Aliroz-The-Confused

That was supposed to be my bead of Lerasium, Leras left it to me in the will. Flipping Midius, stealing my inheritance in the one moment when nobody's looking. He'll have to give it back, though, if he ever wants to see his previous flute again. ...or maybe I'm just messing with all of you.

My point is that we have the vocabularly, whether or not we use it, and the Alethi don't, even after all this time. It doesn't add up unless it's intentional worldbuilding or just wrong... but from the rest of your post it does seem to be intentional worldbuilding. @Offer, oh, dang, I must have forgotten that note in Arcanum Unbounded.

Yeah, but given the sheer amount of time the Voidbringers have been around birds, it makes no sense for them not to have diversified the names. The Koala may have been called a "bear" by the first westerners to know of it, but it's not been that many generations since and I have the vocabulary to speak of Marsupials. Something else must be going on here, and the only way this can linguistically make sense is if there genuinely are no non-chicken birds around outside of Shin Kak Nish.

Except for "the humans came to Roshar thousands of years ago", I don't remember any of this in any book. It does makes a lot of sense for Patji to be an aspect of Autonomy, especially given the themes of colonization, indigeneity, and exploitation that The Stormlight Archive and Sixth of the Dusk share. The most significant thematic difference being that the people of First Of The Sun are beginning the process of destroying their world while the Voidbringers of Roshar must face the realization that they already did irrevocably, irredeemably, destroy their world and are essentially cuckoos in the Listener's nest. Even if Aviars get their powers from Patji, that doesn't mean Cultivation wasn't, at some point, there, feeding the birds and slumming around in Autonomy's planet without Autonomy's permission, before leaving for Roshar. Honestly, given how Cultivation and Honor abandoned the Listeners for the Voidbringers, and how Odium forcibly "adopted" the Parshendi, this theory makes a lot of sense and even adds another layer to the deific custody dispute from heck. How horribly fitting it would be for Odium to do unto Cultivation as she did unto Autonomy. Even the idea that the accord was a promise that ought not to have necessarily applied to all Voidbringers is an autonomy-honor dispute very much applicable to any treaty and any interaction between colonizers and indigenous. It would be in character for Honor to see this accord as totally binding and applying to all Voidbringers and all Listeners, from Honor's point of view, such a thing is really no different from a treaty applying to all people of the relevant civilizations regardless of whether each individual agrees to it or not. Honor doesn't have to be reasonable. And, well, there has to be a reason why Roshar has no birds other than chickens, and this would explain it so well. Well done, Vailima.

Kickstarter is a malicious thing; it's devoured two of my favorite storytellers already. They got too much money and now are trapped by their own ambitions and promises in a Sisyphus-and-Stone scenario, and I worry the same is starting to happen here. I suppose the question now is whether Mr. Sanderson is like the protagonist of a Greek Tragedy, in which case his fate is already sealed and any warning would come too late, or whether he's like the protagonist of an anime, in which case any warning will be responded to by a successful accomplishment of the previously impossible. A Moshe-edited, Joshua-screened, traditionally published book that serves as a compendium of random Cosmere lore would be interesting (and we got some of that with Arcanum Unbounded), but if there's one thing we ought to have learned from Rowling, it's that editors, agents, and publishers are crucial and ought not be removed from the process if the readers want good content. Or, in other words, even that would probably fail to get past my increasingly irrational opinions, for many of the same reasons Dawnshard does. It would probably be good for the more reasonable Print Fanatics out there, though.

I feel like Obi-Wan at Mustafar now. WHYYYYYYYYYYY FRUS, WHYYYYY!???!?!?

Edgedancer has been published as part of Arcanum Unbounded, and thus has the same canon status as Secret History. (This posting genuinely isn't an elaborate joke, it's just my, to other people very bizarre, opinion. I was, in all truth, planning not to read Stormlight 5 when it comes out, or any Stormlight after it, because of how much I resented Dawnshard for not being available in print when I wanted to read it (I refuse to have anything to do with e-books or audiobooks), but since my cousin is reading the series I've found myself planning to actually continue with Stormlight because I love talking about it with her).

Enough is enough! I have had it with all of these monkey-flipping Dawnshard theories on this Multi-Fractal forum! First off, Dawnshards aren't real, have never been important in any canon Cosmere book, and aren't going to be important in any canon Cosmere book. This is because Dawnshard isn't canon, which is self-evidently obvious but I'm going to explain it anyway (because you SMART PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET said my theories were unlikely and unsupported-by-evidence-and-logic so I'm insecure about making claims without at least a page or two attempting to justify my thoughts). This is best demonstrated by the fact that Dawnshard, for the longest time, was not published as a physical book, but was only available as an electronic text. You know what else is only available as an electronic text? The Way Of Kings Prime. Which, as you all know, is not canon, and is also garbage and not worth reading (don't worry, I didn't read it). Just because Sanderson wrote it doesn't mean it counts, if Moshe, Joshua, and the publishers don't deem it worthy of the printed page. If the book was worthy like the others, it would have been published from the start. Also, Dawnshard cannot count as existing/mattering/canon because it would ruin the entire Stormlight Archive's basic structure of being ten books (that's the entire basic thing of it, with a world built around tens, and Sanderson promising ten books, it has to be ten books), and Dawnshard sure as heck isn't Stormlight 5. Mistborn was promised as a trilogy of trilogies, and Stormlight was promised as a ten-book series. The Way Of Kings Prime doesn't count in the numbering, it doesn't count as canon, and Dawnshard must be the same. Look, I have faith in Sanderson's abilities, I don't think he's going to screw it up when he has ONE JOB (a ten-book series). Okay, Sanderson screwed up a bit with Mistborn by writing a trilogy that wasn't the second trilogy but saved himself by making it a side-thing that's not part of the proper Mistborn Trilogy Of Trilogies, but then you fans Ati'd that all up and got it republished and marketed as Era Two and as the second trilogy, so you either ruined the WHOLE THING or cheated me out of three books. Still, I stand with the publishers of 2020, no matter what happened in February of this year. In Summary: Dawnshard = not a physical book at release. Way of Kings Prime = not a physical book at release. Therefore, Dawnshard = Way of Kings Prime. Way Of Kings Prime = stupid garbage unworthy of publication which is not canon. Thus, Dawnshard = stupid garbage unworthy of publication which is not canon.

If the Radiants can't manage it before Odium is freed, what makes you think they can manage it after? If Odium gets off of Roshar, then the only noun in the universe to have successfully eternally prevented an evil shard from becoming a multi-system problem will have been Preservation, which, as has been established, is gone from the Cosmere. At that point, I'd trust the Scadrians over the Rosharans, given their respective records of success, failure, and learning-from-failure in such regards (heck, in that situation, I'd trust any system in the Cosmere over the Rosharan system, given that none of them messed up so badly as to cause/not-prevent a shard-level multi-system disaster like that).

I don't think sDNA is a real thing, it's too silly. That would imply sRNA, sMRNA, and all sorts of spiritual proteins and cellular gobbledygook.

I don't think that the different creations can interact like that. Without a shared originator or creator, I don't think that-which-we-commonly-call-the-humans of the separate worlds are truly the same species as one another. In a very real sense, they would be closer to the other species of their same creation than to each other.

Oh, dang, you're right! The significant powers on Roshar are incredibly well-suited to defend against external attack... so the best strategy to weaken that turtle would start while it's still developing in the egg. In fiction, and likely in history, there are fortresses which were never taken by siege or attack, but fell to internal scheming and treachery. These early stages of the next era of the Knights Radiant are absolutely crucial in this regard*... perhaps Gavilar was right to say that Thaidakar was too late. *Not to mention that the stronger the Kholin-aligned side gets, the more difficult it becomes to stop their scholars from innovating and discovering. If, as my cousin predicts (and I agree with her), the next book or two in the Stormlight Archive will contain a/the genocide of the spren, (much of) it will be Navani's fault, and who knows what they'll figure out next... Yeah, things are going to get hairy.

Greetings and salutations!

Lord Ruler > Everything and everyone, except maybe shards. No printer, just fax.

I'm not sure what you mean by that? I guess being able to track the movement of investiture is important to finding and shutting down the routes by which it is transported, but if I'm interpreting "the first investiture ring" right, such a thing seems counter to the end goal of Roshar as an eternal prison (or, if necessary, a tomb) for Odium.

I think that might, to some extent, be one of the fronts to disguise their true intentions.

I return from my slumber beneath the mountain to plague you all with unwanted and unwarranted speculation! (Spoilers up to and including Rhythm of War and the entire lesser Mistborn Trilogy). There's always another secret. The simplest explanation is, for the Cosmere, often unlikely to be the truth. Thus, speculation should tend to the far-fetched, if only for the sake of being interesting. I propose that The Ghostbloods are much more accurately described as a South Scadrian intelligence agency sent to destabilize other words than as a criminal organization seeking a non-metaphorical power monopoly. Furthermore, I propose that their aims are essentially Preservationist in nature, rather than Ruinous (though their methods may be ruinous). With its lamentable corruption into Harmony, the only true legacy of Preservation is Scadrial itself. With the loss of Ruin, the only genuine threat to Scadrial is other worlds, and as in many things, the greatest dangers to a world are discovery and innovation (Anyone who doubts this should consider what happened to the Dinosaurs when the comet hit, or what happened to the comet itself... when worlds collide, worlds collide, and one or both are destroyed. Contact is contamination, contamination is destruction, destruction is ruin). The next greatest danger to the worlds of the Cosmere is the shard Odium, currently quarantined in the Roshar system (to those who doubt that innovation is the greater threat, consider that it was the curious mortal Navani Kholin, rather than the shard Odium or one of its Fused, who discovered how to permanently kill spren. To those who doubt that discovery is the greater threat, consider what the discovery by humans of Roshar and how to get there meant for the native Parshendi, or what would happen if Odium were to discover a way to escape its prison). The Rosharan system represents an undeniable and existential danger to the rest of the Cosmere. Its vast and easily accessible sources of Investiture alone would make it the epicenter of cross-system contamination as Worldhoppers would inevitably seek to exploit it. Such power, for the sake of preserving all else that is, must be controlled, must be seized. Establishing a non-metaphorical power monopoly is the best way to prevent anyone else from uncontrolled, unauthorized, unsafe-in-the-long-run, irresponsible use of investiture. Controlling the Oathgates, Urithiru, and the Perpendicularities is the best way to keep Roshar as the quarantine it ought to be, rather than the crossroads it might become. Odium, regardless of its bearer, is likely to stay contained so long as no clever little monkey figures out the wrong trick... Yeah, so long as J. Kholin and N. Kholin breathe, it's only a matter of time before the "wrong trick" is figured out and Odium is set free. Those of Scadrial, of all people, know what happens when an evil shard is set free from its prison. To prevent more catastrophes such as what happened to Sel, any true follower of Preservation* would find themselves with the same objectives as the Ghostbloods. Add to this Thaidakar's rather hands-off style of leadership, and the tendencies of those-organizations-sent-by-authority-to-destabilize-other-places-in-order-to-serve-the-interests-of-the-homeland, and it stops being a mystery why monsters like Mraize get in positions of influence and power in the Ghostbloods. TLDR; The Ghostbloods aren't an Investiture Cartel, they're the South Scadrial CIA... which is honestly scarier, and probably worse. *as in Preservation, rather than Harmony

Well, that's just really depressing, then. Every time you make a concession to reality, a part of your heart dies, and a bit of your soul fades. Eventually, your compromises and your imperfect methods and the things you had to do to make the world as good as it is will result in the next generation having to oppose you and destroy what you've made to make something better/"better". There's a quote from a movie that has always stuck with me (it's too much of a spoiler for me to say what movie it's from, but the quote is pretty universal). The context is that a horrific act of unjustified violence has been done by associates of Character 1 upon people that Character 2 was supposed to protect, but, because of other "greater good" considerations, Character 2 more or less abandoned -- and when Character 2 calls out Character 1, 1 points out 2's own complicity and claims that what happened was inevitable because: Character 1: We must work in the world, the world is thus. Character 2: No... thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it. What makes the Radiants special in my eyes is that they won't say things like "We must work in the world, the world is thus.", but they will say things like "Honor is dead... but I'll see what I can do.".

That just means that murdering people who use language badly is "doing my brother's work". See, it turns out that Wax's uncle and his hooligans are all jive turkeys, and the Life-Death Brothers aren't having any of it.

Of course it drives him crazy. Why do you suppose he's the last thing so many people see before they die...

While I'm usually one for world/setting over characters/people, and I like not having the mortals be responsible for everything in a story involving mortals and gods, I feel like this would be a cop-out. Having to live in a world damaged by the-previous-groups-of-Radiants's failure-at-the-very-ideals-that-our-heroes-struggle-with-and-try-to-embody adds a lot of "oomph" to the moral struggles that the characters have, and helps moments like "You cannot have my pain" feel not just powerful, but "earned". Forgive me for being ignorant, but I can't find where it was established that BAM being imprisoned or released had/has-had/will-have/has anything to do with deadeyes or the recreance. Is there a specific book and chapter, or is it a theory, or a WOB? But anyways, I think this would also feel like a cop-out, or, at least, unsatisfying to me. It feels like such a balance would be having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too for the humans. The very start of the Stormlight Archive was the Heralds (sans Talenelat) breaking the Oathpact and leaving him to be tortured forever. The first "proper" chapter was about Szeth, defining him as someone who does terrible things without regret because he doesn't consider himself responsible for his actions, and believes that he has no free will (so he has to do whatever his masters tell him). Kaladin and Amaram are, to a large extent, defined by the moment that Amaram did what was expedient and seemed "practical/pragmatic" at the time. I'd rather have the resolution of the series be people taking responsibility for their actions and the consequences of such, and making the hard-but-right choices, than have it be a balance between idealism and realism. See, I think we are using the word "idealism" in the same way. I think you lose your idealism when you make these concessions to reality, when you see the world as the imperfect world it is rather than the perfect world it might (never) be, when you stop believing in perfect solutions. It might be better in the long term, but I think it should disqualify you from at least the higher Ideals. Honor/honor, in this series, isn't an objectively good morality, or even always a healthy one, any more than Preservation/preservation was in Mistborn, but it is a cause that, in the end, defines Roshar's heroes, what they do, and why they do it. I find that a lot more engaging (especially in fiction) than any kind of reasonable worldview. Honestly, having the Radiants (especially Skybreakers) and Spren learn that they need to make concessions to reality and adopt a nuanced view of things would be really depressing in my opinion, a loss of some of what made SA so different from reality, and different from a lot of other fiction. Of course, I'm probably wrong about all of this, and whatever Mr. Sanderson does, it will almost certainly be brilliant and I'm sure that even if his resolution isn't what I would have chosen, it will be better than anything I could have come up with (that's why he's the author and I'm the fan).

See, here's the thing, those people, that innocent majority, are innocent in ignorance, not knowing any better and just trying their best. Lacking their ignorance, I would feel that I lack their innocence, too. The Skybreaker in me can't let a betrayal like that go without condemnation, or let mortals off the hook by placing the blame on the gods, but also refuses to condemn the ignorant, innocent majorities, so the only resolution, the only one I could allow to carry that burden, would be myself, (or. on a bad day, myself and those of the Knights Radiant who are no longer ignorant). I certainly wouldn't see myself as worthy of the Ideals, so I'd probably end up trying to "protect" everyone else by ensuring that nobody else ever learns about the origins of humanity (especially those Radiants who don't already know). And if I would feel that way, probably at least a couple of the Skybreakers felt something like that.

Someone else was there before them, and someone else was before them, and there will be someone else in the future, but all those people are of my species (kin, in a way, to myself and, more abstractly, to every other living thing on Earth), native to the planet on which I live. It's not the same. And the revelation that the humans came as refugees, and were given refuge by the Listeners, and then later took everything from them and then forgot that they ever existed as anything other than their slaves in the first place? That would shake my foundations, no matter how many thousands of years later, because that kind of betrayal is not something you just forget. Even if Honor and Cultivation and all the Spren and Roshar itself said otherwise, I would still feel like an usurper, a cuckoo bird being cared for by the parents/gods/planet of someone who'd been killed and replaced by my ancestors. I wouldn't have the certainty to be a Radiant after that, especially if I'd formerly been a slave or bridgeman and knew what betrayal and oppression felt like. Or, at least, that's how I feel about it, but I guess that feeling is less universal than I assumed.

Well, if knowing that you're usurpers on the place you consider your native planet DOESN'T wreck all your idealism and confidence in the rightness of your cause, I'm not sure what will. I mean, what secret could possibly be worse? "The Shin are right, and you all are eternally condemned in the afterlife for stepping on stone"?

Wait, so does that mean that the current Radiants don't know that Humanity isn't native to Roshar, and that the planet was stolen from its true natives? I could have sworn there was a conversation about that somewhere...