Nef

2 hours ago, Qviqve said:

Shallan’s mother: There’s something odd there. It fits, but it doesn’t feel entirely right to me. Heralds’ bodies are made of pure investiture, so how could not just one, but three children be born from them? Maybe we need more lessons in Realmatic Theory.

I think you're suppose to draw a parallel to real life physics where mass and energy is seen to be converted from one another in nature. So with super advanced tech you could create a perfect replica body from "pure energy".

Was it specifically said that Retribution can't leave? I think that he wanted to stay initially anyway and build up his strength first, and was really annoyed that now other shards have noticed him making it harder to bide his time.

That makes sense to me. After reading WaT it seems clear to me that a shard's overall interpretation of its alignment is greatly influenced by the conviction of the bearer, so if Sazed has the conviction that conflict with Retribution is indeed a harmonious action so to speak, I can see it happening. Tanavast ultimately lost the Honor shard by performing actions that he himself didn't view as honorable. 

My best guess is that when Honor/Tanavast had his thousands of years of simply observing while being one with nature, he had an indirect influence on spren choosing Kaladin to be their champion. Like the spren/wind realised that this compassionate version of Honor who values the mundane etc were qualities they wanted in their champion.

My immediate thought was that the sentient part of Honor decided to send observer pieces of itself, so that it could continue learning what true honor is as requested by Dalinar.

I remember a sentence that mentioned that the Ashyn name came about because the world was wrecked from surgebinding.

47 minutes ago, KaladinWorldsinger said:

When book 6 comes out, we will find out that Kal and chana have dealt with it offscreen, like Brandon always does with awkward conversations.

Like I have not forgotten that Kal's explanation of Moash's attempted assassination of elhokar would have to be a very condensed version. 

And we never got to see Adolin and Renarin finding out about Evi. Instead, skip to one year later so that they have dealt with it

Brandon always skips drama

After the Chana revelation, I think it it made sense to not spend the "dealing with Helaran's death" plot point without Chana being on the scene. It might overly optimistic, but I can see the plot point being unavoidable now, given Kaladin is ostensibly there to provide therapy for the Heralds.

• There's still a lot of mystery around how Taln lost his honorblade and his return from Braize in general. 
• I don't think we got much explanation on why Ishar couldn't foresee Kaladin.
• I feel like a bit more of explanation of what Ishar was doing with Shinovar is forthcoming, for example what/why is the "spren stream" that Ishar caused.  

13 hours ago, robardin said:

"No Syladin?" Don't be so sure. I mean, they're both basically spren now.... And bonded spren go with the Heralds when they're "locked away" (Nale's highspren too).

Yeah I think I agree. I'm starting to think the conversations about them being more independent of one another was to make a "Syladin" relationship more healthy (one where they are equals). The relationship looks problematic if you view Syl as an unequal partner at the beck and call of Kaladin.  

So with Kaladin and Chana being in the same place and time, are we finally going to get the difficult conversation that deals with Kaladin having killed Helaran (i.e. Chana's son)

Can see that being rather awkward if Chana opens up to Kaladin while he's doing his therapist work.

I wonder if Taln being unbreakable on Braize is another 4D chess thing that Cultivation imparted on Taln when he tried "kill her".

1 hour ago, Kardenal_13 said:

So I just remembered that Kaladin gets called Child of Tanavast. Did anyone manage to piece together why Stormfather calls him that based on his memory chapters? Or did they explain it and I just missed it?

There was also the chapter 132 epigraph, which I think hints that this is a question still to be answered.

I find it interesting that the Radiant was a Skybreaker rather than a Windrunner. It was partly a scouting mission so one might expect that a Windrunner would have been the obvious choice.

Given what we find out in Sunlit Man, makes me wonder about the Windrunner order in the future.

The major difference between Taln's death in the prologue of WoK and the death of Jezrien in OB is that Jezrien's soul was trapped in gem of the special dagger, this could explain why the Heralds could feel the death of Jezrien and not Taln.

If Chanarach's soul was also trapped (according to the theory of her soul being in the box), it could explain why "StormFather" could feel her death.

3 minutes ago, robardin said:

Besides, the Words that Gavilar "almost got right" with the so-called Stormfather was "Give it to me, now"

Maybe "give it to me" now, spoken with intent, is as close as Gavilar got to the words, because the focus on "now" is (at a stretch) vaguely similar to focusing on the journey rather than destination. Definitely a longshot, but the "SF" did say its close yet far.

55 minutes ago, robardin said:

Why suppose he has a “Shadow” separate from the Splintered part of him that attached to the Stormfather? Even granting that possibility, are the words and actions - lying to Gavilar, disguising himself as another, etc., - are those the actions of Honor? But we’ve seen Cultivation is extremely canny, crafty, and subtle in manipulation…

Agreed it's not what you'd expect of Honor, but we know that Tanavast was not himself in his dying days. Maybe this a CS of that version of Tanavast, not strictly dispalying "Honor" attributes.

I think the Storm father changed when the Herald died.

For the whole prologue he was actively working/scheming to stop Desolations, then once the herald died he was like, let whatever is going to happen happen. My guess is before the Herald died , whatever part of the Stormfather is a cognitive shadow Tanavast/Honor had more agency, but this side retreated and let the force of nature side have more agency.

Based upon part 1, I expected Leshwi to feature more. There was that chapter where she was claiming first right to duel Kaladin over the Pursuer, which I thought was foreshadowing a bigger role in the occupation of Uirithru than she ended up having.

He gave two reasons, he also said that it was because Kaladin is extra-aligned with Honor's intent.

Regarding Honor not encouraging healthy relationship with the power later in his existence; has this been mentioned in the books?

And yes, there were two explanations given for why Kaladin was conscious during the occupation. 1) Kaladin is extra-aligned to Honor's intent and 2) he was close to swearing the 4th ideal. So basically point 1) confirms that Kaladin has some special sauce, I'm hoping that book 5 gives us a "why" he has special sauce.

2 hours ago, LuckyJim said:

Spren have always had some capability in manipulating objects in the physical realm. Syl was able to carry blackbane leaves really early on, and Patter could pick locks.

Agreed. My point was that turning the pages might be more physical effort than carrying the blackbane and she might not have been previously been able to turn the pages. That said, I think the point of the scene was definitely more to point out how she can now read, further demonstrating her "humanlike" development.

At the end of the book, Syl is able to smell Kaladin. That stood out to me. As if she was manifesting a physical form through some sort of progression.

I just think that smell is something that's really of the physical realm, so its something that Syl will start to sense more strongly as she manifests in the physical realm. Also, turning pages of the medical book, that seemed like something a bit extra to what Syl was previously able to do. I think there's a subtle progression of Syl being more able to physically influence the world on her own accord i.e. lifting things as a spren rather than as a shard implement.

No disagreement here, Odium more or less mentions that he failed to Dalinar.

I think Kaladin swearing the 4th oath was a really big step in his management of his depression/anxiety. It means he's not going see peoples' deaths as a failure.

Also his bond with Syl, it has strengthened so that they're more able to use each other as support. Its almost turning into a healthy marriage, with good communication/sharing of feelings.

Odium's pathway to "converting" Kaladin was through his depression. With what we saw in RoW, I would be surprised if that path ever opens again. Sure Kaladin will always have his ups and downs (he mentions as much), but not to the extent to be exploited by Odium.

On 11/19/2020 at 9:44 PM, dgreene196 said:

My thinking on this was that I believed it referenced Moash's injury.  His strong Connection to Odium and his possession of Jezrien's Honorblade at least made him a strong possibility as Odium's Champion (with some sort of Odium-gifted upgrade, at least).

A key factor in Kaladin maybe not directly connecting to Odium in that scene was that we don't have any hint that his bond with Syl was disrupted.   But, since we get that scene from an external perspective we don't really know.  It certainly seems that, briefly, he received a significant upgrade in terms of his physical speed.  And ripping an enemies head off with a Reverse Lashing isn't really Kaladin's MO.

I agree with others, Odium was looking at Kaladin as his next champion. At the very least he was converting Kaladin to his side. This quote, which I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is, almost states it:

Quote

“He wants me, as he wanted Moash,” Kaladin said. “If he keeps pushing, he’ll have me. So I have to go.”

I'm also thinking that the fifth ideal could be related the the fourth ideal.

Similar to how the 2nd and 3rd ideal are both affirmative statements to protecting. the Fourth and Fifth ideal might both be statements towards not protecting.

It quite devastating to think about, but the fifth ideal might be along the lines of self-sacrifice in order to protect. This is something that Kaladin has always done, but I think it now has particular meaning given that he has started to actually learn to love himself. There is honor in sacrifice. A parallel would be how the US military awards the Medal of Honor.