CognitiveShadow

I took that as more of a slip of the tongue by Hoid- he called it a laptop, realized the people he is talking to would have no idea what that is, and corrected it back to a magical box. To me it seemed like Hoid was trying to “magicify” all of the high tech things in the story because he couldn’t very well explain them to the audience- because they have no modern tech or understanding. so I still think it’s people on first of the sun. Wit is also just a name he uses now, doesn’t have to be in reference to the title of the kings wit on roshar. He kind of took over that title and still goes by that name in roshar even when he has a new title under Jasnah

My guess based on this WOB is that Autonomy co-opted the Derethi religion, autonomy is Jaddeth. Or Jaddeth is an avatar of autonomy. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/509/#e15951

I still lean towards a Sho Del. It doesn’t call out the extra limbs but says it only vaguely resembled a human. To me that leaves it open enough to have been a Sho Del.

The main reason for us to have the story is because it ends with Hoid becoming an Elantrian, which will no doubt have a major impact on the future of the larger story of the Cosmere. If that (or something of a similar level of impact / tie-in) didn’t happen, this book would be cute and fun, but ultimately disappointing, I think. At this stage in the Cosmere, every new book should be either pushing the overarching plot-line forward, or giving us answers existing and important questions. That’s why Brandon is ‘taking off the gloves’ as others have mentioned on this thread. Ultimately, I loved secret project 1 for the fun and unique story it was, but loved it even more for the tie-ins to the larger Cosmere (especially Hoid’s new progress). I don’t understand the ask for new starting points in the Cosmere given how far along it is now, or why people are surprised that the same characters are popping up. Like I said earlier, I personally think the pool of people that are actively involved in the major storyline is relatively small. Plenty of random (and awesome) stories could be told about the millions of people in the Cosmere and their lives/adventures, but Brandon is focusing in on the threads of a larger story. To me that means the important characters will continue to pop up, especially given that various forms of immortality is a thing in-world.

Yeah I think you make some great points. I guess for me at this point I highly doubt there will be any books coming out in the future that are truly good standalone / entry into the cosmere books. Best entry points have already been written I think. From here on out Brandon is racing to get to the end of the cosmere story before the sun dies

The way I look at it, the actual number of people in-world who are fully aware of the big picture of the cosmere and it’s main ongoing conflicts is actually fairly small, especially if you recognize that there’s actually an even smaller number of organized efforts involved, which are led by people who have found a way to avoid death by natural causes. That limits the number of people who are available for the stories. On top of that, we are getting a carefully crafted story of this major conflict in the cosmere, and each book helps push that overarching story forward a little bit, or helps us better understand the situation at hand. This includes lots of foreshadowing, and it makes sense that the people the story has focused on previously that seemed to just be random people in the cosmere turn out to actually be important players…. (Sixth of the Dust for example) The whole reason we get to see these peoples stories is so that we will better understand them and value them when we see them on the bigger stage with everyone else. So it makes sense that we have reached a point where more and more overlap will start happening with these people that we already know about, we been introduced to them and now we get to see the real reason why. There will still be new casts like in MB eras 3 and 4, SA back half, etc, but the important / immortal and involved people will still be interacting with them and making major decisions. That’s why we got their stories- they tie in with the bigger one.

Thanks for the link! I’ll check it out and hopefully improve my ability to know when I’m wrong lol

For me it was a suspicion from their first meeting, but I always reserved a bit of doubt as to whether Brandon was trying to make me think it was Charlie or if it really was haha When Huck was talking about Hoid’s curse and kept saying that talking about someone else’s curse lets you give more hints and stuff I started to feel pretty certain. But I almost abandoned the idea and bit on the fake Sho del Charlie coming out of the cell too haha

I'm with you on this- I think it's Sixth of the Dusk and maybe some of his companions

Lol that’s perfect if there’s one thing we can all agree on completely, it’s that there is nothing we can all agree on completely haha

The back and forth on this thread is as eternal and evenly matched as the opposing sides in SA. A battle destined to go on forever until someone finds the anti-light equivalent of a forum argument

I tend to agree with @IlstrawberrySeed on the function of an aluminum hemalurgic spike- you have to stab (and likely kill) someone to make the aluminum spike become hemalurgically charged. And THEN, you can stab someone with that spike to remove their powers. If you had an uncharged lerasium spike and stabbed someone with the right intent and in the right place (again, likely killing them), it would steal their powers (becoming hemalurgically charged) and you could then stab someone else or yourself to transfer those powers.

I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure we have words of Brandon mentioning that Jasnah will be even more of a main character in the back half of SA. So she’s probably even more invincible than Kaladin haha but in all seriousness yeah I’m very interested to see what Lezian can do and how powerful he is. Though I doubt he will be Odium’s champion since he is just showing up now. Agreed with @Treamayne, the strongest radiants also have some serious and legitimate training / experience in battle that is enhanced by their nahel bond and use of investiture. Their performance correlates pretty well to their experiences I think.

Wow, I actually reeeeaaaalllly like this. The only concern I have here is how does Hoid know what Kelsier's vision looks like through his spiked eye? Seems to be the exact same description in Kelsiers POV. But otherwise I could easily see Hoid doing this just to make a little dig at Kelsier and try to put it out there that he and the Sovereign are the same person. Just to make him mad. It could have even been done just so he could tell Kelsier that he did it and get a reaction out of him I think that is a valid argument, but I believe there are some WoB's out there stating that its more of a question for philosophers to decide. I think Kelsier is a cognitive shadow in the sense that he died while holding a lot of investiture, and that investiture (whether it is actually him or a copy made from investiture only) continued to live on, and even found a way to avoid disappearing - by latching onto another source of investiture. A CS is a term used for a variety of different circumstances, and in each one there is the philosophical question of whether it truly is the same person or a copy, and whether that makes any difference at all. Regardless, Kelsier thinks he is Kelsier, so whether he is or he isn't it doesn't really impact the story. I doubt Harmony or Preservation could even tell you the real answer to that question.

Nope, we don’t know anything for certain, all pure speculation at this point. I can see a world where he is able to use the medallions. Maybe he was tricked with that coin, like Hoid in disguise told him it was a way to avoid the madness that inevitably comes to cog shadows who don’t manage their memories, and showed him how to upload but maybe not download memories? And then ran off with the coin and one of his fingers in the air Regarding the temple, I actually think it makes sense when you consider that 1- the whole population of the south knew about the work Kelsier was doing and likely assisted in some ways, and 2- Kelsier loves making religions after himself and being dramatic etc. not too surprising where that ended up all things considered

It’s just like in stormlight:

Yeah it’s tough to know what T-Odiums goals are. I got the vibe from his POV that he was considering R-Odiums overall plan and decided that there was still a way to make it happen. Which makes me think that his overall goal short term is to break free of Roshar, or at least get someone like Dalinar as his representative to go around the cosmere until he can be free.

Very curious to see everyone’s thoughts here. Nothing new for me to add except to throw in a call out for the artwork of Vasher with Nightblood

Brandon confirmed that Kelsier is lying to the ghost bloods and they think he still has allomantic powers. But he does not any longer. Harmony would probably know based on his understanding of Kelsier’s spirit web what his powers are etc. good luck keeping a secret like that from the shard(s) that gives you the powers

Yeah but he was underestimated and he is insanely good / skilled at fighting. My point here though is that he actually had a whole lot of power that he was able to draw upon, which kept him from dying. His emotional connection to Odium gave him access to voidlight, which is how he survived the situation that really should have killed him. I agree that he should not have been able to beat those odds, but I am saying there is a purpose here. Note his glowing eyes of red and gold, not blue. It's foreshadowing something to come in book five Edit: Ultimately, What I'm saying is all of these complaints either become irrelevant once you get to the end of RoW, or I am confident will be by the end of SA5. I say just finish reading the books so you can see how things balance out and make sense in the end. Clearly with all of the detailed analysis that goes on in these forums, we would have a whole lot more complaints out there if things didn't add up / balance out or make sense in-world.

Kaladin is a special case- he actually accessed voidlight in that case because Odium was trying to win him over as a champion after the pain of his close friends death. So he wasn’t totally devoid of power in that situation. Plus he was close to the next ideal which gave him additional power.

Perfect thanks!! Didn’t know there was a WOB on this already

Fair warning, cosmere-wide spoilers for everything up to TLM I have just had two thoughts and I'm curious what everyone thinks here: 1. When T-Odium ascends, he is still bound by the pact that Rayse made with Dalinar. The power, is bound by the oaths. 2. When Ruin and Preservation worked together to create Scadrial, they had the agreement that eventually Preservation would have to allow Ruin to destroy what they had created So, when Sazed took up both shards and became Harmony, is he still bound by both sides of that agreement? Will he eventually have to give way to allow the Ruin portion of his power the outlet to destroy what was created? Or, since he would hold both sides, is he then able to anull the agreement (if it even still stands)? Then again, would the Ruin intent allow him to make that anullment?

I think it’s worth noting that there is an imbalance between the shards that leads to the increase of ruins power. From the beginning, preservation had to give up more power in creation to make people sapient, which is why he made his plan to trap ruin and go back on their deal. As the atium that was burned at the end of era 1 goes through the spiritual humidity process and transfers into Harmony’s control and possession, the balance shifts further and further towards ruin, making it more and more difficult for him to maintain a harmonious balance of the two opposing shards.

He and spook (and some full feruchemist) created the bands in an effort to find a way for him to gain powers again, but it didn’t work. Helping out the people in the south was an added bonus, and gave him a base of operations for a while. It also let him create another cult which is always nice. But that’s why he set up the temple and traps and everything, so that he could store the bands somewhere “safe” and swing by and pick them up once he figured out a way to make them work in his kandra-state. And before anyone asks, I think Hoid did something funny to get the memory out of Kelsier- tricked him and did some special Hoid shenanigans to steal the memory (and likely some other things as well). Heck maybe he even was able to replicate / forge the memory himself.