[OB] the timeskip after OB

[RShara]

5 minutes ago, SLNC said:

I get the point you're trying to make, but acolytes are acolytes and eager to impress their master. Some get over-eager in that.

...Actually, that WAS the point I was trying to make....lol

[The One Who Connects]

5 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

They can be engaged and disengaged. They would essentially be used as vertical inertial thrusters. They could be engaged for a boost (angular momentum's adjust). Engaged again, for an additional boost then disengaged (angular momentums again adjusting) and the Conjoined weights could be falling, building up speed when they are not engaged as well giving a larger vertical boost to the ship when engaged.

It's not that I don't follow(but I kinda don't.) So in reality, the skyship itself is essentially a glorified glider.

If the Reverser Fabrial giving the ship it's altitude is disengaged, you are turning off your source of lift(functionally anti-grav) in order to utilize a source of forward motion(wind). Without lift, your ship would begin to take a dive, even with Diminishers reducing it's weight.

Additionally, unless you have something that could forcibly (and quickly) yank the pulley Fabrial down when you turn them back on, the ship's downward momentum is gonna be the thing moving the pulley, rather than the other way around. The ship is gonna continue sinking when you turn the Reverser back on, which is not conducive to flight.

There is no vertical boost to be given to the sinking ship in your scenario.

---

I haven't even delved into how the ship would have to completely stop moving in order to raise it again, as the ships forwards momentum would translate into a backwards motion on the Fabrial(which your idea doesn't appear to be designed to cope with)

[Guest]

1 minute ago, RShara said:

...Actually, that WAS the point I was trying to make....lol

I know.

I just repeated it as it apparently didn't get across.

[Varenus]

9 minutes ago, RShara said:

...Yes?  I don't see how that disproves my point?  I'm sure they could have dug up something on Shallan, or gotten the highprince to do something, like happened with Stump.

Not trying to disprove anything, merely adding context. I probably should have added an emoji or something to change the tone of that post, my apologies. 

Imo, It has been shown that there needs to be at least an attempt to administer 'justice' for a skybreaker acolyte to act. Every single one except this one apparently. 

What crime could Shallan possibly have committed at such a young age, in a remote part of the county? Maybe Nale could get the attention of a highprince, but some nameless acolyte? Obviously Nale didn't know about Shallan, or he would have killed her afterwords.

7 minutes ago, SLNC said:

I get the point you're trying to make, but acolytes are acolytes and eager to impress their master. Some get over-eager in that.

I already outlined why it seems unlikely that the acolyte acted out of ambition...

1 minute ago, SLNC said:

I just repeated it as it apparently didn't get across.

 Thanks for that one.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Varenus said:

I already outlined why it seems unlikely that the acolyte acted out of ambition...

I know. I have read it and I agree, that he probably wouldn't have been applauded by Nale, the highspren and the Skybreakers for what he has done, but Nale recruited in not so small numbers. Some have to fail, even by being too ambitious. Yeah, he probably was a fool, but foolishness in recruits, that are by no means guaranteed to become full members of the Order is definitely not unlikely.

[Varenus]

21 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Nale recruited in not so small numbers.

Sure, but was it not Nale's greatest fear that too many Radiants would cause another desolation? So he probably wasn't mass recruiting, and the few he did must not have been chosen at random. He must have been somewhat discerning during the recruitment process, even if not all of them would become full Radiants. 

If this acolyte had any hope of progressing through the ranks of the skybreakers, this was not the way of doing it. Presumably, if he was with the skybreakers long enough to know they kill radiants(long enough to kill even a child), he would know that he needed a legal excuse.

But to each their own.

 

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Varenus said:

Sure, but was it not Nale's greatest fear that too many Radiants would cause another desolation? So he probably wasn't mass recruiting, and the few he did must not have been chosen at random. He must have been somewhat discerning during the recruitment process, even if not all of them would become full Radiants.

And even he is capable of lapses in his judgment... He can be mistaken.

10 minutes ago, Varenus said:

If this acolyte had any hope of progressing through the ranks of the skybreakers, this was not the way of doing it. Presumably, if he was with the skybreakers long enough to know they kill radiants(long enough to kill even a child), he would know that he needed a legal excuse.

I'm not arguing about the stupidity of the act, but that an acolyte might be tempted to do something like that. He might have thought, that he could just accuse Shallan of some crime, that didn't happen, if Nale asked. Stupid? Yes. Unlikely, that an acolyte might try something stupid to impress Nale? Not really.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

 

Don't want to hijack this thread, so if you are interested in the flying ship discussion, there is more spoilered below:

Spoiler

40 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

If the Reverser Fabrial giving the ship it's altitude is disengaged, you are turning off your source of lift(functionally anti-grav) in order to utilize a source of forward motion(wind). Without lift, your ship would begin to take a dive, even with Diminishers reducing it's weight.

Additionally, unless you have something that could forcibly (and quickly) yank the pulley Fabrial down when you turn them back on, the ship's downward momentum is gonna be the thing moving the pulley, rather than the other way around. The ship is gonna continue sinking when you turn the Reverser back on, which is not conducive to flight.

There is no vertical boost to be given to the sinking ship in your scenario.

But each ship would have two separate conjoined fabrials linked to the two conjoined counterweight fabrials at Urithuru. Here's a modified sketch of the setup, adding in an angular momentum dampener (which would limit the effect of the conjoiner aligning with the angular momentum of the shipboard fabrial):

So how I see this working is that when Brake A is released, weight B would plummet causing weight A to rise. This would also engage the shipboard conjoined reverser fabrial B paired with weight B which would impart a vertical y axis thrust to the shipboard fabrial. Suspended as it is on the swiveling Urithuru mounted gimble, the difference in angular momentums between the ship and the counterweight would be translated into rotational motion until the weight would be essentially tracking the aligned motion of the shipboard fabrial. The boom projecting outward from Urithuru is truncated in the sketch, it would obviously have to be longer to eliminate the possibility that the motion of the ship would cause the counterweighted fabrial to crash into the tower. But as soon as the upward thrust is achieved for the Ship, the shipboard conjoined fabrial B would be disengaged, which as you said would cause the ship to begin vertical descent. But simultaneous to this the brake B would be disengaged causing the fabrial attached to counterweight A at Urithiru to descend while simulateneouls causing weight B to ascend, and after a bit of descent of the ship, the conjoiner linked to weight A would be engaged so that it's upward thrust would be experienced by the conjoined shipboard fabrial A.

Obviously figuring out how to manipulate the surge of Gravitation directly would be far more elegant, and this would require a lot of trial and error to figure out the precise mechanics of, but this is an out of the box possible solution without the introduction of any new fabrial technology.

One other option would be to use augmenters paired with heatrials to heat the air inside a hot air balloon. Obviously the heat would have to be targeted and this presupposes that the Rosharan psyche is ready for the golden age of Ballooning (I don't know if they have developed high tea time yet with the requisite savories and little sandwiches, but the restaraunt at the end of the Highstorm in WoR seems like something I could see the Colonial era United Kingdom doing, so maybe their is hope for ballooning after all).

 

 

[Varenus]

43 minutes ago, SLNC said:

And even he is capable of lapses in his judgment... He can be mistaken.

But Nale didn't know he was making a lapse, he was acting in the way he thought proper. That means low amounts of skybreakers, which means he can't just make anyone and everyone into a skybreaker. His internal logic still holds, even if he is insane and was manipulated by Ishar. Perhaps he doesn't choose the best people every time, but his fourth oath skybreakers are part of the process as well. 

43 minutes ago, SLNC said:

I'm not arguing about the stupidity of the act, but that an acolyte might be tempted to do something like that. He might have thought, that he could just accuse Shallan of some crime, that didn't happen, if Nale asked. Stupid? Yes. Unlikely, that an acolyte might try something stupid to impress Nale? Not really

But it's stupidity to the point of disbelief. Do something stupid to Impress Nale? sure. Commit a crime to impress the Herald of Justice? Not likely.

Also: if we need to count on the stupidity of our villains to have the plot make sense, then something is wrong imo.

Really my issue is with Shallan's backstory, not this acolyte. Currently, too many things in her past are "just because" for my tastes. If that makes sense. 

Edited February 7, 2018 by Varenus

[The One Who Connects]

48 minutes ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

Don't want to hijack this thread, so if you are interested in the flying ship discussion, there is more spoilered below:

For those curious, I responded to him in the Flying Ships thread.

I figured an active conversation that's actually on topic would be grounds for necroing the thread, and keeps this one from getting any more hijacked than it already was.

[galendo]

14 hours ago, Wax said:

Shallan is my favourite character.  I want to see more of her (but less of her Radiant persona).

The more flawed it is, the more interesting it becomes.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.  Shallan was my favorite character for the first part of The Way of Kings, but IMHO she's really struggled since.  Partly it's that I'm not a fan of characters with "convenient" mental illnesses.  Amnesia, in particular, is overdone in fiction; I don't think I've ever seen it done particularly well, and that was pretty much her shtick for an entire book.  Now I guess we've moved on to multiple personalities; but schizophrenia is another trait that's been overdone in fiction, and rarely well.

Another huge part is that she has nebulous "Truths" rather than Oaths, and...

10 hours ago, Mage of Lirigon said:

I think Truths are just as interesting as Oaths, if you want character progression.

  ...I just can't agree here.  Shallan's Truths are something like I'm terrified, I killed my father, and I killed my mother.  Well...okay?  You can come up with similar truths that all the characters had to face:

Dalinar: I am a tyrant.  I failed my brother.  I killed my wife.

Kaladin: I fear failure.  I failed my brother.  I broke my Oaths.

The point is that the other characters have their Truths, and then they have the Oaths as well.  Because you take all those true statements about Kaladin above, and weigh all of them together against just "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves," and I think the Truths come up wanting.  Similarly, all Dalinar's Truths aren't worth the single Ideal of "I will unite rather than divide."  The Truths, fundamentally, are simple statements of fact.  The Oaths are...well, they are Ideals, and watching a character attempt living up to his Ideals (and sometimes failing) is far more interesting than explicitly stating some random factoid about his past.

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Eh, too many Oaths and they lose their impact though.

I don't really think so.  Look at Lopen's Oath.  Look at Teft's.  Are you telling me you wouldn't want to see more of that from the rest of Bridge Four?  I personally would love to see how (or whether) Rock is able to balance the Windrunner's oath of protection against his own philosophy of nonviolence.  Maybe he can't.  Maybe he ends up some other Order rather than Windrunner.  That would also be awesome.

I agree that the "new" Oaths (i.e., any Oath we haven't seen some version of before) should have some impact and should be used sparingly.  I fully expect Kaladin's next Oath to be at some climactic moment, and I think it will be awesome when it happens.  Ditto with Dalinar's next Oath, and ditto with the first Oath we see from Renarin.  Even Shallan will probably be climactic, because I'm guessing she'll get Shardplate at just the right time.  If we go the "Adolin revives his Blade" route, which seems likely, I'm guessing his Oath will be pretty awesome as well, even though we've already seen Lift's version.

But I don't think having other characters swear their Oaths onscreen takes away from any of that.  When Kaladin got his Shardblade, that was awesome.  When Teft got his Blade, that was still pretty awesome.  (I actually think it would have been even more awesome if we'd seen him swear the previous Ideal as well, so that when the climactic moment came, I didn't have to deal with the cognitive dissonance of wondering whether he was swearing the Oaths out of order or not.)

So no, I don't think they'll lose their impact one bit.  Not so long as the Oaths are the conclusion to a character arc.

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Wow, you're bloodthirsty. 

I'm not really all that bloodthirsty.  I just want this Desolation to feel worse than all the others.  If Nohadon had said that he'd lost one person in two, I'd have been fine with seeing commensurate casualties, for a beginning.  But however bad it was previously -- take the worst Desolation there ever was -- I feel that this time, it has to be worse.

Team Honor has never been in worse shape.  Team Odium has never been in better.  This can only reasonably end in one way.

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Worse than 9 in 10 people dead? At the point, don't you think it'll become too hard to justify even continuing the fight anymore?

Ironically, that's exactly the conclusion that Tavargian has reached.  He foresees such destruction that the salvation of one city's population is worth the destruction of all the rest.  Since there are way more than ten cities on Roshar, he must figure saving one in twenty, one in fifty, one in a hundred to be a pretty fair trade.

I just hope he's right.

9 hours ago, Isilel said:

I am all for suitably apocalyptic devastation, but too much too early would only leave a "plucky group of heroes sneak into the Dark Lord's stronghold and destroy the McGuffin tied into his life-force" as a path to victory - and that's not what am interested in seeing (yet again). Anti-Odium side is already very much on the ropes because so much is against them - that's where new discoveries in fabrial technology are necessary to even give them half a chance.

This is actually a pretty good point.  I guess it depends what kind of book you want to read.  Do you want to read about political maneuvering on the level of nations, with grand clashes of armies and battlefield tacticians constantly one-upping each other?  Or do you want to read about smaller groups, struggling to get by in an ever-more-hostile environment, where victory seems impossibly distant and simple survival a daunting task?

I don't know that there's a right answer or a wrong answer.  It's really up to personal preference.  Do you want Mistborn: The Final Empire or do you want A Memory of Light?  Which one better suits the story so far, and the story to come?

[RShara]

1 hour ago, Varenus said:

But Nale didn't know he was making a lapse, he was acting in the way he thought proper. That means low amounts of skybreakers, which means he can't just make anyone and everyone into a skybreaker. His internal logic still holds, even if he is insane and was manipulated by Ishar. Perhaps he doesn't choose the best people every time, but his fourth oath skybreakers are part of the process as well. 

But it's stupidity to the point of disbelief. Do something stupid to Impress Nale? sure. Commit a crime to impress the Herald of Justice? Not likely.

Also: if we need to count on the stupidity of our villains to have the plot make sense, then something is wrong imo.

Really my issue is with Shallan's backstory, not this acolyte. Currently, too many things in her past are "just because" for my tastes. If that makes sense. 

See, acolytes, by definition, don't fully understand/embrace how the Order works yet.  So the acolyte probably thought that he was doing the right thing, but he didn't actually understand that they had to follow the local laws so strictly.

Here is the quote from WoR, where the acolyte kills Gawx.

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“You have not done the proper paperwork in this kingdom to kill that child,” Darkness said.

“Aren’t we above their laws?”

Darkness actually let go of her, striding over to slap the minion across the face. “Without the law, there is nothing. You will subject yourself to their rules, and accept the dictates of justice. It is all we have, the only sure thing in this world.”

As you see, he misunderstood and thought that the local laws didn't apply to him.  It's not beyond reason, nor utter stupidity, that the one who went after Shallan did the same.

[The One Who Connects]

20 minutes ago, galendo said:

I'm not really all that bloodthirsty.  I just want this Desolation to feel worse than all the others.  If Nohadon had said that he'd lost one person in two, I'd have been fine with seeing commensurate casualties, for a beginning.  But however bad it was previously -- take the worst Desolation there ever was -- I feel that this time, it has to be worse.

So... two details about Nohadon's numbers.

1. He doesn't specify whether or not that 9 out of 10 casualty count is worldwide, just his lands, or an estimate from the lands he can still contact. He may have been in an area that was hit harder, for all we know.
2. His Desolation also lasted eleven years. By the start of Book 4, we'll have only been in Desolation for about 10% of that time. As you said, "Alethkar is a good start." But it's just that: the start. Give it time.

26 minutes ago, galendo said:

I guess it depends what kind of book you want to read.  Do you want to read about political maneuvering on the level of nations, with grand clashes of armies and battlefield tacticians constantly one-upping each other?  Or do you want to read about smaller groups, struggling to get by in an ever-more-hostile environment, where victory seems impossibly distant and simple survival a daunting task?

Both options sound rather interesting to me, and I can't say for sure which I'd prefer. I suspect we'll see some of both before this is all said and done.

[maxal]

19 hours ago, Leyrann said:

I don't know how much difference already knowing a writing system makes, but I needed one evening to be able to kind of write and read Alethi letters, though slowly (and we see Dalinar is going slowly as well).

You aren't illiterate. Independently of the writing system, you have working knowledge of how reading/writing works. Dalinar doesn't even know which way to hold a book. Within real-life, illiterate people struggle immensely to learn how to read: they certainly do not master it within a night nor within two weeks. It was fast, for someone coming from nothing, it was really fast.

19 hours ago, galendo said:

I'm with you on skipping more of Dalinar's political machinations (though I didn't think they were all that bad.  Honestly, Shallan's parts bothered me more, in the first half).  But I absolutely do not want more Radiant oaths spoken off-screen.  I feel that was a huge reason why the first half of Oathbringer felt like it wasn't going anywhere.  See, Oaths provide a meaningful sense of progress.  Once someone says an Oath, they've moved forward.  They can't move back.  (Well, unless they're Shallan, but I think her character is pretty much irretrievably broken, and her lack of Oaths is a huge part of that.  Three books in, including her flashback book, and I still have no idea what would cause Pattern to become a deadblade or what attracted him to her in the first place.)

The fact that we went something like eleven hundred pages without seeing a single Oath in Oathbringer was, in my opinion, a huge mistake.  It didn't have to be much.  Even something like Teft having his first Ideal accepted (er, second?  "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves") would have shown that, yes, progress is being made.  Things are happening.  We've got something like a dozen Radiants now.  Honestly, I think we should have seen at least one Oath and probably two or three by the halfway point.

I more or less agree with you on oaths. I do love your later post on the matter, I do want to read meaningful characters say oaths on-screen, but I do not personally need to have every minor character speak theirs unless it makes sense. For instance, I am perfectly fine with not having read none of Jasnah's and Renarin's. I much preferred having read Teft and, to a lesser extend, Lopen. In the matter of OB, I would say there weren't many opportunities for anyone to say oaths early on: Kaladin/Shallan are already so advanced, it would make it too easy if they could go through 4-5 oaths within a few weeks.

Shallan's character was mostly a miss for me as a reader within this book which is a shame as I rather like her. I do agree with you later comment stating her truths sound mild compared to what others have to say/do. I am afraid was especially weak and didn't carry on much weight, so hopefully her later progression will make it worth it. I am one of those readers arguing for Shallan's arc to be less internal and more external: less conflicts about herself, more conflict about what her actions means to others. This is what I would love to read about. I would also love for Shallan's character to find her strength, to be solid, for once.

19 hours ago, galendo said:

I'd be fine if Shallan had a baby during the timeskip.  That's exactly the sort of thing that could reasonably happen, would be boring to actually read about, but might provide some much-needed spice to Shallan's character.  The only real problem I see with it is that family is already very important to her, so giving her more family to be important doesn't really accomplish much.  But a character trying to balance Radiantness and motherhood...well, it'd be something new, at least.  And Shallan needs something.

I'd be fine with a baby too. I understand why other readers are not keen on the idea. I however find it would be really interesting, as a sub-arc. I think it could be done well, but I can see why it isn't everyone's favorite arc. What Shallan needs, IMHO, is an outward arc where she isn't crumbling apart needing everyone to keep up: a moment where she owns herself, she owns the climax and the action.

19 hours ago, galendo said:

I too like the personal story arcs a lot more than the supposedly bigger ones.  The Fused and, by extension, the Parshendi, have really fallen flat for me as villains.  (The Unmade are hit-and miss, with Sja-Annat being the big hit and Yelig-nar being the big miss.)  Amaram was a much better villain in my mind, and I'm sad to see that he was more-or-less wasted at the end of Oathbringer.

That being said, is the Iri problem really that difficult to solve?  Dalinar and company have like four sets of Shards or something like that (well, maybe less, since they gave some of them away; but Renarin still has a set of Plate that he's not going to need much longer), so just give back Adolin's Plate.  Heck, throw in a Shardblade along with it (whatever happened to Renarin's deadblade?) just for good measure.  Seems pretty much a no-brainer for someone who's sworn to unite rather than divide.  Simple problem, easy fix.  I'll be kind of disappointed if it's blown all out of proportion.

Well, I guess we can dream, but I really wanted there to be some consequences for Adolin murdering Sadeas as well, and that really didn't happen.

Since we didn't get any complications from Adolin murdering Sadeas, we shouldn't expect anything for Dalinar accidentally killing Evi.  I mean, what is there for Adolin to find out?  That Dalinar hasn't always been perfect?  That he sometimes made mistakes?  That he was more of a warmonger in his youth?  That he used to get caught up in the Thrill?  Adolin knows all that already.  If he ever find the truth out about Evi, I wouldn't expect him to blame Dalinar for it any more than Shallan blames Kaladin for killing her brother.

No, the real potential for drama like that was having Dalinar find out about Adolin and Sadeas.  Dalinar finding out his son wasn't as honorable as he thought.  Adolin discovering he'd severely disappointed his father, discovering that by killing Sadeas he'd actually made things worse.  Dalinar shocked that Adolin lied to him, that he hadn't trusted him enough to tell the truth.

That's where the story was.  Since we didn't get that, there's no realy hope for your proposal.  Dalinar, Evi, and Adolin are small peas by comparison, and probably wouldn't be that satisfying anyway.

The bigger arcs lack the emotional content to be gripping. I can't force myself to care for an Unmade and they turned out not being so terrible villains. Their potential for scariness wasn't explore to its full potential. I prefer villains I can hate or feel something for, I don't mind the nameless ones, but the current ones need a bit more of an "oomph" factor.

Is the Iri problem hard to solve? I guess not, but then again, if it were as easy as giving away a Plate, then why hasn't Dalinar done it? It seems like such a small price to pay to secure a powerful alliance and yet, it wasn't offer as a solution. I suspect the Iriali want Adolin's Plate specifically. There has to be a reason for it which is why I keep on thinking this arc is not over. I hope it isn't over. Brandon cannot swept every single story arcs he spins over Adolin's character and his relationship with Dalinar under the rug as he did with Sadeas.

I disagree about Dalinar killing Evi being a "none-issue" for Adolin comparable to Kaladin killing Helaran. Kaladin has absolutely nothing to reproach himself, nothing. He did nothing wrong and there is no morality system which would condemn Kaladin for killing an enemy soldier during a battle. Dalinar, on the other hand, decided to burned an entire town filled with civilians, a vile action every single morality system would readily condemn. His wife became a victim of his wrongs. I can't see Adolin being fine with the father he loves burning the mother he loved alive.

They may be small peas, but their relationship is important within the narrative. Brandon cannot skip over every single character related arcs.

[RShara]

I just think Shallan is way too young and immature to be a mother.  Ditto with Adolin.  She's what, 17, 18, so slightly less than 20 Earth years?  WAY too young for bearing children to be healthy, physically and emotionally.

[Mage of Lirigon]

2 hours ago, galendo said:

  ...I just can't agree here.  Shallan's Truths are something like I'm terrified, I killed my father, and I killed my mother.  Well...okay?  You can come up with similar truths that all the characters had to face:

Dalinar: I am a tyrant.  I failed my brother.  I killed my wife.

Kaladin: I fear failure.  I failed my brother.  I broke my Oaths.

The point is that the other characters have their Truths, and then they have the Oaths as well.  Because you take all those true statements about Kaladin above, and weigh all of them together against just "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves," and I think the Truths come up wanting.  Similarly, all Dalinar's Truths aren't worth the single Ideal of "I will unite rather than divide."  The Truths, fundamentally, are simple statements of fact.  The Oaths are...well, they are Ideals, and watching a character attempt living up to his Ideals (and sometimes failing) is far more interesting than explicitly stating some random factoid about his past..

I can understand what you're saying about Oaths vs Truths, but I see as simply a difference in how Brandon is dealing with each character. For Dalinar and Kaladin, yes, the Oaths will have a greater impact than any Truths they could say. But Shallan's character arc is more introspective than either of theirs, IHO, so I believe that Truths suit her character better.

 

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I don't really think so.  Look at Lopen's Oath.  Look at Teft's.  Are you telling me you wouldn't want to see more of that from the rest of Bridge Four?  I personally would love to see how (or whether) Rock is able to balance the Windrunner's oath of protection against his own philosophy of nonviolence.  Maybe he can't.  Maybe he ends up some other Order rather than Windrunner.  That would also be awesome.

I agree that the "new" Oaths (i.e., any Oath we haven't seen some version of before) should have some impact and should be used sparingly.  I fully expect Kaladin's next Oath to be at some climactic moment, and I think it will be awesome when it happens.  Ditto with Dalinar's next Oath, and ditto with the first Oath we see from Renarin.  Even Shallan will probably be climactic, because I'm guessing she'll get Shardplate at just the right time.  If we go the "Adolin revives his Blade" route, which seems likely, I'm guessing his Oath will be pretty awesome as well, even though we've already seen Lift's version

I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to see Rock or Sigzil swear their Oaths, yes. In fact, if we must be prudent with who we get to see swear Oaths, I'd rather we see older characters than new ones.

 

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I'm not really all that bloodthirsty.  I just want this Desolation to feel worse than all the others.  If Nohadon had said that he'd lost one person in two, I'd have been fine with seeing commensurate casualties, for a beginning.  But however bad it was previously -- take the worst Desolation there ever was -- I feel that this time, it has to be worse.

Team Honor has never been in worse shape.  Team Odium has never been in better.  This can only reasonably end in one way.

The problem is, once you have slaughter to that point, it'll either become a statistic with little to no impact on the characters, or it'll become a major part of the plot. Both have major issue

 

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Ironically, that's exactly the conclusion that Tavargian has reached.  He foresees such destruction that the salvation of one city's population is worth the destruction of all the rest.  Since there are way more than ten cities on Roshar, he must figure saving one in twenty, one in fifty, one in a hundred to be a pretty fair trade.

I just hope he's right.

He's been wrong before though. I don't mind a huge horrible devastation like that, just keep it to a point where you can tell a story in that setting.

 

2 hours ago, maxal said:

Is the Iri problem hard to solve? I guess not, but then again, if it were as easy as giving away a Plate, then why hasn't Dalinar done it? It seems like such a small price to pay to secure a powerful alliance and yet, it wasn't offer as a solution. I suspect the Iriali want Adolin's Plate specifically. There has to be a reason for it which is why I keep on thinking this arc is not over. I hope it isn't over. Brandon cannot swept every single story arcs he spins over Adolin's character and his relationship with Dalinar under the rug as he did with Sadeas.

Even if it was Adolin's Plate they wanted, wouldn't Dalinar have just given it to them.? After all the talking he did to form the coalition, he doesn't realy have a choicr in the matter anyway.

 

Edited February 7, 2018 by Mage of Lirigon

[Varenus]

@RShara I see what you are saying, and you may have a point. I don't expect acolytes to know everything about their order. However, I don't really think the two situations are comparable. 

The lift acolyte was caught in contradiction of oath. Did he let Gaux, a criminal, go and become a liar while neglecting his duty? Did he slit his throat, keeping his word and his dedication to Nale's plan, but skipping the required authorization thus breaking the law? He was in a catch 22, just like Kaladin in WoR. He didn't engineer that scenario, he acted out of instinct when there was no possible way to diffuse the situation. I don't expect acolytes to completely understand how to avoid these scenarios, especially when they are dropped directly into the center of one. This is why he said:

Quote

"But. . ." the minion said. "I had to do as I threatened . . ."

Most importantly, he was still dealing with confirmed criminals. In your quote he says "their" laws, referring specifically to the Azish(not sure I spelled that right). He still believes that there must be some law he must adhere to in order to execute people.

The Shallan acolyte acted differently. He premeditated his murder, he wasn't caught in a contradiction. Shallan wasn't a confirmed criminal as far as we know. He didn't tell his superiors about Shallan(probably) or ask for their help. He must have know that the highspren and Nale wouldn't approve, which is why I don't think it makes logical sense for him to be acting out of ambition. The only way this makes sense is if Nale and the highspren don't know what an accomplice to murder is, which is laughable considering what happened to Ym. 

It would make much more sense if he was simply a zealot who was sacrificing his future as a skybreaker to kill a radiant. Which is still strange for several reasons, but at least it's somewhat consistent. 

Edited February 7, 2018 by Varenus

[WhiteLeeopard]

Only thing I'm almost certain will happen on the time skip is increase of KR, troops movements and minor battles. 

What I'm most curious what will happen during the year is from Szeth, Ash and Taln. I guess Taln could be semi-comatose for the entire year, but Szeth and Ash know too much, and are very well known figures. Just their presence would be quite a splash, that I can't imagine not appearing on-screen, either at the time or a flashback. I would love to see an eventual fight between Ash and Taln and some of the Heralds siding with Odium .

While I am fine with eventual death and 9/10 casualties, doing that from the start is not smart, as if that happens humans just lose all hope, or do crazy things from the beginning. Plus we already saw a nearly planet wide destruction on HoA.

On Iri: they didn't want the Plate for an alliance. They wanted the Plate just to begin talking to each other. 

[hypatia]

On the plate - this is exactly the reason, why I think it'll become important.

Even just to start talking with one another it would have been easy for Dalinar to give it back to the former owners.

But there's the problem - who are the rightful owner - the Iriali or the Riran?

Had Evi and Toh stolen the Plate or saved it from the Iriali?

What is so important about it, that in this situation all the queen of Iri is thinking about is this Plate? For me it looks like even if Dalinar had given it back, they still would have sided with the Fused.

What do we know about Rira?

It's even possible Evi was the queen in exile or something and this Plate the symbol of her rightfulness.

I was happy that it was mentioned that Toh is still alive and hope he will get a go. Sometimes I thought he don't act so much as a brother than a bodyguard. And what with a female as the heir of a Plate?

All in all I see the decision to not give it back more as a plotwise decision of Brandon Sanderson.

[Isilel]

14 hours ago, Varenus said:

And what crime did this acolyte pin on child Shallan that gave him the excuse to try and kill her?

Many/most of the nascent Radiants wouldn't have had a convenient criminal history. Breaking can happen in a lot of different ways, most of which wouldn't bring a person into the conflict with the law. So, the Skybreakers must have developed strategies for eliminating such people while upholding their own twisted code, otherwise there would be a lot more Radiants around. Which is why I doubt that they would see this:

14 hours ago, Varenus said:

 Even if Shallan's mother was the one doing the murdering, the acolyte would still be a willing accomplice and thus guilty.

as a crime. In fact, the only avenue for them to proceed against law-abiding targets would have  been to convince other people to kill them without outright hiring assassins and/or to manipulate and manouevre their victims into situations where they would be likely to get killed. That's exactly what happened to Tien, IMHO.

Now, according to that Ghostblood letter, Nale could also somehow find people in the early stages of the bonding and somehow get them bonded to the highspren instead - and that may be how he dealt with some of the innocent, law-abiding nascent Radiants, but Shallan, for example, was already beyond that. Not to mention that a candidate needs to be at least somewhat compatible to the Order, as far as I understand it, and not every prospective Radiant could get over this hurdle with the rigid Skybreakers or to accept their twisted code.

 

[galendo]

22 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

So... two details about Nohadon's numbers.

1. He doesn't specify whether or not that 9 out of 10 casualty count is worldwide, just his lands, or an estimate from the lands he can still contact. He may have been in an area that was hit harder, for all we know.
2. His Desolation also lasted eleven years. By the start of Book 4, we'll have only been in Desolation for about 10% of that time. As you said, "Alethkar is a good start." But it's just that: the start. Give it time.

I think he says something like "nine out of ten people I ruled", which means the number apply to him.  But then he mentions that a couple other countries were hit even worse.  So he may have been hit harder than most, but he wasn't the only one hit pretty darn hard.

The point about us still being in the beginning of the Desolation is pertinent, but there isn't very much time left if we're going to get it wrapped up by the end of book five.  If I knew the Desolation lasts all the way into the second series, I wouldn't be so antsy.  But I thought that Brandon made some comments about wanting to do two mini-series rather than one long one, and it would be a bit weird to not get the Desolation wrapped up in this series if so.

21 hours ago, maxal said:

I more or less agree with you on oaths. I do love your later post on the matter, I do want to read meaningful characters say oaths on-screen, but I do not personally need to have every minor character speak theirs unless it makes sense. For instance, I am perfectly fine with not having read none of Jasnah's and Renarin's. I much preferred having read Teft and, to a lesser extend, Lopen. In the matter of OB, I would say there weren't many opportunities for anyone to say oaths early on: Kaladin/Shallan are already so advanced, it would make it too easy if they could go through 4-5 oaths within a few weeks.

Well, Lopen's Oath was basically a gag and could have come at any time.  I'd even say it's a bit weird for Lopen to be so far behind Teft, since Lopen is always shown on-screen as being more advanced than the rest of Bridge Four (among the first to suck in Light, an early user of adhesion, the first to reverse gravity that we see).  Then Teft says his Oath out of nowhere and it turns out that Lopen's still stuck on the first one.  I feel like the flow would have been a lot better if Lopen's and Teft's earlier Oaths had come, well, earlier.

There were reasons not to show any of Renarin's Oaths, though I do feel it's a bit weird that Jasnah's maybe done with her Oaths and we still haven't seen a single one.  I can see not showing the Oath that gave her Shardplate (if she has in fact said it), since that's a surprise to save for next book.  But it seems like we should have seen something.

Quote

Is the Iri problem hard to solve? I guess not, but then again, if it were as easy as giving away a Plate, then why hasn't Dalinar done it? It seems like such a small price to pay to secure a powerful alliance and yet, it wasn't offer as a solution. I suspect the Iriali want Adolin's Plate specifically. There has to be a reason for it which is why I keep on thinking this arc is not over. I hope it isn't over. Brandon cannot swept every single story arcs he spins over Adolin's character and his relationship with Dalinar under the rug as he did with Sadeas.

But even if the Iriali want Adolin's Plate specifically, just give it to them.  Then before Adolin goes onto the battlefield again, give him Renarin's Plate to wear.  It's...I dunno, it seems a really simple problem to solve.  This is one story arc I'd be happy to see quickly and easily resolved.

You do make some good points about Evi, too.  I don't know that I'd like to see the story go that direction with Adolin, but I could see the truth about what happened to her wrecking any possible alliance with the Iriali.  If the alliance were to have difficulties, it seems more plausible for it to run into snags because Dalinar killed his wife than because he refuses to give back a set of Plate that he doesn't really need anymore anyway.

Not that I can really see "ally with Odium" as a believable alternative, either, but maybe.  Odium seems to be able to put on a pretty good show when he wants to, and we don't really know anything about Iri or how their parshmen reacted when the Everstorm hit or anything like that.  But unless the Shardplate is just an excuse, it seems like a pretty weak justification to fail to ally against the literal embodiment of hatred.

21 hours ago, RShara said:

I just think Shallan is way too young and immature to be a mother.  Ditto with Adolin.  She's what, 17, 18, so slightly less than 20 Earth years?  WAY too young for bearing children to be healthy, physically and emotionally.

Maybe it depends how you look at it?  There have been plenty of Earth cultures where having children at 13 or 14 was the norm.  Plus, I mean, the girl's getting married.  Turns out children can come whether the mother's ready for them or not.

To be clear, I don't much care whether Shallan has a child or not when we come back to Roshar again.  I could go either way.  It's plausible that it happens; it's also plausible that it doesn't.  But if she's ever going to have one, a year-long time-skip is a great place to have it happen.

18 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

What I'm most curious what will happen during the year is from Szeth, Ash and Taln. I guess Taln could be semi-comatose for the entire year, but Szeth and Ash know too much, and are very well known figures. Just their presence would be quite a splash, that I can't imagine not appearing on-screen, either at the time or a flashback. I would love to see an eventual fight between Ash and Taln and some of the Heralds siding with Odium .

Yeah.  Szeth, in particular, seems a hard one to deal with.  What do you do with Szeth for an entire year?  You could have him deal with the Shin shamanate (and return with Ash's Honorblade), but that doesn't seem like it would take a full year.  But having him hanging around Urithiru with the rest of the Radiants seems like it would engender some...mixed feelings among the Alethi, not to mention nagging doubts among the other rulers in the alliance.

I'm not sure that you need to get Ash or Taln out of the way, though.  No one would recognize them (even the names they go by aren't widespread knowledge), and it's not like they're really in fighting shape.  Well, Taln definitely isn't, and we haven't seen evidence that Ash has kept in practice.  They could easily just hang around as general advisers.  Or maybe Ash decides to hunt down the Herald of Healing on Taln's behalf.  There's quite a few unexciting things they could do for a year.

[The One Who Connects]

2 minutes ago, galendo said:

I think he says something like "nine out of ten people I ruled", which means the number apply to him.  But then he mentions that a couple other countries were hit even worse.  So he may have been hit harder than most, but he wasn't the only one hit pretty darn hard.

I don't remember him saying "that I ruled," but it's been a while, and it's not an unreasonable assumption to think he was lamenting the people he ruled, given he was speaking to his advisor(sorta). Fair enough.

4 minutes ago, galendo said:

If I knew the Desolation lasts all the way into the second series, I wouldn't be so antsy.  But I thought that Brandon made some comments about wanting to do two mini-series rather than one long one, and it would be a bit weird to not get the Desolation wrapped up in this series if so.

If the Desolation gets wrapped up, that means dealing with the Everstorm Respawn Point too.
But with both of those dealt with, what's left to be Brandon's through-line?

Quote

Link389
With Stormlight being in your mind 2 five book arcs, is there still a single "through-line" so to speak (aka, the Everstorm, A clash with Odium, or the like).

Brandon Sanderson
Yes.

[RShara]

Yeah, with super high infant and maternal mortality...

Shallan would likely be ok but...

And then there's the mental and emotional part...

Edited February 8, 2018 by RShara

[galendo]

4 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

If the Desolation gets wrapped up, that means dealing with the Everstorm Respawn Point too.
But with both of those dealt with, what's left to be Brandon's through-line?

You could easily deal with the Desolation and the Everstorm Respawn Point without dealing with the Everstorm itself, though.  Heck, just convincing all the Parshendi not to sacrifice themselves for their gods (which, in most cases, probably just means letting the Parshendi know that opening themselves to their gods will straight-up kill them, not just change their form, since so far the Fused are basically getting their hosts by deceit) would probably be enough to end or at least severely curtail the respawn nature of the storm.

In contrast to the Desolation Respawn Point, though, the Everstorm is likely here for the long haul.  But it's not that big of a deal, really.  By itself, the Everstorm is basically just a highstorm that doesn't recharge spheres.  This is not much of a problem for Roshar in general.  It was only super-destructive because they weren't prepared for it.

I'm also imagining that Odium is still around, too.  You know, go for a "defeated but not vanquished" type of ending, at least for the first series.  The only thing that really has to end for a satisfying conclusion to the mini-series is probably the Desolation.  And, of course, whatever the Night of Sorrows is.

[maxal]

21 hours ago, Mage of Lirigon said:

Even if it was Adolin's Plate they wanted, wouldn't Dalinar have just given it to them.? After all the talking he did to form the coalition, he doesn't realy have a choicr in the matter anyway.

All we were currently told is the Iriali Queen refused to enter parley if Dalinar continues to refuse to hand over "what he has stolen" a long time ago. Dalinar muses over the fact it might be an acceptable price to pay and then the arc is forgotten. Next time we hear about the Iriali, it is to learn they have sided with the Voidbringers. Dalinar, it seems, never really had the time nor the opportunity to respond: it seems the ultimatum he was given was expiring rather quickly.

I am curious about it. Dalinar's reluctance to hand over the Shardplate is reasonable, according to Navani the Iriali have no claim on this Plate and then, it is over. The Iriali Queen clearly had no intentions to allow Dalinar sufficient time to think about his options and to reply: it was either right now or never. As a result, it made me think the entire exchange was rigged in advance: the Iriali never had any intentions of siding with Dalinar, the Plate was just an excuse, but it does raise an interesting question: "Who the heck were Evi and Toh?".

I also found it odd the Iriali Queen would accuse Dalinar of having stolen the Plate: he stole nothing. He married Evi whom presumably stole the Plate. It belonged to her, not to Dalinar. In fact, I'd wager it never belonged to Dalinar: it first belonged to Evi, then to Adolin, but I don't think Dalinar ever had an ownership over this specific Shardplate, so why accuse him of theft?

17 hours ago, hypatia said:

On the plate - this is exactly the reason, why I think it'll become important.

Even just to start talking with one another it would have been easy for Dalinar to give it back to the former owners.

But there's the problem - who are the rightful owner - the Iriali or the Riran?

Had Evi and Toh stolen the Plate or saved it from the Iriali?

What is so important about it, that in this situation all the queen of Iri is thinking about is this Plate? For me it looks like even if Dalinar had given it back, they still would have sided with the Fused.

What do we know about Rira?

It's even possible Evi was the queen in exile or something and this Plate the symbol of her rightfulness.

I was happy that it was mentioned that Toh is still alive and hope he will get a go. Sometimes I thought he don't act so much as a brother than a bodyguard. And what with a female as the heir of a Plate?

All in all I see the decision to not give it back more as a plotwise decision of Brandon Sanderson.

I personally felt much was left unsaid when it came to the Shadplate, to Evi, to Toh and to why they had to run away from Rira. Who were they? I have somehow come to suspect Evi and Toh might have been Riran royalty, though I did question why the Plate belonged to Evi and not Toh... I'll admit I never entertained the idea Toh might not have been Evi's brother, but her guardian. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. I did wonder why Toh chose to exile himself to Herdaz, far away from his sister and his nephews. Why would he do such a think? Wouldn't he want to stay close to his last living relative? However, if Evi isn't really his sister, then it makes more sense. It also adds a lot of significance over Toh adding provisions over provisions within Dalinar and Evi marriage contract. It also explains why the Plate belongs to Evi and not to him: it belongs to her because she the heir, not him.

A part of me also wonder if our favorite reluctant not-king isn't also the heir of some distant throne in far-away country.... If this is true however, then Dalinar's sons are a risk hazard for the Iriali: if one of the thrones were to be inherited by a powerful Alehi family, then what would it mean for the Iriali union with her vassals? If Rira is suddenly backed by Alethkar, then it may over-throw Iriali... There may be more to the story then we were told and somehow I suspect Gavilar didn't ask much questions when the refuse asked for solace.

Hence, the fact Iriali is thinking of using an old event as a means to pressure Dalinar or as an excuse to side against him makes me think it isn't as unimportant as it initially seems.

I'll however admit it may be yet another Red Herring... Brandon has gotten good with OB at dropping story arcs he previously introduced, I hope he will lose the habit.

50 minutes ago, galendo said:

Well, Lopen's Oath was basically a gag and could have come at any time.  I'd even say it's a bit weird for Lopen to be so far behind Teft, since Lopen is always shown on-screen as being more advanced than the rest of Bridge Four (among the first to suck in Light, an early user of adhesion, the first to reverse gravity that we see).  Then Teft says his Oath out of nowhere and it turns out that Lopen's still stuck on the first one.  I feel like the flow would have been a lot better if Lopen's and Teft's earlier Oaths had come, well, earlier.

There were reasons not to show any of Renarin's Oaths, though I do feel it's a bit weird that Jasnah's maybe done with her Oaths and we still haven't seen a single one.  I can see not showing the Oath that gave her Shardplate (if she has in fact said it), since that's a surprise to save for next book.  But it seems like we should have seen something.

I don't agree Teft and Lopen's oath should have come earlier. Teft was clearly meant to be part of the last climax and it had a progression of its own. Lopen, I think Lopen has another purpose entirely. I believe with Lopen, Brandon has chosen to show us how an unbroken open-minded individual may become a Radiant, but it wouldn't have been right for him to make the bond work before Teft.

I personally consider Jasnah to be a relatively minor character within the story so far. I am fine with her not saying oaths on screen. I think readers always expect more out of Jasnah because Brandon has spoken a lot about her, but truth is she won't be a major player until many more years.

54 minutes ago, galendo said:

But even if the Iriali want Adolin's Plate specifically, just give it to them.  Then before Adolin goes onto the battlefield again, give him Renarin's Plate to wear.  It's...I dunno, it seems a really simple problem to solve.  This is one story arc I'd be happy to see quickly and easily resolved.

You do make some good points about Evi, too.  I don't know that I'd like to see the story go that direction with Adolin, but I could see the truth about what happened to her wrecking any possible alliance with the Iriali.  If the alliance were to have difficulties, it seems more plausible for it to run into snags because Dalinar killed his wife than because he refuses to give back a set of Plate that he doesn't really need anymore anyway.

Not that I can really see "ally with Odium" as a believable alternative, either, but maybe.  Odium seems to be able to put on a pretty good show when he wants to, and we don't really know anything about Iri or how their parshmen reacted when the Everstorm hit or anything like that.  But unless the Shardplate is just an excuse, it seems like a pretty weak justification to fail to ally against the literal embodiment of hatred.

Adolin's Plate belonged to his mother: it may mean something to him. It is something he got from her, perhaps the last memory to carry with him. Others may not care about this tiny detail, but I could see it bothering Adolin though he has shown to be very pragmatic at times.Either way, Dalinar didn't respond quickly enough, the Iriali went their own way.

What I found interesting about the arc was the potential for conflict it created... After ignoring said conflicts in OB, I'd love for Brandon to steer his boat towards them once again. Oathbringer was such an... emotion-less book for me.

As for Adolin, he spent the entire book thinking he was not worthy of his father, he refuses to be the king: one could think the ground-work was laid down for him to get a revelation within the next book. There is also this scene, in Shadesmar, where Adolin speaks of how his mother was murdered. Clearly, his emotions on the matter were still raw: there was something there. Brandon made Adolin speak of his mother to Shallan/Kaladin, he made him state he believes Sadeas torched the Rift, his father being faultless. Why bother to write a moment where Adolin speaks of the event if not to use it later on? It served no purpose for Adolin to voice those thoughts out within the narrative, hence it must have another purpose.

The Shardplate, I suspect, was an excuse. The Iriali never had the intentions to side with Dalinar. If Evi is royalty, then Dalinar's sons are threats.