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When I read RoW the first time, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was that Sanderson's character work on Taravangian was masterful. Halfway through the book, Sanderson had set up a single choice for Taravangian, a choice that would define his character, a choice where he could have legitimately become the redeemed hero of the entire series but instead became its darkest villain. Taravangian, in contrast to Dalinar, has a fatal flaw, and it's more than just "end justifies the means". It was so subtle though, and I haven't heard anyone else comment on it, so I wanted to pull it out here: The choice I'm talking about is this one here, from Taravangian's final interlude: It's the choice to tell Dalinar. At this point, Taravangian realized that he was wrong. Humanity isn't absolutely doomed. There is a way to defeat Odium, and he keeps thinking about telling Dalinar...but he never does, always finding a different reason not to. They could have finished it together, but in the end, he resolves to do it himself, just as he had before. Let's observe the setup. Throughout every Taravangian scene is pulsing this question: "What are Taravangian's true motives?" From his 1st inerlude: From his conversations with Dalinar: You can see it here. This question. Was Taravangian a tragic hero? A man with the noblest of intentions who had done what he thought was best with the wrong information? Or has he been subtly lying even to himself, has he pushed this narrative so deeply into his subconscious because he wanted to be the hero, the one who saved everyone? Is it his self-sacrifice or self-ego that drives him? His whole conversation with Dalinar danced around this, and at the end you get a glimpse at what could have been the alternate storyline for the Stormlight Archives. Taravangian, after learning his Diagram was mistaken, lets go of his ego and surrenders his role as the hero of the story to Dalinar. He tells Dalinar of Odium's weakness to Nightblood, and Dalinar defeats Odium once and for all. Taravangian's reputation is tarnished forever by his earlier betrayal, but humanity is saved. He lives on, hated by humanity, but he earns the respect of one man, ending the series as Dalinar's closest friend, working together for the good of humanity. In the interludes, we see Taravangian himself wrestling with it. This is his conversation with Renarin: I remember thinking at this point that we were in for a Taravangian redemption arc, and I was all here for it, but Sanderson bamboozled me yet again. I believe the light flickering in the darkness was Taravangian's wavering decision to confide in Dalinar, and the deep darkness of him rejecting that is our present reality of him having become Odium. His refusal to take Renarin's hand is symbolic of his refusal to accept help from Dalinar or anyone else. He's battling against admitting his own deep flaws. And his most fatal flaw pokes its head out as he goes back and forth about going to Dalinar. Check out this sequence of moments where Taravangian thinks about talking to Dalinar. The truth that his actions reveal is in the end he is too proud. It's his fatal flaw. He can't admit he was wrong. He can't share the spotlight. He can't play second fiddle. Everything is building up for him to turn around and make the right choice in his 11th hour, but he can't do it. It's the inverse of Dalinar at the end of Oathbringer. Come face to face with the worst of himself, Dalinar took the blow head on. He acknowledged himself as a bad man, but instead of cowering away, he exposed himself to the world and took the next step forward. Taravangian, in one moment of brutal honesty, acknowledges to himself that his entire motive has been built out of justifications...but he keeps going. And he hasn't stopped.

Mistborn spoilers:

Kal in WoR

Way of Kings, if I remember correctly

Well, for all of those who doubted me, I finally got an actual profile picture instead of the default one. So of course everyone's gotta be super excited about that, since this is the first time I've changed it since I first joined the site. I can thank @Shard of Thought for sending me this amazing picture because according to her, it reminded her of me for some abstract reason. I might change it in the future, but I have found myself really liking the vibe of the character in the image, so it might be a while. Anyways, if anyone knows the original artist, then let me know so I can give credit where it's due. Thanks for spending your time to listen in/read up on this update, and have a great morn-after-eve!

Taravangian in every book Cultivation

Sorry, I was offline for a bit.

...If I have to watch this world crumble and burn to get what I need, I will do so. With tears, yes, but I would let it happen - Hoid Just a simple illustration of it happening

I am nodding to your response. and here is a cool meme, this might not make sense.

Has yet to be seen. Any normal person would die long before they became a problem. The only one confirmed is F-Nicrocil and if it were easy Marasi would have done it with the bands, so it's not a feasible option. We were letting the thread die because it has gone on for almost half a year and we're done with this conversation. Also tone down the ego. Scadrial is not neccesarily alone in that conflict, nor do we know if it has come to war yet.

I loved Szeth from the first line, redemtion is the weak point in his character. Szeth is cool because of his kill count.

Most excellent. Thank you for taking the time to share this terrific analysis. Like you, I find Taravangian to be one of the most interesting, compelling, and believable characters in SA. Not unlike Venli, his insecurities, struggles and self-doubt make him among the most HUMAN of a cast of great characters. It's one big reason I'm confident TOdium will not be defeated in book 5 - Brandon has put way too much work into crafting this fully-realized and amazing villain to waste him on one single book. I have no doubt he will continue to be a force in the back half of SA.

I'd guess the strength of emotion and the fundamental part of themselves it becomes is why. The two are consumed by regret and guilt to the point it drives their entire lives. Szeth still barely allows himself to think due to his time as Truthless. What is it the Sleepless blurb calls him, the assassin who weeps as he kills? Every death affects him and drives him further into the pit of despair and hell. He constantly thinks of himself as damned, damned among the worst of sinners, with only one single way to become a worse man than he already has. And then it turns out he was never Truthless in the first place, making it all the more painful. And Dalinar feels horrible guilt and regret for the Rift, and more specifically for Evi. He buries himself in alcohol, ignores his children, hates himself for his actions and believes he can never be forgiven. Again, his entire life revolves around these actions. Those he killed are deeply part of who he is. Meanwhile, Vin struggled with this, but she came to her own conclusion on how to handle it and got over it. The guilt and pain was a struggle, but never became as much of a lasting baseline to her being as it was for the other two. There's actually one more character in the Cosmere whose killing was a core part in their life, whose pain over the death was a driving force in everything they did: He hated Elantris before, because it was blasphemous, but it wasn't until he had to kill Seala that he truly became so deeply, deeply obsessed with tearing it down, burning its remnants, destroying every trace of its power. Her death by his hands was a fundamental trait to the man he had become. And so, her screams follow him.

From RoW Ch5:

but what about Uli Daaium or Uli Daatium and here's a meme because I'm bored. Odiom negotiating with Dalinar.

I'm taking a coding class right now, going over the basics of the Python programming language- and I made a thing! The Sanderson Theory Generator. The idea for making this I think originated from something I saw on Scratch that did something similar. I'm not really sure, that was a long time ago. So I didn't come up with the concept of this, but I did write the code. To be honest, I don't know if it will open I have Python downloaded on my computer, so it just opens the file and runs the program, but for all of you guys who (probably) don't I'm not sure if it will even work. Hopefully it does If not, (or if so) I'd like to know. Here it is: Sanderson Theory Generator.py

So, i glanced in here thinking it'd be nice to have some discussions about Scad v. Roshar, but woah, this convo seems really heated. So, i'll try and start something new-roshar and scad are obviously the obvious powerhouses in the cosmere, but per this wob, (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/173/#e8618) Sel is a third powerhouse. So, i don't think either side will win-rather, it will be a stalemate, where if roshar or scad try to destroy each other, sel will simply destroy the winner, or some other situation. What are your thoughts on Sel in space age cosmere?

Nalthis is a powerhouse though, esspecially if type IV commands got out, And The Aether world will be a player 1. I was refering to using stormlight to function 2.A Normal person with a hammer is only enough after several minutes of beating. You know in the debate community it's seen as a sign that you're losing when you start attacking the other person instead of their argument. And Several people disagree with me and where not "scared off" if you think that you have a really low opinion of them. @Bzhydack @Enter a username and even people like @The Technovore and @Bigmikey357 and others disagree with me, but we've had pleasant conversation and debate over various points, what set's you apart is that you argue with baseless speculation and I feel the need to correct you. And by now the discussion should be over threads do not normally last at this activity level for this long. That WoB says nothing about commpounders this Wob Would have helpped you case better, but that's besides the point being a comppounder is irrelivent, Dalinar isn't a commpounder but he has a perpendicualrity on speedial, Jasnah and other Elsecallers and Willshapers can make them, but they can't compound. Marasi tapped everything in the Bands at once, and depleted it at an increadible rate but she didn't cause a perpendicularity(though she might have been close) and that was a creation of a Fullborn, metalminds so full they were indistinguishable from aluminum, that isn't something that will be made every other year on Scandrial. You assume that you are the only one here with ideas, which is not the case, and is thus ego. Compounder do not have near infinate investiture, they have the ability to store investiture and use it later, they don't have any more raw power than any other allomancer. TRL lied about his healing powers. Transportation is a lot easier than most other meathods, and Brandon says making a perpendicularity requires litteral tons of investiture, that is something along the lines of years of compounding burnt away in an instant, which is so inneficeint it would be better to just give up on the CR entirly. And even without plate they still have stormlight which will insulate them, and they have a base level of investiture just natuarally. And on top of that only the most volitile of Radiants, and probably with an exceptionally good soother/Rioter would you get the results you want. And I'm assuming that last bit is an insult.

Anti-investiture is general, just as tones are. So even Scadrians are susceptible to it, altough since they contain such investiture only when burning/tapping/storing they are susceptible shorter amounts of time. So, Scadrians are no more invested than other humans in Cosmere. In fact Nalthians are more invested. Scadrian when burning metals/tapping becomes more invested for the duration of the burn/tap, but even then they are less invested than Radiant with Stormlight. Birth rates of both ferring and misting have become saturated per WoBs, i.e. their incidence in population will not continue to grow. Metal is not key for Scadrians innate investiture, just a key to access Preservation/Harmonies investiture from spiritual realm (analogy to Sel, metal=Aon, Preservation investiture=Dor) Being broken is prerequisite even for metalic arts (see snapping). Also protagonists of SA are bit of outliers, compare Kaladin with Lopen. Radiants become increasingly better at holding light as they progress. We have seen very little of shardplate so far, but in principle Radiant might be able to deny it healing for a short while. For anti-stormlight grenades you would first need a way to produce light, which Scadrians do not have. I think for resistence against heat based attacks Brass ferring would suffice, they could simply store excess heat, no need for compounding. Iron compounder would be just as affected by gravitation as anyone else, all the doubling of their mass would do is that the lashing would wear off faster (gravitational acceleration upon object does not depend on the objects mass). Cohesion however would be deadly for him, just make the ground less cohesive and watch him fall, there their weight would work against them. You mistook Cohesion and Abrasion. You do not need compounders to attack fabrials, ordinary steel and iron would do. However, you would first have to get close enough to fabrial so that you can push/pull, and Roshar has suppressor fabrials. Pewter compounders are also limited in how much they can tap if they want to remain mobile, so far from near limitless. Even Sazed reached mobility limit of pewter. Iron compounder, maybe. Steel compounder definitely not before wind resistance and friction become issue. Marasis Mach 10 movement is far beyond where both friction and compression become issues, and there was no perpendicularity there. In general I think the issue with compounders and perpendicularity is that you attach such to a feat (become stellar object/move at some speed), however since tapping is unlimited even ordinary Feruchemsit can reach such feats even if only for a short time. What you need is large amount of stored attribute inside the metalmind to form perpendicularity (or tap all that attribute at once), and since even BoM are less invested than shardblades (not to mention Nightblood, who does not seem to be perpendicularity) this means that even for compounders this is a very difficult goal. Possible in principle, but not very realistic. I think this is uncalled for, both the snark and personal attacks. While in principle compounder could get enough investiture to create perpendicularity, I think it is telling that we have seen none do so, i.e. it is technically possible, but that does not make it realistic. Per WoBs soulcasting can destroy shardplates (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/69/#e6254), but it does not make sense to assume that any Radiant with Transformation could simply soulcast away metalminds as it would require inordinate amount of power (however still far less than soulcasting shardplate). Also, neither zinc nor brass compounder would 'crush' Radiant in Cognitive Realm, Radiant would still presumably have stormlight in them which should provide at least some protective effects and emotional allomancy alone will not give compoounder advantage. Also Radiant will still have their surges and are physically enhanced by stormlight.

Taravangian is kind of like Thanos.

Cause he’s the Stormlight Archive’s Winter Soldier character. You see him fight because he thinks he has to and then he actually wants to change when given the chance.

shallan and kaladin: kaladin books 1-4:

Then why doesn't anyone hate Szeth?

How grimdark is Sanderson? I'd say maybe 10-20%. He's said himself that early on in his career when GRRM was at his peak of actually releasing books and grimdark was all the rage he tried to write more in the style of GRRM (who I'd probably call grimdark light) or Joe Abercrombie and it just didn't work. So at least in his own mind, I'd say Sanderson is not grimdark. I think most fantasy is based on the premise of fighting horrible odds and an overwhelming evil force. Look at LotR for example - tons of good people die, people are horribly tortured and transformed into evil creatures, and it looks like there is no chance the forces of good will win. No one would call LotR grimdark, though things look grim for the heroes throughout most of the story. The reason why is because the story is about maintaining hope and the heroes are generally good people, though some have flaws and make mistakes. Ultimately the forces of good win, even though they have to pay a steep price. I think to be grimdark you have to meet a few criteria: 1) Good people either don't exist or are too weak/naive to make any difference in the main conflict of the book. No one in a position of power is doing anything that is intended to help people or minimize suffering in the world. 2) The protagonist is an anti-hero who does evil things to advance their own personal goals. Usually, horrible abuse and trauma have occurred to make them feel this way which is explored in depth in the book. They may get a redemption arc, but only at the very end of the book. And usually, at most it will be something like "I'm an evil person and I know it, but I've done all the bad and evil things so that the good people don't have to. I'm permanently stained with my evil deeds and can never be redeemed. The best I can do is to get out of the picture and hand the reins over to someone who will try to make the world a better place." They will typically not actually become a good person themselves. 3) The overall world is grim and its implied that pretty much everyone in it are living in pain and/or constant threat of annihilation. The protagonist either knowingly adds to these threats, or has the power to solve the problems but chooses not to for selfish reasons. 4) The conflict in the world is not good vs. evil or even greater vs. lesser evil. It's typically evil vs. evil or neutral vs. neutral. 5) The moral message of grimdark is always very cynical - something like "Everyone's just in it for themselves and their own personal gain and no one cares about the greater good" 6) Horrific acts are described in detail - torture, murder, rape, etc. These acts are central to the plot.

DaTS 5 (RoW spoilers)

I know many people want it to be a Mistborn or Stormlight videogame, and here I am, hoping for a Soulburner/Starburner videogame...

Szeth didn't kill with detachment. He intentionally felt each death to its fullest, believing he deserved that as a part of his punishment. He went so far as to create a Connection to each person he killed. These Connections haven't disappeared, and it's through these Connections that he gets messages that he interprets as screams. I think his "mindfulness" at the moment of killing resulted in his hearing these screams and, like Kaladin's brands disappearing, they will stop when he fully forgives himself for his original sin (which he's very close to doing, since he has dismissed his people's view of him as having sinned) and for allowing his people to set him up as the assassin (and for which he's on a current quest to expunge). Book 5 will see Szeth stop the screaming.

SA Shadows of Self SA tWoK and WoR

Read Era 2 before Arcanum

Early the next morning I woke to someone knocking on my door. When I opened the door Ander was waiting. I invited him in and asked him to sit while I got dressed. Once I returned I asked "what can I do for you?" He responded "what or who are you? Yesterday I was about to be hauled in by a Skybreaker and you interceded. Some kind of opaque barrier surronded you and him and when it came down you were standing and he was a mess. There wasn't a mark on either of you. This isn't the first time something strange has happened around you. Even Flander backed off and he is not easily spooked. Last night he left the area without explaining. I was elected to find out what I could by everyone, so can you explain? i sat for a few minutes then offered him something to eat and drink telling him this could take a while. When I returned with breakfast, egg toast with fruit glaze and tea, I sat and invited him to eat with me. Once finished I cleaned up leaving tea on the table in case he wanted refills. I said "I am a Trueself Mirror". "A what", he said. Then there was another knock on the door. I held up a hand and answered. At the door was a tall thin man with silver hair sporting a silver sword. "Dust" I Said, "what a surprise." He answered, "I try not to be where I am expected. It seems you already have company, did I miss something?" "Only the sky breaking yesterday", I said. "I was just about to explain to my guest a little about a Trueself Mirror." Dust said to Ander, "Aren't you one of Thidakar's people, and you don't know about what he is?" Ander looked utterly confused and replied, "how does that even make sense? What is a trueself .....". His face went blank as it dawned on him what he started to say. "Your a ferring?, But no ferring can do what you have done? How is this even possible?" I responded to him, "I guess you could say I am an unintended world hopper. I never met Thidakar. One of his lieutenants thought I might be useful as he believed I would be easily impressed, but I proved more adaptable than he expected." Dust added, "Your looking a little more Radiant these days than when I last saw you, it must be the company you have started keeping." I grinned and replied, " you could say I am a glow with new friendships, but what brings you here?" Ander said, "I still don't understand?" I said, "you could say I am open to adding the best parts of people and things around me, and resistant to negative investments. Still you can assure your associates and the others that I don't hold grudges and am always looking for ways to improve things around me." Then I showed him to the door. I poured Dust a cup of tea and asked, "You don't just show up without reason. To what do I owe your visit?"

In this theory I wrote last year, I concluded that the back 5 SA books will have a new big bad antagonist and: Discussions in @LewsTherinTelescope's reference on the events surrounding the Recreance timeline, as well as the fact that we still don't know what the heck scared the Radiants so much they committed the Recreance has me thinking a new WAG. The imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram caused a wound that opened up Roshar to an external threat much like the Scadrial Trellian Incursion. Somehow this threat depended on surgebinding to manifest and the Recreance patched things enough to hold it off until the current times. Thoughts backing this are how Hemalurgy opens individuals to external shardic influence via damage to the sprit web, so possibly when BAM was imprisoned, this caused similar damage. And since the damage seems to have been incurred on Roshar as a whole, the vulnerability was also to Roshar as a whole. This could also explain the nebulous enemy that was still a threat in the Recreance vision at Feverstone Keep. This enemy wasn't Odium or BAM influenced, but was a threat from an external shard. So now that Surgebinders are active again, this threat is already re-manifesting, and reinstating BAM will help, but it'll already be to late. The continued existence of the Skybreakers is problematic to this theory.

if I remember correctly there was a part where Moash ate Chiri- Chiri...... Rysn was so mad

Welcome to the shard! Favorite cosmere character?

Perhaps Arcanum unbound since it is an overview collection on the entire cosmere. If you liked sword nimi try warbreaker. In a way you maybe should have read read everything else before Stormlight Archive since most stories predate it chronologically except perhaps the alloy period of Mistborn. Alloy of Law would also make a good next book.

"What is one more try then?" This has always been one of my favourite lines in the entire series. First time I listened to it, this line gave me chills.

Fancy with the keteks! Nicely done Breeze. Link

I think mine was titled "School Lunches" or something of the sort.

I've seen a few people theorizing lately that he's trying to get a bit of every shard's Intent so that when he does pick up one, they give him freedom to act in ways other than just the one shard's intent. A mini-Ado, if you will.

Someone at church today gave me these. Apparently his daughter is best friends with Brandon's sister Pins! Obviously the M-Bot one (awesome) and I don't know what the other is but I'm assuming Reckoners because of the R.

Stormlight

I'm gonna guess that Nightblood looks like a really big, black flame, in the CR. Just a hunch.

It’s a working theory, could make back 5 super awesome

IT are the Investiture Technicians, of course.

That’s unpopular?