Kaladins

Via his Twitter, he finished up about an hour ago, capping off at 474k words (Roughly 5 full length novels! The mad man).

I really just asked if Wax being more in the spotlight would have people copying his mistcoat. He gave me a vague "he's gonna be influencing the fashion industry", and told me to read the next book! It was a great experience getting all my stuff signed and talking to him tho.

@Llarimar You bring up lot of interesting points. Alethi society seems to be both accepting of homosexuality but so stringent with gender roles there would be a lot, and I mean A LOT, of intolerance and misguided homophobia if you announced you were gay. Like if you told your normally tolerant parent you were gay and they went on a tirade about how you will never give them grandchildren or never be able to have a proper wedding. Alethi society is probably that type of parent/etc personified as a race in this context, in which they will say they accept it and even have rules about it (Sigzil's whole thing about proper reassignment paperwork...), But sadly don't have the biggest yes pride views about it. I imagine Kaladin's comment comes from societal views about how men are for women and women are for men because of the warlike Alethi always keeping THOSE roles in place due to the sheer amount of fighting done. The women stay at home with the village/community/children or in your tent to scribe for you, and the men are busy fighting on Grand Scale to protect you. But... If theres no woman to raise the children or scribe for you than who will do it? Or if there's no man to go off to watch for you, who will do it? Obviously the more feminine/masculine one in the relationship, and while Drehy obviously wasn't the least prolific in the guard, Kaladin almost assumed because of his relationship he would be the effeminate one, perhaps. An offhand comment like that makes more sense as an automatic response than a really careful response, in Kaladin's case, I believe. And many questioning sexuality folks tend to make societally off hand comments such as that all the time, before realizing who they are themselves.

Ooh, hahah! Yeah that makes sense, and I did laugh at the little joke. Thanks for the clarification (sometimes my brain doesn't understand Most Things).

I mean, I don't see being gay as leaving anyone "behind", it is just a different experience. Him being bisexual would be rad too, and I'm not detracting from the experiences of bisexual people, and I can't really speak from the perspective of relatability to a bisexual person as I did with my personal perspective. Saying bisexual isn't leaving anyone behind is a bit odd of word choice, to be real. If anyone has a more relatability with him being bisexual it would be a nice insight, for me.

@Dreamstorm Honestly I don't remember the sexual attraction bit, but that may be because I'm a useless gay who doesn't realize That Kind Of Thing, but I hold the same feelings for Brandon. He delves so deep into characters feelings he makes a lot of them gay accidentally. Also, I am a huge fan of Kaladin and Renarin. Two huge nerds who are very intellectually stimulating together with Kaladin's fascination with Medical Things and Renarin's (very relatable ND feel) of liking explaining things about himself others may not understand. It also seems like if that happened it would be one step closer to our true OTP of the Cosmere, Kaladin x Happiness (because of the healthiness of the relationship).

Now, starting this off, I'm writing this out of personal experiences with stuff like compulsory heterosexuality and things. Something that was really prevalent throughout the books and especially OB was how much I related to Kaladin's experiences with romance. Some very stick-out experiences include the almost unnatural utterances of being romantically involved with women. When he was musing over Syl always being with him (Paraphrase: "He thought about Syl floating over him as he procreated with a woman"), which is obviously a very real concern, but at the same time just feels out of place when he thinks it. There is also the flashbacks to Tarah. These ones felt the most relatable to me, as I had an ex-girlfriend who I felt the exact same way about as Kaladin describes Tarah. The "nontraditional" beauty, seeing her personality more than her physical looks, feeling a moral obligation to loving her but not willing to uphend anything to be with her (in my case: I broke up with my Tarah after a month of not interacting with her). I considered myself attracted to her despite not feeling traditional attraction, if only because I thought she had a cute personality. His compulsory attraction to Shallan also fits into experiences I have had (though not as definitive as Tarah). Being comfortable with a girl, so feeling an almost obligation to be "in love" with her, despite not having the attachment infatuation has, and then realizing it was just a strong platonic comfort you felt with them (and a familial feeling). Him not even being upset at seeing Shallan with Adolin, and even being satisfied he didn't have to pursue her strengthens it. If anyone has anymore thoughts on this, I'd like to hear them!

I'd like to add that Malata is Lawful Evil, from what we've seen of her. Syl is neutral good, following a ever changing personal code but always having the goal of helping Kaladin, but definitely willing and has broken strict rules. Pattern is true neutral, as he is a scholar willing to see the benefit of both sides Shallan/Veil/Radiant chooses to do, rather than swaying it any way. Evi is Chaotic Good, seeing her end benefit as a betterment of all parties involved, and doing whatever it takes to achieve it (yikes). Renarin is Lawful Neutral. He follows rules and regulations but is morally ambiguous in many situations, because he doesn't act most of the time. He is willing to protect those he loves, though. Ash is chaotic neutral, acting of her own code entirely and not doing too much either evil or good to count as anything besides someone trying to survive and thrive in a world where she is guilty beyond belief despite herself. Taln is lawful good, in his sober moments he still holds true to his word, and is elated to find his sacrifice allowed for growth and development. (Poor Ash's reaction to this). I could keep going but I may end up flipping through the book to psycho-analyze more characters

Buy Vivenna chose the name Azure when she ended up in Kholinar because she panicked and saw that was the EXACT hue of the Kholin military uniforms

This post is truly blessed, and I thank the Herald's someone did it.

More Eshonai would be cool, but I feel like focusing on more of the members of Bridge Four's backstories would be cool, as we have only really been alluded to their backstories via character interaction. Finding out more in-time reasoning to how more of them ended up at the bottom would be really interesting. I also want a lot more Renarin, for Kelek's sake!

Honestly, him being cast as the observer rather than the participator is what drew Odium to him, as he suspected that he wouldn't try to change the future, and would shear a powerful character from the narrative too soon. Renarin has mostly unexplored potential, to everyone around him and to himself. This made him a frightening prospect, but by giving him the ability to see the future, he was able to make sure he stayed in calm knowing and accepted the destruction of himself. His survival was completely unexpected, because Odium thought he was going to die. I imagine Odium himself knows that he can change the future and visions an extremely precise estimate, but didn't predict if Renarin found this out. Renarin lived, and evaded what Odium had planned, and by doing that he created a different, unexplored timeline. One where Dalinar's forces were not overwhelmed and instead beat out Nergaoul, and Dalinar didn't get forced into becoming champion. This is likely to create a grand scheme of changes that Odium will be overwhelmed by, if briefly. Maybe it will give our Radiants time to regroup properly? Who knows. Not us until 2020/2021 ish.

Kaladin: Storm-Depressed Shallan: ProxyServer (one word don't @ me ) Dalinar: Burdened Szeth: Really? Navani: Brilliant Jasnah: Wisdom Adolin: Bravery Renarin: Naivety Ialai: Masterminded Sadeas: Ruddy Amaram: Ulterior Moash: Follower Venli: Lost (I don't know the policy on swearing here but Moash definitely deserves some stronger words...)

Keteks are such a cool idea, along with the sacredness of symmetry, makes the religion feel more real in many senses Forward we traverse, gathering stories as we do, watching the rise of a world, and as we watch the world rise, we do gather stories, we traverse forward

I wanna see your guys' art! I love looking at fanart and drawing it, so I figured I would start here to find some good art and possibly collab? I'll start! Here's the frustrated Syl from WoR, when she copied a human woman's gesture while still trying to understand emotions