Elwynn

But you must remember that even the in-book writer of the ars arcanum states it's 'an imperfect gathering of traditional Vorin symbolism.' And since Taln refers to himself as Stonesinew, which would include Ishar's domain of radiants, I think it's safe to assume that list will change with future books. And Stone Shamanism (most likely) doesn't even follow Vorin theology, based on Szeth's quotes. It more likely refers to the spirits of things that inhabit stone. The screams and voices Szeth hears come from the stone, and he knows (or thinks--as a cultural belief) that his soul will be given to the stones upon his death, to be tortured for eternity. Definitely not saying it's impossible, just seems a little improbable from what we know. But who knows? BS likes to pull that wool over our eyes. It's why I love his books.

No, it hasn't. However the whole ordeal: the chasm, aona and skai dying, the reod, can all be attributed (in my mind) to Odium visiting and killing the shardholders of that world. I base this off of the letter writer in part 2 epigraphs of tWoK Bold print mine

I'd also like to point something else out. When Aona died and the Shaod became the Reod, all seons linked to a possible elantrian lost sentience. It took fixing the Dor and re-establishing/finishing the Shaod to cure them. Likewise, I think when honor died the spren lost their sentience. Now, is there something broken? Like with the Dor? And that's preventing them going back to themselves? It's obvious Syl just had to find someone like Kaladin, or possibly explicitely him. But if something is fixed (highstorms?) will all Nahel-bond capable spren regain their sentience?

Yes, nightblood is an invested object, as well as shardblades. He talked about it saying an allomancer would have a hard time pushing or pulling on one of those two because it's an invested object. Off-topic ? Is anyone having problems getting into brandonothology? I can't seem to view it anymore.

Alright, turned this into an explanation of views more than anything. Tried to make it build to the end, again though...don't think I'm very good at it. Fair enough, both are possible, just not enough info. Building here, so more a little ways down. No! Flawless logic! My...only...weakness...BAH! I think this about hits the nail on the head when it comes to that section. I just can't agree with that. It's not seperate from the metallic arts, it is the metallic arts. Everyone on scadrial had, let's say, a 3:2 compostion of preservation:ruin. So, I agree with your last sentence, but the inverse is more important to discussion of metallic arts: the only people with more preservation in them are allomancers/possible allomancers (mistings/mistborn who haven't snapped). More a little ways down with ch.54 epigraph. Zas explained this a little better than I. I don't disagree that breaths are an effect Endowment, I'm saying I don't think it involves a direct "piece" of Endowment. Let's say Ati and Leras never went to Scadrial, but human life exists there for whatever reasons anyway. If Endowment were to then take up residence on Scadrial, the people there would eventually develop an awareness of their breath and the ability to endow it upon other things. I think it's much more of a "side effect" like zas says, than any deliberate interaction with Endowment. A Returned however, has interacted with Endowment directly and received a "piece" of that shards power. Hence the overwhelming quality of that Divine Breath, as opposed to the single "ordinary" breath every person is born with before they ever interact with Endowment. This is one of the only distinct differences within BS's magic systems that I think clashes with principle of intent. The other being Ruin from previous post. Ya, sorry. I was trying to continue my thought process from the post above it, to make it more concise and organized. Massive fail there huh? And wow, I just realized that I wrote "...more preservation in us..." How's that for being a little too obsessed with BS's worlds. A little more at bottom. But it does create a net gain, right? And within the magic system specifically. You get a new power, along with a stacked version of powers from "normal" breaths. I'm realizing something now, and I'll do my best to address it at the bottom of post. Ya, that was a $@%-poor attempt at explaining where I think Awakening comes from, as opposed to being a direct piece from Endowment. I don't think the instant Endowment showed up on Nalthis, people became aware of their breaths (and yes, I stick to endowment NOT creating life on Nalthis. This is based on the very short history of BioChroma. eg: still very new, even Vasher doesn't understand everything, but most importantly because they have a known and recorded history before breaths and returned started showing up, as opposed to feruchemy and what we know now of allomancy. I would never argue about Sel, I think you're probably right that Aona and Skai created life there). I think it took time for that awareness to come about, and once it did, people realized you had to add hundreds of "normal" breaths to equal one Divine. This screams net gain to me, which translates further as Awakening lacking that something extra, that piece of Endowment. Further extrapolation leads me to the conclusion that Awakening can then only be a "side effect (zas)"/an evolution from being so near a shard. At bottom. Which is weird, cause you quoted a part I was talking about. Ch. 54 epigraph. I think we're lost in translation. To me: fueling allomancy=putting preservation into humans (please tell me if you don't agree with that), because...well, that's what it does. Further evidenced by Lerasium attuning humans, even more, to preservation. That piece he gave up as "proof ruin could win in the end" ended up being mankind's link to allomancy. Ahhh, gotcha. Completely misread what you meant there. I understand that shards don't need a balancer. What I mean with the problems with similarities refers to the "no net gain or loss in using the magic." Which refers to both feruchemy and awakening. My problem is that the principle uses the balance between ruin and preservation for the canceling effect in feruchemy, which works perfectly, until you try to account for the "balance" of energy in awakening. It has nothing to cancel out effects, and no net gain doesn't stick with the PoI (principle of intent) that is evidenced by Endowment. ie the potent quality of a Divine Breath. Right, errrr...I think feruchemy evolved over time (as a "side effect"), similar to awakening, but to me the fact that it's the oldest, most potent of the metallic arts is the evidence. At bottom of post. Okay, I just reread that, and...I did misunderstand, a lot. lol Sorry, that whole post was just me being stupid and not reading carefully enough. So, I went back and put "at bottom" on nearly every post, let's get to it. I understand you don't believe the evolution/side effect development of feruchemy/awakening (most PoI espousers probably don't). Problem for me, and with PoI, is it's the only conclusion I've been able to arrive at. This is mainly b/c of the problem with feruchemy, which you've identified and say you haven't got a solution for yet; but the evolution aspect is the solution. It's the only thing that works for everything, even feruchemy's strange development. It's like this: Ati and Leras never created life on Scadrial. They found it fully occupied and took up residence. Feruchemy would still develop as a side effect of them being there, together on Scadrial. Just not as quickly or potently as it did in the books. Thing is, they did create life. So you've got the side effect, already causing feruchemy to develop in humans there, but they're also made up of near equal parts of ruin and preservation. Causing an additive effect that springs feruchemical development way ahead of allomancy. There is no other reason I can think of for why feruchemy would develop so much more prevalently than allomancy. It shouldn't outpace it, b/c they have more preservation--and indeed allomancers were always around, just not potently enough for anyone to notice. Now, funny thing is...all that can still be argued in favor of PoI. But if ruin and preservation cause an effect simply by being there, ones that conflict with each other--causing the equal energy transfer--then each shard must have an individual effect on mankind by simply inhabiting that planet. Which leads us to awakening, that doesn't hold up to PoI simply because of the equal energy transfer, not the intent of endowment. Evidenced by the quality of a Divine Breath. Hell, you don't even have to use the DB. They're sent back from the dead, that's a net gain no matter what. Well that's it. Do I need to write up a theory or anything and post? Been working on my "Odium/Bavadin holds Honor" and "Szeth the soulcaster" and I'm at dead ends. I think everyone can get my meaning from posts and summary, just never sure. I've always been bad at explaining thoughts.

First off, this is kind of long. Second, I agree with a lot of what chaos is saying. I'm just posting this b/c everyone seems to agree/espouse, and I wanted to carry on the discussion. Just going to jump right in with my problems with this theory. I tried to build the ideas as you read down, but that didn't go as well as I'd have liked. Devil's advocate ftw! I think you're forgetting that Ati and Leras created human life on Scadrial (Scadrial?), Leras pulling a gambit for several things, but specifically to put more preservation in us than ruin. So, yes. Everyone has pieces of ruin and preservation, but this isn't the case on Nalthis or Sel. At least...we don't know that they created life on those planets, and since there's reason to suspect mankind existed in Adonalsium's day, it couldn't hold true for every population of human-like beings. There wouldn't be pieces of the shards inside them, influencing things like ruin and preservation. Imo, things like Breath are the influence over time that the shard's uniqueness has on a population, a warping--an evolution of thier dna from being so close to "god" powers. (In fact, I thought this was said by BS somewhere...but I can't get on the brandonothology right now. Keeps saying some script is slowing the page, and will stop running. Keeps spamming this message no matter what I choose. Anyone else having this problem?) No real conclusion here, just don't agree with the "everyone on a shardworld has pieces of the shard in them(heavily paraphrased)." It still supports your intent theory, rather in a changing-warping-evolution kind of way from being around us so much, instead of us having pieces of the shard. I pretty much agree, except of course for the, "...spiritual power of the Shard inside you,..." This is where you start to lose me. I'm not really sure what you mean by, "...those fragments of ruin and preservation on scadrial." You mean the effects that allow them to use the metals right? But that is just an effect of Leras giving them more preservation, and the basis/existance of the 3 metallic arts. What I mean is...Awakening doesn't require a piece of a shard at all (imo), the Divine Breath, the one you get from Returning, that is having a piece of endowment--like having preservation. Awakening would then just be the effect over time that a Shard has on a population--changing them. Bah, this isn't even making sense to me. I tried to explain it again a couple paragraphs down. Okay, let's try again. Short and sweet. Allomancy has a net gain because there's more preservation in us. Endowment does produce a net gain, but not with Awakening, only with Divine Breath's. That quality breath that catapults you through the levels all the way to the 5th heightening (I think). Awakening=no piece of Shard. Everyone has a breath, but not everyone can sense or see them. You see? It's the way they have grown and reacted to Endowment, being able to give away breaths/pieces of soul...but, first you have to compile breath's on top of each other to reach a comparative simulation of having a piece of endowment--a Divine Breath. This is terrible...I suck at explaining thoughts, sorry. Preservation IS losing power/energy by fueling allomancy/giving them more preservation (I often equate the two, sorry if that's confusing). Allowing that net gain, that cognitive development that makes humans special, he had to sacrifice himself to prove to ruin that he could eventually win. This goes along with response on next paragraph. Hhmmmm...I like some of this. But I think you're missing something. The powers can't regenerate when ONLY used towards the intent of the shard. When Vin uses atium to escape the guards and inquisitors (first book)...I don't think she hurts or kills anyone. She preserves herself. So does that mean that bit of atium she used didn't regenerate? Likewise with Kelsier showing her how it works. I don't think the body of ruin dissipated at all after these events. So, that's the body of ruin--being used to fuel allomancy, with no destructive effects. It wouldn't regenerate under guidelines of the principle. Instead, I think BS is referring to exactly what Leras did. Powering one of the other metallic arts expends power in unsavory ways because you must seperate it from yourself, more specifically--you have to seperate it from the shard itself. Then you can use the raw energy/power for anything. Leras snatched the body of ruin, and used it to power allomancy, effectively hiding it from him. Okay, I'm starting to feel like a big nitpicker. I love you chaos, been reading your theories since twg hemalurgy thread right after WoA came out. I hope I'm not coming off as an a-hole. But...I kind of disagree. Not with the overall statement, but parts. Hemalurgy does A LOT to the person. I'd say it destroys the person more than it does anything else. It destroys the minds AND bodies of people spiked in extremely drastic ways. The more spikes, the more destruction of the self. Oh, and you can't have "more ruin," so to say, than others until you've already been spiked. Unless you're talking about the mentally unstable, as those kinds of people could be argued to produce far more destruction than anything else. My problem with this, in relation to the principle overall, is it's very similar to Awakening, which is not the principle of Endowment. And as far as we know, has no opposing shard to balance/cancel it out if anyone tries to access it. But, like feruchemy, there is no spiritual energy destroyed in awakening objects, though it could be lost under certain circumstances. But for Awakening alone, not returning, there is no spiritual energy transfer. Also, you still have more preservation than ruin in humans on scadrial, and feruchemy developing similarly. That's not very organized, how about this: Feruchemy would have developed on scadrial even if they didn't have ruin and preservation inside them, similar to awakening happening over time on Nalthis. It's the side effect of the shards, the interaction over time. This is why, even though they have more preservation than ruin, feruchemy developed among the population far more prominently and potently than even allomancy. Because it is a balance of the two, and the people already have both aspects of the shards on scardial as a piece of them. This becomes additive of the influence of the shards on that world upon the humans. It simply quickens feruchemical development among the people of scadrial. Imo, only strengthens my argument that Leras did what BS was referring to with the "expending power in hesitant ways." We know that shardholders have to do what is in line with the shards name/intent from Ati reference in WoK, so when Leras wanted to change that, he did. He went against the intent of his shard, but it cost a shardholder, a god, his life. Doesn't really mean much to the magic system part of the priciple of intent. Can't argue much there. We just know so little about WoK right now. Okay, going off topic a little, I just get really intrigued with anything relating to Szeth. I've been working through a pet theory that involves Szeth's problems stemming from his culture and oaths. Long story short it involves his second set of radiant powers being the same sort that Shallan has exhibited. Though through his oaths and life in general, he has no secrets, no truths to tell. Thus, he's truthless. He can't access those spren. Positioning of the glyphs, and his lack of spren is destroying anything I've worked up on it so far. But I will post if I can ever squeeze something credible out of it. Ahh, one of my main reasons for believing shards affect people, on that world, naturally over time. As opposed to pieces always being inside people and forcing their magic system according to name/intent. I don't think it likely ten different pieces of ten different shards are randomly paired up inside the people of roshar. I just can't wait till we know more. That's about it. Man am I chatty today. Great job chaos, so much easier to criticize than create. I think several things you mention will be of vital importance in the future.

Has BS said anything about epitaphs appearing at the beginning of chapters? Maybe more info on Sazed's discoveries in godhood. If not, would someone please ask him? I don't have twitter and I'm dying to know.