Returned

The bolding is mine, and gets to the main point I'm trying to make. That we mainly see the Shards doing things that comport with the rules as we currently understand them isn't important, because following the rules is what we should expect in a setting where those rules exist, matter, and are internally consistent. It's when they act in exception to those rules, for no clear reason, and with no consequences, that's a problem. If the rule is that no Shard can ever wear a purple hat, and if they do wear one then they die, it doesn't matter that we have 10,000 pages of Shards never wearing purple hats and continuing to live without any problem. But when there are three or four examples of Shards wearing purple hats with no consequences to them at all, those times are a problem, not any of the others. Death specifically is not the only consequence that matters to Shards-- the Stormfather describes Odium's reluctance to expose himself as a risk of being hurt (not annihilated). But when, in Oathbringer, we see things like Odium breaking into the vision in which Dalinar speaks with Venli, Odium is acting directly. Is the rule that he can mess with visions but not reality? Sure, maybe, that sounds reasonable enough to me. When the Stormfather tries to hold Odium back and Odium hurts the Stormfather, he is acting directly. The Stormfather specifically states that the only reason Odium did not destroy him is that he feared a strike from Cultivation. Is the rule that a Shard can directly hurt a spren, but not kill them? Is that rule only for spren, or could it apply to mortals as well? He hurts Venli in visions, so maybe it's a vision vs. reality thing? Is the difference that the Stormfather has absorbed some of the essence of Honor, making it Shard-to-Shard enough to loosen some restrictions that would otherwise apply? Why is directly hurting fine, but not killing? Are we to balance everything on "risk", where Cultivation may or may not strike, for reasons well established in the setting (if not clearly defined for us) or plot convenience, exploiting our ignorance of plot holes? Is the Stormfather simply wrong? Cultivation reaches directly into Dalinar's mind and fiddles with his memories at her pleasure. That's direct action. Why is that safe and OK, and why does she not do it more, to, say, Lezian or El? Cultivation makes some pretty radical changes to Lift's body and spirit. Why just her, and not others? Why was she not struck back at by Odium, or are we to fall back on the uncertainty of risk again? These are the sorts of situations that make me less enthusiastic about the Shardic action that we see; exceptions to the behaviors we should expect based on the rules as presented to us. As I said above, why just this far in just these cases, and not farther or applied in more cases? It's 100% possible that there are highly satisfying, setting-consistent rules that govern all of this and in the fullness of time we'll all love it. But for now the message that is being reinforced more and more often is that the rules we've been told about aren't useful guides to anything we might see or extrapolate in the books, in which case why bother to pay attention to them at all? One of Sanderson's original claims to fame is the highly detailed and well-defined magic systems which allow for novel applications and satisfying mechanisms and interactions. It's sad, to me, to lose any portion of that for reasons that (at least for now) seem to be driven by plot convenience more than anything else. Others' mileage may vary, but not caring about the exceptions is not the same as those exceptions not existing (or apparently existing) in the first place.

I have two major predictions regarding the contest, which have not changed over the last few years: It won't be avoided or resolved via any loophole (doing so would undermine some things Rayse specifically said about adhering to the spirit of his agreements, which fundamentally precludes the concept of loopholes; additionally, I think that it would be hard to satisfyingly resolve thousands of pages of buildup with what would essentially be an asterisk). That's not to say that the contest will happen exactly as advertised, a fight to the death between the two chosen champions, which leads me to my other prediction. The contest won't be what was promised when Dalinar and Rayse discussed it, in the sense that the conflict on Roshar will change its shape and course in ways that make the contest far less relevant and winning would be a lot less meaningful than imagined. That is, I don't think that the contest will be as meaningful as Dalinar and company hope. The goals and methods Taravangian has will make the contest less decisive about the future than it might have been before the conclusion of RoW. It will be a big deal and will matter, of course, but its salience won't be the same as a single, epic battle for all the marbles. I think this primarily for narrative reasons: it's predictable and has been explicitly telegraphed for far too long to just happen and tie everything up, and could only be an anticlimax at this point. Contrast with the end of Wheel of Time, in which the nature of the conflict between Rand and the Dark One ended up being different than suggested through the first ~11 books or so, and the final battle was not simply a sword fight (no matter how epic). I have to say that no matter what happens I am excited. It's years of waiting leading to this moment and I don't think that Sanderson will let us down no matter how things play out-- even if it is just a big one-on-one fight in the end I expect it will not disappoint, despite my current feeling that such a fight would be lackluster. Stormlight has been big and well planned, and even an accurate and well-reasoned prediction of its conclusion on the forums could never capture how those predictions would play out on the page.

It's not stated outright, that I recall, but my feeling is that Lirin was right about Wistiow's intentions not just to pay to send Kaladin to Kharbranth but also to arrange for him to marry Laral. I think it was for the same reasons you describe, that it would have been good for Hearthstone (it was an amazing amenity that they had a surgeon of Lirin's caliber in a smaller, out-of-the-way village) but with the marriage to Laral it suggests something bigger. A darkeyed citizen, even one of the second nahn (possibly first, with the citylord's wealth to support it) marrying a lighteyes would be at least a minor scandal, and her position as almost-inheritor of the citylord position would make it an even bigger deal. I think that being with Laral would have been a pretty strong incentive to stay in Hearthstone, on top of which Kaladin seemed to truly like living there before Roshone came. My impression of the whole situation was that Lirin leveraged how much better his presence made Hearthstone with a relatively open-minded Wistiow to foster a concrete example of social change and make life better and fairer for everyone in the city. I don't think the right of travel was at the forefront of anyone's minds, though perhaps it should have been, but the idea seems to have been (I think, at any rate) that Kaladin would have been woven into Hearthstone pretty soundly by all of this. Had any of Kaladin's and Laral's children been lighteyed they might even have become the citylord or citylady (to be wed to some guy later), making Kaladin a higher status citizen than even the first nahn would permit.

We'll see! Cults are pretty good at enforcing conformity, and we've already got plenty of examples of Ferrings who are loyal employees of others, even those without any powers. But my theories on Discord's presence on Scadrial involve intense, unavoidable intra-factional conflict, so (if those are at all correct) then we won't see the discipline that the Terris might prefer. Though that same item would apply to anyone controlling the Harmonium. So perhaps a core organization controlling each that is pretty powerful, but then spies and defectors, possibly along with splinter resistance groups. At this point I'm more excited for Mistborn era 3 than I am for more Stormlight. But a lot of that is probably that the Stormlight story is narrowing while Scadrial's is expanding.

Harmonium is so rare and versatile I think that the natural goal of a group with a desire for control, as well as enough of an edge to make a play for it, will be to control whatever source of Harmonium exists as well. It's interesting to think about two axes of power on Scadrial, inborn Feruchemy vs. mechanical magic via a monopolizable resource, and I haven't given it enough thought to give it fair due in this context. My theories on Harmony transitioning to Discord and how that will be manifested on Scadrial haven't gotten much traction, but I really like how it would dovetail with groups trying to monopolize a more abstract, communal capacity (Feruchemy) versus groups trying to monopolize an external, concrete capacity (mechanical/Metallic Arts engineering and Ettmetal).

It's a reference to something Sanderson has said about his approach to writing, dubbed "Sanderson's First Law of Magic": The Shards are on screen pretty often at this point, have expansive knowledge of the present, have arguable degrees of practical knowledge of the future*, have limitless power**, but operate almost exclusively*** in ways that would make Rube Goldberg weep. And while I'm open to there being well thought out, internally consistent reasons that they don't act as directly as series protagonists do, if we don't know what they are then we're back to the reasons seeming like arbitrary decisions to service the plot rather than an application of strictly in-world, consistent rules. I think it's totally fair for people to be satisfied with the explanation so far, I'm just saying that I, personally, am not. We've also got some less consistent items, like Harmony's dual nature making it hard for him to act (a limitation which doesn't apply to other Shards), Ruin stirring the Ashmounts and directly controlling Inquisitors, Koloss, and Kandra, Autonomy acting pretty directly (Investing an avatar, then smiting her), Odium commanding armies directly and creating immortal servants, Cultivation meddling with people directly and indirectly. Even if they're not blasting magic directly at their opponents they are deeply involved in events and it's unclear why they stop interacting where they do. "There's a reason, probably" doesn't do it for me at this point in the Cosmere works given how often the Shards are personally on screen and directly involved in events. "Odium risks being vulnerable in some way" didn't stop him with Dominion, Devotion, Ambition, and Honor, so why is it stopping him now? I'm totally on board with yet-to-be-revealed mysteries defining the limitations but with the Shards being as present in the stories as they now are I think we're overdue for a bit more information on the specific reasons than we've gotten. "Poofing problems away" isn't the only mode of action that would be more direct than what they have demonstrated, and my questions are more around why what they're doing is the most they do, especially given how often they seem to fail in their goals. *I'm on record, probably often enough to annoy people here, as thinking that futuresight is wildly overrated in the Cosmere. But the general consensus on the 17th Shard is that it's awesome and amazing and effective **Limitless in the sense that it doesn't run out, and not quite limitless in that it can be used to achieve anything at any time in a one-step process. *** Complicated plans are fair game, especially given the capacities of Shards. But it's not the only way they act, and (as above) outside of Harmony it's not obvious why they are limited to that.

I think that they will want it, and will work hard to get it. The Terris in era 2 seem to really want cultural distinction, deference, and power. No matter what happens with the unsealed metalminds, the Terris are going to be in a great position to control their production. And that concentration may well lead to them becoming even more insular, like a family, cartel, political organization, and supremacist cult all at once. That's my guess, at any rate. I predict that the Terris of era 3 will be pretty far from Sazed's contemporaries in era 1 (excepting Rashek, whose pre-Ascension vision for the Terris may essentially come true).

I'm not really interested in getting into a deep a discussion on this, so I'll drop a few comments for consideration: there are many varieties of steel, which have different components, including other metals. I should have been clearer that it's not supported that Nightblood is made of Allomantic steel, which seems to be the same as carbon steel (the most common type), hence my use of the phrase "normal steel". There isn't any particular reason there could not be a variety of steel that incldues atium as one of its alloying elements. If you have a citation indicating that Nightblood is definitely, or probably, made from carbon steel then I will concede my atium theory forever. We also cannot avoid the implications of the answer to the following question: how many times did people handle or burn atium in Mistborn era 1? You're focusing on the wrong element, though I appreciate the chance to refine my comment. It's the returning of Investiture that is interesting, especially if it is the most concentrated type related to Awakening (pure black Investiture)-- it's not a marginal effect, like water sublimating from ice, it's like chunks of ice falling away from the main body. Nightblood utterly consumes the beings he cuts, draining their Investiture into himself and doing... something with the rest, and seems unable to actually use the Investiture. His action is often described as "eating" Investiture, but it doesn't seem to actually be consumed in any way, that we know of, just stored. The most obvious answer would be that he does consume Investiture, just at a rate that is irrelevant compared to how quickly he incorporates new Investiture into himself. That he also drains color from his wielder is undeniable, but unrelated to the phenomenon I was trying to point out. He is. As above, this is focusing on the wrong piece. Despite the constant loss, Nightblood's stock of Investiture never seems to decrease, though the obvious explanation is that he's got so much that we can't perceive degree of loss. It's one thing to say he's supersaturated, but Nightblood seems to be stably so, which isn't possible. Saying that a balloon is constantly filled with 200% of is maximum possible capacity is meaningless. I know, I know, magic, but the explanation simply doesn't fit. Reconcentration of Investiture across realms with Nightblood's physical form acting like a nozzle is as good as any other until we get more information. Saying that he is constantly filled beyond maximum capacity but could still draw in more is fundamentally internally inconsistent, at which point we can posit some magical mechanism that does it or simply accept that it doesn't make sense (with the information we currently have). Additionally, the WoB you posted is pretty clear that this effect (to the extent that the analogy to supersaturation holds) is not the only reason for what we're seeing. It's the other possible elements that I was trying to prompt discussion on, not to end discussion with a partial explanation of what we see.

The Terris in era 2 are a pretty strange group, at least within the compound. It's not clear that their plans, to re-consolidate the Terris bloodline, are even workable in the ways that they hope, though they seem to have been pretty successful in propagating a decent number of Ferrings from a source population that had no Feruchemists at all (as far as we know, but Ruin seems to have been pretty thorough). We don't even really know that the real-world consequences of a shallow gene pool apply on Scadrial as they would in reality, in the same sense that Rosharans rarely fall ill because they are inherently, magically disease-resistant. Maybe the Terris can juggle lineages based on matching cousins, indefinitely, without much risk. And even then, access to magic makes a lot of things possible which otherwise would not be, though, so who can say for certain? With a long enough timespan anything could happen-- all extant, real-life humans have a common ancestor. though I doubt Vwafendal is thinking on such a grand time scale. The insularity of era 2 Terrispeople is pretty interesting and was barely explored in the books. Since Feruchemy is kind of the linchpin of their cultural identity it would not shock me at all that they are using it to actively reinforce their society and culture, nor that they might be using it passively (even unknowingly) in some way. I mean, we don't even really know what Feruchemy is as a Metallic Art or a magic system in the Cosmere. It breaks the mold of "one Shard Invested on a planet -> one distinct magic system, with some emergent interactions between systems". I would be very interested to learn more about modern Terris culture, especially in contrast to the culturally distinct Southern Scadrian nations which seem similarly insular to me.

I had a bit of trouble with it at first, too, especially since it was my first Cosmere book. The number of characters, the shifts in location and point of view, plus the originality of the Roshar setting and its position in the greater Cosmere setting all made it kind of hard to get into. I think it's worthwhile and I hope you stick with it. I thought that Words of Radiance was pretty easy to read in comparison.

People ship everyone with everyone, really. I don't think that Shallan and Jasnah would be a very good match, though I can understand some of the appeal. It sounds like you're not a fan of the pairing?

I love the theory and have a couple of ideas: I think that the assumption that Nightblood was normal steel is not well established, nor even really suggested. The WoB that @Xiahida posted doesn't read, to me, as confirming that Nightblood was steel, only that Nightblood is probably an Allomantically viable metal like steel is, and that the properties Nightblood has would be different depending on the specific Allomantic metal used. I still like my theory that Nightblood as at least partly made of atium, so feel free to consider me biased in my interpretation of this item. I'm not sold on Nightblood functioning as a Hemalurgic spike in the sense we normally mean. The thousand breath item would seem to preclude it. If the only reason this point is considered is because we know that there is some special application of Ruin's Investiture (and you dislike my atium-alloy theory), I would lean towards suggesting that we still don't know how or why Ruin's influence is present. I am 100% sold on the idea that Shasharra's divine Breath was consumed by Nightblood and now persists in the sword. It does explain a lot, though not everything. The key items we don't know are how long the longest period without consuming Investiture was, nor the consequences of an already-Awakened sword's divine breath being starved. With 1,000 Breaths it would seem that Nightblood could go a long time without consuming more, but the base investment of those breaths to Awaken in the first place suggests to me that there would be some consequence to those Breaths being consumed. Things that the idea does explain include why Nightblood seems capable of some degree of change over time, in defiance of Vasher's certainty that Awakend objects cannot change in this way. I think that the "Nightblood is functionally a godmetal" is consistently overinterpreted. We don't have all that solid a grasp on what this would mean, and consequently it's unsurprising that people would attach all sorts of specific meanings to this. My interpretation (no better than anyone else's) is that Nightblood is so outrageously Invested that he pierces all three realms, not unlike how Dalinar's on-demand perpendicularities work. This would explain why Nightblood consumes everything upon even the smallest nick from his blade while Vivenna's sword only drains color. If you are destroyed by Nightblood, you are thoroughly and utterly destroyed in every way. Nightblood's smoke is black, which is the most potent color for Awakeners. If he were consuming color like Vivenna's sword he should drain color, not return it. I read this as him being a complete, localized Investiture cycle. The alternatives I can think of offhand are more strange and suggest that Nightblood is constantly overfull and constantly leaking excess Investiture. This is possible but seems like an odd fit to me, particularly after what we see in the Battle of Thaylen City (though I'm near to re-reading that section and may have forgotten details. If I see something that would alter this point I will come back and comment on it). Nightblood's Intent is badly messed up. He was created with a specific one, if open to interpretation, but his reliance on his wielder to define evil adds even more malleability to it. If he stole Shasharra's divine Breath he might also have incorporated whatever she Returned for. But stealing a divine Breath would be the opposite of how Endowment operates, which surely must interfere with a being fundamentally comprised on Endowment's power.

That makes perfect sense, I just didn't make the connection. It's been too long since I read the story to have forgotten her professional name! With that extra detail, I love the design!

There is a difference between something being justifiable, or even necessary, in-world and something being narratively good. Just because it makes sense for a character to think and plan a lot in advance of a big, high-stakes event doesn't mean that it makes sense for a novel to express every moment of that thinking and planning directly in prose. For example, in Bands of Mourning there is a section in which Wax and Wayne are planning their method of infiltrating the Set's warehouse and they run through a few options, ultimately settling on "spoiled tomato". It was appropriate for them to plan carefully, and a reasonable amount of time was spent showing that as well as their resources, goals, concerns, etc. If the book had spent two chapters just on the planning and nothing else really advanced, I think that the story would have been worse for it, not better, even though the plan would remain very important. Everyone likes different amounts of reflection, exposition, introspection, and action from stories. If the relative levels of each are not to your preference in some given work that's OK, but that doesn't make a book bad. My key criterion is whether or not the content advances whatever it's doing: lots of planning, OK, but the plans need to develop along the way-- not just an extended conversation where options are discussed. Lots of action? OK, but it needs to be in service of the greater plot, not just a string of random street brawls with nobodies. Sanderson's recent works have, for me, tilted too hard to the side of exposition: they spend too many words filling in tables in the ars arcanum without accompanying developments for characters and plots. That makes me look askance at sections of recent releases that seem to be dragging on a bit, even when it's not the Bombadil-exposition-dump sort of content. So if characters need to do a lot of planning for something, fine, but anything expressed on the page should be given extra consideration to avoid even the suggestion of stalling or filler. A good portion of my patience and tolerance have already been tapped without being restored, and so there is less of both available going forward. Maybe Wind and Truth will totally refill them, though! Who knows? As far as Shards being unable to act directly... I am receptive to the idea that there is some in-plot reason for it, fine. But we are in, or at least pretty near to, territory that is violating the spirit of Sanderson's first law of magic. After Oathbringer Shards are too present, too often, and their knowledge and powers too expansive for them to not bring solutions to problems with them. It seems to me to be less "Gandalf has lots of power, but for a variety of reasons can't just use it, and consequently we don't see him use much magic outside of a couple of huge, decisive moments" and much more "well, if the giant eagles just flew them to their destination then there wouldn't be a story". I appreciate that a lot of details are being held back intentionally for future releases. That's fine, but if current releases are thinner on content just so that later releases might not be it becomes more questionable. If connecting plot points requires gaps that we just accept, and which will be filled in later in (possibly unrelated) releases, I think it's harder to argue that the current releases aren't suffering for that decision-- we just have to accept arbitrary features of the plot and setting because explaining them later might be cooler than explaining them now? There was more mystery about the Cosmere when Way of Kings and Words of Radiance were released than there is now, but I (personally) feel that those books stood better on their own and had superior pacing and narrative elegance than Oathbringer or Rhythm of War. All good books, but I feel like I'm getting less out of each subsequent Cosmere release, and the above points are, I suspect, a big part of why.

I love the "Shadows for Silence" piece, the font looks really cool and gives the right dangerous/forbidden vibe for the story. The animal head looks great but doesn't strike me as fitting with the story at all, which makes its prominence in the center of the design kind of disjointed for me. I'm not sure what image would fit better and be recognizable. Maybe a shade, or one of the tarred sacks? They don't have the same punch as roaring animal though. As a metal band shirt I think it looks awesome top to bottom!

I definitely felt the first piece myself, it was a very poignant moment and brutally disappointing. I felt like it was an almost Kaladin-level character development arc, without even the POV chapters Kaladin had, and I really was hoping for success. I have a different read on Kaladin's reactions to the event but I can certainly respect your view that the consequences to him make Moash irredeemable.

Why would anyone hate you for reporting something that happens so explicitly in the book? As for the specific opinion in the spoiler tag, could you elaborate on why that particular victim is so decisive for you? I'm just curious why that one provokes such a strong reaction for you.

I'm still undecided about the mode of interaction between Shards. It seems unlikely, or at least very rare, for them to fight each other directly (like Dragonball Z characters blasting beams at each other). But I wonder if it's more like in American Gods, where the conflict among divinities has a "real" element which mortals can't really perceive but it plays out on a mortal stage in things like highway overpass collapses or train derailments. Ruin seems to have been the most directly active, personally controlling Inquisitors, Kandra, and Koloss at times and always directing them strategically. Autonomy we know less about, working through agents for a while but personally Investing Telsyn while sending an army with mysterious properties, but she's such an odd one out among Shards I have no idea if that's representative of others. Harmony almost cannot act directly (or so he tells us), and must act through agents for most things. I really hope we learn more in Wind and Truth about how Odium struck at Ambition, Dominion, Devotion, and Honor. I'm not counting on it, though.

I don't have time to hunt down the quote right now (and other posters will probably supply it before I have a chance). But as for the "snow forts" quote, that's a line stated by Rock, and his Alethi is consistently and conspicuously imperfect. This is another in a very long line of his improper (but still understandable) grammar. By the rules of English grammar it should be "children", but because Rock often doesn't get his Alethi grammar right it's "correct" for his dialogue to be grammatically incorrect.

That's not quite what I was trying to get at. Doing evil things "just because you can" isn't really a motivation with any depth, and that's an issue that is likely to run into problems when the evilness absolutely requires in-world justifications and connections due to the spren aspect. A psychotic, purposeless mass murderer is going to have trouble right from the first oath ("life before death", after all), and that sort of thing will need to be addressed or explicitly ignored. Explicitly ignoring it unwinds a lot of the details of the Stormlight setting (as we understand it so far, at least). It's great for a GM not to railroad players, and a spren won't railroad a player character, but straying from the oaths weakens the Nahel bond and certainly can leave a character without any surgebinding powers. If you want to homebrew setting details to avoid that it's obviously an option, but at that point you're likely just changing details about what Radiants are, in which case you don't need to worry about the question in the OP: the player plays an evil character without any restrictions because the GM declares that that works in-setting, and any in-setting justification (or lack of one) doesn't matter. It's always reasonable to expect player characters to have some sort of code or system of morality that they follow and which guides their actions in-game, as opposed to random or arbitrary behaviors. That can be ignored, usually at a cost of depth to the character, setting, and/or game. But the spren piece kind of demands that it not be ignored, either with ethics-based oaths or with deep self-awareness (in the case of Lightweavers). If you really want to ignore that I think it would be much easier to have a character be a surgebinder but not a Radiant. That angle would allow for some really interesting interactions with the setting and with Radiants without needing to undermine fundamental details about what Radiants are and how their powers work.

I also checked last night and, while I originally thought I'd recalled someone cursing using "rust", I'm now thinking I must have been mistaken. I suspect that I was thinking of an Idrian idiom and then transposed it onto knowledge that certain Scadrians are on Roshar. Maybe I'll stumble across something else as I finish my re-read ahead of Wind and Truth's release, and if so I'll update this.

Well, that is enough to have access to the details that make this less of a spoiler. But I'll spoiler tag it, just in case: In any case it is real and you aren't crazy.

Welcome to the Shard! Good eye for the detail. This question is answerable, but I want to be careful of spoilers. Which Cosmere books have you read so far? If you don't want to post it here, an introduction in the "Introduce Yourself" section of the forum is a good place to do it.

There isn't anything inherently good (in a moral sense) about Radiants, generally. For example, Nale murders via pretext, Lift steals constantly, Shallan deceives others all the time, Malata transported an invading enemy army to Urithiru, etc. The biggest in-universe issue will be thinking of a way the Radiant spren would be on board with the character's actions. I don't think that that would be such a big challenge, depending on the spren. The next issue is: what is evil (or whatever mode of behavior you want the character to have), and why does the character engage in it? Why would they not do "good" things, nor pursue "good" objectives? The biggest overall issue is a meta concern: does the game you're playing have a place for an evil player character? Many do not, or require elaborate approaches to accommodate one. Evil-as-indiscriminate-mass-murder is just not going to fit into most games, and a character whose only approach to a situation is to do "evil", anti-social things is often not one that is fun for other people to play with. But sometimes thinking about the setting and general plot helps me to flesh out details for a character that I might have trouble figuring out if I started from a character-specific place.

Interesting ideas! I think that they would dovetail nicely with Kelsier's growing suspicion of Harmony. And I can't help but feel that Kelsier is pretty aligned, personality- and goal-wise, with Autonomy in the first place. His continued presence on Scadrial might promote Autonomy's interests regardless of whether or not he chooses to support her in any explicit way. But at the same time I wonder how much increased fractiousness would impede Discord and help other Shards. If fractiousness is Discord's primary thing, could it be effectively turned against him? It would be like trying to defeat Honor by keeping your promises, to defeat Cultivation by growing and developing things, to defeat Odium by hating things, or to defeat Endowment by giving things away. Not that strife necessarily benefits Discord. But my thinking is that Autonomy "wins" by her operational definition of autonomy becoming more prominent on Scadrial, while just making people and groups less harmonious there is playing Discord's game on Discord's turf, so to speak. I could definitely imagine an angle in which Hemalurgy becomes prized so that individuals can become more independent and less susceptible to influence or control by others (except Autonomy herself, but that core contradiction is pretty explicitly a part of her representation in the books). I've been unclear about how Shard-to-Shard conflict actually plays out, and the events of Lost Metal have really upended my thinking there. Do you think that conventional/mundane operations (like military invasion or fomenting revolutions) are the primary, or most effective, mode of action when Shards fight one another?