Rasha

Two blind men waited at the end of an era, contemplating beauty. They sat atop the world’s highest cliff, overlooking the land and seeing nothing.

Aladar is so pious that he named his daughter with the start of a priere and his name. S each time someone names his daughter completely, they are adressing a request to their god Aladar. Watch out for Aladar's Ascension. Edit: I am on mobile and cannot find the way to delete one of my double post. Can a kindly mod do it?

Mentionned doesn't mean that they had a cameo somewhere. If someone uses the Herald name in a curse or an expression, that counts as mentionned.

I know that Heralds were powered by Honor directly. I was just saying that to onlookers that were not aware of the fact, it might look like the Heralds were powered by the Sun/Moon. But again, this is just conjecture.

I have a hunch on that, but I but at this point, this is wild conjecture. We know the heralds could surgebind without Stormlight. While doing so, they might have emitted far more light than a Knight using just sphere, as a larger quantity of power is forced through the body. To the nearby observer, it should have been quite impressive, maybe blindingly so. The gods (Heralds) are seemingly getting the power to surgebind out of thin air, or rather as if they are fueled by the sun itself, or the moon if they surgebind at night. Would it be a big leap then to define the sun and the moon as the god of the gods, giving them the power to stop the desolation? It's not a big logical leap, but it still is wild conjecture and therefore to be taken with a pinch (or a handful) of salt.

Yeah, Paran's relationship with tattersail is just awful, I'll grant you that. Crokus is so naive that it is unnerving. And then he learns and it gets better. Paran is alright once you know that there is no main protagonist in this book. On my first read I also despised Felisin, but after reading HoC and reading Deadhouse Gate, I now pity her. She is a young girl of 15 put into slavery by her own sister, I can forgive her acerbic quips to Baudin and Heboric. She is just so tragic that she breaks my heart each time I reach the end of HoC and DhG.

The characterization in Malazan is great, it is just very different from traditional fantasy characterization. There is huge differences in the cast of characters, and Erikson is really great at creating minors characters that still have a huge emotional impact on the reader (Pearl in gotm, the nameless guard in TTH, the demon freed by trull in MT). Yeah you can probably guess that malazan is my favorite

I posted a theory a few months ago on the way the shun society was built: Tldr: the heralds are the Shin's gods, because they brought eternal peace. What is consistent between your theory and mine, is that the sun is considered as the god of the gods (yeah it doesn't seems like it is consistent but just hear me out). We know that there is a celestial body in roshar's sky for each herald, and that these bodies also gravitate around roshar's sun (cf Arcanum unbounded). And we know rosharians are able to see these celestial bodies in their sky. So if the heralds are the shins god, we also know they can (could, before honor's shattering) surge bind without stormlight, by drawing on honor to fuel their powers. Surge binding by a herald is likely to cause a whole more lot of Light emitted, because the power channeled is in more quantity than stormlight breathed out of a sphere. To the shin, it might seem like the heralds get their powers from the sun, therefore making the sun the god of the gods. I am sorry if this post seems to dissemble, it is 4am and I am writing on my phone. I will be happy to develop more when I get access to my computer with a steady internet connection (soon I hope).

I think you are a bit harsh with Dalinar, Maxal. The guy knows that the end of the world is coming, but he does not know when, where or how. You can not expect him to save all of his men when he does not know if he will survive the present battle. You say you want passion above reason, but passion may tell him to throw all of his men's live under the bus because he feels it is worth it, whereas reason may tell him to be more careful with the few resources he has.

The thread is more of a cool casual game between sharders than an actual reconstruction of how the Nightwatcher works. A kind of challenge to invent the most witty curses that correspond to the boon asked, and a challenge to ask a boon that will not recieve a (too) bad curse.

Broken does mot mean insane though.

You didn't lose your Sanity. It is still there, and you can feel it watchning you closely, plotting to cause your downfall. I wish to get rid of my insomnia.

I agree that the link to stone is the most tenuous one in my theory. The only arguments I have in his favor are that the Heralds thrust their weapons into stone, and that with time passing, there has been a confusion between what was sacred (the honorblades), and what contains them (the stone). But as you say, stone is everywhere in Roshar. I think we have a WoB somewhere that what would become Shinovar was not in Roshar originally. I'm looking for it, will post it when I find it. What I guess for next, I have no proof for it so feel free to criticize it. When the Shin society started around the honorblades, they did not worship stone. Not yet. You would have to wait for one event for that : the arrival of refugees from off world that transported a part of their green land with them. So every part of Shinovar, that was made of stone is now made of soil. Every part except the part that hold the honorblades, proof that Stone will hold the promise of peace made by the gods. As for the refugees, they found a society where violence was the highest crime, I have no doubt that they have no trouble to stay. Again, this part is just wild conjecture, I have no proof, and not any textual evidence to support it, only a wob that I can't find...

Hello everyone! This is my first theory post, and I will try my best to make the progress of my arguments clear. The goal of this post will be to analyze the Shin society, its relation to stone and its inherent pacifism. First let's lay out the basics that everyone knows: The Shin are extremely pacifists. Drawing blood, fighting, and worse, killing is seen as extremely tabou and if someone commits such an act, he abandons his right as a Shin "citizen"and is seen by his prior peers as someone who is less than a Shin. Stone is sacred for them. So sacred that even walking on Stone is considered a blasphemy (the first one that Szeth tells us in his narrative). Declaring that a New Desolation is on the way is totally blasphemous. These two facts will be the key of the timeline and analysis I will propose to explain them. To start the analysis, we have to go back very far. So far, that we go back to the prologue of the Stormlight Archive. The day Kalak walks a desolated battlefield, to arrive upon 7 honorblades cast out into the rock and to Jezrien. Thus, they talk, and thus a decision is made: to fade away, letting Taln to his fate. Kalak and Jezrien abandon their honorblades alongside the other, and announce to mankind that the greatest victory has been made: the cycle of Desolation is over. And so it was said that peace everlasting had been won. Let’s abandon the Heralds Point of View now, and focus on Mankind. Their gods disappeared, announcing an eternal peace. As a testament of the truth, they let their most precious tools encased in Stone. The Heralds will never need these weapons again, and therefore discarded them as useless. The very Heralds of War, that had been protecting mankind left their weapons behind, as a testament to the futility of killing now that Voidbringers are gone. My theory is that what would become the Shin society originated from there. After all, if the gods declared warring and fighting as utterly pointless, and as a testament to that left their weapons behind, what greater calling left to Man that to follow them? And thus, killing another human became seen as one of the greatest sacrilege that can be committed in the proto-Shin society. What more sacred than a life, when even the gods turned away from killing to live in anonymity? What more sacrilege that to doubt that the gods themselves bought peace, by thrusting their weapons into stone? And thus Stone is made sacred, by holding the Covenant of Everlasting Peace. Walking on Stone in Shinovar is walking on the most sacred element, that hold the peace promised by the gods. Before continuing, and to make clearer the worship of Stone in the Shin religion, let me quote Steven Erikson (yeah I’m a fanboy like that): So the proto-Shin saw Eternal Peace as the most worthy path shown by the gods. And the symbol of that peace was kept by stone. As ages came and passed, the two became slightly separated: The ritual becomes what is sacred, and most Shin may not be able to tell you why Stone is sacred. Nalan say that Szeth’s people revere the spirits of Stone, but that Him, as a Herald (of Justice) is Szeth’s god. He is even surprised that Szeth does not recognize him. That would not be the case if Nalan only appointed himself as a patron and personal god of Szeth, but it reveals us that Szeth should have made the link by himself and recognized one of his gods, that participated in the Covenant of Eternal Peace. And there we are, at the moment we have a society which revers peace to the point of extremism (which is not a bad thing is itself, mind you), would rather die than to walk on stone, and for whom announcing a Next Desolation is betraying the Greatest Gift the Gods ever left to mankind. The Shins are a model from our modern point of view: they are one of the only society known to man to have (nearly) eradicated all violence within itself. And to think that all of this is based on a lie is something that I find very tragic. They trusted their gods who told them that they were forever safe from Voidbringuers, and thus followed their deities closely by forsaking violence. But they have been deceived, for the True Last Desolation is coming.

These are not swords, they are the tool of the gods, left behind as a memento of the victory that ended the "Last Desolation". Left in the stone because they were not needed anymore, because mankind had won. A symbol of everlasting peace, granted by the Heralds.

Your wish is satisfied. Next time you wake, you find your house in utter disorder, with melted ceilings and floors, bodies everywhere. More disturbing, there's a strange man waiting for you on your balcony. I wish I had completed my Master's thesis already.

Does the Honorblade that Szeth is given for his punishment part of the punishment itself ? If yes, doesn't that seems kind of counterproductive to give your most sacred artifact to your worst brand of criminals ?

Yet, is every Truthless given an honorblade ? Or did Szeth have a special status/task beforehand (garding the honorblade) that made the Shin add this limitation in his Truthless status ? We don't know yet. The nature of Truthless is very rare in the Shin society, because people rarely commit a "crime" of the magnitude that Szeth did. Yet, it would seem strange that in the whole history of Shin society, only 9 people COULD be made Truthless, because if each Truthless is given a blade, they may in some distant future run out of honorblades. Is szeth the first Truthless of the Shin ? We don't know either. The shin don't have any connection to present szeth, and are living remotely which means that they would learn of his death very late after the fact, which might make recovering his honorblade impossible. Yet he is given one before being made Truthless anyway. It doesn't make sense to give some of your most sacred artifact to your worst class of criminal.

Keep in mind that we don't know if Szeth was given his honorblade because he was a truthless or not. Maybe Szeth was one of the "high priests" tasked with keeping the blades safe, and so he was send in exile alongside it. There may be no precedent in the Shin society for someone so high falling so low. On a side note, that would be counterproductive that the Shin admit to send the blade away if their intention was to keep them safe, but I don't think Szeth had it in him to steal it before going in exile.

Deal, as long as we get Fiddler somewhere along to kill the discussion with some of his realism.

storm no, I would give anything to have a scene between Shadowthrone and Hoid.

The Malazan Book of the Fallen will fill that void inside you. It will fill it so well, it will even replace Sanderson in your heart. Yes, do not try to resist, even if what I just said is pure heresy. The only thing that Sanderson does better than Erikson is the use of magic. But that's okay, because magic is not the point of Malazan. Otherwise, if plots, characters, epicness™, meta plots, ancient lore buried beneath 3 layers are what you crave, MBotF is made for you. Well, there is just one condition to enjoy all that : you have to survive your first read of Garden of The Moon, which is not easy for everyone. The first book of the series was written 10 years before the rest, and was written as a movie pitch.

For a start, chemicals would be great. I assume that in a era like Allow of Law (which is similar to our own Industrial Revolution), chemicals are known. You could do arrows with vials instead of arrowheads. Fill the vial with something nasty, and let it fly and shatter. You could even be craftier and make different compartiments in the vials, each compartiment would be filled with solutons that would be harmless alone but deadly once combined. Think one compartiment of solid sodium and one of water for exemple. Grenadoes with mustard gas could be great. It's not used anymore here, but on Scadrial, there is no laws against that kind of thing. Grenadoes with poisoned shrapnel, if it's possible. I don't know what the heat of the explosion would do to the poison though. We don't know if cannons exist on Scadrial. It would be hard to hide that quantitiy of metal to an Allomancer though, and that's a huge liability. The manning staff would be too vulnerable to pushes and pulls on the cannon. That's too bad, it could have been funny to devise useful shrapnels. Do we know what happen to shrapnel or a grenado thrown near or to a Time Bubble ? A spear needs a tip to be effective. A wooden spear without tip wouldn't stick in a Bloodmaker or a thug, and would be too brittle to stop a Pweterarm. That's why Hazekillers in the first trilogy didn't use wooden spears, but they used sorts of woodens staffs. Like quarterstaffs but shorter and thicker. Wooden boomerangs would be great until your target friend wich is also a Pewterarm picks it up and throw it on you. Guess what ? It doesn't end well

My bad. I read that book so long ago that i totally forgot that part.

To counter Lurchers and Coinshots : Bullets with a body of iron or steel. Something metalic that the Allomancer can see and manipulate. And a detachable tip made of aluminium. Fire at a Coinshot : he will push the bullet, thinking he is safe but he will still be harmed by the tip that would have enough momentum to carry on its trajectory. All in all its just a remake of Vin's trick with the Inquisitor and the Obsidien arrows with metal rings. I'm surprised Brandon didn't use that one again. You can apply the same principle to grenades : a body made of aluminium and the pin made of iron. Are we limitated to guns or can we go off an a tangeant and create something a bit more funny ?