rererak

While I see your point I think the better comparison would've been me, a monkey, and an ape (no specific correspondence). The change with a high storm is a pretty significant thing that I would closer relate to having thumbs rather than drinking milk... But my reasoning was more the idea that they take spren into themselves. Not even radiants do that. The wrong spren could have catastrophic, Odium-based results. I personally find it more believable that a chasmfiend becomes a giant rock thing than a Parshendi. So far the Parshendi forms haven't dramatically changed their size. They've remained in a reasonably human form. I may be misremembering (I should always carry around my darn kindle) but aren't the stone-based voidbringers much bigger than that?

That actually helps a lot though! Thanks! Also I'm still curious about where Pattern and Glys lie. I personally put them with Honor and Cultivation respectively... And I need to reread Tarvangian's words again apparently

Hmm.. wouldn't that kind of make Parshendi and the chasmfiends somewhat related? It could go alongside the fact that the artist from book one drew chasmfiends as voidbringers, maybe they still really are, just with a different spren.

"Naturespren" was just kind of a generalization. I probably should've put a space there. When I go back and edit Odium's I'll add that, but like with "voidspren" and "emotionspren" I was just putting something to be an all enclusive for those I missed. I will add lifespren to Cultivation as well because I find them important. Also, can you lead me in the direction of Moelach or the other spren you (or, well, Taravangian) mentioned because I recall neither.

I know people have mentioned this, but I think the actions of Adolin actually cemented him as a KR. He could end up with the dustbringers but somehow I see him more in the willshapers. A part of this is I like echoing past with present, where Kalak and Jezrien are the only ones shown as possibly being friends (although the relationship of the Heralds as a whole isn't known) and I could see there being a moment where Kaladin (Jezrien being his Herald) and Adolin (Kalak being the Herald of the Willshapers) have to choose to abandon someone, all of them broken by something Taravangian (who I suspect will be Odium's champion of Eshonai's sister isn't) did. Of course then I will pity whoever ends up being a stoneward. But more than that, I think the description given from the Words of Radiance book (uh... not the book we read but the one Shallan did) fits him too. “And now, if there was an uncut gem among the Radiance, it was the Willshapers; for though enterprising, they were erratic, and Invia wrote of them, 'capricious, frustrating, unreliable,' as taking it for granted that others would agree; this may have been an intolerant view, as often Invia expressed, for this order was said to be most varied, inconsistent in temperament save for a general love of adventure, novelty, or oddity.” He clearly loves oddities (Shallan being a good example) and his attitude has been incredibly erratic, as shown even in his simple 4 duels in WoR and how quickly his attitude changes in the first book regarding his father. There is logic in his mood swings, but there is definitely a little chaos as well. I mean, he even locked himself up for Kaladin! Someone who he hated before! Plus, I have had another theory going that he is similar to Gavilar is several ways (I mentioned I like echoing the past and I wrote a topic on how Kaladin is like Dalinar, Shallan is like Navani, and Adolin is like Gavilar) and the idea that others would agree fits Gavilar at the very least, and I would not be surprised if Adolin follows that attitude as time goes on. We've seen less of it, but I feel we may need to see his past a bit more before any conclusions come.

I wanted to add that I think Glys (Renarin's spren) falls under Cultivation as Renarin's skill definitely lies in futuresight and Honor has confessed he's not good at it. Also, I've been reading around and people think Pattern is a Cultivation spren. I could see that, especially as I had a debate with someone about Shallan possibly seeing "futures" (A debate I'll probably bring up here later). Besides, even Pattern says lies are a human thing and that was one thing he was trying to learn from Shallan. "Truth" is a more natural thing, although I am not entirely sure then why Syl would so adamantly reject lying. By the way, I forget, is Pattern a truthspren or a liespren. I'd look it up but I forget where it's stated

They may not have seen that part. Even Dalinar hadn't for a long time and I suspect he only saw it because the Stormfather chose that incident to see it. Maybe a few of them saw that, but maybe they also saw other visions. Dalinar was seeing largely repeats, but a few new ones, in WoR so that doesn't mean he saw all of them... just ones that were supposed to further the cause the Stormfather (and Honor) had imposed on him. Also, have we explored back into what Pai said in the interlude of Lahn? If the visions were so wrong, why couldn't we... ah heck hold on let me grab the quote... I wonder if she saw the future... maybe even saw that Honor was dead. I mean we know the reason why the Heralds and the Almighty didn't interfere, but I think she's right that the Hierocracy wasn't evil. Also, if seeing the future was wrong then what of Renarin's ability...? I suspect visions fall more in Cultivation's category, though, as Honor states that isn't where his skill lies... so there's that too.

I feel special that I seemed to have inspired someone to also research this. I am uh.. collecting all the data I can on chasmfiends (finishing up my second reread, have already finished with the first book for gathering information) and other greatshells and I will get back after I finish what I have dubbed my "research paper". There's a couple of things I wanted to mention. There seems to be some kind of relationship between the greatshells of the land and the ones of the water with the Tai-na being an inbetween, possibly an ancestor of the two since they're ancient. This could explain the similarities of pupation that Chasmfiends and the Marabethian greatshell, yu-nerig. It also makes me think that rather than chulls pupating into chasmfiends it works the other way around. For survival, possibly due to limited resources of food, chasmfiends became more docile (similar to how Parshendi are in slaveform) and were capable of choosing a lesser life form to eat (cremlings). Otherwise I think it's weird chasmfiends would be build to eat their own kind they evolved from. Not rejecting the idea, I think it's interesting, but throwing out my perspective. I also think the chasmfiends could very well live in Urithiru themselves, that their claws were developed to help them break through rocks and their capability ot traverse through tight spaces such as the chasms. The other thing I wanted to bring up was the question of Mraize's gemhearts. Even uncut, if they had been infused it would've blinded Shallan (I don't have an exact quote atm). Were those from chasmfiends or another greatshell? Do gems or gemhearts ONLY come from greatshells? If so it could explain why none of Dalinar's visions had spheres as lighting sources. Do all greatshells come to land to pupate, by the way? Is that something we can assume? If so, I wonder how that fits in with my theory that santhids are also greatshells and that greatshells all possess a lot of intelligence, especially for what we assume is a beast. If you haven't noticed, the greatshells have become an obsession of mine. Unfortunately, I have no theories on the spren yet, but I am trying to figure that out. I feel like Jasnah searching for information on Urithiru, there's just too little information. Not that I'm as smart as her...

oh storms, I never thought of that! That kinda makes me laugh. How different would life have been if there had been a slight tweak in each person's life! The issue being the "ring" as Wyndle calls it only really sent Wyndle out so it'd've either been Lift OR Kaladin as far as I know. Also, I think 14 is still too young regardless of Laral/Roshone's relationship. That wasn't done out of love and having such a large age gap (especially with a girl who obviously hasn't matured and a guy who is mature beyond his years...) just seems out of place. I vote for Shallan first because she is a balance of maturity and whimsical imagination, though I understand the reason for disliking it (and in my second read-through I'm begrudgedly agreeing that Adolin and Shallan ARE cute together. I still prefer Shallan and Kaladin). My second vote would be with Jasnah and Kaladin because they're both mature beyond their years, Jasnah being 30 since she was born and Kaladin taking up the role of leader quickly despite being darkeyes and young. While being a leader doesn't necessarily prove maturity, he's a leader in soul as much as in name. As for Kaladin being with Adolin... I have to agree with the person who said it'd be awkward to switch his preferences. I have no qualms against homosexual relationships but neither guy has even shown a remote interest in men that way. While they both struggle with their own relationships (Kaladin's two failed ones and Adolin's every-girl-in-the-camp-of-light-eyes) we do get a good peak into their minds and it's never "ah he looks attractive" or anything equivalent. It's a "how can I use this guy tactically or what is this guy's personality." I... don't think I'm explaining this well but basically the mind set of the two hasn't been even remotely towards liking them so much as thinking of their use in the grand scheme of things. Kaladin has never given a damnation about Adolin's smile as much as he has Shallan's voice.

I was noticing on several occasions that spren claim to be part of the gods (Honor, Odium, or Cultivation) and I began to wonder if all spren (or at least most) are part of the gods or only the ones who bond to Radiants. A part of this branched from Jasnah's explanation with Shallan on the boat about spren being either related to emotion or nature, such as glory or exhaustion spren and fire and rain spren. So as far as a generalization goes here is what I came up with and wanted to know everyone's opinion. Honor: We know that Honor has the honorspren and I think along those lines he tends to rule over the emotion spren, both good and bad. This is largely because in order to understand honor, in order to understand who you are as a human, you need to know the good and the bad. This does not include the absolute evil because, while pain is bad it also shows limits. Honorspren (duh) Stormfather? Gloryspren Exhaustionspren Painspren Fearspren Ivory (wisdomspren? couldn't remember where Jasnah says what it is) Cryptics (And this one's odd, I think it falls with the painspren, like there's a spectrum of "left and right" for where the spren fall and how well they interract with honor on the far left and cryptics on the slight right) Emotion Spren in general Cultivation: Cultivation would be left with the nature spren, including Lift's spren Wyndle (I scanned the chapter and couldn't find the specific name since she keeps calling him a voidbringer) who talks about "mother" Included alongside this would probably be 4 other spren that would fall under "nature" in my opinion. Wyndle Nightwalker? (goes alongside the stormfather as likely a part of Cultivation) Rainspren Firespren Naturespren Glys Odium: Odium has his own category of spren specifically... Stormspren Voidspren Ones I have no clue: Creationspren: I suspect these would end up with Honor but I'm not 100% sure The Arrow-like spren: From the eels and chasmfiends, we do not know what they are or what they do but I suspect they'd end up with cultivation (I'm working on a very lengthy research article on greatshells so maybe I'll submit my opinion on those if I post it up) Bindspren: Um... CAUSED by Syl who is from Honor but I suspect they're Cultivation's The 50million spren that live in objects included dung: Since "everything" has a spren, I suspect not all would fit into a category... I also want to believe that if spren DO fit into a category as part of one of the "gods" then I think five would fall under Honor and five under Cultivation. We have Syl, Ivory, Stormfather, and Pattern under Honor so far, in my opinion. Renarin's spren (Glys) and Ym's spren have no specific category since we know so little about them and Wyndle is obviously connected to Cultivation. So even if not all the spren are connected back to the gods, I am willing to bet that the ten that form the order would be all connected to Honor or Cultivation. Also, is there more gods than those two? Because that could change the entire spectrum, but I do not recall any hints at there being more than the three gods.

I don't know if it's been pointed out, but I find it amusing that "Gaz" started this. Is this outta spite you one-eyed man? ALso, the Lift vote makes me raise an eyebrow. I suppose in a few years it'd look odd but Lift is only 10! Well... 10 for 3 years...

Wow, have to admit, when I started reading these posts about Laral I was thinking "nah, her story is over," but I have a feeling you guys are making a strong point. I still believe that Tarah, with her shroud of mystery, will make a better Shshshsh than Laral, but I could see it going both ways as well. And the Hesina bit! Man, that actually makes a lot of sense! I mean, they even point out at one point (and pardon, I do not have my book with me right now) that if a darkeyed married a lighteyed then the children could be dark or light (and in the case of the Bastard, both!), so it is very possible Hesina has a parent or grandparent of lighteyes.

I very much plan on doing something similar (although I missed the Sanderson signing in Seattle). I am going to make a white shirt though with black letters and a very simply drawn stick in a circle (to represent the sphere). I will high five any who recognize the significance of the stick.

Not yet, they are on my list but a lack of funds inhibits that. I have a friend who I will be meeting up with who owns Mistborn and we'll be doing a trade (my Stormlight for his Mistborn), outside of that we'll have to wait and see. I REALLY want to read Warbreaker though, as I've heard rumors Zahel is in it.

Bringing the topic a little back to focus, I'm glad someone else noticed the similarities of the three. I am presently on my post-WoR reread so I'll try to pull up quotes of comparison for Navani/Shallan, Dalinar/Kaladin, and Adolin/Gavilar, especially the latter since people mentioned that Dalinar himself makes the comparison, and I think that's very good. Yes, I agree that their judgments aren't precise, such as Dalinar not thinking Adolin could do something like what happened at the end of WoR, but do you honestly think Gavilar was completely sinless? I would gather not since he chose to make a kingdom the same way Dalinar thinks is now the wrong way--through beating faces in. I think Dalinar's impression is the strongly biased one of a younger brother idolizing his older brother, and Renarin (oh dear, now that's a whole 'nother issue) is likely to also be jealous, just better at hiding it. We've yet to have a Ren point of view. I'd like to say, my HOPE is that Kaladin ends up with Shallan but I do not think that's guaranteed. I'm trying not to be too firm in my predictions because that ends horribly if I'm wrong, and I love this series way to much to let a side-romance-plot ruin it. I think the fact that all six are similar in character and similar in the setup for romance could mean that Shallan can go down a different path, a path that let's Navani see what could have happened or let's Navani help her in her choices. They're similar so that they can be different, so Shallan can choose another route. Does that eliminate the possibility of Adolin dying like Gavilar? Nope. If Navani does choose to try and assist Shallan though, I think she (and Jasnah actually, although I doubt she'd care) would be able to unbiased enough not to let the fact Adolin is their nephew/cousin get in the way with helping Shallan make the right choices. So at least Shallan has good support, which Navani probably didn't have. Also, on the Shallan bit, I think there IS some similarities between Navani and Shallan that are very strong. Having a Navani POV will help clarify that, but them both being incredibly intelligent but not abandoning their emotions (like Jasnah) is one major staple. At the very least, Shallan is nothing like shshshsh