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Logic problems, implausiblities


Garfield

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Recently reading the books I came across several scenarios I found fairly odd, implausible and somewhat inconsistant.

 

 

Not in chronological order:

 

 

*Why do the stormform parshendi retreat and seemingly disappear as soon as Dalinar evacuates the all troops to the portal platform. Neither do they continue to attack the humans waiting on the platform, nor do they apparently try to attack the trek of the warcamps as they all make their way to the portal. There must still be thousands of them living out there.

 

 

*The world is not believing Dalinar about the storm and the voidbringers, when he sends out message via spanreed. But the storm, moving from west to east was said to hit New Nathanathan shortly after leaving the Shattered Plains. New Nathanathan should have been victim of that storm and the voidbringers shortly after the Dalinar arrived at Urithiru, the people there fighting for survival confirming Dalinar's claims to the rest of the world shortly after Dalinar sent out word.

 

 

*Teft tells Kaladin about "the radiant girl" when he meets them, waiting at the empty platform, after Shallan had evacuated the troops to Urithiru. He comes to the conclusion that Shallan must be the Radiant girl because he didn't hear her shardblade scream it was either an honorblade or she was a radiant. But with his oath broken and his abilities gone, he most likely wouldn't have heard a dead shardblade screaming in his head. One clear sign that she must be a radiant though would have been, that her shardblade could change form or length, just as Syl does, something only live spren shardblades do. He had seen her use the blade dagger sized to cut steps into the chasm walls and had used it full blade length against the chasmfiend.

 

 

*Shallan "accidently" stumbling across the very person who oversaw the murder of Jasnah on the way to the plains. And this person takes her in and teaches her valuable abilities she needed later in the warcamps as well gives her information about how to infiltrate the Ghostbloods. Just tooooooo unlikely a coincidence for my taste.

 

 

*How can big sailing ships operate in a world that has hurricane strength storms every few days. Even in a safe harbour a large sailing ship will not be safe, the storm would fell the masts, even if there are docks that can prevent the hull to be blown over or perish in the waves a storm like this causes. As a big fan of the Forrester Horatio Hornblower novels I cringe when I read about sailing ships under such conditions.

 

 

*The amount of slaves/convicts Sadeas' bridge crews use up. The Shattered Plains are a rather remote place on that continent, which means, getting humans there should not be easy or cheap and I doubt that the war camps produce enough convicts out of their ranks to send to the bridges to fill up losses as great as Sanderson describe them in his first book. Like a quarter of the men per bridge per run. I would have to do the math how many die each week/month/year, but the amount seems grossly implausible to me, just as leaving the injured behind, as slaves are still a valuable commodity to have, even if they take a few weeks to heal up, because it takes more than a few weeks to cart a new batch to the plains

 

 

*The scene where Kaladin swears the third oath: I call that dumb, uneffective and convenient antagonist syndomre  in the face of victory. Maybe I have watched too much Doctor Who lately, where this comes up regularly and really pisses me off to no end because it happens just toooo often in movies, in TV series and books to conveniently give the hero time to shine. There is a showdown and instead of just killing off the protagonist/target the baddies stand there, start to argue, gloat, do all kinds of useless things, while exposing themselves to be discovered or defeated, just to give the hero time to do whatever dramatically heroics he needs to do, gives dramatic speech, gain back his superpowers etc.

Graves gave me the impression he is quite the professional. As soon as he noticed that newbie Moash is not up to the job a person like that would have dispatched both, Kaladin and Elhokar quickly. Instead he starts to argue at length with Moash. And THEN, on top if it, incompetent idiot Graves gives now-superhero Kaladin the hint he needs to know that the assassin in white is right now attacking Dalinar, enables him to save him.

No. I simply don't buy it. It's a typical case of horribly sloppy writing of those characters.

 

 

* Fencing with shardblades one handed. While you probably can do it with strength support of the plate, or stromlight, a weapon that long needs the leverage of both hands to use it with precision, particularly if you don't have this strength support. I had some longsword fencing lessons, even if the blade is light for the length (a normal longsword weighs about 1.5 kilos and is about 1.2 to 1.3 meters long) you can not use something that long reasonably with one hand. And an armoured fencer would use a two handed weapon as in an unarmoured warrior with a sword needs the second hand for a shield.

 

 

 

Did anyone find more?

Edited by Garfield
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In order:

- Stormform listener: They will probably run away to avoid the clash of the Storms. After we don't know if they try something else. Only Oathbringer may tell us.

- Dalinar credibility: Dalinar in the last year was watched like a fool. If just little time passed probably the Everstorm+Voidbringer may erased quite well any news from New Nathalathan

- Shallan Radiancy: Simply Kal isn't the more clever in the world. He saw the not screaming of the Blade as a 100% prove also if he probably wrong.

- Killer&Teacher: Unlikely agree.

- Navigation problem: All the structures of some relevance on Roshar are build where a lait may gives protection. And probably the Navigation (and the Ship) on Roshar are quite different from our World. They probably take precaution about. Also Roshar is a single mega-landmass therefore you have always land quite near. Maybe the ship are designed to resist the Storm while the crew hidden himself in some safe spot on the land.

- Bridgeman-System: Remember that the "War" on the Shattering plain became a simple "GemHeart Hunt" for a huge profit. The gemhearts are vital to the Army's Economy and maybe the gain overcome the cost.

- Graves-foolness: Quite agree but is very subjective 

Edited by Yata
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I think it's the Voidbringers people weren't believing about, not the storm. Since they're likely still holed up on the Shattered Plains after that massive storm collision it seems pretty fair that they wouldn't have had time to attack anyone else yet.

As for Shallan stumbling upon the caravan, they're heading from the same place in the same direction, that's not a coincidence that's an inevitability that they'd meet up. Although the skill-learning is admittedly a bit coincidental.

Buying new slaves is still cheaper than training up new warriors, that's the whole point of the Bridge crews, to soak up arrows without depleting Sadeas' armies. Also lets him get to the Gemhearts quicker which are worth thousands of times the cost of a few slaves.
Shardblades are frequently mentioned to be lighter than ordinary swords.

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Another one for me is Eshonai offering herself up as a guinea pig when she was instrumental to peace talks. Ostensibly to protect her sister because she was too important. :/

The timing of her being corrupted was way too convenient for my tastes. It conveniently absolves Dalinar of any moral issues in killing the Parshendi when things could have been more interesting than a generic battle between evil monsters and humans.

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Another one for me is Eshonai offering herself up as a guinea pig when she was instrumental to peace talks. Ostensibly to protect her sister because she was too important. :/

The timing of her being corrupted was way too convenient for my tastes. It conveniently absolves Dalinar of any moral issues in killing the Parshendi.

 

 

 

True. Days after she contacted Dalinar for a peace talk she suddenly decides that trying new, potentially dangerous war froms to destroy the humans once and for all is a good idea. Doesn t make any sense. Why didn t she wait until after the peace talk to decide?

 

Why didn't she just openly explain the reasons why she had Gavilar assassinated. I mean, Gavilar had seriously dangerous ideas and preventing him from putting those into action was maybe bitter for Dalinar and the rest of Alethkar, but it was reasonable, and in the end in Alethkar's best interest, too.

 

 

Also when Gavilar had these dangerous ideas of this secret society, why did he also read Way of Kings? Aren't Nohadon's ideas contradicting those of the secret society?

Edited by Garfield
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True. Days after she contacted Dalinar for a peace talks she suddenly decides that trying new, potentially dangerous war froms to destroy the humans once and for all is a good idea. Doesn t make any sense. Why didn t she wait until after the peace talk to decide?

Everyone else had already decided that someone was going to take up Stormform, I think it was just her hoping that if it was her she'd be able to realize the danger and stop anyone else from taking it.

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True. Days after she contacted Dalinar for a peace talks she suddenly decides that trying new, potentially dangerous war froms to destroy the humans once and for all is a good idea. Doesn t make any sense. Why didn t she wait until after the peace talk to decide?

I mean, I guess it is supposed to represent Eshonai's adventurous nature, and possibly serve as the catalyst for her becoming a Willshaper... but it doesn't come across that way in the text.

Rather than offer up some random Parshendi warrior, she decides to use herself. I don't know... it just doesn't feel right.

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Everyone else had already decided that someone was going to take up Stormform, I think it was just her hoping that if it was her she'd be able to realize the danger and stop anyone else from taking it.

 

 

Then why didn t they use some volunteer guineapig, contain him, and then assess if he is dangerous or not. If yes, kill him. I mean, they were aware, that some forms were connected to their evil old gods that they didn't want back. So why was there not more precaution against this possibility? Why weren't they able to wait for a few days to conduct these experiments. In the Parshendi council several of the forms were against those experiments.

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You can't really contain the guinea pig very effectively if you have to literally walk out into an open highstorm to transform now can you? :ph34r:

One does not simply wait a few days to try. If a storm starts it starts. They were weeks from the Weeping, they had one shot at this.

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Then why didn t they use some volunteer guineapig, contain him, and then assess if he is dangerous or not. If yes, kill him. I mean, they were aware, that some forms were connected to their evil old gods that they didn't want back. So why was there not more precaution against this possibility? Why weren't they able to wait for a few days to conduct these experiments. In the Parshendi council several of the forms were against those experiments.

Because the scholarly researchers who could have thought of that plan were the ones who absolutely wanted to use it and had already been somewhat corrupted by it probably.

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Recently reading the books I came across several scenarios I found fairly odd, implausible and somewhat inconsistant.

 

Not in chronological order:

 

*The world is not believing Dalinar about the storm and the voidbringers, when he sends out message via spanreed. But the storm, moving from west to east was said to hit New Nathanathan shortly after leaving the Shattered Plains. New Nathanathan should have been victim of that storm and the voidbringers shortly after the Dalinar arrived at Urithiru, the people there fighting for survival confirming Dalinar's claims to the rest of the world shortly after Dalinar sent out word.

 

Well the rest of the world isn't prepared at all for a storm going in the opposite direction that turns all their Parshmen into voidbringers, perhaps all communication infrastructure was wiped out when the Everstorm went through?

 

*Teft tells Kaladin about "the radiant girl" when he meets them, waiting at the empty platform, after Shallan had evacuated the troops to Urithiru. He comes to the conclusion that Shallan must be the Radiant girl because he didn't hear her shardblade scream it was either an honorblade or she was a radiant. But with his oath broken and his abilities gone, he most likely wouldn't have heard a dead shardblade screaming in his head. One clear sign that she must be a radiant though would have been, that her shardblade could change form or length, just as Syl does, something only live spren shardblades do. He had seen her use the blade dagger sized to cut steps into the chasm walls and had used it full blade length against the chasmfiend.

 

Well Kaladin has only touched 3 (did he grab one while training at all?) shardblades (and 1 honorblade), of those Shallan's was the one like his. Now you might be correct in saying that since Syl was 'dead' and Kaladin didn't have access to his bond, he might not have heard normal blades scream. However this is an assumption (one I don't agree with given that Kaladin's bond clearly was not completely severed) and barely leads to an inconsistency. You are correct that the size changing aspect is better proof though.

 

*Shallan "accidently" stumbling across the very person who oversaw the murder of Jasnah on the way to the plains. And this person takes her in and teaches her valuable abilities she needed later in the warcamps as well gives her information about how to infiltrate the Ghostbloods. Just tooooooo unlikely a coincidence for my taste.

 

Well if she was overseeing the murder of Jasnah would it not make sense to be in the same region? Particularly when she would want to see a body to confirm Jasnah is actually dead, as the ghostbloods do know of some KR abilities.

 

Also the fact that the person overseeing Jasnah's murder was a ghostblood is hardly a coincidence when they are the group that's established to want her dead.

 

*The scene where Kaladin swears the third oath: I call that dumb, uneffective and convenient antagonist syndomre  in the face of victory. Maybe I have watched too much Doctor Who lately, where this comes up regularly and really pisses me off to no end because it happens just toooo often in movies, in TV series and books to conveniently give the hero time to shine. There is a showdown and instead of just killing off the protagonist/target the baddies stand there, start to argue, gloat, do all kinds of useless things, while exposing themselves to be discovered or defeated, just to give the hero time to do whatever dramatically heroics he needs to do, gives dramatic speech, gain back his superpowers etc.

Graves gave me the impression he is quite the professional. As soon as he noticed that newbie Moash is not up to the job a person like that would have dispatched both, Kaladin and Elhokar quickly. Instead he starts to argue at length with Moash. And THEN, on top if it, incompetent idiot Graves gives now-superhero Kaladin the hint he needs to know that the assassin in white is right now attacking Dalinar, enables him to save him.

No. I simply don't buy it. It's a typical case of horribly sloppy writing of those characters.

 

Now I don't agree with this purely because of Moash. If Graves immediately forced the issue who knows what it might have caused Moash to do, as he was a member of Bridge Four and likely capable of foiling the assassination if he felt so inclined. As far as Moash not ending it quickly, well that makes sense too given what he says as well as his history with Kaladin. 

 

As far as the hint goes, it's clear that Graves is in shock and not thinking properly.

 

* Fencing with shardblades one handed. While you probably can do it with strength support of the plate, or stromlight, a weapon that long needs the leverage of both hands to use it with precision, particularly if you don't have this strength support. I had some longsword fencing lessons, even if the blade is light for the length (a normal longsword weighs about 1.5 kilos and is about 1.2 to 1.3 meters long) you can not use something that long reasonably with one hand. And an armoured fencer would use a two handed weapon as in an unarmoured warrior with a sword needs the second hand for a shield.

 

 

 

Did anyone find more?

 

Perhaps the fencing is designed to simulate the stances and reach of a shardplate user? It would also be likely that a 1 handed stance is better against spear bearers.

 

I agree that using such a long and relatively heavy weapon with one hand would be rather stupid in a duel with another shardblade user though.

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I picked three of your points to reply to, in the following referred to as the first, the second and the third ;-)

 

Concerning the first point in my quotation of your post: Wasn't the goal of the parshendi to delay Dalinars troop as long as necessary for calling the everstorm? Destroying his troops was never the objective.

 

Concerning my second quotation of your post: I call that the "McGyver Syndrome of professional recipients"; we do expect our heroes and our villains to act flawless. But neither any hero nor any villain will ever match McGyver; there will be bad judgements, there will be bad decisions and there will be outright failures. The more realistic the protagonists are, the more failures there will be.

 

Concerning the third: Isn't "the thing" of shardblades, that -besides being able to cut anything- they are grotesquely big and weigh nearly nothing? You can't compare them to normal metal weapons.

 

 

...

 

*Why do the stormform parshendi retreat and seemingly disappear as soon as Dalinar evacuates the all troops to the portal platform. Neither do they continue to attack the humans waiting on the platform, nor do they apparently try to attack the trek of the warcamps as they all make their way to the portal. There must still be thousands of them living out there.

 

...

 

*The scene where Kaladin swears the third oath: I call that dumb, uneffective and convenient antagonist syndomre  in the face of victory. Maybe I have watched too much Doctor Who lately, where this comes up regularly and really pisses me off to no end because it happens just toooo often in movies, in TV series and books to conveniently give the hero time to shine. There is a showdown and instead of just killing off the protagonist/target the baddies stand there, start to argue, gloat, do all kinds of useless things, while exposing themselves to be discovered or defeated, just to give the hero time to do whatever dramatically heroics he needs to do, gives dramatic speech, gain back his superpowers etc.

Graves gave me the impression he is quite the professional. As soon as he noticed that newbie Moash is not up to the job a person like that would have dispatched both, Kaladin and Elhokar quickly. Instead he starts to argue at length with Moash. And THEN, on top if it, incompetent idiot Graves gives now-superhero Kaladin the hint he needs to know that the assassin in white is right now attacking Dalinar, enables him to save him.

No. I simply don't buy it. It's a typical case of horribly sloppy writing of those characters.

 

 

* Fencing with shardblades one handed. While you probably can do it with strength support of the plate, or stromlight, a weapon that long needs the leverage of both hands to use it with precision, particularly if you don't have this strength support. I had some longsword fencing lessons, even if the blade is light for the length (a normal longsword weighs about 1.5 kilos and is about 1.2 to 1.3 meters long) you can not use something that long reasonably with one hand. And an armoured fencer would use a two handed weapon as in an unarmoured warrior with a sword needs the second hand for a shield.

 

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I

 

Concerning the third: Isn't "the thing" of shardblades, that -besides being able to cut anything- they are grotesquely big and weigh nearly nothing? You can't compare them to normal metal weapons.

 

 

 

No, that wasn t the case. It was stated that Moash EXPECTED them to weigh next to nothing and was surprised that while being very light for the size, that s not actually the case.

 

 

Another inconsistency is that after about two weeks worth of riding lessons they sent them on patrol on horseback. As someone who has been riding a lot and giving riding lessons on occasion in my earlier life, this is DEFINITELY not going to work.

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There -as was to be expected- a whole thread about shardblade weight: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/50178-shardblade-weight/

 

No, that wasn t the case. It was stated that Moash EXPECTED them to weigh next to nothing and was surprised that while being very light for the size, that s not actually the case.

...

Edited by Atastor
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There -as was to be expected- a whole thread about shardblade weight: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/50178-shardblade-weight/

 

 

 

I can only judge from my own, personal fencing experience with a 1.3 meter two handed longsword that weighs about 1.5 kilos.

 

It s quite unwieldy, slow and clumsy if you try to use a blade of that length one handed. Let's say a shardblade of 2 meters weighs approximately the same, 1.5 kilos, the greater length makes it even more unwieldy and unprecise to control in one hand. You need the leverage of two hands to move an object of that length with speed and precision.

Edited by Garfield
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Another thing that is inconsistent is the uniforms.

 

They have warfare with mainly bow and arrow, swords and spears, pretty similar to Earth from bronze age to the middle ages, when firearms changed warfare dramatically.

 

But we get Napoleonic era style uniforms for soldiers. As a fan of CS Forester I always end up imagining young Kaladin in his  dark blue two breaster coat with stiff collar standing on the deck of the HMS Sutherland as a Lieutenant under Captain Hornblower. I jsut can't help it and the fan art out there didn't help me to get this image out of my head

 

 

Now, the problem is, the warfare in the middle ages and in the Napoleonic era was quite different, therefor the different requirement for military clothing.

 

Sanderson even mentions in the book (I think it was the quartermaster) that Bridge Four will be issued breastplates and chainmal for battle, if the need arises. Problem is, over Napoleonic style simple cloth uniforms chainmail doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. In a scenario where you are up against swords, spears and arrows you need heavy padding under your chainmail, as cut and stab protection as well as against blunt impacts. The gambeson was the solution for this.

 

And the gambeson as the soldier's/knights basic protective clothing only became obsolete through the advent of firearms.

 

Now I don't mind that the soldiers in Alethkar have a non gambeson everyday or parade uniform, but in this style of battle, they don't make the slightest bit of sense as combat uniforms.

Edited by Garfield
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In order:

- Bridgeman-System: Remember that the "War" on the Shattering plain became a simple "GemHeart Hunt" for a huge profit. The gemhearts are vital to the Army's Economy and maybe the gain overcome the cost.

 

It seems likely that the price of slaves would increase very, very fast as they become rarer and rarer, though.

 

It depends on the total population of slaves VS the population used in the Shattered Plains.

 

But it does seem like Sadeas' bridge runs might be a slave holocaust in the long term...

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But it does seem like Sadeas' bridge runs might be a slave holocaust in the long term...

 

 

But in the holocaust, the Germans had quite a lot of supply for cannon fodder. Round up some random Jews somewhere, transport them where you need them by train and you fill the gaps torn by killing off the last batch.

 

Sadeas could not round up some random new victims for his bridges from the population somewhere and transport them to the Plains quickly.

Edited by Garfield
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Another thing that is inconsistent is the uniforms.

They have warfare with mainly bow and arrow, swords and spears, pretty similar to Earth from bronze age to the middle ages, when firearms changed warfare dramatically.

But we get Napoleonic era style uniforms for soldiers. As a fan of CS Forester I always end up imagining young Kaladin in his dark blue two breaster coat with stiff collar standing on the deck of the HMS Sutherland as a Lieutenant under Captain Hornblower. I jsut can't help it and the fan art out there didn't help me to get this image out of my head

Now, the problem is, the warfare in the middle ages and in the Napoleonic era was quite different, therefor the different requirement for military clothing.

Sanderson even mentions in the book (I think it was the quartermaster) that Bridge Four will be issued breastplates and chainmal for battle, if the need arises. Problem is, over Napoleonic style simple cloth uniforms chainmail doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. In a scenario where you are up against swords, spears and arrows you need heavy padding under your chainmail, as cut and stab protection as well as against blunt impacts. The gambeson was the solution for this.

And the gambeson as the soldier's/knights basic protective clothing only became obsolete through the advent of firearms.

Now I don't mind that the soldiers in Alethkar have a non gambeson everyday or parade uniform, but in this style of battle, they don't make the slightest bit of sense as combat uniforms.

You're assuming that it's a 100% napoleonic uniform from the getgo. I think that's a problem.

Edited by natc
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You're assuming that it's a 100% napoleonic uniform from the getgo. I think that's a problem.

 

 

 

No, just similar in looks and same in function as all post medieval military clothing up to today. No padding as protection.

Edited by Garfield
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An odd one i suppose.. But the alethi phonetic alphabet really bothers me. I get that its supposed to resemble waveforms and that symmetry is very important to the alethi, but it looks like an utter pain to write. you could encode the same amount of information by just writing the top half of each letter, which would take half as much room, you could write it without lifting your pen, and since many of the letters are similar writing the symmetrical letters could be ambiguous if your'e a little sloppy about the symmetry.

Why hasnt anyone just shorthanded it?

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There's a line through the middle though isn't there? So you could still write it with a single stroke, do the top half, mirror it for the bottom half then stroke through the middle to the next letter.

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(one I don't agree with given that Kaladin's bond clearly was not completely severed)

Not fully true. One could very reasonably think she died, yet returned to life once Kaladin returned to his oaths and risked himself in a desperate attempt to save Elhokar.

The third oath was spoken when she was already restored, but the Stormfather was holding her back in the Cognitive Realm.

Edited by DreamEternal
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