Cheese Ninja

Way of Kings is an interesting place to look for foreshadowing. We know it's there, there's plenty of books left in the series. It's mostly just a matter of picking it out and presenting it in a logical manner. Some of the Stormlight Archive forum theory threads are entirely about engineering a mountain out of a molehill of one or two lines in the book. Some of them sound downright preposterous. The biggest mental leap I've seen to a confirmed theory by Brandon was someone's (Edit:Link von Kelsier Harvey's) supposition that Taravangian had a varying level of intelligence based mainly on a line near the end of WoK where a researcher thinks the riddle of a particular death quote would be best suited to "our lord's mind on a strong day". The sheer number of Cosmere and SA hints that we were given without a complete context is huge.

I wouldn't really call that a pet theory, the book only comes a little bit short of stating that explicitly.

Ah, but will you remember when to properly use "whom", or will it be something you forget and decide just to use "who" everywhere, like most of us lazy bums? I've probably learned the correct usage 3 or 4 times in my life, but always forget it. I'll look it up again now...Eh, that's what I thought, I'm just going to forget it again. Also, I'd like to announce that I still want to believe in ghosts, as ridiculous as they seem, despite knowing how fallible and easily deceived human perceptions and memory are. I wouldn't take it as proof of an afterlife, just proof that people could leave behind some bizarre record on the fabric of the universe, which is already fairly bizarre to me to begin with. I mean, we've got things like ball lightning and string theory. Also, I could possibly be categorized as an Agnostic instead of an Atheist since I can't refuse the concept that the initial creation of the universe was perpetrated by a being with intelligence.

I think a big part of the reason that people got so excited about Madoka was because it was fairly unique take on magical girls. I only watched the first few episodes and read the rest of the plot off wiki. If you were just going for something a bit dark/horror it would be simpler. The closest thing I'm feeling to it at the moment is "Yume Tsukai", and even that's not a very good match up. Slight degrees of horror and magical girls, but still not quite the same. Hmmm, not much in the way of magic, but Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni and its sequel series are very good with the horror bit. It's not possible to say too much about the plot of Higurashi without spoiling it. Edit: did a bit of Googling as well, and came across a reference to the scifi series Alien 9. I've only ever read it, but if the anime is as messed up the manga was, it fits pretty well, except it is probably even creepier and less positive than Madoka.

That I sometimes wonder if I'm the only atheist on here. And that I feel a bit like I've pulled a muscle in my back. That will probably go away in a day or two. Edit: Looked at interview database for a minute. There's a Cosmere scheduling conflict that means Alloy of Law had to happen after Way of Kings, that's interesting.

Seems unlikely, since measuring a flamespren only affected the particular flamespren being measured and did nothing to the flamespren right next to it. I'd assume if that spren disappeared there would be no spren bound by those measurements. On the other hand, the interludes do like to tell us a variety of significant things in concentrated little bits. That same one told us that Ardents understand about the Spiritual, Cognitive, and Physical Realms, and that know of people who are capable of visiting Shadesmar. There is definitely a significance how recording things about the Spren affects the Spren itself, and I find it interesting that the Ideals are both written in Nohadon's Way of Kings, and important to the particular Orders of the Knights Radiant. (Kaladin's observation that the Stormlight worked better for him after speaking the 2nd Ideal of the Windrunners.)In regards to original post, sounds pretty good zas678.

I think quite a few of us are thinking that at this point. I don't know whether it would destroy all the magic systems or whether they'd keep operating pretty much as normal. Ruin and Preservation being held by one person instead of two does not seem to have affected how Allomancy or Feruchemy work. At this point I'm wondering if a critical mass of stored Investiture of a shard in Nicrosil would allow usurpation of the Shard, which seems like it would be way too easy, so probably not. Still, if you have pieces of the all the Shards, who knows what is possible. Depending on Adonsalium's nature (if it requires someone to hold it the same as a Shard), Hoid might also be looking for one person perfectly suited to hold all 16 Shards first, and then build on that person from there. Did I read somewhere that any major Hoid books (not counting Hoid's origins in Dragonsteel) would occur much later than everything else?

The only twist that I remember myself figuring out (a few chapters) before it actually happened was the OreSeur thing. I had read most of it in one sitting and hadn't stopped to consider things until I had to take a shower or something. I wouldn't count Shallan's shardblade as foreshadowing, since it did not lead up to any event. But I did catch that when she first hinted at it, and thought it was obvious enough that I was surprised some people had read the whole book and didn't catch any of the hints. I didn't catch Vin's earring right after we had Hemalurgy explained, but I did catch it before it was explicitly stated. I was pretty sure Marasi's ability would get used for something as soon as she discounted it as "useless". I think I caught it when Kaladin first started making spheres go dun, but there was so much lead up to it I could barely count that as foreshadowing, since the Szeth chapters went pretty far towards explaining Surgebinding in general and Windrunning in particular. I definitely didn't catch that Jasnah was using a fake Soulcaster, but I knew when Shallan Soulcast that she was using natural ability. Not sure why I didn't make the connection there. I know I didn't catch most of the "turns out to be evil" twists that have happened in Brandon's books. But, in much the same way as Jacob, hindsight bias makes being sure of things very difficult.

I'm still not sure if Taln was betrayed to make certain that someone would stay bound to the Oathpact, or if he just got unlucky. I also wonder if Shalash's destruction of images of herself is tied into a deeper guilt of betraying/abandoning Taln/the Oathpact, it would be the worst for her if she loved Taln.

I've never been a very big fan of Muse: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Holes_and_Revelations

I don't think the "element" from the letter is the Lerasium, but I don't actually have any good guess for the element's nature, so it's definitely possible. There are a some minor hints that Hoid has Lerasium, but none are in the books. First is the Peter quote. Second is the the alternate ending to Well of Ascension mentioned in an Annotation, where Vin actually sees Hoid's bootprint next to the Lerasium. Third, the last Cosmere hint that Brandon said he was going to give out to non-specific Cosmere inquiries: Combine them, and you've got a strong argument for Hoid carrying Lerasium, and it's possible that he has Atium as well, because as long as you're heading to the store to get milk, you might as well get bread and eggs too. One other thing to keep in mind from Brandon's hint. Hoid hasn't ingested the Lerasium. His plans probably involve either giving Shardstuff to someone else, or using Shardstuff as ingredients for something bigger.

It doesn't seem to me that Lerasium could allow access to magic systems besides Allomancy though. Crystallized Preservation shouldn't give AonDor or Awakener status, but I could believe it making anyone into a Mistborn if used the typical way. Also, Rashek never ingested Lerasium, did he? I thought his Mistborn powers came about just because he was a Sliver who had briefly held Preservation's power and used it at the Well.

Hmm, I don't like Chaos's idea that if a Shard expends power in a way that is outside the original intent of the Shard, that power will never return to them. Oddly enough, it doesn't bother me if I change it to "is much less effective and slower to return to them." The impression I've gotten from the Brandon interviews and Q&As is that the intent of the Shard affects primarily two things: 1) How it determines magic ability among normal humans and how they access said magic. 2) The mind of the individual holding the Shard. There's probably numerous other effects of Shards, including some unique to individual Shards, but none have been pointed out with the frequency of those two things. To be fair, even though Chaos says it's his "most brilliant idea ever" he admits he came up with it just then and doesn't offer any solid evidence for it. Most of Chaos's theory seems like pretty obvious stuff anyway, but it's nice to see it all in one place. I'd been avoiding that thread only because I thought it would be more sloppy supposition than accumulated evidence. I didn't like how you separated Shard power and Power of Creation power, until I looked closer at the Brandon HoA quote and decided there was some merit to it. Honestly, that one Q&A seemed like the most info packed one about how Cosmere magic actually works. Expending Shard Power seems like just another way to access the Power of Creation, with less rules and more possibilities than using a tiny bit of Invested Shardstuff in a normal human physical form, with the necessary disparate components required by Realmatic theory. (I know that Realmatic Theory is how Brandon refers to it, but it sounds kind of silly when we haven't seen it used in any of the books, even in the Ars Arcanum.) Human Power doesn't feel like a thing to me at all. None of Chaos's quotes can completely counter the notion that Preservation confers "access to the power of creation by channeling it through Preservation" rather than just "power of Preservation", but some do come close. As to why I'm stuck on this distinction... it isn't pretty, but I'll type it out anyway. It's the damnation Nicrosil Investiture Compounding. On a large enough scale, it breaks the magic system. Not just Allomancy or Feruchemy, but rather every Cosmere magic system. As long as Compounding allows for cheating the system by taking out more than is put in, Compounding Investiture means you end up with more of a Shard than you started with. Is it possible to pull enough of a Shards power through Investiture compounding that it bankrupts the mind actually holding a Shard? I don't see why not... What happens then? The Shard gets transferred to the Compounder? And why do I think this could affect Shards besides Ruin and Preservation? Because the other attributes that can be stored with Feruchemy don't limit the storage to Ruin or Preservation, but rather allow storage of universal human traits. If someone had Breaths, I think they could store the Endowment Investiture, compound it, and end up with even more Endowment than they started with, which could translate to more Breaths, or at the very least, 10x more powerful Breaths of the same number, and that's just on the first iteration. On the third iteration, each of those breaths would be capable of Awakening Nightblood by itself. Sorry, I had to get that out. Even it holds true, it shouldn't matter until the endgame. The only Worldhoppers we have at this point are the Shards themselves, the 17th Shard, and Hoid. And Hoid has collected nuggets of Lerasium and Atium for himself. And Hoid has apparently visited every world we've seen, where he behaves fairly innocently during events of great interest and upheaval.

I'm not sure if this is explicitly stated anywhere, but I feel like I've seen differing opinions on it. Do the Shards power the magic themselves, or do they all draw from the same source? (Brandon's oft-mentioned "power of creation") I've gotten the impression that it is the latter. In the case that they and every magic user draw from the same source, the key to their actual ability to use magic is determined by the amount of the Shard that they hold. For the beings known as Shards, this a massively different scale than the people they've Invested with, and if use Ati/Leras as examples, Leras put a bit more Preservation into people and things, and so he was weaker than Ati, who put a bit less Ruin into people. It works on the normal human scale as well, if a Scadrial native has the median amount (not the average, never the average...) of Preservation he can't access any magic, a bit more and he would be a Misting, a whole lot more and he'd be a Mistborn, and Lerasium-made Mistborn would have had even more. BUT, even if the scales are different, Shards and normal magic users are operating under the same system. Which makes things interesting.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy_Bookclub/comments/oji9u/the_alloy_of_law_qa_with_brandon_sanderson/c3huhis I finally found a place to ask my question about a Double Nicrosil Twinborn, but it got RAFOed. Technically a double post, but I think I can delete the old one. Just came across this quote again, and thought that it was worth reposting here. I bolded the most applicable bit.

Well, there's two I encourage you to pay attention to:

Westermarck effect has more to do with how closely together they were raised than actual biological relation. It might apply here, but I think they're too disparate in age to have grown up together. I'm not a fan of that pairing though, I'm sticking with an Adolin/Shallan/Renarin love triangle until further characterization occurs. I'm pretty sure you misunderstood the "K/A" thing intentionally, but I'm not sure, and your response was amusing. Except for one thing, the mad bioengineer was Aginor, who was revived as Osangar. Balthamel was the one resurrected as Arangar (a woman) and he'd always had a penchant for physical pleasures. Alliteration!

At this point I've become a little bit obsessed with the idea of a Double Nicrosil Twinborn. Unless we are told otherwise, I'm going to believe that something cool happens if they Compound a whole lot of Investiture (hundreds or thousands of years worth), store it in a big Nicrosilmind, and then tap it all at once.

Yeah, I noticed that too, all of Nightwatcher's curses mess with neurons, although mostly in ways that aren't possible by normal human means. Mostly by inhibiting specific functions (feeling in hands, flipping of images on retina)or patterns of usage (intelligence, recall of an individual). I'd like to see more examples for boons besides "a heap of good cloth", to see if there's a pattern there as well.

It's possible RJ didn't have that particular aspect of channeling fleshed out yet, there's several things in the first books which don't make as much sense once the mechanics of channeling and the World of Dreams are laid out.

True, it's not perfect, and it's easy to interpret that line other than how I decided to. But also, 8 months is closer to a year in Roshar terms than it is in Earth terms, they only have 10 months. So, if he disappeared two months before the battle with Kaladin, and then word came to the Davar family within the month of his death, it would all be much closer together than what you're considering. Honestly, the biggest thing going for this theory is that it ties the characters together in an unexpected way. There's so little to go off of, but what there is links up decently well. I think you've pointed out the single biggest thing that counts against it in the text, the ambiguity of that particular line. Another possibility is that the father considered him dead to the family even before his actual death, which Kurkistan touched on, but that runs a bit counter towards all the rest of the evidence, that he was being groomed to take his father's place.

I quoted that in the first post, it was the 2nd quote. My reply: This quote is unclear whether Helaran's disappearance and proclamation of death happened at the same time, or separate occasions. I'm assuming separate occasions, which seems safe enough. So he'd spent some time among the Ghostbloods after leaving the family, and upon his death, the information was relayed to the father, who relayed it to the rest of the family, while leaving out the conditions of Helaran's death which may or may not have been know to their father. Maybe I should edit the first post to emphasize this?

All of the mentions of her blade are pretty brief, but the first ones are in chapter 7 and 8. Chapter 45, right before she soulcasts: Again, back in Chapter 39: I may have missed a few more as well.

I think that there were factors that made it impossible for Shallan to sell her Shardblade. It may not be have been House Davar's originally, and any attempt to sell it might occur in both its loss without recompensation, and more people would look into House Davar and discover their father's death. Also, there seem to be two camps about what Shallan did: 1. She killed her father with her shardblade. 2. She killed her father by conventional means, and took the shardblade after his death. I think #1 is the smaller camp, but it's the one I'm in. The facts we have from that event are pretty limited. Nan Balat got beaten to a bruised and bloody degree, and got a permanent limp. There's the soulcaster, which was found in the father's interior coat pocket, sheared in multiple places. ("Shearing" is strong evidence of a shardblade being used.) There's Shallan's Memory of a corpse face down in a pool of blood. (Assumed to be her father by many, slight evidence against a shardblade, since any strikes while alive would not cause bleed, but any strikes after death would cut into the body as normal.) Her brothers never mention the Shardblade, so we aren't even sure that they know about it. Then again, we have very little interaction with them and even Shallan tries to forget its existence.

I don't expect much of anything from normal Soulbearer Ferrings, but I really hope a Double Nicrosil Twinborn can do something cool with Compounding. 100-1000000 years worth of stored Investiture tapped all at once? Certainly sounds like it should do something extraordinary. If the next trilogy features a Nicrosil Misting as we've been told, he/she would only be one Hemalurgically-charged spike or Sazed intervention from being a Nicrosil Ferring as well.