Frosted Flakes

...Lady Gaga? I kid, I kid. Adolin when he's dueling?

No joke. I wish I was the Aquaman of bees. I'd go around with a giant "beard" of hundreds of wasps. When someone angered me, I would simply shake my head violently, causing the bees to take flight, then direct them to attack whomever annoyed me.

When you see the typo "Shen" and smile...

Talked to my brother-in-law about this. When he was in the military, they would do rucksack marches a lot. Sometimes they would travel as far as 30km in a single day, and that's at a fast march. Like power-walking so fast that it's uncomfortable. That kind of travel would take them from before sun up until after sun down. They'd do a 5 minute break every 55 minutes, and a 20 minute break every 4 hours. It wasn't uncommon for people to get blisters so bad that their socks were stuck to their bloody feet. Generally, he would eat an apple or a banana or some kind of fruit during the breaks. But the thing that he stressed the most is that the food was barely important compared to the water. You could easily do the whole day without eating. You'd be too busy hating how much it sucked and wouldn't get really hungry until you stopped. But not having water could kill you. Traveling that distance at that pace, he'd carry at least 2 gallons of water on his person, and he would have most, if not all, of it drank around 1/3 - 1/2 of the way through the trip. He relied on a logistical vehicle that followed the troops while they marched and filled their water during the longer breaks. Water weights about 8 lbs a gallon. If my brother-in-law used about 1 gallon every 10 miles, and the physical exertion of running with little weight is comparable to a hard marching pace with a lot of weight, then Sazed would need 8 gallons of water at a minimum for his approximately hundred mile trip. That's 64 pounds of liquid, which is extremely difficult to carry. So honestly, before we even worry about Sazed feeding himself during this trip, we have to figure out how he stayed hydrated. You could really abuse your body by doing a run like that and not feeding it and live trough it - you cannot make the same sacrifice with water.

Chapter Nine: Damnation "Ten people, with Shardblades alight, standing before a wall of black and white and red." (There's a surprising amount of things going on here. Firstly, it mentions ten people. The number ten is significant in that it's the number of Heralds and the number of Orders of the Knights Radiant. In this instance, it could refer to either the Heralds or the leader of each Order of Knights Radiant, but I'm leaning towards the Heralds. It mentions Shardblades being "alight." This can either mean Spren/Radiantblades (is there a canon term for this?) or possibly Honorblades, which I imagine would glow like Radiantblades do when wielded by a Herald, though that's purely conjecture. Black and white and red are colors associated with the Listeners and Voidbringers. Out of all the bridge crews, Bridge Four had the highest casualty rate. (Obviously one bridge crew will statistically have higher casualties than the other, but the following text makes it sound like Bridge Four has a noticeably higher rate than the other bridges. I can't think of a logical reason for this. If Sadeas has been doing bridge runs for years, and each plateau assault is different, and the bridges are on a rotation, as well as all the other random factors, then shouldn't all the bridges be extremely close statistically?) [Kaladin] still didn't know why they fought on those blustering plateaus. (As far as I know, this is the first and possibly only time someone other than a Thaylen uses the word blustering.) Bridgemen who took that path never returned. (This is in reference to the Honor Chasm. Kaladin is the only one who ever had a change of heart? Weird.) "You used to be vibrant," Syl said. "So many looked up to you, Kaladin. Your squad of soldiers. The enemies you fought. The other slaves. Even some lighteyes." (Kaladin's reputation and status pre-slavery really isn't explored very much. His enemies looked up to him? And lighteyes? It seems strange. I would expect that his enemies would respect his skill as an enemy, but looking up to him seems odd. Same with lighteyes. I imagine they would be pleased with his dedication to soldiering, but looking up to him seems strange. Anyway, it seems like being a role model is part of what attracted Syl to Kaladin. Seems important. There could be a really low key kind of guy out there, somewhere, who protects way more people than Kaladin, but - oh my god I just had a thought mid comment. Perhaps, in order to initial attract spren, a person must be perceived to have the values a spren would be attracted to so that perception would carry over to the Cognitive Realm. In fact, that also explains squires. A group of people who idolize and respect and perceive a Radiant a certain way will have, if I understand Realmatics correctly, an influence on that Radiants cognitive existence. Maybe squires aren't just a useful byproduct of the Nahel bond, what if they're an essential part of making it stronger?) Refuse to charge the Parshendi, try to lag behind the other bridges, and you'd be beheaded. They reserved that fate for that specific crime, in fact. (Is there some cultural taboo against being beheaded? Why is that any worse than being hanged?) A tall, yellow-and-black-haired soldier stood at the edge of the bridge grounds, a group of miserable men huddled behind him. That was Laresh, one of the soldiers who worked the duty tent. He brought new bridgemen to replace those who'd been killed. (Laresh got a lot of description for being such an insignificant character. Why not just say, "A solider delivering new bridgemen called for Gaz' attention." Could it be? Laresh is a worldhopper. Sorry...sorry...I just...I see worldhoppers everywhere.) The storm continued its tirade. And for the first time in a year, Kaladin found himself crying. (This seems important. Does is signify that Kaladin is starting to care again? I think I heard somewhere that Kaladin suffers from seasonal depression or something, but all I can think about are broken souls and the Nahel bond. Maybe I'm looking at this stuff too closely...) [back to Table of Contents]

...Chocobo!

When my buddy from Texas came to my wedding, he saw snow for then first time. The very first thing he did was pee his name into the snow, then cram snow down the back of his girlfriend's shirt. I think he was more excited to see snow than to be at my wedding..

Frost Flakes for President. If elected, I promise to please all the people all the time. Also, I went to a Tilted Kilt in Escondido, California, and it was amazing. I still tell my wife about my waitress, and that was seven years ago! So as a surprise for my birthday my wife took me to a Titled Kilt in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was absolutely horrible. I would rather be spit on than go there again. My wife won't let me live it down and my stories about my lovely waitress from California are now suspect. What was I talking about again? Oh, right. Campaign promises. When elected President, I will push for heavy Tilted Kilt reform across the nation.

Raleigh, North Carolina here. I'm also a dual US/Canadian citizen and spend some time each year in Ottawa, Ontario.

When you knowingly exceed your mobile data limit to continue browsing 17th Shard because you'll never be satisfied until you know how everything in the Cosmere works.

You're right, of course.The correct course of action is to painfully await the end of Kingkiller Chronicles and finish it, then refuse to read another book Rothfuss writes until he finishes the last book in the new series.

This was an interesting read. I am similarly fascinated by Nalthian magic. Out of the entire Cosmere we've seen so far, it seems like it's the least understood in-world. A good Awakener is also an efficient one; coming up with something like these Awakening Wands that you proposed would be an enormous advantage.

Nin is a Herald. I cannot fathom how Nightblood fell into his hands, though I suspect Zahel attempted his classic throw-Nightblood-amongst-some-enemies-then-retrieve-Nightblood-when-everyone-is-dead trick, except this time one of those people was a Herald, Nin, who was like, "Dis mine nao, kkthxbye." then flew away while a helpless Zahel looks on. I imagine that Zahel has got a plan in the works to get Nightblood back.

I may be mistaken, but didn't Sazed store weight while he tapped speed? I doubt it's enough to explain how he was able to move so far without proper nourishment, but it at least almost mitigates the inconsistency. After all, it takes less energy to move 20 pounds than it does to move 200. I can't speak intelligently about biology, but if everything scales then moving 20 pounds a distance of 200 miles requires about as much effort as moving 200 pounds 20 miles - a feat easily, if uncomfortably, accomplished by a moderately athletic person.

Well. Now I have that Daft Punk song stuck in my head. Although I change the lyrics in my head to; "Compound all night til the sun Compound all night to get some Compound all night for good fun Compound all night to get lucky." Then repeat the last line indefinitely.

No, you're correct. Imagine that in the Spiritual Realm exists the most Ideal form of fire. All other earthly fire is an inaccurate imitation. The closer to the Ideal Fire a fire is, the more likely it is to attract a flamespren. Everything has an Ideal form in the Spiritual Realm. And I'm pretty sure the Cognitive Realm is where this Ideal is interpreted. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but unless I'm mistaken then that is at least the prevailing theory, if not outright WoB.

I remember that Elend was impressed with Vin's handwriting.

You might be interested in my brief thoughts on that exact subject in my Stormlight Archive Reread. Link to the thread is in my signature, relevant passage is in Prologue: To Kill, second from last paragraph. This concludes my shameless plug.

Ah! Please forgive, for I am guilty. Intellectually I know that spren are based off Spiritual Ideals...I'm just lazy and keep saying "Cognitive" rather than something like "Cognitive interpretation/manifestation of the Spiritual." Also, I accidentally down voted Snoopy when I tried to tap "quote" for Kurkistan's post. Someone throw him an up vote please.

...I wish you had brought this up sooner, because the thought just never entered my mind. Going forward from here, I will do things the sensible way >.<

Chapter Eight is halfway up...I'm just exhausted and need a break before I finish the whole thing.

When trying to decide if something is bigoted or not, I do a simple mental exercise where I replace the demographic they're talking about with Jews. So in this isntance, if these women saying, "We don't want more than one Jew a day playing with us!" sounds ignorant, then what they're actually saying should be viewed as ignorant as well. Does that make sense? For example, when someone says they don't think gays should marry, I imagine them saying, "I don't think Jews should marry." I wish they could hear how absurd they sound! So if you're ever wondering if an opinion of yours is better kept to yourself, imagine redirecting that sentiment towards Jews. If it seems bigoted directed towards them, it should sound equally bigoted directed towards anyone else. Personally, I really don't think any one demographic really want a equality anymore - everyone is just fighting for the most entitlement.

Curse you for bringing this up, because now it will nag me indefinitely until this is solved. I generally think of it this way: tapping and storing steel metal minds does not store and use speed, per se. Rather, speed is an emergent trait of whatever bodily function or attribute that is being stored. A lot of the examples you gave sound very plausible. But it's far easier to say, "Steel stores speed" than it is to say, "Steel stores the potential energy of several biological processes including, but not limited to, cellular respiration, ATP production, caloric reservoirs, etc, the sum of which results in apparent speed." I know something similar was brought up with storing weight and the problems with mass that entailed. Since Feruchemy is not physically or biologically possible in the real world, you will eventually get to the point where a truly in depth examination of the magic ceases to be plausible and you just have to settle for the simple explation that it's magic. I think Brandon has spoiled us in this regard. His magical systems have very concrete rules that they follow. Rules that mimic our real world physics to such a degree that when you finally encounter an unexplainable phenomenon you almost feel like you're missing something obvious and there's a perfectly logic explanation if you can only just figure it out... Whenever something like tapping and storing steel starts nagging at me, I just remember the WoB that says Cosmere physics are identical to Earth physics in all regards except where Shardic or Spiritual influence alters them.

I had Dalinar in mind, though I'm about 99% certain that Gavilar did as well.

Correct!