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Didn't read anything in this thread, 'cause I'm not done with Part 2, but I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I'm not the first to mention how great the Bridge Four chapters are...?

I didn't get that sense, myself. It may be a special power that not all Windrunners have, but I think we may find that this is par for the course. That is, when Shallan meets another Lightweaver, (s)he will look at Shallan's abilities and be like, "No, I can't do any of that, but I can do this..." and then bust out some feat that we had no idea was possible with their Surges.

I mean, Kaladin used it to keep himself and the rest of Bridge 4 alive for much of TWoK, so...

Well, the good news is that it's only a week away. Then the countdown resets, and there's no new Stormlight until... I'm predicting early 2021, but who knows?

Are you in America? If so, I wouldn't bother. Stores try to adhere to actual release dates. Your best bet would be to check stores that are not book stores but would still carry one of the most anticipated books of the year because they're more likely to not be paying attention (you know, Wal-Mart, Target, etc.), but the chances are still very slim. It's also possible that a delivery truck will take a curve too fast and a box of Oathbringer copies will tumble out to land at our feet. That is only a little less likely than you finding the one store in thousands that accidentally messed up the release date.

It's a good thing the shipping wars participants aren't writing the series. Shallan would end up married to three different guys (each more unlikely than the last--heck, one of them would probably be Drehy), Jasnah would hook up with Vasher, Sebarial would marry Elhokar, and Kaladin would enter into a domestic partnership with the stick. Meanwhile, Moash chats up every chull he meets but keeps striking out/being chased away by annoyed chullhandlers. And Lopen is dating chouta.

Probably not very well. Kaladin just got back with the news that the transformed parshmen are actually people, not monsters, and unless Jasnah learned something similar, they're probably going to butt heads. Jasnah will be dispassionate and practical about eliminating an enemy, and Kaladin will have a fit about it. Even if that isn't exactly what happens, they are two very different people--both exhibiting personality traits that the other finds distasteful. I predict immediate friction, unless it's one of those opposites-getting-along deals.

It's all through The Wheel of Time, too. My perception of it is that when someone has a big walrus mustache, where the left and right sides seem to be their own distinct things, rather than a single, slim line of a mustache, then you can refer to them in the plural. Basically, if each side is big and droopy like sideburns, then you've got mustaches.

If I am not mistaken, Shallan did not in fact cover her Stormlight-woven Veil face with a Stormlight Shallan face. She only covered her clothes, and dismissed the facial illusions. The issue was that when she returned to being herself from the illusion, she metaphorically put on a Shallan mask, as if it were an alternate identity like Veil or Radiant.

Oooooooh! It's been a long time since I've read Elantris, and I've only read it twice, so all I remember of that is that there was a mural (and even that pretty vaguely). I'll have to check that out. That does seem to make more sense than Odium, but I do wonder about the possibility that all of these planets had worldhopping in the past, and then it was totally lost. It would be odd for the functionally immortal members of the 17th Shard to live through an era where Cosmere awareness was common, then decide that non-interference was vital when that knowledge was lost. Well, we don't really know enough to speculate meaningfully on that, I suppose. The Cosmere may once have been exactly like that, with everyone hopping from p[lanet to planet all the time, and some catastrophe convinced Frost et al to let it die when it it started to go. Stuff we know about Nalthis may actually support that notion, now that I think about it.

This conversation going too quickly for me to follow anything while I'm at work, but I have two items to contribute (which may or may not have already been discussed at length)--one observation and one question. -Observation: Everyone seems to be assuming that Dalinar will be invading world leaders' dreams. That's not what he said he was going to do, though. He's going to join them to the Highstorm visions, just like the ones that freaked everyone out and made them think Dalinar was crazy in TWoK. When the Highstorm next hits Thaylenah, Fen is going to start ranting in Dawnchant and thrashing around, just like Dalinar. If she's lucky, she'll be alone, but chances are, she is going to be very mad about Dalinar embarrassing her quite thoroughly. -Question: Are we sure that the one mural that Shallan describes is supposed to be the painting of Ishar from the endpapers? There are a lot of things that indicate that it is not Ishar. 1) Shallan mentions the depictions of Heralds. They are recognizable as such to her, so it would be weird to have Ishar be the only one she can't recognize. 2) The picture is alongside Honor and Cultivation, so Odium would make the most sense, even if he doesn't look hateful. 3) The book describes a disc, while the painting shows a moon. Shallan knows what a moon is. I realize that there can be some discrepancy between what an artist creates and what a book describes, so this is a weaker point, but it still doesn't seem to work to me. The book specifically says "a solitary figure" (emphasis mine). This matches with Odium's intent to be the only remaining Shard eventually and does not match with the picture of Ishar standing in front of a bunch of guys, with the disc of the moon behind him. It sounds like the disc represents the Cosmere, and Odium trying to wrap his arms around it and possess it all, as the only power left in the universe.

I don't think Taravangian is planning to kill Dalinar at the moment. When they meet, Taravangian seems to imply that he expects Dalinar to play the warlord and move militarily on the kingdoms that refused his olive branch. Alsoso, when Taravangian sent Szeth after Dalinar in the last book, he wanted to make peace with the Parshendi, not other human nations. While it wouldn't have occurred to any of us that Dalinar might sue for peace with the Voidbringers, we now see that the liberated parshmen are not rampaging monsters like we expected, and they might well offer terms for making peace to Dalinar. Idon't think the conditions are currently right for going for assassination (and now that they've lost Szeth, I don't know who the Diagramists could even send that would be able to kill Dalinar).

Frivolous topic time! I chose Taravangian for the title, but I'm looking for everyone to submit descriptions of characters from their imaginations that they secretly know are in no way supported by the text (and may even be contradicted by it). See, I know I'm wrong, but I have a very precise mental picture of Taravangian. I don't have to describe it because all you have to do is Google image search "sultan from Aladdin," and you'll get a bunch of pictures. I don't know why, but that is always how I have imagined Taravangian. How about you guys? Any very specific notions that you know are definitely way off, but you just can't help yourself?

This is exactly something that I have been noticing. Stormlight's structure is very tight. The volumes follow patterns--not in a formulaic way, but rather, I think, to keep a huge story from going off the rails and meandering off (the way so many long fantasy series are accused of doing). Shallan's OB plotline obviously echoes Kaladin's WoR plotline, so for everyone who's clutching their pearls over how concerned you are for Shallan's wellbeing, better buckle up, 'cause this book's gonna be a rough ride for you all the way through (though this does pretty much guarantee Shallan being ridiculously awesome during the Sanderlanche). As for the topic at hand, there is so much up in the air right now that it's impossible to say for sure how this development affects a potential romance. I was somewhat surprised that it came out so soon, but I this isn't the first time we've caught Brandon subverting the "no one tell anyone else anything, ever," trope. I do have to say, though, that you're not being reasonable if you downplay the fact that Kaladin killed Shallan's beloved, idolized brother is a major, major hurdle to a relationship. Even if Shallan doesn't blame him and intellectually understands the mitigating factors, it will be a problem. The emotions will be hard to handle, and if Shallan is even a little unhealthy in this hypothetical romance (nah, not Shallan, surely!), she is probably going to eventually try to win an argument with, "Yeah? Well, you stabbed my brother in the eye and killed him to defend a Sadeas man who murdered the men you were responsible to protect, then sold you into slavery, all for his own glory." I'm not saying the relationship can't happen--and maybe the Shallan we get at the end of Oathbringer will be in a healthy enough place to give it a go--but Kaladin killed Shallan's brother! Be reasonable about how serious that is.

I have to say, ever since the Ishar and Shalash paintings were released last week, I've been dying to see Jezrien and Vedel but at the same time concerned that the different artist couldn't live up to Dan Dos Santos's work. Man, were my fears ever unfounded. I'm blown away by these. I absolutely buy them as religious imagery, in the vein of the illustrations in Hare Krishna publications.

So, Shallan seems to think that the dark presence in Uritiru is one of the Unmade (well, she hasn't said that, exactly, but her beliefs about what it is definitely sound like something we would guess to be one of the Unmade). I can't be the only one thinking Dysian Aimian, though. Oh, sure--Pattern thinks that it's something of Odium, but he's not omniscient. Besides, Aimians may well only be able to exist via a spren bond, and they could in fact be Odiumspren (or this one is, at least). This ties into an idea I got a few weeks ago, as soon as we found out that the copycat killer was just replicating murders in general (and, we now realize, all types of violence), not Sadeas's murder, specifically.I can't remember whether I posted about it or not at the time. I thought that our culprit might be an Aimian; although, I didn't really have any kind of evidence for it. It just seemed to feel right, in part because of Arclo's presence in Edgedancer. After all, why introduce a previously unknown race in a side novella? Sure, for Sharders, it's required reading, but the masses of readers who put Stormlight on the bestsellers lists every time a volume is released aren't as obsessive as we, by and large. But if you're going to introduce a race of rather monstrous-seeming creatures (I mean, they're made out of bugs) and don't want them to be generic, orc-type evil beasts, it's a good idea to introduce them by way of a friendly member of that race, even if a crazed serial killer is the individual the main plot most concerns itself with. Think about it: a creepy, made-out-of-bugs creature, sneaking through unexplored, dark corridors, reenacting violent crimes--that's a good villain. But if that's the first your readers know that such a race even exists, then you're immediately casting them as evil.

I could see him as Ham. Not the first person I would think of for the role, but he would definitely be good.

It is the serialization. They didn't do this much of a serialization for WoR, but they did release some of it, and I remember feeling the same way, like the writing just wasn't as good and things felt off. When I got the full book, that feeling went away. It's not the format, either. I read an ebook on my phone while I was waiting for my hardcover of WoR to ship, and I also read the serialization on my phone, so it was more or less the same format.

I disagree. I always think that people are reading too much into things (to the point that I've been skeptical or even outright dismissive of theories that later turned out to be right), and I really think it's an Aviar. There are a number of reasons: 1) It's an odd-looking bird. Birds are so rare on Roshar that Shallan can't tell what is and isn't odd, but it sounds like this thing basically looks like a green bird of prey. Green makes one think of parrots, but Shallan has seen a parrot before, and this one looks different to her. This is not a bird that exists in our world, even though the ones that we've seen so far sound like they're pretty close (if not essentially identical) to species that exist IRL. There is definitely something odd about the bird. 2) Mraize must have a reason to be carrying a bird on this spying expedition. Having a rare animal perched on your shoulder while you're trying to blend in as a soldier is just dumb. If he were playing the part of an eccentric noble or something, the bird makes sense as an affectation, but it adds nothing to his average, everyday soldier persona. There must be a practical reason that he is bringing it along, then. 3) Mraize's collection of magic items seems to indicate that, no matter how tough it is to survive a visit to First of the Sun, if anyone can survive and even bring home a magic bird, it's probably him (hey, maybe that's even how he got those scars). Khriss also says that you can't get to Taldain at all these days, but Mraize nevertheless had a vial of what appeared to be Dayside sand in his collection. 4) It is exactly the kind of Cosmere connection that fits into the Stomrlight Archive. Mraize's aforementioned collection, Iyatil clearly being a Southern Scadrian, Hoid using Allomancy, Vasher, Nightblood, Demoux and Galladon and Baon... All of these Cosmere-wide elements show up, and readers who know all of the series catch them, while those who are only into Stormlight don't get lost. An Aviar on Roshar fits with the other Easter Eggs. It's consistent, and Brandon is definitely consistent.

Yeah, at the end WoR, they reveal that they know who she is and that it changes nothing--they still consider her one of them. I don't remember exactly how it happened and don't have my book handy, but I remember that it does happen.

I was thinking because they are now no longer blaspheming by walking on sacred stone. It's fine to walk on the stone in Urithiru, according to Shin beliefs.

So, what power do you guys think Mraize's Aviar gives him?

The Highstorm at the end of WoR wasn't supposed to happen, though. The Stormfather threw a Highstorm at the Everstorm in direct response to it. That doesn't necessarily poke holes in the hypothesis: Odium could have been well aware of how the Stormfather would react to the first Everstorm, and it is only now that he needs to time Everstorms and Highstorms to coincide. We'll have to see.

I am really happy that the conversations are turning out this way. Fantasy does not have a great track record of dealing with interracial relations responsibly. Even when authors go beyond simple constructions where race A is Good and race B is Evil, they rarely address the race relations in a meaningful way. I think that you can see how this has affected the thinking of fantasy fans (though society in general is also responsible) in how so many Stormlight fans talk about Kaladin being racist. Uh... No. He has very understandable prejudices against a class of people who have near-absolute power over him--power they have abused flagrantly throughout his life. This is a very responsible way for Kaladin to wake up to the realities of injustice in his society. Some readers have been hard on him for not giving up his vendetta against his abusers quickly enough for their liking, and while such a position is pretty much nonsense, he does obviously need to work through those feelings. Putting Kaladin in a position where he needs to confront how the system he lives in also puts him in a position of being an abuser, taking advantage of those with less power than he has, is a very good way to approach this. We may be getting a clue into how Odium operates, too. With him being essentially the god of hatred, we expect a whole lot of evil, but I think that we're going to see Odium take a totally different course than we expected. It looks like he's going to use justified hatred to work his ends. The parshmen are absolutely justified in their hatred. When other nations bargain with the Voidbringers, seeing it as being a choice between them and the Alethi, it may be their absolutely justified hatred for the evil in Alethi culture that sways them to side with the "bad guys." This is very interesting.

I'm talking about Henry Cavill, of course. He endorsed the series on his Instagram today: