Scriptorian

Science Fun Fact!!! Kilograms are a unit of mass, not weight. An object's weight is the product of its mass times the gravitational acceleration of the planet. So a person of 50 kg would weigh more on Earth than Roshar (since Roshar has only .7 Earth's gravity), but still have the same mass. The unit you're probably looking for is Newtons. If Feruchemy stored physical mass, there would be problems (unless you want to get into my theory of inertial mass...) . Sorry for the nit-pick, but this is what taking college-level physics in high school did to me .

Well done, sounds pretty good to me. So, would that mean that in the prologue, David gain the power to kill Epics, but since Epics are associate with his "failure", they are thus his weakness so he can never actually use his power? The only problem with this is how he got past the epic-detector thing (unless the presence of Prof and Megan triggered his weakness, making effectively non-Epic. Hmm...).

My impression that holding both shards had essentially created a "new" intent, not simply the balance of the two previous. So I think that Harmony isn't pulled between preserving and creating, but that his intent is Harmony. I also like the idea that Harmonium what have some sort of creation power, since that is at least one thing we've seen can be accomplished with combined Preservation and Ruin. The super-metalmind is also a cool idea.

Compounding is still technically allomancy (I think), so I would guess that it would simply give off a different pulse than normal since your accessing a different power.

*refusing to let dreams be crushed* Double shardblades would be awesome either way. And when I get them, I'm coming for you first, you storming, hemalurgic pussy-cat .

Yep! I was already aware of these facts, but there are probably others who haven't drooled over every piece of information relating to dual-shardblades, so thanks. (I also have a pet theory that you could have two blades that share a cognitive and/or spiritual aspect, and, being essentially one weapon, they could be summoned at the same time).

What he said.

Alright, here goes... 1) The Way of Kings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWWGzGpqpGg 2) The Way of Kings: Technically the second Sanderson book I've read (the first being Infinity Blade: Awakening), and I was competently Blown. A. Way. I read it in under 5 days during a hiking trip. I was most displeased when I finished it before the eight hour drive back. 3) The Way of Kings: The answer to every problem I've has with high school English. Proof that characters can go through awful situations and come out even more awesome (I'm looking at you 1984), proof that awesome stories can have their own awesome morals (I'm looking at you, in-world Way of Kings), and shardblades. Shardblades are awesome. Two shardblades would be even awesomer (Looking at you, rest of Stormlight Archive).

Ack! Too many things I want to respond to! Electrum is a pushing metal (since its an alloy of gold), so I'm not sure your logic works here. Actually, the Well did have an intent. I believe it was said in the annotations that Rashek was affected by the fact he was holding Preservation's power in that he fixed things retroactively. When he created a problem, he didn't try to undo it, he created a new solution. The reason he could use the power to cause such damage to the world and create and Evil empire is that, first of all, he didn't hold the power for very long and so wasn't affected by it very much, and two, his intent was to preserve. he tried to save the world by moving it closer to the sun, which inadvertently burned it to a crisp. The powers of a Shard aren't limited by an Intent, but, to a Shardholder who has been shaped by the Intent, it limits how they will chose to use their power. For example, Preservation have the power to destroy Ruin, but was so locked in by his intent that he wouldn't/couldn't ever choose to do so. Which is why Vin, who hadn't held Preservation nearly long enough to be so affected, could destroy Ruin. Also, the intent of the shard doesn't affect what a magic system can do, but how its accessed. An allomancer uses allomancy by preserving himself, instead drawing upon the energy of Preservation. You can do some very destructive things with allomancy. By the same token, you can preserve things with powers granted by Hemalurgy, but gaining those powers will always involve destroying something/someone. And my thoughts on the infamous atium-electrum alloy. Something that might be relevant is that I asked Brandon at a signing if anything in particular would happen if a mistborn burned electrum and atium at the same time, and he responded something to the effect that there wouldn't be anything beyond the normal effect the metals. My own theory for the alloy's effect would be simply that you can see what other thing's futures will be based on the decisions you make. So if you decide to punch someone, you would see a shadow of them go reeling. Or maybe, the person is a pewter arm, so you see him barely react. Very similar to electrum's normal effect, except you see the result of your actions on other things. This seems to fit the logic rather well. The biggest problem I see is that it would either essentially provide normal atium-vision (beacuse you'd have to see what would happen if you don't do anything), or you would only see a shadow of something if your actions would change what it does. In either case, I think one significant advantage of this would be to potentially not just counter, but overcome another person's atium. That is, to essentially one step farther into the future than the other mistborn: not just seeing what they'll do, but how they'll react to what you are doing, such that you maintain the advantage.

And here is a totally relevant WoK quote to sum up this conversation: BRANDON SANDERSON IS AWESOME!!!

Just look at the Herald info on the coppermind, and I'm gonna go with Kalak. Resolute/builder seem to fit excellently, and the essence, foil, seems to fit pretty well with "smiths".

Thoughts on Dalinar as a Bondsmith: I've always thought it noteworthy that Dalinar is observed to have a noticeable affinity for his shards, something about making other shardbearers look like children. Anyway, there has been prior speculation that Bondsmiths are somehow the makers of shardplate (maybe blades too?), so I wonder if there is a connection between Dalinar's shardbearer-awesomeness and his (theorized) Order. Also, do we know what Herald goes with the Bondsmiths?

What are you doing in England?

(Out of game: Aether, not sure whether to take that as a complement or not...Anyway my name's back now. *Also grumbles in jealousy of Windy's rep.) Edit: Hey! I wasn't ninjad!

Umm...Buy? My impression was that he was at least somewhat genuine, but he apparently wasn't entrenched in his values enough to resist the temptation of the shards. To me, he actually seems rather similar to Mr. T. Sort of well intentioned, but completely misguided. Syl will have a very interesting conversation with the Symbolheads if/when they meet. Edit: Dang it! How do you do that?! I even reloaded that page before I posted to make sure no one else had posted anything!

Buy, and then Kaladin will have some stupid moral dilemma choosing between freedom and revenge. And for some stupid reason he won't explain to Dalinar what Amaram did, leading to a huge mess of mis-communication. (I bet that stealing shards could legitimately get someone, even a lighteyes, executed, the problem is that it's still just Amaram's word against Kaladin's) Edit: HEY! That's the first time I've been ninjad!

I think your logic is inconsistent. What would follow is that Honor does not honor himself (so he's humble...or something). I think this is a better representation of Shardic intents: Ruin wants to destroy other things/people. Preservation wants to preserve other things/people. Cultivation cultivates other things/people. Odium hates other /people, while Honor is honorable towards other things/people.

I coudln't think of anywhere else to mention this, so...Just listening to the Graphic Audio sample of Mistborn, I love the voice for Vin. I know nothing whatsoever about the actress, except that she sounds like a better Vin than I had imagined Vin sounding like.

Nitpicking! I don't have the book, so I can't quote it exactly, but there is a scene where Miles is bemoaning the uselessness of gold in allomancy, thinking some like : "it [gold] was far less useful than its alloy, which was in turn less useful than the prime battle metals." Not exactly a "mention", but its at least a reference, so we can assume that electrum was fairly common knowledge, I think. The reason I immediately remembered this instance is because I have dug through all the books for every reference to electrum, in an attempt to prove that it is as awesome as I theorize it to be. Along those lines, I think its completely plausible for Tan to have used a electrum to avoid getting shot. He wouldn't necessarily see that moving such would cause Lezzie to get shot instead, he just had to see that moving her would keep him alive. So its a plausible explanation, but I'm not sure that it is the explanation. pssssst electrum is awesome!

This error is mentioned in the annotations. I didn't catch it my first read through, but I laughed when I caught it the second time. Ta-dah, I found a thread exactly like this one! http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/1721-error-in-mistborn-well-of-assention/

I probably just haven't been on the forms long enough, but this is the most tangentially divergent thread I've seen. To clarify my own thoughts on the morality debacle: I believe in absolute morality, that certain actions are generally speaking immoral, but that the circumstances and intentions of the involved persons are as important as the action itself. So killing people is, generally speaking, a bad thing to do, but under very certain circumstances, can be acceptable. However, if a person's intentions are not "good", by my definition it would still be immoral. Of course, in an ideal world, no one would be dying anyway. I guess you could say I just have a pragmatic view on absolute morality. There are ideals that everyone should strive for, but circumstances may require individual adaptation. When in doubt, I usually err on the side of the ideal. Now, Hemalurgy. Under my definition of morality, you'd need at least as good a reason to kill someone as you would to kill them and then steal their spiritual whacha-ma-call-it, such that, in most circumstances, using hemalurgy would be an evil act. I could conceive that there might be a case where using hemalurgy is preferable to the alternatives, but, like I said above, in an ideal world, no one would have to die in any circumstances. Also, because the primary use of hemalurgy is to grant oneself more power, the intents behind the act usually aren't very good. As to whether Hemalurgy itself is evil, I don't think we know enough about the process yet to say. If it does cause a person suffering in the Afterlife, than I would say yes (although, my personal interpretation is that "souls" and the afterlife are separate from the Three Realms and the Cosmere as we understand it), but we just don't know. In any case, we can see the means of Hemalurgy, killing and robbery, are by themselves going to be immoral 99% of the time, so, when in doubt, don't spike. On the other tangent...well, shardblades are just awesome regardless. So there.

Buy, just too awesome. Wit will win said sparring match.

My best argument is that it makes too much sense. Seriously though, at least for me, it seems to connect the puzzle pieces a little bit too easily. It could just be that all of this theory crafting has corrupted me. I don't think the radiant-voidbringer set up you proposed quite works. I feel it could be something along those lines, but most evidence suggests that the Oathpact and the Desolations are inherently tied together, and the Radiants weren't around until after the Desolations had already started, so the Radiants couldn't specifically have been in the Oathpact, at least originally. Although, my gut says your general premise is correct.

Wow. Didn't mean to spark an argument over the morality of hemalurgy. It occurred to me that the writer probably doesn't understand the spiritual mechanics of hemalurgy (we certainly don't understand them perfectly), and thus it wouldn't be fair to criticize him too much for ripping out souls, when he thinks it's just a transfer of power.