Amended

Very light year for the Cosmere.

Does his religious upbringing have something to do with it? Yeah. He also writes quite a few characters who are single, religious or have morals against it, alongside time periods where premarital sex is a bigger societal no-no. Those factors let him hide it some, but leaves sex lacking in an author who otherwise does a brilliant job of catching the human experience. The nice thing is BS improves. While this is a weak spot, hopefully he’ll get a better handle on getting it across, which would lead to a more natural representation.

@SLNC I’ll concede that she wasn’t creating a flat out new persona during that, but the persona-ception with Shallan painted over Veil or Radiant over Veil did create sub-personas that was triggering roughly the same crisis. Given enough time, another full persona may have arisen.

@SLNC Yup. That’s default, classic Shallan right there. She puts on different faces and becomes someone she isn’t so that “that person” can handle it. That’s what I feel is roughly the baseline for her. There are clear flaws with that method of coping, and requires growth from her to overcome. She’s stabilized into 3 main personas, and she’s still settling into her recovery from the downward spiral. What it is NOT is the downward spiral she spent a good chunk of OB in where if a persona couldn’t handle a issue in a certain way Shallan would create a new persona or intermix them, leading to an excess that was leading to her to not having a clue of any unifying features or what made her her. No new persona was made to handle this particular situation. Also, typing on phone is slow. Sorry if I’m not caught up on the 3-4 comments since. My guess on growth would be Shallan understanding why she picks a persona for a particular reason, and using the decision making to help point out the underlying bedrock character traits that she has overall. Not getting better, not getting worse, but a chance to catch her breath and recover so she can seek elsewhere growth. I feel my comments still apply. also slow typing is slow.

Jumping in here. Personally, I think Shallan needs BOTH Adolin and Kaladin in her life. The thought in my head is stress and rest: Kaladin, being Kaladin, pushes her to grow, improve, be better. That’s fine, but when it goes too far for too long, Shallan shatters. Her coping mechanism for excessive stress is to create a persona that isn’t stressed over the issue, and in OB it started to spiral out of control to the point of being detrimental. Adolin, on the other hand, allows here to rest and recover. He’s a plainer, simpler man, with gifts of empathy and understanding. Shallan doesn’t stress around him. There’s room to recover mental and emotional strength, letting her recover to face and handle new stress. This leaves the choice between them somewhat less dramatic. Kaladin does have chemistry with her, but he’s also going to stress her, which is hard on a relationship/family. Adolin doesn’t solve the problems, but he also doesn’t make them worse. His situation is also pretty good for a relationship/family. This makes Adolin the better romantic partner to settle down with. Now, because Adolin and Kaladin didn’t try to fight over Shallan and make moves against each other, the trio still works. Shallan can still be friends with Kaladin and get the same results, while settling down and establishing roots with Adolin. My only issue with this train of thought is that I’m not certain how Veil views adultry. Marriage may not have ended the triangle...

How did Kaladin’s windbreaking work? It wasn’t one of his normal surge, so did he invest in windspren? For that matter, can all spren be in infused to cause various effects?

Well, Kaladin, you got some explaining to do. Shallan may have broken a tad bit there.

Ialai has either masterfully outwitted Shallin and Adolin at the same time, or just got massively outplayed by Mraize. Either way, sucks to be Shallin/Adolin.

It's making more sense. Since she can Elsecall, it wouldn't be too far off, but the lack of reactions do kill it

I was rereading chapter 8 when I stumbled on this paragraph?". The city dominated her view. It stretched impossibly high, and she struggled to contain the enormous tower on the page. Jasnah had searched this place out in the hope of finding books and records here of ancient date; so far, they hadn’t found anything like that. Instead, Shallan struggled to understand the tower. (Bold is mine) it seems to be implying that Jasnah has already returned from her pleasure walk with Wit, and that she's actively working in Urithiru. Furthermore, the "they" makes it seem like she's already contacted Shallan. I'm just about certain I'm reading this wrong, could someone explain? edit: spellcheck'd

Perpendicularlity would be a nice one, me thinks

Dalinar is no longer the person he was, at all. From Gavilar's assassination to WoK he spent so time rehauling himself to live up to Gavilar's final words that I doubt he thought too much about his past, and during WoK he made peace with his past in regards to how it led him to who he now is. He'll regret the actions of his past, sure, but he's learned from it, moved on, and is trying to save the world, which certainly a good way to say sorry for actions of the past. I think many people forget with all of the Moses parallels that Dalinar has that Moses was an Egyptian prince and warlord for a long time before his turn as a prophet, with all the implications and abuses that the position carried.

Just some thoughts on the golden light in regards to Odium: I actually feels it makes sense. If I remember correctly (feel free to correct me), Odium was Adonalsium's divine wrath, separated from the other shards and intents that justify and give meaning to it. It would make sense that some Light is not Good tropes would apply to divine punishment.

Well, here we go. I'm not sure any of the parties knew quite what they were getting into.