Obnoxiousspren

Dang I searched for a WOB but didn’t find it! Thanks for that. I guess my question has been answered. I have read Aether of Night, although it’s been awhile so there may be a detail I’m missing...

I’ve already submitted this to the list of questions to ask Brandon, but I thought I’d let the community pick this apart. Can/have Shards had children after ascending to become Shards? I believe that they can have children because they can manifest themselves in the Physical Realm and interact with it. As far as whether they have had children I have no specific people in mind but I wouldn’t be surprised if we learned about a couple. What are your thoughts?

Have any of the Shards, after becoming Shards, manifested physically and had children?

I’m sorry, but for some reason your post made me think of... ... which cracked me up! Seriously though, you are so right to point out the spren. Syl is fantastic and fun to read, but so far my favorite might be Pattern. I mean, I’m sure we will learn more, but all the Spren just keep telling people how dangerous and scary the Cryptics are and Pattern is just like “dividing by zero is inappropriate!”

That’s fair, you do have to kind of fill in the blanks with Lopen since he has much less screen time and POV dedicated to him. It’s definitely less obvious with him that he has a deeper side than it is with Wayne or Lift.

But... but... the end of Oathbringer! He’s hanging around a medical tent just to try to visit and cheer up those who are injured! All his jokes are so he can try to help people get through terrible times! I mean, I know this is your opinion and everything, but I think there is more to his character than just jokes.

“...most invested in.” Pun intended? Oh gosh I totally forgot about Elhokar. He holds the place in my heart of having one of the best drastic character changes in all of literature. He went from one of the most frustrating and annoying people to the most sincere and easy-to-root for underdog in the books. Which is why Brandon completely ripped my heart out with the Kholinar arc in Oathbringer :’(

(Inspired by the Least Favorite Character thread) Which Stormlight characters are your favorite? It could be because of their story arcs, quotes, intriguing mysteries, whatever. But I’m curious to know who is your favorite and the reason they are. While I love all the main characters (yes that includes Shallan) I’m gonna stick to some less prominent ones to make it interesting. I’ll throw out Skar as one of my favorites. For one thing, he’s one of the most skilled in bridge 4. Also, he’s a teacher and his short arc in Oathbringer is one of my favorite chapters. Alright there’s one of mine, fire away!

I think you are totally right. Bridge 4 members are definitely very similar in their transformations. But like you said, they have POV chapters that take us into their heads and help us understand the shift. It would be nice to have this with Vhatha and Gaz (although for whatever reason I really like Vhatha’s character)

Totally agree, I also love Wayne. One thing Brandon does so well is that each of these characters is much deeper than they appear. But I digress, since I should be talking about characters I don’t like. For the sake of conversation I’ll add Gaz as a character I’m not super fond of. The reason being how his transition from an antagonistic bridge commander to potential squire of Shallan is written. My reasoning is complicated, so here me out. I don’t hate the idea that he can change, the series is all about that so it’s fine. My problem is not that he changes in motivation, actions, morals, whatever. My issue is that the whole thing seems so... unnatural. Random with no foreshadowing. And it’s like he’s an entirely different person and personality when we meet him in WOR. So much so that I kinda suspected for a bit that he was a Kandra (I think I found some things that make me doubt that but it’s been awhile so I don’t remember). So yeah, his character kinda threw me off (especially in WOR).

I do want to add (after not commenting on this thread for months) that I absolutely LOVE Lift and Lopen. I know that isn’t the most popular opinion, but I really think they are hilarious and intriguing characters. While both of them spend a lot of time acting like complete dorks, they really have some of the kindest and most touching actions in the books. I love the scene where Lopen tries (in his own silly way) to comfort an injured man. And the fact that Lift went and HUGGED Nale after he had tried to kill her and had killed countless others is just incredible. Also her back story is just so dang intriguing that I always want to know more. Although they don’t always show it, they are some of the most noble characters in the series.

Must be very painful to walk on broken pieces of shardplate then

@Chaos @Overlord Jebus @WeiryWriter Here's a Shardcast inspired joke for you guys. "Where's the one place you can always get WiFi in the Cosmere? The Spiritual Realm. Everything is connected in the Spiritual Realm."

Was anyone else like screaming “Demoux!!” at the screen after like the second clue on “Whose that Cosmere Character”?

Proof: Cultivation has Ascended. "To Be Ascended" is just a less fancy way of saying "To Be Lifted". Therefor Lift must be a part of Cultivation, but clearly not the vessel since she chose the less fancy title of "Lift" instead of "Ascend". Theory: The first Rosharan to reach space will be The Lopen.

Proof: Some of the Shards are Odium, Autonomy, Ambition, Dominion, Devotion and Ruin. These are obviously pet names. Seriously, what's more odious, autonomous, ambitious and dominating than cats? At the same time, what's more devoted and ruinous than dogs? (I might've just made enemies with half the 17th shard with that comment...) Theory: Brandon Sanderson does not actually exist. All of the books have actually been written by Hoid and anyone who has seen Brandon is actually just seeing Hoid with a Lightweaved disguise.

Moments that made me: Elhokar's death, Wax killilng Lessie (x2), Sazed's words about Vin in HoA, Dalinar and "I forgive you.", Dockson's final scene (I'm not sure why, it just gets me), Hoid with Shallan when she was young and he gets her to lightweave, Taln's reaction to hearing from Ash that it has been 4000 years Moments that made me: (but in the best way possible) Wayne shooting Wax's sister in the face, finding out Reen's voice has been Ruin the whole time, FREAKIN NIGHTBLOOD AT THE END OF WoR!!, Hoid becoming a lightweaver, Dalinar (pseudo)Ascending, Odium showing up during the visions.... I'm sure there are more, those are just what I have off the top of my head.

I used this before but I feel it is appropriate again so...

I'm just so happy to finally see a discussion that doesn't have Trell being Autonomy. I never liked the theory (although that honestly might be because I thought it was obviously Odium and was embarrassed to see how unlikely that was). I haven't looked into it exactly, but I think(?) continuity issues with how the timeline is set makes Odium an unlikely candidate. If someone could help me there that would be awesome. HOWEVER, I would mention that Brandon puts a lot of emphasis on the color red as an indicator of corrupt Investitor. That could be a RED herring (haha get it?) but I would guess it isn't (on a side note, I didn't like coming to that conclusion either, the whole "color having to always mean something" debate tends to annoy me). Along those lines, I'll throw in these WOBs for consideration:

I feel like Peter Dinklage as the Stormfather has a strange irony to it

Also Michael Pina as The Lopen.

Oooooh that being said, James Spader as Hoid/Wit. I know at his current age he probably isn't a good Hoid lookalike, but just imagine Spader's voice doing those lines! I can see him doing all of it: the witty/snarky comments directed at pretentious lighteyes, the sudden shift into dramatic moments, the overwhelming self confidence, the calm serious attitude that sometimes comes out... I mean common! Just imagine him narrating Wandersail or the Girl Who Looked Up or any of his monologues at the end of the books! It would be so perfect

I could see this. I would need Odium to be someone who can appear kindly and good but then turn straight evil in a half-second. I feel Mark Hamill could do this well, he's played wise old men and also some insane villains. And he does both of them very well. So I support this idea.

You're good! The problem with typing is it is so hard to express mood or tone, I wasn't frustrated at all by your comment The ideas you mentioned were in the podcast I mentioned earlier (the link is in the first post) and so my purpose here is discuss another option that wasn't mentioned at all in that discussion. The possibilities you mentioned are good ones though, although I think if Ishar had the Shardblades he'd be doing a lot more with them in the 'pseudo-holy-war' he's waging. Of course, he is insane, so he's already acting unreasonably and unpredictably... Going along with your first comment, you are probably on the right track with your reasoning (although we don't know everything about that period). However, there is another big reason why Shinovar wouldn't be a neutral ground for shards. Shinovar wouldn't be neutral ground for Shardblades or Shardplate because those weren't even a thing when it was first settled

@Stark I do also agree that the Shin could have a lot of the Blades as well. And I kinda like that connection with the spren not being common there. Of course an oddity with that idea (which also applies to the Vorin Church) is that there was a period of time known as the Shin invasions when they tried to take over the world. Like with the Vorin Church this could be explained fairly simply as either they didn't have as many as they do currrently or the invasion itself was a means of stockpiling. Also (based off Dalinar's vision) we can reasonably assume that the Shin had the Honorblades as far back as the Last Desolation and therefor would have had them during the Shin Invasions. Since the Shin probably had them, they apparently didn't use them for some reason since we don't hear any stories about that. I guess what I'm getting at is that if the Shin had the Honorblades during their efforts of world domination and didn't use them, then it is also conceivable that they could have a ton of Shardblades and not use them either. @Quantus I also agree that both of those are likely options for our guilty parties. My argument is not that the Vorin Church is the most likely candidate, just that they are an additional one that hasn't received as much consideration as all the others. If I had to bet on the most likely party, I would probably choose the Skybreakers. They've been around long enough, have the power to accumulate blades and also have a very good reason to possess but not use a bunch of dead Shardblades. My only issue is that if the Skybreakers were collecting blades I think we'd hear stories about Shardbearers being mysteriously murdered and missing Shards. Additional potential evidence I forgot to mention: We know that Taln showed up to Kholinar with his Honorblade. By the time he got to the Shattered Plains it was switched with a normal blade. We can assume it wasn't switched on the way since Bordin would have noticed if it had been switched out. The most likely time to switch it out without being noticed would have been right after Taln arrives. Who would have had access to Taln right away? The ardents of the Vorin Church who take care of madmen. If they did switch it out they used a Shardblade that there was no record of, which supports the idea that they could have a stockpile.