galendo

Not know about the Honorblades? We're talking about the supernatural weapons wielded by the near-mythological figures of the dominant world religion. We're not talking obscure trivia here. I'd think a reasonably educated individual would know this. For a real-world example, it'd be like asking about Zeus' favored weapon. Maybe a lot of people don't know, but a lot of other people, even those not having specifically studied Greek mythology, would be able to come up with the lightning bolt. Also, from what I remember, the fallout from the Heirocracy was anti-Radiant, not anti-Herald. I don't think they'd have messed with the Heralds' legends too much. I'm not sure that there are spren in Shinovar. From Rysn's interlude in WoK: "The entire landscape had an eerie feel to it, as if it were dead. Nothing moved. With a start, Rysn realized she couldn't seen any spren. Not a one. No windspren, no lifespren, nothing." I think, from what WoB's I've read, that you're probably right that something else is going on. (It makes me sad, because I actually prefer pure intelligence as an explanation, but that's neither here nor there.) You might even be right about the explanation; I don't follow the Cosmere stuff that closely, haven't read SH, etc., so I'm not really qualified to comment on it. I don't know that Taravangian's knowledge of the Everstorm supports your points, though. For starters, I don't think we even have hard evidence that T. did foresee the Everstorm itself on the day of the Diagram (none of the Diagram quotes that I'm aware of ever reference it), but even if it did, he might well have heard about it, or thought he had, from Galivar's visions (remember Dalinar's last vision in WoK, and also it turns out his first, where Odium's storm sweeps away all of Alethkar). As for Taravangian knowing about the Everstorm after the day of the Diagram, we know that the death rattles mention it multiple times, so he certainly learned of it then, if he didn't know before.

I feel the people who are saying that Taravangian couldn't have possibly read everything relevant are kind of missing the point. Most of the conclusions the Diagram makes wouldn't necessarily require some deep and esoteric knowledge of the nature of the Cosmere. Let's take the Honorblades, for example. The thought process might have gone something like: Where are the Honorblades? --> They are highly Invested. --> Investiture interferes with other Investiture. --> The highstorms are highly Invested. --> The highstorms do not hit Shinovar. --> There are also no spren in Shinovar. Therefore, the Honorblades must be in Shinovar. The above process requires some basic familiarity with a theory of Investiture, but it's not the only way to reach the same conclusion: Where are the Honorblades --> They are powerful weapons of war. --> Powerful weapons would be used, were a country at war. --> The Shin are the only people never at war. Therefore, if they are not lost, the Honorblades must be in Shinovar. Also, the argument that just because the library didn't have information about Topic X (let's say Investiture, to continue the example above) or else Jasnah would have found it, therefore Taravangian can't have known about it, is overlooking that Taravangian and his team of ardents might easily have culled the library themselves if they didn't want to risk other people following the same chain of logic. Just because the information wasn't there when Jasnah went looking doesn't mean it wasn't there when Taravangian and company did.

I think I kind of see what @maxal is saying. Kaladin has a tormented backstory, and is a main character. Shallan has a tormented backstory, and is a main character. Dalinar has a tormented backstory, and is a main character. Adolin does not have a tormented backstory, and may or may not continue as a main character. I'll admit that maxal probably follows a lot more WoBs than me about plans for Adolin's future, so it's possible that I'm overly sanguine about his future plans, but I just don't see Brandon cutting Adolin out of the story. He's got too much stuff left to do, I'd think. I might be wrong -- maybe Adolin's buying the farm next book. But I'm not going to borrow trouble before it happens. I sympathize with the desire to see more of Adolin. Sometimes it's nice to read about a character with an uncomplicated backstory, and too many of Sanderson's characters lack that straightforwardness. Maybe more so because I actually think the flashback parts of the books are usually the most boring and unsatisfying chapters. Characters without tragic backstories can actually make for perfectly fine characters, and it sometimes seems that Brandon doesn't use such characters often enough. So I don't want Adolin to go away, but I also think that Brandon isn't likely to just get rid of him, either. Will he survive into the back five? Maybe not, but I'm fairly certain Dalinar won't, either. An Adolin at about the current level of focus seems like a good thing, and I'm pretty certain that will be continuing on for at least another book or two.

I figure the unnamed bridgeman is just a normal Alethi. The fact that he's old doesn't mean much - you can get assigned to the bridge crews at any age. Sure, he's been on bridge runs before, but that doesn't mean much. Remember, on Kaladin's run, the unnamed fellow's at the front of the bridge during the approach, which means that for the past ten runs or so, he's been farther back. It would take some luck to survive ten or twenty runs, but not all that much, especially if the run where he was at the front was one of the runs where the Alethi beat the Parshendi to the chasm and didn't have to fight at all. A bit of luck, but we're talking like one chance in three or four, not one chance in hundreds. As for tips on how to carry the bridge, again, I'm guessing it doesn't take all that long to learn. Knowing not to make the boss mad is also pretty obvious advice, I'd think. And as for knowing that the run is going to be a bad one, well, all that takes is noticing that the Parshendi are already set up and ready for the bridges. We're not exactly talking rocket science here. The interesting thing is the "Talenelat'Elin, bearer of all agonies" quote, of course, but even that doesn't take all that much speculation to explain away. Doesn't it seem somewhat likely that at some time in the past 4500 years one of the Heralds, let's say Jezrien, is sitting around drunk on wine or depression when someone nearby says something like "Praise be to Jezrien, king of the Heralds, for saving us from the Desolations", to which he irritably replies "Don't thank me, thank Talenel, bearer of all agonies"? Despite the listeners' probable confusion at the first half of the sentence, it wouldn't take all that much for the second half to be absorbed and passed along. It happens to be both true and in line with Talenelat'elin's known traits already.

Yeah, outside the Bridge Four stuff, Shallan persuading Jasnah to take her on was my favorite part of the book and one of the main reasons I was favorably inclined toward her arc in WoK. There were parts of her arc I didn't like, but it got off to a great start in the beginning. For the early parts of the book (up until maybe around the time that Syl brought Kaladin a leaf), I actually liked Shallan's parts more than I did Kaladin's. As far as Adolin being below Shallan overall, I'd say, yeah, his impression on me in WoK really was that low. There was just so much overlap between Dalinar and Adolin. They were both investigating the saddle girth, they were both sparring with Sadeas, they were both worried that Dalinar was going mad...the list goes on. Every time I read something from one perspective, I felt like I had to read it again later from basically the same perspective, and it made me come to dislike reading about both of them. The thing that propelled Dalinar above Adolin in my estimation was that at least Dalinar had the visions going for him. Those, I never had to read a second time from Adolin's perspective, and of course unlike the characters, I knew from the beginning that the visions were important to the plot. At least with Dalinar, I could understand why I was reading about him, even if I didn't enjoy it all that much. With Adolin, I never really could. I'm still not convinced that the series as a whole wouldn't have been better if Adolin either never got any PoV parts in WoK or was limited to one or two. So if Shallan is around an 8 in book one and a 2 in book two, and Adolin is maybe a 3 in book one and a 6 or 7 in book two, then yeah, Shallan edges out Adolin just a bit overall, with 10 points to his 9.5 or so. It's pretty close, though, I'll admit. All right, I'll join the party and give my favorite antagonists and supporting characters as well. Unlike the main characters, though, for whom my opinions are pretty certainly fixed until Oathbringer comes out, my thoughts on the secondary characters might change if you asked me again in a week. The top slot in each category is pretty firm, but the others could easily change. However, here they are at this very moment: = Antagonists = 1) Taravangian - I'm quite fond of villains who think they're doing the right thing; or, at least, whose motivations seem exceedingly rational. See, the thing is, I can't really say that Taravangian is wrong. I mean, with the meta-knowledge I have about the world, I know that the Radiants are the "good guys" of the books and therefore Taravangian is not, but if I were in Taravangian's shoes, knowing what he knows, I'd be doing the exact same thing that he is. Plus, the wild intelligence swings are a pretty cool and memorable trait to have. I have a feeling I'll remember Mr. T. long after I've forgotten Sadeas, Aramam, and the others. 2) Odium - Okay, I know Odium hasn't even shown up yet; and yes, I don't usually like the "pure evil" style of villain as much, but Odium gets credit just for his influence on the setting. I do like the world wracked by hatred that Odium provides: the constant wars, the Thrill, the prejudice against darkeyes, the whole shebang. So kudos for that. 3) Amaram - Edging out Sadeas by virtue of the same mixed-villainous thing that puts Taravangian in the number one slot, Amaram's a villain who, in a different series, could easily be the hero, if one with a tragic flaw or two. = Supports = 1) Syl - Correlation does not imply causation, so maybe I'm over-simplifying here, but I don't think it's coincidence that the parts where Kaladin and Syl are together are awesome and the parts where they aren't are...very much not. She plays a vital role in the series, and I have every expectation that she'll continue to do so. 2) Szeth - Szeth makes the list not so much for his character, which is too one-note for me (seriously, I'm not sure I can name a single character trait other than "follows orders flawlessly", which isn't exactly compelling), but because he's involved in literally every single awesome fight scene so far in the books, with the sole exception of Adolin's duel. Whether it's assassinating the king of Jah Kaved, attacking Dalinar in a darkened hallway, cutting through the Alethi armies, or fighting Kaladin in the air above the Shattered Plains, Szeth is there. 3) Rock - Others seem to like the Lopen better for comic relief, but Rock cracks me up at least as often, and I feel that he's got more depth to his character than Lopen does. He's got one of the more interesting backstories in Bridge Four that we already know about (though Szigil beats him in this regard), and I foresee the Horneater peaks hosting some interesting scenes in the future, with Rock likely to play a role in them.

You are absolutely correct! The dangers of abbreviation, especially when the abbreviations are so similar. By "other than the obvious chasm scene", do you mean that you liked the chasm scene? Because I didn't like it much at all. Granted, most of my frustration is due to my suspension of belief being taken outside and beat within an inch of its life, but even in isolation, I didn't really like that sequence very much. Though I liked it well enough starting from when Shallan summons Pattern as a Shardblade, so it wasn't a complete loss.

I think I hated literally every interaction that Kaladin and Shallan had in WoK. They both act idiotically and out of character, as near as I can tell just so they can get off on the wrong foot and slowly go through the "I-used-to-hate-you-now-I-don't" arc that we've all seen a thousand times. Kaladin and Shallan's interactions were easily the most disappointing part in WoK. I think it's Brandon Sanderson trying to set up a potential romance, but I don't think I actually like a single Sanderson romance, other than maybe Kelsier/Vin, and I'm pretty certain that wasn't actually supposed to be a romantic relationship. Well, and Shallan/Adolin, I suppose, since they have a lot of synergy. I'd feel better about that one if I was convinced that was actually the direction that Brandon was going, but I'm too afraid that Shallan/Kaladin is going to be a thing to really be able to enjoy it.

My thoughts on the characters have changed throughout the books. For instance, at the end of WoK, my ranking of the four main characters was as follows: 1) Kaladin 2) Shallan 3) Dalinar 4) Adolin Kaladin was easily my favorite, because the Bridge Four stuff was great, whereas Dalinar and Adolin both got dinged for being too indistinguishable, and for having the least interesting of the three plots. My rankings of the same characters in WoR was: 1) Dalinar 2) Adolin 3) Kaladin 4) Shallan Dalinar and Adolin's plots got a lot more interesting with Kaladin and Szeth added in, but Kaladin got dinged majorly for being a chore to read once he lost Syl, and Shallan...Shallan...I won't go into the full spiel about why I hate her entire arc, but when in another post a year ago this week I opined what I would change in Stormlight Archive, I wrote this (partly by coincidence, Shallan features prominently in each of my complaints, though most of them are bigger than just Shallan): My overall rankings, at the moment, for the Stormlight Archive as a whole are: 1) Kaladin 2) Dalinar 3) Shallan 4) Adolin Kaladin's Bridge Four performance in WoK was just that good, and Dalinar got enough better in WoR to get up to second, while Shallan performed poorly enough to bump down to third but is still saved from the bottom rank by her WoK performance, which I actually rather liked. All of my Shallan-centric complaints are focused on the WoR Shallan -- I liked her well enough in WoK.

Wow, really? Can you please elaborate further? My rudimentary physics suggests that a storm moving twice as fast would have four times the energy, which wouldn't be nearly as impressive as what you describe, I wouldn't think. I'm probably missing something obvious, but whatever it is isn't coming to mind.

I don't know that the Roshar peoples are that mathematically advanced. Taylor expansions are fairly complex mathematical ideas that have calculus as a prerequisite; trigonometry is somewhat simpler, but we've seen no particular evidence of either so far. The closest we come is the resonant frequencies that build the sand models of the major cities, but even that has much more the feel of trial and error than mathematical derivation. Even the "engineering" that Navani and company do seems rather more trial and error than not. When Jasnah is interviewing Shallan, for instance, neither woman ever mentions trigonometry, nor anything close to it. Shallan mentions herself "accomplished in basic mathematics...and I often helped with minor accounts for my father." This sounds a far cry from trigonometry to me, and given the importance of predicting highstorms and the general critiquing of Shallan's skills by Jasnah in general during that scene, if Roshar had any higher mathematics, it should certainly have been mentioned. I rather suspect that predicting highstorms is less rigorous than otherwise. Probably more a matter of "Well, highstorms occur every __ days on average, and the last one was pretty strong, and the moons are in the following locations, and...." A bit more mysticism than science. After all, if highstorms were terribly easy to predict in advance, Tavargian wouldn't have bothered writing down the dates of the ten storms prior to the Everstorm, nor would his followers have had difficulty identifying those dates as days that highstorms would occur.

I like the idea of splitting all the Kholin men up. Renarin feels like a pale copy of Adolin, who feels in turn like a younger copy of Dalinar. Some time apart might give them all a chance to grow into their own characters. Part of the reason I didn't like the Dalinar/Adolin sections of WoK that much was that I felt that I was getting unnecessary viewpoints of the same basic events. Seeing everything twice, after a fashion. (It also didn't help that those sections were a lot less exciting than the Kaladin and Shallan ones, either. I just can't really bring myself to care whether the king's saddle was sabotaged or not.) Splitting up those three, and Elhokar too, while we're at it, seems like it might do wonders for all their characters.

@maxal Wow, I loved the summary! I think you have a lot of great ideas. I especially like the idea of Adolin (and/or Renarin; it would work either way) finding out that Dalinar has forgotten his mother. Giving Renarin an expanded role also seems good; I admit I struggled to find a role for him to play in my summary. He seems kind of redundant. I'm curious that you have Adolin and Shallan's relationship break down, though. What's the motivation for this? Do you not like the characters together, or...I'm not quite sure what your plan is here.

Thanks. I forgot to include the part in part 5 where Kaladin's father is attacked and Kaladin kills the Voidbringer and sews up his father, thus justifying Kaladin's life choices, showing that he still makes good use of his father's teachings, and reconciling them once again. It would be the capstone to his current arc, and I'm surprised I forgot it. But thanks for reminding me! @everyone else: Guys, I think some of you are missing the point. This thread isn't supposed to be about what you THINK will happen, but rather about what you WOULD MAKE happen, if you were in charge. There's already a million threads speculating about what will actually happen in book 3. This is your chance to cut loose. Want to give wings to that Jasnah/Kaladin ship you've always favored? Wishing Brandon would ditch Kaladin and promote Adolin to hero-in-chief? Want to ditch everyone and write Jasnah and Wit's Wonderful Adventure? All these things are technically possible. It's not about what WILL happen, it's about what YOU'D HAVE happen. Or keep speculating about what will happen, I guess, if you'd like. I just thought something a bit different would be fun.

Okay, the title pretty much says it all. You are suddenly Brandon Sanderson; how do you structure Oathbringer? For the purposes of this discussion, you don't get to change anything that's already published, but you can ignore any WoBs, preview chapters, etc. Here's what I'd do: Prologue DALINAR, at Galivar's banquet scene. He is DRUNK because of jealousy over his brother. There is a HINT via the HERALDS about the bigger SA story, probably about why NALAN is hunting down Surgebinders. Part 1 Main viewpoint characters: Dalinar, Shallan NAVANI is busy teasing out the secrets of Urithiru at Dalinar's request. SHALLAN is helping her with her search, but also meeting the GHOSTBLOODS on the sly. They are also investigating Urithiru's secrets and know more than Navani and Shallan. Meanwhile DALINAR is busy playing politics with the HIGHLORDS, many of whom suspect him of having SADEAS killed. Both Shallan and Dalinar notice independently that ADOLIN is acting strangely, but they are all under a lot of STRESS and think nothing of it. Meanwhile, IALAI is investigating her husband's death; her sources have noted some inconsistencies with Adolin. Shallan discovers a MYSTERY and must chose to share it with Navani or the Ghostbloods. Part 2 Main viewpoint characters: Dalinar (via flashbacks), Kaladin KALADIN has arrived in Hearthstone, but he has USED UP all his Stormlight. The town has been WRECKED by the Highstorm and Kaladin has no time to find his parents thanks to an attack by the the PARSHMEN, who are now turned into VOIDBRINGERS and causing CHAOS. It is still the WEEPING, but even without Stormlight Kaladin must DO HEROIC STUFF. Despite that, his father is NOT IMPRESSED by Kaladin's path in life. After much interaction with ROSHONE, LAHARAL, and the PEOPLE of the town, Kaladin convinces everyone to leave for Alethkar, though the journey will be very DANGEROUS. It IS. Dalinar has FLASHBACKS, but because flashbacks are always MORE BORING than the main story, there are NOT TOO MANY of them. Part 3 Main viewpoint characters: Dalinar, Shallan, Adolin Shallan shares the mystery with Navani and Dalinar, but this causes friction with the Ghostbloods, many of whom now want her DEAD. Shallan's BROTHERS arrive in Urithiru, but prove to be a millstone around her neck. The Weeping ends, and Dalinar has more talky time with the STORMFATHER, who is SOMEWHAT INSANE. Meanwhile, Adolin is PANICKY about what happened with Sadeas, especially since Ialai is furthering the rumors that Dalinar had Sadeas killed, and Adolin was the one who did it. The Kholins are all worried about Alethkar, since word has arrived by spanreel. Dalinar is still having flashbacks, some of which involve QUEEN AESUELDAN, or whatever her name is, as a bit of a setup for the next part. Part 4 Main viewpoint characters: Dalinar, Shallan, Adolin, Kaladin, Jasnah JASNAH reaches Alethkar and find things a mess. She starts communicating with the people in Urithiru and they all try to unlock the Oathgate, while also keeping riots and whatnot under control. Kaladin shows up with a bunch of refugees and even more Voidbringers. Shallan solves the secret to the mystery, which has to do with why the Recreance occurred and why the Oathgates were locked, along with the key to unlocking them. Adolin fights off Ialai's assassins and comes further to grips with what happened. Alethkar's inner turmoil is put under control and the queen in her place, but they are besieged by Voidbringers. Things look GRIM. Part 5 Main viewpoint characters: Dalinar, Shallan, Adolin, Kaladin, Jasnah Ghostblood members try to assassinate Shallan before she can get the gate unlocked, but she says another truth and gets SHARDPLATE, which lets her open the gate in time. The Alethi armies are ferried through, led by Dalinar, and arrive just in time for a big climactic battle to save the city. Lots of glory for everyone. Afterward Main viewpoint characters: Wit Spoilery cliffhanger for next book. Okay, that's it. There were originally going to be a lot more details, but I figure my summary's long enough as-is and shows the main highlights. So now it's your turn: What would you do if you were in charge of writing Oathbringer?

Sadeas is worse, by a mile. I'm surprised people can even make the comparison. The guy who betrays thousands to their deaths is far worse than the one who betrays...five? I forget the exact number, but there's orders of magnitude difference here.

Is this a WoB? I don't see any reason to suppose this is the case otherwise. Granted, Dalinar et al will need to explore Urithiru at some point, and part three seems as good a place for a revelation as any (probably the best place, actually; part 1 allows no foreshadowing, part 2 busy with Adolin and maybe the Ghostbloods, and part 4 too late. Part 5 and/or the epilogue would work as a cliffhanger but not as a plot-driver). Plus, if previous books are a pattern, there won't be much time for lore-focused revelations once part 4 rolls around. Then again, if the lore comes from the Stormfather, I could easily see it showing up in parts 1 or 2, since that's already been foreshadowed. It's only if the revelation is going to be Urithiru-based that it would need to wait for parts 2 or 3. This might be a fun idea for a thread: how would you structure Oathbringer? Maybe I'll start it....

This isn't really true, though. If it were, Ehlokar would have been able to deal much more summarily with Moash's grandparents, who weren't even lighteyes, and Roshone wouldn't have been banished for his antics, either. It's true that some of the powerful characters don't act properly and get away with it (Sadeas, Aramam, etc.), but even in the case of Aramam, he mostly only gets away with what he did because he hid his crime. You can get away with a lot if you don't get caught, but don't mistake that for something encouraged or expected. Or it could be that we think that what he did was the most reprehensible crime that we've seen a "good" character commit yet. I don't know about Adolin being a spoiled brat, though he's definitely privileged, and bratty at times. We can argue Adolin versus Jasnah all we like and perhaps never reach agreement on whose crime was worse. That's one of the great things about SA. Even for the immoral characters, you can usually kind of see where they're coming from, how they could be the heroes of their own story if only things were a little bit different. Though I will say that I considered Jasnah's killing the thugs much more acceptable at the end of book 1 than I did by the end of book 2. At the end of book one, I thought she was actually risking her life for a cause she believed in. By the end of book 2, when I realized just how unstoppable Stormlight made someone, her actions took on a darker tone -- a bit closer to murder than previously thought. I still think that Adolin's was worse, though. That actually was straight-up murder. Found out in part 1? I doubt it. I don't expect Adolin to be found out until the latter half of part 2 at earliest, and it wouldn't at all surprise me for it to not be until part 4, if at all. You want to give the readers some sense of what Adolin's going through, the guilt he feels and the fear of discovery, but you don't want to do that right off the bat (i.e., not in part one), because of course it's one of the things the readers are most interested in, and you want them to be guessing right along with the other characters. Keep that tension high! Someone mentioned Crime and Punishment earlier, and I'll just point out that there a character's remorse and fear was enough to carry almost all the book. I did think it got a little tedious near the end, but that sort of pathos should be good for several hundred pages at least, especially when it's spaced out among other viewpoint characters. It's entirely possible that the other main characters don't find out who killed Sadeas at all, though Ialai will likely know (I'm not sure they even have much motivation to look; why look a gift horse in the mouth? Though probably Dalinar's sense of right would force him to investigate), but that we still see Adolin driven by his own internal guilt to do...something. I'm not really sure what. Something drastic, probably.

Voidbinding would make a lot of sense, especially given the skew-symmetry of the smaller circles, but I note that the Surgebinding chart has the Honor's Heralds around the edge, while the other one has...a woman? Kind of makes me think Cultivation. But the color scheme and lightning bolts and everything screams evil, so yeah, I'm going with Voidbinding. As an aside, does anyone know what the background images are in both charts? The Surgebinding one looks like it might almost be a face. Maybe Honor? The other one looks like...maybe a gemstone in a storm? A moon? Was one of Roshar's moons red? I remember one was purple, but I forget the colors of the other two.

Yeah, but the Oathgates swap the stuff on each gate when they activate. So if Alethkar to Urithiru has too much mass for the gemstones to transfer, Urithiru to Alethkar would also have too much mass to transfer.

Some people have suggested that the KR would have extended lifespans. If this is the case, and if a little bit of the magic is genetic (e.g., light eyes vs. dark eyes), then it doesn't seem entirely impossible that a little bit of their extended lifespan also got passed down as well. It's probably fair to say that after thousands of years pretty much everyone on Roshar has at least some Radiant DNA in their genome, listeners excepted. Of course, if this is true, one would expect lighteyes to live longer than darkeyes. Which they probably do, on average, but how much of that is genetic and how much due to good food and easy living is hard to say. If Radiants don't live longer than normal people, well, then maybe constant exposure to Stormlight helps, in sort of an ambient background effect, like how exposure to different levels of air purity can effect lifespans on Earth.

The problem with an accusation of theft is that all Kaladin has to do is summon his Shardblade and the problem's resolved. (Recall that any Shardbearer is automatically Third Dahn, so Kaladin would outrank Roshone at that point.) Having such an accusation play any sort of significant role in the book would require too much jumping through hoops, like the rather contrived chasm scene in book two. It's possible that an accusation by Roshone is why Kaladin shows he has a Shardblade, but personally, I'm hoping for something more awesome than that. A Voidbringer attack, maybe. That being said, it would be pretty awesome if Lirin got injured and Kaladin patched him up again. It would show that even though he ultimately chose the army, Kaladin hasn't forgotten his father's teachings. Now this would be a scene I could get behind.

I think at one point Jasnah said she tried to get to Urithiru via the gate in Ahlekar, but couldn't because it was locked. Since she presumably also had a Shardblade to try on it at the time, we can probably assume that there's more to the locked gate than just no one having a spren to turn the lock. That being said, it's entirely possible that she wasn't able to make the gate work just because there was too much stuff built on top of the transport platform. If the amount of Stormlight necessary to transfer things is a function of mass, and if in the intervening years people have built several buildings and whatnot on top of the transport platform, then it's entirely possible that there was just too much weight for the Oathgate to shift. Gemstones can only hold so much Stormlight, after all. It's possible that all that would be required to open the gate would be a bit of controlled demolition. I don't think that's going to be the case (I suspect there was some other way of locking the turning part of the Oathgate in place, perhaps using the same material the Gate was made from originally), but it's the simplest answer I think we have, given what we already know. Everything else is just speculation.

Personally, I think it'd be more exciting if his intelligence only changes when he sleeps, so until and unless the books show otherwise, that's the way I'm imagining it. I could see him frantically trying to stay awake to maintain his superior intelligence, but that intelligence becoming less and less useful as he gets more and more exhausted. Conversely, I can easily imagine him going to bed early on a dull day, partly because he doesn't have anything to do and partly so he can be well-rested in case he's got super-intelligence tomorrow.

Pretty good, I'd say. Five years isn't really all that long. I occasionally see people from farther back than that, and while I might not necessarily recognize them at first, as soon as they introduce themselves I immediately see the resemblance. I'd say it's fair odds that Kaladin might not be recognized if he doesn't introduce himself, but as soon as he does, I doubt there'll be any excuse for mistaken identity. Well, maybe. The thing to remember is that the Everstorm 1) will have already taken them all by surprise, and 2) is coming from the wrong direction anyway. So really, they might not have much reason to stay where they're at (other than, of course, the fact that it's their home). It might technically be safer to flee than to try to hunker down in a city that's already been wrecked -- there could be all sorts of hidden structural deficiencies, for instance; buildings just waiting until the next Everstorm to collapse. Plus, how much work does it take to get a city Highstorm-ready, if you don't have soulcasters? I'm guessing it takes years. It's not like Hearthstone has a bunch of ardents with soulcasters who can whip up some defenses in the blink of an eye. The people of Hearthstone probably don't have years, especially if the Voidbringers are at their door. Not saying it will happen or it won't, but it's not at all unreasonable to suppose that a significant portion of the population might prefer a city beyond the reach of the storms over one that's been decimated by them, even if getting there's a bit of a risk. Highstorms can be dangerous, especially in the open, but they're survivable. Making the trek to Alethkar might actually be less dangerous than staying. After all, I can't imagine the Everstorm's going to leave much of their crops intact, so even if they stay they're probably looking at starvation in the relatively near future. I sort of agree with you that this wouldn't be very exciting, but it's not like it would be out of character, either. I mean, Kaladin's pretty much a Radiant because he goes around helping people that it's not expedient to assist. If Kaladin's parents aren't around, I very much expect him to make finding them a priority. I could even see this leading toward another Ideal, something like "I will help those in front of me" (i.e., rather than neglect them so that he can maybe assist people who he might or might not be able to find and who might or might not need his help anyway. I haven't worded this very well, but hopefully you get the idea). But yes, I certainly don't want Kaladin to become Perrin. (Cue Stormfather voice:) DO YOU HEAR ME, BRANDON SANDERSON? DO NOT MAKE KALADIN INTO PERRIN! That should do it. Brandon wouldn't go against the Stormfather, would he?

While this is certainly one possibility, Adolin certainly isn't the only person in SA to not lose duels. Szeth, for instance, has fought a number of duels against odds worse than any Adolin ever faced and always emerged triumphant. And though we haven't yet seem them fight, it's probably fair to say that the Heralds don't lose many duels either....