Mad_Scientist

Brandon didn't quite confirm that that Dor was specific to Sel, though I think his words strongly implied it. zas678 had a theory that there was a universal "power of creation" separate from Shard powers, that it was what fueled both allomancy and AonDor, and that this universal power was in fact the Dor. But when Brandon was asked if the Dor was the same "power of creation" that fueled allomancy, he said it wasn't. He said it was similiar, but different. This seems to be in line with the main theory opposing zas678's, which was that there was no universal "power of creation," that the powers of the Shards were the power of creation, and that the Dor was thus related to one or more Shards on Sel. This would fit in with Brandon saying that the Dor was similiar but different to that which powers allomancy. But technically speaking, Brandon never confirmed that the Dor was Shard or world specific. He just said that it wasn't the same thing as what fueled allomancy. It's always possible that none of our theories were right, that the Dor is neither a universal power of creation or a Shard power. Or it's possible that zas678 was right about their being a universal power of creation, but wrong about allomancy using it.

A lot of people in the youtube comments were talking about the creator of minecraft's comments on the video, which can be read here. I'm certainly not an expert on this, but his words make sense I think.

Interesting. I like that idea a lot. I remember that Brandon commented in an interview about there being a "mysterious death" in the book that could bear some looking into, but he didn't say what he meant precisely. Theories as to who he was referring to ranged from Gaz(who may or may not be dead) to Shallan's brother to others, but I've never seen anyone suggest this specific idea for her brother.

Well, we don't know how good Gaz's memory is, do we? I can definitely see why he wouldn't strike most people as the type to be a spy/quote collector for Taravangian... which is why he's so perfect for the role. As for Taravangian not wanting inaccurate quotes, well, that's true but at the same time I'd think he'd rather still hear the death visions with the potential for some of them to be a bit off, then not hear them at all. He'd just be extra cautious about ones from less trusted sources. It's not ideal for him, but he's gone far beyond doing what is ideal long ago. We'll see. At least Gaz is one mystery that will probably be answered in book 2.

It's the most awesomist thing ever! Ok, maybe not that. But it does do a good job of telling a new visitor about the site, which is presumably the purpose of an about page, so I like it. EDIT: Accidentally posted before I finished typing.

Some of the death quotes given before chapters were specifically stated as being second-hand, simply overheard, and/or of questionable veracity. Taravangian clealy still considered them notable, since they were part of the chapter epigraphs. Also, keep in mind that in the Vorin nations, men don't read, and women don't wage war. So even if Taravangian had a spy other than Gaz, a more learned spy, he still wouldn't be able to take notes, not without raising too many questions: "Hey, why can you, a guy, read and write? And why are you taking notes while your allies lie bleeding and dying around you?" And of course a woman wouldn't be on the front lines anyways, and thus wouldn't hear the dying men. As for having enough people... Taravangian specifically told Szeth that he didn't have enough people. That's why instead of just taking the terminally ill, he was also taking and killing people who would normally recover.

Interesting. Since I have only started discussing Brandon's books on the internet fairly recently, I'm afraid that I haven't yet spent much time looking at the nearly 60 pages of threads on TWG, though I did look a little, but it seems there's some very good stuff there that I have missed. I'll have to spend some more time reading some of the older threads there when I have a chance.

Well, that might explain to some extent why Nightblood can read minds, but not how he can read minds. To illustrate what I mean, let's say they gave Nightblood a completely different Command. Perhaps "bring peace to and unite the cosmere." And said Command caused Nightblood to transform into an all-powerful god stronger than any Shard, one that served as a loving god and changed the base nature of all mankind, bringing about unity and peace to every world. Now, would that make sense? It would fit with the Command. But how could a mere thousand breaths and a Command cause that strong an effect? That's a very extreme example, but it shows the problem I have. Even if a "destroy evil" Command is well served by Nightblood being able to read minds, I just don't think it should have to power to give him that ability. A mere thousand breaths? I think either that Command should not have worked right or instead given Nightblood the ability to "destroy evil" some other way, or that there is something other than just the Command that explains why Nightblood can read minds/why Ruin can't read minds. I don't know. Maybe that's why, but Brandon said that both Ruin and Preservation could fuel each other's magic systems, despite them being rather against each other's nature, and both can just directly use the Power of Creation itself to do drastic things. I could see it being harder for them to read minds than other Shards, taking more power maybe, but impossible? I just don't see why Endowment would that much of easier ability to read minds, so much that a mere fraction of her power could be used to let others do so. I don't think that's the way Awakened objects work at all. Rather then them reading a person's mind, I'd say the person control's the object's mind. It's like when someone hears the voice of Ruin in their head and is forced to do stuff because of it. Are they reading Ruin's mind? Nope. Same for Awakened objects (normal ones), just on a smaller scale. Or at least that's what I think. Another thing to remember is that Nightblood is not the only thing we've seen capable of reading minds, and I'm not even talking about Harmony, who some believe didn't actually do so. That spren that Shallon talked to near the end of Way of Kings also read her mind. Brandon said that Nightblood and the spren share some important similiarties. And Nightblood and a spren are the only things 100% confirmed to have read someone's mind. It's possible that there may be no connection between those two things, but a part of me suspects that there is, that one of the things that makes them similiar is also the thing that allowed them to read minds.

Interesting. I certainly wouldn't object to seeing further adventures with Wax, or even just further adventures set during the same time period, as I rather like the current blend of magic and technology. It gives the book a pretty cool feel.

First of all let me say that I love this theory. I hadn't the slightest guess who she could during either of my readings of WoK. But I'm not bumping this old thread just to say that. I noticed further evidence for this theory. From one of the "death quotes" given at some chapter starts. References to a female vandal stratching out her own eyes... and didn't Baxil's mistress destroy the eyes of a bust during her vandalism?

Assuming for the moment that the Thrill is related to the power of Odium and has some sort of corrupting effect, I noticed something. When Kaladin fights the parshendi, Syl acts oddly. She is described as "entranced" I believe. (My Dad's reading the book now so I don't have it on hand). Kaladin never felt the Thrill. A connection? Perhaps Syl felt the Thrill instead. Perhaps that's part of the purpose of the nahel bond, to provide some sort of buffer between the fighter and the power of Odium. The spren feels the Thrill but is able to avoid being corrupted by it for some reason (if my theory about honorspren having Splinter of Honor is correct, that could be why).

Here's exactly what was said: I'm fairly certainly that, based on the way the question was phrased, there are only 3 Shards that have ever been on Roshar at any point. Those Shards are seemingly Odium, Cultivation, and Honor. If another Shard was trying to affect things, then it would have to somehow be giving Kaladin visions without actually going to Roshar, and I'm honestly not sure another Shard could do that. The power of a Shard is the Shard in a sense, so if a Shard was somehow using its power to affect Roshar, that Shard would be on Roshar. Now, saying this, I realize that we've never had 100% confirmation that Odium is on of the three Shards on Roshar. We know Odium killed Honor, which strongly implies that Odium has been there, but I suppose there's always the chance that for some reason Honor left Roshar, and it was then that he was killed by Odium (perhaps making it back to Roshar in his dying gasps... or whatever a Shard would have). If that was the case, then there would be 4 Shards involved in the story: Honor, Cultivation, and Unknown-Roshar-Shard, with Odium on the way to Roshar.

I did consider that, but the Almighty/Honor is talking to Dalinar, and the style and tone of his visions and Kaladin's visions are completely different. I don't think they're coming from the same place. Also, don't know if the Almighty would refer to himself in the third person like that. Yah, at the moment we don't even know for sure what Adonalsium even is, or if it ever had a mind. That said, the fact that Hoid seemed to be checking to see if Dalinar knew that name makes me strongly suspect that something related to Adonalsium must be going on, something important, even if Adonalsium itself isn't granting visions.

That might explain Harmony, but the fact that both Nightblood and at least one type of spren are able to read minds makes me wonder. Especially since Nightblood doesn't seem to be a particularly "balanced' entity. And we were told something about Nightblood being similiar to the spren (I should dig up the exact quote) which makes me wonder if there's some connection there that explains why both have been shown reading minds. As for the rest of my thoughts on the cognitive realm and it's interactions... yah, I definitely probably could have stated it in a more elegant, less complicated manner and preserved all the essential points I wanted to make. But I'm still pretty strongly convinced in those essential points.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I wasn't certain if I should create a new thread with the exact same topic, and I really want to share my views on this. I think I may know who spoke to Kaladin, and if I am right, it has some really insane cosmere implications. I think it was Adonalsium itself, or whatever remains of Adonalsium. Why? Well, consider the words used. "Child of Tanavast. Child of Honor. Child of one long since departed." When this thread was first created, the importance of "Tanavast" and "Honor" weren't known. Now we know that Honor is the Shard held by the Almighty, and that Tanavast was the original holder of said Shard. And of course, Honor aka the Almighty is dead, and thus is "long since departed." So, it seems that all of the "Child of..." references were actually talking about the same thing. Which means that whoever spoke to Kaladin knows that "the Almighty" is dead, knows that the Almighty held the Shard Honor, and knows that the name of the original holder of said Shard was a person named Tanavast. And despite referencing Honor three times, the person speaking to Kaladin never called Honor the Almighty. I think this means it is extremely unlikely that the one who spoke to Kaladin was a Herald. Would they even know of the name Tanavast? And if they did, would they use it? The one Herald's whose thoughts we saw thought of Honor as "the Almighty", and the apparant Herald at the end of the book also used the term "the Almighty." It seems the Heralds did worship Honor and thought of him as a god, and I doubt they would speak to Kaladin about him in the way the Face did. Whoever spoke to Kaladin used the Almighty's Shard name, his human name, and his status as being dead, but never any of his divine names. I don't think the one who spoke to Kaladin was someone who ever worshiped Honor as a god. So, who could have it been? Hoid? Unlikely. I don't think Hoid has the power to give visions like that. And if he did, I doubt he would have appeared as the Face did. The one who spoke to Kaladin was described as a face as wide as the sky itself, with eyes full of stars. It's a majestic image. Hold, at least at the time of Way of Kings, seems a rather self-depreciating fellow. He wouldn't appear in such a form. Plus, if he wanted to talk to Kaladin, he could just... talk to Kaladin. So who is left? Well, Shards are a possibility. I doubt the person who spoke to Kaladin was Honor itself, though. Just look at how different Kaladin's and Dalinar's visions were. The face Kaladin saw smiled in its first appearance. Honor was extremely sorrowful in the one vision of Dalinar's where he showed emotion. The face who spoke to Kaladin seemed very sure of itself and implied it had knowledge of Kaladin's nature as a child of Honor: it knew who it was speaking to. Honor wasn't even sure how Dalinar was able to see his "logbook," of even if Dalanir was able to see it. The entire tone of Kaladin's and Dalinar's visions are completely different. So if not Honor, maybe Odium? Ha, like it would be Odium. The face who spoke to Kaladin seemed to be warning him about Odium. I find it extremely unlikely that it was Odium itself. Cultivation? Maybe, though it would seem strange to me for it to speaking to Kaladin, who is far in the east, away from Shinovar. Plus the face who spoke to Kaladin didn't really strike me as a she. But Cultivation is a definite possibility, though to me it just doesn't seem quite right. Think again of how the face was described. One as vast as the sky itself, with stars for its eyes. Now, think of how Adonalsium was described in Hero of Ages. "I sense shards of something from long ago, a fractured presence, something spanning the void." To me, the "something spanning the void" evokes the same type of feeling as the face Kaladin saw. And now we get to what I consider to be by far the biggest evidence that the Face was Adonalsium: Hoid's actions. Specifically, the fact that Hoid mentions Adonalsium to Dalinar. Hoid's actions clearly show that he was checking to see if Dalinar recognized the name. But the question is: why? Why would Hoid think there would be even the slightest possibility that Dalinar would know that name? The answer seems clear to me: because Dalinar was having visions during Highstorms. I think Hoid must have known that whatever remains of Adonalsium's presence was particularly strong in Roshar at that time, known that it may have been trying to communicate with someone. He thought that person maybe was Dalinar, that Dalinar might be getting visions from Adonalsium, and decided to see if Dalinar recognized the name. Hoid was right about Adonalsium giving someone visions, he was just wrong about who was receiving them.

A radioactive rose.

The parshendi are a mystery. Jasnah thinks they are related to the Voidbringers, and while there are obviously things she doesn't know, I doubt it if she's completely wrong. That would imply that the parshendi are the minions or servants of Odium. Yet everything about them that we've seen screams "Honor." The only apparant exception to this is them killing Gavilar, but even in that, they had Szeth wear white. "Because if you're going to kill a man, he's entitled to see you coming." I couldn't figure it out the first time I read Way of Kings, and I'm still not sure I've figured it out after finishing reading the book for a second time just recently. But with my new knowledge of Brandon's other books, specifically Mistborn, a possible idea sprang to mind. Warning, Mistborn 3 spoilers follow: My idea is that the parshendi were actually created by the Almighty, and are thus beings forged by Honor. However, for reasons I don't fully understand, they are required to serve Odium during the desolations. They will become like Szeth, forced to kill and main and slaughter, despite not wanting to. Worse, being creature of Honor, they may be literally incapable of stopping, unlike Szeth. But what to do? Surely whatever pact forces them to serve Odium also prevents them from killing themselves, or seeking death in battle by doing stupid things like fighting chasmfiends barehanded, or anything like that. So how can they ensure Odium can't use them? By pissing off the most powerful military nation on the planet. Their tactics on the Shattered Plains make a lot of sense, from this perspective. They have to get the gemhearts because they need them to make food, and they can't simply let themselves starve. They are described in the books as being very good at fleeing when the battle goes against them, which would make sense, as they can't seek death so once the battle becomes hopeless they have no choice but to flee. But they never bother harrassing the Alethi soldiers when they flee after a parshendi victory, despite the fact that the parshendi's chasm jumping ability would give them a huge advantage and let them really butcher the Alethi forces. They never bring two armies to a fight... until they are forced to, when Dalinar and Sadeas's alliance makes fighting with only a single force the same as suicide. But even then, they still never bring more forces than that which gives them a reasonable chance at victory. The theory makes sense, but I am unsure about it. For one thing, it ultimately wouldn't be that helpful to the world. If the parshendi/parshmen really are the Voidbringers, then the biggest threat is not the parshendi, but the parshmen. Afterall, if the parshendi invaded, they'd just be like any other invading nation, and their abilities provide them far less of an advantage in places other than the Shattered Plains. But the parshmen suddenly attacking would be horrorfic because of how entrenched they are. Maybe the parshendi hoped that if they fought long enough, people would realize the danger parshmen present. Or maybe the parshendi have another reason for doing what they are doing, and my theory is wrong. I'm honestly not sure what I think myself.

I agree, the odd perspective gives it a really unique feel. I'm guessing this game is where the promised Kelsier backstory will be unveiled.

Yah, I wouldn't be surprised if I did overcomplicate things a bit, as I tend to come up with fairly convolted explanations for things sometimes. So if there are ways to express some of the same concepts in a more refined, simple form, I'd be very interested in reading it. Oh, and I just posted another big theory thread.

I'm finally getting to my big spren theory. I've been wanted to post this for a while, but I figured I needed to finish re-reading Way of Kings first, to make sure things made sense and to iron out some aspects of my theory. So here it is: the spren are the cognitive aspects of various parts of the Roshar, usually the cognitive aspects of things not considered living beings by most people, such as air or stones or the like. They have been enhanced by something(which I'll explain later), which has made them a bit closer to being sentient than normal, though they are still far away from being truly sentient. The spren that are visible to people are cognitive aspects that have become mostly disconnected from their physical aspects, ones that have a much stronger connection to Shadesmar, and thus, the minds of people. Now, before I go any further, I should say that much of what I post here is based upon cognitive aspect concepts I talked about in detail in the "Why Nightblood can read thoughts... thread. I hate to force you to read a giant theory thread before you can start to read yet another giant theory thread, but I'm afraid you won't be able to follow a some of what I say if you don't. Now, when discussing why I came to this conclusion about spren, let's first consider a conversation a young Kaladin has with his mother Hesina back in chapter 37, edited slightly for space. Now, it's possible that Hesina is completely wrong about things, but her comments on how everything has a spren, and those spren are split into smaller sprens when the objects are broken up, are quite intriguing. Consider what Syl says at another point. I don't know the chapter or page number off the top of my head, but fortunately Chaos posted the quote in another recent thread. Hesina's comments about what happens to spren when the objects they are in are broken up really seems to fit well with Syl's comment about spren being virtually the same individual. Afterall, if you take a stone that has one spren and then break the stone in two, and those now both have spren, they would be virtually the same individual. So let's say for the moment that Hesina is right, at least in most respects. How would spren fit into realmatic theory? We know that generally, everything has 3 aspects. A physical one, a cognitive one, and a spiritual one. On Roshar, does everything have 4 aspects? Physical, cognitive, spiritual... and spren? And spren would somehow be separate from the other 3 aspects? Unlikely. It seems that if everything does indeed have a spren, spren must be related to one of the 3 aspects. In fact, they may essentially be one of those 3 aspects. Given the way spren appear, with their constantly changing forms that are sometimes only visible to one or more people, they probably are linked to either the spiritual or cognitive aspects of things. Also, considering Hesina equates the spren of an object with the soul of a person, that also implies spren are cognitive or spiritual in nature. But which? Well, consider Shallen's encounter with Shadesmar when she accidentally soulcasts a goblet. In chapter 48, she thinks about what she did. Please note that the empthasis on the "spren" of the goblet was in the original book, not added by me. Now, if one goes to Shadesmar, the cognitive realm, and communicates with an aspect of a goblet, one would assume that it would be the cognitive aspect that one would communicate with. That just makes sense. Of course, Shallen could be wrong about it being a spren she gave the light to, but when we consider her thoughts alongside Hesina's words and the behavior of spren, I think it all comes together. Spren are cognitive aspects. In fact, the two terms are pretty much interchangable. Now, the first big question this theory brings up is why certain spren exist. Fearspren? Gloryspren? Painspren? Nothing in our current understanding of realmatic theory says that things like "glory" or "pain" have cognitive aspects. Well, I say the reason for this apparant contradiction is that the names we use for spren are the names people on Roshar gave them, names generaly based on where and when the spren can be seen. There are a few different times where people speculate on the nature of spren, and wonder whether or not spren are actually created by things like fear, or actually cause things like fear, or are simply attracted to things like fear. Many references to fearspren and painspren talk about them crawling out of the nearby ground or walls and gathering around the people who feel fear or pain. Seems to me that if they were created by pain or fear, they'd spring up from the person feeling such pain or fear, not the environment near the person. And it should be fairly clear that spren aren't causing those things (afterall, people on other worlds still feel fear and pain and the like without those worlds having visible spren). So that makes the likely option that spren are just attracted to those things. In that case, a "fearspren" has no need to be the cognitive aspect of fear. And perhaps spren are more than just attracted to things like fear. Perhaps they are changed by them. We know from the interlude with the ardents studying firespren that the form of a spren can change according to the things people do. Defining a spren in a certain way caused it to become that way. And so I think that fearspren are actually simply the spren of things like rocks or wood or metals or whatever, manifesting as they do because they are influenced by the strong emotions of nearby people. It goes back a bit too what I said about Nightblood in the other thread. We know that Nightblood and spren share some important similiarties. I theorized that the reason Nightblood can read thoughts and control minds is that he has a much stronger connection to Shadesmar than most entities. Since Nightblood is a strong mind, he can use that to control other minds. But what if there existed things like Nightblood, but of much weaker thought? Would they be able to control the minds of others? Or would they instead be controlled by the minds of others? That is spren, or most of them. Mostly disconnected cognitive aspects that are shaped by the minds of people nearby. As to why Roshar has a bunch of enhanced cognitive aspects that are only weakly bound to the physical world, well, I have a theory. Here are some points to note. Spren are not visible in Shinovar, at least not in the one interlude that takes place there. Highstorms do not affect Shinovar. Spren are never seen in any of Dalinar's visions of the past, even when you would expect to see them. The only spren even mentioned are unique spren like honorspren, which I believe have a slightly different origin than other spren. In one of Dalinar's visions of the past, he is surprised when someone mentions by how long the weather had gone without changing. In present Roshar, Highstorms regularly change seasons as they pass. In one of Dalinar's visions, "The Almighty" mentions that some of the things he has shown Dalinar he had seen directly. So some of Dalinar's visions took place before Honor was killed. My theory is that in the past, Highstorms did not exist as they do in Roshar now. The use of things like "storming" as curses implies they were at least a part of the world, but I don't think they were nearly as strong as they are now, and I don't think they changed the seasons in the past like they do now. I think the greater strength of the Highstorms is a result of Honor dying, and that when he died, his power flooded the land in some fashion, affecting the area that Highstorms affect now. This infused much of the world with his power, and in line with the idea of power generating sentience, enhanced the cognitive aspects of a large part of the world. The spren that are visible to people are probably the cognitive aspects that got enhanced the most. Being things like stone or air, though, this enhancement resulted in something similiar to what happened with Nightblood, and the cognitive aspects became a bit "loose." And I think that it's more than just the stones and the air and the nonliving things that got enhanced cognitive aspects. Consider how all the plants in Roshar are a bit more animal like, withdrawing into things. Consider how there exists a species of horses that is WAY smarter than any normal horse. Consider how in the Shinovar interlude, that woman goes into an amusing fit about the (normal to us) plants, thinking they are stupid and drooling. Consider how another interlude with Shallan's brother has "domesticated grass" bred to behave differently than other grass. In most worlds, you can breed plants to look differently. In Roshar, you can breed them to act differently. Now, on to Syl and honorspren. If spren are the result of Honor's power flooding the land, what about spren that clearly existed before he died? I think those spren are similiar to current spren, in that they are the cognitive aspects of various things from the world, enhanced by the power of Honor. But I think that those spren, instead of being accidentally enhanced a little by Honor's power, were purposely enhanced all the way to sentience by Honor's power. I also think they contain Splinters of Honor. Syl in some ways probably is a windspren, that is to say, she is originally the cognitive aspect of some air, just like windspren are originally the cognitive aspects of some air. But Syl was brought to sentience, and contains a Splinter of Honor. Thus, she is an honorspren, though she is still similiar to windspren in some ways. Now, as to why she can lose her mind, as I talk about in my Nightblood/Cognitive thread, I think that cognitive aspects are influenced by the bodies they are bound to. I think Syl, unlike the other windspren, is much more tightly bound to a body: a spiritual body that is. A spiritual body that is an actual Splinter of Honor. And said spiritual body needs a bond with another person to function properly. Anyways, there's my idea. It seems like there might still be a few details I'm missing or am off on, but I strongly believe the general idea of spren being cognitive aspects is true.

Yah, I agree that in there's nothing that would stop the focus being the actual thing that grants you the ability in other worlds. We even did see some indirect overlap in Mistborn, where metals were the focus and the metal larasium was a possible way to become a Mistborn. (Though I suppose if one wanted to really nitpick, they could say larasium doesn't make you a Mistborn, it rewrites your genetics, and your new genetics then make you a Mistborn. But that's nitpicking a bit too much) Also, thanks a lot for the compliment! And I do think that based on what we've seen so far, spren bonds are by far the most likely candidate for granting powers in Roshar, and it would fit in with the (still unconfirmed) quote from Brandon about how on Roshar "what you do" determines your powers, because what you do could cause you to get a spren.

Ok, let's finally get to Nightblood. If you've followed along with my above post, you will perhaps have realized that Nightblood seems to contradict one of my points. Nightblood has a physical body that consists of a sword, a mere piece of metal. Yet he can clearly think, and is almost sentient. Shouldn't Nightblood's cognitive aspect be influenced by his physical body too? It's not like his sword is a hemalurgic spike with a proven ability to mimic brains. So how does he function? One possible answer to this is that cognitive aspects are tuned to certain body types, and since Koloss and Kandra were human cognitive aspects they expected human brains, and thus can't function when tied to bodies without functioning human brains. This is a possible answer, but I don't think it's quite why Nightblood is the way he is. The main answer, I think, lies in the strength of the bond between cognitive and physical aspects. We know that a normal person with brain damage will have trouble thinking clearly. That is obvious. Physical influences cognitive in that case. But Kelsier could think after dying, even though his body was soon reduced to nothing but bones. Talk about brain damage. Obviously this was possible because the link between his old physical body and his cognitive aspect was gone, so the physical was no longer influencing the cognitive. But does this link have to be all or nothing? Completely unconnected, or connected so strongly that the phsical has complete control over the cognitive? Or is it possible that whatever connects the physical and cognitive together can be of varying power? I say yes. Like a person having an out of body experience, who is still somewhat tied to his body but not completely. It is possible for a cognitive aspect to be only lightly bound to a physical body. So to add on to my earlier theories: The cognitive aspect is affected by a body it is bound to, be it spiritual or physical. This bond can be of varying strength. The stronger the bond, the more the cognitive aspect will be affected by its physical or spiritual body. The weaker the bond, the less the cognitive aspect will be affected. Nightblood has a weak bond, and thus, can still think even though he is a sword. Now, what evidence do I have for Nightblood having a weak bond? Nightblood's behavior, specifically, the fact that he sometimes forgets he's a sword. Nightblood isn't stupid. He's almost sentient, and getting closer to sentience despite what Vasher thinks. Some of his quirks (such as still thinking that certain people are alive) were explained in an annotation as being the result of his initial moments of life strongly imprinting on him certain things. But that imprinting wouldn't explain why he forgets he's a sword sometimes. Now, you may think I'm reading too much into this, but it's not just that Nightblood sometimes forgets he's a sword, it's that his entire attitude and the apparant way he perceives the world ignores this a lot. We never got a Nightblood viewpoint and thus don't know how exactly he perceives things, but he definitely gives the impression that his mind isn't that strongly connected to his sword body, or he wouldn't complain about things like being left in the dark. So, that's my answer as to how Nightblood can think and be a sword. And that is also my answer as to how he can read minds. What do I mean? Well, I think that the stronger the bond between a cognitive aspect and it's physicial and/or spiritual body, the less of a presence said cognitive aspect has in Shadesmar, and the harder it is for it to perceive, influence, or be influenced by the cognitive aspects of others. Ruin is strongly bound to his Shard, his spiritual body. He has to be strongly bound to it, or else his cognitive aspect won't be able to use the Shard's vast power. But this also means that his ability to influence, to see, or to be influenced by the cognitive realm is very limited. He can still influence things somewhat, but he can't read thoughts, and he can only influence those with damaged minds unless he uses something like hemalurgic spikes (which have physical and spiritual components) to give him an opening into the cognitive aspect of that person. Nightblood, being much more loosely bound to his physical body, perceives the world differently. He can freely see the cognitive aspects of those things around him, and even read the thoughts of those close to him. And he can influence them. I talked before about cognitive power vs cognitive sentience, and how a Shard-god like Preservation had a ton of power, but mostly normal sentience. I think we have something similiar with Nightblood. His creation resulted in a very powerful cognitive aspect, but it didn't quite make him sentient. So even though he's not as sentient as a human, his cognitive power is higher than a human, and thus he can easily influence nearby minds. Now, if this explains why Nightblood can read thoughts, then what about spren? Well, I'll get to that in my spren post, but I'd say they can read thoughts for very similiar reasons that Nightblood can read thoughts. As for Harmony, I don't know. As a Shard-god he should be very tightly bound to his Shards. Perhaps it is related to the earings his followers put on before praying. If hemalurgic spikes creating an opening in the cognitive aspects of those they were imbedded in, perhaps those Pathisim earings create something similiar, an opening strong enough to allow Harmony to actually read their thoughts. Perhaps he's also just better at understanding human minds than Ruin, and that also helps him use the opening. Also, I didn't mention them in my above post, but I should explain why Seons lose their minds when their master is taken by the Sheod. I'd say that for Seons, they don't have much if anything of a physical body, but that they do have a spiritual body that they are very title bound to (a Splinter of the Shard of Aona)? Thus, they are strongly influenced by their spiritual bodies, and their spiritual bodies seem to require some link to a master in order to function correctly. Final note: How is "Shard-god" for the official 17th Shard term for a person holding a Shard of Adonalsium? I saw someone else on these boards use it, and I love it, as it clearly distinguishes things like "Ati, the person holding Ruin" from "Ruin, the Shard anyone can hold." And it won't be confused with people in Way of Kings who just have Shardblades, or Shardplate, or whatever the Dawnshards are.

So, over in the thread discussing Alloy of Law sample chapter 3, there was quite a bit of talk about how Harmony can possibly read Wax's mind. And since mind-reading was a feat Ruin could not accomplish, Harmony doing so seemed like it had very important cosmere applications. But then I realized something odd: we've seen mind-reading before. Nightblood, from Warbreaker, can read minds easily. And he's not even the only thing capable of reading minds. Some spren from Way of Kings can also read minds. They do so with Shallan near the book's end. And if one considers the various emotion related spren such as fearspren and gloryspren, which may not be created from such emotions but merely attracted to them, then there's the possibility that even those weak, not-anywhere-near-sentient spren are at the very least capable of reading minds enough to recognize strong emotions. So why can't Ruin read minds? Is it because of his Shard nature? I doubt it. Even if that made it difficult to understand the minds of more "normal" people, wouldn't he still be able to at least read the minds of people driven towards ruining things themselves? Now, perhaps he can, and this is just never mentioned in the books because it would be an irrelevent detail that would merely confuse things. Maybe that's the case. But I'm not sure. And even if that was the reason Ruin can't read minds, we still need to answer why Nightblood can read minds. Afterall, Nightblood has a pretty alien nature, yet he can still read the minds of anyone, good, evil, or inbetween. So I think there's another explanation as to why Nightblood can do what Ruin cannot. But before I can get into that, I need to discuss another idea of mine that provides the groundwork for my Nightblood idea. This idea is based on some concepts that have already been proposed by another 17th Sharder: Power generates sentience The basic concept of that thread, that spiritual power can increase the sentience of something, is one I agreed with at first. But I had a lot of issues with some of the specifics given. For one thing, if breaths are the spiritual energy of Endowment used to grant sentience (and thus capable of bringing Nightblood to near sentience), why don't Drabs lose their sentience? If the reason Hemalurgic spikes bring sentience to Kandra is because they are empowered with spiritual energy, why do they cause Koloss to lose sentience? If constant, everpresent spiritual energy is needed to maintain sentience, how did a temporary influx of breaths make Clod more sentient? I think I have found the answers to these questions. Here are my main ideas: _____ Spiritual power can enhance a cognitive aspect, increasing both the sentience and power of said cognitive aspect. This can some sometimes happen accidentally when something is infused with spiritual power. Regardless of how this happens, it results in some of the spiritual energy being transformed into cognitive energy and added to the cognitve aspect. A cognitive aspect does not require anything else in order to maintain it's sentience and power. A sentient cognitive aspect that has had its physical or even spiritual counterparts stripped away will still be sentient. A cognitive aspect is affected by whatever "body" it inhabits, whether it be spiritual or physical or both. This can cause a sentient cognitive aspect to cease to effectively function as such, and can also cause a sentient cognitive aspect to temporarily gain greater mental abilities. In such cases, the cognitive aspect itself remains largely unchanged, and if its body is quickly returned to normal, the cognitive aspect will be able to continue to function as normal. Thus, even lifeforms that have seemingly lost their sentience like Koloss and Kandra-turned-mistwraiths still have a sentient and potentially fully functioning congnitive aspect, it's just that it's being prevented from working right by other factors. The only known way for a cognitive aspect to truely lose sentience and power itself is for the owner of said aspect to sacrifice the cognitive power he possesses. Doing this may allow one to accomplish unexpected things, and it is how Preservation trapped Ruin. ____ I think those four points explain things much better, and provide answers to all the apparant issues something like "power generates sentience" causes. Why can Drabs still be sentient after giving away their breaths? Because their cognitive aspects are already sentient, and don't need a constant supply of spiritual power. The breath people have is essentially the "leftover" spiritual energy used in their creation (remember everything has a spiritual aspect, even things not sentient). Why did Clod gain enhanced sentience from a termporary infusion of breaths? Because a little of the spirtual energy of those breaths got turned into cognitive energy, permanently enhancing the cognitive aspect of the corpse. Even though that spiritual energy is now gone, the cognitive aspect remains enhanced. Why do humans seem to lose sentience when they get spikes and become Koloss, since the spikes are (hypothetically) increasing their spiritual energy? Because the spikes twist their bodies, and therefore their brains, in strange ways. And their cognitive aspects are influenced by their brains, of course. The Koloss have sentient cognitive aspects still, they just are held back by the twisted bodies they inhabit. And then we get to the Kandra, which provide the best evidence for my theories. Some might say, "Wait, don't the Kandra provide evidence against these theories? When they lose their spiritually charged spikes, they lose sentience, so that would mean that cognitive aspects do depend on spiritual energy to maintain their sentience." But that's actually not what is happening. Consider that the original Kandra were human. They were already sentient, but then lost their minds when they became mistwraiths, and then regained them when they were turned into Kandra. And they retained their memories of when they were human even after all this had occurred. If we assume for the moment that I am wrong about the way cognitive aspects work, and that the Kandra lost their ability to think because they lost their spiritual energy and this made their cognitive aspects devolve, and the spikes then restored their spiritual energy and then caused the cognitive aspects to evolve, then one has to ask: how did they keep their memories and personalities? Mistwraiths have no brains. And according to the hypothesis we are using, the mistwraiths have lost their spiritual energy. So where are the memories and personalities being stored? The only answer is the cognitive realm. But that would mean that even after being stripped of spiritual energy and given a physical body with no brains, the cognitive aspects maintained some functon and power. They didn't devolve to that of beasts. They preserved memories and personalities even after losing their spiritual aspects and being stuck in useless bodies. That would prove one of my points, that the cognitive aspect can still maintain sentience even when stripped of an associated spiritual aspect. And if one then says, "ok, maybe the Kandra lost sentience for different reason, and still kept their spiritual aspects," then that clearly means that something else is going on with them and the reason the spikes give them sentience isn't because they are adding a spiritual aspect. So, what do I think is going on with the Kandra? Body influence. Mistwraiths have no brains, cognitive aspects are influenced by the bodies they are attached to. Thus, they are obviously influenced by being attached to a body with no brain. The reason why the spikes let Kandra think is because hemalurgic spikes can mimic the effects of organs, including the brain. This is made apparant by the fact that Inquisitors can still function despite having spikes driven into their brains and many other organs. Most likely, the Lord Ruler designed the mistwraith bodies to be able to instinctively use spikes to replace their missing brains. But wait, don't spikes still give sentience to new Kandra, those that were never human? Yes and no. I'd say that whatever process Preservation put in place to allow new humans to continue to be born with sentience continued to work for the mistwraiths, even though they no longer had human bodies. Thus, the new mistwraiths already had sentient cognitive aspects even before they were given spikes. To put it another way, even new mistwraiths were always human souls stuck in the body of an animal. Now, let's consider what happened to Vin when she took up the power of the Well of Ascension. She temporarily gained massively increased mental abilities and perceptions. Yet she then lost it as soon as she gave up the power. Then she gained even greater understanding when she took up Preservation completely. What exactly was happening to her, on a realmatic level? The counterpart to what happened to the Koloss and mistwraiths. They were sentient, human cognitive aspects that were stuck in bodies that hindered them due to twisted or nonexisting brains. Vin was a sentient, human cognitive aspect stuck in a body that greatly helped it, due to the fact that it was partially or completely composed of something incredible, the power of creation itself. This makes a lot more sense than Vin's cognitive aspect itself being instantly changed by the power. If it had been altered to such a degree, she surely would have already become a preservation freak. She wasn't. She was still Vin. Her cognitive aspect was still Vin's. So why do Shards ultimately change the way their holders think? Well, I think there's probably a little bit of a power leak of sorts from holding a Shard. Basically, as you hold a Shard a small amount of the spiritual power of the Shard is constantly turned into cognitive power and added to your cognitive aspect, increasing the power of your cognitive aspect. (More on what exactly cognitive "power" means later) Over time, a Shard-god develops an insanely strong cognitive aspect. Unfortunately, it also develops an insanely unbalanced cognitive aspect. Because so much of the power of the cognitive aspect comes from an unbalanced Shard, it starts to twist the cognitive aspect, altering it so that it thinks along the lines of the Shard's intent. That is why Shards effect people the way they do, first drastically increasing all their mental capabilites but leaving their minds intact, then slowly twisting their minds over the ages. The first effect is not a direct change in the Shard-god's cognitive aspect, just the cognitive aspect being able to work better thanks to being in a Shard body. The second effect is the cognitive aspect itself actually being enhanced/changed by a slow stream of the Shard's power. Now, I have talked about congitive aspects being enhanced, and them possessing both power and sentience. I should explain exactly what I mean by those things. In the Mistborn annotations, it mentions that Preservation didn't use his power to imprison Ruin: he used his mind, in other words, his cognitive aspect. His mind had a power of its own, and by attacking Ruin in such a fashion, Preservation caught him off guard. Most of my references to cognitive "power" are based on this. It's clear that the cognitive aspect of something does more than just determine how smart/sentient it is. I also think that Preservation must have had a more powerful cogitive aspect than a normal human. Afterall, would a normal human have been able to sacrifice his mind and trap Ruin like that, even if he knew exactly how it was done? I doubt it. Preservation must have had more cognitive power. As I stated earlier, I think this is a result of him holding the Preservation Shard for so long. Now, what is the difference between congitive power and cognitive sentience, if there is any difference? I'd say that there is, though generally they go hand in hand. I'd say cognitive power is the amount of "substance" a cognitive aspect has, the amount of cognitive energy or whatever it is that makes up a cognitive aspect it has. Cognitive sentience is related to the amount of "complexity" a cognitive aspect has. So usually they go together. If you don't have enough cognitive energy, then the energy is of limited complexity. Can't make a painting with a single drop of paint, can't build a mansion with a single lego, can't write a computer program with a single byte of data. Occasionally, there will be aberrations. I'd say that Shard-gods, by virtue of possessing a Shard for so long, have hundreds if not thousands of times more cognitive power than a human. But are they hundreds of times more sentient? Once something has reached sentience, is it even possible for it to become "more sentient"? I don't really think so. So in that case, I'd say he had a lot more cognitive power than a normal person with the same level of sentience would have had. Thinking about all this, one realizes just how insane Preservation's sacrifice was. In a world where things have physical, cognitive, and spiritual parts, figuring out what exactly would be the "soul" of something can be difficult. But based on the interactions between the realms we've seen so far, I'd say the true soul of a person is their cognitive aspect, their mind, the core of who they are. Which means that Preservation essentially gave up his soul. Vin and Elend are happy in their afterlife now, they are fine, but what about Laras? The very core of his being has been damaged and reduced to a state of near mindless instinct. Can he recover from that, in whatever the place that lies beyond the three realms is? Wow, I still haven't even gotten to Nightblood being able to read minds yet. I guess I didn't quite realize how much space my thoughts on the cognitive aspect would take up. I think I'll actually explain Nightblood in a second post in this thread.

I don't think he's dead. I think he's a spy for Taravangian, and he left the Shattered Plains to report on the alliance between Dalinar and Sadeas. Why do I think this? Well, I was struck by something odd when reading Way of Kings again recently. Near the end, Taravangian orders Szeth to kill Dalinar to stop him from uniting the Alethi highprinces. Why? Why does Taravangian think Dalinar is a threat right then, and not before? He mentions "recent events," but what are those events? It can't have anything to do with Dalinar becomming Highprince of War, that hasn't been announced yet, and so no one but Dalinar and Elhokar should know that. And even if Taravangian did somehow know, would he really consider that a bad thing? Elhokar seems to think this is going to cause all the Highprinces to try to assassinate him and Dalinar, and Dalinar seems to kind of agree with him. It seems like any objective observer would feel there's a very good chance that Dalinar is going to bring about the complete collapse of Alethikar. But regardless, Taravangian shouldn't know about that yet. So what recent events was he talking about? Sadeas betraying Dalinar and nearly causing a war between the two most powerful Highprinces? Certianly not that. That would be something Taravangian would be happy about. The only "recent events" that make sense would be Dalinar and Sadeas's initial alliance, which seemed to be going well at first. This implies that Taravangian does not know about the most current events on the Shattered Plains. Either his spies have been lax in reporting to him about something as important as Sadeas and Dalinar's alliance collapsing, or Taravangian doesn't have enough spanreeds in his possession to give them to all his agents, and thus his Shatterd Plains contacts have to send him information the old fashion, and slower, way. What is the point of all that stuff I just typed? Well, I noticed that Gaz disappeared right after Dalinar and Sadeas formed their alliance. In fact, unless I remember wrong, the first bridge run where they worked together was the last bridge run Gaz ever went on. The timing seems a bit coincidental. Why would Gaz have disappeard right then? His old blackmailer was dead, he was specifically ordered not to murder Kaladin because it would make him a martryr(and thus Gaz wasn't likely killed by Wit or someone trying to protect Kaladin), and his current Lighteyes would have just made Gaz a bridgeman if Kaladin went too long without dying. Why would Gaz have disappeared then? Perhaps he had something to report to his master, something so important he needed to deliver the message in person (which of course provided an escape for him). I don't have too much hard evidence for Gaz working for Taravangian, but if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. Taravangian wants to collect the visions dying people see. He's not going to be content just using people in his own city. He's going to want to have agents in places of death and bloodshed, to hear what other dying men say. But that presents a problem. A common soldier is going to be busy trying to stay alive and unable to focus on what his dying friends are shouting out, and is also has a high chance of dying himself on any battle. An officer who stays behind the lines in safety won't be near the dying as they gasp their last breaths. But Gaz? He's never in danger. Safest job in the entire army. And he goes on every run. And he's always around the bridgemen, who always die. Perfect position to hear the visions of dying men. Also, consider Gaz's eye. He lost an eye, and nearly died. Put another way, if he had not gotten some good medical treatment, he would have died. And who has the best doctors in the world?

Chaos, I had a hard to time following your arguments at first, and then I realized the reason was because you seem to be assuming that the focus is also the method someone gains powers, or the method someone gains the ability to use powers, to put it in a different way. But that's not the case. Or at least, it has not been the case so far. I mentioned this in my earlier post, but I guess you must have missed it, as you never tried to make a counter argument. So I'll restate some points. In Elantris, the Sheod is not the focus. Neither is the Dor. In Mistborn, genetics are not the focus. Neither is Snapping. Yet those are the things that determine whether someone can use AonDor or allomancy. In fact, there has NEVER been a magic system where the normal method of gaining powers and/or gaining the ability to use powers was also the focus of the magic system. (If you're thinking about hemalurgy, I'll get to later, don't worry.) This is a poor argument, for the reasons I stated at the start of this post. In Mistborn, no matter how hard someone like Dox tries, no matter how much he watches Vin, he cannot burn metals. No matter how much Vin watches Sazed, she can never store memories in a coppermind. Does that somehow mean that metals are not the focus for those magic systems? Of course not. Because you need MORE than just the focus to use magic. In allomancy, you need genetics. You also need to Snap. It is only AFTER you meet both of those requirements that you can use the focus to do allomancy. So even if thought was the focus for Surgebinding (and I'm not saying it is, I am honestly not sure), there would obviously be more to Surgebinding then just thinking. For some reason, you seem to be thinking that the focus for Surgebinding must be responsible for everything related to the magic system, even though past magic systems have been based on a variety of things, of which the focus is only one part. For allomancy, genetics determined your potential power. You have to snap before being able to use said power.. For feruchemy, genetics determined your potential power. You don't have to do anything before being able to use said power. For AonDor... something(ability to draw well plus the ability to understand complicated math equations?) may have determined your potential power. You have to be taken by the Sheod before being able to use said power.. For Awakening, your amount of breaths determined your potential power. You don't have to do anything before being able to use said power. For hemalurgy... I'll get to that later. Notice something about those above magic systems? Notice how metals, Aons, and Commands had absolutely nothing to do with granting someone the ability to use the power of the respective magic systems? If you want to nitpick and say that for Awakening you need breaths, and you get those breaths from other people using Commands, I'll also nitpick and say that there are one breath Commands and Commands that don't even use your entire breath, so you can still use Awakening even if you've never been given a breath by another. Now, none of this is to say that the method you gain powers within a magic system can't also be the focus of the magic system. I am simply pointing out that it is clearly not a requirement, nor is it even common. Yet you clearly are assuming that such is the case. Your entire argument against exlusivity is an example. You assume that if exlusivity existed for the Roshar focus, it would somehow mean there would have to be people capable of using only a single form of Surgebinding. Why? Here's how I defined exlusivity. "A specific focus variation, a specific metal, a specific Aon, a specific Command, produces an exclusive effect. No other metals will produce the same effect as pewter, no other Aons will produce the same effect as Ehe, no other commands will product the same effect as 'Destroy Evil'". Let's use Aons as an example. Aon Ehe creates fire. As far as we know, no other Aon creates fire. And Aon Ehe will never do anything other than create fire. Aons are exclusive, at least from what we have seen so far. Would you disagree? Now, you could really nitpick and point out that Aon Ashe creates light, and Aon Ehe creates fire, and fire can create light... but I'd say you know very well what I am talking about. I'm talking about the primary purpose of the Aon, not side effects. So I think it's safe to say that, at least from what we have seen, Aons are exlusive. Now, does that mean that there must exist a group of people who can use AonDor and draw Aons, but can each only draw a single Aon? Does the fact that such a group doesn't seem to exist disprove Aon exlusivity, and mean there must be Aons we don't know about that produce the exact same effect as Aon Ehe? Wait, what? What am I talking about? Why would "Aon Ehe creates fire, other Aons will not create fire" also mean that "There must be people who can only draw a single Aon"? Isn't that a very strange leap of logic? Yet, that is exactly the leap you have done with Surgebinding. You assume that if there was exlusivity in Surgebinding's focus variations, it would mean there would have to be people only capable of binding a single Surge, and then say that because such a group doesn't seem to exist, it disproves Surgebinding exlusivity. I couldn't figure out why you thought this at first, until I realized you were still seeming to think of a focus as "that which grants the ability to use a power" in a magic system. But as I said before, that is certainly NOT the case. Here's how I see Surgebinding, in relation to allomancy and feruchemy. For allomancy, genetics determine your potential power. Before you can use said power, you have to Snap. After Snapping, you can either use 1 of 16 powers, or all of them. Most people can use only 1 power. You use metals when you use your powers, and they have a direct connection to which power you use. Metals are the focus of allomancy. For feruchemy, genetics determine your potential power. Before you can use said power, you don't have to do anything. You can use all 16 powers, or only 1 of them. Most people can use all of them (I believe that Brandon confirmed that feruchemy "mistings" existed at the time of Mistborn, they were just very rare). You use metals when you use your powers, and they have a direct connection to which power you use. Metals are the focus of feruchemy. For Surgebinding(I think), your actions/ideals determine your potential power and cause you to attract a certain type of spren. Before you can use said power, you have to bond with a spren. After bonding, you can use 2 out of the 10 powers. All people can use 2 powers. You use *unknown focus* when you use your powers, and *unknown focus* has a direct connection to which power you use. *Unknown focus* is the focus of Surgebinding. You say that spren bonds are crucial to Surgebinding. You say the are needed. You say they determine powers. I agree. I think all those things are true. But you say this means they must be the focus, or at least this provides strong evidence they are the focus. I say, why? It makes them similiar to genetics/snapping for allomancy, or breaths for Awakening, or the Sheod and the Dor for AonDor. None of those things were the focuses of their magic systems. I feel like I am repeating myself a lot in this post, but given how many of your arguments in your giant rebuttal seemed to be based on the idea that a focus for a magic system is also the thing that determines what powers people can use in a magic system, I feel the need to reinforce my point. The focus does not need to have anything to do with whether someone can use the power of a magic system. From what we have seen in previous magic systems, it is usually unrelated. Let's finally get to hemalurgy, which I promised to deal with in regard to certain points. There are two things I need to answer regarding hemalurgy. The first I will deal with is the "activeness" of a focus, and how it relates to hemalurgy. In my opinion, the power of hemalurgy, at least the active power, is that of stealing abilities from other people. In my mind, metals are still an active part of hemalurgy, because when you pound a spike into someones's heart and kill them, you have to use a metal to do so. In my mind, the "magical" part of hemalurgy occurs when you kill someone, and since you can't use a wooden(or anything other than metal) spike to steal powers via hemalurgy, metals are an active part of the system. Still, I can see why this would be problematic or confusing to people, so I will amend my "The focus is active" rule. Rather than simply saying the focus is active, I will now say that the focus is as active as the magic system it is a part of. So if a magic system is mostly based on passive abilities, the focus will be much more passively used than in other magic systems. But if the magic has a whole host of active abilities, than the focus will be actively used. This, I think, should satisfy any objections regarding activeness in relation to hemalurgy. The other issue with hemalurgy I need to address relates to my claim that none of the magic systems we have seen so far have had a focus that was also the main method of determining whether you could use the power of said magic system. This is clear in cases like allomancy, where genetics/Snapping determines what powers you have and whether you can use them, and metals are the focus, but it is a bit more confusing with hemalurgy. I would say that I define the power of hemalurgy as the ability to steal powers and give them to someone, and thus, everyone is a potential hemalurgist. Remember that nameless minion of the Citizen who stabbed his Thug ally through the heart and accidentally gave Spook the ability to burn pewter? He was a hemalurgist. Anyone can pound a spike through someone's heart and stick it into a another person, therefore, everyone has the power of a hemalurgist. Thus metals, the focus of hemalurgy, have nothing to do with whether a person can use hemalurgy, because all people are born with the power to use hemalurgy. But I suppose some people might look at hemalurgy differently. They might say the power of hemalurgy is not just the power to steal abilities, but also the power to use them yourself, and that you can't use stolen abilities unless you stick metal in your body. From that perspective, the focus of hemalurgy, metal, also becomes the method with which you gain hemalurgic powers. And so, I say, ok. Maybe that is true. So what? My goal in differentiating focuses from the thing that determines whether you can use a power was to state the following points. "If something determines whether a person has the ability to use powers within a magic system, it does not mean it is also the focus of the magic system. If something is the focus of a magic system, it does not mean it is also the thing that determines whether a person has the ability to use powers within the magic system. There may be some overlap between the focus and the thing that determines whether someone has the ability to use powers withing a magic system, but said overlap is uncommon." We have 5 magic system with known focuses. In at least 4 of the 5, the focus is not the thing that determines whether someone has the ability to use the magic system. So if in the end, if 1 of the 5 systems has a focus that also fufills that role, does it change the above 3 points? No. It just means that the focus being the same thing as that which determines whether you can use the magic goes from "nonexistant" to "unusual" in the magic systems we have seen. "1 out of 5" times is certainly better than "0 out of 5" times, but it's hardly strong evidence. Let's move on. I'm going to ignore omnipresence of a focus for now, because as I myself said, it's the one thing that I can say for sure has had exceptions. I don't think it makes sense for Szeth to be an exception based on what I saw in Mistborn, but who knows, maybe he is. Or maybe he does have a spren. Getting to specificity, I'll once again revise 1 of my 5 defining points. Instead of saying that "a focus variation is specific" I'll say that "a focus variation is as specific as the magic system it is a part of is specific." So if a magic system only consists of a handful of abilities with very broad powers, than there will be a handful of focus variations which are used to produce very broad powers. If a magic system can be broken down into thousands of individual effects distinct from each other, then there will be thousands of focus variations distinct from each other. Now, the at first glance, the above paragraph doesn't seem to contradict your theory. 10 orders of Knights Radiant, 10 forms of Surgebinding that bind 10 Surges, 10 spren bonds. The problem is that each spren bond seems to relate to 2 types of Surgebinding, 2 Surges. To look at it another way, you could for the moment ignore the existance of half the Radiant orders, and you would still be able to have 10 forms of Surgebinding, but with only 5 spren bonds and only 5 orders. Each spren bond seems to relate to 2 powers that are clearly defined as being distinct and separate from one another. It's just not specific enough for me, because the magic system definitely states a Windfinder as having two different powers, not one power with two different variations. Let me give a final analogy to explain why I am having problems accepting spren bonds as the focus for Surgebinding, using Aons again. I can accept that Aon Ehe can produce many different fires, of different power levels, and at different locations. But if someone told me that Aon Ehe can also teleport a person, and that teleportaion and fire are defined as completely different and distinct powers by AonDor, and that how you draw Aon Ehe seems to have no effect whatsoever on whether it create a fire or teleports you, you control that through some other method, and that there are other Aons that can also teleport you, or create fire, and there is some weird guy who can apparantly use AonDor without using Aons... well, at that point, I'd start to wonder how the heck Aons can be a focus, or what the heck a focus even means.