[OB] Full Book Reactions / Full Spoilers Thread

[Shards of Mist he/him]

11 hours ago, Harbour said:

 

Shallan's reaction to Adolin:

Shallan's reaction to Kaladin, couple minutes later:

Adolin let her be weak. Kaladin makes her strong.

 

Adolin lets her be her.  He doesn't need or want her to be anything else.  

 

That's everyone's reaction to Kaladin.  It's not Shallan specific.  It's what Kaladin is.  Sure he's a protector, but even more than that, he's a leader.  He inspires others to be better than they were.  This will be IMO where his next Ideals will go.

[IndigoAjah he/him]

16 minutes ago, Shards of Mist said:

So...  seeing the future is of Odium....  but has Sja-anat corrupted that?  How else would Kaladin's vision lead them to exactly where they needed to be.  How else would Renarin be wrong about Jasnah killing him?

Mr. T joined Odium supposedly, yet didn't tell him about the part of the future Odium could no longer see due to Renarin, so maybe he didn't really?  I'm interested to see how this plays out.  Odium believes he can see the future, but can't see the part that was influenced by Renarin/Sja-Anat?  That will be interesting.

 

 

It's also of Cultivation? No?

[Darvys]

15 minutes ago, Shards of Mist said:

Adolin lets her be her.  He doesn't need or want her to be anything else.  

That's everyone's reaction to Kaladin.  It's not Shallan specific.  It's what Kaladin is.  Sure he's a protector, but even more than that, he's a leader.  He inspires others to be better than they were.  This will be IMO where his next Ideals will go.

The interpretation is wrong, that bit was clearly showcasing Veil taking over, had nothind to do with Kaladin's effect on people.

[Marethyu316]

2 hours ago, IndigoAjah said:

The HSQ is getting high now and with so many Worldhoppers about and Saze's reply to Hoid, I think we are gonna see some proper cross-planet stuff maybe as early as book 5

Is it confirmed that Sazed wrote that letter? I thought it might have been, but is there a WoB or something obvious in the text that I should have noticed.

[IndigoAjah he/him]

2 minutes ago, Marethyu316 said:

Is it confirmed that Sazed wrote that letter? I thought it might have been, but is there a WoB or something obvious in the text that I should have noticed.

It uses his catchphrase, refers to his servants, refers to 2 intents and being new to godhood. It doesn't need a WOB, IMO, it's beyond all reasonable doubt, I think

[Marethyu316]

1 minute ago, IndigoAjah said:

It uses his catchphrase, refers to his servants, refers to 2 intents and being new to godhood. It doesn't need a WOB, IMO, it's beyond all reasonable doubt, I think

Those are what I noticed too. I agree that those definitely point at him; I just wondered if I'd missed anything else, since I just finished the book and haven't had time to read many reactions yet.

Edit: I think I missed the "new to godhead" part...that is even more obvious.

Edited November 15, 2017 by Marethyu316

[Ryshadium she/her]

It was obviously Sazed to me. This part made it abundantly clear:

Quote

I am finding that the powers I hold are in such conflict that the most simple of actions can be difficult.

No other Shardholder we know of holds two opposing powers. 

[Seonid he/him]

3 hours ago, IndigoAjah said:

The HSQ is getting high now and with so many Worldhoppers about and Saze's reply to Hoid, I think we are gonna see some proper cross-planet stuff maybe as early as book 5

This might be a stupid question,  but what is an HSQ?

[Dahak he/him]

20 hours ago, asterion137 said:

• Huh Eshonai's dead. I wonder if she's a next generation fused or something since her book is still coming right?

We were told Brandon doesn't feel it necessary for a flashback character to be alive in the book they have flashbacks.

[IndigoAjah he/him]

Just now, Dahak said:

We were told Brandon doesn't feel it necessary for a flashback character to be alive in the book they have flashbacks.

Let's have Eshonai go full Secret History on us

[Ryshadium she/her]

I’m not really sure how much I care to read an Eshonai book at this juncture. 

[Bridge Boy]

4 minutes ago, Ryshadium said:

I’m not really sure how much I care to read an Eshonai book at this juncture. 

Pretty sure it would be a Venli book with Eshonai flashbacks. However this is pure speculation. 

[Tarion]

So I spent pretty much all of Part V utterly blown away. A few things stood out though.

Taln's reaction to what the others did was beautiful. He's not upset about 4,500 years of torture. He's happy because of what it bought humanity. And considering what we found out about the Oathpact, I'm even more impressed - Other Heralds, even with the ability to split pain between them, couldn't last a year at the end. He survived it for four and a half millenia. Sure, he's a mess right now, but I'm confident he's going to recover a fair bit. 

Adolin and his shardblade. I'm so happy that she seems to be doing better.

Szeth choosing Dalinar as his anchor. Honestly, it was pretty poor timing (although he didn't know it), but you can definitely do worse than following Dalinar. 

1 hour ago, IndigoAjah said:

It's also of Cultivation? No?

Cultivation can definitely do it, but I don't think we have any evidence of her granting that ability to anyone else. And she demonstrated the ability wonderfully in this book, outplaying Odium, tricking him and trapping him in an agreement. 

There's a Truthwatcher gem that mentions foresight, but they don't seem to be very open about it.

Don’t tell anyone. I can’t say it. I must whisper. I foresaw this. —From drawer 30-20, a particularly small emerald

Emeralds being the gem associated with Pali, the patron of the Truthwatchers (Also the gem used in the epigraph that talks about "fellow Truthwatchers"). 

[Elena she/her]

I had all those plans of reading slowly and making the book last, but alas. Agree with those who say it's Brandon's best book - it has a wonderful balance of plot, characters, mythology and character development. I found it incredibly emotionally rewarding; and i loved all the dynamics explored. If I had to pick a favourite arc it would be Kholinar, though reading about Elhokar was really rough - he's probably my favourite minor character and his death was pretty much the only thing I was praying wouldn't happen that ended up happening *cue shocked and sad reactions*. Kaladin really needs to look after that kid since the entire Kholin clan apparently just forgot.

All in all I'm just really, really satisfied. And I can feel the withdrawal coming up already.

[CodeMnke she/her]

Oh man that was an emotional roller coaster.

Elokhar holding his son and trying to say the oaths, then .... Moash

Shallan .... just all over the board, wit, trying to help and failing, repeatedly

That moment when you realize Renerian has bonded a voidspren

And being absolutely terrified we had lost Dalinar, vision of him as champion ....no no no...

And then, Dalinar!

Maya!

and so many more  it those are the ones that stand out after just finishing. Man that was an amazing story! 

[lordofsoup]

Really surprised that the Heralds know Midius by name.

 

Now that he is a soul caster.  Does this mean that he no longer needs to ride perpendicularities to access the Cognitive realm?  

 

Im also surprised that Odium seems to have far less control of his practicioners than Ruin did.

Edited November 16, 2017 by lordofsoup

[CaptainRyan he/him]

2 hours ago, IndigoAjah said:

It's a TV Trope term, Holy Sh*t Quotient-

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HolyShitQuotient

 

This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules. (jk)

[alercah]

Did Hoid namedrop Wisdom as a shard?

[Ryshadium she/her]

20 minutes ago, alercah said:

Did Hoid namedrop Wisdom as a shard?

I have been going back and forth on this in my head. I can’t tell, but it would make sense as a Shard intent.

[Pattern he/him]

9 hours ago, CaptainRyan said:

The Intents of the Shards, as far as I am aware, are set. Now, if Dalinar is a powerful splinter of Honor (which I think is what he has become) then Dalinar can do quite a bit more in terms of "Intent". 

Normally, the Intent of a Shard is fixed. The problem I see with Honor is that he has been splintered for about two millennia and his spren have gained self-awareness. While Honor was alive, all his Splinters (Spren) were still Honor. After his death, those splinters became independent. The Stormfather is a merging of the old Stormspren with the largest chunk of Honor's Investiture. Some spren on Roshar are a mixture of Honor and Cultivation. It all is quite blurred.

Every new Vessel can filter the Intent of a Shard differently from others. So Dalinar could have ascended to Honor, interpreting it quite differently from Tanavast and call himself Unity, while being Honor in truth. Upon rereading the passage, I came to doubt that Dalinar ascended in the HoA sense at all. Dalinar says a lot of words which each could be interpreted as another Bondsmith oath:

- I will take responsibility for what I have done.
- If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.
- You cannot have my pain!
- I am Unity.

The surprised Stormfather answers with "These words ... are accepted. How? What have you done?"

Dalinar has sworn his third oath as Bondsmith, perhaps he stumbled over more than one oath. It might be that what we see him doing is just what a Bondsmith having bonded a splinter of Honor (together with the Stormfather) is able to do, in combination with the (now almost usual) burst of power after swearing a new oath: Connect the realms for a certain time and therefore summoning Honor's Perpendicularity. Afterwards, Dalinar is "normal" again, as far as "normal" can be used with Dalinar. When Vin or Sazed ascended, even Rashek, the effects were much larger. What Odium sees as Honor then would be the splinter of Honor in the Stormfather, manifested temporarily in Dalinar while he surgebinds.

And with this power of surgebinding one comes to understand how it could be possible that the old surgebinders accidentally destroyed their world (with dawnshards being the weapons used).

[Leyrann]

4 hours ago, CodeMnke said:

And being absolutely terrified we had lost Dalinar

This sums up the book for me, to be honest. That was an extremely scary moment, and it made what came after only more glorious. (and the hundreds of gloryspren didn't hurt either for that)

[Ramza1890]

So the third Bondsmith spren, the one that is slumbering, Urithiru?

Also, just checked Brandon's website and just FYI there is still no progress bar for book 4... 

[Leyrann]

1 minute ago, Ramza1890 said:

So the third Bondsmith spren, the one that is slumbering, Urithiru?

Also, just checked Brandon's website and just FYI there is still no progress bar for book 4... 

NOOOOOO BRANDON! WHY ARE YOU MAKING US WAIIIIIIT?

[Sparks]

1) We need more Szeth and Lift. They can have a whole ongoing buddy series in small print, like Edgedancer, as far as I'm concerned.

2) Nightblood is the best.  For any Destiny 2 players out there, do you hear Nightblood in Failsafe's voice? Because I do.

3) Poor Elhokar.  Just when he starts to understand and change into a better man.....

4) A while back, I advanced the theory that Kaladin was going to be chosen as Odium's champion, because I thought his severe depression was actually an ongoing corruption from one of the Unmade.   Oops, wrong Radiant!

5) I kinda feel like Warbreaker is getting its sequel worked into the Stormlight Archives already!

6) Mayalaran. That's going to be an awesome scene where she is revived.  And I'm interested if Adolin/Maya can form a different kind of partnership - something new between men and spren - if Adolin's soul truly isn't broken. 

7) I did not see Venli's redemption arc coming. At all!

8) Random speculation: what would happen if you Splintered Odium and then captured the pieces in perfect gemhearts?  What are the Ghostbloods' goals? What are Vasher/Nightblood doing on Roshar in the first place?    Will the plan be to create a new and better Oathpact? 

[Ryshadium she/her]

I made a separate post, but it was suggested to discuss here. So... the interludes in this book flummoxed me and I would be curious what others thought of them. I had a hard time connecting most of them to anything relevant overall, but I’m certain I’m missing something.