galendo

Honestly? I'm not sure there is a good explanation. The best "explanation" I've seen is that the Knights' ever-growing use of Stormlight somehow risked letting Odium go free, so they quit cold turkey in the only way that wouldn't leave the spren free to replace the Knights later. Another possibility is that the Knights intentionally tried to weaken Honor so that Odium could shatter him, go free, and move on to another world, hopefully leaving Roshar intact behind him. I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced by either of these theories -- both seem the antithesis of "Journey before Destination", for one -- but they seem the most plausible at the moment. I don't find it that convoluted at all, though. If you were a Herald and going to start up a new Order to replace the ones who quit...what else would you call them? Nalan's Super Murdering Squad? It's the same exact reason we call Kaladin a Windrunner and Dalinar a Bondsmith. What would you call a bunch of people bonding highspren if not Skybreakers? Personally, I think that the Order that didn't disband almost has to be one of the Orders with Illumination. It's the only ability that would make faking the Recreance possible. Your Blade goes dim, your skin goes grey, and then, when you're all by yourself again, you stop your Illuminating, resummon your Blade, and voila! No one else is the wiser. I tend to take Pattern's statements at face value, and therefore think that the betraying Order must be the Truthwatchers. But it's not impossible that it's the Lightweavers, either.

I don't think so. We know they do get tortured, and I think most of us just figure it's either because torture kind of seems like Odium's thing (i.e., pointless cruelty), or so that he can get them to give up and get the next Desolation started (i.e., meaningful cruelty). Or both. But I don't think we have explicit knowledge of the reason.

But then why would the Radiants have to forsake their oaths? If somehow the ability to form bonds were destroyed, then the Recreance would happen whether the Knights willed it or not. But, 100% agreement? I doubt I could get 100% buy-in on getting ten friends to decide where to eat dinner on any given night. There's no way on earth to get 100% buy-in from hundreds or thousands of people on condemning your dear friend and constant companion to a fate worse than death. Also note that it means giving up your super-powers, so even if for cultural reasons the Knights somehow didn't care about their spren at all, pure selfishness would keep them from unanimity. I doubt even Honor could get 100% agreement, and he's their bloody god! (Furthermore, it seems from Dalinar's flashback of the Recreance that Honor didn't play much of a role there, though admittedly it's not super-clear either way.)

My personal "fun and probably wrong but hopefully right" theory is that there are actually ten Radiant oaths. The thing is, there's literally ten of everything else to do with the magic system (ten gemstones, ten surges, ten Orders, etc.), so it just seems wrong that there are only five oaths. Besides, think how much fun speculation on future oaths and associated power-ups we could have then.

Maybe, but it'd be a weird sort of symmetry. There doesn't seem to be any particular indication that Eshonai's people are limited in growth at particular times or any indication that Parshendi ever have Parshmen children, so it clearly isn't a one-to-one thing (i.e., one Radiant bond is not equal to one Parshendi -- there are likely many more Parshendi than Radiants). Plus, even if all the Radiants did break oath, including the one order that didn't, there's no particular reason I can see why that would stop future Radiant spren from forming new bonds with new Knights. So...it's possible, I guess, but it doesn't seem very likely. Any plan that requires for its success that 100% of all Radiants break oath seems doomed to failure, and I'd think that would be reasonably obvious. In fact, I'd consider anyone who took such an extreme action while relying on such a dubious plan to be a complete idiot. I'd hate to think that 90% of all Radiants were utter fools.

Thanks, Extesian! That's exactly what I was looking for!

I just got my grubby little hands on a copy of Arcanum Unbound, and I'm tempted to dive right in. But for a lot of the worlds I...don't quite remember the main stories very well. For instance (Elantris spoilers) So anyway, the point is that I remember the gist of the story, but I probably wouldn't recognize any names or specific events if they were mentioned in The Emperor's Soul. So should I: A) Just dive into the short story and trust that it'll be mostly comprehensible even though I only remember the broad strokes of the original story. Read a summary of the original online somewhere to refresh my memory, then dive into the short story. C) Reread the original, then immediately read the associated short story. I'm thinking that A) is the best if, say, the short stories don't involve any of the original characters or events, would be best if a minimal familiarity with names and events is desirable, and C) would be best if the minutiae are important. In most cases I remember the broad strokes well enough (see my description above), though particular details often elude me. I've already read Shadows of Silence, so I know there isn't any prerequisite knowledge needed for that one, and I'm confident enough of my Stormlight Archive memory to probably be fine there (well, maybe. I remember Lift from her interlude well enough, and her spren Windle, and Darkness/Nalan, but, for instance, I forget the name of the guy who became king. Gax? Grax?). Anyway, if someone in the know could provide a quick summary of how much knowledge is required and/or desirable for each story, that'd be great. I don't want to miss out, but I don't want to do a bunch of rereading for minimal payout, either. I'll save that for if and when the sequel(s) arrive.

That's an interesting moral question. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine things turning out worse for Roshar if the Heralds had gone that route. On the other hand, hindsight is 20-20. ... After thinking about it for a while, I'm going to say that, yes, becoming all-powerful dictators would have been the more moral choice. (Besides, I'm not entirely sure that they're anywhere near all-powerful. We know they can be killed. The question is, are they Lord Ruler-level powerful or are they Twinborn-level powerful?) At least, it would have been more moral provided they ruled with a light hand. Is there any real difference between the law saying "You'll be executed if you murder someone" and, say, Jezrien saying the same thing? Besides, Roshar is chock-full of powerful dictators anyway. It's not like there's anything like a democracy anywhere that we've seen (maybe with the Shin?). The closest we've got is probably Alethkar, which is about one step less representative than an oligarchy. So, yeah -- if they'd kept the peace, or done almost literally anything useful rather than fade into the background, Roshar would be a lot better off. I'd say failing to contribute when you have both the knowledge and the ability smacks more of selfishness than of morality.

Okay, I think I get what you're saying. It's certainly rather strange that they didn't even try to keep the peace or anything like that. No real excuses there. (Though I guess Nalan going around killing random Radiants could be considered keeping the peace, after a fashion.) But as far as leaving Taln behind, it's worth noting that they didn't really have a choice in the matter. First and foremost, Taln had already died, so he couldn't be invited to abandon the Oathpact. If they had stabbed him in the back or something, I'd be more critical, but he died for reasons beyond their control. Second, Ishar thought figured that at least one of them had to be bound to the Oathpact for it to hold. It's sort of like...well, I know you didn't like the cannibalism example, but it's sort of like drawing straws to see who has to die so the others can live. Only in this case, Taln was already dead -- fate had already dealt him the short straw.

A double lashing would double the acceleration, so 19.6 m/s. Terminal velocity, um, hmm...I think it would be proportional to the number of lashings, so that two lashings would give you twice the terminal velocity.

I'd have to go with one of the healing Orders. Being hurt sucks, so being able to heal pretty much anything would be pretty darn awesome. I don't think I really care which Order, though. I'm just all-in on Regrowth. My second choice would probably be Soulcasting, because transforming random stuff seems cool and useful. Not nearly as cool and useful as instantaneous healing, but still cool and useful. Probably Jasnah's Order, since taking shortcuts through the Cognitive realm seems more useful than illusions and stuff.

Well, I'm not saying that you can literally follow in their footsteps. Don't be so quick to judge, I guess is what I'm saying. I'll freely admit the cannibalism analogy isn't perfect, but the point is that thoughts, ideals, and morals can change as time goes on and circumstances change. It's not clear that there was any sort of endgame in sight for the Heralds. If there was -- if Honor had said to them "Hey, I've got a plan. I just need some time. Hold out for thirty Desolations and it'll all be over" then that's one thing, and I'd judge them more harshly for breaking faith. But if it was just, "Hey guys, keep on suffering. How long? Oh, indefinitely. Just keep hanging in there" then I'm way more sympathetic. Remember, nothing lasts forever. The Oathpact was always doomed to end. If Honor and the Heralds didn't have an endgame in mind, then not only was it doomed to end, but it was pretty much doomed to end precisely in the way it did -- with the Heralds eventually saying, "I've had enough!"

I don't get why this would have their shadows go the opposite way. If the sun is always in the Origin (off in the East), and if their shadows are somehow always seeing the Shadesmar sun, then wouldn't their shadows always point west? Now, maybe they always do point west -- I couldn't say for sure -- but if I'm remembering correctly the "weird" shadows are always described as going towards the light regardless of time of day, i.e., east in the morning, west in the afternoon.

I don't know if they "deserve" anything good, but I think it's kind of hard to blame them, too. I mean, they basically suffered and sacrificed time and again, and eventually they just couldn't handle it anymore. (I haven't read Edgedancer yet, so I can't comment on that, but I'm not sure I'd expect anything good to come to them in the future, either.) I'm not sure this is a perfect analogy, but...it's a little bit like resorting to cannibalism after being lost at sea (or stranded in a snowy mountain or something. No other food available). You don't do it week one (hopefully no one's dead yet, but maybe some are). Not week two, either. You make it through week three, but by now you're really hungry. Maybe you hold out through week four, too...but eventually you give in. What would be deplorable at the beginning becomes more understandable as time wears on without hope of rescue. I imagine it's the same for the Heralds, too. What would be deplorable after the first Desolation, or the second, or the third, becomes...harder to judge after the twentieth or the fortieth. Don't judge someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes.

It's an interesting idea, and I hate to be the guy always poking holes in interesting ideas, but I see a few problems with this one: 1) If the Bondsmiths could boost bonds to the maximum, shouldn't they be boosting their entire team? And yet we don't have any mention of them doing that. Granted, we don't know a lot about the pre-Recreance days, but there isn't even a hint of it as far as I remember. 2) It would be kind of weird for the Bondsmiths to give a permanent boost to someone else, that doesn't rely on Stormlight and outlives the Bondsmith in question. Not saying it couldn't happen, but it would be the first instance we've seen. Neither Jasnah's nor Shallan's abilities work that way; and whatever Kaladin's "strength of squires" thing is supposed to be, my guess is that if he dies, it dies with him. 3) Even if the voidspren abandoned the Parshmen out of fear of somehow being trapped, wouldn't the Parshmen just become Parshendi in dullform? Seems like they should still be able to bond other spren, still hear the music, etc. 4) So you're saying that the Heralds/Radiants had access to a method of wiping out the voidbringer armies that had harassed them for ages, and one of them just happened to think of the solution at the very last moment, when victory was all but achieved? Not impossible, but that's one storming coincidence. For me, number 4 is the big one, although the other objections seem weird as well. But I just can't buy that Ishi'elin had the knowledge and ability to wreck both the surgebinders and the Voidbringers but only thought of threatening the surgebinders with it rather than use it against their common foe.

I'm not sure that this is compelling evidence, though. After all, I'm pretty certain that after they abandoned their Blades, their Plate fell off them as well. So even if the gemstones were inside rather than out, Dalinar should have got a reasonably good look. Isn't that Szeth misunderstanding or misspeaking, though? I mean, he carries a pouch of full spheres on his person, and there's no mention or even hint of that interfering with his lashings. So it must be the Plate that interferes, not the gemstones. Unless size matters for some reason, I guess. The Plate uses big gemstones, and his pouch presumably has small ones. I agree with the lesser spren idea, but not because of the contrast between living and dead plate. While dead Blades scream in Radiants' minds when they touch them, the Plate doesn't do so. My theory, such as it is, is that modern Shardplate is made up of living spren trapped into place like we saw the fire spren trapped in the WoK interlude. I'm not entirely sure that it's correct, but I don't think that Shardplate can be made out of dead spren. Otherwise the Radiants should hear screaming, I'd expect.

No, I totally get what @Krandacth is saying. Look at the lines one against each other. The first two are effectively the same, but then: Bring it 'round again vs. Do we dare wear this form again? It spies. The first is saying "Do this." The second asks "Do we dare do this?" The second paints a far less rosy picture of the form. Though crafted of gods vs. Crafted of gods, this form we fear. Again, the second is definitely treating the form with far more caution. It was by Unmade hand vs. By Unmade touch it's curse to bear. Note the the first is missing the word curse. The first is strictly objective; the second is making a value judgement against the form. Leaves its force to be but one of foe or friend vs. Formed from shadow -- and death is near. It lies. Again, the first is painting a much less fearsome picture of the form than the second. Taken all together, the second stanza seems a warning against the form (note the words dare, spies, fear, curse, and lies), while the first form is missing all that.

As kenod said, all modern Shardblades have gems attached, as this is what allows them to bond. Once bonded, however, they don't need gems to do their thing. My point, though, was that every Shardblade Dalinar had seen before then had a gem in it, none of the Blades in his vision had any, and yet he didn't notice/mention the lack at all. As for the Plate, I think you're a bit confused. Since you and @Weltall both agree that the gems are inside the armor, I'll believe you on that count. But the reason Szeth doesn't wear Plate is that the Plate would interfere with the lashings, not the gems. Gems, as far as we know, don't interfere with Surgebinding at all. The theory is that while another person's Plate would interfere with his lashings, a Radiant's own Plate wouldn't do so. Hence why the Windrunners in the vision can fly with Plate but Szeth can't. I'm not saying that the Radiants wouldn't be better off with Plate than not. As far as we know, Plate is a strict improvement over not having Plate. The point I'm trying to make is that we've seen a lot of full Shardbearers bite the dust but never seen a Radiant die while full of Stormlight. You might be right that the scales will swing at some point, but clearly for now at least if your choices are a bunch of Stormlight or Plate and Blade, you take the Stormlight and forget the Shards. But if you're going to run out of Stormlight, say during a long battle or something, then all of a sudden the Blade at least is a lot more useful than just a smidgen of Light. My postulate is that the same is true for Plate as well. If you want to bring the Ryshidium...Ryshandium...the Horses into it, then you see the same sort of effect that you do with the Blade. If you've got a lot of Light, the Horse isn't necessary, and you can get wherever you're going faster on your own. But if you haven't got much Light to spare, then all of a sudden a super-horse that doesn't need Stormlight, like a super-blade that doesn't need Stormlight, is a lot more useful. I'm supposing until I know otherwise that the Plate is similar in this regard to both the Blades and the Horses. A little bit useful if you've got more Stormlight than you know what to do with, but a lot more important if you're in danger of running out.

I don't think we explicitly know. I'm not an expert on WoB's, but I don't think I've seen one address it. All we can do is speculate. The one glimpse of true Radiant Plate that we got in Dalinar's vision doesn't mention any gems, as I recall. Strangely, this is actually more evidence for Radiant Plate having gems than not, since to Dalinar gems would have been part of the Plate and their absence perhaps notable. (Though actually, now that I think about it, it's mentioned that gems are needed to restore Plate, but I'm not sure that gems are ever mentioned as being part of the Plate.) Still, he didn't mention the lack of gems on the Blades, either, and we know those didn't have gems, so I doubt we can take their lack of mention as strong evidence either way. My personal suspicion, though, is that they didn't. I admit I don't really have any proof for that other than subscribing to the "Plate is made from spren" theory. But we know that Blades didn't originally have gems (they got added afterward), so I think it's somewhat reasonable to suppose that Plate didn't either. I think we can safely say that Plate wasn't powered by Stormlight leaking out of the Radiants, though -- not in combat situations, at least. We know this because during Kaladin's fight with the Plate helm, he burns through Stormlight at a much faster rate than normal. Plus, I question the utility of armor that gets heavier and generally worse as you run out of Stormlight -- it seems like you'd really want armor that could hold its own even when you weren't filled with Stormlight. A Knight with a bunch of 'light doesn't need either Blade or Plate to be effective (or Horse, either). Pretty much every Radiant we've seen has a way to kill without the Blade (at one point Dalinar even mentions that Szeth's most dangerous weapon isn't his Blade but his hand), and enough Stormlight heals pretty much any wound. I'm not saying they're not worth having regardless; the Blade gives more reach and the Plate more protection. But the Blade is still a Blade without Stormlight, and I'm guessing that so is the Plate. Until you run totally out, at least, and I'm thinking that even then a Radiant wouldn't be trapped in his Plate the way that modern Shardbearers are.

Nah, I'm kind of in the same boat. It's not that I think the characters don't belong together or that I have any particular objections to their relationship, since it's clear from their shared history that they belong together more than either do with anyone else. I think I just find their relationship kind of boring because 1) I find Navani kind of boring; 2) the relationship's already "settled", and has been for at least a book; and 3) the interplay between the characters isn't particularly vibrant. I guess, in a nutshell, I feel that the entire Dalinar/Navani relationship could have been cut from the story without losing much of anything. I don't mind having it in there, but I don't think it adds much, either. As for other relationships, I'm a big fan of Shallin/Adolin, largely because I have an undying hatred of Shallan/Kaladin (I dislike pretty much every scene in which those two interact. They all require a bunch of plot twisting and out-of-character interactions that really set my teeth on edge.), but also because I find their interactions amusing. As far as Kaladin, at the moment I'd probably ultimately favor Kaladin/Lift, Kaladin/Syl, and Kaladin/nobody in approximately that order, but I don't think there has to be any rush towards romance on his part. Kaladin/Lift because I think they'd understand each other and get along well. Kaladin/Syl because they obviously care for each other already and I could sort of imagine it turning romantic, and Kaladin/nobody because I don't necessarily think that every character arc needs to have romance associated with it, and I'd much rather have no romance than a bad or forced one. Which means I'd rather have Kaladin/anybody rather than Kaladin/Shallan.

Pretty much this. All the other oaths we've seen have involved personal growth. This is presumably true for all the Radiants, though admittedly we've really only seen Kaladin and Dalinar pre- and post-Ideal. But the thing is, Kaladin doesn't need to achieve some sort of enlightenment about risking his life if necessary, he's been doing that since day one. If anything, I like the idea that one of his oaths will be about not risking himself all the time, about coming to grips with the fact that he can't do everything and save everyone all by himself.

I think it has to do with the fact that we saw both of the characters' bodies, dead. Jasnah left a "corpse" for Shallan to find, and we saw Szeths' eyes burn (well, those of us who read the original version did; but the alternative is nearly as final). Now I'm in your boat; I didn't actually believe that Jasnah was dead, either. She was too major a character, with too much potential, to die in a pointless skirmish. So I wasn't much surprised when she came back at the end, either. I think they both count as "resurrections", though. In Jasnah's case, we saw her body (presumably Soulcast, I guess, though I still don't know why she'd bother. There's no real point in letting her enemies think they killed her if they can't follow her through Shadesmar), and there was a reasonably long wait before the reveal that she was alive after all. If we hadn't seen her body, sure, it wouldn't have counted as a resurrection. If the reveal that she'd survived had come sooner -- maybe in the next set of interludes, or at most the set afterward, where IMHO it should have been -- then it wouldn't have counted either. But there was a very intentional play here to make the readers think she was dead. Same thing with Szeth. Everything we've seen so far, everything we've seen hinted at so far, suggests that when your eyes burn, you're dead. We saw him die, in the climax of a final battle, and the readers have no reason at all to suppose that he survived somehow. So he counts as a resurrection as well. The problem, then, is that Brandon has sort of established with these precedents that death doesn't really mean much in the Stormlight Archives. You can't believe a character's dead if you see their body (see Jasnah), and you can believe they're dead if you see them killed (see Szeth). So we get speculation like this about Sadeas because, technically, with enough hoop-jumping like with Jasnah and Szeth, he could be alive. The main problem comes if/when Brandon tries to do a climactic character death, some kind of noble last stand/self-sacrifice (my money's on Dalinar for the first one, and I expect at least two). There will be less gravitas, less emotional impact, than there would be otherwise because, hey, in the Stormlight Archives, death isn't permanent. Just look at Jasnah and Szeth. (Besides, we all know Dalinar can't really be dead. He's coming back next book, right? Right?)

Mistborn stuff: I can't claim the Honorbot moniker. That was Rasarr's invention, I think. To answer your question, though: I did not pick up that Honor was a recording. But in some ways that's the part that irritates me. Because if he were a recording, you shouldn't see Dalinar complete nearly as many sentences without Honor interrupting him (Honor should be interrupting maybe 80+ percent of the time, since he can't hear Dalinar at all). You should see instances where they both start talking at the same time. Honor's side of the conversation should make more sense when considered without Dalinar's interruptions than it does with them. Generally, though, the reverse is true; which is representative of a conversation more than a monologue. To be fair, though, I probably wouldn't have noticed it on my first reading anyway. I generally don't pick up on stuff like that. The revelation didn't bother me on my first reading, either. It was only during a second reading, when I read the scenes looking for clues that Honor was on autopilot (and didn't find enough evidence to support it, IMHO) that I began to get irritated. As for the Recreance, did Honor actually say it was unanimous? I don't remember that particularly, but I tend to skim over Dalinar's WoK scenes nowadays. The thing is, though, even if all the "good" Radiants laid down their arms for the greater good -- and I'd think it would take one hell of a greater good to justify condemning their spren to endless agony -- there should still be a bunch of less noble Radiants running around post-Recreance. Presumably they'd be just as likely to avoid breaking their oaths as ever, assuming that "bad" isn't synonymous with "stupid."

Replies in spoilers, for spoiler-y purposes: I'm aware of the existence of answering machines, true, something beyond Dalinar's experience; but I'm sure Dalinar has experienced people not hearing what he said. It's really, really obvious when someone can't hear your words. Hold a conversation with someone who's hard of hearing, and I guarantee you it will be really obvious what parts they understood and which they didn't. (I used the example of the telephone because it seemed the most analogous situation, where you're conversing with someone you can't see. But I'm pretty certain the point holds just as well in other circumstances.) I also don't really believe that Honor can see the future well enough to predict Dalinar's questions. Not only does he not do a very good job answering them, Honor himself describes it as looking through shattered panes of glass -- I could be wrong, but it sounds like something that's pretty hard to do. I might believe that Dalinar really wants to be guided by a higher power and thus overlooks some stuff, but...I dunno, the whole "conversation with an answering machine" thing just seems too unbelievable. It's really obvious when someone can't hear you. As to forcing the Radiants to break their oaths by magical compulsion, I'm not sure that I'm a fan of this explanation, either. I don't know that it would count as oathbreaking, for one thing, if it was entirely unintentional (do accidents count as oathbreaking? If Kaladin accidently stabs Ehlokar when sparring or something, does that mean bye-bye Syl? Seems like a strange chain of cause-and-effect if so). For another, I'm pretty sure there are WoBs that say that the more Invested something is, the harder it is to magically affect, so messing around with the willpower of hundreds or thousands of Radiants seems very difficult, to say the least. And finally, if you did have the power to mind-control a bunch of Radiants, couldn't you find something more exciting for them to do than just break their oaths? Maybe have them go on a killing spree or something first? I interpret "Shard of my soul" to refer to the Almighty, not a bonded spren. It's open to multiple interpretations, of course -- almost all the deathrattles are written vaguely enough for that -- but that's my interpretation, for what it's worth.

Well, I'm certainly hoping that's what happens. I know Brandon knows what the Recreance is, I'm just not convinced that he's reached a conclusion that I'll find convincing when it's revealed. For instance, in Mistborn, some of the "mysteries" I thought were handled rather badly. To whit, in rough order that they irk me, Or, if you haven't read the Mistborn trilogy, one mystery in Way of Kings that I was rather disappointed with the revelation was the secret behind Dalinar's visions: that he wasn't actually conversing with Honor, just getting talked at by an unhearing, unresponding recording. But I've mistaken an answering machine for an actual person picking up the phone before, and started to have a conversation with the machine; and let me tell you that it takes about five seconds or less to realize your mistake. Like literally less than five seconds. Same thing's happened when I'm on the phone and the other person mutes me accidentally. Then it takes maybe ten seconds. And yet I'm supposed to believe that Dalinar doesn't figure it out after several sessions of several minutes of conversation? It just isn't reasonable or realistic. So I'm sure there's an explanation for the Recreance. I'm just not convinced it can possibly be one that I find satisfying. It seems like that would be a really hard thing to do, though. For instance, how are you going to maneuver every Windrunner to break his/her sworn word? The only oath they will 100% have in common is the "life before death" one, so it would have to be a conflict with that oath. (As a corollary, though, if you can get it to work somehow, it would work for every Order, since they all share that one.) But with the example you cited, I'm pretty sure the Windrunners at least would be fine with options 1, 2, or 4 without causing any sort of oath-conflict at all. Note that Syl is perfectly fine with fighting Parshendi, and if she can do that, she should also be fine with fighting the farmers or the soldiers. That's my thoughts on the matter, at least. It's also worth noting that when Kaladin gets into oath-trouble, he loses his powers bit by bit, whereas when we saw the Recreance, one minute the Windrunners are flying around no problem and the next they've all gone dun. It doesn't really mimic what we've seen with accidental oathbreaking.