Twenty@20

Granted but you will have to divide your upvotes among all your duplicates I wish to be able to lift Thor's hammer

Granted but your good friend will spoil you that your favourite character is going to die in the next bookI wish to be the first person to Mars.

When I saw the down votes raining down, my first thought was about your post where you said that after every 50 upvotes or so you get a few down votes. So I woke up this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see that you had up voted me. Thanks maxal. You are awesome.

Unless the Shardbearer learned a trick or two from Vin, I think the Seer is going to win. Atium not only shows the coming moves of the opponent, it also gives the Seer mental capacity and agility to respond on it. A close Stormlight analogy of Atium might be the way Kaladin described fighting with two shardbearers on stormlight in 1 vs 4 shardbearers duel. This is eerily similar to Atium. I guess a Seer fighting a Surgebinder using only Stormlight might be harder to call.Edited for spelling

Granted. Now you will have to scratch your back all night. I wish for a bright future

Granted but you will be allergic to Dor.I wish for upvotes.

@ pathfinder: I never thought you would down vote me. Disagreements are the soul of a debate. So that's all fine with me.

It seems I have caught the downvote bug. Is it so wrong to express an unpopular view? I am sorry if I hurt anyone's nationalistic feelings (guessing that's the reason for the down vote). If not, I am ready to apologise to anyone who thought I was rude to him. Edit: looks like someone really hates me.

We know that Dalinar has already refounded the KR officially when he nominated Amaram as KR. Did we see anyone at the warcamps, the ardents or civilians or other highprinces there protesting against the reforming of KR on religious or historical grounds? I think if the common people had so much negative opinion against the KR, then they would have definitely protested saying it was heresy or something like that. That we saw no opposition then is a good indicator of future response to the true KRs. Even if assuming that the public on Roshar have doubts about KRs, I don't think it will take long for them to win public support because they will be the ones running around protecting people. Another point. People on Roshar tend to view the past as mythology. There is so less known about the past that its all vague. I can't realistically imagine that once people see actual humans with superpowers who actually want to help them, they will bear any grudge against them based on 1000 year old (atleast) mythical happenings.

Don't be modest. You channelled Amaram wonderfully. Sarcasm is the best way to bring down stuck-ups like Amaram. By the way, ever thought of doing stand-up comedy. I think you will be great at it.

Why did the one armed Herdazian grow another arm in the bar? Because his drink was (h)armful. (Yeah I know I shamefully plagiarised my favourite author. )

Hats off to your perseverance. By the way did I miss Pattern on the chessboard? Shallan has a board in her hand with a sketch. Is that Pattern?

Time to play Devil's advocate. I tried to imagine the Shard usurping scene from Amaram's point of view. Don't know if this has been done before. Winning shards as we all know is beyond the wildest dreams of every soldier on Roshar. Guys who won them in battle (as opposed to inheriting them) have become legends. So no one, let alone Amaram, would have ever thought it possible that someone could give them away and that too permanently(as opposed to asking them back a few days later when common sense kicks in). Imagine the ridicule on Roshar that Amaram would face if Kaladin came back a week later and took back his shards. Now how did Amaram view Kaladin on that fateful day. He may or may not remember him as the emotional fool who joined his army to protect his brother. After Kaladin refused the shards and actually decided to give them away, Amaram must have thought of him as a crackpot, someone who couldn't be trusted with shards. So perhaps he decided to have them for himself and remove the evidence for good measure. Now I am not trying to defend Amaram because what he did was cowardly. I just tried to understand Amaram's thought process which led him to do it.

The same exact situation of Sadeas betraying Dalinar may not happen nowadays simply because politicians like Dalinar are no longer present. But there have been plenty of media reports how innocent bystanders have been treated as collaterals in pursuit of "high value targets" or simply invading armies causing civilian deaths. I am sure the head of states were in the decision making chain which led to these deaths. Even though Adolin eventually killed Sadeas impulsively, he had nevertheless always hated Sadeas even before the betrayal and later had actually threatened to kill him. I used to think his hatred for Sadeas is similar to what people feel for our generally corrupt, lying, scheming politicians. So I can understand Adolin grieving over killing some innocent but not Sadeas. Edit: I can see Adolin grieving that he had to kill in the manner he did but he would not repent that he killed Sadeas. 2nd edit(sorry): Another thought popped in my head. In our world, we should also include economic and political betrayals because those are much more likely to cause widespread damage in rival economies and societies. Those are fairly common but often neglected because they are not dramatic but incremental Apologies for the double post. Didn't feel like editing the previous post for the third time. Please don't double post. Edit the previous post instead. -Rubix On hindsight, I kind of wish that Adolin had controlled his temper in the face of Sadeas' taunting. Adolin knew the KR had returned and Roshar was facing the threat of another Desolation. Sadeas was soon going to be irrelevant anyway. The KRs will be leading the war against voidbringers and high princes and soldiers would be foolish indeed not to support them. And worst of all, Dalinar was on his way to become Bondsmith( though Adolin didn't know if that) and all Sadeas' threats would become meaningless. I mean who would people believe- newly become Radiant Dalinar or scheming Sadeas. Dalinar, high prince of War would soon take command of Alethkar's armies and all other high princes will come to his side. Only thing Sadeas could have done is perhaps join the Voidbringers if he is that crazy but then his career is finished. Really if Adolin didn't kill him, his end would have been more tragic.

I would like to add another perspective here. I say why limit ourselves to comparing Sadeas with Hitler and Bin Laden (these two are figures so deeply associated with the concept of evil in our collective consciousness that no rational discussion is possible) I always thought Sadeas to haven more in common with the current crop of our political leaders. Sadeas is an extremely savvy politician who maintains the public perception of a strongman, can manipulate allies and is strictly end justifies the means type of guy. I can think of atleast one or two current heads of state who would fit that description and have also given orders that led to death of many people. So is it justified to go and kill these leaders because they won't certainly be tried in their countries?

On principle, I think the capital punishment is unnecessary. If someone is convicted of a heinous crime, a life sentence is as good as execution for the purpose of removing the person from society. Additionally, it gives the convict a chance to repent for his crimes. Having said that its not like I have a hard line position against execution. If a court can make a really good case for why a certain person should be executed, I might go with it. Another thing. I checked on the internet that over the last 40 years 1390 persons have been executed by American courts. That's a miniscule number compared to convicts undergoing jail term through all these years. Perhaps additional 1400 life prisoners would not have been a very big burden. I think some people may find my ideas unconventional or even plain wrong. Hope you will at least give it a fair consideration.

I decided to mine The Emperor's Soul for a quote on Spiritual Realm. This is what I got. So inanimate objects seem to have a soul in the cosmere. Doubt cleared.

Do you have any quote or WoB regarding inanimate objects having soul or a Spiritual realm aspect? Just asking so that I can make up my mind on the issue. When shardblades pass through a limb then also they don't cut clean like they do when cutting inanimate objects. Kaladin's arm didn't get cut off by the blade. Only the soul of that arm was severed.

Two wrongs don't make a right. A kills B. In turn C kills A. Both the killings are wrong. You can't commit one crime to prevent or avenge another crime. Barbaric societies publicly lynch killers, thieves and adulterers. Are the public in those societies any better than the people whom they just killed? The law and justice system is meant to protect the conscience of the society. By punishing criminals according to laws, we save our society from turning into those barbaric places. Regarding the concept of free will, philosophers have argued through ages if we really have free will or only an illusion of it.I am no expert on this issue but I just read the Wikipedia page on Free Will.http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will anyone interested can check it out

It makes me shudder to think that Renarin knew the Everstorm coming since the beginning of WoR. I wonder what else he saw. Could he have the tragedy of Eshonai or mass transformation of Parshendi or the coming of Szeth. Does he already know the outcome of Kholinar riots or the plans of Taravangian. Future prediction is such a paradox. What is the use of knowing it, if the future can't be changed( the Everstorm couldn't be stopped ). And if the future is changed after the visions that means the visions are wrong.

Syl likes to play a certain video game very much. Can you guys guess which one?

Do you remember the battle early in WoR where Adolin uses his blade as aspring board to jump among the Parshendi? He then proceeds to fight with plate enhanced punches and kicks till his blade reappears in his hands. Blade throwing will also work along similar lines. Adolin is pretty creative with his blade and not afraid to dismiss it occasionally( he does this in a duel too, I think). So I wondered why we never saw him throwing his blade around. Perhaps there is some deep seated taboo associated with blade throwing. But then why practice it if it is never used.

@ Pathfinder. I get your point. All I am saying is that the Radiants are sworn to follow the first oath. Personally I believe that the first oath is an excellent standard of morality. The Radiants will also fight against violations of the first oath. So if any person or group of persons blatantly violate the first law, they will definitely try to stop them. Taravangian has been violating the first oath blatantly and this resulted in mass casualties. So they would definitely act against him and the Diagramist. So if the 2nd amendment/ gun ownership turns out to be in violation of the first oath, they will have to try to change it. By the way, I feel that owning a gun isn't harmful in itself. How the person uses it is important. So if a particular instance of gun usage doesn't violate the first oath( eg. firing in the air, non- lethal shots or even lethal shots to protect life, that is genuine self-defence cases) they might be acceptable. Really it is difficult to generalise. The KR will work by consensus but not at the cost of their oaths. The main role of KR will be to create social conditions where the violations of their oaths will be minimised. So if public and private safety is ensured, people will be more likely not to carry guns or tend to use them non- lethally because they know help is near. Also I expect that the wrong doers will be in fear of the Radiants and that also will act as a deterrent. Hope this helps.

We have seen Adolin throwing his Blade during practice but strangely never seen a shardblade being thrown in battle. So Kaladin can definitely throw Sylblade. Syl can perhaps take a proper aerodynamic shape herself, to increase the range. I think the spren in blade form cannot undertake independent action. They have to be wielded by their bearer. Don't know the reason for it might be because in blade form they have to follow physical laws unlike spren form when they seem to defy gravity and other physical laws.

Moogle, a few posts back I proposed a theory that the Shardblades might be phasing between the Physical and Spiritual rather than the Physical and Cognitive. I proposed that the Shardblade are formed out the spiritual essence of the spren. Do you think there is any merit in that theory? There is not much evidence for it and we know little of the Spiritual realm. A relevant point might be that Shardblade has been described to severe the soul and it becomes fuzzy while passing through a living body. Perhaps we can make something out of that. Can it be that shardblade acts differently on animate and inanimate objects because inanimate objects don't have a soul?