This is the newbie thread. Make sure you read the rules before commenting.
Visit the veteran thread if you have already read all of the Cosmere.
For more information, or to see the full schedule, please see the wiki page for the read-along.
SCHEDULE
Previously, we discussed Unit 19 | Mistborn Era 1 #1.5 | Mistborn: Secret History (in Arcanum Unbounded): Parts 5 through 6, Epilogue [Newbie Thread] / [Veteran Thread]
Today we are discussing Unit 19 | Mistborn Era 1 #1.5 | Mistborn: Secret History (in Arcanum Unbounded): Postscript, Final Thoughts, Trivia
Next week we will be discussing Unit 20 | The Stormlight Archive #2.1 | Elsecaller / King Lopen The First of Alethkar: Both Novellas, Trivia
NEXT UNIT
Next week we will be reading Elsecaller and King Lopen The First of Alethkar. The only realistic way to read these short stories is by purchasing the double-feature eBook off of Amazon (your local library may also have it available). Monday's discussion of the short stories will also include some trivia that will expand more on the publication of these stories.
If you aren't able to find a copy, the summaries I include next week will be more than enough to contribute to the discussion. For various reasons (that the trivia will reveal), I don't consider these to be necessary reading, and only a weird random chance has led to us reading them now.
WARNING: Do NOT read the prefaces to either story. They contain huge spoilers and I will let you know when you can read them. They will be summarized without the spoilers during the discussion/trivia post.
TRIVIA
The rest of this post contains various trivia, including easy-to-miss details and long-running connections between books. It also incorporates external information from sources like author annotations and interviews ("Words of Brandon" or WoB). While most of this information is eventually revealed in the books, sharing it now enhances your overall understanding, aligning with Brandon Sanderson's practice of early fan engagement and clarification.
THE TELEPORTER PROBLEM
The implications in this novella are very metaphysical. Before we can talk about them, we need a foundation of real-world philosophy and metaphysics, so that's what this section is about.
Let's take a detour to the world of Star Trek. You wake up in the morning and put on your freshly ironed red uniform to report for duty. Captain Kirk is heading down to a planet for a special away mission and you've finally been noticed, so he invited you along. You step up behind him, onto the transporter pad. Light envelopes you and your perspective shifts from the inside of the U.S.S. Enterprise to an alien landscape on the planet below.
What happened for you to arrive here? The transporter pad you stood upon scanned every atom and sub-atomic particle in your body, creating a digital copy of your body and mind. Then it destroys every molecule of your existence and manipulates new atoms and sub-atomic particles on the surface of the planet to reform your body and mind. (If you are a Star Trek nerd about to push up your glasses and "um, akshually" me, be shush. I'm getting there.)
The question you might be asking yourself now is, are you you? What is you? Your entire body and mind was just destroyed and a new body and mind was created on the planet. You are an exact clone, with all the memories and experiences of the person who used to live aboard the starship in orbit above you. And that "person" is effectively gone now, reduced to atoms.
How can you be sure that you are the same you? What if the transporter malfunctioned and two of you appeared on the planet? Which is the real "you"? Can you say for certain, since both are atomically identical and have the same memories and would act the exact same way under the exact same circumstances?
Does your opinion change if you appear on the planet, and then learn that your original body was never destroyed back up on the Enterprise? For many people, this scenario makes a huge difference and they argue that the person on the Enterprise is the original "you". The "you" on the planet is a copy--an imposter--and should be destroyed so that the original can persist. But then, how is this any different from when the transporter is working normally and the original is destroyed?
This aspect of this particular metaphysical dilemma is called Continuity of Consciousness. You may have heard of the Ship of Theseus paradox before, which questions if a ship that is slowly replaced, board by board and nail by nail, over the course of years--until every nail, board, roap, and sail has been replaced--is still the same ship.
A lot of people would say yes, but others argue how it could be the same ship if what you've done is functionally the same as burning the original ship down and rebuilding an entirely new ship from the same blueprints. Mechanically, it's the same process, just over different time periods.
Partial replacement over time is what some consider to be acceptable for maintaining your sense of self. Most of the cells in your body die and are replaced by new cells over time. And if you consider things at the atomic scale, every single atom in your body eventually gets replaced with new atoms every 11 years. You're still "you" after 12 years...right?
The teleporter problem gives a lot of people an existential "ick", and the concept of continuity of consciousness is very appealing. So much so that the official lore of Star Trek actually makes transporters work differently from what I've described above. When it scans your atoms and deconstructions them, it's actually taking the same exact atoms and beaming them down to the planet so that you are reassembled using the same atoms.
This soothes a lot of people's sense of self, but metaphysically, it's a band aid on the underlying issue. Let's say you wake up tomorrow in a completely white room, on a plain bed. And next to you, on an identical bed, is an identical you. Different atoms, but the same configuration. The same memories and lived experiences. The same reactions to external stimuli that you have.
One of you is a clone, one of you is the original. Neither of you can leave the room until you both decide which one of you is the real one, and only that one gets to continue living.
You (A) are the one that woke up and are looking at your "clone" (B). The problem is, that person across from you woke up with the exact same thoughts. You (B) are the one that woke up and are looking at your "clone" (A). Not even your captors know who is the original. The people who cloned you were killed and the people that killed them were killed. The last group of killers died in a freak tortilla accident. It's impossible to figure out which of you is the clone and which is the original.
Who gets to leave? You're both going to think you're the real "you". Just because you have an A next to you doesn't mean you were the original, I only put that there to differentiate the two entities. Just because you have a B next to you doesn't mean you were the clone, I only put that there to differentiate the two entities.
Both of you are going to want to live, and if you can't decide who after a week, one of you randomly dies. And no one in the entire universe will be able to tell whether the original or clone exited room. That includes "you" (A? ... B?). So...are you you?
This question has deep, real-world metaphysical implications. We call it the Teletransportation Paradox, and the phenomenon has an abundance of representation throughout science fiction. There are countless variations you can consider. This video has the information presented in a slightly different way, but the concept is still there.
The point I want to stress though, is that there is no correct answer to this question. Modern neurobiology has no scientific definition of personal identity. A lot of the essays and online debates you'll find will have people arguing vehemently that you are only you if there is a continuity of consciousness, but that's only because the alternative feels wrong to those making the argument. There is no fact behind this insistence.
Philosophers have been arguing this concept for all of recorded history. It's safe to assume they were arguing it before then as well. They're still arguing to this day.
Absent the concept of a "soul" being scientifically proven (or some other currently unknowable scientific advancement), any entity that looks the same as you, acts the same as you, has all of your memories, and thinks that it is you...is you. And if there are multiple "yous" running around...that's not necessarily something that science currently disallows.
Everyone is welcome to debate this concept below, but I won't be interjecting my own opinions on the matter. I'll only reiterate that anyone claiming to know the "correct" answer to this situation is not being truthful.
And all this debate is ultimately pointless. You are, after all, wearing a red shirt. A Gorn ripped your arms off and beat you to death while you were wondering about all of this nonsense.
TL;DR: Science doesn't have a clear definition of what "you" means. Multiple copies of "you" running around is a valid interpretation of a long-standing metaphysical paradox.
IDENTITY POLITICS
So why did I poison all of your thoughts with existential dread at the possibility you don't know if you are you or not? Well, there's an important comment hidden in all of that above. I said "Absent the concept of a soul". How does this all change if you have a "soul"? Well, obviously, that makes things really easy. The body your soul is attached to is the real you.
In the cosmere, all things exist in the three Realms. You have your body, in the Physical Realm. You have your mind, in the Cognitive Realm. And you have your HAHAHA, I BET YOU THOUGHT I WAS GONNA SAY SOUL IN THE SPRITUAL REALM, DIDN'T YOU?! Well you're WRONG! We can't have things be that easy here.
Hell, I was even lying when I said your mind was in the Cognitive Realm. But let's start with the Spiritual Realm, since I can't say much about it yet. First, there is an aspect of you in the Spiritual Realm, but it's not a "soul". Khriss has commented on this aspect before, and it's been mentioned in a few places as a Spirit Web. Sanderson has called it "spiritual DNA" in interviews.
This aspect of a person is where Connections form between people. It stores a person's Identity. This is the part of a person that forms "cracks" when they are traumatized, letting Investiture seep into them under the right conditions (Snapping Allomantically, or providing a place for a Nahel Bond to attach). This is actually what Hemalurgy acts on. It's like you have a spiritual gene that says "you are a Coinshot". A Hemalurgic spike, when plunged through a person in the right spot, acts in the Spiritual Realm to rip that part of a person's Spirit Web. You can then plunge the spike into a new person and it transfers that "Coinshot spiritual gene" into the new person. Now that new person "has" the spiritual gene that lets them be a Coinshot.
Because Hemalurgy acts on a person's Spirit Web, and that's where Identity is stored, if you steal someone's Feruchemical abilities, you can technically use any metalminds they've filled up. (There is more to it, but the possibility is there because you've stolen part of the person's Identity as well).
This is also why you can use Hemalurgy to steal a Nahel Bond. The spren bond forms on the Spirit Web, which includes your Identity. The spren is making a bond with "you". But Hemalurgy is stealing some of that Identity. Some of that is "you", so the spren bond will still hold. Since a spren has free will though, there's no guarantee the spren will choose to keep the bond going, and other side effects may occur. See your doctor if weird Hemalurgic symptoms persist for more than four hours.
TL;DR: Everyone has sDNA (spritual DNA), it contains your Identity, Connections, and instructions for if you can use magic.
YOU IS YOU?
So what's going on in the Cognitive Realm? Well, you are a sapient person. You have thoughts about yourself. You believe yourself to be "you" and you have some sort of idea who that "you" is. At the same time, everyone you interact with has a concept of "you" as well. And those ideas might not necessarily match.
You could be a deeply insecure person who only shows a facade of confidence to everyone you meet. So you think of yourself as a nervous wreck, but everyone around you thinks of you as the epitome of stability. The Cognitive aspect of your self is a combination of how you see yourself and how others see you. A Rosharan has a word for this... wanna guess what it is? If you guess spren, you'd be 100% right. A Cognitive Shadow is the spren of a person.
Here's where things get frustrating (if they haven't been already). There are certain things Sanderson doesn't want to solidify as fact in the cosmere. This is one of those things. He will often, in interviews, call a Cognitive Shadow a person's soul. Rosharan's consider spren and soul to be one in the same.
The cosmere has philosophers aplenty. They are scientists who can measure observable properties about the universe around them. Depending on their tech level and understanding, they can observe things across all three Realms. A Cognitive Shadow is a thing that exists. Everyone has one and you can point to it in the Cognitive Realm when a person dies.
I've explained the specifics of a Cognitive aspect, what it functionally is, and posited the transportation paradox above. Sanderson has explicitly stated that he wants it scientifically unclear whether or not a person's Cognitive Shadow is exactly the same as who a person is.
When you think, electricity is firing throughout your brain. If we instantly remove all of your physical atoms, for a brief moment all that would be left is some electricity in space. That electricity would be in a unique configuration that depicts exactly what your consciousness what doing at the moment your atoms were removed. Is that unique pattern of electricity "you"?
This is basically what you are seeing when you see a Cognitive Shadow. All the thoughts a person and others have about that person, made "solid" in a pattern that looks like that person. But who can really say if that pattern that looks like a person is really that person.
One of the memes addresses this point. Kelsier "died". But... did he die and live on as a ghost? Some would absolutely say that's the case. Did he die and...is just dead and gone, and this ghostly clone of his thought patterns has stuck around? Will that ghostly clone of Kelsier do exactly everything that the real Kelsier would have done in the same situations, or is the clone slightly altered by how others view Kelsier in his life? Is this Kelsier somehow more charming, more self-assured, more crazy and reckless than the real Kelsier?
It should be noted that, even if a Cognitive Shadow could definitively be considered that person, they are a Cognitive idea, held together by an excess of Investiture. If you think that sounds exactly like a spren, you'd be right. The only difference is that the Investiture in a spren is a Shard's direct Investiture, and a Cognitive Shadow can be held together by less direct Investiture. Either way, the longer a Cognitive Shadow persists, the more spren-like they will become. So even if Kelsier is Kelsier, how others view him can start to restrict him in the same way spren get restricted. Having a physical body mitigates this.
Like with the transportation paradox, we're not supposed to know or have an answer to these questions. You can think of this as Kelsier's ghost, or you can think of it as a creature pretending (very accurately) to be Kelsier and the real Kelsier is dead and gone. This is something in-cosmere scientists and philosophers have to consider, and for some people, it's fun to contemplate the implications, but this aspect isn't necessarily important to the grand plot of the cosmere.
TL;DR: Ghosts are real and everyone has them. They may or may not be the actual soul of a person, but the distinction shouldn't matter.
BED, BATH, & BEYOND
This brings us to the Beyond. Going back to the "remove all of your atoms and leave behind the electricity in your brain" scenario. The electricity will sit there in the pattern of your consciousness for a brief moment, then it will dissipate and fade way, like lightning. If this feels familiar to how a Cognitive Shadow persists in the Cognitive Realm for a moment, held together in the pattern of a person's consciousness, before fading away into the Beyond, well... that's deliberate.
Kelsier "expanding his soul" with Investiture so that he doesn't get sucked into the Beyond is sort like turning on a very specific electromagnetic field to keep the electricity brain pattern in place, instead of letting it dissipate.
The Beyond is another aspect of the cosmere that Sanderson doesn't want to have a definitive answer to. It could be the case that Cognitive Shadows are pulled into some afterlife in the Beyond. Or it could be the case that Cognitive Shadow "particles" just look like that when they dissipate and there is no afterlife.
The God Beyond is the name cosmere aware characters give to an unknown and unknowable deity that governs this afterlife known as the Beyond and the cosmere at large. Some people say that Adonalsium is the God Beyond and His Shattering was only an aspect of who He is. Others would disagree. Adonalsium absolutely existed, the God Beyond may or may not exist.
Sanderson wants the cosmere to be a place where real faith can exist, and real atheists, like Jasnah, can exist. (It's not faith if it's fact). The Shards are just another branch of science with large, but finite amounts of power/Investiture. They aren't "supernatural" or unexplainable in the same way the people of Earth talk about the Christian God or Zeus or Vishnu. If you ignore the Shards and just consider the religious aspect of the cosmere in their absence, Jasnah can say "There is no God Beyond" and she'd be "right". And on the other side of the coin, Hoid can say "I believe in the God Beyond and an afterlife in the Beyond" and be equally as correct because both statements are unprovable.
Sanderson wants this aspect of the cosmere to mirror our real world religions. So don't ever expect to see someone hanging out in the Beyond, or coming back from the Beyond.
TL;DR: The afterlife and the concept of a real God in the cosmere is just as nebulous as it is in real life, and we'll never get a definitive answer.
DEAD IS DEAD?
Which brings us to the topic of death in the cosmere. I've told you about how Sanderson wants to try to get around the fake out deaths, but that clearly he's struggled in that department a bit. I mean...Kelsier is back! (For given definitions of "back", see above). But this novella does give us a mechanic to confirm when someone truly dies.
Vin is dead. She's not coming back. Same as Elend. They faded into the Beyond, for whatever that's worth, and are gone forever. Similarly, Rashek is gone. Ati is gone. Leras is gone. We won't be seeing them come back, prequel stories notwithstanding. If we see a scene of someone in the Cognitive Realm and we watch their Cognitive Shadow/soul dissipate, then we know they are dead for real.
There's also a couple other implications, like if we see a non-Invested character die, and they aren't revived within a few minutes by some act of magic, it's very likely they weren't able to expand their soul in the Cognitive Realm and persist as a Cognitive Shadow and they are dead dead.
Now, it should be noted that, in the real world, if your heart stops, you can still be brought back to life under the right circumstances. There's about a 10 minute real-world cut-off for this, barring extremely special circumstances.
Investiture in the cosmere just bridges the scientific gap a bit, so it's easier to bring people back from lets say an hour after "death". (We don't have real numbers for this, but I think that's probably the upper limit we can expect). So if we see a body and it sits around for an hour, it's safe to assume they died.
Cognitive Shadows make things a little harder to guess though. It's always possible there was someone waiting in the Cognitive Realm with some fabrial full of Investiture just ready to expand someone's Cognitive Shadow. I suspect Sanderson won't pull this off too many times though. Possibly only with Kelsier.
However, if someone died (particularly if they are already Invested) and we know there's a perpendicularity close by, or some other massive or unique source of Investiture reasonably close to the dead body, then all bets are off.
TL;DR: Sometimes people are really dead. Sometimes they aren't. I hope this tl;dr was helpful.
SHADOWY FIGURES
Ok, enough metaphysical shenanigans. Let's actually talk about Cognitive Shadows. I'm going to use generic language going forward and just call them a person's soul. It's much easier to type, and it's a property of the cosmere that, even if not 100% true, still feels mostly correct. Everything above still applies, but I want to proceed in a world free from caveats every other sentence.
Heavily Invested people have "expanded souls" that let them stick around longer in the Cognitive Realm than normal people. We saw in this story that Keslier stuck around longer than the normal people who were dying. But he needed WAY more to stick around for longer than an hour.
Someone asked about Feruchemists and I can confirm that they would stick around a bit longer than the average person. Investiture is still flowing through them when they store and tap their metalminds, which in turn expands their souls. If someone stored and tapped their metalminds with enough frequency and intensity, they could become a Feruchemical Savant. It's possible, just really hard.
And by now, you should be able to work out the mechanics of Savantism. Excess Investiture use expands souls in specific ways, and if you do it too much, that causes damage to the soul (and specifically, this is reflected in the Spirit Web I talked about above). Because the Spirit Web has so much to do with Identity, these spiritual deformations can have a reflection in the Physical Realm. We've mostly only seen this with Spook, despite Wax also being a Savant. Sanderson has been looking for ways to better illustrate the negatives of Savantism, and you'll see them soon enough.
This trivia post may as well be called a Tangent Post. I swear, I put down a title with the intent of talking about something and have gotten side tracked in every section so far. With the magic of proof reading and editing, things still flow though!
Anyway, I wanted to talk about Cognitive Shadows. The key part being Investiture expands souls and lets them stick around. Now...let's talk about all of the "souls" we've seen stick around long past when they should have died.
Shades are the most obvious in this category. We learn in Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell that Shades are the spirits of dead Threnodites. Specifically, it's people who have been killed by another Shade. (There are other methods for this too). Now, everyone has a Cognitive aspect, but it takes extra Investiture for that aspect to persist as a Cognitive Shadow. (Earlier in this post, I likely said "Cognitive Shadow" when I strictly meant "Cognitive aspect", but that was just to prevent confusion. Cognitive Shadows are a person's Cognitive aspect that sticks around and doesn't dissipate into the Beyond.) So where does the Investiture come from on Threnody, especially since there's no Shard there?
Odium fought Ambition close to Threnody. Importantly, part of their fight was in the Physical Realm and pieces of Ambition were torn off and scattered across the system before their fight moved to a different location. This ambient Investiture from a wounded (and eventually dead) Shard has a corrupting influence on everyone in the system. When a Shade kills someone, their corrupted Investiture (aided by the atmospheric Investiture left over by Ambition's wounds) seeps into the person's Cognitive aspect and creates a new Shade.
Unlike most of the other Cognitive Shadows we've seen (and will shortly discuss), Shades aren't quite all there. This is mostly a product of the corrupting Investiture that creates them. However, as we see with Silence's grandmother, some Shades are more aware than others. The ambient Investiture from Ambition is what allows Shades to manifest in the Physical Realm, at least semi-corporally, and is the cause of their enragement issues regarding creating fire, bloodshed, and running.
I mentioned above that a Cognitive Shadow without a body, left long enough, would become spren-like. This is what happened with Tanavast. The Vessel of Honor left behind a Cognitive Shadow, and not only has it persisted for along time, it fused with an already existing megaspren in the Stormfather. So while you can kind of consider the Stormfather to be Tanavast, the Stormfather is also the Stormfather; a manifestation of the ideal of the highstorms of Roshar which have raged across the planet since before Adonalsium was Shattered. So who is more who in this scenario?
Next we have something I've been hinting at since we started this read-along. The Returned are Cognitive Shadows. You can image Endowment doing exactly what we saw Leras/Preservation doing when people die, but on the Nalthian subastral. Only, sometimes, Endowment shows people fading into the Beyond an image of the future, guided by Fortune and her own plans, and asks if they want to become Returned. If they do, she expands their soul and creates a Cognitive Shadow of this person. Next, she reattaches this Cognitive Shadow to their physical body.
This attachment is with a Divine Breath. I've hinted at it before, but a Divine Breath is actual a Splinter of Endowment. They're small, but she creates a lot of them. They have enough Investiture in them to staple together a Cognitive aspect and a Physical aspect, but only for a week. Returned require a new Breath each week to keep living. That extra Breath serves as extra Investiture to continue to power the staple holding their Cognitive and Physical selves together.
Lifeless are not Cognitive Shadows. They only have a single regular Breath inside them, and that's not enough Investiture. However, if you shoved enough Breath inside a Lifeless, we've seen that Lifeless do have some of their original personality. Which means the body contains enough of a cognitive pattern inside of it to develop a Cognitive Shadow. It wouldn't necessarily be the original person, but it would be a Cognitive Shadow of that particular Lifeless. This isn't something we've seen before, but Sanderson has hinted he wants to do something like this for the Warbreaker sequel.
We've also seen another group of people who died, yet live on in physical bodies. The 10 Heralds of the Almighty are not only Cognitive Shadows, but they are almost the exact same thing as Returned. The images of Taln depicted as a giant, almost unrealistic tank of a man are not without merit. In the same way Returned are idealized versions of themselves, physically, so are the Heralds, because they are nearly the same thing. The only real difference is that the Heralds keep dying over and over again. Their original bodies are lost. The Oathpact simply creates new bodies for them at the start of each Desolation. Along the same vein, because there are only 10 of them, unlike the hundreds, if not thousands that Endowment makes, Honor used enough Investiture on them that they don't need to have weekly infusions of Investiture to stay alive. Their staples are much longer lasting. (There is an implication here that, given enough time, you can isolate a Cognitive Shadow/Returned/Herald from new Investiture and eventually they will fade away and/or die).
Speaking of staples, have some theory crafted information: Kelsier likely has a spike through his eye because he had to use Hemalurgy to create a way to staple his Cognitive Shadow to a body. We know Hemalurgy is pretty powerful and likely doesn't need renewed Investiture to keep the staple intact. Another bit of unconfirmed aspects of Kelsier's physical body: Sanderson has long teased that TenSoon kept Kelsier's bones. If Kelsier needed something to Connect his Cognitive Shadow to the Physical Realm, well...his own bones sound like a good candidate.
Important note: Wax died and "returned", but that is not a capital Returned. His body was a bit dead, but well within the previously mentioned safe zone for magical resurrection. Marasi handed him the Bands of Mourning and he was able to use the health stored in its goldmind section to stop dying. A Cognitive Shadow happens with a person dies and their Physical and Cognitive aspects completely separate from each other.
The process of separation started when Wax appeared in the Cognitive Realm and spoke with Harmony, but it never completed. Wax doesn't need any sort of staple to keep his "soul" attached to his physical body.
Similarly, Szeth is also not a Cognitive Shadow. He died and was resurrected within the safe zone. However, Szeth was dead a lot longer than Wax, since Nale had to recover his body and move him before being able to heal him. So Szeth's Cognitive aspect did stretch much further away from his Physical aspect than Wax's did. Keep this in mind.
More Cognitive Shadows to come, but now you're equipped with enough knowledge to start spotting them!
TL;DR: Ghosts everywhere! Shades = spicy ghosts corrupted by Ambition. Returned = ghosts haunting their own body. Heralds = ghosts haunting bodies made fresh by Honor. Kelsier = ghost haunting maybe his own bones. Wax and Szeth are not ghosts.
ROBERT JORDAN'S BARELY CONCEALED KINKS
Keslier, in this novella, as a Cognitive Shadow, is made of the same ephemeral stuff that the non-water inverted parts of Scadrial is made of. So we see him walking around Luthadel, staying on the surface. An alive human, visiting the Cognitive Realm, would sink in the same spot. Which is why we only see Khriss and Nazh on the solid parts that represent Lake Luthadel.
In order to get to the Well of Ascension in the Cognitive Realm, if you are an alive person like Hoid, you can't just walk over to it. So to get there, Hoid used a "corpse" as a boat. This corpse, whom Hoid called Spanky, is actually just another Cognitive Shadow, like Kelsier, so he can float on the mists.
Sanderson has said that, while Cognitive Shadows are comparatively rare, Spanky is no one important and you should waste no time speculating his significance. He was just a ride for Hoid.
TL;DR: Spanky.
RIVALRY
We see Hoid and Kelsier have a bit of a scuffle. Many of you remembered well the quote from Rock in Words of Radiance:
No, of course not. Lunu’anaki cannot hurt man. Is forbidden by other gods. Everyone knows this.
This is in reference to Hoid, whom the Horneaters consider a god. Rock observes that Hoid cannot harm other people. This is a magically enforced aspect of Hoid's character that becomes clear when he is surprised that he's allowed to hurt Kelsier, who isn't really alive anymore.
This interaction is the start of a pretty intense rivalry between the two. Kelsier hates Hoid and Hoid finds Kelsier insufferable. When Hoid tossed Wax the coppermind that revealed Keslier was alive, he wasn't doing it to help Wax in some way.
In Chapter 13 of The Bands of Mourning, Wax talks with an informant named Delvin Airs. Delvin tells Wax that coins like Wax's have been circulating in the underground. Hoid has been mass producing these memories and tossing them all over the place just to spite Kelsier. Hoid knows Kelsier is being secretive and not wanting it known he's alive and up to things. So Hoid is just going around fucking up Kelsier's anonymity.
We also learn from this interaction that Kelsier "upended an entire mercantile ecosystem" when he destroyed the Pits of Hathsin. I mentioned in the trivia for The Hero of Ages that Ruin's perpendicularity was hidden below the Pits of Hathsin, and directly connected because the Pits served as a way to funnel Ruin's power away from him and into the atium beads.
When Kelsier destroyed the Pits, he ruined (HA!) Ruin's perpendicularity. Scadrial did have a hidden mercantile ecosystem because of that perpendicularity. The Pits were close to the system of canals that crisscrossed the Final Empire, so they would have been solid ground in the Cognitive Realm. It made travel to and from Scadrial pretty easy, and they would have surfaced in areas/caves that the kanda (their Homeland being right there) could facilitate the trade through.
This is something Rashek would have been aware of, but he also probably had some strict rules and regulations surrounding access and trade so that he could keep his empire stagnant.
TL;DR: Kelsier hates Hoid. Hoid is petty AF.
I TOLD YOU TO REMEMBER SOMETHING FAMILIAR
Way back in Week 5 of our Words of Radiance read through, I gave you a hint to be on the lookout for something familiar in the readings for Week 6. I didn't expect anyone to get it, but wanted to create a reference point for your memories. Only one of you came close (gold star to /u/sunnydaze7777777). Unfortunately, I think they were behind when they commented, so no one could play off their theory.
Well, now you have the proof you need to recognize what I was talking about. In this novella, we saw Hoid run off with a bead of Lerasium. In Chapter 45 of Words of Radiance, Shallan's flashback chapter where she first meets Hoid, Shallan notices Hoid pouring powder from a packet into a drink. She thinks Hoid might be poisoning her father, but Hoid drinks it instead.
Hoid does this right before confronting a very angry and unstable man (Lin Davar, Shallan's father), and then goes to comfort a traumatized child. Hoid was putting powdered brass into his drink so that he could Soothe Lin and Shallan's emotions. Hoid ate the bead of Lerasium and is a full Mistborn (and as powerful a Mistborn as you can be, like Elend was).
TL;DR: Hoid is a Mistborn.
ME, MYSELF, AND I(RE)
If you needed any confirmation that the Ire were Elantrians, you were right. Aon Ire means "Time, Age, or Ancient" in Selish.
Here's a bit more information about the Ire. Leras/Preservation called them "dead, but not". This is a hint that they survived the Reod. The Ire, as an organization, are actually so old that they pre-date the Reod. They've been cosmere aware and had fortresses in the Cognitive Realm before the chasm destroyed the existing Elantrian seat of power.
Because they were in the Cognitive Realm, they weren't as effected by the Reod as those we saw in the city of Elantris, but they were effected. This explains why some of them have withered, old appearances, when normally you wouldn't expect that of an Elantrian. The restoration of Elantris didn't fully heal the trauma they went through.
Khriss mentioned the Ire in the essays of Arcanum Unbounded. She specifically called them out in the Selish Essay. It's implied, but Sanderson has confirmed that they don't share information with Silverlight or Khriss, and she kind of resents them for it.
Going by the timelines I've provided in previous trivia, given the Ire was formed before the events of Elantris, they have about 2,00 years of technological and scientific advancement over modern day Scadrial. They are some of the most knowledge people in the entire cosmere. Part of that comes from the fact that it's not just the Ire as an organization that is that old, but some of the individual members are that old.
Khriss, in an absolute time scale, is older, but she hasn't lived that entire time because of time dilation. Alonoe is the leader of the Ire. If you take a look at the map of Arelon from Elantris, note that the lake in the center of the nation is called Lake Alonoe. It's that lake that makes up the dot at the center of every Aon Aon, which is the starting point of every single Aon ever used.
Sanderson has issued RAFOs about whether Alonoe is named after that lake... or if the lake is named after her.
He's also said that they are still in the fortress, post Catacendre. Harmony is aware of their existence, and they regularly trade with southern Scadrians via Harmony's perpendicularity.
I do want to remind everyone that Selish magic is very location dependent. It's hard to be an Elantrian off planet. Their fortresses have lines of power that lead back to Sel and they can use their fortressed to restore a degree of Connection to their home planet, but they aren't as powerful as an Elantrian in the city of Elantris (disregarding things like talent and knowledge). They don't glow as brightly and aren't as bodily Invested. So no life-sense Heightening abilities for them. But when necessary, though could use Aons to their full effect.
One more tidbit from Sanderson: He won't fully confirm, but he's implied that if the Ire did manage to steal the Shard of Preservation, that they probably weren't as prepared as they thought they were and Ruin would have fucked them and Sel up as a consequence.
TL;DR: The Ire is old AF.
TO BE CONTINUED
Well...I did it. I wrote way too much and the trivia literally won't fit in the body of this post. And I can't move around or reduce any parts, so I'll be continuing it in the comments below.
ARTWORK
The Cosmere has a thriving community of artists, so there will be a lot of artwork to share. Each week I'll try to compile relevant artwork for the given chapters. If a section of reading contains maps or in-book artwork, I'll include that in this section as well.
Characters & Scenes
MEMES
I will attempt to find and share memes relevant to each week's discussion. There may be some weeks that just don't have good or appropriate memes, but I will share all the ones I can find in this section.
Link to Memes
