Cosmé

I was here! This was my second Sanderson signing, after Emerald City Comic Con earlier this year. I'm glad I got a chance to see him talk, which I didn't at ECCC. The reading was fun too. No questions from me this time. But I got a signed Skyward and a selfie. Yay!

Nope, sorry. It was verbal, not written in the book.

Just got my signed Oathbringer and Elantris leatherbound today. Asked Brandon a question during the signing: Awesome event. Also got a signed book from Rothfus and Hobb.

I have a freshly minted WoB to contribute to this topic. I was just at the Emerald City Comic Con and asked this question: I got a signed Oathbringer and Elantris Leather bound too

Very cool! I hope this is a thing. A windrunner-controlled airship would probably be very dangerous. Would the lashing last while the windrunner is asleep? If the binding fails while it’s in the air, everyone dies. Would you need multiple shifts of windrunners? How much stormlght would you need? Probably a lot. My guess is that such a ship would be built to travel across the ocean, but would use a temporary binding to ride through or over a highstorm. You probably couldn’t keep it in the air over land for long. That would explain why they did exist in the past but were not a dominant form of travel I don’t think. A fabriel-controlled ship is much more feasible. Take a sailing ship and bind it to be weightless. Lashing up and down would control ascent and descent. You wouldn’t need a Radiant. You’d need to be able to lash the ship independently from those inside it, otherwise everyone falls towards the ceiling when you ascend, though that’d probably work since the ship is seen as its own entity in the cognitive realm. Propulsion would be handled by either lashings, conventional sails, or both. You might be able to build something like a propeller, jet engine, or rocket using the other surges as well, though that would probably be for future eras. Turning is tricky. Maybe you would angle the sails? We could see this in this half of the series though, perhaps more likely the next half. Odium has a fleet. Maybe he plans to make a flying fleet with similar mechanisms, and rain chaos from the skies? That would be scary.

I dunno. Kaladin, Shallan, & co’s journey through the cognitive realm is only our second good look at it, after Secret History. And this is our first real look at “civilization” inside the cognitive realm. Towns, spren factions, merchants, and fight scenes. Getting to see Unmade and Fused also greatly expands our understanding of Roshar. I also felt a bit disappointed, but Way of Kings is a very, very hard book to beat. To me, Way of Kings is #1, Oathbringer #2, and Radiance #3. All very good, but WoR had some slow scenes in it too.

Jasnah is paranoid, and a rationalist. It’s realistic, I think, to expect her to jump to conclusions when she sees that the Alethi court jester happens to be sitting near a perpendicularity that’s in the complete middle of nowhere. She’s probably worried that he’s working with the ghostbloods at first, because they had just tried to assasinate her the last time she was in the physical realm. When he mentions that he knows what she’s up to in the cognitive realm, that’s proof that he’s one of maybe thirty people on all of Roshar that knows that much about how the world works. That’s good reason to ask him some questions, especially knowing that he had situated himself so close to the king in the Alethi court. For all she knew, he could have been an assasin sent to work himself close to the king.

I write code. I wish I could write fiction instead, but one can make more moneys with bits than words. I went to school for four years, where they taught me to comply with authority and to write more efficient code, mostly the former but a good bit of the latter. Now I work, and do well for myself, but have a very long commute.

My thinking is that: Surges are forces of nature. In Roshar, the local shards have made Adhesion, Gravitation, Friction, etc. available. Shards on other worlds have made Magnetism (Iron/Steel) and similar forces available to their occupants. The more cognitive or spiritual-oriented forces like Transportation or Allomantic Pewter do not have direct parallels in the real/earth world, but are forces of nature in the Cosmere universe just like friction or gravity. The Radiants access the surges strictly through Honor. There are ten orders of Radiant, and ten is Honor’s number. Radiants can only see the present, not the future (exception: Renarin, I’ll get to him), because Honor can’t see well into the future, but Cultivation can. Their principles include Journey before Desination, which is contrary to Cultivation’s idea of improving things. To Cultivation, Destination is more important than Journey. I see Taravangian as her primary “Champion,” since the diagram was made under her influence, and it suggests destroying the Radiants. The Old Magic is Cultivation’s magic system, and focuses on improving things, rather than binding, unbinding, or rebinding things. We haven’t seen it much, except through boons. But it’s very powerful. Look at what Taravangian can do. Cultivation seems to hold it close to herself. Voidbinding is Odium’s magic system, which enables access to the forces of nature. Odium makes available nine surges, many of which may be the same as Honor’s, since we’re talking about the laws of physics in the Cosmere here, but some may be different for all I know. For example, he could have chosen a different set of physical laws to make available, or imposed different restrictions. Unmade seem to be very powerful spren (or other being) that can manipulate the laws of physics in a specially-defined way. The Thrill is basically a TLR-level rioter from Mistborn. They both probably pull on the same Cosmere strings. Shardblades are dead Radiant spren blades of course, so they are of Honor Honorblades may be Honor godmetal. They have Honor in their name, there are ten of them (Honor’s number) and they are associated with the Heralds, who formed the Oathpact (oaths = Honor!) Dawnshards we don’t know much about yet. I’ll take a wild guess that they’re Odium Godmetal, since they predate human visiting to Roshar and are crazy-powerful. Edit: Almost forgot to fulfill a promise earlier in the post! Renarin (I think) uses voidbindings, and thus Odium’s magic system. He uses a similar force of nature as Mistborn Atium. Renarin’s voidbinding grants him the ability to see into the future, via a Surge that Odium offers but Honor does not. However, even though he is a Voidbinder, that doesn’t make him evil. We have plenty of examples in the Cosmere of people using a magic system associated with an “evil” shard for good purposes. He is still a Radiant because he follows their laws and oaths.

I love them all, even the villains! D: I’m going to have to vote Other/Eshonai. She had some interesting scenes in WoR, but I never really got engaged in them. The things she did in Storm Form were also just plain mean. I might have a different impression by the time book 4 is up. Second place is Navani. Just never got into the character. I love Shallan, etc though, and while Moash is evil, I still like his character.

As a Radiant, she’s able to perform very complex soulcasts like asking a ship to break apart and sink itself (WoR), but as we see in TWoK, she spends the entire book convinced that her Radiant abilities are nothing “special” beyond what normal people can do with the right magical objects. She thinks her blade requires 10 heartbeats to summon. She thinks the soulcaster she acquires can only operate under normal soulcaster constrains. These constraints are probably common knowledge among scholars, because the people that do the soulcasting have to rely on normal people to get them the right gemstones for the tasks they’re performing. If a scholar saw Jasna soulcast without a visible garnet, they’d probably assume she had a hidden one, or just remembered that she had one in a bag or safepouch. Which is the simplest likely solution, from their standpoint: Jasna is hiding a gem, or the lost Radiants that have been gone for thousands of years are back? It’s like witnessing a magic trick in the real world. It’s probably an illusion, not magic, they would think. So, Jasna doesn’t have to work hard to maintain cover. If she told them she was a Radiant, they probably wouldn’t beleive her, especially since they already distrust her for being an atheist. She could probably just soulcast the gem into a cracked gem, similar to breaking the boat. She’s going to be using her powers, either in a pinch (killing random thieves) or to practice. People are going to see it in a gossipy Alethi court. Best to give them a story they will accept. The fact that her story is offensive to Vorinism actually makes it more persuasive, probably. People will beleive that someone who is already committing heracy will do other thinks, like use a non-approved soulcaster. Anyone who challenged that she was not using a real soulcaster, but instead had something more powerful and special, would be saying that what she, an atheist, had is better than what Vorin ardents have. Probably not a kosher opinion in Vorin society. Of course, that view is harder to maintain now that the Radiants are back, but we see that many still do not trust them. I don’t think she meant to attract Radiants, but the Ghostbloods would probably see through it all. They are an extremely cosmere-aware bunch.

I like it. This could make for surreal interactions between the heros and the Odium cast, particularly if the Odium avatar no longer deals directly with the main characters. I’m sorry, but my inner Star Trek fan can’t help but post this. Imagine Elokhar, decked out in spikes and a Shardplate, demanding surrender from his own uncle and the Radiants. it probably won’t happen, since Brandon has an ~80% track record of letting deaths stick, but it would still be so awesome.

I like the theory. While Oathbringer did brush the “Adolin killed Sadeas” plot under the rug, I still think that this is a possibility: 1. Shallan and Adolin marry, and are happy 2. Ialai becomes Highprince Sadeas now that Amaram is gone. She of course doesn’t know who killed Sadeas yet, so will still be looking 3. Now that Adolin thinks that all is forgiven, he will be much sloppier about hiding the details of what happened. So he will reveal what happened to the wrong person. Either Ialai or Taravangian gets ahold of the information (T would use it either as blackmail or drop the info to divide the Radiants) 4. Ialai learns what happens and is furious. 5. At this point, we will have Skybreakers (Szeth and any followers he has by this point) who are very insistent on the law being followed. Dalinar also has oaths to uphold. The Alethi will be furious that one of their own Highprinces did such a thing. 6. Dalinar/Jasna will be forced to punish Adolin in some way. Either exile or execution. It’s even possible that Ialai finds a way to have him killed, either through assassination or some pact with Odium. 7. Shallan’s marriage to Adolin ends, either through Adolin’s death, or through his exile. This follows the Gavilar-Nivani pattern pretty well, because the same fate befalls Gavilar/Adolin, and in both cases, the fact is a result of a fatal enemy they made through their own action. It in part explains why Adolin isn’t so major a character in the series long term plan, and brings a proper end to the “killed Sadeas” arc, which feels cut off in a way.

Hope so. She may even still be looking for who killed the original Highprince Sadeas (Adolin). That could be the reason why we saw that storyline sidelined in Oathbringer. Maybe it’s not time for Adolin to be discovered yet.

Appointing Kaladin as Highprince Sadeas would be an interesting move politically. It would put the Sadeas Princedom under Kholin control, but I don’t think Kaladin would accept. Wouldn’t he had to work with Ialae? It would be interesting to see Ialae assert her own authority as Highprince (Highprincess?) She would make a good replacement for Sadeas in the villain cast. We already saw her sit at the table during negotiations with foreign powers. I assume it wouldn’t be very Vorin, but it’s hard to deny her the option when a Queen sits on the throne and half the Radiants are female.