Returned

We don't know enough about them to say much in the general case, and in some practical senses they may well work as you suggest here. If they can't be tapped, for example, then application of the ironminds on Malwish ships becomes very different and are a depletable resource on voyages. But that doesn't mean that the Malwish can't have dedicated Metalborn who deal with the excess weight in some sort of centralized facility. That the Bands could do it all but guarantees that medallions could also do it (theoretically, assuming that the medallions and Bands work according to the same principles), though there are obviously substantial technical hurdles separating the two already. However, we do have a WoB indicating that medallions grant the ability to store attributes in a metalmind other than the relevant portion of the medallion itself. This seems to suggest that a medallion allowing storage of an attribute would allow storage of that attribute in an appropriate metalmind of another medallion: We also do see people tapping an attribute and also storing it, so in at least some cases the Feruchemical ability must be bidirectional (storable and tappable, both): I really wish we knew, specifically, why the heat medallions at the end of BoM couldn't be refilled. It's a puzzle, especially when compared with some of the Set's similar technology. My current suspicion revolves around Identity of the medallion itself, but suspicion is all it's going to be for a while I did not forget about Straff but I'm not sure this is the argument you are thinking. By "breeding program" I presumed you meant increasing the proportion of Metalborn among the Malwish by selectively combining lines of descent, and that's the part that we haven't seen work despite at least some efforts to do so. I'm not sure what you mean to indicate with a "decent clip" of Allomancer production, given that we don't have much information on how many existed across generations; if the number of Allomancers per X population increased or stayed the same that would be one thing, but if it dipped it would be exactly the opposite. We have zero evidence (that I recall, at least) that two Metalborn are more likely to produce Metalborn children than one Metalborn and one normal parent. We know (anecdotally and without citation, but at least from a character in-text) that Allomancy fades pretty quickly outside of strictly noble lineages. From what we've seen it appears that Allomancy and Feruchemy become less pronounced in populations over time absent specific events to offset that (the Lerasium beads for Rashek's friends, Sazed making Spook Mistborn, etc.). We don't know anything about the natural Mistings, maybe that's a baseline rate among Scadrians that hasn't been (can't be?) breached. But in any case it's not as easy as "get a Metalborn parent in the mix" when skaa Allomancers' powers dwindle so quickly across generations. Maybe the Malwish are just stuck with the baseline rate of natural Allomancers and can't alter it via matchmaking-- we don't even know if natural Allomancy is heritable. The unifying trait of consistently heritable Allomancy on Scadrial is Rashek's altering of people into nobles and skaa, with only the nobles getting "extra" access to Allomancy. Given their dependence on medallions to live it's possible, perhaps likely, that the Malwish probably have about as large a population at any given time as they can support. And if their population is limited by the medallions available then arbitrarily expanding the population generation after generation is a pretty difficult strategy to pursue, especially given that even among the much more Metalborn-rich Northerners Allomancy is pretty rare. If an approach that is "more children lead to more of the useful medallions" doesn't pay off pretty quickly you'd have some problems. Though of course it's possible that the limiting factors on Southern populations are not related to the number of medallions available, in which case that pressure would be far less intense. And all of that leaves aside other issues (practical, cultural, or social) which a breeding plan could introduce.

Interesting angle, as Kelsier was involved in the development of Spook's book, was the Sovereign to the Malwish, and was already dependent on Hemalurgy when he visited the South. I wonder how much the Malwish need Metalborn powers outside of what the medallions grant at this point in the story. It seems like once you have a handful of the key unsealed metalminds you'd be able to keep producing them without necessarily having fresh Ferrings or Mistings born every few years or needing more Hemalurgic spikes than they already have, even if having Metalborn or Hemalurgists makes the process easier or better in some way. We know so little about how those metalminds are produced I wouldn't feel like betting too much on it, but the fact is that there seems to be a pretty sizeable population in the South that depends on those medallions and so it seems unlikely that they are teetering at the edge of disaster in terms of access to them. Maybe they've been limiting their population growth to what their medallion supply can support? As to the breeding programs and caste restrictions, Sanderson already did that and it was not really effective so I'm not sure I'd sign on to such things making inescapable sense. The time period of the first three Mistborn books had caste restrictions (routinely violated) and at least ad hoc breeding programs related to keeping Allomancy in family lines. It worked to slow the dissipation of Allomancy somewhat but that appears to be as good as it got. The breeding program for the Terris (as the Keepers approached it) may have worked in the manner you're describing though, so maybe there is some hope for it (if their initial stock of Metalborn is adequate). Otherwise the goal of "more and stronger Allomancers/Feruchemists" via selective breeding has been a consistent failure over centuries of in-book time, and coming/already present technological advances seem more promising in that regard while also being much easier and faster to undertake.

Yes, it is possible (especially if you're expansive with your definitions of "child" and "have"). It's not impossible that such a child would have Shard-esque powers, though it's not clear how that would work as it has never happened. Here are a couple of relevant WoBs that I'm aware of:

I agree, though I think that regular people will not have much access to bazaars in the Cognitive Realm (save for the black market, which will definitely exist). I wonder how effectively this could be accomplished... a trade in Breaths is probably not stoppable, but the ability to manufacture unkeyed metalminds seems ripe for centralized control. And Hemalurgy will upset everything anyways. The future of the Cosmere is conflict, between worlds, groups, and Shards, and I think that as a part of the conflicts those with the ability to do so will lock down access to Investiture manifestations as thoroughly as they can. Raw Investiture, like jars of Dor, will probably have a thriving trade everywhere. Within-system commerce might be common (like Scadrians having access to a wide variety of unkeyed metalminds). But I feel like Worldhoppers will deal with systems that discourage accumulating a variety of powers.

When storing weight in iron your bodily fluids don't suddenly boil away through your eyes and mucus membranes nor burst your capillaries despite their suddenly reduced density while retaining equivalent volume. That's never explicitly narrated but must be true based on when we've seen people store large amounts of their weight. To the extent that physical processes in the brain are relevant to physical speed, we really don't have any reason to think that they aren't also slowed during storage (though, as ever, magic can cover any piece of discontinuity at any point). In any case you're ignoring the distinction that I drew in my post; I did not suggest that F-steel speeds up "thinking", only that it affects physical processes (including in the brain) which are relevant to physical movement. It's not even about survival (though that is obviously important), it's about ability to use the magic at all. Choosing to grab an object requires neurochemical and electrical activity, including assessing when the object is in reach, stopping your arm from continuing to move, closing your hand around it, receiving sensory input that you're touching it, that sort of thing. The brain is and must be involved because that's how moving your body works. We have some reason to think that people tapping F-steel are not numb, for example, even though the sensation of touch is a process that runs through the brain. When Bleeder killed targets in a whole room full of people she had the ability to see them, identify them, choose one to target, aim the gun or position the knife, kill them, and then move on to the next. Reflexes alone can't account for all of that, even if reflexes themselves were not physical processes which run through the brain (which they are and do). Unless a Steelrunner needs to waste their speed while waiting for their minds to catch up to physical circumstances around them (which could be the case), or they always pulse their tapping of speed without any narration to that effect (also possible) they must have some capacity to process information more quickly than if they weren't tapping at all. Otherwise utilizing their speed would not allow for anything like normal physical function even though we have seen examples of exactly that. Let's try an example: you're a Feruchemist at bat in a baseball game. In case A, the pitcher throws the ball and you tap F-zinc. Your mind races and you can apprehend the spin of the ball, its trajectory, speed, and any other characteristics of the pitch that you need in order to understand where the ball will be when you could hit it, how the bat should be positioned, the angle and timing of the swing, and so on. But even though your thinking is quick enough to do all of that in an instant you cannot physically move the bat where it needs to be any more quickly than you normally could. You may not be able to hit the ball despite your thorough knowledge of its path, even though the physical components of thought may be sped up to do the thinking (with magic there will always be some breakdown of realistic mechanisms). In case B, the pitcher throws the ball and you tap F-steel. You cannot make any detailed observations nor extrapolations of the ball's path because your thinking is not sped up, but you could position yourself such that you could hit the ball from any angle at any time. Or, at any rate, it seems to me that that is something F-steel would allow. To suggest that there is no element of perception or information processing which is sped up along with your body is to say that this is untrue, and that a Feruchemist could not be more successful in hitting the ball when tapping steel than at any other time. Saying "reflexes" doesn't seem to me to cover this, as in real life a normal-speed batter could swing, decline to swing, try to bunt, etc. Another example: you are a Feruchemist evaluating calculus equations. You tap zinc and look at an equation. The relevant relationships between items in the equation become more clear to you and you can run through any necessary calculations and algebraic manipulations required in a flash, even potentially intuiting details you didn't already know. But you can't use any of that sped-up thinking to write down the results or any intermediate steps any more quickly, even though similar neurochemical processes must be happening more quickly than normal in your brain to allow the thoughts (or the magic directly covers for them). The zinc can save you time in solving the equation, but not in writing the solution down. You then release zinc and look at another equation, tapping steel. You can write down anything you like at incredible speed (writing with a pen is a considered, deliberate action and not a reflex) and with your normal penmanship, but you cannot solve the equation any more quickly than you could if not tapping steel. The steel can save you time in writing down the solution, but cannot save you time in figuring the solution out. The position that you have advanced would seem to preclude a Steelrunner from being able to write at all.

I've imagined the difference between F-steel and F-zinc to be primarily about processes, plus a bit of the "necessary secondary power" aspect of superhuman abilities. The former piece, about processes, is that physical processes should all be sped up by the F-steel, including things like neurochemical signaling. Your nervous system and brain work faster in a physical context but other processes aren't affected. So you don't think faster (in the abstract sense that you do not come up with ideas or process them more quickly), but the processes that relate to movement are sped up appropriately to suit your physical speed: you can see and respond to things around you, can choose to stop moving and immediately do so, etc. But you don't "think" faster, nor do physical processes unrelated to movement occur and more quickly (for example, your wounds shouldn't heal more quickly while tapping F-steel). F-zinc seems to speed up the rate at which you come up with ideas and increases your ability to recall and arrange ideas together in ways that lead to what you want. The "necessary secondary power" piece is one that is already confirmed multiple times in text and out. In the same way that tapping F-iron magically makes the body strong enough to endure its own increased weight, F-steel grants enough secondary capability to make the physical speed useful. If brain activity related to controlling your body weren't commensurately increased you would have a hard time using the speed to much effect. You wouldn't be able to find your footing while running quickly, would have disconnected, spastic, individual movements, and similar. We see clearly in the books that these are not the case. What F-zinc speeds up is not physical processes, except to the extent that such processes are necessary to accomplish what zinc does grant.

It's also worth noting that a lot of time has passed between the end of Warbreaker and RoW, so it's likely that Vivenna is a much more skilled Awakener than before, and that the "cloth that is an extension of my body" genre of Commands is one that Vasher was actively refining before he and Vivenna were especially close. The "act as my hands and grip what I must" type of Command is pretty abstract and could cover a lot of situations, including those unforseen by the Awakener, without needing time and presence of mind to Awaken the clothing in a flash during the heat of battle. What we see of Vasher's cloak and, separately, his tassels suggests to me that the best use of Awakened clothing in a fight is a flexible Command related to parrying and entangling opponents. Years of additional practice and refinement would, I expect, yield a pretty incredible and responsive style of combat impossible without an Awakened garment. I imagine the surface of the cloak rippling and stiffening to turn blows aside or bleed off their momentum, tripping or disarming or blinding enemies, actively hiding the position and motion of Vivenna's sword, and allowing her to resist Invested attacks/effects at a minimum. And I think that potential applications go beyond those, or anything we've yet seen or imagined.

I wouldn't bother nerfing it. It's powerful, as is most Metallic Arts magic, that's kind of the point. The balance for Feruchemy is already present anyways: storing a useful amount of an attribute, as most people seem to operationally define on 17th Shard, takes a long time and is risky while being done. Storing so small an amount that you aren't in active danger while doing so doesn't yield much of the attribute to be used later, and storing a lot at once leaves you vulnerable while also not storing much operational time/excess amount of the attribute. What we see of Feruchemy actually happening in the books tends to represent weeks of intensive storage, at minimum, drained away in minutes at most and often far less time than that. But discussions here always seem to assume that storage is easy and therefore that large amounts of attributes will always be available, even though what seems to happen is you get one high-leverage Feruchemical application event per month at best. How much time separates the most dramatic uses of Wax's stored weight? How long does Bleeder's stored speed last her, and is there always enough for her to accomplish her goals? How often does Sazed get to use his super speed, and how often does it actually resolve his issues? Steelrunners seem to drain their speed very quickly while tapping it. Expertise in applying it and experience working with the magic will grant a lot of finesse (my favorite example is always Ham's expertly judicious use of Allomantic pewter), but that's not really the typical Steelrunner case. I suppose we could talk about what the optimal approach would be to reliably have X amount of speed available to suit different use cases and see where that discussion leads but I don't think that that will lead to a conclusion that nerfing is necessary. Steel Feruchemy more versatile for sure, but is it generally more dangerous than a Coinshot tossing nails and ball bearings around them and then Pushing? Not necessarily by a lot. Summary: Steelrunning is amazingly powerful if you have enough stored speed to successfully address some immediate goal to which physical speed is relevant, but because you generally won't have enough stored you will really have to be judicious in choosing which goals get the resource allocated to them. That means you don't get to use ultra-deluxe-super speed very often, and it's already not a guarantee of success when you do. Steelrunning is already limited, not in what it can accomplish, but in how often you get to use it and how long each use can be.

I've had books with issues like you describe (not Sanderson novels), and more with other issues related to printing (especially "special, exclusive editions" for retailers like Barnes & Noble). I've had books with several pages completely black, pages or whole chapters missing, and persistent obvious typos (those clearly due to errors in optical character recognition). I assume you've confirmed that the pages are out of order or missing, as opposed to just being mis-numbered. If so, it sounds like there is a problem with the print run, in which case it is likely that every copy from that print run is going to have the same issues. Be prepared for the possibility that, until a new run is printed, there won't be any "good copies" of that edition; it's possible but not guaranteed that there are a handful of good copies out there mixed in with the run. If it is the case that there are batches of correctly compiled copies floating around out there I fear you'll have to manually check a book to see if you've found one or not. I think that it is unlikely someone in a book warehouse is going to do it on your behalf. The most a seller can really do is give you a refund-- they cannot provide a copy without the problems if no such copy exists, though they are responsible for selling you what you actually want (a correctly compiled book) and so a refund is in order because you got a defective product. The publisher/owner of the IP can't necessarily do anything for you either, as they are not necessarily the printer (though they may want to speak to the printer about it) and did not make the error in printing (unless they are or own the printer), nor did they decide to distribute the problematic copies. The steps you've already taken are the right ones, as far as I am aware. It's too bad Dragonsteel isn't willing (or perhaps able) to make it right. B&N probably has access to other editions or print runs, but staff at the store might not have access to the information to identify which one might lead to a good copy to order for you from one of their warehouses. If all you want is a copy with the right pages in the right order (a pretty reasonable ask!) and aren't going to be able to physically review the copy you're considering buying, then my advice is to look for other editions or different print runs. Editions are usually not so hard to check, as the front matter of the book will list the publication date, but print runs you might need to contact the publisher and/or printer about. Good luck, I hope you are able to track down a satisfactory copy and/or that the wait for a new print run isn't too long.

Also a potential item of interest: you would need an ironmind large enough to store a sufficient amount of your mass during your effort to run across the surface of the water, and you cannot magically alter the weight of that item. Depending on the amount of time you want to spend not sinking and the amount of mass you need to shed, the weight of the ironmind could potentially undermine the whole effort. Though the examples we've seen suggest to me that you can probably use a pretty small amount of iron to store sufficient mass. I bet you could "pulse" your mass so that you have an appropriately small amount while descending towards the water's surface, stop storing weight to allow good-enough running motion of legs, store again for contact with the water's surface, and then stop storing once more to overcome the air's resistance as you move forward. It seems like a pretty precise operation, though, and I feel like you'd steadily lose velocity as you moved forward and wouldn't be able to recover much of it.

Ah, I see now. In that case I think I'd say the point of no return is the earliest time he let his pain and guilt flow over to Odium. I don't recall exactly when that is (we may not even know, it could be subtler than when Odium flatly makes the offer). Denying his responsibility for his actions and their consequences is the key thing that doesn't fit with Radiance at all, so giving in to that is what shuts him off from the image. Maybe. I'd wager that the visions are related in the sense that they interact with Fortune (that seems to be key to the mechanism that makes them work). I don't think that the past-looking element of malatium fits with Renarin's powers, though. His powers tap the future and I don't think we've ever seen them deal with the past. That fits with what we see of Adolin in the paddock: it's an aspirational vision, and the healing nudges him towards realizing that vision. I suppose we can't rule out that it worked differently for Moash, as we know very little of Truthwatchers' powers, but it seems to me that reaching into the past would be novel and limited to this singular instance so far. The implications would be interesting if the Truthwatcher healing did work that way on Moash and differently for others, though. I don't think that Kaladin's forgiveness would matter directly to Moash's Radiance progression. It's too external, and Moash needs to deal with himself to progress, not collect acceptance from others. People don't have to forgive Dalinar for his past, for example, in order for him to progress. Though I do think that Kaladin's judgement is important to Moash and his view of his own moral condition I don't think that it can be the linchpin for his potential to be better. Accepting that he won't/can't be forgiven for what he has done might be one of the things a better Moash has to accept living with. As to Kaladin, I'm torn. Allowing Elhokar to be assassinated obviously feels wrong, certainly given the scope of events in WoR. But Kaladin kills an awful lot of people that can't protect themselves from him, and Syl can't explain to him why that's acceptable, nor can she rule out a Radiant on the other side killing the people Kaladin wants to protect and protecting the people Kaladin tries to kill. A Skybreaker probably couldn't countenance an extralegal assassination as part of a coup either (what legal forms would you need to have filed for that, I wonder?). And Syl does mention that Kaladin has made two promises as the heart of his bond weakening. I think that the issue in this case isn't some objective standard that says killing in some situation is never OK but rather that Kaladin doesn't really believe that killing Elhokar is going to protect people, as he flirts with trying to persuade himself is true. His real reason was that he found Elhokar distasteful and a symbol of the worst elements of injustice in the society which had so badly abused him-- that he didn't matter except as an object of what Kaladin wanted and so it would be OK to sacrifice him just like a petty officer sacrificed Tien. Hence the perspective suggestion I offered up. I think that if Kaladin were in the field and had a chance to personally kill a Fused commander via a method like those proposed to kill Elhokar, and thereby avert a battle that would get lots of humans and Singers killed, he would be able to do it and maintain his bond. Whom it's acceptable to kill, and probably under what circumstances, are issues that Kaladin has been dealing with and he's been moving away from the idea that it's acceptable at all. The difference must lie in what Kaladin thinks is right, as per the words of his second Oath. But in WoR he's much freer with violence and I think that he (or maybe I should say "a Radiant with the appropriate perspective") would be able to kill Elhokar, or allow him to be killed.

The image Renarin made isn't a gold shadow or malatium shadow, so it's not like Vin seeing the happy Terrisman someone might have been. Renarin's projections (Lightweavings, properly?) show the best possible version of their subjects, probably mediated by Renarin's perceptions or ideas. That's what happened to Adolin in the paddock. So the image of Moash isn't what an alternate path through life might have made him but rather is the best version of him that could exist. I don't think that there is a point of no return in any mechanical sense (like as might relate to a Radiant bond). The whole concept of Radiance is of improvement, that it's never too late to be a better person than you were. The most important step a person can take is the next one. The problem with Moash isn't that he made the wrong choice at some key point in the flow of events on Roshar, it's that he keeps making the wrong choices in ways that indulge and reinforce the personal feelings that have broken him (or that he perceives that way, I guess). It's not even so much the wrong choices themselves. For example, had Kaladin's genuine perspective been different he might have been compelled to kill Elhokar. But his uncertainty about what the right thing to do was, and even more his struggle to examine his options and himself to figure out what was right, led him to commit to mutually exclusive, opposed tasks at the same time. He knew that at least one thing he was doing was a betrayal of his beliefs and oaths, which cost him dearly. But when he had reflected enough to understand what was right (from his perspective and congruent with his character) he became more Radiant than ever. Moash can't face what it would mean for the right choices to actually be right, in the sense that he obviously should choose them for moral/practical/whatever reasons, so he keeps making decisions that he can't really justify and guarantees that he cannot grow as a person in the way Radiance provides. It's telling that he needs Odium's constant, numbing influence while other bad people (like the Sadeases, Mr. and Mrs.) never did. Moash hasn't reached a point of no return and, until his own permanent death, never will. He chooses, every day, to be who and what he is. Vyre is a dead end, but not something that Moash cannot turn away from.

We should also be clear about what we mean when we make a statement like "hide from a Shard". I presume that we're talking about Shards' near-omniscience and directly perceiving the Smoker. We already know that that might work (a coppercloud protects against magical perception of magical activity), though the scales of power involved make it hard to judge without an example. The best analogue I can think of is Vin trying to control Marsh in HoA: the type of activity is the same (control a Hemalurgic construct) and the mechanism is the same (use emotional Allomancy), but Ruin is vastly more powerful than Vin and so her effort hits a brick wall. I imagine a coppercloud will have a similar issue, and even then I think that the hiding effect is more about obscuring magical activity than your person, spiritweb, cognitive representation, etc. I mean, anyone can see a Smoker just by looking at them. We know that Shards can pay more or less attention to specific places, though their capacities are so great compared to a human's that a little bit of a Shard's attention can go a long way. But a Shard that's intentionally focusing on you is going to be difficult to hide from. Hiding inside of aluminum is probably a workable method (at least it might work), but a Shard isn't limited to using only its own senses. It would be easy to send a minion, Sliver, Splinter, or other avatar to look around with all kinds of enhancements that aren't inherently magical.

Thank you, I'd forgotten that detail. In that case something must be fundamentally different about the heritability of Allomancy post-Catacendre. Spook was a full Mistborn, and only Mistings came from his line over 300 years? There don't even seem to be more of them than in the Final Empire. Either that or Mistborn became much more discreet than in Scadrial's past. At more than triple that time frame Allomancers were still producing Mistborn in Rashek's time, even with just one side of the family line having Allomancy in it anywhere near a given Allomancer (a la Vin).

Maybe there's some alteration by grandness/Investiture of spren? I think that your assessment of intelligence relating to complexity in spren behavior is right, but the grander spren also seem to have more interactions with Investiture or have more of it themselves. We know that spren can cause the things they represent to manifest via fabrial, maybe a great enough spren can do something similar without mechanical assistance? I like the idea that they're too big to be simple expressions of ideas. They're more complex, like the Vessel-less masses of Investiture gaining their own sentience we hear about so often. They were ideas, but now they're more "grown up" and have agency and identity (Identity?) of their own beyond that. Even if they retain their "cognitive expressions of ideas" nature (assuming they had that in the first place), perhaps they could be more complex or subtly nuanced ideas. Feasting or pleasure becomes gluttonous, hedonistic partying for Ashertmarn, something like curiousity becomes hollow, destructive envy for Re-Shephir, or something like that. Still a bit of a reach, and presumes a lot about their nature that's not properly in evidence. He is that, true, but his spren-nature can't be quite so bound up in it as humans broadly don't even know that Honor is dead. As a spren his nature should still be influenced by conceptions of him (though maybe less so given his grandness?), and a good portion of his divinity is the portion of Honor that he absorbed. Unless I'm missing a WoB (and I may be, I assume someone will correct me shortly if so), the Stormfather isn't Honor's cognitive shadow in the same sense that Thaidakar is Kelsier's, he's basically Honor's cognitive shadow. That distinction (again, if it holds up) might matter greatly: In any case, I don't think there is much unclarity about cognitive shadows needing a good mass of Investiture, which greater spren have by nature. The Nightwatcher is also quite powerful (the granting of boons and curses as the Old Magic), well beyond what most spren are capable of, and she certainly hasn't absorbed most of a Shard to become so. I'm interested to know if the differences between the Stormfather and Nightwatcher are categorical (Tanvast's death leading to the Stormfather picking up something not otherwise available) or more a matter of degree (the Stormfather has more Investiture than the Nightwatcher, and the manner by which he obtained it is less important). Maybe we'll learn more in December...

Unless you have something like a WoB on this I think you may be overreaching. Not necessarily wrong, but beyond what the evidence dictates. Just because they don't "seem to" represent ideas that are easy for you to come up with doesn't mean that your imagination sets the boundaries for what is true about the characters. The Stormfather is humans' conception of storms and the divine (or so he says, at any rate) in the same way that windspren are humans' (well, and probably Singers') conception of wind. If not for the Stormfather's description of himself I doubt that we'd map those qualities to him as his being the spren of those ideas. It's probably not what he always was, either-- before Tanavast died the divinity angle probably wasn't there. But he's a spren of divinity now, even if he's not a divinityspren in the same sense that a spren of wind is a windspren. It's trivial to imagine that, say, Ashertmarn is some conception of sensual pleasure, twisted to become gluttonous revelry to the exclusion of everything else. The lack of knowledge of what the Unmade were before their unmaking should lead us to be less confident and more open-minded about their nature and properties, not more confident and closed-minded. We don't really know what greatspren are, exactly, and knowing that they aren't exactly the same as lesser spren doesn't give us a whole lot of precise information countering that.

I wonder if Sanderson will ever give fuller detail around the heritable components of his magic. I think that he might not, since it would be complicated, not really add to the stories, is subject to divine action, and may not apply outside of Scadrial anyways. A lot of traits are really complicated, involving many genes and environmental factors, and are hard to select for through breeding alone, especially in animals that have complex contexts for expressing (or even evaluating) those traits and for reproducing. The famous example is that it's hard to promote intelligence (however you want to define that) in humans. Two geniuses aren't all that likely to produce a similarly remarkable child, two above-average people can produce a child of average (or less) intelligence as easily as an above-average one, etc. Intelligence, even if you go to the trouble of defining it carefully, is just a description of a really complicated outcome in a way that simpler traits, like eye color, are not. On the other hand, I've read about raccoon populations near cities becoming more intelligent over generations as efforts to keep them out of food sources (like garbage cans) advance while limiting their more natural food options, providing a strong selection pressure favoring individuals that can overcome the obstacles humans devise. The difficulty in producing more Metalborn makes the trait seem like a more complex one, genetically, as demonstrated by noble lineage and matchmaking or Straff's efforts with his mistresses. But breeding alone doesn't seem to have overcome the dilution of magical power among Scadrians, and there isn't any other factor to counter that (except, maybe, the Terris matchmaking approach). I'm especially interested in the post-Catacendre situation. In the Final Empire we were still getting Mistborn, if infrequently, even a thousand years after the first were made via Lerasium (plus Rashek's children). But after the Catacendre, even though Spook was directly Mistborn-ified by Sazed, we don't know of any being born across a much shorter three hundred years. The feeling I get from era 2 dialogue is that Spook was the last known Mistborn in history. Unless Spook had no children (which could be the case) it's hard to believe that there wasn't even one more born even just from surviving lineages. Maybe Sazed fiddled with things to that end?

The short answer is yes you can, and no it doesn't (necessarily) increase the risk of inbreeding. What's happening, based on how closely Sanderson has been hewing to "realistic" heritable traits, is that the "magic" gene among Feruchemists has become so rare that it doesn't manifest very often: you get Ferrings, at most, and even then only rarely. "Condensing bloodlines" means encouraging people who are Ferrings, or who have very close relatives that are Ferrings, to reproduce together so that whatever "magic" gene is responsible for Feruchemy becomes more commonly represented in that family line: it's present in more people, who can then reproduce further and spread that gene to more people, who can then do the same, and on and on. The idea is that once the Feruchemy is more commonly represented among the Terris there will be more Ferrings available for future matchmaking, and more magical Ferrings (however they would determine that; my presumption is that they would just be hoping) would ultimately be produced. When the magic gene is more commonly represented they can continue to select for it, leading to (they hope) stronger expressions of Feruchemy, even possibly a full Feruchemist. We don't have great real-world analogues for magic genes, but at its core it's basic husbandry. If you want a smaller dog, or a stronger horse, you find individuals that have more of those traits than others and selectively breed them. As long as the trait you want is heritable you get a better chance of offspring with those same traits, or even stronger expressions of those traits. Go on long enough and you can wind up with an entire subspecies, like breeds of dog, which breed true. Whether or not you're at risk of inbreeding is mainly a product of how many individuals you're involving in the process. With more individuals you can't necessarily keep selecting for the trait in a straight line (you might need to mix in other genetic lines to avoid dangers from inbreeding), but you can continue to expand the incidence of the genes that produce the trait you want. And when you have enough genetic diversity you can go back to breeding for your desired traits.

I liked better context for Death Rattles, hints of spren activity, and certain characters appearing or their actions' consequences being felt. I also liked knowing the ultimate end of the flashback chapters (especially for WoK and WoR), especially because I could skip over some of them that didn't grip me as much as other parts of the books.

I read alien as totally foreign to human-like thought patterns, with no common basis to compare with human, Listener, dragon, etc. We see something similar with spren, like Pattern, where they just don't quite get the way that humans think about things sometimes. That said we don't really know anything about the Unmade and I've just been assuming that they are greatspren, similar to the Stormfather and Nightwatcher. But lots of beings can bridge the Physical and Cognitive realms. Spren may be native to Roshar, but some being that spans both realms could accrue Investiture and wind up pretty spren-like, especially on Roshar itself. And we've commonly heard that certain entities are very similar to spren, particularly cognitive shadows. I've spent some time thinking about what the Unmade might be spren of, but haven't been too satisfied with what I've come up with. Maybe part of that is because I've been thinking in the wrong direction!

Possible ever, at all? Certainly. The Cosmere has well structured, internal rules which can be determined via logical experimentation (see Khriss, for example). How a person might learn about spiritwebs, Intent, the interactions of metals with magics, etc. is a less clear item, but since the Cosmere's magical properties exist (in-universe) in consistent ways then a person could observe and learn about them and their properties. Once you know the details of the underlying pieces it's possible to imagine applying them in different ways, one of which is Hemalurgy. No one accidentally builds a functional nuclear reactor to generate electricity. But when enough underlying knowledge of the different components is gained the potential for such a reactor becomes possible to know, and then people (intentionally) design, assemble, and test candidate products to do that. No divine revelation needed. The big differentiators for Hemalurgy are that it's incredibly complicated and that it's based on magic (which fundamentally doesn't work, in a real-world sense, and so can't quite mesh with real-world efforts or approaches to interact with it, and so can never be completely defined in real-world terms). But Cosmere magic is presented as consistent, observable, and manipulable in its setting. So an in-world researcher should be able to develop any related magical insight from basic, testable efforts, with enough basic information accrued from whatever source. Ruin/Shardic divinity just prepares that information on a silver platter without the fundamental steps discovering that information would require for someone who doesn't already know.

It depends on the alternatives, I guess. As others have mentioned, we don't know anything about Hoid's plans which makes it hard for me to get on board with them. But we also don't know anything about the reasons for the Shattering, conditions beforehand, what the participants wanted and how events diverged from those goals. Hoid is pretty ruthless, or at least he's willing to be to the extent that his constraints allow, but on the Cosmere scale some goals are probably worth that-- if there are only two possible outcomes, A and B, and A is 100 million dead while B is every single being in the Cosmere dead, then there is a pretty strong case that A is the way to go. The big counterweight is that we know lots of smaller scale events are pretty bad (such as Ruin annihilating Scadrial and everyone on it, or Odium scouring Roshar clean of humans and extant spren) and Hoid opposes those. Again, we don't know anything about Hoid's real goals, but he's probably the most consistent "good guy" in the setting, both in opposing those horrible outcomes and also in showing compassion for people and trying to help their immediate circumstances, and so our imperfect information suggests that working with him is the best call we can make at any given moment. Hoid is clever enough and knowledgeable enough that I don't know if we can maintain any distinction between working with him and siding with him. The severe lack of information makes it really hard to be confident in a choice in any direction. Hoid is willing to let Roshar burn to get what he needs, but am I willing to let Roshar burn just to be sure I don't get my hands dirty by siding with Hoid when that would be "bad"? Is that cost for trying to ensure my own moral purity better than, or even different from, Hoid's willingness to incur it in pursuit of whatever he's after? It would be a horrible position to be in, and Hoid's knowledge and cleverness mean that we (if we were characters in the setting) are not going to be able to know the whole picture, nor be sure that what we think we know is true and solidly positioned in the broader situations. But Sanderson saying that he probably wouldn't is decisive, if cheating a bit. He knows everything we don't about all of this and can use that information to inform his decision, so if conditions aren't such that he would side with Hoid I probably shouldn't either.

Fullmetal? It's already the name of a famous anime and manga series, and means something like "stubborn" in Japanese, but it gets the basic ideas across...

In my visualization of the event Renarin's Shardblade was pointed upwards as the Thunderclast's palm slammed down, leading to it spearing through the hand, but the quote you provided is decisive as the blade moved and then cut the hand off at the wrist. Too bad, I liked the image of Renarin's body springing out of a pile of goo like a dolphin leaping out of the water Regardless, healing a most-of-body-crushing in an instant is radically more impressive than Miles' one leg healing even as it broke from a ~20 foot fall. I am nevertheless convinced that you are correct here though, as we know that Miles' healing abilities outclass Wayne's and we see Wayne heal from an injury probably on par with Renarin's when he does the Spoiled Tomato. It's a rough comparison but I think it's a safe bet that Miles could have healed from that in seconds, at worst, and the degree of injury described is probably similar to being squashed by a giant rock. **Edited to add:** I can't believe this didn't occur to me earlier, but didn't we see Miles set off a stick of dynamite essentially in his hand, then get up and walk away immediately after? That's as close to goo-ification as it gets, and we've never seen a Radiant recover from anything like that.

Assuming sufficient Stormlight I think that Radiant healing may come out ahead, at least for Truthwatchers (I believe that they are particularly good at it?). We see Shallan and Miles both survive severe brain injury (presumably), which is pretty impressive. But we see Renarin get utterly crushed by a Thunderclast and pop back onto his feet immediately. We don't exactly know how severe Renarin's injuries were, but if a Truthwatcher person could potentially be crushed into goo and then be back in action within seconds... I don't know that even compounded gold could do that. I'd hate to find out personally either way. It sounds like an unpleasant experiment on oneself, and terrible to discover in an opponent.