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  1. My cat got lost. I haven’t found them. I hope they find a good home. Ugh, lastly I’m crying wayyyy to often.
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  2. Did anyone else, in the haze of brutal emotion that was chapter 108, feel an extra emotion because of the fact that Tien, like Maya, chose his fate, and the obvious parallels between those scenes/the implications behind them? The belief, all those years, that the Radiants murdered their helpless spren as unwilling casualties of the Recreance. Kal's belief that Tien was sacrificed, without his knowledge or consent, along with the other messenger boys, to buy some time for the trained soldiers. The revelation that, in both cases, the innocent victims chose their fates for their own beliefs, and made the choice to do what they felt was right. Perhaps neither was fully aware of what the consequences might be, but they went to them willingly. Obviously the spren's choice, and the fact that Adolin, via the power of goodness, is slowly reviving Maya, have huge overarching implications for the entire series, and put everything into a different context. However, in terms of the parallels here between that scene, and Tien's death, and what the implications are for Kal, I think it revolves around the idea of "you cannot have my sacrifice". Kaladin is an incredible character, don't get me wrong. He's a hero. He's saved so many lives, and tried to save so many more. He's Kaladin storming Stormblessed, he can't be anything other than fabulous. But he also has a big flaw, and a big habit of removing agency from the people that he feels he's failed in the past. He wants to protect. He wants to protect so badly. And he fears failure so much, that sometimes he can erase the choices of those he tries to protect. Sometimes it feels that Kaladin is a storm, and all the people he's tried to protect, Tien, various groups of slaves, his squad in Amaram's army bridge four, Elhokar, etc, are just debris picked up and carried and then dropped by him, that they have no will or agency of their own. But they all chose. Elhokar chose to go to Kholinar to try and save his city, and his family. His squad chose to follow him into battle, and to support his assault of a shardbearer. Bridge Four chose to take up spears against the parshendi at the end of TWOK and help Dalinar. They chose to become bodyguards to Dalinar and the Kholins. They chose to become squires, and then Radiants. They chose to protect, and to put themselves in harm's way to do so. The slaves Kaladin led on an escape attempt chose to go. They chose to be brave and attempt to escape their chains, rather than living within them. And Tien. Tien chose to go with the other messenger boys. He chose to stand at the front of that group of soldiers. He chose to give them light, and hope, in their final moments. He made that sacrifice willingly, so that the others would be less afraid as they died. Like the spren of the Recreance, he chose, and history, and Kaladin, have erased that sacrifice and made it their own. Kaladin's fourth ideal was "I accept that there will be those I cannot protect", which was obviously a HUGE step for him, as he obviously viewed this, based on the end of Oathbringer, as letting go of the people he lost. But I think it's also about accepting that sometimes he cannot protect people because they are not his. They are their own people, with their own ideals, beliefs, and courage. Sometimes you cannot protect someone because they make the choice to not be protected. They make the choice to put themselves in harm's way, as Kaladin does time and again, to protect, or give hope, or chase their own dreams. Their choice is their own. Their sacrifice is their own. And Kaladin will have to learn that the people he saves may want to do something with the lives he protected. Even if that's to give them away for a greater good. That's their sacrifice. And their choice. And Kaladin cannot have it to fuel his guilt and fears.
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  3. Well, I'm going to guess that the fifth oath is something Kaladin is going to swear in the next book. The fourth oath was pretty straightforwardly what he'd been struggling against for most of the last two books, so it's not a surprise, but how tough it's been for him means that we probably have missed the foreshadowing of the fifth oath. I think we HAD to have some foreshadowing of the fifth oath, because giving Kaladin a totally new thing to struggle against would feel weird if we haven't had inkings of it before. It might be something to do with his new work helping people with their mental health. That got just a few chapters in this book - enough to show that it was important, but not enough to say that that storyline is complete. Hmm. think the fifth oath is going to be something about how you have to protect the whole person - mind, body, and spirit. Most of the protecting that Kaladin has done personally has been about preventing people from being stabbed - understandable, because they're in a war. But more abstract things like protecting a person's independence, protecting their spirit, are still there. Maybe it'll build on the fourth oath. The fourth oath was only about acceptance, knowing that a Windrunner can't protect everyone. But the fifth might be when he recognizes that some things are more important to protect against than bodily harm. I still think there's more realizations to be had there. Yeah, Kaladin is now accepting that sometimes, he'll fail and not protect someone. But there's a step further - times when Kaladin could step in and protect someone from physical damage, but shouldn't, because protecting that person's autonomy or integrity or honor or something else is also important.
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  4. From the album: My Mistborn Stuff

    *sigh* So as you can probably tell, the coloring... did not turn out. I liked the inked version much better, but here's the colored one too. A huge reason the coloring didn't turn out was because my grey marker is honestly dead and I don't know how I thought I could do Fuzz's robe without that. It just looks uneven. But, oh, well, at least Ati's gold turned out well. I'm glad I was able to draw this though, I suppose. Ruin and Preservation are some of my very favorites in Mistborn and my 11 year old self would be over-joyed to see this drawing.
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  6. I feel like we needed a tribute to Teft here. He was improving so much, quitting the moss, supporting others. This just adds to my Storm Moash ammo. In remembrance of Teft *holds up a candle*
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  7. Overall: I enjoyed Rhythm of War more than Oathbringer, but less than the first two books. The central conflict in this book was incredibly interesting, but it also felt like this book had more inconsequential plot lines than the previous ones. The expansion into the Cosmere space age was also intriguing, but I felt like the way it was done - with how hard it was pushed - some of the story suffered for it because the stakes we bought into were being shifted too fast. I know they are tradition but I'm not sure if the flash backs added enough to the story to justify the time spent this time around. By Character: Navani's plot and her conflict with Raboniel was brilliant. Definitely the highlight of this book for me. Navani's research was the perfect vehicle to lore dump and worldbuild - it felt natural. Raboniel's one of the best antagonists we've had across all 4 books and I thoroughly enjoyed their interactions, even if I felt like the overall tower plot got dragged on too much. It was nice to get to see more of Navani's character without the biases of a Dalinar POV. I almost wonder if we needed more flash backs for Navani as despite spending so much time with her, we didn't get to learn about her as much as we did Kal, Dalinar, and Shallan. Venli's parts were enjoyable, but with the way the story ended and what she ultimately contributed to the plot, I am truly wondering if we got too much of her? At the very least, I would've been happy to see some of her/Eshonai's flashbacks removed or reduced. Unlike the flash backs in the previous books, they did relatively little to expand our understanding of Venli or improve the emotional impact of her current day choices. We already knew who she was. Alternatively, we needed to see a more impactful and emotional climax from Venli to justify the cost of the time spent with her. The Stormfather's gift to Eshonai was absolutely beautiful though. I quite enjoyed Shallan/Adolin's journey and arcs this book, but felt like an incredible opportunity was wasted in the execution. A bit more time and words devoted to these two could've created some of the best scenes in all of Stormlight IMO. From the overall plot standpoint, I dislike how the choices towards the end of the book (10 days) has the potential to invalidate this entire plotline/journey (unless something changes) The revelation of what happened in the Recreance has massive implications, but a slower burn could've helped the reveal from a story perspective. It was still a good moment, but could've hit harder. Similarly, we're simply told of Shallan's killing of her spren, as opposed to living through it (i.e. flashback). It could've been much more haunting and impactful if we actually got to meet Testament and experienced her death. Kaladin's plot was a disappointment. He was my favorite character in TWoKs, but with each book I'm losing interest in him more. He continues to be the most "reactive" of all our characters (as in the plot and circumstances tends to dictate what he has to do, rather than what the character wants), and I find that unengaging to read. I was excited when he was initially challenged with something he couldn't punch his way out of. But of course the plot pulls him right back into his same repetitive challenge again. Other main characters are given such diverse, interesting conflicts, whereas Kal's are mostly the same - and always solved by "oath harder, fight harder". His plot lines now look like monster of the week (he literally got a cartoon villain this book with the pursuer). It doesn't help that the plot constantly challenge his strengths instead of his weaknesses - his morality, mentally fortitude, and his fighting capability. Brandon is framing Kal as cosmere superman, but not giving him the good superman conflicts (i.e. a Lex Luthor). I wish we got to see more of the Dalinar/Jasnah/Wit war plot, but I also understand that a lot is already going on, and they were there mainly to facilitate the tower. Because of how straight forward this part was once the fighting started, I wished we got more frontloading of Dalinar/Jasnah pre-departure. This way, we'd get to explore the ramifications of their characters post-OB in everyday situations more. What is Jasnah's rule like? The consequences of her policies? What does the political dynamic between uncle and niece look like? Some Other Thoughts: With more and more characters introduced and thus potential plot lines, I wonder if Brandon needs to reconsider the part5 Sanderlanche structure for certain books. I've loved the way he piles on the misery to build his amazing climaxes, but in a book with such separate plot lines and multiple POVs, it might be better to self-contain and wrap certain sections in earlier parts instead of piling it in the end. For exampIe, I feel like he held back on the Sanderlanch for Shallan/Adolin plot because part 4 needed to be peak dread for part 5 to flip our emotions as much as it did. If we had wrapped the Shallan/Adolin plot in part 3 instead, we don't lose the momentum from part 1/2, and we could've had a more proper climax there, before he went back and appropiate piled on misery in part 4 to prep for the final climax.
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  8. The Windunner ideals seem to be progessing from more external to internal, i.e. from protecting others, to more internal epiphanies related to that first oath. My guess is that the Fifth will be something along the lines of a mirror of the First. Perhaps "I acknowledge that others can protect me, and I am worth protecting."
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  9. Hello!! We are also plural, and made an account here (after lurking for a while) so we could reply to this thread! (Have spoken to singlet RoW readers, and non-cosmere plurals, but it's not the same so we're super excited to have found this thread!) We feel almost exactly the same about Veil's integration. On the one hand, it was very beautifully done, as most Sanderson climax scenes are, and it was done with Veil's consent, she wasn't forced, so that was something, too. We also acknowledge that some systems do want to integrate some/all of their parts, and they're valid for wanting this. But we've come down, after a lot of thinking/soul-searching, on the side of this being a bad thing for Shallan, and a bad thing for plural representation as a whole in Rhythm of War. To us, it almost feels like a betrayal? Shallan has been plural/leaning more and more heavily obviously plural since TWOK, but it was only before RoW that Sanderson committed and said that yes, that was the intention, and that he had a beta reader on hand to help out. We were so excited! We've only recently discovered (in the last year/two years) we were plural, and Shallan has been extremely helpful in coming to terms with it and helping us feel good about it. We vibed with a lot of her interactions in this book, and it was so exciting to 1)- see her functioning and supported by Veil and Radiant 2)- in a relationship with someone who loves and accepts them for who they are!! (We've had a lot of problems dealing with relationship worry in particular, this was really important) 3)- just having plural rep that showed that no, we are not dangerous serial killers trapped in the bodies of innocent victims, we exist to support one another/help/IMPROVE the functioning of our host. It was all going really really well and we were so happy and excited and then...Veil integrated. It just felt like a huge slap in the face for us? I just remember thinking 'please don't take this away from us' as we read it. We paused and asked a friend who had finished if Shallan was still plural at the end of the book, and he said yes, and we cried with relief. And he was correct, and Radiant is still there, but Veil is gone. And she plans to integrate Radiant as well when she's ready and that was...very difficult to read? And we expect the full integration, if/when it happens, will be even more so. The problem for us, is in representation. Especially in a book series that deals so heavily with all different kinds of neurodivergence. Because none of the other ND seem to be heading towards being 'cured' or 'fixed' to complete their arc/for milestones in their journey? Kaladin's depression is still there, and, we believe, will never go away: he will simply learn coping mechanisms. Renarin is still autistic after bonding Glys/gaining healing - he's not been 'fixed' (and GOOD!!!). Teft's addiction and self-loathing weren't fixed, he just learns to cope. But Shallan. In order for Shallan to be making progress, she has to integrate. She has to be made 'normal'. She has to be 'fixed' in order to demonstrate growth. Integration is a valid choice for some systems. But when you only have one plural character, and you have them integrate to demonstrate growth, set alongside other characters who are developing their own coping mechanisms, it makes it seem like this is what ALL plurals should be doing/this is the only way to go. Instead of committing and showing something we NEVER see: a plural system functioning as plural, without integration, it reinforces the idea that we have to be singlet to be valid and to grow. It's hurtful, honestly. And I'm sure it reinforces the ideas of more ignorant singlet people who complained that they "just wanted Shallan" and that Adolin "deserved just one wife who he married without all these others" and they hoped Shallan would integrate because it would make their lives/Adolin's life etc easier. It's especially hurtful for us because we are also traumagenic, and have a headmate who has kept and protected us from bad memories. We have awareness of those memories now. We've processed and grown from them, as she gave them to us when we were in a safe place/ready for them. But she's still here. And she's still necessary, and loved, and wanted in our system. She hasn't expended all of her function/the purpose of existence now that we know about the memories. She still has them, and still holds them. And we just feel that...Shallan could have accepted awareness of her past, and taken on the awareness of the memories of what she'd done, without having to integrate Veil. Lumping them together in this moment of growth just makes it seem like...Like Veil was 'holding her back' rather than protecting her, and that she'd served her purpose, like a tool, rather than a person who loved and cared for Shallan, and had her own life and likes outside of that and it. Yeah, it hurts. We feel bad about it. Really bad
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  10. TWoK: RoW: It's an interesting idea, for sure.
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  11. My theory is that she is connected to the Ghostbloods. Since Ulim mentioned that she was found out by another of 'her kind' and had to leave. In the 'Lift' interlude we find the corpse of a man with a number of rings missing from his hands, who also owned the Red chicken (likely Aviar) which fought with Mraize's Aviar, and was probably killed by Mraize. So I think this dead Terrisman in Urithiru was the one who exposed her before, and as an enemy of the Ghostbloods Mraize put him down.
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  12. Obviously there are spoilers here EDIT: Props to @hyuuy6 for also translating all of this and catching a few mistakes of mine in the process! As always, Navani has been writing her notes in the women's script (very inconsiderate of her), but I decided to hop on the translation thing early. It's actually kind of remarkable how quickly you learn to recognize specific letters, or even entire words. Also, Raboniel's handwriting is garbage. Anyway, here's what I've got (after adding punctuation and fixing some spelling mistakes): Navani’s Notebook: The Fourth Bridge Navani’s Notebook: The Arnist Method Navani’s Notebook: The Crystal Pillar Room Navani’s Notebook: Dagger Navani’s Notebook: Experiments
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  13. It was confirmed in this book that Cultivation personally intervened in 3 Valley visits Dalinar, Taravangian and Lift. Mr. T is the new Vessel for Odium. Dalinar is bound to Honor’s remnants and can create his perpendicularity. Lift? New Cultivation someday? She has a back 5 book, currently slated to be book 6, I wouldn’t expect it to happen for her anytime soon, but someday. No proof of this just sensing a pattern. She was given the ability to use Lifelight instead of Stormlight which connects her to Cultivation more than the other two.
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  14. Just finished and going to just throw out all my random thoughts. They are so monumentally, colosally screwed. From the start I thought that if they lost Urithiru that was it, they would lose the war. Now I would prefer a million times over to have lost Urithiru rather than to have changed Rayse to Taravangian. T is one of the most disgusting, selfish and petty characters in the whole Cosmere. Why? Because: 1. He pretends to be good 2. He fools millions, including very smart and good people (main characters, not just the masses) that he has a good core. In this book the main characters knew T was a traiter from the start and Dalinar still didn't kill him, convinced there was good in T. 3. He actually believes himself that what he is doing is good, failing to realize that journey before destination is the most important Oath of all, and not for the KR but for any sentient being The only way to know you are doing the right thing is when your mind and heart are aligned. T did every single action against his heart. What is worse? A person who doesn't care he is doing something wrong, or someone who knows they are doing something wrong and does it anyway? The second by far. I thought that Sanderson would leave us the end of book 5 with a reasonably happy ending to tide us over for the years in between. After this, I don't see how. Best case scenario Dalinar will lose the duel and be enslaved to T. Worst case scenario T will turn most of Roshar into mindless slaves with as little willpower as the parshmen. Its possible Dalinar may ascend and become Honor, and T and Dalinar can play friends forever, but I hope not, Dalinar deserves better than to be stuck forever with odious (never said better) T as a companion. The other better alternative is kill T, Dalinar takes up Honor and Odium and forms War. Cultivation's grand plan has to my eyes proven to be the most stupid plan to ever be formed. Like stopping an enemy with a knife to give him a gun. There was a lot of good in this book, but a lot of bad as well. Why was Szeth locked up at the start? They had two nuclear bombs in Szeth and instead of exploiting them they threw them in the basement. A chance to create a splinter group of the Skybreakers loyal to Honor and Nightblood. Why did no-one try to fix Szeth's mental state in the year they had? If they had perhaps Szeth would have told someone when T began plotting, and the mess at the end could have been avoided. I can understand why Renarin said he doesn't say what he sees since it may change things for the worse, but right now Renarin knows Odium is T and I bet he will not tell anyone about it. Quite stupid when believing Odium is Rayse when it is really T will only end in tears. You cannot prepare for an enemy and win when they turn out to be someone with a whole other personality. El is a question mark and sounds quite dangerous, but also a bit delusional since the future is never set, and he sounds very certain. Now to the good. Shallan was a good surprise. Although I'm curious, when she broke her Oaths did her dead Shardblade stay stuck in her father's vault until know? I had zero hopes for Shallan this book. Every single book she gained more power but devolved instead of evolved at least partially. Possible exception was book 2, and even there there were issues. This book began with Shallan been as small as expected, completely under the GB thumb for reasons that escaped me. Then she showed true strength and in my opinion her first true step fully forward. Before she did 1 forward, 2 back. In this one she regained all she had lost and went even further. Adolin was as great as I expected. I'm so happy to see him help fix Maya, and start to become as respected as he likely will among all spren. Rlain was also beautiful to watch. I'm also very fond of Rlain, was sad and angry to see him rejected by honorspren but happy when the Sibling considered him worthy and a Sja-nat spren embraced him. Its good to see Rlain accept he belongs no-where and everywhere. He is truly someone of two worlds, who can find home and love with individuals but not with an entire people. It is a bit melancholic, but there is always something good about seeing things slide into place. Kaladin, -sigh-. I already knew what the Fourth Oath was, since it became obvious after Elhokar's death (one of the many theories already figured out correctly in the 17th Shard). So knowing what the Fourth Oath would be I was kind of agreeing with him at the start that he wouldn't be able to say it. When Urithiru fell I knew there were only two ways to save it before it was corrupted and the war lost forever. Kaladin saying the Oath or Navani bonding the Sibling. I lay higher odds on Navani. Surprisingly when Kaladin was sneaking about in Urithiru he was more solid than when he was supposedly safe. He ended up pulling together, but only with a lot of help from Dalinar, but that is not bad, after all the Bondsmith is about bonds and leading. What better way to lead than by helping his men through difficult obstacles? Jasnah and Wit, I wasn't expecting them but they fit perfectly. I didn't expect it since I didn't think Wit would ever bind himself to anyone or anywhere. But that is a bit unfair to him, as everyone, even Hoid, deserves happiness. Design is delightful, a spren who can give Hoid a run for his money, . Wish to see more of Design, she is perfect even after a few short pages. Jasnah was good but didn't appear much. The secret societies made me very contemptous on this book. All the happy plotting is okay when things are peaceful. Sadly, secret societies can be annoying and throw thorns on the way, but they are no-one at the end of the day. Secret societies in Roshar all liked to pretend to be in charge and have power, but when the Storm really starts, power is in the obvious places and nowhere else. Secret societies could press a finger here or there, but are empty by themselves. The only dangerous one this book was the Diagram because T was ruling Jah Keved. SoH irrelevant from the first page. GB annoying and I wanted to kill them when they captured Lift (strange, since I didn't use to like Lift, but she seems to have snuck into my heart). But ultimately, the GB were just an annoying buzz. They could annoy, but only by the support they could give Odium, by themselves they were worth very little. Good for Shallan for picking true strength over the empty weakness of the GB (in Roshar at least). Another sign of how useless societies are, is that they seldom create anything by themselves. They almost always have to steal what they want. They have an idea and some secret information and run with it even though they only have the ability to destroy and steal, but not make things themselves. Possible exception SoH and likely only because Kalak was around. Rock...I haven't read Dawnshard so I may have missed something but if Rock truly was killed for saving Kaladin's life because of laws of inheritance then the Horneaters maybe need to be scrapped and reformed. Moash as much of a mess as he's been since...always. Didn't like him in book 1, hated him in book 2, hated him in book 3, so he fulfilled my expectations in book 4. Saying he was similar to Kaladin has always been an insult, since they were not ever anything alike. And then the true star of this book: Navani. I was completely indifferent to her before, but she proved her stripes many times over in this book. I was ready to kill Gavilar after the prologue, and I was very grimly satisfied as she overcame her chains of the past. Navani ensured she will end up in the history books, regardless of who wins, as the person who changed the eternal war forever, and possibly made a revolution in the Cosmere. She made mistakes, but she got back up almost inmediately. I need another thread in which to properly talk about her. There were some conflicting signals with the Sibling, at first I thought they would bond Navani, then Dabbid, then Rlain, then Navani again. When the Sibling dared to say to Navani she was not "worthy" I knew it was Navani who was bonding them for certain. Venli was a petty, small person the first three books, and sadly I'm not sure she can ever be much more. She may be an okay KR, but I can't see her be a brilliant KR like Kaladin, Jasnah and Dalinar. It makes sense in these massive books to see all typed of KR like Timbre said. The amazing heroes that others die for with a smile in the faces knowing its the right thing to do, the everyday people, and the cowards that don't intrinsically want to do the right thing but end up doing it anyway. Radoniel ended up been an amazing character, I wanted her to survive. I thought maybe she would live and she and Navani could converse over spanreed even while the war raged around them. It was so touching, although predictable, but nevertheless amazing how humanity rallied around Kaladin while Urithiru was occupied. They knew they might/would die, but they did it anyway, because they had to, because the alternative was worse, because they choose to. p.s. I knew it would be a long post, but wew, if anyone reads it fully kudos
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  15. Ugh honestly, Adolin feels like he is made of plot armour right now. We need a way to sort out the honourspren - send Adolin (despite not being used as an ambassador *ever* before), We need a way to figure out how to undermine the importance of the Recreance - its ok, Adolin's so great his partially revived spren will do it. We need Shallan to "git good" - ok, make her fall for Amazing Adolin and it'll all work out. I *liked* Adolin before. I didn't love him, but he was alright - i liked how ordinary he felt most of his POVs. But an ordinary man, no matter how skilled, does not easily take down 14 men at once, fix DID, *and* argue a legal case in a foreign legal system. One of these alone might be problematic, all of them borders on the farcical. So Adolin is no longer an ordinary "everyman". He actually feels a bit Mary-Sue-ish because the only time we see real fear or anger in in relation to Dalinar and it only happens once. I want to see him face some consequences for the murder of Sadeas, not so much because he killed the man, but because he knows it was wrong (which is why he tried to hide it). Also, he fantasises about it multiple times which is beyond creepy - its downright scary. I also feel he has dragged Shallan (as Radiant) down with him. Arguably, prior to killing Ialai, she had only killed in self-defence, but now she hasn't. It worries me that he is a bad influence although in fairness, she is as bad for him because she seems happy to encourage him to avoid responsibility. Shallan felt broken in this book. She no longer reads like OSDD to me, despite Sanderson claiming he dug into DSM-5.
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  16. A theory lodged into my head about the main antagonist of book 6-10. I think, Cultivation is going to merge with the Shard of Odium. This is why: During the Navani Raboniel brainstorming sessions, there was a glaring omission. Neither of them suggested, or even had a passing thought about mixing voidlight with lifelight. Both of them were scholars of wide branching interests, they had the method, they had the materials, they even had the free time. Raboniel learned a completely new rhythm from the storm-void mixture, so why not find out how the life-void mixture sounded like? I couldn't think of a single excuse to this, unless the author himself wanted to avoid attention, because naming the rhythm of the light would give away the antagonist of a future book. So what do we get if we mix the two? A tone of chaos mixed with the tone of ever-building majesty? A tone, which makes chaos build something majestic? It sounds a lot like the Rhythm of Evolution. The chaotic shuffling of genes, and the passionate struggle for survival mixed with the uncaring selective pressure of nature. Nature, which is slowly changing, thus forcing everything around it to endlessly adapt and improve. And to make it more interesting, add to this the intelligent guidance of selective breeding, and the power to grow whatever you want. This works SO well. Cultivation has been established as an entity lacking of passion. She doesn't care what she grows, she only cares about growth itself. For her a boon and a curse are equally valid growths. But add passion to the mix and suddenly she can have directions and great goals. I suspect, that the Shard Cultivation literally cannot have passion for her creations. Its Vessel Koravari might want to have it, but the Shard resists. We learned in RoW that Shards and their Vessels can have opposing desires, and usually the Shards win. If Koravari took Odium, she could finally grow things with unbridled passion. But to what end? What would this mean for the Cosmere at large? Well, there is the utterly terrifying image of a rapidly evolving godlike zerg species taking over worlds, but I think that is just the means to an end. So what is the end goal for the God of Evolution? I think she wants to grow, to evolve back into Adonalsium itself. She wants to merge all the shards, and probably try to recreate the dead shards too. This might be possible if we look at it through evolutionary principles. Without getting too technical, for example if an apex predator dies, that opens up a niche, a spot where another species could evolve into, thus taking its previous role. A similar yet unknown principle could exist in the Cosmere. Maybe the Shards that have died left their imprints, which divine evolution could fill up. Who could better accomplish this than a god whose very nature is to change and adapt? To build itself to become ever greater? This seems like the sort of villain Sanderson would write for his endgame. Odium is kind of a bog standard world conquering maniac who wants to become the sole god of everything. Not nearly interesting enough to keep until book 10. There are other clues to Cultivation being up to something big: Book 6 will be focused on Lift. This is important, because Cultivation has only ever touched three mortals. With Dalinar, she stole Odium's champion. With Taravangian, she stole his vessel. But we still have Lift. She has to have an equally grand role in the coming events, but what else is left to be stolen, other than the very Shard itself? The powers that Cultivation gave her are quite telling too. She can enter and manipulate the visions of gods, the same place where Rayse just got killed. She also uses the light of cultivation exclusively, and has some hidden property to not get changed (Resist the influence of a Shard maybe, but able to seed it with lifelight? We have to wait for future books to learn.) Point is, she reeks of Cultivation, and if we keep with the pattern, this will somehow oppose Odium. Finally, even though Odium is confined to Roshar right now, what would happen if he merged with Cultivation? Is it possible that all previous agreements would be null and void, since Evolution, as an entirely new Shard, has never agreed to anything?
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  17. We are going to have different opinions, your Passion for disliking Kaladin has been heard but unfortunately, his arc was the best- the core of Rhythm of War. For me, he's the best character of Stormlight Archive and I pretty much believe in same spectrum of your 2nd line.
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  18. Just finished a few hours ago and read through what everyone has said. This one hit me harder emotionally than Oathbringer. Kaladin and Shallan struggling and saying how tired they both were really hit home with how I've been feeling lately. It's very much a middle book, but there was so much to digest. Some immediate thoughts: Design is the best and is perfect. I can see why Brandon said chapter 80 was his favourite. It was amazing. New Odium is terrifying. Like absolutely terrifying Ishar's spren thing is straight out of a horror novel The whole metal interations with gems thing was actually awesome. Really curious what gold metals would do for fabrials. I don't care how predictable it was. Kaladin swearing the ideal was absolutely perfect and brought tears to my eyes I only have profanities for Moash I'm almost 100% sure Cultivation is a Dragon from the hinting of many forms after Rayse dies and the mention of there being a dragon on Roshar There's probably more, but that was a journey. Definitely not re-reading it until we have a release date for book 5 but I want to see how much my thoughts change with the world changing so much.
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  19. I immediatly considered this to be a similar situation to ryshadium, and the bond they can create? I could be wrong
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  20. Kaladin going berserker after Teft is a scene that I think passes the Arena scene in WoR for me. Seeing from another POV was such a good choice. Soon as Kaladin grabbed Ole Defeated I audibly said “ Uh oh, this bayd, so bayd”. I’ve seen a few people complain about the Fourth Ideal but I disagree. This was the pivot point Kaladin needed to make in logical character development. Also, Shardplate Kaladin is just straight up awesome sauce. Side note, the Teft thing isn’t what pushed me over the edge with Tw*t Waffle 9000(taking one out of Odiums book and giving him a new, proper title). What pushed me over the edge was his POV right after. A person with wrong convictions still is brave enough to stand by them. Tw*t Waffle 9000 is now simply a coward with the wrong convictions. Something ya can’t even muster pity for.
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  21. Oh man, I think this might be my favorite SA book yet. But I do have one minor complaint I want to get off my chest: I wish there had been more Willshaper stuff. I understand why there wasn't, both Venli's character and her circumstances were working against fun displays of her powers. But still... I remain burningly curious about applications of Transportation other than just going to Shadesmar.
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  22. Apologies if this is an old idea - it's new to me! I just read a theory on Reddit discussing how Taravangian was set up to be Dalinar's foil, and how well that fits with him taking up Odium and Dalinar seemingly being on a path towards reclaiming Honor (or something like that, at least). We know that Cultivation had a hand in both Taravangian's Ascension and Dalinar's journey, by interacting with them both directly when they visited the Nightwatcher. We also know of one other person who interacted with Cultivation directly - Lift. My theory is that Cultivation, in addition to preparing Taravangian to take up Odium (confirmed) and Dalinar to take up Honor (suspected), is also preparing Lift to be her own successor. Evidence in favour of this, in addition to the above pattern, that I can think of off the top of my head: Lift's character so far is based very strongly on the idea of not changing, which is more or less the antithesis of Cultivation's Intent. As we've seen, she is changing despite her best efforts and pleas to Cultivation. This seems to set the stage very nicely for an interesting character arc. She has bonded a Cultivationspren. She can metabolise food directly into Lifelight - Cultivation's light. There might be more, or I could be completely wrong. But I found it interesting to think about nevertheless, and I hope you do too!
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  23. Okay, the Shallan reveal has me pretty shaken, but consider this: she revives Testament and becomes a dual-wielding double Lightweaver.
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  24. Here to write down my opinions on how Shallan's past all fits together. There's so many ways to interpret it, especially when you bring WoBs in. I like mine, and I think it has some interesting implications about the nature of deadeyes. Shallan bonded Testament at a young age. Probably some family troubles that drove her to it? Something giving her reasons to want to hide in the gardens and dream. As we have seen, the Cryptics have been very eager to bond humans though. Recall how Shallan saw several of them in Kharbranth? Pattern was present when Testament bonded Shallan, and may have even been following her around for years afterward. So Testament and Pattern were part of the same group who saw the coming need for Radiants and went looking for humans. They found Shallan. Testament bonded her first. It lasted for... a couple of years? Months? We don't know exactly. But the bond eventually broke. Pattern is considered brave at least in part because of his willingness to bond her after what happened to Testament. Now, I think that Shallan advanced all the way to (at least) her second truth with Testament. Her third ideal. This is because I prefer to assume that all orders get their Shardblades at the same level. Could be a faulty assumption... but until we've seen otherwise, it feels like the best bet that she would summon Testament in self defense against her mother after she had spoken the usual number of ideals (3) to obtain a Shardblade. Then things go south. She breaks off her bond with Testament... Or does she? What does it mean to break a bond with your Nahel spren? The books so far have suggested they become a deadeye. And, well, okay... they do. Obviously that's what Testament is. But I don't think they necessarily have to follow the rules of the deadeyes we've seen. I think it's very clear that, despite Testament's state, she and Shallan still have some shred of a bond between them. She knows where Shallan is, and followed her around. (plus more that I'll get into momentarily) In Shallan's final chapter she talks specifically about how odd it is that she had powers after killing Testament and before finding Pattern: So when Hoid shows up one year at Middlefest, holds up some spheres of Stormlight, and Shallan seems to interact with them briefly? That's because she still has the tatters of her bond with Testament. There's... something in here about the imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram that matters, but it's very difficult to speculate on what that means for Shallan's bond. Anyways, then we get to the Soulcasting of the goblet in TWoK. People have often assumed that her bond with Pattern allowed this. I don't think it was him. Note this line: The voice Shallan spoke with in that scene wasn't Pattern. Or at least it dosn't seem to be. Kind of an odd line no? It makes sense though. Testament was following her. She's "dead", but they still have a bond. Shallan can still summon her deadeye as a Shardblade. She can still make use of their bond to Soulcast. And that's what happens in her rooms in Kharbranth. I think the truth that she seems to speak in that scene ("I'm terrified") was either an advancement in her bond with Testament, or maybe it was a slight reparation of it. Not clear how "repairing" a bond like that works. It's somewhere at this point that she begins to bond Pattern as well. She speaks her first truth to Pattern at the end of TWoK ("I killed my father"), and that's why he begins to manifest a few days later on the deck of Wind's Pleasure. The biggest problem with this idea is that she believes the blade to be Pattern on several occasions. She's an unreliable narrator to the extreme. I absolutely think this could be one giant self-deception. I don't think we have any clear descriptions of the Blades well enough to say if the descriptions do or don't match unfortunately. But I'm sure this will bother some people. Nevertheless, I think this is what Shallan is admitting when she says she had two Shardblades in chapter 115. In any case, at the end of Words of Radiance Shallan speaks her 2nd truth to Pattern putting them at "level 3". Meanwhile, her bond with Testament is still there. There's a notable WoB that Shallan is "a step higher than Kaladin" at the end of WoR. This may be because she originally advanced with Testament to "level 4" and that doesn't entirely regress just because she broke her oaths. (Kaladin being at level 3 at the end of WoR) It's also possible that Shallan originally made it to "level 3" (Shardblade level) and then her "I'm terrified" actually advanced their bond further. Remember when Adolin asks about Shardplate in OB chapter 15? There were theories that her bond with Pattern had advanced this far and she's holding back. This always bugged me. Why should she have trouble admitting this? Testament makes it all make sense. She can't summon Shardplate because it would require her to acknowledge her bond with Testament--the one that's far enough along to grant Plate. But she's not there yet. Where's Shallan at the end of RoW? Both of her bonds are now at level 4, with "I killed Testament" being her 3rd truth with Pattern. Shallan has not just one but TWO more truths to go, perhaps. One for each spren. EDIT: Added qoute about the holes still in Shallan's past, and a mention of the "two Shardblades" quote. EDIT #2: I've reevaluated some of my opinions and added a bunch of analysis on page 3 of this topic:
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  25. Hi everyone! I wanted to talk about spoilers on the Coppermind and some things we are doing on the Coppermind to assist here. First, whoa, our servers have had some serious problems keeping up with you all! The server load was really high, so apologies if you were trying to get to the wiki Tuesday and Wednesday and saw various server errors. I've upped the server capacity so we should be good now. Turns out a whole lot of you really would like to refresh your mind on details as you read the book. Now, the Coppermind has always been a site with spoilers, as wikis often do, and so we kind of played this release with our business-as-usual attitude. I'll talk a little bit about why have done things this way historically a bit later in this post. But given the server load, and the amount of comments we've had regarding spoilers, we've made some changes that I think will help everyone a bunch. Coppermind Spoiler Changes and the Time Machine First up: the Time Machine, a new permanent feature to the Coppermind! This allows you to actually set a specific date, and you will see the versions of the Coppermind page that existed at that date. So if you want to refresh yourself on a topic, you can simply set the Time Machine and select "Before Rhythm of War" and you will get the version of the page that exists at that specific date. I am REALLY excited about this, because I think this will really help the vast majority of users. There are a few ways to access the Time Machine: When you go to the Coppermind for the first time, you will get a pop-up saying the wiki can contain spoilers, but it will also have a link to the Time Machine. A link to the Time Machine is in our wiki-wide purple spoiler warning at the top of pages. (This banner won't be permanent, but it'll be up for at least a month.) Lastly, toward the top of the left sidebar, there is a Time Machine link. In the Time Machine, you can simply go in the dropdown menu, which has a few presets, which include: "Before Rhythm of War," "Before Rhythm of War and Dawnshard," "Before Oathbringer," "Before Shadows of Self, Bands, and Secret History," and lastly, "Before Words of Radiance." You can also select whatever date you'd prefer as well. We'll update this list with each big cosmere release. There are a few issues with Time Machine, so it isn't flawless. If you set the Time Machine to a certain date, and you specifically go to a brand-new Rhythm of War topic, there's no "previous" version for the Time Machine to give you, so it will give you a page after 11/17. Also, when looking back on old pages, templates use their current template version. For example, the navigation box at the bottom of Stormlight pages might have additional topics. We'll try to not have glanceable spoilers there. The last issue is that the further back you go, the more sucky the wiki is. The "Before Words of Radiance" one will look really bad and have broken templates. But! For more recent things, especially OB and on, I think this will be really, really nice for most people. Do also note that for whatever you pick, there will be spoilers for other series that existed at that time. Other things we have done beyond our usual spoiler banners at the top of pages to help with this: We now have the spoiler pop-up the first time you go to the wiki, explaining that the wiki does have spoilers. There were lots of reports of Google indexing some spoilers in its text previews for pages, which is not great. This should no longer be happening. So yeah! I hope those things, with the Time Machine, that we can get the majority of users happy. That's the main new thing for the Coppermind. Talking about the Coppermind Spoiler Policy in General Now I'd like to talk about why the Coppermind has operated this way in the past, and hopefully these explanations make sense. So, I realize I am quite biased here, but I generally assume that the internet will spoil everything all the time. This happened Monday prior to release where some jerk joined the Discord, posted a big spoiler, then left that same minute. It's the few jerks on the internet that really ruin it for everyone, right? So, the way we've done things on the Coppermind generally is to put spoiler tags as soon as possible on topics that are in the book. That way there's a big flag on top. That way, if anyone puts a spoiler on a page--which since it is a wiki, it's inevitable--then we are sure that we warned people. We did this for Oathbringer and it worked pretty well, but the fandom is clearly much bigger now. That's why when Rhythm of War came out, I spent about four hours putting spoiler flags on pages that could have Rhythm of War content, so that if in the next day spoilers were posted, they would be flagged. Many have asked why we don't put a moratorium on spoilers right after release. This is a great question. Historically, the first week after release is a huge spike of excitement. There really aren't that many wiki editors (though the last two years have been incredible, compared to 2010-2018), so this is really important excitement to have. Wikis are always perpetually behind, especially since Brandon is so prolific, so we need people's help. You can look at our recent Dawnshard Blitz where people just got a ton done. Let's suppose we did have a moratorium on spoilers, though. There's two ways to do it: we simply make that policy, and remove any spoilery edits. We do this when sample chapters come out. We didn't allow any Rhythm of War Part One content, and we had our purple spoiler banner that spoilers are not allowed until the book comes out. The issue with this was pretty simple: people put spoilers in anyway. We tried to get them removed as quickly as we can, but I can absolutely imagine a situation where after the Rhythm of War rush that there would have been tons of editors adding information regardless of our policy, and we don't catch it fast enough, and people get spoiled. I think there's a big difference in making clear and labeled spoilers rather than surprise spoilers you weren't expecting. (That was of course the problem with the Google snippets, that they were surprises.) The other way we could implement a moratorium on spoilers is by preventing anyone from editing in this period. That definitely gets around the issue of accidental spoilers for sure, but on the other hand, that is an aggressive wall if you finished Rhythm of War and you just helped out. That'd be a pretty big exit point, and we'd lose out on that. And, of course, everyone would feel a moratorium should be different lengths. Should it be one week? Some haven't received their physical copies. Should it be two weeks? A month? The longer it is, the more safe the wiki is, but the more the wiki is behind because we lost potential new editors. That's why in the past we have not done a moratorium, and we continued our spoiler policy that we had since the Coppermind's inception in 2010, to spoiler flag articles ASAP to minimize potential spoilers. I hope our new implementations with the Time Machine, the spoiler pop-up at the start, and preventing spoiler in Google snippets achieve our goals: 1. Letting people look stuff up as they read, which is a big improvement and a capability we have not had before, 2. Educating people about the Coppermind's general spoiler policy, and 3. Not having accidental spoilers. Our standard spoiler banners will exist for nine months after Rhythm of War. Dawnshard spoiler banners will exist for three months. I think we will keep our spoiler pop-up just so people know the Time Machine exists, so different readers can view articles at certain times that they desire. I'm really excited that we can actually offer this for you all. I'm so excited the answer was actually fairly simple to implement, which is typically not the case with MediaWiki. Big thanks to @Paleo, who made the spoiler pop-up and made some enhancements to the Time Machine for our use case. He's the same guy who did the coding for the fancy Roshar Map, so he's basically a wizard. A big apology to anyone who did get spoiled, especially with those Google snippets. That was not good. It definitely sucks majorly. Hopefully now we won't have this problem ever again with these new features, and we are thinking about other ways we can deal with articles that have severe spoilers on them. Nothing's ready yet regarding those, though. Apologies for being rather verbose. I thought you would prefer a full-thought out write-up, but this ended up being... much longer than anticipated. However, I imagine with us being Brandon Sanderson readers, you're not scared of large amounts of text I could obviously blab more, but I'll leave it here for now. If you come across issues, bugs, or you have any other comments or suggestions, we have a dedicated Coppermind board, and we also have a Discord server dedicated to Coppermind Editing here. If you want to help out with the wiki too, you can join us there!
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  26. literally just don’t know how it took so long I’ve read the Mistborn books, Elantris, and Warbreaker — am working on RoW but otherwise all of the Stormlight Archive. obsessed with this obsession, can’t wait to theorize with y’all!
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  27. Hello everyone!! Joined few days back. Awesome theories, and great discussions.. Love Brandon's books. All of them!! Just finished Rythm of War. It's great, but for me, oathbringer was better. But some of the moments in Rythm of War... Wow. Can't wait for the next book. Brandon's books are a necessity.. Cheers guys!!! Love this community.
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  28. So I was rereading the epigraphs and there are two in Harmony's letter that grabbed my attention. When I saw this I was kinda confused, why would Mercy worry anyone? It seems like a pretty benign intent. I thought maybe the vessel holding Mercy was becoming unstable, but then I read this next epigraph And in the Arcanum unbounded Threnody essay it says that Odium and Ambition clashed near Threnody and Ambition was wounded, but the splintering took place elsewhere. So here's the theory. Odium attacked Ambition and wounded them, but didn't manage to kill/splinter them. Odium left to recuperate or something, and Mercy finished Ambition off because they believed it was the merciful thing to do. I tried to come up with a different reason Mercy would be involved in the conflict and I can't think of any other good reasons. Especially taking the first epigraph in account.
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  29. When I read the description of the Highspren, I realized that it sounded a whole lot like a visual effect I figured out how to do last week. And the Cryptic's body is basically a low-poly model... so I fired up Blender and Unity (a fitting program to use, given Dalinar's claim to the title) and started putting together a showcase. Here's what I've got so far. Hopefully there will be more to come soon! This is still a very early WIP. The Cryptic's head needs a lot more complexity, for example! (Which I have every intention of adding as soon as I work out the math to make it look good while animating.) The inkspren needs a sword, and everyone's in a static pose. This will get better as I continue to work on it.
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  30. So, we've always known in the past that a bunch of important events happened close to each other in time - the Radiants leaving Urithiru, the False Desolation and the trapping of Ba-Ado-Mishram, the Recreance, Honor's death. Close in time, but not the same time. I think in Rhythm of War, we learn a bunch of tidbits of information that may tie into a unified theory for how these all fit together. My genesis for this theory is the discrepancy between the Tones of Roshar as they exist now and as the Sibling remembers them. Navani and the Sibling have a conversation about this in chapter 65: Navani's idea makes sense given the history. Odium and Cultivation were here first. They made the Sibling together. At the time, there were only Two true tones of Roshar. Odium has continually resisted Investing himself into Roshar, so did not have a Tone for a long time; eventually, he had Invested enough that he got one. In fact, that was probably the moment that the Sibling lost some abilities - when they no longer had access to all of Roshar's tones. But this all gave rise to a horrible cascade of events. So here my final proposed timeline. 1. Honor and Cultivation were on Roshar first. Their Tones were the True Tones of Roshar. They made the Sibling, were part of the ecosystem as the highstorm cycle, etc. The fight against Odium starts and keeps going. 2. Sometime before the False Desolation, Odium and Honor have one last clash. (I think we don't have info on this, yet. Maybe it was Odium trying to do something to force Taln to break?) In this, Odium wounds Honor, but at the cost of Investing himself more heavily in Roshar than he wants. 3. ...this Connects him more heavily to Roshar, making his Tone one of the True Tones of Roshar, giving Ba-Ado-Mishram he ability to power up Singers with his Light, and making the Sibling lose some of their powers (since they're missing one of the three tones of Roshar and don't know it.). 3. The False Desolation happens. At its conclusion, Melishi traps Ba-Ado-Mishram. 4. ...but in doing so, it disrupts *everyone's* connection to the third tone of Roshar - Spren and Singer alike. 5. In this, the humans firsthand have a look at just how much damage radiant powers can cause. It's no longer theoretical, it's not just Honor raving about how they destroyed Ashyn a long time ago - they can SEE what their powers can accidentally do. (Maybe they see themselves as being one or two gemstones away from destroying all spren or even all life on Roshar, or something like that, who knows what they conclude about what would happen if the Stormfather or Nightwatcher was similarly trapped.) 6. The Radiants decide that the only way out is to remove their powers from the equation entirely. The Recreance happens; perhaps the Skybreakers are left behind to ensure that no radiant orders reform, maybe their surges are deemed safe? 7. ...except the Recreance is even worse than they imagined. They knew breaking their bonds would hurt their spren; they did not realize that since the Spren's connection with Roshar was ALSO broken, that they would get deadeyed instead of eventually, after pain, reforming in the Cognitive. 8. And it gets worse. Honor, already being wounded, was dealt the killing blow by all radiant bonds being broken at the same time. 9. Since before this, making bonds was safe, most spren that didn't mind bonding had already done so; none of the spren who were "left behind" were the kind to study realmatic theory and understand exactly what just happened, given the huge casualties they'd just had. And so Spren society, decimated as it was, did not retain the knowledge of why the Recreance went wrong. Humans, having lost touch with their spren, had no idea what horrors they'd done. And so it was lost to time - leaving everyone, spren and human, to make up their own stories of what happened and why.
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  31. He would pretty clearly be an Edgedancer since Maya is a cultivation spren, and he’s reawakening her through listening and remembering her which is also in line with the Edgedancer oaths. I don’t feel too bad since both Dalinar and Kaladin made it pretty clear he could be a Radiant if he wanted to, he’s just not willing to give up Maya for it. That shows it isn’t the most important thing to him even though it definitely stings some, and that dedication to her is probably what’s going to make him a Radiant eventually anyways.
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  32. I think Thaidakar is Kelsier. What makes me think this is the fact: When Shallan breaks from the Ghostbloods she mentions Wit also calls him the 'Lord of Scars' The fact Wit mentioned he’d met him on other worlds Wit said he'd go back to his planet and slap him around again (Their tussle at the Well of Ascension)... Iyatil being from Scadrial, the south specifically, where Kelsier is worshipped and this may have been passed on to Mraize Kelsier couldn't visit Roshar because in person because Rosharns are too far beneath his level to be worthy of more he is a cognative shadow bound to Scadrial. When we last left Kelsier he was consumed by the need to prepare his world against other threats from the Cosmere. I also think he was mentally damaged during the time of his death, he never seemed quite right after. I remember a WOB where Brandon said if Kelsier joined the Ghostbloods he’d be the leader within two years. I think this was a little tongue in cheek comment. The guys a master schemer. I have just finished the book and I am a little shaken by all that happens so this isn’t exactly a full on dissection of facts and quotes like others post so I apologize.
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  33. The Skybreakers also did join Odium, that a Radiant order was OK with it does not mean anything. I`d also like to point out that Mraize referencred Sadeas murder as necessary while he was trying to convince Shallan to murder the Herald. Sanderson still throws some shade on that murder. I`d like to know about your opinions on Radiant killing Ialai, was that necessary too? @Oltux72 "When he killed Sadeas, basic Alethi mores backed him up." They also backed up Dalinar commiting war crimes. Alethi codes of conduct are somewhat amoral. I felt a bit disappointed about Adolin this book. He has become an almost perfect character, which he was not before, I do not see, where this came from. I could almost hear @DeployParachute sigh with disappointment at that arc.
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  34. In the Sja-Anat interlude, we see that while Rayse is against questioning orders, the Shard is all for it, calling it a Passion (capital P). We also have Fused (who should know their god best) saying that many different emotions are worthy Passions (capital P), but that not all are considered equally worthy in the current situation. I think it means that the Shard's Intent is actually Passion, but that Rayse has been forcing it to be Odium, hate. But Rayse was losing that battle. Now the new Vessel can use the Shard properly. Also note that Cultivation says she needed to make Taravangian attractive to the Shard. The day he ascends he is not super smart, feeling only the emotion of annoyance towards everyone (which seems like Odium), but instead he is super emotional, every act sees him crying, cowering, full of passion.
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  35. Or, as I just realized in a reply in another thread: maybe this uniquely sapient and sympathetic so-called chasmfiend is the dragon on Roshar that Hoid casually mentioned as having taken on another form while telling Kaladin "The Dog and the Dragon". The dragon in Hoid's Lightweaving strongly resembles a chasmfiend to Kaladin anyway, who has seen one very up close and personal for comparison. So it wouldn't even be a far stretch for a dragon to pose as one.
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  36. Interestingly enough, that wasn't her actual wish, as Wyndle pointed out in her Interlude, her _actual_ wish was: "I said when everything else is going wrong, I want to be the same. I want to stay me. Not become someone else." If Cultivation's boon endures through an Ascension to a Shard and Lift becomes a Vessel, this could be huge. As it would prevent the Shard from changing and subsuming her personality, ever! And BTW, there is a WoB that a Vessel can lay down their Shard without dying, so maybe that's what Cultivation is planning for. Perhaps she feels that she has become too much of a slave to her Shard's Intent to be effective and is cultivating a superior replacement that would not have this problem.
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  37. Here's my guess at Kaladin's Fifth Ideal: "I will accept that others can protect themselves."
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  38. Forgive me, I used the wrong vocabulary here. I meant his arc was one of the core aspects of this book because he gets second most screentime after Navani. See, we have varied opinions of our characters but I don't think BS will write something which would be waste for his plot. It might not satisfy us, for example I was left unappeased by Shallan-Adolin arc but that is absolutely integral to our story. It might not be our passion, but clearly it is needed for the story. And removing Kaladin is going to bring castastrophic disability to this book because by now, he's become more than just a Highmarshal but I'm not gonna spend words and time explaining the obvious. Brandon decided to explore the theme of mental illness in this book, something which has never been delved in many fantasy novels and I commend him for doing something so fresh and unique. You can't keep fighting and shrugging the screams and killing off just like that without facing the eventual blunt trauma. No book addresses this. This book does and that was amazing. Some of us prefer action, some prefer emotional aspects and some prefer nail-biting intense moments. This book had it all. And deep down, we all are bound by our similar bond for being Sanderson fans.
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  39. Personally, I'm choosing to believe he napped through the whole thing. Because that's amusing, and there's nothing to tell me otherwise.
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  40. Now see I get some of what you are saying, but I don't think it's because he wants to stay on schedule or keep to the 10 books total thing. I think it has much more to do with the constraints of keeping each book to a reasonable physical size. Because realistically speaking they can only be so big and they're already pushing that limit, like I think I read somewhere that their manufacturer was worried about being able to print/bind a book with so many pages correctly. This leaves him with the choice of cutting things, making a book that is too big for a lot of people (physically not mentally) or splitting up books by character and writing about what one group is doing in one book and what another group is doing in a separate book with the events of both taking place at the same chronological time ala GRRM; and personally I hate when authors do that. I mean maybe some people prefer that but to me it sucks, especially if the series isn't yet completed it makes it harder to follow and I almost inevitably enjoy whichever one comes out second less, no matter how good it is. I mean I get it I would love more of those scenes too (and if he ever releases them as extras or something I'll be over them *hint hint*) but not at the cost of keeping the books in chronological order sans flashbacks. I will however give you points 4&5. It would have been awesome to see Jasnah vs skybreakers and we really should have gotten to see more of what the dustbringers were up to. But I wouldn't be so quick to write off the importance of Emul just yet .
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  41. Yep, since WoK. This aspect of Adolin has truly been the strongest throughline of Adolin's character - his entire characterization almost completely revolved around reflecting and challenging his father in that first book. His insecurity at not being able to match up to his father's expectations/perception of him has been around in every book leading up to now.
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  42. Damn my old ass kindle, but I could not read a word of any of these. Anyone got descriptions? aww Kora and Tan Avast. The Avasts! So cute! wonder if she helped murder him...
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  43. Ishar's using his powers of connection to force all the other Heralds to trust him.
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  44. 9:30pm Monday to 9:30pm Tuesday, only taking breaks to help with my newborn from time to time. Rhythm of War is my least favorite Stormlight Archive book and continues a personal trend of liking each book slightly less than the previous. My personal opinion is that the Way of Kings was the best book in the series and then each successive book is slightly less, in a literary sense, good. To be clear, Rhythm of War had a lot of amazing elements and, overall, the Stormlight Archives remains a great series. I do, however, worry that Sanderson has put destination before journey. Too many times in the series, and in this book, seemingly great or important scenes have happened off-screen. Scenes that could, that should, have a powerful impact on the reader are skipped completely. Kaladin flying Shallan to Thaylenar in Oathbringer is the first egregious example I can think of. After their impactful time together in the chasms in Words of Radiance, with the undertones of a potential romance in Oathbringer, Sanderson skipped out on potentially powerful scene that could have built tension, foreshadowed outcomes, and developed both Kaladin and Shallan's character. At the end of Oathbringer, we are not given a glimpse of Adolin and Shallan's wedding, Jasnah's coronation, nor are we shown what should have been a difficult, but revealing, conversation between Dalinar and Szeth. Rhythm of War continues this tradition of skipping key storytelling moments. In Kaladin's case, he apparently has had, another, entirely off-screen romance (first Tara, now Lyn, maybe others). Furthermore, despite Kaladin being in all 5 acts in the same physical space as Laral, we get no interaction whatsoever between childhood friends and low-key tension romance potential. During the life-and-death situation in the Tower, we are to assume that Kaladin never once even thought of Laral, much less made sure she and her kids were ok? Does that sound like the protective Kaladin we know? Jasnah's situation is even worse. While I understand that she is a "back 5" character, that does not mean Sanderson can just completely ignore her in the "front 5". Her scenes, after Words of Radiance, continue to be short and disappointing. We never actually see her as a Queen, but only as someone who interacts with Dalinar. We never see the effects her edicts (women can inherit titles, slavery to be outlawed, etc.) have on the people of Alethkar; her actions seem to exist in a vacuum and no results are ever shown. Her romance with Wit/Hoid came out of nowhere and the one scene we are given of them together did so much surface level telling and zero showing (in the literary sense of "show not tell"; I am not asking for a Wit/Jasnah sex scene). Even her battle scene was muted and dull; she was less useful on the battlefield than Adolin would have been despite being a 4th Oath Radiant. It is one thing to want to keep a mystery until later, it is entirely another neuter a character completely until it is "their turn". Remember how mysterious, knowledgeable, wise, intriguing, etc. Jasnah was in the Way of Kings? Compare that to this book. She is dull and uninteresting and it is a shame for such a wonderful character to be treated this way. I could go on and on about how Sanderson keeps pushing for his plot points, his "I have been dreaming of this scene for 20 years" moments, instead of giving us a well-paced narrative that does its cast of incredible characters justice. Too much, in my opinion, is being sacrificed to keep "on schedule" instead of allowing the story to go where it needs to go in order to not just be incredible in a "this plot has cool twists and turns" way, but also in maintaining a satisfying narrative overall. For those who remember when Sanderson agreed to finish the Wheel of Time, I see the Stormlight Archives going in the opposite direction of what Sanderson did for the ending of the Wheel of Time. Initially, Sanderson promised, repeatedly, that the Wheel of Time would be finished in a single book. Over and over we heard that no matter how large of a book it became, it would be a single book. Well, look at how that turned out. Sanderson ended up doing 3 books instead of 1. And that was the right call! He absolutely was right to go back on his promise and finish the series in the 3 books instead of 1. Imagine how truncated the story would have been with 1 book! Imagine how many great, and important, character scenes we would have lost! Sanderson should, in my opinion, pause and reevaluate where the Stormlight Archives is going. He should reflect on what is being sacrificed, narratively, in order to meet his 1 book every 3 years, 10 books total plan. While I respect his understandable caution against exploring secondary characters, or bogging the story down in "side quests", I think he is cutting more and more from each book in order to fit his schedule and I feel like that is truly harming the narrative and the characters. Other items that irked me: 1. Why did a bunch of side characters even bother going to Shadesmar with Adolin and Shallan? They, literally, did nothing. Adolin saved Notum solo, and Adolin and Shallan handled the whole trial thing without their help. 2. Dalinar and Jasnah's battle for Emul was both pointless and uninteresting. It existed solely as an excuse to get Dalinar and Jasnah out of the Tower so the rest of the plot could work. 3. Speaking of the Tower, are we to seriously accept that Dalinar and Jasnah would ignore the situation there for weeks on end? I find it absolutely unbelievable that they would just shrug and think, "I hope Kaladin does his thing." 4. Where the shardfork were the Dustbringers? Did they, too, rebel? Did they not? How is that we never saw a single Dustbringer doing anything? 5. Same question but for the Skybreakers. Why didn't we see Jasnah versus 2-3 Skybreakers? 6. Venli's near non-participation in everything despite this being "her" book. 7. The Venli/Eshonai flashbacks felt weak. I think I lacked enough connection (pun intended) to the characters and so their flashbacks were less powerful. 8. We did not get to see Lift and Mraize interacting. 9. Despite being a "middle book" that is supposed to set up the climactic final battle, Team Radiant won both the battle for the Tower and the battle for Emul with minimal losses (RIP Teft). Furthermore, the "big bad", Rayse/Odium, was just replaced by Taravangian. While this might have a sinister undertone, overall, replacing a genocidal maniac with no limits with a genocidal maniac who cares about saving the world is a big step up (imo). It feels like the stakes were dramatically lowered at the end of this book. Now, I know I did a lot of complaining, so I want to end on a happier note and share some of the parts that I truly loved. 1. Adolin's efforts to help Kaladin. Their bromance is one of my favorite scenes in part 1. 2. Adolin in general. His character continues to be a wonderful addition to the books. He is an example of what can happen when you deviate from the plan (my understanding is that Adolin was supposed to be a far more minor character). 3. Raboniel was a fantastic antagonist. Her and Navani's interactions were exceptionally well-done. 4. The Pursuer being absolutely demolished by Kaladin, both reputationally and then literally, was fantastic. 5. Taravangian ascending to Odium's Shard is an incredible plot twist and I am excited to see where Brandon takes this. 6. Hoid being hoodwinked by Taravangian was excellent and really helps show that Hoid is not unbeatable. Two unforgettable lines: Kaladin channeling Rand Al'Thor from the Path of Daggers: "I am the storm." Navani finishing her Radiant oath: "Journey before destination, you bastard."
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  45. Something I took note of was Ishar nearly stealing the connection to the storm father. Could something similar be why the fuzed appear so terrified of Dalinar? Could he somehow take or destroy their connection to Braize and kill them? Or could he possibly even manipulate their connection to Odium and do something more extreme?
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  46. Rayse + Odium since Odium is trying to escape Rayse during RoW (the light that seems to be trying to escape his skin) and talks to Tarvangian after rayse dies asking Mr. T to take Odium and telling him he’s perfect. In an epigraph Sazed says the power develops a mind of its own if it’s not controlled well by the vessel which seems to be the case here. Rayse doesn’t acknowledge that he’s Odium he says “they call me Odium” while Mr. T tells Wit “I am Odium”. Could be a Dawnshard thing though. Passion isn’t a command, but Rayse insisting he’s Passion might be because he also held/was the emotion-related Dawnshard whatever that is called.
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  47. I have to say, Kaladin standing up to Lezian, declaring his title void? It's up there with the "honor is dead" scene in WoR. Kaladin is definitely in the running for most impressive reputation in the cosmere. Just has to beat Kelsier and Vin.
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  48. Finished the book last night. Still can’t with coherent thoughts and sense of them making. *mind blown* loved the “Die Hard: Urithiru” sections. Kal continues to be my favorite. Ooohh Teft! I’m not crying. so storming much. Raboniel and Navani, Dabbid finally getting his moment. Ishar a mad unhinged bondsmith surgeon genius experimenting on and killing corporeal spren. I for one can’t wait for the next book: Szeth and Kal off to Shinovar. One’s a moody-awesome superhero with pstd, one’s and unhinged soul-shattered maniac with a god eating sword. Together they fight crime reform Heralds. Will that final battle in 10 days be a third final contest between these two?
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  49. Really enjoyed it, but the triple-whammy of Taravangian not only not dying as he deserved, but ascending as Odium, making it abundantly clear that Cultivation made a huge mistake, followed by the Wit epilogue was a gut punch that left me with a real downer taste in my mouth. Really wish it had ended on a better note. Good book otherwise! Real page turner. Took me around 9 hours, in part because when I got to the trial scenes I went back and revisited the entire run up to it because it had been long enough since I'd seen them that I thought I'd somehow missed some stuff mid-book. In no particular order: Larkin/Lanceryn can talk? That will make Rysn's life even more interesting. Of all the things I thought I might get in this book, Chiri-Chiri's viewpoint, no matter how brief, wasn't one of them. Holy Shard Names Batman! Er...Bat-Sazed? Sazed-Man? BatHarmony? (ok I'll stop) Storm Moash. I'd quietly wondered if the messages to Navani about spren were the Sibling. Yay, Sibling. The existential dread of the Sibling combined with the weakening of Stormlight related powers was quite the horror element. Kaladin gets so painful to read for me at times. I've not been dark enough to actually jump/pull the trigger/use a knife, but I spent a lot of nights thinking about it when I was younger. When your parshman/Parshendi/listener whatever we call Rlain is now is a better defender of who you are than your dad... Thank you that Lirin came around some at the end. Huzzah for Hesina. That sounds like a celebration or holiday. Wild use of Plate, Kal. Unexpected, creative and effective. Restares as Kelek, eh? Didn't see that coming. Nor Thaidaikar as maybe Kelsier. Storm Moash. Maya speaks! And confirms a suspicion a lot of us had - that the Radiants had the agreement of their spren for the Recreance. Given the epigraph about releasing Ba Ado Mishram and some other stuff in the book, I'm wondering if to fully revive Maya would require the release of BAM as it really seems that had some far more reaching effects than -just- whatever it did to the parshmen. Ishar unbound and insane is scary stuff. That he could reset the Oathpact is just unreal to me. And I believe he can do it, I don't think that was a delusion. I don't think that was delusion. Bondsmith might be the greatest and furthest reaching scope of power available to the non-Ascended. It's almost like the role itself somehow encompasses a Dawnshard, though I don't know how that's possible. Eshonai's last ride made me weep. Navani...so complicated. Inventive, naive, compassionate, destructive, stubborn, powerful, and ultimately merciful. Finding the Rhythms, discovering/creating anti-investiture, bonding the Sibling (which I thought was going to happen but not like it did...) and so on. Wonderful story for her. Raboniel ... yeesh. So horrible. So manipulative. And yet there was a seed of something genuine in there, enough that she fought Moash. How does Brandon do this? Dalinar coaxing Stormfather to stretching out Kaladin's jump to save him and THEN forging the Connection he needed was incredible. Spren can be for real killed now. That's horrifying. The corpse scene gave me chills. Storm Moash. Teft...sadness. He got a good death, a strong death....but still sadness See ya, Lezian. That ending was mostly perfect, I thought. Rhythm of War being co-written by Navani and Raboniel was quite the twist. Shallan having two Cryptics was something that clicked for me right before you see it happen in the book. The place Shallan went to when she confirmed Pattern had been lying...goodness that was bad. As bad in its own way as Kaladin's fight. The Honorspren of Lasting Integrity remind me of nothing so much as a self-righteous group of believers (whatever their stripe) they will demonize, distort, destroy and demean anything that isn't exactly what they expect it to be with one exception - they responded to Maya, generally. How awesome is Maya, anyway? Kaladin really is legendary. Not just to his people, to his enemies. Crippling depression, unable to use Stormlight as it went on, broke Lezian, destroyed the Sibling fabrials, just...freaking wow. I've never seen someone written so broken and yet so strong. And the number of people wearing the glyph at the end, because Kaladin still gets up...goose bumps. Lift makes Cultivation/Lifelight...of course... And for a final time - STORM MOASH There's more, so much more, but I have to get back to work.
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