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  1. From the album: Natural History of Roshar

    This is actually from a while ago when I was planning to concept some fruits of Roshar, but one thing after another, and this just fizzled out. Seeing how I won't be going back to it anymore, I want to put this potential Rosharan plants idea out there - hiding underground to avoid high storms, and emerging only when mature... like peanuts! :D
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  2. So maybe Yalb reports this when they get back to port. It comes to radiant attention that something odd is going on with that island. They want to check the oathgate there anyway so they send an expedition.
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  3. Kaza's, I think. She was an interlude character in Oathbringer. The Soulcaster who was killed by one of the Sleepless.
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  4. Hi all, One problem with Oathbringer's spoiler period was that people couldn't find what they were interested in discussing. Some individuals wanted to talk about lore/magic stuff and cosmere theories. Others wanted to discuss characters and relationships. That OB spoiler board was crazy busy. So, to that end, we are expanding the Rhythm of War Spoiler board into an entire section. This Rhythm of War and Dawnshard Spoiler Area has three different RoW boards: General Thoughts, Character Discussion, and Lore/Cosmere Discussion. Hopefully this will mean individuals of different mindsets can more easily see topics they are interested in. The RoW Lore/Cosmere Discussion board can have full cosmere spoilers unlabeled, effectively replacing what we normally did where we allowed new book discussion things in the normal Cosmere board. That will not be permitted this time around. All new spoiler content will be in this category. Since Dawnshard's prologue is coming in the newsletter later today we have also made a dedicated Dawnshard board. The Dawnshard board will not have Rhythm of War spoilers, but the other RoW boards could discuss Dawnshard details as a "full spoiler" zone. Obviously, there's some overlap of character vs. lore/cosmere discussion, and I don't think we need to be super strict about that. But generally, I'd say lore/cosmere stuff is more about magic, Realmatics, and the mechanics of how things work. Character Discussion focuses more on characterization and relationships. There is some middle ground for sure, but use that as a rule of thumb. I've moved a variety of topics already. If you want a topic in a different board, just report it. Hopefully this will make things a lot more manageable for people to find things they want to interact with. Certainly in Oathbringer's time, things got very busy.
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  5. You dont need to meet someone to form a Connection with them. after The Winds pleasure sunk, a couple chapters later, Syl changes form into Shallan on the beach after the Santhid saved her. and she hadnt even met Kal yet. maybe because all things/times/places are one in the Spiritual Realm. even though Kaladin hadn’t met Shallan yet, he eventually would, and because of that, there was a Connection? Kalanit Taub When Jasnah picks up the bead for the palace, is that the same bead that Shallan picks up in Oathbringer? Brandon Sanderson Yeah. Kalanit Taub Is that a coincidence or is there something else...? Brandon Sanderson So, whenever things like that happen you can assume there's little bits of Connection going on that's changing the probability a little bit. You're not meant to read much into it, but the probability is increased because of thing like that. And you'll find, if you look really closely, there are connections between the characters that are really subtle that I'm doing, that anyone who's touching the Spiritual Realm or thing like that. For instance, in the second book, Syl turns into Shallan while Shallan is washed up on the beach while Syl is talking to Kaladin somewhere else. There's enough Connection going on that you see Syl change shapes, and Kal's like, "It looks like she's walking on a beach!" It's just Syl... because through all of that, is turning into... You'll find things like that <happening> all through the books, really subtle, really small. There's just meant to be, one of the things in the Cosmere is Connection. Your Connection to people, Connection to things, places, influences probability a little bit. ICon 2019 (Oct. 15, 2019)
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  6. It's 2020 and we are all in the handbasket to hell but YALB is back! I am ridiculously happy about this.
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  7. "I'm so sorry I forgot about you Yalb I should have come back for you." "The world went to crem, it's completely understandable." "That's still no excuse!" "I'm forgiving you, Brightness, just accept it."
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  8. First Dreams was the ship Kaza was on, one that went to Aimia and had it’s crew poisoned by the Sleepless. This seems like a potential reason for Rysn to go to Aimia, to search for survivors (there probably won’t be any unfortunately).
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  9. The email just came through. @Karger @Nathrangking @Honorless @Kuram
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  10. DID is not a good disorder to try to tackle without a great deal of knowledge. I'll admit to being incredibly disappointed Brandon's going this route. The first reason is because there's a great deal of discussion about the existence of DID in the mental health world. It's existence is constantly debated, which means no amount of research is going to give reliable answers as to what the condition looks like. I don't have a personal stake in that side of things. I just think it muddies the waters and leaves the series very vulnerable to aging badly. The second is that what Shallan has is nothing like the diagnostic criteria of DID. Two or more distinct identities or personality states are present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self. Amnesia must occur, defined as gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events. The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder. The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices. The symptoms cannot be due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (such as blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or a general medical condition (such as complex partial seizures). The important part there is #2. Shallan is not exhibiting a loss of memory of what she does in her other guises. This creates a misinformed perspective on the condition. This kind of Hollywoodization of the condition will always bother me. I'd much rather he explain that it's a function of her Radiance interacting with her Trauma than to try to use a real life disorder and then misrepresent it. I get that DID is a fascinating idea. Shallan's burying of her memories is a function of PTSD but in DID the gaps in memory have to be an ongoing thing. She has to be losing time to her other identities, not swapping between them like a person playing D&D getting into character. If you want a work of fiction written by someone with DID about their experience I recommend Catskinner's Book by Misha Collins. It's self published but it's by a person with the diagnosis and thus comes with the weight of a case study.
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  11. When you're scrolling through Insta and take the opportunity to plug the Cosmere:
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  12. I have to say first off, that I called this method of airship construction back in early 2018, but based on the critiques by @The One Who Connects of the the physics of this arrangement I also gave this method up for lost. But with a greater understanding of how conjoiner fabrials work thanks to the as usual excellent analysis of @Pagerunner and @Jofwu, I believe that I might have figured out what is going on and further how to extend and enhance Airships using conjoiner fabrials. One of the breakthrough realizations was that when objects are conjoined, they function as one single rigid body. I think the mechanism that fits the evidence and most elegantly explains how spanreeds are able to synchronize without relation to cardinal directions is that a shared cognitive reference frame is created. The spanreed station at both points A and B have been set up and verified to be vertically, and horizontally level (for both x and z), and further the spanreed is placed in a specific location on each separate board. This creates a fixed frame of reference for each board that is the same, with only a translation of absolute coordinates to relative coordinates necessary (through the application of magic) in order to perfectly synchronize the movements of the spanreeds.This setup is shown in the following diagram. The initial position of the vertically aligned spanreed would function as the common origin for both spanreeds, and the movement of 1 spanreed would be translated to the relative reference frame of the other. The reason that spanreed communication doesn't work when one of the spanreeds is in motion is because their shared fixed reference frame no longer exists, or more precisely because the moving spanreed is traveling away from it's origin point. The only reason I mention all of this is that I think this gets at the heart of what is happening when Navani and her artifabrians are using "aluminum to isolate motion along a plane". From the description of the how the Fourth Bridge is made to fly by "Alternating between those two lattices—one to control altitude and a second to control horizontal movement...", I think Brandon's idea is to isolate the shared motion of conjoined fabrials along one axis, basically creating a 1 dimensional vector. I think that with the proper application of Aluminum this would be possible by shielding the 2 dimensions that you want to ignore. Here's a diagram about what I am talking about, the first picture is a fully unshielded conjoiner, showing the 3 axes that it can translate force and thus influence motion along. The second has all axes but the X shielded by aluminum, the third has all but Y shielded, and the third has all but the Z shielded. So applying these fixed one-dimensional conjoiners to the Vertical and Horizontal lattices that move the Fourth Bridge, you basically have a system where Vertical and Horizontal movement can be controlled separately and independently. Here's a diagram of how this is applied: The purple dots are Amethyst reverser fabrials that are aluminum shielded to only transfer motion along the Y axis, the red dots are ruby conjoiners that have been shielded to only transfer motion along the X axis. When the Vertical lattice is lowered from the top of Urithiru, the airship rises an equal distance. When the horizontal lattice is pulled by the Chulls, the Fourth Bridge advances an equal distance. With the conjoiner fabrials that are only transferring force along the X axis, it is possible to see how the aluminum screened turn around would work, the diagram below shows the turn, and also shows vectors of motion for X during the stages of the turn for an aluminum shielded turn and for a non-shielded turn. For the shielded turn, during the portion of the chull cart journey when the x movement is not being transferred to the Fourth Bridge, it would be possible for the momentum it experienced prior to the conjoiner being cutoff to continue to impel it in it's current direction because the motion of the shielded fabrials would not affect the Fourth Bridge's fabrials. If the turn occurred without aluminum shielding, the force in the direction of X is just the x component vector during the turn, and after the turn the force would be applied along the x axis but in the opposite direction. The reason that using conjoined fabrials and reversers is such an appealing prospect is the extremely large amount of potential energy that objects at the top of Urithiru have. It should be possible using a system of conjoined weights to move the vertical lattice efficiently and quickly to control with precision the ascent and descent of the Fourth Bridge, the following diagram shows the minimum number of conjoined weights to operate efficiently, but extra massive weights and corresponding paired fabrials could be added to increase the on demand maneuverability of the Fourth Bridge. The use of small lightweight conjoiners that apply force to lattices could be extended to the horizontal motion of the Fourth Bridge as well by using something as simple as a chute that drops down at a 45 degree angle, basically allowing for half of the force exerted in the drop to be applied to X direction (and after the lattice and lightweight conjoiner are dropped, the lightweight conjoiner attached to the lattice could be disconnected from the conjoined weight and drawn back up to the top of the chute, ready to perform an emergency speed maneuver again). And you could have batteries of these ready to go, giving the slow and very poorly maneuvering Fourth Bridge a bit of help in emergency evasive maneuvers.
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  13. With all due respect, I think that this is a serious misrepresentation of Dalinar's entire arc. There was an entire scene in Oathbringer involved with Dalinar saying that "You cannot have my pain." I don't have the entire quote with me. But iirc Dalinar says quite clearly that even though he had Odium's and the unmade's influence, it was still him making those decisions. It was still him who made those terrible choices. He was able to be redeemed because he took responsibility for his actions. It's not a redemption arc if the character was never bad in the first place. By placing the blame on others, either by magical or non-magical reasons, the character was never evil. If, for example, Gavilar was found to being influenced by odium to such a degree that he had no choice in his abuse towards Navani then he wouldn't cease to be making bad choices, he would be incapable of making them. Intent matters a lot with regards to guilt, punishment, and justice. That's why there is a difference between murder and manslaughter, and one is noticeably worse then the other. But the only way for Gavilar to be redeemed is if he is responsible for his decisions. Saying otherwise removes his potential for growth, and invalidates experiences of people who have grown and redeemed themselves for anything in their life. I think that you can compare Dalinar and Gavilar, but not in the sense that one can be redeemed and another cannot. They both could be redeemed, but one is significantly less likely to be redeemed then the other. In fact, at this point in the timeline, it is interesting to note that dalinar and gavilar are probably about equal in the Evil-o-meter. Where their redemption arcs diverge is that G is killed tonight, and Dalinar starts trying to atone. I will say here that while the answers to the "why" and "hows" don't change what he did they are extremely important to understanding his character and thus the story, his relationship with the larger events of the world, and its ramifications and impacts on the story. Furthermore, the why's and hows do change how responsible he is for his actions. They don't redeem him, because justification isn't redemption, but if he is being 100% mind controlled by Odium, then it wouldn't make sense to place blame on Gavilar for these actions. On the other hand, the why's and how's can lend support to him being 100% in control and being an abuser. Brandon has a knack for giving us compelling and layered villains, and refusing to ask questions of the villains does Brandon a disservice. To quote Hoid "The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon." Brandon's forced us to ask these questions of people who are far far worse then Gavilar, but while a lot of those characters may have a higher body count, or longer lives with more atrocities, they've also been farther removed from home. I would wager that none of us have had to deal with being abandoned by our friends and tortured in Hell for 4500 years, and we probably haven't had to deal with warlords burning down our cities and everyone in side. But many of us have had to deal with abuse, so Gavilar's comments and behavior hit far closer to home. I think that asking the why's and how's are just as important for everyone, regardless of what impact the answer may have.
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  14. I just had a fun idea for an application of the magic that we haven't seen anyone use yet but which we could see in the future. We know that you can't really read minds with A-Brass/Zinc but we do know that you can target emotions with precision and make very subtle tweaks or very blunt ones. We also know that you can be trained to recognize when emotional allomancy is being used on you even if you don't have any powers yourself, as with the obligators. So how's this for a thought: Using Soothing or Rioting (or both for best effects) to create a non-verbal code. To communicate you simply tweak an emotion in a manner that the other person will recognize. At its most basic level, you could use this as a non-verbal 'Wait for my signal' sort of communication where the parties know to wait for a particular emotional cue. For more complex communication you could use particular emotions to convey broad ideas or you could assign emotions to prearranged phrases. For example if you were pulling off some caper, Rioting anger might mean 'We go with Plan A', Rioting apprehension 'Time for Plan B' and Rioting fear could be 'Ditch the plans, we're making it up as we go along'. If the parties are trained enough to recognize emotional allomancy, nuance could be added by how much an emotion is tweaked and if you can both Riot and Sooth you could throw in additional nuances or simply use the choice of which way to tweak emotions as a form of yes/no telepathic communication. Of course to have any sort of two-way communication you'd need all parties to a conversation to have access to the powers, but that should be easier in the future once medallion technology becomes more widespread. Thoughts?
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  15. I am disappointed in everyone for not having said a thing on this. There's something weird in the sample chapters that literally nobody seems to have mentioned(so far as I can tell there's one mention of mist in this entire subforum and it's about cultivation). Kaladin and Dalinar both mentioned Fog hiding their flight. Fog that's been present for what seems to be weeks of flight for The Fourth Bridge. That's odd. I mean, weeks of flight is odd enough in a world with Highstorms and Everstorms. I imagine it gets hard to breathe up above them if you're not infused. But people have been managing. But to have weeks of groundcover. I don't remember the Weeping being misty and they're not discussing a light drizzle over everything so I doubt it's that. We've only seen that on one other Shardworld. And it meant something important. It meant a Shard was dying. Is something happening to Cultivation? Is Honor's power drawing back together? Either way, something is up with Roshar's weather.
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  16. Lol. Now I'm imagining a "true" Pegasus is this majestic Clydesdale-sized monster with 30-foot wings, but you only get a couple in the generation. The rest are donkeys with nubby wings and delusions of grandeur.
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  17. I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about them. I'm saying they shouldn't be used for entertainment if its not going to be executed perfectly. It's important to have discussions. It's not ok to use mental illness to entertain others of it cannot be portrayed accurately. The bigger problem is DID has been used badly in hundreds of places. For entertainment. And it's wildly misrepresented. It's why I brought up a writer with DID who wrote from their experience. Because he's using his experience he cannot be wrong. His experience can be different from others but its personal. It's a case study and that background gives it context. Brandon writing about something he doesn't have, that is amorphous and largely unexplained, while real, is not going to benefit him or people with DID. He didn't treat it with enough care going in, so he'd be better of writing out of the skid rather than steering in, much like he did with Legion. He made it clear the condition wasn't real and that let him run with his creativity. Here his creativity is misrepresenting reality in people who've been misrepresented enough. And it's an easy steer out. DID is rare. Childhood trauma, which is related to DID is not. I've worked with hundreds of kids with Trauma over the last 12 years. I've met zero with DID or who've developed it since. Like I said. I'm disappointed. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I get that the subject matter is interesting and needs to be spoken about. I think if Brandon started the story now fresh he could do it justice. But I'm disappointed because he's already flubbed it to the point it's irrecoverably wrong.
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  18. Brandon is releasing a draft of the Dawnshard novella's prologue in the newsletter today. Sign up link is in his tweet. https://twitter.com/BrandSanderson/status/1291376830918750210?s=20
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  19. DAWNSHARD PROLOGUE IS OUT Spoilers: It is no longer like this:
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  20. I've got a few questions about this: If pegasi can crossbreed with horses and produce viable offspring which are horses, that seems to indicate that pegasus genes are recessive in nature and what that means is that if you took a crossbred pair of horses with pegasi genes, would approximately 1/4 of their offspring be pegasi? And, furthermore, if you crossbred a pure pegasi with a hybrid horse, would that result in half normal horses, half pegasi? If the island is too far away for the pegasi to fly anywhere else, how did the horses get there in the first place? Ships don't typically carry horses with them, unless they're transporting livestock, and there's not really a good reason for a livestock ship to be there, though I suppose the easy answer would just be that a ship carrying horses got wrecked on the island. And, again, if the island is too far away for the pegasi to fly elsewhere, I suppose a crude solution would be to neuter the island's horse population, though I'd imagine that the protagonists would definitely have moral qualms against doing so. If pegasi seemingly prefer mating with horses and that produces horses, then why are there still Pegasi on the island? I suppose that if you accept the premise of my first question that could explain that the population fell into a Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium of some kind, but then that seems to provide decent enough ways to breed pegasi into existence. Are pegasi magical in nature? I suppose I should have asked this earlier, but generally you prefer writing more realistic fantasy so I feel comfortable with the genetics questions, but how exactly do they fly? Adding wings to the side of the horse will never give it enough lift to get off the ground, especially with a rider. And, on that note, how much can they carry? If you're relying on pegasi to solve your logistic issues, they've got to be carrying a lot to make up for all the space that a transport ship or a supply barge can hold. Are there pegasi-powered boats? Instead of sails, you just harness some pegasi like you would a coach or a cart or something and just let them fly, dragging the ship behind them. You'd need an inordinate amount of horsepower to move a boat - a quick Google indicated that the earliest steamboat had 19 horsepower, so if you want to move anything large, you'd need a flock of pegasi. And, on that note, what are a group of pegasi called? You've got your parliament of owls, your murder of crows, your conspiracy of ravens, your thunder of dragons, naturally, but what do you call a whole group of pegasi? The earliest form of rail transport was horses drawing carts along rails. This actually seems like normal horses would be better because they use up less energy while walking than pegasi do by flying, so what incentive is there to replace the rail system with pegasi? Unless there are only islands, but in that case, why is there even a rail system to begin with? (I guess the larger islands might have one.) Are they used militarily at all? Aerial forces are a game-changer from literally any standpoint and any army, what with their ability to effortlessly scale siege walls, their quick deployment and re-deployment on a battlefield, scouting capabilities, communication abilities, and the ability to rain a never-ending onslaught of javelins from several hundred feet into the air. Forget about a monopoly on trade, I'd be terrified of one country having all the pegasi because that lets them field a nearly unstoppable army. (You would need some really good anti-air abilities to stop an angry army of pegasus knights charging at you.) I'll ask more question as they come to me, and if you want, I'd be happy to further discuss any of this. I wouldn't recommend using my favorite internet haunt right now (Worldbuilding Stack Exchange), but if you wind up with some very specific questions that you want answers for, then go ahead and do it. (Or poke around for the pegasus-related question.) EDIT: So I've done so poking around on Worldbuilding and the general consensus seems to be that 1) Pegasi are impossible without magic and 2) this isn't true if the atmosphere is really dense. But if you want to have realistic flying pegasi by increasing the atmospheric density, that also will lead to a whole other slew of things, (like people being able to fly using wings a la Icarus, for instance) so I'm not sure I'd recommend it.
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  21. I'm sorry, but what? Is upset really the right word to use here? If my friend was in a car accident I wouldn't say that I am "upset" I would be concerned for their safety. If that's what you meant, I agree. Otherwise I find this representative of the incredibly vast stigma we have around mental health. I agree that it is not morally wrong, and I'm sorry if I implied this. What I said earlier is that it is damaging and disrespectful to people with mental health issues -- I still stand by this. Would you be comfortable saying that statement about other marginalized groups? It's ok to feel this way, but if you do you need to reflect internally on why you feel this way and address it. I'm sorry, but you are factually wrong. There's a great deal of discussion about DID and how it is characterized, diagnostic tools, treatment goals, etc. But it's existence is not "constantly debated". Prior to the 1990's DID was diagnosed as "multiple personality disorder in the DSM" Since DSM-V it has been internationally recognized as Dissociate Identity Disorder. It's existence is not up for debate, clinical diagnoses have been confirmed by other "traditional" scientific tools such as Cat-scans and MRIs. Now if you don't know what the DSM is, it's THE handbook for clinical psychologists for diagnosing and treating mental disorders. I'm not even going to go into how disrespectful this comment is as well, it's just plain wrong. 1. Shallan, Radiant, and Veil are all distinct personalities that think about their environment and selves distinctly and differently. 2. We have seen amnesic episodes within so many chapters of this book. 3. HAHAHA, yeah. Shallan fits this glove handily. 4. It's not part of religion. 5. We don't know why her symptoms presented, although we can assume that since Brandon has done extensive research on the topic including first hand interviews that it is likely due to childhood trauma before the age of 7-9. This is not actually true, the gaps in memory do not "have to be an ongoing thing", reintegration actually requires the PTSD memories to be shared by all "personalities". Also, many people with DID experience what is referred to as co-con or co-consciousness where 2 or more alters* or "personalities" are conscious simultaneously and in the body together. While I agree that this isn't the perfect representation of DID, it is better than many others in modern media. It's important that we as a community allow these topics to be discussed so that we can de-stigmatize the disorders and people who suffer from them. And allow them to live healthier and more normal lives without us adding to their discomfort.
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  22. Oh man can you imagine if we get a Dawnshard chapter every Thursday and RoW chapter every Tuesday? It'll be November before we know it in that case
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  23. I also felt pretty similarly, but kind of got over it. It's sort of like reading GRRM - your favorite character died and it feels terrible and you may even take a break from reading the series for a while. For me, I put down GRRM's series for 10 years after reading the Red Wedding. I'm glad I picked it up again though, the books are good and it's much easier to deal with the deaths when you know they are coming. Shallan was probably my favorite character going into this. I do think that while Shallan will probably never again be the same Shallan of WoK and WoR, she will get back to being closer to who she was. For me, I just pretty much had to accept that we're dealing with something different now. Before, reading Shallan's story and how she advanced her goals and dealt with her challenges was one of my most favorite things in reading the books. Shallan is no longer toward the top of my list for favorite characters, reading her chapters are more like some kind of psychological study - how is she doing mentally and how is that impacting the way she acts? How do we tease out what her actual goal is now and is that a good goal for her to have? Shallan has a mental illness which has completely changed who she is as a person in the middle of a book series. It's perfectly reasonable for someone to find that upsetting and off putting. Having a mental illness of this severity is not something that should lead to Shallan being demonized, but it's not something that should be celebrated either. It's natural to be upset if someone you care about develops a serious illness - the same applies for a fictional character you like. If Shallan is ultimately able to manage her illness in a healthy way as defined by mental health professionals, then maybe her character provides a good role model for those who suffer with her same afflictions. But please don't tell someone they are a morally bad person because they are sad and upset that their favorite character has had a major and likely permanent personality change caused by a mental illness. Most of us read these books and participate in this community because we love the story and characters, not because we're interested in encouraging people with rare mental health conditions. I hope anyone who does have DID is able to find a way to get as healthy as they can through appropriate doctor's care and support from friends and family. If I'm in contact with someone who has DID in real life, I'll do my best to be a good influence in their life. But that's separate from what I want to read about for my own personal enjoyment. It's not morally wrong to dislike reading from the POV of a character who has DID or any mental illness of any type.
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  24. I'm wondering if it isn't more Stormlight addiction. Stormlight is described as very Stimulanty. And we saw Kaladin suck in just a little Stormlight to essentially feel normal. Like Coffee in the morning for a caffeine addict. Many of whom suffer from sleep issues brought about by late day Stimulant use. And addiction doesn't need a physical vector. People get addicted to Video Games. To Gambling. It holds that you could get addicted to Stormlight and in doing so exacerbate other mental struggles, lose sleep, and need the "drug" to feel normal. We've seen that in Teft. It wouldn't surprise me to see it in Kaladin here.
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  25. Gavilar's words are a classic abuser tactic. You're worthless. You do nothing. Without me you'd have nothing. It's all a way for him to keep control over her. He knows her insecurities. He knows how to twist her. And we can see the contrast in how Dalinar sees her. Dalinar sees the the real her and says so. He builds her up and loves her for it. Gavilar saw the real her and needed to destroy it because of his own insecurities. His need to be the most important person around. Which is understandable in the leader of a nation where strength is everything and he knows just how fragile his hold actually is. Especially when he feels betrayed by his wife's love of his brother but needs them both too much to do anything about it. But it still makes him an abusive monster.
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  26. A vintage pen I've been waiting for finally arrived in the post! Going to check if it needs any tuning up once I'm done with work for the day.
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  27. Yep. I've been saying this since Jasnah started talking about her breakdowns. The way both her and Navani talked about Gavilar suggested he was just not a kind man. It was very similar to the way kids who've come forward to me about abusive parents start those conversations. Hesitant and subtle, looking to have you notice, but not sure if you'll care enough to dig deeper.
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  28. Yes, I agree, but my point was the all the shards have strong intents that will change the vessel with time. There was a comment in one of the "letters" that said (paraphrased from memory) "look what the shard Ruin did to its vessel, he was a kind man originally, and just imagine what Odium does to Rayse, who was mean at the beginning". So, if Gavilar had gotten so far at to collect the splinters of Honor (if that indeed was his intent), he would have been forced to become more honorable. I also must express how happy I am with how this discussion is turning out. I work with and know many people, both men and women who have been in abusive relationships, with and without violence. And my gut feeling when reading the chapter was bad. This is clearly abuse, and well written as well. I love how this book and this discussion helps highlight the real life problems that abuse victims suffer, also the problems of not being believed. The abusers seem so nice to everybody else. And psychological abuse is so devastating too, but many people think is it not so serious. Anyway, we must be allowed to discuss it, and people must be allowed to speak their mind about it. If not, we will never be able to explain in full how terrible a problem this is in society. And to people who experience retraumatization when reading this thread, I hope the process and the understanding from others that grows from it will help overcoming the trauma. Avoiding it will not help regrowth. I am not a native English speaker. I did not know that there is such a difference between the word bully and the word abuser. I am very far from excusing abuse, I have two sons who have been abused by their wives, and work with many students who have been abused violently, and I know how terrible this can turn out. edit: Sorry for the double posting, I saw this post and found it important to reply, but did not know how to include the quote in my previous post.
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  30. So I have one comment and will leave it at that because of how the last thread progressed. My issue with saying that people called a pantheon gods, thereby means if an entity exists that is like the description of a pantheon of gods, then that is the definition of god, and thereby proves the existence of gods I believe is faulty. If we look up the definition of god, we have two: 1. (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. 2.(in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity. Both specify in regards to a religion, that the individuals that believe that religion, defines a god as such. That does not mean that is the objective definition of god. It means individuals however many years ago, or individuals today personally define god as such. That does not mean an atheist has to then prescribe to that definition, nor does it mean its existence or non-existence disproves the atheist. Just like people hundreds of years ago thought that Zeus being the cause of lightning bolts was a point in fact, till it was proven later to not be. Zeus did not any more exist hundreds of years ago, than he does now. Just back then there lacked the sufficient scientific capabilities to disprove it. Just like if Zeus suddenly showed up today and used lightning bolts does not make him a god. We could simply lack the scientific capabilities to prove that Zeus is actually an alien using technology we have not discovered yet, and appropriated our mythology to rule over us. Yet again, Zeus was not any more or less a god because what showed up aligned with what a group of individuals considered a god. Only for them was that validated. That still does not prove nor disprove the atheist. And not for the first time, I really don't get this compulsion for people both in the book, and outside to "prove Jasnah wrong". The character herself is perfectly content in holding her beliefs, and respecting others of theirs. When Dalinar came to the conclusion that the Almighty is not god, she did not go "ha ha, neener neener". She understood the difficulty of such an experience, consoled him, and supported him. She did not care what conclusion he came to regarding his religion, so long as he thought on it, and it was true to himself. Navani is still an orthodox vorin. Jasnah did not stop her from practicing either. The only times Jasnah espouses her beliefs is when someone decides to forcefully insert themselves in her life and tell her that her beliefs are wrong. So she is naturally going to defend herself. So for an individual who has been repeatedly understanding and supportive to other individual's belief systems (Dalinar, Shallan, and Navani off the top of my head alone), despite being repeatedly attacked for her own, I wonder when she will ever catch a break.
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  31. Out of nowhere my brain threw a scene of an immortal, incredibly powerful being walking up to some people to recruit them for help, then noticing they have a dog and lavishing SO MUCH ATTENTION on this pupper. “Ah yes world is ending or whatever blah bluh-so-cute who’s the best dog, you are, you are so fuzzy I love youuuu” *dog has rolled over to get belly rubs* *immortal being eagerly complies* *humans look at each other blankly as they receive exposition in a gooey voice with occasional breaks for the immortal to glance up and go slightly more serious before resuming scratching behind the dog’s ears* *dog is completely in love with this weird-smelling person* *humans have no idea what is happening* *immortal doesn’t care, the dog is clearly the most important priority*
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  32. I've been enjoying the time skip very much - it feels fresh and exciting, like really catching up with these characters, learning something new about them again. It's great for me, because whatever was skipped, no matter how cool it sounds, is what Brandon decided was less exciting than whatever happens in the rest of the book. I'm psyched!
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  33. While in all seriousness, I doubt this will be the case... I'm putting my spheres on May Aladar, for the memes.
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  34. I learned that a former professor of mine with whom I am close is moving forward with one of her scholarly books and intends to cite an article that I wrote concerning a question that she had posed to me in the book.
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  35. He’s been quiet in PMs, or so it seems (I haven’t gotten a PM from him yet besides... a group PM that Mist created). He claims that’s because he wanted to avoid catching a disease from a PM vector. Since now we can see that disease roles do in fact spread, this seems like a valid possible concern. I have doubts as to whether or not diseases “progress” into worse forms, but unexpectedly getting a bad drawback could put someone in a sticky situation, especially since we know from TJ/Mat that some drawbacks are passive (and therefore unavoidable). Seeing as Pyro both caught a disease and has been rather quiet in-thread as well, I wonder how far that excuse holds.
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  36. I'm glad to see that Yalb survived. When he wasn't in Oathbringer I assumed we wouldn't hear about him again
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  37. I have to say, I did not see that coming! I was expecting the prologue to take place on the deck of the Wandersail. It's nice to have confirmation that Yalb survived. Shallan saw Yalb surviving in WoR somehow, I think it's Shallan's ability to form Connections with those she draws (capital-C Connection, as confirmed by Pattern in the Battle of Thaylen City) could be something that the Lightweavers share with the Truthwatchers, they are supposed to be able to see something. Extracts from WoR, pasted from over on the Discord server:
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  38. I do not believe a text form is yet available although someone might have transcribed them.
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  39. Sorry folks. Life has been not-good - a bit awful actually - so I'm going to drop the quotation weirdness as it's just another stressor on top of other unhappy stuff. What I said about aiming for minimally 1-2 posts still stands. I'll just do whatever and RP sometimes I guess. I'm sorry about the mess. Gonna go rest after this and try to reset myself. Will try to be better and contribute more tomorrow.
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  40. That only really holds up if you believe in a monotheistic god. In a religion with a pantheon of gods they often do die and are still counted as being gods. Also gods in a pantheon are not bound to being the representation of all things good, virtues and holy and are aloud to make mistakes.
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  41. Probably because downtime tends to be kind of boring. We have training montages for a reason. We don't want to sit through Kaladin's workout routine every day for a year(although maybe some of us do, no judgement).
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  42. Cord has been to Aimia?!? Oh and Dalinar can just whip open a perpendicularity. Glad to know that Taln and Ash are helping them (but then again, it was Jasnah who interviewed them... While I hope she didn't have to resort to it, I can see her using "enhanced interrogation" techniques)
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  43. Not sure how much that is creating anything as it is directing what already exsists. Neither Rachel nor Maldor really make anything new, although there is less matter in glass than stone so something is happening.
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  44. If you upvote this post you must upvote ^ this... but... Edit: I'm doing more of these. I'm so sorry.
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  45. 1 like
  46. Me: I'll just read one more chapter of Oathbringer before I go to sleep. Chapter 120 - The Spear That Would Not Break:
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