Jump to content

Kaurne

Members
  • Posts

    50
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Kaurne's Achievements

21

Reputation

  1. In fact, the Skybreakers name fits especially well, since they both fly ad use Destruction (i.e. break things)
  2. The Skybreakers didn't break their oaths because they see holding to oaths - even wrong oaths - as the most important thing one can do. Nalan calls it the only true beauty in all the world. I'll expand on this theory a bit later, but here's the gist of it. Honor is an idea, but an idea with many facets. Consequently, the ten different forms of spren all have different ideas about what is 'right'. This is why Syl desn't like Cryptics; they have very different ideas of what Honor actually means. The SKybreakers have a different one, which holds to honor as in 'honoring commitments' - they don't break their oaths, at all. One of the chapter headings supports this by talking about a confrontation between Windrunners and Skybreakers over how to judge some civilians. From what we've seen of the two, their Ideals seem to be very opposed to each other, despite sharing a surge, which might be, symbolically, why Kaladin and Szeth are the ones who had the confrontation and seemed so opposed to each other; the orders (neither of which they were technically part of at that point) were opposed, so they are opposed. When Dalinar is commanded to 'unite them' he isn't being commanded to unit humanity - that's the easy part. He's being commanded to unite the Orders of the Knights Radiant, to ensure they work together to face the True Desolation, because it is only through unity that humanity will survive. That's why he's a Bondsmith and why the chapter heading talked about the Bondsmiths being 3 in number but important. His job is to unify the nine other Orders, to forge bonds between them and work around their conflicting ideals of what is 'right' so that victory can be achieved.
  3. I was about to suggest this, but you got there first. I think the Tension, Cohesion and Division surges are the key bits. Didn't the prelude to the series have the Dustbringers doing something that causes scorch marks? We know they have abrasion and division, which is a combination of friction based and destruction based powers. The combination surge of those two sounds like it could be used to create fires or burn things. Also, is it just me, or do the descriptions for Tension and Cohesion sound like the strong and weak intermolecular forces by a different name? If so, how would THOSE powers work?
  4. I have it. I'm from the UK, but got it early. I took 12 hours to read it all, from purchase to finishing it (of those I probably spent 9-10 reading, discounting internet browsing time, two meals, and some travel) although I may have missed some minor details that I'll pick up on with a re read. Are we going to actually make it a competition?
  5. I got a copy from a local bookstore at 3pm yesterday; finished it at 3am today. It's an awesome book, and I can't believe I managed to get it early.
  6. Remember in Dalinar's flashback where he meets the two Knights Radiant? One of them uses 'Three Gods' as a curse. Presumably, all three were known of (not necessarily worshipped) in the past - or maybe were worshipped by different peoples. Look at the difference between 'rule' and 'reign'. There's a subtle difference - as I've said before, the Queen of England reigns but does not rule, because she has no real constitutional power. In the same way, I think in the past, all Three Gods were worshipped - so all three ruled. Now, however, Honor appears to be worshipped by the major world religion, Vorinism, and its offshoots - yet Honor is splintered and cannot exercise his power (presumably since he doesn't have a mind to do so) - and so 'reigns'.
  7. While it's an interesting idea, I actually think the Broken One might not actually refer to either of them individually - it's a moniker that fits both Honor and Odium, and it might be used to describe both or mean both.
  8. Okay, so I was browsing wikipedia articles on divination because I was interested, and found several intriguing passages. First, from here Particularly the bit about the 16 geomantic figures being split into four elemental sets, and split into two sets a multiple of ways (stable/mobile, partial/impartial, diurnal/nocturnal) struck me as being quite similar to the way Allomancy is set up. Then I kept looking, and found this Here a similar system is explained because 'The number 16 holds important significance in Yoruba Mythology as it was the purported number of original divinities that established life on earth.' Doesn't that sound like Shards? I mean, this is probably a coincidence, but it does seem rather similar; does anyone know if it is a coincidence or not?
  9. That's a really weird thought. How would they actually, you know, have sex? Do they just bump their nexuses together while the appropriate music plays? Do they take mortal form? What?
  10. Wait. Metalminds are immune to their own abilities, right? So a brassmind doesn't melt, no matter how hot you get? Make a thin brass sword - a rapier, basically. Store heat. Awaken it, with the command that it fills the sword with heat as well as you (or not even you - just make sure it keeps your immunity to the heat), fill it with Breaths and use those up for heat. Using Feruchemy and Awakening, I have invented a lightsaber. Note: While you technically could do this with Awakening 1) it would probably melt the sword and 2) The heat would probably kill the wielder as well. The only reason it works in Star Wars is because supposedly it's actually supercharged plasma contained in a magnetic field and STOP ASKING QUESTIONS LASER SWORDS ARE AWESOME.
  11. Yeah, that seems reasonable, if annoying. Though could you say, multiply the effect by teaming up with bendalloy users? That seems like a reasonably plausible idea for how the southern continent make their magic work. Makes me wonder if Soulcast blood works the same as regular blood in carrying spiritual essence (or whatever). That also makes me wonder how 'dense' investiture can get, why Nightblood seems to have so much more investiture - is there no limit, and Nightblood was just made that way? Or is it related to the Intent of Endowment that allows Nightblood to become more investiture dense? How investiture dense do metalminds get? Could you create a steel sword, use it as a metalmind to store speed, and then awaken it so that it can feed off of Breath to provide you with speed, rather than having to use your own? Steel is the best material for a sword, but what if you stored heat in a brassmind, then awakened it with lots of breaths? If you have enough stored heat it's theorised you can release it explosively, sort of like a bomb (except you're protected) although storing that much heat is really difficult. But what if you used Breaths to fuel it instead? A reusable bomb, centred on yourself but not harming you? Or do you stop being immune to the effects of your own feruchemy once you start using Breath as a fuel? Would that sword make you fast without storing speed, but also mean you couldn't go too fast without your skin catching fire? Would that brassmind harm you with its heat as well, essentially making a magical suicide bomb? When Brandon talks about a 'Conflux' book, does he mean magic systems actually merging, or people having access to multiple magic systems? I don't see why the first would be necessary when there is so much potential just in the second.
  12. Minor thought: Is it possible to stamp yourself so you had a twin, thereby creating a twin? Or am I misunderstanding how Forgery works? Or could you stamp yourself/another person so that another person (say your sibling, to make it stick better) was actually your twin? Could you then use hemalurgy to steal their allomantic/feruchemic/other powers? Would that make the hemalurgic spike not last very long? Can you awaken hemalurgic spikes? Or Shardblades? Lets say you stabbed someone with a hemalurgic spike which had been used to kill someone, but which had the wrong metal used to steal their powers. Could you Soulcast it into the right metal and give them the power? Could you soulstamp yourself into Shadesmar? I'm pretty sure there's a Dakhor ritual to get into Shadesmar, although I don't know how many apprentices you have to kill to do so If you had an enormous amount of Stormlight, could you Reverse Lash an object strongly enough to make it into a black hole? [Note: the science behind this works. Every object has something called a Schwarzchild radius, based on its mass, which is the radius at which, if the object was compressed (keeping its mass) to a sphere of that radius, then the escape velocity at the surface would be c, the speed of light. If an object is smaller than its Schwarzchild radius, it becomes a black hole. The Earth has a Schwarzchild radius of around 0.9mm, the Sun 3km or so. The Schwarzchild radius is proportional to an object's mass, which a Reverse lashing doesn't increase, but gravity is also a variable where Surgebinding is concerned - give and object a Reverse Lashing, you increase its gravitational pull but not its mass, and you also (very slightly) increase it's Schwarzchild radius. Give it a big enough Reverse Lashing, it becomes a Black Hole (in theory).] Most of these ideas probably don't work, but a couple might lead to interesting places.
  13. I've hypothesised before that magic on Roshar has 3 gods sharing the surges between them: I'd like to extend this - I was prompted to expand this by Kiwi's thread on symmetry here: In addition, Brandon has said we've seen three kinds of Shardblade in tWoK So here's my theory: The Three Gods on Roshar share EVERYTHING. They share their magic systems, which are accessed via different means but produce the same, or similar, effects. They share shardblades, of which there are three kinds; Honorblades, Odiumblades and Cultivationblades. They are called 'Shard'blades because that is the catch all term for them - blades granted by Shards. Over time, the knowledge that they are separate has been lost, and they are merely referred to as Shardblades. I think the most common ones we see are Odiumblades, Taln has an Honorblade, and Szeth may have a Cultivationblade. This is why symmetry is so important on Roshar. The Gods literally reflect each other - they share the powers and the abilities, and let beliefs be the deciding factor. Now that I write that, though, it seems weird. Cultivation doesn't sound like the type to have Blades, and Cultivation's magic system, partly based on fabrials and partly based on something else (and maybe including the Old Magic, a 'cousin' of voidbinding), might not fit into my 3 gods sharing 10 surges idea, so what's the alternative? Cultivation's magic is based on 10 because that's an important number on Roshar. However, The thing with Honor and Odium goes deeper than that. I like to think that Honor and Odium are opposites. I know that a lot of people think Devotion and Odium are opposites, but I have previously speculated that we are misinterpreting the Intent of Shard based on one word names and that Odium is about creating division With that in mind, I'm going to suggest that Odium and Honor made an arrangement (this might be part of the Oathpact) that changed the way their magic systems worked, making them opposites of each other. This might explain why 'Voidbinding' is referred to as seeing the future a couple of times - that's what it was based on before the arrangement. This explains why, even when Honor lived, there didn't seem to be crossover magic systems between the Gods - Honor and Odium agreed not to do that, which meant Cultivation couldn't either. This is why symmetry is important on Roshar - Honor and Odium are, in one view, reflections of each other. Honor binds men together, Odium drives them apart. I reckon that they basically had an ideological conflict, and decided that instead of having a direct shard-to-shard fight, they were going to see which of their ideas, Honor or Odium, was more potent when wielded by men (and other sentients, I guess). That is why their magic systems are (in my prediction) similar. It's because they wanted their conflict to be about the ideals, not the specific powers. This explains why they access the magic in different ways - because that's tied into the Ideals men follow. I'm pretty sure the Heralds and the Unmade/Fools/whatever were part of this, but I'm not sure how yet. Anyhow, the Oathpact was dissolved when the Heralds abandoned it in the Prelude. Honor didn't lose, then, I don't think - it simply weakened the Oathpact enough (Taln was still held to it, remember?) that Honor had to fight Odium shard to shard which he eventually lost at. However, Taln has returned - the Oathpact can be salvaged, if the old Heralds return or others take their place. Honor told Dalinar in his last vision that Odium is bound by certain rules and must choose a champion. This relates to this, but I'm not sure how. So yeah, that's how I think Roshar is set up, metaphysically. Feel free to tear this idea to shreds.
  14. Just a quick thought that occurred to me, might have been mentioned before. Odium seems to be focused on driving men apart. Both hating and things that should be hated (the definition of Odium) do this. Honor speaking to Dalinar in his visions implies it; he talks about how Odium's direct assaults were uniting people and he deliberately tried to allow them to become divided by retreating. Odium has attacked Devotion and Dominion, who are speculated to have been working together in some way. He attacked Honor and Cultivation, who were more than working together - they were lovers. My conclusion? Driving things apart is what Odium does. It's his Intent. He creates division, separates people. It's his driving force that defines every thing he does. Brandon has stated that Odium feared Shards uniting like Sazed did. That's because it goes against all he has worked for. In fact, this also explains why he hasn't picked up any of the Shards he has defeated - it would go against his very nature to do so. Maybe what Odium wants is for each Shard to stay on its own and to be on a separate world, and he's willing to attack and Splinter Shards if they refuse - which Honor and Cultivation obviously would, since they were lovers. Many have speculated that Hoid wants to restore Adonalsium. This explains why he has such a specific 'beef' (as Brandon put it) with Odium; Odium wants to keep the Shards sperate, while Hoid wants to unite them again. Anyway, that's what I think Odium is about; division.
  15. Decay sounds too much like Ruin to be a different Shard. I like the whole Physical/Mental/Spiritual/Temporal idea you have (we've got something similar going on in that other thread) but I think the concept of internal and external and pushing and pulling sounds like you're stretching a bit to get them to fit. Obviously, it might turn out that once more Shards appear they all fit perfectly, but I'm not going to support this until we have more evidence. I certainly do think there are groupings - it doesn't seem like Brandon to have all these intricate and complex yet still ordered magic systems, where all the powers can be neatly categorised and placed into relationship diagrams, or can be paralleled in other magic systems, and then have him say about Shards 'No, there's no underlying structure, I just based them around whatever cool idea I had in my head at the time with no thought for larger relationships'. That just doesn't seem like how Brandon does things.
×
×
  • Create New...