Stoneward

My uncle's cousin's neighbor's friend works at a certain publishing house (not telling you which one!) and they passed along this little tidbit. Warning, this might contain some pretty significant spoilers!

Heresy!

Good catch there! I think it's even more interesting if you preserve the formatting, emphasis, and reaction text:

When Kaldin spoke the Words, "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves," we rose to our feet and roared with excitement! When Lift spoke "I will remember those who have been forgotten," we shed tears and begged for more! Speaking the Ideals of the Knights Radiant have become some of my favorite moments in modern literature. I can't wait to see more Ideals! And so, dear friends, this poll. Who do you think will get to have their shining moment next? And please, drop a post to let us know why you chose them, how it might happen, and what the words might be!

It's possible, but I don't think it's likely.Seth does his homework. When he was planning the hit on Taravangian, Szeth knew the "full" palace layout and the king's daily routine down to the hour before he went in for the kill. Szeth would do a lot of recon before attacking Dalinar, and I think it would be very unlikely he wouldn't hear the story. I mean, a Highprince gave up a Shardblade, worth kingdoms, for a bunch of slaves. People will be talking about little else. Szeth probably doesn't even need to ask around to hear all about it; just walk through the market place. That doesn't mean Renarin's out of danger, though. I love the guy, but he's totally the type to run out into the middle of a Kaladin/Szeth battle because he wants to "help", and I give it a 50/50 chance that he forgets his helmet. Actually, I'm starting to love this idea. Give us a Renarin's PoV, put him in danger for a noble cause, and then give us HIS second ideal. Then Szeth takes a beating from the nerd in glasses. Yes, please.

Gold. +1 for catching me completely off guard.

You're probably right. It would be too predictable if it happened just like the last one. I fully believe that Brandon could make it happen during the Szeth fight and find a way to make it unexpected, though. But that's probably a topic for another thread.

Thanks! I like your style. (This is the second post of yours that I've up-voted in the last couple of minutes.) I agree that Szeth's viewpoint is ultimately unnecessary and would need to be precedented by another Szeth viewpoint, but I still think it would be interesting to see. The important thing is that we get Szeth's reaction to finding another surgebinder; he's never had to react to anything like it before. We can get that reaction from Kaladin's PoV, though, with a little dialogue and body language. There are tons of viewpoints that Brandon could use to get the cinematic shots, and all of them would be interesting. Maybe we'll get several. I do expect at least one from Dalinar. He has too much invested in the outcome to be ignored.

I think that Kaladin's action sequences from the Tower chapters will be a good guide at guessing how this will play out. The viewpoint of the combatants will dominate. Brandon tends to write this way, because showing the internal state and reactions of how the fight affects the characters is one of main advantages books have over movies. Kaladin's internal reactions to the conflict are some of the most interesting things going on in the scene, and books really excel at showing this. However, when something happens that would look a lot cooler from a cinematic, external shot (Kaladin exploding with energy, for example) we cut away to a character (Teft) who has a good view of the special effects. I think it will play out something like this: Szeth Viewpoint: I hate myself and I'm so conflicted! Oh wells, I guess it's time to make another mess of bodies and get all emo about it. Poor little guards will never stand a ch...cha cha cha! That one's a surge binder!? Yay! Maybe he can finally end my sadness! -break- Kaladin Viewpoint: Oh snap! The Assassin in White is trying to kill me and my buddy Dalinar with his glowy awesomeness! It's a good thing I have glowy awesomeness of my own! Except, wait... this guy's good. Syl! I need another Ideal over here, please! -break- Dalinar's Viewpoint: Holy [expletive deleted]! Watches while the special effects team goes nuts. -break- Cuts back to whichever fighter (Kaladin or Szeth) has the greater internal conflict/revelation. Fin.

Things changed. There were 13, but 2 of the Kaladin chapters were combined. Peter explained this in another thread:

I heartily second this recommendation. The Curse of Chalion was excellent. I haven't read Paladin of Souls yet, but it's on the top of my stack to read next. Other than that, though, I'll probably cry. I'm going to be a wreck until that glossy WoR cover is tucked under my arm.

My gut also says that Szeth wasn't involved. That being said, Szeth and Shallan/Jasnah were all in Kharbranth at the end of WoK and they were headed to the Shattered Plains... If you assume that the two chapters happen at the same time and that Szeth doesn't travel by surges, it's very possible that they could be on the same boat. Edit: Feather, you are adorable. Please, never change.

I'm pretty sure you just answered your own question there.

So I've had a fun idea floating around in my brains recently. There's very little evidence for it, but that's never stopped me from coming up with crazy extrapolations. This idea is mostly based on chapters 19: Starfalls and 52: A Highway to the Sun. These Dalinar visions are some of our only eye-witness accounts of Radiants in action, and they have something in common: two orders of Radiants working (or betraying all of mankind) together, wearing blue and amber plate. Windrunners and Stonewards, hanging out. Maybe, they were good friends. Maybe, they were best friends. After all, if you were going to abandon the world, who would you want by your side? And maybe, just maybe... the other orders had best friends, too. Thoughts and Observations: In any military action, it's stupid to work alone. You have much better chances of surviving with someone to watch your back. If you have a specialized set of skills and attributes in an environment that can throw a variety of situations at you (ie: War), it's smart to team up with others who's skills compliment your own. We haven't yet seen a Radiant working without at least one other Radiant nearby. An Interesting Fact: Stonewards and Windrunners mirror each other on the surge chart: So here is my crack-brained, woefully-lacking-in-statistically-significant-evidence theory: All ten Radiant Orders were paired with their mirrored order, based on the surge chart, and these order pairs consistently cooperated with each other to achieve their goals. Discuss.

We're pretty sure. You can read a lot of discussion about it in this thread: www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/5137-final-surge/ The short version is that the plate color is wrong for a Stoneward. If she was a Stoneward, she'd be glowing amber.