happyman

OK. I'll have to reread WoK. The flashbacks are the ones that got the least attention, so I'm very rusty there.

In order to stay on topic, I'd say that those are all good points, but it's hard to know where they are going without more evidence.

Do you think there is a bond (Nahel or not) between Shallan and the cryptic? The quotes hoser found strongly suggest that there is a bond between Shallan and the Cryptic. What's more, immediately after that quote, Shallan tells the Cryptic a very strong truth indeed. The bond, if the Cryptic is telling the truth, should be extremely strong. In fact, if what the Cryptic says to her is true, she bonded immediately before the first time she soul-cast, when she told it she was terrified. Also, you don't see a connection between the cryptic and her painting? Her drawing is the way she sees the cryptic the first time! That's a pretty suggestive connection. Edited to add: Also, the fact that Elhokar had begun seeing cryptics has suggested to a few people that he might (somehow) also have begun bonding a spren. We just don't know enough. I wouldn't use it as a counter-argument against Shallan's bonding, though.

I had to wait a year for Ghost Story...

Except he wasn't actually given them, was he?

Are these serious, modern theories proposed by respected professionals, or are they out-of-date theories, or some pop-sci interpretation of the mathematics? Because if I remember my QFT classes correctly, special relativity is so deeply fundamental to them, it's not even funny. These are the ones that don't violate FTL in any circumstances. However, they don't play nice with gravity, and so are fundamentally flawed.

Two words: Faceless immortals.

Actually, the question of negative mass has been asked in real-world physics. (Negative mass squared is actually considered more likely, despite sounding even stranger.) In our current theories, the answer is "It's complicated and unintuitive, but nothing physical actually goes faster than the speed of light, despite your best effort." For those who want more details, if the mass squared of a particle goes negative, it does not manifest as a particle at all. Rather, it splits into different particles with either no mass (light speed) or positive masses. Still no violation of FTL.

While messing with mass might have some of the needed effects, I suspect that Brandon's FTL idea has something rather more fundamental in mind. As others have pointed out, in the real world, reducing something's mass to zero would (as far as we can tell) just cause it to move at the speed of light. No FTL. Our most modern theories suggest (but don't prove; that's impossible) that the light-speed limit is inherently geometrical; that nothing can move faster than the speed of light because that is just the way space and time are shaped. Most "realistic" (usually still pretty darn impractical) suggestions to get around it involve reshaping time and space in some way. I suspect that this is the way Brandon would go, given that he has already shown that Allomancy can affect time directly.

I've always assumed it was a matter of practice and inclination. In other words, all the shards are equally capable, in some abstract sense, of seeing the future. How good they are at it depends on how much their Intent drives them to practice and care. Preservation would thus practice a lot more than Ruin, as for Preservation to fulfill his Intent, he would have to know the long-term consequences of just about everything. Checking the futures in detail would be second nature. Ruin, on the other hand, would have hardly any reason to look more than a few moves ahead in normal circumstances. Once you've Ruined something, it tends to stay that way.

I also think it is IQ. I tend to think of myself as a pretty smart guy, which I sometimes am, I guess. It's hard to tell; I've never been anybody else. Nor have I ever bothered to have it tested; I'm smart enough to know how meaningless that would be. Anyway, when I am on the top of my game, I am making connections, drawing inferences, and otherwise making decisions that just seem obvious to me which seem to leave other people wondering how I did it. On the other hand, when I am very tired, the very same things can seem very hard to impossible. There have been many times when I have spent a couple of hours (or sometimes a whole day!) working something, only to come back fresh the next day/week, and instantly see what I was doing wrong. In other words, I think that intelligence is much more than mental speed, and that zinc does not explain Taragavinian's experience well. But time will tell.

My only quibble with this is that I would say that "Breath is a type of life-force, but not all life-force manifests as breaths." Beyond that, I suspect you are right. It is certainly very reasonable to believe that from Brandon's answers.

I think this disagreement boils down, in many ways, to the difference between theoretical proofs and Bayesian statistics. Theoretical proofs are statements made about an idealized formal system, which are generally branches of mathematics. Because they are logically self-contained, it is possible to completely control them and make logical statements about them. This is very useful when we find a formal system which describes the world pretty well, because then we can get even very complicated results from them and know that as long as the world keeps obeying that system, we are doing the right thing. In the real world, however, strict proofs are impossible because we don't actually have the formal system which drives reality. Rather, we have formal systems which do a good job of describing reality, and we use them because they keep on working. Working really, really well, I should add. But they are not complete and they do not describe the whole world; this is known. In addition, there are many cases where even when the theory is known well enough in principle, no single person or group of people has enough information to use them to their full potential (weather prediction comes to mind.) Of such systems, I would include "people," at least so far. Thus when it comes to predicting the content of future books and how they relate to old ones, we are pretty much stuck with Bayesian statistics for the moment. Because Bayesian statistics depends on priors, it is very common for them to rely on our intuitive notion of how likely some things are. This is where the "gut" comes in. In a complex world like ours, there really isn't a way around it. It will be wrong sometimes. Hopefully we don't put too much money or life at stake in cases like that. Added, in defense of Chaos' statement: I believe Chaos' basic intuition was correct, that Hemalurgy wasn't about stealing Allomancy. It was about stealing souls, which had, as one possible very useful effect, stealing Allomancy and Feruchemy. It is about so much more, though, as repeated speculation on this board shows very clearly.

I've always assumed that he got it through deep theoretical considerations that we really aren't privy to in the books. It's strongly suggested that there is more advanced theory that neither Joel nor the readers are far enough along to understand.

It depends, it really does. We don't have many descriptions of how future sight works in the Cosmere. As far as I know, the only first-hand knowledge we have at a shardic level is where we learn that the future is like shattering glass, constantly splitting. We also learn that not all shards are equally good at it. I'm assuming that something that is very, very likely, like Ruin becoming, well, ruinous, would be visible in all futures, pretty much regardless. I don't think you'd have to be particularly good at it to spot something like that coming down the pike, regardless of details. In short, I totally think Ati could see the changes coming. It's not like it's subtle. Now the predictions Preservation made to counter Ruin? Those were subtle.

Just a point of clarification: Can Ruin not see into the future at all, or is he just bad at it, compared to Preservation? I've always assumed it was the latter. After all, burning Ruin's distilled power (Atium) allows puny humans to see a little bit into the future.

That was Vin. Basically, between his death and the end of the series (and possibly further; there have been hints), Kelsier is hanging around dead in the cognitive realm. Between the time when Leras died and Vin took the power of preservation, Kelsier was able to take control of it a little bit (not fully like Vin or Sazed did). Thus you can tell if it is the real Kelsier by: (a) is Leras dead? ( is the recipient free of metal? © does the recipient have faith in Kelsier? (d) has Vin/Sazed not ascended? That pretty much leaves Spook for a very brief time in Hero of Ages. It doesn't happen much.

I don't quite agree with this. I feel like this can be thematic foreshadowing without the need for the shards to be explicitly involved. For instance, there is a bit in Warbreaker where Vasher is musing how, in order to create something, you have to destroy something that was already there. This clearly connects, thematically, to Mistborn, especially the ending of the first trilogy. It would be unlikely, to say the least, that Ruin or Preservation had anything to do with Warbreaker directly, and yet the thematic connection is still there. Or in other words, there is a good chance that Hrathen's statement is one of Brandon's Cosmere echoes: The direct influence of the shards may not be involved, but their power still influences the whole world indirectly. Even if it is a general statement about humanity, it could still be an aspect of creation which stems from Odium. Just a thought.

I would like to emphasize again that these shapes are as much a symbol of symmetries as they are of the sounds. Actually making cymatic patterns in real planetary crust would be extremely difficult, and not just for the reasons Isomere gave. There's also the fact that sound, of any wavelength, doesn't move at the same speed in different materials. Most of the real world is a large blob of "different materials" in some irregular mix. Roshar may be different, but I don't see evidence that it is that different. Making a dawncity using cymatics would take some serious engineering. Maybe Kabsal has a point. Something strange happened with them.

I'm sure you could. The only caveat, though, is that if they do count as valid metal-minds, they probably also count as valid spikes! Two-edged sword and all that.

I wonder what Honor was like, once upon a time. Note, though, that Honor can be taken in multiple ways, some of them quite dangerous. Kaladin probably reflects, very faintly, on the nature of the human who became Honor.

Most of the things that people have said in this thread, I agree with. I just have to say that just reading through this thread reminded me of why Brandon Sanderson is *awesome*. The biggest twist, for me, was the Ruin: I am free! bit. At least, added to the annotation for the next book: "..he must not free the thing that is trapped there." Big twist of the knife for me, even if it turned out for the, ah, not-actual-end-of-the-world in the end. Denth's betrayal hit me on a much more personal level, though. That one hurt in a different way.

Reading this thread reminds me of the statement (no idea who originally penned it): Publishers are as threatened by e-books as stairs are by elevators.

This, this, this, this, this. Do you know how many people I've spoken to who were badly put off by Wheel of Time by its shear weight? I can include myself in this; it took me way too long to start it. I only started it when it became obvious just how popular it was among friends with different tastes. Brandon's best two ideas, as an author, was (1) making fantasy that connects to the other worlds, without being tied to the other worlds, and (2) making his books, even the ones that are part of a series, have their own arc that begins and ends clearly. Big epics have their place, but sometimes they can grow in ways that turn readers off.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this be an in-world game for Allomancers at some point. I also wouldn't be surprised to see a form of Allomantic horse-shoes. It would still take a very fine touch with the pushing or pulling. The game I think would be most interesting would be a "real-life" strategy game between Awakeners, where they have their awakened objects fight for them. First one to be captured by the other team loses. Lots and lots of organic materials are spread out around the arena.