Argent

Oh, the beard strokage is real. I'll say that The Page does not have Renarin's name on it in my US hardcover, how's that for a hint? This being said, I don't think you can reasonably deduce it. Nothing on that page points to Renarin, so for all you know, it might be something in Rysn's interlude that's the reveal (it's not). So while you can guess, it will be just that - a guess.

Barring an apocalypse, I too will be there. I just didn't think we need to create a thread about it this early

I don't keep track. A few. Though I imagine that now that you've outed me, I'll get a flood of questions (which I might just have to ignore...) For those of you who want to keep an eye out, I'll share as much as people around me at the event know - Brandon pointed me at a specific page of my The Way of Kings hardcover.

Chicago-area tours always freak me out, 'cause they tend to be towards the end of the tour, and I get paranoid as I read from the top...

Stupid real life obligations, amirite...

Excise

Yeah, it's not quite clear how it works. Even with all the Identity and Investiture trickery, there's the problem that you are allowing a non-Metlaborn (potentially) to tap a nicrosilmind.

Night Angel is kind of just alright. His other series, Lightbringer (starting with The Black Prism) is much better. I highly recommend Brian McClellan's Powder Mage series. Jim Butcher's Dresden Files is very definitely a good one, though the first few are a little on the weaker side. Fortunately, they are also on the short side, so you get through them quickly. Kingkiller Chronicles is, to me, an excellent read, but it's very different from Brandon's style. It's very much about the prose - the plot itself is nothing crazy. You kind of have to read it like poetry. You'll hear mixed feedback on this one. I can't speak for the other books and series mentioned so far. As for my own contribution, I've been reading V. E. Schwab's Shades of Magic series (I am about 70% into the second one), and it has been most excellent. Django Wexler's The Shadow Campaigns series is also pretty good, though a little too full of military details (e.g. descriptions of battles).

It was a small, pocket-sized book Tor printed in limited supply as a promo for... Edgedancer? It has basic information about things specific to SA, all present in the books already.

I am pretty sure I've had no contribution in the translation effort, other than run my mouth about random stuff

My headcanon has been that it is less of a spren and more a piece of Eshonai's soul. The change in her character, combined with the forced bond the stormspren makes with her (the spren shoots into her chest even after she is no longer willing to try out this new form) has led me to suspect that she is not so much changed as she is possessed (or controlled). From what we've seen in Mistborn, as well as some WoBs I recall only vaguely, possession in the Cosmere has to do with something hijacking the soul, the Spiritweb, and so my speculation with Eshonai has been that the stormspren replaced some key part of her soul, kicking it out in the form of a spren.

His eyes are actually not large - but since most of the people on Roshar have slanted eyes, Szeth's (and all Shin's, really) eyes appear large to them. Which is a neat bit of worldbuilding This being said, I can only assume that flowing robes are popular among assassins because of all the neat things you can hide in them, as well as how easy it is to get rid of them if you need to.

Howdy. It's safer to let people know what you've read, 'cause here there be spoilers.

He likes Anderson's Bookshop (the Naperville location), but he's been to the Barnes & Noble at Old Orchard a couple of times too, and he's also been at a couple of other locations once. It varies. I think I've been able to find free parking every time (except for the last one, but that was in a library in downtown...).

I don't think I agree, both the question and the reply are vague. The only certain thing I see there is that he is an Allomancer.

It's always looked like that to me as well. I don't know.

You are, actually, when you are very very young. It's something you learn to anticipate and control as you grow up. Allomancers, even experienced ones, don't have anywhere near as much practice slinging items (or themselves) around as they do moving their limbs. Zane, specifically, is really good with steel, and Vin's ability to (nearly) match him is an indication that so is she. Wax... he doesn't often use his pushes in such precise controlled fashion, he usually just either throws himself about or adds acceleration to his bullets. He doesn't do fancy work. As for the rest of your comments... It looks like you interpreted my reply as dismissive, and maybe insulting? It wasn't meant to be that way, and so I apologize. All I wanted to say that, similarly to atium's mind enhancement, there is a very clean and easy-to-understand explanation of steel/iron works (i.e. they work like telekinetic limbs) that fits all the evidence, and (at least to me) sounds like it was Brandon's intent with the system. In the face of that, I found that doing extensive math that can only approximate magical components to be... bemusing.

Eh... is this why we are doing this? Because the idea that seems to be Brandon's intent doesn't stand up to math (math which doesn't account for any magical shenanigans, I should add)? Are we going back to irradiating time bubbles again?

I've always imagined the telekinetic Allomantic "link" between an Allomancer and the anchor they are Pushing (or Pulling) on to work similarly to an extension of the Allomancer. I've never been good at physics, and it's been some time since I've done any, but the Allomancer-coin scenario has always sounded very similar to me to a scenario where I am pushing on a coin with my hands. I can grab a coin, and just by extending my arm fast enough, I can push it away from my body (and even give it some acceleration once it loses contact with my palm) without really feeling any (normal?) force pushing me back. But if I tried doing exactly the same thing with a wall in front of me, the coin (and my arm) would hit the wall and propel me backwards. I've always thought Steelpushes work exactly the same way, except the thing that propels the coin forward isn't my arm, it's the Allomancer's Push. Everything else... I applaud the work that has gone into both the analysis and the following conversation. I am just not convinced there is much value in overanalyzing something like this...

The secret is to ignore him until he calls security on you.

I don't know if this is accurate. The obvious counterexample are the Lightweavers, I think - very... ephemeral, with virtually no structure to their oaths, and generally free-spirited and creative people. Ironic, considering that strict mathematical nature of their spren... In both books and interviews Brandon has suggested that Honor's role in the whole thing has to do with bonds. Syl's "I bind things" is a good example of this, but if what I am saying doesn't ring true, I could try to find a WoB about how Honor is about forming bonds. So in this light, he is more involved in the means of Surge manipulation. In all fairness, we haven't had much chance to look into how the ancient fabrials work. It's possible that they too trap a spren, just in a different way. Maybe they are a spren in a way similar to how Shardblades are. The evidence is insufficient, I think. I can buy that. This assumes everything you've mentioned classifies as a magic system. I, for example, see fabrials as technology, not magic. ... and I think I need to finish addressing the rest of it another time, when I have more time.

Chana? Hard to tell, to be honest. People keep talking about how Brandon has said we have "seen" all the Heralds, but he keeps it vague about whether we have seen them as characters on page, or just names. I personally lean more towards the latter.

I've had the same idea, and this is pretty much the main reason I am skeptical of it. Dawnshards sound more... grand, than just a perfectly cut sphere. It's hard to speculate about artifacts shrouded in so much mystery, but I think it's at least possible that old Gavilar got his hands on a couple of them.

No, it seems like you have all the pieces to the puzzle. The thing is, none of this knowledge confirms that Ati was Ruin's original Vessel (in fact, we have a RAFO on the topic) - though it does suggest it strongly. Regardless, what I was trying to do is illustrate a point - that we don't know enough about the events surrounding the Shattering to make any definitive conclusions about what transpired there, and where the (original) Vessels went - and when.

Buddy, we do this kind of stuff all the time, and we still get stuff wrong on a daily basis There's no getting the details straight, not for another few decades. Best we can do is work together and minimize the number (and size) of our snafus. Yeeeaaah, but it's so much easier to bash people than to compliment them... Hear, hear. It's almost like we are a community based around the idea of putting everything under a microscope, and overanalyzing every word we read...