Kurkistan

I know the timelines for the interludes are a bit... floaty, but this is stretching it a bit. The Eshonai interludes were that night and the next morning respectively, while the Zahel interlude was also that night. The Taln interlude is smack-dab in the middle of all those. So either that scene took place an entire book section later for reasons unknown (and really, the sting would have "flowed" more if the interlude took place between parts 2 and 3, so why not just place it there?) or Dalinar held off on bonding the Blade for a bit. To continue the "Dalinar was planning this all along! " argument: I think it quite reasonable for Dalinar to hold off on bonding the Blade for a bit after the Taln interlude. Recall that, for any of this to work, he'd have to hide from the public eye for a week. Stuff was happening during the period between Szeth's attack and Kaladin being imprisoned. Dalinar couldn't afford to not be out there, being seen and doing stuff. In the period afterwards, though, he had a bit more freedom, since everything had already been set in motion. Regardless, I'd like to further note that Dalinar seemed to be planning a sting on Amaram from the first moment he saw Taln: Recall that Bordin is then the one who leads Amaram to Taln. So if Dalinar wasn't planning the sting before Kaladin was imprisoned, then it necessitates some weird timeline stuff with regards to the placement of the Taln interlude. Aside: Also, I read how Elhokar referred to Wit in that interlude to indicate that he hadn't seen Wit for awhile, which would belie Wit running around at the warcamps during Part 3. --- Another piece of evidence that could go either way depending on how you interpret it, but I found it so I'll bring it up: Dalinar tells Amaram (Ch 76) that "A few weeks ago" Bordin/Taln arrived at the warcamps. If this timeline is to be credited, there were 20 days (4 weeks on Roshar) between when Dalinar said that and Kaladin's imprisonment, and ~30 between when Taln would otherwise have arrived (if I'm right) and when Dalinar said it. Either way "a few weeks" is accurate, but I suppose you could lean toward 4 being more reasonable than 6.

I'd like to note that the Taln interlude comes quite a ways before the battle in the arena and Kaladin's public accusation. Despite that, that interlude was the point where Dalinar began implementing his plan for a sting on Amaram. So no, it did not take Kaladin's actions/accusations to really get the ball rolling on the investigation. Dalinar was simply pursuing a fairly discrete method of inquiry, likely so as not to alienate/warn Amaram unnecessarily. As a point of fact, I don't think Kaladin actually ever got around to making that specific accusation against Amaram. He called him a murderer/thief, but did not specify that the stolen thing was Shards.

No, no direct WoB on that. Sorry if I implied otherwise. Reading the section with the knowledge that he's using it on someone, though, I think it becomes clear that it's on Shallan. Take note of her emotional state (particularly how nervous she is) shortly before and then during her conversation with Hoid.

Hmm, let's list a few commonly accepted/mostly-proven things: -The Blade Dalinar got from Taln (or is he actually the real Taln????) is not an Honorblade, nor is it likely the Blade that Taln showed up with at the end of WoK. Wit did not steal that one, though. -Wit used emotional Allomancy on Shallan during her flashback at the fair. -Wit has at least 200 Breaths, raising him to the Heightening that gives perfect pitch. -"Squires" are a thing where Radiants apparently imbue their followers with powers of some kind, and the Windrunners are particularly good at this. -Mraize may well be a worldhopper, given how he talks about the inhabitants of Roshar and the likely-probably-otherworldly stuff in his Basement of Doom. Not much else immediately comes to mind.

On the matter of how everyone kept being surprised when Kaladin spoke up during planning sessions: It was my interpretation while reading that they were rather justified in their surprise. Kaladin is, on the whole, very very bad at being a bodyguard, in the sense that he does not really behave in the "fade into the background and do your job professionally" fashion which we associate with the job. The original head of Elhokar's guard (forgive me, I forget the name) was lighteyed and was not in the habit of speaking during the conversations of his employers. He was also shown in the books to maintain a consistent upright posture and unobtrusiveness which Kaladin "lean-on-wall-and-wander" never really mastered. Kaladin was not merely acting outside the expectations of a darkeye, but outside the expectations of his role as a bodyguard, perhaps quite inappropriately so. Dalinar even calls him out on it when Kaladin first tells him about Amaram. On Dalinar's apology: I honestly don't see Dalinar having anything to apologize for here. I don't fault him for how he responded to Kaladin's claims, and in fact find his response rather praiseworthy. Not only did Dalinar not immediately dismiss/denounce Kaladin for slandering his close friend, but he also actually investigated the claim and even went so far as to orchestrate a rather complicated (and quite personally inconvenient, since he had to hide the Shardblade and pretend to be sick for a week) sting on Amaram. He acted above and beyond the call here, and needn't apologize for reacting reasonably to Kaladin's, let's admit, rather absurd claims.

Yes. I think he'll personalize 3 on each run-through the line, but will sign any number with just his signature. Yes.

The details are unconfirmed, but it seems that the chasm was unnatural; likely an indirect result of the splintering. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=988#28

More than a dialect thing, it could also be a cultural impact on their language in personifying the "Spren" in objects.

Suggestion: start a new thread and dedicate a post to each signing. That way we can link to them directly and you won't have to put everything in spoiler tags (which hinders word-searching). The release tour is just about over now, so it seems the appropriate time.

I can totally buy that as the reason why Awakened objects anthropomorphize, and quite possibly even why more "human-like" objects are easier to Awaken, but it seems that the lion's share of the useful work done by Awakening still falls on the user's shoulders.

Yeah, Nightblood is... weird. Best guess so far is that those two "consume the capital" as it were, getting a lot more energy from eating the Breath outright rather than living off the energy it produces. So the difference between living off of the 3% interest and emptying your bank account for a night on the town. There is apparently a mechanism to restore Scadrian metal. Yeah, sorry about that. I am not the most succinct of men. And now you're getting into instinctive Awakening, which is one of the thornier issues. Historically I've said it's a matter of intuition being boosted by holding Breath, then I started theorizing that perhaps it is these ideals in the Spiritual Realm: that the reason Commands are "discovered" is because they're actually all defined in their entirety out there, and Awakener's need to access them. From the WoR Ars Arcanum, though, it seems that for something to be Spiritual means that it incorporates some "desire", which I don't necessarily think we always see in Awakening. We do have new information that apparently holding Breath makes you more "Endowmenty", so perhaps becoming more like Endowment attunes you more with his/her system? There are also various theories that draw some link between increased Spiritual presence and increased Cognitive presence: so in that case Nightblood's sentience would be a function of the number of Breaths he has "fleshing out" his rather small Command.

Source:

I find that Investiture can usually be broken down into two kinds: innate and (for lack of a better term) not-innate. I think that Stormlight, the Allomantic powers in action, and use of the Dor are all of the second kind. Breath, the raw ability to use magic, and the soul/"spark of sentience" appear to be of the first. One important thing to recall is that Investiture, if it is anything, is Spiritual. If it's not Spiritual than its somehow "transcendent". It will never be physical or the like. Generally when I go about referring to it I think of it as Spiritual, but the more important thing is that I think of it as power. It's the stuff that gets things done in the cosmere, at least so far as magic is concerned. And, quite crucially, it's non-entropic at its core. The color being lost is an issue, I will admit. I think it a negligible one though. Consider that Kalad's Phantom's stayed intact and functional for ~300 years. All from one infusion of Breath and one infusion of color. It seems, then, that the power from the color is truly tiny, a blip on the scale for how much energy Awakening consumes. Perhaps it's a tad of entropy in the system, but the system as a whole is one that is neutral. An alternate interpretation is that we can squirrel away the energy that's "lost" from Awakening so that it's conserved: If the color truly is used up in the transfer of the Command, the "energy" of that Command could be of the same magnitude as that of the lost color. So the energy is transformed, not lost. Another important point to remember is exactly how these terms are defined: AoL Ars Arcanum: [Allomancy] is end-positive, according to my terminology, meaning that the practitioner draws in power from an external source. [...] Feruchemy is an end-neutral art, meaning that power is neither gained nor lost. If Awakening is not to be end-neutral, it must be end-positive or end-negative. I think we can agree that it's a stretch to call the lost splotch of color enough to slot it into end-negative, and it's certainly not end-positive because there is no external source of power for the vast majority of what Awakening accomplishes. A bit of a crisis of terminology is all, I think. We do know that Feruchemists can "convert" any stored attribute into raw investiture in Nicrosilminds. This means it's all of the same basic type. All that needs be done, then, is say that the use of Investiture for other Feruchemical metals is "typed" in some way: It's "labeled" as "Health" or "Strength" depending on how it was stored, but of the same basic type when you strip off the top few layers. This can either work through these attributes being fundamentally typed or, like with Allomancy, only being differentiated when the Feruchemists actually draws the attribute out of their metalminds. In the second case, the metal used would serve to filter the Investiture just like it does for Allomancy, I would think. The key to look to here is where all of that power comes from from Feruchemy. Sazed sitting in an easy chair storing Strength somehow produces magical power without him needing to eat extra food or anything. That power can even be converted into raw Investiture. It follows (at least to my mind), then, that the human soul, innate Investiture, can to some extent "generate" it's own power, which power is siphoned off by Feruchemy. That's how we get to be end-neutral, by not relying on an external power source. And so too with Awakening. I hope I've addressed them to your satisfaction, though I'm happy to clarify if I've only managed to be even more confusing with more words. And while I am ever one to like praise, I would like to note that my expertise is primarily a function of having too much time on my hands and/or hanging around on the boards too much. I also give the impression of being all-knowing because I have a fair knowledge-base in several topics, while saner Sharders focus on just one or two to be expert in. Ah, that's fine then. I agree that the theory is persuasive, but it's always best to present these theories as theories rather than as fact, just so we don't confuse people. ---- I drew most of this argumentation on Awakening from my discussion on a (tragically hijacked) thread awhile back. That thread has more developed/long versions of my points as well as opposing arguments, if anyone would like to peruse. EDIT: Lots of ninjas these days... EDIT 2: My full initial theory on BioChroma, if anyone's interested. More than a bit out of date, given the books and WoB we've since gotten, but still fairly accurate, I'd say.

@OP We get most of this about the metal being merely a "conduit" from the Alloy of Law Ars Arcanum, just so you know. 0) Talk of shardblades "servering cognitive presences" is entirely theoretical. Moreover, the theory in question talks of Spiritual ties, if I'm not misremembering. 1) You are almost certainly wrong in your basic assertion of color as the fuel. When asked if Awakening was end-neutral, Brandon said that it was because "You don't lose Breath in the process of Awakening." That rather strongly suggests that Breaths are also the power source, wouldn't you say? Side note: I never have been able to find that WoB on the focus of Awakening being Commands. Would you mind please dropping the link for my collection? @Moogle Ah yes, thank you for remembering. I still basically hold to that, although the aforementioned theory on the "severing" of Spiritual links providing the fuel meshes nicely with it. If I was to update it given present information, I'd probably focus a bit less on "copying" Cognitive aspects since we've since found that you're allowed to be a bit more forceful with the projection of your intentions. @Swimmingly I agree that the Heightenings are the result of getting "closer" to some Endowmenty ideal (as Brandon said), but I'm unsure where you're going with this in regard to normal Awakening.

And/or Miles usually only taps a bit of extra Health most of the time, and turns the spigot when violence is afoot.

What makes you think they burn slowly, rather than Compounding just yielding absurd amounts of power in large bursts? Recall that Compounders aren't burning constantly: They burn one metalmind, then store all the excess in another.

Szeth uses all and only the Windrunner Lashings (including Pressure, which Nale doesn't have access to). No, we aren't quite sure on whether the Blade would stay if you fell unconscious. Hence the EDIT. You probably ended up with an unclosed quote tag. Try clicking the "lightswitch" button in the top-left corner of the text editor and seeing what's what.

Sent you a PM, Quiver. I prefer not to give him any kind of fame, so avoid posting the link on public threads.

These are some interesting thoughts on other ways that Radiants could (potentially) have increased lifespans. I am glad we're moving away from "because healing means they don't age".

Because Brandon has talked about Stormlight being limited by perception, just like permanent Resealing and Feruchemical gold are. I feel fairly confident in saying that Feruchemical gold is never going to give a tongue and the ability to speak with it to a man who has never in his living memory had a tongue. DB-healing will, though, and specifically because of this entirely different mechanism that Brandon was kind enough to lay out for us. A mechanism that makes no mention of perception. The two kinds of healing simply work on different core principles, and Stormlight quite clearly falls onto the "Feruchemical gold" side of that divide. Perhaps you could try and make some argument about Stormlight "bringing you close to X" or something, but my point is that you oughtn't to use Stormlight's healing abilities to justify it.

Gamma Fiend also quite astutely observed that "shadows" is used as a curse in Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell.

I don't really accept this parallel. For one, the Stormlight is actively expended whenever it heals something. Breath's ability to ward off age or disease is constant and does not expend any Breath. The better health that Breath yields is more as a consequence of your state of being than of some direct application of Investiture, then. That brings us to the main point: The "healing" that Breaths do is not in any way something that we would call healing. It is, as I linked to, a function of growing closer to the "idea" of Endowment. Source: I will also emphasize that what Divine Breath does when it heals is a quite different matter from what normal, held-Breath does in BioChroma. And even that is not linked to how Stormlight seems to work.

An excellent question, I think. So far as I can tell, it comes down to either "everyone just sees themselves/each other as naturally getting older" or you need to go a bit... outside to get the job done.

No links because even I run out of time sometimes. The black and white one in both books. This is very nearly not worth asking. Brandon has since confirmed that Szeth had an honorblade and a large amount of in-world sources indicate that they work how we think they do. You can bond more than one spren (though there are indications that there's a hard upper-limit) and more than one Honorblade, so likely yes. Dalinar and Eshonai. It's stylized. Apparently it is. Almost certainly. Note its instant formation in the Epilogue. No WoB on this that I know of, though. No. EDIT: Misread you a bit. My apologies. This is less clear, but the books indicate that this wouldn't be possible. First of all, recall the 5-day bonding period. Second, I believe I recall a note that willing a Shardblade to stay was a fairly constant act of will; or, at the very least, that summoning it back was trivial.

Suggestion, Claincy? Why don't you add some indicator when you've found a hard boundary, as opposed to one end of a range? So Cryptic could be [1050] to indicate that that is definitely where it starts, for instance. EDIT: Also, theFallGuy is still Zucchini at -573.