TaliaRain

My biggest issue with this is that she doesn't use stormlight when taking a Memory.

I think so, similar to how different entities have been called The Almighty at different times.

I am unclear about how one pays for the Weller copies, do they send an email with payment information?

The point is that a moral and thinking person such as Jasnah would not immediately jump to the final solution when there are so many possible scenarios where that is not only unnecessary, but the opposite of a solution. Based on what we think we know of Odium, there are few things he would enjoy more than a good old genocide. He may have already had one on Aimia.

I don't see how it even suggests that, but to each their own.

Right, but that says nothing about who gets taken over. We know nothing about the nature of those dark gods as far as I am aware. Edit: In fact here's a scenario: Perhaps their dark gods are voidspren that can take over "slave form" Parshen, turning them into monsters and triggering a genocide by the humans against the Parshendi. Edit2: Moving this to a more appropriate thread, I can think of few things the Oduim we know would like to cause more than a genocide. He may have already had one on Aimia.

Right, but that says nothing about who gets taken over. We know nothing about the nature of those dark gods as far as I am aware. Edit: In fact here's a scenario: Perhaps their dark gods are voidspren that can take over "slave form" Parshen, turning them into monsters and triggering a genocide by the humans against the Parshendi. Edit2: Taking this line of conversation to the genocide thread.

Indeed. I am not really putting this forward as a likely theory, but as one of many scenarios where genocide is not the best option(there's a phrase for you) even if the idea that Parshen are voidbringers has basis.

Can you elaborate on that a little? As far as I was aware the idea of anyone being taken over was merely theoretical.

What if only Parshen that aren't already in a form can be taken over?

It's true. Jasnah's preferred essences seem to be vapor, blood and lucentia, based on the gems in her fake soulcaster and the substances she cast the robbers into. We don't know what Shallan's preferred essences are, if any. If I had to guess I would say blood, pulp, and maybe one other-- we don't know it has to be 3. I'm not seeing any pattern there. So she could have cast something to smoke, or to flame, or she could have cast something containing a flame to wood(less likely)

I was assuming Jasnah had soulcast part of the ship's hull to smoke in her sleep, but this is even better. Upvotes to both of you.

I think Brandon has said something to that effect, or at least that it is their colour, and not their chemical/structural makeup that makes them special.

My theory is practically every life-form native to Roshar is capable of forming a spren bond with physical effects. Surgebinders are humanity's attempt to imitate this.

So I was thinking about different types of shardweapons. So far we have only seen swords, but I believe we have WoB that other types are possible. Let's look at the kind of damage a shardblade inflicts. If it's a living object it doesn't affect the physical, but it seems to either cut the spiritual/cognitive aspect or perhaps it severs the connection between the physical and the spiritual or something. This brings up several interesting questions: 1) What is the fundamental definition of "living" that it uses to distinguish? 2) Would thunderclasts, for example, count as living? 3) Does it cut spren? Furthermore, all this damage seems directly related to cutting, for example, the effects happen if the blade passes through a limb, or through the spine. This brings up questions related to other types of damage: 4) What happens if you hit someone with the flat of a shardblade? 5) Is it the same as if you hit them with a shardhammer? 6) What about poking them with a shardspear? Finally, a shardblade can cut through nonliving matter nearly effortlessly. How does it do this? 7) Is just a supermagically thin and strong physical blade? 8) or is it perhaps separating the cognitive manifestations of the objects and transmitting that change to the physical plane? Or something Thoughts?

It is easy with a bow. The shard-arrows are a part of the unit, but the core of the weapon's identity is clearly in the shard-bow which remains in the archer's posession. (and for the record I'm not talking about the "shardbows" which are in the book, but are actually "fabrial-bows for shardbearers"). It is less clear for thrown weapons.

Yes indeed, if force is conserved across the pairings and is not extremely limited in some way, then it opens a world of possibilities with power transmission.

I imagine it would work similarly to different pieces of shardplate. Yes I am aware that there are some fundamental differences between the behaviors of plate and blade, but bear with me. When Dalinar lost his gauntlet in battle at the Tower, it was stated that it could be regrown, or a full set of plate could be regrown from the gauntlet, but not both. Which part became the full set depended on the cognitive identity of the plate, and could be enhanced by feeding it stormlight. Similarly, if you had two blades that were cognitively a single unit and you lost one, I would guess it could be used against you in the short term. In the long term they would tend to re-unite in some way. Now for the differences: Blades don't "grow" like armor so far as we are aware, instead they are summoned. I suspect that they would be re-united when re-summoned. For example, if you dropped one blade, it would remain. Then if someone else picked it up and you dropped the other, they may gain control of the set. However if you released both as soon as you dropped the one, you could re-summon both, retaining control. Alternately, if you had control of a bladepair and you lost you hold on one, perhaps you would maintain control of the set and could summon the other to your hand at will. It brings up interesting questions about other weapon types. Shard arrows, shard shuriken etc. Also, the way shardblades kill is directly related to them beings cutting weapons(have we ever seen anyone use the tip of a shardblade?). I wonder what the effect of a piercing or bludgeoning shard weapon would be

I have not. It's an interesting idea. Hoid appeared in other books as well. One of the Mistbornes I think? also Warbreaker and Elantris. Could be from there.

I always read that as "something else like a Dysian Amian" not "put together into something else, like a Dysian Amian". Meaning I read Dysian Amian as an example of something that is not human, but has all the same parts as a human, not that Dysian Amians can tear themselves into bloody chunks and put themselves back together.

So my program finished overnight. There is no set of three or fewer words contained in WoK that is an anagram of figgldygrak. More than 3 words is very unlikely given that there are only 3 vowels... so I think this one is busted. Great idea though.

This is what I had planned to do.

I just ran every possible permutation of two or fewer words up against the english dictionary I had on hand, which is the 200,000+ words included with most linux distributions. It took about 20 minutes and produced the following: draggily kgf Since kgf is not a word in any english dialect as far as I am aware, we are going to need some non-english words. I wonder if it would be legal or ethical to try to extract the plain-text version of WoK from my nook version. edit: The kindle version says it is DRM-free by publisher's request. Thanks Tor!

challenge accepted edit: Since Wit didn't actually spell out "figgldygrak" for Dalinar it is unlikely that that was his intended audience.

I believe Brandon stated somewhere that the safehand custom grew out of the idea that feminine arts were those that could be done with one hand while masculine arts required two.