thejopen27

Yes, that quote just says the heralds were born on Ashyn, that doesn't mean that there weren't already humans on Roshar. That was my main point and the main thing I was trying to resolve.

Soulcast Meat is Vegan right? Does plant based food made from a soulcaster using a Emerald taken from a hunted Chasmfiend count as vegetarian?

I mean... they're both allegorical stories that apply to to Shallan and Kaladin. They may or may not have been real people. Fleet is clearly a myth about some past person who may have been a Windrunner and it bears great significance to Kaladin's life and helps him understand the Journey before Destination part of his oath. The Girl who Looked Up (redux) is almost a pandora style creation myth about humans leaving Shinovar and going out into greater Roshar. But it also applies to Shallan as being the one who brings light into the world for others and how she isn't a monster. I think there may be some history lessons in the stories but they're more important in the lessons they teach Kaladin and Shallan.

I have a simple proposal for how the Heralds can be A. born on Ashyn (except maybe Ash), B. Were elevated to heralds during the first Desolation to combat the fused who came in the first desolation, and C. Were not supernaturally old and didn't have extended lifespans... Why do we assume the humans came to Ashyn all at once? Why can't they have come in waves over tens or hundreds of years? We assume Ashyn was destroyed suddenly, but it can't have been too sudden as there was enough time to evacuate a large amount of people to Shinovar on Roshar and to create the floating cities of Ashyn that harbored cities worth of Ashynites. What if there were early refugees who left at the beginning of some war to move to Roshar, then the war gets worse and more people move and Shinovar starts to get full, the first humans go over the mountains, the war begins to destroy the planet with vast, destructive powers being unleashed on whatever the sides were and the planet is basically destroyed. During this period the Shin-Ahsynites start to kill Singers and the Singers fight back. The angriest of the Singers are offered great power and revenge by Odium in return for their obedience (Odium is playing both sides). Jesrien, King of one of the floating cities that is failing brings his people in a migration to Roshar and enters into a raging war with the fused giving the Singers a terrible advantage. Honor offers Jesrien and nine of his people the chance to oppose the fused and bring humanity over to Honor instead of Odium. This doesn't have a lot of evidence, but it solves the strange timeline issues around the first desolation and the migration of the Radiants.

This fandom is too reliant on WoBs and doesn't do enough work on it's own. Brandon is by far the most loose lipped author I've ever seen. I wish he answered fewer questions on the books in general.

I just can't imagine Brandon not being very thoughtful about where he placed powers and who got what powers

So we learn from the Glyphs shown in one of the Oathbringer art pages that Kalad is the Alethi glyph for Eternal, we also learn that the suffix Lin or Rin in a name means "Born Onto" in an Alethi name from the Dalinar chapters where he names Adolin and where he thinks about Renarin's name. Adoda means light and Lin means born onto so Adolin means Born onto Light. Renarin means he who is born onto himself because Evi didn't fully understand the Alethi naming conventions. So does Kaladin's name mean Born onto Eternity? Kalad meaning Eternal and the 'In suffix meaning "Born onto". (Ignoring for a second any other people with Kalad in their names...)

The interesting thing though, is that while Windrunners and Lightweavers seem opposite, Kaladin gets along really well with all the Lightweavers he knows (Wit, Shallan, Tien, even Elhokar once he gets to know him). Shallan gets along well with Kaladin and all the windrunner squires. While I imagine him really clashing with the cold, heartless logic of Jasnah the Elsecaller and the Skybreakers. I wonder if there are some orders where the spren don't get along but the people do and some where the spren get along but the people don't. As far as where the surges fit with the orders... Kaladin is a leader, he draws people towards himself (gravity) and binds them together (adhesion). Shallan transforms people by showing them better versions of themselves (illumination). Lift slides into cracks in society and heals people. Dalinar pulls people together and binds them together. The Skybreakers pull in people and divide them. The surges do seem to fit with their specific orders and their personalities.

I think Warform are made from Determination Spren (or whatever spren is associated with this emotion), not anger spren. "Warform is worn for battle and reign, Claimed by the gods, given to kill. Unknown, unseen, but vital to gain. It comes to those with the will." As to the larger question, I assume there are not enough Voidspren to give all Singers the forms of Power (Regals) and that having lots of Work forms, War forms, scholar forms, scout forms are useful to the Fused and Odium.

The real question about Shallan's personalities is who is Shallan? Is the person Shallan considers Shallan the true synthesis of herself; is "Shallan" her core self? Or is "Shallan" just one more aspect of her fractured personalities along with the others and she won't be stable until she can accept and combine all elements of her personality into one person. I don't think Shallan is in a healthy place yet and I don't think she has fully figured out who she is. If Brandon intended differently he did a poor job of showing it. I find it troubling that a person on the brink who is having such major identity issues got married at the end of Oathbringer. Either Shallan has a rocky future ahead trying to reconcile all of her personalities or Brandon didn't explain himself very well in the rushed wrap-up of Oathbringer.

Is it possible, just maybe have you all considered, that maybe Brandon has thought about this more than you all have and that maybe you just don't understand how Brandon means for Cohesion and Tension to function as magical powers in his book series about people with magical powers. You are taking a single sentence answer from Brandon, a set of magical stairs seen from a distance, and a fixed statue and assuming you understand exactly how Brandon has made a mistake.

Do we know how long surgebinders live for? Some of your problems with how quickly the first desolation happens and how quickly (during Nohadon's life) the Radiants go from not existing to building Urithiru could be solved if Surgebinders have extended lifespans. Maybe all the Heralds were surgebinders (or whatever the equivalent on Ashyn would be?) before becoming Heralds? Maybe Nohadon lived for 200 years? We know so little at this point.

I have a slight beef to pick with Evgeni and several other Brandon fans that may be on another podcast. Forgive me for rambling a bit. I am both a Brandon Sanderson fan and a GRR Martin fan. For the record I can’t stand Joe Abercrombie. George RR Martin is not the same as Abercrombie, GRRM is not grimdark. The world of Ice and Fire is not grimdark, it is Ironic Romantic Tragedy. GRRM is writing a meditation that sometimes is commenting on, and sometimes deconstructing the Tolkienian Fantasies of the 60s-90s. He is not dark and bleak for bleakness sake. The story is full of longing for beauty, tragic backstories, tragic missed opportunities. No one dies just to be cruel, no one is killed for the author to prove a point. GRRM isn’t a Nihilist like some accuse him of. SPOILERS for A Song of Ice and Fire.

I can see her being a bad person, but I was left unsure whether she was like, a cult of Odium member who was conspiring to bring back Odium, or just an easily corruptible person who was warped by Odium. Same with Amaram. He was involved with a secret society plotting to bring back the gods. He was a bad person. Was he actually, secretly an Odium devotee? Did he know what he was doing the whole time with Odium, did he suddenly snap under intense direct pressure, or was he slowly corrupted over time? Brandon is muddying the waters by having all the "Bad" people be secret Odium supporters. (or are they just open to Odium's corruption?)

One of the things I'm most unclear about with both Aesudan and Amaram is how conscious their choices were. Did Odium subtly corrupt them over time until their thoughts weren't their own? or were they made an offer by Odium and chose to accept it? I don't know. We have evidence that Odium and the Unmade can corrupt people who have been under his subtle influence into taking actions they otherwise wouldn't when we see the Sadeas troops suddenly and against their will turn against Thaylen City and we see Odium attempt to take-over Dalinar at the confrontation at the breach. One of the aspects of Oathbringer I was least satisfied with were the unexpected and unexplained conversions of Amaram from a selfish, petty, arrogant hypocrite to turning to Odium and selling out humanity. He was for the restoration of the Heralds and Vorinism, how did he turn to Odium? Aesudan was a petty, spoiled, vain, opulent, greedy, ambitious queen, that doesn't mean she was scheming with the forces of Odium. I believe Amaram was corrupted by the Thrill, Nergaoul, until he was in a place where he could be taken over by Yelig-nar while Aesudan was corrupted by Ashertmarn until she could be dominated by Yelig-nar. Or possibly they were corrupted to the point that they were amenible whe Odium or his agents appeared and offered them immense power and glory. I hope that in Book 4 we learn more about what happened to Aesudan and Amaram, or at least we see how this process works. The closest we've seen is what happened to Dalinar, but it fail with him.

Your Shadesmar v Cognitive Realm argument was just incredibly pedantic. Shadesmar is just a better name for every day use than Cognitive Realm. Wolf is better than Canis Lupis. In world; maybe Willshapers and Elsecallers were prominent early world hoppers who had sway over the early exploration of Shadesmar. Most languages use some form of the word pepper to destcribe spicy, bush growing, bright colored, fruits because Columbus just happened to have promised Ferdinand & Isabela he’d bring back pepper but couldn’t find any and these fruits he found were also spicy.

Shinovar is basically aSHYN NOVAr (meta), Shinovar is new Ashyn. Maybe Shin Kak Nish translates to new Ashyn or Land of the Ashyn (in world).

On the subjectivity/emotion of shards vs. objectivity, forces: Entropy is a natural thing. Things fall apart, the center does not hold, etc. Ruin or to ruin is human. Ruin contains the force of entropy, but it has a will and an intelligence. Ruin was not content with things simply breaking down over time, Ruin wanted to push the world into destruction. Preservation is not a natural force, it's the desire to save things and to keep things the same. In nature things aren't preserved, they break down. Preservation is only a force in living things. Honor is not just the force that binds things together, he is the will that things should be bound. I think all Shards are human desires, human intents, human motivations that are connected to a force in the universe (including human forces, love, honor, hatred, independence, human motivations that can shape the world).

Is the Haunted Gondola from the paper in New Seran supposed to be fiction (in world) or an account? If it’s fiction, the author (in world) is very cosmere aware and if it’s an account the woman in the story meets a Threnodite and Hoid.

On Szeth joining them and the revelation that Adolin killed Sadeas: these both happened so late and in the middle of a battle so I think we will deal with this in book four. At first the battle was too desperate to deal with them, then Brandon was wrapping up the book and couldn’t start new plots. He already rushed a few too many resolutions (Shallan’s wedding, Shallan’s brothers showing up, Jasnah becoming queen, etc.) and the book was super long already.

I know that it is my modern, western sensibilities getting in the way, and it may be culturally appropriate for the arranged marriages to work. But my cultural upbringing, and my conditioning from reading other stories, just rebels against arranged marriages. He's done it FOUR times now, in his five shard world stories, he's had four of the main romance plots be arranged marriages. My main issue with Raoden and Serene romance plot is that the two characters in the romance plot spend 95% of the book apart from each other. Not the characters time, but the readers time. Most of my complaints are not in world complaints, they're meta complaints. I think Brandon has the habit of hand-waving some of the romance elements of his books. My main issue with the SA trio of death is not the choice Shallan made, but that I don't think Brandon dd enough work to get the readers to the point that we understood it. As evidenced by the fierce arguments in the forum.

I think people go too far on Fridging frequently. And tropes are tropes for a reason, they make sense. Someone dying is a common motivation for people to change and is a very relate-able trauma that the audience can understand. Brandon himself plays with this trope (or is it Harmony playing off this trope) in the Mistborn Era 2 stuff with Lessie/Paalme. Harmony has the character of Wax's wife killed off to get him to move back to the city. I just think it's an issue that more often, it's the female characters that are killed off and in this case, Tindwyl was introduced, fell in love with Sazed, and was killed in one book and the result was it pushed Sazed's narrative. It just wasn't handled as subtly as tropes were, especially in Mistborn, which is supposed to be a deconstruction.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt the whole thing at the end of Oathbringer was rushed. I just don't feel like Brandon had to wrap everything up so neatly at the end for Shallan, especially since she failed to deal with her inner personal conflict. It just felt so final, like Brandon wanted us to move on. I'm not necessarily even rooting for Kaladin/Shallan. I just don't think it was dealt with effectively or satisfactorily. It felt to me that Shallan was still at the bottom of arc and Brandon didn't do enough to earn a resolution. I admit I may be too hard on Steris.

Alternatives to the dawnshards that could be hidden in Akinah... Unmade. What if Akinah is where the Radiants after the False Desolation hid the trapped Ba-Ado-Mishram there or Dai gonarthis is trapped there.

So I love Brandon. I think he is a very good writer in general and great in some areas. He's especially good at connecting theme to story and world. He's on Pixar's level of connecting the world he's built, the story, and the characters to the theme he is exploring. (Seriously, Pixar is amazing at connecting theme to character and story, except The Incredibles which struggles to nail down a theme, but is still great.) But Brandon does have a flaw. A flaw that finally became clear to me after finishing another reread of Stormlight and rereading MIstborn (both eras): Brandon is bad at writing convincing romantic relationships. I acknowledge that my personal taste does not match everyone else' s. Romances I think work (they are narratively satisfying, I like both characters, I think they work well together, Brandon has done the legwork to set the up together) Vin and Elend: Brandon's most successful romantic plot. He successfully ties it into Vin's main theme of learning to trust people and learning to be her real self. Dalinar and Navani: Brandon cheats on this one and skips all the setup and we start at; they both like each other, but Dalinar doesn't think he can be with her. They work well together as two people who have both decided to be above the judgement of society and it's nice to see an older couple done well. Those are the two. Romances I'm ok with, but fail for one reason or another: Siri and Susebron: I debated bumping this one up. It mostly works I think, but it just seems too unbalanced. Siri, who is the only one we get to see, spend the whole first half thinking she is his prisoner. Then we find out they're both prisoners. Then Siri has to teach Susebron how to read and Siri is the one in power over Susebron. 2/4 of arranged marriages. Spook and Beldre almost work, but it's too rushed, and we don't know Beldre well enough. It's well implied but too far from the main events of the story. Beldre is a tertiary character at best and Spook is a strong secondary character. Raoden and Serene: Mostly good.They both work well as individual characters and I buy them liking each other, but they just don't spend enough time together. This is also the beginning of Brandon's troubling trend of arranged marriages working out. Vivenna and Vasher: It works on all levels... except, I'm not sure if we're supposed to think of the romantically. Are they a couple? Sazed and Tindwyl: This one mostly works, but it's a little rushed, and seems a little like Fridging, introducing a romantic plot for Sazed just to kill her off to give him a crises of faith. The ones that just don't work (either I don't buy them together, Brandon hasn't done the legwork, or one side is not set up enough) Wax and Steris: My main issue with this is the main issue I will be discussing later with another controversial opinion I have about a couple, is Brandon doing all the legwork to show us that Marasi is a better fit, Marasi works better with the eventual lessie reveal, Marasi has better chemistry with Wax, and then Brandon completely runs away from it in the later books. Wax had a "great love" and it was Lessie, Steris would work fine if there was no Marasi and Marasi and Steris would work with no Lessie. Brandon also runs away from the dynamic he set up a bit (he does this much worse in Oathbringer) but he spends a lot of time setting up a love triangle in book one, only to run away from it, and try to pretend he never did in later books. And another arranged marriage that works out... And we've reached my largest issue with Brandon's romance plots, the one that combines all my issues together... Adolin and Shallan: First of all, I will acknowledge that Brandon could make this work later through soom reveal in future books or by really selling me on them together in the future, but... My issues are: I feel like Brandon changed course between Words of Radiance and Oathbringer, and tried to hand-wave away the set-up he did there. The main event of all of Words of Radiance before the climax was Shallan and Kaladin in the Shattered Plains. I can buy that Shallan didn't really like Kaladin, that she just thinks he's handsome and that his intensity and absurdness of righteousness is more frightening to her than Adolin's simple loyalty and good-naturedness, but I don't buy that, no, it was really Veil who liked him, there is no mention of Veil in the cravaces, in fact it was the only time in WoR that Shallan was honest and open with another person. Kaladin is the only person she has ever told about her life and her father, up to this point no one else other than her brothers know anything about her life before she arrived in Kharbranth, I don't buy Kaladin's decision that he doesn't really like her, that he just thinks of her like Tien. Shallan is that only person that Kaladin has told about his past, she is the only one he tells the full story of Amaram to. It seems like Brandon changed his mind (which is fine) but decided to just undo everything he set up in WoR in OB by just declaring that Shallan is like Tien to Kaladin, and it was really Veil who liked Kaladin. I also don't feel like Shallan had reached the point in her arc to get married and resolve her romantic issues permanently. It is treated as a casual decision that she can make along the way to figuring out everything else about herself. Brandon handles this so well in Mistborn wit Vin and completely botches the same situation with Shallan. Shallan ends OB in a much worse state than Vin was ever in, but decides that getting married will help solve all her identity problems. If someone did that in the real world we would consider it a panic move that was doomed to fail. I think Shallan and Adolin's relationship is shallow, they think each other are pretty and Adolin knows nothing about Shallan's past, her family, or her dark secrets. Another arranged marriage. I know that all of these are culturally appropriate for the characters, but it just grates against everything I expect in a novel. Undermining expectations is good, unless you develop a pattern of undermining them in the same way four times in a row. My issue isn't that Shallan picked Adolin and Kaladin has moved on. I just don't think Brandon did the legwork to get us to the point we were at at the end of OB and I think he casually dismissed some things he set up in WoR. Maybe he knows this and Shallan and Adolin's marriage will not be the end of this issue, but it seemed like Brandon was tying everything up in a neat little bow.