Ari

Yeah, the resolution to Trell could be as little as finding out who Trell is, or what kind of threat they pose in the long run. I have a feeling that the Set is really the only thing we've been implied a full resolution on as of SoS.

Really? I recall Brandon saying all of them accessed the Dor, sure. (Which we're pretty sure is some weird consequence of having two Splintered shards on the same planet) That doesn't necessarily mean that some still aren't aligned more with Devotion (like AonDor) or with Dominion. (like the Dakhor runes) The quotes I've seen on Theoryland relating to Sel talk about similar mechanics throughout Selish systems, but that is not the same thing at all to them all being mixtures of Devotion and Dominion. I see one that calls them "all the same magic", but it's really not clear which of three things Brandon's addressing there: the similarity in how Selish magic works, by programming things via symbols, or the same power source being used for everything ie. the Dor, or that Dominion and Devotion are no longer distinct. And in shutting down a theory that AonDor was of Dominion, he kinda implied that it might be of Devotion instead. (which seems very likely given it has her name in its name!) So I'm feeling that we don't have a clear statement on that at all here.

You mean the Spiritual ideal? Yeah, Brandon's confirmed that.

The theory I've heard that I've liked is that Trellagism is a dualist religion due to it being developed or changed to be a cover for Autonomy, and the dualism coming from the Light and Dark sides of Taldain, so that they can make contact with Trellagists when coming to Scadrial.

I'm not completely sure that Splinters actually involve splitting off part of the cognitive presence of the Shard. I kinda think they're what happens when you split off the power without giving it any intelligence to go with it, and then it either ( a ) attaches to an existing sapient creature, such as with the Returned, or ( b ) develops its own sapience, such as with Spren, Seons, and Skaze. edit: supressed smiley. lol

Yeah, agreed. There's room for a sequel in exploring what the remaining Scholar is doing and the unresolved character stuff from Warbreaker, but that's about it. Given they have a single Shard that's so benevolent I can't see too many shenanigans happening with other shards, either.

Well, I think compounding copper could probably let you have your memories and store them too, perhaps, but yeah, it's more of a quantitative difference than a qualitative one.

That was unnecessary. Sometimes it's useful to say "there haven't been any cool theories on this subject elsewhere," and honestly, the main subject of this thread doesn't really merit a ton of discussion beyond "here is the relevant WoB" and "I don't see much evidence for this general line of inquiry anywhere else either. As far as we know he's just got a lot of magic."

If the character he's talking about for Era 3 (the woman who is a computer expert getting brought into a spy agency) is what he ends up running with, it would definitely help for it to be analogous to the 1980s or so, as computer miniaturization starts getting practical in the 1980s and it would make for a more dynamic story.1940s computers are huuuuuge and often programmed by hardware, so your computer expert would have to be building a machine to break codes or something similar, and it wouldn't have any flexibility.

It's probably been long enough that Sazed has been affected by holding Preservation and Ruin. That said, I suspect he'll be doing something with Ruin's excess power (Atium, anyone?) so that their influence on him is in balance, as he will likely not want to be pulled too far towards Ruin given his evident philosophy that both Intents are important. I expect a lot of the Sazed we know still exists at this stage, and that he'll be in a better state than most Shards would be after the same amount of time due to holding two Shards with quite neatly opposed intents shielding him from some of the influence. The book is quite clear that Sazed had no idea that Lessie was an agent of "Trell."

Pretty sure we've actually seen a blended system on Sel already. The Jindo seem a great candidate to have one. IIRC this is still unresolved? The debate is essentially whether Hemalurgy functions as "<world focus> will steal <world-related> powers in some matrix of focus types and bind points." or whether it's "metals will steal all powers, and there's a more complicated matrix of metal types and bind points that are relevant to stealing investiture alien to Scadrial."

Wayne is either not Cosmere-aware or is doing a very good job of playing dumb.

So we only know via Word of Brandon that Kelsier's ghost has been busy since Hero of Ages: (ie. he has not "moved on" as of Alloy of Law)

Given Harmony's influence on (most) Hemalurgic creations, that wouldn't make for much of a plot. Unless more of that alien God Metal is lying around... edit: Yes, this is in Spook's in-universe book iirc? It's pretty consistent with the MO of Hemalurgy to require you to wound or kill extra people in order to minimize hemalurgical leakage.

Yes please! Harmonium has greatly confused people into thinking God Metals are named after Shards rather than the original holder. (hence why Atium and Lerasium did not change names after events in HoA) Thanks Brandon Sazedium is a perfectly good name for a God Alloy. So your relevant theoretical alien God Metals under the original naming scheme are Bavadinium (if you're on Team "Trell is Autonomy") or Raysium. (for Team "Trell is Odium") We're unlikely to see any other metals that we know how to name, as all the other original Shard holders we know names for have been killed/Splintered.

You can believe it all you like, however Brandon has directly contradicted that the Splinter held by the Returned is sapient on its own, and thus has no bond with its holder. I can link you the tweet if you like. *shrug* But it sounds like other than small details the rest of us are on the same page: intentional Splinters, most likely through virtue of having an existing consciousness to attach to and not being left unheld, don't gain sapience themselves.

I haven't seen anyone put forward anything beyond speculation as to Hoid being anything other than a very well-invested Worldhopper, and as people kindly pointed out rather early, he has been explicitly ruled out as a Shardholder. (at least, as of the current time in the Cosmere of SA/Mistborn Era 2 continuity)

Odium's opposite is either Devotion or Honour, depending on how you interpret things. (Odium is an actual antonym of Honour) Probably the most straightforward way to interpret things is that Devotion is the closest to a neat opposite of Odium. edit: And no, it's probably easier to think of Atium and Lerasium as in a different grid of 16 base God metals, (of which Harmonium could be viewed as an alloy) with metals belonging to the other shards potentially filling out the rest. (In practice, we're unlikely to see any from Splintered shards like Aonium, Skazium, or Tanavastium) Cosmere Theories is spoilers for everything except very recently released books. (As of right now, that would be SoS) You can feel free to discuss Sel's shards in any relevant topic here without spoiler warnings.

Oh, if Brandon's earlier comments/mild spoilers about what is now Era 3 are still true, it's definitely "almost".

Yeah I 100% agree with your qualifications, Weltall, and it was why I used "entirely possible," "may be" and so on. It's possible that if Eshonai was already practically a Radiant before volunteering to take the hatespren instead of Venli, and her Spren may have viewed that sacrifice as a reason to try to bond with her. We'll see if that works out in a later book, but don't be surprised if she comes back in a new Voidbringer form. I view Parshendi as even more tragic than the Kandra under Ruin were, because at least they had a way to shuck his control. They are thinking people who due to this cognitive vulnerability have been taken over by Odium. He's ultimately the one responsible for anything they do as Voidbringers, and if any of them escape him, it's due to their own ingenuity and/or luck. And we know enough to know all of their Rhythms, the things that drive their emotions, become tainted with hate, and that their previous personality is locked away into the Rhythm of Peace, which none of them attune under Odium's influence. None of the magics are inherently evil, but controlling thinking beings like that, that's an evil use of magic. This isn't like: (sos Spoilers)

Except we have no examples of Splinters of Endowment that haven't glommed onto a body and achieved sentience indirectly, so now you're saying we can't come to conclusions about Returned being different from other Splinters because you are speculating there are Splinters of Endowment out there that aren't returned. That doesn't actually matter- that just means that Returned would also be different from these other Splinters you're speculating about. (And I agree with you that if Splinters of Endowment didn't make Returned, they would likely gain their own sentience) Nalthian magic can be a provisionary outlier. We know enough about investiture on multiple worlds to start seeing patterns in how it functions. We can't be sure those patterns hold everywhere, but we can speculate and see if that speculation holds up to the wider pattern. Otherwise we're pretty stuck just not understanding anything until the Cosmere Sequence is over, or has at least covered all Shardworlds. The conflicting quotes are definitely arising because Brandon is sometimes talking about "how Splinters generally behave" without dealing with the exception. He's made it pretty clear that there's a fundamental difference between the Returned and other Splinters. The Divine Breath doesn't choose to do anything as far as we can tell. It is split off by Endowment and used to make Returned before it gains sapience, and when a Returned gives it up, it's entirely possible said Divine Breath is recycled again. As for the Metals- I'm pretty sure Blaze was referring to God Metals, which are themselves solid investiture. The Tears of Edgli are speculated to be a solid form of Endowment's investiture due to in-world comments that items dyed from the pigment of those flowers are more effective in Awakening. It's also entirely possible they actually have nothing to do with Endowment and just make the right kind of colours. We'll see!

I just had this very discussion with Yata in another thread a week or two ago. I have direct WoB through Twitter that although Returned are sentient, the Investiture in their Divine Breath (ie. their Splinter) is not. (most likely, they're grabbing the necessary sentience by pulling a Cognitive Shadow from the Cognitive Realm and returning it to the body, which makes them a very different type of Splinter) The flowers (potentially) being an exception is a little bit of an exaggeration though, I agree. That said, I would find it very suspicious if all Jindoese were Initiated in ChayShan when none of the other Selish magics work this way, when they're all seemingly accessing the same power to work their magic. (I would also expect that the Duladen "revolution" would have gone slightly differently if they could all use magic to repel the Fjorden) I imagine most of the explanation of what's going on is simply that Endowment's Intent is driving her to make Investiture as easy to access as possible, and to create splinters without completely Splintering her power.

Brandon has described in pretty good detail how Hemalurgy works, he's just used his own realmatic jargon so we don't know the specifics of how to apply that as we've never had the jargon or the basics of realmatics explained. People have "spiritwebs", a spiritual aspect of themselves that consists of various pieces of self-conception, bound together by some sort of spiritual bond. Hemalurgic spikes used properly rip away a portion of that spirit web, (either an ability-based one, or an identity-based one) and if inserted into the correct bind point to correspond with the correct portion of the spirit web, they will "staple" that piece of spiritual identity back on to the recipient, rewriting their own web. (we don't know if it overwrites some of your identity, or simply adds to your web) Given that most of what we know about the Spiritual aspect of Realmatics is that distance is pretty irrelevant in the Spiritual Realm, that some feruchemical powers are Spiritual in nature, and that dead Shardblades go there when not in use, you can see why the possibilities of hemalurgy beyond what's listed as explicitly possible in Mistborn Ars Arcana are widely open for debate.

I agree to an extent- Parshendi absolutely default to being Voidbringers if the relevant hatespren get them. Words of Radiance is very clear on that. But a listener who avoided hatespren or managed to get rid of theirs would indeed be a candidate as per... Nice catch on the song, I had forgotten that detail. That said, I think you may be wrong about Eshonai if the in-universe dialog is reliable. If everstorms turn Parshmen into Voidbringers, they must be full of all sorts of hatespren. (in the generic sense, ie. "Spren of Odium") It's entirely possible that rather than saving her from becoming a Voidbringer, this "comet Spren", whatever type it is, may have simply transformed her into a new Voidbringer form, as she didn't really manage to take any action during her time as a Voidbringer that would seem to be enough to attract a Radiant spren.

He probably accidentally followed a link to this topc through the "similar topics" links sometimes at the bottom of the page. I know that's tripped me up before.