Iarwainiel I

I'm happy to see this change. I agree that it's a better approach than to deal with potential negativity in other ways - and you do see negativity, even on the Tor.com re-reads. People feel so passionately about beloved characters and cherished theories, which is a great thing! So Bye-Bye Zucchini! ;-)

In (flashback) chapter 94, "A Small Bottle," Dalinar asks young Renarin, "What did your mother [Evi] say about me?" Renarin answers, "The only honest officer in the army, ... the honorable soldier. Noble, like the Heralds themselves. Our father. The greatest man in Alethkar." Years later, after Cultivation anesthetizes his pain, this is what he actually becomes, or tries to. So in a way, these words of a loving wife acted on him in a similar way that Shallan's drawing acted on Bluth in WoR: showing him a vision of himself as a better man and nudging him in that direction. I'm not saying that Evi was a proto-Lightweaver (though wouldn't that be cool?). But maybe love often allows us to see others (spouses, lovers, children, parents, friends) as better than what they currently are, and that in turn encourages them to hope they can be that person and take the next step along that path. This tiny chapter is so powerful - - IMO the whole book is a masterpiece that gets better the more you re-read/review it.

Pretty sure the OP meant Lady Leshwi, the Fused that Moash killed at one point and who later talks with him

Maybe a better guess is that Wax & Wayne dialogue is just so much fun to write (and read!!) that Brandon gave these two SA characters the same style of conversation. (BTW, @HoidvsVoid, this was a terrific find! Very perceptive. :-)

Wow I should not be reading this thread in the middle of my work day - tearing up at EVERY one of these! Elhokar's death was just a knife to the gut - devastating. And his poor little boy being tormented by those awful red spren, wearing his little uniform and holding his little soldier doll. I'm not a sentimental person, but that got to me. Also the scene at the end where you find out that Skar and Drehy protected him, "chapped lips and haunted eyes" ... Kaladin's baby brother Rock's family "Teft. Knight Radiant." Laral's reaction when Navani and Dalinar responded to Kal via spanreed Dalinar crying on Renarin's shoulder when he told him he bought him some wine because he "missed her too" Lift interacting with Dalinar - all the scenes, from hilarious to touching at the end Adolin being so afraid for Renarin fighting the thunderclast, and Renarin just chops the thing's hand off Glys's childlike excitement when telling Renarin how to kill the thunderclast: "Make it so that it will go! You will make it go with light!" You can just hear how happy he is to be on the side of "good" "You cannot have my pain!" Venli bonding her spren and saying the first oath - I hated Venli in WoR, but I think she's gonna be a real interesting character Kaladin explaining to Syl how "this rock changes color when you put water on it," harkening back to Tien and maybe indicating he's starting to deal with that pain and bringing those good memories into his life now The Lopen saying his second oath unintentionally - so funny! so Lopen!

Every character in The Wheel of Time except Hopper (the wolf). Both Denna and Kvothe in Kingkiller Chronicles - - I think I'm gonna sell my hardbacks at Half Price Books 'cause I really don't believe that Rothfuss will ever finish the series at this point. If he does, I've long since lost interest, especially because of the "unreliable narrator" aspect of it. Most if not all of the Krasian characters in Peter V, Brett's Demon Cycle series (especially Inevera). Their society is almost as weird & unbelieveable as the Aiel in WoT. (Note: This series is "strong R-rated;" there were multiple parts I had to skim because I don't need those images in my mind, and much of that related to how the Krasians treated both enemies and allies.)

Searched this thread & didn't see where anyone else had posted this... Am I the only one who (OB spoiler, just in case) I really like the movie & plan to see it again. Avoiding all trailers, spoilers, and theorizing, and just letting the movie be itself, really paid off, for me at least. There's planty of time for fanfic later (e.g., detailed theorizing can turn into fanfic, which is fun if that's what you want). Just my 2 cents.

I have been thinking exactly the same thing! What Shallan has sounds more like an extreme coping mechanism - like a stage actor "getting lost" in a role to deal with things they can't deal with in real life. Everyone does this to some extent, and it's not unhealthy - remember the song "Whenever I Feel Afraid" from The King and I, or the business saying, "Fake it till you make it." Sometimes we act confident, then confidence springs up within us because we've made a space for it. Shallan's behavior is much more extreme, but IMO it's along these lines, not MPD. (I really hope Brandon didn't think he was writing about MPD; he's usually better informed than that about things that are way more obscure ... re: the map of Roshar, cymatics, etc.)

Those were the ones I was thinking of too, especially Firstborn but that's prob'ly just because it's set on a spaceship. The plot for Skyward immediately reminded me of another of my favorites - the Jon and Lobo series by Mark van Name (First book is https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/385460.One_Jump_Ahead ). It's about a nano-enhanced man who "meets" and teams up with a sentient spaceship. It's not YA, but as "adult" books go they're about on the same level as Brandon's re: violence, sex. etc. - not gratuitous at all but lots of action. There are 5 books so far, but we've been waiting (sigh) 4 years for #6. I can't fault the author though - he runs a tech company as his full-time job and just writes in his spare time. Hard to get mad at a guy who provides 100+ folks with good-paying jobs. I'll be looking forward to November for Skyward!

Oh YES!!!!! Rick Martin and his Lego-Roshar are wonderful!! Quick, everyone, look at that shiny thing over there (and don't post a comment to enter)! Any chance the dustcover without the signatures will be made available later on Brandon's store? Just sayin' ...

(There's another similar thread, in case you want to check it out: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/62606-ob-ob-opinion-poll/ ) I loved Oathbringer, but admittedly I'm prejudiced as Dalinar is my favefavefavorite cosmere character. I think a lot of the difficulty we have is similar to the middle book or movie in a trilogy ("The Empire Strikes Back," etc.) - we want more resolution at this point than Brandon is giving (yay us! it's a sign of true fan-dom!), and it's challenging to keep in mind that there will be, not just one more book, but seven.

What can I say? Dalinar is my favorite character, so how could this not be my favorite SA volume? Some revelations were what I was expecting, and I was relieved that Brandon handled difficult events in ways that were dramatic but didn't emotionally abuse me as a reader (that's the best I can do to describe it). So many questions were answered (some far earlier than I had anticipated!), yet so many, many more were raised. There will be 10 books and Brandon needs to have enough story to fill them all, so it seemed appropriate to me that not every character will "level up" in every book. Roshar is a big world, and I can't help feeling there are things we haven't even glimpsed yet that will be crucial as the story unfolds. Even apart from his stupendous accomplishment, the emotional conclusion that Dalinar comes to in the end is so fresh, so different from any of the ways we're usually told to deal with blame-shifting, and it Just.Rings.True. After getting the book at the release party, I read pretty much non-stop to finish by Thursday morning when I was back at work, est. 31-32 hours. I want to wait till I've fully rested up before beginning my re-read; when I do, I'm going to be marking pages that mention "redemption," because I think that's the theme of OBR.

@Kurkistan So glad you helped me out re: protocol. :-) Hope to meet you & the others at the VIP event this evening!

You are correct about how it usually goes. At signings I've attended, he takes questions from the whole crowd first, then you can ask something quick when you get your copy signed. They suggest that you write out what you'd like for your personalization on a post-it or something, if you want something specific, but I usually just ask for "something about [character X]" and he comes up with something cool. He also has a couple things he uses for when fans don't have special requests. You'll also get a moment to have your picture taken with Brandon -- the organizers are great about handling that. Looking forward to seeing everyone this evening! and this morning in line! :-)

There have been several places where people have posted hundreds if not thousands of questions and Brandon's answers - Theoryland, Reddit, threads here on the Shard ... I think the new "Arcanum" database thing is supposed to assemble & organise all of it. But that being said... Since there's so much information out there, if I were you I would NOT spend the night before Oathbringer combing through stuff - I would just ask him whatever questions I wanted. He's a gracious guy - there are no "stupid questions." Also, BTW, there are usually people (sort of) eavesdropping on what people ask Brandon + his answers, and they post it later online - it's not the person who asked the question who usually does that. So there probably won't be a way to ask a "private" question so that only you will know his answer. Hope this helps! and hope to meet you tomorrow!

Lighning, there was some discussion on this on one of the threads on the day the bookstore "opened" the ordering process. My order went through within 4 minutes of that time, and my number is 940. As near as anyone could tell, these are NOT book numbers - they are just order processing numbers. I think (but not sure) that the wristband number is more likely to be a book number ... or it might be that only books 1-99 are numbered, and the rest of the books don't have a number at all and the wristband number is for the signing line. Anyway, I'm just looking forward to being there! I'm flying in tomorrow, so if you see someone in a Bridge 4 tee shirt (old design), it might be me - be sure to say Hi!

I got 2 emails - a "received your order" one and a "fulfilled" one - and IIRC they were a day or 2 apart. I think I printed off the thing with the barcode while still in the purchase process on the BYU site. The emails have nothing attached, nor do they contain barcodes. But the barcode I do have contains the same order number as is on the emails, so it's probably all good as @Lightning said.

Could it be that BYU has moved them somewhere indoors? I've been looking at the weather for Provo, and it's pretty chilly at night - - strategies that campers would use to keep warm might be a fire hazards. I doubt that the university would want steel barrels with burning wood like the unions used to use on picket lines in the winter (& maybe still do). No matter what, much props to those devoted Sander-fans!

I'm making myself a list of when to be where with what "documentation" to get wristband(s) etc. I'm coming in from Ohio, and plan to be at the UVCC north entrance at or before 10:00 Monday. What fun to mix-&-mingle with Sander-fans! Too bad it'll be so cold - we could recognize each other by our "Bridge 4" tee-shirts. My current strategy is to go back to my hotel and rest until the party, then read until I drop - - no way I'll be fit to work Thursday morning back home until the latest sander-lanche is in my rear-view mirror. Question 1: Does anyone know when and where we can get the 17th Shard buttons they're making? and if there's a cost? Question 2: I have one thing that has a barcode, but the last 2 emails from the BYU bookstore have not had a barcode at the bottom. Has anyone else experienced that? Do you think it'll be a problem? I'm not too worried (it's just a party!), but it's good to know what to expect. SOOOOO looking forward to meeting all of you!

2 wristbands + VIP party tickets ... this is getting complicated. If I had time, I'd make a "quick reference guide" we could all use, but since I just got power and internet back after 3 days without (in Ohio with nighttime temp's in the 30s), I am scrambling just to get packed and ready to go. To those in line already: You are THE true fans and fully deserve those low numbers!

What @Captain Ryan said works, UNLESS they actually put the wristband onto the person when they give it out - - that would mean that the wristband would be on your sister's arm, which you could not bring with you to the signing without a lot of mess & getting in trouble with the law. (Just kidding!) Other people have to have been in your situation before - there will be a solution. Less than 3 weeks to go now!

I would love it to be a story set on First of the Sun, because of [something in Chapter 22 in the Oathbringer preview, which I am not going to spoil here]. That planet and its magic are so fascinating to me. I'd also love it to be Alcatraz 6 - those books are a hoot! Or maybe White Sand 2 (graphic novel)? Oooooh, maybe he's writing the storyline for another video game! That would be sweet. Let's face it: anything and everything from Brandon will be eagerly anticipated. I guess it's too much to hope that he'll have something from the "mystery project" ready to read to us at the OBR release event? One can only hope...

If the stone on Ishar's necklace is meant to be heliodor (pale yellow), then both these Heralds would be wearing jewelry with the proper gemstones (garnet earrings for Shalash), but the "artist" didn't carry the gemstone color through to their clothing or surroundings.

I'll be there - my first ever release event! So looking forward to it! I decided to spring for the VIP party too; livin' large. :-) For WoR, I was the "tour archivist" for Dayton, and that was a real blast. I made dozens of "anticipation spren" (red streamers & ribbons taped to sticks) and passed them out to folks in the audience. We all waved them (and cheered, natch!) when Brandon arrived & he seemed to really enjoy it (even though anticipation spren are supposed to be on the ground, I know...). A photo of that went into the archive scrapbook, I think. I might bring something similar to the OBR party just for me; sorry, no space in my suitcase for spren. ;-) Over on the main OBR release thread (http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/59669-oathbringer-releasetour-faq/ ), starting on page 3 IIRC, several folks have posted that they'll be there, so you could check it out if you're curious. See you all there!