Unofficial Theory Index: A List

[Chaos he/him]

Holy REDACTED the index looks incredible. Storms, man. Nice job.

[Tempus]

Thanks! Still have the Stormlight Archive and Radiance boards to cover, but it's feeling pretty awesome at the moment. 

[Chaos he/him]

Thanks! Still have the Stormlight Archive and Radiance boards to cover, but it's feeling pretty awesome at the moment.

The formatting alone is spectacular. I'm kind of in awe, to be totally honest.

[Kurkistan he/him]

Question: Why is Nepene's Collective Unconsciousness thread listed as "Proven"?

[Tempus]

Looks like an error Kurk, I see at least one more there too. Proven/disproven is difficult to measure, sometimes the core point is one or the other, and the side points are not, or vice versa. perhaps I should remove that measure all together

[Chaos he/him]

I would say you should leave proven and disproven in, but only use it when it is very clearly proven, or very clearly disproven.

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Ah, I see that my 'Shardic Vision' Theory is on the list. Would you mind removing it? After I posted that, Kurk showed me the Shardic future sight Theory, which is much better than my little paragraph. Also, could you add on my Shattering of Adonalsium timing Theory? I want to see my grade on that one.

[Tempus]

Okay, Joe, removed that one. I'm not adding the other one to the list yet, but I can run my script for you. It got a total of 44.41 points - 12.76 for length, 21.78 for supporting quotes, and 9.86 for formatting. That puts you in Gold with room to spare. Remember, these are just measures of craft, not plausibility. It's not a reflection of how likely the theory is, or whether I like it or anything, it's how well put together the theory is.

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

Thank you Tempus. I'm glad to Know it's well written. I'll use that as my Template from now on.

[Tempus]

Sorry about the lack of updates! I finally finished and formatted the entirety of the Stormlight Archive boards. 1000+ posts read (I'd read almost none of these before, so I had to read nearly all of them!), and 383 theories extracted and sorted. Phew. One thing...

 

It's HERALDS, not HAROLDS. Yeesh. And not every character is one, and no, they are not Returned from Warbreaker, or Vin, or Elend. And Shash is just a word.

 

Okay, back to cool things! I saw Kurkistan's first post! On comparing WoK and the Fall of Troy. Was wondering where his first post was, and now I know! I also saw a lot of major theorists show up - Argent, Moogle, Telcontar, Shardlet, Isomere, Nepene, Kurkistan and Lightflame all saw huge boosts in the Stormlight boards. It's also notable who didn't have boosts - Chaos, myself, Phantom Monstrosity, Satsuoni, Outis, KChan, and others are nearly entirely absent from those boards.

 

Hall of Fame has been updated and tabulated as well. Overall, many more people were added - 62 people on the overall list at this point. Kurk saw a huge boost, to take the front lead on the Overall rankings. Skaa, Windrunner and Chaos take the other top slots. Lightflame has moved up as well, through sheer volume, to kick me out of fifth place. Moogle, Telcontar, and Shardlet made huge hops to reach the top ten as well.

 

On the Prolific board, we can see similar results - Kurk takes first. Windrunner pushes past Skaa, and Lightflame, Shardlet, Isomere jump up. Swimmingly and ReaderAt2046 gain big jumps as well, they're known short theorists (they only write a short, usually unquoted paragraph). The Quality boards see some big changes. Telcontar jumps straight to the top with his limited number of generally well written theories. Kurk also moves up - his Stormlight theories being a little more developed than his average theories, apparently. Nepene moves up the list a little as well, as does Moogle. The Count comes in as a new low quantity / high quality theorist, to sit near Mad_Scientist, Odium's Shard, Nepene and Telcontar. We also see new additions with FeatherWriter finally making it up there, Bloodfalcon, Shardlet, and Natans. Chaos and Satsuoni both take small dips.

 

This lets me begin to fill out the Roshar specialists board as well. It now features Skaa, Telcontar, Kurk, Shardlet, Aether, Odium's Shard, Isomere, and Moogle. There are another 14 people just on the cusp of making that list as well: Meg, Aspren, CheeseNinja, Elwynn, Nepene, Lightflame, cem, zas768, Shardbearer, Bloodfalcon, Argent, Leuthie, Windrunner, and Natans. Because the specialists are a function of relative quality and activity and based on size of discussions, I expect there to be about 12-18 people on this list by the end of the WoR boards. Those who were active for only a short time will probably drop off or not make it on, while others who have been more active should see the light of day there.

 

Next up is Words of Radiance boards. That should be... exciting? Stormlight was a little dull, the theory density is same level as Mistborn (35% ish, compared to Cosmere's 60%), and the theory quality was slightly lower than norm as well. Incidentally, stats pages were updated. Lots of Gold theories, it saw a 5 point increase. Silvers, Bronzes saw a decrease, Normal gained one point, and Crude saw a two point increase. So a bit of a polarizing board. Roshar theories now take up 40% of all theories - and we still have 1300 WoR threads to go through. People like Stormlight!

 

Stormlight boards also saw a ten point drop in Realmatic based theories, a 4 point increase in Character theories, a 4 point increase in World theories, and a 2 point increase in Plot theories. I find this strange, as Roshar has some of the most loaded and mysterious Realmatics yet. I guess it's simply because of such a large cast and such a slow developing plot, as opposed to other series that tend to wrap things up nicelyish each book (probably due to unstable publishing deals). Topic variety has also increased - very few topics saw multiple discussions. Part of this is the fault of my script, which spreads out topics much more. This will probably change as I refine the topic system with a tree-like structure and multiple weightings that the script has generated.

 

Long post, but that's all for today!

[Chaos he/him]

A lot of the things on these lists seem like they are not theories, and probably shouldn't be counted. I dunno. Topics =/= theories.

[Tempus]

I don't disagree Chaos. It's a matter of "Where do you draw the line? What qualifies as a theory?". After looking over many instances, I reviewed my overall goals and noted some important aspects.

 

My overall goals with the Index are:

 

• To make a sortable catalog of theories, which makes reading and locating existing theories significantly easier to do.
• To promote Theory crafting in general (through convenience and exposure, in this case).
• To inspire new theories that build off the old ones.

 

Looking at the posts out there, some are long, and good, and well written. Others are really bad. Some point out very interesting facts, or unique things. Others rehash general knowledge. Given my three goals, I decided I couldn't eliminate things ENTIRELY based off length or formulation, because there are some really short one paragraphers that are very insightful, and some really long ones that are bunk. So, I invented the tagging system to help sort for objective quality, and positioned myself for the Index to be as fair and complete a representation as possible.

 

 

The criterion for a theory ended up as follows:

 

• A theory must have at least one assertion that is not available directly from the texts, or from Word of Brandon.
• A theory must have an assertion to question ratio of 2:1 (ie, the person is making a point, not asking questions).
• A theory must be unable to be proven at the time of posting.

 

 

That's the bottom line for what makes it in, and what doesn't. That said, I do try eliminate some of the extremely stupid ones ("Vin is not dead and is a Herald. Discuss"). I can't really be picky about what makes it in and what doesn't - it compromises the objectivity of the Index a bit, and I make mistakes as it is. If there are specific threads you really feel should not be theories, I can take a look and consider removing them. Certainly I've already removed a couple I included originally due to this.

 

Instead, though, I want to tie this into my next project on theories - a Theory Hub. Unlike the Index, the Hub is not concerned about objectivity as much as it is about approachability and plausibility. I intend for it to be an easy summary read of major topics and the leading theories on them, as well as plausible or otherwise notable alternatives. Not a big giant list, but a series of short paragraphs and lists. The two systems should then balance each other - The Index will yield ALL theories, good or bad, for a comprehensive in-depth look and catalog. The Hub will yield the IMPORTANT theories, in a shortened form, to help introduce people to the theories, to lead them back to extremely relevant information, and to give a solid overview of the state of theory crafting. This'll probably tie right in with your Featured Theories section you are planning.

 

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tl:dr;

 

The Theory Index intends to be objective and comprehensive, so I cannot simply eliminate theories based on how I feel about them. I do intend to make another thing later, that intends to be digestible and focused, the Theory Hub, to highlight, display, present and summarize theories that matter.