Inkthinker

I think there's a distinction between "spiritual DNA" and "genetic DNA". Two twins might share identical genetics but not spirits. Don't actually know, though. I have a lingering sense that someone's asked this before.

Oooh... that's pretty damnation sweet. Nice!!

Way cool. Has the volume of metal removed from the spots been calculated so that the 1 and the 6 are balanced?

Silver was the method, I think, prior to cheap aluminum manufacturing. The glass is just to protect the metal paint or surface from dulling or scars. And I don't know about allomancy-proofing homes, but the people of Scardrial do some things that reflect the existence of Allomancy in their lives, like wear wooden buttons almost exclusively (nobility can afford carved stone, bone or gems). The most common gentleman's weapon is a weighted wooden stick, capable of cracking skulls but utterly inert to Allomancy. Leather armor is more popular than steel amongst Hazekillers, and almost everyone learns how to tie a common knot that can be almost instantly undone by pulling the loops... specifically used on money pouches in the books, but there's no reason not to extend it to armor and weapons as well. Bear in mind as well, even though we deal with them as a matter of common lore, Misting skaa were not all that frequently encountered by normal old downtrodden workaday skaa, especially since most skaa Mistings lived in secrecy or even ignorance of their power and noble Mistings can afford to care. Full Mistborn were very rare amongst the population as a whole, and you could go your whole life in a major city without interacting at all with either. Common people did not need to worry about being Pushed or Pulled on during their daily lives, and most guards and armsmen were worried about common, traditionally pointy threats rather than magical ones. A Misting or a Mistborn might go to the trouble of Allomancy-proofing their lives, but a common skaa has neither the resources nor the general need to do so. And a good thing too, or there'd be nothing for heroes and villains to fling around and off from.

Mmph. I should have caught that... I spent enough time translating English into Allomantic script to know better. I never dealt with Rosharan script, all alphabet stuff comes from Isaac, but it's not surprising that the themes carry over.

It's not perfectly symmetrical... that would be "Urihiru" or "Urithtiru". Though I don't think that's necessarily important.

I reckon it's the perfect place to ask. Just a couple guesses: 1) They may require editing or other organization before updating. Odds are good that these annotations consist of a loose file full of notes that Peter would need to put into some semblance of order first. 2) Right now there's a strong focus on Stormlight 2 production, The Rithmatist and the wind-up for the big AMoL tour. Between all that, annotations for Alloy fall behind. Based on nothing more than a loose understanding of events on the ground. I could be wrong, and the reasoning is something else entirely. What I would say is that we will get the annotations, eventually. Probably not this week. Or this year.

Whatever Gavilar had planned, he probably didn't see it as bad or dangerous himself...? I find it more likely that Gavilar was about to stumble into something bad (releasing powers he didn't understand or know about) rather than Gavilar was secretly plotting something mhwa-ha-ha-ha. It seems most likely to me that everyone showed up to the party thinking it was going to be awesome, then as he's giving them the grand tour he shows them his newest find, which he thinks is something awesome but they recognize as weaponized anthrax plutonium ricin in a box, and they decide that taking him out of the picture is the fastest and easiest way to stop it from getting loose. The decision to assassinate him is clearly stated here as a spur-of-the-moment decision that the Parshendi regret now.

Storing sensation in general? Doesn't that come with Tin? It might be an interesting twist for someone who's being injured or tortured to store it all in a Tinmind and then discard that metal. The downside is that you'd be completely numb, deaf and blind while it was happening, but if you're being tortured maybe that's a good thing too.

There's a certain amount of size variation that comes with storing strength... it stores not just muscles but mass, so when you tap it you grow proportionately. During the Battle of Luthadel Sazed grows large enough to match the Koloss, though he burns through his entire stores pretty quickly in doing so.

is this the reading from a few weeks ago, or something new now? As for why they might hate or fear the return of their gods, maybe their gods are scary.

Again, I won't be surprised at all if something like this happens in Book 2... though the reason might be to beat the other Highprinces as much as the Parshendi. Someone hotheaded, young and foolish (Adolin or possibly a newly-suited, hot-to-prove-himself Renarin) decides he can pull off this very trick and races onto the Plains to get a gemheart single-handedly. Dalinar sends Kaladin and the B4s to back him up or bring him back if they can (they can't run as fast across the tops, but they know the valleys). They all get caught out there by either another solo Shardbearer or a troop of Parshendi. Maybe even in that order, because it would prove that the Parshendi are (for whatever reason) specifically matching force-for-force, even when it's not strategically advantageous to do so. That's all supposition, but I could see it happening.

It might be something we see discussed or even acted up on if Dalinar can force unity as the Highprince of War, but even so I don't see them giving up entirely on the use of troops, because there's only like... what, less than a dozen suits of Plate and/or Blades amongst everyone combined? Not much of a force, especially if (as suspected) the Parshendi have access to much more in the way of Shardplate or Blades and just haven't been using 'em yet.

From what I understand, Plate is powered by gems infused with Stormlight, not inherently powered by Stormlight itself. I'm guessing that if you left a suit of plate fitted with dun gems in a storm, when it was over the gems would be infused and so the plate would power up. But it's the gems, not the plate, that act as the "batteries".

Mmmm... risky. If he doesn't beat the Parshendi, he'll face an army alone. If anything happens to him, absolutely invaluable resources are lost. He may also not be able to find the way alone without the scouts to lead the way, and if he's going full-out they cannot keep up. And the Parshendi have their own Shardbearers, so there's a real chance he could be defeated out there, alone, by someone of equal or greater power. I could see someone trying it, but it sounds like a desperate move. Remember, the Alethi nobles are treating the Plains war as a game, a contest amongst themselves, and not like a real conflict where final victory is the goal.

Although with the latest reading, I can also see The Thrill as being related to the resonance of the Parhsendi. It might be that through Shards humans are sensing the same Whatever that Parshendi warriors attune to when they take the Warrior Form. I'm actually good with either... I like the idea that The Thrill is about being human, it's about a dark place that's inside mankind, straight down in the core of the animal, where we take pleasure and power from killing and domination. It's not Odium, it's us. Though if it's the Parhsendi resonance, that still doesn't mean it's about Odium. It just means that Plate and Blades are attuned to the same forces on Roshar that the Parshmen tune to naturally.

I think that it's adrenaline and other emotions that arise whenever men go into intense, life-or-death physical combat. It's a socio/cultural formalization of an emotional and mental state brought about by physiology, circumstance and experience that's regularly described by real-world fighters, soldiers and athletes. It's what men speak of when they "see red", and often as something that can can doused with realization, fought off with conscious effort, or embraced. What it is NOT (I think) is a Special State exclusive to Shardbearers, which is the other running theory. I don't think it's an indication of Odium's insidious influence seeping through the blade, it's not the Dark Side, or the call of the One Ring. That's my thinking, anyhow. Try tweeting the question to Brandon, he might just settle it.

There's a picture, but we only ever see it from Stephen's POV... could be that if someone else looked at it, they'd see something entirely different. Or possibly the picture itself is a hallucination entirely.

I don't think you can insert a charged spike without it immediately having a hemalurgic effect on whomever it's spiked into. It's not like Hemalurgy is exactly an "at will" power, the effects (I think) operate automatically, sometimes regardless of the will of the person being spiked (see koloss).

Very little was done with that book that did not involve consultation and approval by Brandon.

It's something the long-term fans know about. For a while there you could, with the right connections, check it out from BYU. Does anyone know if the BYU copy is still moving around, or if it was officially "stolen" (at best, not returned or lost in the post)? Seems like last I'd heard it had went missing.

Ceramic firearms are too advanced a tech for Alloy, but maybe Brandon will approach the idea in the modern or future series. I wouldn't mind seeing ceramic knives. And yeah, I think Brandon sidestepped a bit by stating that an alloy which is sufficiently composed of aluminum would be inert (or so weak as to be undetectable or uneffectable), so guns may be case of an alloy rather than pure aluminum. And then mentioned, it's known that aluminum firearms don't put up with a lot of abuse (or have a long service life), that's one of their downsides (also expense) which helps balance them in game terms. It's why everyone doesn't have an aluminum gun... their only real advantage is the way in which they're immune to Allomancy, and that's not a problem in most scenarios. While Iron/Steel Allomancy isn't exactly rare, it's not common enough to be a constant problem for people using firearms.

Jasnah is not Taravingian's daughter. She is (I think?) Elkohar's sister and Dalinar's niece. That being said, I wouldn't be shocked to learn she's a worldhopper. Axies the Collector seems like a good bet too.

It was mentioned in his recent Q&A. Probably won't be done for a year or two.

Well, we know spheres trap spren, 'cause that was revealed in Navani's notes about the fabrials. So I'd guess he's got a spren of some sort in there, but he doesn't know how to communicate with it (or doesn't understand it).