MathEpic

I don't think that David will ever become an Epic. I think he is just too humble for that. If I were to condense my theory of Epic weaknesses into a single concept it would be this: Humility is antithetical to Epic Powers. This would explain the so called "Epic Effect" that occurs when an epic uses their powers. They become arrogant, and they treat the normal people around them with contempt. I think that this is because when an Epic uses their powers they have every trace of humility removed from them. (As Granny Weatherwax said, All evil comes from thinking of people as things.) I think that in order to be granted Epic powers you already need to be a fairly prideful person. When I think about the personalities of the epics we have gotten to know I see a pattern: Prof - He may be protective and fairly altruistic, but he is still a prideful person. He allowed his students (and the Reckoners) to give him a title of 'professor' even though he knew that he did not qualify for that title. He allowed his name to become known publicly when every other aspect of the Reckoners was shrouded in secrecy. He likes his plans so much that when David came up and offered to join the Reckoners Prof stuck to his 'no recrutes' policy until David managed to play on another aspect of his pride. Specifically Prof's desire to have the Reckoners be the group for killing epics. Prof's refusal to take power after the fall of Steelheart is arguably the result of Prof's desire to be different then (and therefore better then) the other Epics in the Fractured States. Additionally, he always came across as a little arrogant in conversation to me. He is smart enough to back it up, and I think his priorities are sorted well enough that he does not come across as uncivil, but it is still there. Now, I don't want to be misunderstood here. I still like Prof, I just think that he may have a character flaw in this department. I am just trying to establish some evidence of a theory. Megan - She liked to belittle David whenever the opportunity arose. She took a fair amount of pleasure in taking down epics. This can be explained by her wanting to establish dominance in the fight of the world. Also, during David's pitch where he was explaining how to kill Stealheart David says that Firefight will be easy to take down and Megan is so offended that she nearly blew her cover right there and then. Edmund - Even after years of captivity, he is still sure enough of himself to make demands of his new captors. They are sensible demands, but the fact remains that he acts like someone who expects respect and not someone that has had their sense of self worth worn down by years of abuse. Mitosis - He was a classically trained musician, and he certainly thought well of the music that he wrote. While he was using his epic powers he clearly thought himself above mortal men. He was married to this concept that he could just not convince himself that Steelheart was defeated by a mere mortal. All in all, the Epics we have seen so far seem to think very highly of themselves even when they are not using their powers. David, on the other hand, may be confident, reckless, and ambitious, but he never takes himself too seriously. When his plans break down he just sort of laughs at himself and tries to come up with something new. When they were putting the final touches on the Steelheart battle he never envied anyone else the opportunity to kill Steelheart. He would have been just as happy in the end if Cody had killed Steelheart. In Mitosis he actively downplays the role he played in the death of Steelheart. He is just happy that everyone else seems to be happy. Overall, I don't think David has the temperament to become an epic. I realize this is another theory with a few holes and without much supporting evidence. However, I think that it has a very good chance of being true.

Firing a gun with an obstruction in the barrel can ruin the trajectory of the bullet enough that the shot could miss. Or, if we could adopt a simpler explanation. Prof deflected the bullet with his shield, the same way he deflected the exploding stadium.

I doubt Wane's impersonation ability comes from any ability to store identity. For one thing his personality is still his own while he is engaging in subterfuge. i.e. he is still a high spirited joker when he takes on the other identities. The only difference is that he manifests it by getting into his part rather than acting out toward those around him.

It's true. If Taravangain or any of the other kings involved in the project put a bounty on death cries that would set up a perverse incentive to make up death cries. That is why it is not a good idea to pay for them. That is part of the reason I suggested Taravangain lend staff to help out. They could be warned about this and they could work to make sure that kind of thing doen't happen. The entire project should not be written off just because there is a way the system might fail. Furthermore, the hospital murder plan also has a lot of potential fail points. First and foremost being: what happens when word leaks out that the hospital is murdering the very sick? There would almost certainly be a coup. I don't care how smart the guy is on his good days, he cannot talk down a murderous crowd once they learn the government hospital has been slicing open citizens' veins for no good reason. Even if Taravangain is able to weather the crisis by finding some convenient scapegoat or another people are going to stop using the hospital when they fall ill. All of a sudden, all the death cries in Kharbranth happen in the homes of the sick and not in earshot of any of the clerks that would pass this information on to Taravangain. Finally, the death cries are not a form of prophesy. They talk about the past, not the future. This might be a semantic justification, but I think that the semantics will be strong enough in a land where priests are not allowed to hold property and the king's sister is a publicly acknowledged atheist.

In The Final Empire the Lord Ruler is said to have shrugged off decapitation, and I am pretty sure Wax hit Miles in the head at one point in Alloy of Law. In order to overcome some kind of instakill attack I think you have to be tapping a great deal of health before and during the injury in order to be effective. I don't see Wane pulling this off since he has to store up his health the hard way, but the gold compounders seem to be able to pull it off.

I am not sure the jackets are automatic. What if the activation of the jackets required some amount of conscious effort to activate. True, the subject can be very wrong about the source of the magic shield, but in the books they were always aware of the jackets whenever they were active.

Nothing Taravaingain knows is secret except for the secrets he created himself. Kaladin himself heard the death cry of one of his bridge crew. If he was not preoccupied with saving bridge four it is quite possible that he would have put two and two together and realized the death cries were not random nonsense. We are looking at two possible situations: People finally figure out that another Desolation is coming through rumor from the neighboring village. Their kings and princes have demonstrated no plan to deal with it, and in fact only found out a few days before the common man did. They don't have answers! Every man for himself! People are told by a royal envoy that something unusual is happening, but the king has a plan to deal with it. In the mean time, could you please have the local clerk write down the last thing anyone says before they die and then send it to the city across the hill? Thank you for the cooperation. Which of these two circumstances are people more likely to cause panic and irrational behavior? If you asked Taravangain why he does not try the plan I described I am sure he would say "They would not participate." or something like it. He would probably even believe it. But he doesn't know it wouldn't work either. Not if he never tried. I am fairly sure Taravangain never approached Jasnah to set up an information sharing pact with the Alethi. Since she is a scholar interested in the Last Desolation she probably would have been open to the idea, and she probably could have talked her family (her brother and uncle in particular) into participating. Taravangain certainly sees himself as being exceptional. If he was only talking about exceptional intelligence he might have had a point. However, he assumes that he is the only one that has the moral fiber necessary to become a monster in order to save the world. He seems to believe that he can predict how the rest of the world would react to the knowledge of the crisis, and by a strange coincidence their reaction is exactly the one that justifies his use of unethical means to seize power. He is more than willing to destroy Roshar's governments in order to replace it with one that, surprise, will be better because he was behind its design. I personally feel confidant saying that Taravangain is motivated by his own pride and arrogance.

In trying to find out who the last two lines of the epigraph are referring to, it may be necessary to ask who is speaking here. Here is my analysis of some of the lines I found insightful. The first line reads "I long for the days before the Last Desolation." This means the writer is not some anonymous third person narrator, but someone vitally concerned with Roshar. It also indicates that he knows a lot about the old days. This is supported by the next paragraph where he describes the time period with more detail then the typical 'modern' person can give. "The world became ours" Since Roshar belongs to humanity we can assume that the author is a human living on Roshar or someone else that identifies with Rosharian humanity as 'my side'. This means the author is probably not a worldhopper. "There are four whom we watch." This is where things get a little meta. The author is ostensibly referring to the book TWoK. However, TWok does not exist in the context of the story. (There is an in universe book with that name, but it is not the same book as the one on my desk here.) Furthermore there does not seem to any entity that would have a reason to keep tabs on these four people. Is suspect that the epigraph was written from the point of view of a hypothetical Roshar citizen that somehow knows more than anyone else about what is going on. That person would know more then us regarding the capabilities and destinies of each of the four. "These four people are key." This seems to indicate that Kalladin, Szeth, Shalan, and Dallinar will all be important through the whole story, not just in one or two books. I really doubt Dallinar will die anytime soon. ---- Regarding Taravangain, if he was doing what needed to be done because there was no other way to do it I might be inclined to give him some credit. However, it seems to me that he is more interested in making sure he is the one to save the world that he is willing to destroy some of the people that he needs to save it. Here is a better plan for getting the death statments he feels he needs: 1. Make public the information that he has. 2. Contact the other world leaders that he thinks will cooperate, and ask them to collect and share the death cries they obtain. 3. Lend staff to help set up the system of collecting and distributing the information. Ways this plan is better: He can get the death cries made in several nations, rather than just his city state. It encourages the nations of the world to offer medical care to the ill as a side benefit. It establishes a habit of the nations of the world to listen to Taravangain that he can build on to form a loose hegemony. The world leaders that opt in to the program will learn the gravity of the situation before things get bad. Communication infrastructure would necessarily be built across the world. This is a useful thing when the world is about to end. If something else weird happens in one nation (like someone seeing visions of the Knights Radiant during highstorms) they would have a reason to pass what they know to Taravangain. If Taravangain were to pass away unexpectedly (or lose his power in a coup) before the completion of the 'save the world' project there would be a way for someone else to step into his position. The cost of the project is divided up between all nations that participate and not just Kharbranth The only way I see Taravagain's current plan is "better" is that he gets to be the one to call all the shots. This is the reason he is a villain. He lets his ambition and desire to seize what he views as his destiny force him down a path that dooms the world.

Limelight sees the attack and decides to even the odds a little. He takes his tensors and digs straight down 20 feet. Then he digs to the side. Then he makes his sword. Now the attackers are facing a choke point that involves a 20 foot drop. Their advantage in numbers is almost completely neutralized and Limelight can dig himself out in any direction he chooses. I would not count on 20 unarmed marshal artists taking down this particular epic, even if living people can bypass his shield.

I am sorry, but you are going to have to remind me who Crossfire is. I don't recall an epic with that name.

In the book the term "checkmate" was only used in relation to precogs. A checkmate is when you defeat a pregog without disabling their foresight. All other kills fall under a different descriptor. The name comes from the fact that in order to kill a pregog you need make all possible futures one where the target is going to be dead. The name refers to the fact that in chess the king cannot be taken simply because the player did not see the threat to it. If making a move would place the king in danger, then it is an illegal move. Therefore in order to win you must set up a situation so that every move you opponent makes leaves your opponent's king in danger. Most Epics are not checkmated. For example Steelheart could have just thrown the gun away and blasted David and Prof. This is all semantics though. The point is that we want to speculate on how we could kill one of the most powerful epics in the first book. (Even if he is on our side.)

I thought about him, but in the end I could not come up with much. The problem is that we don't know much about Deathpoint. We simply do not know what his weakness is, so we gain no information that way. Additionally, his only demonstrated power is the ability to kill humans. He probably had another power, but given the context even then it seems likely that his secondary power was also just another murder weapon. All in all he is just not that interesting of an epic in terms of powers and weaknesses. However, I aim to please. So here it is folks. The vague, highly speculative, and probably incorrect origin story of Deathpoint: Deathpoint was a loser. He was a bum and he had no ambition or marketable skills. Over the years his lack of motivation lead to many arguments with the family he lived with, and when the arguments grew hot he had a habit of pointing his finger at the person he was arguing with. One day, shortly after Epics started appearing in the world he got into another fight with a member of his family, this time about his persistent unemployment. Then in his anger he manifested his power. He killed his mother just by pointing at her. Her flesh and blood just disintegrated leaving behind a pile of bones. As his father started to panic he was overwhelmed by the feeling of arrogance and superiority that accompanies the use of Epic powers. Finally he would have the last word, and he grabbed his father and screamed at him "I am not a bum!" As his father's brain imploded the younger man realized that he could have the respect that he had always deserved. Deathpoint then decided that he was going to take a shower, put on some nice clothes, and rob a bank. Finally things were going his way. END

I think that many of us are underestimating the power of the shield. When Abraham got shot in that duel in the understreets only a fragment of the bullet got through. If Prof only had this much protection then he would be quite vulnerable. However his abilities with the Tensors exceeds that of anyone that was gifted the powers. I suspect the same may hold for his personal shield. This is speculative, and I will admit that there are other explanations for Prof being better. For example one could argue that Prof is better with the tensors because of ability rather than power. However, I would not discount the possibility that Prof can take a sniper shot to the face without feeling so much as a tap on the cheek. I suspect we may get more information in Firefight or Calamity when they come out. But for now I will assume that Limelight would be classified as a High Epic under David's system.

Question from Goatborn: Did the Reckoners mention that every team has at least one tensor, harmsway and set of jackets? In Mitosis Tia mentions that since Prof is out of town the Newcago Reckoners do not have any tensors, jackets, or harmsway. I am not sure why though. It may be because there is a range on how far someone can be from Prof and still use gifted powers. Or perhaps Prof cannot keep his powers transferred when he sleeps. Or maybe it is SOP for Prof to take all his power with him whenever he goes to a new location. I am guessing that it is the range issue. Remember that Conflux needed to go with Steelheart in order to help put down a rebellion. If range on gifted powers was infinite Steelheart could have just taken his powered troops and left Conflux in the safety of the city.

In my mind Limelight is the name he has when he is being an Epic. Prof is the name of the man that is leading the Reckoners. It is kind of like how Tolkien distinguished "Smeagol" and "Gollum".

Thank you. I was wondering the same thing, but I was afraid of being the first to bring it up. Since we don't know what Limelight's weakness is we will have to rely on the limitations of his powers. Gifting: This is one of the more useful powers in the Reckoners universe because it means you have minions. The more powerful the epic, the more competition for minionhood. Since Limelight is so powerful he would be able to pick competent people as his subordinates. Tensors: We have seen Limelight use this to neutralize a barrage of machine gun fire that was aimed at him and the people behind him. If he gets to close to any weapon or machine that is sent against him he can neutralize it. He can also construct melee weapons out of surrounding material and escape just about any trap we box the man into. Harmsway: If you don't kill this guy (or his minions) right away he (or they) will get up in a minute for round 2. Furthermore, if you decide to break off the attack and regroup Limelight will have recovered and on the offensive before you have had enough time to get back to base. Jackets: Limelight has a personal shield. The shield is not perfect, but it can help him survive most of the more simple attacks that can be thrown at him. So to neutralize his deference and kill the Epic: Launch a multipronged attack on his minions. It doesn't need to be a hard enough assault to kill them, but if they are tied down and using the gifted powers then Limelight will have less to work with himself. In order to neutralize the tensors we will need to lay a trap with some kind of bait he is willing to take risks for. Otherwise he will simply escape the situation as soon as he realizes that his enemies are in control of his environment. The kind of bait will have to depend on what Limelight's agenda is. Since we are looking at taking him down I have to assume his current agenda is no longer the one he had in the Steelheart book (I cannot bring myself to plan a hit on Prof.) But if we were going against an epic with powers like to Limelight's powers then he would have some need or desire we may be able to exploit. My suggestion is to put the bait in plain sight and hope that your trap is good enough to work even when the target sees it coming. As long as we kill him quickly and thoroughly the Harmsway should not be that big of an issue. This brings me to the jackets. I can think of a few ways around them, but I am not sure about any of them. 1. Water. Since Limelight needs to breathe (probably) it may be possible to drown him. If he can be lured into a location that we can flood at a moment's notice we may be able to kill him this way. It would be hard for him to burrow out of danger when the danger flows with him. There is a problem in that it takes several minutes to drown, Limelight may be a good swimmer, and the Harmsway may be able to help resist the effects of O2 deprivation. Overall I think it would not work. 2. Gas. Similar to the last suggestion, poison gas can probably bypass his shield. However the same problems still apply. The Harmsway factor will make him more resilient to the poison, he can escape most situations quickly once he knows what is going on, and there is the problem of putting innocent lives in the line of fire. (Hard to avoid with a gas attack.) 3. Light. Finally a plan I like. There are not very many weapons grade lasers in the world right now, but I am willing to bet that there is some kind of Epic tech that can shoot beams of light strong enough to hurt. Since the personal shield is invisable I assume that it doesn't block or impede light. We could do some real damage with a phasor. Unfortunately, we would need to be careful because if Prof gets to close he can vaporize the gun. 4. Heat. This one seems better then it is. Heat can do some bad things to people, but usually it needs to happen over period of a few minutes. These are minutes that we just don't have. Again, the Harmsway makes things harder for us. This is all I really have. There is probably a better way to take down an Epic with these powers, but I cannot see it.

I also assumed that Mitosis is still alive. My theory is that when enough of his clones heard the music he would have a "systemic" response where all the clones but the one furthest from the music dissolved. Since he probably left some clones outside the city he probably is miles away from Newcago at the end of the story. (Possibly Babylon Restored)

I will be writing this post under the assumption that everyone reading it has either read both Steelheart and Mitosis or doesn't care about spoilers. Someone in the thread for Mitosis pointed out how there seems to be a pattern of Epics wanting something very badly and their power being something related to that want. (link) I thought the idea deserved its own thread and I wanted to add my own thoughts and analysis. My theory is that Epics receive their powers when they are in a situation where they want something desperately and the power is something that can help them obtain it. Their weakness on the other hand is something that reminds them of one of their personal weaknesses. Something that will remind them that they are not actually gods. How well does this theory fit the facts? Lets see: Prof was a science teacher when an epic destroyed the school. If he was a normal teacher that wanted to save his students then he would have needed to be physically protected (the jackets), able to dig out students that were trapped (the tensors), and he would have needed to heal students that were injured (the harmsway). As something of an authority figure among the 5th graders he could also delegate some of the rescuing task to them giving him a need to gift his powers as well. We don't know what his weakness is, but he acted a little cagey when David asked him about weaknesses. It seems likely that Prof did not want to think about what his own weakness was. Almost like it had some bad memories associated with it. Megan was a girl living in Oregon when war between epics destroyed everything around her home. She was scared and probably wanted nothing more than to hide and survive. She now is an illusionist with the ability to get better after dying. Mitosis was the only talented member of an awful alternative metal band. He likely would have loved to replace the other members of the band with copies of himself so that they would not be terrible anymore. He gained the ability to spit himself into as many copies as he wanted, but literally falls apart when he hears the music that reminds him of his younger days when he produced music that rhymed "rain" with "rain". Others have commented that there is no "useless" epic power. (Think along the same lines as being an aluminum gnat in the Mistborn series.) If this theory is correct then every power is something that would give you something that you desperately wanted at some point in your life. Therefore there can be no useless super power. I would speculate that Steelheart was a bad egg even from before Calamity. He probably was a sociopath that wanted to dominate everyone he met. He therefore obtained the ability to physically dominate anyone in a fight. (invulnerability, energy blasts, the ability to fortify his position with whatever materials he had at hand, etc.) However, there are some people that for whatever reason will not be afraid of him. He could not handle that and so he could be hurt by a homeless geek wearing a faded comic book T-shirt. A lot of other weaknesses can be explained in this way as well. Fortuity may have had a bad history with women before he became an epic. Every woman he is attracted to reminds him of his own failures in his pre-epic life. Refractory may have a sensitivity to smoke. Some people can handle dirty air better than others, and she knows that one breath of the stuff will make her cough endlessly. It therefore reminds her of her weakness in body. That epic that could only be killed if exactly five people are killing her at any time was probably a gamer. She did poorly in a six person free-for-all FPS game, and now getting into a five on one fight turns off her powers. Symbols have meanings to the people that recognize them, and some of those meanings can remind you that you are not immortal. Thoughts and comments?

When David asked Prof about his past he told David that he was a high school science teacher when an epic attacked the school. This happened near the very beginning if I remember correctly. I suspect that Prof formed the Reckoners as a reaction to the horror of the destruction that he witnessed (and perhaps caused if that theory happens to be correct). I don't think there was ever a time in Prof's life where he would stop what he was doing and work on some large public works project for one of the most tyrannical Epics in the world. Thoughts?

Keep in mind also that Fortuity was not in the most rational mental state. He took the time to make eye contact with David long enough to say "I will to find a way to murder you" with his eyes. If I might be allowed to indulge in rampant flimsily justified speculation for a while: There is a chance that Fortuity's failure to find a way out of the situation was the result of his own failure to react to the situation. Otherwise I think that Fortuity would have jumped onto the top of David's car and tried to escape the alley that way. If this is correct it implies several things about how precogs work in the Reckoners universe. Although knowing about danger is automatic, reacting to it is a voluntary action. Additionally, a sufficiently distracting event can prevent them from seeing a way to escape danger. (This would have to be a very good distraction, because they can anticipate any surprise you through at them. It would be nearly impossible to do it intentionally on command.)

The canonical weakness of Nightwielder is UV light. If you shine it at him he will turn corporal enough to shoot him with your gun of choice. I have to wonder though, is there another way. Nightwielder probably still needs to breathe. I suspect when he inhales he turns the air he breaths incorporeal and the oxygen is then absorbed into his body, and air he exhales becomes corporeal again as soon at it leaves his body. That would also explain how he can talk in his "soft, errie voice" when most physical forces don't affect him at all. Unless his incorporeal powers can be fine tuned at a molecular level he can be killed with poison gas. Carbon Monoxide is easy enough to produce, but he might notice the symptoms of poisoning and rabbit when he knows that something is going on. It would be hard to stop him from leaving whatever trap you have set up. There are other, weapons grade, gasses that would kill him off within a minute, but these are more difficult to get. A hit on Nightwielder would still be difficult to pull off, especially since poisonous gasses are a very imprecise weapon, and the Reckoners would have to go to great lengths to avoid collateral damage. However, I think they could pull it off. Thoughts?

What about the other side of that coin? There are people out there that would rather that everyone has top-end end secure communications rather than lose that communication system themselves. Steelheart in particular does not seem to care about expanding his territory, but just wants to have a stable rule of his personal fiefdom. I could see him pledge to help the Knighthawk Foundry if they were attacked in order to keep his own phone system working. If this kind of protection came from one source it would threaten the neutrality of Knighthawk, but as long as several other epics (and perhaps even the Reckoners) pledged to protect the Foundry they could stay out of any fighting between their customers.

I considered the S on the cover also, but I am not sure it really fits. First the S on the cover is not really very stylized. It is a little taller than normal, and it has unusual serifs (if that is what those things are called) but otherwise it seems kind of standard. Second, the S has something that looks like a scar on it. I have nothing against scars in iconography, but I am not sure it fits with the whole "looking forward with hope" shtick that the faithful have. Finally, that particular S is used to spell out Stealheart on the front cover. I have a hard time tying that S to the Faithful when it is already associated with Steelheart. But then again, I could be wrong. I guess we will have to wait and see what is revealed about the Faithful in future books.

Good observation. My guess is that for the purposes of Steelheart's weakness deliberately crashing through a window (or through the ceiling of a bank) does not count. One possibility is that when Steelheart intentionally crashes through something, or blasts something a little too close with his energy powers it is an activation of his invincibility, and therefore does not qualify as hurting himself. Both times in the book when Steelheart was hurt (prologue and climax) it was the result of someone trying to cause some sort of harm. (David's father did not intend to hurt Steelheart, but he wanted to kill Deathpoint.) One possibility is that the weakness only activates when someone who doesn't fear Steelheart is making an attack. That being said, I wonder if Steelheart ever had to nurse a stubbed toe in secret.

What if enforcement suits send telemetry back to their headquarters? If Conflux is a prisoner that is sometimes gagged it would be foolish to trust him to tell you when someone is KIA. On the other hand the soldiers are told that Conflux is in direct control of enforcement. It would be perfectly natural for Roy to say "Conflux will know the moment we go offline." when he really meant "HQ will know the moment we go offline." It is still possible that Conflux knows when a soldier is gunned down, but since the source of that information is a grunt that was being lied to we have to take it with a grain of salt.