RoW Chapter 18 Discussion

[Schneeente]

I ship lardin - she knows him since they were children and suggested the "get yourself a shardblade then we can marry"-thing. So I think they might fit together. He obviously liked back, something that apparently doesn't happen often according to Syl.  

[Gilphon]

I don't think Navani would be able to ID duralumin- remember, last week she couldn't ID aluminium, which should be easier for her. (Although I would guess she's ID'd the aluminium at some point between when the lecture was given and when the Fourth Bridge was made). And in a meta sense, it works for her to bring up duralumin directly after talking about aluminium. 

And really conducting Investiture sounds like a pretty exact match for how duralumin works in Allomancy. 

[Karger]

6 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

I don't think Navani would be able to ID duralumin- remember, last week she couldn't ID aluminium

Navani works with aluminum on an almost daily basis.  She(or at least someone who works for her) can clearly ID it.  Duralumin would be easy to ID.  Just heat it until copper's melting point and you get aluminum and pure copper.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Karger

[Gilphon]

5 minutes ago, Karger said:

Navani works with aluminum on an almost daily basis.  She(or at least someone who works for her) can clearly ID it.  Duralumin would be easy to ID.  Just heat it until copper's melting point.

Yeah, well. Obviously she hasn't done this at the point in time when the lecture was given. Because if she had, she would've said 'aluminium' last week instead of 'some mysterious metal that blocks investiture'. 

Also claiming she works with it almost daily is a strong claim, given that we've heard her mention it all of once, and that was in context of 'new techniques we've recently learned from Azish artefabrians'.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Gilphon

[NameIess]

Well, I loved this chapter. Totally not only because it was about Kaladin. I'm really excited to see where this book goes, and I cannot believe that there's only two weeks to go before release. I have a few thoughts about this chapter:

1. Kaladin really needs a psychiatrist.

2. I hope Lirin can come to understand what Kaladin is going through. Kaladin clearly needs more support.

3. I hope Teft isn't still failing to manage his Firemoss addiction. 

4. I think the next chapter will be a Shallan chapter, and will probably introduce the idea for Shallan and Adolin to go be ambassadors to the Honorspren.

[+Weux082690]

Real world castles were often built with dead ends, secret passages, elevated entrances, and traps all as a way to confuse anyone trying to invade the castle.

My theory is that when Urithiru was alive, the walls and rooms could be rearranged for a similar purpose. Perhaps as the Sibling withdrew the tower got frozen in one of these unnatural configurations.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Weux082690
missing word added

[Schneeente]

Quote

Rooms were discovered with no way in save tiny holes to peek through

When I read that I thought "oh, how cute, they made rooms only for spren to use. How thoughtful." 

 

Absurd idea or possible? 

[Soby]

Anyone think romance may bud between Laral and Kal now that they’re a High Marshall and City Lady?

I hoped, even though it was a stretch, that Vivenna and Kal would hitch and Kal’s story would end with him moving to Nalthis...

Speaking of Nalthis (and maybe I’m really really late to the party here), but anyone else wonder if the Ghost Bloods may be connected to the planet? 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Soby

[Gilphon]

8 minutes ago, Weux082690 said:

Real world castles were often built with dead ends, secret passages, elevated entrances, and traps all as a way to confuse anyone trying to invade the castle.

My theory is that when Urithiru was alive, the walls and rooms could be rearranged for a similar purpose. Perhaps as the Sibling withdrew the tower got frozen in one these unnatural configurations.

This is what probably makes the most sense, but I'm hoping that's not it; that there really is a practical reason for the Tower to be like that. Just because of amazing the pay-off for all these weird details would be if this was all how it was supposed to be.

@Schneeente That's a really good idea. And exactly the kind of explanation I want for the weird Urithiru things.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Gilphon

[Pattern]

On 3.11.2020 at 4:29 PM, Karger said:

It is a combination of Chromium and Nickel.  Navani should be able to identify that it is an alloy and that it is partly nickel by liquidation if it were Nicrosil.  Chromium is a pure metal with a considerably higher melting point and is difficult to produce.

Concerning that metal that is a conductor for stormlight: For me, Moash's dagger with which he killed Jezrien came to mind. That was yellowish or golden IIRC. What if it's Odium's godmetal (Rayseium?) - analogue to shardblades and honorblades essentially being Honor's godmetal?

Full RoW spoiler:

Spoiler

Finally a theory I got spot on ;-) Drawing some gloryspren now.

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Pattern
Raboniel

[Karger]

19 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

Yeah, well. Obviously she hasn't done this at the point in time when the lecture was given. Because if she had, she would've said 'aluminium' last week instead of 'some mysterious metal that blocks investiture'. 

You are using circular reasoning based on a false premise.  It may block shardblades but we have a pretty clear indication that said metal is not aluminum.

19 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

Also claiming she works with it almost daily is a strong claim, given that we've heard her mention it all of once, and that was in context of 'new techniques we've recently learned from Azish artefabrians'.

Given how involved Navani was in building the fourth bridge I think it quite reasonable.

11 minutes ago, Schneeente said:

Absurd idea or possible? 

Perfectly possible.

Just now, Pattern said:

Concerning that metal that is a conductor for stormlight: For me, Moash's dagger with which he killed Jezrien came to mind. That was yellowish or golden IIRC. What if it's Odium's godmetal (Rayseium?) - analogue to shardblades and honorblades essentially being Honor's godmetal?

I personally don't think so.  The descriptions don't match although it could be an alloy.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Karger

[SomeRandomPeasant]

2 hours ago, Honorless said:

5) Urithiru's design

He ducked under a strange outcropping of stone in the hallway. Urithiru had numerous such oddities; this one was round, a stone tube crossing the center of the hallway. Perhaps it was ventilation? Why had it been put right where people walked?

Many other features of the tower defied logic. Hallways dead-ended. Rooms were discovered with no way in save tiny holes to peek through. Small shafts were discovered plummeting down thirty or more stories.

Those are rather strange. Maybe spren used those? I dunno

If I had to guess, these weird designs actually indicate that Urithiru was "alive" when the Sibling was active. 

We know Syl remembers Urithiru being full of lights back in the day.  In Navani's last chapter, she says that the tower can brace itself for a coming Highstorm. I think that this means that the Sibling used to be able to mold its internal structure to fit the needs of the Radiants.  "Dead-end" hallways could be opened by the Sibling, and rooms could be expanded or shrunk depending on the circumstances.  The current unchanging state of Urithiru is in is simply the result of the tower freezing up now that the Sibling is absent.

Urithiru is like an old rusty car that hasn't burned gas in years.  Urithiru is a corpse instead of an engine.

[Gilphon]

11 minutes ago, Karger said:

You are using circular reasoning based on a false premise.  It may block shardblades but we have a pretty clear indication that said metal is not aluminum.

I invite you to share your reasoning, then. What is this clear indication that the mysterious investiture-blocking metal that the Fused have large quantities of is not aluminium? Because from where I'm standing, it pretty obviously is. 

At the absolute minimum, last week's epigraph was certainly written with the intention of making us think she was talking about aluminium. 

Because the only thing I see is the 'Navani could ID aluminium' argument, and if that's all you have, well, I would suggest that you're the one reasoning from a false premise there. 

The Fourth Bridge, which uses Aluminium, was built after this lecture, using techniques learned from the Azish. The lecture which included a plea to the other nations to share techniques that she wasn't aware of. It is entirely reasonable to suppose that Navani knows more in the present than she did when giving this lecture.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Gilphon

[Karger]

21 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

I invite you to share your reasoning, then. What is this clear indication that the mysterious investiture-blocking metal that the Fused have large quantities of is not aluminium? Because from where I'm standing, it pretty obviously is. 

I agree that seems obvious but it is not confirmed.  Given how many people can recognize aluminum I would not base anything on that as an underlying assumption.

21 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

At the absolute minimum, last week's epigraph was certainly written with the intention of making us think she was talking about aluminium. 

Because the only thing I see is the 'Navani could ID aluminium' argument, and if that's all you have, well, I would suggest that you're the one reasoning from a false premise there. 

How about this(I just noticed).  Try reading back to back.

Quote

The simplest Fused weapon against us isn’t truly a fabrial, but instead a metal that is extremely light and can withstand the blows of a Shardblade. This metal resists being Soulcast as well; it interferes with a great number of Radiant powers.

Fortunately, the Fused seem unable to create it in great quantities—for they equip only themselves, and not their average soldiers, with these wonders.

The Fused have a second metal I find fascinating—a metal that conducts Stormlight. The implications for this in the creation of fabrials are astounding. The Fused use this metal in conjunction with a rudimentary fabrial—a simple gemstone, but without a spren trapped inside.

How they pull Stormlight out of a Radiant and into this sphere remains baffling. My scholars think they must be employing an Investiture differential. If a gemstone is full of Stormlight—or, I assume, Voidlight—and that Light is removed quickly, it creates a pressure differential (or a kind of vacuum) in the gemstone.

Seems pretty conclusive we are dealing with two unrelated metals.  If one is an alloy of the second then that should become apparent just by melting it.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Karger

[Solant]

Laral has kids. A "Young Avenger" style team-up in the back 5 with Lift, Oroden, Cord, Laral's kids, and Shallan/ Adolin's kid(s), and Gavinor is the adventure Novella I never knew I needed until now. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Solant
Added Gavinor. Thanks the Cheat.

[Nathrangking]

43 minutes ago, Weux082690 said:

Real world castles were often built with dead ends, secret passages, elevated entrances, and traps all as a way to confuse anyone trying to invade the castle.

My theory is that when Urithiru was alive, the walls and rooms could be rearranged for a similar purpose. Perhaps as the Sibling withdrew the tower got frozen in one of these unnatural configurations.

36 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

This is what probably makes the most sense, but I'm hoping that's not it; that there really is a practical reason for the Tower to be like that. Just because of amazing the pay-off for all these weird details would be if this was all how it was supposed to be.

This actually makes a lot of sense @Weux082690. Because Urithiru is a literal fortress and the seat of the Knights Radiant it would need advanced defenses to frustrate invaders. If the Sibling is like the brain of Urithiru then its going to sleep would result in what we have now. The dead ends could even serve other purposes like perhaps hiding rooms that a bondsmith or stoneward would be able to access, but not other KR. 

 

@Gilphon I agree that this explanation is a bit mundane. Though Brandon usually avoids simply mundane explanations, I feel as though this is the most logical conclusion to draw. Tactically this is a sound move and the KR might well have wanted to rely on more than simple brute force to repel an attack. Having the ground that they fight on be a giant defense mechanism would be an effective way of preventing large numbers of troops from taking the tower especially if you were few in number when the attack took place.

 

[SpeakoftheDeval]

Is it just me that was made really uncomfortable by the whole Jasnah unilaterally changing inheritance laws? 

 

I can believe it on the level of, you can theoretically change any law you want, it's not like you actually have a kingdom to rule at the moment and it just shows all the highprinces that this imperial project has failed and they're gonna need to resume sovereignty once alethkar is reconquered.

 

One of the things I really liked about roshar is how diverse it's cultures and how societal norms were being debated. In history, there were a lot of movements with various broadly egalitarian views- but that doesn't mean those movements, had they achieved power would have been able to enforce it on everyone else. Im a lot less excited about this state centric, Whiggish history of things can only ever get better and all you need is a ruler with a brain and boom society is Fixed. 

 

It feels kinda similar to the so called Rationalist Fanfictions like the one where Bella from Twilight uses Science to completely change global and vampire society in the name of Progress, disregarding the fact that the very fact it didnt happen means there were strong societal forces against it, or insulting all the characters  and the society that's been built by the author by saying that they simply hadn't thought about equality but now that someone Rational has come along and told them how good it is, they're going to completely change their society to fix it. 

 

With the extreme level of changes Jasnah is autocratically decreeing, I can't help but think that she's a terrible queen and will soon be sidelined, discrediting her policies for possibly centuries afterwards. Even Catherine the Great wasn't comfortable issuing such far ranging reforms and she's the model of the enlightened despot, and Alethkar doesnt have the absolutist tradition of Tsarist Russia. 

 

Perhaps a good real world parallel is Josephinism in the Austrian monarchy- you have an enlightened monarch who personally adheres to egalitarian views, who has a broad vision for radical societal changes that he is fundamentally sure will make life better overall. In attempting impose these views on everyone, disregarding the vested interests, the complex legal traditions, the privileges that people seek to retain, etc however, he alienated everyone and essentially created massive revolts out of nowhere that long term severely weakened his state and its position in central Europe. Jasnahs position is even less stable than Joseph's, the intellectual tradition behind her reforms is so much less developed than 18th century Habsburg lands,  and it is so incredibly unrealistic that everyone just goes Yes your majesty. 

 

And yeah I get that society is undergoing massive changes, but in times of crisis people tend to rally to the established order for some level of stability and societal changes are slow, each step is resisted by the established order and they require very broad bases of popular support. If jasnah can pull all of this off with just a bit of grumbling from the nobility, I just wouldn't be able to take any rosharan politics seriously. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by SpeakoftheDeval

[Greywatch]

@SpeakoftheDeval I mean, for me, the Kholins have already killed/been freed of many of their more powerful rivals within the kingdom. The nobles who are grumbling are only grumbling and nothing more because they already are missing the more powerful/bold people who would actually do more against the Kholins.

[Gilphon]

8 minutes ago, Karger said:

I agree that seems obvious but it is not confirmed.  Given how many people can recognize aluminum I would not base anything on that as an underlying assumption.

Not confirmed, sure. But what you've been doing is taking 'it's not aluminium' as underlying assumption, which given the obviousness we both just agreed is present, seems like a shaker idea. If you can find me some strong piece of evidence that it's not aluminium, I'd be willing to reconsider my stance, but I am, in fact, comfortable using that as a working assumption in the absence of such evidence.

And I would say that the conclusive thing is that they're two different metals- and hence we can probably be confident that the spears are not aluminium, despite the fact that that's probably the conclusion most us jumped to when we first saw them. Two unrelated metals is a stronger conclusion than I think we can conclusively state- she didn't specifically call out any of the other metals as alloys of each other, after all. Going into the chemical composition of metals that she doesn't have a name for is a bit beyond the scope of the lecture.

[Honorless]

42 minutes ago, SomeRandomPeasant said:

If I had to guess, these weird designs actually indicate that Urithiru was "alive" when the Sibling was active. 

We know Syl remembers Urithiru being full of lights back in the day.  In Navani's last chapter, she says that the tower can brace itself for a coming Highstorm. I think that this means that the Sibling used to be able to mold its internal structure to fit the needs of the Radiants.  "Dead-end" hallways could be opened by the Sibling, and rooms could be expanded or shrunk depending on the circumstances.  The current unchanging state of Urithiru is in is simply the result of the tower freezing up now that the Sibling is absent.

Urithiru is like an old rusty car that hasn't burned gas in years.  Urithiru is a corpse instead of an engine.

Huh, I'll put one more notch on the living Tower hypothesis then

[KidWayne]

4 minutes ago, SpeakoftheDeval said:

And yeah I get that society is undergoing massive changes, but in times of crisis people tend to rally to the established order for some level of stability and societal changes are slow, each step is resisted by the established order and they require very broad bases of popular support. If jasnah can pull all of this off with just a bit of grumbling from the nobility, I just wouldn't be able to take any rosharan politics seriously. 

OK, so not to derail the entire conversation, but I find this line of thought very provocative in a thoughtful kind of way. I also can't help but make real world parallels. Since you seem to be more in-the-know (historically speaking) than your average college graduate, what hope does the real world have in addressing it's existential problems (e.g. climate change, wealth inequality, resource depletion) if vested interests are so politically powerful? Does history ever show the vested interests getting sidelined for the greater good without something as paradigm-shattering as a world war?

[SpeakoftheDeval]

9 minutes ago, Greywatch said:

@SpeakoftheDeval I mean, for me, the Kholins have already killed/been freed of many of their more powerful rivals within the kingdom. The nobles who are grumbling are only grumbling and nothing more because they already are missing the more powerful/bold people who would actually do more against the Kholins.

And how many nobles would be considering switching to Odium? At least the Parshmen would let them keep their slaves, maintain their traditions and essentially what rudimentary political constitution they have, in terms of the vague sense of "proper behaviours and laws". What's the point of fighting for a queen who given her track record is set to erase any recognition that you're better than a darkeyes? From their perspective, she's using despotic authority with a fairly weak legal basis to reach down and destroy the very basis of a stable family, the patriarchy and society as a whole.

 

And it's not like collective action wouldn't be possible either, given most nobles are in or around the shattered plains/ urithiru. They could easily form a diet to limit royal authority even if theyre individually too small to secede. 

Edited November 3, 2020 by SpeakoftheDeval

[Greywatch]

3 minutes ago, SpeakoftheDeval said:

And how many nobles would be considering switching to Odium? At least the Parshmen would let them keep their slaves, maintain their traditions and essentially what rudimentary political constitution they have, in terms of the vague sense of "proper behaviours and laws". What's the point of fighting for a queen who given her track record is set to erase any recognition that you're better than a darkeyes? From their perspective, she's using despotic authority with a fairly weak legal basis to reach down and destroy the very basis of a stable family, the patriarchy and society as a whole.

 

And it's not like collective action wouldn't be possible either, given most nobles are in or around the shattered plains/ urithiru. They could easily form a diet to limit royal authority even if theyre individually too small to secede. 

Yeah, sure, it just seems like a strong reaction to something that we don't know how it's being played - and especially in light of how my strongest impression of the Alethi princedoms is how the people opposing the Kholins keep getting knocked off - strong social backlash doesn't necessarily ring true to me as the only reasonable option.

[SomeRandomPeasant]

20 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

@SpeakoftheDeval I mean, for me, the Kholins have already killed/been freed of many of their more powerful rivals within the kingdom. The nobles who are grumbling are only grumbling and nothing more because they already are missing the more powerful/bold people who would actually do more against the Kholins.

@Greywatch I don't think @SpeakoftheDeval was arguing that Jasnah couldn't get things done in the short term.  She probably could, just like how many autocrats have done so in the past.  Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Alexander the Great, Emperor Qi Shi Huang and so on made incredibly dramatic changes over the course of their rulerships.  The problem was, their changes didn't really last.  I think it is fair to say that if changes are going to be made, there do need to be dramatic consequences to making steep changes in Alethi society.  Even if you think the changes are good, Sanderson does need to show that changes can't happen overnight.

Edited November 3, 2020 by SomeRandomPeasant

[Karger]

8 minutes ago, SpeakoftheDeval said:

With the extreme level of changes Jasnah is autocratically decreeing, I can't help but think that she's a terrible queen and will soon be sidelined. Even Catherine the Great wasn't comfortable issuing such far ranging reforms and she's the model of the enlightened despot, and Alethkar doesnt have the absolutist tradition of Tsarist Russia. 

While I agree with your premise some of Jasnah's moves I think are less controversial then you might think.  Yes Alethkar does have incredibly well entrenched gender norms but even in other societies with the same you still had cases of, for example, female rulers.  Jasnah saying that competent woman can inherit land would probably be seen less as a progressive move then a concession to the fact that large numbers of landholding men are going to be killed and some already have been.  She has not freed slaves yet but given the confusion and the fact that singers will employ humans she can argue freeing slaves is another necessary concession.  It is not like she is getting rid of the entire rank system.

9 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

Not confirmed, sure. But what you've been doing is taking 'it's not aluminium' as underlying assumption, which given the obviousness we both just agreed is present, seems like a shaker idea. If you can find me some strong piece of evidence that it's not aluminium, I'd be willing to reconsider my stance, but I am, in fact, comfortable using that as a working assumption in the absence of such evidence.

If someone says aluminum spears then I will of course change my position.  However I find it odd that aluminum is being kept as a mystery.  What possible reason would Brandon have for not just saying it? 

12 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

And I would say that the conclusive thing is that they're two different metals- and hence we can probably be confident that the spears are not aluminium, despite the fact that that's probably the conclusion most us jumped to when we first saw them. Two unrelated metals is a stronger conclusion than I think we can conclusively state- she didn't specifically call out any of the other metals as alloys of each other, after all. Going into the chemical composition of metals that she doesn't have a name for is a bit beyond the scope of the lecture.

Agreed.  Lets go over what we know.  There are two different metals.  If they know that they must have captured and analyzed a spear well enough to ID both if they were familiar.  Since Navani does not state "scholars call this metal aluminum" I think it pretty conclusive that neither one is although I of course might have to admit I am wrong.  However Rosharans do know about aluminum.  Shallan's necklace for example.  The Azish could of course ID it as well.  Unrelated is a guess that I think probable but we will see.

6 minutes ago, KidWayne said:

Does history ever show the vested interests getting sidelined for the greater good without something as paradigm-shattering as a world war?

Not really.  Vested interests are called that for a reason.  You have some cases like the progressive movement in the early 20th but that took decades and was fueled by huge changes in the economic system.  Dito for the civil rights movements.