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  1. Discussion of intent has come up quite a bit lately, so I feel it's about time to formally put down this theory. I've listed many of the points I'll make here elsewhere, but I've never strung them together in one place (excluding Discord). Section 1: Origins To begin, we must address the Shattering. We know that a group consisting of at least 16 people somehow killed a divine entity, and split it's power among themselves. Each of these pieces has an intent which demands the power they hold be used in certain ways. I believe that these intents are quite literally Adonalsium torn asunder. I believe that Adonalsium had no Vessel. The sheer amount of investiture that comprised the sum of all shards means that when it developed a mind it easily surpassed sentience, and became a sapient being. When a Shard is splintered, the Vessel is no longer holding the power and it is separated from the mind that guided it, whether that Vessel was killed or merely gave up the power. This was not an option for Adonalsium. It was the power. When it was Shattered, the mind was shattered with it, and the remnants of that mind became the intents that drive the Shards we know. Section 2: Interpretation The intents of the shard are, by this idea, far more malleable than is often stated. This is speculation, and I base it largely on Ati, and I see no real way to confirm or deny this until we see a single shard change hands and be held long enough to express its intent. A mind is needed to guide the Shard. The Vessels can alter the way that that power is made manifest. My view on this, is that the names of the Shards that we know is not the pure intent of the Shards themselves, but the interpretation of that core concept by their Vessel. Much of this grew out of my head canon for Ati. In the letters between Hoid and Frost we are told that Ati was a "kind and gentle man," and yet he become a monster that reveled in the death and suffering of all. I believe that the kind and gentle man viewed Ruin as a monstrous force that needed to be contained, and Leras agreed with him. They worked together to attempt to contain this immeasurable force. It was Ati's belief that was his undoing. His interpretation of the force of Ruin as monstrous and destructive created the very monster that he feared. His interpretation forced the Shard to manifest in the way he believed, and this was so at odds with his nature that it overcame and consumed him. But a Shard still requires a mind to guide it. So while his interpretation of Ruin subsumed his personality, it was still shaped by the belief that caused it to be so violent and sadistic. Sazed in contrast views Ruin as a natural force. I don't think he would become that creature even if he held only Ruin. For a hypothetical example of what I mean, look at Vin. She did not hold the Shard of Preservation long enough for us to know what the outcome would be. Considering her immediate actions, I propose that she could have been called "Salvation" or "Protection." Shifting the focus away from stasis, to "preserving" life. It is a drastically different interpretation of a concept that exists at the core of both words. The protection of what is. Due to this interpretation, I don't believe that any attempt to categories the Shards is possible until we see them with different Vessels and are able to try and determine what the actual core concept of each is, and what was actually taken from Adonalsium itself. So perhaps Rayse is not lying, and Passion truly is the core intent of what he holds. The name Odium is known though, and regardless of what he states, I think it is the intent he has made manifest.
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  2. Hello Sharders! First time poster here, I found this forum back when WoR was published, lurked for a while, then fell away while waiting for OB. When OB was published, I immediately came back, to see what you all had to say. This thread has not disappointed in the slightest, I've been blown away by the analysis and discussion I've found on here. I've been in favor of Shalladin since the first time they met, but I admit I'd accepted that the triangle was over, and Shadolin was canon, upon completing the book. Welp, you guys have convinced me to rejoin the good ship Shalladin, so please forgive my lack of faith! @PhineasGage, that was an incredible essay, I really appreciated your in depth analysis, and look forward to seeing your OB update. One thing your section on Shadolin brought to mind was Sanderson's portrayal of love as a choice. A lot of Shadolin shippers have brought up this perspective of his, and believe it supports their ship. I believe that the scene of Shallan forcing the kiss after the Chasm, and, as @SLNC pointed out, forcing, or at least rushing the marriage, shows the flaw in this reasoning. Love may be a choice, but it has to be a choice towards someone. Even in the arranged marriages that are brought up so often, nobody chooses to go through with it to run away from someone else. And in the SA, we know Navani chose Gavinar because she was running from her feelings for Dalinar, and we saw how that turned out. Let's look at those "Shadolin" scenes again. In the post-chasm scene, Shallan has obviously just shared an incredibly romantic experience with Kaladin. But, as we've been reminded throughout WoR, she needs to be with Adolin, for a variety of practical and compelling reasons. So what does she do? She forces (Sanderson's word, not mine) a passionate kiss on him, clearly trying to increase her feelings for Adolin again. And, when he holds her, she uses the opportunity to minimize the importance of Kaladin holding her all night, saying that it felt "nice to be held," as if that was the only reason she'd enjoyed her night with him. And I believe the same thing is going on when she "chooses" Adolin at the end of OB. She's not choosing to love him, she's instead choosing to be the "Shallan" that is with Adolin. So long as her alts we're torn, she stayed in limbo, as soon as they agree on Kaladin, she makes a snap judgment away from him, and when Adolin tries to break up, she doesn't just convince him to stay together, but to get married! It's the same over compensation as the WoR scene, and again it seems to be a decision made for the purpose of convincing herself, rather than the result of an organic desire to be with Adolin. Anyway, that was my takeaway from this incredible thread so far, thanks so much you guys, keep up the great work!
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  3. Hi! Welcome to our thread! I love this point above and it wasn't something I'd picked up on before. To take the part in bold a little bit further in the context of Kaladin as a "man of passion". @PhineasGage wrote the following in her essay comparing how Shallan describes Kaladin in line with how she describes her father (bold mine): Note the passion description continues throughout OB, e.g. noting Kaladin "had to be strict with himself to contain his passion" and drawing "passionate eyes" in her sketch instead of notetaking for Jasnah (OB Ch. 39 Notes); and "all that could fade before Kaladin's passion" and Kaladin is "like a wild spren of passion trapped by the oaths and codes" on Honor's Path ((OB Ch. 108 Honor's Path). Consider this in context of the WoK annotation @mariapapadia noted earlier (bold mine): So, Brandon sees the "real" Shallan as one with flaring passion that is buried inside her. I think it's strongly implied that he sees this passion as a character development end point; indeed it is definitely something he is keeping in mind as he develops Shallan's character given he mentions it in an early annotation. As many have pointed out, and I agree, Shallan's most powerful scene in OB is when she fights Re-Sehpir (OB Ch. 30 Mother of Lies): This feels like the embodiment of Shallan tapping into the underlying passion, or as Brandon says, being far more "her". Note that after this moment (where Shallan is admitting her painful truths to tap into that passion), Shallan has an about face (bold mine): So she covers her truth and passion up with illusions and lies to herself. She's not ready to face that passion within her, because that passion is what will make her come face-to-face with her lies. (Her remembering her lies, especially her mother's death which we rarely see her mention to herself, seems to be a key part in tapping this passion.) So, to wrap this up... like you said, just as Radiant seems to be tipping the balance towards Kaladin, the Shallan persona "stuffs" Radiant and Veil "into the back part of her brain." Because she's not ready to face the passion that she sees in Kaladin, because that would mean facing the passion in herself, passion which she stuffs down due to its association with her father, passion which she stuffs down because it forces her to confront truths about herself. And passion, which our dear author sees as the most "her" and part of "the person she could become." Just a small note about Adolin and passion. Shallan does mention Adolin in relation to passion. I haven't done a full search, but for instance: she notes, "She felt herself melting at the intense concern in those eyes, the passion" when Adolin is talking about Sadeas and wanting to "pound that grinning face of his into the stones and take back my father's Blade" (WoR Ch. 49 Watching the World Transform); and she lists the fact Adolin is "passionate about his art" (i.e. dueling) in her speech on why she chose him (OB Ch. 121, Ideals). Also Shallan often has passionspren around her when kissing Adolin. The motif isn't nearly as prevalent as when she is describing Kaladin and seems mostly associated to Adolin's fighting (/killing Sadeas - storms that quote is disturbing), but she definitely associated passion with Adolin as well just not as consistently and holistically as she does with Kaladin.
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  4. Good morning all! So after a very poor night's sleep, I am hyped up on coffee and painkillers so if I ramble needlessly (more so than usual) I deeply apologise. Quick question actually - should I stop doing these very long posts? Are they too much? I can probably summarise my thoughts to posts made over my afk periods, but I might lose some nuance if I do. If people want me to cut them down I will - there is no point posting these monsters if people find them too hard going. For now, I'll do my usual long post, but I am going to address something about Adolin's character at the bottom that doesn't really answer a specific point (but relates to the overall discussion re Adolin) and is probably the most important bit of this if you want to skip the post/responses bit nearer the top. I was more thinking that because family planning is implied in Roshar (very few big "catholic" type families) we can use this as a basis for the discussion. That said, very few people actually know that family planning availability precedes the fall in infant mortality I wouldn't be surprised if BS didn't know so it perhaps is less relevant. Gapminder is still a storming fab resource. Interesting idea - he has actually left out the two most important interactions (or at least those that ought to have been the most emotionally charged). This is relevant. If he had included one and not the other then it would have possibly been too obvious the direction he is going? Oh yes, I completely agree. She doesn't know herself (as an aside, because - as ommented on below) Shallan is a Jane Austen heroine-esque character, it could be likened to Lizzy Bennet not knowing herself ("Until that moment I never knew myself") until she realised she had misled herself about Wickham and Darcy's characters completely. Not that I think Adolin is a Wickham by any means. hmmm I didn't think this actually happened either. Is this essentially a drawing from her imagination? Does she do it unconsciously? We got one drawing (of Nergaoul - and I still think that is relevant because she hadn't seen that Unmade at the time) that she had no memory of producing. Has she drawn this one in a similar position? OMG How did I miss this? This is huge. BS doesn't do coincidence. He foreshadows. What is the sign of the nine in terms of local Lore? Argh, I am really worried about Adolin now. It surely is an unlucky sign? Nine is so not good on Roshar. I agree - and even more so because BS rarely uses red herrings. Nearly everything thrown in seemingly at random is relevant. It is more likely that we misunderstand the foreshadowing or miss it than we spot it only to find it was misleading. He misdirects, as @Dreamstorm would say, not misleads. To quote a phrace, "coincidence? I think not!". Actually that was massivaly significant - just not to Elhokar. Wit is now a LW Roshar style, rather than using other investiture to use his Yolen form of LW. That is really big. It also showed that spren can watch an individual for a while before being chosen and that a person's choices really matter in terms of them bonding a spren. I think we can use this more than any other situation to understand the bonding process because we actually see the moment the bond starts to form. This is quite different from all our other Radiants who all are subconsciously using stormlight prior to knowing they are bonded. I doubt Elhokar is doing this prior to the attack on the Palace because he was so unwell after his assassination attempt at the end of WoR - he is only just getting better as he gets to Kholinar. What do you mean "now and advanced-level English class" ? I expect 3000 words from each of you by next week regarding your favourite character in OB with supporting quotes. I agree. It isn't useful to just keep a character as the light aside and still have them get so much screentime. Shakespeare was very good at this actually. You often got "comedic" characters but if they stayed comedic throughout the play, they were essentially only put in scenes that were used to allow costume changes for the MCs. If they were "mains" as well as comedic relief, then they had to have other arcs for their story. Many of the "jester/fool" type characters in his plays follow this pattern - they are initially there for comedic relief but then go on to have more complex roles. I am particularly pointing to Touchstone in As You Like It as an example of this - he is used for light relief but is actually one of the wiser characters and is used in many ways to tell the whole story. Obviously Hoid as "Wit" is also playing this role, but he is less of a "light" character than Adolin because we see so much less of him prior to OB and in OB he is less light. You could also argue that Benedict in Much Ado About Nothing follows a similar vein as he is pretty comedic for most of the first half of the play but as his love for Beatrice grows (or imo simply is no longer suppressed by him) he becomes a more complex and serious character - tho he never loses his ability to see the funny side of things. Indeed, the Beatrice/Benedict love story is actually much more important for that play than the Hero/Claudio love story which is the story the play ostensibly revolves around. Characters who are only there fore humour and to lighten the situation get much less time on stage. In Much Ado, Dogberry is the best example of this. If you aren't a Shakespeare buff, I would definitely recommend watching the Joss Whedon Much Ado about Nothing film. Firstly because it is really easy to follow, despite the Shakespearian language, and secondly because it is a really good study in how different romances can be portrayed - contrast Beatrice/Benedict with Hero/Claudio and you'll see what I mean Oh *blushes* thanks I am sure that isn't true about your dissertation. The essay virtually wrote itself because SA is so well written. So I probably need to add to this, but in an addenda. I think opposites can "attract" but that isn't what keeps a relationship going. I don't actually see Shallan and Kaladin as being opposite really, so much as two sides of the same coin. They are called opposite, but you can't have one without the other to make a 3D object. Thats obviously an oversimplification but I hope you see my point? Fascinating. Is this all from BS directly, or is it just the bit in bold? So I have long thought that Veil is more like the Shallan she might have been without her horrible childhood. Not that Veil is the "real her" by any means, but is the bit she has suppressed because of her upbringing (including the way her tutors tried to control her). I am pretty certain there is a WoB that he tweaked the love triangle to highlight her fracturing identity rather than he wrote it in to make sure her identity issues were clear. Given how much effort has gone into the Shalladin stuff it seems like it would be a weak plotlining device because of the way it is so rushed at the end. If Shallan had chosen Adolin in a more coherent, less rushed manner and had done so in line with the sitting/standing bits as well, I'd be more inclined to agree. I also think both Kaladin and Shallan have kind of ended up at the same point as they did at the end of WoR in terms of their relationship - and this is interesting because they also both fail to progress further as KR, despite the possibility of progression being clearly indicated in the text. I very much agree. Game of Thrones spoilers (tho if you don't know this - where is the cave you are living in and how does it have wifi?) I had missed that they both go looking for him in WoR. I think Shallan still needs another story from Wit - Kaladin has had 2 from Hoid, but Shallan has only had one so far (not including the flashback because it isn't really a story in the same vein). I am going to cover Adolin more thoroughly at the bottom of this post but I wanted to address something you mentioned here. I think people are conflating the idea of a predator being evil and it simply isn't. A lion must kill to eat, and so must the whitespine. "Good" and "Evil" can only be attributed to human behavior and they are extremely subjective terms even in that context. Whether Adolin can be seen as a whitespine or not is a separate idea to him or his actions being good or evil. I want to address the anthopomorphic personifications of whitespine, but it does have "evil" connotations because it is dangerous, but those ideas are as equally false as the idea that "cunning" is an epithet we use in the West to describe foxes. Real foxes aren't "cunning" because they don't have the necessary thought processes to manage it. They are scavenger/predators so they have traits that lend them to steathy behaviour that may look "cunning" to a person, but in reality we are simply projecting. I really want to see these! When you've got them done feel free to PM them to me. I am hoping to build a huge Urithiru like tower in minecraft between now and SA4 so any ideas about what it should look like from multiple angles would alsobe amazing The nice thing about Jane Austen is that she wasn't wedded to the idea that landed gentry were the only options for romantic heroes. Look at Anne Elliott and Frederick Wentworth in Persuasion. Wentworth is Anne's equal in terms of intellect, attitudes and understanding, but not her social equal. She is persuaded to refuse his offer of marriage 8 years prior to the start of the book - a decision she deeply regrets. Despite his earning a fortune in the Napoleonic wars, he remains her social inferior but that ultimately doesn't matter. Don't get me wrong, plenty of the Austen heroes are landed gentry, but that is as much because she was of a particular class and wrote her characters into the same social sphere because she was writing what she knew. Point is that she wanted her characters to be matched for their minds over other "political" concerns. Oh thank you I really appreciate your insights and I looking forward to adding all the addenda to make the whole analysis more rounded and complete. A song about addiction seems especially appropriate for this thread These lines stand out as particularly fitting! Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends By all means - this is going to become a collaborative effort anyway so any futher thoughts are always welcome! Me too - both Kaladin and Shallan end up almost where they started - as I said above, this mirrors their KR lack of progression, though I think both are now in a place to move forward on that front so perhaps the relationships will shift as well. I don't expect Shallan to progress until SA5 and Kaladin and she will likely hit level 5 more or less simultaneaously imo. I think she needs to accept her 4th truth properly still (perhaps coincides with Kaladin's 4th ideal) and then she can move on. I don't think she is going to make any progress on this in the timeskip - assuming Adolin continues to differentiate between her alts - because she won't be addressing her fractured identity. I like this interpretation. It is very interesting. I am not sure I buy into the Shallan being influenced by Adolin (yet) - I think she wants to be influenced by him but as you say is forcing the issue. Kaladin is more honest about his emotional state than Shallan is (what's new right?) but I think because he never really considered her an option (how can Kaladin compete with Adolin after all - he's a storming prince) he doesn't allow himself to acknowledge that his feelings had any depth. I bet we find that Kaladin is away from Adolin/Shallan for the majority of the timeskip - he'll find perfectly rational reasons to avoid them - eg rescuing refugees etc. At some point though (assuming the foreshadowing is pointing toward the Shalladin outcome) then he'll be forced to confront his feelings. This may be the point at which Kaladin is actually at his most vulnerable - love is probably the most dangerous emotion humans can feel after all - it causes people to react unpredictably and somewhat out of character. Yes I agree. The "journey before destination" is very important We see that the Moash and Amaram see the "ends justify the means" and I suspect (tho I may be projecting) that Adoin feels the same way about Sadeas - a feeling that is reinforced when he sees how his peers react to Sadeas' death. Interestingly, I see the opposite as likely. I think he tries to justify the murder to himself using Dalinar as an excuse, but I don't actually think it was something foremost in his mind when he killed the man. I think he will already have solved any issues in his own mind regarding the murder by the time he finds out about Evi's death (if he ever does) and his lack of remorse will actually be even more obvious. Great point! Bingley is also terribly dull in my opinion. I wouldn't trade places with Jane Bennett for all the tea in China. Welcome Aboard the SS Shalladin. Just curl up on the deck wherever you can find room - its starting to get a bit crowded. I'd offer you a drink, but we're out I'm afraid. I just found some dried ships biscuits in the hold - its the last of the food I'm afraid and they are full of weevils, but at least that means extra protein right? I'm just glad people are enjoying it and it is proving useful for additional discussion. I like your point on choice - Shallan seems to throw her agency away at the end of OB - and she didn't need to. I mean, she could have chosen Adolin properly and then we'd all already be at the bottom of the sea likely tangled in the rigging of the SS Shalladin, a ship of corpses sailing forever on underwater current.... wow - morbid. Anyway, point is, we could have had an ending that sank our ship rather than leaving it becalmed for the next 3 years. Huh - it totally missed that - and yet she definitely felt safe in Kaladin's arms because she slept. As a non-snuggly person, I can't even sleep snuggling with my SO. I get Shallan is more tactile than I am but this takes it a bit far surely? So we know Adolin knows at least a bit of Dalinar's troubled past because he tells Kaladin so when he discussed Amaram with him (after they get out of prison in WOR). I am not sure how much Adolin knows - but he must know some of it? I mean, it seems to be pretty common knowledge that "the Blackthorn" was a crazy killing machine. What worries me, is that if Adolin knows enought to know his father was a monster, then why does he want Dalinar to be "the Blackthorn" so much in tWoK? If he doesn't then of course it implies a very romanticised view of his father , but that is then undermined by his knowing Dalinar has a checkered past. Phew, so now that's over I'd like to add my thoughts to the Adolin discussion. I haven't addressed this point by point because it is a complex subject and I want to try and keep my thoughts on it coherent. Firstly, I want to address something that occurred to me this morning. How much are we each projecting onto Adolin? This is a really important subject - and needs to be dealt with before we can go further with his character analysis. If we fail to recognise this may be an issue, then any analysis is inherently flawed. So why do I say this? Well firstly, I feel Adolin falls into a kind of "uncanny valley" in terms of his portrayal. He gets a lot of screentime from other people but relatively little time as an actual PoV character. Let me put it this way - do you know how many PoV chapters Adolin gets in tWoK for example? I massively overestimated it - he only gets 10 PoV chapters - and he shares every one of those with at least 1 other PoV character - ie Kaladin or Dalinar. This puts Adolin in a unique position in the story - he gets a great deal of page-time for his actions (at times almost equal or even greater than Kaladin) , but vastly less time for his motivations. This makes him ripe for us projecting onto him because we want to explain his actions and without his inner monologue, we have little or no information to go on. I suspect that this explains in part why some people relate to him and others do not - we are projecting different things onto him. Let us look at a specific example - his protection of the whore in tWoK. Why does he do it? Quick answer: We don't know. Long answer: We see this from Kaladin's perspective and the whole episode is coloured by Kaladin's perspective - he is not an unreliable narrator like Shallan, but he still tells things as he sees them, not as they "truly" are. We know the truth is subjective and our PoVs are equally so - and we must remember this is true for all our characters, though some may be more problematic (*cough Shallan *cough) than others. We never see Adolin think about this event. His motivations may have been pure and honourable, or they may have been base, but the crucial thing is we don't know because we don't see them. So I know people will try to draw analogies with other events and say this points to this thought patterns and behaviors, and they will have a point. The problem is that throughout all 3 books, we see relatively little of Adolin's motives. He tends to get "in the moment" PoVs - eg his duels, where his introspection is limited. That means that we have many examples of behaviors that are never explained. We can try but we are working with very limited data. The issue for Adolin's actions is that they are primarily seen through the eyes of people who want to see the best of him. Dalinar is exceptionally proud of Adolin and doesn't see his flaws particulary. Shallan wants to see him in the best light and goes out of her way to make herself like him. Even Kaladin, despite the fairly rocky start, conceded that Adolin is a decent bloke long before he acknowledges it verbally. His view of Adolin also may therefore work in Adolin's favour. This is very different from how the same characters view (eg) Sadeas - who gets almost nothing but negative ideas - even from Dalinar - throughout tWoK and WoR. We might agree he is "bad" because he opposes our heroes but let's be honest, we know even less of his motivations than we do Adolin's. He may yet be redeemed. Unlike other side PoV characters, it is Adolin's onscreen actions that are important rather than his on-screen thoughts. That seems likely to continue. But where we see Renarin's position (i.e. a good guy - definitely trying to be one based on his PoV) - we see Adolin acting in concert with his position within his family and the expectations of him. That doesn't mean he doesn't "think like a good guy" the problem is that we have limited proof of it. Renarin sees his father fail to fight Odium in his vision and pleads for him to fight (and so shows his feelings about it) and he essentially allows Jasnah to kill him (because he thinks she is probably right to) whereas Adolin does what he is told and doesn't question it. As I said, I am not suggesting that Adolin wants to question it - the point is, by not seeing himself question his own actions, we don't know where he stands. The closest we get is his introspection about how to handle Dalinar's "madness" and even then he doesn't tell us much about why he is worried. We get a few hints - that he is worried for Dalinar (understandably) or that he is worried for himself (he doesn't want to be highprince). But we don't see how he reconciles himself to his eventual outcome. Is it selfishness that drives him or selflessness? I don't think we know because we don't see him make the decision. Again, I am not suggesting Adolin's position is "evil". It is more that I think we feel like we know him as well as our 3 MCs - but in fact we don't. So given all this, where do we go from here? I think people are concerned regarding Adolin's arc progression and I just wanted to point out that (a) Sanderson wouldn't invest this much time into a character just to keep him as a light aside - so we will see more, and (b) we actually have limited info regarding where he is now so deciding his progression is difficult. I actually think the "whitespine" may be a very good analogy for Adolin as a result of this. A top predator is not "evil" or "good", it simply "is". Anthropomorphism of an animal tells us more about people than the animal in question. I feel that Adolin is perhaps more neutral than many of us would naturally place him. He has the propensity to go either way (as do we all) and thus is likely to be very important. Like Snape in Happy Potter, his position is unique and may be much more important than he initially appears. I know we can argue that "actions speak louder than words" and I would normally agree, but in a work of literary fiction, we essentially only have words and motivations are vital for truly understanding someone. I, for one, will be re-reading Adolin with this in mind and trying to decide what his PoVs alone can tell me - and try to ignore the bias regarding him that other PoVs inevitably give him. Ok, this post has taken me about 4 hours (on and off) to finish and I'm flagging. I hope I made my final point properly. I wanted to address specific points, but I can't remember them all now so I'm going to leave it for a bit.
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  5. Adolin is such a fascinating character because I'm not sure if Brandon accidentally wrote him as the 100% perfect boyfriend or if he's doing a really clever subversion about what people think they want from an ideal relationship partner vs. what a mature relationship entails. Adolin is like the product of a focus group working to synthesize the perfect "nice" boyfriend found in so many romantic comedies. He's a prince (but not the kind of Prince that has important duties which interfere with your homelife, the Disney kind of Prince) and never needs to worry about money or jobs. He's extremely good looking and fashionably dressed. He has a kind heart and makes instant friends with everyone. He constantly compliments you, calls you beautiful, says he's the lucky one in the relationship, and loves you just the way you are. His closest thing to a remaining character flaw (now that his classism is gone and his propensity for rapidly changing romantic partners seems completely abandoned) is that one time let himself be goaded (by threats to his loved ones!) into killing possibly the worst human being on the planet and then still felt bad about it afterwards. He's also not exceptionally bright. Not stupid by any means, but you never have to worry about him making you feel intellectually inferior. On a rather shallow level Adolin is the perfect ideal boyfriend. So what's missing? Adolin gives no signs that his relationship with Shallan can ever progress much beyond what they have right now. He'll never challenge her to better herself in any way, because he already thinks she's perfect and pretty much tells her so. He's supportive to the point of risking being an enabler (a huge problem with the current path Shallan's psyche is taking). If they ever have an argument, he'll probably just let her win (which will stop being cute very quickly). What do they actually talk about once they run out of compliments for each other and briefly touching on current events? Will Shallan start to resent Adolin for not being as intelligent and verbose as her, and then resent herself for looking down on Adolin in that way? I don't think they'll be miserable together, but their relationship seems built on such shallow foundations that I'm not sure it can grow and mature. Brandon gave a comment that Shallan's wit is partially based on Jane Austen characters. In hindsight I can definitely see that, barring the traumatic past her personality type is very much like a Jane Austen protagonist. The ideal matches in Jane Austen novels were partners, people who intellectually challenged you and were strongly driven by an internal moral code that complemented your own. Adolin is kind, supportive and and an all around wonderful human being, but he's no Mr. Darcy. There was this other very Mr. Darcy-like character who was brooding, witty, verbally fenced with Shallan for long strings of fast-paced dialogue, and was utterly driven by his internal moral code of right and wrong, but that's not who Shallan chose in the end. The question now becomes was Brandon just subverting expectations by having his Jane Austen protagonist chose the unexpected suitor, or will Shallan and Adolin's puppy love relationship get a harsh dose of reality in the near future?
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  6. So I've been focusing a lot lately on Shallan and Adolin, but I was doing some rereading and came across some text that I want to bring up concerning Kaladin and his decision making. At the end of the book, when Kaladin is reflecting on things while also looking down upon our soon to be newlyweds, we see him performing an action during his contemplation. The full scene: So, there is a lot going on in this very small scene. But the thing I want to focus on is the decision that Kaladin is making here, and how it is very much symbolically tied to another decision he has made via the stone. The last time in Oathbringer we saw him make a decision related to his romantic feelings towards someone, guess what was present? So in the scene with Tarah, Kaladin is confronted with making a choice that he is not capable of making, because of the weight he is carrying around, symbolized by the rock that reminds him of his brother. For him, at this point, it's not even a choice, because he is incapable of setting down the burden he has chosen. I think that I'm safe in saying that most of us would agree that Tarah's last physical words to him are a good clue as to the thing that Kaladin has to accept as part of his next oath and progression for him. He even seems to know what it is, later, and is unable to commit to it. I find it interesting that Brandon chose to tie these two scenes together with this symbolism. In the scene concerning Shallan and Adolin, Kaladin is relieved that Shallan has seemingly made her choice, because it relieves him of the burden of having to make one himself. He gets to keep carrying his rock. In both scenes, Kaladin is confronted with a challenge to prioritizing his feelings for the living (in the form of women he loves), or to dwell on his past failures and the dead left in their wake. Making the decision he did with Tarah was not right for his growth and acceptance of himself, and that scene is symbolically tied to him making the "decision" about Shallan and Adolin, which is also not right for his growth and personal acceptance. I find it interesting symmetry that both Shallan and Kaladin's progression (or their abrupt halting of it) is so very neatly tied up with romantic feelings. Shallan allows Adolin to decide who she should be, and what she should do. She thinks the choice is hers, while simultaneously forcing the opinions of the other facets of her personality to the back. She gets to stay right where she is, because facing those other facets of herself scare her, she doesn't want to move forward. Similarly Kaladin refuses to make a choice, and instead finds comfort in giving up that choice to someone else, because it allows him to stay where he is. He didn't feel resignation either. Instead he felt ... agreement? He feels agreement because this is also what he wants, to not make a decision, to not have to act on this, because he's afraid of stepping forward. Contrast what he says in that chapter with what he says earlier in the book: I don't believe for a second that Kaladin could have some of the most pronounced and detailed feelings that we've seen from his POV yet here, and then turn around and wave those away as simply "I felt ...something. A lightening of my burdens". During the scene on the roof when Shadolin are making their passion for each other known, Kaladin is still trying to work out his feelings for her, and he decides, yet again, that they are less than what they are. Not only because she is already "taken". Not only because of his respect for her betrothed. But because it allows him to continue to hide, to remain static, to do what he has always done. Shallan and Kaladin are both making choices, or not making choices, that leave them in a static state, unable to progress further on their own respective paths of Radiancy. And these choices are both wrapped up in denying the feelings they have for each other. If that isn't an indication that they are not done, then I don't know what is. You know, sometimes I wonder just how people who were happy with the romantic ending at the end of OB could NOT see this stuff. Then I think, perhaps, Brandon is happy with this state of affairs, as it means he is doing something right, hiding it so well, that a large chunk of the readership are going to be primed and ready for his next big surprise for them. ...then again, it could also be I who is the dupe...
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  7. Further to this, there's a theory going around (which I think is basically correct) that this was the reason for the Recreance. The False Desolation and the Recreance seem to have happened in a very short time horizon of each other and imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram was what ended the False Desolation. The Radiants, who now know that surgebinding destroyed Ashyn and that Honour is dying, manage to completely lobotomise almost the entire Singer population of Roshar and so confirm that surgebinding is, in fact, something terrible and to be avoided. From there it doesn't seem implausible that they would abandon their oaths especially as they now believe that having imprisoned Ba-Ado-Mishram that forms of power are gone and there isn't really a reason for them anymore.
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  8. Like many before me, I have tried to predict the names of the remaining unrevealed Shards of Adonalsium. This is what I’ve come up with. First, read these two WoBs. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8689 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/247-ancient-17s-qa/#e5518 When asked if all shards have direct opposites, Brandon says no. But when asked if all shards are paired, he gives it a RAFO. So these are clearly two different questions, and “no” is only the answer to one of them. Here’s my interpretation. All shards are paired, but not all pairs are direct opposites. I propose that there are two different kinds of shard pairings: Hard Opposites and Soft Opposites. Hard Opposites are directly opposed to each other. Their intents are in absolute conflict. The obvious example is Ruin and Preservation, destructive change and benevolent stasis. The conflict between them is Irreconcilable. If the intents of Hard Opposites are like enemies, the intents of Soft Opposites are more like rivals. They ultimately seek the same goal, or address the same issue, but with different philosophies. I believe Devotion and Dominion are Soft Opposites. They are two opposing philosophies on God’s relationship with his people. Dominion thinks God should rule his people, and Devotion thinks God should serve the people. It’s easy to see these two forces warring in the mind of the original God, Adonalsium. But despite their conflicting values, they are not entirely different from one another. They agree that the people-God relationship should exist. They would both be against an atheistic world, where gods keep to themselves. They have differing views, but common interests. Simply put, Soft Opposites have conflict, but they could probably settle on the same planet without killing each other, unlike Ruin and Preservation. Their intents can potentially compromise. Now that I have these terms defined, the next step is to look at all the unpaired shards we know of, and figure out if any of them are actually each other’s counterparts. Odium Honour Cultivation Autonomy Endowment Ambition I think I see a match. I think Autonomy is the Hard Opposite of Endowment. Autonomy is all about noninterference. She doesn’t want any cosmeric stuff to interact with her native people. That’s why Khriss was allowed to leave Taldain, but not to return. And I might even theorize that Autonomy doesn’t want her people (or people in general) to have magic at all, and that she constructed the astronomical weirdness of Taldain specifically to isolate her own magic system on the Dayside, and allow the Nightside civilization to develop magic-free. Endowment is clearly the opposite. Not only does she elevate people to godhood on a whim, she gives every human on Nalthis a little bit of magic to play around with. Endowment interferes, Autonomy doesn’t. Endowment gives power, Autonomy withholds it. Direct opposites. This is where things get highly speculative. We have four shards left with no obvious opposite, so I’m going to propose some hypothetical ones to complement them. Odium’s is the easiest. Odium is hate, so his opposite is love. Or, to use a more shardy-sounding name, Adoration. A Hard opposite. I know the love shard is an unpopular guess because it seems too easy, but bear with me. Adoration is not too similar to Devotion. Devotion is divine, paternal love; Adoration is personal, intimate love. Devotion is a philosophy, but Adoration... is Passion, Dalinar. Ambition’s opposite is Humility. This one also seems a bit obvious, but I think it works. Ambition always strives to achieve more, Humility is content with what it has. They are the two halves of God’s self-image. Ambition is the justifiable arrogance of the most powerful being in the universe, and Humility is the part that empathizes with the little people, and might even be appalled by its own power. Ambition wants power, Humility doesn’t. Ambition would have fought hard against the Shattering, Humility might have welcomed it. These are irreconcilable attitudes, and therefore Hard Opposites. I think the Hard Opposites are easier to figure out. Honor and Cultivation are more complex concepts, without an obvious opposite, which, I think, means they’ll have Soft Opposites. Cultivation’s is Artifice. I propose that this pair is the part of Adonalsium that dealt with creation. Creation is their shared priority, but they approach it in different ways. Cultivation is creation by encouragement, pruning, growth, and evolution. It’s the slow, organic, gentle kind of creation. Artifice is creation by construction, assembly, engineering, gears, and wrenches. Artifice builds things. Artifice will probably be found on a constructed planet, with perfect geometry in its geography, and whole species of golems. It’ll be a world where no one would ever conceive of evolution because everything was so obviously designed. Artifice’s magic system will probably resemble a crafting system. In Arcanum Unbounded, Khriss says “[Scadrial] is one of only two places in the cosmere where humankind does not predate the arrival of Shards.” I propose the other place is Artifice’s planet. Artifice would insist on creating her own variety of humans from scratch. Honor’s Soft Opposite is Conviction. Maybe there’s a better name for that. My first thought was “Ruthlessness,” but that doesn’t sound very shardy. Honor and Conviction are both committed to right action. They both encourage doing the right thing. But Conviction believes in “the ends justify the means.” Conviction encourages getting results by any means necessary, especially underhanded or devious means. He encourages healthy competition, and the survival of the fittest. Honor, of course, is committed to consistent rightness, in both ends and means. He is the thing you don’t sacrifice in pursuit of your goals. He believes in unity and cooperation. In other words, Honor is Dalinar. Conviction is Sadeas. We now have fourteen shards. Honor and Conviction Odium and Adoration Ruin and Preservation Devotion and Dominion Cultivation and Artifice Autonomy and Endowment Humility and Ambition That means we’re missing one pair. And this pair should include... the Survival Shard. Looking at what we have so far, I think we can group the shards into categories, each with four. Divinity Shards, which deal with the role of God in human society. Devotion, Dominion, Autonomy, Endowment. Physical Shards, which deal with creating and maintaining the physical universe. Cultivation, Artifice, Ruin, Preservation. Attitude Shards, which deal with God’s own values and morals. Honor, Conviction, Humility, Ambition. Emotion Shards, which are pretty obvious. Odium and Adoration. Look at that! One category is missing a pair. And you’ll notice that each category contains a pair of Hard Opposites (marked in bold) and a pair of Soft Opposites (marked in italics). So we need a pair of Soft Opposite Emotion Shards. I propose Sorrow and Fear. This idea comes from some old mental health wisdom, and I’m sorry I couldn’t figure out exactly who to attribute this to. It says that depression is when you’re fixated on the past, and anxiety is when you’re fixated on the future. Some people get stuck in one of those. Some people oscillate between them. I think Adonalsium was one of the latter. Sorrow is God’s depression. Fear is God’s anxiety. And Fear, which constantly obsesses about the future, is the shard with the most powerful precognitive abilities. It has foreseen things none of the other shards know about. Things so terrifying that it flees from them, fearing for its own survival. I could (and perhaps will) create a table of shards, like the allomantic table, which divides them into quadrants and into Soft vs Hard Opposites instead of Internal vs External metals. Thoughts? Scathing criticism? Insults?
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  9. Is it to fast to think that at least one of the unintended side-effects of imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram was that all of the parsh Connected to her at the time were robbed of not just their forms of power but all forms, locking them into the previously unknown slaveform? I had always assumed the Parsh ending up in slaveform was a purposeful action taken by the Knights Radiant. If it is instead an unintended consequence of defeating one of the world's great evils, then it really muddies up the morality waters. Enslaving an enemy is one morally questionable decision. Enslaving them and purposefully robbing them of their minds is much, much more questionable, in my eyes. But what should they have done, if this is true? The Knights know they had to defeat Ba-Ado-Mishram, if they have the chance. They succeed. Hurrah! But then all the (presumably)thousands and thousands of former enemy combatants are now mindless drones. What do you do? Slaughter them? Leave them to their own devices to die of starvation and the elements? Care for them until they all die off? Or enslave them? This makes the human/parsh relationship much more interesting to me, because before I was pretty much thinking the Knights Radiant were real dicks for the whole slavefom thing. You couldn't give them dullform? Or just mateform? This would bring a lot more context for me.
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  10. First of all, thanks to the guys on Discord (particularly @Pagerunner and @Windrunner) for pointing out that a small Ghostblood symbol can be seen among Shallan's sketches of Shadesmar spren. You can check it out in the illustration right before Chapter 108. As someone who tried and failed to guess the nature of the symbol twice (here and here), allow me to post a somewhat cleaner version of the actual symbol for everyone's enjoyment: As you can see, it does reflect both the WoK description ("three diamonds in a pattern, overlapping one another") and the WoR description ("triangle"). Apparently Isaac had to do multiple drafts of the symbol, and we even had a detailed description of one of the candidates that looked totally different from how it eventually ended up. Here's a version of the symbol that shows one way to draw it in one stroke, and I colored it in a way I thought was appropriate (Ghost=grey, Blood=red):
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  11. So, we have some Hemalurgy on Roshar. Not only is what Moash did considered at least partially Hemalurgy, but we have apparently seen some people who have Hemalurgy. Who have we seen with Hemalurgy? An Inquisitor? A Kandra? Something I'm curious about is if the dagger Moash used was made of Odiums godmetal, if he has one, and how this somehow stole the part of Jezriens soul that makes him go back to Damnation when he dies. Another thing that REALLY stuck out to me when reading Oathbringer was this line I feel like Odium was using some form of Hemarlurgy to transform Dalinar into his champion, giving him acces to the other surges, and giving him the "9 Shadows" this is supported by this WoB Thoughts?
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  12. Currently in a re-read, and the "vision" between Nohadon and Dalinar stuck out to me. Theory: Odium saw Nohadon when Dalinar became Unity. Nohadon, either in semi-death or still alive somehow, managed to connect with Dalinar. Cultivation protected Dalinar's soul by providing the opportunity for Dalinar to bond with Nohadon, and she restored Dalinar to his broken state just in time for Nohadon to capitalize on Dalinar's open soul. 1. Dalinar is extremely connected to The Way of Kings and Nohadon. As a bondsmith, Dalinar works with connection In weird ways. 2. Dalinar's soul is cracked not only by life, but by Odium, and is temporarily "filled/protected/pruned" by Cultivation. 3. Nohadon comes to Dalinar in a dream in part 5 of Oathbringer after Cultivation has un-pruned Dalinar, exposing Dalinar's soul again. 4. The dream doesn't follow the rules of the the visions, and the Stormfather knows nothing of the latest Nohadon vision. 5. Nohadon understands Dalinar, and seems to have a strong connection to what makes Dalinar "Dalinar". They understand each other. 6. Nohadon seems real. He seems alive in the vision, and we are led to believe that this vision is a genuine interaction, not a memory or dream. 7. Nohadon, at least to Dalinar, exists. 8. Nohadon hasn't experienced the "Second Death" that the Stormfather talked about. Nohadon is semi-real (or more). 9. They talk, and Nohadon almost asks Dalinar for an oath in saying: "what are the most important steps a man can take" Later on: 10. Dalinar is left truly broken, carrying The Way of Kings as his only holy relic. Cultivation has fully opened Dalinar's soul, and now Dalinar's soul is up for grabs. Dalinar clutched to the words of Nohadon, lost in his own despair and misery, yet Dalinar keeps walking through the courtyard. Dalinar literally proffers the book as a shield, and draws the book's knowledge to keep him protected. As Dalinar's soul starts to crack, and as Odium is about to fill Dalinar's spirit-web with "passion/hate", Dalinar managed to form a connection with Nohadon, and the power of two bond smith's surge into Dalinar. This explains why Dalinar was able to do so much with the Stormfather's power, why Odium was horrified, and why Dalinar keeps hearing a voice asking to "Unite Them". I don't think it makes sense that Dalinar ascended to mini-Honour, or that Dalinar is becoming Adonalsium. That seems like too much of a power-jump too quickly. However, I will believe that Dalinar is united in spirit to a past-bondsmith, and that the unique connection there is manifesting something new, something United. Cultivation protected Dalinar's soul by letting Dalinar bond to Nohadon, and she pulled away that protection just in time for Nohadon to sneak through and fill the cracks. Dalinar's command was to, amongst other things, unite the bondsmiths. Odium is horrified to see that in place of Odium's influence, Dalinar is invested with the soul of Nohadon, somehow stitched on after the events of Dalinar's pilgrimage carrying The Way Of Kings. The Result: The Stormfather is baffled, Odium is horrified, and likely Cultivation is pleased as punch. Relevant WoBs: Q: "Nohadon is still alive, right?" A: RAFO (By my judgement, Brandon seemed both amused and surprised by the question)
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  13. Oh I love all the DnD alignment discussions I'd put Kaladin on Chaotic Good because he acts as his conscience directs, he desires freedom but holds a resentment toward legitimate authority, he is altruistic, he respects life and is concerned about the dignity of sentient beings (even if they aren't humans). And I'd put Adolin on Lawful Evil because he is obedient to authority, he is reliable, traditional but sometimes judgmental. He methodically takes what he wants (dueling) within the limits of a code of tradition, loyalty, or order. http://engl393-dnd5th.wikia.com/wiki/Alignment It's strange because instinctively I wouldn't make out Adolin as Evil in any way, but within the descriptions provided in the DnD rules, that's how he would be aligned. Welcome on board the forums (and the ship) But No! Do not give up hope yet! Sanderson would be satisfied by how the OB ending was handled because there is a lot of evidence pointing that he is making a parallel between Dalinar-Navani-Gavinor and Kaladin-Shallan-Adolin. So it could all be part of his plan of promoting that Shallan is capable of loving both men. And also, if you acknowledge that he deliberately foreshadows the Shallan and Kaladin relationship (as it is evident is so many ways), you have to either convince yourself that Sanderson did that by mistake or trickery, which none of the two sound like him as an author. Just read back on all these marvelous 50 pages of thread and you'll come out a changed person.
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  14. Could it be that Shallan is feeling horrible for betraying Adolin's love and expectations somehow, or feeling horrible for merely thinking that that was what she was doing when she swooned over Kaladin, and that is causing her to overcompensate in the other direction - to the point where she actively has to suppress the parts of herself? She genuinely does like Adolin, and clearly has romantic feelings for him as well, but then again she has romantic feelings for Kaladin too. None of this has changed. All in all, I think she needs a lot of time for just herself in the next book xD
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  15. Lets have a look at her reasons: Handsome as sin kind to everyone passionate about his art humble in a confident way he gets her listens to her encourages you to be you and not hide yourself away being near him makes her want to rip his shirt off So of those, the first and last are essentially the same and not relevant for a long term relationship. I think they are good as part of a romantic relationship - but they won't last. Lets therefore focus on the rest of them. 1) Adolin is decent to people in the grand scheme of things - this is a fair comment, but he is hardly unique in this regard. Indeed, Shallan herself does more for "the common man" in Kholinar than Adolin does. He doesn't actually go out of his way to make people's lives better. Its not a criticism so much as a fact. He believes in the hierarchy of society. 2) Yes - he loves duelling. I am not sure why this matters to Shallan as she is less interested in duelling herself, and as far as I can see they share little time discussing each other's interests. It is fine not to be as engaged with your partner's interests, but you should be interested a bit - if only for their sake. Do we see passion in other aspects of Adolin's life? Not projected passion we ascribe to him- passion he himself tells us of? 3) Not really. He is realistic about his lack of radiant powers. Prior to that he was self assured and therefore not boastful of his position because he didn't need to be. He was one of the most instantly recognisable people in the Shattered Plains, he imply didn't need to boast. I don't think that makes him humble so much as self assured. Self assurance is good - but she is wrong to describe him as humble. 4) Does he? Are we sure? We don't see Adolin's perspective on him "recognising her". She assumes so, but she is not 100% infallible. Because I can think of at least 2 situations where he doesn't get her at all. 5) Really? Again, are we sure? I think he listens pretty well in general, but Shallan hasn't actually told him that much of herself yet so she has no empirical evidence of this. Does he know the names of her brothers? Or what her favourite food is for example? If not, why not? Why don't we know whether he knows them? Storms even Kabsal knew about her favourite food.... 6) This is a dig at Kaladin. And actually is probably wrong anyway given that she should be aiming to reintegrate her identities not split them further The problem is that the reasons sound hollow. Can she not come up with something more specific? I mean, Adolin has some really good qualities that are his own but none of the ones she mentions couldn't be applied to Kaladin as well. And yet they are quite different people. Why doesn't she love the fact that he can always see the positive side of things, or that he doesn't really get her jokes, or that he loves fashion despite having to be in uniform all the time, or that he is surprisingly good at admitting when he is wrong.? Those are all things that are specific to Adolin. They may seem frivolous (like the fashion) but they can also show his ability to push aside more serious concerns and just have some fun. I can see where you are going with this. I am not anti the whitespine thing myself - to me Kaladin is the chasmfiend, not the whitespine. He is even more at home in the chasms and is vastly more dangerous than Adolin could be (in their present states). I personally see Kaladin as Neutral Good - he follows laws he agrees with, and breaks those that oppose "what is right". If I were a DM for this character I would have him be switching between chaotic and neutral - mostly neutral leaning chaotic. I cannot see him breaking laws without good reason so I wouldnt leave him fully chaotic personally. On top of that as a person he isn't "chaotic" - he is controlled. Also his oaths are kind of laws he has to follow so he cannot break them. I suspect that he will never quite get to lawful, but that he will lean closer and closer as he has more and more sway over how those laws are applied (eg in his newly acquired lands) With Adolin its a bit more difficult for me. Prior to his murder of Sadeas I'd have said he was true neutral or neutral good (remember he hates having to follow the codes and would prefer not to have to even tho he can see the point), but I could possibly have said he was leaning lawful good. However the murder made me very uneasy about his arc. The murder strikes me as a Chaotic Evil choice, and he gets there very suddenly. I definitely feel he is True Neutral now because he feels no remorse, and acts in a neither lawful nor chaotic manner. He seems happy to go with the flow to an extent - and currently the flow is coming from "Good" characters like Dalinar and Kaladin. True Neutral characters are very interesting from a plotline perspective because their motivations are usually the most opaque. Interestingly, Dalinar was Chaotic neutral/evil as a youth. He has changed over time to reverse this entirely to become Lawful Good. His period immediately around his visit to the Nightwatcher was his "True Neutral" period - he spent most of it drunk and unconscious after all. We could suggest that he and Adolin are on inverse arc as a result? As an aside, Shallan is Chaotic Good, and I don't see any suggestion that she is changing. Szeth is Lawful Neutral and also seems set in his alignment. Yes I do, but I don't think she will be complete with it by the end. I think she will continue with the "Shallan" alt dominating over the other alts for most of it, and her progression will come from unerstading her 4th ideal in some way she hasn't acknowledged yet. Her final "healing" will come when she recognsised herself as 1 person - not 3 and this will be her 5th truth and the stormlight will be able to heal her spiriweb because her understanding of herself will mend her psyche. This is very much opinion based tho - I have no evidence to support it.
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  16. Brandon feels overly restricted by the limited potential of "print" as a storytelling medium, presents the 7th Volume of the Stormlight Archive entirely via interpretive dance.
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  17. Actually there are some subtle hints that Shallan used Shardplate in the last battle. And later
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  18. Can I just say right here how lovely Renarin is as a person? He just cares. He’s so nice. I love that kid so much - and all the while he’s worried that he’s turning evil - so much so that he’s willing to let his cousin kill him because he thinks he’s dangerous. Even more; he saw it coming and just accepted his fate. Which leads to Jasnah’s best scene. Also, Evi. Can we talk about Evi? One of the most consistently kind, loving, generous people in this world? So much so that she walks herself into a condemned city in order to give it one last chance at life. The woman who raises her kids to love and honour their father, because of the goodness she sees in him that struggles to break through his addiction to the Thrill. And all the while she’s living in a society that mocks her and everything she stands for. That thinks she’s weak for disliking killing, that thinks she’s weird for liking (and being public about) hugs, that thinks she’s slow for not being constantly biting and cruel to those around her through a wit she hasn’t honed. She’s the only one who’s happy to hear that her husband didn’t murder a child. She’s a vote of sanity and peace in a brutal and insane culture. Do you wonder that we like Adolin and Renarin so much? They are her children as much or more than they are Dalinar’s. They have the power and honour of the Dalinar, tempered by the gentle loving nature of their mother. We need more Evi’s in the world. (Roshar and Earth).
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  19. I guess it's time to make a thread that should have been done a long time ago. Here I will report to you all about the new thingies that are introduced to Arcanum from the technical side. Without further ado, here's a bomb for you: You can suggest changes to entries in Arcanum. No need to write in a special topic on the forum anymore. Right now, if you are logged in, you can just click "edit" button on the entry you want to fix, and fix it! Remember though, that all changes done by regular users need to be accepted by Arcanists, before they are visible to the public. (For an option to transcribe brand new entries, you still need to wait some time, but I remember about it, and it will be done)
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  20. I have been a Sanderson fan for about a year, and love theorizing about the cosmere. This seemed like a good place to do it! I live in Utah and love playing Destiny and DND, as well as obsessively reading and rereading books to find the most obscure hints and references. -T8 P.S. What do all of these abbreviations that I keep seeing mean? I keep seeing things like WoB and TWoK. If someone could tell me that would be great!
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  22. Just to put my two cents on the “triangle”. I just want to say I mean no disrespect meant to any Shadolin/Shalladin/No shippers by my opinion. Being a Shalladin shipper from the beginning I just became catatonic at the cheesy declarations/whatever of love between Adolin and Shallan. That made me think “Let me write my cheesy version of Shalladin and see if I cringe”. So i wrote a short verse describing the qualities of my ship and genuinely found myself shipping it even more. Here it goes… The Bond that is so Torn, The Bond that is so Forlorn, The Bond that was made an Unborn; Nevertheless...... A Bond rivaling a Radiant Morn, A Bond revamped from mutual Scorn, A Bond... to coalesce her, a Reborn. I honestly believe that Kaladin can help in healing Shallan if they were just able to communicate a little bit without an active thought to the betrothal in OB. Adolin… he just seems to me the normal guy ( w.r.t other characters ) and the idea of being in love genuinely fascinated him and “Shallan” provided the exact thing. Which he was looking for and the poor guy had no info on the baggage Shallan was carrying, so he was mesmerized with the “Shallan” persona. Shallan… ha! She, to me, is a beautiful mess that i fell for her even more after her dissociation. She had no idea of what that closeting away was doing to her and grasped the first safety anchor that was presented to her. If she gave a smidgen of a chance to Kaladin in OB just as in the chasm, I feel Kaladin would really have helped her face the truths just as he faced his’. Kaladin… What can be said about him that was not said before? He is the perfect protagonist for this series. He valued his relationship with Adolin and honored the betrothal by keeping his ‘silly daydreams’ to himself engaging in a much professional/platonic talk with Shallan. So overall, I am very much disappointed with the conclusion (the choice and the way it was handled) and I do believe Sanderson put and end to the ‘romantic’ part of it as he himself stated that he was satisfied by the way of handling the situation on the beta readers AM(A)A on reddit. So, I just hope that he develops a friendly/professional relationship with Shallan which i will cherish in order to sate my shipping heart. Also, props to @SLNC, @PhineasGage for their Sanderson-y discussions and dissections of the “traingle” which helped me get over the disappointment…. almost.
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  23. I totally get where you're coming from here with how the characters tie into the symbolism. I think Brandon, however, ties Adolin to whitespine pretty strongly in the Whitespine Uncaged chapter ("Adolin attacked. [...] They were like spears prodding at a whitespine. And this whitespine was not yet caged.") and again in The Darkness (Ch 22) where Ialai compares Sadeas' killer (who we know to be Adolin) to a whitespine. I think where this gets really interesting is that Shallan definitely doesn't seem to think of Adolin as a whitespine. (She is the one making the fine art vs. rock formation comparison.) To pull back @PhineasGage's point that because we mostly see Adolin through the eyes of others, our perspective of Adolin is skewed. We actually see Adolin's personality mostly through Shallan, and she is our least reliable narrator. So I don't know how much I trust the "perfect boyfriend" spin she puts on him. If we look at Adolin from Kaladin's viewpoint before they become friends, we get a different picture. What is sticking out in my mind is Kaladin and Adolin's spar in Ch. 18 Bruises where Adolin (wearing shardplate) slams Kaladin (without shardplate) so brutally that Zahel really gets into Adolin about his behavior. That's not the perfect, humble prince who is kind to everyone... I have no clue what this is! Can someone educate me? You totally read my mind about breaking this down Couple more things to add... Adolin's actually not that humble, especially about his dueling. He is decidedly arrogant in Ch. 22 Lights in the Storm ("When I beat them." after Kaladin uses "if"). Again, this is Kaladin's perception (they aren't friendly at the time), but I think it's safe to say Adolin is arrogant, not humble, about his dueling skill. (That arrogance seems warranted, but it's still there.) Not to go down this path again, but there wasn't a whole Shallan for Adolin to even recognize... I think this is pretty well supported by the WoB on that fact the Shallan is one person in the spiritual realm, and as such any persona who is shutting out Veil and Radiant isn't the whole Shallan. So, yes, Adolin recognizes "Shallan", but this statement loses its power if Adolin just recognizes when one part of Shallan is dominating. Though he might listen to the words she says, he also has exhibited many times he's tone deaf to noticing how she's feeling (e.g. when she was distressed about learning the sword and disassociates into Radiant; when she's distressed over learning Kaladin killed Heleran), and I would even argue that their most intimate conversation - where Shallan admits to her fractured personas and Adolin tells her he killed Sadeas - shows tone deafness as well, despite the fact that he seems to come to the correct conclusion (they are both lying to the world.) He turned a topic which was very personal and distressing to Shallan into a conversation about himself. Is that really listening? Agreed so much on this being flat out wrong. By pushing for "Shallan" to be the persona and subjugating Veil and Radiant, he's actually encouraging her to not be herself (again I think the WoB makes it pretty clear the real Shallan is all three together as that is who she is in the spiritual realm) and to hide parts of herself (Veil and Radiant) away. He doesn't know it, though, but that doesn't make the effect any better.
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  24. I'm not a fan as Adolin-as-whitespine, as I still assign that sybolism to Kaladin (like he needs any more). Kaladin is the one we see wilt in captivity. Kaladin is the dangerous beast (shash brand). Kaladin even had a flashback scene that featured a whitespine off screen. Remember, Kaladin is the wild, chaotic nature and Adolin is the proper, upstanding civilization. Rock formation (or apex predator) vs sculpture (or duelist). This is why Adolin is a duelist and not a hunter: his is the civilized violence of men, not the raw simmering volence of a beast. Even the chapter title, Whitespine Uncaged, is referring to Kaladin, not Adolin. After all, everybody knows that Adolin is a duelist. He's not caged, and if he were at one point by this point he's already been uncaged for a series of duels. It's Kaladin that comes out of his cage by putting himself in the midst of shardbearers and using stormlight to defeat them. He's the whitespine who's been uncaged, and he's the dangerous beast they throw in prison afterwards. I think this is the major difference between Kaladin and Adolin. Adolin is civilization, high society, fashion, commerce, law, and trade. Kaladin is the wild, low society. Even though he's educated and a surgeon, he's still a loner, standoffish, and generally still described as a natural phenomena such as a rock formation instead of a delicate piece of art such as a sculpture. In DnD, Kaladin is Chaotic Good and Adolin is Lawful Good, given the law-chaos axis represents civilzation vs the wild and not literally follows the law or doesn't. Everything else in this thread is golden, however, so I won't let that minor disagreement derail anything.
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  25. I’m still learning how to write theories so bear with me. I believe that Odium was attempting to stop the radiants by influencing people in their lives. When I was reading about the backstories of Shallan and Kaladin I became slightly suspicious. I saw that Dalinar’s life was hugely effected by the shards. Odium was actually preparing him to be his champion by making him into a Thrill addict. If Odium was influencing with one life why wouldn’t he do the same to potential Radiants. Kaladin had a relatively happy if a little lonely childhood until Roshone showed up. Roshone was horrible to Kaladin’s family but became even worse when his son died. What ruled his life, hatred or in other words Odium. Roshone tried to take away Tien, the little brother Kaladin was trying to protect. Notice how Kaladin’s mother said that Roshone had been better since Kaladin had gone. Later in the army Kaladin’s doing great and is right on track to become a Windrunner. He saves Amaram’s life and kills a shardbearer but Amaram rewards him with the deaths of his friends and a slave brand. This sent Kaladin in a destructive spiral and paused his progression as a Proto radiant. In Oathbringer we find out that Amaram has been influenced by Odium. We don’t know a whole lot of Shallan’s past before she killed her mother and subsequently killed Pattern. We do know that her father cared about her a great deal and was once a kind person. However, her father also destroyed their family, keeping Shallan from ever reuniting with Pattern. Shallan often discribes the anger that she sees in her father and observes it almost seems to control him. I believe that Odium was influencing him in an attempt to destroy Shallan. I don’t have flashbacks books from the other Radiants so I don’t know if Odium was doing the same to them.
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  26. I don't like this explanation, because that means there is literally no way to fight Odium. Options are: Use stormlight, become kick-chull, defeat desolations, Odium wins Do not use stormlight, desolation kills everyone, Odium wins This doesn't really seem to fit with power usage in the Cosmere. An example from Oathbringer would be Shallan's illusions near the end - the book mentions each illusions death returning the power to Shallan so she could create another. Odium didn't get it. I have seen many people claiming that the reason the Radiants broke their oaths was because the discovered that humans were not native to Roshar, but that wasn't my reading at all. It seemed clear to me that they broke their oaths because they discovered that maybe they (surgebinders) were responsible for destroying the planet they originally came from. With no more desolations (as far as they knew), I think they decided that surgebinding was the greatest danger to the planet. They broke their oaths to stop surgebinding, not out of some misguided sense of regret for a conquest that happened thousands of years before (which would be stupid - I can't believe that every radiant of almost every order would make that choice). I think the big mystery is where in the cosmere the humans came from, how it was really destroyed, and why Odium came with them. I think its possible that Humans came from a world that Odium destroyed (maybe Threnody?) and the past is simply misinterpreted. I doubt that the humans worshipped Odium when they came, and I don't see how the gods of the parshendi and humans could have so neatly switched.
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  27. The Unmade are of current interest to me, and giving many topics springing up here and around this aspect, thought to add a couple of thoughts on the Thrill. Unlike the descriptions of Re-Shephir, Sja-anat or Ashertmarn, that were predominantly black masses of various shapes, or Yelign-nar, that is consumed by the "victim" and then manifests in form of some carapace, red eyes and a black wind, the Thrill is a red mist... black is not mentioned at all. Given that red is supposed to be Investiture of one Shard being misused by another, as per a recent WoB, it makes sense then that something along similar lines is going on here - when asked about the Thrill at a recent signing, the answer was "kind of". Per Sja-anat: "We were made, then unmade." (p.815 UK Kindle). So, how did this process occur, what initial material was used? Whilst little can be said of the other Unmade for the time being, the predominance or red colour and the visuals from the battle of Thaylen City are quite instructive: Then there is Shallan's art, where it is likely that what she drew, as well as described in text, sounds very much like her interpretation of Nergaoul. Dalinar summarizes the Thrill, as a spren, thusly: This is probably obvious (this ties very nicely with this thread on the Ryshadium and their origins), but it got me thinking how Nergaoul was made - as mentioned at the very least here, Unmade might be fused essences of multiple entities - could it be that they started out as a herd of Ryshadium, say, captured as they were going to the Beyond (say, slain in battle?), or their bond with the spren somehow exploited, then they were "fused" together (for lack of a better term), then corrupted? The Ryshadium have been seen in Dalinar's flashbacks running around battles; elsewhere we see them in the first two books as quite willing participants in battles - they are not afraid of fights. The Ryshadium are quite intelligent for animals and have a symbiotic relationship [with spren] as well as being slightly Invested, and the Ryshadium will go to the Beyond. They are accompanied by music-spren when they run (something likely to be of Honor or Cultivation, than Odium), and are very specific in choosing their riders (judging by the fact the very nice and honourable Adolin got chosen by a Ryshadium, and that Dalinar only got picked after his "pruning" by Cultivation, and then becoming very focused on being honourable and such), hence I posit that they're likely associated with Honor, as well as battle. This then gives Odium or Sja-anat (we do not know in which order the Unmade were created) something to corrupt - a symbiotic relationship with a non-Odium spren, capturing the Cognitive Shadow along the way, and turning the mist red,. The animal origin, even if said animal is smart, makes Nergaoul semi-intelligent. Consider the Thrill's reactions to Dalinar in the last part of OB - to me, at least, it sounds like a reaction of a dog, or a horse, to it's owner: The Ryshadium's association with battle likely could explain why their memories are of men fighting and being part of the battle (especially if the process involved capture of their... spren and Cognitive Shadows... when they were dying mid battle). Alternatively, the men and violence is something that Nergaoul learned by observation over the millennia. The bit about the music spren is also interesting (though this may be something else) - if the Ryshadium hear the Rhythms, almost certainly, Nergaoul seems to be generating them or something similar, this might be the leftover or direct result of that past: What do y'all think? Anything noteworthy to add to the above, or is it all pretty much as you thought all along?
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  28. Long time fan, always read the what's-what on this site, finally had a comment to make so I got an account! The world I enjoy most is Scadrial, perhaps because the three magic systems just blew me away when I first read the books (Mistborn trilogy was the first thing I read). Roshar is cool too; at the beginning the constant mention of spren annoyed me to death, but now they complete the atmosphere of Roshar and SA would not be what it is without them.
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  29. This is a thought dump for trying to figure out if Roshar Humans (some of the breeds) ever actually reincarnated in the Tranquiline Halls. We learned so much about spren-incarnation in OB, and I am left wondering if the Tranquiline Halls was just an idea stolen from Singers, or if humans once actually were utilizing reincarnation. Full Spoilers for all Cosmere Below: Specifically Emperor's Soul, Wax and Wayne Arc, and Oathbringer Basically, I want to know which shard allows for reincarnation. Did Odium grant the power to the Singers once the Humans switched gods? Did cultivation give the power to the singers, and Odium corrupted it? Is reincarnation via spren or via soul a Comsere-wide possibility? Here are some thing live noticed. Ideas: 1. In the Wax and Wayne arc we learn that certain people working for Trell can "serve again in the next realm". So it is possible for humans to serve again in some manner, so the Tranquiline Halls could be that or something similar to that. Do humans serve as shadows, or is there a cognative realm battle going on, or do some talanted humans reincarnate in bodies using Spren-Magic, Breath Magic, Forging Magic, or Hemalurgic Magic? - did Shai reincarnate the emperor of the Rose Empire? Would something similar be effective in a war? Could we bring back someone that way? 2. Since at least the beginning of the Oathpact, the singers could be reborn in a parshman. Eventually, the Oathpact stops the Singers from immediately re-spawning, and for a long time they were forced to live on in Damnation, waiting for their next desolation. It is unclear if spren-incarnation is something that Singers could do naturally before any shards arrived, or if they were invested by Odium, Honour, and or Cultivation at some point and given the ability. - did the humans learn this idea from the Singers and place it in their religious ideals. 3. At least some heritages of human were minions of Odium in the past. Odium must have granted them magic in some form. Did Odium allow humans to reincarnate on Ashyn/Braize in order to be more destructive? Which powers did humans have when they fled Ashyn/Braize for Roshar? 4. At least Ten Humans were given the power to reincarnate after a death. Who is copying whom with this magic? Did Odium originally have reincarnating humans, then the humans switched to team honour, Odium then reincarnates Singers, and then Ten Heralds then gain the ability to reincarnate as well? Or did the Singers reincarnate first and then the Heralds made a deal to copy the same process? - It doesn't seem that humans need to steal someone else's body in order to reincarnate, so how do heralds do it? Is it fuelled by Odium, or another shard? 5. When the Stormvengers were in Shadesmaar, humans were dying near them, yet we never once saw a person pass between the Cognative realm onto the spiritual realm on Roshar. Sure, we didn't see anyone die next to a character, but you would think our heroes would have seen someone pass on. They did see candles go out, but no one noticed a spirit. Is this because Honour wasn't there to meet them, or is it because their spirits are going somewhere else? What do you think? Are the Tranquiline Halls real for the average Human?
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  30. This also makes sense with the event at Fevre Stone keep. We know from a Part 3 Epigraph that the Parsh were attacking Fevrestone Keep in the False Desolation and we know a ton of Windrunners and Stonewards gave up their shards all at once after that event. While the plan to bind BAM seems to have been developed at the time the tower is being abandoned and the recordings are being made. Most likely time-line: Honor is slowly becoming a force, less Tanavast, more Honor. False Desolation comes, BAM leads the Regals and warforms against the humans, BAM is linked to and controlling all Parsh except the Last Legion Last Legion escapes control by Unmade through Dullform Tower is failing. can no longer support life with the sibling gone and there is infighting among the Radiants, especially the Skybreakers and the Windrunners, while the Willshapers chafe at the control. Only one Bondsmith is active (Melishi). Melishi and the Truthwatchers form a plan to capture BAM, they think this will deny the Parsh the forms of power For some reason the Parsh are trying to capture Fevrestone Keep near Iri. The Radiants fight a large battle against the Parsh near Fevrestone Keep, meanwhile, Melishi and the Truthwatchers manage to bond Ba-Ado-Mishram The binding of BAM steals the souls of all Parsh linked to BAM The Radiants are horrified and many throw down their swords and break their oaths that day, the rest wither over time The mass Oathbreaking, madness, and deaths of Spren weakens Honor enough that Odium finally kills him. The war seems to be still going on while the recordings are being made, therefore the tower was being abandoned during the false desolation not after, as one talks about the Parsh attacking at Fevrestone keep and others talk about creating the plan to trap Ba-Ado-Mishram.
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  31. My own take at "Law" by Nale There, out in the darkness Spren are returning Returning to men Those fallen from grace The Law be my witness I never shall yield Till we come face to face With my Blade in their chests They learn the way of the oaths Mine is the way of the Law Those who trust in the law of the righteous Shall have their reward And if they cause the Voidbringer’s return, The screams The flames! Laws In their perfection Strengthening my mind Filling the darkness With order and light You are my sentinels For you are truth Keeping me on my path Keeping guilt from my heart We know our place in the sky We hold our course and our aim And for the Radiants Serve their sentence And its always the same For they have fell, as the Radiants fell Now fall by Blaaaaaaaaaaade! And so it must be, for so it is written By the Herald of Heralds That those who might cause mankind’s fall Must pay the price! Oh, let me find them That I may see them Lawfully deaaaaaaaaad I will never rest Till then This I swear This I swear by the Law!!!!!!!!!!!1
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  32. I am reaching, but I fall And the stars are black and cold As I stare into the void Of a world that cannot hold I'll escape now from that world From the world of Jean Valjean There is nowhere I can turn There is no way to go oooooooooooon!!!! Javert opened his eyes. He was drenched. His coat was dripping with muddy water, and behind him flowed the Seine. He felt cold. Was this...Paradise? A man stood before him, wearing a crisp black and silver uniform. Dark of skin, a pale scar on his cheek. Authority radiated from him, and Javert straightened instinctively. Javert frowned. “Who are you?” “You know me.” And… he did. Instinctively. He had never met this man before, but…somehow... “I threw myself off a bridge.” “And I restored you. A drowned man only needs the proper ministrations.” “Who are you?” “You, Javert, revere order, do you not? You follow the law of your society to perfection. This attracted me, though I fear that emotion has clouded your ability to discern. Your ability to...judge.” Judgement. “You are...Justice?” “Herald of Justice, though not of your world.” “Why save me? Was my torment not enough?” “These words are foolishness, said Justice, unbecoming of one who would study beneath me.” “...Study?” He squeezed his eyes shut, remembering that terrible, terrible choice that had torn him apart. “I want to be judged.” “I watched you pursue a breaker of the law, tireless, relentless. Your dedication to your personal code is one to be admired. You kept your word to the law with perfection - the only genuine beauty left to the world. I judge you, and have found you worthy of the Skybreakers.” “The...skybreakers?” “Come along. Your training begins immediately.”
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  33. Exatcly this is the main reason why I don´t think he will become an ED. Glad you mentioned it because I was begining to think I was alone in this matter. I´d like to add a comment on this. Who was the Chasm´s Shallan? She was: Funny --> Princess Shallan Naive, proper --> Princess Shallan Brave --> Veil Independent ---> Veil Passionate about beauty and nature ---> ?? some almost forgotten trait Heroic --> Radiant Compassionate --> Veil Positive --> Princess Shallan True, sincere, broken --> True Shallan Self confident --> Veil / Radiant Etc (you are welcome to add adjectives too) Funny thing is, Shallan sees herself as insecure, and this is a treat she associates to Princess Shallan, but I don´t think Kaladin ever sees her being insecure. I ´d say she is at her best around Kaladin (except when she snaps at him, and I associate this to Helaram´s death) Adolin recognizes Princess Shallan, wish is currently the persona Shallan identifies with. But she can be so much more!!! -this is when I get frustrated at her all over again... Welcome and don´t worry. Read the thread and you will find your way onboard again! Funny that at the end of WoR people said Shalladin shouldn´t be because it would be unfair to ask Shallan to be Kal´s light. Now their arcs are reversed. He, as well as Adolin, are in relative good places: Shallan is a mess. I don´t think I´ve read much about how unfair is for Adolin to "anchor" Princess Shallan... We should throw a party when we hit the 100 pages! Violet wine for everyone!
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  34. Nerds are the best, especially Brandon Sanderson Cosmere nerds. I am the ruler of NerdLand!!!
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  35. Thanks! I'll have to look it up. I totally agree with your distinction too... playing off Order vs. Nature can we possibly think of these as Known (understood, studied, explained) versus Unknown (novel, mysterious, requiring additional scholarship) where despite its aggressive nature, whitespines are well-known by Rosharians (Shallan notes in WoK Ch. 39 Burned Into Her that scholars prefer studying big, dynamic animals like whitespines, which implies there has been a lot of scholarship on them, plus they are common enough in Alethkar proper, i.e. hunted by Kaladin's town, and kept in menageries) versus chasmfiends who weren't even known to exist until recently and haven't been studied properly. I totally agree he's recognizing her switching between personas, but I don't think whole-Shallan is in the mix. If it was, and especially if that was what Adolin selected, why would she need to "stuff down" Veil and Radiant "into the back part of her brain" a few paragraphs later? If they were integrated during the "That's the one I am" decision, than that decision would have been made taking into account all three personas, so there would be no need to suppress any of them. There are many varying opinions on what would work best for Shallan to resolve her problems, but one thing you'll see people mention a lot (at least on our admittedly pro-Shalladin thread) is that it's not good for Adolin to be treating one of Shallan's personas differently from the other, which he is by refusing to be intimate with Veil and treating her as a drinking buddy. Another common theme is that I don't think anyone has thought Shallan should have run to Kaladin and started a relationship with him; the popular conclusion (again, of this pro-Shalladin crew) has been that Shallan should have chosen to not be in a relationship with either guy.
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  36. When you used to be very introverted, but when you learned of the shard you have tried quite hard to get others to read Sanderson's books. Actually I've given someone a copy of the first Mistborn, and someone else I've gotten to get Elantris from the library(I don't have my own copy). Yay, I was successful!
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  37. I was about to give you a piece of my mind for calling The Rithmatist "BS" till I remembered whose initials those were.
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  38. Holy rust, I had resigned myself to Shadolin but... you convinced me. Shalladin is still a distinct possibility.
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  39. I think she soulcast the stone into smoke and became smoke, she didn't fall through it. But I wonder if whatever is binding Odium to the Rosharan system might be there?
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  40. It surprised me that no one mentioned Dalinar's comment that the wild ryshadium are accompanied by music spren. This makes me think that they are some kind of Cultivation-inspired hybrid that was made specifically for Roshar. Roshar's wildlife seems to feature gemhearts, spren associations, and carapace. Ryshadium may or may not have gemhearts but they do have stone hooves (similar to carapace)and they make spren bonds. The fact that they are associated with music spren makes me think that they are somehow able to tune into the Rhythms of the Parsh/Singers/Listeners since we see Venli's spren, Timbre, pulsing to those rhythms as well.
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  41. I think (hope) that the revelation about humans migrating to Roshar was only important in the context of "they came to Roshar because they blew up their previous planet with surges". Honor was a check on the power of the Radiants, and once he started to circle the drain (probably due to 9/10 of the Heralds giving up) suddenly the unchecked powers of the Knights Radiant became the biggest immediate threat to the safety of the world. Ishi probably also convinced them that the desolations were over for good due to whatever they did to magically lobotomize the parshmen. If they believed the Desolations might be truly gone, disarming themselves made sense as an action for the safety of the world. I think there's a good chance that the bonded Radiant spren willingly went along with this plan, perceiving it as a sacrifice for the greater good.
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  42. What is not experiencing remorse over committing a murder if not a lack of moral conscience and social responsibility? I actually don't believe Adolin is a true sociopath though, because he does demonstrate aspects that are inconsistent with it, but that particular instance I quoted is an example of sociopathy as an adjective, rather than him being a sociopath as a noun. The main fault I see with him is he demonstrates a consistent lack of impulse control. I disagree about Dalinar not feeling remorse. Dalinar does feel remorse about the men he murdered, just not those he killed in battle - because that isn't murder, it's war. There is a moral and social responsibility distinction between those acts. Dalinar is a soldier, and the mindset of a soldier clearly differentiates those issues, because without doing so they cannot perform that role and at the same time be functioning members of their own society. I do get where you're coming from. You obviously enjoy Adolins character very much, and that's perfectly understandable, we are all drawn to particular characters that we like. Please understand that I intend this to be constructive, not critical, but I think you may have developed unreasonable expectations prior to the books release. Adolin is not, and never has been a main POV character, and it was clearly stated that this was Dalinar's book. Adolin is not slated to have a book, and while I agree with you, there is a lot of room to explore the character because despite us interpreting him very differently, I think in either case it's interesting to explore. I don't think we will ever get a satisfactory character arc that fully explores his potential, because to do so removes some of the focus from the main POV characters. What I see happening with his development is his being made to be likeable, but flawed and so relate-able, which is what leads me to the conclusion I arrived at in the spoiler of my post above. Again, there's nothing wrong with hoping for what you want to see from this character, but I don't know how realistic it would be to expect it.
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  43. I wanted to answer to this both because this is a subject which is dear me and because I fear we may trespassing the dim limit in between readers expectations and author's intend. Those who have been following me or read me know I absolutely love Adolin's character. I find he has a hidden complexity which is both touching, refreshing and interesting as it does fall within the realm of mental illness as with our other characters. Instead, it falls within normal hardships (or semi-normal) hardships considering the circumstances into which he has been forced to live his life. I thought the idea of a character, seemingly normal and perfect, would show the lighter side of life triggered difficulties by expressing more natural and recurrent behavioral patterns than those found within the remaining of the cast. As such, I never thought Adolin would develop any crippling disabilities nor life impacting illness such as sociopathy, alcoholism, depression or identity disorder, but I thought his character would show us good, decent normal reactions to increased stress levels and difficulty of adaptation in a world which moves too fast for him to adapt. I wanted to read it because people do not need to have mental illnesses to react to events nor do people with mental illnesses are the only ones to thrones on the palmares of hardships. I wanted this kind of diversity being put into SA and it came with Adolin's character. In short, I wanted to read one character struggle without those struggles needing to be linked to one mental illness or another, just struggles. I have not hidden the fact I found Shallan's arc too much for me within OB, I have not hidden the fact I didn't like the fact Brandon chose to give her the issues she developed in OB. It was too much for me and, no matter how realistic it may be, I just stopped wanting every single character I was reading to have one mental illness or another. I just do not find the topic of mental illnesses interesting enough to power through a whole book focusing on just that. I wanted more normal people, with realistic struggles evolving within this amazing world, not just people with crippling never to heal mental illnesses which are always going to make them slip backward every two books. I was fine with where each character was at the end of WoR, but I am not fine with Shallan's development nor am I fine with Dalinar too strong reaction to everything. Adolin is being excused from having reactions because he is a "hardened soldier", then how come have we read a stronger arc on Dalinar, a much more hardened soldier, feeling guilty he did not kill a boy of 6? How come Adolin breaking his father's code, knowing Dalinar is more important to Adolin than Gavilar was to Dalinar, isn't the topic of at least one paragraph? The answer lies within the author's intend with Adolin's character. What was it? Contrast. He wanted someone who's not broken, someone who would not break in front of hardships no matter what they may be. He had Dalinar break down pathetically after torching the Rift (despite him having done equally worst horrors, this one broke him so bad he never recovered), he couldn't afford to have Adolin break down over Sadeas. He couldn't afford to have Adolin wonder about what may happen to him because Shallan's inner head issues took over the narrative. As such Brandonr chose to plot and narrate his story in a way I find less interesting then I thought I would after the first two books. In the case of Adolin's character, if WoR ended up in a way allowing us to speculate on numerous future story arcs for him, I do think this is not the case for OB. Knowing he had killed Sadeas allowed us to wonder if Adolin would be killed, exiled, punished, disowned. It allowed us to wonder if it thrust into a direction where he'll alienate himself from his family or if he'd remain loyal. There were so many possiblities all more fascinating one from the other, but this isn't what the author chose to write. Therefore, instead of exploring the complexity he had built into the character, without having tap into it yet, Brandon has chosen the path which led Adolin towards a very standard story arc. The Adolin we read into OB will not tolerate harm done to his family, he will kill enemies from his father, if he feels there is a need for it, but he will not allow those deaths to weight on him. The Adolin will read will not allow outside events distract him from his focus and he will never take harm done to him as a reason to react. He praised his father on his "fatherly skills" when, by all means, he should be angry at him: we can slap Adolin a thousand times and he will never react because as long as it is about him, he'll stand strong. Adolin's purpose in this story is thus to provide the normal "good" guy's viewpoint, the good "steady" guy's viewpoint who's strong when they falter, but never falters himself. The man who unassumingly takes the lead when needed, but never complains when others do so. The man who can reflect on how terrible it is he is forced to kill his compatriotes, but will not allow those thoughts to stop him. The man who's just never affected enough by things being thrown at him, be they injuries or else, to distract him from his task. Now Brandon gave him something to do, bond with Maya which is something readers have wanted to read, but since it didn't come hand in hand with a character arc, it feels dim and this may have been the author's intend all along. Of course, many readers are satisfied with this approach and appreciate it as is, but I personally wish Brandon had taken a different take on his story. As such, the idea Adolin needs to die to become more interesting or fail or have hardships which actually affect him does not hold the road within the structure and the narration Brandon seems to want for SA. His purpose as a character merely is to be the lighter viewpoint: his character was never meant to struggle, not significantly and, as such, all speculations of him going, once again evil, are incredibly unlikely to happen. Adolin is not evil: he is a shinning beacon of perfection. He is not a whitespine in dormancy waiting to strike: he is not the Blackthorn. He's just a guy who will protect the father he cannot see in any other light than a glorious one against all threads and will never bat an eye at it, because he will always feel he needs to do those things. He has no guilt and without guilt, Odium has NO hold. Adolin is just about the farther away from Odium's character we currently has: he is 100% assuming. What does it mean in terms of narrative? Not much. It means Adolin will likely keep on being used as the lighter of all viewpoints, used to crack jokes when the tension is high, used to be funny when the other characters are grave and if he has a few graver moments, they will not pan out into much because such is not his character's purpose. I understand the desire to refuse to believe this may be it, but I do think this is reality, hence I am saying we are walking on the line in between the author's intends and readers expectations. Adolin could be so much more into this story, but what we have seen is likely what we'll get within future books unless Brandon makes a 180 and takes a very firm commitment to write more of Adolin. I have however waited 4 years for him to do so: he didn't. His intends are different and since this is his story, well there is nothing I can do about it but wish he had changed his mind.
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  44. I'm not convinced Skar and Drehy have bonded spren. Kaladin notes when he meets them that Drehy has cuts on his face and Skar looks like he hadn't slept in weeks, which means they haven't healed with stormlight. Also, they have practiced lashings as squires, so they could have flown back to the oathgate if they were full radiants. It's possible they had no stormlight for the duration of their multi-week trip from Kholinar to the coast where Kal found them, but the merchant they were with had a functioning spanreed which requires an infused ruby. I think they are still squires and needed his presence to use stormlight. Also, he mentioned having all his squires speak the first ideal back in Part 2, so it makes sense that they may have spoken the second ideal without bonding their own spren, or follow the same ideals their radiant.
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  45. A mysterious lawman from an unknown location called "The Roughs" appears on Roshar to educate Nale and the wayward Skybreakers on what it truly means to be a lawman. Another mysterious individual with a fondness for hats ascends to the 5th Ideal of the Lightweavers within a single day, baffling the entire collective of Cryptics with his impressive knowledge of lies and truths.
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  46. Honestly, given the "mass murderers find redemption" theme of Oathbringer, I wouldn't be too surprised if SA ended with Odium himself laying down his +5 Golden Scepter of Symbolism and reciting the first oath. With the ghosts of Sadeas and Amaram as his squires.
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  47. This is a picture of Nergaoul. It is drawn by Shallan when she had a time-lapse dissociation period. It looks like the description given of Nergaoul in Part 5. I don't think it has anything to do with real horses or rhyshadium except that horses came with the humans and so did Odium. I agree that Rhyshadium are altered horses. It seems reasonable to conclude that due to direct Shardic intervention normal horses were altered to become invested so they would be suitable to carry plated radiants (ng normal horses too fragile). The interference was done in such a way as to allow further Ryshadium to be bred. I don't think Rhyshadium and normal horses can breed now (no doubt someone would have tried it - Rhyshadium are rare and very useful) which suggests they are different species far enough apart to at least not produce fertile offspring. Maybe you can get mixed breeds, but they would likely be infertile (like mules are infertile offspring of donkeys and horses), or,imo, even more likely, they just don't breed/produce offspring. The question remains, is there a gemheart? Given the extra intelligence of Rhyshadium, I think a spren bond seems reasonable (whether in a gem heart of another form I don't know). I say this because the chasmfiend is clever when it lies in wait for Shallan and Kaladin in the chasm and we know that has some bonded spren (luckspren). Most other local species don't seem that clever in the wild. Maybe axehounds are, Balat's seems quite bright - though that could as much be due to selective breeding by humans (like we bred dogs to be clever) as from a spren. I didn't get the impression that anyone thinks whitespine are clever so much as cunning? Oops forgot to comment on this: Ooh i forgot about this. That suggests a spren bond imo - only intelligent creatures seem able to attract spren like that. Are the Rhyshadium talking to each other like the Parsendi did through the rhythms?
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  48. I think that horses were introduced long enough ago that Ryshadium have developed a spren bond that makes them fit more into Roshar. Horses don't fit. Ryshadium are just horses altered by a spren bond. Either it is a evolutionary split or direct shardic intervention, but they are altered horses, and horses aren't native.
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  49. For a third novel in a row everything Syl touches turns to pure gold. Sure there were deeply emotional and inspiring and haunting moments in Oathbringer, but nothing was better than this:
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