Ari

Elantris itself is essentially a giant "fabrial", in the sense of being an invested object with a technological purpose, so you can really argue either way that these are either the old Elantrians who knew what they were doing in constructing Elantris, or they're the new ones that have had the time to advance. I think, however, that the fact that they're in an outpost in the Cognitive Realm that has apparently existed a long time is quite revealing, the only thing I would say that points to any of them being new Elantrians is the reference to Domi. Between those two facts, it seems almost like the new and old Elantrians have reunited to some degree.

Vessel is how the Ire understand Ati or Leras. Brandon could always be giving us an in-world term that rests on incorrect assumptions, but it does seem to gel very well with what M:SH reveals.

I had thought from what Khriss said about them that they were the I.R.E., rather than Ire, but that makes sense. I was wondering what other Aons they had paired with Rao to make that acronym.

That memory clue seems to point very strongly at someone influenced a lot by Kelsier, if not Kelsier himself. Spook is probably ruled out due to how well-documented his actions would have been as The Lord Mistborn, we'd have heard about it if he spiked his eye. Marsh makes a lot of sense and arguably there are clues to him there when Wayne impersonates him as "death". Kelsier is also a possibility though, especially if he managed to get his cognitive shadow into a spike somehow.

Yeah this was very interesting information indeed, that Adonalsium was in fact splintered/killed deliberately by the sixteen original shardholders. Without speculating a bit it doesn't tell us their motives, but it does paint them in a rather less flattering light than we previously knew. Didn't we have WoB that Ati was a very good man, but didn't have the force of will to stand up to Ruin? I would have thought that implied pretty heavily that Ati intended to moderate Ruin as a force, but ended up being consumed by it. Yeah, makes it look like whatever force was out to get Adonalsium might have been focused on Yolen, and that possibly they Shattered Adonalsium because it/they wasn't defending them. The Shards then hid Yolen as their first action, and went about meddling in the rest of the Cosmere, possibly with the initial intention of drawing attention away from Yolen?

Sounded like Senna was someone Leras cared about very much who died. It's likely what influenced him towards taking Preservation.

This book answered so many questions anyway that I think he's probably earned a break!

Indeed. I think your general premise is one of the themes Brandon has been pushing with his Cosmere works though- that by splitting the power of creation into these sixteen Intents, they've unbalanced things in interesting ways. I would say that Harmony is much more balanced not simply due to holding two shards, but because he's holding two so opposite shards. It helps him avoid taking too much action in one direction or another and makes him much more of a minimalist in what he's doing than the other shards appear to be, and hopefully it's to the good of Scadrial in the long run. If it had been Ruin and Cultivation he had blended... well, things would probably have worked out quite differently.

That was a particularly interesting name drop, wasn't it? So now we've collected another one of his arsenal of names, this time from Leras. I have a feeling this is an intermediate pseudonym from before he decided to be Hoid, as those of you who read the Liar sample chapters will probably remember him using a completely different name even earlier. Makes you wonder though, is changing your name and appearance so effective against Shards? We definitely know now that if they got suspicious and tried to touch him, they'd figure out who he is. edit: hah, confused my shards for a minute there.

I can think of a lot of explanations. One is that Vax is someone the sixteen original Shardholders all knew, and that the planet Vax was named after them. Another is that Ati thinks he's on the planet Vax when he shows up in the cognitive realm- perhaps it's very dark there? It's a good question, but we don't really have anything to go on at this point.

Sounds like Hoid's complusion against violence only relates to the physical and spiritual consequences. He could attack Kelsier because his pain was only in his mind, much the same as what he does as Wit.

In The Secret History, she's pretty clear that she thinks Scadrial is going to be destroyed. Unless you think she was lying, (I suppose it's possible that she and Nazh were agreed on nudging Kelsier towards the IRE in order to save the planet...) she's probably very surprised that the planet survived, and she outright stated her only reason for not leaving completely was that she wanted to observe Preservation's death. I doubt she had any clue that they'd go on to figure out FTL.

I have a feeling that if you're right, you've mixed up Odium and Autonomy. Odium's colour is most definitely red, because: (Words of Radiance spoilers)

Or perhaps other abilities are gated by investiture, but Nicrosil isn't. That is, anyone can tap a blank-identity Nicrosilmind, otherwise you couldn't tap your own when you're out of investiture, because it wouldn't register you as either a Nicrosil ferring or feruchemist. But to use any other ability you need the relevant type of investiture and you need to pass the identity gate, either by storing your identity and unkeying yourself, or by using an unlocked metalmind created by someone storing their identity, and then tapping the relevant Nicrosilmind to allow you to also tap the other metalmind.. Personally I'm more interested in the question of whether the southern Scadrians are spiking their ferrings, or whether they have full feruchemists walking around. Because to create any unlocked feruchemical metalminds, you need two feruchemical abilities. And then there's imparting allomantic abilities, which you would either need an allomancy-spiked feruchemist for, or a feruchemistry-spiked twinborn, who already started with either feruchemical aluminium or nicrosil. Of course, storing Allomancy has the advantage of only requiring a single metalmind to use. (the relevant Nicrosilmind)

Given that Brandon has in fact confirmed you can spike someone without killing them, it's entirely possible that the Set is practicising non-lethal hemalurgy. It would be consistent with their ability to figure out secrets that others have missed.

Well, just because fortune exists as a storable trait doesn't necessarily mean people get unequal amounts of it. It could be everyone possesses/generates fortune in equal amounts, and it's only Spinners who ever have actual bad or good luck.

Stars don't normally look red to the naked eye, as there's so much light coming from them you usually need digital analysis to tell what colour they actually are. If redshift is the culprit, whatever the Red Rip is would have to be moving away from Scadrial (and presumably Roshar) at a very significant velocity to appear red in the night sky. If it's not redshifted due to relative velocity, then something pretty unprecedented is going on in that region of space.

The red-eyed individual we see at the end of Bands would seem to suggest that Trell is definitely from another world. I've revised my opinion from Shadows slightly, and now I'm leaning in the direction that Trell is actually a name for an alliance between Autonomy and Odium, using Odium's voidbringers and Bavadinium spikes on Scadrial, but we may see some more of what's going on in The Lost Metal.

Well' it's ironic if the Nightwatcher can see the into future like Cultivation (to some degree) can. If not, it's just revealing of Taravangian's failings as a person. So my supposition is that if he had trusted the opposite side of his boon/curse, he likely would have become a Knight Radiant himself, and thus, been granted the capacity to save the world.

Pretty sure breaking a bond wouldn't make the spike normal metal. It would just make it a spike imbued with a bond to a dead spren, rather than a bond to a live spren.

I don't know if those two beliefs really narrow down what his goals are, they just make it clear that he still has some sort of relatable moral compass. Odium wanting to Shatter shards could be a problem for all sorts of reasons. I think it's far more relevant what he's taking with him from various worlds, to be honest, and I don't think he'd be stopping at those things if his goal were actually to re-assemble the power of creation. Ars Arcanum, btw, the plural of which is arguably either "Artes Arcanum" or "Ars Arcana", depending on whether you want to pluralise Art or Magic. I generall call them Ars Arcana.

I'd be willing to bet they're elsecaller Spren. (not specifically the Spren from the one order named Elsecallers, I mean the two orders that can Elsecall) Let's see... the Stormfather being a Cognitive Shadow, check, not that that's the relevant part. I can't find anything for him being a Spren before he was a cognitive shadow, and the Stormfather confirms in-world that he is in fact a Spren as well, (he answers "both" when Dalinar asks if he's a Spren or a God) but I'm gonna say we don't have any WoB logged or searchable online to say that the Stormfather existed as a spren without being a cognitive shadow. It is possible that certain living beings might have a cognitive shadow and that the Stormfather existed before Honour died, but speculating that entails a good deal of RAFO in my opinion. It's possible that Tanavast's ghost is so intermixed with the cognitive ideas of the Stormfather that he did in fact merge into another pre-existing Spren to make the stormfather. But yeah, I'm with you on wanting WoB before I consider that theory likely, as we've never heard of spren working that way before. There is a lot of confusion around Jezrien vs Tanavast's shadow vs Honour himself. Eshonai could realistically be referring to any of the three, although Jezrien is probably the least likely. The fact that she could be referring to Honour before he died kinda blows that justification out of the water in my opinion.

Eagle's covered the major stuff about how what the Nightwatcher is doing is very similar (although not identical to) Feruchemy in those two examples. (Dalinar's curse, if anything, is the most unprecedented, although you could argue it's similar to using a Coppermind) So I'll just do some cleanup. Wyndle says something in Lift's interlude while talking about how the other spren made him choose Lift that implies that Lift's quirk is related to Cultivation. He refers to Cultivation as The Mother, (but we since have WoB that Wyndle would see himself as a "cultivationspren" in a very similar way to how Syl sees herself as an "honourspren") so pending more information is seems very likely that the Nightwatcher would view itself as some sort of Cultivationspren, if it's not simply her Spren the in a similar way that the Stormfather is Honour's. (It can't be exactly the same way of course, as all indications are that Cultivation is still alive, so the Nightwatcher can't exactly be her cognitive ghost) If cultivation's Intent is to change and grow things and people, then what the Nightwatcher does seems very in line with that. I have a feeling Dalinar's boon will be revealing, if we ever find out what it is. Keep in mind it's quite possible that Taravangian at his most brilliant/insane may have been influenced by something else as well as his deal with the Nightwatcher. (The way the Diagram so neatly opposes Honour, I'm pretty convinced he was influenced by one of Odium's spren to make him even more intelligent, but push him in slightly the wrong direction, so that he concludes he must oppose the Knights Radiant) I'm also of the camp that the times he gets more empathy is actually his boon, and the times he loses it to gain intelligence are his curse, and the capacity he was given to save the world is actually the thing he's avoiding using.

Well, if you consider the chapter epigraphs in HoA to be a reliable source, (and I do) Preservation chose to make 1/16th Mistfallen as a clue in relation to both the number of Shards and the number of base metals to help them reach the conclusion that the mists weren't simply a mindless force, not because it's some Special Number For Preservation.

Did we get confirmation that Nalthis specifically was created post-shattering? I know some of the shard worlds already existed beforehand, and I thought it was only Scadrial that we'd had confirmed as created post-shattering to date?