kaellok

Don't care how long ago this thread was started, I missed it and Shallan needs some defending! And a week since last post isn't really necro--is it? First, though, if we're comparing Vin at the end of Mistborn to Shallan at the end of WoR, Vin would win. Also, Vin at most points would beat Shallan at the end of WoR. Why? Because Vin has a singularity of purpose and focus that is almost always 'survival.' Occasionally it branches beyond this, but this is also usually when she starts having problems. Vin's childhood experiences forced this focus upon her, and she ran with it, owned it, and made it her own. However, if Shallan is to have some idea of the fight occurring at all (which, as of the end of WoR, is the only way there will be a fight, instead of Vin killing Shallan in her sleep), there's strong potential that has been largely overlooked--her illusions. I would be intensely curious to know if someone burning atium would see the shadows of, say, a dozen illusory Shallan's swinging at Vin all at once. Would someone burning atium be able to see the future-shadows even with their eyes closed, or blind? It might suck if a miniature ball as bright as the sun were anchored to your face, making it impossible to see. Illusory walls, pits, fires, spikes, dead brothers, voices of dead brothers, Kelsier, Sazed, Elend, loved ones and hated ones all shouting at her from all directions. Ground rising up just a little bit more than it looks like, or dropping a little bit less; how often do you stumble and almost fall down stairs due to thinking there is one more stair, or you're at the bottom? Of course, the sustained assault of illusions wouldn't win a fight against Vin; I'd still bet on her winning. But to think that a Shallan as confident with her powers as Vin is with her own would be useless in a fight is terribly naive. And I think Vin would fare better against the illusory assault than almost anyone, just because of that singularity of focus; it's possible that she'd be able to actually block out everything that wasn't real, didn't matter, and convince herself that by stabbing Elend, she would actually be killing Shallan. [it's quite possible that copper might block the emotional affect of Shallan's Lightweaving, and Vin is experienced enough to be wary of emotional pulls and tugs, so that's possibly not effective; if you don't like the knowledge liberties I've taken of those close to Vin, and believe that it would be impossible for Shallan and Pattern to find out, that's also fine; terrain, blinding, illusory decoys that attack and flee, and Stormlight healing alone would help to ensure Shallan's survival in the fight unless Vin resorted to pure brute tactics suggested by Moogle.] Add in some Soulcasting, and basic hand to hand/combat training, and I'd start to be more inclined to say Shallan end of Book 4 might have a good shot at winning, and probably would win unless Vin has atium.

Crap, you haven't read WoR yet. There's WoR spoilers on like, every answer I have. I think they're all minor, but still I feel a bit bad. Oh well. 2. I'm assuming you mean cultivation, and not Cultivation--because Cultivation has absolutely spit out some spren of their own, and at least some of them combined with bits of Honor to form at least some of the Radiant spren. If you're talking about just growing stuff and stuff, then that's very possible. There's another WoB that I need to dig up that says that astronomers would say that Roshar isn't a habitable planet at this time, due to what's going on. This might be due to the lack of plate tectonic activity, nearness of the star, or something else we're not sure of--but it certainly seems like 'normal' cultivation as we're used to it on Earth shouldn't be possible. And yet it is, in Shinovar, and so I smell the action of a Shard (which could be any of them, really, but the lack of spren doesn't prove one or another. It might actually help prove Odium, since some Odium-spren seem capable of turning 'normal' spren into Odium-spren. A lack of deer may mean that there were never deer in an area, or that something simply ate them all.) 3. The Radiants existed for some time after the falsely named Final Desolation. So, it seems logical that the Stone Shamanate have some kind of knowledge regarding the dissolution of the Radiants, and why they cannot return (it's either that, or there's something I haven't thought of that is the cause for Szeth being declared Truthless. WoR almost spells out why, but falls short, and so it could be deliberately leading us to false conclusions; I have not discounted this possibility, I'm just ignoring it.) It's obvious that the Stone Shamante at the very least have knowledge regarding the Radiants that is lost to the rest of the world. There are definite hints within the text of WoR that lead one to believe why for a couple of different reasons, but most of those theories rest upon them being anti-Odium. It can certainly be read from the other way, which is what I was doing during this speculation. 4. Ah! I was not clear here. I think that Nalan is still working to thwart and fight Odium, but according to his own plan rather than Honor's. Honor, of course, bound ten people to be granted incredible power to fight a god every so often, and in between suffer extreme and unbelievable torment and agony. I find it hard for Nalan to have decided that that might not be the best idea, after all, and look for alternative solutions.

Hypothesis: The Shin worship Odium in the same way that much of Roshar worships Honor through the auspices of Vorinism. Looking at things through this lens allows for some very intriguing and entertaining possibilities. There is very little evidence to directly support or refute the idea, and so it remains mere speculation. But the more I think about it, the more sure I am that something very, very odd is going on there. With Stones Unhallowed likely to explore that a lot more, guessing what may come is a fun game for me. I started this thread in a sleep-deprived frenzy, and am slowly getting it cleaned. Also, this is a ridiculously massive wall of text, and so I'm using spoiler tags to hide it. There are also several sub-theories that I'm developing based off of this thought that are included, which contribute to the size. Edit: Heavy edits to introduction and point 1. Supporting reasons! Problems with the idea! Thoughts? Comments? Responses? I have edited some points, in order to rectify mistakes and confusions! Thank you all who have posted so far! Keep posting. I know this is a bit ridiculous, but I find myself enjoying this idea more and more as time goes by, even if I don't think it's actually true. Adding spoiler tags just to hide some of the post and make it less likely to accidentally give someone a coma when they run into it.

There's also a WoB somewhere that essentially says that the reason the landmass looks the way it does is on purpose, and a direct result of the Highstorms. The continent is actually eroded and built up again continually as a direct result of these storms (the crem deposits that are mentioned constantly throughout are a symptom of this process.)

So, I missed all of this. But I'd like to say that I think that if we took your avatar and put some candles on it, that might be more appropriate than the cake The idea of a giant chasmfiend being used to celebrate a birthday is...well, it makes me ridiculously happy, what else can I say?!

And here at first I took it to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. There's a point where the main character, Valentine Michael Smith, demonstrates a type of psychokinetic power that makes objects disappear (into some other dimension.) I remember that while this activity was being filmed, from multiple angles at the same time, no matter the viewpoint, the object seemed to just walk out of existence at precisely 90 degrees.

So, I actually have a different theory. The Cosmere takes place within a contained galaxy/universe/what-have-you. The God Beyond is the entity or entities that set about the creation of the Cosmere. So, it could be a scientist (or, more likely, a whole team of them) playing with beakers and test tubes and all sorts of majiggery stuff. Or maybe something more akin to the Shards that we've seen, in the ability to directly manipulate the energy of the universe on their own, and without needing tools or technology to do so. I think I'm explaining this poorly, but it's like those Russian dolls, where one fits inside of the other and each gets progressively smaller. If you look at the smallest, then to them, the next larger doll that they fit inside would be "The God Beyond." And maybe that happens all the way out. Or another way to describe it would be that the God Beyond is an extra-universal being. If that doesn't make sense, I may try to clean it up a bit later, but probably not. Just remember, turtles all the way down!

Are you asking favorite story, like you said, or favorite work (such as short story, novella, novel, etc.)? Because my favorite story is Shallan in the Stormlight Archive series. How I feel about the other characters have waxed and waned, but her story just keeps getting better and stronger with every re-read. To a very, very large degree I see elements of my own life reflected in Shallan, both in troubles at home (although mine pale in comparison of magnitude) and how we dealt with them. I think that WoR is, for the most part, the best written novel of Sanderson so far, and includes my favorite character, but there were enough events that snapped me out of it and back to reality on my first read-through that it's not on my short-list for favorite work (Kaladin in WoK was awesome; I didn't like him nearly as much in WoR, but I understand that I'm not in the majority of this opinion on these boards). For my favorite novel/novella/short, though, that's a whole hell of a lot harder. Probably the first Mistborn, because it was the first work of his that I read (I read the one WoT novel first, but I still consider those to be Jordan's works, rather than Sanderson's). So there's that very strong "first moment" reaction that lingers on. Possibly Warbreaker, which starts off so--not really good, but then turns great by the end. I missed the importance Hoid in it the first time around, but there was still so much there that gave me a glimpse into what more was going on Cosmerically speaking (yeah, I didn't really get that same feeling on the initial read-through of Mistborn.)

I don't see how this is much different from saying that spren are attracted to people that act or behave in certain ways--which we already know to be true. Although, I guess this would really be more saying, "The Surges determine the type of people that spren are attracted to." We have also seen incredibly few examples to be making any sort of assumptions about relations. For example, we have only actually seen Lightweavers/Elsecallers at all of the examples you've given. Although Szeth being a Skybreaker is assumed, he as yet has attracted no spren while on-screen, so comparing his personality with anyone in regards to your theory is flawed. Comparing Kaladin to vague generalities of Skybreakers based on WoB and the epigraphs in WoR is also a flawed method. Also, even if everyone with a name in the books became a Radiant, it would likely be possible to find connections in personalities that you describe that are merely happenstance; it's actually very, very difficult to find that there's no commonality between people; and the smaller the sample size, the easier it becomes. However, I wouldn't be surprised if a form of your theory were true. It would be a way to demonstrate the push/pull mechanism that seems to fuel Sanderson's magic systems, without the blatant use in Mistborn.

I agree that they had experience becoming comfortable with stormform before ever giving it to Eshonai. There's a few reasons for it! First, the last couple of lines in the quote provided by Rybal is a common storytelling technique to either give foreshadowing or produce a red herring in that direction (The butler couldn't be the killer...could he?). So, Sanderson at least wants us to think that it's a strong possibility. But, at a subtle enough level that it's not super-blatantly obvious, which feeds either possibility. Because this is epic fantasy that so far is told including flashbacks and prophecy, I'm inclined to think it's foreshadowing a bigger reveal later. If it were a mystery, then I'd be more inclined to believe it a red herring. Second, it makes a whole lot of narrative/story sense for Venli to have held the form before. Even in nimbleform (while working as a scholar) she seems to tune to the 'new' Rhythms. The more violent, destructive, hateful types. I don't have the books here, but I vaguely recall her having an attitude/mindset shift between the meeting with the Alethi and official discovery of stormform. The mindset shift could have been a result of discovering nimbleform and subsequent adoption of it, or something more subtle and long-term. I can only imagine that the ways to search for new forms is akin to trapping a random spren (somehow), and then taking it into a highstorm and seeing what happens. Even if that's not the preferred method, all it would take is one scholar doing this with the wrong (or right) spren and getting lucky (or unlucky). And remember how basically all of the scholars followed Venli so readily? Sja'anat seems as likely a cause as any. We know that two of the Unmade are active (due to the Thrill and the death rattles), and there's a strong possibility of a third (the screaming that Szeth hears there's a WoB that hints may be Unmade-related). And sense the scholars would have to, by necessity, leave the city from time to time for their studies, it would be fairly simple (if not easy) for them to manage shifting into stormform in pairs and trios, perhaps gaining new knowledge each time. This influence could be very long-term, too; she and her scholars discovered nimbleform, after all, which could have been Sja'anat's opening move (the ancient enemy unseen for thousands of years appears, and is simply misunderstood. Here, have an apple. No, it's not poisoned; honest!) Alternatively, it's possible that the reason why it takes Parshendi so long to adjust to new forms is due to using trapped spren, and Venli's basic nature meant that she was able to attract one all by herself. This would explain why she's always smiling while in stormform, which I don't recall seeing from any of the others. (Which would then suggest that she hadn't run off and been stormform before, but has just always been a hateful, spiteful, vindictive person.)

I should have reflected on my inability to remember simple details, and realize that it's because I was trying to force something that wasn't there. You're absolutely correct, lol. And others already mentioned the example that actually does, so I'll just see myself to the door. /whistle-innocently

Great post, sun tzaro, and you offer a very compelling explanation for it; despite this, I still disagree with you re: Shallan's mother You don't have to have had some positive experiences to wish that they had happened. Example: Shallan could have seen the relationship that other kids had with their parents, with a loving mother, and wished that she could have had the same. That if her mother had loved her, then she would never have tried to kill Shallan. This means Shallan would never have killed her mother, her father would never have shouldered the blame and become an abusive, twisted monster that destroyed the rest of the family. Shallan knew that her father loved her, through word and deed; if her mother had as well, the other bad things wouldn't have occurred. Since it's still unclear on how exactly people are chosen for the Radiant bond, it's also quite possible that Shallan was broken enough entirely because of her mother's lack of love. Which would mean that if her mother had loved her, then she would never have bonded Pattern, become a Radiant, and forced to murder her parents or die. And it's also possible for a parent to care at first, and then not later. Caring for children is hard work, after all. From personal experience, I'd say that I had a warm, loving family environment until I was around 8, and then my parents just stopped caring. There were four of us kids, after all, which is even more work. I can quite honestly say that beauty, to me, in my life, would have been my parents staying in love with each other. Perhaps when I was 8 is when they realized that they weren't. Literally every single aspect of my life has been fundamentally shaped and altered because of that, and the same can be said of my siblings as well. If there is one thing in the past that I could alter, that would be it. (And I'm against meddling in my own time-line, because I happen to like who I have managed to become in spite of everything, but God it hurt and took time.) Shallan had to have spoken the First Ideal with intent for a reason, and the really, really obvious one is the parent that didn't love her--maybe even one that seemed to for a while, like you suggest, but then changed for whatever reasons. Again, though, you wrote a very compelling post, and made me really, really seriously consider that I might be wrong. (And as an avid member of the Assuredness movement, it's against my nature to admit that too readily )

Heterochromatic eyes are totally possible; WoK flashbacks with Kaladin deal with his speculation, specifically regarding any potential children that he and (storm it! Laral? The daughter of the lighteyes, and...brain is mush, bleh) may have.

Feather, reading your reactions is..was...if this is a "thing" you do on a regular basis, I need to start following your live-reactions Minor spoiler regarding the final point in your spoilered comment. Spoiler. All little things that aren't much, and I have no idea if any of those are reflected in the scene in question as I haven't read it yet, but..!

Yes, I know I'm awesome, but you should really share that appreciation with others. I would name names, but then it'd make them embarrassed, and those I forgot to mention would be upset. It would be this whole thing. Let's just pretend that you said everyone here was awesome and move on, ok? Ok! There's a WoB that the effect of the Recreance on the spren was to rip out a piece of them, and that it was a similar to someone with a datajack being unplugged while they're jacked in. So, there's a jagged piece of their consciousness that's just been ripped out, gone, and they can feel the void of what should be there. Since that actually doesn't make a lot of sense to me (I mean, I understand that the whole datajack and thing works that way, but I never understood why, and the explanations I've read for the last 16 years [holy crap it's been that long since I discovered ShadowRun and CyberPunk? God...] still seem like nothing more than an excuse to have a consequence they thought would be cool) I have invented my own, alternative explanation. Think of the spren of a Shardblade as a burn victim in a coma. When they are summoned, they are forced into consciousness and the pain of second- and third-degree burns across their entire body, with no painkillers. They're not going to have calm, rational discussion about why they were in the house when someone locked them in and set it ablaze, they're just going to scream as every nerve in their body is triggered with the sensation of burning godawful pain. Still though, the thought of Taln being a spren is not as far-fetched as you might think. Same would be true for any of the Heralds, really. I mean, the Stormfather is a spren (of sorts), and is a worshipped entity. The Heralds are held in slightly lower esteem. Many people across Roshar are actively trying to return them. There are certain acts and attributes that particularly attract a spren, and presumably this would be the same that would attract the spren of a Herald. There was even a thread many months ago discussing why there are no spren of the Heralds (sorry, no link, can't find. I might have dreamed it.) Oh, and welcome to the forums!

Hmm, I think that consumption is the wrong word. It implies that the Investiture would be transformed to a different state / gone afterwards. This is nitpicky and pedantic and can freely be ignored by everyone, as it doesn't matter towards the point. Scadrial has been described as a low-magic system. Roshar is a high-magic system. This means that the quantities of available power in Roshar is going to be high; and, as we've seen, are actually extreme. It seems safe to assume that the Shards are relatively equal in the amount of sheer energy/power potential they have. That means that there shouldn't be the massive disparity between Roshar and Scadrial, even though it's a 3-shard (max...possibly only 2) versus 2-shard world. And there's clearly far more than twice the amount of energy/power on Roshar than Scadrial. My assumption is that this is because Ruin and Preservation actually spent a crapload (now an official unit of measure) of Investiture to create sentient life, whereas the life on Roshar occurred naturally, due to Adonalsium's visit, or immigration from other planets--or possibly from Investiture from one or more of the Shards. The interesting things about planets are two WoB. I would quote them, but I have not yet defenestrated my laptop despite numerous threats, and so it continues to have this thing where it won't let me (on these forums only. Weird, I know. Likely an update, or lack thereof.) One is that the planets themselves help to determine the shape that the magic system takes. The other is that astronomers would say that Roshar is not a planet that could support life on its own. Per WoB, the question that is perhaps the most RAFO is: "Has Hoid been to Braize?" To answer the question I think you are answering: Yes, the planet helps to determine whether a magic system is high- or low-energy. Part of this is determined by how much energy is available to be pumped into the system, since creating sentient life can be such a permanent drain. Also, Adonalsium was Shattered in the Greater Roshar System, so there's far greater amounts of Investiture available than one would normally find that is naturally sustaining the life and doing other wonky things.

@ Shenan: Great reason to unlurk, or greatest reason? I feel bad now that my reason was to complain. Anyway, have an upvote! And I'll be eating a cookie tonight; feel free to pretend it's in your honor

That's very close to what I'm meaning. What I mean is that I think that the Skybreaker's Second Ideal is that the Law is the most important thing to them. The Stonewards have their impossible and suicidal defensive tasks, the Windrunners have their protecting people, and the Skybreakers have the Law. I don't think that Nalan upholds this, even though he is clearly acting only within legal means. Although, because he doesn't kill Lift, there's a strong argument to be made that he is still upholding the Second Ideal even so--but he seems to be violating the spirit of it (but, given his Heraldness, that doesn't necessarily matter.)

My laptop continues to hate these forums, I think it's missing some crucial update. Perhaps I shall try defenestrating it later today. Anyway, @Moogle's reply to my comment: I did not mean that Nale is required to uphold every law at all times always, I meant that he is deliberately choosing which laws he enforces and against whom in order to achieve his own goal--and that his goal is not upholding the laws. But since he is a Herald, he isn't bound to the same Ideal as the Radiant Skybreakers were, so he hasn't actually violated anything that we are aware of.

It's hard to fit the Orders exactly to all of the force types. I mean, some are basically exactly the same, and as an old WH40k fan that makes me happy in ways that it probably shouldn't. But the Tactical Marines don't seem to match up with any specific Order well at all. At least so far as we know, there wasn't an Order that was much larger than all of the rest; just one that was much smaller. So, while thematically it might fit better for squires to be scouts, I don't see anything that fits Tactical Marines better. I'm not really happy with where that puts Windrunners, but I don't see a better option. (Unless you have two different squads of Assault Marines, one painted Windrunner color and the other Skybreaker.)

@ Twenty. Yes, he is subverting the law through selective implementation. However, unless selective implementation of the law itself is against the law, then it doesn't actually create any sort of moral quandary or paradox for someone whose primary Ideal is to obey the law. If it's to obey the law above all else, well, that becomes problematic, as he clearly has another goal that is more important than the law, or else he would have taken the extra work needed to deal with Gawx and associates (there is no reason to suspect that Nale thought Lift would be alone, so only doing the paperwork necessary for Lift shows a bias; a bias means that the law is not the utmost form being obeyed; insert moral quandary here.) It's likely, though, that being a Herald he isn't held to the same Ideals as the Radiants were. While he may believe in obeying the law, and believes that it is more important to obey the law than to "do what is right," that's a far cry from thinking that it's the most important thing ever, and to be upheld no matter what. So, while Skybreakers are Lawful Neutral (obey the law above all else), he could quite easily fall in the Lawful Evil category (using laws and policies for his own benefit, even if he is unable to make or alter them.)

Tactical Marines: These would be squires. Since Windrunners get the most, and Skybreakers fit with Assault Marines, I would grudgingly make these Windrunners, but it really doesn't fit a specific Order. Devastator Marines: Dustbringers. Just, Dustbringers. Assault Marines: Hard call, between Windrunners or Skybreakers. Techmarines: Clearly the Bondsmiths Apothecaries: Truthwatcher. Not a great fit, granted, but probably the one that they fit the best. Chaplain: Lightweavers. They're responsible for the morale of the unit, and Lightweavers were responsible for the spiritual sustenance of the Radiants. Basically the same thing. Librarians: Elsecallers. Duh. (I mean, Jasnah. Perfect fit. Like, absolutely perfect.) Terminators: Stonewards. I agree that this fits them perfectly. Also my termies tended to hold as long as I needed them to before dying gloriously, so that fits. Bikers: Edgedancers, although I'm not happy with this classification. But, bikers are essentially light cavalry in WH40K, and although Edgedancers seem to have played the role of Combat Medic / EMT, it's surprisingly similar. Scouts/Scout Commanders/Vehicle Commanders: Willshapers. I mean, they have Transportation and Cohesion, with a love of adventure. Sounds like more than a few scouts I knew in the Army. It's a bit surprising how well many of these fit. Anyone know if Brandon ever played, or was friends with people who played, 40k?

There's another possibility for why there has been no follow-up attempt on Amaram. It is very possible Heleran was the leading (or even only) voice for taking direct action against him, and he failed miserably. Worse than failed, really, as his failure gave Amaram tools that were considered as valuable as nations. It's also possible that the goal all along was to have the Shardbearer lose to Amaram, although such a plan seems immensely ludicrous. (If Amaram were to have a secret Shardblade he was already bonded to that no one else knew about, and he knew about the Shardbearer coming, then it becomes slightly more plausible.) I only thought of this by following Outis's thought--did they achieve what they set out to achieve? And then thinking about what actually happened as a result. That's definitely an interesting way of looking at things, and one that I hadn't considered before (although it seems beneficial to do so).

Limelleth got that one very close in the last thread, but wrong Order. At least, I see that as being functionally the same as "I will remember those who have been forgotten." And Kyats Rani, "not today" makes me think of the worst motivational speech in the history of movies; ie, Aragorn at the gates of Mordor. "We're all gonna die! But not today--I mean, probably. I guess we might. Some of you definitely will. A few won't, though! Go, fight! Pretend that you'll be one of the 10% that don't die today! Whee!" I've always liked the "I will be a light in the Darkness" one that Chlehrma had in the other thread, too, even though I think it's too general to be an Ideal. Seems more like the general goal of the Radiants, and then the Ideals are the ways they go about it, but /meh. It still makes me happy And the Stonewards always make me think of the song Tubthumping: I get knocked down, but I get up again, you can never keep me down. And I find that I don't have anything to actually add, so I'll leave it at that before I derail the thread!

No, I usually only re-draw and re-work my stick figure again. So, I'll draw it, realize it's awful, and improve it just a little bit, in order to make it recognizably a stick person, rather than a blob of squigglies. And, yes, critics be damned and all that. I just find it amusing that I'm so bad that even children recognize how bad it is. It doesn't really hurt my feelings any...potentially because I just have the one (annoyed, if any were curious. Regardless, your pictures remain amazing, and I remain astounded at people gifted in areas that I absolutely am not and treat it as no big deal. I mean, I'm also pretty amazed at people who can eat 50 hotdogs in ten minutes, so that might not mean much )