Shard Slayer

I have a feeling the 4th ideal will be something simple, probably just an admission of the potential of failure "I cannot protect everyone". Right before Kaladin comes through the Dalinar perpendicularity Syl's words make it seem like he is almost ready to speak the 4th idea, but he doesn't quite get there. He can't accept that there is no way for him to be by Dalinar's side. Until he is able to let go of his failures (which is a huge thing holding Kal down) he's not going to be able to move forward. He's always going to be crying about all the people he's failed to protect (or has killed to protect others). While obviously feeling sorrow for them, he needs to be able to move on. Edit: There is a comment Syl makes after he fails to speak the oath right before Dalinar is awesome about "Maybe it's time for someone else to save you", but I don't think that has anything to do with the oath. I don't think Kaladin has a problem with being protected per-say, he has a problem not being the one doing the protecting, which is similar, but not the same. He can't accept the failure of him not being able to protect someone, even himself. He doesn't (I believe) have a problem with being protected. For example while fighting alongside Adolin in the WoR duel scene he depends on Adolin to protect his back. He would have had a problem if Adolin had been doing all the work, but that's because he can't accept that sometime he isn't able to protect everyone, not because he isn't able to be protected by others.

Dustbringer. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about that, since we haven't seen them in action much, but I'm on board with being a slippery fish. I sort of figured myself as more of a windrunner, but try as I can I can't get that result, lol. Clearly telling me something I'm missing.

My math was wrong again! I mentioned but forgot to use the 1.1x factor converting earth years to rosharan years. You are correct.

Sure, so basically I used the gravitational acceleration of Roshar (brandon has said it is .7 cosmere standard, i.e. earth). Using the equation for gravitational force, I calculated an approximate radius for roshar (assuming the same density as that of earth, could be wrong, but is probably pretty close). Once I had the radius I made a mistake. Haha, I forgot to convert radius into circumference. Lol. Anyway, you could take the circumference of the planet and figure out how fast the ground is moving based on the rotational period of the planet, in this case 17.52 hours per day (based on 500 days in the roshar year and the fact that one roshar year = 1.1 cosmere standard years, i.e. 365 days). I missed a factor of 6.28 (2pi) in my calculation so the actual answer is about 1000 mph or 1600 km/hr. Almost identical to earth's rotational speed. That throws some serious doubt onto the tidal nature of a highstorm. Although I believe I read somewhere that the moons orbit Roshar very quickly, so perhaps that balances it out (i.e. the moon of earth takes ~28 days to complete an orbit, but I think the moons of roshar take less than a day

According to my math if the motion of the highstorm was created by a similar mechanism to the tides (i.e. the planet rotates under it creating the apparent motion) it would be 234 km/hr or 146 mph. That's really fast, but not insane. That is roughly a category 5 hurricane, which is totally understandable, although having one every couple weeks might be a bit much (see Roshar's climate). Clearly a highstorm is a manifestation of investiture, and not having to move would explain how the storm father could create a "tide" of investiture by expending some power, and then it would effectively just have to "sit" there because the planet would rotate under it creating the apparent motion of the storm from east to west. Also, that the "extra" highstorm created doesn't keep circling the planet because it isn't "stable" i.e. created by some resonance between the moon's orbits. So it doesn't get recharged and just kind of peters out. How this explains the everstorm is beyond me though. Also, I think surface wind speeds (at least gusts) are generally faster than the speed of the storm system, see phenomena like straight line winds, or even that wind speeds in parts of a hurricane exceed the speed of the storm system as a whole (because it's rotating).

So if the pits didn't exist prior to TLR, why did TLR decide that he needed to create the pits? Why didn't Preservation create a similar metal condensing mechanism when he first trapped Ruin?

Fair enough. I didn't do a close read of the book for other hints. EDIT: OK: So there are possibly some differences between the talents the birds bestow. 1) Sak gives the death-foresight, it appears that he must be either physically touching, or very very close (i.e. sitting on) someone to bestow his talent. 2) Kokerlii appears to have a sort of "bubble" effect with his(her?) power. For example, Kokerlii was sitting at the prow of Dusk's boat while Dusk approaches the island. Dusk thinks that "Kokerlii's protective aura had always been enough before". Pretty clearly Kokerlii's power works similarly to a copper-cloud. i) Kokerlii's ability (at least Dusk believes so) grows weaker with distance. "The protection he offered would not be as strong as it would be if he were close" ii) Unsure if Kokerlii's ability needs to be "targetted" on certain humans (it would appear so, because Vathi appears to be included in his "bubble". That does lead to some interesting questions, because the meekers (talking mice) don't seem to have a problem speaking to Dusk, which indicates the bubble doesn't "mute" mind signals, in all circumstances. 3) Vashi's Aviar (named Mirris) is a "Streamer", a breed not living on Patji. Dusk doesn't know much about them, other than like Kokerlii they protect the mind from predators. 4) Dusk has an Aviar named Sisisru, talent unknown. 5) Vathi finds it unusual that Dusk has two Aviar that he can both "use" at once. That seems to indicate that there does need to be some sort of a bond between the bird and the human (i.e. the bird must pick the human) Dusk doesn't think this is strange and indicates his uncle had 3 birds. 6) Wild Aviar seem to shield everything in their immediate area. "Often, krell herds slept near Aviar roosts. Frighten away the birds, and you could sense the krell" (assuming you happen to be a nightmaw anyway) 7) Why did the Aviar freak out when the machine was opened?

Here is the whole quote: It seems pretty clear to me that bestowing the gift requires physical touch with the person.

I just interpreted Dusk's comment as saying that he normally doesn't see any corpses until he lands because he isn't in danger of dying while on the waters. I imagine if he went out in his canoe without his other Aviar, Kokerlii, he would see corpses all over the place. If an Aviar bestowing their power was limited to the island, they wouldn't be in demand on the mainlands. Although I suppose it is possible Sak is different, but I don't see any reason why that would be the case. Also, it was never indicated that the Aviar could withdraw their power because they didn't like their owners, the common practice of clipping the birds wings hints at this. The fear appears to be that the bird will leave, rather than it will "decide" not to bestow/use its power.

I think something you have to consider is that the prior desolations came much closer together than the time between the "last desolation" and the current one (4500 years). So every ~100-200 years would be a much more damaging a grind. Especially if there actually were 99 desolations (although I'm not sure that's 100% accurate, could be poetic vorin license) edit: We also have no idea how many desolations passed with just the heralds there to fight before the spren started creating surge binders, and then how long before the knights radiant were founded.

Could be interesting to read the book like that. Maybe I'll have to try it when the 3rd book comes out. It would certainly lead to picking up a lot more on subsequent read-throughs. Depending on how interwoven the plots of the different characters are it could lead to confusion though, since a character will talk to another main POV character and learn something that they appear to have just spontaneously known in their own POV chapters. I would hazard a guess that The Way of Kings is probably the best book for doing that so far, since Shallan, and Kaladin chapters are pretty disconnected from other characters. Adolin/Dalinar end up being combined possibly a little too much.

There are 16 bodies orbiting the rosharan sun. Ashyn, Rosher, Roshar's three moons, Braize, and the 10 outer gas giants. So there is a link to both 10 and 16. Do we know (or have any guesses) what cultivation's number could be? That said, I'm assuming the rosharan system was already set up the way it was prior to honor and cultivation showing up. It doesn't seem like they would have created 10 new planets or something. Maybe the shards gravitated to systems that reflected them?

So, it reacts with water. It wouldn't however, react with something like oil. Although I would see how a metal shell could interfere with the alomantic burning, I imagine that it would be possible to coat the metal in a non-metallic non-reactive coating that the person could ignore while burning the metal. Also, probably injecting the capsule into a toe or under the skin somewhere would be better than swallowing it for a couple reasons: 1) You can pull it out if you aren't able to access it right away 2) If it explodes you lose a toe/some skin instead of your life

Ah. I see. So your 'soul' is a cognitive shadow once it loses it's connection to your body. On Nalthis, those cognitive shadows are pushed forcefully enough back to make a firm connection, Szeth's soul wasn't totally severed, but also wasn't reattached perfectly. But because his soul wasn't entirely severed (existing only in the cognitive realm) he wasn't ever a shadow.

(mistborn secret history spoiler) (not sure if that matters anymore)