happyman

Thanks Chaos. IMO, I agree that the ambiguity exists in principle, but I think that in context, this actually supports his claim to have made humanity, if not as strongly as I had remembered. IIRC, Vorinism claims that he made everything, but given the existence of Cultivation, this seems unlikely. The Almighty limiting his claim to the creation of humanity, and telling the truth about it, makes much more sense.

I always interpreted that as his ability to create and control constructs, like the the Koloss and the Kandra. Unless you think he spiked a soother at some point? Given his disdain for the Steel Inquisitors expressed at the end of MB1, I doubt it.

Sure thing. I don't have the book with me, but IIRC (I might not) it's in Dalinar's last vision, just before the epilogue.

This sounds right to me. The age trick is clearly the most spectacular one in terms of sheer "Huh?" factors, but it also probably explains some of the Lord Rulers other tricks, like crazy-fast speed and the like. Vin couldn't have beat him without realizing what his trick was. A full Feruchemist/Mistborn is seriously overpowered.

As for part of a shard being needed to make humans sentient: I note that on Roshar, Honor claims to have created humans. I know that the religions around him say he created everything, but I don't think he makes that claim for himself. Is it possible that humans on Roshar are humans because they have a piece of Honor in them? If so, did Cultivation also create some of the "alternate" sentients that we see floating around? So many questions!

@Zas: As to your last point about Honor, don't forget that Honor was able to see the future. We know it wasn't easy for him (especially, I would guess, when Odium interferes) but if there is anything that is certain to happen, I suspect he would know about it as well as though it had happened while he was alive. Thus knowledge of events doesn't seem to me to be a necessarily good indicator as to when he was killed.

I would like to state here that technically, entropy is a purely statistical quantity. Stated another way, there are an enormous number of states the universe can be in. By sheer statistics, most of these states (by an astronomically large margin) are ones humans would call disordered. However, it is observed that our universe seems to have started with a great deal of order, and the observed increase in entropy is simply the inevitable march towards a more likely state. That entropy thus corresponds to chaos and disorder and destruction is simply because creation, order and construction are so blasted unlikely to occur spontaneously. (Don't get any wrong ideas from this, though. It's entirely possible for order to spontaneously appear during the wind-down from a low-entropy state as long as enough more entropy is created elsewhere as a side-effect. No bogus evolution debates on my watch, thank you kindly.) So I have to agree. Ruin isn't really entropy. It's Ruin. Entropy would just be one of the tools He could use, but He appears to be an even more fundamental force.

He's definitely done a bit of worldbuilding since we last saw that story. I dunno how I feel about it. I mean, I feel like it's kind a build up to a bigger story, and I'm not sure I want him working on that at the moment . Yes, I've been rereading the WoT recently. Why do you ask?

We have two canonical examples of something like this, plus Brandon's answer. Sazed tapped his metalminds after they were driven into him by Marsh. The first one he tapped was healing, so the flesh sealed around the metalminds. He then tapped the contents of the other metalminds in the fight. Marsh also taps the power of a spike that doubles as a Feruchemical metalmind, as noted above. Thus the answer seems pretty clear: Feruchemy and Hemalurgy don't interfere in any way, and a single kind of metal can hold both charges at the same time.

Oh dear. We may have found a world where incest is an asset. Now I want to poke my own eyes out.

Oh, that sounds like a great scene. I hope Brandon plays it for all its worth. Shallan is probably one of the most powerful people in the world at the moment. I'm thinking it'll take a while for her to figure that out.

We hardly need his confirmation. A magic system that uses color as fuel, and hey look, a flower that produces almost magically perfect dyes? What are the odds? I'm pretty sure there is no such flower in the real world, or any other Shardworld, for that matter.

Some spren have the capacity to be sapient. Even if all Spren have that capacity (I sure hope not, given how many there are), we don't know what their needs or desires would be. Possibly being in a fabrial for eternity is a Spren's dream job or ultimate desire. They're just so alien in terms of basic "biology" (for lack of a better word). These arguments have been bandied around previously as jokes, but I think there is a very serious side to them. My take is that we don't know enough yet to really study the moral implications. But I do agree that without Stormlight, these technologies would be in trouble. I'm not sure if Highstorms are the only way to get it, though.

From the Elantris annotations, I would say the meaning was derived from the effect.

I don't think that the fabrials "use up" the spren. The stormlight is definitely expended in use, but the spren are still there as far as I know; for instance, the soulcasting fabrials seem to have the ability to work indefinitely, given a supply of stormlight. Given the nature of spren in their universe, I'm not sure just how bad this relationship really is, ethically. How many spren are really sapient?

I'm afraid that I first read Eragon when I was about 25. By that point, I recognized that the prose was awkward. On the other hand, I enjoyed the story. When I began reading Eldest, though, I just couldn't get into it. It didn't catch my attention at all. No idea why not. In any case, I haven't ever mustered up the time or energy to continue. I don't hate the series, like some people do. It's just one of those books I put down and have no trouble leaving down if there is anything else at all to do.

IIRC, in the deleted scene from Elantris (posted at Brandon's website) the glow was originally supposed to be from Seons that reproduced (and somehow became really small in the process; how this relates to the overarching cosmology is vague, to say the least). Most of that scene, however, was developing a "magical" way for Dilaf to be defeated in the end---a way that was really, really anti-climatic and inappropriate and which was dropped for very good reason. In the rewrite, it became the fungus. Note that I have no idea what this means for the theorizing we are doing here. Just something I thought should be brought up. Fortunately this little tidbit isn't canon, so we are as free to ignore it as Brandon is .

Actually, I agree with Puck. The world of Roshar is actually quite vibrant with an enormous variety of life. The fact that it survives, and even thrives, under such extreme conditions probably indicates that magic of some sort is keeping things alive. The fact that things thrive in water from Highstorms may actually be a part of this.

I agree with the others. Life is both Preservation and Ruin. That's why Sazed's ascension was such a critical part of the trilogy, and vital for getting the world back in working order.

I agree with this, emphatically. As you can see.

I'm gonna go meta for a second and state that because the Shattered Plains were moved into this book from another, there can't be a truly story-defining reason for them to be on Roshar. I'm sure Brandon has explained them quite nicely when reworking the back-story, but it's not going to be central to the cosmology. That said, this idea isn't necessarily wrong. It's just that I don't understand the Parshendi enough to really know what they think of Odium.

Ah, this reminds me of the good old days on Timewasters when we were trying to figure out Hemalurgy. There were lots of hints that "felt right," but when we finally got the whole story, it made so much more sense than our little hints had ever managed. I think you're on to something, but it is much the same way: Something that feels right, but without context seems very difficult to place.

I can't say how awesome it is that you caught all that. Well done!

For your sake, Puck, I hope Chaos doesn't espouse a theory titled "All Theories Espoused by Puck are Wrong."

There are hints in the books themselves in Dalinar's visions. When Dalinar rescues the woman and her child from the dark thingies, one of the oaths the woman uses in "Three gods!" So back when the Radiants were active, apparently the common folk knew about the Shards that were involved with their world. Of course, this doesn't trace Odium back to the creation itself, but it is a look into history.