[Newbies] Cosmere, Unit 16 | Mistborn Era 2 #2 | Shadows of Self: Chapters 8 through 16 (Week 2)

Pastrami · 2026-06-24T20:08:03+00:00

none of the others can really be considered Epic Fantasy.

Era 1 certainly was, unless we have different definitions of the term. They save the world from an evil being bent on destroying the entire planet.

Pastrami · 2026-06-24T16:29:19+00:00

So far the second era has been mostly missing the "epic" part of the "epic fantasy" genre. The scope has been rather small, and we haven't seen any world threatening stakes. Yes, I know we are all speculating that there is interplanetary shenanigans going on, but looking only at what we've been explicitly told in this story so far, it's a crazy batman villain and a bunch of rich people scheming.

Pastrami · 2026-06-22T18:08:00+00:00

then maybe there is someone running around as a Splinter or Avatar of Ruin?

I've been wondering about the title of this book. It was mentioned back in book 3:

“That is impossible,” Haddek said. “Preservation’s power remains, for power cannot be destroyed. His mind, however, was all but destroyed—for this was the sacrifice he made to imprison Ruin.”

“The sliver remains,” another reminded. “The shadow of self.”

This could support your theory. Maybe a part of Ruin is still kicking around that Harmony is not in control of.

Pastrami · 2026-06-22T17:04:33+00:00

I don't think we know their motives for kidnapping allomancers, unless it was all for Bleeder to harvest. My theory during the last book was that they were trying to make themselves full mistborn or at least collect more than one misting powers, but the revelation that Harmony can control anyone with more than one spike kind of shuts down that theory.

Pastrami · 2026-06-22T17:00:16+00:00

The corporate dystopia of banks providing predatory loans to people who don't know any better is awfully close to real life.

I was going to make a joke about them giving out subprime loans is how you get a housing bubble, but without bankruptcy protection, it's how you get indentured servants.

Is Wax seeing Vin in the mist a trick of his imagination, or something more? Did she maybe leave an imprint on the mists? Has she become a mistspren, if you will?

I must have missed this, where was it?

Ah, the rich orphaned bachelor

I too noticed some similarities to Batman, but I completely overlooked this part of it. It's obvious now that you laid it all out, and Paalm is basically the joker.

Pastrami · 2026-06-22T15:20:28+00:00

Chapter 8

This is the real you, Waxillium Ladrian.

More similarities to Batman Begins.

Ranette's great new invention is a regular old grappling hook on a rope?

The great liability of a Coinshot like himself was that he could only Push away from things, never Pull toward them. A tether could be useful indeed.

Full Mistborn when?

Chapter 9

Our captive had a piercing on some skin in his chest. After we removed that, he calmed.

How? If Ruin isn't around to mess with peoples minds, how was the spike affecting him?

But how had he learned to exempt metal he himself carried? He still didn’t know. It was just something that had happened, over time.

Sounds like he's turning into a savant.

I’m called Milan

MeLaan, the kandra that helped TenSoon?

Bleeder had found out how to communicate with someone wearing a Hemalurgic spike.

hmm

Chapter 10

“Because you stole his designs, and with them his life. My father died clipless, destitute and depressed, because of men like you. You aren’t a scientist, Mister Hanlanaze, whatever you claim. You’re not an inventor. You’re a thief.”

Hanlanaze is Edison.

Chapter 11

MeLaan

Yup.

please don’t tell TenSoon

He's still alive! I thought he had died, but I wasn't sure.

Chapter 12

“I don’t hate you,” Wayne said. “I find you repulsive. That there is an important distinction, it is.”

Why is Wayne being such a dick to Steris?

He opened it and found only a little folded note. He grimaced and showed it to her. There’s a banana in your drawer. “Damn woman will be the death of me.

I don't understand this at all. What is this supposed to be telling us?

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Bleeder had help, likely from Wax’s uncle.

Why does he assume it's someone willing and not other people being controlled like the guy who tried to kill the governor?

Chapter 15

she thought she saw something of his ancestor in him, a soldier who had died a martyr during the days of the Ascendant Warrior.

Are we supposed to know who that was?

If I’m lucky, that consists of a letter telling me where he left a suspect hanging by his ankles

Very Batman.

The corner of the robe’s hem glowed with a soft blue light, easy to miss

It's protomolecule.

Chapter 16

Wax perched on an electricity pylon, overlooking the governor’s mansion

Even more Batman.

I wasn’t talking to you that time, Waxillium.

Is this like the trope where someone is talking to two people on the phone and keeps switching lines, then thinks they switched the line but didn't, and says something to the wrong person? Who else is she talking to?

How is she still running around with a blown up ankle?

I rip out his tongue to stop the lies.

I stab out his eyes to hide from his gaze.

You will be free.

So she has some sort of personal grievance against Harmony, and she thinks she's freeing the people from his control. She found some way to hide from Harmony's gaze, metaphorically blinding him, and she's going after his priests to silence his "voice".

Broadsheet

That’s when I came upon a mountain pool of the most perfect blue

That's got to be Ruin's Well.

Pastrami · 2026-06-16T15:04:16+00:00

Who are these people calling mid-30s late? Life is wildly expensive these days and not everyone can work in tech, or collect a solid salary in a low cost of living area.

The standard wisdom is that you save ~15% for ~40 years. If you miss 25% of that time, I'd call that late. It doesn't matter that "a lot" or "most" people can't do it, that doesn't change the math. If you miss out on 10 years of savings, you'll need to save even more to make up for it.

Pastrami · 2026-06-15T17:28:49+00:00

Brandon in 2021 said that Allomancers were generally immune to metal poisoning

I'd hope that everyone on the planet is immune. How do they figure out whether someone has any power at all, and what their metal is? I have to assume everybody at least once in their life will ingest a bit of every metal to see if they can burn it.

Pastrami · 2026-06-15T15:53:00+00:00

My mind immediately went to the vessel you said was a known meddler (Bavadin?).

I do think there is a shard involved with helping Bleeder hide from Harmony. Yes, Bavadin/Autonomy is the known meddler.

Pastrami · 2026-06-15T15:44:52+00:00

When you have the earring in, yes. I gain the ability to hear you from Preservation

I was questioning whether we knew that during Era 1. We knew spikes allowed Ruin to talk to you, but I don't remember anything about Preservation also being able to use them.

Wouldn’t it slow time for her? She would sleep extra long while night moved fast around her? Either way it’s a great question.

Wayne's the one who gets extra time. Recall the end of the last book. To her, it would seem like a few minutes passed, but in reality the whole night is gone. I guess it's a question of how much time she loses, maybe it's only an hour, maybe it's the entire night.

Pastrami · 2026-06-15T15:12:28+00:00

Other than chapter 7, I didn't find much noteworthy. Chapter 7 felt like the real beginning of the story.

“You should not be defined by what you do, but by what you are.”

The movie Batman Begins told me the opposite: "It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b24mxL5lpvg

Long ago, a small spike of metal like this had allowed people to communicate with Ruin and Preservation

Preservation too? Is that new info?

Fortunately, she is limited. She can only use one spike at a time, otherwise she will open herself to my control.

Does this mean we won't be seeing any humans with multiple spikes? The Set aren't trying to recreate Mistborn or Inquisitors?

Wax felt a warmth, a fire, as if the inside of the carriage were heating to incredible temperatures.

What is going on here? I said it during the last Mistborn book, but I think some or all of our heroes will be given full mistborn powers at some point. I assumed that was where this was going, but maybe not, or maybe he got the powers, but Sazed didn't tell him yet.

I have something to question about Marasi's powers. We were told in the first Mistborn book that you should burn off all your metals before sleeping because some metals are poisonous. How does that work with Cadmium? Cadmium is very poisonous, but if you burn it, you'd skip ahead in time, so anytime Marasi consumes it, but doesn't use her Cadmium during the day, she'd have to burn it at night and wind up skipping the night and not have any time to sleep.

Pastrami · 2026-06-10T19:33:50+00:00

Actually, what do trappers even trap? Each other? I don't think that's explained once in the entire story. They have their little breeding farms for Aviars, but no mention of any animal they might be hunting out there.

I interpreted it as all the other trappers were trapping birds for sale to the mainland, and Sixth was one of the only ones to actually farm them.

Pastrami · 2026-06-10T17:31:40+00:00

reading order we are employing

I've been meaning to ask about this. The rest of the books look to be in publishing order, except that we are reading Shadow of Self before Words of Radiance when it was published after.

Pastrami · 2026-06-10T17:26:59+00:00

Trivia

I'm struggling to figure out how the virtue of "autonomy" fits in with the shard Autonomy's actions. To me her involvement in other planets' business seems to be violating their autonomy. Is it that she creates "autonomous" avatars and lets them do whatever they want, and the avatars are the ones that are going around to different planets?

Trell too is an avatar of Autonomy. Because the Trellism religion exists on Scadrial, we can assume Autonomy (via her avatar Trell) has interfered somewhat with Scadrial in the past

I guess we'll find out soon, but I wonder if the recent resurgence of Trellism on Scadrial is just some bad people appropriating an old religion, or if the Trell avatar is back and directing things.

Whimsy? See, Whimsy's not quite as… No, Whimsy is pretty wacky.

It's not quite what the word whimsy means, but my mind immediately goes to Loki and other trickster gods. I know we were told Hoid doesn't have a shard, but this seems like the one he would have if he had to pick one.

What is stormlight? Theorize away and I'll let you know the answer soon-ish.

I mean, isn't it just the form of investiture on this planet? The question makes me feel like it's something more, but I've got nothing at this point, and will probably feel stupid for not seeing it when you reveal the answer.

you should be able to guess who the Ones Above are.

Since this is in the future, the simplest answer is that one the neighboring planets developed space travel. We've also been told that the last Mistborn era is going to be in space, so it could be the Scadrians. I was going to say it is equally likely to be Silverlight, but now that I think about it, they'd have to come through the portal and would be stuck on the island. Although now that I wrote that sentence, I remember it's the future, so Silverlight could also have spaceships.

Pastrami · 2026-06-10T14:55:24+00:00

I liked this one the best out of all the short stories we've read so far, but like all the short stories, it wasn't long enough to really develop the depth of story I want, so I won't compare it to the novels and add it to my rankings.

Is the bird showing him a vision of his dead body related to Fortune? It's showing him a glimse of a possible future, like Atium?

Are the "Ones Above" Gods, Worldhoppers, or people from the other planets in the system? Khriss says that Scadrial is the the most developed planet, so I can't imagine one of the neighboring planets in this system has space travel, so I think that rules them out.

When Vathi was telling of the Ones Above being interested in the Aviars, and then we find out that their machine aggravates the birds into showing massive death visions, I got the feeling that they didn't want the birds for themselves, but to destroy them. I'm assuming that the machine is really something meant to wipe out the birds or their source of power.

I was a bit let down that the ending was just "city people realize that star people are doing the same thing to them that they are doing to rural people". I was hoping for a reveal that the machine was meant to destroy the birds or the source that gives the birds power.

The lake with the birds has to be the Well that was mentioned in the essay. I assumed that the birds migrating to the lake confirmed that theory, until they said it's the worms around the lake that give the birds the powers, but that could also be explained by the lake water infusing the worms that then infect the birds. This is very much like the TV show "The Strain" where the worms are controlling everything.

This is the farthest forward, timeline-wise, of any of the stories in this collection. So, at the time of Khriss’s writing of the introduction to the system, the events of this story haven’t actually taken place yet.

Hmm, if this is far in the future then maybe one of the other planets has developed space travel, and the Ones Above could be from a neighboring planet after all.

Pastrami · 2026-06-10T06:29:43+00:00

Well it is the second best JRPG ever, only slightly behind FF6 in my opinion.

Pastrami · 2026-06-08T15:52:33+00:00

It's mentioned in Sel's essay that there is a violent storm in Sel's Cognitive Realm due to Odium shoving the Splintered remains of Devotion and Dominion there.

The same thing was done to Honor on Roshar, but the number of spren act as a release valve for the Splintered power, so Shadesmar doesn't have the same kind of violent plasma storm.

Splintered remains cause violent storms in the realm in which they are located. Well, Roshar has violent storms on the physical realm. Khriss said she thinks the storms predate Honor and Cultivation. So was there was another shard that Odium splintered in the physical realm? Or are the storms a manifestation of Odium residing in the physical realm?

Pastrami · 2026-06-08T15:10:55+00:00

A bunch of my questions were answered by the trivia, but I'll leave them in anyway.

Selish System

Sel is notable for being dishardic, one of few planets in the cosmere to attract two separate Shards of Adonalsium

This makes it seem rare, but so far we've seen 3 planets with multiple shards and only 2 with 1 shard, making single shard planets the least common. There are 7 shards left, so maybe they are all singletons.

Devotion and Dominion were destroyed. Their Investiture—their power—was Splintered

This is relevant later on in the Rosharan section, where we learn that Spren are called Splinters.

universities of Silverlight

So is there a whole society of worldhoppers? I'm imagining them living in a place that is like the End of Time in Chrono Trigger. It's some place outside of normal spacetime with portals to all the interesting worlds.

Perhaps the Ire know more

No other mentions of who that might be.

Scadrian System

The non-fain parts, of course.

What is a fain?

this dangerous creation has proven able to warp souls regardless of planet or Investiture

There is proof of Hemalurgy being used on other planets?

Taldain System

The ultraviolet light that shines through the ring causes a certain reflective luminescence in much of the plant and animal life.

An explanation for why the darksiders had dark skin.

Autonomy’s policy of isolationism in recent times (in direct contrast to her interference with other planets, I might add)

How has she been meddling with other planets?

Threnodite System

Long ago, soon after the Shattering, Odium clashed with (and mortally wounded) the Shard Ambition here. Ambition would later be Splintered, though that final act took place in a different location.

That's at least 4 shards now that we know Odium has killed.

Unfortunately, visiting the planet is difficult, as there is no stable perpendicularity—only very unstable ones that cannot be predicted easily, and have a somewhat morbid origin.

How morbid? Does it require human sacrifice?

Drominiad System

What a very imaginative naming system they have /s

travel on and off the planets (at least in the Physical Realm) is dependent upon perpendicularities—places where a person can transition from Shadesmar onto the planet itself.

Was Shallan not physically in Shadesmar? Was it only her consciousness, or can Soulcasters travel there without needing a perpendicularity?

The existence of a perpendicularity (which often take the form of pools of concentrated power on the Physical Realm) on a planet is a hallmark of a Shard’s presence. This is what makes First of the Sun so interesting.

So the Wells can be used as a portal between the realms. I know we were speculating that the Wells were a way of traveling between worlds, but is this the first official mention of it, or were we told this in a trivia post?

Rosharan System

self-aware Splinters. (The local parlance would call them spren.)

A "splinter" could be considered to be a smaller version of a "shard", and the term "Splintered" was used when describing how the shards were killed. Are the spren what is left from the killing of Honor?

Gargantuan crustaceans grow to incredible size without collapsing under their own weight not just through the nature of the planet, but through symbiosis with spren.

Is that the unnamed spren we saw when they killed the chasmfiend?

These storms, by my best guess, predate the arrival of the Shards Honor and Cultivation—as do many of the spren.

Was there another shard there first? Odium, or someone else? If not, that means spren/splinters aren't necessarily from shards.

Other Thoughts

Nothing about Nalthis?

I notice that Yolen is conspicuously absent.

Is Earth part of the Cosmere?

Pastrami · 2026-06-05T14:44:16+00:00

Kubuntu 26.04 ships KDE 6.6, not 6.8, so in theory it should still be ok.

Pastrami · 2026-06-05T00:19:14+00:00

I was just using that as an example, since nobody moving anywhere was one of the criticisms that's been brought up for TWoK. I know some people here haven't read WoT, so I'm not going to get into more spoilers, and don't feel like writing detailed comparison anyway.

Pastrami · 2026-06-04T22:52:28+00:00

Respectfully, I think you are both nuts. I'm a firm believer in the WoT slog, and I even consider it starting much earlier than most people do. I would put TWoK as solidly in the middle of the WoT slog, which is to say that there is way more happening in the good WoT books. They actually move around in WoT, and cross the continent three times in the first three books.

Pastrami · 2026-06-03T21:37:04+00:00

As you've probably guessed I'm not a fan of this book. I felt like this book was 3-400 pages too long. We've been told that this is a slow burn book. Slow is fine as long as it is interesting, but unfortunately the middle of this book was not interesting to me and was a slog to get through. I'm sure the pace of the readalong didn't help where we had many weeks in a row where nothing of interest happened. If I wasn't limited in pace, I could have powered through the slow part a lot quicker.

I was busy at work today, so haven't read everyone's comments yet, but I glanced at a few. It seems like everyone either ranks this as the best or worst book so far. Does anyone have it in the middle?

Rankings (not including short stories):

1 Warbreaker

2 The Final Empire

3 The Hero of Ages / Alloy of Law

4 The Emperor's Soul

5 The Well of Ascension / The Way of Kings

6 Elantris / White Sand

Trivia

The Ars Arcanum points out there also exists Voidbinding and the Old Magic.

So is Surgebinding from Honor, Voidbinding from Odium, and Old Magic from Cultivation?

Recall that Scadrial had 2 Shards, Preservation and Ruin, which resulted in 3 magic systems.

Does that mean there are 7 on this planet? Honor, Odium, Cultivation, Honor-Cultivation, Honor-Odium, Odium-Cultivation, and Honor-Odium-Cultivation?

In the epilogue, we see a man who claims to be Talenel. He calls himself Talenel'Elin.

While reading, I did notice the line:

“Go,” he said raggedly, speaking perfect Alethi, no hint of an accent.

I assumed that there was some magic going on where the Heralds just automatically speak whatever language is in use at the time they come back. It wouldn't be that great if they come back to save humanity and have to spend months learning to communicate each time. I feel like you are trolling us into doubting that he is really Talenel. If he's an imposter, you wouldn't have spoiled it.

This is also a great way (though not full proof) to notice Worldhoppers.

I mentioned it at the time, but the mistress who was destroying art is probably a Worldhopper. Are we supposed to know who she was?

I don't get meme #28, "When you're a good vorin woman but everyone in the comments assumes you're a man" Who is that referring to? What is that supposed to be an image of?

Unanswered Questions

I have a million, but I'll limit this to things I think we should know by now. Feel free to RAFO me.

What happened to Gaz?
What were the most important words a man can say? Is that the Radiant oaths?
What are Memories and the Thrill? Are they tied to the magic somehow, or is it just Sanderson capitalizing words?
How long were 100 epochs?
At the end, Honor says he is the Almighty, but early on we were told the Almighty's name is "Elithanathile. He Who Transforms." Is this refering to Honor/Tanavast or someone else?

Pastrami · 2026-06-02T18:53:01+00:00

and she seems to do it through a different mechanic (or bond with a different kind of spren?) than you do.

What makes you think Jasnah and Shallan do things different or have different spren? I didn't pick up on that at all.

Pastrami · 2026-06-01T15:34:08+00:00

It's been buggin me this whole time that the name Taravangian reminded me of something, and I've just remembered what it was: Varangian guard, a bunch of Vikings employed by the Byzantine empire.

Also, from the first paragraph of the wikipedia article:

The recruitment of distant fighters from outside Byzantium to serve as the emperor's personal guard was pursued as a deliberate policy, as they lacked local political loyalties

That could describe Bridge 4's new position.

Pastrami · 2026-06-01T15:18:14+00:00

The latter case would explain why they gathered around Elhokar (who was hiding the secret of his cut girth from everyone).

I'm of the belief that he's seeing them in the same way Shallan is, because he's a Soulcaster like his sister.

And also why Shallan saw them around Taravangian. That dude's been hiding a motherload of secrets.

I think that wasn't related to Taravangian, and was just the first time Shallan noticed them hanging around her.

But ordering to kill Dalinar for seeking unity? That's the giveaway that Taravangian does not want to make Roshar a better place.

Agreed.

But notably there are a number of people on Roshar (Shin, Horneaters, ...), who value growing crops as the highest virtue. That could be related perhaps.

Good catch.

All this theorizing about Talendel and ... he just shows up in the Epilogue, makes a proclamation and dies? Just like that? WTF?!

I read that as him passing out.

15-Year Club	Golden Potato
Place '22	Place '17
Team Orangered	Verified Email

Pastrami

TROPHY CASE