I really enjoyed Wind and Truth overall but I think some modern language writing choices genuinely made the world a lot less immersive. Sure, if it comes from characters like Hoid that's one thing, but the following joke has really stuck with me as being emblematic of a larger problem with the book.

It's when Syl and Kaladin are talking to Szeth's highspren and realise its name is a series of numbers. (Paraphrasing the following) Kaladin says 'like a cryptic?' to which Syl replies 'Kaladin- that was racist.' Now, on its own the joke is kind of funny, but the more I think of it the more I hate it. Syl was JUST being 'racist' to the highspren, who she's insulted through the past four books, along with other types of spren. Also... RACISM???! This is a world where the principal form of discrimination is eye colour.. not race?? And also, there's been like no indication of a social movement around 'racism' where it's acknowledged as a thing- these people have literally barely abolished slavery and now apparently it's a taboo to be racist???

You can't rationalise this with 'maybe racism is a taboo in the spren world though' - first of all, spren are super 'racist' all the time, and second of all, Syl makes the joke to Kaladin expecting him to get it, so apparently he should realise what racism is. I keep thinking of how to make sense of this and just can't- it really would have been easier to just not include this in the book since it's not even that funny and AAHHH I hate it so much.

Ok so we know that the fused can't use Adhesion cause it's "Honor's truest surge" or whatever, but why can they use Progression? Wouldn't that be Cultivation's truest surge? I mean, Adhesion is accessible through honorspren (and the bondsmith sprens), Progression is accessible through cultivationspren, so shouldn't that make it her surge the way Adhesion is his?

Ok to preface this discussion is intended to be full Cosmere spoilers as I've read everything but White Sands and a handful of novellas, but spoilers will be especially prevalent for Mistborn Era 1 (+ Secret History), Stormlight (through WaT), and Yumi. You have been warned, click off if you don't wanna get spoiled but if you clicked on the Cosmere spoiler post I assume you're here on purpose so let's get started.

I recently saw a comment referencing the in-universe belief by some (I believe Khriss and Vasher to be precise but correct me if I'm wrong here) that cognitive shadows are not literally the same person as they were before their physical death, but rather a replica formed from investiture. I got to thinking about this because I still see it referenced occasionally in discussions among Cosmere fans and I thought it had been thoroughly disproven some time ago so I'm wondering if I'm missing something key here.

My understanding is this in-universe theory has been thoroughly disproven at least four times: directly through character POV, indirectly through the continuation of connection after physical death, directly through explicit explanation by the most knowledgeable in-universe source we have (Hoid), and indirectly through the existence of an actual investiture copy of a deceased character that is explicitly not a cognitive shadow.

1. The first is Kelsier's death in Mistborn. I dug out my copy of secret history to confirm this - we witness Kelsier's death at the hands of Rashek in real time and there is no break in the continuity of his experience from the moment of his physical death to his first moments as a cognitive shadow. He experiences terrible pain, a tearing sensation, and then he's kneeling there as a spooky ghost.
2. Secondly: Kaladin's ascension to a Herald. This one is arguably less bulletproof, but I believe we can be reasonably certain that Kaladin's bond to Syl remains unchanged before, during, and after the death of his physical body and his awakening within the herald therapy bubble in the spiritual realm. We know that physical death breaks nahel bonds, so I think this one is pretty concrete too but I suppose a bunch of weird stuff is happening on Roshar during this sequence what with the whole Retribution thing so fair enough if this alone doesn't convince you.
3. The third is Hoid's narration in Yumi on what the whole deal with the Yoki-Hijo and Father Machine actually is. Hoid explains under no uncertain terms that the Yoki-Hijo, hugely invested as they are, are able to reconstitute themselves despite the Father Machine's initial efforts to absorb/destroy them. This one is certainly the least concrete of the four in my opinion, as Hoid is notably not always correct and we are getting a narration of what happened 1700+ years ago from someone who wasn't there rather than a direct POV of their reconstitution, but given the repeated confirmation in that book that Yumi is in fact still Yumi despite the whole being dead for almost 2 millennia thing (it's kind of a key plot point) I'm reasonably sure we can call this confirmation as well.
4. Finally, the Blackthorn spren. To me this is the smoking gun, as explicit confirmation as we'll ever get that Vasher is full of shit (or maybe he's just supernaturally jaded) and cognitive shadows are literally the continuation of a sufficiently invested person's soul after death. We know for a fact that Dalinar is dead. We get this out of universe from Brandon, and we get this in universe from the POV of a bishardic vessel as he tries and fails to lay claim to Dalinar's soul. Taravangian realizes he cannot claim Dalinar, so what does he do? He creates an invested copy and shoves him full of Dalinar's memories and experiences (albeit tailored to fit his needs). This is, very literally, the Vasher/Khriss hypothesis on what a cognitive shadow is laid bare in front of us - and it is not a cognitive shadow. To me this is Brandon showing us an instance of what Khriss and Vasher are talking about, and very conspicuously confirming that it is not actually Dalinar, but rather a spren copy of Dalinar.

So my question is this: Do y'all agree that there's no actual grounds for this in-universe theory anymore? Am I missing something and there are other reasons why people still share this as if it may be true? Was it necessary that I take 30 minutes to write out this half-baked rant on this fine Wednesday evening?

I look forward to reading your thoughts (and perhaps prayers for my sanity) below!

was an amazing idea and great plot, i liked every part of it, however, it felt like it was executed not too well compared to previous books. I loved every plot point, but not the execution.

Compared to earlier books it was even more winded, too much time was spent focusing on explaining the same things over and over again, everything was simplified, every feeling very apparent, and that's why I didn't feel any depth to the characters this time around. It was very obvious that X wants Y and feels Z and it was shown and told to us multiple times.

Does anyone else feel this way? If yes, why do you think this could be?

I still loved the book, and I did not at all mind the length of it, but it felt a bit shallow at times.

In Mistborn: Secret History, after Kellers Ascends, he tries to approach Marsh in Fadrex. Ruin blocks him, but he’s able to hear Marsh’s thoughts and sense his rebellious spirit. How is this possible? How come Kelseir can hear the thoughts but Ruin can’t?

Note on spoilers: I’m caught up on Cosmere so if the answer needs something from another book, hide it in a spoiler tag and I’ll read it

So I have read MB era 1, Secret History, the Selish system stories (Elantris, Emperor's Soul, etc.), Warbreaker, Way of Kings, and Shadows for Silence. My questions have to do with shades. So I learned about Cognitive Shadows while reading Secret History, and I know the Returned in Warbreaker are CS's "stapled" to their physical bodies (but no idea if they're the actual soul of the person or an Investiture copy). Kelsier's CS is the "soul" of Kelsier that is anchored to the cognitive realm because of Preservation. That leaves me with shades. What the hell are they? So they're cognitive shadows that exist in the Physical Realm without a body. How is that possible if I have learned (so far) that cognitive shadows are of the cognitive realm and need a body to exist in the Physical Realm? Also, why don't Breaths from Nalthis become cognitive shadows when a person dies? The Threnodite System essay explains that some people from Threnody are invested, and that extra Investiture is what becomes the shade at death. So, why doesn't Investiture connected to any person become a CS on other planets (like Breaths)? Is it strictly a Threnody phenomenon? If so, why?

my picks are honor is dead but I’ll see what I can do in WoR, and Journey before destination you bastard or honor is not dead as long as he lives in the heart of man for RoW

To begin with, I have finished Mistborn Era 1 and Elantris

plus The Eleventh Metal + The Emperor's Soul + The Hope of Elantris.

I was half-way through Mistborn Secret History, but decided to pause, don't get on with me on that.

Now, Warbreaker.

I have heard this is Brandon's h*rniest book yet and it shows hahahaha, oh well.

Not a bad book, of course not, but then again I somehow wish it were longer?

The ending sequence feels quite abrupt ngl, especially after absolute adrenaline rush of [The Hero of Ages] and [Elantris]'s ending.

However, I do have one...complaint (?) / burning question.

We never got to see what was happening back in Idris, and why did the king decided to send Siri instead of Vivenna?

Did he actually hate his youngest daughter that much? Or that he much preferred his eldest?

if this is addressed in other Cosmere books, you don't need to let me know, but it definitely made me scratch my head.

Next, I suppose it's time to crack open those tomes of Stormlight?

Obviously I'm talking about Taln. I'm also specifically asking about the period of time in between the forming of the Oathpact and Aharietiam/shattering of the pact - I could have sworn I remembered a line from the prologue that stated that each of the heralds had at some point broken but Taln never had, which was part of why they took advantage of Taln being the only one to die since he had the best chance of sticking around the longest on Braize without immediately breaking like many of the others would.

I can't find any actual reference to this in the prologue though, so did I just make up that reasoning on my own? Was this really only confirmed by WOB up until WaT or was there an earlier reference in-text that I'm remembering?

So, we know that Investiture can heal pretty much anything... so long as it's bringing things back into alignment with your internal perception of yourself. So if you wait too long to use said healing, it won't work, most standard example being Regrowth not being able to fix Rysn's legs since she already internalized her identity being injured. However, we also know that you can use Ferruchemy to store your identity. So, if you made an unsealed aluminummind, and had someone who needed healing but couldn't do to such an issue with identity, could they then have the healing work? Or would it be rejected after they stopped filling the metalmind, like how Kaladin's scars overrode the tattoos he tried to get the second he inhaled Stormlight again?

I've just been listening to the Stormlight archive for the third? time and am nearing the end of Rhythm of War and MY GOSH is this a good book.

Brandon is endlessly enjoyable to read/listen to and I just keep coming back to the cosmere over and over. The more times I read the stormlight archive the more I appreciate it and I am currently overwhelmed with how damn good of a book this is!

I have read all cosmere books except for isles of emberdark.

Mostly everyone claims that the scadrians are the most advanced civilization in the cosmere. And maybe as of the "standard timeline" only Taldain is more advanced than them and that's because the shard shares tech with them...

How is this possible when the Ire (Selish) had an entire fortress outside of Scadrial, they had early warning systems to warn them of shades of thredony and their stated goal throughout the secret history was to hijack a shard through their Connection juice thing. Even Khriss says that they're the experts at what's happening at Scadrial at the time of the first era.

Like I don't think we have seen any feat that shows that Scadrial tech is better than Ire...

Link to previous Post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Cosmere/comments/1ufpyul/ive_been_prototyping_a_cosmere_autofighter_in/

So I'm about a month since I last posted about this, which is 2 weeks later than I planned, i guess my sense of time got Ruined.

Just like last time, a lot of under the hood code has been implemented or refactored. Such as condensing all of the units basic AI into one file, then branching off into their specialties. All to lay a foundation so I can work on the fun stuff more (such as adding new units!).

Some units from last video have underwent minor changes that I did not talk about, such as the Soother and Rioter now consuming more or less Investiture dependent on the amount of people they are targeting

so lets talk about the new fun stuff:

• Unit Selection / Placement was my main focus for this part, as quite frankly the white buttons were ugly and left no room to expand (as seen in the last video). Now you can see the name of each unit, select/deselect them, place them and change their team. the UI is now also very expandable, so that is no longer a worry in the future
  • I also added functionality for when i decide to add new categories of units, e.g. ferrings.
• TinEye: This is definitely still the most WIP of the lot, as I have plans for sightlines and have the TinEye help in that regard but that is future work. For now they can try to dodge incoming projectiles, and will prioritise taking out the backlines in order to help their team.
• Smoker: The most simple of the 3 new units, this fella stops ur guys from feeling down due to a nasty soothing, and stops your enemies from getting inspired from their rioter.
• Seeker: definitely the most complicated unit yet, and being responsible for a lot of rewrites of my codebase, The seeker in its current form finds a ranged unit on its team to pair with, then gives the unit some firing instructions along with a buff to its attack damage, it will prioritise support units before making its way down the chain. For seekers that cannot find a pair, they will head to battle.
  • Initially this guy coordinated the whole battlefield, but this made having additional seekers redundant, so this was then reduced to an aura which was further reduced to where it is now.

Anyway that has been my update, I got some fun encouragement in my previous post that has motivated me to keep going at it, and I have really enjoyed the Journey and hopefully can make this opensource at some point soon.

Talking about the Journeys and progress, my 3 main tasks I want to tackle. in some order not decided yet, is more Mistings (Pulsar's and Sliders I have a very interesting idea for), starting work on Ferrings, and more level layouts (to see how the sandbox interacts).

Anything you want to ask or suggest feel free. I love to see some discussion

In the Mistborn books, atium is Ruin’s metal and it lets the allomancer burning it see into the future. In the Stormlight Archive, Vorinism is one of the primary religions and predicting/seeing into the future is forbidden and (I think) seen as a sign of Voidbringers. It feels relevant that these things both exist, despite being in different parts of the Cosmere but I have no idea why. I don’t have that many friends who’ve read the Cosmere but I really wanted to share it and see what other people think.
Possibly gone overboard on spoilers but would rather be safe than sorry!

Edit: I’ve read everything bar Isles of Emberdark and Elantris

Im almost finished with Yumi and the Nightmare Painter and something occurred to me. Shades and Nightmares are extremely similar visually. One has white pinprick eyes and is a mainly formless cognitive shadow, and the other has green/red eyes and is a vaguely humanoid cognitive shadow.

Could, in theory a Nightmare Painter turn a shade into bamboo or something like that? I know its not an invested art and nightmare painting is just a way of thinking/acting that helps you perceive something differently, but do you think thats possible?

Or even better do you think they could shape spren that often change shape like creativity spren? Like they could force them into a shape like an arrowhead and fire them?

Maybe if they were highly invested, like a returned or maybe someone like Hoid then their perception would be powerful enough to shape a shade/sprens investiture?

After thinking on this I just have this image in my head of a world hopper from Komashi landing in threnody and painting the shades around them into a pitch black forest of bamboo. Maybe that would make the shades even less sensitive to the rules of the forest or possibly even docile.

Hey everyone. My name is Michael and I'm a percussion director at a high school in Florida. For the end of the year spring percussion concert, I usually program a series of challenging works for my students to work towards and embrace. In addition to many other percussion pieces programmed for the concert, I composed an ensemble piece inspired by The Stormlight Archives.

The official program notes are in the description of the video but here is a more abbreviated version:

Movement 1 - Stormlight. This movement has three parts--Stormwall, Riddens, and Spheres infused. It's a more ambient piece that tries to evoke the raging wind and thunder of the oncoming storm, the light downpour afterwards, and the magic infusing the spheres right after.

Movement 2 - Parshendi. This movement has two parts--Rhythm of Anxiety and Rhythm of Resolve. The beginning fluctuates with odd-metered polyrhythms and dissonances communicating an instability as it might be received by members of the Parshendi. The Rhythm of Resolve similarly communicates emotion, but in a much slower and more fulfilling manner.

Movement 3 - Voidlight (a la samba). I'm not exactly sure why, but each time as I was reading the books and voidlight was mentioned I heard latin music. So, I wrote something heavily leaning into the latin flavor of magic.

The kiddos had a great time putting it together. They also found the challenge of the music combined with learning about the inspiration from which I drew for the composition very interesting as well--I may have encouraged quite a few of them to give the Cosmere a try!

The cameraman and editor of the video is a band parent named Chris without whom the video wouldn't have been possible.

I hope you enjoy listening to Tour of Roshar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaGF4vf1tBE

i’ve listened to the cosmere books rather than read them, and then have been reading things on reddit and coppermind and there have genuinely been some names of people and places that have taken me a ridiculously long time to work out🤣🤣
i’ve also been experiencing the cosmere on recommendation from a friend, who i’ve been texting about it throughout. there have been lots of times when they’ve not been able to work out who i’ve been referring to, and it really makes us both laugh!
has anyone else had this experience? it always really amuses me

Can someone explain Shadesmar to me like I’m a 5 year old? Spoilers welcome.

Would a clear, plastic glove work to cover the safehand?

I recently picked up the card game and read through the rules. Then when I was sleeving it a couple days later, I double checked and barely caught something I missed on the first read-through. The rules say that the lead player changes to whoever won the last trick of the previous round, not the previous trick. As in, the same player starts all 10 tricks for a given round.

I've played several trick-taking games and am used to the lead player being whoever won the previous trick, changing much more frequently. Changing only every round feels like it might give too much advantage to that lead player and make it easier for them to win the last trick, becoming the lead player for the next round too.

I haven't had an opportunity yet to play it myself and try either way. For those of you who have played it, how are you handling this and how is it going? Have you tried changing with every trick instead?

*** Spoilers for the contest of champions and the end of WoT ahead ***

So after Dalinar did his thing and released odium from the contract leading to the creation of retribution what happened to Alethkar and Herdaz?

I know that the Honor part of retribution insited that Azir and the shattered plains go to Adolin and the singers because it still demanded that the contract be fulfilled but what about Alethkar and Herdaz? Did they get reverted back to coalition control or do they stay under control of the listeners and Odium because Dalinar technically didnt win the contest?

I love the cosmere but I know i am gonna get burnt out if I only read the cosmere. Has anyone else experienced or know someone who has experienced it.

Hopefully tags are correct, not sure if i can add multiple so just put mixed. Spoilers from Mistborn Hero of the Ages and Stormlight archives (book 5 I think?)

In the end of Hero of the Ages there is the battle of Preservation's power with Vin vs Ruin's power with Ati and they end up destroying each others vessel, but seemingly this doesn't seem to cause destruction in the world unless I'm misremembering.

However in some parts of the Stormlight archives, book 5 if I recall correctly, its talking about a time where odium and honor put their powers against each other, causing massive destruction in the world as a result?

How do these powers differ from each other to not cause similar destruction or lack thereoff in both cases?

Read mistborn and thought it was meh but wanted to finish the series. Now 25% into the second book and I’m enjoying it way better. The funny thing is that I constantly see this book ranked lower than a lot of his works.

I'm halfway through Isles of Emberdark, and Aditil's name is bothering me. Dhatri is obviously a world with strong Indian influence, so it's safe to say that Aditil's name comes from the Sanksrit name Aditi, or maybe the more modern name Aditya. But -til names aren't exactly very Indian. It kind of remeninds me of how the Returned names are meant to sound ancient near-eastern, but can either be an actual ancient Hebrew/Cananite word with a letter or two changed, or something that actually sounds ancient near-eastern. Aditil is clearly from the former type. It's just bothering me a little because the word isn't linguistically Sanskrit, it just has a Sanskrit root.