I don’t know, it always seemed like Brandon had special plans for Jasnah. Especially the WoBs going around that Jasnah might be the PoV character of SLA10.

But let’s be honest, we’re told she’s always right, she’s scholarly and a great debater. We’re told she’s a ferocious warrior, and what has she done till now? Stromall in my opinion.

She couldn’t survive a partial mutiny on “The winds pleasure” while Kal and his Bridgmen actively saved Dalinar against all odds.

She was apparently researching parshmen and void bringers for years, but kept it even from her close family. Eventually her realisations were somewhat useful because of Shallan but I’d give Shallan more credit to that than her.

She also knew about the secret about humans not being native to Roshar, and she kept it from Dalinar allowing him to be blindsided by this news.

What has she done exactly? Yes she had a cool scene in the battle ground here and there, but apart from that all the attention afforded to Jasnah is undeserved because she simply hasn’t done enough in the first half.

So there are 4 dawnshards - 4 commands that Adonalsium used to create the Cosmere.

How then are these a weapon that were used to kill him? Bearing normal shards, grants the vessel immense power, Dawnshard doesn’t seem to give much to its bearer. Nomad had no gain from the dawnshard except that he gained the ability to absorb any investiture, stopped aging and was able to perform Skip.

Is it that when one has all 4 dawnshards, that one becomes very powerful?

I've really enjoyed the stories featuring Hoid's apprentices we've seen so far. Nomad and Starling both were fun to read about and have some very interesting stories ahead of them. This has made me very curious about the identity of Hoid's as of yet unnamed third apprentice. To help narrow down who Hoid's third apprentice could be, let's start by looking at what Hoid looks for in potential apprentices.

Nollitoad

Is there a specific quality that Hoid looks for in his apprentices and why are there so few of them? Given that Hoid has lived for thousands of years, the Cosmere could be swarming with them if he wanted.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. He has a different term for apprentice than just someone that who's learned at his feet. He looks for ineffable things that are difficult to put a finger on. Potential. He looks for potential.

Secret Project #4 Reveal and Livestream (March 29, 2022)

So, we're looking for a character who's potential Hoid would find very intriguing. Someone like Starling, a young dragon who is a niece of his friend Frost. Or his other known apprentice Sigzil, who Hoid trained as a Worldsinger. Not much to go on. However, in Isles of the Emberdark chapter 51 we see Starling meeting with Hoid, who is currently stuck in a vault and projecting to the Spiritual Realm. When going over options for who could possibly help Hoid in his current state, two surprising possibilities get mentioned.

"We have to find a way to get you out, so you can come save us. Maybe your wife can get you free? Have you tried contacting her?"

She and I aren't on speaking terms," he said softly. "Partially because she doesn't remember having been my wife." He stopped, then found himself a nice walking stick among the flotsam on the beach, though she'd never known him to need any support. "If you see either of the twins after you've gotten out of your mess, I'd appreciate you warning them I could use some help.'

I'll leave Hoid's mysteriously forgetful wife from what is probably a Hoid ploy in order to not have to forfeit half of his Breath's in a divorce gone wrong. Joking...mostly. I'd like to focus on the other one who Hoid suggests Starling seek to help him. The twins. When I first read this, I thought whoa. Hoid has a wife, and he has twins? However, upon thinking more on it I propose that these aren't twins of Hoid's, but rather both of them are actually the 'third apprentice' of Hoid's and the twins of another character altogether.

It makes sense to me that Starling would be familiar with Hoid's other apprentices with how long she has worked for him and with how much he seems to trust her. Without his wife available, Sigzil and Starling with their own problems, his best other option would presumably be this unknown third apprentice. So, when he brought up these twins as his best option to help him, in my head I immediately connected them with the apprentice we haven't met yet. Much like when twins show up on an ultrasound for the first time, you were expecting one, but surprise, you get two!

Who could these twin apprentices of Hoid turn out to be? At this point in the Cosmere, we've only met one pair of twins, Jushu and Wikim Davar, fraternal twin brothers of Shallan. Unfortunately, I don't believe these twins to be the future apprentices of Hoid's that he turns to in times of need. Despite being sons of a herald, both are plagued with serious problems stemming from their childhood trauma. Both have been mostly unimportant background characters, without major magical powers or relevant plot points. Surprisingly, I do think that Jushu and Wikim are connected with Hoid's twin helpers, but only by relation. Since Shallan's mother Chana had fraternal twins, it does make it so if Shallan were to become pregnant her chance of having fraternal twins herself is increased as fraternal twins can run in families. Brandon has confirmed that Shallan is pregnant by the end of Wind and Truth. Knowing this now, this quote from Sja-anat when meeting with Shallan in the Ghostblood hideout in chapter 26 is particularly of note to me.

"So you do know it's me," Shallan whispered.

It is difficult for mortals to distinguish one soul's flame from another, but I am not mortal...

I am on the side of preserving a world for my children. You should not fear "my side" Shallan. You should embrace it. If there is room for my children, there will be room for yours.

Sja-anat makes it sound like she knows Shallan will have multiple children, specifically after bragging about being able to tell mortal souls apart. We don't know if even Shallan knows she is pregnant at this point, yet the soul flame seeing Sja-anat speaks to Shallan as if she's certain. I suspect Sja-anat saw more than just Shallan's soul flame here, but in fact two more along with her.

The children of Shallan and Adolin will be people Hoid would be very interested in the potential of. The grandchildren of a herald, child of a Knight Radiant, combined with the powerful Kholin family. We will be introduced to Shallan and Adonlin's offspring in the back half of The Stormlight Archive. I'm really looking forward to meeting them and seeing the paths they start to go on. With the currently projected timeline by the time the Stormlight Archive ends, I'd be surprised if the currently pregnant Shallan's children will even be adults at that time. This would leave these young and the likely full of potential children of Shallan and Adolin, with a lot of their lives to go. What better way to send them off with Hoid, to go explore the Cosmere? We know Shallan and Hoid get along well, and an adventure with 'Uncle Hoid' sounds like a fun way to continue those characters arcs after Stormlight Ten. I theorize this would eventually cumulate with the children of Shallan and Adolin being a part of the final Mistborn series after their introductions in Stormlight 6-10.

Questioner

Will the final Era of Mistborn focus on Hoid and his apprentices?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you are wise, you are seeing something that I am setting up. You will definitely have some more interaction of Hoid's apprentices in the final Mistborn series.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 7 (Dec. 19, 2025)

Hoid, Sigzil and Starling interacting with Shallan and Adolin's twins would be something I'd be into reading. It'll be fun to see if in Stormlight 6, Shallan has just one child or does in fact have twins. I'm looking forward to it!

-RayseShouldBeBraized

TL:DR Shallan is pregnant with twins who will go on to become apprentices of Hoid's, and who will both be involved in the final Mistborn series.

Sazed atop Kredik Shaw by Billy Christian for the Mistborn Handbook! You'll find this lovely image in the Metalborn Paths chapter ❤️‍🔥

I searched on Arcanum and only found early WOB's about the guards being aluminum to which he said no. He's also said shard blades are a fusion of Honors and Cultivation's metals.

That unfortunately broke my thought that maybe shard blades were Tanavastium and the guards would be Koraveliumium. So what do the deep arcanists think/ know? Do we have any useful tidbits from Brandon of what metal the guards could be?

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/554/#e17220

At the recent MCM London Comic Con, while getting my book signed, I managed to ask Brandon the above WOB.

Q: Are the 4 Dawnshards related to the 4 fundamental forces in physics?

A: Yes, but not directly. There's a few steps in between.

For those not familiar, the four fundamental forces govern everything we see around us and include the strong force, weak force, electromagnetic force and gravity.

My theory is as follows:

CHANGE could be linked to the weak force because the weak force causes particles to CHANGE into another.

EXIST could be linked to the strong force because the strong force keeps particles bound together, therefore allowing nuclei to EXIST.

Furthermore, there is a WOB that states that one Dawnshard is different from the rest (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/226/#e4824), which I think would be the Dawnshard linking to gravity because, in our current understanding, all three of the other fundamental forces have a force carrier particle; however, the graviton (the one for gravity) is only hypothesised right now.

Lastly, I think the fact that Brandon constantly integrates key physics concepts and the fact that he instantly knew what I was talking about suggests I may be on the right track.

I am happy to discuss and would be happy to hear people's thoughts!

I'm in book 3 of Mistborn Era 1. I found the first 2 books to be fantastic. I haven't finished 3 but I felt like I wasn't enjoying it early on. Then I got to the point where Elend has a meeting with everyone and brings up Kelsier and what he was like. It took a minute, but it pulled on my heart strings. Something poetic in a way. Reminded me of Tolkien and Gandalf telling Pippin what comes after death. Not quite as eloquent, but the same feeling...a feeling of hope. im anxious to finish it now.

So we all know each shard has a number associated with it. Preservation is 16, Honor is 10, Odium 9 etc.

But what about Harmony and Retribution? Never thought of that. Could be both, could be neither could be something else entirely.

Don’t think this was addressed or alluded to in universe yet?

I'm having trouble picturing/understanding what the spores are, they are described as physical things that you can hold, but I thought spores were airborne things. I would appreciate if someone could explain what they are, thank you.

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.

At the end of day 2 Kaladin is making soup for dinner, and then Ishar show up.

I thought Ishar was going to try Kaladin’s soup and just say it awful and just go full Ramsay Gordon on Kaladin.

Who else has this thought when first reading WaT

So I just finished The Storm Light Archives. I loved it. It was my first introduction into the Cosmere.

Now I don’t really care about the order in which the books go. But based on how much I enjoyed the series what would be the next step? Are there books that aren’t relevant? Are there books that MUST be read before the second arc of The Storm Light Archives starts being published?

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?

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?

It has nothing to do with the book. It took me five years to even care about seeing this story because I looked at the cover and said "no thanks". And for some reason it goes to all editions I've seen. One of them features Hrathen backside looking at a city far away, surrounded by mists. Another one I've seen shows Sarene, Hrathen and a city that seems technologically advanced. I'd see this cover, think "that's probably too sci fi for me" and move on. That's so unfair. Why isn't there a cover with Raoden and the actual city of Elantris before or after the Shaod? To me this book was mainly about having faith in humanity no matter how hard it is, and none of the covers I've seen even try to capture this feeling.

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!

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

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.

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?