Leaderboard

It's far too early to make a serious prediction, I think. However, I'm pretty surprised at the prevalence of knee-jerk "No love triangles!" reactions in this thread. I'm not fond of typical soap-opera-esque love triangles myself, but I fully believe that Sanderson is a much better writer than that, so I'm not worried about it. As others have noted, it is entirely possible for Shallan to move from her relationship with Adolin to one with Kaladin without actually having a love triangle. And honestly, even if there is some character conflict over it, I think Sanderson is perfectly capable of writing it well. Specifically, the concern that it would become a plot tumor where we have to endure the characters whining about their relationship issues all the time seems completely unfounded. All three of have much more important things to worry about right now, and all three of them seem capable of focusing on the apocalypse at hand instead of their interpersonal drama. Sure, they'd probably think about it from time to time, but it would be very out of character for Shallan or Kaladin to obsess about to the point where it became a major part of their arc. I guess I could see Adolin angsting a bit more than the other two, but still not to the point where it would get in the way of the rest of the story. But the biggest reason why I am not worried about a romantic plot-tumor: Kaladin and Shallan's interactions were actually a pretty small part of WoR. Kaladin noticed Shallan walking around the bottom of the chasm on page 818, and they fell asleep in their improvised shelter on page 880. Subtracting the Teft POV and Shallan flashback leaves about 45 pages of Kaladin and Shallan in the chasms, and a substantial portion of that was action sequences. Prior to that, they had only brief interactions; afterward, there were a couple of paragraphs where they were thinking about each other. And it looks like Kaladin and Shallan will be in completely different parts of the world at the beginning of the next book. And yet, their interaction was some of the most memorable and compelling writing in WoR. I'd argue that this is partially because it didn't take up much page-time, not in spite of it. The seed of their potential relationship is being developed with a pretty light touch, all things considered, which is a great sign for the quality of future developments. Those short paragraphs where Shallan was trying to define what exactly drew her to Kaladin packed more emotional punch than all the times she thought about Adolin (his looks, and how to best keep him interested in her) put together. The brief passage where Kaladin was lamenting that Shallan was already with Adolin bespoke deeper attachment than all of Adolin's fascination with a woman he doesn't actually know that well. tl;dr: Shallan and Kaladin's interactions were far more moving—while simultaneously taking less screentime—than Shallan and Adolin's. This is the opposite of a plot-tumor. You know, I would have agreed with this right up until I read the chasm scene, which exceeded my wildest expectations and assuaged all the skepticism I'd had about the idea. The sheer chemistry, how real and genuine it felt, trumped my more meta concerns about "ugh, the female and male lead always become a couple." But that's obviously subjective. Although, I don't really get your Mistborn comparison because... I honestly hate this argument, especially the statement that I bolded. It sounds like you are saying that if two people who both have trauma in their past fall in love, then there is no hope for their relationship. What a massive generalization! Shallan and Kaladin aren't predestined to fail as a couple just because they both fall under the abstract concept "broken people." Broken people are still individuals—they might be compatible, or they might not. You do the characters a huge disservice when you write it off as "well it will never work because they are both too broken." It's like you are talking about an archetype: Broken Person A + Broken Person B = bad relationship, no exceptions. But Shallan and Kaladin aren't just Broken Person A and Broken Person B. There is so much more to them; they have a unique dynamic (just as any two well-realized characters would) which can't be reduced to "they're both broken." It's also telling when you say that they "need" someone to set an example, help them heal, show them how to outgrow pain, etc. Now that is an unhealthy relationship dynamic, one person fixing another. I don't think Shallan and Kaladin "need" each other or anyone else. I just think they have promising chemistry. There are some significant hurdles in the way of a healthy Shallan/Kaladin relationship (he killed her brother, their spren hate eachother, Kaladin is loyal to Adolin), no doubt about it. But imo neither "ew love triangles" nor "they are both too broken" are very good objections.

@ssd6 Please teach me how to be concise, you make a fine point about how Shallan views Kaladin and Adolin that many people seem to be ignoring. There is a TL/DR I feel as though the interactions between Shallan and Adolin were nowhere near as genuine as the interactions between Sallan and Kaladin. First, the conversations between Shallan and Adolin are very superficial and lack any real depth. Its pretty obvious that Shallan is merely playing a part when being with Adolin. Sure she is undoubtedly physically attracted to Adolin, but i feel that there is no real emotional attachment to him. I don't think there ever will be considering the only reason she approached him was due to his political standing and power. Since Shallan is now one of the 'four' Radiants and her brothers are supposedly out of danger I feel that she has no real motivation to continue the courtship. Also consider any of Shallan and Adolin's physical interactions, kisses and the like, they are all described as Shallan 'forcing' them, every time we see anything intimate about them from Shallan's point of view she describes it as being 'force'. I think this is something we CAN'T ignore in terms of a successful relationship between the two. This is not even taking into account the fact that Adolin knows absolutely NOTHING about Shallan other than what she shows him on her outer mask. She hasn't spoken a word about her past to him willingly, the only insight he has into her character is from when she freaked out about him wanting to protect her. I can only gather that Shallan just doesn't feel comfortable sharing any part of inner self with Adolin and honestly, I don't think she ever will. When it comes down to it Adolin just doesn't have the capacity understand the hardships that has shaped Shallan's entire existence. I think that without this ability to emphasize with and understand your partner there can be no hope of a lasting and meaningful relationship. Lets move onto what we know with Kaladin and Shallan. Other than the first meeting there is little interaction between Kaladin and Shallan in the first half of WoR. But from what there is, the first meeting and before shallan enters the brightlord meeting, we can see that Shallan seems to be able to get under Kaladin's skin in record time. Even Kaladin admits that he doesn't understand why he reacts so strongly to Shallan. From these two scenes I personally think that their two personalities work very well together and that they feed off of each other very well. I also feel that even with the initial deceit and stealing of boots that Shallan has been more her 'real' self in these interactions with Kaladin then she was in any of her conversations with Adolin throughout the book. To elaborate on that, I think that Shallan truly loves not just scholarship and scholarly pursuits, but the act of learning itself. She quickly puts herself under the tutelage of Tyn I think, not simply because she felt she needed to learn the ability to con effectively, but more because she saw in Tyn the opportunity to simply learn about and master something that she previously had very little experience with. In this sense, blatantly (and somewhat not seriously, i mean its pretty obvious that Kaladin NEVER believed her and just played along) attempting to deceive Kaladin into believing that she is a Horneater princess is one of the most genuine things she does in the entire book. I think the side of her she shows here is the inquisitive and playful young woman that would have been her norm were she not so broken. The meat of the development in their relationship comes from that very memorable chasm sequence. The most apparent thing from the start is how well they feed off of each other in conversations. Their back and forth quips, even the ones that were intentionally bad, just seemed to flow so well. Between this and how quickly they are able to get rises out of each I think hints at a natural connection between the two. even when arguing it is never a one sided affair as you'd expect from a learned lighteyes v darkeyes argument, but a rather heated back and forth with both sides making strong points. The most telling conversation of this part of the sequence is when Shallan begins describing just how she feels, as though she is completely broken inside. She says these things because I think, because she senses if not a kindred spirit in Kaladin, but someone who understands just how she feels below her surface personality. I think she senses that Kaladin could be someone who can truly understand her because of how both insistent he is that Shallan is trying too hard to be witty, to make jokes, be lighthearted and how one of the reasons he doesn't like her is because the smiles and expressions she shows are fake. Kaladin describes Shallan's smile after revealing just how broken she is as the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. From that point on I think Kaladin sees Shallan in a completely different light, both physically (before this he has never made particular note of he attractiveness) and perhaps emotionally. The more important part of this sequence is with the flight from and fight with the chasmfiend. Something changes in Kaladin before he rushes out to confront the chasmfiend, he comments internally about how is acutely aware of Shallan holding onto him from behind. This seems to indicate physical attraction to her. It is worth noting again that before this Kaladin makes no particular note of her physical presence beyond objective descriptions ('pretty', facial structure, hair, eyes, posture, etc...). We then have their heart to heart about why they are the way they are. Kaladin confides in Shallan things about himself that he has divulged to no-one, not even the men of bridge 4 (there is no mention of him sharing his past with them and no indication that they know any of the details). Kaladin doesn't mention Syl in his story, HOWEVER he doesn't omit her because he is unwilling to share even that part of him with her. instead it is because of the rawness of so recently losing Syl ("He didn't talk about Syl. Too much pain there right now.") Likewise Shallan shares with Kaladin everything about her childhood. Her ****ed up father, her mother's death, her ****ed up brothers, Her family's destitute state and even how she tried to steal Jasnah's soulcaster. she doesn't say that she killed her mother or that she can soulcast and all that, but since this is Kaladin PoV we don't know her motivations for not doing so. I believe she would have HAD Kaladin's attempt to draw stormlight been successful. After hearing her story it is clear that Kaladin admires Shallan and her strength of will and character. After having such a laid bare conversation about how broken they are, sharing almost everything of their pasts, saving each others lives and falling asleep curled up together during a highstorm, of all things, it should be nigh impossible for them not to forge bonds. Bonds that in every way are deeper and more meaningful than any she may have with Adolin. It is clear in part 5 that they are attracted to each other after these events. Kaladin describes Shallan as gorgeous and that he craved to hear her voice. On the flip side Shallan completely zones out just thinking of all the ways that Kaladin is simply better than Adolin. The first thing she thinks that about Kaladin is that he is 'brilliant' in a way that Adolin is not THEN she spends an entire paragraph simply trying to define that brilliance. I don't think Sanderson is heading towards a love triangle situation because Shallan's relationship with Adolin just seems to lack any kind of substance. for example I can't see her ever talking about her past to Adolin, and she has known him for over a month. She talked about almost everything about herself to Kaladin as did he after knowing each other beyond bodyguard and random brightlady for no more than a freaking day and a half. I would be thoroughly surprised if the relationship survives even the first half of book 3 with or without Kaladin actually being physically anywhere near the two of them. I simply can't conceive that Shallan will continue to pursue such an unbalanced relationship for much longer especially since she no longer needs the protection of his status (since she has superpowers and all) and not to mention the disaster with Kabsal. Since the only other realistic relationship choice is Kaladin, he gets my vote. TL/DR: Shallan/Adolin = shallow and won't last long (imo), Shallan/Kaladin = not shallow. NOTE: I don't think there will be a 'love triangle' of the type most seem to fear.

I was responding to this poll based on the evidence that exists for the different possibilities. Given that perspective, I think Kaladin/Shallan easily has the strongest canon support throughout book 1 and 2. Certainly anything can happen in future books, but from the perspective of what pairing would require the least amount of contortion. Current evidence for Renarin and Shallan is effectively non-existent. I'm not sure they even actually have a real conversation in the book. Adolin's interaction with Shallan is quite shallow. Much of her interaction with him is her lying to him without Adolin realizing it (plenty of examples, but among other things most of her conversation about what's she's doing when she's not with him is a lie). It's hard for me to feel like Adolin actually has feelings for Shallan because he really doesn't know anything about her, just the front she presents to him. Going in reverse, the main things that bring Shallan to Adolin are what he can provide her. There's the lust angle, but that's not much different from her interaction with Kasbal. In fact, Kasbal probably was closer to Shallan than Adolin is at the end of book 2. Meanwhile, Kaladin's interaction with Shallan is basically unique (and vice versa). There's again many examples here, but the chasm scene alone seems like overwhelming evidence in this regard. While none of this is anything like proof about how the series will end, as things stand now, the relationship between Kaladin and Shallan is the one that likely requires the most 'work' to explain away satisfactorily. Adolin/Shallan relationship is actually very fragile given how many secrets Shallan has been keeping from Adolin. Renarin/Shallan isn't even a thing at this point. Shallan/Unknown is obviously difficult to gauge, but there's no indication that there's anyone from her background that might be a relevant choice, mostly limiting possibilities to brand new ones. Basically, if someone (Sanderson) told you now that at the end of the series, Shallan would get together with _X_, the person who would cause the least surprise at this point is probably Kaladin (whether you -prefer- that is of course a separate issue, and not really one that can be debated in any meaningful sense).

My lord, Lopen with an army of squires, all being his Herdazian cousins.

Well, that's just the thing - Adolin and Shallan don't talk about anything of substance. And the fact that she treats Adolin like she treats almost everyone she interacts with is really further support that there's nothing particularly special about their interaction. Her attitude towards Adolin is very calculated - as she is with most people, as noted above. The fact they're comfortable with each other doesn't really mean much - again, that's just how Shallan typically reacts to people (e.g. Gaz). She's nicely manipulative. Conversely, Shallan's behavior towards Kaladin is completely different from how she treats almost everyone else. From the very beginning she's very comfortable abusing him in a tsundere manner (we don't see this with anyone else). She speaks her mind directly to Kaladin and he's about the only person she doesn't try to manipulate. We also have examples of surprisingly flattering descriptions of Kaladin as we get near the end of the book; she blanks out mid-conversation with Adolin as she tries to define just exactly what Kaladin has that Adolin doesn't (which she doesn't care about but is going to wax on for an entire paragraph just so she knows what she doesn't care about...). The fact that Shallan and Kaladin bicker a lot is actually a dead giveaway (Slap-Slap-Kiss-Kiss in trope terms...think Leia and Han Solo). Likewise, Kaladin's interaction with her is unique. He mentions it himself in internal dialogue about how he can't understand why he lets her get to him so much when he can deal with other, much more annoying lighteyes. He spends a _lot_ of time trying to understand her, more than almost any other character we see. Then there's the entire chasm scene, where - among other things - Shallan pretty much single-handedly convinces him that lighteyes are not actually categorically evil (something Syl is unable to do over the course of a book and a half). And look at how he compares Shallan to a well-used spear in the chasm scene; I'm not sure there's anyone else he describes in more flattering terms. He even compares her to _Tien_, favorably. By the end of Book 2, Kaladin likely knows more about Shallan than anyone else on Roshar barring Pattern - more than her siblings, more than Jasnah, and far more than Adolin. He is explicitly interested in her despite (because) knowing so much about her. Conversely, Shallan knows more about Kaladin than anyone else besides Syl (the main players of Bridge Four are perhaps the only possible exceptions, and none of them are really aware of his history before Bridge Four). Her interest is not quite as explicit as Kaladin's but it's so blatant that it's hard to ignore. Again, this doesn't mean this is how things will end up, but there's a ton of stuff there that needs to be addressed, way more than any of the other Shallan relationship possibilities.

This one was a lot easier to decipher than Alethi because there was more context to go on. Once I realized the scale and orientation of the map, everything came together really quickly. The first thing to do is to figure out what the letters are. I spent a while just copying the words to get a feel for how they were written, making a list of all the unique characters. Once I was confident I knew what the letters looked like and how they could be arranged to form words, I started trying to crack the cipher. While trying to crack the Chapter 84 number code, I developed a handy spreadsheet that automates the find/replace process, so I recoded the Frostlands letters into number pairs plugged it in. Basically, I tell the spreadsheet : "Okay, I think symbol 11 is A", and it goes through and turns all the 11s into As. I alternated between jotting notes by hand and consulting the spreadsheet. The lack of vowels threw me for a while, but as I examined words with double-letter pairs, I quickly deciphered that one of the little buildings was labeled "THe SHaLLoW CRyPTS". This was the same basic process I used to decipher the Alethi script last time. The first thing I did was sort out all the possible Alethi graphemes (written letters) and give them labels. They come in three sizes: small, middle and long; and 6 shapes: left, right, hatch, swoosh, diamond, and fancy (plus the special "sentence start" symbol). I wrote them all out individually so I had a blank key to work with. The single line symbols: swoosh(vowels) and hatch (the second half of Th, Ch, etc.) were particularly tricky to decipher, because I lumped them all together at first. I played around a bit at first with a numeric notation to try and quickly correlate the emotion bracelet labels with information from the Ars Arcana, thinking that maybe they were gemstone names. Things like 2D 113 2 1R = Ruby? , 2D 113 2 1R = Chach? etc. But that didn't work (turns out it actually says "fear"), so I had to brute-force it. I went through the illustrations and copied out all the words that were only 2 or 3 letters long that repeated multiple times in the text. There are only so many words that are that short (the, is, of, etc.) so I played around with assigning English letters to the various Alethi graphemes, going back and forth between my key and the list of short words. I'd pick a short word and say, "Okay, let's assume this word is "AND". So then the first shape is an A, that one's an N, and that one's an D. Which means that this similar two-letter word must be AN. And then this one ends with the same letter, so it must be ON or IN." And so forth. In practice it wasn't nearly so elegant, and I did a lot of erasing. The vowels and the graphemes for Alethi letters that don't exist in English (such as "Th") threw me for a bit of a loop. I had this klugy system where all the -h graphemes were split in two, and F was written as PH. But eventually I worked out a partial key based on the short words that was self-consistent (T, H, E, I, S, N), and could start attacking the longer words. The first word I was able to translate properly was "spren". When I got that, I knew I was on the right track! Things accelerated quickly from there, and once I could start to get information from a word's context, it was just a matter of filling in the blank spots in the key. e.g.: "Okay, this part here says "[long diamond]AIN KNIFE" Rain knife? Main knife? Pain knife! Yeah! So [long diamond] must be P!" And so forth.

Greetings, friend. You may have noticed that many of the illustrations in the Stormlight Archives contain strange markings. I have determined that these markings are writing, and I have undertaken to decipher their messages. Crazy? Perhaps. But these markings are not simply decorative. They contain information about the Cosmere, hidden in plain sight. In The Way of Kings, we are introduced to the Alethi script. This is the writing system used by female scribes and scholars in Alethkar, understand? It shows up in the labels of Navani’s Notebook: Since the novel was first published in English, the labels were also “translated” into English, but Alethi letters were used to preserve the feel of the original diagrams. Each symbol stands for one letter – however Alethi has some letters that are not found in English (Th, Sh, Ch), and English has some letters that are not found in Alethi (C, Q, X, W). In Words of Radiance, we learn more about the languages of Roshar. Alethi script reappears, with greater variety. Navani’s Notebook again provides straightforward diagram labels directly transliterated from English into Alethi: (Translation credit goes to cris34b: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6418-navanis-notebook-page-406-translation/?hl=navani) Shallan’s sketchbook provides more cryptic text, friend. First spotted and translated by jcoop513, the text here is hidden, and is written phonetically so that each letter is an approximation of how it sounds when spoken aloud. Based on the context, this is most likely a page of Jasnah's notes that Shallan appropriated to use as sketchpaper. Note that the transliteration of Jasnah's writing is very different from that of Navani's. Read aloud, the passage would be thus: Translation efforts are ongoing at http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6619-shallans-drawing-page-354-alethi-script-translation-spoilers/. KalynaAnne traced over the partially-obscured letters by hand and was able to reconstruct several missing words: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6487-thaylen-and-alethi-glyph-translation-glyph-key-revised-418/?p=233114 Alethi is not the only language spoken on Roshar. That would be crazy. The Map of the Southern Frostlands introduces us to the written language used in Thaylenah: As with Alethi script, the Thaylen in this illustration is simply transliterated English, and can be deciphered using the following key: Thaylen people are renown for smashing their consonants together when they speak, and this is reflected in their writing. Written Thaylen has no vowels and is written vertically, understand? Both the Alethi and Thaylen pages include numerals. Just as many different nations on Earth employ Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.) is quite possible that all Vorin peoples (indeed perhaps most inhabitants of Roshar!) use the same numerals, even if their written languages differ. The numbers are written as follows: And now we come to glyphs, friend. Glyphs are written in syllables, with each syllable corresponding to a certain subcomponent of the glyph. Glyphs can be written three ways: a “standard” blocky form with syllables somewhat similar to Thaylen consonants, a “radial” form in which the glyph is warped to form a circular shape, and a “calligraphic” form in which the glyph can be warped into any shape. Often, the shape of a calligraphic glyph is reminiscent of the word it contains. Extra lines that do not represent syllables can be added to enhance the effect. For instance, a bookseller might advertise the name of his shop with a glyph shaped to resemble a book, understand? Many men in Alethkar are illiterate, relying on their wives or sisters to read documents to them aloud, but most can recognize certain important glyphs based on their shape alone. Alethi glyphs are not simply transliterations of English, but represent words in the Alethi language. The esteemed jofwu has compiled images of all known glyphs in another thread. Edit: The next bit is obsolete, as of Oathbringer. See p.519 for a key directly from the Calligrapher's Guild, courtesy of Nazh. My efforts to decipher the Alethi glyphs are ongoing, friend, but I present here what I speculate thus far: Please refer to the further pages in this thread for the latest developments in the 17th Shard's ongoing efforts to decipher these glyphs. Original first post, for posterity:

One of the main reasons why I want Shalladin is actually because I really like Adolin. I think his relationship with Shallan is unhealthy. While he is most definitely in love, the woman he's in love with is no more Shallan than Veil is. It's just another facade. All along, Shallan has been lying and manipulating him without a thought, blatantly using him. If their relationship goes on longer, and he finds out how little he really knows her, then I think it could really destroy him. Better to have the pain of losing her now than a larger pain. That way, he can find someone that he has better chemistry with and isn't manipulated by.

I agree with your first point, I expect the Adolin and Shallan relationship to be figured out before anything happens with Kaladin. You really don't expect Kaladin to upset Syl ever again? Or vice versa? That sounds pretty boring if Kaladin has to walk on egg shells around Syl, especially since their little arguments are enjoyable to read. She had to leave him because of messing with his oaths and that's what upset her. I doubt she's going to choose to leave Kaladin and become a regular spren just because he's dating a girl that has a spren that she will dislike. Especially since she's spent a huge portion of the book wanting him to laugh and smile, which is something Shallan brought out of him. I'd assume his happiness is more important than her dislike for Pattern. Also, if anyone hasn't noticed, Syl and Shallan have similar personalities in quite a few ways. Additionally, plot wise, I would think Sanderson would enjoy writing about the added drama from Syl and Pattern not liking each other, and how it effects the relationship between Kaladin/Shallan. Kaladin killing her brother and it being avoided for now is foreshadowing for future drama between the two. It'd be a perfect method to slow down a relationship between the two and create a rift they need to repair. He's already foreshadowing multiple issues to them getting together, while writing them as two people that complement one another very well, which would lead into an actually interesting love story progression. The most interesting part for me is seeing the "real" Shallan come out the more she interacts with Kaladin. I want to see more of her that isn't a persona just created to protect herself. Kaladin in almost every scene with her managed to get to the "real" her and it was enjoyable seeing those small moments where her persona cracks. He already figured out she was putting up a "fake smile" and was on the verge of telling her that always being witty doesn't mean she can avoid certain issues, before they ran from the chasmfiend.

I vote jasonpenguin. He seems pretty shifty to me.

To be fair to Shallan, someone going on (rather hysterically) about how you were all going to die while you were trying to figure out how to not die would be distracting. He had been sent to protect her group and he was pretty much doing less than nothing to live up to that. Yes, Renarin did a lot of brave things in the book, but in that moment he was cracking under the stress. I would have wanted him to shut up as well, before he caused other people to give up.

From the discussion so far I think that at the very least the relationship, romantic or not, between Kaladin and Shallan has much more room for development. At this point its clear there is some level of attraction between Shallan and Kaladin. Because of how much they confided in each other and their positions as Radiants gives a lot of room for it to grow. But also their relationship has room for conflict, Kaladin did kill her brother and should she figure that out (if she hasn't already and is just repressing things again) it would add an obstacle for any kind of relationship they have to overcome. On the flip side, there is nothing challanging about the relationship between Adolin and Shallan, and Brandon has a history of having romantic relationships built on personal conflict and its resolution causing tighter bonds. At this point with Shallan and Adolin I can't find any possible significant point of conflict for their relationship to be challenged by and to overcome. Their relationship is just so bland, I mean you dont even have the typical unwilling arranged marraige scenario to go off. Since Shallan just wanted to help her family, again something she no longer has to worry about. Whereas I can see a lot of possible conflict and development on the horizon for Shallan and Kaladin which i think is in favour of them being together when all is said and done. I would also just be pretty disappointed if Brandon goes for the relationship that is as of now very vanilla and boring (I mean they are both basically running off of physical attraction and Shallan wanting to protect her family, which she is perfectly capable of doing by herself now) when he seems to revel in writing more dynamic relationships in his books.

Sadly, The Lopen does not have a Spren so I doubt he is more than a squire, however now that The Lopen can glow and is the one and only two armed one armed Herdazian he is worthy of picking up every women he wants and allowed to stick anyone on the wall as he pleases. Pay The Lopen the respect he deserves, for he is both awesome and hilarious, or his second hand will make a rude gesture to you in your face.

I don't see what Kaladin and Shallan can't just be great friends. They shared deep secrets, and they obviously care for each other's well being, but we didn't see very much of the pure attraction that we saw between Adolin and Shallan. Men and Women can be friends. I think that solid male/female relationships that aren't romantic in nature are actually lacking in fantasy literature.

I think you`re giving Adolin way too much credit here, Shallan specifically told him about the inner plateaus and the rock formations on them. He didn't figure it out on his own, and he could barely recall what she said: During the scene you`re referring too, she doesn't say anything to Adolin other than to "slay" the moss like he's some kind of big brute to do her bidding. No explaining her reasoning, which is extremely telling since she assumes he either won't understand or he won't care. It corresponds to how she see's him throughout the book, a superficial appeal, always discussing how good he looks or giving him generalized characteristics like being "genuine". However, her interpretation of Kaladin is far more specific and deep, practically swooning thinking about just what his eyes convey about his personality. The scene is another contrast between the two characters and how they interact with Shallan. Adolin didn't care about her interest and he didn't want to learn more about her through understanding what she was doing. Kaladin on the other hand wanted to figure out what she was doing to understand her more and appeared to be genuinely interested after he got his first guess wrong. It's just another demonstration of how well the two of them complement one another and how Adolin is on a different wavelength. It's become almost too obvious that Kaladin and Shallan is the direction Sanderson wants to go, which makes me believe that he's leading people on with the idea of a love triangle and plans to cut the Adolin/Shallan relationship before anything deep develops between Kaladin and Shallan. Additionally, in that scene, Shallan gets so frustrated with Kaladin that she snaps her pencil in half while drawing. I mean how many times have you seen her distracted from finishing a drawing and get so irritated that she snaps a pencil in half? Has Adolin even once managed to get an emotional response from her anywhere near that? Kaladin easily penetrates her "fake" personality and gets her to do things that are true to who she really is. At the moment Kaladin appears to be the perfect character to bring out the real Shallan and get her to completely own up to her past.

I recently finished some character designs just in time for Words of Radiance. I posted them to the gallery and would really love to hear some feedback from you guys. Here is a link to my Behance portfolio for higher res images: https://www.behance.net/gallery/WoK-Character-Concepts/15065047

Elohkar comes clean to Kaladin and begs to be taught how to be a good leader. Because after Patterns clue bat on how to resurrect dead spren it was obvious what Kaladin had to do in order to save Syl, but I really felt that Elohkar deserved to die, and him willing to learn and improve changed that. Shallan killing her father, it was so intimate. Reminds me of Will Smith killing his dog in I Am Legend. Any scene where Shallan and Kaladin show how good they fit together but specifically in the chams. this got me shipping them and I really hope that they get together because right now she's basically choosing Adolin based on looks and money not honesty, trust and understanding. Lift! And off course people doing awesome stuff in awesome ways.

"Dane dear," Mabi replied, as she had collected herself and dried her tears deciding that with all the doom and gloom that was going around things needed a more cheerful tone. She smiled. "I believe that the word that you are looking for is empathize, not emphasize, although if you did mean emphasize I do wonder what you wanted emphasized." She closed the distance between them reaching out and held his hand squeezing it gently and trying to do her best to comfort him with her smile. "I'll account your wordplay as part of your distress." She let go of his hand moving to his side and whispered in his ear adding a playful tilt to her tone "Although I pray for our future security that you do not find yourself in distress and stumble upon your words when you deal with passing noblemen and ministry members." She added breathily, "Perhaps you are in need of some practice speaking while under distress." She put a little more distance between Dane and herself letting him stew on what she said. Turning to the rest of the people in a more serious tone raising her voice, "If we must do this horrible thing I believe that we ought to look into the people who were not guarding Cyrus last night. While it does not exonerate myself and the other guards from what occurred one of the things that we do know is that the actual killers killed Cyrus outside of the house. I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly could not keep up with Cyrus when he was moving with those powers of his. If we can isolate those people it will help us to act with more clarity in this awful situation. This is one of the few pieces of information that we do know at this point." @Peng I'm assuming that the Spiked person that made the false cries for help, were not part of the people that were at Cyrus' house as your write-up mentions that the sound came from outside. Additionally I'm presuming that the two killers that you mentioned (not that Mabi has this information) were outside and ready to lay ambush. Mabi is under the impression that the killer is outside of the guards group because most of them followed each other as part of a group to find Cyrus' body. She sought out Gamut, making eye contact, "Gamut! Would you be a dear and help us organize ourselves into who was guarding Cyrus and who elected to stay at home?"

The zero-width spaces in the ebook are there just to make the paragraph reflow without the ebook reader adding hyphens. They and their placement don't have anything to do with the code.

Ehh...I'm not a big believer in this line of thinking. Sure, in some cases it's definitely a bad idea for two "broken" people to have a relationship together but in other cases they can work together to "fix" themselves and/or their broken aspects don't hinder them from having a "good" relationship. It may not be perfect but such relationships can work. Has Kal and Shallan's "brokenness" prevented them from interacting well with each other? If no, what makes a good relationship between them so hard to accept especially if they mature a bit? This will only really be an issue if BS is an incomptent hack who will resort to such drivel. I don't believe that BS is that bad so this is likely a moot point. That said, I haven't read all of the works by BS so he may very well be like this. Why do they need someone that had learned to outgrow the pain they are going through and why can't both learn to outgrow their pain by themselves or together?

Let me just start by saying this is the relationship that I think will happen, not the one I hope will happen. I think Kaladin is being shipped with Shallan from the start, despite making an irritating love triangle. They are the 2 biggest viewpoint characters, they have both have been through hell, and they both seem to find the other attractive. Adolin just drew the short straw. Shallan likes him, but she wouldn't be courting him if she didn't need the Kholin name to help out her family. Now that she is a Radiant and can openly soulcast, she isn't in quite as tight a spot. All the obstacles between Kaladin and Shallan just scream foreshadowing. She is also keeping a ton of secrets from Adolin, but she practically spilled her guts to Kaladin(while he did the same to her). Adolin is crushing on a pretty idealized version of her. I kind of hope I'm wrong though, cause I am not Shallan's biggest fan, and this would actually make me feel sorry for Adolin. The one time he actually likes a girl and he can't get her. Stabbing Sadeas in the eye actually managed to get me to like the guy.

I think WoR grants us enough information to reasonably assume certain things: 1. The "Final Order" you are looking for is Willshaper (mentioned in the epigraph of Chapters 49 and 53. 2. Willshapers and Lightweaver's share an "affinity" to the "great ones" in Shadesmar that Elsecallers were the "prime liasons" for (Epigraph of Chapter 53). This strongly implies that they are therefore Order #8 (or "A" in your diagram). 3. Dalinar is a Bondsmith. It is highly likely that Bondsmiths are Order 10 (or "B") 4. Renarin is a Truthwatcher. By process of elimination, it is highly likely that is Order 5 (or "C") 5. The Ars Arcanum in the back lists the Surges in Order. Surge #9 is Cohesion. We already knew that Surge #10 was Tension (although Brandon initially labeled it "Surface Tension like Surge) from a report of a signing Brandon did in Seattle last November I think.

I literally leapt out of bed shouting "No!! NOOO!!! YESSS!!!" When I read the end of that scene. Makes me very glad I re-read Warbreaker not too long ago. As for Nightblood vs. a Shardblade... I remember asking Brandon at SDCC years ago something like this... Right after I finished my ARC or WoK: "So... Nightblood and a Shardblade have some pretty similar qualities. Both cut clean swaths through material, burn out people souls. Any comment?" Got RAFO'd at the time, but it simply makes sense when you think about it. A Shardblade is the physical manifestation of a spren into a weapon. It is, literally, a "soul" manifest. And, keep this in mind: spren are created by humanity's cognitive perception. Humanity's emotions, ideas, thoughts; we perceive the world and create spren in the image of our perception. We personify and they exist. Spren, in turn follow and bind oaths and, in turn can become weapons for their sworn Radiants. Now, our favorite sentient sword of the cosmere (close to catching up Syl, but you're still #2) Nightblood. He was created by shoving a vast amount of breath into a weapon. Thousands of humans' souls were extracted and invested into this blade. And we already know that Awakening personifies the invested object, it gains "life" and, in turn acts like we, humankind, perceives life. Awakened object imitate life, partially due to our soul's investiture powering it, partially due to our cognitive perception of anything that lives. When creating an Awakened object, you bind it to orders in your own native tongue. You, essentially, give it an oath. And it obeys. Please tell me you've drawn the same connections by now? Without trying to be too inflammatory: Nightblood is a Shardblade, albeit created a little differently. When put into perspective, created backwards. Spren are created in humanity's thoughts, then manifests spiritually and physically. A bonded spren will hold its Radiant to their oaths, and give him a weapon and the power over Stormlight (investiture). Nightblood was created physically then forced with humanity's sprirt (breath) and thought. Nightblood demands it's wielder obey the oath to destroy and takes the power of investiture. It stands to reason that he will function a bit differently than a Shardblade: Dark smoke instead of glowing mist. Never progresses out of the innocent "dumb" phase of intelligence, and perpetually in that "bad memory" loop. Self-vowed (to destroy evil) with no perception of evil, rather than oath-bound to a human soul and exacting those oaths with back-and-forth of such things, such perceived things, like evil, truth, etc. The final kicker I can say is: A Sharblade cuts through the soul of a thing. It slices stone cleanly and severs the soul of living things. Nightblood destroys the entire thing. It evaporates entire objects in a puff and rips through living flesh. Even lifeless, who are non-living things with a bound-soul disappear entirely, rather than be cut (I know the gray-flesh connection of lifeless and shard-severed flesh has already been ironed out right?) In my opinion, most Shardblades will completely evaporate when confronted with Nightblood. And I imagine the still "alive" ones carried by the Radiants will see it for what it truly is: a bastardization of their own kind.

As to whether Nightblood can operate on Stormlight, at the midnight release on Monday I asked Brandon what I thought was a purely academic question. ME: Suppose you have a man full of stormlight, and he draws Nightblood. What happens? Brandon: Nightblood would feed off their investiture. I was surprised that he answered it so willingly. Now I guess I know why.

I think a lot of people are voting Adolin simply because "I hate love triangles". I'm starting to wonder if people realize it's possible to have more than one romantic partner in a lifetime without living in a soap opera.

Mistake: This is a public poll, Gaussian. Feather will personally hunt down and write essays to anyone who doesn't select "Renarin". The secret ballot exists for a reason.

Uh oh... Busted! He's accidentally writing books again.

Good catch! I think this is a valid speculation. Additionally: Willshapers are probably order 8, Kalak's order, which corresponds to the eighth sword stance, Ironstance... name of the first Adolin chapter and the stance he begins the first duel with.

When Kaladin said "Honor is dead, but I'll see what I can do", and then jumps down into the arena from hell.

One of my favorite moments in the book was while Shallan and Kaladin were in the chasms, where they are having the conversation about how "spoiled" Shallan had been. When he looks into her eyes and sees that she has seen the same sort of horrors as he has and is just as broken, yet she smiles through the pain. This moment to me is a major turning point for Kaladin, he realizes that just because his life has been hard doesn't mean that he has to be a complete chull to everyone. I also absolutely loved multiple scenes that have already been mentioned

That was the glimpse of radiance where Carl was trolling me.

1. We'll find out Urithiru is in the mountains east of Emul, near the Nightwatcher's Valley and the middle of the Rosharan continent (How's that for specific? It's based on a theory I had that it made the Emuli-Tukaran war relevant and that the story of Parasaphi, Nadris, and their 10 children represented Cultivation, Honor, and the Radiant spren. I thought it was perfect... at least until someone pointed out it's impossible since Honor was alive for the Recreance. Nevertheless, I refuse to let it go!) 2. We'll find out Gaz was made a Bridgeman. 3. I'll second Moash becoming a Shardbearer. Some of those new shards Adolin picks up will go to the king, and Elhokar would appreciate Shardbearers among his new guard. Kaladin may not want any, but Moash can get what he always wished for. 4. Kaladin's gonna fly! Probably after fighting Szeth. 5. Amaram's actions with regards to Kaladin will be revealed, but he will reference a vague greater good and won't lose his Shards on the word of the darkeyed spearman. Ultimately, Kaladin will not take vengeance against him. 6. Dalinar will induct Amaram into his new Knights Radiant. 7. The Kholins all survive the book (really hoping the latest glimpse is a fakeout ). 8. Kaladin will train Renarin (A younger brother, a medical condition, a soldier who isn't really suited to war? He's totally Kaladin's type). Adolin will not be amused. 9. Adolin actually will find himself falling for Shallan. But love triangles being such great sources of conflict, we'll see one grow between Adolin, Shallan, and Kaladin. 10. We'll see Jasnah summon her own Shardblade. She's had years to study the Radiants, so she should be the furthest along. Bonus: There will be no hot dogs on Roshar

Well... thanks to reddit for sparking this particular theory. Let's do some detective work: Here, we find that Dalinar took Taln's Blade. He hid it in a cave later for Amaram to steal (to see whether Amaram was trustworthy). He bonded with it. Now... here's the problem. Kaladin did not think the Honorblade he held felt wrong. Here's a description of the Blade that Dalinar got from Taln: Taln's Blade was described as... Wit was traveling with Bordin. He took off after a while, though. So... there's only one conclusion I can see. Taln's Honorblade was stolen by Wit. He replaced it with a regular Shardblade. Good work, Wit. How'd he unbond it from Taln, I wonder? Hemalurgy? That would explain Taln's unfortunate state of mind, though I don't think he went that far. Any problems with this theory?

Well, it is now established that Shallan has a wild streak so... BDSM, anyone?

Those points are actually better in support of Kaladin/Shallan, mostly because they're external factors - they're obstacles that their relationship would have to overcome, making it more meaningful. They have very little internal inconsistencies, where one or the other would have to change in a radical fashion to adapt. Point by point: - Kaladin being away from Shallan in the next book (I predict it will be most of next book) and heading back home probably means he'll get an opportunity to compare Shallan to his other female interests (Laral, Tarah) rather than forgetting about her. Breaking up a relationship couple in plot temporarily is pretty conventional for this reason. Also, absence makes the heart grow fonder. The separation is also necessary to make point number 3 an actual thing (more later). - Syl and Pattern not getting along is _exactly_ the sort of not-really-serious-but-serious tension that tends to drive people together (see: Romeo and Juliet). Forbidden fruit, and all that. This is again another external conflict - it's yet another thing that does not change who either of them are but that they need to overcome. Syl does not like Cryptics, but is grudgingly willing to say they aren't outright _evil_; it'll be an interesting irony to see her be the stereotyping bigot for a change. In fact, this is likely a good lever for Syl's character growth (Sanderson also seems to -really- love ironic echos/ironic foreshadowing; imagine them rehashing the conversation about Dalinar and Lighteyes except with the pronouns substituted and roles reversed). - Helarin's death is clearly being held in reserve for the next book. There are at least three occasions where Shallan could have easily have found out about Kaladin's role if things had been slightly different: Chasm and Kaladin's challenge both have him refer to the incident in a very roundabout manner, and she passes by him just a short period before Dalinar confronts Amaram. The problem is that if she finds out about while Kaladin is there to explain what happened, it becomes a non-story; she has to learn about it in a distorted way while Kaladin isn't available to defend himself for this to -be- an issue. Currently, if Kaladin leaves, it's very easy for her to find out about who killed the Shardbearer (Dalinar, Navani, anyone at the confrontation, which includes Bridge Four and Renarin) but no one knows about the specifics of what happened; Kaladin hasn't related it to anyone and Amaram (who is pretty much the only other living witness) is not likely to offer her the truth of what happened. In fact this is something which would be very easy to put in a bad light by e.g. Mraise or the aforementioned Amaram, but the punch of that goes away if Shallan can just go up to Kaladin and ask what happened. So it has to wait until Kaladin is gone for this to be a Thing. However, the work involved in making this be a Thing means it has to have some payoff; if Shallan doesn't particularly care about Kaladin, this becomes more of a footnote than a Thing. Imagine if Amaram -had- been the one to kill Helarin: in that case, so what? There's no impact since Shallan doesn't really care about Amaram otherwise one way or another.

Closing the book, Alon was surprised to see sunlight streaming in through the window shutters. "damnation that Forage! Selling me a book like that, I've gone and missed the night. Hope Cyrus made it." Stretching his back, he rose, walked down the stairs and entered the taproom. Seeing no one was around Alon placed a couple of boxings on the counter and help himself to a glass of red wine. Heading outside he found a small unoccupied table, sitting down Alon took a small sip before removing his pipe for his coat and begins to smoke. Hmm, everyone seems a little agitated for some reason. Guess Cyrus didn't make it after all. Spotting a passing urchin, Alon waved him over. "What's the news boy?" "Cyrus and the roofer died during the night" "How?" "Don't know. No one will let me see the bodies." "Thanks anyway, Here's some coin for your time." Tossing the kid a few boxings, Alon went back to his smoking and drinking. Cyrus knew he would die soon but who would want to kill Dyrii? Wouldn't surprise me if he just fell off some poor fools roof and found a rock waiting for him. Sorry I haven't posted before. Finally got my WoR book the other day and spent 18 hours reading it cover to cover. Been keeping track of game on phone though. Currently voting no kill.

Ah, good to know. I didn't like the placement of that J anyway. I assume the same is true of "Freedom"? This is my bridge. There are many like it, but this one is mine. In lieu of being productive this morning, I attacked the kholin/tanat glyphs. I think kholin is written in the negative (white) space, and tanat is written in the positive (black) space. So they can sort of partially overlap. Alternately, I could just be wildly overreaching -- but anyways: What I really ought to do is finish my key using the highprince glyphs before I go haring off on these sorts of speculative translations, but I felt like playing around with some of the more legible glyphs.

Hi -- I'm new to 17th Shard and Cosmere in general really. I've read the Mistborn series, Way of KIngs, and am working through Words of Radiance at the moment. I'm a fantasy junkie and Brandon Sanderson has rocked my world recently. Also, I'm an aspiring artist. I'll be intermittently posting work to the gallery and would love to hear any feedback you may have. It's important to me to have some insight from other fans! Thanks. I look forward to meeting you all and becoming more involved.

It feels like Kal killing Shallans brother may rather be a way of her speaking another truth instead of her landing up hating her. She may find out but she knows Kal is all about honour so she'll have to confront the truth about her brother leaving them etc.

Not sure what you guys are talking about. Lift will always be this many (holds up both hands with fingers extended).

"Peoples" is the correct word if you are referring to more than one group of people, like here, where he's talking about (presumably) honorspren, Cryptics, highspren, Wyndle-spren, etc. And I think "majorities" is also correct, to imply that it's a majority of each of the separate groups rather than all the members of most of the groups. Hope this makes sense.

Something interesting I have found by dumping the ebook to HTML and then looking at it with a hex editor is that there is a UTF-8 zero width space (hex E2 80 8B) character after every 3 digits (though this leaves a single trailing 4) I also noticed it in a lot of places where people have copy/pasted the number so I don't think it was just me. I mention this because the only other place zero width spaces are used in the entire book is after every word in the two floorboard 17 every-second-letter epigraphs. Maybe Sanderson copy/pastes from his own encoder/decoder...

Think about this: Western Roshar is almost nothing but mountains, and the Highstorms are still harsh as crap for Alethkar, shattered plains nd the such. Shinovar is almost completely unevolved to deal with the raging weather. It will be bad, imo. My prediction is that Rysn will somehow be important for some reason, because owning what I imagine will be the only other sample of shin grass. It's Chekov's gun.

Cohesion likely allows for one to 'shape' objects. Thus, Willshapers as Order 8. With Transportation, they can shape anything they see... We also have this: As to the other orders that were inferior in this visiting of the far realm of spren, the Elsecallers were prodigiously benevolent, allowing others as auxiliary to their visits and interactions; though they did never relinquish their place as prime liaisons with the great ones of the spren; and the Lightweavers and Willshapers both also had an affinity to the same, though neither were the true masters of that realm. Transportation uses Shadesmar. Illumination does not. The Ars Arcanum states this rather plainly: Transportation: The Surge of Motion and Realmatic Transition If you're putting Willshapers as Order 5, you have to justify how they have an 'affinity' for Shadesmar that Order 8 does not. Bondsmiths are likely Order 10 for many, many reasons. Truthwatchers are Order 5 by process of elimination, and also because use of Illumination requires truth, going by what Pattern and Hoid say. Based on this, this is the most accurate chart I have found:

I have the Q&A too, though apart from that WoK-question, the rest was mostly usual stuff like the working title of Stormlight 3. The exact WoK-question and answer was: Q: Has anybody read the WoK on any other world, particularly Sazed, Elend or [unaudible due to laughter]? A: "The Way of Kings as a novel is known off-world, but not on any of the planets you mentioned. At least not currently." My question at the signing was: Q: On the planets in the Cosmere, we've seen so far, do all of the humans have Innate Investiture? A: He said that we hadn't yet seen the planet, where the humans don't have it, so yes, the humans we've seen have Innate Investiture. He was explicit about Scadrial and confirmed that drabs on Nalthis don't have Innate Investiture. Rosharians have it. Q: As to the Innate Investiture on Roshar, which Shard is it from A: RAFO Interesting parts (at leats in my opinion): There is a planet in the Cosmere where humans don't have Innate Investiture. And: humans on Sel have Innate Investiture. I'll get to you if there is some other interesting point on my record.

I used them all, then left. I was there for three and a half hours. It was sooo fun. The staff was fantastic, giving me a table by Brandon and supplying me with drinks. He was nice and unbothered by my constant thirst for info. I got to talk to some fans and interact with them. I met some Sharders and generally had a blast. He answered my big questions, which I would say change things. Not gonna tell them until I get to a computer, but I can tell you, they are doozies. He read some Silence Divine, which was fascinating. Karaokang, a thousand thanks. We must do this for Stones Unhallowed.

Wut. Brandon wasn't supposed to be writing that yet.

This obviously is referring to Kaladin standing against Moash to protect Elhokar. "All is withdrawn for me" -- Kaladin's powers are gone "I stand against the one who saved my life" -- Moash saved Kaladin on at least one occasion in tWoK, when he stopped him from running to Dunny "I protect the one who killed my promises" -- Elhokar. There is a chapter titled "The One Who Killed Promises". In this chapter Kaladin finds out that Elhokar is the one responsible for Roshone being in Hearthstone "I raise my hand. The Storm responds" -- Kaladin stretches his hand out at Syl's command, and he goes Super Radiant level 3

It was late and I was sleep deprived, but I nearly did a spit take when Hoid said:

I really don't want to see the story go that direction... Adolin going Whiny because he's not a radiant would just be annoying. And I hope the Kal Adolin Love triangle never gets touched. Ever. Kal can find a nice girl that isn't Shallan.