Wind and Truth Chapters 21 and 22 now available!

[The Sovereign]

2 minutes ago, CognitiveShadow said:

Meh. I think it's ok for people to be able to shoot from the hip with their theories. If it is outlandish and you can show that it's unfounded, then you just share the WoB's or other info that shows the theories are incorrect. We should encourage people to share all their ideas and thoughts. This at least gives us the opportunity to see theories that we never would have thought of or considered ourselves.

Oh, I agree with this mostly. The best way to expand knowledge is share ideas freely. And there is ALWAYS value in adding new perspectives. Either they will bring about new lines of thought or they will reinforce your beliefs; In either case there is merit. With that said, not every idea the pops up warrants exploration and when people "shoot from the hip" without any personal vetting of their ideas they dilute the things people are talking about. Spending time on poorly thought out or obviously and easily disproven theories takes away from the many many good and well thought out theories on here.  

1 minute ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Plus, insanity is fun to read (as long as people don't get super defensive over it)

There is this too. 

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

1 minute ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Plus, insanity is fun to read (as long as people don't get super defensive over it)

Agreed! I just had my theories shot down and I'm sad about it cause I was getting excited, but it's also not a big deal haha it's the only way we have a shot at uncovering the mysteries!

[agrabes]

On 10/16/2024 at 12:27 PM, The Sovereign said:

Haha, if pressed it would probably be Odium. Not to belittle people's ideas, but in general I think people need to ask themselves two simple questions before they dive down the rabbit hole of their theories; First, does this make sense logically? And second, is this too convoluted to be good storytelling? Not that Brandon can't get lost in the sauce like anyone else, but the way he outlines and plans typically makes anything too convoluted unlikely to be right. 

A couple of recent examples: The Stormfaker theories just break down in the faces of logic and storytelling. On the hand, the Chanarach is Shallan's mother and is the Herald who broke this time around theories make sense both narratively and logically.

I don't really think "Stormfaker" is the best example of the way out there theories we've seen here.  It did actually make a lot of sense stylistically - and it was obvious something was wrong with how the Stormfather was behaving so it made sense to talk about it.  What didn't make a lot of sense was people trying to get super deep into figuring out precisely who it was or could have been and how they did it based on a lot of weird ideas they had about various capabilities of different characters and how they can speak in someone's head.  If Sanderson wanted someone to be able to fake like they were the Stormfather, there are a million ways he could have done it - he wouldn't need to limit himself to the precise ways of "head-talking" that fans think are available.  Having a "Stormfaker" being a previously unknown character or a character we know little about also could have happened very easily.  The whole idea fit with common Sanderson themes (our heroes are being misled similar to the Ruin/Preservation dynamic with false/edited prophecies being strategically placed to make our heroes do the wrong thing, etc).  You read that prologue and think "Something's not right here. What's going on with the Stormfather?" and it makes perfect narrative and logical sense to think that something magical could be going on including someone potentially impersonating or otherwise influencing him.  That said, we know the theory was wrong at this point.  But it definitely felt like it could have fit with how erratic the Stormfather was acting in the SA5 prologue. 

Honestly, while the Chanarach theory might be correct (and I understand it's seeming more likely these days that it is correct), I think it's way more crackpot than Stormfaker.  There's no real reason to suspect that Shallan's mother is/was Chanarach, it all started as someone digging into minor details and doing a huge amount of speculation and drawing a bunch of unsupported conclusions.  And, add in a bunch of also wild speculation regarding things like Shallan's shardblade, etc that are lumped in with the theory and just don't seem to be rooted in any kind of logic, and it just gets too out there for me.  If your only goal is to say "Is there anything in the book that says this couldn't possibly have happened" then sure, it passes the logic test.  But if your goal is to say "Is there any reason to think that Shallan's mother was a herald?" then no, it does not pass the logic test.  To get there logically you have to take three premises: 1) Taln didn't break (Solid/Reasonable) 2) The fused must have been released because another herald died, went to Braise, and broke (Shaky - Other plausible reasons that the desolation started could have been a general weakening of the Oathpact over time due to 9 of the heralds breaking their obligations for 4000 years, or a herald finding themself in Braise or otherwise captured by the forces of Odium by other means such as their experimentations with Gavilar) and 3) The herald that died must have died on screen (Extremely shaky - assumes 2 must have been true and also that we had to see the death on screen).  That would get you searching for on screen deaths in mysterious circumstances, and then Shallan's mother becomes the best fit.  It feels bad logically, and worse narratively for me.  Why shoehorn a herald into Shallan's childhood?  Feels bad - the story of her childhood trauma is such a great story as a purely human tragedy.  Why ruin it?

Anyway, TL;DR I'll take 10 Stormfaker-style theories where noticeably unusual things are happening on the page and people are throwing out ideas about why that is over a Chanarach-style theory where someone is microanalyzing WOBs and trying to pull meaning out of every comma placement.  Stormfaker is fun even though it's wrong, Chanarach (if it does prove correct) is going to inspire more over analyzing and basically making up meanings that just don't exist (even if they actually turn out to be right 1 in 100 times).  It's always fun to see what other people are thinking, but the Chanarach-style theories just are not for me.

[Wyndle88 he/him]

On 10/15/2024 at 2:02 AM, Shacharma said:

Interesting that Night fled and was replaced by the Nightwatcher -Sja Anat? Midnight mother?

 

I saw something interesting while re-reading random pages of RoW as posted below:

Sja-Anat mentions wanting to see the cousin (Sibling) and awaken them in RoW interlude. Her form is black smoke with pure white eyes....full moon on a dark night?

Also Sja-Anat herself wonders even though she might not be as 'clever' as other unmade like BAM, she considers herself to me one of the most intelligent Unmade.

Also she is the mother of 'lesser sprens'...

The 3 Old Magic gods were supposed to be of Wind, Stone and Spren. 

Maybe Cultivation created Nightwatcher to be entirely different and alien to human imagination so that she is not affected by human perceptions of spren which was what happened to the original 'Night' Old Magic god.

 

 

[StanLemon]

17 hours ago, agrabes said:

I don't really think "Stormfaker" is the best example of the way out there theories we've seen here.  It did actually make a lot of sense stylistically - and it was obvious something was wrong with how the Stormfather was behaving so it made sense to talk about it.  What didn't make a lot of sense was people trying to get super deep into figuring out precisely who it was or could have been and how they did it based on a lot of weird ideas they had about various capabilities of different characters and how they can speak in someone's head.  If Sanderson wanted someone to be able to fake like they were the Stormfather, there are a million ways he could have done it - he wouldn't need to limit himself to the precise ways of "head-talking" that fans think are available.  Having a "Stormfaker" being a previously unknown character or a character we know little about also could have happened very easily.  The whole idea fit with common Sanderson themes (our heroes are being misled similar to the Ruin/Preservation dynamic with false/edited prophecies being strategically placed to make our heroes do the wrong thing, etc).  You read that prologue and think "Something's not right here. What's going on with the Stormfather?" and it makes perfect narrative and logical sense to think that something magical could be going on including someone potentially impersonating or otherwise influencing him.  That said, we know the theory was wrong at this point.  But it definitely felt like it could have fit with how erratic the Stormfather was acting in the SA5 prologue. 

Honestly, while the Chanarach theory might be correct (and I understand it's seeming more likely these days that it is correct), I think it's way more crackpot than Stormfaker.  There's no real reason to suspect that Shallan's mother is/was Chanarach, it all started as someone digging into minor details and doing a huge amount of speculation and drawing a bunch of unsupported conclusions.  And, add in a bunch of also wild speculation regarding things like Shallan's shardblade, etc that are lumped in with the theory and just don't seem to be rooted in any kind of logic, and it just gets too out there for me.  If your only goal is to say "Is there anything in the book that says this couldn't possibly have happened" then sure, it passes the logic test.  But if your goal is to say "Is there any reason to think that Shallan's mother was a herald?" then no, it does not pass the logic test.  To get there logically you have to take three premises: 1) Taln didn't break (Solid/Reasonable) 2) The fused must have been released because another herald died, went to Braise, and broke (Shaky - Other plausible reasons that the desolation started could have been a general weakening of the Oathpact over time due to 9 of the heralds breaking their obligations for 4000 years, or a herald finding themself in Braise or otherwise captured by the forces of Odium by other means such as their experimentations with Gavilar) and 3) The herald that died must have died on screen (Extremely shaky - assumes 2 must have been true and also that we had to see the death on screen).  That would get you searching for on screen deaths in mysterious circumstances, and then Shallan's mother becomes the best fit.  It feels bad logically, and worse narratively for me.  Why shoehorn a herald into Shallan's childhood?  Feels bad - the story of her childhood trauma is such a great story as a purely human tragedy.  Why ruin it?

Anyway, TL;DR I'll take 10 Stormfaker-style theories where noticeably unusual things are happening on the page and people are throwing out ideas about why that is over a Chanarach-style theory where someone is microanalyzing WOBs and trying to pull meaning out of every comma placement.  Stormfaker is fun even though it's wrong, Chanarach (if it does prove correct) is going to inspire more over analyzing and basically making up meanings that just don't exist (even if they actually turn out to be right 1 in 100 times).  It's always fun to see what other people are thinking, but the Chanarach-style theories just are not for me.

Chanarach being Shallan's mom isn't anywhere near the stretch you seem to think it is. Stormfaker was always a bigger stretch. The really crazy one to me is the "Shallan is Chanarach" but people have reasons to believe it even if it seems like the single biggest stretch of all the book 5 theories. But the more that's been revealed the more Chanarach being Shallan's mother becomes plausible. For your three premises, let's break them down. The first, we know Taln didn't break, Brandon has outright confirmed that. The second is a bit harder, based on the confirmed aspects of the story, another Herald dying and then breaking on Braize is perfectly reasonable as we know that a Herald has died about a decade before the Fuzed were released, and we know that the Oathpact still exists. The more logical answer is that a Herald broke and let the Fuzed free as that's the known mechanism rather than Odium just finding a way around it. So, not shaky at all. Lastly, you're right that it doesn't necessarily mean the Herald needed to die on screen, but there are multiple narrative reasons that point to Shallan's mother being likely. First, her death WAS onscreen, or as much as her flashback could indicate. Second, Shallan's mother died relatively near the time that we know a Herald died even if we don't know the exact time. Sure, you might not like the Chanarach theories, but it's not like they don't have ample reason to believe it.

Edited October 18, 2024 by StanLemon

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

25 minutes ago, StanLemon said:

Chanarach being Shallan's mom isn't anywhere near the stretch you seem to think it is. Stormfaker was always a bigger stretch. The really crazy one to me is the "Shallan is Chanarach" but people have reasons to believe it even if it seems like the single biggest stretch of all the book 5 theories. But the more that's been revealed the more Chanarach being Shallan's mother becomes plausible.

Agree with all of this! Also, I just randomly was reading WoR as a re-read leading up to 12/6. I found an interesting line here by Navani when she finally talks to Shallan about Jasnah's work. Quote is below, Navani talking about her relationship with Jasnah..

Quote

"Chana knows I wondered sometimes how I raised that child without strangling her."

Feels like a solid nod towards the reverse - Shallan killing Chana. There's something poetic here about Shallan's future mother-in-law making this comment during their first genuine interaction with each other. Particularly if the Chana Davar theory plays out as we expect it to.

[Etedbert he/him]

19 hours ago, agrabes said:

Anyway, TL;DR I'll take 10 Stormfaker-style theories where noticeably unusual things are happening on the page and people are throwing out ideas about why that is

My main issue with Stormfaker, is just that all those unusual things were easily explained as it being a rough draft. All the weird language was just because it hadn’t gone through the suite of editing yet. As soon as the finished prologue was released, it killed the theory for me.

My other thought was that if Stormfaker was real, it wouldn’t have any real bearing on the plot. Ishar goes “Oh yeah btw I pretended to be the SF with Gavilar but then he died and I stopped doing that” ? What does that add or change for our characters? But if we find out the SF had a budding bond with Gavilar, and that his failure there led him to hide key details from Dalinar? That sets up much more interesting story beats.
Stormfaker always just seemed like people reading too much into a rough draft, when taking at it’s stated truth would make a more interesting plot anyways

[KaladinWorldsinger]

19 hours ago, Etedbert said:

My main issue with Stormfaker, is just that all those unusual things were easily explained as it being a rough draft. All the weird language was just because it hadn’t gone through the suite of editing yet. As soon as the finished prologue was released, it killed the theory for me.

My other thought was that if Stormfaker was real, it wouldn’t have any real bearing on the plot. Ishar goes “Oh yeah btw I pretended to be the SF with Gavilar but then he died and I stopped doing that” ? What does that add or change for our characters? But if we find out the SF had a budding bond with Gavilar, and that his failure there led him to hide key details from Dalinar? That sets up much more interesting story beats.
Stormfaker always just seemed like people reading too much into a rough draft, when taking at it’s stated truth would make a more interesting plot anyways

To me it felt like setting up that Ishar could 'hijack' the bond at a crucial moment, and Dalinar would not know that he was talking to Ishar not the stormfather

 

[Etedbert he/him]

On 10/19/2024 at 1:58 PM, KaladinWorldsinger said:

To me it felt like setting up that Ishar could 'hijack' the bond at a crucial moment, and Dalinar would not know that he was talking to Ishar not the stormfather

 

Except in RoW, we saw him attempt to hijack the bond from Dalinar’s side, and he had to touch him to do so. Why would he need to make contact to form/hijack a bond in one instance, but in the other, forming/hijacking the bond from the SF’s side when talking to Gavilar, he could do so from across a continent?

I could see an argument that says “Oh well he’s connected to the SF through the Oathpact (SF also being Tanavast’s cognitive shadow) and went through that connection to the SF, to alter the SF’s connection to Gavilar.

This raises a question about Bondsmith’s abilities. Can they follow a chain of connections to then alter a different connection down the line from a distance? That would be bonkers.
E.g. Dalinar is from Alethkar, and as such has a connection to it. Amaram (pre-death, lol) is also from Alethkar and has a connection to it. Amaram also has a connection to Kalak through the oaths made as sons of honor. Could Dalinar theoretically follow the connection of Dalinar->Alethkar->Amaram->Kalak, and then forge connections between himself and Kalak?? It certainly doesn’t seem like that level of spiritual jumping is in the purview of bondsmiths. The closest we see, is Dalinar connecting to people who are in a highstorm via his connection to the SF. But he still requires the people to be in a storm to jump that connection gap, and he’s not connecting himself to them, he’s asking the Stormfather to connect to them and pull them into the SR. Stormfaker asserts that Ishar is capable of jumping basically any gap he wants to form connections as he sees fit, and if that’s the case why wouldn’t he steal Dalinar’s bond to the SF from miles away?

[KaladinWorldsinger]

10 hours ago, Etedbert said:

Except in RoW, we saw him attempt to hijack the bond from Dalinar’s side, and he had to touch him to do so. Why would he need to make contact to form/hijack a bond in one instance, but in the other, forming/hijacking the bond from the SF’s side when talking to Gavilar, he could do so from across a continent?

I could see an argument that says “Oh well he’s connected to the SF through the Oathpact (SF also being Tanavast’s cognitive shadow) and went through that connection to the SF, to alter the SF’s connection to Gavilar.

This raises a question about Bondsmith’s abilities. Can they follow a chain of connections to then alter a different connection down the line from a distance? That would be bonkers.
E.g. Dalinar is from Alethkar, and as such has a connection to it. Amaram (pre-death, lol) is also from Alethkar and has a connection to it. Amaram also has a connection to Kalak through the oaths made as sons of honor. Could Dalinar theoretically follow the connection of Dalinar->Alethkar->Amaram->Kalak, and then forge connections between himself and Kalak?? It certainly doesn’t seem like that level of spiritual jumping is in the purview of bondsmiths. The closest we see, is Dalinar connecting to people who are in a highstorm via his connection to the SF. But he still requires the people to be in a storm to jump that connection gap, and he’s not connecting himself to them, he’s asking the Stormfather to connect to them and pull them into the SR. Stormfaker asserts that Ishar is capable of jumping basically any gap he wants to form connections as he sees fit, and if that’s the case why wouldn’t he steal Dalinar’s bond to the SF from miles away?

Well if touching Dalinar ( getting a connection to Dalinar) is enough to manipulate Dalinar's Bond, then i can see Ishar having a connection to SF and being able to hijack his mind. 

Stealing Dalinar's Bond is one step past Ishar, but replacing SF for a few seconds is a direct step. 

Since it is a human taking action (swearing an oath) to bond a spren, and the spren probably can't break the bond easily if the human is fully following his paths, it would be easier for Ishar to break the bonds from his side.

If you remember, Dalinar almost forced(outright demands) SF into the bond, even though SF was very unwilling. Almost like if Dalinar is sincere enough, SF has to accept those words.

[agrabes]

On 10/18/2024 at 6:23 PM, Etedbert said:

My main issue with Stormfaker, is just that all those unusual things were easily explained as it being a rough draft. All the weird language was just because it hadn’t gone through the suite of editing yet. As soon as the finished prologue was released, it killed the theory for me.

My other thought was that if Stormfaker was real, it wouldn’t have any real bearing on the plot. Ishar goes “Oh yeah btw I pretended to be the SF with Gavilar but then he died and I stopped doing that” ? What does that add or change for our characters? But if we find out the SF had a budding bond with Gavilar, and that his failure there led him to hide key details from Dalinar? That sets up much more interesting story beats.
Stormfaker always just seemed like people reading too much into a rough draft, when taking at it’s stated truth would make a more interesting plot anyways

Definitely a fair take - and I do agree that everything stemming from the Stormfather kind of having trauma from Gavilar is a cool idea.

My personal thought on "Stormfaker" was that it might have been a totally new player - setting up something for the plot of the back 5 Stormlight Archive novels.  Like, this prologue is the first hints to us that there's a third party involved here who has been manipulating events and tricking our heroes and even Gavilar.  I was definitely not on team "It's Ishar" because that seems really boring.

I'm still wondering what the plot will be for the "Back 5" and how WaT will resolve the story but also leave enough left that there will be a reason to come back from SA6.  But - I think we can be pretty sure it's not "Stormfaker."