Argent

Paalm could be simply inexperienced with Allomancy and Feruchemy, this could explain why she doesn't do spectacular things.

Somebody somewhere confirmed that other Shards can also communicate with spiked people. We don't have much more than that, but it's apparently not as clear as Ruin's casual chats - perhaps it's closer to a beefed up emotional Allomancy than actual communication.

For consistency, can you make sure information is also included in the thread of whichever signing you went to?

I wasn't accounting for futuresight when I thought of the poll. I was curious whether people felt Harmony's reasoning (excluding the "I saw the future, it had to be this way" argument) was sound.

The section of the in-world Words of Radiance reports tales, possibly exaggerated, about the Lightweavers' "strange and varied mnemonic abilities." Given that - if these tales are true (and we have no reason to doubt them) - all Lightweavers shared these abilities, and their surges, the way we understand them, can't account for them, then it must be their perk.

Thank you.

Welcome! It's a fun place, even if we don't know anything.

No fun questions in Megalodon's recordings, if you were curious. Doesn't mean I wasn't grinning like a fool fanboy the entire time though.

The Shard of Debt

Eh, I've been going to Brandon's signings for years and I am still having a hard time concentrating on business.

Stupid aluminum, breaking everything. At least it's consistently nasty to magic.

Hmm. Yes, you might be correct here. I can still see parts of my theory working with the given phrasing, but I don't know if it is the best explanation. I am mostly confused about how she can disappear from his sight - it almost sounds like she is using Kinetic Investiture of some sorts to disappear.

Must've missed it. Or forgotten about it.

Illumination confirmed.

Yeah, I think that won't work. Shards are very well segregated - if an Intent falls under one Shard, it's difficult to put it under another as well. Corruption, which is a type of change, easily falls under Ruin. Besides this, we have a confirmation somewhere that the new metal comes from a Shard we know (of). Which, depending on how you interpret it, means either {Odium} or {Odium or Autonomy} - Endowment and Cultivation sound very unlikely, and I really doubt Harmony wouldn't be able to recognize its own metal. Unless you make Trell the third Shard on Scadrial - after Harmony and Odium/Autonomy. Which doesn't sound like Brandon at all.

I am beginning to suspect we may be overthinking Bleeder's ability to hide from Harmony. Because we don't actually know what this means. Was Harmony unable to detect her magically, by looking for her spikes? If so, we need to know whether it is the Hemalurgic charge (the piece of spiked person's soul) or the metal itself that he sees*. If Ruin and Harmony can see Hemalurgy itself, if they can see pieces of Spiritweb glued to pieces of metal, then Bleeder should've been visible to Sazed, I think (unless the trellium spike grants more than one effect - one native to the metal, and whatever was stolen; I find this less likely, however). If Vin's chapters from The Hero of Ages are a reliable indicated of what it is like to be a Shardholder, then we know that while Sazed can see anything, he doesn't see everything. Not at the same time, he needs to focus his attention, so in searching for Bleeder, he has to scan Scadrial for her. Which he can do either by visual inspection (which could be unreliable, I don't know), or by scanning for "landmarks," so to speak. Metals, since they are pretty obvious to him. So maybe Harmony can't find Bleeder's spike because he can only look for the spike itself, and since it is made of a material - metal - unknown to him, maybe it either looks different enough from the other metals that he doesn't recognize it as a spike, or it doesn't trigger his metal blindness at all, or is completely invisible to him for some reason. In each one of those scenarios I could see him be unable to locate it. * Well, doesn't see, because of metal blindness. But he still knows there is metal there.

It's my thread, I can double-post! If a lerasium Hemalurgic spike is used to steal an ability, will the recipient of the spike experience any side effects (i.e. will they gain something more than just the stolen ability)?

I mean that there is no external imperative. You can't expect a Shardholder to behave in a way you consider moral because a) (s)he is under no obligation to adhere to your desires, and it may literally impossible for him or her to do so.

Begone! Begone from my sight, you foul beast! Enflame not the fires of my envy!

*basks in upvotes*

I bet he did it so he can then ask people to post their Shadows of Selfie on Twitter...

OH STARS AND SHARDS, HE DID IT!!! THE GLORIOUS HUMAN BEING THAT IS BRANDON SANDERSON DID IT!

I think much of the criticism against Harmony comes from the argument that he is a God, and therefore he should or shouldn't do certain things. I don't think this applies to the Cosmere "Gods" - Shardholders are not really Gods, they a very powerful practitioners of magic. There is no moral imperative, no expectations, no obligations; they do what they do because want to (or are forced to, by their Shards), not because This is How Things Are.

Here's the safe portion: The Wheel of Time Encyclopedia is dead! Long live The Wheel of Time Companion as it will now officially be called. The book will be 350,000 words long (comparable to several of the novels in the series; the longest, The Shadow Rising, is 389,000 words). The book will feature a lot of new artwork, arranged by Irene Gallo at Tor. Publication date likely to be November 2015. The book will feature all of the already-published maps and also some new ones, including one of Thakan'dar. The book will have a large vocabulary of the Old Tongue, with a minimum of 1,000 words. The book will feature character profiles and sketches for almost every character in the series. Even Bela has her own entry. The book will be written from a post-AMoL POV. It will have spoilers for the entire series. In addition to info on the world book, Harriet revealed some more details generally about the series: The series is finished and done. Tor offered a lot of money and tried to persuade Harriet into doing more, but Harriet put her foot down and said no. The Wheel of Time ends with A Memory of Light and the companion volume. There were several unfulfilled contracts when Robert Jordan passed away, including for the Seanchan trilogy. Apparently the money involved was massive, worth many times the value of Harriet's house. Tor worked with the estate to re-write the contracts to substitute the companion book instead. Robert Jordan wrote one line about the planned Seanchan trilogy: Mat Cauthon playing dice in a grubby alleyway in Ebou Dar (not verbatim). That was it. Harriet named about 75% of the chapters in the series. Jordan tried to protect Maria from spoilers in the work he had her do for him. She eventually persuaded him she could handle them. Almost the first thing he then gave her was Verin's full backstory. This was somewhere around the time Path of Daggers came out. The oddest research request was Jordan asking how babies feel when they are born. This was eventually used in the bonding scene in Winter's Heart. The movie/TV rights situation is beginning to become clearer. Red Eagle sold the film rights on to Universal and it now looks like the rights could return to the Jordan Estate at some point. There is apparently interest from other companies in the rights given the success of other fantasy projects on TV and in film at the moment. And a small bit that will spoil the Biggest Question - does Bela survive A Memory of Light?

One of the recent signing reports confirmed that Steris is closer to Asperger's and Wayne has PTSD.