11thorderknight

So after re-reading the last scene of BoM, there's pretty much no doubt that the Sovereign is Kelsier. The scars on the arms are a giveaway, but there's a more subtle one - the fact that the long, bunker-like building reminds him of something. That is pretty much the exact description of the buildings that the skaa used to live in during the Final Empire. In fact, the whole scene is extremely reminiscent of the first scene of The Final Empire, where Kelsier visits Tresting's estate. Another question this scene raises - how did Kelsier get Feruchemy? He obviously made the coppermind that stores the memory, so he's got at least that, and likely the rest as well, if he's the Sovereign that taught the Southerners. And if only one eye is spiked, we can maybe assume that he didn't get it through Hemalurgy.

Maybe the difference is simply due to the fact that the Stormfather entered the bond reluctantly, whereas Syl was very much pushing Kaladin to speak the Oath both times.

One interesting clue is in the Ars Arcanum - aluminum ferrrings are called "Trueself" ferrings. This implies that there is value to increasing one's Identity. There may be value in removing it as well, which is what VenDell seems interested in...but if that were the only practical use of aluminum feruchemy, you would expect the name for them to be something that alludes to that. Instead, it alludes to increasing ones' Identity. Perhaps it could protect one against the control that comes through hemalurgy, or emotional allomancy?

actually, I'm pretty sure Sazed stored almost 100% of his weight when he floated down the canyon in Well of Ascension.....

I wonder how much of the kandra's speculation in this chapter is actually going to turn out to be accurate? Because if a feruchemist who stores Identity can make a universally accessible metalmind - not one that's accessible to other feruchemists, but one that's accessible to anyone - the implication is that a de-Identified metalmind can be used to take attributes from others as well as to give them. And that opens up a huge can of worms.....

I called it! Perfect name for them.

Exactly! I would imagine that most poor people would have sold their Breath at some point. For the middle class, it might be a sign of status to have one Breath; shows that you aren't poor. Beyond that, I would think that Breath gets concentrated somewhere around the First Heightening for the wealthy, and then around the Second Heightening and beyond for those who are truly rich, or for professional Awakeners.

I assumed that letter to be a pretty obvious giveaway that Hoid burned the Lerasium and became Mistborn. My question is - how do we know that Hoid has Feruchemy? Where did we ever see him use it, or were told that he has it?

Very good point - Breath is NOT health in the way that Feruchemical gold is. The whole point behind Breath is that each individual one is a very tiny, incremental amount of Investiture, hardly noticeable. Only in larger quantities does it start to have a "magic" effect. I think there was WoB at some point that each Heightening increases a person's average lifespan by about 10 years. At the 4th Heightening one becomes immune to disease, but that takes a thousand Breaths. It takes two thousand to stop aging. Same with Awakening. All the basic Commands we see Vivenna use require dozens to a couple hundred Breaths. Even Vasher, using a straw humanoid enhanced with his own hair, needs 25 or so in the intro. So your average Joe Awakener really won't be able to do much at all without at least the First Heightening, and more likely the Second. The single-Breath Lifeless Command is a major exception, but it requires certain preparation of the body and probably a lot of mental practice; I would bet that only very experienced Awakeners are good enough to make it work. So practically speaking, it's not really an exception. Overall, this tells us that it's large concentrations of Breath that will likely be important enough to conserve. Poor families might well bequeath their single Breath, but it would take dozens to make a significant concentration, and even then whoever received it wouldn't be able to do much Awakening with it.

So, I started the previous thread on the economics of Breath a while ago - it's just such a cool topic to think about. Of all the systems Brandon's done (or anyone's done, for that matter) Awakening is really original in that everyone has the same innate capacity for magic, but the catch is that for any one person to have a useful amount of raw material, it has to be concentrated at the expense of others. So many social ramifications.... Anyway - my original thread dealt mostly with how much money, roughly, a Breath was worth, and I think we agreed it would be somewhere around 5-10k or so. Meaning, a lot of money to the average person, especially someone who's poor, but not a life-changing amount for someone who is middle class, and certainly not much for someone who is rich. But in terms of inheritance....I would imagine that it would be extremely taboo for someone to die without passing on their Breath; there could well be religious prohibitions on it. Since Breath is most useful when it's concentrated, I would think that most families would pass Breath to the eldest child, to avoid splitting it up. It takes a serious amount of Breath to be able to practice Awakening, so only really wealthy people could afford to study it. This would also mean that most Awakeners wouldn't have much motivation to find practical (or at least, economically practical) uses for it, since they're generally independently wealthy already.

I think people are taking the "broken soul" concept a little bit too literally. Just because there's an analogy to Snapping of allomancers doesn't mean that it occurs the same way. We're never told that an individual has to suffer a traumatic event to become properly "broken"; all we know is that "cracks" in the soul allow the spren to form the Nahel bond. My personal interpretation is that the "broken soul" simply means a person whose personality, or moral compass, or life purpose (choose whatever phrase for it you want) is so geared toward one of Honor's facets that they attract the appropriate spren. That individual is "broken" only in the sense that they are so different from the balanced personality of the average Joe that they stand out. All of our main characters exhibit this quite clearly: Kaladin will stick his nose into fights that aren't his to defend others at great personal risk; Jasnah will flip off all of Alethi society to pursue understanding and truth; Shallan will make wisecracks or put on a performance in situations where it gets her in trouble; Szeth sticks to his personal code past all reason simply because that's the rules he swore to obey; etc. All of these people would be called crazy, to some extent, by the "rational" among us.

I would choose Allomantic pewter and Feruchemical gold. Burning pewter would allow me to store up much more health than a regular person would, without feeling the ill effects of being sick, since pewter makes you stronger/healthier. Gives most of the benefits of compounding gold, plus the ability to be stronger and faster.

I think that, if Harmony was able to control Paalm after Wax put a hemalurgic bullet in her, it means that he could see her at that point. The corollary being, if the bullet-spike was open to his influence, any other non-mystery metal spike would have been as well. Therefore, my theory is that Paalm uses a single spike at a time, made of the mystery metal. She likely had other ones, but the characters only found the one she was wearing at the time of her death.

Pretty sure there was WoB that Full Feruchemists still exist. From what we know, it was the mingling of regular-population genes with the Terris bloodlines that created Ferrings. So, those of the Terris that maintained pure bloodlines should still have FFs among them. I'm sure they're incredibly rare, and they probably hide the full extent of their abilities from the outside world, but I'm sure they still exist. As an aside, a Feruchemist with access to a Nicromind would be a total badass - store something useless, like weight or heat, or easily replenished, like food/water, transfer it to pure Investiture with a Nicromind, then tap it to power something really valuable like health or speed.

To point 1, yes, we know that for sure. Soulcasting fabrials use the large gemstones that are set into the actual fabrial to power whatever transformation they're doing. That's what makes the large gemstones so much more valuable than small ones - the large one actually have utility (beyond providing light). This is also why the Alethi need gemhearts; without them there is no more supply of the large, Soulcasting-caliber gemstones. If they could simply use the Light from spheres, gemhearts would not be nearly as valuable. To point 2, we actually do have an example, albeit a rather subtle one. In the hospital room scene at the end of Way of Kings, Jasnah secretly Soulcasts both the bread and the jam, both of which are organic materials which (in standard Soulcasting theory) should require an emerald. She never wears an emerald in her Soulcaster.

This is a pretty interesting topic, albeit one that I doubt Brandon will explore that much. However, for the economics nerds out there.... The sphere system of currency is an interesting mix of a fiat currency (meaning the govt sets the relative value) and a "gold standard" currency (meaning the currency has some intrinsic value in and of itself). On one hand, the spheres are clearly useful - they provide clear, steady light in a medieval world, which is extremely valuable. On the other hand, we're told that different gem types occur with equal frequency in gem hearts, meaning that their value should be roughly the same, and yet there are vast differences between the value of different gemstones in spheres. We're further told that the relative values are related to Soulcasting uses, and yet the gemstones in spheres cannot be used to Soulcast. In terms of their use to surgebinders, the 10 different types are identical - all the characters we've seen use them interchangeably, including Jasnah for Soulcasting (when she's not pretending to use a fabrial). The amount of Light they hold, otoh, is probably very much related to size and cut. I would bet that the amount of Light held increased exponentially with size (if physics were to be a guide, it would be to either the 3rd or 4th power). I would bet that the 1:5:20 ratio of chips:marks:broams roughly follows the amount of stormlight they hold, on average. As the utility of spheres to hold stormlight becomes more important, I bet we'll see a breakdown in the relative value of different types. However, it will likely be a pretty slow process, since there just aren't that many surgebinders around at the moment.

This. From what we know of him, I bet he turns out to be a Stoneward (Dedicated/Resourceful)

Something I've noticed about all the proto-Radiants we've seen so far: they all seem to exhibit the Primary attribute of their order, but they seem to struggle with the Secondary. For instance, Kaladin is naturally inclined to Protect others, but he doesn't want to be a Leader, even though he's good at it when he makes the effort. Shallan is inherently Creative, but Honesty....well, do I really need to go into detail? Dalinar is extremely Pious (he always has faith in the Almighty, even after he finds out that the Almighty is dead) but he's not very good at Guiding others. Jasnah seeks Wisdom (in the sense that she's trying to find answers, figure out the best course of action, always be informed, etc), but she's not always as Careful as she thinks she is (she's anticipating an assassination attempt and goes to sleep in a room with a mysteriously broken door lock?) My theory is that the Primary attribute is an inherent trait of the individual that attracts the spren, and the Secondary attribute is a trait that they need to cultivate in order to progress in their bond.

I think that's the point - there's Honor, capital H, that fuels the magic, but there are multiple interpretations of what's honorable, some of them directly conflicting.

So far this entire discussion has been about the Orders' interpretation of what is good/right. A very interesting discussion, and one that's been had and will continue to be had on this forum. But the more interesting question that (I think?) OP was trying to ask is this: does a surgebinder even have to be any kind of good in the first place? For example, people will argue about whether Jasnah's killing of the robbers was justified, but there's no doubt that overall she's a "good" person. But what if she wasn't? Her spren's attraction seems to be to her logic/rationality rather to any innate goodness or altruism. What if a similar spren bonded to a very rational criminal mastermind? What if a Cryptic bonded to an artist that was completely amoral and cared only about fame? What if a Skybreaker-spren bonded to a cruel, psychopathic dictator, who could simply declare whatever he wanted legal or illegal? My take on it is that, prior to the founding of the Knights as an organization, the spren did exactly this. So, you could count on the proto-windrunners and the proto-edgedancers to be "good guys" but everyone else was the same mixed bag as the rest of humanity.

How did he get inside the room while it was locked though?

I thought about this, but remember, Illumination doesn't let you become invisible, you have to hide inside the illusion of something else. At least, that's as much as Shallan can manage, and she's far further along with it than Renarin. He can barely admit to himself that he's a surgebinder. It would be very inconsistent for him to have enough skill with Illumination to sneak into Dalinar's (locked!) room, keeping himself both unseen and unheard, and then get his butt kicked in the dueling arena when he jumps in to help Adolin.

So, maybe I'm just being very, very dense, but I'm still a little bit confused. Who was writing the "prophecies" on Dalinar's wall throughout Words of Radiance? I know there's a theory that it was Renarin, because he started writing zero's on the wall at the very end, but if you read all the other scenes it makes it sound like he had no opportunity to do so. Dalinar at one point was convince he himself was doing it in his sleep. What's the consensus, and could someone please explain it to me? Or is this still a mystery?

I'm pretty sure that the lighteyes of modern Roshar are the descendants of (former?) Radiants, not of the Heralds.

I'm pretty sure there's WoB that each order gets "something of their own", which is NOT simply a combination of their two surges. For the Lightweavers, it seems like they get "strange mnemonic abilities", apparently tied to art - i.e. Shallan's Memories can only be reproduced by drawing. Then there's Tien, who could apparently carve amazingly realistic statues (thanks to whoever picked up on that!!). It fits that the Lightweavers' abilities would be individualized. The Skybreakers, possibly, had an instinctive sense of when people were lying to them, or felt guilty, or whatever; something that made them extremely good detectives/judges. The Elsecallers seem to have an unnaturally good sense of direction. We don't know exactly what the Windrunners will have, but an ability to inspire/lead others would be very fitting.