happyman

Another person who thinks Texas is definitely not the South. And I'm from Utah/Maryland/Boston. On the other hand, I am a fan of Pogo comics and have seen movies set in Texas. Maybe that helps.

I'm seeing a lot of Epic ideas here. Personal longevity seems like the place everybody starts. Makes sense, I guess.

I think somebody's been spiking my food with that stuff. Who knew I had a hidden talent? Or is that, Talent?

I read this to mean that she can't take a chisel to the rune, or to the door, without him knowing. I don't see why this necessarily says anything about forging. Incidentally, AFAIK Shai doesn't have any link to her Forged artifacts. The Bloodsealer does have a link. Another good bit of evidence that the Bloodsealer's system is different. On the other hand, I don't think anybody is arguing that they aren't related or connected. They're both Cosmere magic systems, being in the same book and all. Therefore they will interact.

I know it's been a bit, but I wanted to clarify a bit about mass, energy and gravity from earlier in the thread. I've been doing some reading at Matt Strassler's blog about quantum field theory, string theory, and the like, and the answer is somewhat simpler (and less intuitive) than the discussion here. Basically, gravity responds to energy. That is it. The amount of gravity you experience as coming from a system depends on how much total energy it has, period. Thus photons (which are massless but have energy) respond to gravity (and technically create gravity, although theory has a hard time with this point) the same way your body does. The difference is that most of your energy is bound up in the protons and neutrons of your component atoms. Even here, things are more subtle than you might think; most of the energy in the protons and neutrons (which we perceive as mass) is actually kinetic and potential energy rather than actual mass. Mass is really quite an emphereal thing when you look at it quantum-mechanically. It's just easily the most common form of energy in our environment, and stable, so we know lots about it intuitively.

Upvote for this distinction, Shardlet. Shai has almost literally devoted her life to art. Shallan is good and has spent a lot of time doing it, but I think she doesn't yet have the fire which pushed Shai above and beyond.

Darnam: Upvote for making a really good distinction between the two. I think you've really hit on it. To rephrase what you said, there are two different magical effects in play. The first is enhancement. Allomantic pewter and Stormlight are enhancement magics: they supercharge something already existing. Like the Enhancement metals (Allomancy only), they do nothing without a natural basis to sit on. In other words, Stormlight could make Kaladin faster, smarter and better with the spear, but only if he already knew what he was doing. Healing and Regrowth, on the other hand, are exactly what it says on the tin. They add new abilities entirely. They interact with the Cognitive realm to get a "base state" to get back to, but their purpose is to do something that would never happen without them.

Or it was good for the longer game plan to lull the Reckoners into a false sense of security, especially if they suspected there may be other Epics involved (which was absolutely true).

My guess is that FF's motives were complicated. Some possible complications are: (1) her own desire for power (she could use her position with the Reckoners as a bargaining chip), (2) her attitude towards most other Epics, (she may honestly want to kill them in both Epic and normal state) (3) whether or not she knew/suspected that Prof. was Epic (in which case figuring out exactly what he is up to would be her main goal), or (4) what Steelheart's long-term plan in infiltrating them was. This last one is important because Steelhearts' Empire's stability depended on his "Epic meritocracy," but he didn't really want all other Epics to get too uppity. Being able to take them out via a mole in the Reckoners is a very pretty type of plausible deniability, and one that could be long-term useful, politically speaking.

What little evidence we do have is that Epics continue to be created. There's also the fact that the constant warring should have reduced the number of epics, but apparently hasn't.

On the other hand, dieing without an Epic name is better than some of the names they did come up with.

He did very poorly indeed in Well of Ascension. He only managed to keep that gate entirely free of ravening Koloss, more or less by himself, for a couple of hours. Poor, poor Sazed and his limited powers.

Not completely crackpot. It seems to me that the Knight's Radiant would definitely need a PR crew, for much the same way modern governments have public safely announcements. My main qualm is whether the people who do the PR have to be Knight's Radiant. After all, singing and telling stories is something bog-standard humans can do.

This brings up interesting questions. I have no doubt the Lord Ruler knew about the other metals. On the other hand, every power he made available for himself could potentially get leaked to the people involved in the process, especially if that process included inventing a lot of new technology. Don't think the nobility wouldn't use them if they could get their hands on them? Think they're really so believing as to believe all his propaganda when given enough motivation to doubt it? Keeping the Atium safe was hard enough, and in fact the focus of a lot of what the Lord Ruler actually did. I think there is a more important reason, though. Once the Lord Ruler held preservation, it guided his thinking in subtle ways. Making the other metals available, even just for his own use, would involve an enormous amount of social and technological change. It would rip things apart even while making them better. I don't think Preservation's power could have contemplated something that enormous, and since it was Preservation's power that expanded his mind, he was led by the nose down the path he took. It's not an accident the world changed only very slowly once the Lord Ruler took over.

I don't believe for one second he is an Epic. What he has is rather different: intelligence, allies and motivation. Not to mention some good luck. In the real world, these are far more useful than any single talent; it's how most people with real power get it. With Epic's, it's different, but I think that the right person in the right place might be able to use these force multipliers effectively, especially with Epics as (admittedly very dangerous) allies.

Has anyone asked about the Bloodsealing magic system yet? I remember we had a big debate about it, and it seemed like a radically different system once we got down to brass tacks.

I think we don't know the whole story behind Nightwielders weakness. Remember the picture David had where the weakness was manifesting? Whatever his power set is, and whatever his weakness is, there's more to the story that we don't know. I'm sure Brandon, for instance, knows why Nightwielder was in a position to have his picture taken while he was in sunlight.

I think Argent is right, in that the real question is, does Firefight have invisibility as well as illusion? We just don't know; knowing that she is an illusionist makes it more likely, but not certain.

Hate to disappoint you, but WoB is, Hoid has no shards. He's "something else."

Yeah, with that confirmed, the death-cries pretty much says outright "The art vandal is Shallash."

I think David's story would be much better if he was not an Epic. I can see him sensibly allying with Epics in order to get stuff done, but I think his skill set should remain what it currently is: analysis and intelligence.

This. I'd say in other words that Love wasn't the key to defeating the Dark One. It was, however, a reason to keep on fighting. This is a crucial distinction. It resonates with people because many, in their own way, have been forced to the same conclusion, on a smaller scale. They won't keep their job because of love, but it may be the reason they even try in the first place.

I have mixed feeling about the Reckoners being lead by an Epic. On the one hand, it makes sense, it really does. With that amount of raw power sloshing around in the world, it stands to reason that the most important fights would be between Epics. I even said as much when commenting on the book before it came out. One the other hand, it does seem a bit like cheating. David only succeeded because he allied himself with a repentant Epic? Hm. Maybe it won't be so bad after all, though. The Epics might be brought down/tamed/fixed/whatever by a combination of efforts, both Epic and non. That's a result that might be worth getting.

I think the statement "One who trusts you" probably works better. It's not really inconsistent with what David said or what we saw, but it shows how stringent the requirement is. And best of all, it was certainly not true of Deathpoint at any point.