Cemci

Kaladin isn't meant to be the focus character of Words of Radiance - that's meant to be Shallan's focus book - Way of Kings was Kaladin's focus book. The focus books are denoted by the flashbacks that characters experience - there are only Shallan flashbacks in WoR, and only Kaladin flashbacks in WoK (save Jasnah's and Szeth's POV in the prologue, which could technically be considered a flashback, since the events of that are 6 years prior to the current events). So (although I don't like it), we're getting Kaladin-focus in a book that's meant to be dedicated to Shallan's character.

It's called a 'havah', and both Shallan and Jasnah wear it. Page 38 (in the paperback version), Chapter 1 "Like Shallan, Jasnah wore the havah, a Vorin dress of distinctive design. The hemline was down at her feet and the neckline almost at her chin. Some of the Thaylens - when they thought she wasn't listening - referred to the clothing as prudish. Shallan disagreed; the havah wasn't prudish, but elegant. Indeed, the silk hugged the body, particularly through the bust - and the way the sailors gawked at Jasnah indicated they didn't find the garment unflattering."

"Why are you buying the book with the angry woman on the cover?" Upon buying Hero of Ages. "From now on, stop reading these weird fantasy books"

Interesting theory, but they 'sent' him a spren? How would they do this? As far as we know, spren are either sent by other spren (Pattern) or decide to go on their own (Syl). I'm not sure the Truthwatchers as an order would be able to compel spren to bond other potential Truthwatchers - if Kaladin told Syl to get other honourspren into the physical world, do we have any indication she would be able to do that, let alone even have contact with other honourspren?

I don't think it's necessarily that so many of us react negatively to Dalinar in his flashback, it's that we now realise just how far Dalinar has come since his youth. It's one thing being told 'you used to be a brutal warlord who killed people that disagreed with him, and now you'd rather be friends' and quite another to see a character use civilians to pressure his enemies.

I think this is excellent - connects orders to actual mental issues. Highly interesting to read, but I wonder what you would say about Adolin? He's frequently the topic of debate here, and specifically what order he would be a candidate for. Here's a couple of things to consider about Adolin He's impulsive He lashes out against Dalinar in the map room in WoK, when Dalinar's sanity is under question He kills Sadeas in WoR He wants to help people around him succeed He's a soldier by circumstance He takes on multiple duels and duellists in order to advance Dalinar's cause (win Shards for me, son) He likes to remember the forgotten His mother - literally forgotten by Dalinar - through the necklace His Blade - talks to it ahead of every duel The stable boys he jokes with in WoR on the trek through the Plains Puts himself in prison for Kaladin He's very attached to his parents and family Quite close to Dalinar Allows Navani to mother him (irregular at his age) He's refined in a societal context Used to love picking out outfits for the next day Looks at men's fashion folios Hates hunting (barbaric) Dislikes menageries (considers them 'low') Loves duelling (staged combat) Makes a soldier's uniform look stylish (You could argue that's because he's handsome) These are a couple of things people point to when arguing for Adolin to join a KR order (typically either Dustbringer or Edgedancer). Could you conduct an analysis like you did for the others above for Adolin?

The do have the Words of Radiance, which should yield some information about different orders - although I don't think this means that Adolin could identify his Blade or himself as Edgedancer or any other order. The first oath is commonly told to people - and I suspect that this one might be in Word of Radiance. But nobody was told any words other than the first oath - Syl prompts Kaladin several times, but she is unable to tell him the oath. The same would go for Adolin, who cannot directly communicate with his Blade. So, being close to almost every other Radiant we know of, I think it's a good guess Adolin could find out the first oath, but after that, he would be on his own. As an aside, we don't even know if Adolin wants to revive his Blade, or if he knows that it's possible. He questions what his role might become at the end of WoR, but so far as I can see, there is no indication that Adolin wishes he were a Radiant. If he wanted to become a Radiant, I don't think he would know where to start - the other Radiants had a spren following them, Adolin doesn't know enough about the Nahel bond to even know where to start with reviving his Blade. All of that leads me to believe that, if Adolin revives his Blade, he'll either do it almost on accident or in any case not with deliberate intent of reviving his Blade, or that he'll be instructed to revive his Blade because of some need. Unless the Words of Radiance book has a useful checklist of things to do a la: 'Here's what to do if you accidentally killed your Blade', I don't see how any other Radiant we know could help Adolin either.

This is getting tastier and tastier

I agree that, due to the importance of Stormlight Archive in the Cosmere (and since there's actually a fair bit of Cosmere knowledge we have from SA), this would be the biggest sacrifice - which is why I would only support taking out the Cosmere in a live-action adaptation. If we get a Mistborn, Warbreaker and Elantris adaptation, too, then including the Cosmere would be absolutely fantastic - I relish every easter egg I find in cinema/TV. And since this is Fantasy Casting, I will concede that speaking about a realistic case isn't entirely appropriate. However, in a hypothetical live-action Stormlight Archive TV show, I think it must be expected that many scenes that add worldbuilding and detail would go.

Well I'm sorry if I've given offense, but I am not a fan of the anime genre. And I seriously doubt that we need the Cosmere in a Stormlight Archive adaptation - unless other Cosmere works are also being adapted, with the same level of detail. So, unless we also get a Mistborn, Warbreaker or Elantris adaptation, I think anything that is in Stormlight Archive and relates directly to the Cosmere could go. In addition, what is Ashir and Geranid's viewpoint adding to the main plot? From what I can remember off the top of my head, what we learn in that interlude is that you can measure flamespren - when is that relevant? When is Axies relevant? Shallan hears about the spren forming a giant gust of water, but does that ever become important to what she does? Ishikk is the same - we learn about the Purelake, but the only other time we hear about the Purelake is when Dalinar thinks to himself that he's been there in the past. Unless these interludes specifically become relevant in future books, I don't see why, in a non-anime adaptation, they would stay in - realistically speaking.

So in a TV show adaptation, you would say leave the interludes in? The interlude with Lift, who probably would not become relevant for several seasons? It doesn't matter how close you want to stick to the books, some scenes will be reordered or taken out (of the first season anyway). I would put all of Kaladin's battlescenes with Amaram's army in one episode for example - any audience member (even fans of the books) would get confused otherwise. Scenes that are 'non-critical': Ashir and Geranid's viewpoint (discovering that flamespren are measurable) - they add nothing to the main plot Axies the Collector - again, adds nothing but worldbuilding, which we don't need as much, at least not in Season 1 Ishikk's scene on the Purelake - adds nothing to the main plot Anything exclusively Cosmere related would go, realistically.

Small side note: Stormlight Archive is gory - it might not come through that much in the book, but when Dalinar and Adolin lose the Thrill, they're absolutely horrified by what they see. Entrails all over the place, broken bodies and smashed in skulls from where Adolin punched them (this is when Dalinar loses the Thrill). Plus, Kaladin does a lot of field medicine, so you cannot get away with a bloodless adaptation. And the bridgemen charging at the Parshendi? I think there needs to be an element of danger that firstly, animation can't really convey for me and secondly, that works better if it's realistic - I typically find a limitation of The Hobbit franchise is that the weapons are all entirely clean, even if the characters have been fighting orcs for hours.

Except for Kaladin (slept on the job that one time)

In the previous highstorm, Jasnah and Shallan had taken refuge in a nearby cave. I assume that's when Jasnah must have communicated with her mother. Although the chapter takes place entirely on the ship, I think the ladies would not have been on the ship for the entire day.

I think Sanderson based the Herdazians on Latinos in general. For the meat, I would say go for chicken but chicken actually exists in Stormlight Archive and is apparently a bit of a delicacy, since it has to be imported from Shinovar. I always assume that a 'cheaper' alternative might be pork or beef, although in our universe, chicken is cheap, and inexpensiveness if what you might want to go for with a dish made entirely out of soulcast food. I agree lavis would be barley or in any case something corn-like (my cooking and agriculture knowledge is embarrassingly non-existent)

It's not that I don't care, it's that I don't see where this discussion is going. When trying to analyse a character and figure out why they behave as they do, what helps me is knowing their age in their own universe, not knowing their age in an alternate universe, where almost all factors are different. What's the point to saying Adolin would be a certain age that's not 23, if he lived on Earth? If he lived on Earth, his age wouldn't be the only difference.

Can we agree that the calendar discussion is useless? The variables of how and at what pace people age, what the physics of Roshar do to physiology and the differences in culture make it almost impossible, in my opinion, to definitely state that 'Adolin should be closer to 25.5/27/31 years old'. He's 23. Sanderson made him 23 for a reason, and I honestly doubt that it was in order to start a debate on why Adolin is so immature if by Earth years he would be 27.

If that's the case, why was Szeth, the only Shin around, at the feast, dressed specifically in white clothing? It seems to me the Parshendi must have planned the assassination before the evening's celebration - it's possible Gavilar revealed to them before the treaty was signed that he would try to 'bring back their gods' (not entirely sure what that means, or if Gavilar meant what the Parshendi understood). The Parshendi may have gone through with it with the expressed purpose to kill Gavilar, because they otherwise would not have gotten close to him again if the Alethi found out what the Parshendi had planned.

Brandon did that on purpose, begging the question - Oathbringer? So far he's named books after in-universe books, so naming another book after a sword is unusual - UNLESS Oathbringer was named for a book, which is unlikely....

Oathbringer is a bit different from the previous Way of Kings and Words of Radiance - a one-word title instead of three words. Highprince of War would continue that trend - WoK and WoR and HoW. Since we don't know what exactly will be in the book, Highprince of War refers to Dalinar's current title, whereas Oathbringer refers to his Shardblade, which he gave up before becoming Highprince of War.

It's fair to assume that Roshar doesn't have all of our own instruments. Playing any sort of piece on the piano would be impossible. We do know that Rosharans have the zither and pipes (both of which Shallan can play), which could conceivably be played with the right hand where the left plays only a minor role. Wit has a flute, which would be difficult to play one-handed, so it's possible the safehand is used for rhythm or holding an instrument, rather than actually using it - pulling strings for example on a zither.

Excellent question. We know Shallan's most significant break as the story we know now was her mother's death - it's the event she suppresses quite obviously, and what has had the biggest effect on her family life. However, if we assume that people can't just be born Surgebinders (I think there was a WoB that there needs to be a crack in the psyche to allow the Nahel bond to form), Shallan must have broken before her mother's death. There are hints that when Shallan was a small child, she was already accompanied by Pattern. When she was very young, she drew patterns (drew Pattern?) in the ground of the garden - this was likely before her mother's death, although it's only a fragment of what must have been a drawn-out process that eventually destroyed Shallan's relationship with her mother, leading to the mother trying to kill Shallan because of her Surgebinder abilities/tendencies. However, people are quite superstitious and the Davar house is in rural Jah Keved. Your daughter talking to nobody in particular and seeming fascinated with something so strange could perhaps have led the mother to have all sorts of suspicions about her daughter, from Surgebinding to Voidbinding (Surgebinders hadn't been seen for thousands of years, at that point, I think? Until the Radiants we know now discovered their abilities, nobody knew anything detailed about Surgebinding - the people who saw Szeth almost all died). Maybe the family's history with secret societies plays a role? Shallan's father (and Luesh) was involved with the Ghostbloods, Helaran sought out the Skybreakers, Shallan's mother (and her friend) must have been involved in some way, otherwise the mother likely wouldn't have tried to take such drastic action.

It's fair that the loss of his arm probably broke Lopen, but he's never been anything but cheerful; he's the funniest guy around, according to The Lopen (debatable). We've had no evidence of genuinely psychological and mental traume in Lopen. Plus, Lopen is in fact getting his arm back, so we might have to see if the return of his arm changes his outlook somewhat - his humour and personality have been based to a large extent on him having one arm, so being able to use Stormlight and essentially become a whole Lopen again is certainly a shift. Interestingly, are characters required to break to become a Surgebinder, or are they required to break to become a Squire? They can draw in and hold Stormlight, does that come entirely from Kaladin or is some capacity needed from the would-be Squire? Is a traumatic experience associated with a 'break' in SA what essentially qualifies people for Surgebinders? We know nothing of the past experiences of many other bridgemen (the experiences on the Shattered Plains could qualify for all of them, but then I think what we might end up with is thousands and thousands of would-be Surgebinders or at least Squires). Teft could reasonably have had a traumatic experience when he watched his mother get executed (I might be confusing his father and mother, Teft was present for the carrying out of the death sentence of one of his parents, not both), but we have virtually no information on what other bridgemen have been through.

Didn't see that, fair point. Since Kharbranth officially doesn't have a Soulcaster (why Jasnah is needed to get rid of the boulder at the start of WoK), it's tempting to say that it's nobody we know is in Taravangian's employ (i.e. nobody with him in his chapter) - unless Taravangian is hiding the fact that his people have a Soulcaster - it's heresy to use one if you're not an ardent, and Taravangian's activities make me think his operation is trying to hide from the rest of 'mainstream' society. Leaning towards Graves, who I would say cooperates with Taravangian and certainly shares the mindset. I think Graves must have been primarily messenger though, the instructions to have Taravangian acknowledge Szeth's words at the end of WoK are very specific.

Or...it could be Taravangian. Kharbranth is a small city-state at the western-most tip of the Frostlands, that could be why the accent is unfamiliar to Szeth. Szeth has primarily been around in rural areas as a Truthless, Kharbranth is quite distant. We already know he's not the old, somewhat simple, kindly man Shallan and Jasnah meet; his intellect changes from day to day; as we see at the end of WoK, he's quite ruthless. Granted, the speech delivered by the shadowed man when Szeth gets the list is dissimilar to the sort of things Taravangian says at the end of WoK, but I think the person delivering the list is probably not more important than Taravangian. Also, I think there's a significant time gap between the events of the Mistborn series and the events of the Stormlight Archive (I think there's a WoB, although I can't find it).