galendo

I'd have to check to be sure, but weren't the listeners trying to attract creationspren by (very bad) attempts at painting?  That means they must have had several different colors available.

I'm with @Ahriman in believing that they got to the same place from very different roots, though my interpretation is somewhat different.

In the Shin, I see a people who have accepted the Heralds' decree that the war is won.  If the war is finished, then there is no more use for fighting, and those who fight are therefore going against divine will -- they are the lowest of the low, and therefore deserve no consideration.  I think this was why Szeth was made Truthless -- because he rejected the Heralds' truth that the Desolations were forever ended.

In the Horneaters, I see a people eking out a living on mountaintops, which are not exactly known for their fecundity.  They have no Soulcasters, that we know of, and therefore need a great many farmers to produce enough food to feed everyone.  Thus farming is the most important profession; craftsmen are next and, because there isn't really anyone nearby who wants to fight them or who they want to fight, soldiers are lower still.

Neither culture exults warriors, but for one it's a religious thing and for the other it's more practicality.

On 3/21/2019 at 7:44 AM, Alderant said:

That said, Shallan does keep some things hidden from Adolin. For example, that she's committed parenticide. That's...actually a pretty big deal. If she truly was in love with him and had his best interests at heart (as the return is spoken so often for Adolin as manifestation that he is truly in love with her), then why wouldn't she tell him that? Him telling her he murdered Sadeas was the perfect opening for her to reveal that bit of information. And yet, she stays silent. The obvious reason here is that she's afraid of him levaing, but if she truly loved him, wouldn't she want him to know what he was getting himself into? But then again, if we don't know what infatuation truly looks like on Roshar, then we don't actually know if she loves him, or he her, and we are therefore back to ground zero.

Great post in general, but I take some issue with this particular part.  If I were a patricide, I would tell literally nobody.  Not my fiance, not my wife, not my children, not my best friend, not my therapist, no one.  Expecting Shallan to tell Adolin this...seems pretty weird, honestly.

On 3/21/2019 at 7:33 PM, Karger said:

Professional, mentorship, apprenticeship, and friendships will all work.

Part of the issue, though, is that Kaladin already has all these relationships already.  He's got plenty of professional relationships, he's got mentoring and apprenticeship relationships going with Bridge Four and Zahel.  He's got friendship with Adolin, Syl, arguably Shallan, once Moash, and several others arguable possibilities as well.  What he doesn't have, and hasn't had for the entire series (other than some hints in a flashback), is a romantic relationship.

I'm not saying a romantic relationship would fix his problems -- it won't, though it might help.  But arguing for a platonic relationship in a thread about Kaladin's love life seems a bit misguided.

On 3/22/2019 at 11:14 AM, Calderis said:

I'm sorry, but I still disagree. 

Yes the story was about Amaram and not the Shardbearer, but if you remove Kaladin killing them, then you do a lot of other things to the story as well. 

Someone else got the blades, which means there's nothing about why he gave them up. Nothing about why he was singled out to be a slave instead of killed. It requires Kaladin to lie to even explain why he's alive. 

If you expunge that detail from the story, it's reduced to Kaladin talking at length about the one topic that he has literally screamed to the warcamps as a whole. 

Please excuse me for not finding that to be the monumental step that I think Kal needs. 

There's a pretty good in-book reason why Kaladin leaves the Shards out of the story, though.  Because when he explained about them before, people always thought he was lying.  Because what are the odds that a darkeyed slave actually killed a full Shardbearer in combat?  Of course the slave is lying and honorable lighteyed Aramam earned his Shards the honest way.

Not saying I find the chasm sequence to be a great step forward in Kaladin's relationships.  Honestly, I thought it one of the most forced scenes in WoR (probably third most.forced, after only the boots scene and Shallan's acceptance in the warcamps scene).  But he has good reason not to mention that he's the one who won the Shards.

On 3/23/2019 at 10:20 AM, Calderis said:

Right up until she asked him to stop. Which he did. 

Kaladin's struggles with delegating authority is a control issue. If he doesn't take care of it, they could get hurt. If he doesn't know where someone is he can't protect them. 

The difference between his treatment of Shallan, and his treatment of Bridge Four is that he doesn't view Shallan as his responsibility. She's not someone who he's supposed to take care of. 

If their relationship actually went somewhere, I don't think that would hold. 

I wouldn't say that Kaladin has control issues or issues delegating authority.  For instance, in WoR he's willing enough to leave the training of the bridge crews to Teft and to their homegrown leaders.  Also in WoR, he's willing enough to let his men go out drinking even though he doesn't approve.  Someone with control issues or delegating issues wouldn't allow those things.  They'd try to train all the soldiers in one big batch in order to be in charge, or to forbid the men from carousing.  But Kaladin doesn't do anything like that.

He does claim responsibility, probably to an unhealthy extent, but it's more along the lines of Truman's "the buck stops here" than anything else.  I'm not sure that I agree with the philosophy that the person ultimately in charge is therefore responsible for the failures of all beneath him, but it's a widespread and often lauded real-world belief, so it doesn't seem at all surprising or abnormal for Kaladin to adopt the same mentality.

13 hours ago, Calderis said:

Spren/human relationships... Weird me out honestly. 

If a human being is in the Cognitive and has a relationship with a spren, that's one thing. 

But a relationship in the Physical Realm where one party literally relies on the other for their sapience has some... Disturbing implications.

I'm not sure I see the disturbing implications.  I mean, not beyond the admittedly effed-up concept of "if you break your Oaths I'll spend the rest of eternity screaming" thing that's already going on with Radiants and their spren, anyway.  But that's true whether or not there's any romance involved.

OT: My three main Kaladin ships, in approximate order, are:

1) Kaladin/Lift -- Yes, yes, age difference, different kingdoms, complete strangers, blah blah blah.  All could be overcome with time.  There's just something strikingly similar between "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves" and "I will remember those who have been forgotten" that makes me think they have pretty similar overarching philosophies. They're both have a thing for helping others (even at great risk to themselves), they're both big into healing, they just seem like they'd get along well and compliment each other nicely.

2) Kaladin/Syl -- Talk about two people who get along well.  Syl very much provides for Kaladin the counterpoint he needs.  It's not quite so clear that he's as helpful for her, but he clearly cares for her quite a bit.  Honestly, if Syl were human, this would be an easy pick.  But that whole "being a spren" thing might cause issues.  On the other hand, issues are the foundation of good storytelling.

3) Kaladin/Nobody -- Not all characters need a romantic arc, and I'd much rather have no romance at all than a bad or forced one.

6 hours ago, Jofwu said:

I take issue with your definition of "adaptation." It DOES require the source material to be adapted, and I've seen great book-to-screen adaptations. It will NOT look exactly the same. Anyone expecting a 100% faithful television show will certainly be disappointed. Either it's not faithful (disappointment) or it IS faithful... Which means it will make for terrible watching.

We have to be okay with changes. We just have to hope that the people adapting the books understand the spirit of Brandon's work. And we have to be patient when their interpretation on this or that fine point doesn't quite match our own.

I guess I'm saying that I don't think you can adapt the spirit of SA to a visual medium.  Let's take the big issue of WoR.  The main question for Kaladin's arc is whether to kill Ehlokar or defend him.  You can show him pretending to agree to assassination, you can show him explaining to Moash why he won't, you can show him later agreeing with Moash, but what you can't show is all Kaladin's internal debate in the prison where he changes from defender to assassin.  You can't show him descending to the level of depression and despair that the book makes clear.  You can't even do it with a voice-over, which is usually the resource of last resort for visual media.  The gravitas of those scenes -- the penultimate crux of the moral dilemma -- is entirely absent.

Or, while we're still on WoR, take the high point of Dalinar's arc (IMHO): fighting Szeth, and realizing that he couldn't have saved Gavilar even if he hadn't been dead drunk the night of the assassination, and therefore forgiving himself for the same.  Now this one you could maybe do as a voice-over during their fight, though it'd sound pretty cheesy.  As we fought, I realized that I couldn't defeat him.  That he couldn't be defeated.  That even if I had been awake and alert that night, I couldn't have saved my brother.  And then I let it go.  All the guilt.  The self-hatred.  It was all pointless.  I couldn't have saved him.  No one could.

That would maybe work, but it's still a pretty significant step down from the book's method.  My guess is it'd turn the scene from an incredibly powerful one to a marginally acceptable one.

I dunno.  Maybe I've just never seen a good book to good movie adaptation and therefore can't imagine how it could be done.  But I won't be buying a ticket or turning on the TV opening day.  The character introspection and conflicting moral imperatives -- the core of The Stormlight Archive, in my opinion -- just don't seem translatable.

Nah, this would be really weird.  I could maybe see it if they weren't married, but given that they are I just don't see it happening.  First of all, they're both way too insecure -- it would be a disaster for their relationship at a time when they really need the relationship to be strong.  Second, it seems rather out of character -- if neither of these characters were sleeping around when they were single, why on earth would they start once they were married?

Everyone wanting a Stormlight adaption is ignoring the fact that it's almost impossible to adapt a good book into a good movie.  The fundamental issue is that a movie (or TV series) is fundamentally a visual medium, while a novel is not.  Unless a novel is written in a visual style (which generally means it's a bad novel, IMHO), then adapting it well to the big screen is nearly impossible.

It's also why novelizations tend to be so bad.  They have the same problem, but in the other direction.  However novelizations tend to work out better than book adaptions because a novel can include visual information via description and the reader's imagination, while visual media struggles to include non-visual information in a reasonable fashion.  It can be done, if there's not too much of it -- but if there's not too much of it, then your book probably sucks.

It would take a minor miracle for a Stormlight adaption to be anything but awful.  The books are too good for it.

10 hours ago, Turin Turambar said:

did you do a count of glyphs/not glyphs on swords? that might be a rough indication combined with the sets of plates, which might answer your problem.

The only Blade that I've seen so far that has been specifically described as having glyphs is Sunraiser, though several other descriptions aren't entirely clear.  For instance, the description of the Windrunner in Dalinar's vision is described as follows:

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The Shardbearer raised his Blade and struck forward with skill, stepping into the attacks.

Dalinar lay stunned.  This was unlike any Shardbearer he had ever seen.  The Plate glowed with an even blue light, and glyphs -- some familiar, others not -- were etched into the metal.  They trailed blue vapor.

So probably "the metal" refers to the Plate glowing with glyphs, but it could be the Blade.  Or the Blade could have glyphs and not be worth mentioning in the excitement of the flying, glowing Shardbearer who just arrived.  Unfortunately, whether a Blade has glyphs on it or not is likely to be of less importance to the characters than the shape of the Blade, given that they might need to fight with/against/alongside the weapon, so it's hard to infer from descriptions whether the glyphs are absent or just not mentioned.  In Dalinar's vision, he doesn't even make note of the Shardbearers' Blades shapes at all, focusing instead on their glowing armor (though I'd think the Blades ought to be glowing as well, which should've also been noteworthy).

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One issue, if you look at the books, there are HUNDREDS of minor spren, not 20. That might be a technical issue.

I'm not sure that this is an issue at all.  Just like there are only ten types of Radiant spren that form Blades, there are likely only ten types of lesser spren that form Plate.  Though the spren-as-Plate theory is itself a bit controversial.  Some people prefer Stormlight-as-Plate, though this seems less logical to me.

53 minutes ago, Karger said:

But it was actually quite easy to loose a blade before they figured out how to summon and dismiss them drop you blade one day and it could cut its way out of almost anything.

I don't think you'd lose the Blade, though.  Worst-case scenario, the Blade just ends up hilt-first in the ground.  Then you pull it out and you're the rightful king of England.

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Also logically their should be way more blades and plate  around then their are.

Unless someone -- the main candidates are the Shin and the Skybreakers -- are keeping them in reserve.

So I've been thinking about the glyphs that are on some Shardblades and not others.  Examination of Shallan's sketch in WoR shows clearly that Sunraiser has ten glyphs along its length, while Firestorm does not.  Now possibly Sunraiser is somehow unique in this regard, but this seems unlikely.  If Sunraiser were the only Shardblade to have glyphs along its edge, I should think it would have been called out explicitly as being special or noteworthy in this regard.

There are ten glyphs along one edge of the Blade.  There are presumably ten more on the other.  Twenty glyphs total.

As near as I can tell, a set of Shardplate looks like this:
 

This description is taken from chapter 26 of TWoK, when Dalinar puts on his Shardplate.  The reader should note that there are exactly twenty pieces of armor mentioned.

(At least, there are exactly twenty pieces of armor mentioned if the phrase "culet and faulds" is taken to be two pieces of armor, not three.  If the culet and faulds are three distinct pieces, then there are 21 pieces and the theory does not hold so well.)

So we have twenty glyphs on some Blades, and twenty pieces of armor that make up Shardplate.  I do not think this is a coincidence.

Being a fan of the lesser-spren-as-Plate theory, I am reminded of the two ardents in TWoK, who are able to trap spren into certain forms by measuring and recording their size.  I propose that Radiant spren do much the same, by "recording" the shape in which they wish the lesser spren to remain upon their own Blade.  Since presumably not all Knights had advanced far enough to have Plate at the time of the Recreance, this would explain why not all Blades have the glyphs.

It's just a theory, but twenty glyphs along a Blade and twenty pieces in a set of Plate seems like rather too much coincidence to be ignored.

Just remember that the Voidbringer goes under the bed.

It's a ruby, right?  You could make the world's most diabolic set of spanreels.

While contextually "the parent" probably refers to Honor, it's worth noting that it could refer to one of the larger spren like the Sibling.  Death seems to be something of a continuum with spren rather than a binary state, so a spren that had retreated enough -- been hurt enough, in the Stormfather's words -- could reasonably be considered dead, especially since damaged spren don't recover on their own.

So possibly the Radiants need to restore the Sibling and/or Urithiru before the restriction can be lifted.

2 hours ago, DoomStick said:

New question: does odium refer to himself as “I” in the books? He might refer to himself (themselves?) as “we”

From what I recall, Odium generally uses the singular.  "I'm the other one" is the first quote that comes to mind, but I don't explicitly remember him ever using the royal we.

Thanks to all who responded!  (And sorry for the slightly delayed reply.  Power and Internet have been sporadic here of late.)

There are far too many nice responses here for me to respond to them all individually, but I read through them all and appreciate everyone's thoughts.  It's given me some things to think about as I reread WoR and OB.  I'm still in the early part or WoR, when Shallan was still my second-favorite character.  I'll try to keep some of this in mind as I venture onward and see if it doesn't make Shallan's later chapters somewhat more bearable.

On 2/24/2019 at 5:39 PM, Calderis said:

@galendo OK, read the whole thing, because the beginning makes it sound like just outright Soulcasting a Radiant is harder, but he backpedals and says that because the power is coming from somewhere else, it's not a significant difference. 

Spoilered for Mistborn stuff

  Hide contents

Blightsong

Would it be harder for Jasnah to Soulcast a Knight Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Would it be harder for her to Soulcast a Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, investiture resists investiture. It's harder for her to even Soulcast a person than a rock, right?

Questioner

Is a Mistborn invested?

Brandon Sanderson

The Mistborn, how their burning the metal, you're right. They are not specifically invested when they are not burning. When the investiture becomes active, the yes. Before, no, you're right on that.

Blightsong

So Kelsier, he stayed around longer, not because he was invested, but because he had the potential to use investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

Over time using the magic will invest you, on Scadrial. Most of the power is not coming from, on Roshar the power isn't coming from the person either [he cut himself off, so I assume this is how it works on Scadrial even though he didn't finish his thought] so I'm going to have to back up on that one and say, yes, the Mistborn are as invested as a Knight Radiant, because in both cases the majority, bulk, of the power is coming from somewhere else, but there is the spirit web. Investing the wrong term, but you have all these connections in the spiritual realm, so yanking you away from them, or rewriting them is harder.

Questioner

Would they be harder with more Stormlight or metals burning?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes. That would increase the difficulty ratio. For instance, wearing Shardplate is gonna be a great barrier, right, and things like that so yea. The problem is like, Invested is the wrong term for that, their Spiritweb is connected in different ways.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

So unless their infused, I doubt that the difference is going to be noticeable. 

As I've said many times, I don't think the merger of souls is a literal mingling of Investiture. Neither is what was ripped out if the Spren. That's all Connection. 

As such, I really don't think there's going to be a major difference unless they're infused. Just like an Allomancer shouldn't be harder unless they're burning metals. 

That does rather make it seem like Radiants aren't any more Invested than normal people.  So I guess it's all the spren, though now I don't get why the spren turn into dead Blades if the Radiants break their Oaths.

Even aside from that, I'm still a bit confused.  Doesn't all magic have to come from Investure?  The Mistborn thing totally makes sense -- if they're not burning metals, they've got no magic powers.  But Radiants have powers beyond Stormlight and Surges.  Like Shallan's ability to take Memories, for instance (including the ability to see spren where others can't).  Magic power, no Stormlight required.

On 2/22/2019 at 4:03 PM, Calderis said:

We have no idea the difficulty involved in Soulcasting a person, let alone someone infused. Kaladin would be no more resilient than anyone else unless he were holding stormlight, and we've seen her soulcast people before.

Are you sure that a KR wouldn't be harder to affect than your average person?  My (admittedly limited) understanding of what's going on is that the spren and the Radiant are sort of growing to be part of one another in a significant fashion, which is why a KR breaking his Oaths literally kills the spren.  And we know that Blades and Plate are effectively immune to surgebinding, so I'd think that some of that resistance would carry over to the Radiant as well.

I'm sure that holding Stormlight would make them even harder to Soulcast, but I'd think they'd have some passive resistance regardless.  They certainly have some supernatural abilities (like Shallan's photographic memories and Jasnah's direction sense) even without Stormlight, so I'd think they must be a bit more Invested than your average person, Stormlight or no.

Blasted double-posting.  Not sure why my computer's doing this.

So I was bashing Shallan in another thread and got into the start of potentially an interesting debate.  I was griping once again about how Truths were way more boring than Oaths and made in the process the following claim:

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Her previous Truths didn't affect her character in any way, shape, or form, so I certainly don't expect her last Truth to do any better.

To which @Steel Inquisitive replied:

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Umm..... Her last truth literally broke her mind. She was fairly put together in WoK and WoR but at the end of WoR when she spoke her latest truth it broke her mind and shattered her soul into three pieces.

Are these restraints? Not really. Do they affect her character? Definitely!

This aligning not at all with what I remembered from Oathbringer, I made the following reply:

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That's...not the way I remember it.  She started as Veil to infiltrate the Ghostbloods in WoR, and started as Radiant to train with Adolin in OB.  I'm not sure what her fourth Ideal has to do with any of that.

Yes, she had some issues about fighting with Pattern because of the way her mother died.  But remember we see evidence of this reticence as early as...well, probably as early as WoK, when she starts to summon Pattern and then doesn't.  We see this again, in WoR, when she gives Kaladin her Blade rather than face the chasmfiend herself.  This is well before her "I killed my mother" Truth.

Maybe there's some evidence that her fourth Ideal somehow caused the personality disassociation -- I certainly don't remember anything to suggest that, but I'm admittedly somewhat overdue for an OB reread -- but if neither her second nor her third Ideals caused her amnesia, I don't see why her fourth Ideal would magically cause her personality disorder any more than Kaladin's second Ideal causes his depression.  Sure, he gets depressed when he fails to protect people, and his second Ideal is all about protecting people, but it's silly to think that one causes the other.  In the same way, although Shallan might have some serious hang-ups about killing her mother, and although her fourth Ideal was about killing her mother, it seems somewhat silly to suppose that one causes the other.

Well, at this point Steel Inquisitive made the point that we were getting rather off the topic of the thread, which was about disappointments in SA in general and not Shallan in particular, but the reply above got me wondering if I were missing something.  Especially considering that as of this writing, five people have upvoted Steel Inquisitive's response, which suggests to me a significant number of people must agree with the argument.  Which makes no sense to me. As mentioned above, claiming that Shallan's fourth Ideal caused her mental problems seems about as strange to me as claiming that Kaladin's second Ideal caused his depression, but maybe I missed or am forgetting something.

Any thoughts?

1 hour ago, Steel Inquisitive said:

Umm..... Her last truth literally broke her mind. She was fairly put together in WoK and WoR but at the end of WoR when she spoke her latest truth it broke her mind and shattered her soul into three pieces.

Are these restraints? Not really. Do they affect her character? Definitely!

That's...not the way I remember it.  She started as Veil to infiltrate the Ghostbloods in WoR, and started as Radiant to train with Adolin in OB.  I'm not sure what her fourth Ideal has to do with any of that.

Yes, she had some issues about fighting with Pattern because of the way her mother died.  But remember we see evidence of this reticence as early as...well, probably as early as WoK, when she starts to summon Pattern and then doesn't.  We see this again, in WoR, when she gives Kaladin her Blade rather than face the chasmfiend herself.  This is well before her "I killed my mother" Truth.

Maybe there's some evidence that her fourth Ideal somehow caused the personality disassociation -- I certainly don't remember anything to suggest that, but I'm admittedly somewhat overdue for an OB reread -- but if neither her second nor her third Ideals caused her amnesia, I don't see why her fourth Ideal would magically cause her personality disorder any more than Kaladin's second Ideal causes his depression.  Sure, he gets depressed when he fails to protect people, and his second Ideal is all about protecting people, but it's silly to think that one causes the other.  In the same way, although Shallan might have some serious hang-ups about killing her mother, and although her fourth Ideal was about killing her mother, it seems somewhat silly to suppose that one causes the other.

Do we know how many individual pieces make up a set of Shardplate?  IIRC, there are at least greaves, gauntlets, breastplate, vambraces, helm, and probably boots are separate from greaves although I'm not sure about that.  Is there a list anywhere?  Even if it might be incomplete?

@StrikerEZ: I think you might've posted in the wrong topic.

On 2/22/2019 at 2:01 PM, ZincAboutIt said:

I really hated Amaram's ending. He was such a fascinating antagonist and I thought that maybe we might actually get a POV from another morally ambiguous character but alas! I honestly wish he had been a POV character this whole time, it would have really upped the tension to hear both "sides" on the Kaladin-Amaram grudge and probably believe both of them to a degree. Amaram's story arc seems to have been "actual honorable person slowly corrupts himself over time." He clearly sees himself as the hero of his own story and he is also obviously torn up inside about what he did to Kaladin. I think going through his POV and then having him succumb to Odium in the end would have been the perfect foil to Dalinar's ending, where he rejects the offer. I still loved Oathbringer but there was so much potential to go deep that wasn't taken.

Yeah, this is a good example of a serious let-down in a book full of, well, let's just say, of places where the proverbial ball was dropped.  It's not as serious a mistake, in my view, as the Venli/Eshonai swap or Shallan's ongoing character issues, whose repercussions are going to be felt for books yet to come (though I do have some minor hope that, given a book or two to grow into her own character, Venli may ultimately grow into a deeper character than Eshonai would have.  I doubt that deeper depth, even if realized, will be enough to make up for the very awkward way the transition was handled, but at least there might be something to look forward to).

In WoK or WoR, I'm pretty certain we would have gotten Aramam's contrast with Dalinar, just as we got Moash's contrast with Kaladin during WoR.  Same dilemma, same motivations, different choices.  That would have been a great thing to see in Oathbringer, much more important than like 80% of the Thaylen City battle and about 90% of whatever Shallan was doing during the first half, but instead I feel that we got glitz and glamor rather than real meat.  The interesting character dilemmas, motivations, reasoning, and contrasts -- the very things that made WoK and WoR so great, in my opinion -- got skipped over here for flash and action.  It makes me worry for the future of the series.

16 hours ago, Sedside said:

Yeah, I feel this way too. I very much would like to see the Thaylen City flight. But I have some assumptions, why it wasn't shown, except for the obvious OB length reasons, so I wouldn't say I was disappointed by it. Well, I was, but I accept it was for the greater good

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the Thaylen City flight.  There was an awful lot of Thaylen City.  Too much, in my opinion, but I admit that may be because I almost always find massive battles mind-numbingly boring.  It's like, the answer to "Should we kill the giant rock monster bashing on our nameless troops?" is always, "Yes, we should kill the giant rock monster."  There's no excitement there.  It's just...dull.

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I agree with what you say here, but we have to remember, that this thread is about the disappointments by the series. Shallan's arc is far from being over, so I believe we will eventually see some kind of payback for this. She lied to herself a lot in OB, I think she will pay for it in SA4.

Shallan's arc is far from over, I'm sure.  Unfortunately.  The point is that I think that Shallan as a character is fundamentally flawed.  She has none of the interesting constraints imposed on the other Radiants by their Oaths, an issue that is becoming ever more obvious as the series continues.  I care very much about what Kaladin's, Dalinar's, and even Lift's next Oaths will be -- I expect them to come along with some measure of character development, to further refine and deepen the characters whose struggles I've already come to understand and empathize with.  In contrast, I don't care a whit for Shallan's next Truth.  Her previous Truths didn't affect her character in any way, shape, or form, so I certainly don't expect her last Truth to do any better.

Did she lie to herself in OB?  Will she pay for it it SA4?  Maybe to both, but I just don't care.

17 hours ago, Sedside said:

All right, then I'll add Helaran issue and Sadeas murder to the table. Both things were shoved under the carpet or to the back of someone's mind and never actually addressed. I was also disappointed by Shallan marrying the wrong guy, but all those three things I believe are to change in the future books.

The Helaran issue is I think a non-issue.  I seem to remember it getting at least somewhat addressed in OB, and given everything else going on it just doesn't seem that big of a deal.  They fought.  Kaladin won.  Helaran was very clearly the aggressor, and I think it would be hard for even Shallan to blame Kaladin for it, especially as it's been years since she last saw her brother.  They were siblings, but time cures all wounds and given the age difference they probably weren't exactly close to begin with.

I also happen to think that Shallan married the right guy, but this is another issue that some people have strong and wildly varying feelings about.  I'm not sure I want her anywhere near Kaladin, though: their interactions almost always seemed contrived to me, ruining my suspension of disbelief.  Though I will admit that they improved sigificantly in the latter half of OB.

I agree that Sadeas' murder should have been dealt with in OB.  I also agree that there will probably be some sort of fallout later on, though I can't see how it could happen in a believable and satisfying fashion.  The time for the fallout was in OB, and trying to shoehorn it into SA4 is, I suspect, going to go nearly as poorly as trying to shoehorn Venli into OB.  Okay, probably not that badly, but still definitely not something to be looking forward to.

My main disappointments so far:

1) Shallan.  Shallan went from being my favorite character at the start of WoK to being...very much not my favorite.  She's in the Radiant Order with the best powers and the fewest restraints.  This is boring, Mary Sue-level character creation; and the fact that she always gets her way even when she really shouldn't (Kaladin's boots, her acceptance among the Alethi, etc.), not to mention that the two most eligible bachelors in Alethkar (Kaladin and Adolin) are head-over-heels for her, and, well...I guess I'm just not fond of Mary Sues in general.  Her Hollywood mental health issues just make matters worse.

2) The Venli/Eshonai swap.  I've covered this before and needn't rehash it here, but this was a huge disappointment for me.  Very poorly handled, IMHO.

3) Oathbringer.  They say the middle book of a trilogy always sags, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised if the third book of a quintet does as well, but Oathbringer was just...it was a disappointment.  It wasn't a bad book -- in fact it was quite a good book, compared to the average pulp fantasy novel -- but after WoK and WoR, I thought that SA was going to be something special: the sort of must-read, genre-changing work that comes along once a generation.  In Oathbringer, I got...a fantasy novel.  A good fantasy novel, on the whole -- but in the big picture, nothing special.

23 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

I believe that this is a case where the author knows what's important to the narrative and what isn't. Most readers saw the Sadeas slaying as a springboard to Adolin revelations, Team Honor conflicts, an entire host of possibilities that we got none of in OB. I've seen a bunch of people in the fandom that admitted to the missed opportunity effecting their enjoyment of the series in a negative way. Even those who were fine with it like myself still felt that disorientation of waiting for the other shoe to drop only it never does.

Brandon is a professional, best selling author. He teaches classes in this crem. If we as readers saw it, it's nearly garanteed that he did. And if he didn't his beta readers surely clued him in on it. So why wouldn't he addreess the issue in OB like we all expected him to? The only thing I could think of is that there is something more important he needs to say about this event or he's going to address it later in a way that's more satisfying than what we have so far. Basically he's setting the payoff up for later than we expected. Being a Robert Jordan superfan and then finishing off the iconic Wheel of Time series, he knows all about pushing payoffs down the line and resolving them in interesting ways. He has the experience to pull it off.

Will we still feel the way we do about the Sadeas incident by the end of 1st half SA, once we have more info? Can you trust Brandon to bring a satisfying resolution to this arc? After making me care about Elkohar, I believe Brandon can do just about anything. Your mileage may vary.

I don't necessarily disagree with what you say -- I think Brandon is a great author, probably in contention for the greatest fantasy writer today -- but I find this sort of argument displeasing for two reasons.  First, because it entirely kills debate.  One person says something like, "I don't think X should happen because of A, B, and C" and another person comes back and says "I'm sure the author knows better than you."  Which is probably true; but it doesn't really address issues A, B, or C.

The second reason I find this sort of argument unsatisfying is because I can think of several places where it just didn't hold.  I can think of several revelations and plot threads that I think were handled...suboptimally, shall we say, in Mistborn (first trilogy), in The Reckoners, and especially in Warbreaker, and even in Stormlight.  Since this is the Stormlight sub-forum, I'll mention only my primary Stormlight instance where I feel the explanation falls short: that of the Recreance.  I maintained before OB that Brandon had painted himself into a corner and that a good resolution would be impossible; and while he did a much better job of it than I had expected, I still find the explanation to be unbelievable as given.  So however good an author Brandon is, I definitely don't think that he's beyond mistake or critique.  Though I suppose your mileage may also vary.

4 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Not ringing in on whether Sadeas's death was right or wrong, just adding a little more legal context regarding the Alethi system. I believe we like to think that there is a legal and enforceable system in Alethkar by how Dalinar and the people close to him act, but I believe the actual practice is quite different (and I believe there are in book references and WoB that support this. If requested I will be happy to update my post to provide them though at this moment I do not have the chance). With the Alethi, might makes right. Brandon has said you are only a Highprince if you have enough people backing you and agreeing that you are a Highprince. Basically no one disagrees that you are Highprince because you have the forces to back up your claim and crush any opposing. Dalinar could have, and was well within his rights in the Alethi legal system to have killed Sadeas on multiple occasions "honorably" in the Alethi view of the word. One of the earliest examples is when Sadeas insults Dalinar's children (Adolin and Renarin). Adolin begins to summon his blade, but Dalinar stops him. Dalinar then proceeds to elaborate to Sadeas that surely he would not insult his son for that would impinge on Dalinar's honor and call for him to duel Sadeas right then and there. The only reason that did not happen was two fold, 1. Sadeas thought he would lose to the Blackthorn and so took it back and 2. Dalinar knew if he attacked and killed Sadeas, it would turn the two most powerful houses in the kingdom who were united in service of the king against each other, breaking the kingdom apart. But just because Dalinar did not want to see the kingdom fall apart to infighting does not mean doing so would not have been seen as perfectly normal and acceptable by the Alethi. The same exact situation presented itself again after the Tower. Dalinar could have openly stated what Sadeas actually did, and call for his head and attack. Perfectly acceptable and "legal" to the Alethi. Just Dalinar 1. again did not want the kingdom to fall apart and 2. was outnumbered and knew his forces would lose if it came to a fight right then and there. Finally Brandon's own commentary on the aftermath of the kill is that when you are at a certain level, and your dad decides what is legal, you can get away with certain things. Now could Dalinar have a problem with it because of his personal morals and ethics? Could any of the other characters? Sure, that can totally be up to debate. But "legally" as per the Alethi, as long as Ialai cannot put together a strong enough force to stand up against them, then Sadeas's death is "just how things go". Dalinar could say it went down however he wished, and that would be the accepted story. They could even claim Sadeas started it, and Adolin just put him down, and with no one with the power to dispute it, it would become "accepted" as truth just like The Rift and The Tower. Now whether this will change under Queen Jasnah in an effort to reform the Alethi legal system, I cannot say, but as it stands, to me, in light of the Alethi, this was all par for the course.

You're partly right in that the Alethi system is such that "might makes right", but you're also neglecting the very real rights that Alethi citizens have.  You need look no farther than Lirin and Roshone to see examples of this.  Roshone has all the power -- he's a lighteyes, and the people of Hearthstone support him -- but he can't simply punish Lirin directly or steal back the spheres.  Lirin outright states that he would win an inquest, and Roshone doesn't call him on it.  Similarly, when Roshone is nominating volunteers for Aramam's army, he can't nominate Kaladin because it's against the law.  After he nominates Tien instead, Aramam asks him to reconsider; but Roshone cites the law as justification and the decision stands.

Or for another example, since you mentioned Sadeas: do note that Sadeas pays his bridgemen slaves a diamond chip a day.  Why?  Because it's the law that slaves have to be paid.  Sadeas has hundreds of slaves at least, and perhaps thousands, so it's not like this is chump change.  You say that highprinces can just ignore the law if they wish -- and to a certain extent this is true; just look at Elhokar and Roshone -- but there are laws, and the highprinces do have to follow them even if they're inconvenient.  There is a "legal and enforceable system in Alethkar".  Just because kings and highprinces are powerful enough to be able to circumvent it on occasion -- much like our own judicial system in real life -- does not mean that there are not real punishments for real crimes, assuming the evidence can be mustered.

So IMHO, you're right when you say that no justice will stick to Adolin for Sadeas' murder because there're no witnesses and little evidence; but you're wrong when you claim that there wouldn't have been dire consequences had Adolin summoned his Shardblade and slain Sadeas before a score of highranking witnesses in that scene where Sadeas insults him and Renarin.  The Alethi would not have taken that as "business as usual", they'd almost certainly have executed Adolin for it.  (There has never been a case in three books where one Alethi just straight-up kills another in public and gets away with it.  There isn't even an on-screen instance of it happening in a duel, though Adolin's challenge to Sadeas makes clear that, at least in certain and exceedingly formalized circumstances, such can happen.  But remember that it took an exceptional display of prowess and a royal boon to obtain.)  Alethi justice isn't always perfect, especially between persons of disparate class; but it is present, and cannot be completely neglected by anyone.  Not even kings and highprinces.

16 hours ago, Calderis said:

This part I don't understand. During OB, no one knew that Adolin was the killer. That is no longer true. If personal external consequences are going to occur, they couldn't have happened until after the end. 

Either Adolin would have to have been found out earlier, or those consequences could not occur until a time we've yet to see. 

Why would consequences coming now that his actions are not totally secret be out of place? 

A couple reasons.  One has to do with narrative flow and plausible consequences; the other has to do with character motivations.

First, as of the end of WoR, what was the most likely way for Adolin to suffer consequences for Sadeas' death?  Either Dalinar would discover it and his sense of honor would require some punishment; or Team Ialai would discover it while investigating her husbands' murder and use the knowledge against Team Dalinar; or Adolin would slip up and incriminate himself, with consequences following.

None of these things happened.

Not only did they not happened, it is no longer plausible that they might happen.  Adolin has confessed to Dalinar, IIRC, and Dalinar's sense of honor was flexible enough to allow his son a get-out-of-murder-free card.  Team Ialai didn't discover evidence linking Adolin to Sadeas in the days when that evidence was fresh and useful, so it's hard to imagine what they could only discover months afterward and nearly as difficult to see how they could effectively use that knowledge against Team Dalinar, since Sadeas' forces publicly turned traitor and were annihilated in the battle for Thaylen City.  If Team Ialai even exists anymore, they can't have much reach or reputation left to them.  As for Adolin slipping up, well, he didn't all of OB, so it's hard to imagine him getting sufficiently lax and careless for the truth to come out when the investigation is no longer even front and center.

So that's my first objection.  My second objection is this: as of the end of OB, who actually knows that Adolin killed Sadeas?  From what I remember, only Adolin, Shallan, and Dalinar.  No one not on Team Dalinar, at least.  None of these characters has any motivation, as of the end of OB, to go public with the information.  So why would they suddenly decide to do so?  It just doesn't make sense.  It's possible that one of them slips up (not really plausible, I think, but theoretically possible), but having it happen during the timeskip would be unsatisfying, and having it happen after the timeskip, at a time and place for it to still be relevant, would feel contrived.

Since consequences for Adolin's murder can't happen in both a believable and satisfying fashion, I think it better for them not to happen at all.

6 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

Moash wasn't doing so for any type of greater good or threat to his family or anything. A misplaced sense of vengeance was Moash's sole motivation. 

As ILuvHats said, Moash was motivated by a lot more than vengeance.  He probably sincerely thought -- and had good reason to believe -- that Elhokar was a terrible king who was a cancer upon Alethkar.  Heck, Kaladin came to almost exactly the same conclusion before deciding to save Elhokar after all.  Remeber, Moash's most recent experience with the king isn't his grandparents' murders; it was Elhokar throwing Kaladin in prison when he saved the king's cousin's life and asked the same boon of Elhokar that Adolin did.  Not sure if Moash knows that Elhokar actually wanted to execute Kaladin for it or not, but...this sort of injustice is the king's stock in trade.  Moash has plenty of reason to think the king's death serves the greater good.

4 hours ago, Calderis said:

@galendo first off, with the way the system is structured, I completely understand Moash's motivations with Elhokar, and I never had a problem with that. I defended Moash on multiple occasions prior to OB. His surrender of Agency that came with killing Jezrien, becoming essentially a leashed dog, is where I felt he turned.

Secondly, ignorance is not equal to malice. Someone can be made aware of the harm that they have inflicted and make attempts to correct it. Elhokar was trying to be a better man, though even that was for the wrong reasons in my view. 

Sadeas was maliciously attempting to seize control at any cost. He was fully aware of what he'd done and intended to do so again. 

That is not the same thing. 

Well, if your thoughts on Moash's actions in WoR are in line with your thoughts on Adolin's, then I don't have an issue.  It's only when people take different (and in my mind, logically inconsistent) positions on the issue that I feel obliged to speak.

As far as comparing ignorance to malice, in a vacuum I agree with you.  But Elhokar's isn't your ordinary, run-of-the-mill ignorance.  It's an ignorance that he's carefully kept and cultivated, closing his eyes to anything he doesn't want to see.  He treats lighteyes and darkeyes completely differently and blindly rejects any insinuation that this might be a problem.  (Again, see his reaction to Adolin's and Kaladin's requests for a duel.  What kind of ingrate tries to execute the man who just saved his cousin's life and position?)

As near as I can tell, Elhokar had neither the intent nor the desire to fix his many instances of injustice.  When he seeks Kaladin out in WoR, it's not really because he wants to be a better king; it's because he wants people to respect him like they do Kaladin.  And is there actually ever an instance of Elhokar regretting his past injustices?  Is there ever an instance of him actually treating darkeyes like actual people (Knights and squires don't count)?  Maybe there is, I don't remember OB well enough to be certain.  But I can't think of anything.

The sort of ignorance that Elhokar cultivated -- a willful and reckless disregard for his effect on those beneath him -- bears little difference from actual malice.

6 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

Also, I expect we will see some kind of trial for Adolin in book four. I'm thinking something along the lines of Perin Goldeneyes, where his own sense of honor makes him demand a trial while everyone around him tries to get him to just take an easy way out. I wouldn't be surprised to see Renarin become the heir.

No offense, but I hope not.  The time for Adolin to face the music was in Oathbringer.  I'd have loved to see consequences then, but trying to impose any similar consequences now would seem artificial.  I can't see any reasonable way to bring Adolin to justice that wouldn't feel contrived.  For better or worse, that ship has sailed.

My main problem with this argument:

Quote

Simply put, you cannot expect justice from an unjust system. The death of Sadeas Ehlokar was the only way to remove a man who was ready to throw an entire nation into war for his own greed fear and lust for power ignorance. 

There was no filing a police report. There was no criminal court or charges. The choices were Assassination/murder, or war between Sadeas Kholin and it's allies and the rest of the Kingdom.  [This is a false dichotomy, by the way.]

When a man who is at a level of power that he cannot be tried has committed acts that cause the deaths of thousands states implies plainly that he will do so again and again in order to get what he wants, and you have the means to remove the man and prevent that... Do it. 

In our society, this will not (or at least should not) occur. No matter the level of wealth or political power someone achieves, they are still supposed to be held accountable to the law. 

This is not the case with a Highprince king. If the choice is the death of one man or a civil war that will needlessly kill thousands, from a man who is stating implying plainly that those deaths are coming if he lives as well...

 If you think that Sadeas should have been assassinated for the greater good, then it seems you're also arguing that Ehlokar should have been assassinated for the greater good.

I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong.  But it seems weird to me to have so many people be in favor of Adolin murdering Sadeas when they are simultaneously against Moash murdering Elhokar.