I'mAStickFanClub

But Kal is in House Kholin now not house Sadeas. They talk about him having lands by some river near the capital in OB (sorry I don't have an exact quote). Basically he is Adolin's banner-man now and wouldn't be eligible to become Highprince of another princedom.

Maybe he'll be the next Highprince Sadeas. With Torol and Amaram both dead, Ialai (and presumably her inner circle) exiled in disgrace, the officer causalities from the battle at the end of OB, and many Brightlords captured by the Parsh in occupied Alethkar it is possible that Roshone is the highest ranking Brightlord in House Sadeas left. Hope its not the case though for Kaladin's sake.

Mr. T and Navani were my bets for the next two bondsmiths (for Cultivation and the Sibling respectively). Never really had much in the way of text evidence, just intuition. That being said, if there were a team of fabrial experts running around trying to unlock the secrets of Urithiru it would make sense for one of them to find and bind the Sibling. So if not Navani then maybe one of her ardents?

Interesting framework. Personally I would put scholar for Jasnah's character instead of Atheist because it seemed to be more important to who she seems to be. Also Shallan's What-in-the- is clearly her "take a memory" ability. Its never explained but it plays a huge role in how effect she is. The split personalities are just her brain trying to cope with extreme trauma (See Dissociative Identity Disorder).

Yeah that is frighteningly plausible. I am a little upset I didn't already think of it myself. The theory isn't about Kaladin taking over. He won't. Its about people's justified paranoia in the aftermath of Sadeas and Amaram combined with their lack of information about this up-jumped darkeyes slave who is becoming quite popular and appears to be VERY well positioned with his men in the tower leading to misunderstandings and conflict.

It is a good book. Thing I have to keep reminding myself is that the Alethkar government's keys to power are not going to perfectly match up with ones in our world. For instance the military serves dual purposes of rules enforcement and force-projection/defense which are usually separate keys. Also instead of having a proper bureaucratic class or tax collectors they have the Ardents which collects fees from the nobility for their use of soulcasters as a revenue base. This is the line of weakness in the current regime that could be most easily exploited. The church has denounced both Jasnah and Dalinar as heretics and one would imagine that they would be happy to see the two of them removed from the picture. Someone like Kaladin, who has an excellent reputation among the military rank and file (obviously you'll need to purge any commanders and highprinces loyal to the old regime), and who could make public shows of Vorin devotion could in theory use the church to attain legitimacy after a takeover. Though Kaladin will never pull something like this I am nearly certain that the church will at some point in the series try to overthrow the Kholins and install a figurehead sympathetic to their interests.

They will probably start expanding, but the Windrunners have the advantage of a significant head start. Also they were the most numerous order back when the Knights radiant were originally founded. The undeniable logic of wanting a hot piece of the brooding bridge captain... I think.

Maybe the charges of heresy had more impact than we were led to believe. The Ardents, as the religious authority in Alethkar, would have been responsible for leading the country in prayer and mourning following the death of a princess. For Jasnah they probably wouldn't bother. Kaladin would never even think to take control. And if he did, you are of course correct that it would go south immediately. The highprinces would reject his rule and send their forces to depose him. He might be able to hold the tower for a while with the men loyal to him now if he was clever and ruled like an autocrat, but eventually they would seek outside help from places like Azir, and he would be killed or forced out. Your reference to Julius Caesar is a good one, but at the end of the day he is still stabbed to death in the senate. This would still likely mean the end of the Kholins, so the usurper's position being untenable after the coup would be a cold comfort to the royal family. And that is basically what my theory is about. If the threat is perceived as real by the important political actors and they act on it, it can have real and dire consequences, even if Kaladin is neither ambitious enough or stupid enough to go through with it. I am mainly talking about Jasnah here. She is a politically savvy person and will likely make a great queen but she doesn't have perfect information. No one does. She doesn't know Kaladin at all really. Only that Dalinar trusts him. But Dalinar trusted Sadeas right up until his betrayal nearly doom their entire house. So she has to act on incomplete information which is always a gamble and it COULD go very badly.

Some of the interaction did leave me wanting more. I was one of the people that got annoyed at how much infighting Rand and his allies did in Wheel of Time and even I wanted more conflict here. Almost makes me want the SA novella to be about intrigue in the tower instead of Wandersail, and I LOVE Rysn. That is NOT what I meant by "take care" of him.

So I was reading The Dictator's Handbook and was suddenly struck with a horrible thought. Kaladin is PERFECTLY positioned to take control of Urithiru and Alethkar from Dalinar and Jasnah. We know that he would never do this because we can see his inner thoughts, but the other characters can't and so might assume that the picture of him as the devoted and incorruptible scion of Dalinar is a facade (like Amaram's was) and act accordingly. Here are the facts as I see them: 1) Kaladin is the most potent warrior among the Radiants when it will count. This is straightforward, not only is he the only one with military training and a shardblade (sorry Dalinar) but he is shown to be a brilliantly gifted fighter in addition. You can (and probably should) make the argument that Jasnah would be more useful on a battlefield with all she can do with soulcasting, but when facing other Radiants who are resistant to soulcasting because of their investiture, the edge goes to Kaladin. 2)The Windrunners are the only order in Urithiru with multiple Radiants. This is not likely to change soon either. Rather, they are likely to expand their lead going forward based on their efforts at recruitment. 3)The Windrunners have dozens of squires to supplement their ranks. Aside from Shallan's three, they are the only order with squires at all and having a bunch of people who can surgebind is the sort of thing that might be useful. 4) There are 1000-ish bridgemen with top notch military training, equipment, and discipline. Moreover, they serve as the only bodyguards for Dalinar, his family, and some of his important commanders and brightlords. We saw how that can be potentially dangerous in the scene between Dalinar and Elhokar near the end of WoK. 5) The Windrunners and the bridgemen are not loyal to Alethkar, Dalinar, or the new queen, but Kaladin personally. History says this doesn't end well. Rome especially got into massive trouble when their armies became more loyal to their commanders than the state. At least some of these things should be known by the more politically savvy members of the Alethi court. Jasnah specifically has shown a proficiency at the cloak and dagger side of politics during her scene in WoR when she met Ivory for the first time and when the whole Renarin business at the end of OB occurred. It seems at least possible that she considers him a threat to her family dynasty and is contemplating a way to "take care" of him. That is a worst case scenario, but it seems unlikely to me that there won't be some sort of conflict in this area. I would love to hear what everyone thinks.

It is at this point I should apologize. In retrospect, it is clear that I came across as hostile and that was not my intent. I was a chem major for a while in college and I perhaps take it a bit too seriously. After digging a bit deeper and reading more (http://rruff.info/uploads/AM94_1283.pdf was informative), maybe sounds about right. As to how the final empire had aluminum I am perplexed as well. The lord ruler could have easily gained knowledge of aluminum while he was invested with ruin's shard, but you can't find aluminum by burning steel or iron so it seems like it would be infeasible to collect aluminum from volcanoes given how rare they are even when the conditions are right. Maybe it was never supposed to be aluminum but silver instead. "Brandon thought of having Vin burn silver rather than aluminum when captured in Kredik Shaw but decided that aluminum would be less abundant." - Annotation for The Hero of Ages 60 Or world-hoppers. That explanation works too.

"Although aluminum is the most abundant metal in the earth's crust, it is never found free in nature. All of the earth's aluminum has combined with other elements to form compounds. Two of the most common compounds are alum, such as potassium aluminum sulfate (KAl(SO4)." - https://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele013.html So no, it is not found native in some volcanoes. Aluminum is difficult to smelt exactly because it chemically bonds so easily with other elements (mainly oxygen in the atmosphere or surrounding silicate rock). If you try to smelt alum like Iron ore the aluminum will literally burn away so it must be dissolved in solution and then subjected to electrolysis to get the pure metal.

The process of smelting Alum into Aluminum is very technical and energy intensive (if you're curious just google the Hall-Héroult process). It wasn't even discovered until 1825. There is a 0% chance that pre-industrial civilizations like the ones on Roshar would know about the Aluminum (and thus be able to soulcast it) unless they had help from a world hopper. It seems plausible that such a world hopper would likely not understand the implications of having aluminum with regards to shardblades, although that is just speculation on my part.

So this brings up an interesting alternative to my theory. It has been stated elsewhere that the Edgedancers are very therapist-y. Maybe Adolin can be the one to heal the brothers, simultaneously getting closer to reviving Maya in the process.

I believe that Szeth will try to execute Balat Davar, Shallan's oldest living brother, for the crime of murder during book four. Balat has a past of troubling behavior; going to blood sports just to watch the pain and violence, torturing animals to death, and even setting fire to the servant's sleeping quarters at the Davar manor. Shallan thinks he is better now that their father is dead and he is married, but we see from the WoK chapter from his viewpoint that he still needs to torture animals to relieve stress. Now he and the rest of the family have just been traveling across a civil war torn country in the custody of the Ghost-Bloods (not exactly stress relieving) to get to Urithiru. It seems inevitable that he will cross the line at some point and begin murdering in the tower. Whether this is the influence of one of the unmade or mental illness the result doesn't change; Balat is a walking time bomb. What will Dalinar say? Will he allow Szeth to pursue justice against his son-in-law? Will Kaladin try to stop it? Balat has missed all the changes towards a classless society, and so he will likely try to restrict his victims to Darkeyes. What about Adolin? I would love to know what everybody is thinking. This is my first topic post so hopefully the discussion goes well.