Calthrop

Just a note to add to the conversation since I haven't seen it discussed much, the only time we see a Fused run out of voidlight in OB is when Rysn's larkin snacks on the one that tried to rob the Thaylen treasury in the interlude. Given that their supplies seems to far outmatch Radiants unless a highstorm is around or Dalinar is deus ex-ing a treasury full of spheres, this seems like a key tactic the Radiants will need to use in coming books. Otherwise, handfuls of Fused can just play the attrition game and outlast whole groups of Radiants, as based on Kaladin's description of Dalinar charging his batteries it isn't something that can happen repeatedly.

No worries. I edited my previous post to remove the word asexual.

Come on, don't be rude. I wrote a fairly long post that was at least reasonably thought out, and that's where you go with it? I consider Jasnah someone who doesn't indulge that side of herself because she considers other pursuits more worthy of her time, not in the sense that she doesn't have those interests at all. The commentary on how well she keeps up her appearance is enough to justify that, I think. I'll edit my previous post to say, what, less-sexual or something, to address your concerns on my knowledge of the term.

There's a lot in this thread, so I haven't gone through the it all, but I think there's an interesting angle to a potential Kaladin/Jasnah relationship that I haven't seen discussed anywhere; the Alethi social structure as we knew it is done for. The economic/employment problems that stem from the loss of the Parshmen as slaves will be nigh impossible to overcome, and at some point the Radiants/Monarchs will have to negotiate with at least a subsection of the Parshmen, and abolition will be the basic sticking point. As a corollary, the darkeyed population/leaders will start to get very concerned that the lighteyes will just make them the new Parshmen (because of course they'll try). That will open the door for Alethi social structure to be addressed at some point, particularly the darkeyed/lighteyes imbalance and the slavery laws. At the very least, the darkeyed leaders/Radiants (at the very least those with principals, like Kaladin) won't stand for rounding up darkeyes as cannon fodder for the war with Odium without some social concessions, and the traditional Vorin justifications for lighteyed dominance are looking weaker and weaker by the day. As an athiest queen, Jasnah will see the logic/necessity behind the restructuring as the Vorin religion doesn't hold much truck with her, but of course she won't want to go through all the motions during a war. Of course, there's an easy way around that problem, but you'd need to earn the trust of the darkeyed population very quickly somehow... Which she could do by taking a particular famous former darkeyed slave as her groom/king consort/whatever. In one move she can signal to the masses that their problems won't be overlooked; a man/Windrunner like Kaladin would never let the issue rest after assurances are given. As a basis for a marriage pact, it fits both their characters to a T and helps skirt a very messy problem in the middle of a war for survival. We get a really fun courtship to read about, and come on, he was practically the first thing Jasnah asked Shallan about during their reunion conversation (before she found out Shallan was into him)! Jasnah might be a little less sexual than most, sure, but she's not dead, and in my opinion this path is more in character than her simply deciding she needs to bag the hot bridgeman. Edit: We'd also get to see a pissed-off Veil try to take over Shallan and do Honor-knows-what, so there's that, too! Edit 2: Changed wording of final sentence.

I was just giving my personal opinion on 'worst crap the Ghostbloods have done on screen,' and was mentioning that particular episode because of the bodycount though they're likely pretty close (I'm in the camp that thinks Yalb and some others made it out somehow). Also, in the case of the driver/parshmen, members directly did the deed, whereas the Tyn situation is more like a hopeful ordered to kill Jasnah who went all Reservoir Dogs on it. Killing the sailors matches up well, though, I agree, but as much as I love Jasnah someone taking a shot at her doesn't really make my list until I know more about the details of her history w the Ghostbloods. I digress, but I do think one of the most interesting things we'll see play out in the books is the concept that the Radiants aren't the absolute greatest moral authority on Roshar, and can be particularly unreliable when they are in morally ambiguous situations (cough Bridge Four minus Skar&Drehy cough cough Kaladin/Elhokar cough).

Ooooh, I've got thoughts about this... 1) I think the biggest new piece of information we've got about their motivations actually comes from a new WoB, namely that Iyatil was once a member of the 17th Shard. 2) What we've learned about the 17th Shard, as well as some of the letters from the SA books and their general pursuit of Hoid/Wit, lends credence to the idea that they pursue a general course of nonintervention. 3) Given everything we do know about the Ghostbloods, a hands-off policy doesn't seem to fit them. However, a group created to take an active role in dire events where certain people may have considered the 17th Shard falling short could fit them very well indeed. Their desire for Sja-Anat is likely threefold: if she can corrupt radiant spren as she did with Glys, that are not beholden to Odium yet draw some power from him, that would be pretty damnation handy, giving access to surge variants that the Radiants don't have. Also, you take a weapon away from Odium. Finally, and this is the big one, you gain leverage over the Radiants with her ability to corrupt Oathgate spren, giving the Ghostbloods the power to shut down Radiant travel if, say, a Radiant's brokenness, conscience, or guilt led him to do something stupid. Just saying, Radiants aren't exactly stable, Dalinar included. Bridge Four even deserted Thaylen City and abandoned the populous to Odium when hit with a crisis of conscience, and no one seemed to mind. I'd want a way to force them to fight, or at least not abandon whole parts of the world, given how fickle they can be and their poor understanding of their oaths. And you can be sure Odium has more secrets that he can frame in ways to make them uncertain, and you just can't risk them bailing to think things through, or another Recreance for that matter. Heck, even Syl thinks Kaladin is on the edge at the end of OB. Blindly trusting Radiants and their judgement is not going to fly with everyone, and to be honest, I'm not sure it should. The fact that we as readers are in their heads and know they have good intentions does not change that. Of course, the Ghostblood's 'evilness' or whatever is an unknown quantity at this point. That said, by far the worst thing I've actually seen one of their members do at this junction is killing Shallan's driver/parshmen in WoR, and we know Mraize didn't actually order that done. I also have some suspicions about that particular lait, but they'll have to wait for more information on Cultivation. Suffice it to say that killing people who could jeopardize a critical location would not be out of character for them, but it also doesn't mean they're out for Cosmere-level genocide, either.

Halfway through I would have sworn the book was the best the Cosmere had to offer. Even at the tail end of Thaylen City I would have placed the book head and shoulders above books 1 and 2. Of course there are a number of things that make the book less than perfect, but for me I think the biggest issue is the post-avalanche wrap-up, which not only was disappointing from a narrative perspective but leaves me disheartened about the series. While I loved some of those late sections (Lopen!), the closing chapters simply felt rushed/incomplete, and not only regarding the whole wedding thing (which I think we really should have seen and I know I'm not alone on that one). A few things that immediately come to mind: We never see Dalinar speak to his sons about Rathalas at all, despite him writing a book about his past. We never get to see the conversations with Jasnah about taking the Alethi throne, despite the innumerable pages devoted to Alethi politics throughout books 1-3. We never see any conversation regarding Bridge 4 abandoning a city full of people with Odium on the doorstep due to a crisis of uncertainty, despite all the discourse in the series on Windrunners protecting people. We never see anyone even bother to debrief Szeth after Thaylen City, despite his role in the events of the first two books. Given the time frame covered post-Thaylen City, all of these things would have occurred by the end of the book and so it's highly unlikely these scenes will ever be shown to us, which is just devastating. I can forgive a lot in the name of pacing, but its almost insulting to not show us these key scenes for all of these central characters we've grown to care about over the course of the series. I think even those who rated the book a 10 can admit that it isn't so tight that we couldn't have had at least some of these crucial character scenes shown to us. PS: Earlier in the book, the omission of any reunion dialogues with Jasnah is a pretty extreme oversight as well (Navani, for instance, would really have benefited from this from a character development standpoint given her emotions in WoR, particularly given her nonexistent, or at least non-written, reaction to Elhokar's loss).

Oh my. But if all those relationships are going to work out, who on Roshar would be able to arrange so many marriages? ; )

Here's the quote from Kaladin in WoR: "Light came from above, too steady to be lightning. Something was glowing on the plateau. Something that moved. It was hard to see, since water streamed off the side of the plateau above, falling in a sheet before their refuge. He swore he saw an enormous figure walking up there, a glowing inhuman form, followed by another, alien and sleek. Striding the storm. Leg after leg, until the glow passed." Here's the Dalinar quote from Oathbringer you mentioned: "Dalinar glanced and saw something luminous in the distance: a gargantuan figure that moved on spindly glowing legs." My guess is Dalinar saw the second of the two figures Kaladin mentions. I want to say there might have been other sightings in the books, but I can't say for certain since I'm looking for times when the whole out-of-body thing isn't happening. Regarding them being natural creatures, given that both Dalinar and Kaladin are both quite familiar with Chasmfiends as of the timeframe of the quotes, the descriptors seem to be pointing in another direction, at least in my opinion. The association with glowing/stormlight makes me believe that we're seeing some sort of spren. Edit: regarding the idea that lots of people see it since it isn't unheard of to get caught in a highstorm, I think it's interesting that people don't talk about it considering that their first thought would be that they saw the Stormfather himself, which I'm sure they'd be shouting about from the hilltops. My first thought is that both of them were seeing partially into the cognitive realm at the time (Kaladin is bonded at that point, and Dalinar had at least one shard-related experience in his youth that we know of: the strange vision at the end of WoR with the 'light and warmth' that the Stormfather didn't send, in addition to the attention he'd been drawing from the Unmade/Odium).

I have some thoughts on a spren that I believe to be a solid candidate for the Sibling. A major question implied by the existence of the Sibling is how on Roshar has a spren on the level of the Stormfather/Nightwatcher been able to conceal itself so well for so long? Well, there's an enormous spren walking around that we never got a name for (as far as I know). It also happens to like long walks with the Stormfather, and I suspect he's using the highstorms as cover to hide it, which would fit really well given his attitude towards the Sibling. When viewpoint characters in WoR are trapped in a chasm and caught in a highstorm, they note two enormous spren pacing the storm. One is pretty likely the Stormfather himself (perhaps being viewed partially in the cognitive realm). We never get much discussion of the second, but it's definitely there and certainly distinct from the Stormfather. "Alien and sleek" was the exact description, I believe. It is implied that it appears of similar size to the Stormfather. Interestingly, the character(s) never seem to wonder about this second giant spren after the storm. I personally don't believe that the Sibling has to physically be in Urithiru, though I've found some folks who militantly believe that it must still be inside the tower itself. If the minor functions of the Tower that still function are a hanging point, the spren I refer to would actually pass by the Tower regularly as it walks the highstorms with the Stormfather. Regarding the whole 'slumbering' bit, my guess at this point would involve a sort of waking dream, sustained by the constant presence of so much stormlight in the highstorms. In any case, with what we've learned in Oathbringer and the fact that the Stormfather would at least be aware of this spren walking his storms, the idea that the Stormfather is concealing the Sibling from humans makes too much sense to ignore in my opinion. At the very least, I think it's something to consider : )

I have a sneaking suspicion about 'Tarah,' as her physical description really reminds me of a particular assassin we meet in the WoR prologue (Liss). Also, Tarah seems to like to wear non-Alethi clothing styles, which is seems to work with what Jasnah noted about Liss in WoR. My guess is she was put on retainer regarding Amaram (any number of groups, or ahem female scholars, might have done that), then took off when the contract was canceled for whatever reason (or perhaps a more important target emerged). There are of course other possible explanations for her presence near Amaram's army, as a number of factions had interest in it at that time. She could even have been sent to look into Kaladin, as we know some groups were taking notice of his actions even that early in his career. The primary argument against would be the fact that her father actually seems to exist, although for the promise of a favor (like a better posting, perhaps in Mourn's Vault) I'm sure a person in his position would be willing to play along. Of course, she could just be a random girl, but where's the fun in that?

Good point you make there about the dust jacket. Still thought it worth remarking on.

Remember the line where the Sleepless mentions that 'they are watching the assassin, the liar, the surgeon, and the highprince' (paraphrasing here) and not paying attention to Lift? So, did we just get confirmation that Kaladin's father is a radiant? Can't think of any other obvious surgeons to fit the bill. The assassin is likely Szeth (though could be Jasnah's contact from WoR intro), the Liar is Shallan, and the highprince has got to be Dalinar (oh please don't let it be Sadeas with a regrowth power). Leaving the surgeon, and my money is on Lirin. I know there was speculation before, but this kind of seals it in my humble opinion. Unless some random battlefield surgeon is a hidden radiant.

Many thanks for getting that quote (and for your other contributions here).