Ari

You are at least a little incorrect in your statement in the second to last paragraph. Endowment deliberately splinters its own power, (to create the Returned) so it is absolutely possible for a splinter to exist while a Shard still does. That said, every shard we've seen that hasn't been held by a mind has been splintered, but this seems more to be related to WoB that if nobody holds the shard, Bad/Chaotic Things Happen due to the power gaining its own sentience.

Heh yeah, I can't imagine Frost referring to Odium being contained if they were on the same world. He'd be interfering the heck out of things if he had Odium for a neighbour!

It's interesting how many of you are reading this diphthong "ay" sound for many of the lone As in names. I always pronounced Ati in my head something like the word "arty", but without the r, but shortened it for Atium to sound like "atty-um". Likewise Adolin was "add-o-lin" to me. That said I had completely unsuccessful in picking up any of Brandon's intended sounds from his Anglicising Aonic names- from Sarene sounding like "sareen" to me, to Kiin being a single syllable in my head.

Could also apply to Vasher, I suppose, although the "world opening to me" bit would seem to fit Hoid better. As for Mraize, I think we might need to RAFO a bit more on him before it's obvious how he fits in.

Having principles, and living up to them. Being self-sufficient. Not sacrificing others for your principles or your benefit. Being honest. Living up to your promises and obligations. Making things better for other people without ulterior motive. I think that probably covers the relevant themes. I think all the Radiants whose heads we've been in so far, plus Jasnah, seem to follow most of the points I'd consider honourable. But they've all also made mistakes along the way, have things stopping them from getting there entirely. I wonder if Spren like to pick Radiants who struggle to learn the ideals, or if it just makes for a better story if Brandon writes it this way. Not 100% sure about Renarin, but what little we know of him, he seems to fit.

It's probably originally a quote from whichever real-world culture started the thing with assassins wearing white, as there's definitely a similar saying in the first AC game.

Sounds like you've got stuff in hand. Cool.

I have a ton of things I can say to that, but I think we're getting a bit off topic from the Seventeenth Shard, so I'll reign myself in. I'm defining humanity sociologically. You're saying they need to be "homo sapiens." Hence our different opinions. Under my definition, I don't see how Hoid isn't human in every observable sense, despite whatevery cool tricks he's picked up. Under yours, you'd want a DNA test, which you can only get via WoB, so unless it implies something cool, there's no point theorising about it until you've asked Brandon.

Hah, and if it did, would it stop working as soon as the star went nova, or when the light reached Sel? Elantrians better hope the latter if they want to be able to correct any star-based Aons.

I would have thought that Snapping is somewhat like having swallowed your metal- it allows you access to powers granted by your sDNA, and snapping is part of how you gain access to borrow part of Preservation's power. Given Hemalurgy tears off part of the sDNA and "staples" it to the recipient of the spike, in theory I expect you could totally spike someone and steal their power before they've Snapped, as your spiritual DNA is already determined, but the issue is, you need to know what their power is to determine the correct type of spike, so unless you're willing to waste a very valuable metal as a wildcard spike, you probably shouldn't try to spike someone before they've Snapped. (and honestly, how would you know they can be spiked until they've snapped?)

Sorry, I should say the instructions he was given were reasonable. You're quite right that the Stormfather is really damaged in personality and has some screwed up motives. I'm not implying, FYI, that Taravangian is working directly for Odium. I'm wondering if one of the Unmade influenced his mind when he was making The Diagram, and now they're acting out a plausible plan that will probably meet their stated goal of preserving some of humankind, but is ultimately also serving Odium's intent in opposing the mission of the Knights Radiant. (edit: because I think that Taravangian and friends are mistaken about Odium's end goal. He doesn't want to utterly destroy humankind, he wants to be a tyrant over everyone else in the cosmere, and to torture them and make them all suffer so they'll hate him and hate each other. So the Nightwatcher gives him the capacity to build the diagram... but then one of the unmade sweeps in and whispers into his mind so that he comes to just enough of the wrong conclusions on key motivations and events that Taravangian ends up helping Odium at his true goal, while still saving some of mankind, because hey, Odium's all about having people to rule and/or torture)

It definitely merits asking Brandon how exactly the constellation Rao matches the Aon Rao. Because if they're exactly the same thing, there's something interesting going on there beyond coincedence. If it's just like our own constellations, well then that's worldbuilding. I think worldbuilding is likely the answer, but when you've exhausted all the answers that seem to make sense to explain what's going on, you have to start leaping on small details like this and finding if you can back them up with anything else.

You would definitely require the contact otherwise anyone who intended to pick up the Shard could do so no matter where they were, and for instance, one of the other shards might have decided to pick up Ruin or Preservation without having to risk travelling to Scadrial to manifest. Intent to pick up a shard would seem to fit in with how the magic works. And we have WoB that Sazed's magic (unknown if this means general investiture or specifically the fact that being a Feruchemist aligned him with both Preservation and Ruin spiritually so that he was more compatible with the Shards) made taking up the Shards easier, although a normal human could do it too. He's also mentioned specifically that the Shards require a mind to hold them or direct their power, or Bad Things Happen, so anything that's mindless, eg. a Returned, couldn't take up a Shard. It's debatable whether a Type 4 biocromatic entity counts as a mind for this purpose, but I'd be inclined to say they do based on what we've seen of Nightblood. They certainly have weird minds that we'd regard as damaged or under-developed by human adult standards, but there's certainly memory, self-reflection, communication, feelings, and analysis there. I suppose with that, the question is really: Would Nightblood actually intend to take up a shard under any circumstance? And if it would, would it take up any shard, or would it only take up some? I imagine any being that would discriminate among the shards they would pick up would most likely choose not to take up Odium on its own if they knew what they were getting into.

Hmm, you're right, it doesn't explicitly say he grips the power physically, I'm looking at the quote now: (from the first edition US hardback HoA) So, I was reading into this a little when I said you appear to need hands to grip the power, but it looks like at the very least you need to be thrust into the physical manifestation of the power, or perhaps actually move yourself and intend to take it up. You may not need to grab it literally, but this still means that it would take a pretty contrived accident for Nightblood to end up holding a shard.

That's interesting, so you think you'd need a booster Aon that matched a nearby constellation? It could also be a thematic thing Brandon included, where she's noticing Raoden's constellation to remind us that he's alive and she doesn't know. I'll have a look through for any other mentions of constellations in my read-through just in case.

If Theoryland doesn't want to collect Cosmere stuff anymore, (which is reasonable given it was intended as a WoT site that ended up getting Cosmere interviews/Q&As mixed in with WoT ones) it does seem pretty reasonable to set something up for the Cosmere and any other Brandon works. Probably the easiest thing to do is to set up a wiki paralell to the Coppermind. (reference.coppermind.net would work) Probably the best thing to do there would be to set up a page per event for normal Q&As, signings, etc... and then a page per month for relevant quotes scraped from social media, and have each page categorised according to what topics questions were asked about. (eg. book names, character names, locations, types of investiture or epic classifications, etc...) Then people can browse the categories if looking for information on a specific topic, unless someone wants to set up a full site customised just for this purpose.

I think Brandon said that an allomancer could probably train to detect Feruchemical pulses, yeah, but that it would be very difficult. That's part of what got me on the train of thought that the pulses could be very similar to the rhythms. (That and I have a similar idea in something I'm writing myself)

What I want to know is if Harmony is actually merging the held shards to any degree, or if Ruin and Preservation would remain seperate if Sazed no longer held them. I suspect it's the latter but would love some confirmation on that. Worth considering if he was being influenced by one of the Unmade too, given that his plan seems to set him up in opposition to Dalinar, who we know is being influenced by a Spren with reasonable motives.

I would say human motivations and thoughts are a key part of what makes you human, not just physical form. If you upload a human mind to a computer, that mind is still a human IMO. Arguably, for instance, the Kandra probably started out human when they were transformed into Mistwraiths, but the change to their form has probably influenced their thoughts and culture to such a degree that in the very least they could be considered a unique human culture, if not an actual alien race in full given their isolation and seperation from humans. Koloss (as of the first Mistborn trilogy, anyway) are definitely no longer human as their ability to reason and feel the same way we do has been impaired by the hemalurgic transformation. Spook didn't become any less human when becoming a Savant imo. It just enhanced his physical capabilities in certain ways. Arguing that physical form entirely defines humanity gets you into the kind of tricky thinking where for instance you can define the Skaa as less-than-human because of their physical differences from the nobility. Humanity is about certain values, methods of thought, and the ability to maintain a common community. Physical traits are part of that, certainly, as sexual compatibility for instance plays a large part in that community, as does the ability to be held accountable if you break laws. But nothing we've seen from him so far suggests Hoid has gained or lost so much he considers himself removed from that community the way the Kandra did.

They talk about having to sacrifice monks to teleport themselves, so I think that explains the active use of powers. The resistance to Aon'Dor is likely a passive effect from the transformation. I'm more concerned though about figuring out what's going on with the regionalisation of the investiture on Sel if it's not related to Dominion's intent. Unless a similar regionalisation happens on Roshar with Honour's power, (and I don't think it does from what we've seen so far) it can't be a result of the Splintering of the shard's power, so what's going on? Is it a combination of the two? That seems unlikely that Brandon would rule out dominion the way he did if so. Sounds like something we haven't caught is going on there- I may have to re-read Elantris and the Emperor's Soul to see if I can find any hints there.

I'm very confused as to where this information that Harmony is heading to Greater Roshar comes from. Brandon has implied the opposite in several interviews, that Harmony is currently more concerned with events in Scadrial. Do you have some sort of reference for that? Or is it just from Odium's fear of Harmony? Because Odium being afraid of Harmony coming from him does not mean Harmony has any intention to do so.

Yeah, I'm sure you could use a strong enough time bubble to store people for relevent events to help, (especially with access to some of the machines Brandon has hinted at from Southern Scadrial, if you didn't have the relevant type of Misting needed) even if they're not a compounder. There are certainly ways to slow aging significantly just from the metallic arts. But as far as we know, the only long-term solutions involving the metallic arts would require Hemalurgy for most 17th Shard agents, excepting natural atium compounders, and I wonder if they would consider that an acceptable price to pay. Vasher has a potential solution in using Stormlight to remain Returned, but we have WoB that this method is a very difficult solution to apply to agents not from Nalthis. I suspect there's at least one additional way to achieve practical agelessness in the Cosmere, and that this will be the method Hoid uses, as it needs to be practical for indefinite use, (as Hoid has probably exceeded the time-limit implicit in Atium compounding) and practical for people from other Shardworlds to acquire, unless it's a system from Yolen. While I'd expect 17th Sharders mostly utilise their own magic systems whenever practical, there'd certainly be benefits for everyone in figuring out how to convert types of investiture and allow people to use many different systems.

I'd say more precisely that he wants to hold onto his time as a slave as something to hate certain types of Lighteyes about, which to be honest is perfectly reasonable in his situation. Once Kaladin is willing to trust people like Elhokar again, he might be able to get the tatoo over his brand.

Have you read Misborn: HoA recently? Sazed has to literally "hold" the powers in his hands to ascend. I'm not sure Nightblood is elegible because it doesn't have hands, or any way to move itself without a wielder- it could be there's some alternative way to "hold" a shard in order to ascend so that Nightblood qualifies, or that its wielder tries to attack the unheld Shard after Rayse is killed and thus ends up with Nightblood "holding" it, but I'm really not convinced that's in the cards for the sword. Brandon certainly likes surprises, for sure, but the closest I've seen anyone get to predicting his surprises is the people who figured out Hemalurgy ahead of HoA. I'm not saying it's impossible, it just doesn't seem like something that's likely from either what we know about ascending as a Shard, or what we know about Nightblood's role in events so far. Brandon loves suprise endings, but this one doesn't fit with the themes he's established for the Stormlight Archives, for Nightblood, or for his works in general in my opinion. That's definitely a subjective judgement though so YMMV. Wheras say, Sazed's ascension made perfect sense if any of us would have thought to theorise it after being so thoroughly distracted by Vin. Finding a new holder for Odium may not even be part of the events of the Stormlight Archive- we shouldn't assume that the way Brandon intends to address every difficult intent is going to be to get it a new holder. I had misunderstood that you were trying to say that Nightblood would agree with Odium's attempt if he could understand it but his lack of understanding would somehow stymie Odium's Intent. I actually disagree with that even more- as the normal process of the Intent influencing its holders personality went forward, Nightblood would gain that understanding over the medium-to-long term, and it would no longer be an obstacle to fulfilling the Shard's intent. Interresting, although it sounds like it's a statistical unlikelihood once a Shard has been held for a few centuries. But what Oudeis is saying is that Nightblood is an excellent candidate for holding Odium, (even though from the end scenes of HoA it appears you require hands to hold a shard) because its inability to understand hatred would stymie the intent. The gradual "transformation" of the personality would make it understand hatred in my opinion, as it integrates more of Odium's intent, so while in the short-term those quotes are relevant, it's probably not a factor in the medium-to-long term, as Nightblood's command, a core element of his personality, might well agree with Odium's intent, so once it has enough information to understand the intent, it might well be just as bad as Rayse and have no desire to override the Shard's intent.

Yeah I had wondered if it's one of those cases where it's better to post the annotations later so they can be more spoilery, or if it's just case of so much work doing the Stormlight Archive books that Brandon doesn't have time for their annotations right now. All perfectly reasonable cases for not posting them if Brandon still intends to go ahead in the future.