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Jess

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  1. I think society would be closer. Yeah, I suspect Navani interpreting Honor + Cultivation as "Science" is largely a reflection of her own interests/worldview, and that Science may just be one aspect of Towerlight's nature.
  2. Okay, technically there are still two we don't know, but one of them is almost certainly something akin to Wisdom or Prudence. It's time to make wild guesses and place bets about the last one, so that years down the line someone can point to this thread and say "CALLED IT" and have eternal bragging rights. :o) Anyway, since Shards are aspects of divinity, it seems to me that there is a pretty notable omission in the current list: Justice (or perhaps Fairness).
  3. When I think of Odium+Cultivation I think of infections, invasive species, cancer... basically uncontrolled spread to the point that it harms the world around it. "Plaguelight" maybe?
  4. This thread is to continue the discussion about the natures of the four Dawnshards, and which Shards might be associated with each, but with the addition of Invention, Whimsy, Mercy, and Valor. --- My current idea: Change - Cultivation, Ruin, Endowment, Preservation. I understand that including Preservation here seems backwards, but being adamantly against change is still being defined by your relationship to change. Bind or Restrain - Honor, Dominion (the binding of others), Devotion (the binding of the self), Autonomy (included here under the same rationale as including Preservation under CHANGE). Act - Odium (acting from hatred, passion, fury), Ambition (taking action to fulfill one's goals), Invention (acting on ideas), Whimsy (the freedom to act on caprice). The final set, I have a hard time summing up in a single verb, but I understand as sort of a philosophical opposite to ACT. What Odium, Ambition, Invention, and Whimsy have in common is that they are centered on the desires, feelings, and thoughts of the self, with a certain disregard for what effects your actions have on the world around you. These Shards all impose their own will on the world, exert control on the world. In contrast, the final set have in common a certain self-abnegation. Instead of being able to impose your own will on the world, these Shards are about what you do when you have no control over the world, how you behave when faced with bad circumstances. I am reminded of Jasnah's perspective on the word 'hope': a value you turn to when you lack options. Arguably irrational, yet still noble. With that in mind, I lean toward Accept, but React or Choose could also work. Valor - True valor only exists when you are scared, but stand firm anyway. You accept that circumstances are dire, and choose to disregard your own survival. Mercy - True mercy only exists when you could punish somebody, but stay your hand. You accept letting somebody "get off light", and instead choose forgiveness and compassion. Hypothetical Wisdom/Prudence/Understanding Shard - The better part of wisdom is setting aside wishful thinking and accepting the world as it is, choosing to face hard truths over comforting lies. Honestly, a Hope Shard could very well fit here, but who even knows. I actually see all four of these Commands as underpinned by a fundamental philosophical dichotomy: that of self vs other, or perhaps subject vs object. But that gets very nebulous (and long-winded) so I'll save it for another post, perhaps.
  5. RoW conclusively establishes that the mistspren are the Truthwatcher spren. I guess Brandon misheard the question in that WoB, or simply had his mind on other things (like that time he accidentally said Oathbringer was an honorblade). We used to think this, because of the mistspren, but see above. I don't think we have any actual examples of sapient spren that aren't one of the radiant-capable types.
  6. Oh man, I think this might be my favorite SA book yet. But I do have one minor complaint I want to get off my chest: I wish there had been more Willshaper stuff. I understand why there wasn't, both Venli's character and her circumstances were working against fun displays of her powers. But still... I remain burningly curious about applications of Transportation other than just going to Shadesmar.
  7. In chapter 29, while Adolin is walking around the spren marketplace admiring their fashion, he makes this observation: It's buried in a joke, but this isn't this actually a major incongruity? Adolin should recognize all the radiant spren by now. At this point he has interacted firsthand with honorspren, cultivationspren, mistspren, cryptics, reachers, and peakspren. Within the same chapter he recognizes highspren, ashspren, and inkspren. Are there additional kinds of sapient spren that don't form radiant bonds? For some reason I thought this had been denied by a WoB, but I can't find it so I could be misremembering. I guess there is an outside chance this is some kind of Enlightened radiant spren, but in that case I would expect the other spren in the marketplace to recognize that and react. Unfortunately, tall and willowy is not much to go off of. So here's my total shot-in-the-dark guess: it's a kandra.
  8. While I was reading the chapter, this was the first idea that leapt to my mind. I still want it to be the Sibling. But after I thought about it a bit, the idea of a millenia-slumbering godspren reaching out to Navani via Rosharan fax machine seemed weird and unlikely compared to the various smaller-scale candidates. But, I still wouldn't put it past Brandon!
  9. I don't think we really know enough about his personality to say this. He came across that way in his interlude, but that's just one interlude and a lot has changed since then. An immortal who spends their days goofing around cataloging spren, just to give themself something to do during "normal" times, could very well get more serious once the apocalypse starts. In fact the dialogue overall gives the feel of someone who has been passive or distracted for a long time finally finding themself moved to action by extraordinary circumstances.
  10. Who do we know who cares about spren, who could have feasibly discovered something about the suffering potential of non-sapient spren? Who has been passively observing spren-related phenomena for a long time ("I couldn’t watch any longer")? Who has good reason to believe they can stop a woman as powerful and well-connected as Navani if they have to? I think it might be Axies. Aside from that, I will say that the speech pattern reminded me of, well, Pattern. A kind of innocent, childlike bluntness. So another possibility is a rogue Cryptic (bonus points that they tend not to get along with Honorspren).
  11. I am surprised that people are surprised about this. We know basically nothing about Shallan's life before she killed her mother--at which point she had not only bonded with Pattern, but progressed far enough to wield him as a Blade! What truth(s) did she say to get there? What profound, difficult personal truths could an eleven year old possibly have to say? How was she already "broken" enough for a Nahel bond back when her family was still intact? These have been burning questions for me since WoR and I'm excited to see we might finally get the answers.
  12. Theory: The "they" being brought back and forth from Braize are some of Nale's Skybreakers, and "The Connection is not severed, but can be warped to allow for travel" is about their Nahel bonds.
  13. Oh I know, I was only using it as shorthand because the sentence was already rather meandering. But yeah I probably should have just said "characters in the primary arc".
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