Deducing RoW character groupings

[Pathfinder]

4 hours ago, ChickenLiberty said:

This WoB was recently sent to me by someone who wishes to remain anonymous.

One thing that makes this very interesting is that it confirms that Adolin will be one of the PoV characters, where before, it had only been strongly suggested. Beyond that, this WoB provides additional evidence that Adolin is not one of the minor viewpoints in Group 1, lending further credence to the idea that he is in Group 2. I will also suggest that Brandon's claim that Adolin will only get a "decent chunk," and not as much as the questioner might like also goes against Brandon's description of the major PoVs in Group 1, separating him more firmly from that group, although that is less certain.

Personally I am highly wary of taking "anonymous" information from a "personal collection". I could claim that Brandon personally told me there would be purple elephants. Doesn't make it true or false. 

 

edit: sorry had a big project. Will go through your posts more in depth this weekend. Also I really want to stress I am not being critical of you, nor saying you are wrong to theorize as you have. I just disagree with the conclusions derived from the information. I personally think a lot of it is a lot more open ended than presented. But that is my own reading of the information provided. 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Pathfinder

[Chiberty]

10 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

Personally I am highly wary of taking "anonymous" information from a "personal collection". I could claim that Brandon personally told me there would be purple elephants. Doesn't make it true or false. 

That is true. I'm inclined to trust this information, but you are, of course, free to question its validity. Also, the WoB they gave doesn't change the group format that is already suggested by the more public WoBs; it gives support to evidence that we already had, so even if you don't want to trust this information, there is other information that leads to the same conclusion that it does. If you would like me to support the same placement for Adolin without referencing that WoB, I can, as I had done in my original post (although now I have included that reference alongside the other information).

Edited May 21, 2020 by ChickenLiberty

[Pathfinder]

28 minutes ago, ChickenLiberty said:

That is true. I'm inclined to trust this information, but you are, of course, free to question its validity. Also, the WoB they gave doesn't change the group format that is already suggested by the more public WoBs; it gives support to evidence that we already had, so even if you don't want to trust this information, there is other information that leads to the same conclusion that it does. If you would like me to support the same placement for Adolin without referencing that WoB, I can, as I had done in my original post (although now I have included that reference alongside the other information).

So again, I want to be really especially clear. I am not doing this to be critical, nor saying I expect this to be a scientific journal. Totally theorize and what have you. Enjoy. Have fun with it. Just across this thread you have asked for people's opinions on this. For myself coming into this, a lot of the stuff presented comes off a lot more loose to me than indicated. As you present (to me, again stressing this is not to belittle you whatsoever) this, it comes off as correlation, not causation. For instance:

Spontaneous generation. This was widely accepted as scientific for a long time. Some materials give rise to spontaneous generation of various organisms. Leave rotting meat out, even in a building, and you will get flies. Thereby rotting meat spontaneously generated flies. Place rotting meat in various places and 9 times out of 10 you will end up with flies. You can even use different types of meat and you will get flies. Seems pretty fool proof right? It supports itself and is demonstrable. Till a scientist took two slabs of meat. Wrapped one up tightly, while leaving the other out. One produced bugs, while the other didn't. All other circumstances remained the same. It was through that, that they began to theorize regarding microscopic organisms and actions taking place out of immediate sight. Now spontaneous generation has been utterly debunked. 

The reason for this example (lol and this is me being brief of all things), is because I can say something is a fruit, that it is round, and it has a stem. You see an orange on the table. I ask what am I holding behind my back? You say orange because all of those things in your mind combine to confirm what is behind my back. I then pull out an apple. Each of those pieces of information could hint at an orange, but individually they do not confirm it is an orange.

Further individually any of those pieces of information does not necessarily inform the other pieces of information. It could be a cherry, raspberry, grape, and so on and so forth. 

So my point is, at least how I read it, those tidbits do not lend credibility to each other to the conclusion you have made. I can provide numerous counter possibilities that hit all those pieces of evidence, and have nothing to do with the conclusion you made and they are all equally viable. 

 

edit: and regarding the "anonymous" WoB. For myself, if it is legitimate, then it should not be anonymous, and can show the source so it can be confirmed. Otherwise as far as I am concerned, it is heresay. There has been plenty of that over the years. People recalling WoBs that they could swear exist, but via the Mandella effect, never existed. So that is why I prefer WoB from signings, or images. To be clear, I am not saying you are duplicitous. Nor am I necessarily saying the individual who presented it is duplicitous (though I will admit I am curious why all the cloak and dagger). I am just saying I would prefer more openness personally. 

 

edit 2: Sorry one more quick point. Lets say the other evidence as you present ends up being right and it all plays out exactly as you said it would. That still does not mean that the "mysterious" WoB was true or real. It could be utterly and completely fake, but validity is assumed because it happened to be lucky and be right. Regardless whether it was made up, or gospel truth. Again, correlation. Not causation. 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Pathfinder

[Chiberty]

1 minute ago, Pathfinder said:

So again, I want to be really especially clear. I am not doing this to be critical, nor saying I expect this to be a scientific journal. Totally theorize and what have you. Enjoy. Have fun with it. Just across this thread you have asked for people's opinions on this. For myself coming into this, a lot of the stuff presented comes off a lot more loose to me than indicated. As you present (to me, again stressing this is not to belittle you whatsoever) this, it comes off as correlation, not causation. For instance:

Spontaneous generation. This was widely accepted as scientific for a long time. Some materials give rise to spontaneous generation of various organisms. Leave rotting meat out, even in a building, and you will get flies. Thereby rotting meat spontaneously generated flies. Place rotting meat in various places and 9 times out of 10 you will end up with flies. You can even use different types of meat and you will get flies. Seems pretty fool proof right? It supports itself and is demonstrable. Till a scientist took two slabs of meat. Wrapped one up tightly, while leaving the other out. One produced bugs, while the other didn't. All other circumstances remained the same. It was through that, that they began to theorize regarding microscopic organisms and actions taking place out of immediate sight. Now spontaneous generation has been utterly debunked. 

The reason for this example (lol and this is me being brief of all things), is because I can say something is a fruit, that it is round, and it has a stem. You see an orange on the table. I ask what am I holding behind my back? You say orange because all of those things in your mind combine to confirm what is behind my back. I then pull out an apple. Each of those pieces of information could hint at an orange, but individually they do not confirm it is an orange. So my point is, at least how I read it, those tidbits do not lend credibility to each other to the conclusion you have made. I can provide numerous counter possibilities that hit all those pieces of evidence, and have nothing to do with the conclusion you made and they are all equally viable. 

Feel free to be critical. Very little of the information is completely definitive. Many of the spots that are "locked down" in the post just have good supporting evidence. There are some things that are more concrete, but I'll reevaluate my analysis with any new information that we get, whether it supports or opposes the conclusions that have already been drawn. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear of how definitive this analysis is. The idea here is to only make assumptions that narrow our possibilities down much more than they decrease the likelihood. Most assumptions will narrow things down and decrease the likelihood equal amounts, and we want to avoid those. I would also like this to be more definitive, but without making any assumptions, we can figure out very little, while by making small and very likely assumptions, many pieces move into place. I've tried to be clear when arguing my points that I'm not trying to present these things with 100% certainty, but I apologize if that was not as clear as I intended.

If there are specific points that you fell like I am substituting correlation for causation on, please point those out.

[Pathfinder]

Just now, ChickenLiberty said:

Feel free to be critical. Very little of the information is completely definitive. Many of the spots that are "locked down" in the post just have good supporting evidence. There are some things that are more concrete, but I'll reevaluate my analysis with any new information that we get, whether it supports or opposes the conclusions that have already been drawn. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear of how definitive this analysis is. The idea here is to only make assumptions that narrow our possibilities down much more than they decrease the likelihood. Most assumptions will narrow things down and decrease the likelihood equal amounts, and we want to avoid those. I would also like this to be more definitive, but without making any assumptions, we can figure out very little, while by making small and very likely assumptions, many pieces move into place. I've tried to be clear when arguing my points that I'm not trying to present these things with 100% certainty, but I apologize if that was not as clear as I intended.

Sorry added a few more edits as you were typing, so I have added some things to my post

Just now, ChickenLiberty said:

If there are specific points that you fell like I am substituting correlation for causation on, please point those out.

As I said I will be happy to, and truly intend to, but this ironically is me being brief. I need the weekend to sit down and go over each reference individually and together, to adequately respond and give your post the respect it deserves. So please be patient with me. I only commented as I did regarding the "Adolin next to" because it had been present on my mind at the moment, and I did not want it to slip from my brain. 

[agrabes]

1 hour ago, ChickenLiberty said:

If you look at which characters line up most with the sections on the chart, you get:

- Dalinar, Shallan, and Kaladin as primary and secondary characters

- Adolin, Szeth, Jasnah, and Navani as tertiary characters, which he even confirms:

  Reveal hidden contents

Brandon Sanderson

In book one, a main character was absent from several parts. (Dalinar and Shallan alternated.) Same with Words of Radiance, where Dalinar skipped two parts, I believe.

Note that this is an absence of viewpoints from the character, not necessarily an absence of the character entirely.

The main characters of the first part of the Stormlight are Shallan, Kaladin, and Dalinar. Two more flashback character (Eshonai and Szeth) can be considered important characters without as many viewpoints, though in the above outline, I'd have listed them as tertiary characters in terms of number of viewpoints.

The actual tertiary characters are Jasnah, Adolin, Navani, and a few that I can't mention as it will be spoilers. These get significant screen time, but only have viewpoints here and there in the first five books. Jasnah, as I've said, grows more important in the back five. Others do as well.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 18, 2016)

 

- Venli and Bridge 4 (including Moash) as the two novelettes

- Taravangian, Lift, Ash, Renarin, and the various interlude characters as part of the short story collection, which works because the "short story collection" also extends beyond the interludes and into part 5

A couple things were changed (like how Adolin actually did have one PoV in Part 3), but all of the characters are included in it. The ones lumped together in the short story collection are those that were only part of the interludes or the "sanderlanche."

For Adolin to be part of the "short story collection," he would need to have a similar short role. If his viewpoints appeared in a similar "sanderlanche" fashion, it wouldn't make sense for Sanderson to claim that he gets a "decent chunk" of the book. In OB, as I showed, the only characters that were not mentioned more directly in the outline were those in the short story collection, the most significant of which was Taravangian, who only took up a third of the viewpoint space as Jasnah, the least significant tertiary character. In no way did any of those characters that were lumped into the "short story collection" get a decent chunk of the book.

Oathbringer statistical analysis for reference

I don't think you're reading the charts correctly, or maybe you're referencing a different one.  In the Reddit Update #5, the most up to date one is the one with the hyperlinked text "more like this".  I cross referenced that with the OB analysis and don't agree that Adolin or Jasnah fit any of the Tertiary Character slots.

Tertiary Character 1: Appears in Parts 4 and 5

Tertiary Character 2: Appears in Part 2 Only 

Tertiary Character 3: Appears in Parts 4 and 5

Tertiary Character 4: Appears in Parts 4 and 5

Adolin: Appears in all Parts, not close to aligning with any Tertiary Character and is not Primary or Secondary

Jasnah: Appears in Parts 2 and 5, not aligning with any Tertiary Character.  You could possibly consider her "Tertiary Character 2", but it makes no sense since she has so few POVs in Part 2 relative to Moash.  Most of her POVs are in Part 5, while TC2 should have most of its POVs in Part 2 with possible small appearances in other Parts.

Moash: Appears in Part 2 with 2 short POVs in Part 5 and has the most POVs of any character in Part 2 other than Dalinar/Kaladin/Shallan by a significant margin.  Logically, should be the Tertiary Character in Part 2.

Navani and Szeth we agree on, both appear in Parts 4 and 5 only.

Venli: Appears in Parts 4 and 5 Only plus interludes, mostly aligning with a Tertiary Character slot.

Short Stories and Novelettes - Those are not tied to specific character POVs.  They are just the writing structure he used.  Just like I don't consider "Book One" a character grouping, it's still listed with a bar.  The short stories are mostly completely side stories only tangentially related to the main plot.  The novelettes I could see 1 being Venli's story and the other being either Bridge 4 or Moash's story.  But, being part of a novelette doesn't preclude a character from being a "Tertiary Character" at least as I see it.  I could see a possible argument for Adolin over Venli, since his most significant parts of the story are in Parts 4 and 5 and most of Venli's POVs are in interludes, but I don't see any case for Jasnah as one of the "Tertiary Characters" from the outline.

Either way, it seems like Adolin's appearances are an oddity.  He gets a lot of unscheduled appearances in OB, regardless of whether you think he's Tertiary Character 1/3/4 who should appear only in part 4 with a small part in part 5 or you think he's totally outside the structure like I do.  So I think we should assume that his appearances, like they did in OB, will not align with Sanderson's outline.

[Chiberty]

14 minutes ago, agrabes said:

I don't think you're reading the charts correctly, or maybe you're referencing a different one.  In the Reddit Update #5, the most up to date one is the one with the hyperlinked text "more like this".  I cross referenced that with the OB analysis and don't agree that Adolin or Jasnah fit any of the Tertiary Character slots.

Tertiary Character 1: Appears in Parts 4 and 5

Tertiary Character 2: Appears in Part 2 Only 

Tertiary Character 3: Appears in Parts 4 and 5

Tertiary Character 4: Appears in Parts 4 and 5

Adolin: Appears in all Parts, not close to aligning with any Tertiary Character and is not Primary or Secondary

Jasnah: Appears in Parts 2 and 5, not aligning with any Tertiary Character.  You could possibly consider her "Tertiary Character 2", but it makes no sense since she has so few POVs in Part 2 relative to Moash.  Most of her POVs are in Part 5, while TC2 should have most of its POVs in Part 2 with possible small appearances in other Parts.

Moash: Appears in Part 2 with 2 short POVs in Part 5 and has the most POVs of any character in Part 2 other than Dalinar/Kaladin/Shallan by a significant margin.  Logically, should be the Tertiary Character in Part 2.

Navani and Szeth we agree on, both appear in Parts 4 and 5 only.

Venli: Appears in Parts 4 and 5 Only plus interludes, mostly aligning with a Tertiary Character slot.

Short Stories and Novelettes - Those are not tied to specific character POVs.  They are just the writing structure he used.  Just like I don't consider "Book One" a character grouping, it's still listed with a bar.  The short stories are mostly completely side stories only tangentially related to the main plot.  The novelettes I could see 1 being Venli's story and the other being either Bridge 4 or Moash's story.  But, being part of a novelette doesn't preclude a character from being a "Tertiary Character" at least as I see it.  I could see a possible argument for Adolin over Venli, since his most significant parts of the story are in Parts 4 and 5 and most of Venli's POVs are in interludes, but I don't see any case for Jasnah as one of the "Tertiary Characters" from the outline.

Either way, it seems like Adolin's appearances are an oddity.  He gets a lot of unscheduled appearances in OB, regardless of whether you think he's Tertiary Character 1/3/4 who should appear only in part 4 with a small part in part 5 or you think he's totally outside the structure like I do.  So I think we should assume that his appearances, like they did in OB, will not align with Sanderson's outline.

I included this, but you may have missed it:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

In book one, a main character was absent from several parts. (Dalinar and Shallan alternated.) Same with Words of Radiance, where Dalinar skipped two parts, I believe.

Note that this is an absence of viewpoints from the character, not necessarily an absence of the character entirely.

The main characters of the first part of the Stormlight are Shallan, Kaladin, and Dalinar. Two more flashback character (Eshonai and Szeth) can be considered important characters without as many viewpoints, though in the above outline, I'd have listed them as tertiary characters in terms of number of viewpoints.

The actual tertiary characters are Jasnah, Adolin, Navani, and a few that I can't mention as it will be spoilers. These get significant screen time, but only have viewpoints here and there in the first five books. Jasnah, as I've said, grows more important in the back five. Others do as well.

Stormlight Three Update #5 (Nov. 18, 2016)

 

22 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

and regarding the "anonymous" WoB. For myself, if it is legitimate, then it should not be anonymous, and can show the source so it can be confirmed. Otherwise as far as I am concerned, it is heresay. There has been plenty of that over the years. People recalling WoBs that they could swear exist, but via the Mandella effect, never existed. So that is why I prefer WoB from signings, or images. To be clear, I am not saying you are duplicitous. Nor am I necessarily saying the individual who presented it is duplicitous (though I will admit I am curious why all the cloak and dagger). I am just saying I would prefer more openness personally. 

Again, you are free to not trust the source. I don't know why they wanted to remain anonymous, but I am trying to respect their wishes. Like I said before, I am inclined to trust it, but if you don't, I just won't mention it when discussing with you.

Edited May 21, 2020 by ChickenLiberty

[agrabes]

41 minutes ago, ChickenLiberty said:

I included this, but you may have missed it:

 

Yeah, I saw it and read it before you posted it as well.  There are inconsistencies within that quote.  It doesn't really dispute my arguments. It actually reinforces what I'm saying - he doesn't always mean the exact same thing when he says "tertiary character".  When he says it generally, it seems to be referring to the entire Stormlight Archive series.  When it appears in an outline chart, it is relative to the specific story being told in that book.

He lists at least 5 characters (3 named characters, plus "a few" he says he can't name) as the "actual tertiary characters", while there are only 4 Tertiary Character slots in his chart.  This means that his statement you have quoted was not a 1 to 1 exact representation of how he created his chart.  My guess is that he views several characters as "tertiary characters" for the series overall, but he felt that only 4 characters were important enough to the story of Oathbringer to have their own line item in his outline for that particular book. 

He creates a category of "important characters" for Szeth and Eshonai but no characters with that designation appear in his outline for Oathbringer.  Szeth is clearly one of the "Tertiary Characters" from the outline based on his appearances in OB, but is intentionally excluded from his "Actual Tertiary Characters" list.

Finally, Adolin, who is named as an  "Actual Tertiary Character", does not have his appearances line up closely at all with the outline for any "Tertiary Character".

And to relate this back to the RoW outline which was my purpose to begin with - it's clear that even though he listed 7 characters in the OB outline there were 15 who had more than one POV and 12 with at least 5 POVs, 11 with at least 5k words written from their POV.  He's listed 9 characters in the RoW outline, but there could be 3-4 more characters with a significant number of POVs even though they don't appear on his list for RoW.  We know that there were "tertiary characters" who appeared and had multiple POVs in OB but did not get dedicated slots on the chart.  This means Adolin, or others could appear with multiple POVs but not be counted in the 9 characters of the three groups.

*edit* Also saw you were referencing the anonymous WoB.  I don't feel overly skeptical toward it, it seems likely to be true.  But, I don't think it disputes what I'm saying - that Adolin could have multiple POVs without being accounted for in the 3 groups.

Edited May 21, 2020 by agrabes

[Pathfinder]

1 hour ago, ChickenLiberty said:

Again, you are free to not trust the source. I don't know why they wanted to remain anonymous, but I am trying to respect their wishes. Like I said before, I am inclined to trust it, but if you don't, I just won't mention it when discussing with you.

In our discussion between you and I, I think it would be best to not mention it. From my perceptive due to the nature of it, I do not think it adds anything nor is conducive for this discussion. But of course feel free to mention it in your discussions with anyone else. That is just my own opinion on the matter. 

Edited May 21, 2020 by Pathfinder

[Chiberty]

5 hours ago, agrabes said:

Yeah, I saw it and read it before you posted it as well.  There are inconsistencies within that quote.  It doesn't really dispute my arguments. It actually reinforces what I'm saying - he doesn't always mean the exact same thing when he says "tertiary character".  When he says it generally, it seems to be referring to the entire Stormlight Archive series.  When it appears in an outline chart, it is relative to the specific story being told in that book.

I'm somewhat confused about your claim here. In that WoB, he is talking about the outline chart. Not only does that WoB come from the same OB update you referenced, but it also directly references the "above outline."

[agrabes]

9 hours ago, ChickenLiberty said:

I'm somewhat confused about your claim here. In that WoB, he is talking about the outline chart. Not only does that WoB come from the same OB update you referenced, but it also directly references the "above outline."

Sure - I didn't notice the second part of the line about Szeth and Eshonai, so I'll give you that one.  He did say they would be counted as Tertiary Characters for the purpose of his chart.  I don't want to get into too much more discussion of the OB outline.  The point I'm making is that he lists 5 named Tertiary characters, plus he says there is more than one character he won't name due to spoilers in terms of how he filled out the chart.  Only 4 tertiary characters appear in the chart.  This means that he has not directly said in the WoB exactly who the 4 "Tertiary Characters" were, he's said it's 4 out of these 5+ possible characters. Outside the top 3 and flashback, the following characters had at least 5k words written from their perspective in order from most to least: Adolin, Venli, Szeth, Moash, Navani, Rock, Jasnah, Taravangian.  So let's just assume for a minute that word count by character is what qualifies to be listed in Sanderson's chart and plot things out:

Oathbringer:

Primary Main: Dalinar (~140k with flashbacks)

Secondary Main: Shallan (~105k)

Secondary Main: Kaladin (~75k)

TC1: Adolin (~21k)

TC2: Venli (~14k)

TC3: Szeth (~13k)

TC4: Moash (~12k)

Not listed: Navani (~9k), Rock (~8k), Jasnah (~7k), Taravangian (~6k)

Future Flashback Characters Not Listed, but Had Smaller POVs: Renarin (3k), Shalash (1k)

 

This means that 4 characters with significant screen time, some of which are confirmed "tertiary characters", did not appear in Sanderson's outline for Oathbringer.  Two additional characters who would also likely fall into the "Tertiary" category because they are future flashback characters also appeared in the book, but not the outline.  If you want to say we should only put the named "Tertiary" characters in the Tertiary slots, then you have two characters (or 3 if you don't count Venli) that don't appear on the outline as individual line items with significantly more screen time than two who do.  This is solid proof that his outline from Oathbringer did not identify the number of characters that would get significant POV time in the book.

 

Apply this to Rhythm of War: Group 1 is listed at 5 characters and groups 2 and 3 are listed as 2 each.   I'm saying that it's likely that a character from the "Tertiary" list will appear in the book with a significant page count, but will not be one of the official 9 characters from Sanderson's Rhythm of War outline.  Based on the Oathbringer outline, I feel like it makes sense to say that Adolin, while playing a very significant role in the book, was not one of the characters listed individually on the outline.  But even if I'm wrong about Adolin in Oathbringer, the point in general stands - there will be more than 9 characters with significant POVs in the book.  

[Chiberty]

1 hour ago, agrabes said:

Sure - I didn't notice the second part of the line about Szeth and Eshonai, so I'll give you that one.  He did say they would be counted as Tertiary Characters for the purpose of his chart.  I don't want to get into too much more discussion of the OB outline.  The point I'm making is that he lists 5 named Tertiary characters, plus he says there is more than one character he won't name due to spoilers in terms of how he filled out the chart.  Only 4 tertiary characters appear in the chart.  This means that he has not directly said in the WoB exactly who the 4 "Tertiary Characters" were, he's said it's 4 out of these 5+ possible characters. Outside the top 3 and flashback, the following characters had at least 5k words written from their perspective in order from most to least: Adolin, Venli, Szeth, Moash, Navani, Rock, Jasnah, Taravangian.  So let's just assume for a minute that word count by character is what qualifies to be listed in Sanderson's chart and plot things out:

Oathbringer:

Primary Main: Dalinar (~140k with flashbacks)

Secondary Main: Shallan (~105k)

Secondary Main: Kaladin (~75k)

TC1: Adolin (~21k)

TC2: Venli (~14k)

TC3: Szeth (~13k)

TC4: Moash (~12k)

Not listed: Navani (~9k), Rock (~8k), Jasnah (~7k), Taravangian (~6k)

Future Flashback Characters Not Listed, but Had Smaller POVs: Renarin (3k), Shalash (1k)

I don't really want a bunch of discussion over the OB outline either, but that is what you are basing your point about RoW on.

One problem with the way you're assigning characters to the chart is the assumption that word count is what qualifies a character for a certain spot. They are certainly related, but since we know exactly how OB is laid out now, we can see that it is not the one determining factor. As you showed, assuming that causes there to be characters that aren't included. Rather than deciding on arbitrary assumptions like that, we can instead find the model that best fits what we already know the data is.

In that WoB I posted, he does say that Eshonai and Szeth would be counted as tertiary, but you have to look at that in context with the rest. He says that he would have listed them that way in terms of viewpoints, but that the way he actually did it was different. When he says, "a few others," since we know that there were only 4 tertiary characters, it is clear that the specific wording in that case was just a mistake. He meant to say something similar, but slipped in wording it in a way that made it contradictory.

As I showed before, when I placed the characters in the OB outline, there were also two novelettes as part of the outline. You claim that these were simply part of the structure, but doing so, as you said, would leave characters out. There are numerous Bridge 4 characters that would otherwise not be included, but their viewpoints happen to line up with one of the novelettes. That would be able to include both Rock and Moash without any issue. Brandon has also said in the past that he considers the through-line interlude characters arc to be a novelette, which takes care of Venli. That leaves two tertiary slots open, with the next two characters in line being Jasnah and Navani, which also happens to fit what he said in the WoB. If you look at the remaining characters, they only have viewpoints in the interludes and Part 5. That also happens to be exactly how the short story collection is shown. Doing it that way didn't fit the chart exactly, like how Jasnah actually did have some viewpoints in Part 5, but it fits what we have as close as possible.

1 hour ago, agrabes said:

This means that 4 characters with significant screen time, some of which are confirmed "tertiary characters", did not appear in Sanderson's outline for Oathbringer.  Two additional characters who would also likely fall into the "Tertiary" category because they are future flashback characters also appeared in the book, but not the outline.  If you want to say we should only put the named "Tertiary" characters in the Tertiary slots, then you have two characters (or 3 if you don't count Venli) that don't appear on the outline as individual line items with significantly more screen time than two who do.  This is solid proof that his outline from Oathbringer did not identify the number of characters that would get significant POV time in the book.

 

Apply this to Rhythm of War: Group 1 is listed at 5 characters and groups 2 and 3 are listed as 2 each.   I'm saying that it's likely that a character from the "Tertiary" list will appear in the book with a significant page count, but will not be one of the official 9 characters from Sanderson's Rhythm of War outline.  Based on the Oathbringer outline, I feel like it makes sense to say that Adolin, while playing a very significant role in the book, was not one of the characters listed individually on the outline.  But even if I'm wrong about Adolin in Oathbringer, the point in general stands - there will be more than 9 characters with significant POVs in the book.  

As I showed above, all characters were included in the OB outline. Besides that, there are some clear differences between the OB and RoW outline charts. One thing that was mentioned, but wasn't on the chart, is the novellete. That is the interlude main character, and I included them in my chart despite it not being on Brandon's graphic organizer. There are effectively 10 spots, not 9. The other thing that is not included is the short story collection, although we know that that is just the minor interlude characters. They could be included for a very short time outside the interludes, like what happened in OB, but that doesn't fit the description of Adolin's PoVs in this book. Beyond that, it makes little sense to try to place Adolin outside of the format because as of yet, there is significant evidence for placing him in the format, and it does not cause any contradictions. If there were more than 10 characters that Brandon had stated to have a few viewpoints in the book, then it would make sense to try to identify who is most likely to not be in the format. Until that is the case, it is more beneficial to try to identify who is most likely to be in the format. Right now, Adolin is among the 8 with the most evidence supporting them. If that number slips over 10, then it would be beneficial to consider. Right now though, as I have said before, although it is technically a valid point to make, it is unlikely enough compared to the other possibilities that it is not yet very beneficial.

[agrabes]

32 minutes ago, ChickenLiberty said:

I don't really want a bunch of discussion over the OB outline either, but that is what you are basing your point about RoW on.

One problem with the way you're assigning characters to the chart is the assumption that word count is what qualifies a character for a certain spot. They are certainly related, but since we know exactly how OB is laid out now, we can see that it is not the one determining factor. As you showed, assuming that causes there to be characters that aren't included. Rather than deciding on arbitrary assumptions like that, we can instead find the model that best fits what we already know the data is.

In that WoB I posted, he does say that Eshonai and Szeth would be counted as tertiary, but you have to look at that in context with the rest. He says that he would have listed them that way in terms of viewpoints, but that the way he actually did it was different. When he says, "a few others," since we know that there were only 4 tertiary characters, it is clear that the specific wording in that case was just a mistake. He meant to say something similar, but slipped in wording it in a way that made it contradictory.

As I showed before, when I placed the characters in the OB outline, there were also two novelettes as part of the outline. You claim that these were simply part of the structure, but doing so, as you said, would leave characters out. There are numerous Bridge 4 characters that would otherwise not be included, but their viewpoints happen to line up with one of the novelettes. That would be able to include both Rock and Moash without any issue. Brandon has also said in the past that he considers the through-line interlude characters arc to be a novelette, which takes care of Venli. That leaves two tertiary slots open, with the next two characters in line being Jasnah and Navani, which also happens to fit what he said in the WoB. If you look at the remaining characters, they only have viewpoints in the interludes and Part 5. That also happens to be exactly how the short story collection is shown. Doing it that way didn't fit the chart exactly, like how Jasnah actually did have some viewpoints in Part 5, but it fits what we have as close as possible.

As I showed above, all characters were included in the OB outline. Besides that, there are some clear differences between the OB and RoW outline charts. One thing that was mentioned, but wasn't on the chart, is the novellete. That is the interlude main character, and I included them in my chart despite it not being on Brandon's graphic organizer. There are effectively 10 spots, not 9. The other thing that is not included is the short story collection, although we know that that is just the minor interlude characters. They could be included for a very short time outside the interludes, like what happened in OB, but that doesn't fit the description of Adolin's PoVs in this book. Beyond that, it makes little sense to try to place Adolin outside of the format because as of yet, there is significant evidence for placing him in the format, and it does not cause any contradictions. If there were more than 10 characters that Brandon had stated to have a few viewpoints in the book, then it would make sense to try to identify who is most likely to not be in the format. Until that is the case, it is more beneficial to try to identify who is most likely to be in the format. Right now, Adolin is among the 8 with the most evidence supporting them. If that number slips over 10, then it would be beneficial to consider. Right now though, as I have said before, although it is technically a valid point to make, it is unlikely enough compared to the other possibilities that it is not yet very beneficial.

When Sanderson set up that chart for OB, he specifically tracked the appearances of 7 characters.  Those are the 7 characters he felt were important enough to track individually.  He also had POVs from several characters that were not tracked individually.  I don't think it's logically valid to assume that "Novelette 1" should be treated equally with "Tertiary Character 1."  If it were, we would also have to treat the entry "Book 1" to be equivalent.  Sanderson often talks about how he plots the SA novels as a series of three books, plus additional novelettes and short stories woven within.  In his outline, it seems clear to me that he was seeking to demonstrate how that structure lined up with how he wrote OB.  But, I think at this point I'm not going to convince you, you're not going to convince me, and I think we can both agree it doesn't really matter that much.

I think we can agree there are at least some characters that will have POVs in the books that are not specifically mentioned.  I'm not saying you need to add this to your chart or anything like that.  I'm just saying, it's reasonable to expect his outline and list of 9/10 characters for RoW is not precise.  I personally think that Adolin is plotted differently than other major characters.  In general, Adolin has never had a major plot of his own - he doesn't try to make things happen based on his own goals or ambitions.  He helps the other characters in their work.  This doesn't mean anything negative about him as a character, it's just how things are.  Because of that, I think he's plotted differently than the others.  His POVs are inserted where they can help Sanderson tell the story better.  The characters listed individually in his outlines are listed there because they have plots of their own that he needs to track and interweave.  Adolin may not be tracked, because he is a supporting character without his own plot.  This makes sense if you look at the OB chart, imo.

But, I can appreciate where you're coming from and I don't want to derail the thread any further with my own pet theories.

[Chiberty]

I found this extra bit of info:

Quote

Questioner

Are there any cool powers or mechanics that you really liked but had to cut out of your work?

Brandon Sanderson

I went through a lot of cool powers for Allomancy that I thought were nifty that I didn't end up using. So, yes, there's some there. You would ask me to list a few, and I would just have to get out the notes to remind myself, because it's been fifteen years. So, I'm not sure what they are. But I know I went through a whole list of abilities before I settled on the ones I was gonna use.

I cut a really fun character from Elantris; you can read deleted scenes on my website. There's a really fun antagonist who showed up in the story at the wrong place. It was a big distraction. I cut that out.

Every book has some things that get trimmed or cut out. Usually, they're not really big elements. Book Three of Stormlight was supposed to have a Syl viewpoint. It didn't get in there, but we'll get it in in another book, don't worry. It just didn't fit. We had even a little symbol drawn up for her, so hopefully we'll be able to use it in the next book.

There's just things that happen that just don't end up working, and they end up on the cutting room floor. You're like, "Don't cut any of it, Brandon! Just leave it!" Trust me; it's better. The first draft of Oathbringer was 540,000 words long, and the final cut was 460,000 words. So, we cut 80,000 words, which is an entire novel, out of that book. But the book is way stronger for having done that. And you wouldn't enjoy it as much.

It's like, I try to get it down so the soda tastes right. And if it's watered down too much, you're like, "I get two cups of Coke instead of one!" But both of them taste half as good. I would rather give you one really good cup of Coke.

ICon 2019 (Oct. 15, 2019)

Emphasis mine. I had originally left out the spren as candidates for group slots because we didn't have them in the past, and because there are more sentient spren that will be with the groups than the number of slots will allow. However, knowing that in October, Sanderson hoped that her PoV could be included, I think that Syl is a strong candidate for a lesser spot in Group 1, although not definite.

Thoughts?

[Use the Falchion]

13 minutes ago, ChickenLiberty said:

I found this extra bit of info:

Emphasis mine. I had originally left out the spren as candidates for group slots because we didn't have them in the past, and because there are more sentient spren that will be with the groups than the number of slots will allow. However, knowing that in October, Sanderson hoped that her PoV could be included, I think that Syl is a strong candidate for a lesser spot in Group 1, although not definite.

Thoughts?

Interesting find and interesting theory! I'm in the camp that if it does happen, a Syl P.O.V. would be either an interlude or like the Bridge 4 chapters in OB. But it does create some interesting potentials...

[Chiberty]

23 minutes ago, Use the Falchion said:

Interesting find and interesting theory! I'm in the camp that if it does happen, a Syl P.O.V. would be either an interlude or like the Bridge 4 chapters in OB. But it does create some interesting potentials...

If Syl does end up getting a viewpoint, I agree with the idea that it would likely be an interlude. Here's something Brandon said about one of the lesser Group 1 characters:

Quote

(and one might just appear in other viewpoints, save for an interlude)

 

Edited June 29, 2020 by ChickenLiberty

[Karger]

1 hour ago, ChickenLiberty said:

Thoughts?

I don't think I would enjoy an entire novels worth of Syl PoVs nor do I think Brandon would enjoy writing them.  A few times as a novelty sure but eventually it seems like the kind of thing that gets on everyone's nerves.

[Chiberty]

35 minutes ago, Karger said:

I don't think I would enjoy an entire novels worth of Syl PoVs nor do I think Brandon would enjoy writing them.  A few times as a novelty sure but eventually it seems like the kind of thing that gets on everyone's nerves.

I was suggesting that she has a chance to be one of the minor PoVs, specifically the one that "might just appear in other viewpoints, save for an interlude." I agree that we won't be getting a novel's worth of her PoVs.

Edited June 29, 2020 by ChickenLiberty

[agrabes]

I would argue that if a Syl POV is included in RoW, it will be one of the several small, brief POVs that don't get listed in the outlines that are put out while he is writing the book.  OB had 5-10 of those.  Just the way he discussed it in that quote seems like he wants to include a Syl POV to give us an idea into how her mind works and things like that, maybe some insight into Kaladin from Syl's perspective, not that she's got her own independent story or something like that which would justify several interludes, etc.  

[Chiberty]

17 minutes ago, agrabes said:

I would argue that if a Syl POV is included in RoW, it will be one of the several small, brief POVs that don't get listed in the outlines that are put out while he is writing the book.  OB had 5-10 of those.  Just the way he discussed it in that quote seems like he wants to include a Syl POV to give us an idea into how her mind works and things like that, maybe some insight into Kaladin from Syl's perspective, not that she's got her own independent story or something like that which would justify several interludes, etc.  

Of course. That's why it is not at all definite, just as Lirin's inclusion isn't either. Although, to be clear, I don't think that she will get several interludes or chapters either. As I stated above, one of the minor PoVs in Group 1 "might just appear in other viewpoints, save for an interlude," which I would expect to be Syl if she is considered to be in the format.

[Use the Falchion]

Well, now we know that Syl is an interlude character!

[Chiberty]

1 minute ago, Use the Falchion said:

Well, now we know that Syl is an interlude character!

Yep. It offers more credence towards her being the character that "might just appear in other viewpoints, save for an interlude." 

[Karger]

We also know that both Dalinar and Kaladin will be at the tower during at least one point during the novel.

[Toaster Retribution]

This new Interlude makes me think that Kaladin might not be part of the main arc of the book, which I find unexpecting but exciting.

[Karger]

31 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

This new Interlude makes me think that Kaladin might not be part of the main arc of the book, which I find unexpecting but exciting.

His arc might be more personal.  That would be interesting.