AquaRegia

I guess it depends on how you want to define "make himself lighter"... but I agree that's how Lashings seem to work.  1 Full Lashing upwards and you fall up instead of down; half a Lashing up, and you are floating "weightless".  Windrunners "fly" by Lashing themselves in the direction they want to go, and you can do multiple Lashings in one direction, which essentially makes you "heavier" in that direction.

But I don't think that's exactly what the OP was asking about - they are interested in "Lashing-assisted weight training."

1 hour ago, Returned said:

If Sazed were to change in some way

Thank Harmony there hasn't been any foreshadowing - NONE AT ALL - of any such Discord on the horizon

Unsurprising that English-speaking countries are hot.  Does anyone know if there are separate translations for "Spain Spanish" vs "Mexican Spanish", or "Portugal Portuguese" vs "Brazil Portuguese"?   I know at least some novels are published in both "UK English" and "American English"...

I do remember reading something about Brandon doing a virtual book signing event in Barcelona.

12 hours ago, Eswear said:

Khriss wears a red and gold dress

Not that particular instance, but someone did point out that Frava, the senior Arbiter in The Emperor's Soul, was described as wearing red robes trimmed in gold.  My response was that I'm sure there are dozens of characters who wear those colors at some point - there are only so many colors, after all.  I don't think we should assume everyone who ever wears red and gold is working with/for Autonomy.

By that logic, they might just be an army of Gryffindors LOL

Seems like what they really need is a Bondsmith... or the Bondsmith Honorblade.

I have nothing useful to add and zero talent for decoding Alethi script... but I love puzzles.  It's clear that someone (Ben McSweeney?) wanted to give us a puzzle to solve.

I just want to say I'm following this development with great excitement and I appreciate all your efforts; great find!

I bought this album last year (highly recommended if you like rock music) and the cover has always made me think "I bet this gives a pretty good impression of what it would be like to meet a greatshell in person here on Earth".

22 hours ago, Frustration said:

At 3rd oath the knight gets a sword.

At 4th they get armor.

And at fifth, they get some kind of mount.

Agreed, it's simple, brilliant, and so very Brandon.

22 hours ago, HSuperLee said:

Sanderson is famous for giving us foreshadowing that we don't realize is foreshadowing until several books later.

He just never seems to stop, does he?  It's honestly superhuman.

4 hours ago, RaeTheRaven said:

I don't really see what a horse can do to help no matter how sapient.

So you are making the argument that an intelligent, armored, flying, surgebinding STORMING HORSE would be of no use to anyone in combat?  I'll agree that the benefit might be greater to the orders of Radiants who can't already fly themselves... but hells yeah I'll take half a ton of smart magic-using help on my team no matter what.  Plus, Frus didn't say "horse", he said "mount".  Maybe Windrunners get larkins:  

Quote

The larkin are associated with the Knights Radiant, though the specifics of their connection remain a mystery.

4 hours ago, RaeTheRaven said:

Also, if the 5th ideal grants a bond with a Ryshadium or similar... then why are Ryshadium forming bonds with non radiants? 

It might be more rusting foreshadowing... like the way deadeye spren can be used by regular people.  Yet another modern example of a lesser version of something that was truly awesome in the past (and will be again).  Brandon is always saying things like "the Investiture has an Intent, it keeps trying to find ways to express itself."

It strikes me that ultimately, the Ghostbloods are really just an extension of Kelsier.

Is it possible that access to Stormlight will somehow help him solve his own personal problems?

6 hours ago, Kered said:

Has a consensus been reached on who Hoid is telling the story to in Tress?

It's been discussed at length here and here, among other topics.  MANY possible answers have been proposed.

We know it's "far future" from both the Stormlight E1 and Mistborn E2 storylines; I agree that the most popular answer is "a cosmere-aware group on First of the Sun"... but I'm not sure I would claim it has reached the level of "consensus".

In my opinion, it's always best to read things in publication order.  You get exactly the experience the author intended that way.

And in this most particular case, I STRONGLY advise reading MBSH only after BoM.

4 hours ago, Frustration said:

Bondsmiths have been theorized to have gloryspren plate, but other than making people feel good I can't think of any applications for it.

I can imagine gloryspren plate giving off light bright enough to disorient or blind opponents; also, gloryspren can FLY.

I never liked this idea... but even I have to admit it just keeps getting more and more plausible.

If it turns out to be substantially correct, kudos to those who started speculating about it two and even three novels ago!

One of the interesting (crazy, weird, amazing, infuriating) things about fiction is that things can go in unexpected ways and still somehow seem to make sense.  I think the OP makes a valid point, and it could certainly make sense if the relationship between Shallan and Jasnah plays out that way... but I don't think that will fit with Brandon's plans for the rest of the story, so I don't expect it.  Maybe Jasnah and Shallan don't even interact directly anymore - that could make sense.  Maybe Jasnah - utilitarian as always - treats Shallan as a dangerous yet useful tool.  Or, maybe, Jasnah sees Shallan for what she is: a scared teenager who's done the best she can in difficult situations.  I have no doubt Brandon could successfully sell me any of those options, plus more I can't even think of.

Jasnah has demonstrated that she doesn't take things personally, and she has always felt like she's "above" everyone else, even before she became a queen.  She may be the highest-ideal, longest tenured Radiant on the planet.  I can see her being cautious with Shallan, but not fearful or spiteful.

And Navani?  She has demonstrated that she can compartmentalize her anger and act like the leader she is.  She worked with Raboniel; she's accepted Szeth as a member of the team, even after his earnest attempt to murder Dalinar.  She can work with Shallan if she needs to.

4 hours ago, Honorless said:

I think Hoid was narrating the story to someone from First of the Sun, given how he was talking about magitech and the way he referenced navigation & Aviar

I believe a majority, but not all, agree with this.  It seems the most likely explanation to me.

4 hours ago, Honorless said:

Also that's two people (possibly two Dragons) living beneath a sea, studying Aethers (or perhaps Xisis and Foil are the same entity?)

Most of us are on board with Xisis = Foil.  Two different dragons, at the bottom of two different oceans, both studying Aethers...?  Too much coincidence.  This, together with the facts that his full name is Xisisrefliel, and that plenty of immortal Cosmere beings have multiple aliases, is more than enough to satisfy me.

4 hours ago, Honorless said:

Oh and Hoid referred to capital-F Fate again, and referred to her as "her", so... the final Shard?

Possible, but my gut says no.  When Hoid talks about Shards, he usually refers to them by the name of the Vessel, not the Shard name.  I think it's more likely he's just personifying Fortune here, but I don't feel strongly either way.

On 1/7/2023 at 9:03 AM, king of nowhere said:

I also looked at how long a sail boat can travel in a day, and I found 100 nautic miles as a good average with favorable wind. So, 185 km.

I saw this video today, in which we see real world experiments with fluidized sand.

I'm struck by how nearly frictionless the motion of a boat sliding on the surface is; it's more like air hockey than sailing.  It seems reasonable that a ship moving on something like fluidized spores might go MUCH faster than a ship in water.  If so, "one day's sail" might be a considerably longer distance, allowing a significant increase in our estimate of Lumar's size.

On 1/7/2023 at 9:03 AM, king of nowhere said:

The only way to get an estimate consistent with Earth-like size would be to have the moons around the equator

This would be ruled out by Hoid's assertion that the moons take up "fully 1/3 of the sky", among other logical and geometric considerations.  In the case of equatorial moons, at least 3 or 4 would be visible simultaneously from anywhere near the equator... and they'd be touching or overlapping each other LOL

This just in (today's Kickstarter update):

"Our first truckload of Tress of the Emerald Sea is finally here! Our fulfillment team will begin packing and shipping these immediately.

PLEASE BE PATIENT! It will take a little bit of time for us to ramp up fulfillment of this book. With the large numbers of backers, we expect that the process to pack and ship these to backers will take us at least a month, but likely more as we can only pack the books as fast as we receive trucks from the bindery. You will receive an email when your box ships, and we will post an update when we have completed shipments. 

We will fulfill the Quarterly Books - All Formats and Quarterly Books - Premium Hardcover reward tiers first."

On 1/16/2023 at 7:25 PM, Kari said:

Just a short question, as I am a little confused. Does the first book arrive In a different box separate from the hood goodies? I remember reading somewhere that the January boxes might be delayed for some. Does that mean I received the February box before the January one? 

On 1/17/2023 at 0:10 PM, Shardwatcher01 said:

Yea wait I am a backer and nothing has came yet should either the January or Febuary boxes have come by now?

This just in (today's Kickstarter update):

"Our first truckload of Tress of the Emerald Sea is finally here! Our fulfillment team will begin packing and shipping these immediately.

PLEASE BE PATIENT! It will take a little bit of time for us to ramp up fulfillment of this book. With the large numbers of backers, we expect that the process to pack and ship these to backers will take us at least a month, but likely more as we can only pack the books as fast as we receive trucks from the bindery. You will receive an email when your box ships, and we will post an update when we have completed shipments. 

We will fulfill the Quarterly Books - All Formats and Quarterly Books - Premium Hardcover reward tiers first.

Just in time for us to begin fulfillment on Tress, we completed shipping all Hoid themed swag boxes last week! Many of these boxes are still in transit, so please watch your tracking numbers before contacting us."

Dragonsteel is in uncharted waters.  They have grown 300% since last year and are trying to fulfill literally the largest Kickstarter of all time.  The TotES hardcovers were delayed by bad weather multiple times in December, to the point where the Tress box, originally planned for January, was bumped to February.

My guess is that nobody's seeing a physical copy of TotES before mid-February.

On 1/19/2023 at 4:44 PM, Leuthie said:

Names are social constructs. If the people call it discordium, it's discordium. I guess it would just be a new name for the same metal.

Kind of like Discord is a new name for the same Shard.

I disagree.  I think Brandon has made it pretty clear that Discord is not "the same Shard" as Harmony, in the same way "Harmony" was only one of a number of ways Ruin and Preservation could have been combined.  I think one of the reasons Harmonium has the properties it does is because of Sazed's will, Identity and Intent.   I think it's quite likely that Discordium will be a completely different metal with different properties.  Names are social constructs, agreed... but Investiture is MAGIC.

6 hours ago, cometaryorbit said:

I kind of feel like Sazed needs an increase/positive change Shard. Preservation is stasis, Ruin is entropy/decay. Cultivation or Invention might help... or might just make it even more impossible to act.

As others have noted, Sazed is feeling constrained and shackled by his conflicting Intents; what he really needs is Autonomy.

I agree Sazed would be very unlikely to DESTROY any memories; his lifetime as a Keeper would cry out against something like that.  "Excising" memories and saving a copy?  Definitely more possible.

Question: do we actually KNOW Kelsier's body was a mistwraith?   I stipulate it's the most plausible explanation, but has it been confirmed?

I didn't get my tracking number email until AFTER my box arrived.  It must have exceeded the speed of light.

edit to add:  free shirt has been claimed.  Wear with Honor and/or Whimsy.

@StormingTexan , @Inquisitor #5 , thank you!

Yes, the quotes there definitely imply that Hoid and the 16 are saying "we're doing this for your own good" to Adonalsium.

"This is going to hurt me a lot more than it's going to hurt you... but it's going to kill you."  Anyone else get that vibe?

We know the Dawnshards were involved in the Shattering, right?  We know Hoid was a Dawnshard.  We know Hoid was present at the Shattering.

Do we know whether Hoid was a Dawnshard at the Shattering?

I feel like I'm playing Cosmere Clue:  "Hoid, with the Dawnshard, at the Shattering!"

1 hour ago, lacrossedeamon said:

I don’t know how lawful evil Brandon likes to get but technically with the wording of that question Brandon’s answer could refer to Dominion, Devotion, Ambition all of which are not being held by their original Vessels.

That's a great point.  I think he frequently delights in being lawful evil in these situations. 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Questioner

Are there currently any Shards, besides Harmony, that are not held by their original Vessel?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

If only that question had instead been phrased "Are there currently any Shards, besides Harmony, being held by someone who is not the original Vessel?"

We MAY have gotten a different answer... although there are still six Shards we know very little (or nothing) about, so a "yes" to that question still wouldn't necessarily tell us anything about the Vessels we do know of.

Regarding Hoid's opinions of - and behavior at - the Shattering, it's interesting that I got an incorrect impression from TotES, specifically my recollection of the "it's for your own good" passage.  I have not gone back to read it yet (I'm a n00b with these electronic versions)... if someone could quote that paragraph, it might help clear my head.