Stormfather-in-Law

Yes. They are saying "You're wrong." And not in an indirect way: they are indeed disagreeing with you. And they are showing evidence. Instead of complaining, bring your own evidence and discuss.

Fair enough. But I think the word 'promise' in this context isn't helpful even if Brandon uses it. I'd say it's more like 'a plot item was raised and then went unresolved.' I would agree an author shouldn't do that. But I don't think we can say authoritatively this is the case. For instance, I personally was greatly looking forward to radiant Jasnah becoming Cosmere-aware after walking a week with Wit, and I wanted to hear something, anything about that in Oathbringer. This was one of the items mentioned in galendo's post that led to mine. So you might think I agree on that point, but instead of disappointment I suffer only from heightened anticipation. I know she learned things. I bet they will heavily impact the future of the series and maybe the Cosmere. Am I mad that Brandon didn't show Wit spilling all (or more likely, what he chose to share)? Am I mad Brandon didn't have Jasnah share everything with her compatriots? No. I'm wondering what the heck did she learn that was so whacked that she's keeping it from the others? It's a long series. I don't expect everything raised to be neatly resolved in the next volume.

I have to say: How exactly did Brandon Sanderson promise anything? How is he breaking a promise? How did he keep a promise before? A promise is something an author makes outside the text of his book. If there's a WoB somewhere that says all those things will happen, I'd like to see it. Foreshadowing, however, is a technique that authors use inside works of fiction. Here Brandon foreshadowed some things, but others may have just been the result of a forum full of crazy obsessed people that have 3 years between books to analyze every word in a set of enormous books in order to predict future events....(hmm, wait a minute, side note: we are VOIDBRINGERS). I personally think it's awesome when Brandon plays with our expectations by hinting at something to come, then in fact taking things the other way. As someone pointed out above, the visit to Hearthstone very likely was written in that way to cause the reader to feel the same way Kaladin did. His surprise was our surprise. Why, exactly, is that a promise broken? Why would we want everything that is foreshadowed to become a checklist to tick off in the next volume? Wouldn't that make life kinda boring?

Two pages and nobody mentioned my number one loose end: How did we get through a whole book of Dalinar flashbacks, and yet we don't know where Gallant came from?

Not sure if this forum supports nested quotes, so I pulled this. Hopefully I didn't misquote anyone: What the Skybreakers did not do is betray the oaths to their spren, so among the orders their nahel bonds are still intact to spren that did not die. (Side point: if I were a highspren I'd object to the "destination before journey" way they approached avoiding a desolation, but anyway). That's a separate question as to whether they betrayed mankind. Which Aleksiel did a good job of pointing out why. More than just the secret of the Recreance, these folks and their leader especially must have been sitting on huge amounts of valid information (for instance, they at least must know the natures of Honor, Cultivation, Odium). The spren they talk to would have been originals, alive through it all. And they just buried all this, leaving mankind to sit in ignorance and live lies (like, for instance, the Vorin religion, loosely based on truths but warped over eons). And more than anything else, mankind needs good information to survive. Imagine if they were prepared for this instead of just infighting.

Amaram's retort against Dalinar was brilliant in book. No nuance? I have to say that Oathbringer has its flaws, but unnuanced evil is not one of them. There isn't an antagonist in the joint without a good reason to do what they do - and in many cases, good reason to view themselves as the hero of their own story. Amaram is right on with his critique - if we saw no internal monologue from Dalinar, he'd be seen as MUCH worse. The only difference, the difference that matters enough to make one the antagonist? One chose journey before destination, the other chose the destination first.

I think neither. I don't have the book with me, but he had a jar of something (memory says a white powder that turned black on one side, remember thinking that a bit remarkable for other reasons..) and he first looked at that with surprise. Only after seeing that did he start looking around in the crowd for the culprit. So he had some sort of warning device.

Right. Now I need an aspirin.

There’s a part of this I don’t think has been commented on. Smart T actually wrote a message to dumb T. So, by my reading, much of the original post here is right on - certainly “negotiate from a position of strength” is a fake out. Smart T saw all this coming. This doesn’t really speak to whether Cultivation is also making a play on T as well, of course, but personally I think yes, he’s a mere pawn in her play. She doesn’t seem to have much in the way of qualms. The only other thing I wanted to highlight is that, regardless of whether Mr. T is working with Odium under an agreement at present, he now holds a dagger of knowledge about Odium’s weakness - Renarin. He is uniquely poised to ram that into a soft spot, potentially redeeming himself and the diagram itself.

I thought the same thing, but not from noticing windspren nearby when he is close to oaths. For me it was when he saved the townsfolk from the highstorm by forming a barrier of windspren. I thought, 'this is a predecessor to plate' when reading that scene.

I did note this in each book, and thought it was brilliant - just one more facet to make these books hold that much more light. Separate subject, but what I didn't note is that Nazh somehow got a copy of Navani's personal journal. Hmm. How does (and why does) he get into such intimate details?

That was my exact reading of this interlude on my 2nd readthrough.

Man, if shardblades screamed when held by humans, think of when Odium's minions start using their captured blades.

My thought is that figure was of Shallan's invention rather than something real. It combines the horse figures she had seen at one point in Urithiru with the Midnight Mother's influence on her drawings.

Hmm... “My spren claims that recording this will be good for me, so here I go. Everyone says I will swear the Fourth Ideal soon, and in so doing, earn my armor. I simply don’t think that I can. Am I not supposed to want to help people? —From drawer 10-12, sapphire” Excerpt From: Brandon Sanderson. “Oathbringer.”

OB Day! I didn't read a word until it arrived this morning. I will admit, though, that the itch was getting to me, especially after reading some of the spoiler-free reviews. I was thinking well...maybe just the prologue, the day before. But I was too busy yesterday to succumb to temptation. So...who else made it?

Though, the horse itself also does keep replacing the horsehair...

Forgive me, but it seems like you're leaping past any counter-arguments made elsewhere, assuming that your idea is correct, then asking what everyone thinks of all the moral/philosophical conclusions you've drawn from that idea being true. I think you're skipping a step and making conclusions based on a very shaky supporting structure.

You may be correct about Jasnah's intentions, but you may not be. Nobody can disprove your point, but neither can you prove it. There's just...no smoking gun here, nor in the other thread.

I had this problem too. If anyone else has this issue, there are many web-based doc -to- epub converters that work for free. I used one of these to convert White Sand, then it can be read in any e-reader.

You guys are thinking too small. Guided Shardmissile Discussion Ahh. Good times.

On course, steady as she goes. I've read WoK, with a WoR re-read waiting in the wings so I'm primed and ready to go on release day. Between them and for something different, I've been reading "The Ends of the World" by Peter Brannen. Despite the fantasy-sounding title, it is non-fiction - still a fascinating book, although slightly depressing. Haven't been hit with the desire to read spoilers like I was with WoR, I think because I felt pretty strongly that it lessened the experience for me last time,

I think Lightflame is right on, but also want to add one piece. These things are called "Dawnshards" - which rather strongly implies they came first. The sprenblades were imitations of the honorblades - meaning they came after. Sure, the honorblades could have come before dawnshards, but then why the name? So beyond just literary/narrative reasons, that alone to me suggests the dawnshards are not the same as shard/sprenblades. Disclaimer: as a member of the "No Oathbringer Spoilers Support Group", I haven't read one word of that book, so any illumination that text brings is as lost to me as the dawnshards themselves.

Wow. Where does one get such power?

Wow, I mean, I may be insane, but that's crazy!