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arioch posted:But the thing is, Sanderson's lower-level gods are generally just ascended mortals who've been bestowed powers somehow from the shards of Adonalsium. And we're talking anything from ridiculously powerful like Sazed on down to Steel Inquisitors, then the inhabitants of Elantris, those monks, etc. Sanderson's "divinity" is often not divine. He didn't die. He just fell unconscious, the blades for the heralds act differently than other shard blades. The herald's blades (I forget what they are called) only disappear when they die, rather than the other way around like normal shard blades which only stay out if their owner is dead.
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Dec 9, 2010 12:47
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Yeah, that whole post went off on a tangent I didn't even mean for, but it was late or whatever. My point was originally going to be something like, Sanderson's "powers of the divine" in his books seem to have the distinction of both being infinite and being able to be completely drawn in to individuals or objects. Examples being, Preservation covered the entire world in mist yet Vin was able to embody the whole, the better part of Ruin was imprisoned within Atium encased in a part of Preservation, Sazed was able to draw both powers within him, etc. The powers are able to come and go (see Elantris) and be awarded and taken away (Elantris, Lord Ruler, hemalurgy, etc.). The powers that are "divine" in his universe are neither innate to the person nor indivisible. edit: also, there's gotta be a reason that the two people we've seen so far with the Stormlight-drawing powers don't have shardplate yet. Maybe Shallan will also get a set at some point, who knows? VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Dec 9, 2010 |
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Dec 9, 2010 17:47
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arioch posted:Yeah, that whole post went off on a tangent I didn't even mean for, but it was late or whatever. Are we sure all the orders had Shard Plate? The flashback only showed two (I think). Its possible the orders that did Soulcasting never had plate/blades, as their abilities are less combat oriented.
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Dec 10, 2010 06:52
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arioch posted:edit: also, there's gotta be a reason that the two people we've seen so far with the Stormlight-drawing powers don't have shardplate yet. Maybe Shallan will also get a set at some point, who knows? Sazed's intro mentioned (from his perspective) that Shardplate would interfere with his Surgebinding. Probably because the second he drew stormlight into himself, he'd de-power the plate.
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Dec 10, 2010 07:42
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Kalas posted:Sazed's intro mentioned (from his perspective) that Shardplate would interfere with his Surgebinding. You mean Szeth. Frankly I like that they don't need no shardplate. I can't wait untill Kaladin inherits the last remaining Herald's sword (3+ books down the line probably) and takes up his burden. Cartoon Man fucked around with this message at 13:53 on Dec 10, 2010 |
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Dec 10, 2010 13:50
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Kalas posted:Sazed's intro mentioned (from his perspective) that Shardplate would interfere with his Surgebinding. I don't think he could draw stormlight out of the plate unless it was cracked. Otherwise he would've just sucked it all out of the king at the beginning and ended that fight a whole lot earlier.
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Dec 10, 2010 15:56
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Kalas posted:Sazed's intro mentioned (from his perspective) that Shardplate would interfere with his Surgebinding. And yet, in one of Dalinar's visions he clearly sees a Radiant wearing plate do something very much like surge-flying.
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Dec 10, 2010 17:14
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Cartoon Man posted:You mean Szeth. Yes, this comes from re-reading Mistborn and then TWoK for second times back to back.
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Dec 10, 2010 18:15
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Jorenko posted:And yet, in one of Dalinar's visions he clearly sees a Radiant wearing plate do something very much like surge-flying. I believe it may simply be an issue of control. I think there may be a link between honorspren/'sentient' spren and the extra powers they used in the old order.
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Dec 10, 2010 18:19
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Cartoon Man posted:You mean Szeth. Or how about the polearm that the returned herald dropped at the end of the book? KALADIN LIKEY DA SPEARZ. that's my guess, anyway. the old herald will be too sickly or ill and will pass on his knowledge to Kaladin or summat
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Dec 11, 2010 01:48
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Kalas posted:Sazed's intro mentioned (from his perspective) that Shardplate would interfere with his Surgebinding. I'm pretty sure the reason he gave is that it would just slow him down.
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Dec 11, 2010 03:11
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senae posted:I'm pretty sure the reason he gave is that it would just slow him down. The Way of Kings posted:His Lashings interfered with the gemstones that powered the Shardplate, and he had to choose one or the other.
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Dec 11, 2010 10:58
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I think in the vision, the whole shardplate glowed ... they weren't powered by the modern method of gemstones.
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Dec 11, 2010 20:33
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arioch posted:I think in the vision, the whole shardplate glowed ... they weren't powered by the modern method of gemstones. Yeah that's what I'm thinkin, the REAL shardplate doesn't need gemstones, like the ones in the vision where it just appeared on and off etc, I think they will be able to summon it like shardblades... dyehead fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Dec 12, 2010 |
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Dec 11, 2010 22:54
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Just finished my Mistborn re-read, and it's just as awesome the second time, if not more so. Yomen is a pretty crazy character. End of Mistborn trilogy spoilers, don't read if you haven't finished itI still can't get over how crazy the end is - I really like that Sanderson's never been scared to kill off main characters throughout the series. Kelsier, Dockson, Clubs, and then Vin and Elend at the end. When Vin died to kill Ruin, I was just floored, even though I knew it was coming. But yeah, happy endings in which almost everyone die are awesome. I can't wait for the new Mistborn books. I really want to know what the last two metals are.
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Dec 13, 2010 16:56
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Dramatika posted:I can't wait for the new Mistborn books. I really want to know what the last two metals are. Spoilered in case you don't want it ruined for you (though the powers are pretty easy to figure out if you think about it): Chromium - An Allomancer while burning Chromium is able to destroy another Allomancer's metals, just like Aluminum does to one's self. Nicrosil - An Allomancer while burning Nicrosil can cause a target Allomancer currently burning metals to burn them in a brief, intense flash. Similar to Duralumin, differing only because Duralumin is an internal metal (targeting the Allomancer burning it), and Nicrosil is an external metal (targeting another Allomancers). I'm hoping there's more metals still to be revealed, but even if not, I'm excited to see what he does with allomancy in modern and futuristic settings.
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Dec 13, 2010 17:25
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Eh! Frank posted:I'm hoping there's more metals still to be revealed, but even if not, I'm excited to see what he does with allomancy in modern and futuristic settings. Max Payne, the burned out allomancer cop.
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Dec 13, 2010 18:48
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So rereading the book I noticed a few things I think will become important later on: When Dalinar has a vision of Nohadon (The guy who wrote the book) he mentions the 'Nahel bond' which is a source of power. Given that the creatures Shallan interacts with refer to her as having a bond, I think that is what is going on there. The other thing is that Elohkar is said to be paranoid and mentions seeing creatures with horrible symbols for heads- the same thing that Shallan sees. So maybe he has the same power too.
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Dec 14, 2010 07:02
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Eh! Frank posted:Looking on wikipedia, seems like the last two metals have already been revealed, not in the books but on a Table of Allomantic Metals poster that Sanderson is/was selling on his site. Ha those two metals are completely obvious in retrospect. Hell, Vin even asks Kelsier if it's possible to affect the metals in another Allomancer in their first training segment.
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Dec 14, 2010 12:35
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Natural Joe posted:So rereading the book I noticed a few things I think will become important later on: When Dalinar has a vision of Nohadon (The guy who wrote the book) he mentions the 'Nahel bond' which is a source of power. Given that the creatures Shallan interacts with refer to her as having a bond, I think that is what is going on there. Interesting point about the second thing! It makes total sense when looking at it too, given whom the relatives are. I'll definitely have to re-read the book sometime in the new year as I love picking up stuff like this on subsequent reads. I always read stuff so fast but it's because I want to find out what happens and I tend to miss stuff like this. It happens every time and I never learn. thecallahan fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Dec 14, 2010 |
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Dec 14, 2010 17:41
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Eh! Frank posted:Looking on wikipedia, seems like the last two metals have already been revealed, not in the books but on a Table of Allomantic Metals poster that Sanderson is/was selling on his site. I can understand why the Lord Ruler kept those super secret he was almost constantly burning a poo poo-ton of metal, and a burst of Nicrosil would have probably blinded and deafened him for hours. Combined with the fact that ideally no one would need to fight an allomancer if he died (since allomancy was of preservation) they'd be useless in a Lord Rulerless world.
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Dec 15, 2010 23:24
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senae posted:I can understand why the Lord Ruler kept those super secret he was almost constantly burning a poo poo-ton of metal, and a burst of Nicrosil would have probably blinded and deafened him for hours. Combined with the fact that ideally no one would need to fight an allomancer if he died (since allomancy was of preservation) they'd be useless in a Lord Rulerless world. The Mistborn world comes together so much better than than drat near any other series I've read. There's things mentioned in the first page that foreshadow events at the end of the trilogy. All of it is premeditated and all of it makes sense. A large part of that is probably due to how Brandon wrote them all before publishing the first. If he got to something in book three that worked better if the underlying mechanics were slightly different, he just went back and re-wrote that difference from the beginning. He talks about that a lot in his commentary. Which, by the way, is the best drat thing ever. I wish more authors did commentary. His little asides about why he did such-and-such and the meanings behind this-or-that add yet another layer of enjoyment to an already enjoyable experience.
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Dec 16, 2010 01:45
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ConfusedUs posted:The Mistborn world comes together so much better than than drat near any other series I've read. There's things mentioned in the first page that foreshadow events at the end of the trilogy. All of it is premeditated and all of it makes sense. Well, you just gave me something to do all day. I'd never read the commentary before, but I just read through a couple of them and it's amazing.
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Dec 16, 2010 15:48
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I just finished the commentary for the Hero of Ages, something I hadn't done before. It felt like the right time to do it, having just completed my third re-read of the series, the first after reading the other two books' commentary. Even knowing the series as well as I do, and having read the commentary on the previous two books, there's still a handful of things I hadn't caught and a couple of things I'd suspected but now have confirmed. Things I hadn't caught: Kelsier's spirit was the one talking to Spook and Vin after their spikes were removed. I thought it was just Ruin pretending to be Kelsier. Both happen in key, climactic moments and I really hadn't made the connection between 'mysterious words' and 'no more spikes mean no more Ruin'. On all three reads I've been too caught up in the story to match that up. In retrospect it's pretty obvious. Luthandel is at the magnetic north pole, meaning all compasses point towards the capitol, and the Final Empire is actually quite small. While this is really kind of incidental and not explained well (it's hinted at only vaguely), and so is the fact that the ash is somewhat ferromagnetic and would thus gather at the poles, it does beg the question: who lived at the other probable habitable zone at the south pole? Things I suspected and were confirmed by the commentary: The kandra people survived the Resolution. Sazed was simply too nice to not use his new powers as God to use all those leftover spikes to bring the kandra back to sentience. Marsh probably survived. Remember, he was both an Allomancer and a Feruchemist and undoubtedly had some health stored up somewhere on his person, especially considering all the time Ruin just had him standing around doing nothing. Perfect time to store up whatever attribute he wanted. Plus, Brandon said that if Marsh survived, since there was atium around, he has the potential to live forever using the same trick as the Lord Ruler, meaning he could be back for future Mistborn books. Marsh is a favorite of mine, so this is good news. He was every bit as instrumental in the downfall of the Final Empire and the defeat of Ruin as Vin. She was all brute force. Marsh was essentially a sleeper agent the entire time. First he infiltrates the Ministry, then ends up as an Inquisitor and takes out his brethren to give Vin a chance to beat the Lord Ruler. He shows Sazed the writing at the Conventical while under the early influences of Ruin. Then he finally rips the earring from Vin's ear and allows her to ascend. I can see him taking a similar, behind-the-scenes role in the future.
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Dec 16, 2010 20:59
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Mistbornchat: I just got my copies of Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages from Amazon, gonna dig in tonight. loving stoked right now. Where is this commentary? I'd love to read the commentary for Mistborn.
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Dec 17, 2010 21:40
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You'll find his commentaries on his site. http://www.brandonsanderson.com/
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Dec 17, 2010 21:59
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ConfusedUs posted:I just finished the commentary for the Hero of Ages, something I hadn't done before. It felt like the right time to do it, having just completed my third re-read of the series, the first after reading the other two books' commentary. I thought Marsh was just a misting though, a seeker right? How would he pull the same trick the Lord ruler did?
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Dec 21, 2010 18:19
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treeboy posted:I thought Marsh was just a misting though, a seeker right? How would he pull the same trick the Lord ruler did? Spikes presumably still work, and the terminators had one for every type of metal.
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Dec 21, 2010 18:23
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treeboy posted:I thought Marsh was just a misting though, a seeker right? How would he pull the same trick the Lord ruler did? Yeah, If the spikes still work, he can still use Feruchemy since it is a power granted to all Inquisitors. We've also seen that he can use allomancy. And if the spikes don't work, he'd be dead. I'm interested to see if Marsh is still around (he should be), and if so, if he's now a puppet of Sazed? Hemalurgically created creatures are slaves to Ruin, but since Sazed inherited the powers of Ruin (and Preservation while we're at it), he should still have the ability to talk through Marsh. It's crazy to think that there will still be an Inquisitor as a religious voice in the future, and at this point he's the one voice of god.
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Dec 21, 2010 18:27
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treeboy posted:I thought Marsh was just a misting though, a seeker right? How would he pull the same trick the Lord ruler did? Hemalurgy works like this: If you kill an Allomancer or Feruchemist with metal, a portion of their power is transferred into the metal. If you spike someone with that metal (in the right place), the person spiked gets the power to use as they wished. The longer the wait between death and spiking a host, the more power is lost. For Mistings, spikes only absorbed the one power the victim Misting had, but if a Mistborn died to make a spike, it would grant all the powers of a Mistborn to the one who got spiked. I can't remember if Feruchemists who died to make a spike were a one-at-a-time deal, or if they were wholesale like Mistborn, but I find wholesale to be more likely. A spike that granted a power someone already had would simply make that power stronger. This is how Vin and many Inquisitors were able to pierce copperclouds. The Lord Ruler was both a Feruchemist and an Allomancer, and that was the source of almost all of his power. He could fuel his Feruchemy with metals instead of his own energies. He could, for example, spend a few hours every couple of weeks old and frail, storing his youth into a metal. Then he could burn that metal and instead of being young for the same few hours he was old, he'd be young for a couple of weeks. He could do similar stunts with any Feruchemical ability. Store a few minutes worth of health and use it to recover from decapitation. The original Inquisitors only had the powers of a Mistborn, but many gained those of Feruchemists as well after the slaughter of the Terris Synod, making each equal in power (if less in practice) to the Lord Ruler. Marsh got Feruchemical spikes and bonus Allomantic spikes on top of his originals. Marsh and the dozen or so Inquisitors that Vin fought before ascending were all of this type. But Marsh got more spikes than any of them. By the end of the series, he was easily the most powerful creature on the planet and Vin only stood a chance once she took in the power of Preservation. Marsh was taking her apart before he manage to take control of himself long enough to rip the spike from her ear.
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Dec 22, 2010 04:12
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ConfusedUs posted:Hemalurgy works like this: The end of Chapter 71 in Hero of the Ages contradicts this: It is stated you'd only get one of the powers (based on the type of metal used) and the rest were wasted. Ruin preferred to subvert Mistborn (Zane) instead. Kalas fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Dec 22, 2010 |
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Dec 22, 2010 04:43
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i remember the theory behind hemalurgy, I just couldn't remember if the powers lined up appropriately to allow Marsh to perform the Age trick. I can't find my book to double check, but as I recall certain hemalurgic transfers don't result in the exact same power granted that was stolen. According to Mistborn Wiki, Pewter spikes steal feruchemical physical powers, which I would assume covers Aging. Atium is the metal that stores age. An Atium spike steals an Allomancers Temporal powers. So: As Sazed explained the Feruchemy/Allomancy loophole, the Lord Ruler would Feruchemically store an ability (like Age) in a metalmind, and then rather than retrieve the Age through Feruchemy he would essentially create a new type of allomantic ability by burning the metalmind providing more bang for his buck (since Feruchemy has diminishing returns while Allomancy enjoys an increase in potential) In order for Marsh to pull off the same trick as the Lord Ruler he would need a pewter spike from a Feruchemist, and an Atium spike from an allomancer/atium misting (so that he could burn the atium metalminds the store Age) i think that's how it'd work anyway. depends on how Age storing is classified (as temporal/physical) for Feruchemy. The spike required might be a different variety than Pewter. Malatium perhaps.
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Dec 22, 2010 08:17
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Whelp, this book was one of the best things about an already pretty neat Christmas. It's the first BS book I've read, but suffice to say I've already made a book depository order for Mistborn. Made the unfortunate mistake of trying to finish this on the train to work, ended up spending the first few hours when I got there reading a paragraph of the book, and a paragraph of error logs alternately. I'd say this has been my most productive morning all year  The spren are pretty cool, I'm looking forward to learning more about them, I have that feeling that I'm about two or three more hints away from figuring it out, but then I am kinda dense. I didn't mind the flashbacks, but the pacing got annoying. The final flashback was more irritating than anything else, but it's a small complaint. On the other hand the character switching was actually alright, normally it gets annoying about half way through as the pacing gets out of sync, but he managed to keep it relatively consistent. No groaning at chapter ends. I've been following Brandon on twitter for a while; he seems like a pretty genuine guy so I'm excited that his books seem to be doing so well.
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Dec 29, 2010 09:01
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Downloaded, read, and enjoyed the hell out of TWOK while on vacation. For some reason I assumed that he already had the second one out and I was late getting into the series. I was pretty disappointed when I found out there's that much of a wait for the next one. Thank God Sanderson is a beast at writing.
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Jan 5, 2011 05:32
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Just finished this. It was pretty good except the chapters were a little... uh, too varied. Reading Kaladin chapters was like reading Raoden in Elantris. Shallan and Jasnah were the two princesses from Warbreaker. Dalinar is sort of Mistborn. They didn't really seem particularly cohesive. I also question how he can stretch this for ten novels, as the first novel felt a little stretched. But, yeah, pretty good. Irritated by the hamfisted references to yellow, purple, orange, blue, and red, though. He sort of keeps shoving those down your throat. I can only assume that the heralds are a magical rainbow. Also, spren: same thing as atium/larasium, yes/no?
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Jan 5, 2011 16:48
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Er, well, I don't remember larasium as being the container for the power of one of the Adonalsium Shards, but yes, I think the spren are roughly equivalent to atium. The Section 2 "bumper" text seem to be the text of a letter sent from Hoid to some other person, who sent agents (seen in one of the "asides" chapters) to hunt Hoid down for some reason or other. But in this letter Hoid apparently names the other people (who are at least somewhat like him and this other unnamed person, the "old reptile" who's for "nonintervention") who hold (or are?) one of the Shards of Adonalsium, Ati was mentioned who is obviously Ruin/atium, Aona is obviously behind the AonDor powers (Elantris, ChayShin, Dakhor), Skai is probably the Seons, and Rayse is probably Odium.
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Jan 5, 2011 16:59
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arioch posted:Er, well, I don't remember larasium as being the container for the power of one of the Adonalsium Shards, but yes, I think the spren are roughly equivalent to atium. Skai is on the Elantris-world too, actually.
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Jan 5, 2011 18:09
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Saradiart posted:Skai is on the Elantris-world too, actually. I guessed that Skai had something to do with the Seons (if I remembered that name right) which are the energy spirit familiars in Elantris, Sel is the name of the world. Brandon hasn't quite answered that question for me, he probably hopes to leave that for a potential Elantris sequel.
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Jan 5, 2011 22:13
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Saradiart posted:I also question how he can stretch this for ten novels, as the first novel felt a little stretched. The first novel is a bit stretched because it's been in the writing process for a long rear end time and is a gigantic novel, but I can see how he can get 10 regularish-lengthed books out of it, mostly just from the potential Radiants that are already mentioned in the book, and the plot arc hints: 1) fully fleshing out Szeth-son-son-Vallano (I can see there being a arc where he turns against his Truthless label and his Oathstone, possibly culminating in him killing Kharbranth's king, or just him continuing on his destructive arc, either is possible) 2) Elhokar Kholin's arc (note that he sees the same spren as Shallan does) 3) More of Shallan (her backstory--especially how she came to own and to know to use a Shardblade, and her learning Soulcasting from Jasnah) (probably a goodly portion of book #2) 4) I think it's likely that Kaladin and Dalinar are new Heralds, so there may be an overarching arc that deals with that 5) What the gently caress is Hoid up to now that he's going to be an active participant? 6) Odium, The Final Desolation (hell, The Wheel of Time will have been 14 books to get to THAT particular "Final" Battle)
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Jan 5, 2011 23:22
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arioch posted:I guessed that Skai had something to do with the Seons (if I remembered that name right) which are the energy spirit familiars in Elantris, Sel is the name of the world. Brandon hasn't quite answered that question for me, he probably hopes to leave that for a potential Elantris sequel. Oh, right. I'm sorry--it's been so long I completely forgot about what seons are. Also, I feel like the first novel laid too many cards on the table. I should have more faith in Sanderson's writing ability by now, but it seems like too many plot threads have already been revealed to continue the series for another nine novels. I suspect nearly all of them are wrong. Also re: Elkohar and Shallan, any clues as the motivation of those spren? Are they spren related to soulcasting? That would seem to be the obvious answer, but I wonder if there's a curveball coming in regards to that.
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Jan 6, 2011 02:30
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