Isomere

Steelhearts Weakness: Only able to be hurt if attacked unintentionally by an ally trying to protect him while he is standing in a Shrine that was recently desecrated by someone who is trying to kill him.

Weiry, I completely agree. Spren function as a release valve. "Though, of course, that's only one part of the puzzle." I'm just wondering if the other part of the puzzle requires a conscious mind controlling the fragments. Heralds/Radiants would fit the bill. Cultivation could be doing it. Maby it's indirectly controlled by a time-traveling space-alien from Yolen...

"Eli,Eli,lama sabachthani." I do think this relates to the Almighty being splintered. One of the more poignant quotes in the book. As to how this relates to the recreance I do not know, but I suspect Honor was splintered long before. I can't prove honor splintered before the Recreance. I also can't prove he splintered after it. Just some thoughts to keep in mind about the timing of Honor's Splintering: Tanavast and Honor can exist separately. Some of the visions happened after Tanavasts death. Highstorms occur during the time of the Visions. Hrm, this implies that there IS a controlling entity on Roshar. . .

Quote First quote. People on Nalthis have a piece of Endowment inside of them that gives them access to her Power. Second quote. "Biochromatic Investiture" is inside every living being on Nalthis. We know breath gives you access to Awakening, and without it you don't have Biochroma, so it follows that Breath = Innate Investiture. I have heard a lot of people try to say that Breath is NOT investiture, but given these quotes I find that unlikely. So Breath is a piece of Endowment and forms a part of the Soul of each person born on Nalthis. This is exactly how I think of it as well. When someone dies, I assume the Breath goes back to Endowment. She then either Returns a different Divine Breath, or puts more investiture into the original Breath and sends it back as a Splinter. Then you get (Dead Body + Divine Breath). If someone takes that dead body and turns it into a Lifeless you have (Dead Body + Breath - color). Endowment Returns the Divine Breath and you get (Dead Body + Breath + Divine Breath - color). So the Drab God would have an extra breath, but his body would be drained of color. Other than being Albino I think he would function exactly the same as other Returned, but could live for two weeks instead of just one before dying.

I think you are onto something here Kiwi. My theory is that waveforms are the Focus on Roshar (similar to metal on Scadrial) , and standing waves have perfect symmetry.

I think the fact that Taln's Scar is red hints that the local galaxy is much older than our Milky Way. Aging selects for red stars in three ways: As stars get older they have various stages of color. Most stars seem to eventually end up turning red, which correlates to the surface temperature dropping. Big stars die faster than little stars. Yellow, white and blue stars burn hot, but die in billions of years while small Red Dwarves live for trillions. Red Dwarves get brighter over time. So if we waited long enough even our milky way (which is about 75% Red Dwarves) could end up creating a red swath across the sky as the big stars die and the red stars grow brighter.

This is exactly what I'm trying to tease out Senor. I think you DO access investiture on Sel through Aons. But I also think the people there have innate investiture from both Dominion and Devotion. As a parallel, we know people on Scadrial have innate investiture from both ruin and preservation, but they also access investiture that requires burning metal to keep running.

This is my theory on Urithiru. We also came to the conclusion that it is likely in the Purelake in Shadesmar. This fits being in the place "Nearest to honor" assuming his shardpool is the sacred grotto of the Purelakers. But it was not built in a lake, but on a mountain. The purelake in Shadesmar is a large mountain which makes everything work out nicely. I like your theory that Jasnah has been to Urithiru. It's hinted that she has the transportation surge since she can soulcast at a distance.

The term Investiture is very hard to define, and seems to be divided into various types. Brandon has called all of these the Power of Creation, but has also made clear distinctions between the various subgroups. I am wondering if these correlate to Spiritual, Physical and Cognitive Investiture. 1) Chunks of Adonalsium: So far this includes Shards, Splinters, innate Investiture, and the residue in Slivers. At conception, humans are given innate Investiture from all the local Shards. This stuff is permanent which makes me think it is almost purely spiritual. It can be stolen by Hemalurgy which also suggests a spiritual nature. It does not directly fuel anything, but rather allows access to the other two types of Investiture. 2) Physical Body of a Shard: Each shard leaks energy into the physical world where it becomes Liquid, Gas or Solid. This can be used as fuel for any type of magic on any planet. Expending this weakens the Shard temporarily, but the Body can be reformed over time. Accessing the Shard's Body provides temporary Investiture. For example, picking up enough Liquid Essence in a Shardpool can turn someone into a Co-Shardholder. Once the pool is used up they lose Investiture and only retain the residue of a Sliver. 3) Focus-Accessed Investiture: Using a Focus is the most common method of Magic that we read about in the books. It does not weaken the Shard, but provides Investiture by forming a link to the Power of Creation. As soon as the link is cut the Investiture ends. The realm grouping seems a little bit forced, but I would like to hear other people's thoughts about it. I'm sure there are other theories about how to organize these, and there could be other types of Investiture that I haven't learned about yet.

LOL yes. need to follow more links

Good theory, enjoy an upvote for the time and thought involved. I definitely support the idea of having the Shards follow an order and pattern that will be reflected in the way each magic system uses them. My guess is we will have to do some major revisions to the groupings, but your arrangement is thoughtful and works for now. Personally I think Ruin is temporal pushing (obsessed with our eventual state of decay) and Preservation is spiritual pulling (obsessed with keeping the spiritual aspect perfect and static) For some reason I can't find the quote, but I do remember somewhere reading that the shards aren't grouped exactly like the Allomantic Metals are grouped. That to me just means the Scadrians didn't get it exactly right, not that the powers and the Shards aren't correlated.

Blindsiding me too right now. The Command is a focus, but he doesn't specify that Color is not a focus as well. Could he be saying there is both a cognitive AND a physical focus for each use of magic?

Elantris

Taln is order 9 I believe, which I think is the Stonewards. That is just based on correlating the brown gem color with the eye color of the Stonewards in the book, plus the Earth attribute from the Ars Arcanum seeming to fit.

Mistborn:

@ WeiryWriter: The stub for Command on Coppermind says it needs urgent attention and I think it is incorrect about the true nature of the Focus for Awakening. I could certainly be wrong, but have been spending quite a lot of time researching Focus recently and don't see any strong evidence proving the Command to be the focus. @ Rosh: I also think the shards are grouped and somehow separated with counterbalanced attributes. Will be fun to see where that plays out. And just think, only a couple dozen more books to go before we find out!

Vonotar, I'd caution you to treading very carefully on these forums if you haven't read all of Brandon's books. If you don't mind spoilers read on but I'd recommend waiting a bit before diving into the Cosmere Theories. You are definitely on to something here. I am pretty sure there are at least 2 shards that do some strange things with dead Souls. Elantris, Way of Kings and Warbreaker all discuss ways this can happen. Has he ever explicitly said the original soul of Lightsong is in the body with the Divine Breath? I always assumed this, but today I stopped to consider what would happen if you collected 5-10k breath and invested them all into a dead body with the command, "Live". We know Clod retained part of his skill with weapons and desire to defend helpless women. And Lightsong has no memories of his previous life. Could enough Breath (or a divine Breath) give a lifeless sentience even in the absence of the original soul? I would say yes, since a steel blade was granted a semblance of sentience, flawed though it may be.

A very intriguing theory Rosh. I have never thought of shards as having imbalances between the three realms since I assumed they are almost purely spiritual objects since they require a human intellect and a physical focus to even work properly. Definitely something to watch for in future books to see if we can firmly classify Shards into realm-centric categories. I hope this theory proves to be correct and each Shard does have an inclination toward one of the three Realms. As for focus, I strongly disagree. Each planet seems to have a very PHYSICAL focus despite which realm the Shardic Intent leans toward. And each magic system can be used to access powers from all three realms and is not usually restricted by the Shard's Intent. I don't think this is right. My understanding could be flawed, but I believe all Shards use a Physical Focus: Magic requires contribution from each of the three realms to work: Physical Focus, Spiritual Investiture, and Cognitive Activation/Control. On Scadrial, physical focus = metal, Investiture = Ruin and/or Preservation, and Cognitive = burning the metal (and potentially shaping the effect) On Nalthis I personally think the BioChromatic Aura is the physical focus and forms a wave pattern similar to the "Aon" created by atomic resonance on Scadrial. Some people think the color that gets leached to create Biochroma is the focus. Either way, color is a physical thing and works well as a physical focus. Breath = spiritual investiture, and the Commands are Cognitive Control. This quote is one of the reasons I think this.

The strongest argument for Ishikk knowing who Wit is would be the "fool" comment and Conservation of Characters. Meaning, many authors try to limit the number of extraneous people we need to remember by forming unlikely but plausible connections between seemingly unrelated characters. The argument against is simply that we are over-interpreting the fool comment which has a clear face value meaning that doesn't link to Wit at all. My personal view is that Ishikk doesn't know about Hoid's penchant for being a Jester, but Brandon is throwing in an easter egg and a fun play on words.

The only thing we really know about the Dawnshards is from the Poem of Ista, and this source could be fiction or corrupted truth. I am hoping the Dawnshards turn out to be something more grand than "just another magic sword".

I totally agree, but it hasn't yet been confirmed. Physical Focus on Sel has a pattern of creating Maps of the person's homeland. I got a bit confused when I realized that you can use sound as a physical focus to create abnormal bone growth in young Dakhor monks. You can also use dance as a focus for ChayShan. Perhaps the sounds and movements have symbolism that tie in with the person's homeland? Perhaps the sound is a vestige of Odium having visited? (since sound is an obvious physical focus on Roshar and the Dakhor seem rather spiteful) Basically I'm not at all comfortable with my understanding of the Physical Focus on Sel, and wanted to cover my bases.

A human using one form of investiture on a planet works in a certain way due to the interactions of the planet, the human's Identity/genetics/intellect, the physical focus, and the Shard's Intent. Using a different investiture with a different Intent and having it produce the exact same magic system would be a coincidence tantamount to a sperm whale randomly appearing in the sky above BYU and destroying the only copy of Dragonsteel in print.

Seem unlikely that two shards occupying the same planet would create one system of magic unless they were working extremely closely with each other. Additionally, the Goddess of Love and the God of Dominion forming a romantic coupling just seems too appropriate to not play around with it. We know Cultivation did it with Honor after all.

Makes me wonder if he was forced to stay. He doesn't seem the kinda guy that likes to get tied down.

Fascinating quote Windy, unwanted effects of investitures... so many possibilities.