Krelian

That would be an argument against them being normally usable by Derethi, I'd think. I think the higher ups in Fjordell had a few very high ranking priests "imprinted" with seons that were likely tortured away from their previous partners, just so the Dakhor priests had the same advantage of instant communication that their enemies did. Of course, keeping the knowledge that Derethi can use seons/AonDor from the populace would explain it as well, but I just don't think that's the case here.

I had not. Only on my second re-read of Elantris right now, been awhile since I went through the whole thing, thanks. Seons are passed on from their current partner though, so I don't see why the Derethi couldn't have coerced some into their service. Not necessarily a sign that they're a part of Derethi culture/religion intrinsically, IMO.

Didn't the Derethi have skaze, not seons?

Glad you liked it! I think, despite stylistic differences, Brandon did an amazing job at concluding it. Androl was mostly Brandon's creation, as far as I know. A lot of the things he did, in RJ's notes, weren't attributed to any specific character, IIRC.

What I'd really like to know is, when Hoid's letter is written in relation to everything else. Ah, thanks. In that case, I would say yeah, TC's theory is totally plausible, and the splintering of religions makes sense (since it was pre-Elantris), but if that's the case, as I said, sad ending there.... Edit: Sorry about the double-post, have yet to even try the MultiQuote feature. My bad.

I don't discount that Shards with individuals to hold them could have some sort of relationship, albeit not exactly one we'd see as a romance from a human point of view, I think. However, if you want to refer to Sel's Shards, that's a pretty tragic love story... Of course, if the sudden absence of any sort of communion with the Shards (which is a communion we have no evidence of, mind you) is responsible for the splintering of Selish faiths, yeah, that would make sense. Edit: Do we have any idea at all when the Selish Shards were shattered? Does WoK necessarily take place after Elantris? For that matter, do we know if the shattering of the Shards occurred before Elantris? My Word of Brandon knowledge is very much lacking...

Just had a great image of Kaladin and Szeth having to help each other flee across the Shattered Plains as a mob of Parshendi and Alethi chase after them, trying to harvest their gemhearts

Ok, from a science point of view, this is going to be a hideous mess of mixed analogies, but hopefully it makes sense as a visual analogy (inspired by the physics comments) and fits this theory fairly well; Imagine taking a whole bunch of little bits of string and tying them together in various ways to make a gigantic snarled ball of string. This ball of string is floating in space, and is considered a solid object. (There's your string theory ) Think of the knots in the ball of string as the nodes we've been talking about for the Spiritweb, while the bits between knots are the connections. Now place a piece of paper under the string, and shine a light on it from above. The light (more precisely, everything about it - angle, intensity, duration, etc.) is the cognitive aspect. (Look up the Holographic Principle if you want the physics side of that part as I'm really envisioning it. And probably a headache). The shadow cast on the piece of paper is the object's existence in the physical realm. Pretend for the moment that our concept of "shadow" allows for actions upon the shadow to have some effect on the object casting it. As I said, the analogy is meant for a visual connection between everything only. You can change the shadow both by manipulating the string while still keeping it a solid object (manipulation of the spiritual), and also by changing the aspects of the light (manipulating the cognitive). Various mixtures of the two are your normal forms of Investiture. It's possible to treat the ball of string as a collection of little bits of string, but for most basic manipulations, it's a single object. And, in special cases, you can punch through knots and physically remove/graft on different snarls of string. Voila, Hemalurgy! Oh, and sDNA is the instructions for making the ball of string in the first place. Edit: And Forms, I think, in this analogy, would be best thought of as sets of combinations of string and light that are similar, and cast similar shadows. For example, every combination that gives a stained glass window of the proper size and shape in Shai's cell. The lack of absolute specificity is what allows Forgery to work at all without needing to describe every single little bit of string and every photon of light.

The biggest problem with trying to make comparisons, especially at higher levels of power, is that, with only a few exceptions, the highest tiers of strength in the OP are immeasurably more skilled and knowledgeable about it as well. So while the hierarchy on that list is very likely almost 100% correct, given their methods of constructing it (I used to be much more active on Dragonmount, etc. - believe me, it's been picked apart so many times over the years...), it doesn't necessarily allow for a sense of scale that you can easily apply to any two levels. Plus, you have to ask, compare how? If it's who would win in a duel, for example, Mesaana may be several levels down from Alivia, but I'd guess that if they met on equal footing (no angreals, paralis-nets, etc.), Mesaana would tie Alivia in knots. And yet, if you're just talking raw power, who can lift the biggest rock with the OP isn't necessarily a very useful thing to know either, if you ask me. Not trying to be negative about this, I just know from following discussions like this for a long time that every time you take a closer look at a particular aspect of "power ranking", parts of the hierarchy will inevitably get shifted. As far as your angreal question, there are a few scenes from Forsaken POVs where they clearly believe attaining modest to strong angreals would leave them with nothing to fear as far as backstabbing amongst them, so I'd guess I think the strongest angreal would allow you to channel perhaps 2-3 times as much as normal (anything more and we're talking sa-angreal, which run the gamut from, say, 5x as strong, to 50,000x as strong ).

I'd want gold compounding with Mistborn status.

The different aspects of power don't diminish the actual power of Shards. It doesn't matter whether it's mist, atium, etc.. Preservation gave up some of its power to give beings sentience, but since then, it's been "balanced". Maybe not exactly in physical terms, but in general terms, until Sazed took over, Ruin and Preservation were roughly matched, with Ruin having a slight edge.

I don't really want to know details, honestly, since I like reading stuff as Brandon publishes it. I'm quite frustrated by the presence of a single copy of Dragonsteel at BYU, really

Wait, what? Hoid has been around since before Adonalsium shattered....

Bronze is the only metalmind you can fill while "asleep". And there's debate about whether it really counts as sleep. I think unconsciously burning pewter or tapping a goldmind is about all you can do without conscious effort.

Does this imply Hoid was present during the time of the Heralds? We know he was alive at the time....

And for the people that mentioned Feruchemical symbols; Vague resemblance, but no real link to the Steel Alphabet. I'd guess the Feruchemical symbols predate even the proto-Steel Alphabet by a long time.....

Not on Isaac Stewart's website. I'll look around later to see if there's one available, on my phone right now.

Agreed. He could remember that Szeth had to obey his commands even if he was a drooling mess on that given day, really. Knowing to say "don't harm me, come back later" doesn't require very much intelligence at all.

Yep, makes sense. I think it's odd that the phrase is only used twice in the whole book, despite numerous references to city lords and lighteyes, but maybe even in Roshar the Landed/Landless terminology is becoming a bit archaic.

For reference; Mistborn 1: Mistborn 2: Mistborn 3: Somewhat obvious progression there.

Ah, thanks, hadn't seen that quote before. Yeah, figured they were incredibly rare even then.

Were there ferrings in the Final Empire era? Or were all Keepers full feruchemists, with no one else having any abilities? I don't think that's ever covered in the books.

Lord Ruler indeed. I'd guess if we ever seen another, it won't be until the third trilogy. May as well just refer to the single example by his own name until then.

We have Word of Brandon that Allomancers can't push/pull off Shardplate.

If there are no Breaths to give or receive where you are, how would you know? If it's far less common on other worlds (which seems incredibly likely), no one away from Nalthis would necessarily know.