thejopen27

But maybe a violent revolution should happen... hence my problem with Wax as a character.

What? No. I don’t care about the southern scadrians until we learn something about them. I want democratic reforms and the nobility to lose all actual power. It’s time for the Basins second republic.

The Elendel basin needs to change. Brandon has very conveniently written all the people trying to change things to have nasty motives and nasty means, but that doesn't mean the basin doesn't need to change... they left the nobility in charge for god's sake. The SAME noble families from the time before the cadascendre are STILL in charge after. The society in the basin is stagnant and corrupt and Wax spends the entire time propping it up.

The biggest problem I've always had with era 2 is that I'm not sure Wax is on the right side of history. He's a rich nobleman who kills revolutionaries. He's basically a gunslinger in service to the establishment, an establishment that doesn't seem particularly worthy of being propped up.

No, I was arguing the Radiants led themselves through a council of representatives of each order. One member from each order with a Bondsmith presiding, but not ruling over them.

So the Horneaters (Unkalaki), and the Herdazians descend from humans and singers and have singer ancestry. In Horneaters this gives them extra back-teeth, red hair, larger size, and are closer to the cognitive realm. For Herdazians it just seems to give them rock-like carapace fingernails. The Natan people and the people of Babatharnam descend from humans and Siah Aimians and have Siah ancestors. The Babatharnam manifest this with blue-ish veins visible beneath the skin and the Natans have faintly blue skin. They may also have other Aimian characteristics but this is all we know about so far. What's with Thaylen Eyebrows? Where did this come from? Does anyone have any idea?

The magic from the not finished Silence Divine is what replaced the original magic of Ashyn. The Ashynites had different magic before the migration.

I always got the sense it developed organically. Bridge 4 had a couple bad runs in a row, it got the reputation for being unlucky, so they started sending the rejects and weak slaves there which led Bridge 4 to be slower and less efficient which caused even worse things to happen. It's stated in WoK that the Parshendi focus fire on the bridges that look like they're about to fall so a sloppy bridge is more likely to be targeted. Over time the issues compound and feed into each other.

I had always assumed the Dawnshards were from Ashyn, not Roshar

But it's still the Rysn story about her journey to Aimia right?

It's epic because it's big and contains lot of things. There are 460,000 words in Rhythym of War, that's plenty to spread around. For the record, I generally dislike shipping and especially shipping culture, but I like fantasy books (which is an inherently romantic genre) that contain romantic plot lines. Kissing is good and enhances the story, getting defensive about who should or shouldn't kiss is bad and takes away from the story. plot "...medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for."

Ok, Fred Savage from the Princess Bride

Well, I'm going to come forward with the stance that there should be more kissing in books generally. Everyone who wants romance should get to have it. Romance is good and fun to read.

I assume they will sort this out in a sentence in the first act of RoW

I think the understanding is that she is essentially queen regent and Gavinor is the heir. The heir is always a threat to the ruler, yet the ruler always needs the heir.

Fair, but several times in the book, Brandon makes the point that the Godking is stunted and childlike as he has been treated like a child his entire life. Vasher has been an adult for his entire 600 year life including being married for hundreds of years.

I feel like Syl would get jealous if Kaladin bonded a joy spren ( ; My only resistence to this is that Vasher is 600 years old (or whatever) and Vivenna is like 20. Now, yes, Vivenna is older but she also is clearly quite angry with whatever Vasher did. Vivenna and Kaladin actually both have a lot in common. They both were serious children with a strong belief in the roles they were expected to fill in society, both ran away from their duty to attempt to save their younger sibling from harm, both failed (for very different reasons), both had their expectations of society brutally crushed, both developed a rational but debilitating hatred that they had to learn to get over to find their place, both rejected their magical powers at first, and both were then forced to accept their powers and find a new course in life. Both are great leaders who try to protect people and can quickly inspire loyalty in followers and lead by example. As for Jasnah who's been mentioned several times, she doesn't seem to have close friendships with anyone from either sex (except from her two penpals that she rarely, if ever, speaks to in person), she has mentioned no past close friends or "friends", and the only person we know of who was ever close to her outside her family was the one person who almost convinced her to join the Devotary of Sincerity and gave her the Book of Endless Pages. I'm really curious to learn who that was and what happened to them.

The death of Devotion caused the great fissure to open up in Sel didn't it?

I believe the shattered plains on Yolen weren't truly shattered, they were caused by erosion I thought and just had a shattered appearance.

God I hope they don't have a kid any time soon. Shallan is not in a good emotional place to have a kid.

That single Ash Taln scene contained so much emotion and shared history. Reading it the first time it comes across as there being a very strong connection between them and I just assumed they were already romantically linked.

Send them to nanny large families of Austrian children?

He calls Jezrien by name when talking to him directly (it's also stated Jezrien refuses to wear a crown so he likely refuses to let his friends give him a title), but when referring to Jezrien's honorblade, he calls Jezrien my lord. He doesn't say one of my lord's blades he says my lord's own blade, implying one lord, one blade. All the heralds, including Kalak on his own don't want to go back and decide not to, but Ishar, the expert in magical theory tells them he thinks the oathpact will still hold with one member. It never says it was Ishar's idea or that he proposed it, just that Ishar was the one who gave the technical clearance to the idea. Kalak also thinks during the prelude that Jezrien "always knows what to do" implying the others turn to him for leadership. Ishar helped form the Oathpact as he was previously a bondsmith, but there is no evidence it was his idea. The best evidence that Jezrien is viewed by the others as the leader is that he is the one who waits for Kalak and the one who speaks to the humans. He takes the duties upon himself, the shameful difficult duties while the others slink away. Ishar forges the Nahel bonds into the Knights Radiant, but since he is the only one capable of doing this and he is the arcane expert it doesn't confer any special rank upon him. Ishar is now going around giving terrible advice to Nale who appears to be working alone with Ishar's advice, but no other Heralds are working with him that we know since Kalak doesn't appear to have joined Nale's quest. I agree with you that Kaladin is likely hiding from his responsibilities by only being a simple surgeon.

Zutara forever... Of the past Kaladin love interests I like the matured, post-singer occupation, post Roshone death Laral better. Childhood friends who were separated by caste but now reversed. But overall I prefer Vivenna, they actually have a lot in common and could relate to each other. *I don't know if Roshone has died, I'm just speculating, but he is quite old

Kalak refers to Jezrien as "My Lord," Jezrien was the one elected to both wait for Kalak to tell him of their plans to abandon the oathpact, and it was Jezrien who went to the humans to tell them they won the war in the end. Jezrien was known to the fused as "the greatest human to ever live" and was respected and feared by them. Just because Ishar likely had magical power before and more magical power after doesn't make him the leader. Power doesn't make you worthy of leadership nor does it make you any better at it. If I had to guess I would assume Jezrien was king and Ishar was something like his court wizard and advisor, something like a Merlin. Was Merlin more powerful than Arthur? Yes, but Merlin was not king and Arthur was the leader. Maybe some did consider Ishar the leader, but Jezrien is the one shown exhibiting leadership. Post Jezrien's madness, Nale and maybe others go to Ishar for advice, but that doesn't mean it was always that way.