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Discussing SA 4 Chapter 1: Herdaz


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1 hour ago, Ookla the Chicken said:

Yeah, I'd say team Odium actually has the most powerful individual fighters. The Unmade are extremely powerful, the Fused have 1000s of years of experience, the Skybreakers are the one order that doesn't have to relearn everything, and the master Skybreakers are fourth oath with decades of experience.

Minus the Heralds anyway.  Still waiting for Taln to get up swear an ideal of 4 and smash a fused army like chocolate. 

Edited by Ookla the Prolific
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3 hours ago, Ookla the Prolific said:

Minus the Heralds anyway.  Still waiting for Taln to get up swear an ideal of 4 and smash a fused army like chocolate. 

Yes, but Nale is a herald too, and he is currently 5th ideal. It would be interesting to see what the Heralds can do now that Honor is dead. Is their only unique power now that of being a cognitive shadow, or is there something else?

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49 minutes ago, Ookla the Chicken said:

would be interesting to see what the Heralds can do now that Honor is dead. Is their only unique power now that of being a cognitive shadow, or is there something else?

Pretty sure their abilities should function as normal.  Mistborn

Spoiler

Alomancy still worked after preservation's death

and the oathpact seems to be functioning as intended.

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My one call is that the Fused we saw was one of the later generations of Fused, and will have true Voidbinding capabilities, as opposed to the earlier Fused, which were Surgebinding with Voidlight.

My particular call for this one is Voidish Illumination, with his black clothing being made of Midnight Essence.

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On 03/12/2019 at 4:12 PM, Ookla the Prolific said:

Roshar does not really have seasons.  Planing and harvesting seem to happen year round.

OK, so how many plant/growth/harvest cycles have passed? And for how many of those did Rosharans have stockpiles?
The questions is whether the big famine is already past and how large a fraction of Roshar's population has perished like in earlier desolations. Or are they still living from reserves and frantically reorganizing agriculture before the run out of stores and gems for soulcasting?

That leads to a question. What are the ardents in occupied territories doing? Do they make food or is cooperation with the voidbringers in any form considered heresy?

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1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

That leads to a question. What are the ardents in occupied territories doing? Do they make food or is cooperation with the voidbringers in any form considered heresy?

I think their soulcasters would have been confiscated and Ardents if refused to cooperate by doing manual labour will be held prisoners

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58 minutes ago, The traveller said:

I think their soulcasters would have been confiscated and Ardents if refused to cooperate by doing manual labour will be held prisoners

If you are an Ardent, can you let a soulcaster fall into the voidbringers' hands? Or will you rather destroy it?

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14 hours ago, Ookla the Prolific said:

Pretty sure their abilities should function as normal.  Mistborn

  Reveal hidden contents

Alomancy still worked after preservation's death

and the oathpact seems to be functioning as intended.

Not to digress into our other thread, but I believe what @Ookla the Chicken was referring to was the WoB I brought up that explained the reason why honorblades are so stormlight inefficient. That before Honor died they were fueled by his investiture, so they didn't need to be efficient. Not stating this to talk about the power level of the heralds, etc etc etc. Just saying that Honor's death did change how the honorblades worked, so Ookla the Chicken was wondering in what way. 

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5 minutes ago, Ookla the Prolific said:

Do we have conformation on that specifically?

Steeldancer

The Heralds, back before Honor died, were they directly powered by Honor?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. You’ll find out more about that, but the Shardblades [pretty sure he means Honorblades here] were pieces of Honor’s soul that he gave them and direct access to his essence.

Steeldancer

Like Vin and Elend?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, a little like that. That’s why Honorblades don’t work like Shardblades do, like Radiants do.

Steeldancer

The second part of the question is, what would happen if they were directly powered by Honor and they were holding Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO

Boskone 54 (Feb. 17, 2017)

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32 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Steeldancer

The Heralds, back before Honor died, were they directly powered by Honor?

Alright I can see your interpretation.  I would like to point out however that Brandon usually does not correct a questioner's wording.  As such this is a bit inconclusive Heralds could still be powered by Honor directly just as they were before his death. 

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5 minutes ago, Ookla the Prolific said:

Alright I can see your interpretation.  I would like to point out however that Brandon usually does not correct a questioner's wording.  As such this is a bit inconclusive Heralds could still be powered by Honor directly just as they were before his death. 

Again, was not commenting on the power level of the heralds. That is regarding the other thread, and would be a digression of this one. All I was explaining is why the poster might believe the Heralds might have a different power set, or their powers would function differently due to the death of Honor. Feel free to interpret it however you wish, but that is the WoB I was referring to. 

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7 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

. All I was explaining is why the poster might believe the Heralds might have a different power set, or their powers would function differently due to the death of Honor

Ah.  That makes more sense thank you.

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On 3.12.2019 at 2:07 PM, Oltux72 said:

Making sure no human force would ever surrender again. And the refugees would form war bands. And the Parshendi would be hated even more. And no human kingdom would consider a peace deal after that.

I don't remember any suggestion that Herdaz formally surendered and iRL it was usually depressingly easy to turn natives against refugees and other ethnic minorities. Not to mention that if displaced people are killed away from settlements and their bodies are soulcast into smoke or whatever, nobody would even know. If Sanderson plays the Fused straight and has them act logically, that's what should be happening to the humans whom they deem to be useless.

 

On 3.12.2019 at 2:07 PM, Oltux72 said:

How long is a growing season on Roshar? And we have no idea what happened to the big cities.
 

If just a year ago there was a serious fear of famine a few months down the line, they are lengthy enough that missing one period could be pretty devastating. We also saw in Kaladin's PoV in OB that not having enough food stored or losing stores was terrifying to the villagers. And there definitely should be revebrations still - famine would have forced the villagers to kill most of their livestock, for instance and iRL they might have lacked seed corn too - not sure if it is applicable on Roshar. It is not something that people can just bounce back from within half a year.

 

On 3.12.2019 at 4:12 PM, Ookla the Prolific said:

Considering who she eventually ended up married to(and I find myself doubting that she had much of a choice in the matter) I doubt she could have done much better.

Who she ended up marrying had very little to do with who she could have married. Which normally would have been young lords of  similar standing to her father's, or their young heirs. That's what almost happened with Rillir, even, and that's clearly what she wanted. We also don't know if she had a choice in her marriage or not - it seems to me that she wished to stay at Heartstone and was prepared to make sacrifices for that to happen. And she told Kal in OB that she didn't need rescuing.

 

On 3.12.2019 at 4:12 PM, Ookla the Prolific said:

  Also we don't know if she would descend rank.  Perhaps the legal codes would have let her keep running the land anyway.

The whole reason why Roshone was made lord of Heartstone was that as a girl Laral couldn't inherit her father's lands. She was given a dowry commeasurate with her father's holdings instead - that is explained in WoK, IIRC. So, no, if she became a surgeon's wife, she couldn't have run the land. She would have had to become her husband's assistant like Hessina did for Lirin - and she didn't want that. She wanted no part of Lirin's dream for Kaladin, which required her dowry as a financial means to make it happen.

As to her rank, from WoBs we know that dahn is fluid and can be affected by population fluctuations of the towns, military command, etc. We also know that 6th dahn requires holding land, so it is quite likely that if Laral married a landless man, that she would have slipped a dahn or so down the formal hierarchy and even more so socially if she married a darkeyes.

 

On 3.12.2019 at 6:48 PM, Pathfinder said:

She would retain her rank, Kaladin would be raised up to the highest level of darkeyes he could be, and if their child was a lighteyes, the child would outrank Kaladin. It is discussed in the book. 

No it isn't. She would never have stopped being lighteyes, so of course she would have continued to outrank Kaladin even if she slipped down to the 10th dahn. The text quote you supplied doesn't say anything other than that.

 

On 4.12.2019 at 8:33 AM, The traveller said:

I think he focused only on making kaladin a surgeon because he did not want his sons to have a half education that he could offer and they could not afford to send both their sons to Kharbranth. They could not afford to send kaladin even.

He chose to put his family through hardship and danger for the sake of his dream of Karabranth - the dream that Kal didn't even fully share, and Tien payed the price. Meanwhile, Tien had great talent as a woodcarver and may have had a bright future as an artist - if Lirin hadn't insisted on keeping his family in the back-end of nowhere, where nobody understood such things. To top it all, Lirin coldly wrote Tien off as soon as his younger son was conscripted into the army as a result of his own squabbling with Roshone over stolen money. I don't excuse Roshone, but Lirin is also culpable. He didn't care enough about Tien to realise that he was vulnerable and in danger.

What is even more infuriating is that after everything that had happened, Lirin now seems very dismissive of Kaladin's life choices and on the point of writing him off as well, because his son refuses to conform to his expectations and forges his own path in life instead.

 

On 4.12.2019 at 8:33 AM, The traveller said:


I do not see anywhere in the text that would imply that he looks at Laral as a possession then or now, he was simply hoping his son to make the best possible match their small town could offer. And it was very plausible considering that kaladin already belonged to 1st or 2nd dahn amongst the darkeyes. 

Neither Laral nor Kaladin had to content themselves with somebody from the town. Lirin hadn't! And while it may have been the best possible match for Kaladin from the material standpoint, it wasn't for Laral. It was all very lopsided - all the gain was intended for Kal. He was supposed to go and get a first-class education, not Laral. What would she have gotten out of it and why should she have wanted this marriage? But Lirin annoyingly thinks like it would have been a done deal, had Wistiow lived. So, was he counting on Wistiow forcing his daughter into this union? Against her interests and desires? It is all very unflattering to Lirin, IMHO.

 

On 4.12.2019 at 8:33 AM, The traveller said:



The money that he stole was used by him as a light source for his surgeries which is a noble enough use and he was going to use it to provide for kaladin’s medical education which in the long run would have greatly helped their town in the future.

Yes, while Lirin used it as light for surgeries it was noble, but once he sent it away, as he intended, both light and money would have been gone. There was never any expectation that Kaladin would come back to practice in Heartstone after his education in Kharabranth, and in fact it would have been a massive waste if he did, instead of helping many more patients in a city with his world-class skills.

 

On 4.12.2019 at 8:33 AM, The traveller said:

I do not think that anybody really believes that Roshone would have let Laral spend that money on her education of art or history. Most likely, Roshone would have spent it away in bribes hoping to find a new posting. 

We don't know if Roshone had control over her money, either before or after their marriage. We have no idea how such things work in Alethkar.

 

On 4.12.2019 at 8:33 AM, The traveller said:

I think none of them thought that Tien could be drafted for the army simply because Tien was too young to be drafted up till recently..

But shouldn't they have thought of that? Lirin in particular, with his hinted at experience of travel and war? And of Alethi laws, which he so deftly used against Roshone? I bet, he wouldn't have made such a mistake with his golden boy Kaladin!

 

On 5.12.2019 at 9:43 AM, Oltux72 said:

And for how many of those did Rosharans have stockpiles?

Many/most stockpiles were cleaned out by the fleeing awakened parshmen, as seen in Kaladin's chapters in OB.

 

On 5.12.2019 at 9:43 AM, Oltux72 said:


That leads to a question. What are the ardents in occupied territories doing? Do they make food or is cooperation with the voidbringers in any form considered heresy?

 

Why would the Fused need ardents? From what we have seen, it doesn't take much to operate a soulcaster and while an experienced user can coax more out of the device, it makes more sense to prioritize security of such  valuable equipment over possible performance gain.

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2 hours ago, Isilel said:

Which normally would have been young lords of  similar standing to her father's, or their young heirs

She was secluded and had no real chance to meet such people.  If she did it would likely be because they wanted her money not because they liked her personally.  Remember she and her father are the only ranked lighteyes in town.

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

We also don't know if she had a choice in her marriage or not

Dalinar said that he wanted to allow Adolin choice but the language he uses implies that it is allowing not that Adolin has the right to choose.  Shallan fully expected her father to choose her husband.

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

And she told Kal in OB that she didn't need rescuing.

Because it was none of Kal's business and he was acting like an chull.  This does not mean she particularly likes her chosen husband.

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

The whole reason why Roshone was made lord of Heartstone was that as a girl Laral couldn't inherit her father's lands

Actually she was given a dowry in compensation for the lands that she would have inherited.  From what we know now Dalinar needed a place to send Roshone where he could cause no trouble.

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

So, no, if she became a surgeon's wife, she couldn't have run the land. She would have had to become her husband's assistant like Hessina did for Lirin

We really don't know that.

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

No it isn't. She would never have stopped being lighteyes, so of course she would have continued to outrank Kaladin even if she slipped down to the 10th dahn. The text quote you supplied doesn't say anything other than that.

If she kept her land which sounds likely she would automatically be of the 5th.

2 hours ago, Isilel said:

But shouldn't they have thought of that? Lirin in particular, with his hinted at experience of travel and war? And of Alethi laws, which he so deftly used against Roshone? I bet, he wouldn't have made such a mistake with his golden boy Kaladin!

There is literally nothing that either parent could have done in regaurds to Tein.  Also I don't know if Lirin knew that Roshone knew Tein existed.

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7 hours ago, Isilel said:

He chose to put his family through hardship and danger for the sake of his dream of Karabranth - the dream that Kal didn't even fully share, and Tien payed the price. Meanwhile, Tien had great talent as a woodcarver and may have had a bright future as an artist - if Lirin hadn't insisted on keeping his family in the back-end of nowhere, where nobody understood such things. To top it all, Lirin coldly wrote Tien off as soon as his younger son was conscripted into the army as a result of his own squabbling with Roshone over stolen money. I don't excuse Roshone, but Lirin is also culpable. He didn't care enough about Tien to realise that he was vulnerable and in danger.

What is even more infuriating is that after everything that had happened, Lirin now seems very dismissive of Kaladin's life choices and on the point of writing him off as well, because his son refuses to conform to his expectations and forges his own path in life instead.

 

Once he took the money and faked the bequest, there really was no option left to him but to keep insisting that it was true and keep the money. He could not confess later to forgery that would have gotten him killed and his sons would have ended up in slavery! Tien was young still and it is possible that once he grew up and they had money to spare from kaladin’s practise, they would have sent him to some bigger artisan in town for apprenticeship. 
 

I see nowhere that Lirin is being dismissive of kaladin. He was very glad that kaladin had survived. Of course kaladin was a soldier Lirin knows that! He does not approve but he knows kal made the best of a bad situation. He tries to protect him even when Kal has Shash brand. And when he realised that kaladin was a radiant then he had looked at him in awe. 
 

7 hours ago, Isilel said:

And while it may have been the best possible match for Kaladin from the material standpoint, it wasn't for Laral. It was all very lopsided

Laral may be a light eyes but she does not have a very high dahn, her lands do not amount to much wealth and her estate is considered poor by Roshone also. I do not think she had a lot of good options for marriage. Roshone also had no other option for his son due to his shameful dismissal. If he had options he would not have looked to Laral. So, it was mere happenstance that Laral found herself with options that originally she never had. 
 

8 hours ago, Isilel said:

There was never any expectation that Kaladin would come back to practice in Heartstone after his education in Kharabranth, and in fact it would have been a massive waste if he did, instead of helping many more patients in a city with his world-class skills.

I think knowing Kaladin as he is, he would never have settled in some big fancy town and become one more doctor in a city full of doctors, He as we know him, would most certainly have either come back to hearthstone or would have settled in a similar small place where he could actually save people who due to lack of a surgeon would have otherwise died. 
 

8 hours ago, Isilel said:

We don't know if Roshone had control over her money, e

I think from his behaviour and anguish towards Lirin, it is quite clear that he expected to have full control of that money. 

 

8 hours ago, Isilel said:

But shouldn't they have thought of that? Lirin in particular, with his hinted at experience of travel and war? And of Alethi laws, which he so deftly used against Roshone? I bet, he wouldn't have made such a mistake with his golden boy Kaladin!

 

An oversight on their part! Does not mean he did not care for Tien. Also, he did make the same mistake with his golden boy! He did lose him too. He was very clearly outsmarted! And the law was changed! The age of drafting lowered, how was he supposed to know!
 

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23 hours ago, Isilel said:

I don't remember any suggestion that Herdaz formally surendered

Yes. Plenty of Alethi surrendered though and are cooperating now.

23 hours ago, Isilel said:

and iRL it was usually depressingly easy to turn natives against refugees and other ethnic minorities.

Yes, but that kind of card is harder to play if you are a different species and the devils incarnate.

23 hours ago, Isilel said:

Not to mention that if displaced people are killed away from settlements and their bodies are soulcast into smoke or whatever, nobody would even know. If Sanderson plays the Fused straight and has them act logically, that's what should be happening to the humans whom they deem to be useless.

They would simply count the refugees. And you can be sure the Radiants and the Stormfather are watching, as it would be terrific propaganda.
Furthermore, the Fused do not care for either the natives or the refugees. If both starve to death due to having to share food, that is not necessarily a bad thing. As long as you have a quiet hinterland now, while you are still fighting.

23 hours ago, Isilel said:

If just a year ago there was a serious fear of famine a few months down the line, they are lengthy enough that missing one period could be pretty devastating. We also saw in Kaladin's PoV in OB that not having enough food stored or losing stores was terrifying to the villagers.

How many villages did the escaping Parshendi actually raid? It is a risk and they have to transport the grain they take.

23 hours ago, Isilel said:

Why would the Fused need ardents? From what we have seen, it doesn't take much to operate a soulcaster and while an experienced user can coax more out of the device, it makes more sense to prioritize security of such  valuable equipment over possible performance gain.

  1. Will they work for Parshendi or Fused? The possibility that a device could fall into enemy hands was surely contemplated.
  2. A soulcaster is not large. It can well be hidden or destroyed.
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On 12/7/2019 at 3:46 PM, Isilel said:

I don't remember any suggestion that Herdaz formally surendered and iRL it was usually depressingly easy to turn natives against refugees and other ethnic minorities. Not to mention that if displaced people are killed away from settlements and their bodies are soulcast into smoke or whatever, nobody would even know. If Sanderson plays the Fused straight and has them act logically, that's what should be happening to the humans whom they deem to be useless.

 

If just a year ago there was a serious fear of famine a few months down the line, they are lengthy enough that missing one period could be pretty devastating. We also saw in Kaladin's PoV in OB that not having enough food stored or losing stores was terrifying to the villagers. And there definitely should be revebrations still - famine would have forced the villagers to kill most of their livestock, for instance and iRL they might have lacked seed corn too - not sure if it is applicable on Roshar. It is not something that people can just bounce back from within half a year.

 

Who she ended up marrying had very little to do with who she could have married. Which normally would have been young lords of  similar standing to her father's, or their young heirs. That's what almost happened with Rillir, even, and that's clearly what she wanted. We also don't know if she had a choice in her marriage or not - it seems to me that she wished to stay at Heartstone and was prepared to make sacrifices for that to happen. And she told Kal in OB that she didn't need rescuing.

 

The whole reason why Roshone was made lord of Heartstone was that as a girl Laral couldn't inherit her father's lands. She was given a dowry commeasurate with her father's holdings instead - that is explained in WoK, IIRC. So, no, if she became a surgeon's wife, she couldn't have run the land. She would have had to become her husband's assistant like Hessina did for Lirin - and she didn't want that. She wanted no part of Lirin's dream for Kaladin, which required her dowry as a financial means to make it happen.

As to her rank, from WoBs we know that dahn is fluid and can be affected by population fluctuations of the towns, military command, etc. We also know that 6th dahn requires holding land, so it is quite likely that if Laral married a landless man, that she would have slipped a dahn or so down the formal hierarchy and even more so socially if she married a darkeyes.

 

No it isn't. She would never have stopped being lighteyes, so of course she would have continued to outrank Kaladin even if she slipped down to the 10th dahn. The text quote you supplied doesn't say anything other than that.

 

He chose to put his family through hardship and danger for the sake of his dream of Karabranth - the dream that Kal didn't even fully share, and Tien payed the price. Meanwhile, Tien had great talent as a woodcarver and may have had a bright future as an artist - if Lirin hadn't insisted on keeping his family in the back-end of nowhere, where nobody understood such things. To top it all, Lirin coldly wrote Tien off as soon as his younger son was conscripted into the army as a result of his own squabbling with Roshone over stolen money. I don't excuse Roshone, but Lirin is also culpable. He didn't care enough about Tien to realise that he was vulnerable and in danger.

What is even more infuriating is that after everything that had happened, Lirin now seems very dismissive of Kaladin's life choices and on the point of writing him off as well, because his son refuses to conform to his expectations and forges his own path in life instead.

 

Neither Laral nor Kaladin had to content themselves with somebody from the town. Lirin hadn't! And while it may have been the best possible match for Kaladin from the material standpoint, it wasn't for Laral. It was all very lopsided - all the gain was intended for Kal. He was supposed to go and get a first-class education, not Laral. What would she have gotten out of it and why should she have wanted this marriage? But Lirin annoyingly thinks like it would have been a done deal, had Wistiow lived. So, was he counting on Wistiow forcing his daughter into this union? Against her interests and desires? It is all very unflattering to Lirin, IMHO.

 

Yes, while Lirin used it as light for surgeries it was noble, but once he sent it away, as he intended, both light and money would have been gone. There was never any expectation that Kaladin would come back to practice in Heartstone after his education in Kharabranth, and in fact it would have been a massive waste if he did, instead of helping many more patients in a city with his world-class skills.

 

We don't know if Roshone had control over her money, either before or after their marriage. We have no idea how such things work in Alethkar.

 

But shouldn't they have thought of that? Lirin in particular, with his hinted at experience of travel and war? And of Alethi laws, which he so deftly used against Roshone? I bet, he wouldn't have made such a mistake with his golden boy Kaladin!

 

Many/most stockpiles were cleaned out by the fleeing awakened parshmen, as seen in Kaladin's chapters in OB.

 

 

Why would the Fused need ardents? From what we have seen, it doesn't take much to operate a soulcaster and while an experienced user can coax more out of the device, it makes more sense to prioritize security of such  valuable equipment over possible performance gain.

Regarding Laral and Kaladin, you are incorrect. Brandon has spoke specifically about this. WoB below:

 

Isilel

Does military service raise one's nahn/dahn?

Let's say somebody from a very low nahn, who is basically a serf, right? I mean, they don't have the freedom of movement. So, what if a man like that rises to a sergeant and serves 25 years with distinction, does he go back to being a serf when/if he retires from the military? Would he be required to return to his village/town of origin? Can something like this be properly controlled, even? I mean, do they check traveling people's papers?

Brandon Sanderson

There's a lot of parts to this. Rising within nahns and dahns happens more easily in Roshar than rising in social status did in most societies that had similar things in our world—for instance India, or even England. To an extent, it is very easy to buy yourself up a rank. What you've got to remember is the very high ranks are harder to attain. By nature, the children of someone of a very high rank sometimes are shuffled down to a lower rank—until they hit a stable rank. There are certain ranks that are stable in that the children born to parents of that rank always have that rank at as well. Your example of the soldier who serves with distinction could very easily be granted a rank up. In fact, it would be very rare for a soldier to not get a level of promotion if they were a very low rank—to not be ranked up immediately. The social structure pushes people toward these stable ranks. For the serf level, if you're able to escape your life of serfdom and go to a city, often getting a job and that sort of thing does require some measure of paperwork listing where you're from and the like. But if you were a serf who was educated, that would be pretty easy to fake. What's keeping most people as serfs is the fact that breaking out of it is hard, and there are much fewer of those ranks than you might assume. The right of travel is kind of an assumed thing. To be lower ranked than that, something has to have gone wrong for your ancestors and that sort of thing. There are many fewer people of that rank than there are of the slightly higher ranks that have the right of travel. It's a natural check and balance against the nobility built into the system. There are a lot of things going on here. Movement between ranks is not as hard as you might expect.

Isilel

Ditto with the lighteyes—does exemplary service raise one's dahn?

Brandon Sanderson

It's much harder for a lighteyes, but the king and the highprinces can raise someone's dahn if they want to. But it is much harder. In the lower dahns, you can buy yourself up in rank. Or you can be appointed. For instance, if you're appointed as a citylord, that is going to convey a certain dahn, and you could jump two or three dahns just by getting that appointment. Now, if you serve poorly, if a lot of the people who have the right of travel leave—which this doesn't happen very often—if your town gets smaller and you're left with this struggling city, you would be demoted a dahn, most likely. If a lot of the citizens got up and left, that would be a sign. They could take away your set status by leaving. That’s something that’s built into the right of travel. So these things happen.

Isilel

If parents have different nahns/dahn's, how is child’s position calculated? For instance, if Shallan had married 10-dahner Kabsal, what dahn would their children belong to?

Brandon Sanderson

The highest dahn determines the dahn of the child, though that may not match the dahn of the highest parent. For instance, there are certain dahns that aren't conveyed to anyone except for your direct heir. The other children are a rank below. I believe that third dahn is one of the stable ranks. If you're the king, you're first dahn. Your kid inherits. If you have another kid who doesn't marry a highprince, and is not a highprince, then they're going to be third dahn, not second, because that's the stable rank that they would slip down to, along with highlords and the children of highprinces.

Isilel

Or, and another thing—what happens if a lighteyed child is born to darkeyes or even slaves? Which should happen often enough, given that male nobles seem rather promiscuous. Anyway, are such people automatically of tenth dahn?

Brandon Sanderson

The situation is very much taken into account in these sorts of cases. Normally—if there is such a thing as normal with this—one question that's going to come up is are they heterochromatic. Because you can end up with one eye of each color, both eyes light, or both eyes dark. That's going to influence it a lot, what happens here. Do you have any heirs? Was your child born lighteyed? This sort of thing is treated the same way that a lot of societies treated illegitimate children. The question of, do I need this person as an heir? Are they born darkeyed? Can I shuffle them off somewhere? Set them up, declare them to be this certain rank. Are you high enough rank to do that? Are you tenth dahn yourself? What happens with all of these things? There's no single answer to that. The most common thing that's probably going to happen is that they are born heterochromatic. Then you're in this weird place where you're probably declared to be tenth dahn, but you may have way more power and authority than that if one parent is of a very high dahn, just as a bastard child in a royal line would be treated in our world.

Tor.com The Way of Kings Re-Read Interview (June 10, 2014)

 

 

So as per the WoB, Laral would maintain her rank. If her child was lighteyed, the child would be of her rank or just below as with normal lighteyed house holds. The child would then outrank Kaladin. If the child was darkeyed, then it would be shuffled to the side and if an heir was needed, they would try again till they got a lighteyed child. If the child was heterochromia, then again depending on whether an heir is needed or not, they would either try again, or they would be put to the tenth dahn. But that does not change the dahn of the lighteyed parent. Roshone being declared a city lord, carried a certain rank, unconnected to Laral's dahn level. 

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