lipat97

I read RoW, was asking so i dont accidentally spoil for friends who havent. Kinda hard to remember what theories I can talk to them about and which I cant

Lol I actually didn’t know what Medallions were when I posted that last one, only just finished Bands last night. That does seem to be a way to get a lot of mistings out of only a few, you right. It seems I’ve been reading way more implications into those Navani experiments than people here do but I thought it was at least accepted that Navani and the Sibling created new Towerlight? Anyway, if they can use Rhythm to create one light then can use it to create any light simply by changing the Rhythm. So yeah, I think in Cosmere Era 2 we’re going to have Investiture generating technology and stuff like Vin being OP is going to be more commonplace. That sounds like about the level of power creep I’d expect between the two eras.

Ok but if you’re saying a rhythm is like metal then that means they work universally... thats already a way to get stormlight off Roshar, and a rhythm is much easier to transport and reproduce than a metal is. If “producing” investiture just means finding patterns that transfer investiture from the SR to the PR, and a rhythm is one of those patterns, then there’s no reason we cant eventually have fabrials produce powering radiants, fused or allomancers. You just need someone to sing the rhythm and maybe have a big enough vessel - thats perfectly doable. Even if that just means they can get a factory that recharges spheres, thats really good and is not restricted from being off-world. I think this can be a major solution to intersystem warfare by finally allowing powers to transfer across shadesmar, even if they take some setup. There’s also ofc the question to whether these factories/fabrials would even work the same way in shadesmar, so you might actually need a foothold on the PR planet before you can set up logistical support for your superpowered warriors also, can someone remind me when they brought up the fact that spheres couldn’t be brought outside their system? Im like pretty sure some of this info was available in book 3 (or at least Arcanum Unbounded) but Im trying to be careful in case its actually a book 4 spoiler

Only they can use it? Didnt Kaladin get a boost when they turned on the tower? Anyway if they can combine two lights its reasonable to expect them to find a way to spit them apart. Maybe using antilight to “repel” the lifelight out of the towerlight? Although a bondsmith’s kinda a stormlight generator anyway and that doesn’t fix the Connection problem... actually, Bondsmiths do anyway right? Just move the connection stormlight has with roshar to something portable and you can move it through shadesmar. I wonder if Dalinar did his realm collapse thing in Scadrial if it’d still pump everyone with stormlight or if it’d just be the shardic power native to that planet. I like the implications so far that every shard has its own rhythm, light, metal, etc but I think the first two are more than just catalysts. It looks like they determine the type of investiture rather than the other way around. I think Sanderson might be hinting at String Theory here where if you change the vibrations of something you change its nature. Like investiture IS the same thing with different vibrations. And who knows, if you combine all the shardic rhythms maybe you get adonalsoum or whatever its spelt. [talking about spelling, its a myrical I havent stormed up rhythm 15 different ways yet]

I cant figure out how to reply/quote off here but is that really all Navani did? I was under the impression that her attuning towerlight with the sibling flooded the tower with light. Its gotta be more than just combining two investitures and repulsing some. Maybe it is a bit much, because that would imply investiture can just be made anywhere with a good vessel and the right drum beat (and Intent). But it also makes sense that interacting with wave functions would allow some breaking through to the Spirit Realm... and clearly it already does to some degree with Singer’s agriculture. I also fully expect people in these series to get more OP, not less so Investiture generators sound like a perfectly reasonable tech development for decently advanced Cosmere civs. And I do think the reason he went so in depth with the Light and Rhythms in RoW is because Navani’s discoveries here are going to be the origin of that technology. Even if all she figured it out was how to create antilight and compound light, that still sounds like its on the path to figuring out how to create regular light and possible convert one kind of investiture to another. Actually I forget what they said about the Singer agriculture stuff. Did they sing the Song of Cultivation to use stormlight gems to help make crops? That sounds like a shift of investiture already

Does stormlight actually help here? The problem with the society getting weaker is a matter of breeding - it doesn’t matter if you can get stormlight for mistborn if you have no more mistborn. Even if they got stormlight there’d be the same amount of people able to use it It DOES make sense that Preservation-light can be made from RoW’s Navani chapters, so unlimited power mistborn are fully possible for us to see in the future

Cool thread! I wish I had time to read it all but I’ll just put my initial guesses, noting I havent finished Bands of Mourning just yet. I think the main problem for a radiant is mobility. All of their weaponry seems to be designed to mess up big targets like Thunderclasts or chasmfiends. I dont understand why “experience with investiture draining” is listed as a feat, it quite obviously nearly got our radiants killed and it was still probably lead to a dead radiant no matter how much experience they have with it. And then duralumin + steel push almost definitely breaks through plate. As everyone else has pointed out, the healing factor + plate mean the radiants have ridiculous durability against mistborn, but I still think a mistborn that isn’t caught completely by surprise will have some play against a fourth ideal radiant. Atium to get in + steel duralumin to crack plate and then the draining metal to sap healing would kill and I dont see how a radiant necessarily avoids it either than keeping mobile enough to not get hit by the steel push. But then again if a radiant’s familiar with the matchup they’ll know thats a mistborn’s only shot to kill them and might be able to take measures to prevent it. And that is still a tricky kill that burns some important, rare metals. Radiants 60:40. Shardblades only are a threat to mistborn the first time they show up, they hard counter healing and pewter but it only works the first time they see the matchup. A third ideal radiant just loses straight up imo if they have the nicrosil, i dont think atium would even matter. Any radiant kills any misting or ferring. Some twinborn combos might still beat a third ideal radiant, like speed, and the healing one probably beats the radiants without shardblades. I dont see any twinborns killing a fourth ideal radiant without a lot of luck. Anti-light obviously storms up either side if employed, although I think radiants are more vulnerable to it because without healing this is a bit of stomp imo. There’s a reason “bringing guns to a knife fight” is a common phrase Roshar stomps Scadrial outright. I the windrunners alone outclass all but one or two individuals on Scadrial. First era actually would be harder than the second era, because there’s more mistborns and Inquisitors to defend, but I dont see how windrunners + szeth dont beat lord ruler (who isnt going to think to use nicrosil on them) and nobody else has anything that can beat their healing. Even at their peak the number of mistborns are still probably around the numbers of windrunners at the end of RoW. Transfer through shadesmar might be a problem but they only have to take one city and Navani’s almost definitely figured out to solve the stormlight problem (creates light with rhythm) and the connection problem (bondsmiths). The strength of scadrial could improbe a lot by the end of Bands so maybe im off by a little, but I dont see them introducing more than two or three powerful beings by the end of this book and thats not holding back an army of powerful beings. Lord Ruler was a Fullborn with an army of mistborn, I doubt Scadrial era 2 introduces more than one Fullborn and thats without an army of radiants... and still you’d probably need a squad of them to challenge an army of radiants

I think RoW experiments with light point towards other sources of Stormlight in the future. Converting rhythms to light has been explored, a little further and we can see Navani creating stormlight generators. As for the Connections to Roshar, I think its clear that they can either by severed by Nightblood or transfered by a Bondsmith or potentially by Hemalurgy. Also potentially Duralumin Ferrings have some power with Connections.

The way Taravangian gets out of the contract is with a bondsmith. It was already shown that a bondsmith can change who the contract applies to, and it was shown that Nightblood can sever Connections. This is also relevant to the Heralds and Thaidakar being Connected to their system, Bondsmiths change the bonds of reality themselves.

Im new here so I dont know what opinions are actually unpopular. A lot of other answers are just criticisms but I put all those in the RoW reactions mega thread. So imma go with an opinion that there is no way in hell is popular: Jasnah shouldn’t be with Hoid, because Jasnah should be with Shallan

Just finished the book! Made an account just to talk about it. Great stuff, a lot of extra crossover stuff in here. I had a theory about Azure being offworld and well everyone knew about Hoid, but having Zahel and Ghostbloods being confirmed to be crossovers is wild. I suspected cultivation was up to some wild plays, but Taravangian taking Odium’s power was not it (i actually thought Moash might get it... he was looking more like a “force” than a person at the end there). Writing-wise I dont think its the strongest book - Venli is a bit of a weak character imo and while Navani’s storyline was cool, it wasn’t strong enough to carry the whole book. There were only two main plotlines going throughout the book - tower and shadesmar - and one of them got skipped over for the whole of a part. Navani’s airship was quite a bit of set up that went nowhere. The character interactions were also lackluster - Why no Mink/Lopen stuff? Not to mention Szeth, Lift and two full heralds were added to the gang at the end of last book and we barely spent any time with them. There’s a lot of cool moments that could’ve been created there. Not to mention my favorite character duo, Shallan and Jasnah, have said like two words to each other since book 1. I dont mind there being lulls in plotlines, it was clear this story needed to be pushed before they could rise, but I think that maybe should be tempered with more hope in the other plotlines? Or at least more activity? This isnt the biggest gripe, its just a lot of words to say “this doesn’t flow as good as BS usually does.” The bright spark of this book is how much worldbuilding it added. Every chapter with Wit or Odium was a goldmine for this stuff. For one, bondsmiths are clearly stormin broken. Its now canon that Dalinar can literally change who Tarvangian has a deal with, as could Navani. Im not sure who he bonded Kaladin with though to give him the Tien memories. I dont think Tarvangian’s deception will actually last that long - Hoid might figure it out when he gets his flute, but also Szeth’s sword talks... it’ll probably just tell him outright that the old Odium’s dead (probably after some prodding and at a crucial moment.) The merchant imo could maybe Zahel? Next book could go one of three ways - T stays bad and wins, T turns out to be good at makes a savior play, or T loses. A big possibility is Dalinar losing the contest of champions early on and having the rest of the book being the main characters clawing back a post-apocalyptic Roshar until someone kills Odium with Navani’s death rattles and someone else ascends and terraforms everything to be good again. The singers having made friends with the chasmfiends is a twist, no idea how that plays out. Szeth probably says the 5th ideal, or maybe Kal does. Hoid using metal to hide from the gods is a neat trick, and I wonder how many other mistborn tricks are “cosmereversal” EDIT: I just realized after I made this comment that Zahel is a 2nd tier invested individual and somehow made it out of his system. Even if that’s not handy because it doesn’t apply to him or whatever, Bondsmiths probably CAN free a being from their Connection to a world. Actually, so can szeth’s sword