The One Who Connects

I don't think every interpretation was represented in the KR at any given point. I don't believe there are that many things that would be wrong by a majority of the interpretations either. Sorry to be Spock, but I don't think something largely driven by emotion will cut it. Kaladin's Third Oath involves moving past his hate. I'd imagine some Oaths from other Orders will also involved moving past emotions(Dustbringers and the Brave Attribute, the Stoneward(probably) oath of "I will stand when others fall", etc..). As will be covered in the "complicity" point further down, they did not abandon all that progress in a spur of the moment emotional slip, so it has to still hold an impact once cooler heads can think about it. The "Day" of Recreance was more than likely pre-planned so it could be carried out in concert, and emotions fade and shift. The cause of the Recreance has to have a logical component to it, or else people would change their mind once they calmed down/the more logical types will calm the others down and reconcile issues less drastically. Maybe I'm overestimating the human capacity to cope, but they coped long enough to think about it, and decided to go forwards with it anyway. Per Calderis: And less recently: The complicity of the Spren is largely his argument, so I'm not the one to argue it. And they had to die for it? I'm no Skybreaker, but I believe punishing the many for the actions of the few is... frowned upon legally. Windrunners might just frown upon that in general. You're a fan of majority opinions. Where do you think the majority of the KR would fall here? Key Words: I used "affect the situation," while you used "affect the world." The two do not equate. The Stormfather and Windspren are not helping your case. They affect the world by creating/moving things, which Ruin and Preservation could do quite easily when not fighting each other. What they could not do, is affect what people did. Ruin could do very little in the way of manipulating situations when not acting through an Inquisitor, even when Preservation was not at liberty to limit his actions. Manipulating situations so that people would break and become suitable candidates for Spren Bonding is just not something the Spren could reliably do. And I'll respond to this bit now: Recall how Kaladin felt when Syl was talking to him the first time in the slave wagon? How he thought the others would think he was crazy? He's not alone in thinking that. And if the Spren started telling you what to do in life, would you listen to them? And if they ask you to kill or steal? The crazy people might go along with the more.. out there requests, but crazies usually have things they can't do/places they can't go(like polite society). Additionally, using more intermediaries to get something done increases the chance of failure. Murphy's law: What can go wrong, will go wrong. The more people involved, the more chances for something to go wrong. This gets even worse when you include hiring the unstable. I don't see this method working consistently enough to account for the numbers the Recreance Era KR had. I don't see this method as consistent enough to warrant more than a cursory test and giving up on it. I don't see it becoming mainstream. "spontaneously generate"? Logically, those are the Spren contained in their Gemheart like Fabrials. The Greatshell dies and the bond is broken. The Spren then leaves. The incident I mentioned is a case of him having sworn two oaths and not believing that his actions fulfilling one oath would not be in line with fulfilling the other oath. If he truly believed that killing Elhokar(his second oath) would be in line with overall protection(his first oath), then his vendetta would not have broken his bond. If Kaladin can truly see a way for his vendetta to avenge Tien's death to be in line with overall protection of humanity, then his bond wouldn't break at all. If he can't, then his bond goes sporadic the moment he moves forwards with seeking revenge. Per the Sleepless, Shallan was "broken by cruelty." Also, what's this about being "fully broken"? Never heard this phrase used before. Sadeas and the Battle of the Tower. He handled that rather well, wouldn't you say? As important as Gavilar may have been to him, he is just one man. Dalinar lost several thousand soldiers, and nearly lost the rest along with his son and his own life because Sadeas betrayed him. I think the answer to your question is no. I do think it's that crazy. Even disregarding the special relationship they'll have from her growing up with Wyndle, consider the Edgedancer Oaths. Remembering the forgotten, listening to the ignored, etc.. I don't think people with a mindset like that would be the type to pull the vengeance card. I require further explanation. Quite a bit more actually, as I've no clue what you are trying to do here. The WoBs I linked don't really mesh with what you're trying to say. It's a reasonable assumption. And the final bit implies that you would be right. (Note: I hate people's wordings. They don't use Harmony, they don't use Sazed, they used 'Saze' ...) Your hypothetical generic reasons are valid. However, I do not think your current theory about "bondfarming" fits the bill for either scenario. It's in no way worse than the Desolation, and i don't particularly see how it would make the Desolation worse.

Glad we could reach an agreement. I guess we could liken it to the square/rectangle statements: All Squares are Rectangles. Not all Rectangles are Squares. Moral actions (in almost all cases) must be honorable actions. Honorable actions do not have to be moral actions. In the case of Ruin and Preservation, I can unequivocally say: No. As Rasha said: Is freezing the whole world better than simply destroying it? Ruin would bring well.. ruin to the world, but not all at once. These things take time. Eventually, the world would crack and crumble into dust. On Preservation's end, some things were stagnant and unchanging already. How much longer before everything became frozen, unable to move, to change, to be? Assuming this process would take the same amount of time(because Shards have the same baseline strength), Ruin would actually cause less evil in the long run because humanity would start dying off en masse on his world, and corpses can't commit evil acts. Preservation's world would eventually start to freeze, preventing people from committing evil too, but more people alive for a longer period of time means statistically higher odds of evil acts being committed. Even if Ruin's influence increases people's darker tendencies, when people are spread farther out because vast portions of land are ruins(flood, volcano, earthquake) that can't be crossed. You can't kill/rob people if you can't get to them. Odium and Honor are.. a little more uncertain. Honor(the Shard) does not have a moral component, so a world where you can bind people to their word can go one of two ways: 1) run by people like Dalinar or 2) run by people who hire people like Szeth. Dalinar's world will certainly have less evil than Odium's world, but a world where leaders like Sadeas and hired mercs/assassins like Szeth and Liss are commonplace? The argument is there to be made that Odium's world wouldn't be able to compete with that.

You'll be disappointed. (page 3) Not too sure about Parshendi, but I'd imagine not. Can't pin down why i think that, but i do.

They have only one post on record so far. So I'm gonna err on the side of "no" for now. @Claudy So, assuming you want that fancy quote to be your signature on posts : Go here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/settings/signature/, type it in the textbox and click "save changes."

Given the way Leras refers to her, I (and a few others) feel that she may have been Leras's wife back on Yolen. Wife/Daughter/etc.. someone he cared for. But Weltall is right, we'll have to wait for Dragonsteel

Why would Ruin know about it? It's a hack, not a codified part of the magic system. It's also partly Allomancy, which isn't "of him," if that's relevant.

So much this. Even Zahel agrees. Making Renarin relearn his own strength, how to walk with Plate, trust its strength, etc... It's all to hone his instincts for combat with the bonuses provided by Plate. Take away that Plate from someone who trained extensively with it, and those altered instincts will show up when training without it. That manner of instincts bleeding through is why Kaladin got his hand chopped by Szeth. He was so used to training and fighting against normal soldiers that his instinct to block bled through when facing a Shardblade. His combat instincts have been heightened by practice with Stormlight, which lets him translate that boosted speed and balance into a pseudo-boosted reaction time, something that he(and/or Dalinar) notes about Szeth when facing him. Stormlight boosted strength also allows him to shrug off some level of injury while fighting. Take away that boosted speed, take away that ability to ignore injury, take away that level of perfection, something fill just feel.. off, even if he is still in tip-top shape(which he wasn't.) In the future, we can add to that a method of fighting incorporating the usage of lashings(like Szeth has). Losing that will throw them off even more. Moral of the Story: The longer you spend practicing/living with artificial augmentations/specializations, the more dependent on them you become, the more incompetent you will be without them. Now that what Syl actually said has been provided, not exactly(doesn't make you right either, so don't get too excited that I'm admitting I was wrong). Syl is right about talent and practice. Talent is not some mystical concept. It exists on the real world. Kaladin is half-right. Talent is an advantage, but practice and training can match/surpass talent, and even surpass unfair advantages in some cases. His skill in fighting is from practice and talent. His extreme skill in fighting is from using Stormlight, which is not the same thing as being "from the bond." What does the arena fight have do with this? Brandon writes things because he feels that he should. He's gotten rather adept at misdirection in the past decade Bottom line: All other things being equal, the more skilled party wins the fight. All things being unequal, the more skilled party wins the fight, barring unfair advantage. Gavilar is a better swordsman than Szeth. Szeth had Surgebinding, giving him an unfair advantage, yet Gavilar nearly killed him anyway.

We don't know if there is a "core" of organs like there are to limbs, and that could make all the difference. Otherwise, I'd agree with you, even if this still falls to the accuracy issue somewhat

The meaning of "there are no foolish oaths" is the concept that "if you aren't able/willing to fulfill it, you should not have sworn it in the first place." It means that the blame is on you for making the oath, and that honor(personal) demands that you fulfill it. "There are no foolish oaths, merely oaths sworn by fools." -Myself, Sep. 2017 I don't think so. I think that an oath is only as good as it is wise. So, honoring a foolish oath will lead to foolishness, folly, and ultimately evil. I wouldn't say that honor unchecked leads to evil so much as the content of one's oath can bind someone to a course of action that is obviously wrong and against the intent of the person making the oath. It's of note that you begin your statement with "I don't think so," and end your statement by agreeing with him. Honor is specifically keeping your oaths, and following your personal code. I wouldn't consider Szeth's dedication to his oaths as foolish, despite how much devastation it wrought on the world around him. Most likely, you're subconsciously connecting Honor with Morality, which is a major no-no when it comes to the Shards. Honor unchecked by morality has the potential to lead to anything good or evil. (His statement should be "honor unchecked has the potential to lead to as much evil as unchecked hatred.") If the oath would lead to an action that you would define as "evil," then honoring that oath leads to evil. The dishonorable action would be to break that oath, even though doing so is the morally right choice. This fits quite well with what I said to WhiteLeeopard about "no foolish oaths." So thank you for that. Provide the WoB if you would. The exact wording could make a very big deal pertaining to the events of the Recreance.

Brandon has been asked about this. The gender of the Spren is not an indication of the KR's sexuality. Doesn't rule out him being gay, but Glys being male does not guarantee that he's gay. Renarin referred to Glys as "he." Granted, Shallan is claiming to be an Elsecaller so his word doesn't necessarily have to mean much. Renarin has kept quiet about his bond for quite some time now, and Glys hasn't appeared or spoken yet. Mayhaps Glys has a reason for being secretive too... though what it might be, I have no clue.

He was mainly added because he is able to read and write in Women's Script, allowing for such a book to come into being. Szeth(and the Stone Shamans) being able to write wouldn't shock me, but Taravangian was confirmed to be able to. Yea that one's a bit of a mystery. The lines being in regards to Vorin gender roles just seemed too.. easy, I guess. Having it be something else entirely felt more likely, if only because Brandon likes misdirection. I suppose I'm just going for Szeth for the same reason people are claiming it's Jasnah: I saw a line that immediately made me think of him.

The key is not power, but luck. You catch Extesian, Calderis or I when we are online, odds are we'll have a response for you. Catch us when we're not, odds are slim until next morning/after work/etc.. (Which is also why my name is no longer included in the "WoB Request Messages", as I'm only on sporadically nowadays.)

Shallan's mother tried to kill her because she was "one of them" remember? Bond had to have already started at that point for her to manifest any signs of Radiancy. I'd agree with the rest though, but that doesn't necessarily make Shallan stand out. It's been implied on here that her childhood life would have been.. rough, even before the fiasco with her mother, or else she wouldn't have broken enough to bond that early. Makes me curious if her happy memories from before bonding Pattern are falsehoods or selective memory.

Is not true. Cusicesh. (Don't worry, I had to look it up to make sure I spelled it right too)

Yea. I more felt that the Stone Shamanate betrayed him. Not that he knew that back then, so... I would say that the traitor title might've fit in books 1 or 2, but the Sleepless know far too many things that they shouldn't. I wouldn't put it past them to know why he was cast out in the first place and come to the same realization I did about who betrayed who.

His entire character arc in WoK & WoR consisted of following his oaths and not breaking his word, even in the face of his own death/end of the world. Szeth is the character farthest from anything remotely constituting betrayal. Also, the term "Stonewalker" means nothing to anyone who is not part of Shin culture or who knows about Shin culture.

Of your options in the poll: Dalinar: Eh, it could work. Not really sure, we'll have to wait for more epigraphs. Jasnah: The heretic line disqualifies her automatically. She calls herself a heretic, while the line implies that others call her heretic, while the author does not see them-self that way. Navani: Same as Dalinar, we'll have to wait and see. Renarin: The "some who saw further than I" line makes me fell it's not written by a Truthwatcher. Sunmaker: Being called Oathbringer, Sunmaker has better odds of being the subject rather than the author, but I don't think he'll be either. Nohadon: He wrote The Way of Kings, so I think he's out of the running this time around. Presently Unmet Character: It'd pretty much have to be an ancient character from Dalinar's visions. I don't see any "new characters" in the present narrative making big enough waves to warrant the book. Some other potential picks (I get a vibe from some of the epigraphs, not sure if they'll fit with the whole set yet): Szeth: 4 Lines presently "I hung between realms, seeing into Shadesmar—the realm of the spren—and beyond." : We have a WoB that the barriers between Realms weakens as one approaches death, so any death/near-death experience would fit. "I thought that I was surely dead. Certainly, some who saw further than I did thought I had fallen." : His conversation with Nalan about being dead fits. "I did not die. I experienced something worse." : I got a Szeth vibe from this line the moment I read it. He didn't die, but who he was and his entire way of life did die. "I ask not that you forgive me." : Szeth had no illusions about his sins being forgiven in the afterlife, so he would not care about being forgiven in this life. Taravangian: 2 Lines presently "I hung between realms, seeing into Shadesmar—the realm of the spren—and beyond." : The Day of Brilliance and the Day of Interpretation. He certainly saw something when he made the Diagram. "I ask not that you forgive me. Nor that you even understand." : As he himself states: "I am the monster who will save this world." He would do whatever he has to do to save the world, regardless of the consequences.

Well, given that they had to learn how to compound on their own (Marsh was the only one who had any prior information about how to), they might not have figured out compounding yet. Secondly, why would any of them have A-Gold in the first place? Until they learn how to compound with a power that they actually have both of, they won't have a reason to have A-Gold.

I'm looking for a WoB about an Elantrian wielding Nightblood. We have this one from a while ago: But I remember seeing one that is much more recent, and much more specific. It stated that the Elantrian would have to draw Aons and swing Nightblood through them to "consume" the Investiture.

Also, off-hand, I cannot find a map of Roshar, the planet, (holy cow they need to use different names for things haha) that shows the placement of Roshar, the continent. Have your map.

Ain't that the truth? The best example is Szeth, the most honorable character in the Stormlight Archives. He's in a rather broken state, all thanks to his personal honor. Honor had some valid reasons for that, come to think of it. Hatred, unlike rage, is a skill that goes hand-in-hand with patience and plotting. By forcing a confrontation, Odium can't use as much subtlety and plotting as he's been able to do this time around. Resisting Odium's influence was self-explanatory, since it gives Odium less of a foothold. A concentrated force is easier to fully destroy than several little ones, because everybody is all in one place(this weakness goes both ways though) I'm sure there is probably an "improved" method that would work more, but we as readers would need more details in order to come up with one.

Wouldn't be the first time an in-world character has been wrong. Wouldn't be the first time we've disagreed with Syl/Pattern either. And then there is Brandon:

Well, considering that the Oathpact was not actually broken... Either way, your prior statement and this one do not equate. Is everyone who breaks a promise automatically being influenced by Odium? No. The Heralds leaving the pact of their own volition is entirely possible, and would not be Odium "persuading the Heralds to abandon the Oathpact" as you said earlier. There is no doubt that breaking that oath goes against the intent of Honor, but there is quite a fair bit of doubt whether Odium actually had anything directly to do with it. I will partially disagree, largely because of Kaladin's experience with breaking that bond. He swore two oaths, but did not truly believe that one of them was right. His bond was on the precipice, but still functioning while debating his choices. The bond only broke when he started to move forward with what he thought to be the morally questionable oath. In order for the KR to break their bonds, they would have to break their Oaths. Breaking their oaths is the antithesis of acting honorably. Merely abandoning their oaths would have them end up like Shallan was, with the bond slowly fading out. It's an extrapolation of the line "there are no foolish oaths." Honor relates to keeping your promises, following your code. Breaking any oath is dishonorable, even if the oath was sworn in jest, or sworn centuries ago. The Stormfather does not take kindly to breaking deals, and that mindset was only made worse after the Recreance.

Not what I was implying, as you would have to have the existing connection to access the Dor to start with, and you can bypass the location limit by trying to store it while on Sel. Oh.. Now I remember why. It's about how Nightblood needs to access the Dor. I don't think you can jury-rig a Metalmind to do that.

Breath: Yes, along with a KR tidbit Stormlight: Yes, but with difficulty. The Dor is.. uncertain. I want to say no, but I can't really pin down why I think that.