hitkay

Yeah, but if the spikes were stealing Allomantic or Feruchemical abilities, then they would also be of Preservation, right?

It's revealed in chapter 55 of WoR that the messenger was Wit.

The idea that it can't be Trell comes from the fact that Harmony isn't aware of the metal, and that it's from a Shard we knew at the time. As Harmony knows of Dominion, Devotion, Endowment, Odium, and presumably Cultivation and Honor, this leaves only Autonomy and the survival Shard, which generally isn't counted. But yeah, this is false, as Harmony has presumably never encountered the Investiture of any other Shards, and wouldn't recognize, say, raysium, even if he'd heard of it. Even if his communication with the Shards in his RoW letter involved encountering their Investiture, the only one who was a candidate is Endowment, who has been confirmed non-Trell by WoB. There is some other evidence for Autonomy, which mostly revolves around how it fits her MO. But yeah, it also fits Odium's MO and there's more direct evidence for him. I do still think Autonomy is more likely because she's a big player in the cosmere and I don't see how else she'd play a significant role in the foreseeable future. Thematically, Autonomy also works much better with Era 2, and narratively, I'd be surprised if Odium was the major antagonistic Shard in both the second half of Stormlight and Era 3. But I think it's most likely one of those two. Or - tinfoil hat on - Trell is connected to both. Odium and Autonomy have previously worked together, Autonomy refused to act against him, Odium has had an influence on Scadrial and it's likely that Autonomy has as well. Trelagism focused on two deities - Nalt was represented by the sun (Autonomy is Invested in a sun), and Trell himself was believed to care far more about his believers than Nalt, which is exactly how Odium frames himself in comparison to the other Shards. Just a thought. I didn't think we had enough theories already.

You may want to reread the terms for the contest of champions. Regardless of the victor, Dalinar and Odium will do their best to keep the peace (which I assume is why there will be at least ten years between SA5 and SA6), and Odium will send his boys into the wider cosmere. So if Odium is Trell, this doesn't reveal anything about SA5. He'd do this either way. This is true, and we know that it's not something Odium wants to do, so the fact that Trell will be able to block Harmony in an entire city is definitely a notable argument against the Odium theory.

The atium in Era 1 is only "very slightly tainted" with electrum, which may be why the appearances are so similar. Incidentally, why did Preservation cause the atium to generate naturally as an atium-electrum alloy? Wouldn't it have benefited him if everyone could burn atium to keep Ruin's power away from him? It would make more sense to me if this change was made by Rashek when he Ascended as a way of keeping order, but apparently not. This would explain the red "rusting", as this indicates corrupted Investiture or Investiture co-opted by another Shard. And as trellium is silver, the appearance fits. It may also be that trellium repels Preservation only, as we've seen it repel Allomancy and harmonium but nothing Invested only with Ruin. However, the trellium spike in Bleeder must have contained a God Metal from another Shard, as Harmony would have recognized atium. It could be an alloy of two God Metals, one of which is atium, but I find this unlikely. See above: Era 1 atium contained only trace amounts of electrum. Malatium could have contained significantly a higher ratio of gold. And the coloring of atium and malatium was similar, it's just that atium was almost reflective and malatium resembled porcelain. This was recently retconned to not be pure gold, but rather a gold-electrum alloy.

That does sound pretty plausible, actually. Based on this WoB and the deleted prologue to The Emperor's Soul, my theory is that Shai became one of Hoid's two unidentified apprentices, and we know Hoid is taking some kind of interest in Scadrial right now.

I'm wary of using God Metals to deduce the Shard's Intent. Lerasium isn't indestructible and doesn't really have any traits that would align it with Preservation. The same is true for atium and Ruin: atium doesn't decay, or cause whatever it comes into contact with to decay. And raysium naturally conducts Investiture and actually draws it in (the opposite of trellium, actually, which is why I'm speculating that trellium is a raysium alloy), which seems entirely unrelated to Odium's Intent. While it would make sense for bavadinium to repel other metals or sources of Investiture, or be repelled from them, I wouldn't read into that too much. Have we ever seen two God Metals collide? An Honorblade and a raysium dagger, maybe? I know Shardblades and Shardplates are made from alloys of Honor and Cultivation's God Metals, but I'm not sure that's the same situation.

Well, Ruin's Investiture is black, but atium is silver. There's not always a relationship.

We've only seen trellium interact with Harmony's Investiture so far.

Preservation's Perpendicularity was a white pool, not a blue one.

Well, that would mean trellium was atium, which it isn't. And as mentioned, we have a WoB that seems to confirm Harmony is doing something with the excess Ruin rather than just ignoring it and hoping it goes away. The most common theory I've seen is he's creating some atium, perhaps for Marsh and Spook.

On another note, I'd like to remind us all of this WoB. It seems relevant.

I'm just going to switch to spoilers.

If it's after SA5, potentially a decade or so after, then the thing that happened with Odium in SA4 doesn't necessarily throw a wrench into the Odium theory. If Odium is Trell, he could have only started his machinations after SA4 or SA5.

Oh I thought that was in reference to the figure in The Lost Metal, my bad. I agree, the sticker is probably Khriss and the figure probably isn't.

We know from a WoB that Khriss has worked with Kelsier since MBSH, but I doubt Khriss is a Ghostblood, so I doubt it's her.

A Feruchemist has to actively tap a metalmind to heal from it, so if the brain is destroyed, they cannot heal. Miles was a Compounder, so he was constantly burning his goldminds using Allomancy rather than Feruchemy, meaning it was an ability that was essentially always active. I think it's just a small bathroom because it's an airship. I wouldn't read into it. We have a WoB that seems to confirm that the kandra on Roshar is an agent of Harmony. The mists in Era 1 were gaseous lerasium.

Just to comment on the Odium theory in the light of the new chapters (and the Autonomy theory, I guess). This is mentioned but not resolved: “The way Paalm… acted was a direct result of her decision to remove one of her spikes,” VenDell said. “The trellium spikes may have exacerbated her ailment, but were not the root cause.” “Harmony implied otherwise to me.”

Do we have confirmation that The Lost Metal takes place after Rhythm of War? At the start of The Lost Metal, no kandra has apparently been to Roshar (or at the very least, spent a significant amount of time there), which I figured placed it before Oathbringer. We have a WoB that says the worldhopping kandra is Harmony's agent, not a rogue kandra, and that it's female, so I figured MeLaan was being set up as that kandra. But if we do have confirmation then I agree, this is the main argument against the theory. I'd also like to pose the theory that Trell is the survival Shard. We've known about it since 2011, so technically, technically, it doesn't contradict the WoB that Trell was a Shard we already knew. Its recent change in priorities may have led to an attempt to take control of Scadrial, either because it was easy/convenient or because of its significance in the Cosmere, and it may have an association with Kelsier and the Ghostbloods, who are trying to source Investiture for it. This is why Mraize believes the Ghostbloods are the most powerful group in the Cosmere: they have the full support of an entire Shard. If this Shard is Invention, as sometimes suggested, then this may explain why Trell seems to have taken an interest in Scadrian technology. It's very unlikely but it's the only completely unexpected option I can think of that also seems remotely plausible except, I don't know, maybe Cultivation. I've seen a lot of arguments for Autonomy, the Dor (or specifically Dominion), and Discord, more for any of those three than for Odium, actually. I don't think Trell will be as surprising as it will be interesting and that's the way I'd prefer it to be.

Before the next chapters of The Lost Metal drop, I'd like to discuss Odium as a candidate for Trell. We know that Odium is very scared of Harmony, although this is partly because he doesn't know how limited Harmony actually is. Still, Harmony is more powerful than Odium, though Odium could probably beat him. This gives us a strong motive for Odium wanting to go after Harmony, and we know that he is "making plans" to do this, and that he has had some kind of influence on Scadrial in the past. We even know that he is allied to at least one non-Autonomy force in the cosmere - as stated in a WoB, "Odium has his fingers in a LOT of things". Essentially, it's reasonable to consider Odium. Even though Sazed knows of Odium and doesn't recognize trellium, he has likely never encountered Odium's Investiture and has only heard about him from Hoid. As for evidence: Trell and Odium are both associated with the colors red and gold. Red is the color of corrupted Investiture, yes, but Miles and the Cycle both mention the "the men of gold and red" in reference to Trell. I also mentioned in a previous post that The Lost Metal said trellium was gold, but I was wrong: as with Shadows of Self it's described as silver with dark red "rusting". Though raysium is gold, not silver, trellium could be an alloy. While we're discussing trellium, we know from Oathbringer and a WoB that raysium functions comparably to hemalurgy. Moelach's Death Rattles are very reminiscent of Miles' and the Cycle's final words. Wax is overwhelmed by "dread and destruction" when he observes Trell, which is reminiscent of Odium showing Dalinar his true form. The kandra aren't entirely sure why Paalm became so murderous, but this could be explained if the spike was from Odium. Additionally, passion is a strong motive for Paalm, and this is what Odium repeatedly claims he represents. A trellium spike could have brought this out in Paalm, or maybe Odium's spiel was what convinced her to act against Harmony and put it in - "I know pain. I am the only god who does. The only one who cares." With Trell's Faceless Immortals, Odium seems to be mimicking the kandra, either by creating new ones somehow or by corrupting existing ones like Paalm. This could be his usual MO, as he either corrupted Honor or Cultivation's spren to make Voidspren, or copied them. It's probably possible for Odium to create new Faceless Immortals, as the chimeras in Shadows of Self were well beyond Rashek's ability. While looking into this, I found another WoB that confirms Paalm's trellium spike stopped Harmony from controlling her because it was an unknown metal to Harmony, so we can take "trellium spikes seem to fit Autonomy's Intent" off the list of evidence for her. There's still more evidence for her than for Odium, but Odium has been too overlooked. EDIT: linked to WoBs rather than citing them in full, hopefully I didn't mix any of them up.

A relevant WoB that I missed while writing this, from the Skyward Seattle signing, November 10, 2018.

We know very little about what Kelsier's plans actually are beyond wanting to leave Scadrial, and wanting to leave Scadrial seems counter-intuitive to a primary objective of protecting it. We're also unclear on what exactly Trell is trying to do: Miles seems to think that Trell wants to rule Scadrial, and the Set has a longterm goal of building an army, but the ending of Bands of Mourning does, as you say, strongly indicate that Trell wants to genocide/destroy Scadrial. As the Faceless Immortal tells Suit that he will be allowed to serve in another Realm, and as what we've seen of The Lost Metal seems to reveal that the Set is stockpiling in Elendel, it is possible that Trell is preparing for some kind of evacuation to the Cognitive Realm to travel to Silverlight or another planet. This, on the surface, fits Kelsier's desire to survive: he has decided that Scadrial is doomed and is trying to get as many people to safety as possible. We also know from Iyatil that Southern Scadrials settled in Silverlight somehow, and as Iyatil is Kelsier's student, he was presumably responsible. This doesn't hold up, though, because "start a very secretive cult to save a handful of sadistic murderers" does not seem to be how Kelsier would approach the problem. But it's still possible that Kelsier and Trell are related somehow. I've put some connections in spoilers because they're tangential. EDIT: after the new chapters, I think we can assume with relative safety that Trell and Kelsier are at odds.

According to WoB: "There are three races on Yolen. There's humans, there's Sho Del, and there's dragons" (Arcanum Unbounded release party, November 22, 2016). Remember that the original Shardholders were all Yolish, including Leras, Ati and Rayse (Preservation, Ruin and Odium), who were all human. Hoid is also Yolish and was once a human. If you're wondering what a Sho Del is, they "fill the same niche in the fain ecosystem that humans fill in the normal one", whatever that means (fain are comparable to parasitic plants). Ambition's Shardholder, Uli Da, is the only Sho Del we know of. Currently, the population of Yolen is small enough that "it is a number that you could count to reasonably" (Calamity Chicago signing, February 22, 2016), and as the only known inhabitant is Frost, a dragon, it's possible that all of Yolen's current inhabitants are dragons, although the above WoB states that there are three races on Yolen, present tense.

BrandoSando isn't very good at writing quippy or snarky humor, so with Shallan, you kind of just have to take it for granted that the characters find her much funnier than you will. Words of Radiance is probably the book with the most focus on it, though.

The Harmony quote is from chapter eighteen, according to the Coppermind Wiki. You do have a point about changing two Shards so that they function as one, which I think is more or less Harmony's Intent, going against Autonomy's Intent. From JordanCon 2018: "Is absorbing everything and becoming one again Autonomous or not? [...] The way Autonomy looks at it right now, is no. Autonomy wants to remain Autonomy. Autonomy does not want to be corrupted by anything else. And Autonomy would think the Shards are better on their own." But I think this is more of a preference for Autonomy rather than something she wants to impose on other Shards, and though the last part does imply that this could be a motive for acting against Harmony (if Autonomy is Trell), then that still doesn't make the Intents opposite, it just means that Autonomy opposes what Harmony is trying to do; Odium sought out Ambition to kill her, but that doesn't make them diametric opposites. Incidentally, like Autonomy, Odium doesn't want to be influenced by another Shard's Intent, which is also influenced by his own Intent: he hates what other Shards represent, as evidenced by his smack talk against Honor and Cultivation to Dalinar. That doesn't mean that Odium is the diametric opposite to Harmony, so why would Autonomy be? If Harmony wanted all Shards to be harmonious, functioning as one, and Autonomy wanted all Shards to be autonomous, then I would agree with you. But Harmony wants Ruin and Preservation to be harmonious, and Autonomy wants Autonomy to be autonomous. Though Sazed may wish that there was universal harmony, and Bavadin may think that the Shards are better on their own, this does not mean that the Shardic Intents are diametrically opposed.