Returned

I'm skeptical that there exist reliable, long-term solutions to the problem. I like @Argenti's approach, but I'd modify it slightly. I'd send the whole apparatus into space, moving at an extremely high velocity and in a huge orbit, to places physically far from anywhere that people live. Because it's so small and uncomplicated it won't give off much physical signature that people can use to find or track it, and being far from masses of cognition that let people cheat physical distances means that people have to get to it the normal way, which can be hard in space and at high velocities. An Awakened metalmind is a good idea. I like one that could dynamically shift mass around the structure to allow for changes in orbit without giving off much signal, though getting it to make good decisions about course changes may not be possible without a substantially more complicated setup. Otherwise I might just launch it into a star, black hole, or large gas giant. The Dawnshard can probably handle that, but a seeker would have a hard time retrieving it. My impression of Dawnshards is that they are primarily Spiritual, heavily constrained/shaped by a Cognitive manifestation (like how spren are primarily Cognitive but have Physical representations), and corporealized in a Physical object, for lack of a better term. Obscuring the physical piece seems like the best core approach, and using the vastness of space along with relative velocities seems at least as good to me as any other effort. No effort will ever be unbeatable.

I don't think that the suggested classist angle holds water. Jasnah wasn't any more or less callous about the footpads than she was any of the other people she killed or had killed; it's not like she inquires about their nahns/dahns before destroying them, though it's probably a fair bet that strongarm robbers roaming the streets are not wealthy. Every political figure she had assassinated, or was clearly willing to assassinate, was in the uppermost echelons of society. Killing is on the table for her as a tool, and she doesn't exclude anyone from that consideration. I also don't think that her roles as a high noble or princess really affect her in the ways suggested. Her shattering intellect and strong self-possession would lead her to feel equally unconstrained even if she were a tenner or a 10th-nahn woman, and it's more plausible to me that she does not accept that the state has a monopoly on violence (legitimate or otherwise). Compare with Moash: whatever you think of him, he didn't justify his extra-legal self-directed activities and choices by feeling like he, himself, was the government in some way. I'm also a bit surprised to see so many appeals to her supposedly deep-seated Alethi nature as guiding her actions. She definitely makes a nominal show of those qualities (for convenience and formality more than anything else, in my reading) but she also shows an awful lot of specifically un-Alethi traits in very prominent ways. She, famously, rejects Vorinism in a heavily theocratic society. She wants to be queen regnant despite that upending the masculine/feminine arts divide. She banishes slavery. She wants to end the monarchical and feudal structures of Alethi society and usher in democratic governance. Jasnah is a utilitarian pragmatist, teleologist, and hyper-rationalist. She does not appear to believe that actions have inherent moral or ethical qualities outside of their reliability, efficacy, and relative cost compared with other actions. I don't think that she's bloodthirsty, as some posts in this thread imply-- she doesn't seem to have any particular enthusiasm for killing, and if she can accomplish what she believes is necessary in other ways she will. But if she concludes that killing is the best course of action, she's ready to do that without hesitation. Obviously we don't have to accept that framework, and even if we're willing to accept it we don't have to believe that her calculations are correct. Notably, she seems pretty discerning. Of people that we know she actually killed, I don't recall any that were preemptive. Jasnah had prepared plans in advance, but that's not unique nor related to her willingness to kill. The footpads are an interesting case, especially in the context of this thread. As best as we can gather from the text, Jasnah set out specifically intending to kill some people, though she did not have specific people in mind. When she encountered candidates, they did not attack. We have Shallan's narration that there is circumstantial evidence of their intent to kill: "You didn't rob women like Shallan and Jasnah [...] then leave them alive as witnesses." (Note: why not? It was dark until Jasnah revealed her Soulcaster, so the women would have witnessed what, exactly? It's not like killing wealthy and connected people is a lesser offense than robbing them). Jasnah draws and brandishes her weapon (the fake Soulcaster). Only then do the footpads attack, and Shallan "could also see the murder in their eyes." Based on Frustration's descriptions of the encounter with Renarin above, Jasnah could easily be considered the aggressor and a murderer by the same rationale applied in Renarin's case. The evidence against the footpads is only barely less circumstantial than the evidence against Renarin. But there is no reason this instance needs to be all one way or the other. Jasnah's premeditation and radically greater resources should count for something: she could have hatched any number of plans and had ample time and endless resources to use, but chose to prepare only to kill. The footpads definitely did something bad in trying to rob people, and I personally am prepared to believe that they were almost certain to kill their targets. But all that that would mean is that both Jasnah and the footpads were behaving unethically; we are not required to absolve one and condemn the other.

I excitedly clicked Illumination before I registered Transformation as an option, so I guess I'll stick with it. They're my favorite two anyways.

I don't want to stir anything up further, but for completeness wanted to outline where I think the line is. No one needs to reply, and I do not expect any. Murder is already a legal concept, a specific subset of killing involving relationships to intent and foreseeable consequences of doing something else that is illegal or using something that can be lethal. Jasnah's plan and intention to kill Renarin definitely fits this, even if one is inclined to fold her decision into some other framework as well. That a prosecuting attorney might charge someone with something is the ultimate in strictly legalistic appeals, with political and pragmatic overtones as well; overcharging defendants with crimes that cannot pass muster in a court is extremely common in the U.S., often but not only as a negotiating tactic. There's an old saying that a DA can indict a ham sandwich, which among other things means that a DA can charge whatever they want, whether or not it's valid or likely to succeed. Additionally, pointing a gun at someone is a different case than holding a sword, which I address below. I define a murder attempt as a chain of actions leading up to an action which is intended to actually kill a person, with that action being the crucial factor. This would cover ordering assassins to kill Renarin, for example, because once the order is given Jasnah has done everything that that mode of killing Renarin requires. If Jasnah pointed a gun at Renarin and pulled the trigger, it's too late for her to change her mind. Once the trigger is pulled, the murder is attempted because no further actions are required from Jasnah to lead to Renarin's death, and all of the actions required of Jasnah to cause that death have been taken. That would be a murder attempt, and I would even be comfortable describing the entire sequence of events leading up to that as a part of the attempt as well, from her first step towards Renarin once she had decided to kill him. Even pointing the gun at him might be considered a murder attempt, though if she were pointing it at his foot that would be hard to support. Guns can fire accidentally, for example, but as long as the gun is pointed at him he's still in lethal danger. And as long as the gun is pointed at him, Jasnah might be in the process of a murder attempt-- the situation is not over, so we can't determine that. If, however, she pointed a gun at him but then lowered it and put it in her holster instead of firing, there is no actual effort to kill him made and so no murder attempt. Once the gun is put away there is no more lethal danger. There is still intent to kill, planning to kill, and putting that plan into action (if not all the way), all of which can fairly be laid at Jasnah's feet. But in choosing to put the gun away she has declined to do the things that would kill (or even harm) Renarin, and so she did not attempt to kill him. Dismissing her Shardblade marked the end of Renarin being in lethal danger, and nothing forced Jasnah to do that. She chose not to try to murder, and so did not try to murder. But if you wanted to accuse her of something like intent to murder or conspiracy to murder, I'd be on board.

That's all reasonable, thank you for expanding. I understand your position much better now. I don't think there's much point in discussing this much further. But this is, straight-up, not what attempted murder is. Attempted murder is the doing the thing that kills but not accomplishing the killing. It's not preparation for doing that thing, nor intending to do that thing. No one is killed by a raised sword, only by a sword strike/thrust/other term for the sword being moved to proximately cause harm to someone. In choosing not to strike, she chose not to try to kill him. It is true that the fact she stopped doesn't change that she was preparing to kill him, but it does mean that she did not attempt to kill him. That doesn't mean that the intent or preparation are acceptable or good, or even necessarily better than an attempt (though I do make that distinction, I don't insist that anyone else does). But the one is not the other.

This doesn't seem to me to describe the situation at all, but I'm not sure I understand. What is the car crash in this analogy? Nothing removed Jasnah's ability to choose what to do. She thought she'd identified an undercover agent of Odium (one way or another), went to neutralize that agent, then determined that he wasn't such an agent, and so didn't kill him. Or, if you prefer, she was moved by a human, emotional reaction to Renarin's affect and didn't go through with what she thought needed to be done. She ended up thinking, feeling, and doing exactly what you suggest she ought to have thought, felt, and done in the first place-- remembered Renarin's personality and nature, talked to him, comforted him, committed to finding a way to work things out. But because she was ready to kill him if necessary you determine she's permanently condemned no matter what. "Attempted murder" is trying to kill someone and failing, like a shot missing or a blow not being fatal, which is not at all what happened here. Going to a place with deadly intent is certainly fair. It's obvious that you give the factors behind that intent zero weight, even though the book goes to some trouble to lay them out, which is up to you (whether it's fair or not), but she did change her mind and not attempt to kill Renarin at all. To call it attempted murder is to accuse Jasnah of something she specifically didn't do and then condemn her for it. There's a parallel between that and how you describe her approach to Renarin in that sequence. Is it, though? Dalinar killed an awful lot of innocent people (not just at Rathalas), but upthread you specifically absolve him because he felt bad about it later. That's why I suggested that it's the lack of emotional turmoil alone that seems to be the dividing line for you. You don't hope for a Dalinar-style redemption for Jasnah, though it seems that, to you, that was good enough for Dalinar. You stated that you hope she's brought to justice, which I took to mean you want her punished for her actions. I'm curious: do you regret that Dalinar is now beyond punishment, due to his regret, for his killing of innocents? Or, perhaps, do you feel that his inner turmoil was punishment enough? I presume you would be unhappy to see Jasnah undergo similar developments, but making such a presumption is probably not fair. I can appreciate not wanting to derail this thread into another Kelsier thread. You can say whether or not you see them as broad parallels for each other, or if you feel there are differences between them, as context but don't feel any pressure to do so on my account.

It seems to me that your condemnations of Jasnah are primarily around the targets of her actions more than the actions themselves. You don't care about her killing of the footpads, which she premeditated and carried out as an object lesson-- they were literally objectified by her whim and killed to no particular purpose. This strikes me as the single greatest example of Jasnah's "other people are tools to her" characteristic which you say revolts you. But you do care about her contemplated killings of Renarin and Aesudan, neither of whom she actually killed. Aesudan really was what Jasnah worried she might be, as her reign in Kholinar demonstrated (especially, but not only, when Re-Shephir and Ashertmarn set up residence there). The timing is a fair caveat, I think. Aesudan certainly hadn't done anything on that scale when Jasnah was considering assassinating her. I think that @ParaTulip's observation that assassination-as-palace-intrigue-and-international-relations is true, though that doesn't necessarily give Jasnah a pass for doing it; that the Ghostbloods didn't much mind duelling assassins doesn't mean that we shouldn't. But Jasnah correctly identified as dangerous someone who went on to do tremendous damage to Alethkar, Kholinar, and humanity on Roshar. If it was fair, right, and good to kill Amaram or Torol Sadeas for that sort of thing, Aesudan doesn't seem beyond the pale. Except for the timing. But she didn't assassinate Aesudan after all anyways. We can be more generous to Jasnah than you are with Renarin as well, if we care to. In the midst of an apocalyptic struggle with the continued existence of humankind on Roshar at stake, she deduced (correctly) that a person at the heart of the human defenses against extinction not only had been using a forbidden, evil power from the enemy (as they conceived of it) but that that person had been lying to them about it for an extended period while also having supernatural powers she didn't know much of anything about. She let the forbidden power bit slide, as did everyone else, but I can see how a person might prioritize the desperate struggle, dishonesty and secretiveness, unknown magical capabilities, and association with the enemy god over a personal relationship in a moment of extreme crisis. And, as above, she didn't kill him, and she didn't kill him because she continued to absorb and analyze information up until the point where she would have to make an irrevocable choice-- when she saw Renarin's emotion and acceptance of execution she determined that what she feared was not the case and didn't kill him. I don't see any reason to think that Jasnah believes her family to be replaceable, nor anyone really, only that circumstances might require to happen things she otherwise would prefer not happen. If Renarin had been a spy for and servant of Odium, killing him might have been absolutely necessary for human survival. Chatting with him about it beforehand might have been a devastating mistake (compare, perhaps, with Kaladin not turning Moash in during his regicide scheme or killing him in Kholinar). She's committed to doing what she thinks is necessary, and failing to do those things because they would make her feel bad is a mistake she doesn't think that she, or the world, can bear. Jasnah is hyper-rational and pragmatic without friendly charisma and manner (real or feigned) to offset it, so people tend to dislike her, which probably colors their perceptions of her all around. That doesn't mean she isn't a bad person, nor that she isn't a monster (though I would disagree with that latter one). Kelsier is largely the same in these ways, except that he does have the friendly charisma and manner (plus we get to see his emotional states, which humanizes him a lot). Given your apparent indifference to the killings in themselves, I can't help but think that your revulsion is more personal to Jasnah than anything else. It's her commitment to action for what she perceives as good, and lack of apparent emotion, that seem to be drawing your condemnation, not so much any of the things she actually does or how she does them. Even if she's not a good person, monster is an intense title to assign to someone for that.

I doubt we'll see trickiness like you describe (though I wouldn't bet much money on it!). My reasoning is mostly narrative-- there's no in-world reason why it should be impossible, especially given Taravangian's intelligence, craftiness, and lack of ethical/moral/philosophical restraint. It's a really specific mode of plot development but also one that's not only already been done but governed two of the longest Cosmere books. I don't think it was especially well received by fans (in the sense that I haven't seen people loving it and demanding more, though it's not necessarily hated), so I don't think Sanderson will go back to that well. The idea of making a contract irrelevant through formless trickery would make all of the time spent on it in the books a waste. Binding promises are also one of the only constraints we see on Shards at all, so removing that constraint brings in a lot of problems regarding why Shards don't just smite their enemies or directly enforce their will, but we still need at least a fig leaf or two to maintain that constraint. Cosmere stories have often been about flipping the game, refusing to accept the rules your more-powerful-than-you antagonists impose and playing a game you could win instead. Taravnagian seems like the kind of opponent who will require that approach. But most of all I predict that Shards are going to recede from the main stage for a while. Odium, Cultivation, and Honor were very major characters/forces in SA arc 1 amid rampant magic power inflation, and I have a feeling (feeling only!) that those things are going to be deflated for a while and so dealing directly with Shards and Shards directly managing events will both become rarer. Taravangian will abide by reasonable definitions of contract terms while working to develop his indirect instruments of power, like his armies. Internal tension with Honor is one mechanism for enforcing this (his substance and power will be hampered if half of his divinity rebels), and the other major one is the poorly-defined vulnerability imposed when a Shard breaks a promise. Shards still do the latter when they think it's worth the risk or cost (see Preservation), so I expect we'll see Taravangian in that position at some point, but the absence of other Shards on Roshar plus the time dilation suggest to me that we won't be dealing with that piece for a while. The remaining constraint, dealing with Honor's perspective and opinions, will hamstring Taravangian's ability to capriciously interpret things for his own convenience. We've already seen him do that as Odium, and SA has made a big deal about how Honor used to be ultra-focused on the technical letter of promises, but now is changing. I think you're right that this will be Honor's role in the story for a while. Taravangian will be canny and push his boundaries but, by his nature as a holder of Honor, won't be able to flat-out cheat in ways like you describe. I don't think that Jasnah is particularly more morally upright than the other major characters in SA. It's easier for us to think about her ethics because she's so rational and deductive that she thinks through those ethics in advance of being faced with specific challenges. We can examine and consider her ideas in isolation, whether or not we agree with them or think they can be applied well. Most of the SA characters follow vibes, in the sense that they encounter situations, feel things about those situations, and then try to figure out explanations for why those feelings are correct. I suppose we can consider Jasnah's approach to be similar, with the extra bit that her feelings suggest rational evaluation.

I don't know if I can hit all of the constraints precisely, but I'll offer a few recommendations trying to suit them: Hereditary (Movie, one of my favorites) Midsommar (Movie) Late Night with the Devil (Movie, pleasantly surprised me) When Evil Lurks (Movie, some disturbingly gross effects but very effective and a breath of fresh air in the demonic possession horror genre) The Substance (Movie; very heavy-handed and has enough effective body horror gross out sequences that it might be too yucky for you, but I was pleasantly surprised by it) Let the Right One In (Movie; the original is better than the American remake. Great tone and perspective on an established subgenre) Midnight Mass (TV show, excellent) Haunting of Hill House (TV show) The Hole in the Ground (Movie, very effective and with a strong psychological element) The Conjuring 1 and 3 (or 2 and 3, 1 and 2 are similar enough to feel repetitive) (Movies) Insidious (Movie, first movie especially, second one OK, skip the rest) Sinister (Movie) Cobweb (Movie, very good) Old (Movie, try not to think of it as an M. Night Shyamalan movie and you'll probably enjoy it more. I did) A Dark Song (Movie; I was ultimately a little disappointed by it, but it meets your criteria and I don't know of another movie at all like it) The Mothman Prophecies (Movie, maybe a little more on the thriller side rather than horror, but I loved it. Criminally underappreciated) Phantasmagoria (Video game, old and possibly ineffective or even unplayable today, but I remember being scared by it in junior high) Totally Killer (more of a comedy than a horror movie, but if you're tired of slasher flicks it's a pretty funny parody of them while still hitting the beats) I sympathize with being tired of slasher movies and gross-out torture-porn movies, and a lot of popular horror movies are less than innovative which cuts against the experience of horror a lot.

I would wager that a Hoid/Nightblood combination would be incredibly dangerous for everyone. There are lots of ways to destroy things that don't involve violence, and Hoid is clever and knowledgeable enough to engage in a lot of them, and very effectively. His limitations certainly don't extend to nudging other people towards violence and destruction, and psychic or emotional damage seem allowed for him (like his job as Wit in the Alethi court). If Hoid is the sort of person to be evil-ized by exposure to Nightblood he could do an incredible amount of damage in those ways. I was talking about Lord of the Rings in another thread, which leads me to think of an analogy: most people so affected by Nightblood use him to physically kill, maybe in the same sense that most people we see use the One Ring use it just to become invisible. Someone with more knowledge and scope could use it for a lot more. I wonder how much Hoid's limitations would allow him to interact with Nightblood if he's not the sort of person affected by the sword's influence that way. I have to think he could carry the sword from place to place, but could he draw it from its sheath, knowing the effects that would impose on others? We know so little about the scope of Hoid's limitations and about the true nature of Nightblood its hard for me to be confident about much here. Maybe directly wielding Nightblood would force Hoid into the foreground of events, if nothing else, which he seems to have been avoiding.

I haven't, but I'll add it to my list. Thanks for the recommendation! Going back to Tom Bombadil for a moment, I want to clarify that my complaints are tongue-in-cheek. Tolkien is someone who wrote The Silmarillion for backstory-- tossing in a character just to give exposition isn't something that fits his writing, almost certainly not something that he would need or choose to do. Anything that might seem that way probably has deeper and subtler reasons for appearing than that, certainly including Tom. I'm not an ardent enough LotR reader to give good account of that sort of thing very often, though.

My friend's nickname for Tom Bombadil (I should have explained that in the post, I'm just so used to that friend saying it my brain short-circuited on the idea that anyone might not be familiar with it).

I haven't, since I usually try to avoid preview releases of things. I didn't say that Hoid's humor was bad, only that it's kind of formulaic. If you don't like the structure of one joke it's likely that you will not enjoy a lot of subsequent jokes since they're likely to share it. There are some that I like a lot (I liked the brief discussion of the words "literally" and "ironic"), but others less so. The non-sequitur is especially problematic for this sort of thing, since it inherently does not have a setup or relation to any of the surrounding context. No shame to anyone that likes them, in general or in particular instances. This is not a meaningful point to make, though I appreciate what you are saying. What you seem not to understand about my use of the word "arbitrary" in this context is that I am describing plot points that are incongruent with surrounding details but constraining events that the author wants the plot to have. It's Spider-Man without the radioactive spider being part of the story: he just has some abilities with no explanation nor relation to any events. That the radioactive spider is every bit as made-up as the rest doesn't change the fact that its presence in the story gives structure and context to other parts. It's the Alethi war against the Parshendi without ever mentioning Gavilar's assassination, or indeed without that event even having taken place. This is one of the major things that separates Hoid from Kaladin or Sazed in the books so far: the latter two develop and their choices matter as they experience and affect events, because the stories are fundamentally about them, their choices, and their development. Their experiences and contexts matter to the outcomes. So far, Hoid's don't. Hoid isn't developing a whole lot yet because these aren't his stories, and fair enough. But he's getting more and more centrality without developing and without impacting the plot much, and the reason for that is dominated by the fact that his secrets and mysteries are being held back so that they can appear in later works. Hoid's machinations are more contrived (though no less arbitrary) because he knows enough to solve your problem, and likely has the power and skill to solve your problem, but he won't. Sometimes because he can't (the Dawnshard explanation serves well here, especially when we get another angle on it from Nomad), sometimes because he mustn't, and sometimes because he doesn't want to. Tress did a great job of threading this needle with his curse. RoW and WaT didn't bother to address it. The story would be very similar if he never appeared again after Oathbringer. There are absolutely amazing stories to be told based on the last 5 years (I'm not quite sure what you're referencing, but it's generally true that there are stories to be found). Some people don't like the genres, but there are very interesting biographies and stories about real events. The quality of the story depends on a variety of things like (but not limited to) themes, events, complementary and contrastive elements, juxtaposing and connecting those things, method of narration, and so much more. The problem isn't reality nor its dullness but the ability to identify the pieces that make a good story and then express them in ways that highlight the story and its goodness. It's true that I don't want to see a real-time view of every element of, say, Wax's life. I don't care about seeing him prepare his taxes or experience every single meal because those aren't inherently the interesting bits. But I did like seeing him go through the accounts ledgers with Steris because it expressed information about both characters and their context, was written in an engaging enough way, fit in with surrounding events well enough, and didn't take up that many lines of text. @Frustration If it makes you feel better, I'm talking about Tolkien more than Tommy Exposition.

I'm already tired of Hoid, though I still like the character and his role in the broad narrative well enough. Tress was the final straw for me-- I hated the narrative voice (its mechanical efforts at humor felt forced to me, and mostly attempted through formulaic, overwrought non-sequiturs aspirationally called "whimsical"; I liked only a small portion of them and the volume of ones I didn't like really piled up) and it was just so constant in those qualities throughout. It was far less of an issue for me in Yumi, which I liked quite a bit more as a result, but the damage has already been done. I don't need any more narration from Hoid, ever, even while I'm open to further instances of it being done more to my liking. (Side note: I appreciate that the style in Tress was specifically an experiment in Hoid's voice for future works, and not one that is likely to be re-used). He's now way too Tom Bombadil, with nearly all the knowledge there is to have and abundant, flexible power far beyond any other non-Shard character, but he arbitrarily can't/won't use it and/or arbitrarily fails in his direct interventions (the contract comes to mind). So he's sort of become a plot device to move other characters along, and an increasingly conspicuous one-- compare his presentation in Mistborn era 1 with his presentation in Oathbringer. I like the drips of humanity we see, like his affection for Shallan. But Hoid is one of the most "held in reserve" pieces of Cosmere lore across all the books, which makes it very likely that any appearance he makes will have only the tiniest morsels of his character, backstory, and his own plot alongside the large portions of Bombadil-ing and plot-devicery. After all, Dragonsteel is coming last, if ever. I can somewhat sympathize with gryn.heartsmyth's feelings, especially since it seems unlikely Hoid will be able to have much success while grand Cosmere conflicts move along over the next fifteen novels. Circumstances seem not to allow anything more for a while, and we're not getting much else of him.

It's really just my own way of thinking about the powers, not something that is definite or official. And there is something here-- in Oathbringer Shallan's illusions outside of Thaylen City seem to be better than the plainer automatons she creates in Shadesmar (the ones Adolin hides among before getting skewered). But it seems implausible that she's personally directing each one in any meaningful way. I wouldn't be surprised to find something along the line of an Awakened illusion, or an illusion with much deeper and richer capabilities, at some point. Now that we know Awakened metalminds exist the scope of what the magic systems do is much expanded, and the increasing focus on external, self-directing uses of those powers seem to be a big focus.

The current Vessel being a bad match for a Shard doesn't argue for another bad match being able to supplant them. Every Invested Art we've seen has been a very narrow, limited manner of interacting with Investiture in a well-specific set of ways. All of the cleverness of hacking one system versus another is impressive to Cosmere mortals, but it seems to me to be nowhere near imitating the powers of an actual Shard being wielded. What you describe sounds akin to using Connection to fundamentally invalidate an Invested magic system: no more Allomancers, despite their innate connections to Preservation; no more Breaths, despite their already existing people; no more Elantrians, despite the Reod; etc. The setup of each magic system suggests Shard-level activity, and even super-superhuman ability in a non-Shard seems to me like it would fall short of that, necessarily. Given Ishar's apparent goals and motivations in RoW, I'd have to think that if it were plausible to do what you describe he would have done it, or at least attempted it. Maybe he did and we just didn't hear about it (get ready for a retcon on-ramp in the back five!), but even Taravangian's ascension required him to destroy the previous Vessel. And Taravangian was an almost ideal bearer for Odium while Rayse was just barely holding on. There must be more surrounding why someone as powerful and knowledgeable as Ishar never bothered to undertake such a thing when his powers seem to have so much scope. The powers themselves seem unable to reject use, given that they are the underlying principles of the Cosmere universe. "I help everyone", said Ruin. We also don't have that much evidence that a Shard can prohibit its Vessel from doing much. We have Preservation and Leras in Secret History, but we also have Honor and Tanavast in WaT as a pretty stark counter example. Harmony could be another example but it doesn't feel to me that that is the Shards forbidding or preventing action directly. Do others agree?

You've mentioned Awakening a few times in non-Nalthian contexts across a few threads. I think that the key element of Awakening is the endowment aspect: you have extra power (Breaths), give that power some intention and guidance (Intent and the Command), and then the power moves into an object that tries to express that intention and guidance. Lightweaving, even the the potentially mass-granting kind, is sort of the opposite: you have the idea of seeming to do something, you Connect with that idea, and then create a phantasm that expresses the idea with which you've connected. It's not clear that the faint mass of a Lightwoven illusion can be used to do much of anything; the only example we have is the vague sensation in an observer of the illusion being struck. Even if we were to grant that the illusions can interact with real objects directly, it's the difference between pushing your intentions and power into another thing which might fail to carry out your objective and creating an illusion that can't do anything other than what you want it to seem like it's doing. Awakening is transitive: it absolutely requires an object, but can do all sorts of things from that starting point. Lightweaving does not require an object, and in a lot of ways couldn't use one even if it were available. I'll agree that we haven't seen anywhere close to the limit of what Lightweaving can do, but it is distinct from Awakening in this regard and I'm hesitant to suggest that they overlap here, even though so many Cosmere magics do overlap with one another quite a bit. It's not clear that anything like the flexibility that creates an autonomous being, like Nightblood or Azure's sword, is achievable through Lightweaving. I will be disappointed if Lightweaving leads to "conjure a self-aware, self-determining being from nothing without anything beyond Investiture and Intention" being available to anyone with sub-Shardic power and knowledge, though a good story around that could be pretty interesting.

Not at all; my invocation of Straff and Zane was just to demonstrate how hard it is to control, against their will, someone so powerful. You don't have to be unstable to want to be in charge, or to not want to be under someone else's control. If someone is trying to control you, and you don't want that, and the response to your refusal is that they'll try to execute you, then rebelling or escaping are pretty reasonable courses of action. If you are ambitious and want whatever power, influence, or opportunities being in charge might offer, then supplanting the people in charge so that you can be in charge makes a lot of sense. Neither of these is good for the people already in control, and the more powerful Metalborn are fundamentally more powerful and flexible than they are. Raw power based on organization tends to have some brittleness to it, and plenty of people who achieve it spend a good deal of effort preventing rivals from being able to challenge them. Powerful Metalborn are going to be more effective than basically anyone else in basically any application. If your only objective is that those Metalborn exist then that doesn't matter. If your plans involve using those Metalborn according to your own designs, or maintaining your own position, you can find you have really severe problems really quickly. It doesn't even have to be a rebellion or coup-- a powerful Metalborn will likely be able to outclass everyone else in nearly everything they do, so rivals without those capabilities just become obsolete. But that Mistborn or Feruchemist won't be you. I think we agree that the powerful Metalborn will be more powerful than a mundane person, or even a Misting or Ferring. But you haven't offered a reason why someone with the resources, influence, and determination to produce them this way would want them around. Especially when their goals might conflict. As above, certainly some would. I don't see much reason for a program like you describe to let you have and raise the children so produced, but maybe that's an unfair assumption I've read into your thread. Like I said previously, if people have a goal just that more powerful Metalborn exist then there isn't much else for them to consider. A lot of people would worry, I think, about subsequent generations of superhumans who have all the normal human flaws and failings plus irresistible powers, or about their genetic offspring being abused, exploited, or bred like dogs. It's also pretty unlikely that your own child(ren) will be Metalborn, but very likely that someone else's will be. The system you describe needs an awful lot of people to participate, consistently and over long periods of time and many generations, and genetic bottlenecks are pretty hard to get around, so "a lot" may not be sufficient to accomplish what you want. Sure, but there are two considerations I will suggest: 1. This isn't achievable without massive scale. In general approach it's not dissimilar to matchmaking among the noble houses in the Final Empire, but Allomancy still declined over the 1,000 years the empire lasted. If it's so hard to actually achieve, people might not want to do the things they are required to do to pursue it. Not enough people to matter, at least, and not consistently enough and for long enough. Social cohesion does not have a great track record on Scadrial so far. 2. Why would people go to all of this trouble but not try to optimize it? Is it even possible to disentangle them the two? More Metallic Arts prevalence seems tied to concentrations of Metallic Arts power in individuals, like the children of Rashek's lerasium-Mistborn being stronger Allomancers than those in Vin's day, and the general dilution of Metallic Arts by Wax's time. Working towards more concentration of power seems like it's the same as working towards the maximum concentration of power possible.

It was a fun exercise! I appreciate the opportunity to look through Alloy of Law critically, as it's probably the Cosmere book I know the least well (tied, maybe, with Lost Metal). This is the kind of thing that keeps me coming back to the 17th Shard.

Ah, I misread the citation in your first post. My apologies; we can dispense with that idea, then. The most likely explanations that remain (if we're trying to avoid the plot hole one) are that the guards are neutralized somehow that isn't mentioned (maybe Allomancers assault their emotions, disarm them, or otherwise incapacitate them until Vanishers can manhandle them off of the car to be stolen), or that they're kidnapped along with the cars being stolen and presumed to be unharmed. The latter is the one that makes the most sense from the text, and the former probably ruled out. Two things stand out here: The cars arrived empty, which means the guards could not have been inside when the trains reached their destinations. That the cars were still locked suggests that the guards were not taken out and placed elsewhere on the trains, though I suppose it's possible that they were unlocked and re-locked. But then the guards would presumably have something to say about that, and the description "still locked" wouldn't make much sense. It would also be a substantial complication to the robberies to move guards around into the replacement cars. If we're relying on Wax's description and grammar to be accurate then the number of trains with guards in the stolen cars can be no fewer than two and probably not more than 4. "Some of the later ones" is plural, so more than one. But "later ones" suggests the lattermost, implying robberies 4-7 or 5-7. So we can estimate 3-4 train cars' worth of guards who are now missing. Missing and presumed unharmed, much like the hostages, if we take as incontestably true the chapter 3 statement "No one had been hurt by the Vanishers yet." (chapter 3, page 32). Since Wax knows the hostages were taken and that "There wasn't even proof that the hostages were in danger." (chapter 3, page 62), the "no one had been hurt" line can only mean no one had been hurt to Wax's knowledge, which he is aware is incomplete. Bought off to do what, though? If the guards were giving false stories they would need to have some explanation for what they did to resist the robberies and how they wound up being overwhelmed, especially if they are totally unharmed and the cars were never opened or even unlocked. I can't think of any explanation for why they weren't on the trains when they arrived at their destinations, didn't leave the locked cars, somehow were released later, but also had no knowledge of any of the methods used in the robberies. Nothing that would satisfy investigators or reporters, at least. So we're left with: 1. plot hole; 2. guards are missing but assumed to be fine; 3. Wax not caring about the guards' condition in any case; 4. Wax being sloppy/careless/wrong in his statement that the Vanishers hadn't hurt anybody; or 5. there is some threshold for "hurt" which has not been met, even if some people were harmed to a lesser degree during the robberies. Based on the above, I believe that if we are trying to reject (1), (2) is the only conclusion that makes sense. The guards must be missing, but I believe you are correct that Wax (at least) would not disregard the guards' condition, and (4) means that we cannot take any the characters' statements or thoughts as reliable which makes this kind of examination less meaningful.

I think the issue is that you need to have reliable and consistent control, which is very hard to do, and if you fail you have an enemy or rival that is very hard to deal with. Straff and Zane come to mind. The Metalborn don't have to be invincible, they just have to be less vincible than a person who is in a position to direct the program. Anything you have, they could also have and probably wouldn't need you to provide to them, so why do they need you? Maybe you can persuade them, perhaps often, but what happens when you can't? If they're so trivial to defeat with modern technology, then what is the value of having the Metalborn instead of just using the technology that is already superior? This is also the biggest problem the Bene Gesserit had-- they couldn't control the powerful people they produced. And, again, we don't even know that this would work. It's not clear that the diluted Investment that has prevented more Mistborn and full Feruchemists from being born can be reversed by breeding alone. The point is that the breeding program is already enough to produce the Metalborn powers, and Hemalurgy is already enough to consolidate those powers more quickly and with less effort than re-constituting the full-featured Metalborn would be, even if a breeding program works. You don't get anything extra, hemalurgically, from having a full-powered Metalborn. Plus, you get the powers yourself and don't have to worry about maintaining control or influence over someone innately more powerful and magical than you. Once you're going to be working on this scale you're going to have lots of castoffs, including Metalborn, so the spiking becomes even more useful to someone willing to do this, especially if you want the full-powered people. I don't know that people would be excited to donate their eggs and sperm to an industrial-scale breed-and-harvest system, nor that the payment they could receive would be attractive outside of other opportunities they might have (some would, surely). Given the dynamics of such a system, and what we've seen of power-consolidators on Scadrial, I would not be confident anyone running that system would bother to rely on voluntary participation. Eugenics does work in the real world, just not very well nor precisely with humans. Even getting what little it offers requires people to accept things they don't generally like and do things they generally don't want to do, in exchange for little effect and no personal benefit at all. In cases of things like animal and plant husbandry eugenics has been incredibly effective for millennia; the difference is more about moral sentiment towards human vs. non-human life. I'm not sure I would agree that it's rational for someone to want a planet full of Lord Rulers, knowing that they, themselves, would not be one of those Lord Rulers. Some people will still pursue it, certainly, but that's more Bond-villain territory than reasoned planning. All that said, I do agree that the Scadrians will have a strong interest in increasing the Metalborn population however they can in era 3. I just don't think that trying to create more Mistborn, full Feruchemists, or Fullborn will be the specific end goal they pursue. With, perhaps, a notable exception for the Terris, who might already be trying to do that in era 2 for cultural/spiritual/political reasons.

That's more or less what the Set were doing, as well as the Terris, to the extent that their resources and technology allowed. One of the larger issues is that the Metalborn produced by such a process will be more magically powerful than the people that produced them (at least until there are enough stably-produced Mistborn, full Feruchemists, or Fullborn to run things themselves) and won't necessarily be controllable. And if you're one of those full-featured Metalborn the potential challenges from rivals may not be worth whatever you think you can get from having them. The Lord Ruler went to quite a lot of trouble to ensure that there would never be another Fullborn besides himself. It's a true believer who wants such Metalborn to exist and also is willing to give up their own power, influence, and control in the process. More likely, these Metalborn would just be spiked so that their stolen powers can be concentrated in the people directing the programs. I don't think there are all that many people who would run the breeding program but would be unwilling to do the spiking. It's also not obviously the case that the Metallic Arts can be re-concentrated by selective breeding alone, though with access to magic and increasingly flexible Investiture I would assume it could be accomplished somehow. There was a thread that touched on this a while back, I'll see if I can find it.

I think that "minor plot hole" is the most honest answer. But as I recall, the mystery of the robberies was more about how quickly and thoroughly the goods were stolen given their weight/volume, not that the Vanishers were never known to have entered or interacted with the cars they robbed. But it's possible that: The Vanishers' activity in the passenger cars of the trains distracted from the actual train car swaps What few windows there were with a reasonable angle on the cars being stolen were especially distracted from, or blocked Mists obscured the areas, making the true circumstances hard to see In cases where guards were inside the stolen cars, Vanishers entered those cars and removed any guards present there before stealing the car (violently or otherwise) "No one was hurt" is a reference to the civilians who happened to be present, not the guards who were on the job Things changed over time. There is a shift between the "no one is hurt" period (noted in chapter 3) and the "later trains had guards in the car" period (chapter 12). Recall that by chapter 12 Lord Peterus had been shot dead during a Vanishers robbery, at which point the "no one was hurt" claim obviously no longer stands. It's possible that the later car thefts, with guards inside, were all after the "no one is hurt" period, and Peterus' murder wasn't the event that marked that transition

Oh, in that case read on! I think you'll like the action sequence, given your question. I found it exciting, and we don't get to see a whole lot of Stoneward action elsewhere.

I strongly recommend not skipping ahead to read this section just for this. To interact with this chapter at all will expose you to a lot of spoiling. Xiahida's description is enough to address your question and I don't think that reading the chapter will give you much information beyond that. But if you must, it's WaT, chapter 41.