point when one of them dies is exactly when the Fused stop coming back, at least in this instance. The Heralds are Cognitive shadows, but they don't go to Braize voluntarily; the transportation seems mediated by the Oathpact, which is SR-based, so it would make sense for it to be instantaneous.

Yup. He's in a very passionate moment, which is Odium's whole thing, and he's in the corrupted tower, doing things out of passion (at the core) instead of to protect/out of honor. So his connection to Odium was very strong for a minute there, likely nearly allowing him to Voidbind - Odium's version of Surgebinding. Given the results of that on Ashynn, and given that said events were likely caused by major spurts of passion that Humans seem more capable of than Singers, this was extremely dangerous. If Kaladin had been given any surge other than Gravitation, especially Destruction, it could have been catastrophic.

Fair point there, and good points in the spoiler lol. I agree that we probably should lay it down here though; it might be worth a thread in Cosmere instead, maybe as part of a larger static-kinetic discussion? We should probably at least let this one get back on topic though lol.

I’m sure they have a cognitive notion of it, but it isn’t nearly as dominant as on Roshar, where the Sun seems to perhaps more accurately be a reflection of the Origin or the East - where the storms come from as well as the sunrise. The direction as a source is just excessively strong there, since it beats them over the head once or twice a week if they forget.

Exactly! If the Nicrosilminds got Identity-locked, they would stop giving the holder the ability to sense the powers in the ones not associated with the powers they already have - the Zincmind. Also, this is very interesting. It means that compounding is Allomantic in nature, fundamentally, which makes sense - it’s well established that essentially you hack Allomancy into giving you the Feruchemical attribute instead. But the fact that you don’t need the associated Feruchemy to access it is interesting and constraining; it means you can’t re-store the resulting energy, which is a hard limit on long-term compounding, but still a very powerful short burst. I’m really curious about how the inverse works - it would need to be fundamentally Feruchemical, but Allomancy’s investiture is never stored like Feruchemy’s, so I wonder how the hack would work (since we know it exists). Sorry for the sidetrack. SA:

SA Spoilers again So, not sure about this. When Vin sensed the locked energy, she was burning the metal - the precondition for compounding. She had a potential method of accessing that investiture, though she was without the invested art needed to use it, even if it weren't identity locked, which is a bit odd. We might want to ask for a WoB on if she would have been able to compound it if the metalmind was unkeyed. It's possible that someone like Kelsier might not even have been able to feel it due to the double obfuscation - Vin was a very pure-blooded and powerful Mistborn. In contrast, I don't think Wax could tell if the unkeyed goldmind he gave Wayne was invested or not, except via a very weak steelpush line, for the same reason: It was both invested-art-locked and Identity-locked. So, if Adawathwyn was only a Sparker and the Nicrosil were gone or Identity-locked, she might not have been able to sense the other reservoirs - we don't have enough data on Ferrings to know. With Mistings though, if they can't burn the metal, they can't sense the reservoir, so it might be similar with Ferrings. That said, the situation is unlikely - She would know if the Zincmind had any power in it, and it probably would if any of the others did - I doubt Wax was burning through Zinc, of all things, faster than the others, and managed to accidentally identity-lock the Nicrosil. So you probably are right that a swap is more likely, whether ferrings can tell if something is a metalmind whose power they couldn't use or not.

These questions have been core themes of a lot of the Cosmere generally. One of the most impactful things in these books, I think, is the concept of what happens when a human acquires God-like status, or becomes a god. The different perspective, the accountability we feel drawn to hold them too, is a major purpose of the books, I think. Not necessarily the massive philosophic questions in their entirety, mind you, but I think Sanderson does want people to wonder about the topic and see the echoes in reality. Please forgive me if I don't articulate this as well as I mean; also "you" refers to a general arbitrary person, not anyone in particular here. I think these questions are particularly interesting and relevant. I think an outcome can be the best available option without being good, and in that case, the good choice would be the evil act, but the evil act doesn't become good. I think if you are forced into such a situation, you shouldn't be ashamed of the choice, but maybe of the action itself to the extent of it encouraging you to repair the wrong done. I think shame, to the extent that it serves good, would be understandable and justified if a person's previous choices created the situation where they are. They shouldn't take comfort that other options were worse, but that they did the best they can do; I don't think a good person should be comfortable with whatever they choose as long as it wasn't the worst option, in such a situation, especially since that would extend to those where a good one is possible. I think this kind of situation rarely happens IRL; most of the time, there is in fact a good option, but realizing that, at least for me, takes a religious perspective that we are excluding at the moment. Finally, I think inaction should always be considered one of the possible actions, and should be evaluated in that way; inaction that does no evil in the face of options that only do evil, when judged by whatever scale determines evil and good, must by definition be the best available option. In terms of the consequential framework, I often disagree with it, but IRL I have a religious perspective that allows that rather easily. In-universe, that question is left open-ended, and I think the fact that our feelings about the morality of different things is manipulated slightly by the lens we see the story through is part of the beauty of good story telling, and shows that a character is well-written. I think Sanderson does that really well. I still, of course, disagree with that framework in many instances, but the axis with which to judge actions is more difficult to discern in-universe. We could really only do it by agreeing on value priorities, which would be hard in a thread/forum like this. For example, if we start with "Life is good" and "stagnation is bad," then, by applying knowledge of our world and in-universe, we most likely are forced to admit "death is necessary, and therefore not evil." We probably would want to add "Murder is bad" to our list, but then we must define murder precisely. If we say "Murder is premeditated killing," then we have a host of problems including war, and we might end up with "Wars ought not to be conducted through killing," which is great until we meet someone who disagrees, generally someone who starts wars. Here we get to the balancing of where does "Life is good" start outweighing "Murder is bad"? Or do we need to redefine Murder to include some sense of there being occasional justification for it, meaning it is sometimes good? We could also throw out "stagnation is bad" and assert "death is unnecessary and evil," therefore "killing is bad" and "imprisonment, slavery, and deprivation of freedom are good if the alternative for them was death, because they prolong life," which is controversial at best. So I think perspective and error are possible on this, but I can see why most people would also feel confident in passing such judgments - they rely on a scale based on information from Real Life (TM) that isn't available in the books. So I think answers to question 1 and 2 of the last four are going to be very subjective here. Personally, with my own perspective, I think sometimes violence is necessary and in those instances, it ends up working for the good of those killed (controversial, I know, but semi-religiously based, so no other explanations there). I think that the evaluation that counts is all of them; such actions would need judgment based on factors we don't know, and so should be left up to someone with those facts. But the situation perceived by each person and the reasoning involved should both contribute to that judgment, IMO. So in the meantime, for those of us trying to make a judgment that can be useful in our own lives based on a fictional story I guess, even if its only use would be these forums, our perceptions and sympathies may very well determine if an action was "right" based on how well it aligns with our idea of right conduct in the situation, which will be heavily influenced by what the story explains. IIRC the seen with Vin includes her going a bit crazy with the violence and regretting it a bit afterward. I think she knew that she probably shouldn't do it beforehand, or at least that she was missing better info, and regrets having done it after, amplified by the lack of her originally assumed justification. Therefore, not only an evil act but an evil choice, if we believe that violence without better justification than she has at the end, is evil - premeditated, to an extent, even, and she is responsible for the evil in her decision. But it's been a bit since I read the first trilogy, so I might be wrong. For the last question in that post, I think Shards definitely do deserve some slack - we generally give it to Ruin-controlled Marsh, for example, and though the Shards don't have so much deliberate pressure as a vessel enforcing their will on a construct, a vessel is exposed to much more general pressure from them, increasingly strong over time. So I think they deserve more slack than we, as theorizers, sometimes give them. SA spoilers: I hope that this has contributed meaningfully!

Ah! Thanks for that. It's been a while since I read SH. That does make sense; the way Sazed remarks on it at or after his Ascension made it sound like it was restricted to Hemalurgy.

I think another piece of this might be that the engravings are deeper than you might think; the plate seems rather large, and Sazed has to take multiple rubbings to get all of it. The Prophecy is long, but not that long. If the plate were a bit thinner and a chisel was used instead of just an etching tool, the marks could have been deep enough to last for a substantial amount of time even without preservation techniques. Which, with that, it is very possible that Rashek learned how to make stainless steel from his Ascension, and decided to re-cast and preserve the plate in the more ageable material, or did something to hand-wave the problem away before running out of power, which is odd since he shouldn't have been able to change the steel, but possible - as far as I know, only Ruin is confirmed to be unable to change metal; somehow Rashek managed to make enough spikes for all his Terris companions to make them kandra, though I don't think there were many normal people for him to kill for it, and I don't know where he got the metal for it either.

I would guess that the idea about bloodmakers being able to regrow limbs is relevant here; many major problems in physics and math and all the rest have been solved by intuitive leaps stumbled on by accident. Most people, even those educated in the field, would not have been able to solve them without the same stroke of luck, which might never come to a person. I'd imagine F!zinc makes such connections much easier and encourages their happening, meaning you may be able to solve problems you couldn't before, even given unlimited time. There is also the fact that some problems we have no frameworks for; we have to learn a lot about proteins in biochemistry and molecular biology, for example, by designing tests to see what binds to what. We need experimental knowledge in many such fields that can't be computed. F!zinc may allow such things to be computed via intuition; the subconscious brain can process a significantly higher amount of information in significantly more sophisticated ways than the conscious brain (link for support: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4061785/#:~:text=Visual search studies have shown,producing a meaningful conscious experience.). F!zinc, if it speeds this process, would allow people to potentially intuit solutions to high-complexity problems in very low amounts of time, including those for which they may have no background or formal training, though some related knowledge would be required. However, F!zinc would also enable consumption and understanding of this material at a much faster pace than usual, meaning the users would be very adaptable in problem-solving and excellent consultants. They would essentially be similar to AI models in this way, but likely more accurate due to the actual use of known facts and algorithms, just subconsciously. Ironically, I think it would, to an extent. @hwiles I think is right when they said it shouldn't boost creativity, but Einstein's formal training was much less than many would expect, for the drastic breakthroughs he produced. F!zinc would enable intuiting the mind-games that he played to arrive at his ideas much easier, and in a way less related to the actual power, would probably speed up the ideation of the theory of relativity. In particular, they might realize that even though their mind is thinking faster, the light they perceive (which is something of a function of brain and body speed) doesn't change. By bringing even a little of this comprehension of bullet time, they might notice the apparent constancy of the speed of light, even on fast objects. Honestly, Scadrial is primed for relativity; time bubbles should have already given a few people a clue about the speed of light's importance, since everything but light seems to get bent or disrupted by passing through their boundaries. F!steel might also give a clue, since perception and speed have a similar potential for disjunction. F!zinc users would be in a prime position to notice these things, meaning it might actually be what makes someone "Einstein."

Thank you, it does! However, most of the post still holds.To be fair, we also don't know what additional powers being Harmony has granted; Preservation had the power to hear the thoughts of Hemalurgic creatures, while Ruin had the power to speak to them. Some aspects of Feruchemy or Allomancy and Shardic ability over them might have been similarly divided pre-catacendre, though I doubt this ability is one of them. Granted, the Spoilered text might have an impact on the validity of this interpretation.

So, in TLM, when the Bands of Mourning get brought out to the assembled nations, they are found to be empty. The question is, why? IIRC, Wax deliberately leaves charge in the metalminds when he uses them; he stops before they're drained. This leaves a couple of options; add to this as you will: 1. Sazed drained them or otherwise made them unusable. From TLM we know that his control/balance is slipping just a bit, with Ruin gaining an advantage in influencing his Intent due to the investiture from Preservation that went into making sapient individuals on Scadrial. We know from TWoA that Ruin had the power to change the investiture in metalminds, tweaking the memories stored there to prevent the prophecy from being read correctly. [Spoiler for SA] So, if Sazed slipped in his control for a moment, he might have drained the Bands in a fit of Ruinous intent, deleting or tampering with the investiture so it wasn't usable anymore, e.g. adding identity to it or removing linchpin powers, like F!nicrosil. He could also have directed an experiment by the Kandra to expose them to heat or lightning, or something to that effect, which could have deleterious effects on the stored investiture, IIRC. This would have terrifying implications, but would also explain why he was also able to allow Wayne to become a Mistborn to prevent the bomb from blowing up; by allowing the one source of power to be destroyed, he was able to balance a more permanent reservoir to be created in Wax being a Mistborn now, letting him keep control of both halves of his power. 2. Sazed switched them out. In his growth towards being Discord, he may have had enough inclination to prevent the bands from being used to force a kandra to switch the real one for a fake, and then blank their memory or prevent their telling. He also had a weapon he could use to stop the bomb in wax, the unknowing Mistborn, and might have just seen the bands as unnecessary and orchestrated a switch before delivery by a kandra who thought he was being truthful. 3. A Ghostblood drained them. This could have been anyone; when Kelsier discovered his backup secret weapon/plan for future awesomeness had been discovered and used, it could easily be that he sent someone to neutralize it. All they would need is a vial of metals and something like fifteen seconds. Theoretically, someone should have noticed, but they are rather sneaky. It could even have been Kelsier himself; even if the powers wouldn't work for him, his intent to draw them out of existence might have been enough to do so, even with no effect. We also don't know how aluminum could have accelerated or made the process sneakier. 4. A Ghostblood swapped/stole them. This would make sense, especially if it was Kelsier himself. He would want to regain his weapon and store it somewhere else; Sazed might have even agreed, knowing his role in creating the weapon and being an old friend, and regretting how much tech he had accidentally slipped to the kandra he might have wanted to prevent them from having easy access to research into the topic of unsealed metalminds and the ability to have many Fullborn as weapons. Harmony would trust Kelsier to not give it to anyone else unless very necessary, and Kelsier would know how to restore their reservoirs, if he had someone he could trust with that. 5. Wax accidentally made them unusable. He might have drawn more than he thought, especially of a critical power, or his Identity may have accidentally locked the metalmind, especially if he attempted any compounding-storing without blanking his Identity before giving the bands up. Since it was Adawathwyn who touched the bands, she would only have been able to tell if the Zinc band was empty, if the Nicrosil bands had been drained or locked, since if they had been locked somehow she wouldn't have the power to tell if the others were as well. To my memory, no one else tried to use the bands either, which is a bit odd, and they didn't try to give them to Wax to try, since he was too far away, though interference from his Identity might have been why the bands seemed empty. Especially since he would be rather instinctive with his abilities as a crasher, he might have accidentally stored weight in the bands, or the instinct might have impelled him to store other things at the same time. 6. The kandra accidentally made them unusable. A dozen different experiments could have made the bands untappable or drained them, especially with the mechanism of their creation unknown. Thoughts? Edits/added options from Discussion: From @JustQuestin2004 7. The Malwish delegates used an Allomantic Aluminum grenade. By Wob, it would create a deadzone where Allomancy would be inoperable - a dangerous thing in itself to future Scadiran tech. This may also feasibly have disabled Feruchemy in the area and made the bands appear to be empty when they weren't. This would also explain the scripted tone of voice used by the delegate on finding them empty, since he was causing it to happen, and explain his confidence in their scientists being able to tell if it was a fake/duplicate.

My question about this would be can we trust Sazed's answer? I have several spinoff questions on this, so I'm going to make a thread for that. I do want to address this though; saying the sovereign was involved implies that he definitely was not the only one involved in making them. This could be almost accounted for if the creation process required the Excisors that we still don't understand; if he got the Mistborn abilities from using those with Spook to attempt to regain his powers, it would make a lot of sense. He probably would have been preparing it to be a spike, so the metalmind would be embedded and harder to steal, though not hemalurgically charged, like the ones that Miles Hundredlives had. That would explain the spearhead-shape, since melting them after charging them (required if originally bracers) would dilute the power they give. He might have then gotten the powers of a feruchemist in a second layer, and used them to prepare some initial metalminds in the south, so their metalborn-starved population could make medallions more or less indefinitely (compounder medallions). Then, the tool having served its purpose and being useless to him, he would have gone and hidden it, since it would be a route for him to be effectively Fullborn if he could get even power over nicrosil back, and the Mistborn power stored would be able to amplify his old abilities to the height of an original consumer of Lerasium if he compounded correctly. So it might make sense for him to have made it and then hidden it away, esp. since the followers he led to guard it were fanatics, the people he left in the south would be rather incompetent in the extreme cold, and no one in the north knew about them yet. It is a bit odd that he didn't go retrieve them, though, after their presence was known to the Set and many in the north, with the Southerners able to build aircraft; I would probably attribute that to deficient intelligence on the matter. It would have been relatively simple, if he could get to the location - the spearhead was out in the open, easy to grab and leave with.

This is important. The perception of a thing's weight is related to both your muscle strength/mass and by how much effort/exertion/strain you put into it. If Stormlight is allowing 100% output (or more; what we perceive as 100% could be less because our bodies don't really ever let us do 100% output because it would likely break things) 100% of the time, plus some occasionally, then it probably reduces the strain your body feels when doing anything. This is the same reason that stimulants, like coffee, are so common and popular; they make everything feel easier, even though you haven't gained any real capacity, because you have more energy with which to act. Any given task takes up a lower percent of your available energy than normal, so it would seem and feel easier, whether it be physical or mental work. The additional healing in microtears that the Stormlight would provide would amplify this effect and perception significantly, as the pain at any given time from microtears is going to be proportional to their number, meaning that if Stormlight is working fast, the pain from the tear starting will still happen, but the pain from them remaining would be nearly non-existent, and it would never build-up until the damage comes faster than the Stormlight can fix it. Combined, the increased source of energy, stimulant effect reducing perception- and physically-created barriers to strength expression, and healing for micro-damage would have the effect of creating superhuman strength: things feel lighter to you, you can do things easier, faster, and harder than without, and you barrel through obstacles that should kill you. This micro-healing piece of Stormlight is actually impressively relevant here, along with the adrenaline-like central nervous system stimulant effects of Stormlight. Investiture in general should have a similar effect, but when it's less prone to moving/leaking, aka it isn't a gas, then it probably doesn't produce the urge to act quite as strongly as Stormlight seems to, while still providing the healing and super-human abilities that we see in the books. Given all that, though, it would be functionally indistinguishable from just having 50% more strength plus micro-healing &c. The sentence that we've been debating seems to be more an explanation of why he proceeded to carry Teft, someone about his size, at a brisk jog. Dunno about any of you, but I couldn't carry around an extra body weight at a brisk jog for very long, let alone someone who weighs as much more than me as Kaladin and Teft do, and let alone for nearly a mile, which I believe is what he did. That still sounds a bit like super-strength, though dampened from what we normally see with this effect due to the Tower's suppressor. Essentially, it would look and behave like super-strength either way, probably in much the same way as A!pewter, so a measurement of "how much stronger are you" would probably turn up the same results either way. The perception will just be different.

Ok cool! We have confirmation of the fading. That answers the question. Kinda neat to think about the holes left in rocks somewhere from where they used to be though; Rosharan Archaeology would be really interesting. Thanks for everyone's thoughts and answers!

So, IIRC it does matter a lot. Teft was just knocked out by the influence of the repression fabrial (which was activated before the defense one with nodes). If Kaladin breathed in the light immediately before the sentence we keep quoting, which is I think how the scene goes, the way he says this could very easily be him remarking on the odd situation with his stormlight. I’ve always read this as him saying “The stormlight he just acquired didn’t seem to be giving him as much strength as usual, but at least it would help stabilize his muscles via healing, since that seemed to be working.” He’s already acknowledged the weird situation, so an additional oddness with stormlight would be important to document to the audience but not necessarily for him to react to. Additionally, all the quotes that imply that stormlight doesn’t grant additional raw strength come from this time while Kal is in the tower, suppressed, from what I’ve seen on this discussion and what I remember from reading. I do agree a lot with this, though. This is something of what the other bonuses resemble too - faster reflexes, more precise and flawless execution of combat maneuvers, increased energy, faster movement, etc. Under intense emotional duress, we do see people whose bodies essentially forget to impose the limits they normally do to protect us from damaging ourselves, so we see people in the real world who are untrained and desperate able to lift cars, at seemingly random moments and with very low reproducibility. If the stormlight allowed a state like that to be essentially your 1-rep-max, with 100% or more of what you would call your “natural strength” being available constantly (as described above), it probably would reproduce the same effect as if stormlight gave a sizable increase in real strength. Thus, the debate becomes one over terminology: what do you call raw strength? Any way it’s put, though, the otutward effect seems to be significant super strength, whether from a combination of damage resistance, healing, and deactivating normal bodily restrictions, or actually increasing the “raw strength” of your muscle mass. The only difference is choosing how literally you interpret the quote from RoW and how much you put on the Tower’s suppressor. IMO at least.

That would make sense; if they believed they were leaving their spren free to leave later, and by doing it they would allow their spren to keep the benefit they gained from the bond (existence in the physical realm with sentience) then that would make a lot of sense.

Brandon has told us that each major system was capable of this, pretty much. We know the Scadrians will be able to do it, possibly via bendalloy &c, and Elantrians can via Aon; it makes sense that the radiants would be able to, especially since they literally can manipulate gravity, which creates the only FTL situation currently known to exist IRL. The power pack has been mentioned too - I want to remind the thread that something like a vacuum tube seems to work to hold stormlight; they were seen being used by bank exchangers in shadesmar in OB, and referenced as a very recent invention, and I think they were also one of the stormlight containers used in Lasting Integrity’s vault.