Tarion

The problem with Miles or Mr. Suit is that the guy Soulcasts. I'm not ruling out an off-worlder (especially since the fabrials should, in theory, work for anyone) but my first thought would be someone more local. Mrall fits, although I did consider Graves. Either way, someone dedicated to the Diagram, with an ends-justify-the-means mindset. I would lean against Taravangian for two reasons. One, he refers to "our master". There's no reason to hide that he's the one pulling Szeth's strings, when his identity is unknown. Two, that's the sort of task that you really want to have reliable intelligence for. Taravangian just isn't suited for travelling to a distant city and carrying out covert operations. He needs too much babysitting on his bad days (Where "bad days" really means "days that vary sufficiently enough from the norm")

Hey all, Looking through Warbreaker again, and I've been wondering about Breath, in the big picture. Do we have any WoB on the amount of Breath that's around? Because as I see it, the value of Breath could fluctuate quite heavily, which could have interesting repercussions. If Breath gets cheaper, we'll see more Lifeless, more Nightbloods, more powerful Awakeners. If Breath gets more expensive, what happens to the Returned? Plus, I'm just kind of interested in the numbers. As it stands, we have one Breath for every person. Every time someone is born, a new Breath is added into the system, and it can go into circulation a handful of years later. Breaths are primarily lost through Returned (1/week) and Lifeless (1/Lifeless). They are also lost when someone dies with their Breath. Generally speaking, the Returned aren't hugely relevant for this, as far as I can tell. There's only a few dozen of them in Hallandren. Assuming a 52 week year, you're only talking about a few thousand Breaths a year (Less than 2,000 Breaths for 3 dozen Returned per year). The Lifeless army that defends Hallandren, which is apparently pretty formidable, is only 40,000 strong. While that's a big investment of Breaths, its also relatively stable - Provided they're kept safe, they last multiple years and provide labour, policing, etc. The final Breath "sink" is death. Anyone who dies accidentally will be a Breath lost, obviously. But the question is, how many people die of old age or illness with their Breath intact? We've seen at least one instance of death-bed Breath passing. Is that the norm? It would be quite a handy inheritance for your descendants. Outside of the Idrians, who see their Breath as sacred, I think most people would be willing to pass on their Breath at the end of their life. T'Telir is a big city. Unfortunately, I can't find a size for it - I've not seen any descriptions that would give us hard numbers. But, it's big. Big enough for people to disappear without a trace. So, the question is, are the amount of Breaths in the "system" going up? From these numbers, I think so. Unless lots of people are dying with their Breaths intact, it seems quite likely that people are having babies quicker than they're spending Breaths. What does that mean for the future? Is there a limit on the amount of Breath floating around, or could we reach a future where everyone is at the Tenth Heightening (Eventually. Really, really eventually)? More likely, is it leading to another Manywar? As the amount of Breaths go up, the value of Lifeless goes down, enabling more powerful armies. Similarly, Type IV creations can only exist in a world where people have lots of Breath to spend on Awakening. I came into this ready to argue that maybe Endowment was using Returned as a safety valve - Too many Breaths building up, time to introduce another Breath eater. But at ~50 Breaths a year, they're just not very efficient. Nightblood was the equivalent of feeding a Returned for 20 years. And that was just creating him. Drawing him is, if anything, more efficient.

More generally, the ability to remove his bracers - Awakened cloth does it just as well as Iron. Direct help from a Shard - He's living, breathing, direct help from a Shard in himself. That's what a Returned is. Alendi's Journal - I'm not sure that's actually relevant to working out how the Lord Ruler was making himself immortal, for someone who's Cosmere/Investiture savvy. It requires a basic understanding of Feruchemy and Allomancy, yes, but I think that's within Vasher's reach - He's been able to develop some knowledge of the magic systems of two entirely separate planets. Which is kind of my point - To all outward appearances, Vin using her Mistborn powers is far more dangerous than Vasher. And he still didn't bother tapping anything then. If he waited until it was similarly too late and got hit with Nightblood, I think he might be in trouble. It has a tendency to destroy whole things, and I'm not sure that's something that Feruchemy can protect against - it takes too long. Much like getting hit by a Shardblade, dead is dead.

Did Inquisitors have Feruchemical steel before Ruin started "upgrading" them? I thought that was one of the extra spikes we only saw in Hero of Ages. As for Vin having the help of a Shard - Literally all it did was give her an additional bit of strength. She was still far weaker, Allomantically, than the Lord Ruler. The big help is strengthening her Allomantic steel so that she can (just) effect metals inside the Lord Ruler (and supplementing her empty metal supplies). He's running around with that strength full time and he still lost. The fact that the Lord Ruler, while fighting a Mistborn and a rogue Inquisitor, having had his loyal Inquisitors destroyed and his city in uprising, wasn't using Feruchemical steel or Feruchemical zinc, which would have given him the reaction times to stop Vin stealing his bracers, or Feruchemical duralumin, which would have made everyone love him too much to hurt him, shows that the Lord Ruler didn't routinely use them. This was probably the most dangerous situation he's faced in a couple of hundreds of years, and he didn't bother using his full abilities. If he didn't then, I doubt he would against Vasher, because he simply isn't Cosmere aware enough to understand the threat that Nightblood, or Breath might pose to him. And literally everything Vin used, apart from Malatium, would be available to Vasher. It's why I stressed his Cosmere and Investiture awareness. Out of more or less every character (other than Hoid) he's the best suited for understanding the Lord Ruler's immortality, and finding the way to defeat it.

Because someone did. As much as the Lord Ruler is clearly ridiculously powerful (I'd argue the most powerful non-Shard, with the possible exception of Hoid, to appear "on screen" in the Cosmere) Vin was able to beat him, after being a Mistborn for about a year. Yes, she had the help of Preservation, but that hardly makes her unique - A large chunk of characters in the Cosmere have a shard or two powering them up. Vasher is a Splinter of Endowment, to bring it back to the topic at hand. Now, you can argue that Vin's victory had a lot to do with luck, but that itself is a condemnation of the Lord Ruler - He knew of Chromium (http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1011), so the very idea of being unlucky means that he wasn't using his abilities to the fullest. And from there, it's a question of just how badly he was underutilising his abilities. Obviously, I think he was underutilising them far more than some people on this topic. If he was routinely Compounding Zinc, Steel, Chromium or Duralumin, I don't believe Vin would have had a chance. But obviously she did. My conclusion is that he's not using anywhere near to the full Metalborn powers.

It's worth considering that any harm that the development of a gemheart could cause might be somewhat ameliorated by the use of Stormlight - It does heal, after all. We've also seen a transformative effect from using it, in the case of the Ardent Soulcasters. It's entirely possible that handling enough Stormlight for a long enough time could leave you with a dependency on it - We see it to some degree with Savants in Mistborn. I'm not sure it's likely, mind, but maybe the Heralds channel Stormlight less efficiently than the Knights Radiant for a reason. And if you did develop a gemheart as a human, the Weeping could be a problem.

EDIT: Misread your post. If he's capable of tapping at different rates, it makes sense that he's capable of tapping quickly enough to undo the effects of losing his bracers - That's kind of the point of Feruchemy, that you can tap more quickly if you have to. As long as he's not dead yet, it should be reversible Also, Compounding isn't just Feruchemy. It's the combination of Allomancy and Feruchemy. And yes, he uses it for his age and his health, but he never actually uses the vast majority of the potential Feruchemical effects. He uses compounded Gold and Atium to stay alive, sure, but to actually achieve things he uses emotional and physical Allomancy. And he uses a lot of it. He uses it to dominate the crowds, control his armies and Push on metals.

I didn't say he hated or distrusted Feruchemy - He just seems less enamoured of it than of his Allomancy. And I disagree - He's clearly capable of stopping and starting his Atium tapping to some extent. He spends some time aged, to store more in his Atiumminds, after all. If he could have gotten his Atiumminds back, I think he would have been fine.

That's fair, and I did say in my original post that if the Lord Ruler gives it all he's got, he wins. I just think that, of the two of them, Vasher is most likely to actually give it all he's got. The Lord Ruler just isn't. He's a character who never gives it all he's got, in the entire book. He just relies on his strong Allomancy and the fact that he doesn't think anything can actually kill him. Throw in his inexperience in the Cosmere, and his minimal understanding of Investiture, and Vasher has a lot stronger chance than it looks when just comparing powersets. That's not actually how it happened. He had plenty of time - He went after his bracelets, and Vin had to push them away. A Steelrunner or a Sparker should have been able to get them back no problem. With Compounding, it shouldn't have been an issue at all.

Except he didn't use his Feurchemy against Vin. Or against Kelsier. Or against the Skaa who stabbed him. If he was using Feruchemical Zinc or Steel (Even without Compounding) Vin's method of killing him wouldn't work. Even if he had them prepared and just wasn't using them, he would have been able to tap them in the time between his Atiumminds being stolen and him ageing, which would have given him near-infinite time to react. He didn't. The Lord Ruler's supreme arrogance and a thousand years without a serious threat mean that he's just not prepared to fight something that's actually as threat to him. And I suspect that he generally looks down on Feruchemy as less impressive than his Allomancy - For him it was just a tool, not a mystical power, whereas he still seems to find his Allomancy special. Using the 65,000-100,000 Breaths that Susebron has by the end of Warbreaker gives Vasher the potential to create up to a hundred Nightbloods. Sticking those Breaths into Kredik Shaw, or something similar, would create something that I think could be a threat to the Lord Ruler. Also, more generally, I doubt The Lord Ruler could actually handle something that heavy - Allomantic pewter strengthens his bones, but Feruchemical pewter just adds muscle mass. That'll give him a pretty hard cap, as he won't be able to lift anything heavy enough that his skeletal structure can't handle it. His sheer Allomantic pewter strength is the important bit, rather than his ability to compound Feruchemical pewter. Finally, I suspect that Vasher, as a Returned, would be resistant to someone pushing on the metals inside him, but I'm not sure.

I was just thinking that - I dropped by this forum to see if we had an answer. Save us Peter!

I think Vasher has a few more strengths than people are crediting him with. Firstly, he's Cosmere aware, and the Lord Ruler doesn't seem to be (Vin didn't become Cosmere aware when she Ascended. It's only when Sazed took in both powers and traced their histories that he did). That's a pretty big advantage. Secondly, Vasher is a student of Investiture. There's no formalised science of Investiture on Scadrial, and the lack of understanding will hold the Lord Ruler back. Together, it means that the Lord Ruler sees a guy with a sword. Vasher sees a Sliver with access to multiple forms of Investiture. With that in mind, the Lord Ruler is unlikely to take action until it's too late - Consider his 'fight' with Kelsier. He was willing to let random Skaa stab him with spears, because he didn't feel threatened (and perhaps felt it important to show off his invincibility). If he didn't notice Vasher, or consider him a threat, he'd be in a lot of trouble. Which time period we pull Vasher from matters too. If we're talking about him with Peacegiver's Treasure, or the even greater sum of Breaths that the God-Kings have by the time of Warbreaker (50,000 from the treasure, plus extra every week for 300 years), with his degree of control, he might well be capable of animating a lot. If Kredik Shaw eats the Lord Ruler before he even knows there's a fight happening, that's a problem for him. In fact, of everything out there, Awakened cloth is probably one of the better options for disabling the Lord Ruler. Between it's low metal content and it's Investiture, he wouldn't be able to push or pull it. I doubt it'd stop him forever, but it's certainly a problem for him. The Lord Ruler wins provided he knows about Vasher and takes him seriously. But by the time of Mistborn, he's arrogant. He doesn't take any threat seriously other than Ruin. Between that and his lack of Cosmere/Investiture awareness, I think Vasher has a decent chance. Or to put it another way, if Vin can do it as she is at the end of Mistborn, Vasher probably could to. Even if he just steals her move and has Awakened cloth pull out his Atium bracers.

Same AMA says that Parshendi can reproduce in any form (In the same way that they could swing a sword in any form) it's just that one is more suited for it. I could definitely see some of the nastier forms tying into the dark interpretation. I just doubt that's where BS is taking it.

Sadeas is presented as an antagonist (Of Dalinar/Adolin) because of his target, not his actions. I don't recall Adolin ever having any problem with how he acts (Especially not early on - He starts off very Alethi and only comes around to Dalinar's point of view with time). Also, I think there's a significant difference between Dalinar rounding up women and children, and Dalinar passing out while his brother was murdered. The Alethi would think one is shameful. It's not the one we'd find so repulsive. But yes, I do think that Adolin could well be lying to himself and only hearing what he wants to hear. But if my maths is right, he was already a Shardbearer when Gavilar died, and (most likely) had already served with his father's spearmen. So I think it's quite likely that he had some degree of experience of war against humans. It's not as if his only experience is against the Parshendi. He might never have seen the Blackthorn, as he says in WoK, but I think he's probably seen the same methods.

Thanks. No wonder I didn't see it - I went through the highly upvoted comments, and then browsed the history on /u/mistborn. Unfortunatel,y it was one of the generic "yes" answers, so I probably just missed it (there were a few).

Wow, I must have missed that bit. Have you got more information? I did a quick skim of the AMA and couldn't see it. Another one I'd missed https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/crcbbv7?context=3 Was this common knowledge?

You only get the Shards if you, personally, take them. It's the Alethi way. And without a Shardblade, Sadeas just doesn't have the capacity to defeat a Shardbearer. His best bet is to find someone with just the Blade and shoot them a few times (But Grandbows are new, so not an option during the conquest). And anyone with a Blade knows this, and will avoid him. Talking of the Alethi way, that's what struck me most about Dalinar here. He's the epitome of Alethi. Yeah, he does some pretty monstrous stuff, but is it really so unreasonable when compared to Sadeas' bridge crews? It's established in Way of Kings that "journey before destination" is not an Alethi way of thought, and I think this chapter shows it. Dalinar is all about the destination. He'll do everything in his power to win. I'm not surprised that he and Gavilar were able to conquer the country. And, honestly, I'm sure Adolin has a good idea of how it happened. This isn't the sort of thing the Alethi would hide. They revel in this sort of attitude.

Hey all, After delving into Mistborn again for SoS's release, I figured it was time to hit up Stormlight Archives again. I've not really been paying too much attention since the months immediately after WoRs release, so I'm basically looking for things I should be paying attention to. What are the "newer" theories? What has WoB pointed us to recently? Thanks

Actually, Allomancers with at least a little Feruchemy are definitely something he wanted. Inquisitors have Feruchemical gold, after all. Now I don't know whether the Lord Ruler was deliberately keeping Keepers around to replenish his Inquisitor numbers, or whether he kept that secret to himself, and used the limited number of Feruchemical gold spikes as a kind of population control (much like Koloss and their swords), forcing Inquisitors to re-use their brethren's spikes.

I'm pretty sure Harmony was doing everything he could to keep Marsh out of the way. Paalm managed to reveal that Harmony was using Kandra to manipulate the public. If she could have got people believing that Harmony was using their mythological representation of Death to do the same, it could have been disastrous. And Marsh just isn't suited to solving the problems at hand. He's not got a subtle touch with his emotional allomancy so he's not suited to countering riots, he's incapable of blending in or investigating, and he's literally one of the top 15 or so most famous people in history. Elendel is too big for him to get away with an extended visit. I'd be willing to bet that Harmony saw bad things happening if he was around.

I'm reasonably sure he's married - He talks about a woman who'll be the death of him. The one who switched his cigars for a note reminding him he has a banana in his office.

I covered this briefly in the first post. Elantris is set hundreds of years before SoS. There's plenty of time for something to have changed. If you look back at Maths' post (http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/46972-dominion-elantris-spoilers/#entry341672), we know that something has happened (Or will happen) on Sel that's important to Scadrial. There's nothing saying that it's a whole Shard - WoB is that there's only two shards on Scadrial during SoS, IIRC. It could well just be the Skaze (Most likely Splinters of Dominion). Or the Splinters could have been recombined in some way - I believe there's a WoB that it's possible to recombine Adonalsium's Shards, so maybe something similar is possible with Splinters (Again, on a meta level, this makes sense to be something that's covered now - It's relevant to what's happening on Roshar).

It was. I tried to tie red and gold to them, but unfortunately, they've got no connection to the colour gold in Elantris. They do have a very strong connection to actual metallic gold though, which I suppose is one interpretation. There's a slightly greater connection between Korathi and the colour gold, in theme (Although their primary colour is blue, IIRC), but it felt pretty tenuous as an argument for a recombined shard.

Thanks. I find that pretty compelling. People have definitely brought it up - As I said, Autonomy seems to be the front runner in most theories. I just don't think it's likely. Neither the Set, nor Miles seem that interested in autonomy (And I'd be surprised if they were unrelated to what's going on). I also gave the example above of Paalm's Hemalurgic creations in the Homeland - She's apparently fine with enslaving, her issues are with who's doing the enslaving. That's an issue of Dominion, not Autonomy. This is also true in her schemes as a whole, since she's deliberately tricking people into a rebellion. As for why Bavadin's intent was revealed, it's worth remembering that even if Brandon isn't deliberately misleading us, White Sands is relevant this year. We were told in his blog to expect a lot of talk about White Sands this year, because we're looking at the release of the graphic novels http://brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-december-2014/). Now, they've been pushed back a bit as best we can tell, but we're still looking at it coming out next year. Bavadin's relevant to the Cosmere without any tie in to Mistborn. (

So I mentioned in another thread that I think Dominion might be the new Shard in play. We know the Shard is one we know (http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/45901-shadows-of-self-byu-midnight-signing/#entry336901) which limits our options significantly. We've got the following list to work from: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Shard#Known_Shards Devotion Dominion Odium Cultivation Honor Endowment Autonomy Current frontrunners seem to be Odium and Autonomy. I don't think they're likely - Odium is mentioned to be scared of Harmony, already has a storyline going and is trapped where he is IIRC (Similarly, I feel confident ruling out Honor and Cultivation. One's dead, and both are busy). I also don't think autonomy fits the actions taken in SoS - Things like the creations in the Homeland go pretty firmly against Autonomy, as do statements made by Miles in AoL. That leaves us Devotion, Dominion and Endowment. Of the three, I feel that Dominion is the best fit for what's been happening on Scadrial. Firstly, magic. Co-opting the magic of the other side fits pretty strongly with what the Skaze's minions did in Elantris (The use of Seons). Bleeder did the same thing. Secondly, the methodology. The theft of magic is just part of the broader methodology that Bleeder has pulled right from the Derethi playbook. They drove wedges between the religious sects and between political groups. Even the moment where Bleeder exposed the kandra is eerily reminiscent of the exposure of Raoden as Elantrian. Thirdly, the goal. Both the Derethi and the antagonists post-Catacendre have been obsessed with power structures. They believe there is one correct way for the world to be run, and aim to overthrow the current system. Fourthly, on a meta level, this ties into the Elantris re-release. The 10th anniversary is a great opportunity to slide Elantris more firmly into the Cosmere. If Mistborn is bringing Elantris up, it'll be important to get the definitive version out first. Now, there are problems here, obviously. I do not think they're insurmountable. First, obviously, is that Dominion was Splintered. However, it could just be the Skaze working together, rather than the full Shard. Alternatively, the Shard could have been recombined somehow. Secondly, Paalm's stated goal was not Dominion. That isn't necessarily a problem though - The Skaze/Derethi seem to have no problem using people. Their MO is to shake up the power structure and then move in to take power. They did this both during the course of Elantris itself, but also in Duladel. By "freeing" the people from the incorrect power structure, Paalm would leave them vulnerable to Dominion. Alternatively, there may well still be some Devotion in the Dominion. If they're a joined Shard (which makes sense, given that they're combined in some fashion into the Dor during Elantris, and would position them nicely as an antagonist to Sazed) then Paalm's actions make more sense. She is in a very real way a creature of both Devotion and Dominion, as the Lord Ruler's personal kandra. And her actions seem very focused on helping people, but in a very controlling manner.