LordCitrus

I think it's safe to assume that the one "I am a stick?" is when Shallan attempts to soulcast it, as the rest of the time it is very certain in its stickiness. It foreshadows a potential danger of soulcasting-- what if the stick loses its sense of identity, yet is not convinced enough to change into something specific? Once it gets to the "I am ???" phase, the stick could be highly vulnerable to outside influences (think Odium, voidspren). I can understand why it was removed from the book though, as Brandon usually likes to introduce things more subtly.

Yup, what I've read from similar topics is that the blades are described differently, so we know they are not the same (in addition to spren screaming). Also, someone mentioned that Hoid accompained Talenel on his trip partway, so if Hoid didn't take it, he's seriously slacking. As for why? Either for the power, or for safeguarding.

"I am a stick!" "I promise to put you out after I light this pile of kindling." "I am a STICK!" "You can be a hero. How many sticks become heroes? You can become the stick that all other sticks aspire to be." "I am a stick" "Fire or excrement. I think I see a beaver."

Wit seems to have his favorites on who to harass / not to harass. Looks like Kaladin is going on the naughty list.

Hoid's purpose is to make readers buy more of Sanderson's books. Dump them all in a blender, and you have a smoothie of Adonalsium.

It's more likely that the fabrials have flaws, namely, that the users cannot communicate with the cognitive aspect of objects the way Radiant soulcasters can. I can imagine the fabrial forcing a transformation without any subtlety or precision, and alter unintended targets as well.

We've seen how Shallan has a habit of repressing memories, so my theory is that she already knew about the death of her brother Heleran. Why is this relevant you ask? After Shallan finds out that Amaram is responsible for Heleran's death, she seeks revenge. However, Amaram is somewhat of a tough opponent for the untrained Shallan now that her shardblade advantage is canceled out. But wait, there is a juicier target, one that is far, far more defenseless. He has guards you say hesitantly. He has an entire army, with a number of shardbearers. She could just bypass the whole lot of them. "I could get close, summon the thing, have it through a man’s chest before anyone knows what happened", Shallan mused. He only has shardplate, and no one wears that 24/7. The highprinces and their retinue only brought those out when they were headed to battle. She could do it. She could kill Sadeas, the one who ordered Amaram to the battlefield that fateful day. ======= After slaughtering Sadeas ======= Shallan reveals her mastery of the arts of Illumination, and creates a perfect (autonomous) copy of Sadeas, undetectable through sight, sound, or touch. Though a few commented that the stench hanging around camp lessened after that day. Mysteriously enough, those around Sadeas always seemed to have a few dun spheres as well. Unfortunately for Shallan, this little murderous episode reminds her of that *other* memory, and her brain decided it was expedient to just repress the whole lot. Her astounding mastery of the surges is linked with unpleasant memories, and so that is forgotten as well. Shallan moseys off into the sunset, unaware she is now in control of one of the princedoms of Alethkar. ======= Sadeas' disappearance ======= After the great migration to Urithiru, the camp suffers from a lack of stormlight that has never before been seen. Even during the weeping they had some large spheres hold their light, but the fabrials seem to have taken a lot of juice to transport the entire army. Sadeas is able to subsist off of what stormlight he has left, but unable to obtain any more, the Sadeas-illusion dissipates when no one is looking. The question is, do you think Shallan is going to own up? If she never mentions anything, I think she gets away scot-free.

Oh jeez, when I started reading this thread, it seemed like light-hearted fun, but you guys have convinced me. We have WoS* and this passage looks more suspicious everytime i read through it. *well a really vague WoS

Ooh I like those ideas Shale. I've always found it odd that they're following this plan of extreme++++ intelligent King T, when all the examples of intelligent and intelligent+ King T's ideas were noted to be too crack-pot worthy for him to be given leave to implement them. There's certainly something fishy with the Diagram.

For now, I am just heavily urging known associates within signing locations to drop by. Though in this case that makes only 1... I have failed in spreading the word of Sanderson. I have some ideas of how to wrangle a code out of Sanderson when he's in my area.

No, it's not odd at all, once you think of the scale of what these guys can do (looking at you Conflux: telekinetic city-scale battery). I'm still curious to what Meghan made the guards see though, since they said something along the lines of "oh the noise was just, you know".

Hmm, given what we know about her random location reincarnation out of light, her immortality-weakness is probably just being tossed in the ocean. Endless reincarnation + drowning doesn't sound too good for her mental function since she loses some memories after each time. If you want to be extra safe, get her a tank of oxygen, and weigh her feet down so when she dies, she's not anywhere near the surface anymore so she's without light (and to prevent her from dying in the upper ocean and then getting lucky + reincarnate onto a passing ship or something).

I'm sure there are plenty of uses besides just simply extracting power from DNA. They already have Epic detectors that work off of DNA presumably (blood test), why not go a step further? More samples for research could eventually lead to a power / weakness detection scheme. How about understanding Calamity? I'd be interested to know what made the Epics so special to be the ones affected.

IIRC, her reincarnation was described as her being formed from light? I'd have to reread, but I think it was also stated that her respawn location was somewhat random too, though probably has a max range. Perhaps she is vulnerable during reincarnation. Edit: Yep, she says she is "reborn from light" and that she spawns somewhere "nearby" but the location is random.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. No, no one said creating technology based on Epic powers was impossible. Yes, the books said the green-energy gun was based off of Epic powers. What i'm saying is that since the tensors/ jacket/ healer were revealed to be a gifting of powers, and not tech, that it is *possible* that the other techs are also giftings. Because I'm pretty sure the books never mentioned how gifting works, so it might not require direct physical contact, and can instead use technology as a medium. Edit: But yes, you're right about the graviometrics since Meghan used one.

Secondary power sounds plausible, he'd be an embarrassment as a prime-invincibility high level Epic if he only had one power haha. Quite the nice synergy he has there-- one power protecting the weakness of the other. There was a passage that stated Nightwielder could have been on Steelheart's level if he didn't expend his power on keeping the night around. I did wonder if the deal NightWielder had with Steelheart was to be provided some light-illusionists to bend the UVs in the city away for him. The fact that David got a picture of him in the sunlight (early on in Steelheart's reign) seems odd since it seems it would be rather beneficial for him to stay in invulnerable mode all the time if he could.

Ooh... that's what you're getting at, you're right. We'd expect his bubble to pop during the day then... Nice catch!

I'm hesitant to start meta-ing Sanderson, but given the trends, it seems unlikely Calamity (assuming it's responsible) is a being of simple evil. Recalling the ideals of David's father, it seems likely that what the plot is working towards is a good Epic, through means currently unknown. The primary question is why does using power cause the side effect of arrogance? Operating under the idea that this magic system is grounded in fantasy-science. No demons influencing the pure human minds here. Calamity is an entity related to the powers, but presumably has little to do with the eventual ripples through society. 1) Floating thing in ths sky = ALIENS 2) It's hinted that researchers caused this to begin with. So they probably caused Calamity too... Space- virus - vector ? The fact we can see it during day (and during nightwielder's night) suggests it's pretty close to earth, close enough to sprinkle some special genetic fairy dust. GIven the general 'science' aspect of the superpowers, it probably isn't just a magical light that shines through because magic. 3) It's suggested that a genetic change was caused in the Epics by Calamity... but, the red thing is still in the sky. Why is it still there? Would taking it away remove the powers? Is Calamity constantly maintaining the Epic's powers? +The Prof's "inventions" have been shown to be a gifting of his powers, so it's entirely possible the green-laser-ray and other such pieces of "technology" are also just stored bits of power. +Still, scientists are collecting Epic DNA. If they cannot use it to produce epic-tech, then I'd assume they are looking for markers that explain why certain people are affected, and perhaps why it causes a personality change. Secret unknown labs somehow operating under the noses of the Epics sounds kind of sinister. Could an Epic be sponsoring the research?

Begin in a building, when it's stormy, at night. One of those

twice! If you're suggesting there was something similar there, well I guess it blended a lot better since I don't recall...

I had a fun time following all of Sanderson's red herrings around. The opening teaser kind of shoved the idea that crossfire / not-intending to hit was the flaw, so that was thrown out pretty quickly. Once we got to the secret propaganda room, it seemed obvious that it was connected to his weakness, implying either Steelheart wanted to be feared, hated, or otherwise seen as evil. I personally went with the idea that it was belief in Steelheart's goodness that is his weakness, afterall, David's father 'saved' Steelheart because he presumably thought Steelheart was a good epic. The reveal was acceptable, but we have to remember the fear thing is just David's theory, which I see several flaws in. 1) Epics have been shown to be arrogant-- why wouldn't another powerful epic with prime invincibility have punched through the Fear-Shield before? Especially before Steelheart was known, in the early days when he was challenged. Someone like Nightweilder, for example, wouldn't fear Steelheart in a fight as both sides would expect a draw due to their invunlerability. 2) Fear can be destroyed. For example, a staple of the world of fantasy: the lone survivior of a massacre, with his entire family slaughtered and no one left in the world... ending up in a reckless or apathetic, ~fearless~ state, as they have nothing to lose. I'm sure Steelheart created a fair number of these situations. The products would have no fear and a desire for vengence. On the other hand, the belief in Steelheart's goodness theory can still hold for both nicks in his armor. 1) Father still thought he was a good epic, and saves him from deathpoint. 2) Steelheart built up an island of stability in a chaotic world. His massacres serve to protect himself, and in turn ensure the continuing stability and peace of his city. It isn't that much of a stretch to see that Steelheart probably sees himself as a good guy. It's what villan usually does anyway right? Unlike the theory of fear, the Steelheart-goodness theory protects him from a lot more situations. 1) the unknown: perhaps you haven't heard of the mighty Steelheart 2) As another tier 1 epic, you aren't bothered by Steelheart, but don't really think he's a saint either 3) It would take someone with deranged morals or eyesight to believe Steelheart has a heart of gold. Keep in mind that David's father had the benefit of encountering Steelheart before he was known to slaughter people. **apologies for redundancy I just feel this theory fits perfectly, especially since Sanderson so neatly skirts this particular one (and I highly doubt it never crossed his mind). We are introduced to the Faithful theory, which is the belief that there *are* good epics out there / that will come, but the incredibly similar theory of believing in Steelheart specifically is never brought up. The only question I have is... why? Steelheart is dead, and if David's theory was in fact, wrong, does this change anything in the future books? Why present a false theory as truth? ================= Oh, actually second question: did Steelheart known his weakness, and... how? The goodness theory seems kind of hard to prove. I'd assume it happened early on, before the bank incident-- loving family / friends and all that.

Ahh I came up with the first one Galavantes had, never would have imagined there was an even deeper layer to all this. (and yes, this probably sets some kind of record for Sanderson xD)

I wouldn't call myself photogenic either (and don't usually take pictures of myself), but for some reason taking them with books is quite pleasing. It usually involves just my eyes peering out from the edge of the book though.

Sanderson has cornered the book market for me... I ... can't read anything not written by Sanderson without wishing it was Sanderson... please... save me. Or give me temporary relief...