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TheBrian

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  1. I really like these ideas, but I suspect that the answer is that being 'loud' is just a quality of Windrunners. Every time they level up, cool glyphs frost into existence around them. No other order that we have seen has this effect associated with them (we haven't seen them all by any means, but those we have seen are 'quieter'). I can't explain why this is the case, only point out the fact that Windrunners are more obvious in a lot of ways.
  2. You misspelled The Lopen's name. That's OK, many people forget the "the".
  3. Thanks! I don't have a community of fellow Cosmere readers in real-life, so I don't have a sounding board to let me know if I'm totally out there or in line with other fans. I was so focused on Nightblood that I hadn't even thought of Szeth's condition. His spirit is even misaligned with his body, so many that can help him cram in some extra investiture. I hadn't given the exact circumstances much thought, but it would be epic if it happened during his crusade against the Shin leaders. I can imagine Szeth's head being a crowded place with a constant back-and-forth between his two swords (sword bromance would be a brand new genre). No idea what type of resonance would happen. Maybe something with Szeth's division surge?
  4. This idea is almost certainly wrong, but it is fascinating enough that I'm going to share it anyway. Szeth could swear one of his ideals as "I will DESTROY EVIL", forming a three-way bond between him, his Highspren, and Nightblood. Our favorite bloodthirsty sword begins to change as a result of the new bond, gaining the ability to comprehend its purpose for the first time in its existence. Some of the directions this could go include: Nightblood deciding its mission is to destroy the biggest source of evil around, a.k.a. Odium. Nightblood falling into paralysis as it realizes how hard ethics can be and is unable to discern evil. Nightblood having a mental crisis where it questions if it is evil. Nightblood defecting to the Singer cause. Nightblood deciding to allow its wielder to determine evil for it. I know, crazy headcannon. But . . . I want to see Nightblood evolve and wrestle with morality. I think that might be what I'm supposed to want, in which case this could go somewhere.
  5. You're 100% correct. Epic brain fart on my part.
  6. I believe Shallan started over bonding Pattern as an adult, which would make her oaths to date: I am terrified I killed my father My shardblade is not normal I killed my mother
  7. Why, yes, I do like my SA crush. Intelligence, ruthless pragmatism, confidence, iconoclasm, and drive wrapped up in an beautiful warrior woman package? Yes please. (I met my wife while we were both in the Army, so I guess I have a type. Also, I don't think she cares if I have an imaginary affair with a literary character since I'm 99.999% sure she is doing the same with Jamie Fraser from those Outlander books.) My only reservation about her, prior to the end of Oathbringer, was she seemed to have a major deficit in the area of compassion. But she proved to us all that she's not heartless, then immediately went on to have the most kickass demonstration of KR potential yet. So bummed we didn't get to see the immediate aftermath of Jasnah bursting into the room to greet the highprinces and monarchs as queen. The odds of the good guys actually winning just went up considerably with that regime change, imo.
  8. The major elements of Sanderson's writing style are cool magic systems and epic finales. So while I can't guarantee this will generalize for most of his readers, I in part choose to read his books because of the avalanches. They really can't get too extreme for me so long as they are done well. (Side note: it drives me crazy that Syl altered her speech patterns when Kaladin leveled up in WoR. Seriously, "stretch for thy hand"??? I have to mentally edit that out every time I reread.) Choosing a personal favorite from the Stormlight Archive is challenging. The WoK finale was pretty much perfect with regards to Kaladin's story. WoR was a little flawed because it felt like we retread some of the same ground with Kaladin, but the avalanche was broader because it fully included more characters -- Shallan, Dalinar, and Adolin were on great display. So the first two are tied in my estimation. Oathbringer wins top billing, but I'm not sure how much of that is new car smell. On rereading the climactic chapters, I noticed that I have to do more pages to really get the epic feel of the avalanche. The passages feel a little lacking in isolation, but then become much more resonant when they are fully in context. That may sound like an obvious observation, but the same is not true of the previous books. I can flip to the scene where Kaladin gets his blade and BOOM. But reading Dalinar's crowning moment of awesomeness is weaker unless I go back to see the man run to defend a breech in the wall with his only weapon a book that he can't even read. The threads of various viewpoints seem to have been more deftly woven in Oathbringer. Brandon continues to improve in his craft with every book. I imagine my answer to this question in two years will be the book #4 avalanche.
  9. I think a good analogy for this would be child soldiers. They don't belong in war. They shouldn't have to die. But if they are pointing a gun at your or your children, then you are going to have to do something necessary but distasteful. The Parshmen are not the enemy, Odium is. Unfortunately, the Parshmen are his child soldiers. It is a tragic situation engineered by a hateful god all too aware of the strains he is placing on the oaths of his enemies. I think the seeds of a singer rebellion (the listeners refers only to Venli's tribe from the shattered plains) have been planted in Oathbringer.
  10. My guess at WR Ideal #4: "I will focus my efforts where they will do the most good." This utilitarian sensibility would be hard for any protection-oriented personality to accept. It means that you have to necessarily pick people to not help, which would cause a major mental crisis for Kaladin, who believes he can save everyone if he just tries hard enough. Supporting evidence #1: The first time Kaladin came close to leveling up (using the presence of windspren as an indicator) was when he was trying to protect a specific group of humans racing to stormshelters. He was thinking that there were lots more humans failing to get to storm shelters but that he could only protect the ones closest to him. Supporting evidence #2: When his human-friends and parsh-friends went all West Side Story on each other, Kaladin froze up because he couldn't prioritize helping one group over the other. It was obvious he should have helped the humans. He was previously committed to saving them and the parshmen were working in service of the unmade and an evil god intent on destruction. His failure to prioritize here based on the big picture predicts his failure to swear the next ideal. Supporting evidence #3: The next time Kaladin came close to leveling up was between chats with the honorspren captain in Shadesmar. He was arguing that the mission to bring Syl to the honorspren city was less important than the mission to save Dalinar in Thaylenar. He was seeking to maximize the outcome of their efforts. Supporting evidence #4: When he stumbled on saying the words, they would have had an immediate impact. There was no way to return to the physical realm to save Dalinar, so swearing to a utilitarian oath would mean giving up on the Bondsmith. Failing to do so would almost certainly damnation Adolin, Shallan, and himself to death; but he wouldn't have to write anyone off.
  11. To make an analogy, the Stormlight Archive to the rest of the Cosmere series is like the Avengers to the rest of the Marvel movies. If these were just crossovers, it would be a bit much. They're not, though. SA is what the other series have been leading up to. Readers who want to skip Warbreaker or Mistborn or Elantris (and so on) will lose out some, but they aren't going to be unable to enjoy SA as a standalone series (even though it really isn't that). Hoid's actions make sense to me. He isn't bebopping around trying to save people. He is pursuing the destruction of a god. Interfering with events too drastically will reveal his presence and force a direct confrontation (not good for him or his cause). So he creeps around gathering knowledge and skills and nudging people in directions that will be useful to him. Sometimes he nudges people out of the goodness of his heart, but I think that is an exception and not his default behavior. His actions also seem limited by some boons/curses (from a greater source than the Nightwatcher or Cultivation -- possibly Adonalsium???). He can't be killed and he can't hurt other people. He knows where he needs to be but not why he needs to be there.
  12. I think there is one fool-proof way to resurrect a dead shardblade (Warbreaker spoiler):
  13. I think the broken Soulcaster didn't work after being repaired because it no longer had a spren trapped inside it.
  14. This theory is equally brilliant and depressing. I will be watching Dalinar's interactions with Navani closely from now one.
  15. Kaladin's position is Captain of the Cobalt Guard (Kholin house guards). He was not the correct person for Shallan to approach. She should have arranged a meeting with a lower-ranking noble in order to get an introduction. It was highly unusual (and therefore suspicious) for Shallan to appear as she did in that type of society. And in any world where forgers exist, a piece of paper by itself is proof of nothing. Whether or not Shallan is legitimate, Kaladin had to go by the limited information he had at that time. Expecting Kaladin to recognize Shallan's inherent trustworthiness is unrealistic. He hasn't been reading Shallan's POV chapters with the rest of us, so what reason does he have to believe that this woman is who she says she is? Other than the piece of paper that could have been forged for all he knows. In this situation, the only facts that matter to the decision are the ones that Kaladin has access to. And just because Kaladin was wrong to harass Shallan and very wrong to get involved with Moash's plot does not mean he was wrong to try restricting her access. Those are 3 separate issues.
  16. Consider a comparable situation in our world. A secret service agent guarding President Obama at an event is approached by a woman known to use aliases, who demands immediate access to the President and hands over an email printout as proof that she is Obama's long lost sister. What should the secret service agent do? Immediately admit the woman to wherever the President is located? I think not. I will agree 100% with anyone who claims that Kaladin behaved inappropriately towards Shallan, but there is no storming way he should have accepted a piece of paper as evidence that she should be allowed to pass.
  17. Speaking as an Army veteran, this is not an accurate statement. Guards are not in the business of gathering intelligence. Their foremost concern is the safety of those under their care, and individuals with implausible stories do not get a free pass. In fact, when you are on guard detail attached to an important person, part of your duty is to be an unofficial gatekeeper and restrict annoying individuals from harassing them. Kaladin's big mistake was to let Shallan pass. He should have prevented her from entering until there was proof that she was in fact betrothed to Adolin. Instead, he let her into the room hoping to see the nobility put her in her place. Ideally, Kaladin would have kept his cool, politely informed Shallan that he had no knowledge of her and she would have to wait until after the meeting completed for an opportunity to speak to the Brightlords if they were interested in doing so, and then kept his mouth shut. The fact that Shallan was received warmly after the fact doesn't enter into consideration. You make the best decision possible with the information you have at the time. The only data point Kaladin had was this woman had previously gone by a different name and participated in a con job. That doesn't sound like a legitimate future princess to me. It sounds more like someone planning to scam his employers.
  18. Wetlander, I like your theory. Maybe the dark sphere has the potential to grant its possessor power. Giving it to Gavilar and then sending a powerful assassin after him may have been intended to tempt the most powerful man on Roshar into a puppet of Odium. If so, then Gavilar's death would be honorable and heroic.
  19. Hi Arook, as I understand it squires tap into the bond between a radiant and a spren. So the relationship between Kaladin and Syl makes Kaladin a (proto)radiant and some members of Bridge 4 are able to piggyback off of that because of their relationship to Kaladin. The consensus here seems to be that squires will be able to use stormlight to strengthen their bodies and heal, but not use any of the surges. As much as I enjoy reading about The Lopen, I don't think he is on the path to becoming a radiant. Otherwise, he would be having awesome conversations with a spren of his own.
  20. In WoR, Zahel notes the absence of a voice in his head as he drifts off to sleep and the fact that the voice hadn't been there for years now. I took this to be a reference to losing Nightblood. I think it is a reasonable assumption that Vasher/Zahel brought the sword with him when he came to Roshar. Presumably he met up with Nalan at some point and gave up Nightblood under some set of circumstances I can't imagine.
  21. Nice theory, Windrunner. I agree with most of what you're saying. My take on the listener/spren relationship is that the listeners previously joined with all sorts of spren to make all sorts of castes, but after humans came to Roshar, the spren bonded with humans in a way that was more pleasing to them. Syl gets to maintain her freedom while bonded to Kaladin, but the spren bonded to the listeners seem to be captive within the form of the listener. Considering the listeners are symbiotic with the spren, they could see the change in the status quo as a betrayal. My assumption is that spren are a pre-Shard phenomenon, but that the arrival of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium changed or caused different types of spren to manifest.
  22. I have been wondering if a requirement to resurrect a Shardblade if you are not its original bonded knight would be having the matching Shardplate. If the plate has part of the spiritweb of the spren that created the blade, then someone possessing a matched set and living by the right ideals may be able to bootstrap a bond with the dead spren in order to revive it. Which makes me wonder if the style of Adolin's plate matches that of his blade.
  23. *** Warning, this is a crackpot theory. *** I have been wondering for some time what Szeth did to deserve his unique punishment. Making someone a truthless and giving him an Honorblade couldn't have happened before (or at least often) since Szeth's abilities are so unknown on Roshar. I eventually decided that whatever Szeth had done, the stone shamans chose his specific punishment to discredit him. Since there are quotes from Szeth that seem to suggest he was wrong about the Radiants returning, I assumed that Szeth had started telling his people that a desolation was on its way. The above is the sane part of the theory. Here comes the crazy. I previously thought Szeth predicted the desolation because he had bonded a spren like all the other Radiants running around. But while I was pondering the issue of Taln who probably isn't the same person who appeared at the end of WoK, I wondered if maybe Taln had already returned to Roshar. Perhaps he talked to some of the Shin and told them things that contradicted everything they believed, calling 9 of the 10 Heralds cowards and claiming their god is dead. The Shin are religious folk and I can't see them being pleased to hear such things. In fact, they might go so far as to imprison the returned Herald and prevent anyone from repeating his crazy ideas - including claiming the man in early contact with Taln who had been talking about his encounter is a blasphemous lying Truthless. Then they gave the man the worst punishment they could imagine.
  24. I suspect we're going to see a lot of Radiants stepping up in book 3. The world is ending, so there is a lot of motivation for human and spren alike to get their crem together. The series arc is definitely in act 2 territory, so I think Brandon is going to accelerate the introduction of new surges. I would be disappointed if we didn't see the magic of at least 3 new orders presented in detail.
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