NotBurtReynolds

I think the fact we go so little of Lirins thoughts about Tian speaks volumes about their relationship, Liran made it very clear that his focus was solely on Kaladins future, giving him zero say in it. With Tian, he’s just like, yeah do whatever.

Staying to care for refugees post-Everstorm is a different story. That duty I understand. I'm only saying Liran should've left pre-Tien/Kaladin going to war.

How Lirin treats Kaladin is a fairly classic example of a parent giving a majority of their attention to one child, trying to force them to have the life that the parent wanted for themselves, regardless of what the child wants. I believe the family dynamics that result from this prime relationship are also classical, and fairly obvious. Just as its obvious that Tian gets the short-end of the Lirin stick in terms of familial relationships. If you really need direct proof, I'd suggest a reread or three.

Considering that my wife just transferred into a new job at the ER in her hospital (leaving her very safe department) solely because they need help and it was the right thing to do, I strongly disagree that what I'm saying is anything like that. If Lirin refused to leave Hearthstone because a pandemic was ravaging the town and they needed him, that would be a completely different story. But that's not the case, at all. If he had left, at any time, the city lord would've just had to find another way for his people to be taken care of. Like, that's how it works. Lirin acts like he is the one and only person on Roshar that is capable and willing to treat the small town maladies that the people of Hearthstone incur. It's almost like he has an, I don't know...god complex??? He could've left and been a surgeon elsewhere and accomplish the same amount of good, Hearthstone would've been just fine, and his family would've been in a much better situation.

Kaladin only “chose” to go to war in response to Lirin Your section on what my argument supposedly boils down to is so wrong that I’m not sure you actually read what I wrote. But thanks for jumping in and responding so aggressively. Lirin didn’t help people out of pride, he stayed in Hearthstone out of pride when he had the means, opportunities, and skills to take his family and go somewhere where he could help people AND keep his family safe and happy. These things are not mutually exclusive. He chose to keep his family in a town where they weren’t wanted and where their safety was threatened. I never said that “Lirin’s meddling made worse the lives of those he was trying to protect” His refusal to leave a town where his family wasn’t wanted made his family’s daily life isolated and kept the kids from ever feeling any sort of inclusion. His “meddling” made worse the lives of his family. “lirin failed at protecting tien, for his fault, for not trying hard enough” Yeah, I didn’t say that either. He failed Tien because their relationship was much weaker due to Tien not following in Lirins footsteps. Lirin didn’t “miss some obscure passage of law”. He very clearly knew the law, given his initial response quoting the law to Roshone. He’d obviously given it thought. But only as it related to Kaladin, not Tien. Thanks for misconstruing everything I wrote but I think I can boil down all of your rebuttals to a bunch of excuses to try and make a supremely selfish man a hero. Lirin could have helped people anywhere. He chose not to and his family paid the price.

I mean sure, Straff is horrible but he's also the big bad operating on a completely different scale of villainy. He does villainous and psychopathic things because he's a psychopathic villain and that's just what they do. Lirin is a normal dude in a normal life, who had multiple chances to remove his family from harm's way, and was given ample and compelling reasons to do so. Everything that went wrong for Lirin's family went wrong because Lirin chose himself over his family. Over, and over, and over again, Lirin chose Lirin. When Kaladin talks to a drunk Lirin, he moans that "he never should have come back to this tiny, backward, foolish town", and that "They don't want me here. They never did." So why did you stay Lirin, keeping your family in misery, no matter how much overwhelming evidence was screaming to leave? Even pre-Roshone, it seems everyone else in the family would've been su-uuper good with leaving Hearthstone. But, nooooo. Lirin couldn't leave, acting like he was doing it out of his duty as a surgeon to a town that didn't have anyone else. Even if that was true, he's still putting the best interests of his family second to his own interests. And besides, I think he's just hiding behind that duty. Lirin stayed know Hearthstone out of service to his ego and nothing more. He needed to be the person everyone depended on. Greatshell in a small pond. Lirin always chooses Lirin. Kaladin wasn't the favored son because he was the oldest or for his general mirth. He was favored because he had the aptitude to follow in Lirin's footsteps, doing what LIrin loves. Once that path ended, so did Lirin's "love" for Kaladin. Even though it was his fault that Kaladin stopped being a surgeon! Post-Roshone, Lirin is unliked and sitting on a pile of stolen spheres, but still can't manage to keep his storming head down for one storming second, making himself the de-facto spokesman for a town that doesn't like him by addressing an obviously grumpy bright lord who was obviously not interested in speaking. From that time, until Tien is conscripted, Roshone gives starker and starker evidence that things were not going to end well if Lirin stayed. But nope! Lirin just had to stay and had to antagonize because who would he be if he wasn't the center of attention? And Lirin wasn't just a bad dad to Kaladin. Tien couldn't be a surgeon, so he never received the level of attention that Kaladin did. And because Lirin didn't pay as much attention to Tien, Tien got sent to war. Directly. Lirin knew conscription law well enough to know that Kaladin would be protected from that sort of revenge but it never crossed his mind that Tien wouldn't be. If you live in warfaring Alethkar, under a city lord who hates you, thinks you killed his son, and obviously wants revenge, maybe pay attention to how conscription law applies to all of your sons and not just the one that you want to be your generational avatar? He never considered that Tien wasn't protected because he never considered Tien much at all. I don't need to break down Lirin's awfulness from RoW because it all stems from the same place as above. Instead of making horrible choices in regards to staying in Hearthstone in the name of his duty as a surgeon, he's now making horrible choices in regards to his attitude towards Kaladin in the name of his duty as a pacifist. BS. You can still be a pacifist during the literal war of armageddon but you don't get to actively be disgusted with those who choose to do otherwise, once again, in the literal war of armageddon. But even though Kaladin did what he did (and consequentially became what he became) because he was trying to save Tien (and Lirin's ass - because once again, Tien getting conscripted was 100% Lirin's fault), Lirin won't accept what Kaladin is, or what he has done. Unless, of course, he goes back to being what Lirin wants him to be. Only then, would Kaladin be allowed to earn his love back. What Lirin should have done is thrown himself at Kaladin's feet and begged forgiveness for how much misery his selfishness had brought their family. And told him thank you for trying to save Tien. And then he should've said about 1000 thanks because he got one son back and spend every day for the rest of his life being overwhelming happy that Kaladin was alive, no matter what his job was. And be forever thankful that his actions and self-obsessiveness had only killed one of his sons instead of two. That's how any loving parent should act. You thought you lost both but then got one back? It can only be an unbridled joy for what you still have. But no. Lirin will only ever truly love a son that chooses to be exactly like Lirin. Because Lirin only ever chooses what's best for Lirin, Over, and over, and over again. He directly, and continually, made his family's lives worse, over an extended period of time, killing one child, and emotionally scarring the other, once again, directly and continually. Only ever because Lirin only wanted what Lirin wanted and never gave a damn about how his actions affected his family. Because Lirin. Is. The. Worst

I haven't even started reading it yet, I'm just so happy that this thread exists. I've long maintained that Lirin is the worst dad in the Cosmere and all RoW did was hammer about 10 nales into that coffin. I'm excited to read the hate. Lirin. Is. The. Worst.

I showed my wife the first few minutes of this to use as evidence that my reactions while reading were totally normal. These words were not accepted.

Thanks for the definition..I was trying to answer what an arcanist is for my wife the other day and I just ended up showing her a post where you had rattled off the complete list facts for Horneater/Listener commonalities and said; "I could probably come up with this list, given some time and thought as they are known facts. I'd still probably overlook some though. She did this list in a few minutes, seemingly off the top of her head and given prior experience I really like the chances of it's accuracy. Arcanists seem to be like some sort of Cosmere Alexa, but I'm not exactly sure." Maybe not to that person, but it's pleasing to me and I have to think I'm in the majority. I consider the service Rshara and Calderis(and others, but they are the ones that seem to be most active when I am) provides in these forums as invaluable. And this is coming from someone who's been shot down by their knowledge more times then the reverse I understand frustrations with what some may see as pedantic corrections but I think the longer you read and interact on these forums, the more you realize that pedantic corrections are really, really necessary in order to have productive Cosmere discussions. It can be a bit of a learning curve, as you need to know a lot of the specific distinctions before you can understand just how important those specific distinctions are. I imagine the Cosmere as a picture that's slowing being colored in where the black lines are drawn but only partially revealed by what has been written textually/WoB's. Because the Cosmere has some really hard and fast rules that can't be broken, like the black lines of a picture. Now we can color in different areas and fill out blank spaces with our theories and guesses and we can even try to fill out some of the unknown black lines too. What we can't is go outside the black lines that have already been drawn. And if what you're trying to color goes completely outside of the what has already been given as possible, then the entire picture gets scribbled up. That's where I see the value of the Arcanists. We regular folks may not see the black lines that have already been drawn because we've forgotten something from the books, or haven't made a connection, or haven't seen a WoB. So they come in to tell us(in what I generally see as a gentle manner), "Hey, you can't color there. Here's the WoB/text/etc explaining why..You might want to go back that way." And there's not just corrections. I see plenty of affirmations as well, where people get arcane WoB's supporting their thoughts that they may have never found on their own. Can we all just try to remember that tone is really hard to convey on the internet and to cut the Arcanists the appropriate amount of slack whenever your first impulse is to take their correction as an attack? The slack we ourselves would probably like granted to us if the situations were reversed? It may be frustrating when seemingly every time you put forth an idea it gets smacked aside with logic and evidence from an Arcanist, but would you rather stay wrong? I believe the Arcanists help keep us grounded in known Cosmere Reality which in turn leads to a higher quality of discourse. Quality over the possible quantity of unchecked and unfounded wild speculation. Any time you find yourself on the opposing side of being more informed and more educated, you may want to check your side Really?? Oh, thank you. Me too. I've never felt so safe. We're friends forever. Lifetime friendship revoked. Mortal enemies engaged.

This statement is in no way endorsed by NotBurtReynolds

Yeah, I've seen that WoB before but I don't really see as being an eliminator for what I was talking about. I'll 2nd what @hoiditthroughthegrapevine was saying about it perhaps lessening the likelyhood of the Shattering being of Adonalsium's own design, but I stress perhaps because I don't think that the WoB is necessarily saying what you want it to say, as that's a pretty cagey wording he used. Cagey because, taken at it's most literal it really only seems to confirm that Adonalsium did not commit the actual act that actually Shattered himself/herself/itself..ie..it wasn't suicide. There's miles of wiggle room in there...Just imagine swapping in Ruin for Adonalsium and Ruin's release from prison with the Shattering in a horrible parallel universe where Hero of Ages still hasn't come out yet: Questioner: Was Ruin released from prison by external forces? FakeBrandonSanderson: Ruin was not released by himself, herself, or itself. That WoB is technically true, right? But is it truly, true?

Thank you for listing all of that so succinctly. The idea of a rudimentary gemheart hadn’t occurred to me and it would make sense given all the other rudimentary Listener characteristics Horneaters have. However the gemheart breeding true would also make sense to me given its importance to the host, making it more of an all or nothing proposition. I feel like a rudimentary gemheart is more likely but a true one is what I hope for given my proclivity for Rock. Interesting indeed.

My thinking has been along the lines of a so-called "ryshadiumspren" living in their gemheart, and that is the bond which gives them their elevated characteristics, with the musicspen being a secondary spren along the lines of the KR having secondary spren..ie..windspren for windrunners, etc. Just spitballin' here, but maybe the "ryshadiumspren" pulses the Rhythms and that is what leads the musicspren to always be near them. My thinking is along the lines of all Horneaters are probably stronger than the average Rosharn, in the way that I've generally found even "small" Samoans look like they could pulverize the average bear , but with Rock's royal lineage playing a part in him having a higher spren to bond with thereby making him a Horneater Superman...or to be more culturally timely, a Horneater Black Panther. Instead of eating the special herb, Rock gets the special spren. And to continue the Black panther analogy, I have to think that living on/near Cultivation's Perpendicularity has lended itself to infusing the Horneaters in some way..ala Wakanda existing on top of a magical metal that infused all the life around.

Yeah, that definitely the weakest evidence I thought of .

I'm with you...I've never felt like the story of Rock meeting Hoid was just by happenstance...As in, Rock just happened to be there when Master Hoid arrives? Perhaps, but Rock being there for a specific, special reason makes sense too. I have zero evidence, but I would expect that the offspring would not be a Ryshadium, given the seemingly sparse population of them..Maybe sparse is the wrong word, but Ryshadiums don't seem to be in overabundance. I also doubt there would be "half-Ryshadiums", in the sense that the "preferred" traits of the Ryshadium would be expressed in the offspring...ie..increased strength, stamina, and near-sentinence. Only because one would think that if that were the case then the military would use Ryshadium as studs(if they would allow it;) to give themselves a cavalry of just these half-breeds. We know that Ryshadium evolved symbiotically with spren, which leads me to believe that their "preferred" traits are a result of this spren symbiosis. If that's the case then I don't know if they could pass this spren-symbious down to their offspring unless they were bred true. And if they did, wouldn't we see music spren around half-breeds?(Granted, perhaps we just haven't seen it on page) I'm also of the opinion that there is a good chance that Ryshadium's have gemhearts, not that Brandon's saying anything about it I know assuming gemhearts in Ryshadium is just that, an assumption. But it follows logically(given what we know about greatshells and their spren-symbiosis) that if Ryshadium are granted strength, stamina, and intelligence from a spren relationship, then its not a big stretch for them to have gemhearts.(Once again, I hate making big assumptions like that). If that is the case, then in order to have those "preferred" traits the offspring would have to have gemhearts. So maybe the offspring are genetically just a "normal" mix of the 2...ie...maybe they're a little bigger or a little faster just because the sire was, but without a gemheart the offspring wouldn't get the true benefits that the spren-relationship would grant them.