Twenty@20

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?

I think the only people who will have problems with KR are the kings and high princes of Roshar who will try to protect their serfdoms from KR influence. They won't be able to protect their subjects from the voidbringers but would oppose the KR for selfish motives and to maintain their "autonomy". The common people of Roshar will definitely welcome the KR and want to emulate their principles, specially the first oath which is a good standard of morality. Isn't it commonly accepted that the Heralds have lost their minds after staying on Roshar for thousands of years and are now a twisted version of their original selves? In that case, I wouldn't take present Nale's action as a model for what high-spren bound Skybreakers and KRs, in general ought to do. Edit: @ Kevin. Go to this site for HTML tags to know about spoiler tags

The ship seems to some limited feeling. Though it can be said that those feeling reflect that of the people it has been in contact for years. The ship here seems to feel happy, proud,then angry. We can argue that these feelings are limited or reflected from other sources but the ability to feel is what I am emphasizing. The ship seems to be aware of its surroundings, of people dying. Then in response it decides to change.So if we define sentient as ability to feel, to perceive then the ship sphere looks sentient. To compare the ship and the stick, the ship had long years of contact with humans while the stick hardly had any. Perhaps that's why we see the difference between the cognitive aspect of the two.

Yup, that was the idea I was trying to convey. In my initial post I described them as "partly sentient" for lack of a better term

Thats an interesting point you are making. I would love to see Jasnah soulcasting those men from a Shadesmar perspective and whether or not she could have read their mind. A question to ask Brandon I believe. I would not trust every word Mraize says. until we know the Elsecaller's oaths or see Jasnah- Ivory interaction, a judgement about them would be premature.

@ pathfinder. I edited my post a bit. By the way, rest assure, I dont mind any contrarian view if it is argued well. I think we can agree to disagree. I see your point. hopefully you have understood mine.

By jurisdiction I meant that the Orders would have separate rules of engagement. For example, the windrunners would be solely concerned with protecting, rescuing and such. they would trust the skybreakers with practical application of law. Yes, there will be disagreement even among honorable people but I believe they can easily find common ground as they wont have any ulterior motives beyond their oaths. I think we are giving to much credibility to the in-world book. It was clearly written 200 years after recreance and was probably trying to pad up the internal arguments among the Order's to discredit them. To my mind the approval of the Almighty is enough sign of the effectiveness of the KR system. edit: I have already said about giving Jasnah the benefit of doubt earlier. To think of it, even the sprens capable of rational thought. Perhaps Ivory too decided to give her the benefit of doubt. that doesnt mean he will let Jasnah kill again similarly. And i can foresee that that spren of various orders will also co-operate among themselves to ensure that any disagreements between their knights doesnt distract them from the greater common goal. Also isn't it apparent that Roshar is a broken society. values such as honour, integrity have been twisted by corrupt selfish individuals. this moral degeneration is also a part of the comming desolation. When you worry that KR will "ignore the laws of the people they are protecting and enact their own justice based on the ideals of their order" you are assuming that present laws and justice system is better than whatever laws KR will enforce by common consensus. I think the reverse is true. If the KR ensure that the first oath is followed in letter and spirit that will ensure betterment of entire Roshar. The KRs are symbol of hope.

This is a real fun thread.I can't upvote you guys enough.

I believe the Radiants were a military force and police force rolled into one system. They were called Knights so I think they must have fulfilled that role in both war and peace, and in both military and civilian spheres. They were called Radiants(the villager in Dalinars vision called the female knight as Lady Radiant) so they clearly played a constructive role in society. I personally believe that the in world book "Words of Radiance" had a revisionist approach towards the Orders. It seems to insinuate that several Orders were unworthy. Just go through the epigraph and see how many negative adjectives were used to describe the KR while doling out little information. We have a much better source of KR information. The Almighty in Dalinar's vision. The fact that he asks Dalinar to refound them, tells us that he thinks they are good enough. So the KR were meant to fight then then help with rebuilding the society including its policing and justice system. So I think they were a major political force in their own right. I agree there were one or two bad apples among them from time to time, and but any major deviation from oaths automatically leads to stripping of powers. I can't imagine a system better than the KR with built in failsafe mechanisms. I daresay return of the KR orders will not only unite Roshar but also improve the morality of Roshar's society by doing away with many of its prejudices like lighteye- darkeye, male-female. Finally regarding the variation among the Orders' interpretation of law and Honor, I think the Order's had pretty much defined jurisdiction of work. We don't know the oaths of all the orders can make informed guesses. In your hypothetical situation, I believe the Windrunner will go to protect the victim first, then he should also protect the assailants if they don't get a fair trial(2nd Windrunner oath). Skybreakers will be all about the law. He will capture the assailants and ensure he gets proper trial and punishment according to law. The Dustbringer, I have no idea about their oaths, but expect them to come into action if the assailants go scot free on a mere technicality of law or when the law is followed only in letter but not in spirit. But I am clear that doing what is right does not include killing anyone unfairly.

The ship does have a cognitive manifestation in the form of a sphere. we saw in both Shallan and Jasnah PoV (WoR prologue) that all nonliving things manifest as sphere in Shadesmar. The way Shallan talks to the ship 'sphere' and the way it responds shows they are sentient. Also when Shallan is in shadesmar trying to soulcast the ship she notices candle flames corresponding to minds of the ship's passengers and even minds of fish. I believe we can be sure that for all living beings, their minds are represented in Cognitive and their Souls are represented in the Spiritual. Not so sure about non-living things having any aspect in the spiritual realm and whether all spren have a physical aspect. Regarding the question why shardblades reappearin the physical realm I have no answer right now. This point kind of slipped out of my mind while I was theorising. Glad both you guys pointed it out. Let me think about it for sometime. Perhaps I can come up with some explanation. I agree we know very little about the spiritual realm. Thats why its is so fun theorising about it. At the risk of sounding immodest, I was happy that I managed to tie up few point neatly with my theory.

This topic sounds interesting. I always kind of thought the shardblades as the physical body of the sprens and the Radiant- spren bond to exist at a spiritual level. This spiritual bond allows the Radiants to manipulate the Surges in the Spiritual realm with the help of investiture from stormlight. (This is pure speculation on my part based on the AA which describes a spiritual element in both Basic Lashing and Lightweaving) While all non-living physical objects manifest in cognitive realm as partly sentient spheres, minds of living beings exist as (? sentient) flames and ideas and feelings manifest there as sentient spren. While souls of living beings exist in the spiritual realm, what aspect of spren/ ideas & feelings can be found in spiritual realm? I think the force/ energy aspect of spren exists there.(Syl calls herself a force in WoR.The rest again speculation on my part.) Building further from this, I think that the Radiant- spren bond develops in Spiritual realm as a connection between the soul of the Radiant and the force/ energy of the spren/ idea. The Radiant uses the spren's energy to manipulate the surges in spiritual realm while the spren uses the Radiant's mind to become sentient in the Physical realm. Now for my final hunch. Shardblades are the conversion of spiritual energy of spren into physical matter. This obeys first law of thermodynamics. (Brandon is very conscious of it). This leads me to ask what is a spren's essense. I think the essense of a spren is its spiritual energy. What this quote means is that a temporary bonding between the shardholder's soul and the dead spren's energy causes it to phase into the physical shardblade. The honourblades can also be explained by this theory. These blades are created out of pure energy in the spiritual realm. bonding with a honourblade not only allows manipulation of the surges in spiritual realm but also allows the blades to phase between matter and energy in the two realms. wow . My brain feels like mush after all this heavy theorising. I will repeat again most of it is speculation. so feel free to rip it apart.

I have a simple one here. Kaladin walks into a bar with Syl. Kaladin: I will have a drink. Barman: (winks towards Syl) Thats a great idea.

This is exactly what I meant when I said the law should be followed in both letter and spirit. Jasnah followed the law to the letter by creating a situation of self-defense but she violated the spirit of law.It is telling that Shallan later finds that Jasnah's action was deemed most ethical according to the Philosophy of Aspiration which is another way of saying Destination before Journey. The Philosophy of Starkness is just rephrasing of might is right. The philosophy of Ideals and Purpose are theoretically sound but they don't give licence to stop murders by killing even more. The only moral defence Jasnah has is that the authorities failed to do their job so she had to intervene. Once Radiants become the political authority things will improve and she can round up criminals and hand then over to the justice system.

Ya perhaps "unlawful" wasn't the right word to use here. Certainly a good case of self-defence can be made according to our world laws. But let's not ignore the fact that when Jasnah talked about philosophy in action to Shallan she had premeditated on killing. If Shallan were to give evidence in court that would blow holes in Jasnah's defence.So I hope the Knights will follow the civilian laws not only in letter but also in spirit. While on battle field against the voidbringers they must bear their full strength, in civilian society they must act with restraint because they will be held accountable to a greater degree than civilians.

Re Moogle: I get the gist of your arguments. Jasnah lacking authority in foreign country, corruption among lighteyes, moribund legal sytem and reluctance to expose her Radiant powers. I hope once the Knights are reestablished in full force, then they will have enough authority, capability and willingness to eschew unlawful killings and strengthen the rule of law.

Well I kind of expected the foreign princess argument. Jasnah belongs to the ruling class of the most powerful kingdom on Roshar. I think she has much more power than Taravangian, king of a small city. (Note i am talking of the Taravangian we knew before his grand plan came out) We saw how she barely tolerated Taravangian during one or two times she met him. If she were to go and threaten the lighteye, even on the pain of death, who could have stopped her. Also she would have public opinion with her. So I will argue that Jasnah is exactly the one to do it. I still believe the self-defence argument is weak in Jasnah's case. She purposefully let the footpads attack her when she could have easily disabled them from a distance. Just knock them out with aid of stormlight and soulcast 4 walls around the around them to capture them. Any killing in civil domain is generally called homicide. What elevates homicide to murder is the establishment of intent behind the homicide. Most penal systems all over the world require establishment of intent to define murder because it is the intent to kill rather than the actual killing which is far more serious.

Thanks for the clarification. For the record, I have written in one of my posts before that there was no need for Kaladin to kill Szeth. I have also said that until we know about Jasnah's Elsecaller oaths, I give her benefit of doubt but at the same time I retain the right to critisize her actions based on what we know. You did say that "Life before death" means KR living their lives right. So I asked you, if vigilante killing falls under that?

i don't see killing 4 criminals will improve the secuity in the alley by much. Other criminals will simply take their place. And we even don't know if those 4 guys were the only criminals there. This sort of kneejerk reaction is only populist but never brings any lasting change. As I said earlier the only way these problems can be solved is by improving the policing and justice system. For example, Jasnah could have simply gone to the lighteye in charge of city watch and coerced him into mending his ways. That would have been the most logical solution. Jasnah could have simply soulcasted their weapons as another example. Another point is that the scene is described from the Shallan's PoV which makes these criminals demonic. Jasnah knew they were never in danger. Also how does Jasnah know, these were the very people who killed earlier?

To clarify, are you in favour of killing all killers? If so then society will have take resonsibility for killing them and it includes us too. Then we will all be a society of killers. Do you belive that no criminal deserves a second chance? Do you believe that some people are born criminals and the only solution is to kill them? If you answer yes to any of these questions, then you have a wrong idea about justice system. If the justice sytem is not working properly, the solution is to reform it, not entirely bypass it. Because otherwise we are going to have the rule of force not rule of law. Also is Jasnah's vigilante killing an example of "KR living right" as you put it?

I think Tien will be Bucky. That is if he turns out to be alive and under the control of Odium.

For one, she could have rounded off those 4 guys and hand them over to the authorities personally and checked that they were adequately punished. Even better, she could display her powers in a non-lethal way, put the fear of God into them and give them a chance to reform themselves. At the very least, she could have killed only 1 guy and show the others the consequences of their action. Well basically I feel since Jasnah and all Radiants have so much power, they should be so much more socially responsible. They are called Knights Radiant for a reason. They were meant to guide and lead by example, society towards a honourable path.

@ sun tzaro. Very good post. Have upvote. I agree with your analysis of Szeth's motivations. Szeth presents very different concept of right or wrong that goes against the natural sense of right or wrong of many readers. That's why he is mostly hated. Szeth follows the cult or religion of Stone Shamanism. When he commits the blasphemy of saying that Voidbringers are back, he is immediately punished. Because of his religious beliefs and laws, he follows his orders meticulously ignoring what it did to him. He thought that his actions were sanctioned by his religion's God and therefore worth obeying. A person's notion or right is shaped by his society. What is acceptable in one society is not acceptable in another. Szeth is an extreme end of this spectrum. Ya, that is not redemption as in he is not atoning for his sins. He knows he is beyond redemption for the killings he did.(I have used the word a few times incorrectly). That was a moment of renunciation of his Shin beliefs. He casted off his burden of oathstone but with it came the realisation that he had a lot of burden on his conscience and let Kaladin kill him

That's what I said in my last paragraph. I am willing to give Jasnah the benefit of doubt for the time being till we know of her oaths. The argument that the protagonists have not said their full oaths should not be used as an excuse to shield them from criticism of their actions. Radiant or not what Jasnah did was vigilante killing and that is not good for the long-term interests of any society.

Well I thought what Jasnah did alley was vigilantism. That doesn't sit very well with the 'journey before destination' or 'life before death' part. Vigilante justice is usually shortsighted in nature and rarely beings long-term changes. And Radiants are meant to help people, not go about killing them. Killing is supposed to be the last resort when all other options are closed and even then it cannot be condoned. Radiants are so powerful, I feel they should always ere on the side of preserving life than using their powers for killing.We don't know what are the specific Elsecaller oaths. When we know what oath's Jasnah swore or whether she has to swear any order specific oaths or not, perhaps we can find some justification for Jasnah's action.

The only reason why lot of people think that Radiants ought to be honourable is because they say oaths which they are expected to keep. Thats an honourable thing. Its no use quoting Kelsier's example in this matter because Scadrians don't have to say oaths to become Mistborn nor their powers can be taken away if they do wrong. I admit that there is a large spectrum of virtuousness within the orders. Jasnah and her murders in the alley seem to conflict with Radiant oaths. Perhaps when we get to know the Orders in more detail, we can get a clearer idea. Also I completely agree that all good characters need not become Radiants. It is not a badge or something. The oaths are a means of ensuring that the powers don't fall into wrong hands. At the same time being a Radiant indicates you adhere to the oaths and therefore are honourable. PS. I feel your comment at the end is in poor taste considering the high standards of this forum.