CognitiveShadow

All I have to say here is that I can’t imagine Odium going up against Cultivation AND Honor if one of them had access to a dawnshard. We’ve basically been told it would be catastrophic if Odium got his hands on a dawnshard. The Sleepless tell Rysn that she is basically too normal and weak to do anything with the dawnshard, but I have to believe a shard would have some serious firepower. I don’t think Honor could have been defeated by Odium one on one if he was holding a dawnshard. Let alone with Cultivation supporting him too.

Because his soul was stapled to a mist-wraith, and then he ate his old bones. So now he is like a kandra and a cognitive shadow. When a kandra eats a mistborns bones, it doesn’t gain the allomantic abilities. His spike is both a kandra blessing and a hemelurgic staple connecting his cognitive self to his physical self.

Great episode! I love me some shardcast, and I sure love me some discussion on Moonlights Mentor! Spoilers below

Brandon confirmed that Kelsier is lying and the Ghostbloods think he is still an allomancer. edit: sorry just saw that @kenod already answered this!

I like this and I’m curious if there’s something to it…

I shared more details in another thread, but my prediction about discord is that Harmony will change so that he can save Scadrial from outside forces. But as Discord, he will need to destroy (ruin) in some way in an equal measure to what he does to protect (preserve). So he will enact preservation over the Scadrians, and will use Ruin against his enemies (autonomy, odium). Thus, his name will be discord and they will love him for it. However, longer term it will be a bad problem because after defeating his enemies he will have continue to destroy and preserve in equal measures (likely large instances. So Kelsier is going to step up and stop Discord, probably with a dawnshard or something.

Aaaah ok yeah I see what you mean. There were definitely a lot of seemingly random Easter eggs and stuff like chouta showing up and all that. I get what you’re saying, that’s fair. I guess the hope is that ultimately those little crossovers make a little more of a difference and/or foreshadow/point towards things happening in future books. Haha all the little references have definitely left us theorizing a LOT. I think I agree with you on hopes for the final outcome. Very valid points: This makes sense to me now, I can definitely see that Wayne became more Wayne-y, and the same could be said for other characters as well. I guess I didn’t expect too much from era 2 since it’s kind of been a last minute addition and has to be tweaked to work with the bigger picture. So I kind of figured it would be more of a series with fun connections and interesting stories to draw information from to help understand and potentially predict the more important stuff happening in later books. But if I step back and look objectively at the book itself, I have to admit I liked it more for the cosmere connections and theorizing ammunition it gave than for the plot and jokes. Looking at it critically from that perspective I can see the arguments. Still good, like you said, but maybe not Brandon’s most refined and intriguing story

This is very clear and a great summary! Thanks! Definitely brings a lot of interesting thoughts, very curious to see what happens with this. Makes so much more sense about why Discord is coming and why it was a foreseeable thing.

Not sure that I fully understand the complaint here. Isn’t the point of the Cosmere and the connections between all of the stories supposed to work together towards a specific purpose? Part of that will naturally include the bringing together of characters from different books to show how they are all relevant to the overarching story. And not liking a characters sense of humor doesn’t make it a bad story or bad character. It means you didn’t like them… with each character some people will like the way they are and others will not like them. Brandon doesn’t try to make every character likable to every person, just lets them be who they are in the framework of the story. Though he does tend to explore some eccentric personalities, but I think that makes it more fun haha

This is very interesting! Whether it becomes a factor or not in the future, it could have been a pretty solid Easter egg / foreshadowing for us to reference I tend to agree with this. Instead of holding back with inaction, it will be a release and letting the shards act. Still balanced but not working towards the same goal Isn’t Harmony already unbalanced and leaning towards ruin? I thought that was always the case since a chunk of preservation goes towards making the people of Scadrial sapient.

Pretty sure in Kelsier's POV he was dreaming about being able to be able to steelpush and fly through the mists again and have the powers that he used to but no longer can. And it gave the impression (to me at least) that it had been like that ever since he died. Also, he talks to Sazed about trying to get Lerasium and is told that it won't work for him (which I think is a lie). I'll give you that it does more than just pin his body - it also gives him some steelsight. But he clearly can't actually push on it. Check out the spoiler stream in the link below - this question is answered at 1:22:00 And in Kelsier's discussion with Sazed, we get the following from his POV after he says that he wants to democratize the powers, take it from the few and give it to the many. (I pulled it from the audiobook so not sure what page its on)

That's true, I guess it would depend on how much Sazed has control over what is preserved and what is ruined. But giving them different goals would make sense... maybe his preservation half is trying to save lives and stop change/conflict, while the ruin side is trying to destroy the whole Cosmere? Sazed could guide the Ruin side towards fighting against the main enemy forces since they are in the way, but then it would be a serious issue after he wins. Fair, and it wouldn't make sense for him to get more hemelurgic spikes as we learn that hemelurgy has been largely ineffective for Kelsier so far. I guess his only hope is to get a dawnshard haha Oooh I like this... I feel like those are mergeable. Does Sazed then slowly but ultimately gain all of the other shards at the end of the Cosmere story line? and become Adonalsium / the true hero of ages??? Or maybe he gives it up to Hoid at the end? I don't know, totally spitballing. Crazy talk.

Here’s what I think happens: Sazed morphs from Harmony into Discord. This allows him to be destructive sometimes and preserving other times. He is holding out on this change until he absolutely has to for the upcoming cosmere-wide war. He will then be able to ruin/destroy odium and autonomy’s forces, while preserving the Scadrians. He will be Discord and they will love him for it. Meanwhile, Kelsier will plan ahead and get hold of a trellium spike to help protect/separate himself from Sazed’s power and influence in the future. After they defeat odium/autonomy, Sazed will continue to be discord and will swing back and forth between destroying and preserving… not the best thing to have outside of a period of war. Kelsier and friends are going to have to fight against Sazed in order to protect the Scadrial and the cosmere at large. Kelsier will also get some lerasium and gain allomantic abilities. I’d bet money that he eventually gets his hands on a dawnshard and that’s how he ultimately stops Sazed. Thoughts?

This is cool- I hadn’t thought about this aspect of it but definitely a neat realization. Makes it even more impressive just how “smart” super smart taravangian was. Too bad the guy’s a total nutcase and evil dude or I’d be impressed haha

1. Kelsier’s spike only holds his body and soul together. That is explained clearly in the epilogue. Also, Brandon confirmed that the GBs think Kelsier is still an allomancer but he is not. Fair point about the number of spikes, but it seems like hemelurgy has been less than successful for him in his earlier testing. It’s been commonly theorized that he has a body now because he stapled his soul to a mist wraith and ate his own bones, and that’s why he doesn’t have his previous powers. I tend to lean towards that. But if that’s the case I also think Lerasium would work for him and Sazed is lying. There’s a wob somewhere about lerasium working on kandra. 2. Finally, pretty sure Sazed knows more about Kelsiers current condition and options than Kelsier does himself. It’s more likely that Sazed is withholding information on how Kelsier could regain his abilities. I don’t think it’s worth Kelsier’s time and effort to try lying to Sazed. Not an easy thing to do to a god.

I think it is more impressive that Kelsier has been able to pull it off. It’s basically another con that he is running to gain and maintain power, and to get others to help work towards his goals of finally obtaining allomantic abilities again and finding a way to be free of his attachment to Scadrial. We have to remember that he is a master con artist and has had hundreds of years to continue perfecting his skills in that area. Also- this definitely helps his hesitancy to act make more sense. If he was a full mistborn I feel like he could have stepped in much earlier to defend Scadrial. So he has instead had to convince the Ghostbloods that their way is to sit back and observe and only take small actions here and there etc

I called it! Spoiler stream - Brandon just confirmed that the Ghostbloods do in fact still believe that he is an allomancer. Very interesting confirmation right there.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I actually posted a theory I have just recently too here: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/113736-spoilers-for-sa5-readings-predictions/ basically, I think Syl gets killed by Ishar and Kaladin snaps. He gives his pain to Odium and agrees to be his champion. But he and Dalinar refuse to fight each other and the agreement collapses.

Oh ok I got it, yeah that’s a very good point. Definitely seems like there will be some more addressing the glowing yellow and red eyes stuff that he had going on though so that kind of opens the door to go that route. But yeah I agree that it might be too similar to what he already showed Kaladin shutting down

Well we know that his depression isn't going to magically disappear (unless Odium takes it away maybe?). But I also think that this would be a very different read from previous books: Kaladin starts out by being in a much better place, focuses more on the external issues than the internal ones for a time. Then stuff happens in shinovar, maybe Ishar kills Syl and somehow things are twisted a bit and confusing for him (like Ishar is aligned with Dalinar and kills Syl as part of his mad scientist stuff while trying to "fight" Odium). So Kaladin could conflate her death somewhat with the coalition and fighting against Odium. At that point we would definitely get the darkest point of his POV and I get the feeling you would want to skip that chapter @Marabout. But then Odium shows up and offers to take away his pain - Kaladin says yes. From then on, he wouldn't actually be moping about. He would be more like Moash in the sense that he is without feeling. But as the time for the contest of champions comes nearer, he starts to try playing the flute without playing the flute or something. Which helps him in the moment of the fight realize that he needs to fight against odium but not fighting against dalinar. He accepts his pain back and sacrifices himself so that Odium is defeated (or maybe it's a bit of a stalemate situation because Dalinar also won't straight up kill Kaladin or something... so maybe that's tOdium's loophole that he foresaw. Maybe he knew that Kaladin and Dalinar would not fight each other? Gets him out of the bargain because Dalinar breaks his end of it? In the meantime there will be all sorts of weird stuff with Shallan and the Unmade and whatnot to prep for the back 5 books. @bmcclure7 which plot are you referring to in this case? I'm not following. Do you mean Kelsier and how he sort of sacrificed himself?

I share your sentiment, hence the hesitancy to share the theory haha unfortunately it seems somewhat plausible in some ways…. Thankfully it is still a crack theory and there are others that make more sense to me but we will see.

I’m also not sure and definitely what to see what people think here. Great question!

So, spoilers for the readings Brandon has done from SA5 (and all Cosmere) ahead. But my crack theory at the moment is : what if Kaladin becomes Odium’s Champion?? Thoughts? Sorry it’s a bit rambly, but it’s a new idea I had and I’m curious about what you all think.

Noted! Hmm, I suppose I was expecting to get a response that would leave me with more questions than answers... however, the fact that the answer left fewer questions makes me question my understanding of the questioning in the first place! Well done indeed, good sir!

With the question mark at the end, does that mean you are questioning whether you are questioning or not questioning? Or does it mean your questioning inspires additional questioning and is thus followed by an extra question mark for questions?