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  1. Ok, so I realize that I am submitting this way early, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to tomorrow, so here it is! Good luck, @Lunamor, @Fezzik, and @Matrim's Dice!!! May the best roast win!
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  2. Here's a discussion thread on RoW Prologue and Chapter 1. You can read them here: https://www.tor.com/2020/07/23/read-rhythm-of-war-by-brandon-sanderson-prologue-and-chapter-one/ A new chapter (or two) will go live every Tuesday at 9am Eastern.
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  3. I'm curious to see who gets this joke.
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  4. I am Talenel'Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand. We must prepare. You will have forgotten much, following the destruction of the times past. Kalak will teach you to cast bronze, if you have forgotten this. We will Soulcast blocks of metal directly for you. I wish we could teach you steel, but casting is so much easier than forging, and you must have something we can produce quickly. Your stone tools will not serve against what is to come. Vedel can train your surgeons, and Jezrien... he will teach you leadership. So much is lost between Returns... I will train your soldiers. We should have time. Ishar keeps talking about a way to keep information from being lost following Desolations. And you have discovered something unexpected. We will use that. Surgebinders to act as guardians... Knights... The coming days will be difficult, but with training, humanity will survive. You must bring me to your leaders. The other Heralds should join us soon.
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  5. There's been a lot of speculation about the Fourth Ideal of the Windrunners, but less so about the fourth Edgedancer Ideal. I'm speculating that the Fourth Ideal of the Edgedancers is something along the line of "I will speak for those who have been silenced". I think this makes a logical progression with the other Edgedancer ideals we've seen. Their Second Ideal is to remember, which is a very passive act (you just have to refrain from forgetting what you already know). The Third Ideal advances from remembering to listening, so now you not only cannot forget the little people but you need to actively be willing to open yourself to their concerns and problems. And then the Fourth Ideal goes from listening to speaking, requiring that the Edgedancer not only be aware of those who others overlook but actively do something to help them. Thoughts?
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  6. Hello fellow mind-readers, just wanted to let you know that Tay and I have started book 2 as of last night. Shadesmar is henceforth to be known as The Spooky-Spook.
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  7. Thank you so much! I have been getting a lot more comfortable with the different tools in Autodesk, which helps a lot. Before, I was struggling a lot with the interface and it just made me so frustrated. Hopefully my newfound knowledge with the app will translate once I have time to do a big drawing on my computer! I find the best way to improve is to DRAW DRAW DRAW and don't stop drawing! Stockpile some references, make a folder of inspirational artwork that you want to learn from, and get a private sketchbook that you can just mess around in without being afraid of judgement. I only start improving once I practice with intent. As far as poses and styles, find references similar to what you want to draw and use them to help with the framework for your own art. With enough practice, I know you will be very happy with your sketches! Here is a bonus Szeth
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  8. Here we will be listing the official sample chapters and linking to our discussion threads for each. There may be some changes to these from previous readings. For general info, see here: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/86705-stormlight-4-readings-and-info/ Sample Chapters Prologue and Ch. 1 - Audiobook Prologue / Audiobook Ch. 1 - Discussion Chapters 2 and 3 - Audiobook Ch. 2 / Audiobook Ch. 3 - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapters 4 and 5 - Audiobook Ch. 4 / Audiobook Ch. 5 - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 6 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 7 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 8 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 9 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 10 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 11 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 12 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 13 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 14 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 15 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 16 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 17 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 18 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Chapter 19 - Audiobook - Discussion - Brandon's Annotation Syl Interlude (found in Brandon's newsletter, no public posting) - Discussion
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  9. So my shower thoughts this morning ended up on Roshar, specifically the grains on Roshar. Forgive me if this is something that's already been discussed, but I had some interesting (to me, at least) thoughts about what we've been told. Now the good news is that there are no huge issues here. There are a couple things that don't add up to me, but there are ways for Brandon to resolve all these - it was just interesting to think about and wonder if he considered this when world building. I mentioned this to my wife, and she thought you all might appreciate this. So here goes: To start, we're told that lavis corresponds roughly to Earth corn, and tallew to Earth rice. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/409/#e13805 Unfortunately I couldn't find a wob for tallew, but here's the coppermind article that mentions it being similar to rice: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Tallew#cite_note-The_Way_of_Kings-37-chapter-1 Now the first problem we run into is that neither corn nor rice contain gluten. For the most part, Brandon has stuck to foods that don't require gluten. He mentions boiling tallew, using lavis for flatbreads (think tortillas), etc. And this mostly works, except for nixtamalization. If you're not familiar with it, nixtamalization is the process where corn is cooked in lime (the mineral, not the fruit) to change it into something that you can actually use for flatbreads. Ground corn on its own (cornmeal) doesn't hold together very well. In order to use a corn-like grain on the scale we're talking about in Roshar, and for things like chouta, you're going to need to nixtamalize it. For a bit I thought that the lime would be an issue, but then I figured that they mine enough stone on Roshar that it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to assume they've mined limestone and figured out how to extract the lime. (Of course, that assumes that limestone, a sedimentary rock formed in ancient seabeds, would be present on the Roshar continent, even though we've been led to assume that this continent was created more or less as it currently exists, without ever having been on the sea floor. But I'm making some assumptions there, and I'm not a geologist, so I'm going to ignore that.) Alternately, since rockbud shells burn, and I believe there's soap on Roshar, I'm going to assume that they have access to rockbud-ash lye, and they could also use this for the nixtamalization process. I don't think they would use wood-ash. Wood is too valuable. Once they've got the nixtamalized corn, then they need to grind it. And this is a wet grind, producing an already-hydrated dough, perfect for flatbreads. Not super portable, though, so there would need to be mills in the warcamps (and everywhere else too, obviously. Just maybe should be more noticeable in the warcamps), as well as areas where the grain was nixtamalized (assuming you can't soulcast pre-nixtamalized pre-ground lavis. I honestly have no idea if this is possible.) So that's quite a bit of text to say that yes, flatbreads are possible with Rosharan resources, but they require a few processes that we haven't seen on-screen and that tbh Brandon may not have considered. So on to the issue that I referenced before - gluten. Now, I'm just going to get this out of the way and admit that Brandon can fix this by saying "actually, tallew contains gluten" or "every gluten-containing bread you've seen onscreen is made with wheat exported from Shinovar" or some such. But for our purposes, given that pancakes were everywhere in Yeddaw, I'm going to assume that they're making them with lavis or tallew. If that's the case, I don't have any good explanations for this. Given that these are not described as flatbreads, I initially thought it was safe to assume that they're fluffy. Which would mean some sort of gluten structure. Or additives. It's possible that they're using xanthan gum or the like, though this seems like a stretch to me. Still, it seems like the likely solution to this is either "tallew contains gluten" or "they're using whatever that Thaylen buckwheat stuff is, or another grain I haven't told you about, since they're out West." (Or, see below, another solution could be "these aren't pancakes, they're just flatbread.") Last one, then. How are they getting these pancakes to rise? Now, this one is a little less of an issue, since he's actually addressed it: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/394/#e12998 This leads me to believe that either he forgot about the pancakes when he gave this wob, and they're doing yeasted pancakes (which sounds weird to me, but could work. idk, I've never tried) or more likely they're really just another form of flatbread, and they're not fluffy. Which ruins my image of Lift running around the city stealing piping hot fluffy bread disks a little, but I can live with it. (I will note that it's highly unlikely that these are the quickbread pancakes we're familiar with, which use bicarbonate of soda, which in our world wasn't used in cooking until the mid to late 19th century. Given differences in progression of technology, it's possible they would have this, but I would be surprised if it was an ingredient commonly available to the masses.) So there you have it. Nothing earth shattering, (or plains shattering? eh? eh?) but just my morning muses. I don't think anything's "broken" here, per se. Brandon has addressed the gluten and rising bits mostly satisfactorily, but I think there's still a bit missing around the nixtamalization. And just to reiterate, all of this could be easily solved by Brandon just saying "oh, yeah, things are different on Roshar." Anyways, I think it's just a fun little corner of the world building that hasn't been completely fleshed out, and would require a couple logical jumps to get working.
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  10. Poor Navani. Also good for you Navani! You never let him defeat you.
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  11. Just as a reminder/update/refresher, The Dragon Prince is having a Comic-Con At Home panel tomorrow, Friday July 24 at 3 PM Pacific Time (5 PT Central Time, 6 PM Eastern Time). It's not known what will happen and/or be announced, but I'm sure it'll be an interesting event.
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  12. Ooh, Kiss Vin, Marry Pattern, Kill Moash Spensa, Kelsier, Lopen
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  13. Hey everyone! So I, like many of you I'm sure, have been trying to successfully convert my wife to the Cosmere. Literally since I met her I've been trying to get her to read The Way of Kings but there never seemed to be a good time for her to jump into it - either she was reading something else, had too much work, or just couldn't commit to a 1000-page book whose series wasn't finished yet. However, we've recently figured out that she really enjoys being read aloud to - she likes the sound of my voice and it helps her relax after a long day (she's a high school English teacher dealing with teenage angst all day - please show her some sympathy here). So naturally, I finally sold her on tWoK and I've been reading it to her for the last few months, a bit at a time. At the moment, we're in part 2 and just read the scene where Dalinar experiences the first vision we see 'on-screen' where the Midnight Essence shows up and he fights it off with a fire poker. So here's another thing: my wife is absolutely hilarious and also has trouble remembering names (to be fair, Alethi names have a lot of -lin, -as, -nar suffixes), so I recently asked her to give me a breakdown of what she remembers each character as. Here's what she's got: Kaladin - Slaveboi - "He used to be soldierboi, now he's slaveboi, but I'm pretty sure by the end of all this he'll be shardboi" Shallan - Sneak - "She's so mean! She's just becoming friends with her to steal her magic jewellery. I don't like her." Dalinar - Jeffrey Dean Morgan - "He looks like JDM." Adolin - The Hot Brother - "He's kind of a slut right?" Renarin - The Awkward Brother Sylphrena - Manic Pixie Dream Girl Sadeas - B****boi - "He's the idiot with the bridges right? Yeah, he's a b****boi." Jasnah - Princess Jasmine - "She's a princess right? No? Yes - she's the daughter of Dead Kingy Boi." Gavilar - Dead Kingy Boi Szeth - The Michelin Man - "Because he's big and all in white!" "Tay, he's average size. Just his eyes are described as big." "Are you kidding me?" Elhokar - Boi King - "You're making sure to write these all as 'b-o-i', right?" Gaz - C***! - I know this board doesn't allow swearing - but she just straight-up shouted the c-word when I mentioned Gaz. The Stormfather - The Stormdaddy - "Make sure they know it's being said in an uncomfortably sexual way." Chasmfiends - Rock Lobsters Some early hot takes from Tay: - Dalinar killed Gavilar so that he could become king because he's in love with Gavilar's wife. - The shardbearer who Kaladin fights in the first chapter killed all of his men and enslaved Kaladin. - Sadeas is behind the cut saddle. - Kaladin and Syl are going to fall in love. - Kaladin is going to get a shardblade ("He's obviously going to get a shardblade Chris... don't mess with me here.") - Shallan already has a shardblade (!) - Shallan is going to feel too guilty to steal Jasnah's soul-caster OR "Princess Jasmine is going to catch her sneaking around and say 'Hey Sneak. Let's have a DMC about why you want to steal my magic jewellery.'" I also thought I'd pop back in on this thread every once in a while to update you with any fun observations she makes in the future, and thought this could be a nice place to share our experiences with introducing the series to the people in our lives and their reactions to us being insufferable and incorrigible nerds!
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  14. Very quick response on Oathbringer as an Honorblade. That was, indeed, a mistake; it was a Stoneward Blade.
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  15. It reads to me like Gavilar's personality has changed rather drastically in a short time beforehand... Here are a few selections: This, to me, reads like there is more going on here than just faded love. I mean sure, maybe Gavilar is just a mean man who has let power go to his head. But what with his likely visit to Braize, his meddling with Voidlight and Voidspren, and his megalomaniacal ambitions, I suspect that much like Eshonai in Words of Radiance, Gavilar here might be possessed by some sort of force from Odium. He certainly matches Eshonai's mannerisms after she went stormform. (Minus the demonic red eyes, of course.)
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  16. A few years back I wrote a song about our favorite bridgecrew called Bridge Four. I recently made a video for the song featuring a bunch of awesome fanart and official art and thought I'd share it! Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/7G1HsS... Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/brid... Art (in order of appearance): 1) Kaladin & Syl by Audry Hotte, IG: @AyHotte (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Dx...) 2) Kaladin Stormblessed by Toyin Morby Ajetunmobi, IG: @toyin.ajetunmobi (https://artofmorby.com/projects/ba1aOm) 3) Kaladin & Syl - Julia Metzger, IG: @juliametzgerart (https://juliametzgerart.tumblr.com/po...) 4) Kaladin - Rumyana Zarakova (https://rumyanazarkova.tumblr.com/) 5) Kaladin - Corey Lansdell, IG: @coreylansdell (https://www.coreylansdell.com/) 6) Life Before Death Kaladin - IG: @3li_7aji 7) Kaladin - Lex Allen, IG: @alexallenart (www.alexallenart.com) 8) Kaladin Headshot - IG: @muhash14 9) Kaladin Stormblessed - Antti Hakosaari, IG: @hakosaari_art (https://haco.artstation.com/) 10) Kaladin - Mycks, IG: @mycks_art (https://remycks.tumblr.com/) 11) Words of Radiance Cover - Michael Whelan, IG: @theartofmichaelwhelan (http://michaelwhelan.com/) 12) Bridge Four Poster - Zack Stella, IG: @zackstella (http://www.zackstella.com/)
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  17. Most of this has been seen before, either through a reading or through the newsletter. I was going to link my previous comments, but I can't find them, so I'll just restate some of them, maybe throwing in a few new ones: Is Navani's "impostor syndrome" Unmade influence? "Border dispute" might be important, since we've seen the Sons of Honor collecting lots of secret maps. Intentionally misdrawn maps to hide something big, and the Highlord caught on because something was costing him money. Gavilar's friends; the same Heralds we'd seen before. The way I understand this: Gavilar has been to Braize, and has captured Voidspren in gemstones. He has some apparatus, a "box," that doesn't sever their natural Connection to Braize, but allows them to be removed and brought back to Roshar. The Heralds are interested in this because they want to get off of Roshar, and are looking for a way to free themselves from their Connection to the planet. This big focus on Navani's feelings in this prologue further reinforces to me that she's the third main character of this book. This seems to be setting up a larger character arc, coming to deal with her personal problems of insecurity and people-pleasing. Gavilar seems really evil here. I wonder how much of it is an act? If he's trying to drive her away to protect her? If Navani married Gavilar for power, why would Gavilar marry Navani if he truly thinks so little of her? Not too many comments from Chapter 1. I think we're setting poor Kaladin up to have a bad time. The character heading for Part 1 contains five characters: Kaladin, Shallan, Navani, Venli, and Lirin. I haven't compared those to the character oultline, but we've historically had characters who only get named on one Part because they have a chapter or two. Looking at OB, we've got Jasnah in Part 2 and Navani, Taravangian, and Venli all in part 4. I think Lirin's in the same boat; he gets a chapter to start us off, but I don't think he'll be a feature POV character for the book.
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  18. Thanks for linking this! When Brandon said “soon” I figured August. What a nice surprise. Gavilar comes across really poorly in this one, again. Not as badly as in OB prologue. He’s clearly smarter and more informed than he seemed previously. Found the realm of gods and going to be become one? Has he figured out enough about his bond with the Stormfather that he thinks he can Ascend to Honor? My theory is he wants to be Moses and lead his people out of Roshar to a more hospitable system. That’s the great journey he wants to start.
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  19. We are aware of things being double posted. There's not a lot that can be done currently. In the meantime please press Hide (it's next to Quote and Edit) on posts. On topics, go to the top and hit Moderation Options and then hit Hide. We don't know why it happens, and especially not why it's doing that on everything right now. EDIT: It seems things aren't double posting for everything anymore, which is good.
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  20. Haha. Yeah, I think I skipped over the end of that scene the last time I reread. This may only make sense if you've seen "I Think You Should Leave" on Netflix Scene can be found here: about 1 minute mark
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  21. Wow. I just read this whole thread and laughed a bunch. Thank you! This is so fun and entertaining. I love your wife’s names for everyone. Kaladin is Slaveboi forever now.
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  22. Suddenly the voice of Schrodinger echoed across the planet, as if the scientist had momentarily dropped from his newfound quantum state using the power of a single bar of cell service, saying: “Did you ever hear the story of Darth Plageuis the Wise? I thought not. It's not a story the Jedi would tell you. It's a Sith legend. Darth Plagueis was a Dark Lord of the Sith, so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the midichlorians to create life... He had such a knowledge of the dark side that he could even keep the ones he cared about from dying. The dark side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. He became so powerful... the only thing he was afraid of was losing his power, which eventually, of course, he did. Unfortunately, he taught his apprentice everything he knew, then his apprentice killed him in his sleep. It's ironic he could save others from death, but not himself.” “It’s also ironic that Nameless could save others from death, but not himself. But that’s besides the point.”
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  23. In OB Chapter 114 the Nightwatcher seems to have Nightblood as she offers Dalinar “A Blade that bleeds darkness and can never be defeated.” In WoR Nale gives it to Szeth. At first I thought there is no way Nale would subject himself to a Bane for a magic sword when has two already. But then I thought that’s not what he would ask for. My theory is either Nale or Kalak (seems more like a Kalak thing) went to the Valley and asked to be released from the Oathpact. They were given a sword that can permanently kill them because it would eat up their investiture which is what gives them persistent life. Boon: You’ll never have to go back to Braize again! Bane: Dead forever. Obviously they weren’t pleased with this solution so either Kalak got it and gave it to Nale or Nale got it and just hung on to it until he found a use for it.
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  24. Yes, I am a math nerd. My favorite book series would have to be the Stormlight archive. I think I like WoK the most. Yes, I have read Era 1 Mistborn.
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  25. I am Talenel'Elin, Herald of War. The time of the Return, the Desolation, is near at hand. We must prepare. You will have forgotten much, following the destruction of the times past. Kalak will teach you to cast bronze, if you have forgotten this. We will Soulcast blocks of metal directly for you. I wish we could teach you steel, but casting is so much easier than forging, and you must have something we can produce quickly. Your stone tools will not serve against what is to come. Vedel can train your surgeons, and Jezrien... he will teach you leadership. So much is lost between Returns... I will train your soldiers. We should have time. Ishar keeps talking about a way to keep information from being lost following Desolations. And you have discovered something unexpected. We will use that. Surgebinders to act as guardians... Knights... The coming days will be difficult, but with training, humanity will survive. You must bring me to your leaders. The other Heralds should join us soon
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  26. At the number one spot was NoLukeIAmYourFathterThat'sImpossibleSearchYourFeelingsYouKnowItToBeTrueNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
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  27. I think everyone's getting a little carried away with analyzing this artwork. This piece of art is not part of Stormlight Four. It's part of the WoK 10th anniversary Kickstarter; they're doing a poster, like this, for each Order. Aside from the Windrunners (which are shown on the Kickstarter campaign page itself), we've gotten peeks at Truthwatchers, Elsecallers, Skybreakers, and Dustbringers, aside from this most recent Bondsmiths preview. And while there are several recognizable characters featured on the posters, there are a lot of unknowns, as well; especially with Skybreakers (which doesn't feature Szeth) and Truthwatchers (which doesn't feature Renarin). But you'll notice that all of these pieces of artwork feature two Radiants, one male and one female. They're putting one of each on every poster (like they did way back in the old Immortal Words poster), which means there must be a female depiction of a Bondsmith for the sake of the poster. And she's an incredibly generic Bondsmith; her sigil is the Bondsmith sigil, her attire is the Bondsmith white-and-gold, her ornamentations are the Bondsmith's gemstone of heliodor. And she's got a Shardblade, which Bondsmiths didn't have. Heck, in the original Elsecaller post from above, Jasnah had the Edgedancer sigil instead of the Elsecaller. So it doesn't look like these posters are being put through the rigorous vetting that book artwork is. (Like, for example, several pieces he's doing to go in the leatherbound, featured on his social media and the Kickstarter campaign.) These posters aren't tied to a specific time in-story; it's not like they're "depictions of the Radiant Orders at the start of Rhythm of War," or something like that. They can contain specific characters, and they can contain archetypal examples of Radiants, and they're out-of-universe, so it's not like Dalinar gets a new Bondsmith friend and then tells her "Let's go pose for a band photo somewhere in Urithiru." Going back to Immortal Words poster I linked above, we're not going to theorize that there was an actual banner with those words hanging somewhere with a Stonward and a Windrunner guarding it. These are all artists' depictions; no more, no less. Whoever the next Bondsmiths will be, I don't think we'll learn anything about them from examining this poster. EDIT: And, of course, right after I post this we get a Kickstarter update from Isaac:
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  28. Perhaps that might be more relatable, however in terms of being dark Dalinar at the rift is far beyond anything Shallan has. And Shallan's misses it's mark for me and many others. In terms of relatability as you like it so much 1 in 4 people have depression, so Kaladin is very much not whinny and I'm tired of hearing that, have you any idea what it is like to wonder if ceasing to exsist might be preferable to what you see in the future? Because I can(note I never considered suicide, but I did wonder if nonexistence might be better than even the best future I saw.) As to bigotry I'm tired of that accusation as well, at the time every lighteyed that Kal had known had betrayed him in some fashion, was a slave bigoted for thinking all whites where awful? No, no one thinks that. In modern times that would be different as we have internet and more movement of people to give evidence to the contrary, but back then no. Being an idiot? From what? He made the parshendi armor, got the knobweed sap and made bridge 4 the best bridgecrew in the whole army. What did he do that was stupid? Shallan in the chasms was one of the worst parts of the book. Kaladin saving Elhokar had nothing to do with her,so stop saying it. It was the right thing to do and he knew that, and yes it was epic.
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  29. Quick update! So I told my wife about how excited everyone was getting on this board. This is generally how it went down: ME: "I got so many points! I went from Prelan to Babsk to Houselord and now I'm a Forescout!" TAY: "None of those mean a single thing to me." ME: "So how about I read to you again tonight? You can help me with my burgeoning career as a Cosmere comedian. Wait - does that make me Wit?" TAY: "No, Chris. It makes me Wit. You're just the vessel I use to share my genius with the masses." Either way, I read a good five chapters last night. Here are some of the zingers: ME READING: "'I can save her,' Kal said." TAY: *snorts* "Ha! No you can't. Why? Because character development, Slaveboi, that's why." Tay tries to convince me by way of a five minute conversation that the White Stripes predicted the plot of the book - "Think about it, Chris! 'I'm talking to myself at night because I can't forget'! Like the Stormdaddy is talking to JDM during the storms! I'm right." She has also predicted that Kaladin secretly killed Brightlord Wisitow when he was 13 - "Because... abuse? Or something. Slaveboi doesn't like Lighteyes anyways." She also came up with the following character names: Rock - Dwayne Johnston Wit - The Court Jester Brightlord Wisitow - Brightlord Wichita (this was the starting off point for her hot take on the White Stripes) Laral - Rosalind - "Rosamund. Because he's got unrequited love with her like Romeo and Rosamund. Wait - no. Rosalind. Rosamund is playing Moiraine." Lirin - Pop-Pop And last but not least, she came up with her title for The Way of Kings. I present to you: The Adventures of Slaveboi and Jeffrey Dean Morgan - Book One of the Stormlight Archive. That's all I've got for now! But if we're stuck at home with COVID-19 any time soon, I'm sure there will be more!
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  30. (EDIT: Just noticed - to see the whole tables on the mobile page, you have to use the horizontal mode! Sorry for not seeing that earlier ) So, I finally pulled this through: This is a statistical analysis of word count of stories and POV (point of view) characters in the Cosmere, pre-Rhythm of War. It's based on those on the Coppermind both in concept and data, so it was not as much work for me as it looks like (still a bit ). So, I necessarily followed the analysis conventions of the Coppermind, which means that I didn't include the following sorts of text: Ars Arcanum entries essays epigraphs Graphic Novels (naturally) chapter titles, generally text outside of the actual POVs (like text on illustrations and, in one of the short stories, footnotes) These explain why these word counts are generally a bit shorter than information on other sources might imply. On top of that, every new chapter is automatically a new POV (even if the character remains the same), while it's still the same POV if it's a new scene within the same chapter with the same character. The analysis is also limited to the canonical Cosmere, so no Aether of the Night, White Sand Prose, etc. This means that White Sand/Taldain, despite being canonical, are not represented in this statistic at all. I plan on doing another analysis that is the same but with White Sand Prose included. Since White Sand Prose is only allowed to be discussed in its sub-forum, I will post it under my Statistical Analysis of White Sand Prose there, once I find the time to do it. So, there we go: 1. Series Story (8) POV Characters (98) % of POV Characters Word Count (2,818,129) % of Word Count The Stormlight Archive 44 44.9% 1,276,934 45.31% Mistborn Era 1 20 20.41% 731,642 25.96% Mistborn Era 2 14 14.29% 337,427 11.97% Elantris 10 10.2% 208,212 7.39% Warbreaker 6 6.12% 196,014 6.96% The Emperor’s Soul 3 3.06% 31,925 1.13% Sixth of the Dusk 1 1.02% 18,083 0.64% Shadows for Silence 2 2.04% 17,892 0.63% I counted the two Scadrial Eras separately, as well as Emperor’s Soul. This is mostly because it’s easier to just add the separate datas together. I counted Secret History as Era 1, and Allomancer Jak as Era 2. The character numbers don’t add up because two characters have POVs in several stories. They count in every story they're in, but only once in the total character number. --- 2. Single Works Book / novella / short story (19) # of individual POVs (all characters) (1,423) % of Total POVs Word Count (2,818,129) % of Word Count Oathbringer 273 19.18% 454,440 16.13% Words of Radiance 178 12.51% 398,238 14.13% The Way of Kings 123 8.64% 384,265 13.64% The Well of Ascension 147 10.33% 244,371 8.67% The Hero of Ages 131 9.21% 225,372 8% The Final Empire 74 5.2% 210,103 7.46% Elantris 122 8.57% 201,372 7.25% Warbreaker 110 7.73% 196,014 6.96% The Bands of Mourning 83 5.83% 127,456 4.52% Shadows of Self 70 4.92% 110,019 3.9% The Alloy of Law 36 2.53% 94,652 3.36% Mistborn: Secret History 26 1.83% 44,981 1.6% Edgedancer 20 1.41% 40,660 1.44% The Emperor’s Soul 21 1.48% 31,925 1.13% Sixth of the Dusk 1 0.07% 18,083 0.64% Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell 3 0.21% 17,892 0.63% The Hope of Elantris 3 0.21% 6,840 0.24% The Eleventh Metal 1 0.07% 6,815 0.24% Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Elantia 1 0.07% 5,300 0.19% The word count for The Hope of Elantris is not exact but based on word count per page of the other Arcanum Unbounded stories without chapter division. I think it might be a bit less than indicated here, but it's close anyway. --- 3. Shardworlds Shardworld (6) Works (19) % of Works Word Count (2,818,129) % of Word Count Roshar 4 21.05% 1,276,934 45.31% Scadrial 9 47.37% 1,069,069 37.94% Sel 3 15.79% 240,137 8.52% Nalthis 1 5.26% 196,014 6.96% First of the Sun 1 5.26% 18,083 0.64% Threnody 1 5.26% 17,892 0.63% --- 4. Complete Character POV Analysis (spoilered for length)
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  31. The idea of this is that rather than replying with full guesses, everyone replies with any info, arguments, or connections on the subject they have or can find, and I'll continue to update the main topic. There's enough information now that we should be able to piece some things together with a lot of certainty. In making assumptions here, we want to make assumptions that narrow down the possibilities significantly more than they decrease the likelihood. I've numbered all of the WoBs I'm using in a spoiler at the bottom. Essentially all of these use RoW update 5 ([1]), so read that if you haven't. When I reference that update, the connection includes more than just the group format. What we know about the group format: Deductions: Character groupings as they can be determined from those deductions: Going slightly beyond WoBs - Likely candidates for Character1: Various archived speculation (now redundant or incorrect, but still contains interesting things to consider): WoBs:
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  32. My name is Isaac and I am currently reading Elantris and Alloy of Law. I'm new to the Cosmere yet I've been trying to learn as much as possible!
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  33. There's two options for fog machines: 1) Rave 2) Haunted house Personally, haunted houses are more fun. On a more serious note, I hope your AC realizes being a fog machine isn't so fun and reverts back to how it should work.
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  34. Jumping in because I've now finished the book (the recent WoB about why he decided it was okay to release now was the last straw) and oh boy, that was an interesting journey. Figure I'll start with some broad observations and likes/dislikes. - It's obviously nowhere near as polished as the final book and there are all sorts of things that just feel off, like the lack of spren that are so ubiquitous in the published version. Those I can mostly get used to, though there's a fair amount of 'tell, don't show' that took me out of it at parts. Dalinar got a fair bit of that since it's not until the end of the book that we really get inside his head, and he's just not nearly as interesting without the driving conflict from WoK or the hints of a darker past. But there's a lot of talk about how honorable he is without really showing it, and his decision that ultimately sets him up against Elhokar felt less like he finally was pushing himself to do what his principles demanded and more an angry reaction to what happened to Aredor when we first saw it. - I wasn't hugely fond of the Merin content; he's just nowhere near as good a character as Kaladin even if it's interesting seeing an early version of the Kaladin/Adolin dynamic come into play a full book earlier. I also got a bit of a vibe from one of Mat's chapters in the WoT books Brandon wrote and am wondering if he had Merin in the back of his head when he wrote it. But yeah, I've been mentally calling him Kaladidn't, as in 'Thank the Almighty Kaladin didn't go this route' and they were probably my least favorite chapters. He did work a lot better than Devin from Mythwalker in the 'classic hero' role though, and I did like his duel with the five Veden Shardbearers and how he figured out what Vasher was really trying to teach him. And 'skepping' was a cool moment and I cheered when he worked it out. Though the way that Radiant Shardblades work mean that it's not gonna be something you have to train at, it would be nice to see some similar stunts in SA. Maybe if Adolin becomes a Radiant, it seems like the kind of trick he'd love... - Speaking of Vasher, I love any chance we get to see Brandon's early work because it's illuminating to see how his characters and concepts (and writing skills) evolve. Like in this case, the character got transplanted to Nalthis, then back to Roshar but with a new name, and the terms Awakening and Return(ed) moved to Nalthis with him, with a discarded idea from Elantris and a whole lot of Mythwalker thrown into the mix. So WoK Prime was very rewarding in that respect. - One thing I'm glad that Brandon changed was just how many invented terms got thrown at the reader in SA compared to the original. There was Sheneres, which was both the code of honor and the name of Dalenar's first son, Epellion instead of Radiant and a whole bunch of Shin terms like Shanalakada that I my mind just started glazing over. - The fact that the Kothen sound much more alien (eyeless heads, weird bone-placement) and are apparently completely absent from Roshar along with the Heralds was interesting and I wonder where Brandon was going with that, since there's no obvious analogue to the parshmen who could be possessed, but Taln suggests that the Heralds are still hiding some shameful secret about humanity's claim to Roshar and we know from his thoughts that they came from another world originally. Same dynamic but with some elements changed. - I was intrigued by the Silence mentioned in that one book Taln read from and found myself wondering exactly what Renarin did later on: What happened the year he, Shinri and Merin were born that they all had magical powers thought lost for centuries? It was interesting that shortly afterwards we get told that Jarnah's war of conquest happened in that same year, and the Shin were involved. I'll bet that when we get the new explanation for why the Shin attempted to conquer Roshar in the past, it will be something Brandon drew from WoK Prime. - Meridas made me very much want to see Jasnah turn him into smoke, or crystal or whatever. But yeah, I noticed that the writing tried to have him be both shockingly competent and a fop at the same time and it didn't quite work and we didn't get an explanation for the mystery of the former part of him. At least Jasnah seems to have found a way to get out of being married to the creep, even if it was a case of political and social suicide. - Shinri's a character I started liking in a 'Oh, she's not Shallan but she's still fun' in the early book and I liked how her former childish behavior came back to help her when things like vases and jades needed to be thrown with precision. Then the later part of the book kind of turned me off since she spends so much time being reactive instead of proactive and jumps into pretty much the same exact problem thrice over. - That gemstone-covered door beneath Ral Eram is going to haunt me. Given the similarity of names, I wonder if Brandon split off some of his original plans to Ral Elorim while its function as fortress and Oathgate hub got transferred to Urithiru. - Ishar betraying the other Heralds, hmmm... - Oh, and on the subject of Taln's death, even setting aside Brandon's confirmation that he wasn't intended to be dead-dead, I figured he was coming back because for whatever reason he was still bound by the mechanics of the Return even if the other Heralds were not, so he'd eventually have either reincarnated naturally or they'd somehow get Shinri the Elsecaller to fetch him, however that works. Jasnah's action at the end really only served to keep the characters in the dark as to whether he was a real Herald rather than rendering him permadead, is how I took it. - Oh, and speaking of not-dead characters I'm pretty sure Renarin would eventually have bounced back from looking too closely at Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. I also liked how the seeds of Brandon's conception of how futuresight interferes with other applications of it were sown here, as Renarin's very existence helped throw off Ahven's attempts at divining the future to the point that he wasn't prepared for the events at the end of the book. But we never did find out what Renarin was writing, since Merin's the only viewpoint character to look at his scrawlings and couldn't make sense of them. And then in an ironic twist that particular role got moved into the character who Ahven became in SA but Renarin still played the same role in upsetting Taravangian and Odium's futuresight. I shouldn't worry about that. Renarin I'm pretty sure would have bounced back and his Truthwatcher powers don't seem nearly as dangerous as Onyxseeing is, in that the visions come randomly. While futuresight can still potentially break your brain in the Cosmere, the only way we've seen that really comes close without a Shard directly exposing a mortal to the Spiritual Realm is the duralumin+atium combo. So Renarin's probably safe in that respect at least. Whether he'll be safe more generally once Team Odium realizes what he is and what he can do on the other hand... And while Aredor is basically Adolin as a person, his character arc has been so completely rewritten that I wouldn't worry about his SA counterpart being in mortal danger just because proto-Adolin didn't make it past the first book. Brandon revised him to be a foil for Dalinar and his new arc (transposed from Prime!Taln) and he's got his relationship with Shallan (not even hinted with Shinri), his position as the most genre-savvy Kholin and maybe becoming the first person to revive a deadeye as ongoing threads that give him plenty of reason to stay around narratively. Plus, he's outlived the person who killed him in Prime so even if he does die before SA ends, it'll be in a completely different context. I'm with you on the army. Pretty much everyone other than Dalenar think that the 'old Pralir nobility organizing a secret army' idea is farfetched, while the Kothen (whatever they are) would make more sense. Taln even remembers 'the pain of crushed limbs and ribs' when thinking about them, while everyone assumes the two armies were killed by a formation of heavy infantry because most of the bodies were, wait for it, largely killed by crushing blows. Taln thinks they shouldn't appear until a year after his Return, but if things are weird this time around who's to say a small group didn't arrive around the same time he did? For the tunnels, some of the oldest cities on Roshar might have them and I'm hoping that Brandon transferred that secret door to Ral Elorim (similar name, the Voidbringer armies during the False Desolation seemed very intent on capturing it) because I want to know what's so special about it too. I'm not sure that Nale and Ash seeming to trust Ishar is good evidence that he isn't secretly a traitor, since they're both insane and thus not really objective judges. I do agree that if he's a traitor to the others in SA, he's been much more subtle about it. But consider that he is the one who convinced the others that they could safely break the Oathpact by betraying Taln (that he was right and this gave Roshar thousands of years of relative piece notwithstanding) and his advice to Nale has been actively counterproductive in getting Roshar ready to face the Desolation so he's already really suspicious. And yeah, I figure that a lot of Prime!Taln's issues are due to him dying so early the last time he was around, so he's still bound by the cycle of Returns but his power was still broken by whatever Ishar supposedly did. The discussion of the Silence suggests that all magic suddenly failed right around that same time, so maybe whatever broke it still affects Taln and whatever un-broke the magic seventeen years prior to the start of the story didn't affect the powers unique to the Heralds. Whether Taln got lucky in dying early or whether he was intended to die when he was sent out to that keep he defended, we can't really answer with what we have. I'm gonna have to take some more time to think about all the other great points you've raised.
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  35. The weirdest one was when Truthless literally talked a planet to death.
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  36. It's rough not having the entire Cosmere... I do envy my future kids, but Brandon might not be done even by then! Welcome to the club
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  37. He does both I think but he’s ageless and regenerative as well (Long wob, relevant section in bold): That being said this thread is a memetic hazard. Excuse me while I bleach this cursed knowledge from my mind, some things were never meant for man to know.
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  38. Caiu-son-Daddy wore yellow, red, and blue the day he was to kill a king.
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  39. This is my personal favorite
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  40. Sorry for double posting, but I hope that this photo is worth it: it’s my grandfather’s dog and I just love him!!!
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  41. If used multiple times you end up like a Koloss.
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  42. Here it is, folks; my 2000th post. No, not this one; the one above it. This is the first story in a project of mine called Apocrypha Unbounded. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who has spent years tooling around with various fanfiction or original stories. (I've got a killer outline for a 30-chapter Bionicle reboot.) As I tried to get various attempts to take off, I found that I like the shorter format the most, since I would never get more than a couple of thousand words into a project. This idea started as a response to the publishing of Arcanum Unbounded. What if I wrote my own short fiction set in the cosmere (much shorter than Brandon), more in the style of science fiction short stories? (Which I am quite fond of) A sort of microcosm of the cosmere, my own little corner to expand and play around with the cosmology and magics of the cosmere, while at the same time putting some concepts to word that I've had rolling around in my head for a while. And a format that doesn't require too much effort on characterization, which I expect to be my biggest weakness. These stories are intended to be "canon-adjacent." I'm not going to try to explicitly contradict the published canon; but I am going to be doing to be introducing new Shards, new planets, new magic systems, and new applications of canon magic systems, so by the time the end of the cosmere rolls around, it will have been contradicted for sure. I'm sure there will also be issues with timelines and worldhoppers and things like that. But this will, hopefully, be self-consistent and not too outrageously out there. Because as much as these stories are driven by their thematic elements, they're also driven by my desire to explore Realmatics. Where some people build complicated theories tied together with tenuous assumptions and a smattering of vague WoBs, I'm letting my similar inspiration out through this avenue. I've got eight or nine stories planned, the last of which is intended to be an Avengers-style teamup. But I probably shouldn't get ahead of myself; I've only got two more of them drafted up at this point. (Stories #2 and #6, since I really liked the concept of #6.) I don't really have a timetable in mind for these; I might get #2 touched up and posted within the month, but then I'm sure I'll get lost in Rhythm of War for a while. Now, about this story specifically. It's not set on an existing planet, and the magic system is actually one I've posted on the Shard before, albeit a long time ago. The magic comes from my love of color-coded elemental magic systems. It's probably going to be developed a little differently than that post, but since I didn't really use the magic that much in the story, I didn't need to tie too much down. The themes of the story are tied to the local Shard. I won't tell you what it is yet, but it is one that I've theorized about before, so you'll probably see me post about it again in one of the theory boards. I did make sure to put the Shard name into the story, though it is not capitalized.
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  43. I'm guessing Peakspren are the spren of Stone, so Stonewards
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  44. Yeah, he seemed surprised and angry when Dalinar did the clap. I think he's surprised because moments earlier he thought he'd won Dalinar over as his champion. Odium was aware of the possibility that Honor can be pieced back together. In OB Ch. 57 Odium tells Dalinar that he can't leave behind the remnants of Honor as he once thought he could "I can already see that going wrong". I think the "we killed you" was directed at Tanavast. The whole Unity thing was Tanavast's idea. He couldn't change what he was, he'd been the vessel of Honor for too long, but he could set it up for someone else to become Unity, an interpretation of Honor that is more useful against Odium who likes to divide people and sow conflict. Tanavast set up the Stormfather to absorb Tanavast's cognitive shadow and his cognitive shadow still has Connection to the remnants of Honor's power because Tanavast was the vessel. Tanavast set it up for a bondsmith to gain connection to Honor's remnants and gave this future person instructions: "unite them" Tanavast tells Dalinar to "unite them" in almost every vision. Odium has seen most if not all the visions. He was lurking in them before he revealed himself to Dalinar. In OB Ch. 109 after Odium breaks into and shreds the vision Dalinar and Venli were in he recreates the vision. Odium is familiar with this vision even though he didn't show up in it previously. He's seen it and likely most or all the others. He's heard Tanavast say "Unite Them" over and over again, so when Dalinar calls himself Unity and creates Honor's perpendicularity Odium sees Tanavast's idea coming to life. He knows Tanavast's cognitive shadow is around because it was absorbed by the Stormfather who is bonded to Dalinar, Tanavast is in there somewhere and Odium yells at him. Who is the "we"? I got nothin'.
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  45. OB spoilers Radiant in Shardplate sketch Also, a sketchbook spread for OB interlude character Kaza
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