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Below is my case for why Kadolin (Kaladin and Adolin in case that wasn't clear) is the greatest ship of all time! (Disclaimer: I know this won't happen in the books, but I still absolutely love them together.) As an intro, I love gay romance, I read probably too many of them (bless you Kindle Unlimited), and when I finished WoR, the whole reason I found this forum in the first place was to see if anyone else had picked up on the obvious romantic vibe between Kaladin and Adolin. I mean, I may have had a bit of confirmation bias, but I think there is a lot of book evidence to support them. So, onward! Kaladin and Adolin: Would They Be in a Romantic Relationship? Although gay relationships are perceived with various levels of comfort on Roshar in general, in Vorinism such relationships are perceived as the same as heterosexual relationships, though subject to the same prohibitions about premarital sexual relations. Kaladin displays no issue with Drehy’s relationship with a man, and in general neither does anyone else in Bridge Four (although Sigzil has a level of discomfort for not having the proper paperwork.) Kaladin is described of a man of passion by many people. While we have only seen him on page have romantic feelings for a woman, he could very likely translate his passion into romantic feelings for a man. In fact, Adolin is one of the people (see below for relationship timeline) that Kaladin has felt the most passion about; half of WoR is about the strong feelings they have vis-à-vis one another. We have seen another passionate dislike (Shallan) where Kaladin’s strong negative feelings turn into romantic interest, so it is likely the same could happen with Adolin. While Adolin is often seen as an admirer of women’s physical beauty, he doesn’t seem eager to have a physically intimate relationship, and in fact we can take his “missteps” in these relationships as a way of avoiding physical intimacy; if he doesn’t let a relationship progress past the introductory stage, he won’t have to be physically intimate. His one relationship which progresses to a stage with any physical intimacy (Shallan) is a relationship where his partner is determined to make it work, even ignoring his glances at other women (a tactic Adolin has used in the past to escape early from relationships with women.) When Shallan initiates physical contact with Adolin, he is hesitant to respond to it, although eventually he does reciprocate, likely because he knows this is what is expected as him. I suspect while Adolin is not incapable of romantic feelings for a woman, he strongly would lean towards a relationship with a man. We can also take Adolin’s extreme love of fashion as a hint towards his sexual preference; though we do not want to reduce gay men to stereotypes, a love of and focus on fashion is something which in popular culture (and real life, though this obviously varies) is associated with gay men. Kadolin: The Relationship's Progression and the Literary Tropes Involved Kaladin and Adolin meet in a typical dramatic scenario, as you often see in fictional romances. Adolin and his father are surrounded by enemy soldiers and likely to die. Kaladin comes in to save the day, and in the process, aggressively tells Adolin (the battlefield commander at the time) what to do. We now have a setup where Adolin resents Kaladin’s asserting authority in such a manner (especially given Kaladin’s station, as we discuss below) but at the same time knowing that Kaladin saved his life, which sets up interpersonal tension in Adolin as well as external tension between the characters. The perfect setup to have them obsess over each other! We spend most of WoR with Adolin and Kaladin progressing through your typical “enemies to lovers” romance setup. They are involved in many cute antagonistic scenes in which they challenge each other but at the same time show a growing respect between the two. (Notable scenes include the horse riding scene which leaves Adolin in awe of Kaladin, and the dueling ground scene where Kaladin observes that Adolin is a master at the sword even though they get in a fight later.) We also get to see some physical interaction between the two (fighting). At the same time, we start to see how Kaladin and Adolin work extremely well together in difficult situations, including the attack by Szeth and most notably, the 4v1 duel. The latter is of course a huge turning point for Kadolin, as after that point we see Kaladin accepting that Adolin is pretty good for a lighteyes, and Adolin actively trying to befriend Kaladin. But that doesn’t mean their prior passion and obsession over each other should go to waste… In OB, we see a further strengthening of their bond. When Amaram is appointed highprince, Adolin’s first thought it for Kaladin. When they assemble the team for Kholinar, the number one person Kaladin wants to bring is Adolin. After Kaladin freezes in Kholinar, we see Adolin’s amazing tenderness in dealing with Kaladin’s shock and defending him to Shallan when she doubts Kaladin is up to the task in infiltrating the lighthouse; Adolin is incredibly insightful that what Kaladin needs the most is a task, and in fact we see that the task of getting to Dalinar is what helps pull Kaladin out of his depression. Before we get to a couple more literary tropes, I wanted to point out that we get a couple viewpoints at the end of OB where Adolin is a bit miffed that Shallan is acting interested in Kaladin. While you could take the obvious read here, another interpretation is that Adolin is also realizing the romantic attractiveness of Kaladin, and so these moments are a bit discomforting because he’s not sure he can deal with his own feelings for Kaladin. And these feelings then lead to him wanting to get out of the betrothal with Shallan; ostensibly he is stepping aside for Kaladin to be with Shallan, but could it really be that Adolin doesn’t want to be with Shallan because he himself is in love with Kaladin? To highlight a few more effective literary tropes, Adolin and Kaladin exemplify highborn/lowborn or prince/country girl (err boy). Adolin is the son of a highprince, literally at the top of Alethi society, whereas Kaladin is a darkeyes, the peasant class of Alethi society. As I will discuss below, this actually provides them both immense opportunities for growth, in addition to help provide some depth to the passionate conflict discussed above. Another trope which would be at play, if Kadolin came to fruition, is quirky individual reforming the playboy. Adolin is showing jumping from woman to woman, a notorious playboy with a bad reputation. Who better to reform him than our plucky darkeye who overcame horrible injustice and saved the day? Note that all of the tropes highlighted above are used in Shalladin and Shadolin, but are split between the two relationships. With Kadolin we have all these tropes combined in one! The more the merrier Kadolin: Why They Work Despite their obvious differences in social status, Kaladin and Adolin have many similarities. They are both extremely good fighters; Kaladin is presented as the best spearman in the books and Adolin as the best swordsman. They are both immensely loyal individuals who are surprised/hurt when others are disloyal to them (e.g. Jakamov for Adolin and Moash for Kaladin), because they could never imagine acting that way themselves. They are both very honest individuals, often portrayed as being too blunt, but which means they will always speak their minds to one another. Both have fathers who they deeply admire but are not sure if they can live up to; but both of them have moments when they doubt the quality of their father’s character (and Adolin may have more of this to come.) Both have younger brothers who society portrays as “weaker” than them that they want to protect, but both also know their brothers have hidden strengths which society cannot see. Both also can tend towards vengeance, while also have a strong moral compass in other respects, which will allow them to understand the other’s need for vengeance by also providing the perspective to push back on this. Kaladin and Adolin of course have many differences. The most obvious is their social standing, and in this respect they are good foils for one another with Adolin providing Kaladin an example of an honorable lighteyes and Kaladin providing Adolin with an example of a darkeyes who is every bit his equal. On a purely physical level, they are presented as opposites; Kaladin’s dark hair and dark eyes and Adolin’s light hair and light eyes are often mentioned. Their personalities mirror this dichotomy; Adolin is generally positive whereas Kaladin suffers from depression. From a metaphorical sense, Adolin’s name literally means “born into light” and that light is exactly what Kaladin needs in his life at times. Adolin is also associated with the “sun” in the books whereas Kaladin is the “storm”, an accurate summary of this light/dark dichotomy. Kaladin is also a more scholarly type with his background in surgery while Adolin is more practical, always focused on the action-items. While Kaladin can get into his own head, Adolin is better at focusing on what needs to be done. In any relationship, one of the most important things in how each person can help the other grow. I already highlighted above how Kaladin and Adolin help resolve each other’s classist prejudices. Adolin is also one of the most supportive characters in the book (and he actually is a supporting character ), and he displays this enumerable times towards Kaladin in the books, following Kaladin to jail after the 4v1 duel and being Kaladin’s main support when he’s in shock in Shadesmar are two notable instances. (I would argue Adolin’s main concern in Shadesmar is for Kaladin, which just shows the strength of his affection.) Kaladin is all too often shown supporting others, but he sorely needs support in his life as well, which Adolin can provide. Kaladin is also worried about protecting everyone, and Adolin is one of the characters we’ve seen who needs the least protection; Kaladin trusts Adolin can take care of himself! As far as how Kaladin can help Adolin, I think Kaladin’s scholarly side can help bring that out in Adolin. Because of the strict gender split on scholarship in Roshar, Adolin has been pushed by women to read their books and see scholarship from their perspective. As an action-oriented person, Adolin is more drawn to active pursuits. Kaladin can help provide Adolin a form of scholarship to which Adolin will be more inclined – taking action and relating what one has learned to real-world problems. In fact, one of Adolin’s more scholarly moments (cutting through the plateau structure at the end of WoR) is the result of this kind of melding of scholarship and action which Kaladin can help him achieve. Perhaps most instrumentally, Kaladin can help provide Adolin perspective on how the majority of Alethi live, which will help Adolin be the best ruler he can for his people (because, no matter what he wants, he is going to be a ruler.) As Kaladin has a strong sense of leadership (it is one of his order’s traits after all), he can help Adolin not lead out of duty but instead out of a desire to lead, as so far while Adolin is quite talented at leading, he has had to be pushed to take up the responsibility. Kaladin can help provide inspiration in that regard. And well, let’s be honest, Kadolin is just plain hot Conclusion Kaladin and Adolin's relationship is acceptable in-world and both would welcome/accept a romantic relationship with a man. Kadolin follows popular tropes for setting up a romantic relationship. Kaladin and Adolin have similarities which allow them to understand and support each other but enough differences to add spice to their relationship and provide each other avenues with which to grow. Kadolin is the best NB: If anyone would like citations for any of the above, I am happy to provide.

LG42 - Day 4: More Treachery (What a Surprise!) Lord Grumbles had made a lot of enemies over the years. All his grumbling and moaning about things that really couldn’t be helped got on the nerves of everyone. So he was walking through the town square when he was stopped by an innocent-looking person. “Excuse me, sir, I have a message for you.” “Yes, what is it?” Grumbles snapped. “You’re kind of annoying,” the young man said, and dropped flat. Grumbles was dropped flat to the ground by a volley of coins. As he was dying, he heard running footsteps and this: “Hey! He was supposed to be our target!” “Then you got here too slow,” the young man’s voice said. “But, what do we do now?” “Want to go get a drink?” “...Sounds good to me.” Jonas Ffnord sipped at his wine as he turned another page in The Merchant’s Guide to Luthadel. It wasn’t the most useful or entertaining of reads, but it would do to distract until word got back. The other Nobles were focusing on just killing their enemies, but Jonas wanted information first. Who was plotting against who. Who was an ally, who was a traitor, and who could be safely ignored. There was a knock at the study door, and Jonas looked up briefly. “Who is it?” “Alvrynel, my Lord.” The Terris steward’s voice came from beyond. “The other lords are heading to the safe room, a band of soldiers are fighting with our hazekillers right now. They saw fit to warn you.” Well, that boded ill. Jonas snapped his book shut, and picked up his wine glass. Standing, he called out, “Very well Alvrynel. I shall be there in a moment.” There hadn’t been enough time yet to reinforce the wooden door to the study, but other than that, the room was impregnable. It might actually be worth it to stay here, instead of retreating to the Safe room. Assassins and soldiers would go there, knowing the other nobles were hiding in the most defensible room. But no, it wasn’t worth the risk. Jonas drew a key out of his pocket, and unlocked the door. It was immediately kicked inward, slamming Jonas backwards into a table. He gasped as a trio of black clad men with dueling canes strode into the room, followed by the apologetic Alvrynel. “I regret to inform you, Jonas, but the House has decided that you are a traitor to be executed. Know that your death will cement the alliance with our allies though.” Jonas threw his now empty wine goblet at the closest assassin, who casually batted it away, and scrambled to the side of the room. Abruptly, he stopped, as his metal belt buckle rammed into his stomach, being pulled back towards the doorway. Desperately, he clawed at it, trying to remove it, but then there was a sharp pain in the back of his head, and everything went black. Livinglegend was killed by the Heatherlockes! Devotary of Spontaneity was killed by the Ffnords, and also the Tormanders! The Day will end in Player List:

It's... tangentially stormlight. What's the last thing Scadrial needs? Mo-Ash

Hey guys! Let’s put a bunch of jokes, good, or bad on this thread. Anything Stormlight is acceptable. Let me kick this off. What do the Azish engineers want to rejoin the coalition? A Surge protector!

New Here, but I LOOOOOOVE me some Sanderson!! Read everything in the Cosmere and hungry for more!! Looking forward to some mind bending conversations about some amazing books!

@maxal and I started having a discussion on Adolin's fashion sense and what it could mean prior to the ASK thread closure, so I wanted to bring it into it's own thread in case anyone else wanted to join the discussion. Below is the most pertinent history on the topic: I don't like Adolin playing "dressing up" and I still think those scenes exist mostly because Brandon thought they were comical and he wanted to add some humor to otherwise grim part of the narrative, but I recently read someone (not myself) argue Adolin focusing so much on fashion, when everything else is going wrong, is mostly him holding on to familiar things. He goes in line with his second viewpoint chapter where the smell of the stables was something familiar he could hung up onto despite being very distressed over Sureblood. Wearing nice clothes, sewing himself clothes, these may have just been comical scenes written to relief the tension, but these may have also been subtle ways Adolin's character has used to regain a semblance of normality in a world he does not recognize. The party with the fancy suit, I think it was more Adolin remembering his teenage years, then anything else. When Adolin mentions of how someone's clothes speaks of its personality, Shallan asks him what happened to his fancy suit. Adolin responds he didn't fit him anymore... I always thought this was an odd response, but with the above explanation, it makes more sense. Adolin no longer is the fop he once was: he tried once last time and it wasn't him anymore. I think this other person may have put the finger onto something. I can understand the normalcy point, though I don't know if I agree with it (normal would have been a uniform for Adolin, as that is what he's been wearing for the past six years. Fancy clothes would be a novelty at this point.) Even if we take the normalcy point, that is along the same lines as Adolin's focus was elsewhere besides on the task at hand, on making himself comfortable, on feeling normal. A perfectly natural feeling, but also different than the other three who were pushing their personal boundaries in order to accomplish the task (Kal being a lighteyes, Shallan risking her life to feed beggars (a misguided attempt, but that was her intent), Elhokar actually being a leader (lol at that last one)). I like your point about that quote on "fit" a lot more. It's something I had forgotten about. I'll quote it below for reference: Putting aside the fact this is a really stupid question by Shallan (they had been oathgate-napped from a battle. Why would Adolin wear a party suit to a battle? That's like me being kidnapped from the gym and someone asking why I was in gym clothes instead of a party dress), as I actually think the fact the question was so moronic means it was definitely inserted so that Adolin could say his line using an alternate meaning of "fit." He's obviously not talking about physical fit (he didn't change size in the past day), but instead figurative fit. This aligns with Adolin's reflection on "feeling taller" when he puts back on the uniform prior to the battle. This shows great personal growth for Adolin IMO. The way I read it is that Adolin was able to indulge himself, for the first time in years, in the frivolous vanity of fancy clothes. He did so (much like a college student gorges themselves on bad food when they move out of their parent's house), and he realized he actually felt better, stronger in the uniform, and that frivolity didn't fit him anymore. Good, subtle character growth, so excellent point! Now, what is really interesting is that later on in Shadesmar (Ch. 101, Deadeye), there is an Adolin chapter which starts with Adolin sewing and having much thought over his Celebrant disguise clothes (and later critiquing everyone else's.) This is also the chapter where Adolin has conversations with both Ico and Azure about his concern with being king now that Elhokar is dead. I don't think this is a coincidence considering the above. Adolin had previously decided he didn't need fashion, as the utilitarian uniform suited him and made him feel better, yet the next time we see him fussing over fashion, he has a conversation (with Azure) that becomes one of the turning points in his decision to refuse to be king. So he's coming back to the frivolity of fashion at the same time he starts going down the path of abdicating his duty (or what his family would see as his duty), essentially turning away from the uniform and what it represents. I think this ties into the last part of the first book quote above - about not being worthy to wear the uniform due to his killing Sadeas. That is a huge factor in why he abdicates being king, and in fact his justification to his father, so it's as though Adolin is deciding he doesn't deserve to wear the uniform anymore, so in fact the frivolous clothes actually fit him better in the end due to his perceived lack of worthiness.

When I was reading through Oathbringer, I made notes about some of the weird stuff that was mentioned. Stuff that's probably foreshadowing. Stuff that might be foreshadowing. Stuff that just seems a bit weird. Mysterious singing, ethereal smoky shapes...you get the idea. All page references refer to the hardcover page number. Anyway, here's my list of some weird things that were mentioned and what (if anything) I think they mean. Very often I don't have a clue, or at least not a good one. If I'd a clear explanation, it probably wouldn't have qualified as a curiosity in the first place! The following are roughly in the order that they appear throughout the book. Without further ado: 1) When talking to Kaladin about his family, Syl mentions a mysterious voice: Is this a reference to Tien? They're talking about his family, so it seems plausible, but I'm not sure why she'd mention it if so. Reminding Kaladin of things that depress him isn't something she generally does. But I don't know what other voice she'd be referring to. It's also another mention of music ("a song like tapped crystal, distant yet demanding"), which might mean nothing but which, as I note below, seems to play a pretty big background role in the Stormlight Archive. 2) Urithiru is weird: I think we can agree that Urithiru probably wasn't built along strange, twisted curves in order to fool invaders. It doesn't seem like the sort of place that would be attacked by anyone ever. How would you get your army there? It's not like Odium's forces could have used the Oathgates, and they don't have all that many Fused who can fly. There's also a line earlier about how there's more air circulating than there should be, though I didn't copy that one down because at the time I chalked it up to clever engineering. The second of the two quotes above indicate that more is going on than meets the eye, though -- no amount of clever engineering would make temperatures higher at Urithiru than on other similar peaks. The weird thing, though, is that this all seems to be happening without Stormlight. Urithiru's been uninhabited for ages, and it's too high up for most highstorms. If it were ancient fabrial tech...that still takes Stormlight, right? Soulcasting does, at least. So how is the place staying warm? Something weird is going on. 3) Dalinar sees a strange shadow-world: Later on the Stormfather claims that he made this in-between place, but the description sounds familiar to me. I can't place it, but I feel like we've seen this place somewhere before. Why would the Stormfather bother to create an in-between world, anyway? 4) Something is different about the Fused's lashings: So why didn't the Fused lash Moash? They can clearly lash people, since Moash himself got lashed upwards during the fight in the same scene and Kaladin later got lashed sideways. Seems strange that they'd choose to carry him rather than lash him. It's not like they're worried about running out of power, either. Later on, we see that the flying Fused use their lashings pretty profligately. I don't have a quote, but there's a scene where one of the Fused hovers while reading a book, apparently just because he/she can. Also, the Fused in Shadesmar are flying about willy-nilly despite Investiture apparently being more difficult to get there. In fact, I don't think we've ever seen a Fused run out of juice. Something's clearly different here. 5) Lopen looks under rocks for some strange reason: Now this could just be an instance of Lopen being weird, but it's hand-waved off a little too blithely for that to be the case. Lopen might be different, but he's not the sort of different that does things for no reason. Maybe he's supposed to be humoring his spren? Syl might want to look under rocks just to see what's beneath them, so that could be it. The scene in question is a pretty touching Bridge Four moment. It seems strange to call out Lopen for behaving bizarrely unless there's some ulterior motive behind it. He's never done anything that seemingly nonsensical before. 6) Odium and his spren appear Shin: Now supposedly Odium came to Roshar along with the humans, so it's not terribly surprising if he and his look like those original humans. But if that's the case, what happened to make everyone else appear non-Shin? We know a few races interbred with the Parshendi, but that shouldn't have given a homogeneous appearance to every non-Shin person on Roshar. Again, something is strange here, either with what happened or with what we've been told. It's also worth noting that stone is clearly associated with Odium and his spren. Where Syl flies about, Odium's spren clearly walk on stone, as seen in the quote above. The Thunderclasts rise up out of stone. This might give a new interpretation to the Shin refusal to walk on stone and Szeth's belief that Urithiru was formed of stone unhallowed. Do the Shin revere/worship Odium? It seems a bit weird -- they're basically pacifists, after all -- but not entirely implausible. Still, they can't really be directly allied with Odium, either. If they were, Odium could've had all the Honorblades by the time of the battle for Thaylen city, since Shinovar isn't all that distant when one's emissaries can fly. Then again, maybe he does have them already and just didn't want to risk them in the battle? 7) Some spren are changed by Sja-Anat, some are not: What explains this? Are hungerspren more of Odium so Sja-Anat doesn't feel the need to corrupt them? Were hungerspren corrupted en masse during some previous Desolation, so that all the present-day "normal" hungerspren are actually the corrupted form of some prior version? There probably isn't enough information to tell what's going on yet, but maybe someone has ideas. 8) Hoid. Strange as always: First, Pattern says Wit feels like "one of us." It's not clear whether "one of us" means a Lightweaver, a Radiant, a Cryptic, a spren, or something else. He also plays around with Shallan's lightweaving/Stormlight in a way that (if I understand correctly) shouldn't be possible: Maybe he's just drawing it from her spheres, but considering that he needed her help to get the lightweaving going in the first place, it seems a bit strange. He's piggybacking off of her somehow. I'm not going to try to guess how, but it's worth noting, perhaps, as a thing he can do. 9) More weirdness with Shallan's lightweaving. Kaladin's shash brand doesn't stay covered up like it's supposed to: Later, Kaladin checks to see that the gem Shallan tied the illusion to still has Stormlight, and it does, so it's not like he sucked it up without realizing it. Kaladin couldn't get rid of his brand in Words of Radiance, and now Shallan can't cover it up for long, either. I get that the WoR thing is due to Stormlight healing, but that shouldn't mess with Shallan's illusion, I wouldn't think. 10) There's some weird humming/singing going around in Alethkar: First, we've got one of the revelers humming in what I take to be a manner similar to Pattern, then later we've got the queen singing a song that Kaladin almost recognizes. I'm not really sure what to make of these, but given the apparent importance of music to the Stormlight Archives so far, I think it's worth noting. 11) Syl freaks out after killing a spren: I'm not sure why she's so upset about killing a spren, honestly. She doesn't have any problem killing humans or Parshendi. She was even protecting Elhokar's baby from the red spren, so she should be happy. Maybe it's because she's a spren herself? But then, she mentions that honorspren hunt at least some types of spren, so that doesn't seem like the answer, either. Again, something doesn't quite add up here. 12) Sja-Anat mentions a son that Shallan could apparently ask for advice: So at first I thought she might have Renarin's spren, but this doesn't work because Renarin isn't even anywhere near Shallan at the time, so she certainly can't stop and ask Glys for advice on whether to use the Oathgate even if she were likely to trust a corrupted Radiant spren anyway, which seems doubtful. So who or what could Sja-Anat be referring to? It has to be someone nearby and who Shallan would find trustworthy. 13) Winespren: sometimes rare, sometimes common: I know it's mentioned that some spren are more location-dependent than others, but why is this the case? I could see it if one country tended to drink a lot more alcohol than its neighbors, but from what I can tell, people all over Roshar are drinking a lot of alcohol. So why would the winespren only hang out in just one spot? 14) Syl's memory doesn't come back at all when she returns to the Cognitive Realm: Maybe I don't quite get what's going on, but since she had to leave most of her memory behind when she left the Shadesmar, I'd have thought that she'd have gotten her memory back when she returned to Shadesmar. Instead it looks like she's going to continue getting it back piece by piece, as Kaladin progresses with his Oaths. From a meta perspective, I get that there are probably narrative reasons to keep her (and thus the main characters) in the dark for a long while yet. But it's still not what I'd expected. 15) Syl doesn't want to enter the lighthouse: This might just be that she doesn't like to be confined, which is established more explicitly later, but I wonder if there isn't something more to it. Pattern goes in and happily starts poking around, so it can't be anything that repels spren in general. 16) Chapter 103: This is Dalinar's dream/vision of Nohadon where he goes grocery shopping. It's pretty weird. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a dream or if it's supposed to be magical. It doesn't quite seem like either one -- too coherent for a dream, but too incoherent to be a vision. 17) Odium's word versus Preservation's: Mistborn original trilogy spoilers: So anyway, that's my big list of "weird Oathbringer stuff" that might or might not be worth talking about. If there's anything I missed -- and there almost certainly is -- feel free to point it out.

Oh, hell yeah, this is excellent. Been shipping it since day one! Psyched to see this thread! Please indulge me, I'm very excited and I want to talk about it - I'm gonna keep it to Oathbringer because I don't have my notes on Kadolin handy from WoK and WoR anymore, but I can dig them out later maybe. It's okay, because Oathbringer had a lot of good stuff between them! You might even say, the best. The only thing I wanna particularly talk about from WoR is the scenes between Kaladin and Adolin after they get out of prison together; when Kaladin realizes what Adolin has done for him, and when Adolin tries to give Kaladin the Shards. This is the single biggest event in their relationship that changed everything for Kaladin, and it followed directly from the results of the arena fight, which changed everything for Adolin. - Up until then, their relationship had been contentious. Neither of them liked or trusted each other very much, but they held onto the minimum amount of civility for Dalinar's sake. Adolin loves his dad and obeyed because of Dalinar's trust, though he himself wasn't sure of Kaladin; Kaladin found Dalinar the only lighteyes worthy of his trust and took Adolin's presence as part of the package deal. (Buy one Kholin, get em all!) - Adolin, great judge of character, is also suspicious because he can tell something's not right about Kaladin. He is 100% correct. - Then, something happens. Adolin is tricked by Sadeas in the duel. Four-on-one. Kaladin does something neither he or Adolin expects and puts his life on the line to fight with him. Adolin still knows Kaladin's hiding something, but is in this one moment, totally and completely assured of Kaladin's good character. You will note after the duel, Adolin's behaviour towards Kaladin is now 100% amiable and happy, eager to make friends. In prison, in that dark place, betrayed by even Dalinar, Kaladin comes out to find that one person has believed and supported him - Adolin. But something is very scary - in almost a complete and total reflection of what happened with Amaram, here is a very high-ranked lighteyes offering him Shards in the same room as his much-beloved squad. When Kaladin refused the Shard with Amaram, his men were slaughtered and he was sold into slavery. Kaladin refuses Adolin, absolutely terrified of what could happen. And Adolin is confused, "baffled" it says - confirms that Kaladin really means it, but accepts it! Totally accepts it! Of course he'll let Kaladin do what he wants with the Shards he's gifted him, though he wants to pay back Kaladin for all he's done. Raise Kaladin's status, make him a lighteyes, and bestow a huge honor so that what happened in the arena where Kaladin was betrayed to prison could never happen again. This is when Kaladin realizes that he can trust Adolin - where everyone else, even Dalinar let him down, Adolin pays back Kaladin's honor with his. For the rest of WoR, Kaladin is still ambivalent about Adolin sometimes, but is clearly wavering between his earlier feelings of "who's this rich lighteyed jerk" and his experience of Adolin being honorable towards him. --- Now, Oathbringer was huge for them! Kaladin's ambivalent feelings about Adolin start to fade - in my mind, it's hard to experience Adolin's extremely earnest attempt to be friends without responding in some way. They've never been more friendly than in OB. The way they think about each other in OB is unprecedented between them, and I thrilled every time I read it, as it's such a huge dynamic change from how it was when they first met. Adolin is the most overt. Every time he describes Kaladin in Oathbringer, he's full to bursting with admiration and more than a little hero worship. Every way he describes Kaladin, much more than any other character does. Adolin notices when Kaladin does something cool, when the wind sweeps his hair, how cool he looks when Kaladin is using Stormlight for Radiant powers. He likes Kaladin and thinks he's cool. It's a fact. These are Adolin's own words. Holy crow, guys. Kaladin's POV has takes on Adolin which I would never have ever seen him say about Adolin. The absolute turnabout of Kaladin's feelings about Adolin are, I think, best represented by his internal dialogue when they're in Kholinar, although I think there's a lot in OB as Dreamstorm pointed out in the op. A small collection above. Kaladin's feelings especially have made the most dramatic change from where they started. Where was once out and out contempt for Adolin, Kaladin now respects him, trusts him, thinks of him as a friend, and likes him. I kept it short just because I think it's a bit long already, but Kaladin and Adolin's relationship has undergone such an incredible growth throughout the series, and I cannot wait to see what happens after this.

When you have an awesome dream, but when you wake up, all you can remember is that the dream version of Firefight had the title "Calamity" on it, and it makes you angry at your dream self for confusing them.

It’s interesting reading this because my husband just finished OB and came to an almost identical conclusion. I got subtext definitely, but I’m still a Shadolin supporter. For my husband, the subtext actually ruined Shadolin for him and he finds the relationship completely unbelievable. He still reads Kaladin as straight, but reads Adolin as exclusively or predominately gay, and sees Kadolin as a sort of wrong timing/unrequited love narrative. I definitely love them as both a romantic couple and as friends. I agree that the subtext here is especially heavy (and I think readers of queer relationships are trained to look for subtext since queer relationships are often not openly acknowledged). In my personal view, even though I love Shadolin, on further reflection I think that Kadolin is a real missed opportunity for Brandon and I wonder if he realizes the extent of the subtext he put in. On the fashion point, I don’t think it has to be a stereotype. Gay men who live in the closet, either knowingly or unknowingly, are often hyper aware of how they are perceived and what codes signals of their identity they are giving off. If Adolin were gay, it would make sense for him to be hyper aware of his appearance in my opinion. Even though Alethkar is more relaxed, I think as a prince it would make sense that he remains sensitive about people’s perception with him. I love the point about avoiding hetero intimacy through serial dating. My husband raised it as well and I hadn’t considered it before. Great analysis

Kaladin, Shallan and Adolin would probably be nervous enough that they would ban their spren outside . Nice analysis to the OP. You also left out an important point. In Kholinar, when the lighteyed guards Kaladin is with are laughing at that popinjay with the sequins he is deeply uncomfortable that they are saying those things of Adolin. Kaladin even says they never know what a person is like and maybe they should go back and ask the highranking lighteyes to join the guard. A few months earlier Kaladin would have been the most dismissive of them all, with even outright hatred. Adolin basically changed Kaladin's ideas of lighteyes singlehandedly, (with maybe some help from Shallan) as Kaladin mentally put Dalinar in a special box from day one. Adolin also began seeing Kaladin as his equal long before he revealed himself as a KR. So they had already made important strides in getting over their classism.

Even if Shallan did, I'm sure that one of her personalities would be cool with it

Honestly, yes? I think part of the problem is the perception, especially when it came to ASK and there seemed to be a cohesive mod opinion, and if you were against the opinion, you really had to watch yourself. (As others had stated, the Shardcast didn’t help with this perception.) I think I would have interpreted actions differently if I hadn’t known the opinions of the moderators. (I’m not saying this forum needs to go this way, and I don’t think it will, but since you asked…) @Dreamstorm, I thought your post was exceptionally well though out and agree with nearly everything you said except the bit quoted above. I hope you take this in the spirit it is intended, but it seems fundamentally wrong to me to request that some of Brandon's most dedicated fans should be restricted in sharing their opinions on a website that they setup and maintain without any monetary support form the users of that site. That's like asking the little red hen to gather the wheat, thresh the wheat, bake it into bread and then retire so that others can enjoy the fresh baked loaf of bread. The reason that these people are giving so much of their time to this is endeavor that is the 17th shard is that they feel passionate about these books. Further, I think there is a double standard at play in this, that in order to protect a certain group from the perception of bias, another group has to be silenced. This site, as I see it (with my rose tinted optimist glasses on), is like classical Alexandria under Ptolemy I, this is a place for discussions on the highest level, disagreements are inevitable, and the best use of energy of those regulating this environment of free discourse is in diffusing disagreements that are turning into personal attacks. This is a time when the sage advice of Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird would help. Try to imagine that you are an admin/moderator/arcanist of the 17th shard, why would you commit a large segment of your personal time to do largely unpleasant/repetitive/difficult work if you can't enjoy the fruits of your labor? Totally get that it's a bad feeling to feel like the amazing work you do is unappreciated, I wish that some of the really good analysis that was in the ASK thread had been pulled out so that I could have read it. I am really looking forward to reading some of these when they appear in a form that is less daunting (like I said in an earlier post I stayed away from the ASK thread because of it's size, but if these ideas were broken into smaller chunks I would love to read them). I've read your posts on other threads, you have a great voice and you have a very sharp analytical mind and I would love to read some more of your posts in the future. There are a lot of great posters that seemed to have confined their great content to the ASK thread, so I think going forward, it will better for everyone that they are posting in a way that more forum users will be exposed to their unique voices/awesome analysis.

I dont get on here often but i spotted something in the words of brandon that i think was maybe missed, or perhaps just isnt as significant as I think. Alternatively, maybe it has already been noticed and no ones updated the coppermind article yet. What I'm talking about is the part where Brandon seemingly confirms that Adonalsium was a person and in fact, a man. "The death of Adonalsium, and the questions surrounding the persistence of his power..." Maybe not a human, but it definitely seems to confirm that Adonalsium was a male gendered entity.

I saw this somewhere else, but I don’t know where, so I can’t give the person credit. Now that Shallan has married Adolin, she is a Semi-Kholin.

To be fair, Brandon has also said that he reserves the right to change his mind on WoBs and only the books are canon. I don’t think that makes it any more likely that he will explore this aspect of Adolin’s character. He’s had a lot of this series planned for a long time, and that would be a pretty major change. So some hope, but not too much haha. In an AU, a Drehy friendship would be a really interesting line to follow. If I go along with the idea, I’d see Adolin as being unaware of his sexuality at this point, so meeting and finding commonality with other same sex attracted folks would be a good way for him to start building self-awareness. I do have to be careful though. Adolin is my #1 Cosmere Crush, so I could easily become too attached to a gay Adolin fanon.

It also may be a need for control. You see people do this with haircuts, and with other ways in which they are perceived. An exemplary case of this is Jasnah. She has no real desire for male attention but always controls the way she is perceived through her appearance. Adolin's need to maintain appearances could be clinging to the familiar, but it could also be desperately grasping at a sense of control in a situation where he feels largely powerless.

So, I was rewatching Doctor Strange last night and discovered a very interesting parallel between the movie and the Heralds/Oathpact. (Spoilers for Doctor Strange) During the climax, Doctor Strange willingly traps himself inside a different dimension with the bad guy. He is forced to be tortured/killed endlessly, but his sacrifice prevents the bad guy from invading the world and destroying humankind. Sound familiar?

I totally understand that you have a different perspective, and I think that is the prevailing perspective here. Like I said, on these other forums I frequent, there are a few "mod accounts" that only moderate. The people "behind" the mod accounts have their own personal accounts (I don't know if they all do, but I believe many do) where they can participate in the forums (so they get the benefit of their hard work too), but the mod accounts only moderate. I don't even know how many mods (persons behind the mod accounts) there are! This definitely isn't the way this forum was set up, and I can also see the benefit in knowing your admin staff and building a rapport with them, and how that can actually facilitate conflict mediation. If I got my way (life is hard in the fact it doesn't always happen that way though ), I would choose the impersonal "mod account" style, so I wanted to give my perspective to the questions posed. I'm not expecting everyone (or even a majority) to agree with me or for this to be what happens though! I didn't address this in my post last night, but I wanted to clarify that I definitely didn't mean it that way. You are absolutely correct every person has bias (both conscious and unconscious), and it is impossible to be a completely neutral adjudicator in any dispute. All you can do is acknowledge your bias and correct for it, if needed. In my OP, I felt like there was a definite bias (in a couple areas - anti-romance/characters and more specifically ASK) which came out in the moderation. So my issue was not that moderators had a bias, it's that it seemed to influence their actions. After talking through a number of situations, it seems like that perception was not reality in many cases (and I know some specific instances have been discussed privately; my comment was more general.) I think having clear guidelines, as is discussed above, will go a long way to making users like me feel comfortable that bias isn't affecting moderation actions. (And this discussion has been helpful as well.) Alright, fashion post up, and I will do the other one either later today or tomorrow as I want to put more thought into it. So I await continuing our discussion when you have the time to do so!

I don't know if that what I'm writting there was mentioned in the books or WOB, but there are no real spoilers, just some worldbuilding details mentioned in the background. As far as we know the gender roles were chosen by some woman that lived lived long ago. Mabye she just didn't like blood ? Someone allso mentioned that the roles have something to do with using one vs two hands, but i don't know how this applies. Besides surgery requires cutting alive people. That may also be a reason.

Hi - I wasn’t able to follow along with this discussion over the weekend, so apologies if I’m retreading old ground, and that this post is so long. I’m going to try and organize based on topic in an (unsuccessful) endeavor to make this a little shorter. Shipping and Character Discussion Like others have said, my perception is “shipping” is a bit of a dirty word around here. I think that is part of the attitude which led to ASK becoming what it became. In my mind, when people say someone is a “shipper”, that means your emotion is overriding your analytical ability and therefore your opinions and analysis is not as valid. I liked @Kogiopsis's post on the subject in another thread, as I think it helps lay out the various positions when it comes to “shipping”: the emotional side, the theorizing on where the author is heading, and the fact that any complete character discussion of almost every character (for better or for worse, depending on your position) will include a discussion of that person’s interactions with romance. Yes to this. I’m not artistic or creative (in the slightest), but I drafted an entire post on Kadolin (my emotional ship) after encouragement from a mod actually (@Greywatch), but around that time there was a lot of pushback against the idea of discussing even the canon romances, so I didn’t want to put myself in the line of fire for posting something which was 100% based on emotions. I can clean that up and post it though (tomorrow) if people would like? Does that even belong in the regular OB board though? Along the lines of new posts (but on a totally different bent), I don’t want to poach @maxal's work, but I can also tomorrow pull our posts on Adolin’s fashion into a new thread. I thought that was interesting as well and the shut down happened right after the discussion got started. I gulp at saying this, but I also had some thoughts on Adolin and why he is so divisive (which I put in a spoiler, in ASK, if you want to see how far I buried that) from right before the shut down that I can also post… I don’t know how far we want to go with this as that goes into an area which can be more contentious. It became an important space because it was the only place some of us felt like we could discuss the things we wanted to discuss, as there was an extreme amount of negativity towards discussing romance and especially anything love triangle related anywhere else. I think as long as there are rules against people rejecting the idea that such discussions can happen (see below), having new threads on character discussions could definitely work. As I said above, I also like the idea of delineating whether a discussion is pure fun shipping, theorizing on where the author is headed with a romance or discussing a character in which romance will be part of the discussion. I personally don’t feel like I need this as long as the changes below come to fruition. As long as I feel like I can talk about the things I want to talk about openly, that works for me. Others may have a different opinion though! Moderation Generally I like all of these ideas. I’m someone who likes knowing rules. I think if I had known I could (and was even encouraged to) report posts which made me not want to contribute character/romance posts it would have changed how I interacted on the forum. It seems like some of the people who I felt were hostile did not mean to be, and if it had been addressed as the beginning, perhaps a lot of the unpleasantness could have been avoided. I agree with this. I think there is definitely a time and a place for public scolding. One of the things which I think would be nice is if there was more transparency about actions taken, but to tell you the truth, I think that cuts against limiting public scolding to more intense situations. The other forum (about a sport) which I’m involved in notes when posts are removed by a moderator or edited by a moderator. (It seems like here usually the staff asks the poster to edit, so I’m not sure if moderator editing is possible.) I’m actually not sure how a staff post in a contentious debate would be received along the lines of “This discussion got out of hand. I talked to the users involved, and it was resolved” or something like that. Not sure about this idea myself, but just a thought. Sorry if I’m getting repetitive, but I like all of this. Moderators and their Opinions Honestly, yes? I think part of the problem is the perception, especially when it came to ASK and there seemed to be a cohesive mod opinion, and if you were against the opinion, you really had to watch yourself. (As others had stated, the Shardcast didn’t help with this perception.) I think I would have interpreted actions differently if I hadn’t known the opinions of the moderators. (I’m not saying this forum needs to go this way, and I don’t think it will, but since you asked…) I like these ideas, which counter a lot of my issues with moderator opinions. I will say in the other forum I’m involved in, mods just run “mod accounts.” There are two or three of them, so you don’t know which person behind the mod is doing which actions. The mods also have their own usernames, but when they are a “mod” that’s all they are doing. Other No worries. In retrospect, I maybe would have liked to be asked, but considering I expected the post to be deleted, to be put on mod status and to be told I could only discuss the issue in PM, I was completely fine with how it was handled. I remain impressed that this discussion is even happening, so thank you for that. Not related to any of the above, but thank you, and I agree. I’m guilty of it too, and given this is only online interaction without the benefit of other social cues, language becomes much more important than it would if there was other context involved. It's sometimes very hard to ascertain someone's tone!

Ok time for me to contribute because I'm on an island in the Great Barrier Reef and this is occupying my mind. First, some qualifying information. I am not a moderator or an admin. I have a pretty title for helping out a little with getting Arcanum set up. But my opinions mean no more than any other user. Secondly, I have been around longer than the post-OB entrants,sure, but still only 15 months. So I'm still relatively new. Thirdly, I do not care one iota about shipping conversations. I therefore do not contribute to them. My input here is regarding the comments on the staff. And I have to emphasise that this is not aimed at any one person or any one 'side' of the argument. It's a plea, not an attack. All I want to ask is that people be nice, pleasant and civilized. The staff here are not paid. They're not in it for popularity. They're not in it for reputation. They're not kids looking for power. They're people who love Brandon's works and spend a lot of their free time in service to the community. This is not some pop-up chatroom where people name their mates admin. This is the official Brandon Sanderson fansite where most of the staff have been serving this community for the better part of a decade. They're people with jobs, family and limited time to spend, and they spend much of that time building a place that is supposed to be welcoming and devoted to making the Sanderson experience more enjoyable. This thread is about commenting on the administration of this site. That is a worthwhile thing. I understand that no moderation action can please everyone. But please remember that not one staff member is on here for some petty power trip. They are wonderful, devoted people who are doing their best to deal with a level of tension here i haven't seen before. So please, be passionate about Brandon's stories, whether you're into realmatics and lore like me, or character development like the shippers. Both are equally legitimate ways to engage with this world. But don't let your passion turn into tribalism, judgement, anger or aggression. There is no us and them. We're all here for the same reason, to enjoy the worlds Brandon has created and forensically analyze them. But please, most of all, don't be cruel to the people that work hard to make this place happen. They need your feedback to help this place work. They don't need you to be aggressive, accuse them of bias and be cruel about the job they do without credit or benefit. They are good people, each and every one, and they deserve better. And please, they are moderators because of their experience and love of Brandon. Don't ask them not to contribute. Yes they must have a higher standard, but they have the right to contribute and express opinions as private Sharders. Having a moderator title doesn't mean everything they say they say as a mod. They have every right to contribute to discussions. If they don't then why would anyone ever choose to be one!

I have read the full two page of conversation and I feel the need to step in, for a moment, to share my personal experience with the moderation team and the 17th Shard. I have been a member of the 17th Shard for nearly four years now: what started up as an innocent account to voice a few thoughts on my favorite topic, turned to be a pass-time hobby. Discussing the Stormlight Archive has been a way to communicate with people sharing similar-like interest and also a way to vent out from real-life induced stress. No matter how many brick work dropped on me, I always knew I could go back to my safe haven of character related discussion and rehearse, once again, a given aspect or another of my favorite narratives. I am a strongly opinionated individual who tends to stick with her opinion unless proven utterly wrong or until someone is brave enough, persevere enough to change my mind. And yes, it did happen. More times then people are aware of: ask anytime for the story of how I went from being a firm believe Adolin as a Dustbringer was the absolute best possible narrative to the Adolin as an Edgedancer one, which I have been strongly promoting for the past two years. I love telling stories... This being said, being a highly opinionated individual, sometimes having as much tack as an elephant walking into a glass store combined to being a tad too passionate about one given story aspect or another has not made me the 17th Shard most popular poster. I have often been heavily criticized, shunned upon, bullied on Discord, massively downvoted and oh how I have publicly pestered against the downvote system. I never liked it and I never missed an occasion to make my thoughts on the matter being heard, loud and clear. Now you get none of this made me the moderation team's favorite poster... I clashed with some of them, on occasions, I have entertained the thought they were being unfair towards my person and despite being here for four years, I never really felt I was part of the "older crew". My reputation never really was something I felt was solid enough to sit on. So where's my point in telling all of this? I have read others argue there is a preferential treatment onto the 17th Shard, I have read others state they feel older posters were treated differently than newer ones and they felt there was a double standard into the community. I have been this newer abrasive controversial poster. My trajectory onto this community has not been straight-forward, it was made of bumps and lumps, but despite all of this, despite my quite spectacularly obnoxious start into the community, despite myself thinking moderation hated me, I have to now state they always, always, always took the time they needed to pass the message they needed to pass into the best possible way. I have had mods take their personal time to answer to my pesky antics, to stop their car at gaze stations in a panic to answer to my frantic antics, to write long replies, to address the points I was trying to raise and to explain why a handful of given posts have been received so badly. I have had mods try to explain to me why I seem to come off as so controversial, why I seem to be so heavily downvoted. I have literally been on both side of conflicts: I have probably been reported many times, I have occasionally reported other posters when I felt they trespass and started indulging into personal attacks. Each and every single time an event happened, the moderation addressed it and did their best to solve it. They listened to me. The empathized with me after the Discord incident and they also told me when I went too far. They hid some of my posts because they felt they weren't helping improve the mood and I fully support their decision. I have not always agreed with the moderation team, but I do think they did the best they could with the task at hand. Would I have done better? Me? Hell, no. I'd be about 10 times worst. Mind, I'm generous, I'd be about 100 times worst. The moderation team are just human beings and they often are stuck in between the anvil and the hammer. They have however always did their best to be as impartial as possible, to treat each forumer with respect and yes, they even did it when I didn't deserve to receive it. I sincerely do not believe one minute in preferential treatment. I sincerely believe the moderation team is allowing all posters to grow into this community, even the ones which start off wrong, even the ones having sometimes been an offender. The situation, since OB's release, has been difficult to manage for everyone. The book wasn't received as enthusiastically as the previous ones: some readers are disappointed with some aspects of its narrative. It has been hard for all of us to hear so many dissenting opinions. I has been hard for myself to see how liking Adolin suddenly become something I should be ashamed of as posters started to use it as an argument to dispel my own argumentation. Character related discussion had been confined to this one thread which was supposed to house the Kaladin/Shallan supporters while making a bit of room for the Adolin/Shallan ones while discussing Shallan's character mostly from the angle of one preferred ship while offering a bit of space to discuss Adolin and.... it was a mess. Too many discussions were going on at once, too many conflicting opinions and it created bad karma for many posters. Character discussion is my favorite discussion, but ever since OB, there hasn't been many threads to do so besides The Thread and well, one single thread cannot discuss ALL opinions in a peaceful way when the subject is one which raises passion. More threads were needed, but the existence of the massive one prevented those from coming into life. It didn't help any poster making a comment on shipping was bluntly told, at times, to keep it to The Thread. The Thread has been great: I have a love/hate relationship with it. I have thoroughly enjoyed parts of it, but I have also called it "toxic" and negative for the community. The moderation were given a very hard task and I firmly believe they made the right move. I do hope closing the massive thread will help several smaller ones to come to life so other character readers can find themselves a few threads to discuss, peacefully, the subjects they enjoy, be it shipping or Shallan's mental's health or Adolin's sense of fashion (seriously this discussion was interesting and the thread was closed before I had time to respond ). Lastly, I would never want the moderators to lose the right to post their own opinions. Of course, the moderation badge will always feel a little scary to see pop into a topic, whenever I see one, I tend to think I've written something bad, but I do maintain they have the right to their opinion. I love reading their opinion and I think we all are smart enough and old enough to make the distinction in between an opinion post and one having moderation purposes. So that's what I wanted to share. I hope it helps newer members having a greater confidence into the moderation team.

First off acknowledgement to @hwilesfor planting this idea in my head months ago. During a discussion about Kelsier earlier today on discord with @Spoolofwhool and @Blightsong, I mentioned an idea I picked up from Hwiles about how Kelsier regained a body. There's been numerous discussions on this, all most revolving around spiking Kelsier's Cognitive Aspect to a random body/Kandra and him taking over. I believe something different, and Spool and Blight helped flesh it out some. First, we need to look at the last half of this WoB from Boskone. So, when a worldhopper is physically in the Cognitive Realm, they do not in fact have a body. They are comprised wholely of investiture, but retain their connection to the Physical realm. That connection is the only difference between a worldhopper in the Cognitive Realm, and a Cognitive Shadow like Kelsier. So what if, instead of a spike into a body, which couldn't house the entirety of Kelsier's Cognitive aspect, the spike only contains someone's connection to the Physical Realm? From this WoB, we know that hemalurgy is possible in the Cognitive. (thanks @Overstorm) so a spike can be taken into the Cognitive Realm and used. If a spike were to steal the physical connection of a person, and then placed into Kel, he would then be composed of investiture in the Cognitive Realm and have a connection to the Physical Realm, just like every worldhopper. At this point, all he needs to do is go to a perpendicularity, and transition into the Physical Realm, the same as we've seen worldhoppers do before. When he steps through, his body should form from background investiture, or whatever mechanism works for your average worldhopper. Kelsier's body may not be his original, but it's 100% his own.

Hi guys. Just joined, so thought I would introduce myself. I've read the Stormlight Archive and absolutely loved it. I think Brandon Sanderson's a great author and I want to read Mistborn as well as my friend says it's excellent. Hope to have some great discussions about the books.

That is a great compilation of moments and analysis Grey. Queering Adolin and Kaladin's relationship in this way, it makes me wonder if Brandon does not give himself enough credit about his ability to write a same-sex attracted viewpoint character. I mean, with a few changes, he basically has written what could be a same-sex relationship between viewpoint characters already, and one that would be compelling and believable. If he puts what he is doing with Adolin and Kaladin here (perhaps unintentionally) into practice when writing a canonically queer character, I think he would do very well with it, personally. On the other hand, part of me does worry that trying too hard to write a queer character viewpoint might interfere with what happened organically for Kaladin and Adolin. Usually Brandon is really good at proving worries of this type unfounded for me, but it is still a concern I carry. EDIT: As an afterthought, based on the recent moderation discussion, I did want to make it clear in case it was not already that I am speaking on my personally held views, and not those of the staff team. I feel fairly comfortable in doing this because this topic is fairly subjective, for the most part I have been speaking from personal experiences or interpretations, and it is not heated or contentious. I do note, however, that we have not had many dissenting views about the Kadolin relationship put forward. It could be this is because of the way the OP was framed, but I did want to make it clear that I am responding to this thread because I am enthusiastic about it, and not out of a desire to control the narrative. I hope people with views that contradict mine do feel comfortable posting them here, keeping in mind the spirit of the OP and the general expectations of respectful discourse.

sell. punchy guys will actually become a technical term for hand to hand combatants.

*knock knock* Who's there? Not Jezrien anymore!

Taswell disliked liars, cheats, and scoundrels, except for himself. That was why he couldn't stand this farce any longer. "Locke Tormander (Orlok Tsubodai), I know what you are planning. You aren't content to just have leadership over your house. Oh no, you want leadership over all the Houses involved in this war. You've designated members in each House to be your puppets, acting as your vessels. You nearly succeeded with House Heron. You entered into an alliance with Altea (Crimsn Wolf) early on, and she was following your orders to the letter. How short sided of her. Once she proved no longer useful, I'm sure you would get rid of her. Meanwhile, you contacted myself for House Ffnord, and Aiden (Eternum) for House Heatherlocke. Of course, you were bargaining with other people as well, but the four of us were The Cabal, as you called it. "As I was saying, you nearly succeeded. You had arranged for me to kill Ivan (Mafia), and for Aiden to kill Grumbles (Devotary). Obviously, that plan didn't work without a hitch. You obviously didn't trust Aiden (Eternum) much, as you sent in a kill on Grumbles as well. That suspicion was valid, since the Heatherlockes killed Jonas (Living Legend) instead. Meanwhile, I was letting Lebereth (Shanerockes) make the kill on Ivan. However, Remart (Jondesu) had other plans. I believe he was working with Ivan (Mafia), although I'm not sure on that point. Regardless, Lebereth was detained, and Remart killed Grumbles instead. If only he had kill Altea instead, then we wouldn't be in this mess." "Unfortunately for you, I am no one's pawn, Locke. I won't be ordered around I want to win this game on my own, not ride on your coattails like a needy Skaa. I urge my fellow nobles to end this threat once and for all. Ask yourself this. 'Has he promised to let me win?' If he has, then he is auctioning off his support to the highest bidder. I shudder to think of what might happen if you prove less than satisfactory. And if he has not, then he is no friend of yours. After all, we've already seen that he's willing to kill for the Cabal. What makes you think he won't kill you? Therefore, I urge the immediate explusion of Locke Tormander from the game. Let his victory turn into ashes."

When you get your cousin interesting in Brandon Sanderson and ask every day what part of mistborn she is on, after waiting for her to get it from the library for a week. or when you are doing a fanfic hodgepodge of nearly everything, and hoid is a main character. and you have allomancy, and the person i am doing it with is a dustbringer.

Weeell, there is a tinsy tiny bit more of hope than you may expect, as Adolin is the main loose cannon in SA that Brandon didn't have planned yet ended up having a much bigger role than originally intended. However I think that will be reserved for the Mayalaran storyline, adding whatever will happen to his Shardblade and a romance with Kaladin...would likely be too much for a character originally intended to die in TWoK. But lets keep the flame of hope awake, hope is the last thing you lose .

Thanks for all the positive feedback! @WhiteLeeopard and @Carla Bridge Four, those were both great moments, and good additions to the ship! My own personal favorite little scene between the two (well, personal favorite at the moment) is when Adolin gives Kaladin the Bridge Four salute before they split up again in the Kholinar Palace battle. Such an adorable moment between the two with so much symbolism for how their relationship has grown and development. (And I don't like to think about it in context with any of the Moash salute symbolism, because opposite feelings there...) I wonder this too! Brandon's said before in response to a question that he unintentionally made Shallan bi, but for me, the indicators of Shallan being attracted to Jasnah are much more subtle (and easier to have included unintentionally) than those of Adolin being attracted to Kaladin. Given the feedback on how people read Shallan as bisexual, it is interesting that he created such a strong arguably romantic interest by Adolin in Kaladin. (I agree with your husband that I realistically read Kaladin as straight.) This is great. The fashion thing is something which has always bothered me (if Adolin somehow turns out to actually be gay), but this perspective really helps alleviate that concern. (And now you took away my one reason I didn't want Kadolin to happen in canon ) Much my same thought process. When I first started googling around to see if I was the only one who saw Adolin as gay, I came across a Brandon tweet where he said Drehy is gay and thought, aha, that will be Adolin's path for discovering himself! (Not that Adolin would date Drehy, but that a friendship which arose with Drehy after the Battle of Narak would provide Adolin a new perspective on his own sexuality.) But then I came across WoB about no gay main viewpoint characters, which seems to exclude Adolin We did get the Drehy friendship though, so some hope...?

I am proud to finally join the OB discussion board! This one was just too adorable to ignore... Come on, it was such a beautiful set up Even my roommate, who knows nothing about the cosmere (yet) laughed at these two. At the end of the book, we all see:

Great write up @Dreamstorm. I remember when I first read WOK, I thought Adolin might be gay. I wondered if all of his failed, short term relationships with women was due to him trying to live up to what was expected as heir to a princedom, but not having enough interest in women to follow through. I later found out that Sanderson isn’t comfortable in writing main gay characters, so I dropped the idea, but I think it would be an interesting plot development. I certainly would be more interested in reading about a relationship between Adolin and Kaladin than either of them with Shallan. One thing I found interesting while reading WOR was that Adolin was the first person to notice that there was something different about Kaladin. Adolin basically realized Kaladin’s radiant-ness before anyone else outside of Bridge Four, even before Dalinar. It probably began because he was suspicious of Kaladin, and thus watching him closely, but as time went on it changed into a positive appreciation of his abilities. In Oathbringer this evolved into a sense of respect, and even a little awe at times. I like that Adolin was watching Kaladin closely enough to notice these things. At the very least, I hope their bromance continues to develop in future books,. They have a great rapport and their scenes together are a lot of fun to read.

Welcome to the Shard! Enjoy yourself but watch out for any cookies you may be offered... We've known about this for quite some time. About a year before that WoB, Brandon wrote that 'Adonalsium shattered because he was killed' which was also implicit in the summary of the Shattering that Khriss and Nazh gave Kelsier in Secret History, published right around the same time. That said, just because Brandon uses 'he' doesn't necessarily mean that Adonalsium was male as we would understand the term. Brandon has also used male-gendered terms for Nightblood, who as a sentient sword doesn't really have a set gender identity and is apparently trying to work this sort of thing out in 'his' spare time. Adonalsium may well have emerged as a discrete entity due to the known property that Investiture left alone can develop sentience, rather than having started out that way. Whether this emergent mind self-identified as male or whether that's what people in the Cosmere think is another issue.

Hey, Kaladin didn't swear the 4th oath because he couldn't afford leting Adolin die. More you think, more details there are haha

I definitely think there is more to Adolin's fashion sense. Adolin is by nature a very expressive person. Vorin culture doesn't really allow many ways for Kent to express themselves. Fashion is one of the only ways for young men to express who they are. That's why it's always been so important to Adolin. The quote with Shallan, I think, shows that. She doesn't get how important a form of expression fashion is to him and other young Vorin men. And why should she? She's always had her journal and her drawings for that. Clothing is just another tool of many at her disposal. I think these scenes are Adolin trying to determine his identity in this new, changing world. Fashion, as his main source of expression, plays a major role in that self-discovery.

Buy, Kaladin needs a strong woman. Dalinar, Adolin and Renarin learn to read and they become addicted to romantic books.

I loved Doctor Strange for all of the cosmere connections. They drew "Aons". They changed the direction of Gravity making wall walking possible. They re-wrote the history of things using the time stone. It actually gave me very high hopes for the Cosmere movies.

Great observations @Dreamstorm Could work and would be very interstng to see how Brandon would develop such a relationship. Also reading a long text with a lot of Kaladins and Kadolins in it gets confusing very fast. They sound way to similar. Can we please have a three-way scene with them told from the perspective of Pattern, Syl and Maya. Like through comments and cheering them on.

@Dreamstorm You know, while I may not agree with the ship/conclusion, some of your points are actually interesting character points I hadn't considered. Especially the dichotomy about light/dark. Well done.

This is really good, I'm actually surprised there's so much. I definitely felt like there have been moments between these two, but always read them as a budding bestfrienship. But when you lay it all out like that...there's quite a bit there, a few tweaks from Brandon, and a willingness to actually write a high profile gay romance, and bam, you've got it. I mean, I don't think Shallan would have too many complaints with that...

Just make it a three-way relationship then.

It might also be a modesty issue. Seeing inside someone's body is like an extension of seeing them naked (which is also part of being a surgeon). Maybe that's just too scandalous for the delicate sensibilities of the proper Vorin female.

Well, there are many ways to interpret it it could also just be that Shallan is more familiar with Yalb and in their social hierarchy Shallan is the leader, whereas with the book merchant she just wants to haggle him out of his money buy some books important for her wardship.

Your argument is perfectly valid. It was something I noticed and wanted to mark down, but you might have a point. Ill have to see where the analysis takes me—I think 8 is the next Shallan chapter. I’m glad you’re enjoying it so far! Helping more people enjoy the character like I do and understand her better was the point of the analysis, after all.

Wow, this thread is hot. I have been composing a post since I got home today and have not been able to keep up. To start off (and at the risk of being so meta as to moderate a thread about thread moderation) I would like to remind everyone that the focus of this thread is recognizing and responding to concerns about site moderation. Concerns about individual members who are not staff can be addressed through private discussions if the members are comfortable, or through the usual PM/Report process with staff that we are currently discussing. I understand that people got on to this subject organically, but think there are better ways to resolve issues with personal behavior than here. Now on to the subject of the thread. Thank-you everyone for the time and effort that has been put into these posts, and for taking the plunge to bring these criticisms to light. I know that some of this conversation has been uncomfortable and frustrating, but I think that only highlights how necessary it is, and thank people for being vulnerable here. I think it’s really cool and all of these posts have made me feel very lucky to be a part of this community, even though I do not post much. In the interests of moving this discussion forward I thought I would take a brief moment to summarize some of the key points. I will be omitting items I feel like have been sufficiently discussed/dealt with and will be focusing on the discussion going forward, but that should not be the end of things, and discussions I would love for points not in this summary to continue to be discussed. Please note that my intent is as stated: to summarize, and so if I leave your point out it is not an intentional move on my part to discourage you to continue to raise it. Please feel free to highlight any important omissions. One of the breakdowns in communication I’ve been witnessing is the ever tricky distinction between explanations and excuses. Party A offers concern. Party B feels they need to explain where they are coming from to give context and offers explanation. Party A then feels like their concern is not heard and that Party B is offering excuses. In what I hope is a helpful way, I’ve tried to highlight concerns raised by members, explanations offered by staff, and suggestions for further discussion. To be clear, the explanations are not meant to excuse staff conduct or to dismiss concerns, but to provide context. My hope is that, in light of context, our suggested steps forward can help address those concerns which up until now have been felt to be unheard. Shardcast Concern - The panel failed to provide adequate coverage and support for the positives of Kaladin and Shallan’s romantic pairing and adequate critique of Adolin and Shallan’s relationship, leading to supporters of Kaladin and Shallan feeling like the ‘official Shard view” was against them and that their voice was less legitimate. Context/Explanation - Some may have noticed, but in order to provide more regular content, we are shaking things up by rotating through different casters based on availability and interest. The ASK Shardcast was my first one, and I did a lot of outlining on it, so flaws are probably my fault and I take full responsibility. As Chaos said, the fact that the panel was biased came about because of a mixture of who was interested and who was available. I think as a group we did not recognize how much strong discourse on all sides was needed for this discussion. The circumstances surrounding the creation of the cast is definitely not an excuse. I know we all appreciate the opportunity to make the content we are providing better, so thank-you for the feedback. Points For Further Discussion - In the future, we need to do better than just identifying bias when discussing divisive issue like this one. We as content providers obviously failed to recognize the importance of this debate for our audience, and in the future we should make efforts to make sure differing views are better represented on contentious issues. Note - One small aside: @insert_anagram_here , I wanted to offer a personal apology to you. In an effort to add some substance to our discussion of Kaladin and Shallan’s relationship, I quoted your post from the thread. I thought the points you raised were really interesting and thought-provoking, and was hoping to use them to provide some support for the Kaladin and Shallan pairing. I hindsight, I realize that having your words used, and then remarked upon, without an opportunity to immediately respond, would have been very frustrating, and I’m sorry I put you through that, especially without consulting you first. Closing ASK Thread Concern - Closing the ASK Thread (a) sent a message that certain opinions and interests were not welcome on the shard and (b) destroyed a space that a subset of the larger fan community used as their primary place for communicating. Context/Explanation - As others have stated, this was not intended to have the effect that it did. We as a staff deliberated extensively for a long period of time on what to do about this thread and the large volume of reports that were generated as a result of it. In the end, our concern over members who said things about the thread made them feel unsafe or that it made them feel the Shard was ‘toxic,’ as well as the burgeoning of a too-busy thread with too many topics for really productive discussion were the contributing factors in our choice to close it. While we came to a decision, the group was very much divided, and it was not easy for any of us. Dealing with conflict is tough, and every staff who has posted thus far has admitted this one could have gone better. We are definitely committed to improving how we handle similar issues in the future. Points for Further Discussion - We have talked a little about options for keeping quality character discussions going (character subforums / topic specific threads), and I hope that conversation continues, but from my read of things the point that has not been addressed is how the ASK became an important community space, and that (if I’m understanding correctly) members feel displaced now that it is closed. I understand that opening new threads will not necessarily assist in the community concern, so I’m curious about what the users who were/are members of the ‘ASK Community’ for lack of a better term feel would be a suitable replacement/solution? Subcultures and new relationships are an exciting part of forum communities, and are absolutely something the staff want to facilitate. One thought I had was using the “Social Groups, Clans, And Guilds” sub forum to continue the community aspect of the ASK thread, and then allow discussions to continue in more specific topics (the more character topics the better in my opinion!), but since I was not a member of the community, that suggestion is obviously only as good as the endorsements it receives so I’d like to hear what people have to say. Moderation Practices Generally Concerns - From reading this thread, my understanding is that the two major concerns being raised about moderation practices generally are (a) that the Staff is heavy handed when moderating certain less familiar members, and unfairly lax or informal with older users and friends, and (b) that Staff opinions in regular discussions receive preferential treatment (either through excessive moderation of opposing views, or through discouraging debate through sheer force of reputation). Explanation/Context - Previous posters have done a pretty good job of providing their opinions and background information on this one, and since it is fairly person specific, I will try to do my best to pull out general points. Generally, silencing debate has never been the intent of the staff. However, that does not mean that certain actions we take do not unintentionally give that impression, so I am glad that members had the courage to raise the issue and generate discussion. I think we as staff take a lot of pride in what we do here, and so it is difficult not to take critiques of this kind personally. Critiquing the job we are doing as moderators, for better or worse, is personal for us. The best we can do is deal with the discomfort, communicate our emotions in positive or useful ways, and try to come up with effective solutions. We should focus on those that try to limit character discussion by others, rather than those that were trying to discuss characters, got offended and reacted badly. In too many cases we dealt the results and not cause of problems. One the point of further moderation - we already do a great deal of moderation that likely isn’t noticed because, for better or worse, we do it privately. There is always room to improve. It is also important to acknowledge that we are only human and we only have so much time in a day. We are not omniscient and omnipresent, and we cannot micromanage every aspect of the forums. Reports are a way of directing our attention to areas that need it. If you have other suggestions for how we can make it easier to report or to PM staff, please let us know. We do strive to being active with our moderation, but we can only do so much (I know this is getting excuse-ish, but my intention is just to recognize the reality). It is important to remember that as a staff we have a responsibility to the entire community. That means engaging in a balancing act when interests of different segments of the community come into conflict. We are always open to discuss new and better ways to handle things, but things must continued to be balanced and handled. As part of their participation in a wider community, it is important that members accept that things might not always be done to their liking. It is equally important that we as staff strive to make sure people feel heard and acknowledged, even when their suggestions or desires are not acted upon in the way they wished. Points for Further Discussion - We need to find balance between public scolding and dealing with people via PM. Some public guidelines about it would be nice. Public statements about conduct are useful for educating the community on standards, and to be transparent, but we all agree they should be handled with care. Not mentioning names in public warnings is a good idea that we can work with. Staff have always and will continue to be careful about how we present ourselves and the words we choose. We acknowledge and recognize that we do not always meet this standard, but I want to assure you guys that this is definitely a standard we hold ourselves to. Staff members participating in regular discussions need to be aware, that their staff badge acts as a megaphone. Everything they write is just “louder” than what others say. _______________ This discussion is going to be difficult no matter how we deal with it, but I do think it is a useful conversation and hope it continues. By virtue of our power and position, I understand that members are going to be intimidated to bring this kind of critique forward. From the staff perspective, answering these critiques is going to require us to be vulnerable and acknowledge some shortcomings that are uncomfortable. I do not have specific points for this discussion, but I would just like to encourage everyone to remember that we are all here out of a mutual desire to talk about Brandon’s books, that we are all human, and that wrongness can be identified and addressed with kindness. With the goal of finding a resolution that people can live with, we are, hopefully, all on the same side. I know a lot of staff have already weighed in on this, so I hope that the usefulness at this post will outweigh the negative impact of me adding yet another staff voice. To conclude, continuing to point out problems or issues is useful to a point, but it can also get in the way of resolution and outcomes. I hope that was helpful and not a total waste of text. Thank you again to everyone who is participating, and please remember to try to focus on what we can do to resolve the issues.

I am extremely tired today so will likely not be engaging much in this thread. To be honest, I did not get much sleep because I am so bothered by this thread. I know, in my heart of hearts, I do not censor opposing opinions, and neither does the staff. It really hurts to hear that. That doesn't mean that other people aren't hurt either of course, so I guess we have to do better, but at the core, I know we are not censoring dissenting opinion or trying to get people to shut up. It's just false. You know I have opinions too. You know I hate Sixth of Dusk. I hate Zane. If you like those things, cool. This situation is exactly the same. First, writing a post acknowledging that having discussion with staff in a contentious thread can be difficult, and new policy to counteract that (short version: staff don't converse in divisive or heated topics) Another post describing how moderation actually occurs and how it is determined moderation is necessar Short version: we discuss it, get people who aren't involved in the thread to help make a judgment. It actually self corrects for bias really well. Obviously we don't get everything right but the core premise that we are too biased to judge what is respectful vs. disrespectful is not true, and this will explain how things work in practice. ‎A follow up to the ASK closure post describing the plan for character discussion that I talked about earlier, as well as a list of various possible character topics to start with. But please if you want to discuss something, just make a topic now! Make a bunch of topics! ‎Lastly, a post somewhere describing the importance of character discussion, condescension towards a class of threads will not be tolerated, and that we will have people leave specific topics if they are causing things to get heated. We want to try and solve the issues ASK presented and leave members feeling like they can discuss what they want in a relaxed environment That's a lot for me to do and this next week is busy for me, so you might need to wait a bit...If you want to make some character topics, do that right now. The thing in that last bullet point is policy effective immediately. Be specific. I am not ashamed of what has occurred and I am happy to explain the course of action in every circumstance. Serious question, what actually do you want? We're here. We're talking. Tell us what you want and what we can do better. I do agree that there are posters who don't like discussing romantic storylines, and I agree that's a problem, but if you read my posts in this thread (and in the PM reply to you) you can see we are trying to make character discussion and romantic discussion more accessible to a wider variety of people. Just as a note: having contrary opinions are not bad, but there have been times where people were disrespectful and they were dealt with. I fully expect that someone will be upset when--undoubtedly--tensions run high and we will remove people who get heated in those discussions, but there are many, many aggressively levelheaded individuals on the staff. If we think something might be out of line, we discuss it. I'd like you to tell Mestiv, jofwu, Pagerunner, Argent, eerongal, Comatose, KChan, Shivertongue, firstRainbowRose to name a few, and more that they cannot see where the line is between good discourse and someone being way more aggressive than is positive for discussion. The group, collectively, but if a mod has a bias--for example, Feather--she obviously doesn't get the final say at all. Completely false. Plenty have personally said my theories suck, and that's great. And to claim that only staff make theories is ridiculous. That is the extreme minority of theoretical posts, as you can clearly see by looking at the forum indices of anything. There is a difference between respectfully disagreeing and being disrespectful. Shardcast was not to shut people down. I know you have a serious problem with that Shardcast episode, and we will do better in finding opposing viewpoints, but to say that we want to shut down opposing views is objectively false. Shardcast is a group of people just discussing their feelings. It's not to attack. I'm sorry if you felt attacked, but if an episode doesn't connect with you, feel free to not listen. Sorry about that. Shardcast listeners are not sheeple who will just agree with everything we say. In the specific instance of the love triangle, I'm pretty sure everyone who has read Oathbringer has already formed their opinion. On Shardcast, you'll get to know a small cast pretty well over the years and it's totally fine to disagree with them. For the love triangle podcast, we asked for people who cared a lot about character analysis who we could get a time scheduled. Josh, resident Shalladin shipper, doesn't usually come onto podcasts (generally because he knows too much). I'm sorry you felt aggressed by that Shardcast. I know exactly what you are responding to--he's responding to Josh's point in PM that we pick moderators with a certain rapport. Yes. We do select moderators who will have an intense zeal for the site, who are extremely passionate about it for a long time, who, in staff chat, can take heat and also bring new perspectives, too. I'm not sure if you've ran a staff of 20+, but you do need to self-select for insanely passionate people for the organization. That's how it works. If I'm the manager of a grocery store and a customer is upset, I don't just hire that person solely because they have contrary opinions. There are kind of other prerequisites there, right? We also select people who have been long time members. There's a lot in this thread who have very young accounts in the nearly eight year span, and yeah, we wouldn't likely make them into mods. Argent has been around in the fandom for longer than this site's existence, from the Time Waster's Guide era, and we modded him just a bit before Oathbringer. Our timescale is long. Did you know in our staff chat, things get heated and we argue with each other? It's true! We tell staff that what they say is confidential and we will make decisions as a team, and yeah, we get into long, heated arguments. But you won't see us make an official action where another staff member does something else. That's teamwork. You decide on the course of action and then you implement it. Call it a cabal or whatever, but yeah, that's how any management team would work. Would you rather us just not share opinions? If we just hid in holes and you knew nothing about it? We'd still have opinions. If there were posts that some find disrespectful, we'd still evaluate them in the same way. Or, would you rather like to know what some individuals on the staff think? I'm very up front with my own biases with everyone. I don't like Sixth of Dusk. I hate Zane. I like Venli. The word "intent" when referring to a Shard must be lowercase. Sure, you might not care about those things, and some will definitely disagree with me. That's fine. This situation is not different because Feather and Grey feel very strongly on a subject. We have never removed posts for stating a contrary opinion, ever. There is not an example of that being the case. I find the notion that, "because there's no staff member that espouses my opinion, staff can never effectively judge posts," to be a very ineffective argument. Are we supposed to mod people every time there is a controversy or argument purely so members feel the staff is unbiased? I can imagine in forty controversies later, that's not an effective way to run a team. That expectation is wildly unrealistic and impractical. We do realize that the moderator badge carries a lot of weight, and we don't want people to fear moderators. We will be instructing staff to not engage in heated discussions. We will also make it clearer which is Official Moderator Action, probably with boldface, when written in a post. We do wish to improve things and improve moderator communication, and make our disciplinary action more clear. We don't have a handbook and maybe we can codify things. The fact that people feel the staff has been biased in our moderator actions means there is work to do. We can work better. We are trying. Please, anyone, tell us what specifically you want, and we'll talk about it.

Nightblood, Others,