happyman

Vasher's method is stated almost explicitely. It's a large part of the reason why he needed to get breaths at the beginning of the book; he had used up his immense supply. Not only did he need it to awaken; he was running low, long-term-planning-wise. Denth is a more interesting question, but it isn't hard to come up with ways that he could have done it. He probably did have a relatively small stash stored away somewhere, and I suspect he bought breaths on the black market or stole them outright to keep himself supplied. In the annotations, Brandon mentioned that Denth wanted the Breath's Vivenna had, and letting her think otherwise was just a way to keep her under control. When the maskerade fell apart, getting her breath's was his first priority. Edited to add: He couldn't steal the breath's outright, as stated in the book. I suspect that he was *very* good at persuasion when he wanted to be. However, I suspect that he bought most of his breath's on the black market. That's a lot safer, long-term.

I can't help but feeling that something big is missing in the background with Siri, Susebron and the High Priests. If they wanted Susebron to have a child, and if more is involved than, well, the usual, why didn't they say something? I know they didn't trust her, but this was kind of important. Obviously, we have no reason to believe that they don't believe in the Royal Line if they know that returned can have kids if they do it right, so that bit of speculation by Siri is wrong. Something must be blocking them, though, if they didn't say anything. So, yeah. Questions about this remain thoroughly unanswered.

So nobody is ever going to use this, and I don't think it really fits, but one idea I had was: Timelord. Yeah, not going to happen. Sigh.

I've always considered it more likely that Skaze just couldn't be used for the same things as Seons could. Either they didn't want to, or it wasn't possible. Both work for me.

I honestly don't see why it can't be both. Books (and the author) can be self-aware without having a good in-world reason as well. That said, I suspect he is refering to part of his actual backstory. That is makes him seem self-aware is either an easter egg for the readers who pay attention or an extreme bit of commentary.

I think that in terms of actually burning the metals, the abilities could be considered somewhat boring. You don't have to do anything special with the actual burning. By the same token, the descriptions of how individual chess pieces move are also rather boring. It's the strategies and tactics---when to turn them off and on, what else you do while you are burning---that make them interesting. The powers are more than the sum of their parts.

It seems to me that by a large margin, an Atium ferring's coolest power is disguise. Whatever an Atium ferring is called, I feel that should be part of it.

This is my opinion. I really hope that the backstory is more complex than anybody has theorized. Why? Because it makes a better story that way!

Brandon has said that there is more to the story than just Hoid and Adonalsium. I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that even before the breaking, there were deific shenanigans going on. Hoid's comments and "The Liar of Partinel" sample chapters definitely suggest as much.

These are good questions. I think it was a matter of prioritization. First priority: stop Ruin from finding the Atium. Since he will be looking pretty much regardless, subtlety is needed. Hence the enormous shell game that made up the plot of Atium in the books. Second priority: Stay in power, with the Atium being hidden. It may not have been the ideal choice to go with the Atium economy, Allomancy for the nobiltiy, and suppresion of Feruchemy, but I think it lines up pretty well with the above priorities, with the first far more important than the second.

If there was one thing TLR needed to keep under wraps, it was information about Feruchemy. After all, that's what led Vin, with just a few hints, to take down TLR. Now imagine a small army of trained Mistborn, knowing exactly how TLR was staying alive and healthy, attacking him. It would still have been hard, but somebody would have succeeded eventually. Add in some Twinborn and maybe a bit of Hemalurgy, and it becomes an even trickier fight for TLR. Much, much easier to just suppress Feruchemy entirely.

Yeah, but given the kind of fighting going on, I would expect more combat-oriented weaves to have been created/invented/introduced, especially by Demandred or the Shayad. Most of the ones you list were all plot-critical, and probably were created by RJ. I'm not sure about the double-bond. Given the difficulties inherent in creating new weaves, and that from a meta-fictional standpoint, no other weaves would have turned the tide of the battle, I can see why Brandon chose to leave such things to the reader's imagination/used cool, sensible limitations on his characters instead.

I think Androl is an interesting break-out character. I've said it before: Androl is what you get when you let Brandon Sanderson play with gateways. And it is awesome. It's always interesting to see some of the more hard-core fans complain about the lack of new weaves in the book. Somebody inevitably pipes up that that means that Brandon would have to invent them, and surely he did a better job by adapting ones he already knew in creative ways? I see Androl as the ultimate answer to that objection.

Then they would have to figure out a playable method of lightweaving. Which would be interesting!

Which makes me suspect that manifesting a physical body is either hard or dangerous to him. Why else send in the Koloss first? Either they were there to make absolutely certain of the atium, or they were there as bodyguards.

That blurb, and the reviews, has me sold. I've always thought that if people gained real superpowers, it would turn out rather differently than shown in the comic books. Even if they tried to be benign, a la the X-Men, they would shape the world around them just by being powerful. People would react differently to them, and their words and actions would carry more weight, like it or not. In turn, this would shape their attitudes. It would be very hard indeed for any to stay morally good. And the truly evil ones? They would be simply awful, and much more dangerous than is usually shown in the comic books. Which is saying something, I know. Basically, if you had super powers like in the comic books, you would end up either ruling the world or being one of the people who rules the world, whether you liked it or not. It's the way power works in the real world.

As far as distance in Shadesmar is concerned, I'd be willing to bet that planets, as a whole, have a cognitive aspect that is more significant than empty space. Thus going through a planet would be noticably further than a true vacuum. I mean, if even goblets have a non-trivial cognitive aspect, shouldn't mountain ranges? Or perhaps the costituent parts of mountain ranges? If nothing else, they probably see themselves as mountain ranges. Not to mention that in the real world, the Earth's subsurface is loaded up with bacteria, which could well exist in the cosmere, where they would probably also have cognitive aspects. I suspect that empty space is much easier to move through in Shadesmar than any of the planets.

We were talking about his "real" organization. If he's smart (which he is, at least some of the time), the city probably pretty much runs itself without him.

There are other ways this could work out to be more manageable for T. For instance, it wouldn't be out of the question to have the fluctuations themselves have a normal distribution around his previous average. Thus if he started out smarter than average, when he becomes smarter, he really becomes something. When he becomes stupid, he doesn't become that stupid, most of the time. By and large, in this scenario, he would be at least competent most of the time, just occasionally becoming a bit dim. There would still be outliers, but they would be rarer than hoser estimated. There would still be need for competent back-up, though. He might be able to play a better role than just "advisor," though. After all, normal people's effective intelligence tends to fluctuate as well, due to sickness, health, nutrition and exercise.

If nothing else, it would be a bit of an organizational nightmare, as we see from what little Brandon said about it. How do you give orders that you can't countermand when you are far too stupid to know why you shouldn't countermand them? To make it really stick and be useful, you have to have other people you deeply trust who know about the IQ changes, and thus can make stable judgements about your ability to give commands. As a normal person living with a normal family whom I trust, I could see it working out OK. Taragavinian's situation seems much, much trickier. What do you do if your scheming suddenly comes to a head on the day your IQ is 65? You'd have to make special arrangements, for instance, if Szeth was going to pay you a visit---can't be too stupid when he comes calling.

This is about what I would expect. We have Landed and Landless lighteyes, with Landless having lower rank, apparently. Very old pattern, then.

So if Investiture interferes with most magics, it's probably not absolute. For instance, the total investiture on Scandrial is pretty low. For example, somebody burning steel can still be affected by emotional Allomancy. It's probably a bit harder, though, but not much. So I doubt that the "immune to magic" effect just turns on or turns off as things become more invested. It seems more likely that it is more like weight, which adds up until it can't be moved. Shardplate and Shardblades are then "several tons" in this system, while Allomancers are feather-weight. Then the real question is how invested Kaladin is while holding stormlight. I'd say more than an Allomancer but less than an Elantrian. (He glows, but not that much.) But that's just a guess.

I would tweak this definition to "lighteyes/nobility who owns, or at least controls, property." Although owning property and being nobility are often correlated, historically, they aren't the same. From what little I know, the pecking order would go Landed Nobility > Unlanded Nobility > Landed Commoner > Commoner, with a decent jump in practical authority/respect at each level. Thus Lirin would be complaining about getting a new overlord/landlord.

Didn't Brandon say that Investiture interferes with other magics, or other types of investitures? That would suggest that whether they can affect each other depends primarily on how invested each of them are when they hold Stormlight and how powerfully they use it. I suspect that Kaladin holding Stormlight is not nearly as invested as a Shardplate, so although it would probably be harder for other Magic-users to affect him, would it be hard enough that they would notice the difference? That's the real question. "Not being lashed as strongly" or "being slightly more likely to cause a gem to crack when soulcast" is a far cry from being immune.

That's a fair question. It does rather matter what he started with, doesn't it?