Windrunner

Okay after an afternoon spent cursing at the code trying to figure out where I left a bold tag open I have completed my revisions. There have been a couple of changes to the list to try to make it easier to find questions you want to ask. Firstly I have removed the answered questions from the list. They took up space and you could just find the answers in the interview database. So I've put a link to it at the top of the OP and some tips for how to use it check if your question has been answered. I have also made the decision to remove questions that I feel will be an instant RAFO by Brandon without any information gained. I think they waste space and I don't want anyone to think they got a good question from our list only to learn nothing. But it isn't absolute. I will let you know if I feel your question will be RAFO'd and you can defend it if you wish. If the staff feels you have a valid point then it will be added. I've also made some subdivisions to make finding certain types of questions easy to find. Okay here are the new questions. Added as they were Edited Not going to be added Feel free to defend any of these.Questions that have been answered I didn't hunt down the answers to all of these because there are so many, and quite frankly I'm exhausted. I think most of them are common knowledge but If someone hasn't heard one or thinks it hasn't been properly added just speak up and I'll be happy to answer it or fix my error. Same goes for if someone feels I have categorized a question wrong in the OP, or if I've left a question in that has been answered or you feel is a sure RAFO. I'll check them out.

The way you phrased your point originally made it sound to me like you believed that the spiritual aspect of the person was what fueled the Awakening as in the energy from the Shard inside of them. Like if someone using Allomancy was burning away their spark of Preservation. So I wasn't contesting any of these but a different point I thought you were making.

Then the more they used Awakening the weaker their spiritual aspect would become. There's been no indication that if some of the power of your spiritual aspect is expended that the power will recover, evidence being that people who survive getting a power stolen from them through Hemalurgy will never recover that power or the portions of their personality lost with it. So eventually, since spiritual energy brings sentience, people who Awaken would lose their ability to think and become animals, which clearly hasn't been shown in Warbreaker. I see power being channeled through a spiritual aspect as different from being channeled from a spiritual aspect.

That was the problem originally. It refused to do anything and just had a notice advising me to update it. So I did and it failed several times. Then I restarted the computer and it installed just fine. So I thought everything was golden. But then it takes forever to load and either freezes Chrome or advises me to kill the plug-in. So its probably problems on my end.

Ah well that makes sense haha. I would like to announce that Java is lame because the plug-in keeps crashing.

I would like to announce that I just noticed the new tab for chat in the menu. How long have I not been noticing that?

Here you go. This is to season one but you can see the rest available up on the menu bar. I see that you're new here, so let me be the first to welcome you to 17th Shard! I hope you'll enjoy your time here. If you have a second later on you should make a topic in the Introduce Yourself thread so everyone can give you a proper hello.

Sorry SOM1else I know that feeling and it sucks. Hope it all pans out well for you, if that's even possible at this point. I would like to announce that I completed my AP World History exam today. After three hours and a hand cramp I came away feeling pretty good about it. Hopefully pulled a 4. Surprisingly I didn't cram much last night for it. When I started reading the word tension as TenSoon I figured it was about time to go to bed.

When Hoid says, "I began life as a thought, a concept, as words on a page," I just figured he's being metaphorical. I don't think he literally was words brought to life or anything. Also I don't think Midius could be a Lightweaving projection of Hoid's. Also original Hoid died and Midius burned his body. So I think any illusion would have died with him. He does Lightweaving himself and is sentient while the guards he Lightweaves only give that appearance.

Oh I can agree with that completely, I think it was just me misunderstanding, as per usual . I do want to point out that the reason they acted like they weren't in love was because they were, but that wasn't the point of the discussion. That makes more sense now.

So your point is that the energy of Breath is recycled after it is expended? But that would mean that if you Awakened something then withdrew the power and then Awakened something else, the Breath would be weaker for a while, which hasn't seemed to have been the case. Like Vasher Awakening those sets of clothes to fight for him. That would have taken a massive amount of energy to make those clothes strong and intelligent enough to fight. Surely that would have made the Breaths weak enough for Vasher to remark on the curiosity? The fact of the matter is Vasher never mentions Breath appearing weaker after an Awakening, something I think he would have noticed after 300 years of Awakening. In fact it would have been a useful tip to pass onto a novice like Vivenna. The only time we've actually seen a Breath become weaker is when Vasher had that little girl hide her memories somehow, and then it didn't seem to regenerate, or at least Vivenna didn't mention it. (I'll admit we didn't see much of the girl after that). I'd thought about this a bit before and I do agree with you that it is the most likey way that Awakening could be described as end-neutral. But then where is the power coming from? In Feruchemy the reserves may not decay but they are also expended when the power is tapped. Breath is never shown as being weaker after an Awakening except in the unusual example I mentioned above.

I agree with you for sure about the Third Shard, it mirrors the belief I've had for a while now because of the fact that Nightwatcher didn't seem to fit with the other Shards we thought were on Roshar. There is one problem though that I haven't been able to answer successfully for myself. It says that Odium killed Honor. Honor's splinters (spren) are all over Roshar so presumably Roshar was where Honor was Splintered. That implies that Odium was there to Splinter him. But then that creates a conflict with another fact. We know that over the history of Roshar there have been three Shards there. But if Honor is there, and so is Cultivation (Brandon has confirmed this) and then this new Sacrifice or whatever we call it then Odium could never have been on Roshar. So it begs the question, how exactly did Honor die if Odium wasn't there to kill him? Did Odium get someone else to do it? The only possibility that I've been able to come up with seems unlikely to me. I've wondered if Honor was bound by his intent to Splinter himself once the Oathpact was broken. Odium would still be indirectly responsible there. But I kind of don't like that idea so I hope others have better ones. The other reason I like the idea that the Nightwatcher is the remnant of a Shard that left Roshar is that it explains the name, "the Old Magic". The people of Roshar can still remember distantly when it was used, but now that the Shard has left, it cannot power the magic any longer, so the magic has vanished as well. What I want to know is, what is the Nightwatcher? Is it power gaining sentience like the Seons or does someone hold a large Splinter, like the Returned. If it is a person, who was it, and how did they get it? The third Shard theory also explains fairly well why Roshar's system is the only one to have two Shardworlds. The Shard fled Roshar but it didn't go far. About the fleeing of people, I tend to believe that people fled to Roshar first from Honor's world (Tranquiline Halls). Where this Sacrifice went after that doesn't necessarily have to be reflected in Roshar's mythology.

If you believe this to be the case then that is fine, but I'm still afraid that I disagree. In my opinion, passion, sex or any other form, is still something Vin would be uncomfortable with and actively seek to avoid. If she doesn't think she's going to be with Elend because she's infereior then I don't think there would be an opportunity for passion in that situation. If you see it otherwise or still believe it be an error on Brandon's part them I'm afraid we'll probably just have agree to disagree, possibly due to different tastes and expectations of fantasy. But to each his own. I had no problem with Vin and Elend working out their issues. As you've pointed out, Vin's realization that she wanted to be with Elend was a pivotal moment. She resolved her conflict and showed Elend that she did want to be with him, which had been his problem all along. So there's not much to work out, in my opinion, because the crux of the matter had been resolved when Vin had them get married. It signified both her acceptance of herself and showed her true feelings to Elend. And they did have some time between the marriage and when we saw them together in the tent. (a brief period I'll admit) They had a few days in Luthadel after Sazed married them and then a few more on the trail . I think that is was plenty of time to work out whatever minimal issues were left over. The whole thing grew out of one colossal misunderstanding after all, so I don't think it would take too terribly long to work most everything out. I am curious though, where have you seen the "marriage fixes everything" trope in the Brandon's other books? Marriage came toward the end of Elantris, well after everything had been fixed and Siri and Susebron only made more problems for themselves because of their marriage. And there's been next to no romance in TWoK yet, so I'm curious as to what I'm missing here.

I really want to believe that Awakening is end-neutral. But the lack of evidence that Breaths deteriorate over time is what disturbs me. You think that Vasher, who has been Awakening for 300 years or so, would have noticed that his Breaths got weaker over time and mentioned it or something. I never saw so much as a hint that they deteriorate anywhere, which seems to me at least, something that Brandon would have mentioned at some point. So I've concluded that they don't deteriorate until presented with further evidence from Nightblood or someone with a quote I've forgotten. (A highly likely possibility there) But I can't understand why Breaths seemingly have no power source but don't get any weaker. Does anyone have any ideas there? Because I'm stuck with end-positive until I can figure out why.

Honestly, I personally doubt that Hoid is the cognitive aspect of Andonalsium. For a couple reasons. The first is that from the LoP sample chapters we see Midius (who Brandon has confirmed to be Hoid) and he seems to just be a reguar guy, albeit one who can use Lightweaving. It doesn't seem that he has any special knowledge or anything. Another is that Sazed mentioned feeling a presence that spanned the void. The presence was Andonalsium and so if Sazed can feel anything at all, it implies at the very least that Hoid isn't all of Andonalsium's mind. We don't even know that Andonalsium had a mind for sure. If it did, I am virutally certain that it had no need of a holder. I think that the Shards would have a complete mind when combined together, so no one would be needed to control it. That's why I believe that Preservation and the other Shards seem to have very weak minds of their own, separate from their holders. It understands its intent on some level at least even if it isn't strong enough to act upon that intent. Its definitely a different idea though, and I applaud you for your originality, even if I happen to disagree in this instance. What do you mean by body shape Reader? As far as I am aware Brandon has never mentioned what Hoid is or where the source of his powers are from.

I'd say one of the reasons that there isn't any overt passion in the book is that it would undermine other plot points. For a good portion of the book, Vin is convinced that she doesn't deserve to be with Elend. So if she slept with him, that wouldn't make any sense because it would imply, to me at least, that she felt she was worthy of him. She probably is intentionally avoiding doing anything passionate in the least because of her self confidence issues. So I'd say not hugely passionate, but for good reason. It wouldn't make sense to me at least to have all that stuff in there when the characters are going through other problems that intentionally counteract them being together. I for one didn't miss it. The problems that they were going through implied a lot of tension to me. But then again, different strokes for different folks, it worked great for me but that doesn't mean it did so for everyone.

I'm not a huge WoT fan but I basically think that there is a 0% chance that Brandon will kill off Rand if Jordan's notes dictate otherwise. I've read many interviews with him talking about his fervent desire to stay true to Jordan's vision of the Wheel of Time. He's said he only makes changes to the outline if Robert Jordan himself hadn't made up his mind or if there was some sort of plot contradiction. As matter of fact Robert Jordan himself wrote the ending, and Brandon is putting it in as untouched as possible. So Im certain whatever Rand's fate is, it will be the same one Jordan chose.

I would like to announce that I just found out that Brandon will be at Phoenix Comic Con this year. The year after I moved away from a town that was an hour at most from Phoenix. I have literally been to the Phoenix convention center multiple times and saw signs for last year's Comic Con. He was probably there before I discovered his books but at this point I don't even want to know.

The Tachyon Publishing website now lists the release of The Emperor's Soul as November 2012! So we've moved up at least some time, which exciting!

That's how I tend to believe it too but then Nohadon talks about forming bonds with spren other then honorspren. It drives me crazy. Zas found out in his interview with Brandon that the people of Roshar don't even know the definition of honorspren. Its a topic of debate among scholars and philosophers. The Shattered Plains can't come soon enough.

Well Ruin can't see the metal because it glows, rendering him blind. He had no trouble changing words in the copperminds of all the Feruchemists on Scadrial. Brandon has said that Ruin and Preservation both can power Feruchemy. What I want to know is why Ruin didn't just destroy the metal tablets. Unless he didn't know where they were or still couldn't oppose Preservation enough to affect something that directly.

Welcome Lightflame! This is going to be awesome. I'm Windrunner or David and you'll most commonly find me over in the theories sections. If you ever have any Cosmere questions don't be afraid to ask, anyone here would be happy to help out. It's good to have you here, I just love when we have new members.

I don't know that you can say the terminology is useless. I'm not sure you'd develop groupings like these for one specific world. If these terms couldn't be used Cosmere-wide then why would they be necessary in the first place? You don't typically create categories that only contain one item, but I could be wrong. I'm still standing by my net-positive beliefs. There has never been any indication that Breaths get weaker after powering something so I believe that the power has to come from somewhere. It makes sense to me that they all bring a small connection to Endowment's power. And Nightblood is tough. The only thing I can think of is that instead of drawing power from through the Breaths, it uses the power that the Breaths themselves contain so they are expended and return eventually to Endowment's power. But then that gets us into the nature of "corrupted Breaths" and their connection to Shardblades.

I don't think that Sazed would be able to store any power without a corporeal body. It really seems to require being in contact with the metal when you start to store or tap something, and as a Shard he can't really do that. Also where could he find enough metal to store enough power to challenge an enemy Shard if he somehow got ousted. The most useful metal for a Shard to use would be nicrosil for investiture which is an alloy so not in great supply in nature. Anyway I don't know that it would even be all that helpful against an enemy Shard. If Sazed somehow got a hold of enough metal to create these massive storages he wouldn't be able to really do anything against an enemy Shard. The best I can see him doing is trying to tap a whole bunch of connection so the Shard wouldn't destroy him. Maybe health would be helpful as well but its not like you can punch a Shard. It would still be cool for him to be able to do though.