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I wasn't the best person for the task, but it needed to be done.

FT strode forward. Because that's what heroic types do, they stride. Normal walking is rather dull. He stood before the candy army, silvery coat rustling in the breeze. He adjusted his spectacles, drew on luck from his metalminds, summoned Narration in the form of a glowing shard blade, and cued the orchestra. "I may have been only a Narrator Psychologist once, I may have only dabbled in Hemawhiskey, and Hermitcraft nights, but no more. I am the Shard of Narration itself. I ascended before you were even thoughts, in a Narrator's mind. I am the Shard of Narration, I have counseled Sophie, I have stood before Astral, I adopted Withy, lord of darkness. (Before he turned dark that is). I am not afraid of your unholy monstrosities. I am a servant of the secret fire, and I stand before you unafraid." Breadmunks began to gather around FT, beating their tiny swords against their tiny shields. "We will never surrender," FT said, "Send out your champion, your greatest warrior, and I will destroy him." Lots of bravado, I'm not exactly sure if I can handle this, but we'll see where it goes -FT

In my quest to turn others towards the enlightenment of Sanderson, I have started writing out the Aonic alphabet on the desk in my biology class and leaving it for the next class. (Yes, desk graffiti is allowed in that class because it erases easily.) I’m doing one a day, so since I started yesterday I will do Aon Aan today. I will do two the day before I am gone for something, so nothing will be missed! Hopefully I convert someone.

EDIT: only after I hit the "post" button did I realize what a novella I managed to put together over a few days on this subject. So in the interest of TLDR (you can read the details below if you want): Luesh is the source of all the info Shallan and her brothers had about where the Soulcaster came from, and that it was now broken. Luesh was involved in coming up with the idea of Shallan seeking out Jasnah. Kabsal's plan to kill Jasnah in Kharbranth would only ever work if a trusted person, like her ward, provided plausible food access to Jasnah. Jasnah pointed out how even a successful theft of a genuine Kholin Soulcaster would have been an act of war against Alethkar itself (an insane risk). Ergo, the GBs via Luesh set up that whole chain of events. But, Luesh having a Ghostblood pendant instead of a tattoo is suspicious So is his conveniently dying in his sleep soon after Shallan departed Heleran being a Skybreaker with dead Shards never smelled right Amaram seemed pretty confident Heleran had been sent by Thaidakar and the GBs Pattern said there were lies Mraize's letter saying Heleran was a Skybreaker Therefore, I submit: Heleran was a GB, who recruited him as a member to gain access to the Davar household, where an Unmade was observed. Someone else in the Davar household (after Helaran's last appearance there) was a GB plant, in addition to Luesh, who was a BG wanna-be like Tyn acting on orders from a shadow Ghostblood in command. The "broken Soulcaster" was planted on Lin Davar for later discovery; the actual Soulcasting (which obviously had occurred) was done by another person with another Soulcaster (too much of a reach to speculate that it was done by a "native born" Surgebinder just yet). I think signs point to one of Shallan's other brothers as being that Davar Ghostblood Behind The Scenes... And of the three, only Wikim seems like a fit. And hey. Just who is Thaidakar anyway? Could it be Wikim Davar?! Nbody would be surprised if he could actually read/write on his own, right? ---- I know the theory that The Davar Soulcaster was a fake all along!! is a longstanding one (I found at least one thread on this dating back to 2012), but rather than revive that zombie thread, I thought I'd add a few thoughts along those lines with a new one. When Shallan first glimpses Jasnah's Soulcaster in TWoK Ch. 5, she thinks to herself that it looked just like the "broken" one they'd found in her father's coat pocket, that even after they'd had a jeweler repair it "no longer worked" - it was "damaged on the same disastrous evening that her father had died", implying it was the very coat he was wearing when he died. That would be the night he was poisoned and then strangled to death by Shallan with her necklace. Seems odd that that would damage a Soulcaster in his coat pocket, doesn't it? It's not like he was stabbed through the coat in a way so as to pierce the fabrial (Balat never came close to stabbing him with his sword), if indeed such an act would be enough to destroy a Soulcaster's function. It's implied that their house steward, Luesh, was the Ghostblood liaison - he arrived to their household shortly before their burst of fortune, was the actual Soulcaster (the one "trained to use the device"), who (claimed) it no longer functioned after the jeweler "repaired" it, and who "died in his sleep" after Shallan had left to try to steal Jasnah's Soulcaster. Only after Luesh passed away did "men claiming to be friends of our father" start visiting the Davar household and who knew he was dead, intimidating her brothers by "implying" they knew about the Soulcaster and "suggested strongly" that it be returned to them, where one of the men visibly bore the same symbol tattooed on his hand as found as a pendant on Luesh's body. On first reading TWoK, the bit about Luesh carrying the GB symbol as a pendant didn't seem particularly signficant, but after two more books, it does. When Mraize "welcomes" Shallan to the Ghostbloods, he notes that "you are required to get a specific tattoo, a symbol of your loyalty. I will send a drawing. You may add it to your person wherever you wish, but must prove it to me when we next meet." A tattoo that the visitor to House Davar bore on the back of his hand, and that Kabsal was found to have "on the inside of his arm". Shallan hasn't done this yet that we know of, but that's a separate topic; the point is that Luesh having it as a pendant (and not a permanent tattoo) doesn't quite jibe with him being a Ghostblood. So what pieces of a puzzle can we try to assemble here? Let's line up the known or implied events in chronological order: After Shallan's mother's death, her father Lin Davar grew increasingly cold, harsh, and violent, with red-gleaming eyes - which a WoB confirms was because he was affected by Odium, and her family influenced by an Unmade during her childhood. Helaran, the exiled "Nan" (eldest son), returns to House Davar to threaten his father with a Shardblade, demanding justice of him for his slain mother. Some time after this, Luesh arrives to join House Davar as the steward. House Davar starts discovering valuable new marble deposits suspiciously easily, when Lin Davar, Luesh, and a surveyor go out looking for them. Lin Davar boasts that their newfound riches will position him to claim the title of highprince, rejecting Balat's request to marry Eylita as "too lowly", and killing his axehound pups when he defies him. When he discovers his second wife Malise has been helping Balat with plans to run away with Eylita, Lin Davar kills her and contemptuously repels Balat's ineffective assault, shattering Balat's legs with a fireplace poker in a frenzy, upon which Shallan poisons him with blackbane tea and then strangles him with a necklace that he'd gifted to her. After Lin Davar is dead, they discover the Soulcaster in an inner pocket of his coat. They confer with Luesh, the trusted steward, what is to be done... Luesh admits to being the Soulcaster (person who used the device) in service to Lin Davar, but says it is damaged, and even after a jeweler repairs it (there must have been visibly broken links or gemstone settings), says he cannot get it to work. Luesh says dangerous people provided the Soulcaster, who will want it back. (Who else would have told them that?) Luesh is in on the decision to pretend Lin Davar was ill or in seclusion, while Shallan went to try to steal Jasnah's Soulcaster to replace it. As Jasnah points out at the end of TWoK this is a kind of insane idea from the get-go, since Jasnah's Soulcaster (if it had been real) would be a treasure of the royal family of Alethkar, and obviously absconding with it would be an act of war Shallan departs in her port-to-port pursuit of Jasnah, settling on Kharbranth as a likely destination for her. Somewhere around this time, in 1172, Helaran appears not just with a Shardblade but also Shardplate, to attempt to kill Amaram. After Kaladin kills him, when Amaram kills all the other survivors from his squad to steal the Shards, Amaram comments to an unnamed attendant, "why would Thaidakar risk this? But who else would it be? The Ghostbloods grow bold..." Luesh dies "in his sleep" soon after Shallan leaves, and a pendant with the Ghostbloods' symbol is found on his body. Some Ghostbloods start visiting the Davar household, clearly knowing Lin Davar is actually dead, and implying they expect their Soulcaster back "or else". Kabsal is a Ghostblood posing as an ardent at the Palaneum when Shallan arrives to Kharbranth to petition Jasnah in person. Kabsal meets Shallan while she is leaving a letter for Jasnah at her alcove in the Palaneum, asking her to reconsider her recent rejection. Kabsal gets friendly with Shallan over the next few months after she becomes Jasnah's ward, bringing fresh bread and jam to share with her. Kabsal dies while trying to kill Jasnah with "backbreaker powder" on the bread while providing himself and Shallan with the antidote in the jam. The Ghostbloods are likely to have known Jasnah was a Surgebinder. Certainly Taravangian having Jasnah Soulcast in his presence (where he could observe how she did it), under the likely pretense of his granddaughter being trapped behind a boulder, implies he, as the head of the Diagram, knew/suspected her nature and wanted to confirm it; so it is very reasonable to think the GBs would have as well, given that Mraize said she had "asssassinated a number of our members" by then. The Ghostbloods seem to have been able to plan ahead to use Shallan's possible role as Jasnah's ward at Kharbranth to place Kabsal at the Palaneum. The plan to get Jasnah to eat bread dusted with poison flour could not realistically have worked without a Shallan type individual as a kind of "Judas goat", as Jasnah could and did simply refuse to see any ardent: he only got Jasnah to (almost) eat some of the bread by having Shallan beg her to do so, in order to be polite to her friend who had been sharing bread and jam with her for so long. Assasinating a known Surgebinder presents certain difficulties, number one being their ability to heal with Stormlight. A very deadly and fast-acting poison consumed unexpectedly is not a bad idea. Yet Kabsal met Shallan in the Palaneum before Jasnah had actually accepted her as a ward, and her being there at all was kind of a crazy act of desperation with Luesh's contribution. It sure sounds like someone in the Davar household was a liaison to the Ghostbloods through at least the point of Shallan leaving on her crazy, Luesh-inspired, Jasnah-targeting mission. But was it (only) Luesh? And after she reads the letter in Oathbringer where Mraize tells Shallan that Helaran was an acolyte of the Skybreakers, Pattern says "there are lies in this letter". My latest theories: Helaran was not a Skybreaker, but a Ghostblood: Amaram was right. Mraize told the truth about seducing him "with displays of Shards and power", which sound a lot more Ghostblood-y than Skybreaker-y, doesn't it? Though Shallan's mother and her unnamed friend wanting to kill her own child in Shallan for being "one of THEM" does sound like a Skybreaker acting on a mandate to root out Surgebinders. Luesh was a Ghostblood wanna-be, kind of like Tyn had been, sent by Heleran so he could keep tabs on what was going on with his family. They only have Luesh's word that he was the one who had operated the Soulcaster, and that it no longer worked. Perhaps instead, there was another Ghostblood present who was actually operating a Soulcaster, who after Lin Davar's death, instructed Luesh to plant a fake one on him... Then killed Luesh while planting the GB pendant on him while making an escape from the household, or while blending back into the household. Why get close to Heleran and Lin Davar in the first place? Because of some kind of "influence of Odium" that appears to have settled around him. An Unmade, one we haven't seen in action yet, like Chemoarish, that the Ghostbloods sought to understand or to control, and perhaps encouraging Heleran's "passion" for vengeance against his father helped fix the Unmade's influence in that location. Per this line of thinking, then, who was The Real Davar Ghostblood (in the household)? The unnamed, undescribed "surveyor"? Kind of weak. One of the other Davar brothers, Balat, Wikim, Jushi? - We have Balat POVs, so pretty much not him. Jushi was barely rescued from being sold into debt slavery, that seems very un-Ghostbloody. Wikim... Hmm? Wikim.... A guys who's kind of like Renarin, if he'd been abused and raised in fear. I'm not going to go so far as to propose Wikim as the true identity of Thaidakar, but man that would be a mind-blower!

We don't know much about era three except that it is going to be around 1980s tech level and something of a spy thriller. However given 80s technology and resources the globe should be pretty well understood. This means that people should know where the perpendicularities are unless someone decides to keep them a secret(IE the government). From this I think we should be looking at a threat that comes from the perpendicularities one that the government wants to keep secret. Aliens! So far what I have proposed is kind of par for the course believe it or not. Landing of aliens have been proposed several times by people on the shard but of the alien species we know I can only think of one that is actually super scary and capable of worldhopping. The sleepless of Roshar. I imagine a Rosharan sleepless with a grab bag of magical gizmos from across the cosmere and some innate abilities that have been acquired as well. Such a villain would be super hard to kill and could be played a lot of different ways. What does the morality of a never sleeping thousand year old immortal look like? What do you all think? Also how on earth does one defeat such a person?

Hi everyone - I'm new to the cosmere, having only read the Mistborn Trilogy and first two books in the Stormlight Archive. I'm blown away by Sanderson's intricate story telling. I just experienced the most confusing conversation wtih a friend who thought I'd signed up on this site as Yashidara. That wasn't me, but I'm curious to see if he figures out this new account is me. Apparently, I need to mention the Aether transcript, though I don't even know what that is. - Leiliel

They share Honor's power and thus they are able to influence the cluster of investiture they are most connected with. Thus each radiant is a potential shareholder for the Honor limited society and their actions, like municipal or corporate bond-manipulation and breaking can have big consecuences for the big company. For example, if a big part of the shareholders suddenly broke their bonds the big company might be in very real danger, especially if it's already got competition. Such an event might lead a big company like Honor to die over a period of time. Source: I just made it up

@Voidus thinking about our newest observer @The Hero of Masks

Welcome to TLT: Infinity War, everyone.

He was still recovering and more or less insubstantial, but he wasn't about to let a bloodbath go down and not watch it. That would be a waste of good entertainment. Michael looked down at the floor, silent. "No," he said at last, his voice trembling just slightly. A voice from behind spoke up quietly. Oh? it asked. Can't they?

I do agree the three estates were (like you said) a political idea and not a 100% exact description of life in Ancien Regime France. I always saw them as one of those things that is both political/classist (I want to make up an external reason for why I can be in charge of you) and legitimately believed. Really, it's like a lot of things in politics today. There are people who hold positions seriously based on real beliefs and values and others who hold those same positions for the political expediency. Either way, though, after I responded to your original post I saw a few of your other replies and I will admit you did put out some good evidence that the lighteyes/darkeyes distinction does have more of a racist element than I originally thought. I still believe it's not -only- racist, but it does have racist elements. I would also be interested to know how something like the Caste system in India worked and if lighteyes/darkeyes is closer to that. I think you are right that lighteyes/darkeyes is not a 1:1 comparison to real world racism and Sanderson probably did this intentionally to avoid being too much like real world issues faced by a lot of his readers. I think he did the same with the Parshmen and slavery, it's not a good 1:1 comparison to real world chattel slavery either. He probably did this intentionally. There are two main reasons why it's not a great example of racism or slavery: 1) It's not racism, because the Parshmen are not a race of humans. Therefore, it cannot be racism. The Parshmen are a different species. I realize this is kind of a semantics argument, but I think it's an important distinction. 2) It's not chattel slavery as we know it in the real world, because the Parshmen were not of human level intelligence during the time of they were used as slaves. The closest equivalent would be if we suddenly discovered a wild herd of horses that had human level intelligence. Then, we found out that humans had intentionally kept the dumbest horses as captive beasts of burden and tried to kill all the intelligent ones. That would create a similar moral challenge to what the Alethi faced when they discovered the Parshendi. Was using horses all that time equivalent to chattel slavery? Is it slavery if we keep doing it now that we know how we got them? I'm not going to say the Alethi responded well to the discovery of the Parshendi - they didn't. But, it's not a 1:1 for chattel slavery. The literal chattel slavery experienced by Kaladin and all the Bridge Crews is a 1:1 comparison to real world chattel slavery.

Definitely portable, though I doubt Ill be able to (safely) have as much current as that Marx stack picture so it will be a thinner/weaker arc. I shouldnt need a full backpack size battery. The battery chemistry is going to be the deciding factor there, I need something that is tolerant of high current and quick discharge. I cant use normal alkaline batteries, but I have had good luck with rechargeable Nickel–metal hydride before (ran a similar system off 8 energizer AA's once upon a time). The vaping trend has led to some great strides in small, consumer available Lithium-Ion which are perfect for what I need (vapes are basically just blasting as much wattage as they can through a heating element) and they are getting better, safer, and cheaper by the day. Worst case I can get some low profile Lead Acid batteries at the local Batteries Plus store, I was pleasantly surprised at how small some of them are, I'd only ever seen the big brick style for engines. Picture time, my crystal Transformers have arrived! I have some bare ones, but I on the advice of a helpful redditor was able to get a pre-built driver circuit that were made for laptop screen backlighting. I have to figure out what all the input pins do, which will be a whole other puzzle (that Im going to try crowd-sourcing to reddit). GRound is easy to figure out, but I need to figure out the main power rail and it has a power control/trhottle in there somewhere. I've been able to track down a datahsheet for the main control chip (the big square one) but it has a lot of options and Im not sure which they are using here. Oh, to be clear the coil in the middle is a balancing inductor, the actual crystal transformer is the black thing on the far left

I picked it up at the local library knowing nothing about it except that it had been highly rated on Goodreads. I thought, "Oh, sweet, adult Harry Potter meets Avatar: The Last Airbender." A school type of book, no doubt with the usual cliches, with some...poppies, apparently. I was picturing something maybe like Eon by Alison Goodman. Oh man, I was wrong. I was so very wrong. This book is definitely grimdark. It lulls you into thinking it is a normal fantasy until a certain point, when it hits you, and just keeps pummeling you. I personally struggle with grimdark fantasy, because I need incredibly compelling characters and a strong plot to keep me from setting it aside. There needs to be a reason for me to push myself through this pain. I finished The Poppy War, and found it a vivid book with strong worldbuilding and nicely flawed characters. I did not set it down and cease to pick it up, even though I was compelled to multiple times. I finished it, then researched what the inspirations came from, because some scenes are so...specific...that either the author was secretly a murderer, or she had really done her research. I won't be reading the next in the series, because the book made me sad enough to prove it was well written, but didn't have enough to convince me to continue to put myself in pain. I can't say whether or not I'd recommend it, since normally I suggest books that make people happy, or at least satisfied, at the end. Books that I myself enjoyed reading. Finishing The Poppy War was kind of like watching a vividly grotesque scene in a movie. I finished it early February and I am getting a stomach ache just thinking about it. But maybe I'm just thin skinned.

(((I am officially giving up on write-ups, sorry!))) --- Araris Valerian has been arrested! They were an Heir of a First Citizen First Citizen and a Disputer. Kynedath has been killed! They were a member of the Defiant Defense Force. Vote Count: Araris Valerian (4) - Kynedath, Zillah, Rathmaskal, StrikerEZ!Coda Zillah (2) - Araris Valerian, Fifth Scholar, Abstrusity Player List Available at the Quartermaster This turn ends Wednesday, February 26 at 10 p.m. PST.

Kaladin distrusts Lighteyes in general, because they have all treated him badly, but he does not discriminate against lighteyes who show themselves to be good people, as shown by the fact that he likes the wall guard, trusts the Kholins, and allows Lighteyes into bridge four. He distrusts them because in general, the lighteyes in power are corrupt. But when he is given reason to trust them, he does so.

Howdy all, This is my first post on this forum; it's great to be here! Although I have perused this site for some time, please excuse me if this theory has been previously stated. I also wanted to mention that I heard this theory from a close friend, and I have added slightly to it. So the credit (or criticism) goes to him! In short, I believe that Brandon used the word "capacity" in a purposefully ambiguous way; the interpretation of this term has series-altering potential. Let's first separate fact from assumption. Fact 1: Taravangian was given his condition by asking for "the capacity" to save mankind. Fact 2: Taravangian's condition is defined by a sliding scale of attributes. As he grows more intelligent, he becomes less compassionate and vice versa. Essentially, Taravangian's character is defined by four traits--intelligence, stupidity, ruthlessness, and compassion. Assumption: Taravangian's "capacity" to save mankind is referring to his attributes of intelligence and ruthlessness--to a lesser extent) Specifically, it has granted him the capacity to have that outlier day of supreme intelligence, the day where the Diagram was created. There are several reasons why I believe that the above assumption is wrong. 1. Odium's Encounter--At the end of Oathbringer, Odium displays such a degree of foreknowledge and sheer intelligence that the predictions of the Diagram and Taravangian's potential intelligence seem inconsequential in comparison. Taravangian, based upon his intelligence and ability to make ruthless decisions, never stood a chance. He never had the "capacity" in this way. 2. The Diagram's Degree of Error--As the series progresses, the Diagram seems to stray further and further off course. Although some characters initially chalk this off to misinterpretation, it becomes clear that Diagram is flawed based upon unforeseen results. This concept is further reinforced through other characters, such as Renarin, predicting the future incorrectly. 3. Taravangian's Own Experience--Lastly, Taravangian himself notes that his outlying days are very similar. When he is both incredibly intelligent and stupid, he cannot interact with humans in a meaningful way. Also, his decisions when he is most intelligent/ruthless seem to actually be incredibly stupid (i.e. killing off his subjects for being stupid etc.). In short, the above reasons, especially in view of Taravangian's story arc, show that his intelligence/ruthlessness never even came close to giving him the capacity to save mankind. This does not seem in keeping with what we know about the Nightwatcher/Old Magic. Instead, I believe that Taravangian's "capacity" comes from his more neglected attributes--his potential for compassion and/or for extreme stupidity. These attributes will increase in importance as his character becomes more aligned with Odium. His stupidity may thwart Odium at some critical point, and his compassion is not compatible with being an effective ally of Odium. In a way, Taravangian seems very alike to Gollum. Each are maligned characters that may unintentionally tip the balance in the favor of good, and each are intrinsically tied to the trait of compassion--Gollum to Frodo's compassion and Taravangian to his very own. Furthermore, all this is in keeping with what we know about the Old Magic--namely, that boons are indeed granted but often in ways that are unforeseen/unconventional. Please let me know what you think. Regardless of whether it happens or not, this could lead to a very redemptive/beautiful story arc and could be a very Sandersonian twist. TLDR: Taravangian's capacity to save mankind refers to his compassion/stupidity rather than his intelligence/ruthlessness.

Oh the contrary, Kaladin's opinion is similar to marginalized groups irl, and him being on the marginalized side of his society, Kaladin is not racist or classist. He has no structural power to enforce against the people higher than him. If a lighteyes doesn't like Kaladin, they can use the caste system against Kaladin to punish him, especially more than they would be able to against a fellow lighteyes. When Kaladin doesn't like a lighteyes, they punish him. He loses in both scenarios. Acting as though Kaladin hurting a lighteyed person's feelings is in any way equivalent to a lighteyes also hurting his feelings, disregarding his life, enslaving him, pressing a red hot brand to his face, being on the bridge crews... Kaladin wasn't born or raised with this opinion of lighteyes, either, it wasn't a product of society. Kaladin is prejudiced and getting over it, but it was multiple repeated circumstances of extending his trust and having it thrown in his face that got him there. It stems from actual mistreatment, that he had no recourse against, and mistreatment that was legal and considered the right of the lighteyes who did it. I consider systemic racism the most accurate definition, and some people say racism when they mean prejudice. The worst thing he can do, if following the rules of the caste system, is hurt someone's feelings, and he could be punished for even that much. Kaladin is not racist. He experiences resentment and anger at a group of people he's repeatedly had abuse and hurt him, personally, people he thought he could trust and believe in. His feelings are entirely legitimate and he's suspicious of the lighteyes he meets, but it hasn't stopped him from realizing that people like the Kholins are still worthwhile, and given his circumstances and life story, the fact that he takes a while to trust them is completely reasonable.

I think we are using the wrong term here. I believe Kaladin is less racist then classist. He doesn't necessarily have a problem with people's eye come so much as their status. This is why he accepts the "tenners" so easily. They are near his same class and so he doesn't have a problem with them. The reason it seems like racism is because he's always saying "light eyes." The thing is, the alethi don't have a term for nobility. This is down in Kaladin and Teft's inability to understand how the horn eaters government works. I think a better analogy for the situation on Roshar would be the nobility and peasants of medieval Europe. Kaladin has a problem with those who are in power, not those with light eyes. The problem is that in Roshar those things entertwine so much that it is hard, even for people on Roshar, to distinguish between the two. Basically, Kaladin hates people in power, but since all the people in power are light eyes, he transfers that anger towards them. Here's another reason why I don't think he's racist. He tries to take Shen in and treat him equally. Now, I know he doesn't always do the best at fulfilling that ideal, but he tries harder then anyone else we see in the book to work with and even treat equally a parshman.

As a person of color living in the US, I tend to bow out on conversations like these because it's a very emotionally charged subject. That being said, I personally believe that any group can be racist towards any other group. Racism can be found to a greater or lesser degree among nearly all people. However if one belongs to the dominant group then they are both in the position to deny the groups they find lesser opportunities to be better and less effected by the opinions of those not in power. I can have a negative opinion about Warren Buffett because of his race; it might hurt his feelings. If he happened to hate black people he has the potential to set my prospects and my family's prospects back for generations.

I think the term "racist" is a little difficult in this case because it has - understandably - a very negative connotation. But there are different "levels" of racism of course. Hitler was racist. That's obvious. Washington and Jefferson were racist. They owned slaves and believed black people to be inferior - but they were at least very uncomfortable about it. Not nearly enough to justify slave ownership of course, but, still, they were rather harmless in comparison to Hitler. And finally there are the Jews in Nazi-Germany. When you are a Jew in the 1930s, you really dislike the Germans of course, for very understandable reasons. Technically that means they are racist - but because that term is very negative, saying "The Jews in Nazi-Germany were racist" is a statement that leaves a really bad taste in your mouth. In Kaladin's case, there definitely is a sort of prejudice, but whether it is racist or classist or neither is hard to tell. Generally, the lighteyes subjugate the darkeyes via economic and political means, they occupy all the priviliged and prestigious positions etc. Furthermore, Kaladin's prejudices are confirmed all the time - after all, Dalinar is the only one who appears to have some minimum of tolerance towards darkeyes. I think Kaladin definitely doesn't believe Lighteyes to be inferior in any way - he expects them to be amoral bastards, not to be stupid and inherently bad in any way. It's the old nature-vs-nurture-argument. Kaladin knows Lighteyes are raised with a sense of superiority, that they are accustomed to having power and that is why they act the way they do. His prejudice is a result of his experiences, so I don't think that he believes in an inherent untrustworthiness of Lighteyes since birth. He hates Lighteyes because they - like Laral and Roshone - think they are better than him and his fellow darkeyes. Is the hatred of a community due to an attitude or an ideology that has become the predominant worldview among members of that community synonymous with racism, if said community happens to be united by racial aspects? I am once again going to do the Nazi comparison here (the cheapest of all argumentative techniques, I know...). If, say, a Russian or a Polish during WW2 says: "The Germans want to take over Europe, they are evil", then that is - technically - a prejudice. "The Germans" were, after all, a very heterogeneous group, just barely similiar enough to be called "a people". Politically, they had been divided, and there were countless Germans who supported the Nazis due to economical reforms, their good immage, a desire for less conflict in domestic politics, their hard stance against the Versailles treaty et cetera. Almost no one saw the Holocaust or the attempt to conquer Europe coming - they should have, and, when it happened, they mostly went along with it. But there were a lot of Germans who didn't want the war or the mass executions. Saying "Germans want to conquer Europe/slaughter the Slavs and Jews/started the war, and therefore are evil" is wrong, because on an individual level, the majority of Germans were against those things. However, as a community, "the German People" if seen as a united entity, definitely did start the war and went through with the Holocaust. Many individuals in Germany were often against the war as individuals but not to the point where they would have actually shared their doubts or attempt to change things on a societal level. There's a thin, but existing, line between (correctly) saying "the Germans wanted the war" and (incorrectly and possibly racistically) saying: "All Germans wanted the war", just like there's a difference between saying "the Americans voted for Trump" and saying "Every American voted for Trump" or between "Children love clowns" and saying "All children love clowns". I would therefore not say that a dislike of a group, based on experiences, is racist, simply because some individuals are glossed over. Kaladin is prejudiced, but not racist as he, first of all, doesn't think of all lighteyes as inherently bad (see below) The Lighteyes have their own community. They share morals, values and social conventions that make them an own separate part of the society of Roshar. Even if individual members of the Lighteyes-caste are against the prejudice against darkeyes, the predominant belief of most lighteyes is, that they are superior to them. Kaladin is against the Lighteyes, because this group as a whole is almost unanimously keeping up the caste system and the oppression of the darkeyes. If you asked Dalinar what the perfect society would be like, he might answer that he would abandon the caste system maybe, but currently he sees it as an issue that is just not that important. If you asked them about darkeye-lighteye-equality, some lighteyes, like Dalinar, wouldn't say: "Darkeyes equals? Never!" nor would he say "We have to immediately destroy the caste hierarchy!". Instead their answer would be something like: "I guess it's something that's maybe a bit unfair. Sometime, someone should probably change it a little." The classism and that kind of ignorance from its non-racist members are why the lighteye-community as a whole, if you want to see it as one single entity, is still opressing the darkeyes' equality. So the lighteyes are a community, united by racial traits, in which there is a dominant belief that they are superior to darkeyes and more worthy of political and economical power; in short, they are racist. They either have, or tolerate, a racist and classist ideology. Racism is defined as a hatred of a person or a group that is not based on their personality, but on their ethnicity. Kaladin does not hate the lighteyes because of their ethnicity, but because of the lighteyes' belief that they are better than darkeyes. That is an ideology that is wide-spread across the lighteyes and, in fact, supported either directly (ew, darkeyes, how gross) or indirectly (now is not the time to discuss equality) by every lighteyes we have ever seen. And ideology and personality are closely intertwined (if somebody tells you he's a nazi, for example, you probably have a pretty good idea of what his personality is like). Therefore you could say that Kaladin indirectly judges Lighteyes by their personality, their attitudes and ignorance in particular - attitudes which are rooted in the lighteye's upbringing and their culture. He is possibly prejudiced when he immediately assumes that every lighteyes he meets shares their caste's sense of superiority - but, once again, so far, he has been almost always correct. Furthermore, while Kaladin says that all lighteyes automatically have that kind of attitude, he is able to recognise that he's wrong. Dalinar, Adolin, Shallan and possibly even Elhokar were able to prove him wrong. Really dedicated racists cannot be proven wrong. A White Supremacist will go on claiming that black people are inherently less intelligent. When you show him a black person with a PhD he will not even say: "Well, I guess there are exceptions" (- which of course still wouldn't be much better). He will instead go on to keep making his claims and ignore all evidence that he's wrong. Kaladin clearly isn't like that.

I think there is an old quote from Brandon that states that most people on Roshar are racist in some fashion. This is tricky to discuss, because racism is one of those words that can be tricky to define. Is it the same as being biased for/against someone based on their ethnicity? Is it a specific case of considering one being worth ”less” because of their ethnicity? Is it being against immigration from other cultures? If we define it as the old fashioned ”some people are worth more than others based on skin/eyes/height/whatever” then no, I wouldnt argue that Kaladin is or has been racist. I dont think Adolin really has been either though, but I might be forgetting something. If we define it as being biased however, the case is different. Then Kaladin has most defenitely been racist. He has totally been biased against lighteyes. He wasnt positive toward Renarin at first, he was distrustful of everyone with the wrong eyes, wanted Bridge 4 to be a safe zone for ”us” (the Darkeyes) and not let ”them) the Lighteyes in. It is also worth noting that all Alethi have been totally racist against the Parshmen (Kaladin even acknowledges that his behavior against Rlain was wrong). So in that regard, all non-Parsh characters (and maybe not the odd ones like Hoid, worldhoppers, Heralds or Axies) are/have been racist in the ”more worth than others” sense. As for Dalinar, I think his statements regarding equality was that he couldn’t do a darkeyes/lighteyes societal reform in the middle of an apocalyptic war against a dark god and his immortal magic monster-soldiers.

In chapter 60 in TWoK, Dalinar agrees not to abdicate to Adolin in exchange for an order, notarized by his highest scribe and witnessed by Elhokar, giving Adolin the authority to depose him at any time if his mind sufficiently deteriorates. While it’s not briefly mentioned, this seems a HUGE Chekhov’s Gun as a lynchpin for Dalinar’s decision with huge potential to shift fate. What do my fellow Sharders think? Could this be a huge boon, allowing a new leader of the shattered coalition to emerge in Adolin? Or the key to a brutal blow to Dalinar’s forces when Adolin deposes him in a critical moment?

The specific warning was for Shallan not to kill Amaram because he was someone else's prey. Presumably Iyatal since she tried to dart him in Taln's cell. If the training is effective then there's no need to gather that type of subjective evidence. As I continue to mention, the Skybreakers never lost faith with their spren. Spren live in the Cognitive Realm, are closer to the Spiritual Realm. And spren are attracted to their bondmate candidates. It's gonna be hard for any potential Radiant to hide what they are in the Cognitive Realm and there will be indications. Why would anyone give up Shards to test a potential candidate when they have access to a being that can look directly into a person's soul? Or see the type of spren they draw? Or get a life record straight from the Spiritual Realm? Much surer than giving a random dude a set of Shards and letting him run off with no supervision.

But if they thought he was a Radient candidate they would have killed him or recruited him. Neither of those (especially the first ) involves giving him shards.

Ayyyy, I understood that reference. Also, isn’t CBST in...CBST? And TLT is just TLT, because people kicked the plot out? Meanwhile, Ene harvested corn for her rat Vivenna.

1. This strikes me as a distinction without a difference. Unless you are arguing that you think Brandon intends us to believe speciesm is morally superior to racism, these are one group of sentient beings enslaving another group of sentient beings. I believe has Brandon has even indicated that sentience is the key characteristic. Not whether someone is technically human. 2. The Singers were feared and respected enemies able to wage a hundreds-of-years campaign against humanity. Within a short time (1 generation? less?) that entire race was enslaved based almost entirely on the fact that they could no longer resist. They were bred by humans. Their families were separated by humans. They were injured on the job and (presumably) occasionally worked to death by humans. Also, the awakened parshmen in Alethkar told Kal that he remembered his wife being taken away but was unable to voice his objection or fight back. They were alert the entire time. Even your own argument shows how terrible things were for the parshmen. You say that the humans should be excused because they didn't know that the parsh had sentience, but that was a key argument used to justify chattel slavery in the U.S. and the colonies before that. Brandon has engineered this storyline to be a direct, intentional callback to those historical real-world arguments. If there are (slight) differences between them, it is only because Brandon is giving his audience a little bit of emotional distance so that we can process this in a more detached manner. Book 3 exposed us to the reality of the colonialist history of Roshar. Historically, slavery (in the American sense) proceeded from colonialism and the conquest of Africa and the Americas. I believe Brandon wants us to wrestle with this. I expect the planet-wide mistreatment of the parsh to be a huge theme in Book 4, since we will have a larger Listener influence in this book. How can the humans begin to make amends? Will they even try? These are relevant issues in the modern world, which is part of what makes this series so good.

Michael stood up angrily. "This is not just some sickness, Sophie!" he growled. "It's not something that you can just wish away!"

Aragorn, Strider himself, was very impressed.

I thought they were the Singer's souls. Humans are represented as flames but maybe the Singers are different? They are closer to the CR. I'll have to reread that section now LOL

I think that it is based on reading speed, and it takes about the same amount of time to read each word.

When he goes for Ym he still first researched proof of a crime to justify it. And on the contrary, Alethkar has a well-defined legal system, even if justice can still be perverted - per Dalinar, Roshone was tried and found guilty and could have been held accountable for engineering the false imprisonment of Moash's grandparents, but as king, Elhokar opted to be merciful. And even the very embittered Kaladin expressed anger and shock that Amaram, after confessing in Dalinar's presence to murdering Kaladin's four squadmates to lay false claim to Helaran's Shards, would not be tried and punished for murder. It's really all stretchwork to come up with unknown reasons why he could have been a Skybreaker as Mraize said, versus simply concluding that Mraize was lying about this for reasons we shall find out later. Why would the Skybreakers try to kill Amaram? Let's guess at something unrevealed... Or, why would the Ghostbloods try to kill Amaram? This we also don't know for sure, except that we do know that they target him that way (Mraize telling Shallan Amaram was his "current prey", and then Iyatil trying to poison dart him with a blowgun). I mean, giving an "acolyte" something as valuable as a full set of Shards and letting him use them on "unauthorized missions" - does that sound like something the Skybreakers would do? Or even the Diagram? Or either group having "spare Shards" lying around to give to acolytes (when we saw Skybreaker acolytes in training, they were chasing escaped prisoners on foot)? (The answer is NO). I mean yes it's POSSIBLE, it just doesn't fit what we have seen of how they operate thus far. Versus the more simple explanation that Heleran was given Shards for the purpose of accomplishing a mission unknown to us, that involved killing Amaram, and without regard for the lives of anyone in between. Does that sound like something the Ghostbloods would do, based on what we've seen from them? (The answer is YES.) Shallan, the only person to have read Mraize's letter (other than Pattern, who said "there are lies in this"), doesn't know anything about the Skybreakers and how they operated. So she has to go on face value (similar to how for some time, she thought Amaram had killed her brother instead of Kaladin, having no reason to doubt his claim to having killed "the unknown Veden Shardbearer" himself). But we, the readers, do.

I am personally so excited for this last season. I have loved the writing of The Clone Wars since the series first came out. It really fleshed out the worlds, characters, and worldbuilding for me. When I think of Star Wars, I always picture this beautiful animated series before the movies. For me, this is Star Wars. The Bad Batch started out strong and it felt like there had been no hop since the series halted at season 6 (except for animation, of course!). Hearing Dee Bradley Baker voicing the clones - especially Rex - just like old times gave me shivers down my spine!

"Let the executions begin." -The Lord Ruler

Bozo started crying. "Won't you ever leave us alone?" Havel just stared curiously at it, teeth bared.

Does Kaladin go and best up lighteyes just because? Nope. As I've said many, many times in this thread, the impact of what Kaladin actually does about his anger is negligible. He says words, and some people get offended and angry that he would dare. That's about it.

Nope, it doesn't. And as a personal request, let's not quote MLK so far from his cultural context; there are plenty of his quotes we can quote that are less nice and broad. I find it telling that the anger of the darkeyes gets more of a "this is wrong!" reaction than Dalinar and Adolin and Shallan's thoughts and actions, as people in these privileged positions who thoughtlessly are classist in the books. But they have the privilege of being calm and reasonable about this subject, whereas Kaladin's anger is seen as hysterical and unreasonable. I'll use an analogy to explain my reasoning. I and my boss are angry at each other. I tell him, "you're fired!" Nothing happens. He tells me, "you're fired!" and I am escorted from the building. Were our actions equal? Did we do each other the same harm? No. Absolutely not. I was not capable of firing my boss; the company would laugh if I'd tried. On the other hand, it was very easy for him to fire me. But our words were the same! We were both in the wrong! And yet, if someone tried to claim that what I did was as bad as what he did to me, even just bad at all, that claim would be pretty insulting. Calling what I did "firing him" doesn't align with the reality.

I like the term "systematic racism", because it is clear what it is talking about. Kaladin is very much against systematic racism. He has experienced the injustice of it, he doesn't want to just reverse the tables and lord it over lighteyes, he would very much like it if justice and honor were actually true, fair things for everybody. His experiences have made him prejudiced against lighteyes. Other characters either embrace or passively accept systematic racism, and they are prejudiced against darkeyes, though their prejudice is less about hating darkeyes for things done to them, and more about discomfort at darkeyes being out of there place, fear, or seeing darkeyes as throwaways. Neither prejudice against lighteyes or darkeyes is good. Kaladin shows his ability to grow beyond his prejudice, and start to see the lighteyes he meets as just people. One thing that drives me up the wall about all the "Kaladin is racist" threads I've seen is that Dalanar, Adolin, ans Shallan are also "racist", along with bmany others. It kind of makes me crazy that this is seen as a problem just for Kaladin, that he needs to get over and then the world will just be hunky-dor, but no one else needs to tackle their own prejudices.

Kaladin, "racist"? Nah, of course not. Racism is the combination of prejudice with power and oppressive systems. It's when from your birth you're treated worse and even enslaved because of your heritage. It's systemic disenfranchisement, where at every turn you find yourself treated as lesser, all life long. The fight of the slave against their masters is not the same as the oppression of the slaves by their masters.

Yep, it's Wyndle. To remove any sort of doubt:

A lot of what the Rosharans believe about the afterlife is basically myths. If you haven't read Mistborn yet, I would suggest doing that, and getting all the way through to Secret History, as that would answer some of your questions. But Elhokar's Blade appeared, he stopped glowing, and his Cryptic is bonded to someone else. He's pretty clearly permanently dead.

This is a question I also want an answer to.

I must be different, because I felt his execution of Jastes was justified and satisfying. He became a King, in that moment. Judgement is an important part of government. Those in charge pass judgement on those who commit crimes in their kingdom. Jastes brought a rampaging army against his city, and then left them to rampage with no direction. There was never going to be any other outcome. As for the soldier who was executed, same thing. We do the same thing, and its called a Court Marshal. We may not execute the man, but in a war, you CANNOT have your soldiers feeling like they can freely strike their commanding officers. For ANY reason. That leads to the breakdown of the army, as inevitably someone will decide that life in prison is better than having to listen to the commander for one more day. A swift execution will make the men fall in line much faster. It's brutal, barbaric, even, but it's also War, and War is not a game. Also, a commander has to be able to send his men to their deaths. I a commander cannot do that, then he is not a commander. Wars are not won by making sure your soldiers stay safe. They're won by using your soldiers to make sure your citizens remain safe.

Sword Art Online:

"Ugh, look, fine, you can have the rest of these dumb powers I had sitting around. Oh and you can have these ones too I guess. They just got mailed back up here with a 'Return To Sender' stamp. They must be stupid powers if the addressees didn't want them, but sure, okay, fine, whatever. Take 'em."