Cocoa

I concur with all of this, but there's also one other thing worth considering: Elantris was the first published cosmere novel. Yes, Bandon was already tinkering with the rest of it by that time, but it's also quite possible that he just hadn't seized upon the idea of heightenings as a universal investiture effect yet, as opposed to being Biochroma-specific. With that in mind, the Elantrians failing to show signs of heightenings way back when could easily be just an oversight, much like how Brandon admits there's some weirdness surrounding Atium being able to be pushed and pulled despite being pure investiture, simply because he didn't have the rest of the Cosmere fleshed out yet when he put that detail down on paper.

Those darn modern hijo, always glued to their screens. No appreciation for a good old-fashioned stack of rocks, I tell ya.

I agree with you on the technical mechanics of everything, but I don't agree with your end conclusion that we're looking at a facsimile/that she didn't truly come back. It's the Theseus' Ship/Star Trek transporter issue. If you take a person all the way apart and then put the pieces back together, is it still them? And in the context of the Cosmere, I believe the answer is 'yes,' at least if you do it fast enough. A person's soul might be 'tangible' in the form of investiture, but there's also an intangible quality to their existence beyond that, I think. For example, we have this WOB regarding Phendorana's fate, and she was outright annihilated by anti-Stormlight: When you factor in that 'simple' dissolution is a lot less serious than that, then I think who we see at the end is in fact the 'real' Yumi, alive and well. If not the original flesh-and-blood one from seventeen hundred years ago, then at least the same one that we've been following throughout the novel. Of course, we're in deep deep metaphysics at this point. Vasher, for one, would almost certainly agree with you that we're essentially looking at a double-fossilized soul that mistakenly believes herself to be the original.

Serious answer: His Intent to paint and drive off the nightmare was strong enough that he momentarily reshaped/extended his cognitive aspect to include the brush. Joke answer: He used the rouge hijo that first talked to Yumi as a Shardbrush.

That's the implication, yes. I suspect as much myself, but I don't think it's a sure thing. Hoid and Saze seem to get on reasonably well in their letters, Hoid's casually referred to Shardholders by their pre-ascension names before, and I believe Kelsier and Marsh have simply referred to him as "Sazed/Saze" a few times as well.

I'll keep my official answer as "1st heightening Human Elantrian Lerasium Fullborn with primer cubes who's bonded a cryptic and sworn the 4th ideal (998 points)," I think. Compounding the dawnshard cost just nerfs my unofficial "here's what I'd do if I were minmaxing to ludicrous extremes" answer XD

Different process, same result. I think the key idea being put forth was that somewhere along the line, Shu-Dereth did become an Autonomy plant, whether she was the originator or just co-opted it somewhere down the line. And if either of those was the case, then it might provide an origin for the MoGaR, assuming they're Selish. Codenames Are Stupid is Kaise from Elantris, so enough time has passed between that boot and TLM for her to grow up and integrate into not just the Ghostbloods, but Kell's personal cell. If Theoretical up there is right about the MoGaR being knockoff Elantrians, then maybe their creation is what the Elantris sequel will be building up to.

My actual answer is Lerasium Mistborn + Elantrian + Dawnshard, just going for raw combat ability. However, the dawnshards broke Ashyn somehow in conjunction with the invested arts, so to make things sporting I'm going to not do that. Human (0 pt) + Lerasium Mistborn (300 pt) + Feruchemist (192 pt) + Elantrian (200 pt) + 4th ideal Lightweaver (300 pt) brings me up to 992 points in total, with 8 possible points remaining. Lerasium Mistborn already means I'm essentially a one-man army, which is them made worse by the fact that I'm also a fullborn capable of compounding every metal. I have photographic memory for Aons from both my Lightweaver resonance (assuming that's not drowned out by having so many powers) and my copperminds, and virtually limitless speed and acuity with which to plan them out and draw them. Aon Dor is one of the single most versatile invested arts that we've seen in the entire cosmere, and should nicely cover most remaining blind spots that the metallic arts don't get to. And then I'm also a 4th ideal lightweaver, which means we're looking at radiant healing, lightweaving, soulcasting, a living blade and plate, and being heavily invested enough to power through certain effects like Urithiru's suppression defenses. A cryptic might also prove helpful at identifying the patterns of Aons, potentially making me better at using those as well. With my eight remaining points, lets go with primer cubes (5 pt) and, what the heck, First Heightening (1 pt). The former gives me all sorts of extra tricks to use with my metallic arts, and while I don't technically need the latter, being just a little bit more invested can't hurt. Edit: Actually, if we're going for raw, Cosemere-shattering power, I can do one better than my original plan. First, I'm a Returned (5 pts) Then, I acquire a few extra breaths, enough to raise a non-Returned to 2nd heightening (9 pts) Then I bind a spren and swear the 2nd ideal. (59 pts) Let's say I'm a Dustbringer. And then I take up a Dawnshard (118 pts) And then another (236 pts) And another (472 pts) And another (944 pts) I am now in possession of all four primal divine Commands, a pool of raw investiture attuned to a system that thrives on Commands, radiant healing, and two Surges. Assuming I don't disintegrate just by virtue of existing, I am feeling very confident.

Dunno one way or another about the MoGaR* being Selish, but on the off-chance that they are, there's an interesting potential connection that I heard someone draw right after TLM came out. Autonomy's modus operandi is seeding the Cosmere with religions that she can later step in to assume direct control over using a suitable avatar, giving her a foothold on a planet. And so this person raised the question: what if Shu-Dereth is one of those puppet religions, and Wyrn and/or Jaddeth is a nascent avatar like Telsin/Trell was? *Huh, well that acronym rolls of the tongue surprisingly well. Mooooogaaarrr. Sounds like if you tried to name an android using the Black Speech.

Got my hands on the ebook yesterday, stayed up to an inadvisable hour finishing it, etc., etc. The Bad & The Ugly I'm only putting my criticism up front because I have remarkably little of it for this book. I'm sure I could come up with some if I really marinated on it, but that seems like a silly use of my time. I was disappointed that by the end we didn't learn more about what spore eaters really are, how they form and why Crow was able to last for so long and such. Maybe it'll make itself apparent as the aethers make more appearances, but I wish we'd gotten more in this book. The humor dipped into juvenile territory a bit more often than was to my personal tastes, but, well. It's Wit. The Good (and assorted speculations and musings) First and foremost, I enjoyed it. That might be putting it simply, but I was engaged through the whole story and walked away feeling quite satisfied, and I think that deserves acknowledgement. The characters and plot and pacing and so on were good across the board, which is unfortunately only in that I have trouble picking anything specific to focus on and compliment. Instead I think I'll just go through the bits I really enjoyed as they pop into my head. I loved the various mental images the story conjured of the spore seas. I think Brandon did a good job of offering counterpoints for more "traditionally heroic/adventurous" tropes, even lightly ribbing them here and there, without being mean-spirited about it, as I've known some people to do when attempting a deconstruction. There's plenty of room in the world for stories about people who start the story off braver than anything and who want to get away from their small towns and who sneak away in the middle of the night without telling anyone. This is not one of those stories. On that note, Tress' parents supporting her quest (with some healthy apprehension) was incredibly sweet. "After she went upstairs, Lem retrieved his cane, put on his coat, and went out to do some advanced fathering." is going to live in my head rent-free for months. The comedic irony of Tress and co. going through that whole production to get her off the Rock as the Inspector, only for her to get locked up because she picked a smuggler ship, was fantastic. It was like watching someone execute an Olympic gymnastics routine perfectly, then slip on a banana peel. I felt very called out when Hoid got to talking about rain. very called out indeed. Mostly because, a dozen or so chapters earlier, I specifically paused to ask myself "Huh, I wonder how the seas react when rainstorms roll through." Hoid knows his audience and has no mercy. Dragon! I know we've seen Cultivation already, but her being a Shard overshadows most everything else, so this is our first time getting a look at "just" a dragon. Despite this being more of a fairy-tale-esque story than high fantasy, the sheer weight of this is an ancient and powerful creature, be afraid still manages to come through loud and clear. The trick with Tress trading Crow was a delight to read and just the sort of fairy-story cleverness I was hoping would play out at some point, and in that regard I certainly got my money's worth. Tangent, but there was a moment when Hoid mentioned dragons leaving behind metal when they die (coupled with the physical description) where I wondered if they were either a source of silver (possibly explaining its supernatural properties), or maybe if their bodies naturally produce silver to make use of its magic. And then I remembered the name of Brandon's elusive Master's thesis and also the entire Cosmere publishing company and suddenly felt very, very dumb. The reveal of Huck's true identity was, if not an obvious one, at least one that slid neatly into place. I didn't sniff it out right away when he first appeared, because hey, maybe there are talking rats on this world, but I made the connection about the time that they stopped to trade their captured goods and was watching him from the corner of my eye from that point onward. The endearingly boring (and I say this as a compliment) way he focused on the bells and the flowers and the paving stones was far too familiar to overlook, which I suppose says a lot about Brandon's grasp of character voice. Plus, we're talking about a story where the heroine is trying to rescue her captured love interest from a sorceress who curses people for fun. A small, lone animal who befriends her who has an inexplicable capacity for speech? Why he's almost contractually obligated to be the prince duke's son in disguise. As such, my reaction when it finally got confirmed was an excited and vindicated "I knew it!" In contrast, the reveal that the Sorceress was an Elantrian earned a self-deprecating "oh, duh." I'd spent the whole story trying so hard to work out how the aethers work that I'd completely skipped over the possibility that she was exploiting offworlder magic systems, even though we already knew about Ulaam and Fort's board. (I'm not counting Hoid as a point in favor of offworlder influence. Hoid is special. He's coarse and rough and irritating and gets everywhere.) Also, while we did know it was versatile, Aon Dor is terrifying in a way that never really hit home until just now, especially since Riina and Hoid at least apparently have access to a hack that gets around the geographical restriction. Riina cursed Hoid. She turned a person into a rat. And not only that, she was able to put conditional functions on the curse that took advantage of things like true love (presumably we're looking at a particular application of Intent, maybe Connection). These are the sorts of things I'd expect from the Old Magic, which is only a step down from direct Shardic intervention, and the fact that a "mortal" is able to toss them around in an almost casual-seeming way turns a lot of my understanding of the Cosmere's power balance on its head. Side note: spaceship. Are we looking at Era 4 here, or is there something else at play? I seem to remember that Sel is under the influence of heavy time dilation due to how Invested its cognitive realm is. Could they have reached the space age under their own power? Nalthian tech has certainly made leaps and bounds since Warbreaker, but it's place in the timeline has always been a bit nebulous, not helped by the fact that Vasher and Nightblood are immortal while Vivenna could easily become so with enough breath. What about "[the kandra have] all been getting weirder ever since Sazed released them."? Is this just about the Catacendre, or are we getting a sneak peak at a future event? If Sazed (and note his Shard name isn't used here) ever finally makes the split/flip to Discord, I can see him freeing the kandra from his service if controlling them goes against his new Intent. Oh, and "Fate" was capitalized and referred to as a "her" partway through the story. Could easily just be a narrative tool, personifying the abstract and all. But I wonder... I think that Brandon's done a better job of handling Cosmere elements in this book than in The Lost Metal. I actually quite enjoyed the fanservice we got in that book, but sadly, I also think that its identity as a Wax & Wayne novel suffered some for it. I'm not entirely certain what makes this one different. Maybe it's that a lot of the exposition is coming to us through Hoid, whereas the characters (rather sensibly, given their position) just lump all Investiture that's not the spores together as "magic." Maybe the most charming moment to me, out of the whole thing, was that Charlie did wind up making good on his promise to rescue his fare maiden if she was ever captured, not-so-shining armor and all. Even if that armor took the form of an old pewter tankard. Oh, pewter! I nearly forgot! Iron and steel attract and repel aether growth, right? I wonder if zinc and brass (or maybe pewter and tin) would cause aethers to grow more/less vigorously, like how they affect the responses of spren in fabrials. The more the Cosmere gets fleshed out, the more I notice that certain characters have shades of earlier ones worked into them. Fort is the proverbial lovechild of Rock and Rysn (though I can't say he inherited any of the former's cooking skills). Tress is a girl that Shallan could have been if the Davars hadn't been dysfunctional. The ship's crew are outlaws (though admittedly, less by their own choice) desperate for someone to tell them that there's a way back to the people they used to be, much like the shattered plains deserters. This repetition isn't a bad thing, though I'm not certain it really needs to be "good" either. Just a neutral-if-interesting observation on the repetition of stories and character traits, and the patterns that form when you look at the Cosmere on a large enough scale.

The one thing that makes me hesitant to say those were Skybreakers at the end is the lack of characteristic surgebinder flashiness. The asking about legality and being able to use division to sink the ships makes sense, but if they were Skybreakers, then they're doing something different that hides their glow. Fueling their powers with the Mists, perhaps.

I thought 'Horneaters' too when the red hair got mentioned. Though if that's the case, I'm actually quite a bit more worried, because of the implications for what Stormlight 5 has in store. After all, if we're looking at Rosharan Shadesmar, then why is the water a transparent black void instead of a sea of beads

I was thinking about it, and you know how some surgebinders seem to get a little burst of stormlight when they swear an ideal? I wonder if something similar, if more low-key, doesn't happen in the process of Preservation/Harmony investing an allomancer when they Snap, producing a weak manifestation of their allomantic power. If so, that would help explain a few fuzzy points in the text; how mistings of highly toxic metals like Cadmium are identified, and how Kelsier managed to escape the Pits after Snapping (since the Pits were damaged by allomancy, it wouldn't make any sense for the Lord Ruler to have allomancers with metal vials acting as guards). It's hard to say for sure though, since we've never actually seen anyone snap yet.

Assuming that a singer worldhopped to another planet and was able to bring a non-Radiant, form-granting spren with them (let's say the spren is captured in a gemstone to make thing simpler), and they wanted to change their form by bonding that spren, how do you figure they'd go about that? From what we've seen, it seems like it has to be done using one of the storms as a catalyst, but what are the important pieces there? Is it simply necessary that the singer have access to a lot of raw investiture floating around to fuel the change? If so, could a singer draw on the Mists to change form? Is it the fact that a Highstorm (and potentially the Everstorm as well) pulls the three realms closer together that makes it possible for singers to form or break their bonds with lesser spren? If so, could a singer change forms by standing close enough to another perpendicularity? I checked if there were any WoB specifically talking about the mechanics of how singers change forms, but wasn't able to find much.

In your opinion, what would make for a particularly fun/cool/interesting powerset for a metalborn character who bonded a radiant spren? For simplicity's sake we'll exclude Mistborn, full Feruchemists, Hemalurgy, and corrupted spren like Glys. Twinborn combinations are allowed, so long as the result is more awesome than the sum of its parts. First one that comes to mind is a Rioter or Soother who's bonded a cryptic. For one thing, you get to double up on social abilities by mixing lightweaving and emotional allomancy. For another, I'd be curious to see whether you can mesh emotional allomancy with soulcasting to riot or soothe the souls of objects, making it easier to persuade them to change.

I'm reminded of the conversation between Shalash's two lackeys way back in WoK: It's possible that Wyndle has the same misunderstanding of the Old Magic that the general public has, and I don't recall anything from Dalinar's journey to the valley that would imply Cultivation plays by inherently different rules than the Nightwatcher, beyond power and understanding. So it could be that this is a case where Lift and Wyndle (and all of us) are fixated on what Lift asked for or even intended with her wish, while Cultivation gave her the Boon (and Curse, though much like Dalinar's pruning and Taravangian's mental changes the two may be one and the same for her) that she felt she deserved or needed in order to grow.

Basically, yeah. Plus...

I was considering how seriously Hallendren takes its art, to the point that they've even got things like the synchronized gardening orchestra, and a realization struck me. The fifth heightening makes you completely immune to most toxins, and in real life we have an example of food that's fancy by virtue of narrowly avoiding being deadly poisonous in the form of fugu. So what if Hallendren has chefs specially trained in preparing delicious food using poisonous ingredients that can't be safely eaten by people with too little Breath. Poison ivy salads and deadly nightshade berry sorbets and so on. Actually, expanding upon that now that I'm thinking about it, people of the fifth heightening are immune to diseases too. So while you almost certainly wouldn't want to consume rotten meat, because it's going to taste bad and I'd be willing to bet Breath affects your ability to taste just like your other senses, there's really no risk to you if you want to try eating raw meats or dairy or so on. At any rate, I doubt there's enough potential customers of the fifth heightening or above to sustain a chef even if they charge extravagant prices of every poisonous meal, so it's probably something that certain master chefs learn above and beyond their other culinary expertise.

I think a lot of Vasher's character is summed up well in Vivenna's snap judgement of him after the rescue of Misel: Vasher is brutal, tactless, cynical, and short-tempered. He's focused heavily on the greater good. Not in a "you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs" sense, not like a visionary, but in the sense that he tries to solve large problems (like a looming war) by cutting through the most direct effective route from A to B. Sometimes, that direct route involves forcing himself to sit down for civil conversations with everyone from influential priests to downtrodden workers. Sometimes it involves offering a revolutionary a mercy kill in exchange for a treasure of Breaths. And sometimes (even if he never wound up acting on the idea), it involves being ready to kill a potentially innocent man because he holds the command codes of 20,000 lifeless. If he genuinely thinks it will stop a catastrophe, Vasher will strike you down, even if you're the person he loves most in all the world. He cheats. He fights dirty. But he won't bs you. If he means to kill you, he won't dance around the issue or hide behind a false smile. He defaults to non-lethal force whenever he thinks it'll work. He'll face down a den of bandits alone for the sake of a scared, hurt little girl, and then he'll wrap that kid up in a hug and carry her home and teach her how to make the nightmares go away. Or, at least, an earnest man trying to be good.

So we know that Radiants are overwhelmed by the screams of the deadeye spren when touching a dead shardblade, and according to RoW Fused experience the same or something similar that makes it difficult for most of them to use dead shards. What I'm curious about is, do you think this is because they're both surgebinders, or is it simply a matter of being invested? Heralds, I expect, would also hear the screams, but what about other invested entities? Would a metalborn hear the screams? A Returned? What about someone who is not Returned but in possession of a lot of Breath? Elantrians? Would a Forger be invested enough to her the screams? What are your thoughts?

I was giving thought to the logistical difficulties involved in space travel/worldhopping, and one thing that came to mind is that that Rosharans might be adversely affected by something as simple as a lack of highstorms on long voyages. Here we have a planet where everything's evolved in a fairly investiture-rich environment, which we see reflected in things like gemhearts and how plants grow better when given highstorm water. So what happens when we remove native Rosharans from this environment for long periods of time? Well, I'm guessing that at least for rookie spacers/worldhoppers, they'd begin feeling slightly ill and lethargic from the lack of Light after enough time, even if their actual health isn't in serious danger. I can imagine this being called something like "stormless sickness" or "a case of the dims" or something like that. I don't think this is a hugely important detail, and I've got no clue if I'm actually onto something or not, but it's fun to think about how the little biological quirks of the various Cosmere peoples would affect their lives outside their native worlds.

I've begun writing a crossover wherein Ranma Saotome of Ranma 1/2 fame gets dropped—via a Magic Item of the Week in his universe—into the middle of a highstorm on the Shattered Plains. It's still early in the story, so there's not a ton of divergence yet, but hopefully you find it enjoyable. https://archiveofourown.org/works/38174626/chapters/95371264

Well, we see Vasher and Vivenna use complex commands like "grab things," "protect me," "become as my legs and give them strength," and "fight for me as if you were me." So I think that a proper visualization of a command similar to "move as if you were my arm" would turn it into, essentially, a flesh-and-blood prosthetic. I don't think it'd restore sensation in the arm though, unless putting Breath in the limb somehow allowed its spiritual aspect to grow back into your Spiritweb, either instantly or over time.

I had a thought, what if your limb (or theoretically someone else's, but let's stick to a single hypothetical test subject for now) were deadened by a shardblade, and you used Breath to awaken it? You'd need the right command and Intent, obviously, but I imagine that since human bodies are some of the most efficient things to awaken, and a deadened limb is basically part of a corpse that's still Physically alive, it would be very receptive to awakening.

I'm heavily on-board with the StormFaker (specifically Ishar being the impersonator) theory. I hadn't quite put it all together while listening to the prologue, but it makes sense of a lot of things that had stuck out as odd to me in a very logical way. I also want to comment on two of the points brought up against it, the WoBs that Gavilar was on the path to being a Bondsmith for a while and the he was receiving visions from the Stormfather. Looking at the visions WoB, Brandon says that they're the same visions, but technically comes just short of saying that the Stormfather himself was the one sending them (though that would be the logical conclusion to reach with what we knew at the time). As for the Bondsmith WoB, if Ishar was trying to find a way to replace himself with Gavilar in the Oathpact, then I would certainly say Gavilar was on the path to being a Bondsmith... just a Bondsmith Herald, not a Bondsmith Radiant. Also, hype for further evidence of "Chanarach was Shallan's mom, went to Braize when Shallan killed her, and broke almost instantly as opposed to Taln breaking" theory, since according to the people who have done the math the timelines fit together almost perfectly.