Savanorn

It's worth noting that if Dalinar was only pulling in small amounts of Stormlight, it's possible it'd heal the worst of the damage but still leave visible or prominent scars on the outside. Then we'd have exactly the observed phenomenon. Depending, of course, how Stormlight healing works...like if it's worst-first, least-first or a sort of general boost. But I was kinda of thinking about how Sazed heals in WoA where he's alive but not entirely whole. The biggest issue with this is timing, even being generous and assuming that Dalinar gained the ability to draw in some quantity of Stormlight on the day Gaviliar died (which seems a stretch) there's still decades of warmongerin' and injuries to account for. It's possible some amount of the injuries were on the shattered plain, but I don't think they all were.

It's also worth noting that the Diagram mentions that it is very likely that indeed, there were no desolations because Taln hasn't broken. I think it's from an epigraph but it is ...and now, I'm doing this off the top of my head, but it's something like "The Ancient of Stones, upon whose will the peace and prosperity of four thousand years has depended, must finally crack" Presuming Taln is the Ancient of Stones...yeah.

To clarify, neither Wax nor Wayne feel like real people, but for different reasons. Wayne is indeed deliberately absurd, he's part troll and part loyal henchman, but in a pretty synthetic larger-than-life fashion, among other things. I believe I said that he's actually pretty good, but the problem is that I can't readily empathize with him because, well, he's just so very obviously a fictional character from the boots up. The only big scene that really hit home for me was in the Survivor's Temple, when you get to see the fear and desperation in him. Wax doesn't feel like a real character because he's almost the opposite; he's a tired stereotype for the most part and he feels like he's picked out of a western in the discount bin at your local bookstore, not from the same author who gave us people like Kaladin, Lightsong, Kelsier, Vivenna, Vin, Elend, Hrathen and Raoden. I feel like you've probably picked up on this to a degree, and perhaps this was even the point, but you (or rather I because it was, after all, my opinion that spurred this) can't handwave this because of all the other cool and relatively fresh spins on characters Sanderson gives us. To further elaborate 'people are not original' is not a valid defense for such a generic action hero because it doesn't go anywhere; it's neither emotive nor evident enough to counter the claim. I'll grant you this; if over the past decade and more Sanderson had done nothing but throw stock characters into cool new worlds then I'd have less of an issue because I hadn't come to expect more, but it more feels like a letdown because that isn't what I've seen. Hey I get that, he reminds you of someone you know, say no more. Connections to a book will always, in part, depend on the readers experience. I acknowledge this.

We evidently have rather different tastes, but hey, it takes all sorts of fruit to make a salad.

Exactly, and right on with the Vader thing. Thanks for your input

My 2 cents? Wax and Wayne are boring. Worse, they rarely feel like people. I mean, maybe characters, but not really...original ones? Like they are the first Sanderson characters I really disliked at first, and still didn't really like by the end. I kinda feel like like Sanderson sat back and went, "I'll have two stock standard characters, one will be a tough lawman, the other will be his funny comic relief sidekick....I'll call them...Wax and Wayne, yeah." For one, I get really tired of how stupidly killy Wax is. Like, there's scenes where he just sorta ploughs through handfuls of people with no real sense of danger. The series does get better, but even Steris and Marasi feel like cutouts half the time. It's only come BoM that the characters feel alive and it starts to feel like a Mistborn book again. Wayne is actually good at times -funny and such- but he never really feels like a real character and his gun thing just comes across tacked on. The setting in general is cool, and it's really great to see the world progress and be expanded from Era 1, but the characters are undoubtedly lesser. Vin is amazing, putting aside the fact that she feels like a real person who almost always has tangible reasons for what she does...she's maybe one of the best characters in literature. I like that she's this dynamic mix of shrewd, vulnerable and insanely capable and unlike many characters, she steadily grows and evolves over her three books. When Sazed said she was the person most worthy of Preservation's power he is right on. Elend is a really solid character in his own right, especially to examine him from TFE to HoA.

Hold on, presuming Spook to be noble, and presuming nobles prefer to breed amongst themselves (as was historical) it's also possible his blood could be effecting two different populations differently; the greater Elendel/basin and the noble houses. Do we know if nobles as of Era 2 are notably more likely to be Allomancers? Or was this lost post catacendre due to crossbreeding?

I presumed he meant the opposite, or rather that there's a lot to talk about.

This makes sense, given that Survivorism is the most stereotypical rigid church. I'm kind of surprised about Roshar in general though.

Honestly? I think we already know of at least two decent possibilities. Raoden and Wulfden. Raoden is obviously devoted but he's also well capable of ruling and seeking dominion, as demonstrated by his takeover of Elantris. The only real question of these is how devoted Wulfden really is, as he clearly seeks dominion. I thought Devotion and Dominion weren't polarised at all, but synchronised, thus why there's only one magic in all of Sel. Plus I thought the Dor was so volatile because of all the power being in the cognitive, not the spiritual.

Hrm. I'm with spool, I don't think Nahel spren have any odium in them. Odiumspren do exist, but I don't think they're one or part of them. Part of this is because, unless I am mistaken, Surgebinding is the art that is Honour/Cultivation. I don't think there's 'room' for Odium in there. I presume that for the Storm Arts Voidbinding would be Odium/Honour and a third (old magic? Maybe?) Is Cultivation/Odium.

Geralt has more time on the page, but a lot of those are focused on Ciri. Ciri has a lot of time on the page, and a lot those are focused on Ciri.

Ironic given your username, but pretty cool. Hey Kay, That's not a terribly good argument. A point that all the characters dying was lazy end tying, since pretty much everyone dies who doesn't appear in ANH, can't be refuted by pointing out cameos by people like the Gold and Red Leaders who aren't characters (for any practical purposes) and who are in a New Hope, so can't have died...yet (RIP Red Leader, circa ANH). Don't get me wrong, they were cute cameos and I appreciated them, but it acts against your point. -as a subpoint, none of the characters really became main characters. They're more or less given to us and introduced in bitesized chunks. It's not like it starts with twenty people who steadily die off like in some disaster movie. But perhaps I wasn't making myself completely clear when I was saying it didn't feel authentic. A major element in this is that, not only does everyone die, but they die in a tremendously formulaic way. It basically goes, CHARACTER must to do THING, CHARACTER does THING, CHARACTER dies. Usually with the last two separated by mere moments. Character seem to last just long enough to do their THING and then plot shields fail and they die. Putting aside the fact that I'd barely count Saw as a character. Saw was perhaps the worst offender with this (or Chirrut) where he appears just long enough to wave the cast to the next plotpoint before dying pointlessly. You see the same with Chirrut with the switch, the same with with K2SO and the archive, the same with Bodhi and the transmission and the same with Jyn and the message. I think Baze is the only outlier here, since he managed to die doing nothing at all. As for continuity issues caused by them surviving, what exactly are people like Baze or Chirrut going to do that'd violate this so much? There's little reason that they'd have to be at the Death Star, and the Rebel Alliance is a galactic resistance, there's pretty much entirely legitimate groundwork they could be doing lightyears away from the action in ANH. Finally, for anyone who would like to point out the Everyone Dies is somehow more mature or in keeping with the "grim reality" of warfare...what war are we speaking of? From Cannae to Waterloo, from Pharsalus to Stamford Bridge to the Battle of Britain and on there's pretty much no wars, let alone battles, where everyone dies. Having every named character die, if not done appropriately, is about as bad as having every character live. It wasn't done appropriately here. [Should be noted that I'm not bashing anyone's opinions, but if people wanna debate, I'm happy to do so]

Experience is probably an element as well. Vin and Kelsier were both talented, but Wax has had twenty or thirty years to work his skills. But you're on the money, the fact Wax can manipulate his weight helps with his Pushing. It also helps that Modern Mistborn has a lot more fixed metal.

Splendid work. 1 up.

It is worth noting that Stormlight can be used to make plants grow. As per WoB. It is what the Listeners do, I think. It would make sense this could be done in people too and by people, I mean Lift. However it is notable that using and running out of Stormlight exhausts the user. And Wyndle does say she's at risk of malnutrition. It is possible that even if it can be used to sustain the body, it isn't enough in the long term.

Ah darn. That complicates things. At least this is rather interesting from a surgebinding point of view. So breaking an Oath is, in some cases, literally worse than death. But I am curious Yata, what do you think happens to a spren when the Radiant dies? Do they instantly go stupid again? Return to the cognitive? Or is it a slow slip? I'm not sure how admissible blade glow is, though, as even normal shardblades have been referred to as shining works of perfection. To really appreciate the difference I would think you'd have to see them in contrast. Still, given Vargo's opinion I'd think it still likely Helaran was a Radiant.

By all means, my spren-fu is lacking, but I presumed that a spren in physical form (a blade) would be trapped as such if it's wielder was adequately advance and it's wielder was killed, given certain conditions. Basically, I was of the mind that in breaking an Oath -such as in the Recreance, presuming that is what happened- a Radiant basically removes the 'bridge' that binds Spren and Radiant in a violent and traumatic way. This withdrawal of human-dependent sentience done so rapidly and suddenly results in the 'death' of the spren. Likewise, I would have thought that the actual physical death of the person would result in a similar sudden violent withdrawal of investiture and result in a dead, trapped or 'stupid' spren. But, I also thought that dead spren were only preserved as shardblades if they were such when they died. Thus why, as I recall, the Windrunners and Stonewards jam their shardblades into the earth as they are walking away from Feverstone Keep. Thus why the Recreance gave Shards, but not a HUGE amount, and why Helaran left Shards when he died. But you know things on occasion Spool, so I'd trust you likely have either a theory or WoB to counter my point. (I say without irony)

Mmmm, yes I've put forth this theory before (as have many others) but among other points are the Hoid connection and the sense of rightness that Shallan attributes to Helaran. But, we don't exactly know. Being a Skybreakers makes the most sense though...as... Our opinions differ here though, I think Helaran was a Shardbearer Radiant from in the flashback when we see him draw weapon on Lin. Further, it is Helaran who Kaladin kills. It makes sense from a number of perspectives, but a spearhead to the face and through the eye to the brain would seem to be one of the few really reliable ways to kill a Radiant with access to an abundance of Stormlight. I think there was a deleted chapter (Jasnah's) on this, that a severe head wound was one of the few ways to kill a Surgebinder. Specifically it mentioned a crushing head wound, as I recall, but realisitcally stabbing a spearhead into the skull and leaving it there would suffice for these purposes. But, it also makes sense from a more mundane angle. We have three Kholin's confirmed Radiant, why not two Davars?

Actually a good point Robardin. The way I think about it, I think Electrum allows you to easily avoid the worst possible futures -the ones where you are hit, killed, maimed, etc - while Atium allows you to select for the best possible futures, the ones where you maximize your use of the environment, weapons on hand or the foe to win the fight.

Throwing a few other things out here Void. I totally agree with your feelings as to cameos. As for character deaths. . . I felt like the issue was, more for me, that it reached a point where the production staff were like "okay, main team characters start dying now" I don't mind them all dying after a deathstar shot. Adequately directed they could make it work. I don't mind them all dying across a movie. It is just that at five minutes to midnight the plot armour stops working. The 3D was awful in my cinema as well. But is was a small and dodgy one. At the very least the way they handled it was lazy. As I said above, it feels like at some point the plot armour fails. It doesn't feel genuine. It doesn't feel grim. It feels forced. Especially because pretty much everyone dies in the movie. Not just the mainline heroes. Pretty much everyone who isn't in ANH bites the dust. Everyone dies can be a bold choice, a fitting choice, especially if paced right. It wasn't here. It felt more like...tying up loose ends. Basically it felt like theywanted to explain why none of these guys were in ANH in the quickest and easiest way: they were dead. It would haved worked better if some few, minor characters, had survived.

Hmmmmm. Maybe. One thing you might want to note is the literature doesn't really support the idea that Yen and Geralt are right for each other. They can work, but there's a lot of baggage and they've tried and failed many times. This said, read the anthologies first. I'd recommend going The Last Wish, Sword of Destiny then the main sequence beginning with Blood of Elves. It should be noted that the main sequence is very heavily focused on Ciri as opposed to Geralt. All this said, I liked the books. They are quite bleak but also clever and can hit some really strong notes of genuine emotion.

I don't think it is anyone special. If he'd described more details I might buy it. Like, if he'd been branded or was wearing special colours or whatnot. That's a scream or a notice. I think it's just to show there's a flow of people around the world.

No. Why would I? Nor I... Maybe because Iyatil is a Hunter? Of the caste?

That is indeed not as good as I'd hoped. The issue here is I can imagine that it would indeed help, for say...general radiant heat, but even a small housefire is likely to release orders of magnitude more heat than a human body. Plus ...human flesh needs only to be exposed to that sort of heat for a moment to be damaged. So yeah. Like could a firesoul put their hand in a candle flame and not get burned? Is their skill that fine? I'd think not. The big issue is I feel like the Firesoul basically can control their internal body tenperature. They can't do anything about embers or hot metal or anything that changes temperature quickly enough (going from external to internal) and I don't think they could...say...store heat in their hands and not in the rest of their body. In the same vein as a Skimmer seems to only be able store the weight of their whole body, or not as all (in the sense that they don't make a single limb much lighter or heavier). So if they were..say...in a hot bath or a cold winter sea they'd be fine as neither of those act quickly enough to damage tissue. But if they were thrown into an open fire or dropped in liquid nitrogen vats it'd be another story. Don't get me wrong. It'd be useful. But in a limited sense as I see it. Also this. I actually didn't think about this, but so much extra heat being stored might fill them up. Then again, do we know the investiture/mass ratio of metals? Like Wax was able to store years worth of weight in ...what...iron arm bands? Then again. Building fires might well constitute about the same amount of energy. This actually raises a rather novel point. I don't think they could store heat at different rates. So they can either store it as way to ward off the hot air and be burned by metalminds, or store it at the rate the metalminds conduct and potentially store too much. Then again. Hypothermia takes far longer to kill you so this would likely be the far more practical route. Thanks for listening to me ramble, it is actually quite interesting to roll it aroubd in my head.