Brandon Sanderson

Actually, is there any Investiture that doesn't come with Required Secondary Powers? I'm pretty sure Kaladin doesn't have to spit out bugs from his teeth.

Roshar doesn't have bugs, remember? Even flying cremlings are extremely rare.

That being said, Surgebinders get general-purpose Required Secondary Powers due to Stormlight healing; it's mentioned a few times that Kaladin does some internal damage during his trickier maneuvers, but he heals before it becomes an issue.

I wonder if that's a more efficient system Investiture wise.

Although, given what's going to happen with Mistborn, its seems like the secondary effects can definitely be abused.

At least with some systems.

On consideration, Ruin and Odium have nicely different MO's. Ruin's thing was that EVERYBODY was unknowingly working for him via misinformation and data corruption, especially data regarding prophecies, as well as direct but subtle manipulation via the spiked. Odium, on the other hand, seems to rely on VERY long-range planning combined with prophecy, a really nasty combination that compound dangerously together, kinda like the mythical Steel compounder we all keep talking about here, on top of personally loyal immortal subordinates and varied means of coopting enemy forces and force multipliers..

What's interesting to ME is that both styles can oppose each other directly and are not weak to the other. Hemulurgy is a bit limited since you need an invested person to die to make super powers with it, but it's advantage is that the spiked are under Ruin's direct control if they have 2 or more spikes. Odium's for of possession relies on emotional state and long-term cultivated connection, meaning that they can be subverted with a strong enough will and, as the battle in Thaylen shows, requires set up. Ruin, however, just needs to get metal in your body. On the other hand, Odium has easier means of granting super powers that does not require cutting the number of his forces in half to empower the other half.

Both also have good prophecy-fu, but as Thaylen also showed, Odium is NOT good at adapting to sudden disruptions of his foreseen events. Ruin, however, is good at Gambit Roulette, even though the range of his prophecy is shorter, relatively speaking. Odium is a better prophecy strategist, but Ruins is a better prophecy tactician.

They seem to have equally good grasps of psychology, but are also limited enough that they can be surprised by snap decisions. Given how static Shards are, this means they would both be able to understand the thinking processes of the other in a confrontation.

In logistics, Odium's forces are shown to be capable of building and maintaining a large support infrastructure (they had PLENTY of practice), while Ruin's forces, his kolloss especially, tend to be, well, ruinously destructive but self-sufficient enough to live off the land (mostly. Inquisitors need to eat sometime, though this can be delayed with foodminds). Because of thier near-bottomless investiture from this direct link, Odium's forces have the advantage of aerial harassment, while Ruin has shown better aptitude at internal and sudden sabotage.

Really, it's like Ruin was deliberately setting up a means to fight Odium should the need arise. A direct battle between their forces, provided Ruin has time to build up forces, would actually be pretty equal, all things considered.

Thoughts?

Two points on Ruin, though not a refutation of anything else you said:

1) Ruin doesn't have to cut his forces in half to make spikes - if he can capture the other guy's minions, that's just as good!

2) To control a human, Ruin would have to riddle someone with spikes, as with the Steel Inquisitors or old-style Koloss, right? We saw examples of lesser amounts of metal in people, and it let him talk to them and mess with how other magical beings saw them, but he couldn't just control them.

According to Harmony, and as shown by the Set with their own Hemulurgical experiments, 2 spikes opens you to control, which is why it's a big deal the Set found a way to get a single spike to bestow multiple powers. Any more means they can get jacked by Harmony. All other spiked humans we've seen besides Inquisitors have only a single spike, usually from getting stabbed.

Huh. Can you make Listener Kolloss?

edited 1st Feb '18 6:38:52 PM by SCMof2814

In theory, maybe, but the "make monsters" function of Hemalurgy is explicitly mentioned to be weird and hard to understand even for Ruin. If you could find the right bindpoints to steal physical strength from parsh and then the right points to give that strength to someone else, then maybe. But we don't know how bindpoints are determined except by learning them from Ruin, and we don't know how he figured it out. It might be that the only way to figure it out with the parsh would be through lots of trial and error.

Someone worked it out, and with one spike too, as opposed to 4. I'm getting the feeling Sazed is going to wish he'd kept a better eye on Ruin's old toys.

You know, unless he has more we don't know about, Kelsier is also a monospiker.

I'd expect that you could turn listeners into something like koloss, but the procedure would be completely different.

One of the biggest questions I have been asking myself is what relation future Scadrians will have with Harmony. Scadrial is poised for an incredible industrial/magical revolution , and Hemalurgy is just way too powerful for governments to ignore. Are we going to see a proliferation of mono-spiked people who try to avoid Harmony's control? If a bunch of people get greedy and try to get multi-spiked, would Harmony just...let them? Or would he directly intervene to stop it? Interesting questions that I'm looking forward to seeing answered.

Also, this isn't directly Brandon Sanderson related but I thought people here might be interested in The Powder Mage trilogy by Brian McClellan.

It comes highly recommended by Sanderson himself and it's been scratching the itch I've had in the wake of Oathbringer. Made a thread about it if people have read it.

edited 2nd Feb '18 7:15:50 AM by GutstheBerserker

Had a worrying thought while rereading Bands of Mourning (when next book Brandon?) WE still haven't found out what Odium's passive is. With Ruin, it was data corruption, altering to change meanings and manipulate people, which he still managed to do the whole time he was in the Well. So, what's Odium's? Is he the cause of Kaladin's depression, by subtly consuming certain emotions? It can't be the prophecy thing, since most Shards have that to varying degrees, he's just really good at it.

I doubt that Odium is the cause of Kaladin's depression, because Sanderson's probably aware that there are people who identify with him because of it. That said, you raise a good point - we don't know how much precision he has in his ability to consume passion, or "range." Also, does the person have to willingly give it to him, or was he just trying to make a point by waiting for Dalinar to knuckle under?

I'm still not sure that Odium literally has the ability to consume emotions and pain, instead of just symbolically. Kaladin's fight with Amaram was all about how giving up his agency hasn't made him feel any better, and following that there's the implication that he could have chosen to turn away from Odium at any time, though of course that wasn't likely to happen.

Maybe he produces something like a godly Soothing field, dulling high emotions and keeping low emotions low.

So I'm binging Critical Role Campaign 1 and one episode was just sponsored by Tor books to advertise Bands of Morning and they joked about Matt Mercer being a good cast for Wax....

And part of me was going 'You know, thats true...but Taliesin Jaffe would be *perfect* for Breeze.'

I could see it.

Just realized that Ruin and Odium are actually foils to each other. to wit:

While both employ prophecy, have empowered minions, and notably managed to kill the Shard they were sharing a territory with who opposed them, both differ wildly on implementation, with Odium primarily using methods based on the Cognitive Realm and Ruin being mostly based on the Physical realm.

• Ruin's own use of prophecy mainly composed of altering existing prophecies to serve his ends, sometimes moment by moment to fit the situation. Odium is noted to be very good at making his own prophecies and sees very far into the future, to the point that predicting the future is actively taboo on Roshar due to how closely it is tied to ruin. They don't even play gambling games that rely on guess the future result of, say dice rolls, because that smacks too much of prophecy, instead playing variants where they guess the numbers after dice have been rolled, since that makes it a past event.
• In appearance, Odium tends towards gold and white colors, and appears as a gold and/or white clad member of the species he is appearing to. Ruin tends toward black and dark gray, and appears as someone the viewer knows. Odium tries to make the person he is talking to trust and surrender to him with a calming, Affably Evil demeanor while Ruin takes advantage of already-established trust and subverts it to his own ends.
• Both are a source of Investiture and use their Investiture to power and physically alter certain minions. In this, they are actually very alike, both utilizing corrupted versions of other Shards' Investiture, with many of their minions undergoing noticeable physical changes. With Odium, however, most of these changes are natural parts of his minions biology stemming from changes to their spiritual or Cognitive aspects that trickle down to the Physical Realm. Ruin actively alters and mutilates his minions in the Physical Realm with stolen bits of Spiritual data to alter and add to their Cognitive and Spiritual parts.
• Speaking of minions, they're even opposed when it comes to their minions' sanity. Odium values sane, physically whole minions because they can act rationally, follow orders, and have sufficient initiative to do what he wants done. Ruin goes for insane minions, whether originally like that or induced to be so from contact with him, because they're easier to control with spikes and won't question doing what a voice in their head tells them to do. Notably, Odium's insane minions tend to be harmless and sit around doing nothing, while capable of fighting if ordered. Ruin's minions are always violently insane, and without his direct control rampage wildly.
• Both utilize forms of mind control. Odium does it by implanting Physical beings with spren/Cognitive beings aligned to him, and Ruin does it by spiking them with Hemulurgical spikes, physically opening them up to his Cognitive tampering and control. Notably, all of Ruin's forces were in the Physical realm, with him being the only Cognitive presence, while Odium, while having a sizeable force on the Physical Realm, has a significantly more massive force in the Cognitive Realm, and is also able to corrupt and control Cognitive beings.
• Speaking of mind control, Odium's acts of subversion tend toward deals and pacts that he is completely up front and honest about, and will actually go through with in both spirit and letter. This allows him to take control of populations and essentially conscript whole peoples to his side by subverting their leaders, with eventual trickle down effects. Ruin, however, plays ALL sides. The leaders, the mooks, the rebels AND the heroes. By massive and subtle manipulations, everyone is unknowningly on Ruin's side even as they are impelled to try and destroy everyone else, and even when they think they're opposing him.
• Before becoming Shards, Ati, Ruin's holder, was noted as being a good man who was corrupted into being the crazy creep that came to destroy Scardrial, and being very honest about it. Rayse, Odium's holder, has apparently ALWAYS been an evil asshole, yet currently presents himself as a friendly, wise and reltable guy... when he's trying to con you into dealing away EVERYTHING to him.
• Notably, there is also their omnicidal end goals. While Odium primarily wants to destroy the heroes and the peoples of Roshar they're defending because accomplishing this gets him out of a pact that keeps him bound to Roshar so he can finally go and start killing other Shards, Ruin wants to commit omnicide as a means in itself, with the implication that after he's killed everyone on Roshar, he's going to destroy the physical planet itself. While fr Odium it is merely the means to an end, for Ruin it is the end in itself.

So after getting through the first two books of Mistborn I wandered off. Dunno why. I enjoyed them, I am just kinda like that. But I was without Internet for a while and I'll be losing it again soon so this is aagreat time for reading. Or listening to audiobooks as it were.

The ending twist of Hero of Ages was something. Very satisfying. I didn't see it coming. But, then again, maybe I'm slow. I still think The Final Empire is teh best book overall. Also Sanderson's morals confuse the hell out of me since I cannot tell what he wnts us to think of the Lord-Ruler after half of the last book was dedicated to whitewashing him. I mean, there was always an element of pity to him I suppose. But it's the pity of watching a man drown himself. This is all his fault so fuck him.

And speaking of Sanderson's weird and inconsistent morality, what is up with Hemalurgy? It's an evil act involving stabbing somebody and stealing their life or power. But Spook apparently asked for "volunteers" to undergo it?

The second trilogy isn't as bad as i was told. It's not great but I like Wayne and Steris. I'm on the last book now.

I'm interested in the series i first heard about from him though. Archives or whatever. How many books of those are there? I Give me something tgo do for the next few months.

In conclusion, I initially spoke of how The Final Empire made Mistborn look even more grim than ASOIAF. It's really not like that, though. The tone is much more hopeful. But you gotta admit, the beginning of TFE is pretty fucked. But things do get better in spite of various hiccups and the tone is just...optimistic and idealistic.

Lord Ruler's Morality

I would say that Sanderson makes a lot of effort to make the Lord Ruler believable and understandable. But I don't think he is supposed to be a sympathetic character at all. He's cruel, selfish, duplicitous and ultimately evil.

Ethical Hemalurgy

If I remember correctly, Spook specifically sought out the sick, old and dying as volunteers to create Hemalurgic spikes. It's still very morally questionable, but it at least shows that Spook wasn't just some homicidal, power-hungry maniac.

The Stormlight Archive

There are currently 3 books released out of a planned 10, with the latest one having released last October. It's a very good series and one I would recommend if you enjoyed Mistborn.

The setting ofThe Final Empire is incredibly brutal and it's mostly the characters and dialogue that make the story feel light and hopeful. We also don't spend too much time witnessing first hand the abuses of the Nobles, so it makes the book easier to bear. If we were to be submitted to very act of physical violence and rape perpetrated upon the Ska on a daily basis, then yeah I would say The Final Empire is more grimdark then A Song of Ice and Fire.

Spook suggested seeking out the sick and the dying, but it's a little unclear if he actually did it. The fact that it's unheard of by the time of Wax and Wayne implies he changed his mind. Remember that Hemalurgy damages the soul, so it's quite likely that the victims have problems with their afterlife. Word of God is that if someone manages to survive getting harvested for a spike, they'd be a very different person because of the damage. Though there are ways to heal damage to a soul, so you might be able to use that for a guilt-free source of power.

Anyway, the point is that Hemalurgy is definitely treated as a bad thing.

Ah, good point. I had always assumed that Spook went ahead with the creation of Hemalurgic spikes, but it's true that there is no confirmation either way.

I also hadn't considered that it might actually affect someone's afterlife, which is a confirmed and known thing in the Cosmere. In that case, Hemalurgy would always be 100% unethical, even if performed on dying, consenting subjects.

Is it, though? Not even the Shards are sure of what happens after a soul passes on.

And Nikkolas, did you read Secret History?

Secret History? I don't think so.

You've read the sequel series, right? Remember the last bit of Bands of Mourning? It's a novella set during the original trilogy that explains what was going on with that.

I haven't finished BOM yet. Good to know though.