pmj812

hmmm... I wonder, could an Oracle, burning Electrum, have "seen" the bullet entering his head in his future-shadows, and thus known when to act? Or is that too dependent on Wax's actions, and therefore outside of Electrum's abilities?

I guess I'm starting to like the Rioter idea more and more. An experienced manipulator of other people's emotions might be more inclined to think of people as "just puppets." He'd also be fairly confident in his ability to manipulate. If he flared zinc and started moving at the same time, he could have provoked the shot. I do think that he's seen Marsh, but I don't think Marsh or Harmony intentionally set him on a psychotic rampage. It's just possible they goofed, though. Also he says "God," not "Harmony." And Miles believed in Trell, so we can't be absolutely certain we know which god Tan meant. Tineye would require him to be either deaf or wearing earplugs, as a gunshot would probably hit a tineye's sensitive ears hard enough to knock him down. any sort of speed enhancement -whether of time or of his own body - would have been noticeable to Wax (although in the shock of it all, he might not have remembered it).

It's not within normal human abilities, though. He reacted to a gunshot before it would be humanly possible to do so. Doing some quick research, the slowest bullet speed I could find was 180 m/s, and the average human reaction time was .2s. That means a slow bullet travels more than 100 feet before the average person could even begin to respond, never mind the additional time to actually turn that reaction into a full body movement. Wax and Tan were on opposite sides of a "small chapel." Call it 30 feet. That gives Tan 0.056 seconds to react and move - almost 4 times faster than a normal person could. It's possible that something other than Atium allowed him to do so, or he may have just been good enough at reading Wax to anticipate when he would fire, but let's not pretend that it was completely ordinary. Possibilities: Atium. (Deficiency: there shouldn't be any) Speed bubble. (Deficiency: should have been noticed, should have deflected bullet) Iron ferring/stored speed (Deficiency: the text does say that he moved "in the same instant," and ferrings are rare) Zinc allomancy(or just psychology) - Tan rioted Wax, manipulating him into shooting, so he knew when he would shoot. (Deficiency: the timing is still extraordinary)

Bubbles deflect bullets. That's the biggest slider obstacle.

"my little theory" would point out that abandoning their honorblades was a necessary part of renouncing the oathpact for the heralds. If the radiants were bound by their shards, then abandoning them would be the only way to quit.

At first I was against this theory but then I realized: if the almighty is dead, and honor is whole... who has it?

Wow I had a total misconception about the Koloss - I though that to make a koloss you took two people and spiked them together, and they sort of merged into a koloss. WAY wrong.

1) I just noticed there's no mention of the Kandra's blessings on the Kandra page in the wiki. 2) Could it be simply that the blessings convey enhancements that are too sublte and complex for one spike to be enough?

I don't see a thread for good ol' Bloody Tan, and he's a bit of a mystery. Just don't seem right. So what do we know? We know he either anticipated or reacted to a fired bullet at close range. We know he claims to have personal knowledge of God, Death, and the Survivor. We know that one of the bodies in the gallery is specifically described as "spiked" to the wall. We know that the first Vanisher attack was ~1-2 months before Wax returned to Elendel We know that Bloody Tan's rampage began about 2 months before the prologue We know from the end of the book that Harmony and Marsh both want to help stop the suit guys - to varying degrees. The gunshot reaction leads me in 2 directions: Atium Misting or Steel Ferring. MAYBE, just maybe, a steel ferring with lots of speed stored could be fast enough to percieve Wax firing, then move Lessie. Atium seems more likely. Which leads me to: Could Tan have been a failed hero? Could Marsh and/or TenSoon and/or Sazed have recruited him to be their hero, but then his mind snapped? It would explain why he went crazy, and how he got Atium. Alternatively, it has been suggested that Harmony is slightly more Ruin than Preservation, because of the little spark of Preservation in each person. Maybe Harmony didn't like that imbalance and had to put some Atium back in the world to get himself back in balance - and Tan found some. Maybe it's something completely different. We'll probably never know. But it's fun to theorize either way.

Or it could be that there's a limit to the deterioration - they're all completely weakened, so that all that remains in them is the link to the Deity and none of their previous power.

I think it's the cop because "he'll be retiring soon," i.e. the Kandra can stop being him soon. Maybe he died of natural causes, maybe he was targetted by the Suits (The Set? Is that what they called themselves?), Maybe it's one of the rogue Kandras whose existence is implied by the Ars, and Wax's permission to be a constable is actually part of their plan - they'll be able to keep better tabs on him and/or keep him distracted with other crimes.

I think my favorite thing in the book was Wax's realization that Miles would have been a hero in the previous age - that society's changes can make one age's hero another age's villain. Isn't Miles's outlook and morality almost exactly like Dox or Kelsier?

I imagine it must be even bigger than that - if we think about Awakening like we think about Allomancy, it isn't just the Breath they'd be losing, it's also the ability to recieve it back, the ability to ever use Breath to Awaken. What I'm saying is, the Nalthians' art of Investiture is Awakening, and its Commands - Breaths are only part of that. Take a hypothetical situation where a Nalthian and a Scadrian are together, and the Nalthian says "My life to yours, my Breath become yours," I believe one of two (EDIT: 3) things will happen: 1) nothing will happen, because the Scadrian is incapable of recieving the Breath 2) the Scadrian will recieve the Breath, but be unable to use it or give it back, because Awakening isn't part of their spiritual makeup. (Edit: OOH! Just thought of a third one!) 3) the Scadrian will be able in some way to use the Breath to fuel a Metallic art - similar to how the Mists can fuel Allomancy on rare occasions So getting soul-stapled would make you worse than a drab.

Point taken, Disciple. Point taken. Still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Everything that we learn about Pathians wearing earrings comes in Wax's viewpoint... And everything he knows about the Path, and also the earring, came from someone that he thinks was one of Harmony's immortal servants (KANDRA ALERT!) I feel VERY confident that his earring in particular is Hemalurgic, and he just doesn't know any better that other Pathians don't have a direct 2-way hotline to God like he does. I have a minor suspicion that his earring might even be Vin's earring. (If there's a sequel, I'm keeping my eyes open for him possibly discovering that he can burn bronze when it's in)

We don't know much about how blades and plates were supposed to work in the time of the Radiants. I'm about to go way out on an Alloy of Law-inspired limb here: From the AoL Ars Arcanum: "(The actual outlet of the power is not chosen by the practitioner, but instead is hardwritten into their Spiritweb)" Now, I'm enough of a novice to have no idea whether what I'm saying here is nonsense, but... The Dawnshards/Honor Blades disappear when the owner dies. Maybe that means their blades are "hardwritten into their spiritwebs" and are inseperable from them. We don't know how Radiants' plate worked. We don't know if each member somehow made their own or if they recieved it. Maybe the shardblades and plate of the Radiants were also unique, and also hardwritten into their spirits, and when the Radiants quit they cut off parts of their own souls and abandoned them. That would make all of the Shardbearers of the modern era a bit like Kaladin with the bone armor: they're wearing and wielding cannibalized parts of dead men's souls. And THAT would allow them to be from Honor, but also abhorrent to Syl, similar to how the bone shields were abhorrent to the Parshendi

But the feast he must drink clings to their faces... if "their" doesn't refer back to friends, then it's horribly convoluted and obscured grammar

It wasn't until after I had finished the book and went back to re-read parts of it that I realized this: Waxillium and Wayne Wax and Wayne wax and wane And they have a very classic comedy double act going on, with Wax as the "straight man" and Wayne as the "funny man." BRILLIANT! (On a completely unrelated note, if we get to spend more time in the Roughs in a sequel I DEMAND that there be rag-time piano. This feels like a rag-time piano setting.)

Some thoughts on what the AoL AA tells me about the writer: The writer knows things that a mere mortal Scadrian "shouldn't" know - Things about Investiture and the Metallic Arts that can only come from 3 places, really: - straight from the mouth of Harmony - from eons of observation and study of Scadrial and other planets - an innate ability to see and understand arts relating to Investiture I kind of like the third one: recall that the Sixth Heightening grants "Instictive Awakening," hinting that knowledge of the mechanics of an art of Investiture can manifest as a gift of that art. This makes it easy to believe that someone from somewhere may have the talent to grasp the workings of an art simply by observing it once. Furthermore, the excuse-making for Hemalurgy gives me cause for concern about the moral standing of the author. Hemalurgy takes from one person to give to another. As I recall the only way we've seen it work successfully has required the "donor" to die. I certainly understand that a person enhanced by Hemalurgic means is not necessarily evil - Marsh (before Ruin ruined him) was proof enough of that. But it requires a very harshly utilitarian outlook to find it morally acceptable to kill some people so that other people might have their power.

We're not exactly disagreeing: I used the phrase in an unusual way. I was unclear. I have clarified.

No, he exerted his will through them, using them in ways we already knew they could be used. To "bend them to his will" would be to fundamentally change what they are. Which is exactly what you're arguing he can't do.

Re-read A Canticle for Leibowitz. Last read it when I was about 13. At the time I didn't realize how funny it is.

That's a good point, certainly. If the chapter is cited this becomes easy: chapters 29-50 are Jasnah's notes. Others are death quotes. Edit: Chapter numbers are better than page numbers for another reason too. My only copy is a Kindle edition. Page numbers no is working for meh.

Oh I have a nasty theory about that one, but it's irresponsible speculation. See, early in the book Dalinar and Elhokar emerge from beneath the corpse of the Greatshell and cut out its gemheart. I think it's possible that this epigraph is foreshadowing death for both of them.

And that's all perfectly valid reasoning: this idea is based on speculation rather than firm evidence. To clarify: I do not think that Sazed is somehow special enough to bend Shards of Adonalsium to his will. I propose that it's possible that no one person has ever held two shards before, and that the simple act of forcing two Shards with two Intents into one vessel with one will should have very interesting consequences. Honestly I would be disappointed to learn that it's no problem for Sazed to handle two opposed shards without some kind of really neat consequence. I'm speculating about possible consequences: 1) the opposed Intents are strong enough to destroy one another, but Adonalsium is the power of creation itself, right? So rather than annihilate each other, the shards may have reacted to one another by merging as a kind of defense mechanism. 2) if the shards didn't merge, then the effects of their opposing Intents should have a huge effect on Sazed: he may now have two wills: he may be a binity (is binity the two-person version of trinity? seems like it might be) which is theologically fascinating. This may also be the most likely outcome. 2.5) By the way, I'm sure this has been said elsewhere. Is Adonalsium the entity, or is Adonal the entity and Adonalsium the Adonal-substance that the shards are made of? (cf. Ati, Atium) 3) If the shards represent not only roughly 1/16 of the power of Adonalsium but also contain the essence, soul, or will of Adonalsium in equal measure, Sazed now holds a full 1/8 of that - which is, as far as we know, unprecedented. Could it be the case that the will of Adonal(sium) is now reasserting itself in some way, if only to keep the two shards from harming one another?