kaellok

Kaladin says that Braize is another word for Damnation in text. WoB is:

I remembered this quote: But, then, I found this one as well by accident. Seems to be an update.

How can it last across 8 more books? Make the threat bigger. That's always an answer. I mean, look at what Sanderson has done with other works. There was one thread a month or two back (can't remember the title, or who authored it because I am the worst) that predicted that we haven't even seen the Big Bad of the Stormlight Archive on screen yet based on when we generally see the true Big Bad make an on-screen appearance. After all, Odium is, quite possibly, a catspaw for something else much bigger, much more dangerous. Or the think of certain artifacts now unleashed on Roshar that have the potential for have disastrous consequences. Nightblood consumes Investiture. Can you imagine what would happen if Szeth wielded it against a Champion of Odium? How strong could that make Nightblood? (Or, if Nightblood doesn't gain strength by such consumption, what would the effects of such a battle be/do to Roshar? Certainly nothing pretty.) It's also important to remember that there are two separate arcs to the Stormlight Archive. The threat of Odium is likely to, at the very least, be definitively handled by the end of Book 5. Back to OP: I think it more likely for Kaladin to Hold the Shard of Odium than Honor when all is said and done. No textual reason, just the feeling that I am left with after WoR (the kind of feeling that is often wrong, but comes up with weird and cool ideas to entertain me at the same time.)

The problem with answering the question you have asked is that you haven't defined "best" (or "worst", either). Many people say that something is "good," even with obvious and glaring flaws, simply because they liked it. Others define it based on the actual quality of the work and free of flaws it is, or how well it does some specific things. My list of rankings for "most enjoyable" is similar, but different than, "best written." I'll give my top few of each. Most Enjoyable: # 1: Words of Radiance (despite Kaladin annoying me, I absolutely love Shallan, and Adolin, in this book). # 2: Way of Kings (just an amazing book, with lots of depth. I tend to re-read books no more than once per year because I have very good recall of what I have read, and it usually takes around that long for me to be able to enjoy the process of reading the story again. I read WoK 6 times before WoR came out. # 3: Mistborn: The Final Empire. (aka, Mistborn #1). The first read-through hit all the right notes at all the right times. I cannot remember now if I read this before or after he had published the first of the WoT books he authored; I read both in the same week that the WoT novel came out. I consider this book to be my introduction to Sanderson, and it is awesome. There is some undefinable aspect to it that the others in the series are lacking, which may just be that moment of realizing, "This. Author. Is. AWESOME." That sticks with me. # 4: Warbreaker. Every time I read Warbreaker, I'm surprised by how much I like it. The first few chapters are bad, but it's like a snowball rolling downhill in an avalanche of amazing. Best Written: # 1: Words of Radiance. WoR is, without a doubt, the best written novel of his I've read. The severe annoyance I felt at Kaladin wasn't because of a poorly written character, but of a character reacting realistically to problems he'd faced, and actually working on coming to terms with them. I love Shallan even more. I actually like Adolin now. The subtlety with Renarin is just beautiful. # 2: Way of Kings. Very well written, just great. The aspects that are tropey or verging on cliché are done for very specific purpose that works very, very well. Compelling and engaging character-driven world-building at its finest. It's magnificent. # 3: The Alloy of Law. The quality of writing in AoL is tight and cohesive, implying much without getting bogged down in unimportant details. It can serve as a jumping in point for new readers, while offering up lots of tidbits and Easter eggs for veterans. Everything serves a purpose, and all the points work together to form a very nice, cohesive whole. # 4: Mistborn: Hero of Ages. ie, Book 3. It's so good. I can't even talk about the things I like most in it because of huge, giant spoilers. Suffice to say that a lot of loose threads from Book 1 and Book 2 are tied up very neatly, in a twisty way that in some cases I didn't see coming and in others I did. HoA's great writing is directly attributable to work done in Book 1 and Book 2, but we see it all pay off in Book 3 and so that is where I give the credit.

I believe that what Moogle was doing was giving an example of how the Oathpact could have been worded that would have seamlessly enveloped the Radiants into it, whether they knew it or not. The argument is that it could have happened, not how it happened. Pedantic point on semantics: the text itself says that they are unique and special beyond even Shardblades--not better. Again implying that they serve different purposes, which actually strengthens your argument. <<I tried responding entirely to your last thread, but it just came out too harsh, and I don't mean it like that. Instead summarizing below>> I really do think that your idea is rather cool and neat, and may have some bits correct (regarding the larger issues with the Bond). I can even see a few different ways that the Honorblades being the focus for literally everything could be pretty awesome (which means others can see far more). I just don't buy into the evidence you've presented, and your counter-arguments seem to miss the point of the explanations why.

Not quite true...Adolin also really likes Wit/Hoid. Also, with regard to Shallan summoning Pattern, there are at least two times in WoK where we get hints that she has a Shardblade that she can summon. First, when she goes into the alley with Jasnah. Second, right before the cryptics actually speak to her; in fact, their speaking interrupted that summoning. I don't think that the bond between Shallan and Pattern was quite as dead as you think, but that you are spot on in the cryptics forcing her to renew and strengthen the bond. We have the following WoB that seem to align with this:

In WoR, on four separate occasions I put the book down to sleep because it was a Kaladin chapter, even though I loved him in WoK. I absolutely love Shallan, though; of all of the characters Sanderson has ever written, we are by far the most similar in personality, attitude, response to stressful situation, and coping mechanisms to deal with traumatic experiences. I can also say that even for a non-magical person, simply assuming you can do something, and tricking yourself into thinking that you can, lets you do all kinds of things that are a little insane. I taught myself how to drive by assuming I knew how, and physics, and archery, and a number of...skills more suited to unsavory professions. Confidence, even feigned, can make up for a tremendous lack of skill in a number of areas, and so from personal experience I actually found her initial forays skulking around to be rather believable (because she'd magicked herself some confidence, at least).

I really think that you give great advice here, that should be applied elsewhere as well. The quote you've provided that seems to be your central foundation for your argument seems, to me, to be talking about Shardblades. That's what the question was about, was the workings of Shardblades. I would expect an answer to thus be referring to Shardblades, not suddenly everything. If I were asking how photovoltaic cells transform solar energy into electricity, I would be very surprised if someone answered with every single theory and law in physics that relate to the transformation of energy from one state to another. Sure, they'll have answered the question--but in a way that's not immediately helpful, and possibly very confusing in the short term (fairly bad analogy, I know; sorry about that, but I think it gets the point across). You still may very well be correct, though; as Moogle stated, the wording of 'everything' that Sanderson gives is rather vague. Regarding the ongoing side-issue of the Heralds in combat and how humanity could have survived: One of Dalinar's visions had Honor regret that the Dawnshards were lost to mankind, because they would have been helpful to face the coming Desolation. I think it is incredibly likely that the Heralds used these, somehow, whatever they were. (Possibly they were people, maybe Slivers? Maybe that's what makes Heralds so Heraldic, is that they once held Honor for a bit. Wild, rampant speculation with absolutely no reason to think that other than it's late and I'm tired. I think that the title "Dawnshard" would be an awesome one to have, though, even if TLR's "Sliver of Infinity" is way better.)

Taln, the Herald, is not a Stonewarden. He's a Herald. So far as we know, there is no Nahel bond, and all Surgebinding powers are a result of the Honorblade. So on the surface, including any true Herald at all would break the pattern that seems apparent. Speaking of patterns, though, the breaking of what seems apparent may be incredibly deliberate on Sanderson's part. Think about what we know of Alethi culture and naming conventions. Names that are palindromes are seen as holy (the same backwards and forwards), with the more perfect symmetry bringing escalating layers of holiness--and perfect symmetry seen as almost blasphemous or sacrilegious. So, they value small imperfections in the symmetry of a name. They also consider our letter 'h' as a wild card, capable of mimicking any other letter for the symmetrical purposes. 10 is a number very important to Honor, and is the number of books in the Stormlight Archive, the number of Heralds, the number of Surges, the number of Radiant Orders, etc. etc. So, having a perfect pattern involving all of this might be seen as being blasphemous or sacrilegious to some people on Roshar. We know that the blurbs on the back are considered a part of the canon, written by an in-world person. These back-flap texts suggest that the same person is telling the story to us. They may have these same feelings that I have described, and so they have let in a very deliberate break in the pattern to symbolize their mortality and lack of divinity. In short, maybe Sanderson is trolling us from behind the cover and protection of the fourth wall.

You're right, I mis-read that at first. However,my thinking is still focused on whether he was shattered on Braize, to serve as a possible explanation as to why whether Hoid has been there or not is "possibility the biggest RAFO." That's why I was curious whether it had actually been said or stated anywhere where Adonalsium was shattered, or if we only had (very, very logical) assumptions.

I continue to agree that Yolen is the most logical place; I'm intentionally looking at possibilities for a "twist." However, Adonalsium absolutely has been to Roshar. And while he was there, he Splintered himself a little. Braize seems to have special characteristics for Heralds (all that torture and such), so it seems likely that something happened there to make it that way. Maybe this is because Odium has resided there for so long that he has twisted and warped the fabric with the force of his Hatred; maybe it's because the Shattering of the focus point for all creation and magic in the universe was broken there. To develop this theory I think I'll need to look into places where Shards were deliberately Splintered and the effects it causes on their planets--and then somehow form a comparison to what may or may not be happening on Braize.

In that very same conversation, Kaladin tells Teft that a lot of what they know about Radiants seems to be conflicting or contradictions. From the outside, we see how his specific complaints aren't true (each Order has two Surges, not all of them, which explains why some fly and some run on walls and others can teleport) -- but those may not be the only contradictions. I've searched the WoB Compiled thread and been utterly unable to find any WoB that indicate how many Ideals there are in total, so it might be four + the First Ideal of the Immortal Words like Teft says, but his information may also be a bit wrong. I guess what I'm saying is that that's a good guideline, but not something we should treat as absolute truth because the information is from an unreliable source. Taken from WoK, p.643 hard-cover, Chapter 45 Shadesmar. No possible way, in my mind, that that doesn't count. The Windrunners, or at least Kaladin, have their spoken Ideals result in incredibly showy effects that everyone can see. Lightweavers and Bondsmiths don't have this. Whether this is an artifact of Windrunners needing to be able to immediately see the result of their Oaths to believe that they are real, or they just are so arrogant to visibly shove it in the faces of literally everyone around them at the time is unknown (and a joke!) Can't agree with you here, actually. If we look at the nature of Shallan's truths, so far they are all directly related to her Bond with Pattern. She is terrified to summon him as a Shardblade, because that is what destroyed her family--causing her to kill both of her parents (eventually). Now that I think about it a bit more, though, maybe I do agree with you a little. I'd imagine her last Truth to be something like "It's okay for me to be loved." The only strong attachments she has with anyone are her family, and all of those pre-date her Bond with Pattern--and even then she doesn't seem truly close to her brothers (nothing like Kaladin and Tien or Adolin and Renarin). Everything we know about her suggests that all relationships since then have been fairly shallow and on the surface, perhaps even when she wants them to be a bit more (aka, with Adolin).

If you've got the books handy, as I recall, it's around the time in WoK where she's drawing Mr. T's portrait; shortly after that, when she keeps seeing the Cryptic spren following her.

The first truth we see her say is "I'm afraid." Can't source now, as I'm at work.

Good point! But I think that's still just a theory (the one that best fits everything that we know, sure, but I haven't been able to find something for sure one way or the other).

Title says it all. I was reading Shaggai's interesting Statistical RAFOgraphy thread, and in his latest post reminded me of the WoB: "Has Hoid ever been to Braize?" where Brandon replied with "Perhaps the biggest RAFO!" That got me thinking...why would that be the biggest RAFO? An Adonalsium-related event seemed the most likely to me, and the Splintering of Adonalsium is about the biggest Adonalsium-related even there is. I freely admit that it seems a bit of a stretch. (I mean, there's WoB that the worlds in the Roshar system are related to the mythology on Roshar; that Honor, Cultivation, and the humans arrived before Odium; and that the dragon Hoid talks to says that it is a part of Adonalsium's plan.) But, disregarding all of that, I'm still curious--do we know where the single most important event in the Cosmere took place? Edit: Finally got around to editing the title to be correct.

It is absolutely not safe to assume that they cannot become Knights Radiant; only that they did not. I do think it is very likely for Rlain to become a Squire to Kaladin, though. Sanderson does a lot of explaining how magic works based on this thing called a "Spirtweb". The thing that is really cool about webs is that they connect several different points together, usually in fascinating or interesting ways and designs. The Nahel bond is capable of forming when this Spirtweb is cracked, and something comes in to fill the gaps and breaks. When I think of KR and their Radiants, I simply think of them as, together, forming a giant Web, with the KR filling in the cracks and broken bits connecting them together. We've seen this with Kaladin and Bridge 4 (and seemingly starting to spread to all of the other Bridge crews), and we also see this to a degree with Shallan and the deserters she saved.

While I'm sure that he takes some enjoyment at watching his fanbase squirm (god knows I would), I don't think he would do it for just that reason. I do have a theory to explain all of this, although it's more of a, "Hey, wouldn't that be kinda cool?" instead of an "I'm sure this is what it is!" (if you know what I mean). The Heralds are granted Surgebinding due to their Honorblades, and not the Nahel Bond. They are not actually a part of any of the Radiant Knight Orders, because they are not a Radiant. This leaves open the possibility of one of the Heralds (all of them, really) acting in a way that attracts a spren, and eventually forming a Bond with them. The Orders are supposedly based around attributes shown by the Heralds, sure, but the Heralds seem to be greatly different now than they were when the Radiants were first forming. Knowing thousands of years of torture and war, and eventually betrayal, could certainly change a person so that they no longer represent what they once did (assuming that what they originally represented wasn't overly mythologized in and of itself.) There's really no reason to limit which Order a Herald would represent in the future; I mean, sure, it might make sense and be logical for said Herald to represent that Order, but other possibilities are also very easy to see. If we're going to have a Shallash book, let's see her as an 'ordinary' Radiant of the opposite Order she used to symbolize.

I imagine because Renarin can see into the future, having his book sooner may substantially change the way certain other books and story arcs need to be written. Also, having his book last, with that whole future-seeing bit, could easily create a nice and neat closed-loop of foreshadowing for that book which would also work very well within the overall framework of the back 5 and the front 5--while also setting up for future Cosmere novels. Or maybe he just wants a Kholin to end each arc, and Dalinar already has that spot in the front 5.

While Av is probably an unreliable narrator, I think that at the very least we should assume that he is right in saying that she doesn't play games with the wording of the boon. Because most people don't go to see her except as a last resort, it makes sense that they already have a good idea of what they need, and this could easily explain why many seem to get a boon similar to what they asked for. Me, personally, I would avoid the Nightwatcher; where gods roam, mortals are served best by treading quietly. Even the best of them can create unimaginable swathes of damage and destruction just by being a little careless. Edit: Because I didn't quite make it to the end of the thread before posting, and so WeiryWriter had already posted exactly what I did.

@ hoser: Not what I was remembering, but in line with some of the WoB I was seeing. @ kari-no-sugata: I might actually be remembering something regarding Mistborn. I've done all of my WoB reading after I had read WoR, including a bunch of stuff for Elantris, Mistborn and the like. Since a lot of it is all mixed together, I may not have realized that there was a difference at the time--or maybe my brain just combined the two, since I was likely searching for something completely different at the time I saw it.

I found a few WoB that are somewhat pertinent to this thread: I've spent at least an hour searching for the specific WoB I remember, which I think is the one that jefftucker is referencing. I remember tht it said something like that it's experiences that cause the cracks in the spiritweb, and that the experiences don't have to be bad or negative for that to happen. Suuuuper annoyed that I can't find it now.

Of course I'm using my own values to judge whether Szeth can be redeemed. I interpreted the question as "Do you think Szeth can be redeemed?" My viewpoint of the world and life is going to judge whether I feel he has been redeemed or not. We don't need to know more about his background or culture to "render judgment" because he has already done so; he point-blank tells us, in his viewpoint chapters, that what he is doing is wrong. He knows he is doing wrong, and does it anyway. He knows he is doing evil, but does it anyway. He knows what some of the possible repercussions are going to be, on a global scale, but does them anyway. Taking those actions, and his feelings, into account--I find any possibility of redemption for him to be so close to impossible to not need any qualifier. I'm not Shin, or of his culture, so those words are only how I will see his character. He may find himself redeemed and such while I still view him as a villain--and there's nothing wrong with that. That's why I say that my view is hardly simplistic; just because I think his past is irrelevant doesn't mean that I didn't consider whether it might alter my perception of him. Learning more about him may allow me to understand why he did it, but that understanding doesn't equal forgiveness or absolution. I can understand why many monsters throughout history have acted the way that they did, but that doesn't make them any less monstrous. My own value system demands that what he has done is unforgivable, to me, regardless of who he is or his value system or what he believes. You can wait to decide for yourself, and have your own opinion entirely--and we'll both be right. But the importance of free will and responsibility for your actions is far too great to me to be able to successfully imagine even the possibility of him becoming some kind of redeemed hero. tl;dr: Other value systems exist that can see what Szeth has done and find forgiveness for him, and that is fine; but for me, there can be none.

My view is simple, but not simplistic. If you are willing to take responsibility for your actions, but not willing to control them, then there is no mitigating factor to consider. All Szeth had to do was tell Mr. T "no". Let's assume that the Stone Shamanate is holding captive with threat of death everyone that Szeth has ever known or loved; what would realistically happen if Szeth refused to obey a command? Would that person send a letter to the Shin, and let them know, so that all of Szeth's loved ones would be murdered? Ridiculous. Worse than ridiculous. He had free will, and he gave it up to do evil deeds for an evil man. His past is irrelevant, his reasons are irrelevant, his culture is irrelevant, literally everything is irrelevant--unless the stone itself forces commands upon him, like a geas. Even then, we are shown how he fights back against the commands in no way, shape, or form once Mr. T gets the rock. Not even by taking longer than strictly necessary, or giving warning before he attacks. I'm interested to know more about Szeth and the Shin, but I cannot think of any way to make him sympathetic to me. Free will is everything; without it, we are nothing. And he gave it up.

No. In life, there is one absolute evil that reigns above and informs all others--the forcible submission of someone else's free will. Szeth's free will was not forcibly taken from him, he gave it away without regard. His life was not threatened, nor were his loved ones or family or friends (that we are aware of). Someone literally said, "I have a rock. You must do whatever someone says when they hold this rock," and Szeth responded "That sounds like a lovely idea." Szeth willingly abandoned the most beautiful and wonderful part of life, all while performing acts that he knew to be incredibly evil. There can be no redemption.