happyman

Frankly, this sounds to me like a kind of continuing nightmare. He must have asked for a really selfish boon. It remind me of the contrast between being healthy and sick. Ugh. I wouldn't trade with him for anything. And it's definitely both magic and scheming. He was pretty much forced into a situation where either everybody knew abut his condition, or where he had to cultivate a reputation for stupidity. Depending on his ambition, he probably picked the only way forward. Still, I don't envy him in the slightest.

This too. We have to remember the whole social aspect of the thing. Amaran couldn't be seen to steal the Shards. In some ways, that's better protection than the (not insignificant) protection of the Shards themselves. Man, humans can be strange.

Taking a shard from somebody once it's been claimed is kinda tough. Might may not make right, but it certainly weighs heavily on the possible and the likely.

Is it possible that sDNA is related to the Spirit-web the same way that physical DNA is related to the physical body? What I mean by this is: Our physical DNA represents a complete template for building and maintaining our physical body in the right environment, but it is not our body itself. There are changes that can be made to the body which will not be reflected in the DNA, including developmental changes where the DNA codes for different possibilities which are realized in different situations. Is it possible that the Spiritweb, although derived from sDNA, is not sDNA in the same way? It is affected by our connections with the rest of the world, even while having some "inborn" traits? This seems like the simplest answer. The main point I see against this is that Brandon said that burning a Hemalurgical spike would splice the sDNA together, but I suppose that could simply be an Allomancers instinctive reaction to absorbing somebody else's Spiritweb. If nothing else, the Spiritweb almost certainly contains sDNA.

Thanks for that quote, Kurkistan! It triggered a couple of thoughts from me, so I thought I'd repeat it here. Remember from HoA how the Mists flooded into Vin, knowing that they needed a host? Sazed speculates that the power actively seeks a host. If this is true for the other Shards powers as well, and if they were somehow separated from their cognitive aspect, like Preservation's was, isn't it likely they would be just as desperate and seeking? Consider Dominion and Devotion. With the cognitive aspects long since shattered, and the powers themselves perhaps splintered, what would happen? Presumably, the powers would seek out hosts in any form they could find. Thus you would get Elantrians (vessels of Devotion), probably some of the other magic users, etc. The powers would also probably leak out in other forms as well in a misguided attempt to find a host. Thus the Dor could simply be the pieces of the powers left over, trying to find hosts in any way they can. The Elantrians would be one way they could leak out. Aons would be another. Presumably, forgeries are yet another. Etc. Perhaps Galladon is right: Perhaps in their natural state, they even seek out and fuel the natural world. All in an attempt to get used in a way compatible with what is left of their nature.

I just thought of a great line for a Mistborn fantasy set with modern technology: A funeral procession is halted by a group of rampaging Koloss. One of the folks involved gets into a fight with the leader of the Koloss. When he is taken in to give a statement to the police, the reason he gives? "He ate my hearse."

Those quotes are what I needed. I'm thinking that for something like spinning a metal bar, though, it would be somewhat easier to see two blue lines (for each end) than it would be to see the lines for trace metals. Thus Kelsier, for instance, may have learned how to do that. It would be a useful trick, and the way torque works, it would still always have the whole bar move towards you or away from you, while it also begins spinning, thus not contradicting the observed pushes/pulls in the books.

I see that my last post wasn't as clear as I would have liked, so I will refine the idea: There are two things to discuss: giving torque to something else (e.g. spinning a metal bar) and the torque applied to the Allomancer themself. Spinning metal things is just a matter of pulling one end more than the other. I believe that this can be done as long as you can tell the difference between the iron lines leading to one end and the lines leading to the other. With practice, this may be possible. Applying torque to the Allomancer is a different thing altogether. I would have to say, from what is described in the books, that there is some ability to move the "pushing" location around slightly and that it's not perfectly at the center of mass; otherwise Zane's stunt would be impossible. It would also help with things like keeping your balance on a coin, and the like. Allomancers probably move it instinctively. There are doubtless limits, though; hence the hand trick not working.

C'mon folks. It really isn't that hard. The original poster is correct. The pushes and pulls, to work as described in the books, can't be based strictly off of center of mass. There has to be an ability to tweak it slightly to get some torque. I find this not at all disturbing. Any force, applied anywhere on a mostly rigid body, will largely get transferred to the center of mass in any case. This means that rough pushes and pulls will mostly affect the centers of mass, explaining the description given in the training. Small tweaks are then needed to fix the other little problems that might come up, and allomancers do that instinctively. Remember how Inquisitors see? They see little lines to all the little pieces of metal. Clearly a bar of metal consists of many small pieces, and someone with detailed control could probably push/pull on one end more than the other---voila, torque, and forces not strictly on the center of mass anymore! I think Kelsier even says something about that when describing staying "afloat" above a coin--the body already knows how to keep it's balance. Allomancers know how to do the same thing with their pushes---which means they are subconsciously modifying their torque slightly while pushing. So, long story short: The original poster is correct, and there are hints in the books that this is so. The center of mass thing is just a good first-order approximation.

Good catch. It's an interesting tidbit about their belief, if nothing else.

I know that at least a couple of folks sigged that line. I can totally understand that.

We saw in some of Dalinar's flashbacks that the Knights Radiant also used Fabrials some of the time. Presumably, then, the powers that the Orders had as "inherent" ones were ones they could do without fabrials. Two of the orders were capable of soul-casting if all they had were themselves and probably some stormlight or another similar power source. The fact that they had to be a Knight Radiant by virtue of their actions is a different attribute altogether.

It's a safe bet that the one published later is correct. And yes, this is a known typo.

It's a possibility, but we just don't know enough. Basically, the idea that the Tranquiline Halls were another world has been bandied about quite a bit, especially given how different humans are from the other creatures on Roshar. Candidates for said world have been thrown around, but there's practically no evidence as to which one it would have been. Yolen is possible, but far from the only choice. As far as I know, that's where most people leave it.

I can't help but think that an awakened sword like Nightblood, made out of Atium, would be freaking scary. Scarier, I mean. If you gave it the command "Destroy Evil", it would probably rub its metaphorical hands together, crack its knuckles and say "It's soul-eating time." I doubt anybody would be safe.

I'm apparently the only one to vote "other." I'd say that links are polite! Dropping a lot of references on somebody without giving a link is just lazy. I wouldn't go so far as a make it an official rule, but I think it should be part of the standard etiquette. That way people can exercise judgement about it and we get less wiki-lawyering, more polite requests for links when needed and people responding by actually doing the work.

I think a little line at the bottom of a quote saying "Source" and linking to the interview (or giving book/page #) would be appropriate. I've seen it elsewhere, and it's not too hard to do. I need to get better at it myself, but if you're going to go really in-depth, it's just polite. Edit: Of course, discretion is advised. It really depends on how formal the debate is. If you are setting up a thread suited for formal theorizing (at any depth), it is more appropriate than, say, for a quick reminder to somebody on a tangential subject.

I refuse to speculate on the Set's motivation. Power does seem likely, but we just haven't seen enough to know. I'm pretty sure that both Miles and Wax's uncle thought they were using each other; there is no reason to assume that their goals align in any way beyond one of temporary convenience. It is very true that "birds of a feather flock together," etc. I believe it is actually mentioned in the Ars Arcanum to AoL that the Terris still tend to stick together culturally, which would naturally lead to more "pure" Terris bloodlines than strictly random marriages would lead to. On the other hand, the issue with available men for the Terris women would also play a role; for a couple of generations there, there were probably many desirable Terris women who couldn't find a good Terris man. I would have expected there to be a non-trivial number of intermarriages from this consideration alone. That this happened is evidenced by Ferrings in the general population. It may be that when the populations rebounded, they began separating socially again, but for a little bit, not so much.

I'm actually a bit of a math nerd, so I know that there are other kinds of integration. It's not limited to Riemann or Lebesque, either! I've studied just enough measure theory to be able to mouth the right words. On the other hand, I also know that in most scientific applications, and definitely most numerical applications, Riemann is pretty much all you need, and conceptually simpler, to boot. I'm the kind of person, though, that likes to integrate over other measures, so I probably use Lebeque integration a lot. I just don't worry about it.

The war of power was one long slide downwards, and many technologies were lost along the way, especially those that needed an industrial base to support. By the end of the war, just before the breaking, soldiers were fighting with swords and riding on horses, rather than the Age of Legends gun and tank equivalents. Because of this, technologies that could be done by a small group of people without major support became a lot more useful. In this situation, power-wrought weapons could be made on a fairly small scale, and could support troops who no longer had guns. Presumably, making power-wrought weapons was lost during the Breaking, not before. Otherwise your question would become a lot more relevant.

Since no two fans ever agree on what should/shouldn't have been left hanging (or how to resolve it if they are resolved), I'd rather leave it up to the author. Also, in the case of Wheel of Time, I'd be disappointed if things weren't hanging. After all, there are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel. Life goes on. Not everything the pattern was "planning" was important for the main characters.

Add me to the list of people who wants Wheel of Time to be done. Finishing the main sequence made sense, and I'm not surprised RJ changed his mind about that when it became clear it wasn't going to happen for him. It wasn't easy for him or for Brandon, but I'm glad they did it. But the rest of them...no. There have been other authors whose work was carried on after they died. There are some notorious examples of how poorly they can be done, especially in the case of limited notes. It is sometimes exploitation, pure and simple. Brandon is a good enough author he doesn't have to do it to make money, so why force it?

That paper represents a small part of calculus known as numerical integration. It does look like something that the physical sciences figured out before that paper came out, if my memory of my numerical methods class serves me well. However it isn't quite the same as reinventing calculus. Despite what it looks like, there are actually subtleties that take more advanced analysis to work through. Secondly, I'm quite certain said subtleties had been worked out before 1993, so they were almost certainly redoing known work. That's one of the risks of living in a world as flooded with information as ours.

The real problem is that the changes the Highstorms make to the world are so drastic. Just look at the one interlude set in Shinovar. The landscape is wildly different (and much more familiar to us as readers.) If Dalinar had seen anything remotely like it in his visions, surely it would have been mentioned? Like, a lot? The only alternatives to that are that he was somehow acclimated to the differences subconsciously (not impossible; somehow language was transmitted to him unconsciously) or---the world looked perfectly normal to him. I tend towards the second. Too many references in the past seem to be standard Roshar, especially the comments just before the Recreance on the season. Add to this that life on Roshar is amazingly well adapted to the Highstorms, and you have that either the world was remade really, really quickly to adapt, or it has always been like that. Somehow the first alternative should show up more strongly in the legends, I would think. It hasn't been *that* long.

I should think from the context that Hoid is talking about whether taking something apart and putting it together could result in having changed it from one thing to a similar thing. The transformation of Human to Dysian Aimian was just an analogy that Dalinar would understand.