AquaRegia

Of course you are correct and now I'm just embarrassed. ;-)

My impression of how spanreeds work: they only move by themselves when placed with the tip in contact with paper. I don't recall ever seeing a spanreed float out of a case and position itself over a desk; I think a person needs to put it in place over the desk before it "connects" to its mate. By no means do I consider myself an artifabrian, though, I could be wrong.

What scares me most about the Cosmere: Brandon being unable to finish it. Do you really see Rashek as Chaotic? The Final Empire was suspiciously stable and well-ordered... in fact, I'm not sure about Evil either. He was the GOOD guy in his own story.

I cannot get out of my head the image of Syl (who finds the idea of HAIR disgusting) watching Kaladin being intimate with someone. And commenting. The WHOLE. STORMING. TIME. "Is... that how that's supposed to work...? EWWW." I know it's a scene we will never see. I'm mostly glad.

Agree. I think the Prologue will be an eye-popper, the opening salvo in what promises to be an action-packed series finale. @KaladinWorldsinger, I found it amusing how your premise "there won't be much revealed in the Prologue" was followed by TEN STORMING PARAGRAPHS of exciting things you think might be in the Prologue. You make it sound like "character moments" aren't juicy reveals... but for me, it's the characters that enable the story to be interesting, and reveals about character relationships in this case will be SUPER juicy. I think there is plenty of plot and magic cued up for a Sanderlanche later even after LOTS of dots get connected in the Prologue. In short, there's more than enough dots to go around!

I definitely agree. It's so much easier to identify and empathize with a character when you are seeing from their POV, and we have not had nearly as many Jasnah POVs as others. For the same reason, we have a pretty extreme view of Gavilar... which I think will be shown to be fully justified soon. ;-) I do identify with Jasnah, especially her exasperation at feeling like the only rationalist in a sea of overemotional, superstitious dimwits. I mean IRL - nobody HERE, of course! Conversely, I really enjoy how the significant number of Taravangian POVs has resulted a troublesome Shard we can identify and empathize with. It's going to make conflicts MUCH more intense, personal, and, well, believable going forward. I know, right? I, for one, LOVE our storming automods! Welcome to the Shard!

Welcome to the Shard. I agree. I expect the 5th Prologue to give us a better look at what old Gavilar was up to - his explorations of Shadesmar, his relationships with Kalak and Nale, the degree of his Cosmere awareness, how he came to possess both Voidlight and Anti-Light. I'm confident that it will continue connecting the dots of how he returns to be a serious player in SA5.

It's mostly science fiction, rather than fantasy, but anything by David Brin. My 2nd favorite author. He's got several collections of short stories, so you can start small... and he's also done a vast epic multi-novel saga if you want one. Very believable and relatable characters, fantastic worldbuilding, compelling stories, solid science. Really, he's the most Brandon-like non-Brandon author I can think of.

I am not religious, in the sense that I attend no services, perform no rituals, and claim membership in no denomination. As a U.S. citizen, I find Christianity troubling; I fear that too few self-professed American "Christians" practice (or even know) the things Christ actually taught. That said, I'm not an atheist. As others have said, certain knowledge of the infinite is beyond our finite brains. I'm agnostic in the literal sense - I can't say "yes" or "no", it's simply unknowable. I have found recently that spirituality does not require religion. If I choose to believe that there IS a higher power who wants the best for all of us, I feel differently and act differently. Prayer, to me, is not about telling god what's up - an all-knowing god, if there is one, already knows. Rather, prayer is a way to remind ME what I should be doing: gratitude for what I have, thinking less about myself, and helping others more.

Seems to me, in retrospect, that both the quote and the title might actually refer to Kelsier. He Ascended and held the Power of Preservation, and he is a Cognitive Shadow. Thus he is literally both a Sliver (by the accepted Cosmere definition) and a "shadow of himself". Is there any evidence that the Kandra knew he was still around during HoA, even though none of the human characters (nor we as readers) knew at the time?

There is this guy: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Riino And of course the Ire: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Ire

I absolutely LOVE all three of them!

I don't understand how this constitutes proof of a "breeding program". We know there are Allomancers on Scadrial; we know that they hire out their abilities. Occam's Razor says this explanation makes more sense, unless there is evidence that Push and Pull were born in captivity. I don't recall any such implication. No one is arguing that the Set is less than several years old. We DON'T KNOW (because Brandon has not decided yet) how many years there will be between SA5 and AoL, right? It could be 20, it could be 40 or more. Telsin is a few years older than Wax, so, mid-40s... what better way to be a high-ranking leader in an organization than to "get in on the ground floor", as they say? "The Series" may be offworlders, while Telsin may be among the first of the native Scadrian Set members. It's all just speculation, of course, and I understand why one might not like it. But I still don't see anything that rules it out as impossible.

I disagree that it's impossible. Unlikely, perhaps... but deliciously possible, I think. Is there evidence in the text that the Set has been breeding allomancers for "so long", or indeed, AT ALL? I know it's the conclusion that Wax and the others come to, but do we see any actual evidence? If I recall, the kidnappings were a quite recent development at the beginning of AoL. I recall no reason to think that Push and Pull need to be products of kidnapping and rape; why couldn't they simply have been hired professionals? Miles' crew was certainly not hurting for money, and there are numerous references in Era 2 of allomancers for hire. To my knowledge, we do not yet know how long the time gap is between SA5 and SA6, nor do we know where in that gap AoL will sit. We have only the roughest of guesses at how much time the Set will have to become an organization... but organizations can appear quickly with the right motivation. We may very well see the birth of that organization during SA5. I love the symmetry: the Ghostbloods - an organization founded by Scadrians - is perceived as a shadowy menace on Roshar, while the Set - founded by Rosharans - is the mysterious threat to Scadrial. The question NOT addressed, of course, is: how does Trell get involved?

For us on Earth, no, it doesn't - at least, not in any way I know of. Sanderson, however, has invoked the idea of "ferromagnetic volcanic ash" that somehow interacts with Scadrial's magnetic field, making the magnetic north pole region somehow cooler than the actual geographic pole. At this point, I'm OK with saying "it's just a fantasy novel, it doesn't HAVE to makes scientific sense." ;-)

By Adonalsium, I think you are on to something here. We know Cryptics in general, and Pattern in particular, see the world in terms of mathematics. The members that control the Set are known as the "Series." Known members include "Sequence", "Suit" and "Array". Coincidence? I think not. I'm on board. Not sure how I feel about what I've always thought of as an evil organization being founded by characters I love... but I cannot deny the logic here, and honestly, I have the same misgivings about the Ghostbloods. Well done, @ChickenChaser. Have an upvote and my hearty congratulations for your fine insight.

Au contraire, mon frere. From tHoA, ch. 82: Interesting that here is yet another reference to Trell. Thank you @Jofwu for posting that. Regarding the decoupling of the magnetic pole from the geographic pole and "ferromagnetic volcanic ash" issue, I think I'm just going to have to accept that either Brandon or I (quite possibly both LOL) don't understand geophysics well enough for all the available facts to truly make sense. That said, I don't think it violates any established canon to speculate that the entirety of the Final Empire was located in the 65°-75° latitude range, as you initially proposed. You get very hung up on the Arctic Circle... but that's an EARTH thing. All that is required is a smaller axial tilt, say 5°, such that no part of the FE lies within the tiny Scadrian version of the Arctic Circle. There would be mild seasonal variations (confirmed in the text), most of the planet would be too hot for human habitation (also confirmed in the text), and the length of daylight would vary only slightly in most populated regions. While I am aware that "lack of evidence" is not "evidence of lack", I think the fact that seasonal variations in daylight are never once mentioned in the text is notable.

While I disagree, these are definitely solid points. The Plot Armor can seem awfully thick sometimes. I prefer a story where the "good guy" both lives AND wins. I loved both Era 1 and Era 2, even though some heroes die. (I did NOT like Game of Thrones.) But your position does make sense to me; if the heroes can always be counted on to find the "one weird trick" to beat the bad guy, every single time, no matter how powerful or well prepared the bad guy is... where's the actual drama? It's a tough line for an author to walk, and some readers will be left unsatisfied.

YES, that would be it. Thanks so much! I thought I was hallucinating. I'm sorry, but I don't see how this can be true. An excerpt from the Coppermind page on Rashek: The whole point of the Ashmounts was to shade and cool the surface, since the sun was now too intense at the planet's new orbit. The quote from WoA above seems to support the idea that even with this ash-driven cooling, life is restricted to only very near the GEOGRAPHIC poles, and everywhere else is simply too hot. The Southern Scadrians, presumably near the south pole but lacking the proximity of the Ashmounts, adapted (or were changed) to prefer much higher temperatures, as we see later in BoM. Can you share your reasoning and evidence for the "magnetic pole" interpretation?

If you mean no, it's not there either, I checked. But thanks for trying!

It was pretty clear to me that Adonalsium is Category 2.

I spent all evening looking for the quote I want in HoA (it's not there) and MB:SH (it's not there either). I seem to have a fairly clear memory of someone looking down at Scadrial (presumably during the Final Empire era) and being struck by how small (and how close to the North pole) the inhabited part is, and how hostile the rest of the planet seems. If someone can help me find it, I'd be rusting grateful. In her foreword to the Scadrian System stories in AU, Khriss notes that "humans used to live on a relatively small portion of the planet," but I feel there was definitely more... maybe it's a WoB I'm thinking of. After all that, it occurs to me that I might be overlooking the simplest explanation - Scadrial might just have a very small axial tilt. Thus there would be SOME seasonal variations in weather, it would be much colder near the poles and warmer near the equator, and higher altitudes (like the Terris Dominance) would be cold and snowy, but day/night length would never vary by much, even very close to the poles.

It's fascinating how many people in our culture think that the things we have arbitrarily assigned value to (gold, diamonds, etc,) must have INTRINSIC value. Gold has extremely low chemical reactivity, and is fairly rare on Earth; I don't see either of those factors mattering to anyone on Roshar. They might just as well Soulcast fat stacks of $100 bills. ;-)

Five more books implies plenty more action in which to be included. ;-) Harmony may look like he's in favor of individual freedom of choice... but consider whether it's "freedom for everyone" or "freedom for Scadrians". Somebody (I don't remember who... my wife plays snippets of Cosmere podcasts all the time) had an excellent explanation of how this might be playing out: - Autonomy is working for maximum freedom in the entire Cosmere, and wants all worlds to meet on roughly equal footing - Technological advancement in ONE place will lead to colonialism, which drastically reduces freedom for those whose planets are under colonial rule - Autonomy has already frozen technical advancement (and outside trade) on Taldain to prevent said interstellar conquest and colonialism - Harmony has created conditions (especially in Southern Scadrial) which favor rapid technological advancement, and is actively encouraging it - Autonomy wants to shut that rust down so that Scadrial doesn't become the center of an interstellar empire, squashing everyone else's freedom Not my idea, but it makes a lot of sense to me. If anyone else heard that podcast, please credit the right person. Don't get me wrong, I love Harmony... but I can see his concern for the the people of Scadrial putting him on the wrong side of "maximum freedom and equality for everyone in the Cosmere".

Hahaha I didn't even notice you had ten, in "Order" order! Well played. Now that I look, I see Adolin in the Edgedancer spot and "no one" in the Dustbringer spot. I kind of hope that Malata dies - she gives me the willies. Touché!