Dlyol

AIUI, Brandon plots these books as essentially three novels each with their own climax - in OB Part 1 was an entire 'novel' but that doesn't have to be the case we're probably in the middle of the 1st 'novel' here which will climax at the end of Part 2

I haven't seen this posted elsewhere so I hope I'm not breaking any rules by doing so. The sample chapters of RoW are up on IBooks and while obviously textually we get nothing new we do get three very cool new illustrations we haven't seen before. The first is from Shallan's Sketchbook and is called The Atrium. The second is from Navani's Notebook and is called The Fourth Bridge. The third is also from Navani's Notebook and is called The Arnist Method. These are at least to me really cool visualisations but I'm sure to those with the time and the willingness to do so the latter two will also be an opportunity to translate some more of the Alethi woman's speech - would be particularly awesome to know what the notes to the third say I imagine.

As I haven't seen it much discussed elsewhere I thought I'd open up a thread for anyone who has thoughts on how Rysn coming to terms with the loss of her legs was handled in the book. I, personally thought it was great, the scenes of her discussing it with other paralytic Rosharans by spanreed were heartwarming and the conversation she had with Lopen about it was - until Akinah itself - by far for me the highlight of a fine but somewhat forgettable storyline. Her frustrations with how non-disabled people treated her, her determination to not let herself be restricted and her creativity in finding ways to not let life on a ship disable her were, I thought really well conveyed. They reminded me a lot of discussions I have had with disability rights activists here in the UK about the social model of disability (that it is society that disables by being discriminatory and inaccessible) replacing the medical model of disability which implies disabled people are in some way deficient. Certainly Rysn flying around in her chair Charles Xavier style was not something I knew I desperately wanted to see until reading Dawnshard. Anyway, that's enough for me but I'd love to hear what other's think about what seemed to me to really be the most interesting storyline of the novel.

I was wondering is it ever explained what humans use to makes textiles on Roshar? Prior to synthetic fibres we on earth used both fibres from plants and some from animals like wool but I don't remember mention of sheep on Roshar so I presume most all textiles on Roshar must be plant based such as we use hemp but I can't remember it being mentioned in the books?

@Kramerfarve I don't really see how that contradicts my theory. Any combination of Realmatics and personality works to get to the same place in that regard.

You see I really don't think the orders were on edge from Honour's ravings for the simple reason of the third epigraph I posted. If he were raving at everyone why would that Skybreaker frame his changing nature as deep knowledge only he had discovered? It would just be obvious. I think that Honour's ravings were only known about by a few Radiants, which also makes sense with the general method of Honour of interacting with a few important people in society - the Heralds were all (aside from Taln) like that - and his process for finding a Bondsmith in our era also seems suggestive of a being who prefers to interact with fewer, more important people. (One might argue the strict hierarchy of the Vorin institutions built in his image also reflects this). Edit: We can see this trait in Honour more clearly by comparison. Mistborn and Warbreaker spoilers.

So I was procrastinating my essay by listening to the Shardcast episode on the History of Roshar, which is excellent by the way, and as they were talking this epigraph popped into my head. Now I know that everyone loves this one because it confirms that Kaladin will get plate at the next ideal and hints at what that ideal would be but it occurred to me its interesting for quite a different reason. This Windrunner, with the encouragement of the rest, is trying to progress in his Oaths. That on one level is trivial but it completely contradicts my and I think a lot of people's head canon of the Recreance. We know that the tower was abandoned because it was failing and that the 'strike team' of scholar Radiants and Melishi is (at presumably a similar time to this recording) planning their imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram which will ultimately end the False Desolation and lobotomise the Singers. But as those things are happening it does not sound as if the plan is to abandon the Oaths, indeed rather the opposite, we have evidence that many of the Radiant's continued to believe progressing with the Oaths to be a good idea. The reasonably grounded supposition that having accidentally lobotomised the Singers they freaked out and abandon their oaths and this together might therefore suggest the Recreance was really a moment rather than a process - a dramatic turn. But we also know that in those days Honour was ranting and raving about to the Radiants about how their powers would destroy the world (which they then 'confirm' by destroying Roshar's native sapient species) and that Kaladin says to Syl that he thinks the Recreance very much was a process not a moment. (That is potentially unreliable narration but it doesn't feel that way to me, it feels like Brandon trying to tell us something true and important). How do we reconcile these two impressions then? Because I'm me and always suspicious of power and elites my mind immediately went to a two-tiered process. My theory is that Honour was only speaking to a subset of the Radiants - the most important ones such as Melishi and those who were had reached the end of their Oath progression - who for that (and possibly other reasons - and we know something odd goes on with the Bond after the last Oath) had embarked on the process Kaladin described and wanted to end their Oaths and their orders. However, the great bulk of the orders, those not at the highest ideals and in Honour's confidences, do not know about this and would be unwilling to go along with out a push. All of a sudden a group comes along with a plan to end the war but one with warnings of unexpected consequences. I would theorise here that Melishi isn't ignoring those objections for no reason, he's been told by Honour his powers our awful after all, but because he sees them as an opportunity. He doesn't know exactly what but he thinks something very bad could happen here to the Singers that he and those around him who agree with him could leverage into getting what they want - the Recreance. Now if we imagine the moment that Melishi imprisons Ba-Ado-Mishram and all of Regals the Radiants have been fighting suddenly go mute and dumb we can figure out pretty quickly what happens; the most important, respected and powerful of the Radiants - who are all in on the idea - declare that this is a sign, dramatically revealing that this is what Honour was warning them about and all must abandon their Oaths. The bulk of the orders, overrawed by a combination of horror and authority and in no mind to question, meekly agree and the Recreance happens. -30- Addenda; This conception of hierarchy in the Radiants also rings nicely for me because it resolves the problem that even beforehand Rosharans saw the Radiants as corrupt but we also see them in the epigraphs to generally ordinary sounding, quite nice people. The outward face was the corrupt leaders over a body of rather more pleasant average Knights. The fact that the objecting scholar is Shin given what we know/suspect about the Shin and the Honourblades since the Aharietiam is very interesting to me and I might when we know more about Shin society come back to this to see if that connects. Edit This epigraph I think supports my theory that Honour was only speaking to the higher tier Radiants quite nicely - they all know that he's changing because he's constantly ranting and raving to them - while the ordinary Radiant could only know this through some informed guesswork and deduction. As for the divisions in the Radiants that could either potentially be a reason why the leaders wanted to destroy the orders, because they're sick of the infighting, or something they have been manufacturing to lay the grounds for their plan to destroy them.

Wit is Hoid, a character that has appeared in every major cosmere book so far, he's in Warbreaker as the storyteller who tells the story of Vo the First Returned to Lightsong and Siri. For more info here's the coppermind article although there are major cosmere spoilers in it https://coppermind.net/wiki/Hoid And welcome to the Shard!

On Dalinar saying he hadn't seen a Dawncity, he says that immediately before he has his vision of Nohadon which is set in Kholinar so while it may have been right at the time but (if we assume Kholinar is one) it was pretty immediately invalidated

Ah sorry, although this makes it sound as if Kelsier is a major role - my assumption since Secret History had been he would been in era 3 in a similar manner to how Marsh is in era 2

So I was reading through the new WOBs from Jordancon 10 and I noticed this interesting little titbit in an otherwise pretty innocuous WOB. Did we know this or is this new?

Forgive me if I'm wrong here but my sense is that elsecalling into and out of the cognitive is expensive but not prohibitively so and when in you don't need to spend any stormlight beyond normal leakage. It wouldn't be difficult to enter cognitive - wait until the mistborn, who will need to burn atium to predict when the elsecaller will come out, runs out - then just come out behind him

While I agree with this it is the case that Bondsmiths have done some pretty ridiculous things over the years, like what Melishi did, and that TLR is also a bit of an exception in that he is also a Sliver, which while not granting him any powers did give him lots of potentially useful realmatic knowledge. I'm just so unclear how any of the metallic arts counter all the myriad ways a creative Elsecaller can abuse the cognitive realm and the ability to soulcast over distance

I agree with this (although we still aren't entirely sure what Bondsmiths can do) so the question really becomes what is next in the pecking order and I think people who believe it to be Mistborn really overstate the case for atium.

Setting aside the question of portability, it honestly baffles me that people can read what Jasnah was doing at the end of Oathbringer and go yep a mistborn would definitely beat that. (Fullborn obviously are a different matter) On a related note, I tend to think atium's effects are very overrated in these conversations. There are I think two different scenarios that need to be considered, one where both combatants have perfect knowledge of the opponent's capabilities and one where neither have any knowledge (hazy inbetweens are really hard to make fair in this context). If we take the latter one first it is really hard to see how atium grants a significant advantage as you can see the movements of one's opponent but you don't know what they denote - to take a slightly trivial example if the Radiant goes to hit the Mistborn with a Shardblade, atium would tell to parry but not that only a highly invested object or aluminium would actually be effective at parrying. To take the former scenario perfect knowledge of atium's abilities could allow the radiant to devise a strategy for defeating it while of we take as read that the generic mistborn powers are weaker than radiants ones it is actually unclear how much predicting the radiants attacks would help if you have no counters - to analogise if Iceland and the US fought a war where Iceland could predict the US' moves perfectly this would certainly help a lot but they would still lose because Iceland has no counters to nuclear weapons. Similarly, mistborn have a lot of powers but none of them counters an Elsecaller abusing the cognitive realm or a radiant getting creative with soulcasting, cohesion or tension so atium only helps on that front so much.

I've posted this elsewhere but I think it's worth reiterating with specific regard to Wax: Wax, I think isn't suited to be a Skybreaker because he trusts himself rather more than Skybreakers are want. Wax is a lawman but is not legalistic, the tension between these is shown by the conflict between him and the more formal arms of Elendel criminal justice system, he wants to do what he sees as the right thing not follow rules and process and so on. Wax is a lawman as an extension of his confidence in himself and his judgement (especially in the Roughs where there is essentially no Due Process) and when he loses his self-confidence after killing Lessie he can no longer be a lawman. This isn't to say that Wax should be a Windrunner but rather that he follows his moral instincts over societal constraint when he thinks appropriate, which is very Windrunnerish.

I tend to think that the impressions we have got of the Windrunners and Skybreakers worldview is overly positive and negative respectively. To my mind the essential philosophical difference between these two order is the extent to which they trust their own instincts to determine what is moral. Windrunners believe that they can determine what is the right thing to with essentially exclusive reference to their own personal morality, while Skybreakers do not believe that they are capable of determining this so rely on external moral codes, primarily the law. Both of these approaches can be good and can be bad and in real life we rely on a mixture - sometimes hard and fast rules won't be situation appropriate and sometimes because of imperfect information if we ignore rules to follow whats a our own view of whats appropriate we end up doing bad things. The reason we have such a one sided view of this is because of the characters we have viewpoints for and because the current Skybreakers are led by an insane person but which of these approaches is actually better really depends on broader philosophical questions about human nature itself.

I think much depends on two things, the rate of population growth in Nalthis because that determines how many new breaths are being created and the percentage of new breaths that are entering the market because these two together account for much (most?) of the supply side of the equation

The fluctuation isn't reflecting supply and demand though but the cycle of Highstorms. On the second point about the gold standard, this isn't really the place for this discussion but gold standards are a terrible idea. There is only ever finite amounts of a commodity but economies have infinite capacity to grow so one should have a currency whose supply can be adjusted to fit the demands of the economy. And the point about just printing more is the beauty of fiat currencies. It means governments can spend as much money as they like without having to worry about arbitrary constraints such as deficits but are instead only limited by the real capacity of the economy. If Rosharan governments had a fiscal architecture which allowed them to borrow unlimited amounts of money then it would be much easier to finance opposition to Desolations

@hoiditthroughthegrapevine This.

I don't claim that Roshar experiences wild cycles in terms of the value of its currency, I'm just pointing out out that the value of its currency has a natural fluctuation over the course of a few weeks which we don't see in real world economies. And thank you for expanding on why it is that its currency fluctuates in value

These are called Resonances FYI. I'm genuinely torn on how much to examine the content of the Surges when looking at these. 'Strength of Squires' for the Windrunners does seem as you point out to fit quite nicely with their Surges but does the Skybreakers ability to sort the quilty from the innocent fit with their Surges - I suppose somewhat but not obviously - and I really struggle to see how Illumination and Transformation together make the Lightweavers memory abilities.

Setting aside whether this possible, why would this be a good story that Brandon would want to write? All it would do is turn the SA into a giant macguffin hunt. Given that Brandon has really carefully designed the magic system so that magical feats and emotional payoff are closely intertwined I just don't see this as something he would do. Sorry to be brusque but I think a big problem with us as a fandom is treating theories about world building and theories about character completely separately when Brandon very clearly hasn't and doesn't.

I find the economic of Roshar weird generally given that the currency depreciates and appreciates according to the timing of the Highstorms so you get this weird inflationary and deflationary cycle over the course of a few weeks but the economics of Shadesmar are absolutely next level crazy. Like what happens to interest rates when the currency is literally disappearing and reappearing over the course of time? Its obvious why Stormlight is the central commodity in Shadesmar but why you would choose it as currency makes no sense to me. Also given that the level of currency is highly variable normally you would see a developed system of credit with IOUs functioning as currency when there isn't enough of it but we don't see this - although it might exist offscreen. I've ranted about this before but the Heralds really needed to tell the Rosharans to get a fiat currency and better economic management generally - that the Oathgates need to regulated as utilities with anti-monopoly protections would one of my personal crusades if I were a Rosharan Edit: Also given that Honour is the Shard of bonds and similar it would be cool to me if Rysn took it up and refocused it on security of contract and consumer trust and we could see Roshar as the financial capital of the Cosmere

On whether Death Rattles are entirely forward looking I don't see why that would be the case. Future sight in the Cosmere comes from accessing the Spiritual Realm, in which there is no time, thus enabling you to see things that have yet to happen. But because there is no time you can also see things that have already happened and without external reference its not clear whether you could tell the difference. If it is the case that all the Death Rattles are forward looking Moelach would have to consciously make this so and I don't see what motivation he would have to do that - misinformation I suppose but surely giving useless information about the past is better than misleading information about the future. I agree that most of the Death Rattles are probably forward looking for the meta reason that most of the SA happens after WOK and they function as foreshadowing but Brandon could just as easily have wanted to foreshadow reveals about the past such as we got in this book