Andrew the Great

Yeah, but im setting my sights where i know i'll come out unmatched ;D Why do you think I think post count is more important? I'm already creeping up in the ranks (though I don't think I'll ever catch Chaos. He's always been ahead of me on TWG, posted ever so slightly more often and whatnot. And he had a 115 post head start on me, and he also happens to be an admin, and thus posts about admin-ish things.....)

I don't know - we know that their power fades quite drastically the further they get from elantris, none of them have any method of moving to confront Odium directly that we know of (though there appear to be some planet hopping Elantrians, granted, I suspect that there are also planet hoppers from elsewhere (ie Hoid), so that really has nothing to do with being Elantrian. In fact, come to think of it, the planet hoppers from Sel weren't Elantrian. Hmmm..) I also don't think that a whole bunch of people wielding Splinters of a Shard could take out an equally or more powerful shard. It would just be difficult to coordinate, and the Shard could just pick them off one by one. Splinters of Several Shards....maybe. But it would require way more than would be feasible to gather in one place. I can see where you're coming from, but even if the Elantrians are splinters, which I'm still not really sure how I feel about (although I think I'm leaning away from it, atm), they still don't pose much of a threat to Odium, imo.

Well I certainly don't have time to in any sort of timely manner, plus the only books of Brandon's I actually have with me at the moment are Way of Kings and Gathering Storm. The rest are still in Idaho Falls. So, if we want summaries for Brandon's other books, yes, someone else would need to do it. I can't imagine that it would hurt to have summaries for the other books. Especially since there are going to be two more trilogies of mistborn books, and a sequel each for warbreaker and elantris.

True Enough. I suppose I'm too used to the whole forum thing, where it's all about avoiding spoiling it for people. Since the point of the wiki is to provide in depth info, that would tend to be spoilery. I'll plan on doing summaries as I read, then.

So, I've heard a lot of claims that Thunderclasts = Chasmfiends. I'm inclined to believe that this isn't the case, as Thunderclasts apparently have hands, while Chasmfiends are apparently more crustacean. However, they also seem to be quite related. The descriptions are similar, the blood is apparently purple for both of them... I suppose we could have a Parshedi/Parshmen thing going on here. So I guess my question is, does anyone have any thoughts on what it is that distinguishes Thunderclasts from Chasmfiends, or if they're the same, why and/or how?

One of the most commonly heard complaints about big series is that it gets very hard to keep track of everything very quickly. I know that a lot of other series as large as the Stormlight Archive will eventually be often have summaries (either chapter by chapter, or overall plot) for each book. I'm about to do a reread of Way of Kings, and since I'm already taking extensive notes, it wouldn't be too much more work to do summaries, just to help give people who don't want to reread a refresher on what happened. Also, it could serve as a useful reference when we're trying to find where some event happens in the book. Not incredibly useful right now, but when there get to be four or five of these things.... That being said.... Chapter summaries would be VERY spoilerish, so we'd have to put Spoiler warnings all over the place. Also, I wasn't sure if this was something the almighty powers of administration would want put on the wiki, or anywhere else on the site for that matter. Heck, I could even do them as a series of posts somewhere, if we wanted to do it that way. In any case, I would like to hear the opinions of the Powers the Be on this matter before I get too far into WoK again. And anyone else who'd like to chime in.

Not to mention the fact that there weren't allomancers around to steal the magic from, though they could have stolen from Feruchemists. And now that you mention it, you're right, Feruchemy was around for much longer than either of the other two systems.

Well that would probably have a lot to do with my lack of knowing this - until a few days ago, I literally hadn't been on TWG since November of last year, and prior to that, it had been several months. I dunno. I just didn't find anything there particularly interesting after I didn't have anything to theorize about anymore, and I felt like we'd gone about as far as we could on the shards at the time. With Stormlight Archive, I don't see this as being a problem anytime in the near future. Which makes me happy, as I've really missed the good old insane theory days.....So excited to be back. However, I still haven't caught up on the shards and the rest of the cosmere that I missed in that time, so you'll have to forgive me if I'm a little behind the times for a bit.

That's good to know, and goes a long way toward explaining the mindless energy of the Dor. I don't suppose he said how long before the events of Elantris? The only real possible event we've seen that could've been Odium is the Reod. I personally think the Reod is natural, as Odium really has no reason to be concerned about a bunch of Elantrians coming after him. He'd only be worried about full Shards. As such, the aftereffects of Odium's visit to Sel must just refer to the Death of the two Shards, methinks. Although it's certainly possible he caused the Reod, I don't see any reason for him to want to. Unless it was just like, "Hey, I killed you, so now I'm gonna take out all your magic system users for fun!"

Maybe it's me, but I seem to remember somewhere in Way of Kings, someone referring to the Nightwatcher as she. I could be wrong there. I also seem to remember Bavadin being a he. Though that could just be me thinking that Bavadin sounds more like a man's name than a woman's. I don't have my copy of WoK with me right now, but I'll check on this when I do. If that were the case, it would definitely decrease the likelihood of this particular theory. Also, I have to wonder, is the Old Magic in any way related to the shards? After all, the Shards seem to (at least indirectly) power the new magic, so what would power the old? And if it is a Shard, why would it be Old at all? As far as we know, the shards that are currently on Roshar have always been, except for possibly a brief vacation every now and then. I suppose it's feasible that there was a time when there was one shard and then more came later, but if that's the case, what allowed the New Magic to so thoroughly stamp out the old? In all the other worlds we've seen with two or more magic systems, they were both about equally prevalent. Hemalurgy, with the inquisitors, was about as common as being a mistborn (though being a misting is a lot more common than having one spike was.....). We saw lots more Elantrians than anything else, but I suspect that's because other magic systems on Elantris were....well, elsewhere. No one in the area we were watching could use them. This leads me to believe that the Old Magic is, in fact, Old. It wasn't fueled by Shards. Granted, it's entirely possible that it is, but for now, I see more evidence for it not being Shard-powered. That said, I'd love to know what does power it. And if anyone can find evidence to support it being Shard-powered, I could totally accept that too. (I'm actually struggling with the fact that all of the other magics we've seen have been Shard-powered as far as we know, and as of yet we know of nothing else that can power a magic system). Also, a single gift and single curse? Yeah, I guess it's cool, but it's not nearly as epic and applicable to every situation of what we've seen of other shard's powers so far. The Old Magic seems rather limited in comparison to Shard-based magic. Assuming that it's not, in fact, Shard-based. Hmmm....

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. I just don't think it particularly likely, and have resigned myself to this fact.

Or Hoid's just trying to see if Dallinar knew anything about Adonalsium from his visions.

Hoid does have a track record of showing up right in the middle of things, and he has helped out certain characters before. I also seem to recall that in the first draft of well of ascension, his footprints are what lead vin to the well. But overall, I think Hoid can be safely said to be doing something that is good. Whether or not he'll do bad things to get there is questionable.

Think about it - Ruin = Destruction, Preservation = Stagnation. Neither of them would be able to do much to create on their own. Endowment seems like it would be able to if any of the shards could. Also, it's entirely possible that there was just a planet there with people on it. After all, we know that there were people around before Adonalsium shattered (Hoid was there when it shattered, and the other shardbearers likely were as well). Endowment just found a home and settled down.....

I'm with Chaos on this one. Post count is much more important than time spent online.

Chaos, I hate you. You have no idea how long it took me to get six great houses. I did eventually manage it, but it took me FOREVER. Couple of random questions on the trivia. 1- What was Hrathen's ethnicity? And where was this information found? I don't remember him ever being anything but Fjordish, but that could just be me not having read Elantris annotations for forever and a day. 2 - Was Kelsier included in the list of people who held preservation's power? He's kind of shaky, though I seem to remember something about him holding it for a brief period because no one else was. But I had Leras, Vin, and Saze, and wasn't sure whether or not Rashek using the power counted as him holding it. I still put him down. The rest of the questions weren't too bad. I had to think about them, yes, but I did eventually figure them out. With much conferring with others around me. But we all know I'm a cheater. fRR, you were the in the tent? I would have stopped by and said hi if I'd known. Although granted, I didn't actually even notice the tent until the day of the release. Which is kind of sad, as I walked past the bookstore like a gajillion times, what with me going to school here and all..... I loved the party. First one of Brandon's release events that I've been able to make it to, and it was absolutely worth the lack of sleep. Even when I was falling asleep in my 8:00 class the next morning.

Yeah, jemron, I'm the annoying kid who stood in line with you all night. I have to say, it was probably the best time I've had in a good while. Also. It's assuage. Not that you can hear me pronouncing that, but you know I'm right.

If you look closely, each of the larger ones is linked to 2 other large ones and two small ones. The small ones are the same. All of the large ones connect in the center, none of the small ones do. I imagine this is significant in some fashion. Possibly it is the Knights Radiant, and then a symbol for the magics each order is capable of using? Though I don't know why the Radiant's Symbols would connect to each other. The overlap in magic makes sense, though, as I seem to recall Jasnah mentioning that there were two orders of Radiants who could Soulcast, and they both did it slightly differently. I also quite like the Knights Radiant and they're divine attributes theory, though those don't overlap, which makes me think that they probably wouldn't be connected the way they are if that were the case. Although, this could just be me, you know, reading way to much into a few lines or some such..... Alternately, it could be that the two groups of Ten symbols on the front are there only because they correlate directly with Roshar, while the ones on the back correlate directly with Shadesmar. In that case, they could both be related to the Radiants, though I admit to having absolutely no idea what they would mean in this case. I assumed the ten faces around the inside front cover were the Heralds. Is the crazy scary epic chick on the back cover supposed to be someone, or is she just there for decoration? It seems like there was a lot of thought put into this art, so it doesn't really make much sense to just throw some random chick on the border. But hey, it's entirely possible. And that's about all I can come up with based on those particular symbols. The maps, however, fascinate me to no end. First of all, I love that everything on the first map is a palindrome (well, aside from th and sh, but those don't count. They probably have a special single character for those sounds in-book, so it's still a palindrome......) The other map, a few pages later, has a few really interesting things to ponder on. Dawn's Shadow? That sounds interesting.... The Shallow Crypts, Mourn's Vault. All of these are apparently important enough that His Royal High Cartographer Isasik Shulin felt that His Royal Majesty King Galivar Kholin needed them on his map. It's also interesting that we didn't here anything about any of these places, and yet they're still here. I wonder if Brandon will include different maps as the series progresses..... The back map is the one that most intrigues me. Obviously, the second time Shallan tried to Soulcast, she accessed Shadesmar via the Nexus of Truth. The first time, however, I recall no truths being given. It seems most likely, then, that she accessed Shadesmar via the Nexus of Imagination, though I suppose it could have been the Nexus of Transition (I was actually going to comment on how I had no idea what it would entail to get into Shadesmar via the Nexus of Transition....and just did....) That said, we have the Expanse of the Vapors (Shardblades being mist when not summoned, anyone?), the Expanse of the Densities, and the Expanse of the Broken Sky. Sea of Regret, Sea of Souls, Sea of Lost Lights. Also, apparently Shadesmar is an inverted map of Roshar. Why is that? Isn't Shadesmar accessible from other Shardworlds? I thought we'd determined that Shadesmar was what allowed Hoid to....well...be Hoid. Planet-hopping and such. The names in Shadesmar are also really interesting. Vapors and Densities are kind of related, but then we get the Broken Sky. Souls, regret, and lost lights? About as random a group as I've ever seen. Truth and Imagination both are centered around thought (well, kind of), but then we get Transition. I pretty much have no idea where I'm going with this. Aren't ramblings great? And, I pretty much have no more coherent thoughts on the maps. More will come, I'm sure, but not now. Voidbinding.... it's a definite possibility, but like you say, we have absolutely no idea what Voidbinding is and how it works, so.....

I don't think Lerasium is a viable option for the element. We have no reason to believe that it would allow someone to be a mistborn on Roshar, away from Sazed's power. In fact, if we look at how Aon Dor works in Elantris, we have reason to believe otherwise. The further the Elantrians get from Elantris, the weaker their power. Logic suggests that Mistborn-ness (woot for making up words) would work the same, as both are based off of shards. The sphere that Gavilar gave to Szeth seems like as good an option as any. I've heard the term 'voidlight' in reference to the black light, but I'm not sure whether that's a term from Brandon or one that someone made up. Or one that Brandon is using for something else, but that someone decided to use for this. Or something else entirely. I'm starting a re-read, now that I've done my first super-quick fanboy read. I'll look for anything else that seems like a possiblity. Also, it seems an Elantris re-read is long overdue.

I could sit here and talk about how insanely awesome the book was, but instead, I'll just say the only thing that need be said to express my enthusiasm. Chaos, you up for some new theorizing?