Goatborn

What's the rationale behind Cusciech being a superspren? Apart from being the biggest unique spren we've seen? I really don't feel like it belongs in the same tonnage as Nightwatcher and Stormfather at this point. It seemed more of an example of spren that don't have a particular function and are just really quirky.

Also due to the fact that Words of Radiance is a history, you have a scholar's twist on things. And if I recall correctly, it was written around 200 years after Recreance, so you've got even more confusion. I agree with your assessment, but also lean more towards the side of "there were only ever three, but the scholar is leaving wiggle room in case she's wrong." The fact that at least one Bondsmith was holed up in Urithiru at any one time could lead to a damaged count. The Bondsmiths would want everyone to think there were at least one of their number in the city at all times, but there may have been rare instances where all three were needed out in the world, skewing the count. Seditious could also refer to the idea that Bondsmiths were treated like king/boss Radiants but with no formal claim to power.

You all beat me to the punch! I had this same theory cooking today, then posted it without a thorough enough search. I'm firmly in the Stormfather-Nightwatcher-Unknown Odium Splinter as the Bondsmith Spren. I'm really just running with the symmetry of Honor-Stormfather and Cultivation-Nightwatcher. Following that assumption, Odium should have a badass spren rolling around Roshar. Purely conjecture following a single point observation, so it's not too scientific... I like the idea of 3 sets of Radiants capped off by the Bondsmiths, and I think the Odium Splinter fits into that. Renarin's precog abilities might be of the same triad of spren that derive from Odium. I'd also like to place the Cryptics in that category as well - they have a penchant for lying and seem to feed off that, which I'm associating with Odium due to the negative nature of lying. Assuming three categories of Radiants: Honor: -Windrunners -Skybreakers - Cultivation: -Edgedancers - - Odium: -Lightweavers -Truthwatchers - I don't know enough to categorise the rest, let alone the ones I've entered in. The only ones I'm confident with are Windrunners and Edgedancers (because we've been slapped in the face with them). And placing Skybreakers under Honor may annoy a few people, but I think the ideals of justice are more Honor than Odium, regardless of how the constable was using them. What do you think? How would Odium's spren manifest? It could be the one generating the Thrill - instilling the need to kill and maim when it is nearby.

Darn, they beat me by almost exactly 36 hours! Thanks for the heads up, dnavre, and welcome to the 17th Shard!

Hoid is probably also Randall Flagg from Stephen King's everybookhe'severwritten. That was the first time I'd come across anything on the level of a Worldhopper - any time the initials RF come up in a book, I do a double take. But Hoid wins out of the two of them. He's so much better characterised even though he hasn't taken the forefront of a novel yet! Imagine the carnage that a weary Harry Dresden would unleash. No innocent building in Roshar would withstand his might!

I thought about this one today when I was meant to be studying other things (Learning is difficult when you're still living in a book's world). The specific number of Bondsmiths was stated in WoR as three. Always three. The epigraph implied heavily that the Bondsmiths made the choice to keep their numbers limited. However, Dalinar's actions at the end of WoR gave me another idea: What if the Bondsmiths can only bond with unique spren? I know, every sentient spren is unique, but there are other honorspren than Syl, more Cryptics other than Pattern and so on. The unique spren would be of the Stormfather level, and he is a fragment of Honor. (I don't know if this makes him a Splinter, or so on) So what if the NIghtwatcher is the same to Cultivation as the Stormfather is to Honor? That would account for another Bondsmith. The final one gets interesting. Would they be tied to Odium's spren? I think it has a kind of poetic balance, based on the idea that to truly unite a people, you have to understand every aspect. One Bondsmith represents Honor (Dalinar), another Cultivation and yet another Odium. I'm interested in seeing what effect bonding with the Stormfather will bring about on Dalinar's personality. Does he remain a separate entity, or will the two minds fuse to a degree? If they remain separate, a Bondsmith could bond with Odium's unique while remaining level headed and not poisoned with hate. My previous theories have all been proposed before, or WoB'd out, but I think I'm finally getting on top of the speculation around here!

As I recall, lerasium combined with another metal (a lerasium alloy, I guess) produces a new set of 16 metals. Perhaps he combined it with Brass to produce the ability to burn a specific set of 16 emotional allomantic metals? I think that no matter how he got his allomancy, he was using emotional allomancy to pump Shallan's father for info. Possibly on Shallan's origin. Did he do his double take at Shallan before or after he drank the metals? I got the impression it was before, so I don't think it was Bronze. I also assumed that Sel's lightweaving was the Elantrian disguises used heavily in Elantris, rather than forging. Forging always seemed more like Soulcasting.

Hi guys! I've done a bit of searching, and I don't think this has come up before... (I have been wrong in the past, though) I think that Odium combines elements of music and chaos to produce an intent/being that is focused on change, possibly for the sake of change. The thought that sparked this was comparing Odium to the character of Loki (specifically from the Marvel universe - the turning into a horse thing was a bit weird in the actual mythology). In the Marvel Universe, Loki is the go-to bad guy, especially in the movies, but for someone so smart, he is always thwarted by heroes, and will generally net a positive result. (Thor movie: Thor realises his destiny, becomes better person; Avengers: Avengers are formed to fight high level threats, etc) With Odium in play, I can see his purpose as to bring about change and oppose stagnation. Honor's ideals would probably lead to a civilisation where everyone acted the same, spoke the same and generally got along great. Boring, right? You wouldn't have any growth or true creativity in that world. So, Odium starts smashing toys. The actions of Odium may not be inherently evil, like the actions of Ruin. They just serve a purpose. If Honor were to turn around and start destroying things everywhere, I think Odium would oppose him by trying to bring order. Just as it would seek to make Cultivation's life difficult. When it comes to Odium shattering other Shards, this could be an extension of that opposition, or an influence by it's human host. Now, for some reason these ideas make me think of music. Over the years, you can observe trends and ideas that recur in music - boy bands will always crop up, no matter how hard we try to educate youth in how terrible they are. Country music will never die, and sometimes singers leave a huge impact, like Elvis, The Beatles, or Queen (foreshadowing my own post!) Throughout these common aspects, there is always change - dubstep, techno, and eventually inserting Christmas beetles into one's ear canal have all cropped up to produce new concepts that push the definition of music. Over time, Odium is producing new ideas regarding life and how it should be lived. Some will stick, and leave an impact, but others will fall by the wayside. This theory is why I believe that the Parshendi are of Odium, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Their WoR chapter talks about how music influences their forms and pushes them to new highs or lows, much as music will produce an emotional response. Once we get a good look at the timeline since the Oathpact, I think we'll see a sort of rhapsody - a composition that shifts style frequently, yet it's beauty can be derived from this constant flux. Each individual piece may not make sense on it's own, but as a part of the whole... One last note: the name Odium is one that I assumed was a nonsense word, but if you split it, you'd get Ode-ium ("of music?") Seeing as the last few paragraphs started with "O" I was going to go back and change them all so they'd do the same. But I think the chaos flowing into consistency helps my point. What do you all think? Have I finally come up with a solid theory? Hopefully there's some discussion points in there!

I'm the only one who voted Adolin? I'm unique! I thought that Adolin's POV in WoR sounded very much like someone who was yearning for a purpose or mantle to take up. He's lived a life of luxury and basically been a spoilt playboy, but he's revealing himself as being more and more honourable as time goes by. The way to distance his arc from Dalinar's (I find their progressions quite similar - drunken/playboy yahoo finds peace in ancient code of honour) would be for Dalinar to be the catalyst for reforming the Knights Radiant, while Adolin starts becoming a Radiant himself. Or the Orders rise up around him while Adolin is left behind, feeling abandoned, then when he finally accepts that he's there to serve and support his people, he has a massive power up moment (with or without Radiantness happening).

Oh man! I will come up with an original theory eventually! Thanks for the heads-up

I'm not sure if this is the right subset of the forum to bring this up, but I generally get really bored on long drives and start turning over theories, such as Scooby Doo being set in a dystopian society where antisocial behaviour is severely punished. (Jail time for dressing as a ghost?) Alas, I digress. My latest thought centers around the elusive concept of "Identity" and the reference to storing it in Feruchemy. My idea centers around the most powerful domination of identity on Scadrial - the control of hemalurgists/spiked creatures by an allomancer. I think that while emotional allomancy pushes and pulls on specific emotions, I think that it tampers with one's identity on different levels. The stronger one's identity, the less susceptible they would be to Soothers and Rioters. There are specific examples in Mistborn of individuals resisting/detecting emotional allomancy through training or sheer force of will. This thought originally came about surrounding the kandra and the fact that their identity was gifted to them through Hemalurgy. It is also the point where I could use some input. Kandra are noted to be immune to standard emotional allomancy, and only a duralumin burn will crack that shell to allow another mind in. This is different to when a duralumin + brass burn is used on a human, like with Straff Venture - Vin was not able to suddenly control him, just deadened him completely. So Hemalurgy is providing protection as well as a weakness? Or is the mistwraith nature of kandra protective, while Hemalurgy provides the weakness? The follow up to that is the koloss - they are hemalurgically spiked humans, which combines the two examples above. One could argue that their identity has been diluted by having multiple human spikes driven into them, hence making it easier to control them en masse. In my mind, a Feruchemist storing Identity would be far more susceptible than normal to soothing and rioting, while one that is tapping Identity would be nearly impossible to influence. I also feel it is important to mention that Identity is not something only gained through magical means, just as one does not have to burn/tap pewter to be strong. I believe that there will be individuals who will be extremely resistant to emotional allomancy just through their own confidence/knowledge of themselves - such as a shardholder or Hoid (possibly - how does having so many identities affect his identity?). The next installment shall appear upon my next 4 hour drive! (16 hours - oh! Allomancy! - of driving seems to have an inhibiting affect on theorising)

Now I really want to form some kind of trap where ducks are used like tape. And bamboo's a good call!

Fiiiiiiiine. But I get the glory of taking down Prof. Too bad all the people I knew in 5th grade are grown up now. I'm still laughing at Rade's plan. Very extreme. The main flaw would be the effect of the tensors - do they carve through any inorganic material, or as you're suggesting, do they have an upper limit? I'd still like to incapacitate him long enough to grow a tree around him... The perfect organic prison! If Prof goes Dark Side, would he care about Tia, or anyone who wasn't essential to his personal survival?

The term checkmate is used in reference to Nightwielder's takedown - the idea that he was put in a situation he couldn't escape from. I agree that the term is most relevant to pre-cogs, but I tend to think of it as a guaranteed kill, regardless of how it is achieved. We've looked at options that involve exploiting limitations, speculated upon his weakness, but I can't think of anything more effective than putting him on a snake-filled plane flying into a volcano... Quick question - do you guys think that Prof's shield is conscious or unconscious? (Can he turn it on and off?) If he can have it deactivated, catching him in a situation where he needs to have it down would be a good first step - while he's doing his taxes, or we bait the trap with a wounded 5th grader...? And does anyone remember Prof seeming under the weather? A healing factor might not necessarily correspond with a heightened immune response. Ebola, anyone?

Yay! MathEpic agrees with my assessment that he's a High Epic! I don't think an instant kill would be possible with Prof - that healing factor - so I think follow through is a necessary part of the plan. I'm glad everyone weighed in on this as it's added a few more angles to my thinking on the topic. Do you guys think that he'll go Dark Side in future books? I can see how it would happen, but then I add in the Sanderson factor - I'm generally pretty surprised by where his stories go.

It's always better to overestimate your enemy! (Although, I think it's more that I used to be a Scout... Be Prepared!) I'd assume that his personal shield would be ramped up when surrounding himself. Both the gifted harmsway and tensor abilities were shown to be much weaker than when Prof used them at full strength. There's not enough data to confirm it, though. "If you shoot at the King, you better damnation well kill him." What would be your back-up strategy if the first shot didn't bring him down? (Snakes! Lots of snakes!) Steelheart's boot was probably a lot stronger than most guns, but I agree with your reasoning regarding explosions and the shields. And considering that he protected himself and David in the epicenter of the stadium explosion, I wouldn't bother trying explosions unless we were going for a big flashy distraction. The reason I keep thinking that his power level is through the roof is due to his healing ability. I'm not sure that it has an upper limit, but I guess dissolving him in acid could work. We'd have to make sure that he's incapacitated by the rifle shot, so he can't tensor out a side of the tub. Did the book mention any material (apart from organics) that the tensors were less effective against?

I think there's definitely evidence that he anticipated Megan's shots mid-flight. I can't remember the exact line, but Megan says that he wasn't able to dodge both bullets. My opinion is that his danger sense triggers only when there's a direct threat to his life. Not so much the decision to pull the trigger, but the actual act of setting a bullet in motion. With his advanced reflexes (that no-one knew about) it would be easy to assume that his danger sense extended even further. I like the two facets idea - I think he has precognitive abilities that he can turn on and off, not just the danger sense. His divining of the future was his rationale for killing, and David mentions that it wouldn't be useful for gambling only because there's no real currency for Epics. So, I think that the love weakness might also cloud his voluntary precog abilities. If I were him, I'd run a quick scan of my future every hour or so, and if a hazy patch came up, he'd assume that he was about to get lucky. Hence, a pretty lady lures him into a trap that he otherwise could have foreseen (clouding the voluntary side), then a checkmate overwhelms his instinctual danger sense. Without access to his weakness, he would have foreseen that night being a veeeery bad night, then name_here's reactive ploy would have to come into play. Infinitely more difficult - it would be similar to the atium gambit. Wait for him to change tactics and react to it quickly, and repeat until he falls into an electrified pool. With his enhanced reflexes, this would be almost impossible. He would be anticipating and changing tact far quicker than a human could interpret the tells of his movements.

I haven't read Mitosis yet - I'm in Australia, and we're always slow to receive things, even digital stuff :S Prof may have changed his stance on gifting his powers out following the showdown, but I thought that the "It's tech" cover story would raise suspicion if other teams didn't have them. Although, I don't recall any direct confirmation that other Reckoner teams exist. Everyone acts like there are, but David never comes into contact with them directly. Prof's cover could always be that the tensors need constant recalibrating to function, and he's the only guy who can tweak them. In Mitosis, does everyone know that Prof is packing Epicness? The end of Steelheart indicated that only David knew - everyone on the chopper were amazed that the team were healing so quickly. I'm curious to know how long a single gifting could last - Conflux gave me the impression that it would be days or weeks before he'd need to gift again (just going on my own interpretation there; no solid evidence comes to mind). Although Prof's seemed limited to a mission-by-mission basis. He might be worried about morality decay, though, and keeps their exposure limited. Assuming that we come up with an effective trap - massive military strike in a mined/snake infested area - then how do we lure him out? Prof's smart and would see any obvious trap happening... so do we dangle his team off the lip of a snake infested volcano with gunships flying around? I also think that we should stick to a Reckoner budget here. I'm not sure that drone strikes and armies in the stands would be available.

Maybe if we trapped him on a plane, then unleashed these snakes on him... That reminds me, his shield must be based on velocity/kinetic energy (like the goa'uld shields in Stargate) because he is able to catch things passed to him, and can shake hands with people. Of course, I'm assuming that it's always on unconsciously - he might be dialing it down in non-combat scenarios. I'm seriously liking the snake idea. Now we need to get him into an environment where he can't tensor up a sword to wipe them out.

I just used the name Limelight to avoid spoilers - every who has read the book would know pretty quickly what I was talking about, leaving most others in the dark! I generally think of his Epic name as Prof, though. (Not in universe - as someone pointed out, I don't think he made enough of an impact on the Epic scene to have his own name/reputation) I may have totally misinterpreted the explosion that killed Steelheart - I thought that Prof was using his tensor ability to keep the flames at bay, but I get the feeling that everyone here attributed it to his personal shielding. I thought the outstretched hands in that scene indicated tensor techniques, and I never thought that he could project his personal shield (It seemed like an unconscious secondary ability to me, since people it was gifted to never trained in how to use it). Hence, I thought the tensor ability could affect non-solid matter such as explosions and flames... Either way, Prof was able to not just withstand the giant explosion, but also protect a non-Epic from any harm (David didn't even seem to feel the heat). As for gifting, it's still a bit of a black box. Even Prof doesn't seem to have fully explored how it works, with him being unaware that he couldn't gift Epics. With the amount of power Conflux was gifting out, I don't think there's an upper limit to how many times he can gift. He seemed to have most of a police force juiced as well as an entire power grid. But, from what Prof was saying after the Steelheart stadium showdown at sunrise (Woo! Alliteration!) there is an upper limit to the amount that can be gifted to one person. He mentions that if he gives it all to one person, they start to experience morality decay like an Epic. Unfortunately, Calamity and Epics seem to fall into an "Anything is possible" magic system, instead of the rigid systems in other Sanderson works, so different gifters could operate totally differently. Examples from Conflux may not apply to Prof. Brain-thing happening: Did the Reckoners mention that every team has at least one tensor, harmsway and set of jackets? If they did, then Conflux and Prof might be operating within the same boundaries - able to gift many, at varying strengths of gift-dosage. Alas, I digress. Maybe we should start a "Gifting: How does it work?" Thread. So my main question for this post is: Did Prof use the tensor or shielding ability to protect David in the end? Also, I don't think dropping a moon would work - it's solid matter and he could conceivably carve his way through while shielding/healing from the shockwaves. And imagine the collateral. You'd be wiping out humanity to kill one Epic... So how about we hold moon-tossing as Plan B? At the moment, I'm going with nerve gas and laser weaponry as my top 2. What is everyone else's tally? I'm worried that his healing ability does actually count as a Prime Invincibility. With his skull crushed, I would call that pretty significant nervous system collapse. If he can come back from that, he might be in Wolverine-class of healing. The organic matter thing is a little washy. David specifically mentions that playing in parks is no longer an option due to the steel grass in Newcago... so if Steelheart could affect plant material/anything without a pulse, then Prof could probably do the same. This was a long one. How do I break quotes up? Is there a html tag I can use? It's really fun hearing from everyone, and I'm glad I wasn't the only one, MathEpic!

Let's think a little sideways: What if it's not an anagram? It could be an acronym - eleven letters, but eleven isn't particularly significant in the Cosmere. The only example that comes to mind is the 11th metal that was brought up early in the Mistborn Trilogy. How many worlds are there in the Cosmere? It could also be a cipher? Are there any simple codes that come up in Sanderson's other works? The problem I've found is the lack of vowels. By reversing the positions of the letters in the alphabet (A becomes Z, etc) I got: BINORTTTUWZ which could transfer to TOR WINZ BUTT but I don't think that's the secret. Personally, I'm leaning toward the only significance here being that it hid some wordplay with balderdash, but I haven't used my brain in a while, so let's exhaust this!

Hey guys! Finished Steelheart a few weeks ago, and one question has been burning: How would you checkmate the most powerful epic in the story? How would you kill Prof? With his combination of powers, I would rank him as a High Epic based on his defensive powers alone. He was able to heal from a skull-crush, and has damage resistance (shields) on top of that. His offensive powers aren't directly damaging to organics, but we've seen what he can do to tech-based enemies, and can also kill/maim using his tensor ability to create badass swords and knives. As I think about it, I would lure him out of Newcago. The all-steel environment is a tensor playground. If I could get him to an organic environment like a field or somewhere heavy in vegetation, that would negate his tensor ability (he would still carry weapons into the fight, but would lose that unpredictability factor). The big question is overcoming his healing/shielding abilities. How do you stop that? Burn his corpse while immobilised? You wouldn't be able to restrain him indefinitely - tensor powers would bust him out of any prison before long. Also, does anything from the story stand out regarding a potential weakness? Gifters aren't noted as having any particular weaknesses, and I can't think of any point in the story where Prof stumbles or isn't laying total waste to everything around him.

That quote allows a little wiggle room (if you stretch it...) Demoux's number one defining characteristic was his humility - it's possible that he couldn't possibly consider the idea that he could be an allomancer and skipped his turn when testing his men. As I recall, at the time that he would have tried them, he was feeling like he'd been abandoned by the Survivor so his mood at the time could back this up. So the "We gave the metals to my soldiers" and "none of THEM could burn them" could indicate that he only gave them to his troops, not himself. Hmmmm. I need to get the trilogy back from my friend to re-read all of them. I just remembered Elend's dying experience of flaring atium and seeing something... Maybe I should just buy another copy.

I like the sound of this theory, but I propose a slight tweak. What if Demoux was Mistborn from his time of Snapping but he was only tested with Atium? My copy of HoA is interstate at the moment, so I can't double check, but I think it would be neater if it wasn't a "Gee, now Sazed's flipping everyone's switches to 'burn everything'" situation. As I recall, there were no specific mentions of any mistborn being discovered during the mist-Snapping sprees in HoA. Hence, Demoux could have been a Mistborn, but like Vin at the start of Final Empire, he was just naive to that fact? (And waiting for someone to swoop in with the quote that says "Elend tested Demoux and his men with iron and got bupkiss.")

I don't like the Shadesmar as it stands in theories at the moment - it can be abused as a catch-all "Maybe it was the Shadesmar?" solution. I really want to know more about it and the different regions, but I like the idea that Hoid is doing his Worldhopping and time jumping through other means. (That paragraph sounds kinda harsh/direct in my head, but it's not meant to be!) If I look at the facts as they stand, Shadesmar is the most obvious route to hopping and jumping (wheeee!) but there must be an epic cost to be paid, if a sphere is needed for transmutation of basic items. I'm also holding onto the childish hope that Hoid is on the lighter side of Sanderson's particular variety of good/evil greyscale, so I hope one hop doesn't cost the lives of 500 children or something... But back to the theory: If it's not a Shard, then it might be that Hoid's mastery of Lightweaving has gotten him to the point that he can manipulate time within his vicinity. Then, there's so many questions about how he gets to where he needs to be, and how he knows when and where that is... It's all rampant speculation, but that's what we do! As a follow up, if we discount the idea of travelling through Shadesmar, any interesting ideas about how Hoid does his Worldhopping? I'm assuming that at the very least, he would have made one Shadesmar-less hop to somewhere that the Shadesmar would be more accessible.