happyman

That's a common idea. If the soulcaster was damaged in a way which destroyed the spren, not working and not being easily repairable is completely natural.

I'd say this is true, and not an accident. In some ways, Warbreaker and Mistborn:Final Empire are opposite books. Brandon says he did it on purpose. This is just part of the (anti)symmetry.

I generally agree with this sentiment, but I would note that disease is probably the number one killer of armies historically, and being a drab increases your susceptibility noticeably. There is a cost to using lifeless if you then use the resulting drabs as the other half. It may well be worth it. I suspect, though, that it would be even better to keep the drabs at home doing other work where they are less susceptible to and more protected from rampant disease and let the fully souled folks fill out the actual army.

I think the last two comment are right on the money. I'd add that in the first trilogy, Hazekillers weren't much of an issue, but that's largely because as a whole, the viewpoint characters were abnormally powerful in their disciplines (full Mistborn, Savants, Inquisitor, not combat oriented). Hazekillers would be much more effective against a small squad of mistings. In the world of Alloy of Law, I could totally see Hazekillers still existing. They'd use some of Ranette's special weaponry and have a lot of specialized training.

I would say a couple of things: (1) There are hints in Alloy of Law that the characters in-universe still haven't figured out everything there is to know about Allomancy, (2) The Law of Sixteen is referenced in Alloy of Law as a law of nature, so whatever the relationship is, it's not just the metals, and, (3) There are sixteen base metals, e.g. metals which are found in the real world with Allomantic power, (4) Because of this deep nature of 16, Ruin wasn't able to mess with Preservation's hint to humanity. These aren't complete answers (as per point 1), but they suggest that ( a ) 16 is important for more than just its relationship to the base metals in Allomancy, ( b ) it is related to the number of base metals in Allomancy and ( c ) even if Preservation was able to swap out metals in the snapping system, he was probably constrained by a more fundamental law of sixteen in how he could do the swapping.

Well, this forum has been expressing my thoughts beautifully. I would like to add a thought that I first expressed back on the now-defunct time-waster's forum. In the course of trying to save the world, Vin and Elend both made the hard decisions, allowing people to die for what they saw as the greater good. The reader often agreed with them that this was the right decision, but morally and emotionally, it was still hard. By having the two of them show that they meant it, deep down where it really, really matters, by giving their own lives, they proved that their decisions were, in the end, truly moral. They did what they had to.

I have to say, TES actually supports Kurkistan's interpretation. Even quite "inanimate" things can view themselves in complicated ways. It would not surprise me at all if, say, a stick were capable of copying a small piece of a humans cognition in order to obey commands. After all, the way other people view and understand a wall affects how the wall views itself. A bit of the Dor gives it the energy to change. Done! It actually changes. Perhaps I should put it another way. The Breaths provide motivation to both the cognitive and physical realms, which in turn allows the two reams to change. Because the Awakener is transferring Breath into something, this provides the object with the motivation to do as the Awakener asks. Because the object wants to do as the Awakener asks, it naturally looks for, and finds, the cognitive image the Awakener is projecting at it, and then does it to the best of its ability. This probably expands the cognitive aspect of the awakened object while it is awakened, just like Vin and Sazed's minds were expanded when they took Preservation's power. The trouble with this is the fact that lots of breath doesn't seem to give a big cognitive boost. The response to this is two-fold: The relative change in cognitive power is probably fairly small. It's a big jump from a rope to a fork-lift, but both of those are teensy compared to human cognition as a whole. Secondly, the command which gave the breath to the person doesn't require the person to become more intelligent. There's no motivation to make the change, and so it doesn't happen. Does this mean you could increase your intelligence with breath if you knew what you were doing? It's possible, likely even, but it would probably have to be either deliberate (an undiscovered command), or a strong side effect. Incidentally, "Strong side effect" is probably what happened with Nightblood; basically, the destroy evil command was so strong, and the motivation behind it so extensive (1000 breath's), it forced Nightblood into a state of constant cognition. This would leave a mark after a while, I would guess. Nightblood probably is changing.

Bah. As they say in that thread, a wheel of time omnibus can't possibly be printed. The killer would have to carry around a forklift hauling an entire printing with him, and that would just ruin his MO. Far too conspicuous. Especially if he wants to use the hardcover versions. Of course, he could always try to carry them himself. That would be fun to watch. It would make the dullest chase scene ever. "The police are closing in on their suspect, who seems to be crawling away with what looks like some kind of piano on his back."

There is a point against this, in that in Dalinar's last vision, Honor told him that is wasn't just about him, but about all of them. He was a bit vague, but it suggests there is more going on than just a vendetta. However, there is the very real possibility that Honor discovered it wasn't just about him "relatively" recently. In this case, there could have been a real vendetta that Odium used to cover his deeper plans. This would mean that, to keep up the ruse, Odium would have focused on Honor as a way of distracting the other shards from his plan.

Anybody who put that on the list should be fired! I only advocate that for the real world. Fictional worlds can suffer.

Oooh, I like this. Maybe by adding a bit of honor to humans, he managed to make something else sapient? What an interesting idea. I like. Since humans might not be native to Roshar, any predecessors wouldn't necessarily be expected to exist on Roshar either. Fascinating. I wonder what Honor and Cultivation could have done if they worked together (which they might have)? That could explain a lot about Roshar.

We don't actually know how the first age transitioned into the second, but the most popular fan theory is thermonuclear war. I tend to agree with it. So I was almost---almost---disappointed by how "smooth" the transition was into the fourth age. The best explanation I can think of was Moiraine's: A world that had been imbalanced by war for an entire age, and broken in the last one, would be balanced by having peace in the next. I personally suspect that the Dragon had an influence on how the world changed at the last battle-he may not have a lot of choices, but that one is his, and he chose peace.

This one is mine, too. My parents would claim I would sometimes walk through a room with something in my hands. Five minutes later, they would ask me where I put it, and I would just stare at them blankly and claim I never touched it. I honestly didn't remember it. As a Schmedry talent, that could be devastating, and more than a little surreal.

I think the main meta-story point here is that being useful trumps a lot of the other logic you could use. For a lot of the powers, internal and external don't translate into useful powers that map directly onto each other. This is different for the enhancement metals, where exact analogues actually work from a mechanical standpoint, so Brandon goes with it.

Droz, I'm sure you are correct about many religious practices, but from the books, I get the feeling that the ban against prophecy was very deeply held, even by the commoners. Szeth mentioned it one of his interludes; it even affects the nature of gambling. While I can see the leadership making that decision for its own reasons, that same decision sank very deeply into the culture. More deeply, in my opinion, than I have seen most decisions made from the top in any religion in real life. I feel like something very...real must have happened, and it must have been big to have left as deep an impact as it did.

I'm certain they will be doing a box set some time in the not-too-distant future. Oof. My back is hurting just thinking about it. I wonder if they will include the crane to carry it home as part of the purchase?

Yes, yes he did. Thanks for the transcription. I've never gotten the hang of using Twitter, so this was helpful, especially with some misinformation that was flying after it was over. (Androl was Jain Farstrider's son? No, no he was not, and there's no authority that says otherwise.)

I think that in one of the Writing Excuses podcasts (maybe the one focused on Way of Kings?), Brandon talks about worldbuilding and multiple characters. He explicitly references Robert Jordan's trouble with too many viewpoints, and talks about he intended to use the Interludes as a way to worldbuild without spreading himself too thin. We very well may see some, or all, of the characters later, but most will probably not have character arcs.

I would have to go with finite, myself. Potentially very, very large, but finite. "Finite" is a rather vague description; it's only limit is infinity, which lands us in an interesting philosophical conundrum. But it still has meaning, so I say, finite.

Well, if they had accurate long-term prediction, they probably came from Tanavast. Such long-term predictions are exactly the kind of thing I would destroy, if I were Odium. Odium can probably plan better than Ruin could, so unlike in Mistborn, Odium would plant the seeds carefully with a long-term plan in mind. Discrediting Honor, even while keeping his worship "alive", sounds like a good start.

The obvious limits on the doomsday scenario are the ones we have seen on Soulcasters, e.g. it takes gems and stormlight to use them. Do too much, and the gems break, and anyway, you run out of stormlight. Another limit is that most people are quite fond of the world they live in and would rather not destroy it. Combine these two, and the amount of damage a few rogue people with a soulcaster could do is, on a global scale, quite small. The world is a big place. Soulcasting all of its air, or anything like it, is doubtless impossible for a typical group which would want to try. However, using Soulcasters to kill people in a small room sounds entirely reasonable. It probably doesn't happen often to most people for the same reason that most people never see an assassination attempt in person in the real world: it is relatively rare for somebody to want to do it. I would not be at all surprised if we see something like this happen during the series, however. Unlike destroying the world, it's something well within normal human behavior.

In my opinion, book 3 also has a very satisfying conclusion. But people do differ on that, but I don't think it's mostly to do with quality, strictly. Book 2 is...the lead-in to Book 3. I found it the slowest of the three, but it is well worth it for what you get out of book 3.

Shallan, obviously. Anything else would just be silly.

Now I want Brandon to rewrite that scene from TLR's POV, just for this bit. Of course, ending it may be a bit tricky.

...And could change how the entire country of Arelon viewed itself, including all important repercussions from the Chasm. Bit of a tall order, that.