Argent

I confess to not paying much attention to the forum's spoiler policy outside of the days surrounding new releases, so correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that: unless there is a dedicated spoiler board (e.g. "Oathbringer"), nothing from the given world requires tagging. So, in the absence of a dedicated spoiler board, 100% of the Stormlight content is fair game in the Stormlight forum if there is a dedicated spoiler subforum, all threads about the book in question go there, and do not need to be tagged (though titles should note that the thread will contain spoilers, and avoid being spoilery themselves) Content from one world/series/book should be hidden inside spoiler tags when referenced in another forum (e.g. Stormlight content should be hidden inside the Mistborn board) everything is fair game in the Cosmere forum

It's becoming more difficult to get good answers though =\ I think it always is, in the months between major book releases. Anyway. it sound like you are completely discarding the possibility of using Stormlight to Awaken, and if that's the case then I disagree with you. I will allow that's more difficult, maybe much more difficult, but if we are basing our theories on my chat up there, then I think the logical step is to say "yes, people can Awaken with Stormlight, but the Awakened objects will run out of Stormlight quickly, similarly to how Lashings run out of it quickly." Stormlight is not as sticky as Breath is, but it does stick to things. Consequently, I think accounting for the quirks of the Investiture being used might help too. On Nalthis, Awakening human-shaped objects is easier, likely because Breath has an affinity for humans (it's how this particular form of Investiture enters, or manifests in, the Physical Realm, after all). It's why Lifeless only take a single Breath to make. I think that had Vasher tried to awaken something made of gems using Stormlight, he might've succeeded (or at least made better progress). Of course gems by themselves are pretty useless when Awakened, no flexibility, but maybe a necklace with as little string and metal as possible... Maybe that would've worked. Maybe I'll poke Brandon on Reddit about this, if he continues being active in the Oathbringer thread.

This definitely needs an exact source. This has since been clarified. Brandon reminded us that anyone and anything opposing Adonalsium can be considered a "force," strongly suggesting that it was the original Vessels who constituted this "opposing force." As in, Ati, Leras, Reyse, and company opposed Adonalsium (they caused, or led to, his Shattering after all), so they can be considered to be an "opposing force." I do not believe Brandon was quite as verbose in his comment on this, but I am confident his meaning was along these lines.

Finished Christie Golden's Lord of the Clans - once again, an alright book. Like Day of the Dragon I probably wouldn't recommend it to people who are not fans of the Warcraft universe. The Last Guardian, which is what I am reading now, is a little more promising, but that might be because I am very partial to some of the characters there.

I'll get around to sharing this

That's what half of my argument is based on

@Eki is correct about my intent - I was making a statement about our community as a whole. It just happened that reading your reply prompted me to realize this, and so I quoted it. I also didn't mean to imply anything more than what I said in my reply: that I am concerned our shorthand for the "Survival Shard" has been polluting our discussion and assumptions of it. Thank you, @Pagerunner, for the sauce.

I feel like we've been oversimplifying this. Brandon clarified recently that what we have been calling "the Survival Shard" is really more in line with a Shard that knows what's going on around the Cosmere (i.e. Odium killing Shards left and right), and doesn't want none of that, no sir, none of it. The descriptions we have been using in the past suggest, at least a little bit, that this Shard's mandate has something to do with hiding and/or survival, which - in the light of Brandon's recent clarification - is not necessarily true. For all we know, it could be Wisdom or Denial that we are dealing with here.

For the record, he also explained why that was. Poor Asharavan, everyone butchers his name...

I wasn't aware that there was already a thread dedicated to this discussion: Let's lock this thread, no need to keep it around.

Cool, thank you for this. I think this implies a few things about the nature of the Squires, but I would like to think about that a little more.

The WoB mine that is Reddit continues to spew forth knowledge and wisdom coming directly from Brandon from House Sanderson. This time we have a vague statement that "when we talk about Returned and lifeless in Warbreaker sequels, you'll have more ammunition for understanding what happened in Emperor's Soul." Source

So, we can blame this on my lack of good spirits early in the morning, but I can't say I see the merit of the primary theory being discussed here - that of creating a Type IV BioChromatic entity by (somehow) weakening one (or more) Hemalurgic spikes. I think @Spoolofwhool made an excellent objection to the idea by pointing out Nightblood's already kind of human - or, rather, sapient - qualities. Shashara didn't need to Hemalurgically spike an Archivist to grant Nightblood memory, nor did she need to mutilate a Trueself - Nightblood strikes me as a being with a really strong, of simplistic, sense of Identity. In other words, we have strong evidence that such traits are inherent not to humanity, but to Investiture itself. In fact, they may be manifesting in humanity because they are inherent to Investiture. So the question then becomes this: does any sufficiently large pile of Investiture develop sapience (when left alone; e.g. the God King's Breath hoard wouldn't develop sapience unless somehow left unattended), or is some kind of additional effort required to get it to... awaken (e.g. a Command)? In the first case, I don't think the source - or filter - of the Investiture would matter, it's the amount of it that's important. And in the second... well, then it's the "extra effort" that matters, whether that extra is an Awakener's Command or a a Shard's will (when dealing with Splinters). In either one of those scenarios I find it difficult to find room for your idea about using specially made and treated spikes. Plus, these are all tangents. The reason I wanted to post was so that I could mention my biggest issue with this theory - the assumption that the charge carried by a Hemalurgic spike would have a significant effect on how the newly created Type IV would turn out. I wouldn't call this assumption unreasonable, but I feel it's definitely not supported well. I suppose this also fits with my train of thought from above, which is nice, because it's not so obvious that I wrote the two halves of this post in reverse order. All this being said, I am actually far more interested in your second idea, @Djarskublar. Creating Type IVs with Divine Breath sounds a lot more interesting to me than some roundabout Hemalurgic hack.

I had always assumed it is those prongs that determine that pattern of Stormlight.

100% sure this has been brought up before. It's a little too obvious, come on I am not sure what you mean by this.

Huh, it does appear on top of the Pallaneum, doesn't it? I hadn't noticed that one before. Regarding the compass rose, I know for a fact we have discussed it before. I am reasonably sure @Harakeke has brought it up when discussing glyphs with radial symmetry. And I also think we've had a separate thread, specifically for the rose. I am getting potentially useful results with this search, maybe browse through?

I believe @Retsam has the truth of it. @Iron Eyes, somebody - recently - confirmed that Edgli is Endowment's Vessel's name. I am about 98% sure of this.

Finished Knaak's Day of the Dragon. It was alright, not much worth mentioning. Reading Lord of the Clans now, and being about halfway through I can tell it feels more... extreme. Overall the writing is worse than Knaak's, but when it's better, it's much better.

I can see a face, yes. I suspect this is the level of the subtlety Brandon wanted too.

Glad to hear my 3 AM out-of-date ramblings were useful. I was particularly proud of my noticing of the symmetry on the endsheet. But to take us back on topic, I tried to get a hint of confirmation from Brandon regarding this theory. I figured confirming the whole thing was going to get smashed to bits with the RAFO hammer, but maybe if I could get one of the elements of the theory confirmed... Well, I asked whether there exists a third chart, similar to the front- and endsheet ones. No mentions of Realmatics, no mentions of Surges working differently, nothing of that sort. Got RAFO'd anyway.

So I poked Brandon about the faces a little bit. As we all strongly suspected: They are intentional (not an artist's quirk), but Brandon feels they were "more blatant in places" that he would've liked Further information likely resides in the Land of RAFO Source

With the recent release of the newest World of Warcraft expansion, Legion, I've found my love for the Warcraft universe reignited, so I decided to read all of the books in the series, starting with Richard A. Knaak's Day of the Dragon.

It seems like Brandon's books run along the lines of non-hetorosexuality being... well, just normal. There is nothing weird about it, so nobody is making a fuss about it. Stormlight might be in the same boat.

Sorry, I am headcanoning Shallasnah too much to allow Shysn to exist.