Mason Wheeler

How so? I don't see anything there to support that theory. IMO the fatal flaw in the theory is the basic question cui bono? If Elantris's enemies engineered the earthquake somehow, then who was it that did it? The obvious culprit for our hypothetical crime is Fjordell, but if so, why did it take them so many years to follow through, when an ideal time to send in the dakhors to wipe everyone out would have been in the chaos immediately following the Fall that they had set up. And if it wasn't them, then who? Sometimes an earthquake is just an earthquake.

...except for the smaller star in a farther orbit that consistently illuminates Darkside. For that to work, it would have to be orbiting the main star with the same orbital period ("year length") as Taldain, but significantly further out so that the star's radiation doesn't roast everyone. Problem is, Newton and Einstein both tell us that's impossible, as the period of a stable orbit around a constant gravitational source is directly proportionate to its distance from that gravitational source.

I've listened to their versions of Elantris, Warbreaker, the Wax & Wayne books, and what they've got of Stormlight so far. I really enjoyed most of it, but not Elantris. The voice actresses they got for it, particularly Sarene and the one bratty cousin whose name I don't recall at the moment, both had really harsh and strident voices that made it difficult to listen to. But aside from Elantris I've really enjoyed their work on the Cosmere books.

Wow, you're right! So that means Shadows must have taken place very early on in the chronology!

I don't actually think that was first. Apparently the splintering of Devotion and Dominion occurred "in prehistoric days" on Sel, whereas the onset of the Evil is in a more recent time, in living memory of the characters in Shadows for Silence. Not sure where in the chronology those are relative to each other, but I'm relatively certain that that happened after Elantris.

So with 4 Shards confirmed killed by Odium now, that's a quarter of the entirety of Adonalsium! Plus Ruin and Preservation... sheesh. Gods these days. They just don't make 'em to last anymore!

The things that really stood out for me: The Evil on Threnody was a side-effect of Odium fighting Ambition (yay, new shard! Even if it is dead!) within their solar system, although it appears that this new shard was not Invested on Threnody. Khriss knows about Yolen. In Secret History she didn't. (See part 3, chapter 2.) Threnody randomly manifests unstable Perpendicularities. Possibly as a side-effect of The Evil? Autonomy has closed off access to Taldain, and doesn't like people meddling on her world, "in direct contrast to her interference with other planets." Odium has splintered "Devotion, Dominion, Honor, and perhaps others throughout the cosmere," but no mention of Ambition, who Odium fought and killed as per the Threnody essay.

(Got this meme idea last night and it kept running around in my mind so I figured the only thing to do would be to express it. Original image comes from here.)

This is the part that I've never quite understood. We're explicitly told that Harmony changed the Koloss, which were unable to breed normally and could only be made by spiking people, and made it so they could reproduce sexually and even interbreed with humans. But somehow there's no way to do the same for kandra?

It's mentioned in one of the Wax & Wayne books (I think Bands of Mourning but not 100% sure) that Terris people are stereotypically, but not always, dark-skinned. It's also mentioned (this one I'm sure was in Bands of Mourning) that the Hemalurgical power that they consider the most iconic is storing heat, because it allowed the ancestral Terris to survive in inhospitable mountain climates. These two facts seem to be at odds with one another, as dark skin shows up among ethnicities that get a lot of sun. As a general rule of thumb, the colder your climate, the lighter the skin becomes. I know that Brandon is aware of this principle, as it's explicitly stated that in the world of White Sand, the Darksiders have dark skin because they're in a binary star system, and the sun on their side puts out a lot of UV but little light from the visible spectrum. (This raises some interesting questions regarding orbital mechanics, but that's a whole other topic!) So I have to wonder, do we have any WoB on this, or lacking that, any good theories?

I think someone did bring up the Dawnshards, but until we know something about them beyond a fragment of a legend from some book somewhere, there's not much of anything useful that can be said about them.

Yeah, from the context, she's clearly referring to the Well of Ascension. Also, this discussion, about how many times the Well has been used, reminds me of another thing I asked Brandon at a signing once: how much time elapsed between the creation of mankind on Scadrial and Rashek's ascension? I don't remember exactly what his answer was, but I do remember that he was clearly not prepared for the question, as he was trying to work out what the answer should be, right there on the spot, mostly by analogies to historical timelines here on Earth. His answer was somewhere in the 6-10K year range, so the Well has seen a fair amount of use.

I can't help but wonder if he's aware that the name Silvelight is already an existing thing? It's the name of a programming technology that Microsoft came up with several years ago, to basically try to be their own proprietary competitor to Flash for Web-based apps. They ended up more or less abandoning it once no one wanted to use it because that market segment was already saturated by Flash.

With all the discussion of the references to the well of ascension, I'm surprised no one noticed the other salient bit here: So there's something that happens on Roshar where god-level strength comparable to an Ascension ends up "commonly in the hands of mortals"?!?

Maybe I wasn't the only one to ask this, but I asked Brandon a few years ago, something like this: Q: It appears that the death rattle phenomenon began at right about the same time as Szeth killed the king. A: Yes. Q: What he said there at the end, about having to find the most important words a man can speak--that's really cryptic and weird. Were those actually his own words, or did they come from somewhere else? A: No, those were actually his own words. Q: OK. Now, we've got some concepts that seem to cross worlds. A: Yeah... Q: When Miles died, he had some really cryptic stuff he said there. Was that really him speaking, or someone else? A: Oh, that's a good question. Gonna have to RAFO that one. I didn't ask anything about Svrakiss specifically, though.

So we already know that Shallash, Herald of Beauty, is going around obsessively destroying artwork, Nalan, Herald of Justice is obsessively hunting down proto-Radiants and executing them for violations of the law, and Taln, Herald of War is mindlessly repeating his Heraldic introduction about the upcoming war... but you know what I just realized? Jezrien, King of Heralds... His Honorblade is being used to kill many, many kings and rulers! Coincidence? Also, any ideas as to what are the other Heralds up to?

I was thinking about how toxic the new allomantic metals are, and how cadmium in particular would be troublesome for Marasi to get rid of, when I suddenly realized she had the perfect solution available. So a scene like this had to have happened at some point...

"Thanks, Wayne," Marasi said as the short man opened the hotel room door to let himself out. "Oh, think nothin' of it, Marasi. If I had a problem like that, an' this was the only way I could get any sleep, I'd sure want a mate who could help out, so why not do the same for you?" He smiled and closed the door, then turned to head back to his own room. And barely avoided crashing into MeLaan, who had been standing outside waiting there for a while, by the looks of her. Wayne jumped, startled. "MeLaan! Errm... this isn't what it looks like," he proclaimed immediately. "Looks like you coming out of Marasi's room late in the evening," the statuesque kandra remarked idly, looking generally downwards at him. "Well yes, but--" "After helping her 'prepare' for bed?" Wayne stiffened. "Now it ain't like that!" "I don't mind. It's not like I'd get jealous over such things. I'm mostly just surprised. Never saw any signs that you two were that close." He scowled. "We ain't! This was a... a professional meeting, me helping her with a personal need--" he stopped. "That just makes it sound even worse, doesn't it?" The kandra just grinned cheekily. "It's kinda embarrassing, truth be told. She wouldn't want me tellin' anyone about her little problem, especially if it were to get back to Wax." MeLaan simply nodded, her curiosity thoroughly piqued by now. "It's... well... her allomancy." "Her allomancy?" Wayne nodded. "You know her and I have complimentary powers?" "You burn bendallloy to speed up time in a bubble, and she burns cadmium to slow it down." "Aye. Well, she didn't use any of her power on today's Mission." MeLaan nodded. "She tends to find fewer opportunities than you do." "And just to make it all worse, cadmium burns real slow. Well, wisdom of the Survivor himself says to always burn all the metal you got left before bed." "I've heard of that. Allomantic metals can be toxic." "Exactly. And cadmium, it's one of the worst of all. Really nasty, what it can do to a person." "So she needs to make extra sure to burn it at night," MeLaan said. "Where do you come in?" "Well, the problem with burning off cadmium at night is what it does to you. Most metals, you can just let 'em burn until they're gone, and not much happens if you don't do nothing with them, but cadmium..." That's when it dawned on MeLaan. "She wouldn't be able to sleep well because she'd run out of time." "Exactly." "Unless... if you burn your own power at the same time, close enough that you're both inside each other's bubbles, do the effects just cancel out?" "Now you got it, " Wayne said. She smiled. "You're a good friend, Wayne, more decent and loyal than you give yourself credit for. It's one of the things I like about you. " Wayne actually flushed a little at that. "Thought'cha liked me fer me natural wit an' charm, an' me skill at disguises an' such," he mumbled. She grinned and slipped a hand into his, smiling playfully and giving his hand a fond little squeeze. "One of the reasons." Then she leaned down and whispered in his ear, "do you have any slow time left?"

(No Dark Talent spoilers please) We've got jokes threads for other works, but I don't see one here. So I'll start this one off. Q: What eyewear would Alcatraz want to bring along when he finally gets a date with Bastille? A: Osculator's Lenses

Where was that confirmed?

Shadows of Self, the chapter where Wax goes to the soothing parlor to find the cab driver who had transported Bleeder. (Not sure what the number is and I don't have the book in front of me ATM.)

Alloy of Law reveals that a thin sheet of aluminum foil can block emotional allomancy. At this point, that's still a very well-balanced power, as aluminum is rare and more valuable than gold. This is historically accurate, but you need go no further than the nearest vending machine to realize something big changed at some point. According to Wikipedia, "Aluminium is the third most abundant element in the Earth's crust (after oxygen and silicon) and its most abundant metal." Or, as Paul Twister put it, "the stuff’s about as rare as sand; it’s just extraordinarily difficult to extract from its ores." In our world, this all changed in the late 1880s, when two chemists independently came up with a way to use electrolysis of a molten aluminum salt refined from bauxite ore to extract pure metallic aluminum at a temperature of under 1000 degrees. (The older way required temperatures of over 2000 degrees and the use of other rare minerals, such as pure sodium.) When Scadrial reaches this level of development, anyone's going to be able to afford their very own tinfoil hat. It makes me wonder what the future holds for emotional allomancy, when anyone can trivially ward against it...

It would sure be nice to have some idea how that was done...

Doubtful. A spike through the eye isn't something easily hidden, and when people saw the medallions bearing the image of the Sovereign with a spike through one eye, no one said "that looks like the mark of the Lord Mistborn!"

What do you call it when a Faceless Immortal says two things that can't both be true? A kandra-diction!