Chicken

Mayhaps I should shoot some questions into the dark since I'm already here. I'm pretty certain none of these have definite answers at the moment, but at least there could be some interesting tidbits that I'm unaware of. 1) Shard Powah!!! Are all Shards equally powerful? Ruin and Preservation were quite evenly matched but that doesn't really prove anything about others. 2) Shard Angry. Shard SMASH! The way I gathered from HoA, Shards are like balloons full of water floating around a planet. They can smash into and hurt each other. Since Ruin and Preservation were filled with equal amounts of "water", they destroyed each other's "drivers" in a full on crash. But if one had significantly more "water" would it kill the other? Seems logical to me, but who knows? 3) Shard pairs? Ruin and Preservation were quite neatly paired. I know Sanderson said not all Shards are so neat opposites, but that doesn't mean there aren't other pairs. Like Aona-Rayse. They seem opposite just like R&P to me, so would that mean their Shards are equally large? For all we know, 14 of the Shards are paired with last two different. Very unlikely, but possible. Therefore, are there other paired Shards like R&P? 4) Shardicide. Rayse has a pretty high bodycount among Shards. If my "water balloon idea" is correct, that'd mean his Shard is bigger than Aona, Skai and Tanavast's. But if it's not correct, there must be other ways to kill a Shard's mind than brute force smashing. What could that be? 5) Smash Hit! How does one go about Shattering a Shard? Do you have to kill its mind first then "violate the corpse" so to speak, or is hitting them hard is enough? Or maybe there's some way to trick and manipulate a Shard into Shattering? 6) Voidbringers, IN SPACE!!! Is there a need for mortal agents for Shattering or killing Shards and if so, did Rayse carry Voidbringers in his back pocket to Sel? If he didn't carry them, did he make more on Sel and where did those go when he was done? If he doesn't actually need mortal agents, why use them against Tanavast? We know for certain he defeated Tanavast after he stopped sending waves of his mooks upon Roshar, so a) He's always been "bigger" than Honor and finally killed Tanavast b ) Honor "deflated" after Heralds and Knights Radiant broke their oaths allowing Rayse to win c) Rayse "inflated" after his visit to Sel/broken oaths on Roshar d) Sanderson will surprise us. Considering Ruin's demise, mortal mooks don't really seem to do anything against Shards themselves. Whatever the case, Voidbringers being carried through the cosmere dangling from an ethereal hand as in Dungeon Keeper is too amusing to contemplate. (this one is rather full of random rambling) 7) Uncle Rayse's Shard Shattering Shop. Or could Shattering be a speciality of Rayse thanks to his Shard's nature? Now I know you'd say this looks like a job for Ruin, but I think if Ruin would have a speciality when it comes to Shards, it'd be completely disintegrating the power instead of just breaking it. Being "shattered" would presumably be a painful thing, so it's more Odiumy than Ruiny, especially if they're alive during it. Not that there's any proof individual Shards have such specialities of course. It's a slim justification anyway, just looking for an excuse to write URSSS. 8) Do we know how many more books there'll be until the end of "Cosmere Saga"? I know of 9 more Stormlight Archive, 6 more Mistborn, one Elantris, one Warbreaker and 7 Dragonsteel. That makes a minimum of 24 years. Does Sanderson have an ETA? I'm not in a great hurry, but I'd really love to see it finished before I kick the bucket. I don't wanna think how many people following various long running series passed away while waiting for their story to end, and it'd be nice if I didn't join them.

I've always thought that girl whatsherface could've easily killed the old and crippled Roshone on wedding night and tell everyone he couldn't take the excitement. No one liked Roshone, he didn't have an heir, no one powerful would care for him, a 19(?) girl wouldn't appreciate being forcibly married to an old loser like him and who's gonna challenge her word? Not to mention, that way she'd inherit whatever wealth Roshone had left. It'd be a suitably Alethi thing to do.[/straightface] For the tangled twisty romance knot enthusiasts, I'm sure you'll get your fix in Dalinar's background. In fact, Sanderson might get cute and give us a Shallan-Renarin-Adolin affair to specifically mirror Dalinar's flashbacks in that book.

Shallan is definitely the kind of lighteyes Kaladin hates so much. I'd be surprised if they get along at all, not to mention the caste difference. On the other hand, what's one more heresy for Jasnah... More seriously (for a given value of serious), I'm expecting Shallan to somehow end up with owning Szeth oathstone. She seems to be getting the most powerful stuff whether she wants to or not. She has a Blade and can Soulcast, a pet Windrunner is all she's missing... Even more seriously (for real this time), I'm expecting next book to be Dalinar's and not Shallan's. We know Szeth is coming and it'd be very unSanderson if that gets resolved in Book2. There's much more tension to be drawn from that. He'll come at the end, leaving us with a huge cliffhanger. If Book2 is Shallan, we'd know that Dalinar will definitely survive because Szeth's attack can't last the entirety of book3 and Dalinar's view would be broken with his death. But if Book2 is Dalinar with Szeth showing up at the end, we'd never know whether Dalinar's role is complete and is going out with a bang, or he'll survive and Szeth somehow be repelled or captured. In fact, even Book3 might pass before Szeth makes his move. If we get occasional glimpses of Szeth's preparations to attack Dalinar while other Dalinar/Shallan stuff going on at the forefront, it'd build even more tension, with the last cliffhanger being start of Szeth's assault. Then we'll get Szeth's view at Book4 because if we don't, we'd know that he'll survive the attack because we still haven't had his viewpoint. So Book2: More warcamp uniting stuff happens (with great success, because Szeth wouldn't be coming if Dalinar was gonna fail by himself) with Szeth reaching the warcamps at the end, Book3: Jasnah's research proceeds from Shallan's view (I'm thinking that'd be the most suitable main plot for Shallan view, because research actually being done would be a boring read from Jasnah's view, she'll prolly have something more interesting happening in her book) with Szeth's attack starting at the end, Book4: Epic showdown! from Szeth's view. Far as I can see, this is the route with maximum suspense. Of course I might be wrong and Szeth's attack can be resolved right at the start of Book2 (from any point of view), but where's the heartless, terrible suspense mongering in that?

I suppose no one knows much more about this. If I was a more nitpick obsessed person, I could reply with "we don't know how many brightlords there are in other highprinces' families", "Sadeas (and every other highprince) must also have a related heir somewhere in case he falls in battle" and similar arguements. But since I'm not, I'll chalk this up to an oddity in writing. ... And since this thread here is alread about pointless stuff that bugs me, I could mention another one. Namely, "brightness". Why are women not referred to as "brightlady"? If there were no such thing as "brightlady" at all, I could accept it as the feminine form of "brightlord". But there is two instances of it: Shallan refers to Jasnah as such when she first meets Kabsal and once Navani thinks she's not being a proper brightlady. I don't know why I insist on being bugged by oddest things.

I've signed up because this one thing here has been bothering me far too much lately. Yes, I'm that inane. Everyone calls Sadeas "Sadeas". His name is Torol but it's used a grand total of once in the whole book. Even his ex-buddy Dalinar calls him Sadeas, and that's to his face. On the other hand, no one calls Dalinar "Highprince/Brightlord Kholin". He's always "Brightlord Dalinar". I think bridgemen call him Highprince Kholin a couple of times near the end, but that's it. (Another tidbit is that we don't know whether other highprinces (Roion, Vamah, etc.) are being referred to by their names or surnames, but I digress) So what's the deal? Why does everyone, from bridgemen slaves to king himself, calls one powerful highprince by his name and the other one by his surname?

I figure it's polite to say hello first. Therefore, hello.