galendo

I think that person's seeing Shadesmar. If I recall correctly, that's how Shadesmar's sky is described when Shallan goes there.

You know, this brings up a couple of interesting questions: 1) Why are the Ten Essences easier to soulcast? The idea that the spren just naturally have an understanding exactly those ten things seems kind of strange. Like, did the Shards just say "Hear ye, hear ye, all ye spren! Ye shall have an innate understanding of these ten things! For everything else...eh, do what you can, I guess?" 2) Why are the Ten Essences those particular things? Why foil, say, and not metal? Why spark and not heat or flame? If you're going for the foundation -- the essence, if you will -- it seems like more fundamental, the better. Foil, for instance, is simply a metal, beaten flat. But the basic material is metal; foil is merely one thing you can make from it. One would think the essence of the idea would be the metal, not the product derived from it.

Not necessarily. In addition to what Moogle mentioned, it's worth nothing that the goal of the Diagram isn't to stop the Everstorm or even to stop the True Desolation. It's entirely possible that the time frame for the Diagram is something like Destabilize world --> Everstorm comes --> Pick up the pieces --> Profit! (er, I mean, Save humanity). Without knowing the time frame of the Diagram, we can't know whether the Everstorm coming when it did is a problem for the Diagramists or not. The encryption was probably because he didn't want the information falling into the wrong hands. As for the writing two texts every second letter thing, I got the impression that was more a matter of running out of space and needing to write over what he'd already written because he had nowhere else to write. AaSnIdFaOnNoEtMhEeSrSoAnGeEwWaAsSwWrRiItTtTeEnNlLiIkKeEtThHiIsS.

We're probably going to have to agree to disagree with how reasonable it is for Elhokar to pardon the deserters at Shallan's request. I'd say the main difference between what Elhokar did and what Dalinar did, though, is that the deserters are known to be guilty of capital crimes, while the bridgemen aren't known to be guilty of much of anything. Sure, some of them are probably guilty of terrible crimes, but Sadeas made people bridgemen for pretty much any reason at all, and Dalinar knows that. Here's a real-life parallel. Some years ago, it was found that one of the people working in a evidence-processing lab was falsifying results. Evidence from her lab was used to convict tens of thousands of people, and when it was found out that the results weren't reliable...well, even now the issue hasn't been put to rest, but some speculated (and the ACLU sued to request) that they would need to release every prisoner whose trial had been contaminated in this fashion. Now, some number of those prisoners -- perhaps even most of them -- were surely guilty of the crimes they had been charged with. But because many of them weren't, the "global remedy" of releasing all of them was seriously considered. It hasn't happened (yet, at least), but it was a reasonable thing to consider. This, I feel, is what Dalinar did. Elhokar pardoning the deserters, though, is more akin to a Presidential pardon. These do occur with some frequency (usually a few hundred per president, and usually in their second term), but they're usually more considered than just "this one person I've never met said that all these people are actually really nice and deserve pardon". Not always, of course: Bill Clinton famously pardoned his brother for cocaine possession, and George W. Bush pardoned his assistant Scooter Libby for perjury; but the number of people pardoned for capital crimes is much smaller, and, as I mentioned, almost always much more considered. Elhokar doing the same on the word of someone he never met...well, it just doesn't seem all that believable to me. If I recall correctly Elhokar (or perhaps it's Adolin) doesn't want Kaladin at their meetings at first and only goes along with it because Dalinar supports him. And even if you think it's in character that Ehlokar should have listened to her...well, it was still very, very lucky for her that a highprince she picked almost at random, because he was the only one aloof from the two factions, would have chosen to go along with her lies about their blood relation(!) and her suggested salary. I mean, he didn't even modify it with an "I believe it was emerald chips, my dear" or something like that, which would have been much more in character. I'm kind of with you here, but I feel somewhat frustrated. One of my main frustrations is that it seems that Shallan, at least in book 2, can't fail at literally anything (well, she does once fail to light a fire, I guess). I can't even see how she could possibly fail in her bond to Pattern, because I never saw what attracted Pattern to her in the first place. Your idea that lying to herself would break their bond is interesting but not supported anywhere in the book that I'm aware of. Actually, I'm pretty certain that she spends most of the book lying to herself. The "ten heartbeats" thing is the first that comes to mind, but there were others. Well, Mraize wanted her in, sure. I'm pretty certain that at least some of the others were seriously trying to kill her. Well, I find both Kaladin's and Shallan's progress to be perfectly plausible, so we can agree here, sort of. I think that Kaladin practices a lot more than we actually see; we might only see four-ish scenes of him practicing, but I think if we see that many it can be safely assumed that there's a lot more we don't see. As for how Kaladin beats Szeth: remember that in straight combat (no Stormlight, preferred weapon), Kaladin is probably advantaged. In Stormlight efficiency, Kaladin is advantaged. In usefulness of weapon, Kaladin is advantaged (Syl can become a sword, a spear, a shield...Szeth just has a sword). The only advantage Szeth has is his familiarity with lashings. Now, I'm not about to discount this, and if the fight had taken place on the ground rather than in the air, Szeth might well have won. But remember that all of Szeth's experience and practice is in fighting grounded opponents. He never fought anyone in the air; he probably never even considered the possibility of an aerial opponent. Whereas Kaladin knew he would be fighting a foe who could fly from the beginning and trained with that in mind. Put another way: Szeth trained to beat Shardbearers, but Kaladin trained to beat Szeth.

Historically, desertion has been a capital crime -- punishable by death. It is on Roshar, too, as the deserters are well aware. Not to mention all the crimes that led them to desert in the first place. The king pardoning them because they rescued someone would be like pardoning a bunch of murderers because they rescued a child from a burning building. One good deed doesn't outweigh dozens of equally bad ones. Also, note that the king doesn't bother to collect any evidence, or even take a deposition from anyone else. He just immediately pardons them on the word of a lighteyes that he's never met before in his life. One lighteyed stranger willing to lie for you...is that really all it takes to get out of a death sentence on Roshar? So yeah, I found that part of the book incredibly difficult to swallow. Her getting taken on as a super-overpaid scribe was nearly as difficult to believe. Shallan got taken on because she was Shallan. Any other character would have been tossed out on her ear. I guess I'd feel better about its absence if I were sure that we'll ever get an adequate description, but it seems like if there were any time to get a Shallan flashback to how she got her spren and Blade, it would have been in the Shallan flashback book. I fear that we'll get an explanation at best, and more just telling me that Shallan was awesome and attracted a spren isn't what I want; I want the description of her being awesome, and I fear that I'll never get it. Also, the "special snowflake" comment was directed toward the Lightweavers in general, not Shallan in particular, although she does get painted somewhat with the same brush. More on this later, when I address The Honor Spren's post. I don't have any complaints about the speed at which any of the Radiants get their abilities. For one, it's implied that the knowledge is coming to them somewhat supernaturally. In the chasm scene where Kaladin finally learns how to walk on walls, he gets a brief glimpse of Shadesmar just before the knowledge of the Basic Lashing comes to him. It's not just trial and error. That being said, saying that Kaladin can use his abilities without any apparent effort seems a bit misleading. He practices, a lot. If you want to know why Shallan still "can't do a thing with Transformation", I'd suggest that it's because she's tried it all of twice since her first successful soulcast. Now, she maybe has good reason for this: Jasnah made her promise not to try without her, and Soulcasting is presumably more difficult and dangerous than Lashings. But saying that Kaladin's ability comes supernaturally fast when compared to Shallan who doesn't even practice seems a bit misleading. An unnamed carriage driver died. His passing is lamented by Shallan all of once after the scene in question, if I remember right, and then he's promptly forgotten for the rest of the book. Besides, my complaint wasn't that Shallan never made any mistakes in WoR, it was that she never went through a try-fail cycle. If getting the innocent bystander killed had somehow impeded her acceptance into the Ghostbloods, forcing her to then try to get acceptance in a different fashion, that would have been a try-fail cycle. But that's not what happened. That is my complaint against the order in general. There doesn't seem to be any failure state for the Lightweavers. I can imagine what sorts of actions would cause Kalladin's bond to Syl to break; I can imagine what would cause Dalinar's bond to the Stormfather to break; I can imagine what would cause Lift's bond to break; and when we finally see a Skybreaker, I can imagine what would cause his/her bond to break. I expect this will be true for most if not all of the remaining Orders. But I can't imagine what would cause Shallan's bond to Pattern to break. I mean, sure, if she breaks the "life before death" oath, that's one thing, but that's true to all the Orders. We know she has to speak truths to advance, but it's not like she has to continue speaking truths; when she was struck mute as a child, her bond didn't break (it wasn't faring well at the time, admittedly, but it didn't break). Nor is speaking lies a problem, either -- Pattern finds them perfectly acceptable. So she doesn't have to keep speaking truths, and it doesn't matter if she speaks lies...Shallan sure seems to have won the jackpot in the "keeping your spren happy" department. This might be the case, but it seems like we're either going to need to have Shallan flashbacks in a non-Shallan flashback book, or we're going to be told what happened rather than seeing it for ourselves, and I wonder how justified not letting us see how Shallan gets her spren and her Blade can actually be. I get that the Blade reveal might have been problematic, since it would have needed to occur after Kaladin gets his Blade and if it's not a fairly climactic scene then it might not belong in the "climax" part of the book, but then again Tien's death wasn't exactly climactic and yet it fit in fine with the climax of WoK, so Shallan's Blade scene probably could've been done here as well. Basically, I wonder if keeping the scenes back for plot purposes is justified. I guess we'll know when we finally learn what happened, but my inclination right now is leaning towards "no."

Okay, I think I get what you're saying. It seems kind of weird that the amount of Stormlight you could hold would go down after swearing an oath, though. Seems counter-intuitive, though I suppose it's possible. I'd have to check to be sure, but wouldn't it be his shield that lights up, since he just dumped all his Stormlight into it? Well, it doesn't seem to be a physical gas when the Stormfather just puts it into gems during the Highstorms. It's not entirely implausible that whatever "just put it in there" method is at play. This is a little bit off topic, but do we have any idea why the amount of Stormlight being consumed is dangerous? Is it just because one's tiredness afterward is proportionate to how much one uses?

I also found Shallan's plot in WoR to be less compelling than Kaladin's. In fact, I thought her plot in WoR was less compelling than her plot in WoK. I know a lot of people like Shallan in book 2 better than book 1, but I liked book 1 Shallan better. In WoK we have a character who has to work hard for what she wants, and I enjoyed watching the effort she put into becoming Jasnah's ward finally pay off. I also enjoyed her change of heart (both ways!) over whether to steal the soulcaster or not. In WoR, on the other hand, seemed...less well written? I don't really know how to explain my thoughts, but one example is how everything just goes her way. There was no real try-fail cycle for her at any point, she just got everything she wanted without effort. A highprince takes her on as an extremely over-priced scribe, just because. The king pardons a dozen deserters, just because she asks nicely. Even her Shardblade comes across as "just because", because we never get to see whatever special things she presumably did to attract Pattern in the first place. Oh, and you can forget about her ever losing her spren -- Shallan belongs to the "special snowflake" order that doesn't have to swear any oaths. Grumble, grumble. Back on topic: I mentioned in a previous post that my favorite scene overall was Bridge Four rescuing Dalinar's army, but my favorite Shallan sequence is when she's trying to become Jasnah's ward. She gets interviewed. She fails. She writes a letter. It doesn't work. She buys books and starts studying. Finally she's accepted. I know it sounds plain when I write it out like this, but I really like reading it, the interview-while-you-walk scene in particular.

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Well, I get the gist of your post -- that whether you get the Stormlight boost might depend on whether you're holding in Stormlight at the time. This is an interesting variable that doesn't explain Kaladin's second Ideal but would explain why none of the other Radiants got the boost. I'm not sure how increasing your efficiency/ability to hold Stormlight would cause a bunch of it to be ejected, though, or even how you'd get all that Stormlight in the first place. On the other hand, taken with this post, it creates a new theory: Maybe swearing the oath gets you a bunch of Stormlight somehow, but then because the proto-Radiant isn't very efficient at holding Stormlight, the rest of it is suddenly ejected. This would explain the exploding with Light description and might also explain the pressure shock that tosses the Parshendi about in WoK and the shutters in WoR. It doesn't explain why Dalinar didn't get the boost as well, though, since he also swore an oath. Interestingly, this theory will be somewhat testable when we see Kaladin's next oath. Since Radiants get more efficient at holding in Stormlight as they swear more oaths, Kaladin should glow less brightly the next time. He should also produce less of a shockwave. Come to think of it, that might explain why the Parshendi were tossed about in WoK but Moash and Graves weren't in WoR, though that might also be because they were in Shardplate at the time.

For me it was the end of the Bridge Four sequence in WoK: everything from when Bridge Four decided to give up their freedom to charge the plateau into almost certain death to Dalinar deciding to lead his men in an all but hopeless charge, despite "knowing" that the bridge will have been tossed into the chasm long before they get there, finally culminating in Dalinar reaching the bridgehead and finding the bridge still miraculously there. Best scene in the books so far, IMHO, and hard to imagine it being topped.

One thing that struck me recently was the difference between Kaladin swearing the First and Second Ideals and Dalinar swearing the First. In Kaladin's case, he is described as "explod[ing] with Light." The exact terminology and emphasis is used for both Ideals, in both books. In Dalinar's case, nothing. Why the difference? And what exactly is going on with Kaladin anyway? Let's talk about the second question first: what is going on with Kaladin, anyway? From the books, there are a couple of different explanations: 1) Kaladin is sucking up all the ambient Stormlight, thus exploding with Light. 2) Kaladin is getting a boost solely from swearing the oath, and would have exploded with Light even if there hadn't been any Stormlight around to suck up. I'm not sure we have the information to decide between the two proposals. In the first book, we don't get a close-up view of what's going on with the gems in the Parshendi's beards at the time. In the second book, all the lanterns in the hallway go dark, which supports the first explanation; but then, "For a moment, they stood in darkness", which doesn't exactly match how we've seen Radiants suck light out of gemstones earlier, where they literally inhale the light. It's also worth noticing that the draining of the lamps and the exploding with light don't happen immediately after swearing the oath, but rather after Syl forms a Shardblade in his hand. So maybe something else is going on instead, though it's still obviously related to swearing the Ideals. Anyway, that's Kaladin. But Dalinar's case is very different. Why? 1) Windrunners are special, and get the boost while other orders don't. 2) Bondsmiths are special, and don't get the boost while other orders do (much like Shardblades). 3) Situation is important: Kaladin had a need for Stormlight when he swore his Ideals; Dalinar didn't. Now this might be another case where we don't have enough information to fully decide, but maybe we do, at least somewhat. For instance, Jasnah and Shallan have each progressed at least to the Shardblade level, and though we don't see the progression ourselves, we can somewhat infer by its lack of mention, even in retrospect, that either they didn't get the Stormlight boost or they got it when few people were around to see. Ditto for Renarin, if he's progressed as far as the First Ideal yet. This seems to weigh somewhat against explanation 2). Any ideas? I have a somewhat crazy idea somewhat in favor of situation 1), but it's mostly based on me really, really wanting there to be ten Radiant oaths and grasping at any straws I can to make it fit, so I think I'll reserve it for now. I'm interested to see if anyone has any evidence or arguments for or against any of these cases, though, or any new explanations that I may have overlooked.

One of the main arguments against Plate being fabrials or being created by a particular order of Radiant is the fact that there are apparently a very similar number of Blades and Plates in the world, which would be very unlikely to happen by chance if the two weren't connected. Most shardbearers we've seen have both Blade and Plate, and a few have one but not the other (e.g., Sadeas in WoK and Dalinar in WoR), but it's not like there are a bunch of people with Plate and not Blade or vice-versa. If there were, say, twice as many of one as the other, I'm pretty sure the imbalance would have been mentioned in the books. I adhere to the theory that Shardplate is created of spren, but not radiant-spren. When Kaladin flies through the sky, he attracts a bunch of windspren, with whom Syl obviously shares an affinity. We also know from the interlude with the scholars in WoK that spren can be locked into form. The theory is that the radiant spren somehow locks the non-radiant spren into Plate. This explains the similar numbers of Blade and Plate, explains why Radiants don't hear scream from Shardplate, explains why Plate can resist Blades, and fits in well with what we know of the magic systems of Roshar. As for the uses of Plate: it makes you stronger, it protects you from one-hit-kills, it shrugs off "normal" attacks, and it takes a lot less Stormlight to maintain Plate than it would to heal all the wounds you'd have if you weren't wearing Plate. Seems like pretty useful stuff, even for the Knights Radiant.

If it helps, I'm about 98% certain that Herdaz is mentioned as a Vorin kingdom, though one whose religion is a bit different. I think Lopen mentions it, but I'm not entirely sure; I could just be thinking that because he's Herdazian. But I don't get why Shallan wouldn't know of all five of these kingdoms. I mean, Herdaz even shares a border with Jah Keved. Unless the Herdaz version of Vorinism is really different.

Sometimes the simplest theory is the true one: Taln is none other than the Herald Talenel'elin. Maybe there's a bunch of WoBs somewhat implying that he isn't. But I both suspect and hope that it's just Brandon trolling his fans, and for exactly the same reason. Why? Because there's a fair bit of evidence in the books to suggest that he is exactly who he claims to be, and literally nothing in the books to suggest that he isn't. Every bit of suspicion that he isn't who he claims to be comes--as near as I can tell--solely from WoBs. Brandon's foreshadowed a lot of things (even the probable ability to surgebind with music rather than stormlight, which won't come into play until at least book 5 by my guess and probably not until book 7 or 8), so the idea that just hasn't done so in this case doesn't make much sense. I'd go so far as to call it a flaw in the books--a plot hole--if this does indeed turn out to be the case. If anyone has any evidence from the books to suggest that Taln is anything other than a Herald, I'd be pleased to hear it. As for the Taln is Rayse theory, well, it's certainly novel, but I very sincerely doubt that it turns out to be correct.

I think it could easily go either way. For example, if Kaladin does become permanently lighteyed, we could still get a rather interesting story arc about him becoming (inadvertantly and irrevocably) what he hates, and him needing to come to grips with his own stereotyping and realize that his unreasonable bias against lighteyes is just as bad as lighteyes being unreasonably biased against darkeyes. That people are people regardless of the color of their eyes. I'm also moderately convinced that one of Kaladin's future story arcs and/or oaths is going to be about giving up hatred/anger/vengeance in favor of the greater good (his unreasonable anger seems to be one of his greatest remaining character flaws), and the switch from being darkeyed to being lighteyed could serve as a catalyst for the change.

Does anyone know why Zahel refers to the King's Wit as "Dust"? Thanks in advance. (Note: The quote occurs on page 976 in Words of Radiance: Kaladin stood in the rain. "Do you know where the King's Wit is?" "That fool, Dust? Not here, blessedly. Why?")

I think this is actually answered in the books, at least by implication. Mind you, I forget exactly where and how, but I remember wondering this same thing, and then answering the question to my own satisfaction. If I had to go off of the maps and vague memories, I'd suggest that the five kingdoms were Rishir, Valhav, Alethela, Natanatan, and Thalath, and that Shallan doesn't know about Rishir because it got more or less subsumed into Alethkar and Jah Keved. In addition to the people that CognitivePulsePattern mentions above, Hoid mentions it in The Way of Kings.

I'm not sure that I can buy into the idea that Taravangian was ignorant of worldhoppers on the day he wrote the Diagram. To begin with, he seemed to be able to intuit a number of not terribly obvious things very quickly (e.g., he seems to realize that the Honorblades are in Shinovar within a few seconds). And although one might think that worldhopping would be too obscure even for that, remember that enough people on Roshar either know about it outright or have enough pieces to the puzzle that Taravangian should have been able to put it together while brilliant. More evidence of his probable awareness comes from the Diagram itself: "But who is the wanderer, the wild piece, the one who makes no sense? I glimpse at his implications, and the world opens to me. I shy back. Impossible. Is it? --From the Diagram. West Wall Psalm of Wonders: paragraph 8 (Note by Adrotagia: Could this refer to Mraize?) Personally, I suspect that "the wanderer" mentioned here is Hoid, who really is only noteworthy because he's done a bunch of worldhopping. If so, and if Taravangian can "glimpse at his implications", he must have been aware of the possibility of travelling between worlds. But even if this quote doesn't refer to Hoid, at the very least we know that the Diagram followers know of Mraize, who is also a worldhopper (or, at the very least, a collector of otherworldly goods). Either way, it seems unlikely that Taravangian, when brilliant, would have missed the connections. That's a very interesting idea, but we know that he spends approximately the same amount of time being brilliant as he does being stupid. It seems unlikely that he would need to be smart/stupid an equal proportion of the time. This seems more like a ferruchemical sort of balance to me.

I'm here to throw out a couple of ideas regarding the Diagram. The first is one that I haven't seen discussed here before, although I doubt I'm the first to have thought of it, as it seems somewhat obvious. The second is a piece of evidence for a common theory (that the Diagram was Odium-influenced) that I also don't think I've seen mentioned before. Probably more due to my lack of attentiveness than for any other reason. Neither insight is particularly deep, so don't go expecting too much from my soon-to-be-sprawling thoughts, but both seem pretty heavily suggested by WoR. Idea #1: The Diagram, if followed precisely, would lead to a terrible future that no reasonable person would support. We know Taravangian and his gang think that they're doing the right thing, that the Diagram is a path to salvation. They know that the cost will be high, but they think it's worth paying. I'm here to suggest that it might not be. First, let's look at Taravangian's other ideas on his "smart" days: 1) An intelligence test to determine which people are allowed to reproduce. 2) A law requiring the less-intelligent to commit suicide for the greater good. Both ideas are good in the abstract. The result, smarter citizens, is a worthy goal in itself. But the costs that would have to be paid to get there with these ideas are so abhorrent that very few reasonable people would support them. I propose that the Diagram is roughly the same, just on a grander scale. In addition to the parallels above, we have support from the Diagram itself suggesting that the costs to be paid will be terrible: "Q: What cost must we bear? A: The cost is irrelevant...all other considerations are but dust by comparison." Even Taravangian, on a day of extremely low empathy, seems to realize that the costs are high. That means that the actual costs must be astronomical. The Diagram is supposed to "shelter a seed of humanity through the coming storm." But how much of a seed do you really need? A few hundred people? A few dozen? Only two? It's incredibly possible -- in fact I think even likely -- that following the Diagram would result in the deaths of over 99.99% of the population of Roshar. I also think this twist makes a lot of sense from a literary perspective. In a way, it's almost a shame that: Idea #2: Contradictions in the Diagram indicate that it must have been malignly influenced. The interesting thing I noticed is that the Diagram occasionally flat-out contradicts known information, which should have been obvious to Taravangian during his day of lucidity. "Mankind must survive. Our burden is that of the species..." But Taravangian presumably, at least on his day of intelligence, should have known that humanity is not confined to Roshar. Humanity as a species is not threatened, even if Taravangian sits back and does nothing. In fact, the easiest way to "shelter a seed of humanity through the coming storm" would be to ship as many as you could off-world. No fancy Diagram-inspired slaughtering necessary. Another quote is just as contradicory, and perhaps even more telling: "The Unmade are a deviation, a flair, a conundrum that may not be worth your time." Even not-super-smart Taravangian and his cronies should be able to see that this cannot be true. The death-rattles are extremely important to them, and the Thrill was instrumental in wrecking Jah Keved so Taravangian could take over. Neither of these effects could reasonably be described as "a conundrum that may not be worth your time." Finally, let's look at the full quote (spoilers for length): We see the same pattern of thought-distraction-thought-distraction that we see with Eshonai when she gets too close to thinking about how stormform is more than she bargained for: Plus, it's been a while since I've read the Mistborn trilogy, but I vaguely seem to remember . Regardless, it looks like some external force is twisting Taravangian's mind away from focusing on what it doesn't want him to focus on. A pity, in some ways -- I think I actually prefer the idea that the Diagram was a result of pure logic, as Tavargian believes. But the contradictions within it seem to suggest otherwise.

I'd like to add that one reason for the Kaladin love is that he's the only darkeyed main character. All the other main characters were born with silver spoons in their mouths, but he wasn't. It makes him more relateable (I'm guessing most people here weren't born rich; and not just rich but literally with an impassable bar between them and the "lower" society) and also more of an underdog. It's way more exciting to see a relative nobody rise to importance than it is to see someone literally born that way.

Great post, and welcome to the boards! You make a good point that honor is often viewed through a cultural lens, and some things that were considered honorable in the past would be considered barbaric today. Dueling comes to mind as an example. If my understanding of history is correct, there was a time when it was considered honorable for two men to resolve their differences by shooting at one another. It seems crazy, wasteful, and, incidentally, not very honorable at all by modern standards. I'm having difficulty coming up with a definition of honor that encompasses dueling, though. It doesn't fit my "for a greater cause" condition very well (my understanding was that duels were sometimes fought over relatively trival matters -- though I admit it's possible that what would be seen as trivial today would have been quite serious at the time. I'm not enough of a history buff to know for sure), and it doesn't seem to fit your "what's good for the tribe" definition, either. And yet it was serious enough at the time for people to die for. More thinking needs to be done on this matter. I would say that when giving to a charity you are sacrificing for a cause you believe in. Doing the "right" thing, in other words, at personal cost. That's what makes it honorable. Anyone can give lip service to, say, how terrible it is that people are starving to death in Africa -- we can all agree that it's a terrible situation -- but only a few donate their time or money to help fix the problem. Honor is about walking the walk despite the cost to yourself. If I can borrow from Man from La Mancha: "To fight the unbeatable foe / ... / To fight for the right, without question or pause / To be willing to march into Hell for a Heavenly cause". I'm not sure I have a good answer for that question. Like you said, Adolin was in a pretty awkward situation, where no choice he made would have been perfect. The smart thing might have been to kill Sadeas, but there were more honorable approaches to the problem. At the very least, it would have been less dishonorable to give Sadeas fair warning. Stupid, sure, and Adolin would likely have died if he had -- but that's not the point. Honor isn't about being smart, it's about being honorable. There are a couple of death rattles that come to mind that seem somewhat related: I hold the suckling child in my hands, a knife at his throat, and know that all who live wish me to let the blade slip. Spill its blood upon the ground, over my hands, and with it gain us further breath to draw. and So the night will reign, for the choice of honor is life... Now maybe I'm completely off here and the next book will prove that these refer to completely different things, but the first quote seems to be referring to someone in a position similar to Adolin's, where the expedient thing is to murder someone, because it will save lots of lives. But the honorable choice, according to the second one, is not to do so, even though the consequences are terrible. Personally I'm kind of hoping/expecting that this all plays out at the end of the fifth book as a sort of downer ending to the first half of the series. That's how I'd do it, at least. ...But the point I was making is that murder isn't honorable, even if would potentially save lives. Expedient, useful, maybe even good in some cases, but not honorable.

I'm second this as well: I very much do not want to seek Shallan and Kaladin in a romantic relationship, though in my case it's more because I think the two have some sort of anti-synergy when in the same scene -- the interactions between them always seem unnatural and forced. (I didn't really like the chasm sequence, either. Kaladin losing his powers at juuuust the right time to make falling into the chasm be an ordeal rather than a momentary inconvenience is the sort of plot twisting that I dislike.) That being said, I'm perfectly okay with the level of Kaladin-centricness that the series currently has. He's certainly a major player, perhaps the most major player, and unlike many of the other characters (and here I'm mostly picking on Shallan again), he actually has difficult moral decisions to make and serious consequences for making the wrong choice. Though I should clarify that I want more of Bridge Four Kaladin from the first book and less of mopey depressed Kaladin from the second.

Thanks for the response, and sorry I'm a bit late replying. I do think that there can be a lot of overlap between generosity and honor, but one can be generous without being honorable. Giving to a worthy cause would be honorable, but if I buy my friend a gift, even if it's a really expensive gift, I'm only being generous, not honorable. I agree that saying I'll donate and then donating is honorable, but I'd claim it's the act of donating that's honorable, not the time elapsed between saying and doing. If I say I'll donate in a month, and I do, that's honorable. We both agree. If I say in a week, that's still honorable, right? What if I say a day, or a minute, or a second? What if there's no time at all elapsed between saying and doing? If anything, I'd say that delaying the donation is worse than doing it promptly. To be fair, I completely agree with you that there isn't any honor in Kaladin fighting the Parshendi. But I don't see it as particularly dishonorable, either. Not nearly as much as murdering someone, at least. When someone goes to war, it's understood that you're going to be trying to kill the other guys and the other guys are trying to kill you. If you're a better fighter than them, or they're a better fighter than you...well, that's just the way it works out. Now if Kaladin had mowed down the same Parshendi on a sunny day in the marketplace, for instance, that would have been exceedingly dishonorable. The Parshendi are just as helpless in each case, but one is dishonorable (and abominable) while the other isn't. Or not as much, at least. That's why I see Adolin's actions as dishonorable. Adolin murders Sadeas, plain and simple. If someone walks up to me and tries to knife me, the fact that we're maybe about equal in combat strength doesn't make a difference (say I have a knife, too -- or even a gun, if you like). The fact that I'm better armed, the fact that I have a better chance of killing him than he does of killing me, that doesn't really matter. It's still a pretty darn dishonorable thing to do. The Adolin-Sadeas fight might have been an even fight, and it was probably the right thing for Adolin to do, but it certainly wasn't honorable. Not the way I see it, at least.

That would be a cool arc, but I'm not really sure it fits into the Skybreaker creed. Nalan certainly doesn't show any, and he's presumably living the Skybreaker ideal. We don't know what oaths the Skybreakers swear, so it's hard to say if showing mercy where the law demands justice would be a spren-losing thing or not. But even if he lost his spren as a result (assuming he ever gets that far, at least), it would still be a neat idea. Though come to think of it, it seems like the Szeth/Stone Shaman showdown is coming in the next book. I'm not sure there's enough time for him to get his spren and oaths in order for that to be a possibility. Not with the Stone Shamans, at least.

Wow, so many great responses. I'll try to get to everyone's, because I'm enjoying the conversation: @Moogle: You could be right; Lift might be selfless more than honorable. But maybe not. I suppose it depends whether her thieving is something she does just for fun, or if it's a necessary action that she's making the best of. But I sort of get a Robin Hood vibe from her, who would sort of be the paradigm of the honorable outlaw. Being an outlaw doesn't necessarily imply a lack of honor. And no appologies for derailing are necessary -- this is a pretty open-ended question and can go a lot of ways. You're probably right that Lift's spren is more of Cultivation than of Honor (the vines and the Growth surge certainly support this), but I don't see her actions as particularly cultivatory, either. When does she cultivate anything? @maxal: I've grabbed Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, though I could have grabbed a different one and it would have likely had slightly different definitions. For more completion, here's the list of apropos definitions it has for honor: 1a: a good name or public esteem: REPUTATION 1b: a showing of usu. merited respect: RECOGNITION (I don't think this one really applies in the sense we're talking about, but since it seems to match up with the first of your definitions, I'll include it) 4: one whose worth brings respect or fame: CREDIT 7: CHASTITY, PURITY 8a: a keen sense of ethical conduct: INTEGRITY 8b: one's word given as a guarantee of performance. There's another half dozen definitions for honorable, several of which match up with these and some of which don't. My point is that saying "We'll use the dictionary definition" is fine, provided we can all agree on the dictionary to use. Different dictionaries will have at least slightly different definitions. Even then, they still require interpretation. And I would say that at least definitions 7, 8a, and 8b have some measure of implied self-sacrifice to them. And I wouldn't at all say that someone can't be honorable unless he's had a terrible life. Anyone could choose to give of himself to serve a greater good. Anyone fortunate enough to have disposable income could choose to give some or all of it to a worthy cause; that would be a pretty honorable thing to do (going off of definition 8a here, and perhaps implicitly 8b as well). Anyone could choose to give his word to do something even if he'd rather do something else. People faced with extreme adversities or temptations certainly have greater opportunities to demonstrate their honor than someone who doesn't, but that doesn't mean that someone else couldn't be just as honorable. @Pleasant Peasant: It's a big question, but interesting to debate, I think. I always took the "branded an outcast but retaining his honor" thing to refer to someone who refused to compromise his ideals/his sense of right despite bad things happening to him, which would be a little different than retaining his dignity, but I think I get what you're saying. @Morzathoth: I'm surprised that you find killing Sadeas to be no worse than killing the Parshendi. It seems to me that it's one thing to kill someone in combat (where they're also trying to kill you) and another to kill them without warning, when they're just talking to you. One's mortal combat and the other murder, and although they both have the same result, the sense of fair play I get from them both is rather different. But I can kind of see where you're coming from: from the point of view of the person killed, the distinction is probably a pretty small one. Sure, honor isn't always the reasonable choice, or even the right choice. In my view, Adolin killing Sadeas and Taravangian implementing the Diagram plan are both the right thing to do (from their respective characters' points of view), but neither is the honorable thing. And hey, I'd likely cheat for a million dollars, too. Honor is great, but it doesn't always get the job done, and one easily could take being honorable to a stupid extreme.

Okay, more responses to everyone: @maxal: But my point is twofold: first, that there are more definitions of honor than just the two you quoted. For instance, my dictionary includes for honor definition 8a: a keen sense of ethical conduct: INTEGRITY. This is a different definition than the treat with respect and keep your word definitions that you quoted, and there are a whole bunch of others in just this one dictionary that I grabbed off the shelf. So you can't just quote a single definition and say "This is it", because there are a lot of different definitions. Second, pretty much every instance of honorable conduct I can think of involves at least some measure of self-sacrifice, of rising above temptation, of taking the right way out rather than the easy way out. It's sort of implied in the definition I quoted (one cannot demonstrate integrity without having been tempted otherwise, at which point choosing the right option involves at least some self-sacrifice). I'd also claim that there are levels of honor -- if I promise to donate 50 bucks, that's less honorable than if I promise to donate 1000, assuming I keep my word in both cases. If I'm poor and make those donations, that's more honorable than if I'm rich and do the same. The more sacrifice there is to myself, the more honorable the action, all other things being equal. So keeping an easy promise (e.g., I'll go grocery shopping tomorrow) is less honorable than keeping a difficult one (I'll spend tomorrow at the soup kitchen). Or at least, that's my take on it. If you still disagree, let me know. That's why we debate. @Ari: Those all sound pretty good to me, though I find the self-sufficiency one a bit weird. It seems to speak of competence rather than honor. Plus, e.g., a child could reasonably do all the things that you mention, except for self-sufficiency. Is being self-sufficient really honorable? As far as the spren goes, I think that anyone they pick would have difficulty intuiting the appropriate Ideals. Plus, the Ideals that Syl is looking for aren't the same ones that Pattern or the Stormfather require, so there's quite a bit of ambiguity there as well. And, of course, it does make a better story if they have to find them out the hard way. @Lilaer: I agree about the cheating example. Assuming that you could get away with it in both cases, not cheating in a friendly game would be very different than not cheating in a game with millions of dollars on the line. The latter would certainly be honorable. The cost is quite real. If moral event horizon is a TV Tropes thing, I didn't know or consider it when I made the reference. I don't mean to say that Adolin maybe couldn't come back to the side of honor with time and effort. What I meant was that it was a complete turnaround, a dishonorable action that dwarfs all his previous honorable actions. It's like how you could do a lot of good in the world, but if you murder someone, you still deserve life in prison. Something like that. I can agree that doing what's right isn't always the same as being honorable, but in Shallan's case especially, it seems like a pretty flimsy argument. I would say that what she did was neither honorable nor right. They couldn't have just drugged her father or tied him up and then all ran away? They were talking about running away earlier, but were worried they wouldn't be able to get far enough fast enough. Having their father helpless and insensate seems like it would have been the perfect opportunity. I really don't get why she murdered him, since it doesn't even seem necessary, much less right.