Argent

It's true that it's not clear. We should clarify this during one of the signings. I am in favor of her having only spike at a time, but all of her spikes would be made of this... let's say trellium. So she prepared this trellium spike early on, removed both of hers (becoming invisible to Harmony), fell on the new one (remaining invisible because of the new metal - it's still not clear how this works), and then kept on acquiring new trellium spikes and swapping them in and out as she wished. So what grants control is the Hemalurgic charge, not the metal - the moment she got too much Hemalurgy in her (by way of bullet to the forehead), Harmony could take her again. And either because Wax's bulletspike was too low on charge or because Paalm's Coinshot trellium spike wasn't made of one of Harmony's metals, he couldn't take control instantaneously, which gave her enough time to trigger her death spiral mechanism.

Seems like literally every portrait of Breeze is him, with a winecup, waving it about. Which is not awfully surprising, considering that post-Catecendre people must've thought the cup is a natural extension of his hand...

Hmm, fair enough. I had remembered the "simple thing" bit, but not the intricacy of its design. I am still not ready to believe he got Vin's earring specifically, but I recognize the possibility and wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being the case.

SHUT UP, I AM NOT CRYING, YOU ARE CRYING!

I thought about Wayne maybe getting his imitation skill as a Twinborn perk, but it just doesn't make sense to me. It seems so completely unrelated. If Wax's bullet deflection bubble is his Twinborn perk (as I theorized somewhere else, but should probably put in a separate thread), it could kind of work - both of his Metallic abilities deal with core principles of Newtonian motion, so I can see his perk being in the same general area. Wayne, though, he's got Feruchemical healing and Allomantic time acceleration. Totally different concepts. And not only are they different, but his proposed perk - imitation - is a whole different animal in itself. I can't buy into the argument that because kandra are good at healing and they are good at imitation, the same would apply to other people. Plus, if anything, Miles should've been an amazing imitator, and there's nothing to suggest that; on the contrary, he may have been imitating Suit subconsciously. Now, if kandra could interbreed with humans... How are we feeling about one of Wayne's ancestors scoring with a kandra?

I remember wondering if kandra can interbreed with humans. I could root for a theory about Wayne having kandra blood.

This is a big stretch, I think. All of the Pathian earrings are simple things.

I don't think "keeping out of people's business" is necessarily something Autonomy would do. You can make a pretty strong case for him interfering with other worlds, pushing them towards independence. Making sure every Shardworld produces Braveheart...

I am pretty sure Scadrial was started from scratch. There were some WoBs about that.

Here there be Shadows of Self spoilers. So, Wayne's ability to understand people has been bothering me all book. The focus was mostly on the accents before, and that's something I could accept as an uncanny skill, but Shadows of Self made it look much bigger. Wayne doesn't simply adopt people's mannerisms, he starts thinking like them. Not in the a conman might, deciding what the other person would think like, but actually thinking the appropriate thoughts. I find this suspicious. You know it makes me think of? Spiritual identity or connection. Feruchemical aluminum or duralumin. How, I don't know. The only thing that makes sense to me is a spike - if it's a small aluminum spike Wax wouldn't have been able to randomly detect it, so it wouldn't come up in the text. Or he could be a slightly insane and very skilled conman.

Plausible. I noticed that he was feeling stronger in the mists sometimes, but I didn't make the pewter connection. We should verify that this doesn't happen after he gives the earring up.

I think this is going to explain Wax's uncanny ability with Steelpushes - the bullet deflection bubble he creates strikes me as something only he, and maybe a select few others, will have the skill to create. I could maybe handwave something about how him being a Twinborn with control over two powers that both deal with position and momentum in 3D-space, as well as centers of gravity, is what gives him the skill necessary for a bubble like this... But I also want to attribute Wayne's understanding of people to something similar, and I am not sure there is a good intersection between healing and accelerating local time.

I honestly don't know. The textual description in the article suggested something more... supernatural to me.

The "it's a translation" argument is probably the best one I can accept. I try to use it as a bit of a last resort though.

Aw, man. Man! I caught on Paalm being Lessie all along about 5 pages before Wax did, and let me tell, that was worse. Harmony's hands, Brandon, Era 2 was supposed to be lighter! "I killed her again!" is going to be one of those lines that stays with me for a long time - right up there with Kelsier's "I am hope." and Kaladin's "The winds are mine." But who am I kidding, strong emotions stay in my brain for no more than 3 seconds if there is Cosmere knowledge to be had! I'll keep things short though, since most of these points deserve their own threads. Hoid! Come on, you old scoundrel, you are not even hiding these days. Another Shard! Potentially! I don't think it's Odium (Bleeder didn't feel like someone who was moved by hatred, she was driven and determined, hateful too, but the hatred felt like... a side effect. A byproduct. It felt like normal hate). I am hearing that Bavadin's Shard is Autonomy, and Paalm was definitely big on the freedom thing. Like, Big On The Freedom Thing. I am calling the new Shard Trell for now though. New metal! And it works with at least one Metallic Art! I hereby dub thee trellium. I am very very curious to find out what it actually does - Paalm's final spike, gave her Allomantic steel, and it was a trellium spike, so did it allow her to steal any power? This warrants more thought. A Shardpool! That lake from the broadsheets is definitely a Shardpool, probably Harmony's. Steris! You glorious, glorious woman. I smiled and laughed at her interactions with Wax more than I did at Wayne's. I want her to be(come) Metalborn so she gets more screen time, so to speak. Wax made a few passing references to something that happened in the Village, something important. I think it was implied that this event is what made him realize there are criminals even among the Terrismen. We were right that somebody was hijacking the Hemalurgic channels! How, though, I have no idea. Maybe Bavadin's Investiture - if he is Trell - lets users mimic other magic systems? Allowing them to be autonomous, in a way. This could account for both the new spikes and the hijacking. Gah, there is so much! I can't keep it concise, I'll have to go in other threads too...

Shadesmar is the Cognitive Realm, so spiritual connection is not going to the biggest role in there.

The number ten is kind of Honor's thing. Brandon once hinted that there is a more technical explanation (he referred to what he called "Honor's Purposes"), but he's been really tight-lipped about it. So, no, I don't think so. It seems like every Shard, or maybe every Shardworld, has a special number. It's how magic systems manifest.

The lake described in the broadsheet, I think we can all pretty much agree it's a Shardpool. And I am inclined to agree with @Zalocx's assessment that's it's probably Harmony's; Saze probably would've known if another Shard had become Invested in Scadrial - it sounds much more likely that the theorized Trell - whoever that ends up being - simply worked his Shardic magic to create Bleeder's spike(s?), not as a new magic system, but as an augmentation of the current Metallic Arts. Which, by the way, if true, makes a strong case for Shards being able to inject their own Investiture in other Shards' magic systems. I would expect that if Harmony went to Roshar he could create new type(s) of Radiants. New Surges at least.

Wasn't Tekiel the house that came up with the Breaknaught in The Alloy of Law? This, along with a few comments I seem to vaguely recall, suggest that House Tekiel is one of the more influential ones in Elendel.

Better safe than sorry, especially around release dates. On topic, though... I wouldn't say it's a Listener. If you read the entire broadsheet (there are 4 quarter-pages throughout the book, and they form a full sheet) - and I am not spoiling anything here - you'll know that the drawing was likely a sketch artist's idea of what a spooked person saw in poor light. Though I find strong reasons to believe the creature was from another world.

Aaand no longer reading Shadow of Self. Done and done. I won't talk about how good it was, because I can talk a lot about that, but I will say that it was pretty stellar. Better than The Alloy of Law, definitely. I'll probably go back to Pratchett in a few days, once the book hangover has passed.

This title is a biiit spoilery, might want to edit it.

Yes, I know and I agree. But I think that's making the data fit the conclusion, not deriving a conclusion from the data. When Wax is complaining about "motorcars that run on gasoline" - not an exact quote - I don't think it's plausible that what he really meant was "motorcars that run on biogasoline, which we call gasoline for convenience." It's possible, certainly (I find some merit in the argument that since Scadrial never had gasoline, dropping the "bio-" from "biogasoline" makes sense), I just don't find it likely.

The word in the book is gasoline though. As in, the one that comes from petroleum.