Kasimir

I see the memory of the Stickroll is still strong with you No, it's just more relevant to say 'These words are accepted' than 'Challenge accepted'.

These words are accepted.

"I see them! Two whitespines, fighting over a days-old corpse, with the world in the balance. But who is that, there? He hungers! He hungers to devour the world!" --Subject was a darkeyed Alethi merchant of the second nahn.

Does that make me Teft?

I guess (just one last attempt)--it's a pretty succinct way of conveying information about what kind of things a reader can expect in your fic, which is useful. No one wants a long story summary, and something like: 'Sometimes you have to start taking back what is yours. D!Harry, Mentor!Snape, Slyth!Harry.' is within conventional character limits (if you're writing on FFN, there are character limits to your summary) and it lets fans immediately know if it's what they're after.For example, dark!/creature!Harry fics are pretty much a genre on their own. You can't always tell from a story's summary, but these tags let you know what you're getting. Eventually it just spreads out into: sideburns!Elend, Radiant!Adolin, Dark!Adolin and so on.

Here, have an upvote for personhoid. I'd love to see Hoid and Nightblood sometime On a more serious note, I seem to recall a WoB floating around somewhere (although I can't for the life of me find it) that you get some kind of 'bond' (as Vasher did) if you survive actually picking up Nightblood, or something along those lines. Given that it would take some doing, but Breath and Stormlight can be swapped for each other, my guess would be that it wouldn't just be people with Endowment's Investiture. More pertinent question ( ): Can Nightblood bond a spren? A Dustbringer spren? Think about it! He'd be the perfect match for a spren! We know most spren believe KRs are eventually going to break their oaths and kill them. But Nightblood's different. Sure, he's like a puppy--a psychopathic puppy--but he's never gonna give you up or let you down, or tell a lie or kill you.

We need a Bondsmith here right now. Someone bond the Shipfather!

I believe we have a WoB about lesser spren bonds: So I guess they can, but given Sanderson said 'theoretically possible', I'm not willing to hold my breath on that being what's at work (i.e. lesser spren being implicated) with the squires. - It's possible Szeth did, but we'd have to have more information than we currently do. We don't know what signs the spren spotted, and if Szeth would be able to spot those and know them for what they are. I'd say that the spren starting to look for humans to bond more than 6 years ago is interesting though, in light of the fact that Taln (or the person who calls himself Taln, as Sanderson would say) only appears at the end of WoK, in other words, in about 1173 or so. Are there signs that a Herald will begin to fail and start to return to Roshar? Why did the spren suddenly decide something was wrong? It seems to me to be related to the question of whether the person who calls himself Taln is Taln and the strange thing going on. Off-hand, I'd be forced to wonder if Taln first made an appearance more than 6 years ago, for the spren to realise, but that can't be right...

I actually don't quite think it's the Stormlight that's equivalent to the metals. I'm not as good with the Cosmere as others on this forum, but off the top of my head, the way I see it, the equivalent to metals is the Nahel bond with the spren, because it's through the Nahel bond that the Surgebinder can draw Stormlight, and they do things (understatement?) depending on the nature of their Nahel bond. I suspect for us to fit spren in well, as spren are Cognitive entities drawn into the physical, we'd neeed to create a 'spren's eye perspective' so as to speak. So maybe to other spren, spren with an active (read: Stormlight being drawn through the bond/they are imbuing their bonded Surgebinder with Stormlight) Nahel bond show up the way Allomancers burning metal would. That might be the relevant way to look at it in this case, since there are two people involved in that Nahel bond.

If I had to pick, either bureaucracies/laws (you get the point, I know my language is a bit imprecise) or walls. The first allows you to let a lot of people live together and make it work out somehow. One of the many, many things needed for a successful civilisation. The latter? Walls: the first anti-horseman technology that actually worked. Necessary part of cities defending against conquering armies of horsemen.

Kobold King is right--at least as far as I know, it comes from fandom. Not the crowd at 17s; more the fanfiction writing crowd in fandom, so places like livejournal, tumblr, FFN, etc. The noun is mostly used as shorthand to denote a type of character, so people might talk about 'dark!Harry' (example from Harry Potter) or 'manipulative!Dumbledore.' Why exactly the '!', I'm sorry, I don't know. (At least when I was paying attention to the fanfiction crowd about...oh, ten years ago, I'd seen it in circulation.)

The stick is a stick. Do not question its hardness stick-ness.

What about, "I never played stealth in Skyrim" and "I'm still hoping to play Deus Ex: Human Revolution"?

Another video game reference: When you play The Force Unleashed and reckon this must be the closest it gets to being Szeth

kaellok: I'd have to agree with you on the point about 'surge' being italicised for Shallan but not for Adolin. That, at least, I can't explain with this framework, but if Sanderson put it there to encourage speculation, he's certainly succeeded! Just look at the threads this has spawned - With regard to whether a Nahel bond could or could not have been in place: Does the person have to be broken before this bond can form, or does the breaking have to happen for the bond to take root? If that's the case, it might be possible to read Adolin suddenly not experiencing the Thrill as the sign of a fledging bond. There are problems with that, including the objection that the Unmade have moved, but it seems that this would be a way to solve the other problem: when did Adolin break? If all it takes for the beginning of the bond is for a person to act in a way attractive to a radiantspren, then it's possible that Adolin has been drawing a radiantspren (which explains the Thrill lessening for him, the same way it has occasionally retreated for Dalinar through his unfixed quasi-bond with the Stormfather around the time of WoK) and then the breaking point by the end of WoR (whether it is from the death of Sureblood or from Sadeas' taunting) is what finally opened him to unconsciously draw in Stormlight? I'm also interested in Ati's suggestion: breaking can be cumulative. On this view, it's not a specific event per se that broke Adolin, but the cumulative weight of many, many events--from Sureblood's death, to watching his father seem to fall apart (WoR) to Sadeas' constant attempts to destroy his House. In that sense, the scene where Adolin snaps would be the literal 'last straw that breaks the camel's back'--in both senses of breaking.

Nightstick: unstoppable force meets immovable object.

Joining the people who misread this thread title. Oh, my days... In any case: perhaps you're right, but if we were to draw the parallel to Allomancy, then you can't be detected if you're not burning metal. In the same way, the proper Rosharan parallel, it seems to me, is that another spren doesn't become apparent unless you're using Stormlight. Which Kaladin was doing, so Pattern might have seen Syl. While that might be one way spren see other spren, I notice that Syl saw Pattern only when Pattern was doing something blatant (distracting...was it Renlis?). To use a really bad analogy, maybe it's like Assasin's Creed. Most spren are in low-profile mode, or blending. It's only when you take high-profile actions that another spren might spot you. ...Cannot believe I just went there...

I like Moogle's theory too, and think there's clearly more going on in that bit. "A... a decision has been made. It is time for the Oathpact to end." To me, this reads like Jezrien is especially trying to avoid naming people. And coupled with Moogle pointing out the traitor quote, it's possible that a traitor Herald (possibly Ishar? He's the one who suggested a way out of the Oathpact but I grant it's not necessarily him) aired the idea of abandoning the Oathpact. I'm not convinced all the other Heralds unanimously agreed to it, but I suspect if they'd known Taln was already dead, as it were... Would it take more than one Herald to murder Taln? It seems in the chaos of battle, it's very easy to make sure that Taln dies.

"On my tongue, a lullaby. In my hands, a gift. His blood wets my hands. Oh, Stormfather, what have I done?" -a Veden soapmaker, famed for her scented soaps, 8 seconds pre-death.

When, during a round of dice-based RPG (wasn't the Mistborn one, unfortunately), you say, "I summon my Awesomeness."

Thanks, Moogle, this was exactly how I needed to think of Kaladin...That made me laugh! I'm not certain that her two boons don't end up being two aspects of one particular boon. Granted, the Nightwatcher might simply give them out in sets, but given the information we have so far, I think it's more reasonable to work with 'just one boon and just one curse'.

Kaellok: Challenge accepted Note: I'm using a Kindle copy which I've transferred to my computer to read, so the page numbers will be somewhat odd. For the sake of clarity, I've also provided the chapter number. And now, for unspecified occurences of 'lantern': In addition: The above is not a complete study of the occurence of the word 'lantern' in WoR. Much less does it include occurences in WoK. However, I argue these give us enough context to make these claims: 1. These are the different sources of light: spheres, torches, oil lanterns, sphere lanterns. 2. Sanderson specifically notes the occasions on which oil lanterns appear. I suggest this implies 'sphere lanterns' are the ones taken to be the ubiquitous norm. He does note when sphere lanterns appear as well, but the cases above in which 'lantern' is not marked appear to be 'sphere' lanterns. Given that it's the market areas/taverns which are specifically noted to use oil lantern, I suggest it does not make sense to think the palace (which is where the first two quotes take place) or Shallan's house use oil lanterns. Therefore, the use of 'sphere lanterns' is at times unmarked. See further the last of my quotes in the first section: Shallan only refers to what the men carry as 'lanterns' but it is clear from the context that the disambiguation 'sphere lantern' is intended. (She can't draw from oil lanterns!) 3. The ardent produces an oil lantern. But seeing as what the army--who were the first to arrive at Urithiru were primarily carrying sphere lanterns, I think this gives us ground to assume most of what they would have at hand to explore Urithiru are sphere lanterns. 4. Shallan and her guards, at least, are using sphere lanterns, and there is rationing of both spheres and lanterns going on, "considering how few lit gemstones they had." I think these at least gives us initial reason to suspect the simple use of 'lantern(s)' in both Seloun's quote and mine refer to sphere lanterns. And once more: Given the context provided by the first line, I argue that it makes no sense to talk of 'rationing' their lanterns along with their gemstones unless said lanterns ran off Stormlight. Add this to what I suggest are good initial reasons to think the lanterns are sphere lanterns. Extra food for thought: Adolin is the son of a Highprince, and Sadeas is a Highprince. Think of the Kholins what you will, but I suspect Sadeas would simply commandeer a sphere lantern instead. Here's what doesn't fit so good with the assumption of sphere lanterns: -Shallan breathes in Stormlight in Urithiru and uses the glow to light her way. But having seen how KRs using Stormlight look, it seems Adolin would notice if he were glowing. My tentative response: Adolin is stunned, and depending on how much Stormlight he drew/expended (very little, this would probably just be like Kaladin's initial unconscious attempts.) -Adolin can tell there's blood on his cuffs. He manages to scrape free his chalk marks, and do many other things which all indicates he had a light source. Either he went back for his lantern, or Sadeas' lantern provided sufficient light. They could still be sphere lanterns but it indicates he hadn't drawn on the Stormlight they contained. My tentative response: I think there was some ambient light. The text mentions that Adolin "ditched the Blade out a window", which might indicate some low amount of ambient light, enough to see a dark stain on his cuffs. Thoughts?

Seloun: That does sound pretty bad but I'm not convinced this sinks it. Contextually, we see mention of "torches", "oil lanterns" and "sphere lanterns". I agree it sounds like they need every bit of Stormlight they can get, but the real question would be if they're carrying oil lanterns or sphere lanterns. Textually, it seems ambiguous: In this case, I'd take that excerpt as a hint they were using sphere lanterns. Although they have oil lanterns, I think the context makes it clear, given the need to ration: the people exploring are using sphere lanterns. In addition, given that the amount of Stormlight invested was small and Adolin was acting in a rage, I wouldn't rule the idea that he'd invested a small amount of Stormlight out of hand. Kaladin didn't notice, either. Ati, Moogle: If we take Surgebinding to run in families, I'd find it an interesting indicator that we should be looking more closely at Shallan's and Kaladin's family. EMTrevor: Ah, thank you, I think that clears up my question nicely!

Fourth, assuming (and I'm guessing it's probably a warranted assumption) that he's suppressing (as always) the one that makes him Returned.Has anyone yet discussed the mechanics of how Zahel uses Stormlight to replace the Breath his body must consume at the end of each week? (In that I'm wondering if he has to breathe in Stormlight from spheres, or take walks in highstorms, or...) I bet he doesn't do that last though--wouldn't be long before everyone started to talk about that 'storming crazy ardent swordmaster who takes walks in highstorms." Agreed with the point on Hoid--Hoid's been playing Pokemon with all the Cosmere magic systems. I don't think he needs to trade with Vasher to obtain breath.