BlackYeti

Thank you for the response maxal, I really enjoyed reading it. I agree that some of my choices are quite ironic considering my earlier comments, maybe I should have included my reasoning for them. In case you're still interested, I'll sneak that in here (of course, it'll still be here, even if you're not interested, but then you can ignore it, I suppose). It took me ages to figure out how to articulate my feelings for these characters, and I'm not sure that I managed it that well, so I hope this is okay. Spoilers for Warbreaker Rysn is interesting. So far she has shown us two very different Rosharan cultures, and provided her unique perspective on them, thereby illuminating both her own character and the world around her. She has a huge potential for character growth, especially after the accident she suffers in her most recent interlude. Iyatil is truly fascinating: there is so little that we know about her, and so much that I want to find out. What does she know? What are her goals and her motivations? Why is she with the Ghostbloods? What is it that she is teaching Mraize? Will she teach Shallan it as well? And just what is behind that mask of hers? Her short scene with Shallan hinted at so much, so I really want to see a lot more of her. Tanavast has huge potential for flashbacks. He was Honour, so the wealth of information he could reveal to us is huge, and we would get to see Roshar at a very different point in it's timeline. But more than that, I think that there's a really great story that could be told here. If we assume that Tanavast survived the Splintering of Honour, then we would have a god-like character who had become mortal. We would have a character who knew that the Heralds had abandoned the Oathpact, that the world is very likely doomed, and that there is very little that he can do any more to change this fate. Given his new mortality, he might have to struggle with his feelings for Cultivation. And of course, he ultimately ends up dying, so it would be somewhat tragic. That's just based on what we know about him, there must be so many other possibilities from what we don't know. It would undoubtedly be fantastic. The other choices are, I think, a bit more obvious. Szeth offers insight into the Shin culture, moreover we should get to see what makes him so committed to it. Jasnah is my favourite character from Stormlight, and I was very disappointed at how little she was in Words of Radiance. I really like Navani, and she would offer a fantastic perspective on both Dalinar and Gavilar. (I really love Dalinar as well, but the Blackthorn doesn't interest me as much, at least from what we've heard about him from back then. It will be fascinating to see how he changed into the character he is now, but we could see that from Navani's perspective just as easily as from Dalinar's.) And Lift is Awesome. I wanted to try and fit Adolin and Taravangian into the list as well, but there ended up not being enough space for them, so I ended up leaving them out.

Bronze can clearly detect magic powered by Investiture not of Preservation. My guess is that the problem with detecting Feruchemy is that Feruchemy is end-neutral, it could be that it's only really good at detecting end-positive systems.

I really like the list. There's a few characters that I'm not that excited for, but that's probably because we've not seen enough of them yet (Eshonai, the two Heralds, Renarin). And because I can't resist suggesting my own list of flashbacks, my order for the next three books would be: Szeth Jasnah Navani And for the last five books in no discernible order: Lift Zahel Rysn Iyatil (and because we're allowed to have dead people for flashback books) Tanavast

I disagree with this. Using the example of Honour: it has been shown that it can be broken down into 20 different attributes, with each Herald/Order of the Knights Radiant being associated with two of these attributes. This suggests that Investiture as a whole is made up of numerous smaller parts, lets call them atoms (based on the classical meaning of something being so small that it is indivisible, not on the chemical meaning). These atoms could then be combined so as to created new Intents that are themselves the sum of their atoms. In this model, Honour (before he was Splintered) could hypothetically have created a Splinter of himself that contained all of his Intent that was associated with Protecting and Leading, and leaving himself with everything associated with Honour, except those parts. This Splinter could then probably be Splintered again into Splinters just of Protecting and just of Leading (or Splintered in some other way that resulted in two different Splinters). This would imply that each spren, even spren of the same type as each other, is unique: so if we were to meet another honourspren, that spren would not be identical to Syl, but an individual in it's own right since the Intent of the investiture that they are made of is slightly different. Looking at it from the other direction, Adonalsium was not Honour, even though it contained Honour, just as he/she/it did not have the Intent of any of the other Shards, it was the amalgamation of all of the atoms' Intent combined into one.

I found a couple of things when I was looking for things about the Everstorm. In chapter 87, the first 3 instances of the word are written "everstorm": since for all other instances of the word, the initial "E" is capitalized, I assume this is a mistake. These are in the first paragraph of page 1044, the second-last paragraph of page 1049, and the first paragraph of page 1050. In chapter 89, in Dalinar's conversation with the Stormfather: page 1071, right at the top of the page. I'm not as certain about this one, but it sounds like that "No" is the Stormfathers response to Dalinar's question, in which case it should be entirely capitalized. I've taken all page/paragraph numbers from the UK hardcover, and I've verified that they are also in my ebook version.

The way that I've been interpreting the phrase "low burn", is that they aren't concentrating on burning their metals, they just have them burning in the background as it were. We have been told that metals like pewter, which don't need conscious direction, can be burned when the Allomancer unconscious, and have seen this happen in more than once. We have been told that there are only two levels at which metal can be burned. Unless you can find an example of a metal like zinc or iron being referred to as having a low burn whilst the Allomancer is trying to do something specific with them, then I don't see this as reason enough to suppose that this is incorrect. The same thing that happens whenever they use their power on someone: the Alomancer loses all of their metal reserves, and are therefore is no longer able to use Allomancy until they have ingested more metal. What makes you think that a different set of rules would apply to someone who is burning duralumin?

I don't think that Brandon would use a word of such significance to his magic system if that were not exactly what he was doing. The reason I think that there is no mention made of any increased effect, is that immediately after flaring his atium he burns duralumin. This certainly causes the super-massive flair of atium that you would expect duralumin to cause. We may be talking at cross-purposes then. I don't think anyone disagrees that there are only two levels that metals can be burned at (or three if you count duralumin). I'm just saying (and I think this is also what Voidus was saying) that those levels can be mapped onto a function of power over time.

I might not be doing a good job at explaining myself. I wasn't intending to imply that some sets of sDNA are in some way "superior" to others: that would be highly elitist, and I hate that sort of attitude, so please understand that I did not want to come across like that. Lack of strength in Allomancy or any other magic is not worse than having such strength, e.g. Dockson was just as important a member of Kelsier's crew as anyone else (and more essential to it's operation than some) despite his lack of powers. I'm thinking of it a little bit like intelligence. Some people are more clever than others, and some are a lot more clever (and again this doesn't make them better than anyone else). They are not more clever however because of some magical property that has been added to their genome, but because of how their DNA has been encoded. I'm merely extending this idea to the sDNA for a persons Allomantic strength. This is much like what I was suggesting actually, the main difference being that the sDNA is itself defining how wide the conduit is and thereby how difficult it is for them to Snap. I do like the idea that it is Ruin's conflicting Investiture that requires Snapping to take place. It fit's well with the analogy to a supersaturated solution, and I think that it could work with both models. It might help if we compare Allomantic Snapping to Snapping (for lack of a better term) on Roshar. Both require some level of trauma to occur that allows them to access some external Investiture. However on Roshar, you still need to act in a manner that will attract a spren and presumably form a similar type of conduit with that spren. Then based on your subsequent actions your powers can potentially increase, presumably through the widening of the conduit. I don't see that you are gaining any additional Investiture for the conduit to widen, so what is going on? Has some system been set up where, by saying the words of your respective order, your sDNA is actually being altered? (If so, this could work with your model as well.) Could Roshar instead have an entirely different method of Snapping that instead of being instantaneous, works gradually through multiple steps? As for the rate of consumption of metals being relative to the strength of the Allomancer: I hadn't considered this before, but I can't see why this wouldn't be the case. Assuming that a specific amount of a metal equates to a set ammount of Investiture (this must be true at least of atium and lerasium, since they are the Investiture), then someone getting more Investiture from them, must be burning through them faster. Your maths is a little bit wrong here. The area of a circle is determined by the square of the radius (πr2). The surface area of a pipe is determined by the circumference of the pipe (2πr) multiplied by its length. So assuming that all conduits are of the same length, this means that the surface area of the pipe would increase linearly with the length of the radius. This could also be accounted for in the way that the spiritual genes that both parents pass on interact with each other. Genetics is extremely complicated, and by adding an additional two types of DNA, I can only see it becoming more so. I definitely agree with how little with can say for certain.

I don't think that this is correct. Consider atium: this is a metal that, unlike the base 16 metals, is the Investiture that powers it's associated ability. We know this by WoB: We also know that atium can be flared like the other metals. This means that the amount of power provided is the same, regardless of whether you are flaring the metal or not, and therefore it must be a function of power and time.

I like that take on what happens to the Investiture in the Hemalurgic spikes. It easily explains my problems with it, and overwrites my main objections to comparing it to stormlight. As to the apparent differences in the rate of Stormlight decay to the rate of Hemalurgic decay: is this because of the different container for the Investiture, because it's a different type of Investiture, something to do with the environment that we've seen them in, something else, or some combination? I doubt that there's any way to know at this point. As for Nightblood, I'm really not sure what to make of what he does with Investiture. I was basing the phrase "spiritually aligned" on a WoB that I vaguely recall about how burning lerasium changed someone, but I can't seem to find it now so I'm no longer sure if that's exactly what I read. The closest I can come to it is this: This doesn't say that it increases your Innate Investiture, but that it alters your sDNA. There's another WoB that I found that I think is highly pertinent here (from the Chapter 71 Hero of Ages Annotations): The way I'm interpreting this is that the Spiritweb and the metal are acting a bit like a lock and key. You swallow one of the sixteen metals and assuming that your Spiritweb is aligned/configured/encoded (do we have proper terminology for this?) correctly, you get to draw on an external source of Investiture that powers the ability. I don't see why additional Investiture would be required in the Allomancer in order to power the abilities. Now, with regard to the WoB that you provided, I'm a little unsure of how to view it. It could be that everyone gets the same amount of Innate Investiture, and it is the configuration of their Spiritweb that determines how hard it is for them to Snap and how how much allomantic power they get from it when they do. On the other hand, if the quantity of Innate Investiture is not a constant, then this could be taken to mean that those with more Investiture will snap more easily than those without, which probably correlates with the power of their Allomantic abilities. The problem here is how the WoB I quoted earlier regarding lerasium, did not indicate any increase a persons Investiture. Could this mean that by swallowing lerasium they are bypassing the Snapping process and automatically getting super Mistborn powers? But if that were the case would their children not require an increased level of Innate Investiture to allow them to acquire the powerful Allomantic abilities that you would expect them to have? Where is the extra Investiture coming from if it is not possessed by their parents? These questions are why I'm leaning towards the former explanation. By the way, how do you get the quote boxes to put the WoBs in? Thanks for the help WeiryWriter.

This raises a few questions. What happens to the investiture that is lost through hemalurgic decay? Is it being moved into another realm? We have WoB that Investiture transcends the realms, so does that even make sense? Is it instead being dispersed in some way for a gain in entropy? With Stormlight we can at least say that it's being collected and then redistributed by means of the Highstorms. ​Is a dun sphere necessarily lacking Investiture completely, or is it perhaps retaining a small amount that isn't enough to make the sphere glow? Alternatively, is the sphere still glowing, just imperceptibly under normal lighting conditions. With regard to allomantic power, I thought that the determinant was how spiritually aligned with Preservation you are, not Innate Investiture. If I'm correct, then the Investiture in the hemalurgic spike would be used to alter your Spiritweb, rather than you drawing power from the spike itself.

That makes sense. I was thinking about Stormlight in spheres, rather than in people: since it does seem to be renewed I don't think it counts as decay in the same way as in hemalurgy. If Breath were like hemalurgy then it would only decay when not in a body, hence why I was trying to find examples of this, but I can't think of any. I avoided Nightblood, because I'm really not at all sure what is going on here. I think this is the Investiture being consumed, rather than it decaying and therefore not an example. But then what does it mean for it to be consumed? I don't think we know enough about this to say for sure.

That is a good point. I was under the impression that the decay rate was fast, and that was the reason that the Inquisitors spiked themselves through their victims: if they didn't a significant portion of the power would be lost. I suppose that they could be doing that based on the principle that any power lost, no matter how insignificant would be wasteful, but that doesn't seem to be in their nature given Ruin's influence on them. Regarding other forms of Investiture decay, I'm not sure they're really applicable since hemalurgy seems to be the only system that we know of that is End-Negative. But in case I'm wrong, I can't think of any evidence that Breath is decaying outside of a living body. Kalad's Phantom's still functioned centuries after their creation, though do bones count as a body here? And I can't think of any way to measure the Dor. What do you mean that Stormlight is providing a constant effect? Are you referring to the Stormlight's apparent renewal through the Highstorms? This would suggest that the amount of Stormlight on Roshar is not changing.

That is interesting. It's clearly been too long since I last read Alloy of Law, and I'd forgotten about that. This would suggest then that the decay rate of the charge is asymptotic, but that it is tending to a non-zero value instead.

I've been assuming that the decay rate of the Investiture in a hemalurgic spike outside of a body is asymptotic, presumably tending to zero. I don't have any definitive evidence for this, but it makes the most sense to me on account of the charge still in the earing. If this is true, then it's likely that its charge is too weak to provide any measurable enhancement to Wax, but it would still have enough charge for him to communicate with Harmony.

I don't think that we should assume that his sword is awakened, for one thing I don't see why he would need one. However Vasher knows how to do it, and he does know Hoid. I doubt he would tell Hoid, but that doesn't mean that Hoid couldn't figure it out for himself. Also Hoid does have Breath, though we don't know how much, so he could potentially have awakened his sword.

We need to see a Shardladle: this is brilliant. I think maxal has persuaded me somewhat here. I don't think that there is much that Roshone would be able to do to Kaladin, but I don't think that they'll trust him at all, at least for the first part of the book.

I think it would be probably be plausible for the blood to change colour because of evolution given a long enough timescale, however this would have resulted in a new species with a very different biology. My earlier comments would still apply here: they would be unable to mate with with humans. Given that Jasnah was able to identify the Parshendi as the Voidbringers from fragments of information from that time it seems unlikely that they have significantly changed in that time (it would also be an implausibly short timespan for such significant evolution to have taken place in). Moreover if we were to accept this hypothesis, this would imply that Horneaters share a common ancestor with the Parshendi, not that they are hybrids of humans and Parshendi. Just because there are examples of interbreeding between very different species in other fiction, does not mean that this would be possible here. The cosmere has been shown to stay very true to our own science, except for where magic interferes with it; the same cannot be said for the examples you gave.

Having a Shardblade automatically makes him a high ranking lighteyes. Dalinar said that "either you execute a Shardbearer or leave him free". I really like your theory and would not mind being wrong here at all, but as it stands I don't see how he could be held as a criminal.

He doesn't need Stormlight to summon his Shardblade, when he does this his eyes will become light again. This alone should solve the problem, and I doubt he'll have a problem finding Stormlight when he gets there. I doubt that Tien's death will pose a problem to his bond with Syl, he was unable to fulfill his promise, but he didn't really break it. I imagine it will be of huge importance for his character interactions, but narratively he's already experienced his bond breaking due to his promises, it doesn't need to happen again.

This is not true. Human blood is red because of the iron bound to the haemoglobin molecules: this does not change when the blood becomes deoxygenated. Deoxygenated blood is a darker shade of red, not blue. http://chemistry.about.com/od/biochemistry/a/Is-Deoxygenated-Human-Blood-Blue.htm The colour of human blood can be changed by conditions such as iron deficiency, but this is atypical. The parshendi blood colour does not appear to be atypical and it is implausible to suggest that the blood colour for the entire species could change based on their diet (except perhaps on evolutionary timescales). It therefore implies an entirely different blood chemistry, and by extension a radically different biology to humans.

I'm aware that the spren were trying to mimic the Honourblades through the Nahel Bond, but I was under the impression that the Ideals were established later which would suggest that they are not completely connected to the Honourblades. I am unaware of, and have been unable to find any WoB that states that the Honourblade bond and the Oathpact are the same. I had forgotten about the prelude however, and this does go a long way to support your argument. Having now reread the prelude carefully, I do not think that this makes it ​necessarily true that there is such a connection, the Heralds could have left the blades because they were breaking the Oathpact (or at least they thought that they were) and therefore the blades were no longer necessary. All in all, I'm not convinced, but it is excellent evidence for your argument and well worth an upvote.

What is your evidence that the Oathpact is equivalent to the bond between the the Heralds and the Honourblades? I don't see any implication of this in your quotes or elsewhere. My assumption so far has been that the Honourblade bonds were broken whilst the Oathpact was not. Also with regards to Nightblood: what do you mean that it feeds off of external Investiture? I have only ever heard that it feeds off of the Investiture held by the person wielding it. I'm also not sure why you say that Nightblood's creation was unintentional. I was under the impression that Vasher was intentionally trying to create something like Nightblood, considering his connection with Roshar it's likely that it was inspired by the Shardblades there. If anything, I would have thought that it was the spren blades that were created unintentionally since Honour didn't foresee that.

This was actually my question, though I didn't expect the answer to be as interesting as it was. I'd guess that it's not just Hoid doing this, since I've noticed this kind of slip with other characters such as Vasher.

https://soundcloud.com/blackyeti-1/dm550559 This should hopefully have the recording. I started recording a bit before it started, so you can skip the first minute if you want. I've also written down the answers to the questions that I asked when he was signing my books, two of them are about White Sand, so I don't think I should copy them here, but the rest of them are as follows: Q. In Words of Radiance, we have Vasher showing up. One of his aliases on Nalthis is Kalad, which is very similar to the name of one of the Heralds on Roshar. So I was wondering how far back this connection between him and Roshar goes. A. It goes pretty far back, in fact I wrote Way of Kings, the 2002 version; he was a main character and was Kaladin’s sword master. I wrote Warbreaker to jump back and write out his back story, so to me Warbreaker actually came after Way of Kings. But the connection goes back pretty far, further than you would first guess. Q. Did he actually come from Nalthis and not Roshar? A. I’m not going to actually answer that one… Well I can answer that: yes he does come from Nalthis. It’s pretty obvious that the way that the breath’s working, the reason he moved is because it’s easier to get stormlight than breaths, and stormlight can fuel being a Returned like him. And so yes, he was born on Nalthis. Becoming Returned without being born on Nalthis would be really hard. Q. Can I ask you about the body of a Shard in the physical realm? About the different states of matter, what determines the state of matter that they are in? Because I’ve read the relevant sections carefully, haven’t noticed much about temperature difference. A. The idea for me working on this is that they transcend, they permeate everything. They permeate all life on all the realms. And that there are manifestations of them that leak out, and it’s kind of like they appear there in the various states. When you say that you’ve got the gas, you’ve got the liquid, you’ve got the solid: but you’ve also got inside of you, inside of that plant, like they’re everywhere. And so what determines it? In my head it’s just like when some of that power permeates, some of it distils, just like water. There’s some water in the air, there’s some that freezes: that’s temperature. But it’s not always temperature whether it’s in the air, or whether it’s falling. Imagine a spiritual version of humidity, that is influenced by what’s happening on the Spiritual Realm and the Cognitive, and that’s what you get. Q. Because you’ve talked about alloying the god metals, I was wondering whether you would be able to melt them down as you would with normal metals. A. If you could distil the god metal: you could distil it out of the mist, that’s theoretically possible.