Tarion

They never explicitly state their gems are cracking, just that they need a constant supply of them: The Parshendi win a fair few gemhearts, and their numbers have only reduced as the war has gone on. If they were just using the light to enhance their crops, as opposed to a fabrial, their supplies would be getting better, not worse. Something must be shattering their gems.

Dalinar thinks they do - He assumes that's why they need the gemhearts. And Eshonai confirms that they're using the gemhearts to eat. They'd need to be doing something with them, more than just using their light on their plants. Otherwise they wouldn't shatter (And so they wouldn't need a resupply of gemhearts).

In the first Eshonai interlude in WoR, we get this line: Have we ever had any confirmation on whether exposure to Stormlight directly encourages growth, or whether the Parshendi are using a growth fabrial? If it's the former, it might relate to stormwater being better for plants than regular water. Some sort of response to the Investiture.

That might be within her purview, but I think it's fairly safe to say that Wyndle (Who is, after all, cultivationspren) shows that there's a distinctly nature-y aesthetic to Cultivation. He's both a gardener and a vine, after all.

So I was thinking about this earlier, and I think that the Intent of Cultivation could go in a couple of different ways and the best fit isn't nearly as nice as the most obvious. The first is where my mind originally went - The D&D Druid cliche. About putting life and nature before everything else. Essentially a turbo-hippy But that's not really what's implied by Cultivation. If it was the Shard of Growth, then maybe, but Cultivation implies an active hand. She's not nature. She's the Shard of controlling nature with purpose. This came to mind while reading the chapter with the worming season in Hearthstone. It is, if I'm remembering correctly, the biggest look we actually get on farming. And it's about the importance of killing. It's shortly followed by a bit about potentially destroying your crops if they're not growing right, and starting again To me, this speaks of a fairly balanced sense of Cultivation. It's growth, yes. But it's the right growth. It's the ability to both create something new, and to turn around later and burn it down if necessary. I don't think that we can downplay the importance of scenes dealing with cultivation on Roshar. They're rare enough (Basically here and stories about the Shin, IIRC) that I think we need to at least consider that they might reflect deeper truths of Cultivation. I feel that this also fits with the Nightwatcher - She doesn't just grant boons, but curses you as well. Not much deeper to this, just a thought that was bothering me. I've been holding Cultivation up as too similar to Preservation in my mind, whereas I think she has teeth. I don't think she'd have any problems stabbing Elend, for example. Sure, it's not nice, but killing is just something you have to do to cultivate (The other thought I'd had was of culling, but interestingly enough, it's not a word that appears in tWoK or WoR).

The issue I have with this is that it seems to go against Sazed's words in Hero of Ages. It seems clear here that Tin and Pewter (Unsurprisingly, the Physical Internal metals) are the really significant ones, and that the others have only "slight" effects. Even Pewter's downside results directly from burning Pewter all the time, which is dangerous, rather than a downside of the act of becoming a Savant. I would hope that if the canon changes, it does so in a way that doesn't retcon HoA too badly. It seems like it might already be there though, as I don't think the quotes in the OP really fit with the presentation of Savantism as a whole in HoA.

That seems like a fantastic misleading response. Connecting your physical and cognitive selves isn't anything special. Literally everyone else on Scadrial has them connected, after all. Keeping you alive isn't anything special, because again - Literally everyone else you meet is already alive. It can be absolutely crucial to Kelsier's unique circumstances without being "special", because for normal people "not being dead" is a pre-existing condition. That aspect of his resurrection (Ignoring the Hemalurgic superpowers) is about getting him back to normal.

That's what I would consider relative. And does that mean you think that you wouldn't be able to use Lashings in 0g?

Just curious as to whether we have more information on how the Lashings would work off Roshar. If they're relative, then a single Basic Lashing upwards will render you weightless on any planet in the Cosmere. If they're constant, then a single Lashing would negate ~80% of the standard Cosmere gravity. I had been working under the assumption that they were relative, until I remembered that a Windrunner could theoretically travel between planets. And the moment you're in 0g, presumably a new relative lashing wouldn't do anything at all (Adding 1G when G=0 is 0). Now, you could in theory do all your Lashing while on a planet and hope that your aim is really, really good (Because if you miss, you're going to be travelling for a long while), but that doesn't give you much time at all to slow down from some serious speeds.

I've been re-reading Way of Kings with the idea that Adolin's sword was originally a Cultivationspren like Wyndle and that he could potentially reawaken it. And while he's not there yet, I think he's on the way to being an Edgedancer. Twice he's gone out of his way to act in ways that fit with the "I will remember those that have been forgotten" Oath. When he protects the whore from Sadeas' officer, and when he is imprisoned alongside Kaladin. He's someone who, at his best, defends the overlooked. His passion is duelling, despite the war going on. This fits with the Edgedancer tendency to focus on small things rather than more important things. He's also described as graceful a lot which seems to fit with the Edgedancers. Finally, there's the weird obsession with luck and lucky objects that both he and Lift have

I just encountered this bit on my audiobook readthrough and had another perspective - What if it instead originates from the (Siah) Aimians? They're the other immortal beings in Roshar, who quite likely can have their arms ripped off forever. The name also fits with an Aimian- Axies and Extes are very similar, so likely come from a similar culture.

Huh, I've completely forgotten about that. I'm currently working through tWoK again in audiobook, so I'll keep an eye out for that.

Hey all, Since they have now been officially published, I've finally got around to reading Dalinar's flashbacks. And other than thinking they're fantastic (Dalinar is both a brute and the seed of the Dalinar we see in tWoK/WoR, which is really impressive) the thing that stuck out to me most was a creature seen during a Highstorm. "An explosive burst of wind drove him against the wall, and he stumbled, then stepped backward, driven by instincts he couldn't define. A large boulder slammed into the wall, then bounced away. Dalinar glanced and saw something luminous in the distance: a gargantuan figure that moved on spindly glowing legs. Darlinar stepped back up to the door into the feast hall, gave the whatever-it-was a rude gesture, then pushed open the door" So, it turns out, there really are creatures out in the Highstorms. From the description, I've no idea what it is. It doesn't seem to match any of the Greatshells we've seen (None of them have been described as "spindly") and it glows, which implies active stormlight investiture (I'm blanking - Have we seen anything with a gemheart in a highstorm before?)

It really needed another 50 pages or so. Weirdly, it felt more like set up than conclusion. Great book, not a great final book to the trilogy.

We know that a Kandra can create flesh that matches a person - We see it being done by MeLaan. So from Kelsier's bones (which contain his DNA), it seems like a Kandra might be able to create enough flesh to fully recreate a person, at which point you just need to put Kelsier back in (Presumably with the eye spike). Sure, you'll be needing Feruchemical gold to put your body back together properly (Which, with the Cognitive aspect, would explain the presence of the scars), but that's apparently not a problem now.

Pretty happy - I've been supporting Sel as the bad guys (Although betting on Dominion, when it looks like Elantrians might be the problem) so seeing that they've been causing problems on Scadrial is very satisfying. I still think that Dominion is involved, if only because it looks like the powers have remained merged - The Elantrians are drawing on Dominion as much as Devotion. I'm taking partial credit, anyway.

Well you say that. But where did he get a Feruchemical Atium spike? I mean, I know he killed a load of Feruchemists in WoA, but of all the F spikes, Atium had to be at the bottom of Ruin's list, considering they were in the process of ending the world. It literally served no purpose and there were plenty of Inquisitors needing the more important spikes.

It's in Mistborn: The Final Empire. It's a revelation when Marsh discovers they actually age - They're believed to be immortal Emphasis mine.

Ah, but that means that they'll probably sell it. If you don't feel much difference between one and two Breaths, and each Breath is valuable, it makes sense for you to sell it off. So the more Breaths build up in the rich Awakeners.

I'm pretty sure that the Lord Ruler limits their numbers. Because there are so few Inquisitors, and they live so long, they don't recruit often. I wouldn't be surprised if Marsh was the next Inquisitor created after Mare's imprisonment. Tineyes aren't common, sure, but I'm pretty sure they're not going to wait years on the off chance they need one. Now, if it were a Seer or a Feruchemist, they'd probably do it.

Since Inquisitors prefer spiking directly into someone, it could just be as simple as them not needing a new spike. They'd probably keep the Feruchemists they found around, because they're rare, but Tin is both reasonably common (IIRC) and not that valuable. They probably figure they can find a new Tineye next time they're inducting an Inquisitor.

They don't seem to consistently have 14 legs - The one Shallan draws has 18. Which is part of what makes me think their bodies are mutable - If they're adding more limbs and greater mass when they pupate, it would explain how they diverge. Because generally speaking, you don't find animals with variable amounts of legs, even within the cosmere. Shallan's drawings are the connection to Skyeels, by the way - She notices the same spren around them as around the Chasmfiend.

My theory is that Chasmfiends are some sort of combination of creatures, and they pupate as part of that merging. Like a (vastly less controlled) Kandra - They hunt chull, or whatever else, and then pupate in order to turn their mass into more Chasmfiend. This might explain the lots of eyes and the multiple voices, as well as the fact that they diverge significantly from most other Rosharan creatures in terms of numbers of legs. There's some connection to Skyeels, but I've got no idea what that might be. They apparently share the same spren. My first guess would be Gravityspren, which we know exist, but haven't seen yet. That would explain both the Skyeels floating, and how light on it's feet the Chasmfiend is, relative to its size. I think the connection with the Parshendi gods is purely a misdirect - The "civilized" Alethi come across a group of savages and assume that their religion is just superstition. So they assume that the scary gods they have and the scary monsters they live near are the same thing. When in actuality, their gods are something very real, and the Chasmfiends are just terrifying local fauna.

"Ruin did it" does seem like a perfectly viable solution. Assuming the Lord Ruler gave her over to the Inquisitors or just the Ministry, it would have been relatively easy for a few modified messages to get her sent there. This ends with Kelsier Snapping, Luthadel revolting, and the Lord Ruler dying. However, there is reason for her to be interrogated even if Kelsier was not - She's from a clearly Allomantic bloodline. It could have been just a case of finding out about parents, siblings or children she had. We know that the Inquisitors like to go for them root and branch, as it were.

On the slightly less horrific side, it could easily be the standard "fee" for an orphanage - You take in children who need someone to care for them, you raise them, and when they're ready to move on, they pay in Breath. In terms of expenditure, it seems like a no brainer - Raising a child seems cheaper than Breath, especially once you've got a few kids on the go at once. Or how about the equivalent of Breath moneychangers? Assuming that it's too hard to split your Breaths for the average Nalthian, it makes sense that people who could do it would try to profit from the situation. You give them all your Breath, they take a small fee, and then they split the remaining Breath however you want it (which could include giving one back to you, so you're not Drab). Do that on your deathbed, and you get to pass on your Breaths to whoever you please relatively easily. This also goes a long way to solve the "What do Awakeners actually do with their powers" bit. If high-end Awakeners basically function as Breath managers, moving it from person to person and splitting it precisely, then that's something they can do that actually requires them to be skilled Awakeners. This would also require you to be a trusted member of society, which is something that powerful Awakeners clearly are. EDIT: Credit to Landis, who had basically the same idea and I overlooked it.