akintu

Another spin on Szeth being declared Truthless, is if the Stone Shamans are connected with Taln, they may have known he wasn't back at the time Szeth made his claims. No Taln, no desolation, therefore Szeth must be lying.

@akintu

I wouldn't say that theres uncertainty. Occams razor - often the simplest explanation is the right one - the Shardbearer died in Sadeas's princedon and yet was Veden, it"s much kore likely that it was Helaran rather than some convoluted explanation thats really mostly speculation.

Jusy my two cents.

ETA spelling. Ugh I hate typing from a phone.

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Right, I'm kind getting at Occam's Razor. We have to discount the evidence that Helaran is a surgebinder to accept that Kaladin killed him. Whoever Kal killed was not a surgebinder, so the simplest answer is that it was not Helaran.

Good post, I have a few random thoughts.

1.  Kaladin - Jezrian is the Windrunner's herald, and he is associated with leadership.  Taln references Jezrian teaching leadership, and Kaladin is obviously a crackerjack small unit commander.  It remains to be seen how effective he is on a larger scale.  I think there is plenty of evidence that his fighting ability is at least somewhat tied to his bond as well (with the references to being able to fight with his eyes closed, feeling as if he is the wind, etc).  Combined with epigraph references to the Windrunner's preferring a hierarchy and squads, this seems to point to the Windrunner's being both great soldiers and effective leaders of at least small units.  I view the leadership side as more of a tactical one.

2.  Dalinar - Don't have much to add here except for the Dalinar vs Kaladin leadership dynamic.  If Kaladin's leadership is more on the tactical side, Dalinar's is more on the strategic side.  This seems to fit with the Stormfather's command that Dalinar will be a Radiant with no shards, Dalinar's transition from warrior to politician, and the limited number of Bondsmith's (three, right?).  Bondsmith's unite disparate factions, are more political leaders (or maybe great generals), where Windrunner's are more the unit commanders.  I think part of Dalinar's growth is to rely less on the sword and more on words to lead people.

3.  Shallan - I pretty much agree with you.  One of the WoR epigraphs mentions the Lightweavers doing something that inspires the KR to pursue a second assault, despite being apparently defeated once.  I think in addition to the Memory part, there is also an element of being able to inspire/transform people (psychology, basically, or lies and truth in the right combinations).

I think whoever Kaladin killed on the battlefield may not be Helaran.  I think there is plenty of evidence that Helaran is a surgebinder, both Mr T's comment and some of the things Wit says to Shallan seem to be leading that direction.  But on the other hand, it seems unlikely that the person Kaladin killed was a surgebinder, because of the whole screaming sword thing.  No reason Helaran could not have given up his blade when his surgebinding started to manifest itself and the screaming became a problem.  So whoever he gave his blade to ended up getting themselves killed by Kaladin.  Maybe Helaran was trying to fake his own death, or maybe his organization just recycled the blade when he manifested the ability to make his own.

I also just feel like the text has setup enough uncertainty regarding who Kaladin killed to make us question the assumptions the characters are making in the book (that Shallan believes Helaran is dead and that Kaladin believes he must have killed her brother).

You two are having the same problem others have already had in this thread: No vision.

As though Brandon Sanderson sits at home, taps into a view of an alternate reality and writes down what he sees. He has artistic license to write literally anything he wants, as he writes fantasy. You are acting as though it is ludicrous to think things could go any differently than how they did as they were written. You sound like you would enjoy forums about historical biographies a bit better than fantastical fiction. Point was never that Kaladin should have done this or that in the scene as it was written obviously. It should have been done at one point or another throughout the entirety of the book! I wish it would have been done in that fight as well. It could have been written that they were on the ground for 10% of it and the reason Szeth took of into the air was because Kaladin got him stuck there for a minute so he took off. Unbelievable, I know. Fantasy.

Personally, I think this is going to tie into a need for training. Kaladin is great with a spear and seems to have an instinctual connection to his lashings, but instinct isn't enough to be a weapon master, and his lashings are a weapon. Perhaps after Hearthstone he will realize he needs to be better. Coincidentally, we've been introduced to a world hopping weapon master who might have the right mentality to pick up lashings and push Kaladin to learn some new tricks. Said weapon master used to wield Szeth's new sword, and also Kaladin has Szeth's honor blade, which grants Windrunner abilities...

I kind of lean toward plate being lesser spren. The windspren gathered around Syl when Kaladin finally figured out lashing. Maybe they become plate when he figures out one of the later oaths.

I'm with you on this. I can almost picture it, thousands of windspren gathering around and on Kaladin until they form a solid layer of plate. Shallan may use creativityspren, we've seen them gather around her. Each KR may have their bound spren and then gain the ability to call on the lesser spren they have a connection to.

Oh yeah. So those words were probably just Adolin's thoughts.

But that still doesn't account for whatever mysteriously told him to duck at the right exact moment.

I think the "duck" was more his combat reflexes. Kind of a, what do you do when fighting an inhuman assassin that has just distracted you and disappeared? Duck! When Adolin saw Szeth was gone, he knew an unseen attack was probably already incoming.

I get your point, but the point remains that he thought people wouldn't resist his law to commit suicide. This isn't a long-term prediction. He literally thought he could persuade people to commit suicide with brilliant arguments. People he thought were below average intelligence. It's stunning how he seems to not understand basic human motivations when a little intelligent.

 

He loses something very vital when he becomes intelligent, and only regains it when he becomes super-intelligent. I don't trust Taravangian not to make poor decisions when he's intelligent unless he's stark raving mad like he was when he wrote the Diagram.

They calculate out his chance of another super-intelligent day as being in the next thousand plus years.  Perhaps the odds of a super-compassionate/stupid day are different.  And just like he loses something vital when intelligent that he regains when super-intelligent, he could easily gain something when crossing over from very dumb to super-compassionate.  It could be something as simple as a realization that allows him to interpret the Diagram in a new way on better days.

I would love to see that fight, Zahel and Szeth with eachother's former weapons

For real, it's too good to pass up.

For some reason I feel like Zahel is a likely candidate.  I feel like Kaladin may trust him, and the Radiants could certainly use someone to train them, spar with, that sort of thing.  If you have Windrunner abilities, you can't just spar with anyone, not to your true ability.  And there may be other connections with Zahel and Szeth, so it would be fitting in a way.

When Taravangian and his aide started talking about how his Diagram day was a 1 in 2000 year event, it got me considering that perhaps he will instead have a day of Anti-Diagram levels of stupidity in a profoundly compassionate manner, whatever that might look like.  Something that gives him the key to really understanding the Diagram.  In the same way that he is pretty much worthless when very intelligent or very dumb, but his Diagram day was still brilliant, his Anti-Diagram day may be equally brilliant in some way despite the lack of intellect.