Pathfinder

I see Kaladin, Shallan, Venli, and Rlain being the first arc in voidbringer controlled lands. Kaladin because of the excerpt posted earlier. Shallan to keep them hidden/disguised. Rlain to blend in and try to turn parshendi. Venli because by accident Rlain will be how they make contact with her and she joins team Kholin. Or Moash instead of Rlain to be a counter point to Kaladin and cause conflict. I see the secondary being Dalinar, Jasnah, and Adolin back at Urithiru. Dalinar needs to be in the tower to lead the radiants and possibly get the tower working with help from Navani to delve into the Sibling. Jasnah to rule as Queen of Alethkar and Adolin at her side to rule as Highprince of the Kholin princedom. The last I feel like it is going to be Shinovar with Szeth having gained approval from Dalinar to pursue the shamanate, but I cannot for the life of me figure out who would accompany him. Actually as I type this, Lift possibly? So TLDR First Arc: Kaladin, Shallan, Rlain, Venli or Kaladin, Shallan, Moash, Venli Second Arc: Dalinar, Jasnah, Adolin Third Arc: Szeth, Lift

That would be valid if it wasn't for the fact that (to me) Amaram knew he was helping bring about the desolations to bring back "their holy figures". He knew the desolations would result in the deaths of untold numbers. So (again to me) that is not Amaram "trying to do the right thing". That is Amaram wanting his beliefs to be enforced on the world, and is willing for countless innocent lives to be extinguished to accomplish it. Much like he did to Kaladin's men. You want your religion to be dominant and save souls? Sure! Then talk to them. Convince them. Do not consign them to death without their knowledge or say under the premise of "saving their souls". No one (to me) is truly irredeemable. However if when we meet them at a certain point they make choices not to seek redemption, then they are the problem. If we met Dalinar when he was young, he has a problem because he continually chooses to kill. If we then see Dalinar when he is with Evi, and his choices to spare the child, and begin trying to make his wife happy, then we see he is trying. Amaram at every step chose to deny responsibility, and as explained in this thread, opted for narcissism. As he is now dead, he has run out of further chances to choose to take responsibility. So it is not about looking at the result and judging the individual "redeemable". At every juncture Amaram denied responsibility. That to me is the fact of the matter regardless at what point you look at him in his journey. edit: also if we were to line Amaram, Dalinar and Szeth side by side, they each had their big "moment" before death. Just in Dalinar and Szeth's case they chose to take responsibility, while Amaram did not. Dalinar's big moment was after the Rift. He chose to take responsibility and sought forgiveness Szeth's big moment was when he was confronted by Kaladin in the skies over the shattered plains. He chose to take responsibility and offered himself up to Kaladin's blade Amaram's big moment was when he was confronted by the evidence that the heralds betrayed humanity, ran away and lied. He chose not to take responsibility and fled to Odium.

Dalinar recognized what happened at the Rift was wrong. When he went to the nightwatcher he asked for forgiveness. Cultivation erased his memory to give Dalinar a chance to choose who he would become. She said she could be just as easily making a weapon for the enemy. Dalinar could have taken the erased memory, and continued on killing like nothing changed, but he didn't. He chose to be a better man. He chose to ask for forgiveness. He chose to take control of his impulses. He chose to take responsibility and do better. Szeth followed the tenets of his people. When Kaladin proved them wrong, Szeth chose to take responsibility for his actions. When he was raised from the dead, he no longer took things on blind orders. He began to question. He reasoned for himself. He could have chose to follow Nale. But instead he chose to take responsibility for his actions, and seek to do better. Amaram had a choice when Kaladin gave up the plate and blade. Instead he chose to kill Kaladin's men to cover it up. Amaram had a choice when he found out what the Sons of Honor was trying to do (bringing about Desolations that would result in countless loss of life). He chose to continue to help them and actively took actions to help bring it about. When Kaladin popped up and accused Amaram of what he did, he had a chance to take responsibility. He chose not to. He chose to lie further and try to get Kaladin removed. Amaram then chose to further be duplicitous and try to rob Dalinar of the shardblade. When Dalinar caught Amaram red handed, again Amaram had a choice. He could have taken responsibility, but again he did not. In fact tried to draw his shardblade on Dalinar, and fled when Dalinar was quicker on the draw. The desolation has come. Dalinar and others are revealed to be radiants to stop the coming voidbringers. Amaram knows many will die. Does he take responsibility then and try to change? Nope again. He talks to Restares saying how they succeeded and he continues. Now we get to the question as to when he switched sides. There is a theory I like that says when Amaram got caught out in the storm before arriving at Urithiru was when Odium contacted him. So now we get to the final big chance to change. It is revealed to him that the heralds lied. Everything he did and justified by saying it was for the greater good, was wrong. Does he take responsibility like Szeth and realize everything he did was on him? Nope. Does he take responsibility like Dalinar and try to change? Nope. He sides with Odium who tells him it isn't his fault, and sells out humanity. That does not sound like a bizarre deterministic sense of morality to me. That also does not sound like a tragic figure to me. But that is my own reading of the character.

Except by Jasnah's own commentary, and confirmed by Amaram, his own mother made sure he got training from a wide array of military leaders. Jasnah just used that knowledge to throw in a barb. So his examples were not limited to Sadeas, Dalinar, and Gavilar. He worked with them when he became an officer, but that does not mean they were his examples. Sadeas and Jasnah confirm the honorable and giving lord is a facade. So his actions in the house are to maintain that facade. "Amaram, the honorable highlord who cares for his people" is a lie. Dalinar and Szeth weren't given second chances. They had to work for it. Amaram had plenty of opportunities to change, and he chose not to. That is why I feel Amaram is different from Dalinar and Szeth. They chose to change. Amaram did not. He just chose a different source to pile all his guilt onto.

As this is the "unpopular brandon sanderson opinion" thread, totally respect your opinion, and you are entitled to it. Only responding because your last sentence is literally asking why other people do not have a problem with him. For me it is because your list is not accurate. 1. the society coupled with the culture, coupled with the thrill, coupled with his own issues led Dalinar down the slippery slope into the man we meet in the past. To me, there is a core being inside young Dalinar that we get to meet as old Dalinar. Evi saw that core being inside him. The tragedy is they didn't have a chance to bring it out together. 2. Personally wouldn't call it wallowing in self pity. He loved his brother, who used him as a tool. What Gavilar wants, he gets. So Dalinar scared of his own impulses chose to clamp down on them with an iron vice. It shows the depth of his emotion for Navani how much he had to control himself to hold himself back. 3. It was not his intention nor purpose to kill his wife. 4. He was devastated at her loss and over what happened to the Rift. That is another glimpse of the man Dalinar could one day be, and becomes. The man Evi saw inside. 5. Goes to the nightwatcher to ask forgiveness. Did not ask to forget. Cultivation took a gamble. Dalinar could have just have easily become the champion Odium wanted. Dalinar chose the other path. 6. He does not go back to being a bloody psychopath. He keeps away from the capital and focuses on maintenance. Only when he is forced to return, and is overwhelmed by the screams, he goes back to drinking to block them out. 7. Number 6 explains why he was drunk at the feast. As Dalinar, and Adolin learn when facing Szeth, Dalinar wouldn't have accomplish anything. Gavilar would have still died. So it didn't let Gavilar get killed. Nothing would have prevented it short of a radiant. 8. He doesn't decide to hunt for Gavilar's killers. Elhokar does. He is the one that calls for the vengeance pact and makes all the highprinces swear to it. 9. because like any addict, you have to be strong all the time. You cannot allow yourself a single moment of weakness otherwise it will roll out of control. He draws strength from that book to hold true to the man he has become. 10. Navani pursued him doggedly. Its been roughly 6 years I believe, or more, and Gavilar wasn't a saint. People are entitled to move on and find love again after losing their significant other. Having said all of that, everyone's got their thing. As mentioned earlier there are those who cannot stand Jasnah while love Amaram. I personally love Jasnah (and wrote a rather long thread quoting every instance with her showing what I feel to be the depth of her character) and conversely cannot stand Amaram. So if Dalinar does not do it for you, I totally respect that. Now for my own unpopular brandon sanderson opinion. Originally I just saw Adolin as any other character. I enjoyed his parts like all the other characters. Now I am kind of tired of hearing about him to the point where I have begun to hate the character.

My assumption was the unmade could glean the information from the cognitive self of the person passing. I found before another WoB about this, that made me think it was being able to transform anything into your element, but I will need to refind it to see if its all in my head lol.

I was responding to your post above about Kelsier changing (by the end of Secret History and due to Vin). I feel based on the circumstances of the Southerner's beliefs, that is a sign of Kelsier not changing. So I took this post as saying if someone else within the novels confirmed what Allik said, or if there was a WoB confirming his knowledge. So I took this to mean unless a character walks up (who you would still question for all the other reasons you listed) and state "Yes, everything Allik has said is 100 percent accurate, done because the Sovereign said it himself", you would not believe Kelsier enacted those policies. Unless I post a WoB that says and I quote "Everything Allik said is completely true and done directly by Kelsier himself" you would not believe Kelsier enacted those policies and even then you would doubt it because Brandon likes to trick us. That level of specificity required says to me that regardless if I post such a WoB, it will still not be enough to cause your opinion to change. Now I am not saying your opinion has to change, nor mine in order to have a discussion. All I am saying is from my angle, you are very emphatically dug in to your perspective and opinion on the matter to the point that I do not see the point in discussing it, as it will only end up leading to agreeing to disagreeing. So instead of posting WoBs and page references from the book and using up a whole lot of my time, I chose just to say I agree to disagree, and leave it be.

No worries. Here you go

True true. I only felt it worth mentioning because of the kaza interlude. I am assuming (and I admit it is a big assumption) that the cognitive self was what the aimian cook was referring to by still being able to glean information from kaza even after her death due to the poison. Kaza just changed things up by soulcasting and going out on her own terms

If you would like thoughts on how Jasnah would potentially respond to some of these questions, check out my thread "jasnah more than meets the eye". I have almost every single quote that involves her across Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. So if you so choose, you could ignore my commentary and just use it as a reference for scenes with her.

Good point on the illusions. The Imager series of books went along that line. Though you would have to make the illusion be in such a way that even the victim thought it was an accident, as the body would remain, and the cognitive self could be questioned. But on whole, I could definitely see that working. Well done.

Ah, I understand now.

Sounds about right to me. Keeps the book canon, while incorporating the WoB.

Great, but you are still sending a glowing (very brightly might I add from all the lashes you are adding) and screaming person into the air for all to see and hear. The point of this thought experiment for "the perfect crime" is one that cannot be traced in anyway. By killing someone in that manner, you: 1. reveal the means of killing to be gravitation 2. reveal which radiant order potentially did it (windrunners or skybreakers) 3. reveal the location it was done 4. reveal when it was done Since the killer in question would have to be in the physical realm to accomplish this, all it would take is a witness to see a radiant streaking away in the air from the location, or see someone running away from the spot to narrow down the culprit. Soulcasting avoids all these issues. The cognitive realm seems "less" populated at this point in time. Lower spren seem to be primarily the type that hang around human cities so cannot testify since they lack sapience. Sapient spren tend to hang out in cities that are over the water in the physical realm, so less likely for a randon sapient spren to be chilling near by. Other than the proposed explosion by @Karger, soulcasting is largely a quick and done occurrence. Since we have seen soulcasting a person to smoke did not cause an explosion, i see no reason to think soulcasting to air would be any different. No physical evidence on the physical realm. By transforming the person to air, potentially no evidence on the cognitive realm. The only hiccup would be the spiritual realm and as @calderis pointed out (and I agree), potentially you would need a shard level individual to access to interrogate. That is why I think it would be the "perfect crime" I was having trouble locating that WoB, but Calderis found it (thanks!), so that's the gist of it.

Could you give an example? We have WoB that confirm skybreakers do not have any supernatural ability to tel the guilty from the innocent, and the lightweavers focus on personal truths, not finding truths in others. Though that could potentially be truthwatchers.

I don't have access to Hero of the Ages at the moment. Could you quote me the scene you are referring to?

There is a WoB for that Questioner Has a Hemalurgic Feruchemist ever used a Hemalurgic spike to tap power into it? Have they ever done that yet? Brandon Sanderson So a Hemalurgic spike is already Invested, so it's going to resist sticking anything else in it, particularly a magic like that. Questioner So if there's a pewter spike then a Feruchemist couldn't store strength in it? Brandon Sanderson Yeah. It would be difficult.

Or a bondsmith to enhance their abilities. We have seen when Dalinar brings the realms together that he charged the radiants, and that surges seemed to be easier to do while the realms were together, but I do not think we have seen any other order receive a direct "power up" from him like he did with Shallan/lightweaving. We also have a WoB that stated the "power up" manifests differently depending on the order involved. Interesting idea regarding the sharp pieces of glass. So basically the windrunner would be pushing the edgedancer from behind till the edgedancer ends up outpacing the windrunner? Interesting. I am not sure if a radiant could infuse another radiant with a surge while that other radiant is holding stormlight. We definitely know it cannot be done while another radiant is in shardplate, but I cannot recall if stormlight is mentioned. If holding stormlight prevents that, then your idea would not work because the first radiant would have to have a lashing on themselves, that would then interfere with the second radiant trying to put adhesion on the first radiant.

The goal was to make it so there was no way to link the killer to the killed, and process of killing. As galendo brings up, someone glowing and screaming for help while flying into the sky would certainly cause some issues. In addition you have to be in the physical realm and touch the person, so you could potentially leave signs of having been in the area (by either having been seen by a witness, or leaving physical evidence at the scene of the crime). Finally even assuming you could lash someone enough for them to go into orbit, the moment they died from lack of oxygen which would be prior to exiting the planet, their cognitive self could still be potentially questioned as the individual died while still in the planet's "sphere". Soulcasting would handle all these issues. That is not quite the word I would use, but as you said, it depends on your point of view. Interestingly enough as per WoB, that was actually how it originally was. There was just shardplate, shardblades, and soulcasting. Each order could only soulcast a particular essence. Brandon ended up changing that. Having not seen division, cohesion, and tension in full action yet, I think it is too early to claim that they would be ineffective in comparison to soulcasting. While soulcasting may require two materials (oil and spark for instance) to create a burning effect, as far as we know division could effect for more things, far stronger. Cohesion from what little we have seen seems to be able to effect much more detailed change. It just seems like it cannot create matter out of other materials. Tension I am very much looking forward to. There is a whole host of possibilities that can be done with it that soulcasting cannot accomplish. I know you said limited mimicry, but soulcasting blood to me is not close to healing with regrowth at all. All Jasnah did was cleanse the blood. Shallan was still injured from the experience and needed time to recover, while regrowth would have seen her whole and ready to go. I think the usefulness of the surges comes down to the individuals using them. But I understand that is your opinion, and though I respect it, I will agree to disagree.

Interesting. So soulcasting just got even cooler yet again lol.

Elsecallers and Lightweavers soulcasting cannon balls for windrunners and skybreakers to lash at the enemy. Elsecallers and Lightweavers soulcasting building sized blocks of stone for the willshapers and stonewards to shape into structures (that is my theory about Urithiru and the dawn cities) Elscallers and Willshapers teleporting stonewards to the front lines, while teleporting wounded troops back to the base to be healed by edgedancers and truthwatchers I will see if I can come up with more.

That is one of my burning questions for Brandon. if a person is alive, and soulcasted to stone for instance, if a short enough time passed, could they be soulcasted back to human/alive or are they immediate dead dead. Again my instinct is to say they at that point are dead dead, but would love a confirmation. Because potentially with transportation the body could still be found, while with soulcasting it to air theoretically there wouldn't be a corpseleft? Which is why I am wondering how would an investigator even begin to investigate such a murder. Like how would they ascertain that soulcasting was even the "murder weapon" to begin with? Asking these questions to think through the process. Open for thoughts and counters. So then my question is, if shardplate could be destroyed via soulcasting (as per WoB), and soulcasters are used to getting past innate investiture to transform something (also as per WoB), what effect do you think it would have on the spiritual aspect of a person who was soulcasted? Do you think their aspect would still exist in whole in the spiritual realm and still be able to be interrogated by a shard? Or would the transformation potentially screw around with that as well? Because so far it looks like (potentially) the soulcasting handles the physical evidence and the cognitive evidence. All that would be left to cover up would be the spiritual evidence.

Good point, though could transforming the person into air destroy their innate investiture, or lessen it, which we know from hemalurgy and such would result in the spiritual aspect transferring to the beyond faster? Which would again remove the evidence before it could be interrogated. Hmmm, perhaps. The stone pillar in the Kaza interlude does remember once upon a time being air, so Kaza offers it smoke to be free again. However, could air that has dissipated and intermingled with the air around it be able to still be close enough together to be able to recall being human? With the stone it was all in one place, it was air given rigid form. But I wonder if the same would apply in reverse. My instinct says no, but I do not know if we have a conclusive answer. edit: or potentially checking the axi of air to see if they recall being flesh, or bone? But now I am picturing another elsecaller radiant, or willshaper, or lightweaver walking around with their eyes closed, trying to interrogate every single axi in the room on the chance that one of them once was the person lol. And that would be assuming there was some sort of evidence to cause them to suspect soulcasting to try this form of investigation to begin with. Hmmm

Jasnah soulcasted a person to smoke in the alley and they did not explode. Soulcasting does do conservation of mass, but not always, and not always to the extent we think. The boulder that jasnah changed into smoke according to another thread should have killed everyone in the room from the explosion. So soulcasting the person to air would not create the explosive effect. I do not think they could. Their cognitive self was transformed. What is being left in the cognitive realm to be questioned? The newly transformed air? Unless there is an aspect to this I do not understand, I think this handles the issue of being questioned after death Are you replying to me or to Karger? If to me, then with Kaza, she was dying of poison. She surprised the Aimian by voluntarily transforming herself to smoke. So I do not think the comment made by the Aimian can be taken to apply to soulcasting. But regardless of my responses, I would like to think this through, so keep the thoughts coming!

Theoretically if you were an elsecaller, and could convince your spren to go along with it, you could kill someone without any sign or means of tracking you down. Elsecall to the cognitive realm. Locate your target. Make sure the target is alone (at home, asleep, etc). From the cognitive realm soulcast the target into air. Leave the area. The target's self is destroyed by being changed into air so it cannot be "questioned" after death like was hinted in the Kaza interlude. The body was transformed into air, so no smokey residue. No signs of a murder weapon, nor blood. Since it was done from the cognitive realm, there would be no footprints or finger prints. There wouldn't be any sign of someone with the individual before death. As long as it is confirmed that there was no one else hanging out in the cognitive realm in that area during the assassination, there wouldn't be any witnesses. Is there anything I am missing? I do not believe lower spren have enough sapience to be questioned if they were in the area during the assassination. I know there is a means to detect investiture (bronze, white sand, etc), but is there a means to detect investiture used in the area recently/prior to the investigation? I do not think there is, but if I missed something, I would be happy to learn of it. So yeah, how would you find out who the murderer is in this scenario? How would soulcasting be determined to be the cause? Is it even possible?