kari-no-sugata

I think it's reasonable to expect the rate of spren bonding humans and proto Radiants swearing Oaths etc to increase significantly. The Everstorm should be a huge "call to action" and the Stormfather (likely) changing his mind should remove a blocker. On a smaller scale, our friend "Darkness" might stop nipping them in the bud so much. Rsyn becoming a Radiant in the next book or two is a distinct possibility I think. The others I dunno. Stonewards seems possible but apparently the Dustbringers are rather "special" in some way. Going back to that old theory of mine I posted... it was interesting to think of how the Orders could be grouped by the old D&D alignment system, particularly on the "lawful/chaotic" axis, which is really about the relative importance of the society compared to the individual. Or putting it another way, whether you take a "top down" approach or "bottom up" approach to such things. I would put Skybreakers, Bondsmiths and Windrunners in the "lawful" (society first, top down) category. Stonewards seem like a good candidate for this too but we might be assuming too much. Lift's Oaths put her in the "chaotic" (individual first, bottom up) category and her personality fits that as well. We don't know any of Jasnah's Oaths but her personality/attitude is more "top down" (I would say) but some of her actions are less so - maybe she's "neutral" overall (ie neither strongly society first or individual first)? Lightweavers don't have any Oaths except the common first one of course, but if Shallan is reasonably typical for them then they're likely "chaotic" (individual first, bottom up). So maybe the "lawful" types will follow my suggested pattern but the more "chaotic" types won't have any obvious patterns or commonalities?

How exactly Shallan might react to the whole situation is hard to say since a lot of it depends upon the timing and what else happens. In my previous post I said that "Of course there might well be other things going on that could complicate things further" - the most obvious one would be that once Shallan finds out about Kaladin's actions she should also quickly realise that he knew but didn't tell her. I think the best case for Kaladin is Shallan finds out very quickly - since Kaladin is likely going to be away for weeks, that would give Shallan plenty of times to come to terms with it. I can easily see her being quite annoyed immediately on finding out but given that she has her own secrets, in this scenario I don't think it would be that significant. The worst case by far is if Kaladin tries to pursue Shallan romantically and it comes out after some time. I would say that would likely be very damaging. (This is not to say that Shallan doesn't have her own secrets that could bite her hard, eg the Ghostbloods, but I would expect her to pay a price for that)

At the end of all that theory I wrote this: I don't think I was that far off

I agree though I think things have already progressed a bit more than what you suggest here. Quoting from WoR chapter 64: Shallan's anger towards Amaram is already attenuating and she's able to see his perspective (or at least, she is attempting to guess). But there's still an undercurrent of anger there. It's hard to imagine Shallan being harsher on Kaladin, unless he does something significant to anger her on top of this. Another thing to bear in mind is that Helaran's death lead to Shallan's father taking action. (Or if you want to be pedantic, him hearing that Helaran had died "on a battlefield in Alethkar"). So Kaladin's actions not only killed Helaran but indirectly lead to the death of Shallan's step-mother and father and also to Balat becoming a cripple. I'm not blaming Kaladin for the secondary effects and I don't think Shallan will either but I do think she'll make sure that Kaladin is aware of this. If my theory that Kaladin's next Oath is about "proportionality" (or trying to keep killing to a bare minimum) then it could even lead to his next Oath as he reflects on the potential consequences of "killing to protect". Anyway, I expect that when Shallan eventually confronts Kaladin about killing Helaran that she will be quite "sharp" about it and there will definitely be some anger there but probably not as much as Kaladin expects (ie not as much if their positions were reversed). I do expect Shallan to make Kaladin clearly explain everything that happened. I think the fact that he made no attempt to benefit from killing Helaran (by turning down the Shards) and even got turned into a slave as "thanks" for saving Amaram will help take the edge off things - Shallan would probably be able to understand Kaladin better from all this. Of course there might well be other things going on that could complicate things further. Anyway, I'd be quite surprised if Shallan bore a long term grudge against Kaladin or made any attempt at actual revenge - given the circumstances she just seems unlikely to do this given her character.

Here's some ideas I've posted before:

For Lightweavers in general, I'm not sure how practical it would be to use a new/recent "truth" to gain advancement. If that was possible then theoretically you could use the same "truth" multiple times. Lightweavers's speaking of Truths is supposed to help them becoming increasingly self-aware - ie becomes harder and harder to lie to yourself. Or at least so it seems but we don't know the full technical details, but "The stronger the truth, the more hidden it is, the more powerful the bond", according to the Cryptic in tWoK. So if Shallan starts lying to herself about something new that would harm her bond with Pattern (like how Kaladin almost killed Syl in WoR, and like how Shallan lying to herself about her mother "killed" Pattern in the past), and I find it hard to imagine that Shallan would just ignore the warning signs (plus we've already had that narrative in WoR so repeating it would feel weak). So I think it would have to be something that pre-dates WoR in practice. Which doesn't give us much. The two most likely things I can think of is something further back in Shallan's past, which we've not seen yet. I think many readers would like to see Shallan's initial bonding of Pattern so that one might work, though whether that works best for Brandon is another matter. Another option I can think is highly speculative - perhaps admitting her deep dark truths to others can count too, the best example of this would be telling the truth surrounding her mother's death to her brothers since that's a lie she's kept up for years. However, that might feel too similar to her previous Truth.

Hmm. I have a different interpretation of Shallan and Adolin with regards to forming bonds/relationships with others. I'd say that they both want to have many friends/relationships/bonds but Adolin avoids deeper/closer relationships in general and is even worse at romantic relationships. So I would say that their intent is not that different but what they actually do in practice is, but not to the extent that they're opposites. It's very rare that Shallan shows just how much she endured and how much pain and struggle she went through. I agree that she tries to ignore that and focus on more positive things - I'd say she does this both consciously and unconsciously, so I doubt she realises just how much she is doing this compared to more normal people. I think one of the subtle/indirect indications of just how much she struggled is how she reacted to seeing Wit/Hoid again - she immediately leapt to hug him. That's despite only ever meeting him once before and only having a brief and vague conversation - that's just how precious she found his help to be. She was sorely lacking in help/aid for most of her life so the few bits she does get are very precious to her. I think part of her highly positive attitude towards Helaran is because he also gave her some advice, though I'm pretty sure he would be very surprised how seriously she took it. Regarding Shallan in general, I agree. She doesn't get much credit and I think this is largely down to how she views herself. She's not blatantly down on herself (except about twice) but she's frequently giving the reader reasons to distrust her or underestimate her or under-appreciate her. Regarding clinging to connections, yeah she's probably over-eager and can take dangerous risks. She also feels absolutely terrible when Jasnah knows that Shallan betrayed her and she is also morose when she let down the poor carriage driver who was killed by the Ghostbloods. Like maxal said, I don't think Adolin is trying to consciously hint anything to Shallan that he doesn't believe the relationship can last. He wants it to work but fears it might fall apart somehow. It would be great to see some deep analysis. I've looking into Shallan (and others) quite closely but I have no deep knowledge or expertise in such things.

A great insightful post maxal! I can suggest one extra reason why this "minor character romance" option would be a poor idea: readers would be less likely to care whether or not Adolin solves his relationship problems if it's with some minor unimportant character. You sort-of alluded to this already but I figured it was worth mentioning specifically. Basically, the stakes would be a lot lower meaning that the sense of satisfaction of him resolving this problem would be significantly reduced. The higher the stakes, the greater the impact on the plot and other major characters, the more meaningful it would be. It's a major part of his character so it would feel cheap if resolving it was pretty much inconsequential.

Hmm. I only just thought of it but given that Kaladin's raging about Tien's death has lead him to where his is today (although indirectly), it would be an... interesting situation for him to fall in love with Shallan and try to pursue that love given that he killed her brother. If he does that while continuing to keep quiet about that fact then it would hardly be honourable now would it? (I don't mean it would be dishonourable for him to fall in love with her but does nothing to pursue it). If he admitted to killing Shallan's brother up front I think it would not become a huge obstacle but if he tries to keep it from her then I don't think it would go well.

I agree. We've seen multiple times that she can do quick sketches. Also, it seems pretty clear from the text that she only did part of the chasmfiend drawing before going to sleep. If she could have drawn more she'd definitely have continued that.

It's especially interesting to contrast Dalinar's plan with what Shallan came up with just 8 days after turning up in the warcamps. Shallan's approach was much more direct and was very close to being successful. I wonder what Dalinar thought of it. As a side note, it also shows Shallan applying what she was taught to do by Jasnah - learn from history to help the present. I don't believe Dalinar thinks of Adolin as a tool - I get where you're coming from but I don't think it's quite so unfeeling. The way I see it, Dalinar's attitude towards Adolin is problematic on a number of levels. Dalinar doesn't want Adolin to make the same mistakes he did. That's fair enough but he's going further than that - he wants Adolin to live up to Dalinar's ideal of what an Alethi should be like. But he's not giving Adolin the option the choose. He's also not giving proper consideration to the circumstances. It's all very well to want your son to be a white sheep amongst a flock of black sheep but given how the Alethi actually are in practice it's more like he wants Adolin to be a white sheep amongst wolves. Ideals are all very well but there are practical limits. There's also moral and ethical considerations. So I'm hoping that Dalinar will come to the realisation that his ideals for Adolin were overly narrow and also impractical. He needs to raise the level of the whole of society. He is starting to think about these things (and has been since he started learning from the in-world tWoK book) but he needs to learn from his mistakes, broaden his perspective, think things through more deeply and so on. I'm pretty sure that Jasnah would be the best person (that we know of) to discuss these things with, though I'm sure the others can help. Shallan would probably be better at helping him realise where he's gone wrong on the small scale. On a side note, there's another parallel between Adolin and Shallan here: Shallan's father wanted her to be perfect and live up to his ideals. However, he took things to extremes and would beat up servants if she made any mistakes. This forced Shallan to "become the perfect daughter" against her will to an extreme degree, effectively forcing her to learn to act the "perfect daughter". There was no room for discussion and it was completely one-sided. Adolin gets off lightly in comparison but that doesn't make it okay either. It will definitely cause Dalinar "trouble" but also a lot of mental stress. Perhaps more so than dealing with the Everstorm! From all sorts of perspectives it will cause Dalinar problems but here's some thoughts on the legal perspective: it's all very well to say that Adolin's actions should be dealt with as the law says but Dalinar has conspicuously failed to do the same thing for Sadeas, Amaram and others. In other words, at a practical level the law is already a farce and the Alethi are long used to ignoring it. Having glaring inconsistencies in how the law is applied makes it a farce and is not the sort of thing that a strong and stable society can be built upon. So on the one hand Dalinar needs to improve this situation but on the other hand he also needs to recognise that he's part of the problem, which is also precisely what lead to Adolin's actions against Sadeas. I feel that if Dalinar doesn't realise and accept the bigger problem and come up with some good solutions then ultimately he will fail. What this means for Adolin I don't know. I don't know if it would be legal but maybe the "best" solution is to put Adolin on trial... and also Sadeas, retrospectively - and also any others who have been "getting away with it". Effectively to draw a line in the sand and say "from now on, expect the law to apply to everyone". From a practical level, if Sadeas is retrospectively stripped of his titles etc then Adolin's crimes would become smaller. One idea I like is that Adolin is found guilty and as punishment is disowned... and then Shallan takes him in and he effectively becomes her knight, and their romantic relationship continues. Hopefully then Adolin can become the person he wants to be instead of the person Dalinar wants him to be. I guess that also effectively means that he'd be marrying into her household rather than the other way around.

I wouldn't say that Kaladin and Shallan are opposites in everything - they both hate being caged. But yeah, apart from generally being in favour of things most people would say that they're in favour of (life, health, happiness etc) they do tend to take very different approaches. Anyway, going back to Shallan and Adolin, I don't think Shallan's killing of her mother and the effects on her father are particularly relevant to Adolin's killing of Sadeas and the effect on Dalinar. I think I get where you're coming from but we don't really know how it's going to affect Dalinar for a start. However, I would say that there's a number of parallels between Shallan's killing of her father and Adolin's killing of Sadeas. In both cases, it was something a long time in coming (from their perspective). Adolin has been agitating against Sadeas right from his very first POV chapter. Shallan clearly wasn't surprised at what her father did on that last day, given her "So it has come to this" thought. Though saying this, in both cases it was unplanned - they were responding to events. I would say that they were (somewhat) mentally prepared in advance, with Shallan going a bit further and having poison ready. In both cases, they weren't being directly threatened but responded to protect their family, who were. In both cases, they knew it was "wrong" but did it anyway, because they couldn't stand by and do nothing. (Not that they specifically think this but I think it's reasonably clear from their actions and thoughts). In Shallan's case, Balat did try but was ineffective. In both cases, it's doubtful whether anyone would truly regret the victim's death (hard to say about Ialai) In both cases, the person who "should" have taken action failed to do so. In Shallan's case, this would be Helaran. In Adolin's case this would be Dalinar. Naturally there are differences too. Emotionally, Shallan was "cold" while Adolin was "hot". There's also the practical difference that Shallan had witnesses while Adolin had none (Sadeas doesn't count). It's quite hard to predict exactly what will happen because that would depend a lot on how events unfold. Theoretically, Adolin could get away with it publicly. However, if Adolin is strongly suspected then it could cause political problems. But there will be much bigger issues going on - dealing with the Everstorm will be far more important. Shallan's reaction is hard to predict because it will depend on what she hears, from whom, in what order etc. I think it's quite likely that if Shallan hears directly from Adolin about what happened and why then she would sympathise with him. I think he would have the backing of the army. I've no idea if/when Kaladin and Jasnah will turn up to be able to influence such events. Kaladin would be quite conflicted I'm sure. Jasnah would probably wonder why they hadn't killed the guy sooner - given how she's willing to employ assassins to protect her family it would seem quite strange for her not to defend Adolin nor admonish Dalinar. What I'm hoping to see is Dalinar reflect on his actions. He was too soft on Sadeas and Amaram. I think he's over-compensating for his warlord years (or something like that). I'm not saying he should have killed Sadeas or Amaram but he was definitely negligent. He also needs to reflect on his attitude towards Adolin. He definitely needs to improve and I'm expecting that this will tie into his growth as a Bondsmith.

Regarding the second point, I think this is part of the reason why Shardplate is significantly different to Shardblades. Putting it another way, Shardblades seem to be a "spren idea" (something they wanted to achieve) but Shardplate seems to be a "human idea" (an invention / solution they eventually came up with). It wouldn't surprise me if Shardplate as we know it came much much later than the first Shardblades. Going back to the first point, I think there's a problem in this kind of discussion with using over-simplified terms - just to be clear, I'm responding to this post more because I think it asks the right questions, since the point I'm about to make is in response to something that's very common on the forums. Think of it this way - why would you get screams from something that's "dead"? I think it's clear from the discussions with Pattern that applying terms like "dead" or "alive" to spren is imprecise, even though it's commonly used even by spren. There just isn't a better term but that doesn't make it an accurate term either. I think this is the best WoB we have on the cause of the screams: We don't know exactly what a Nahel bond is. Many examples of spren bond exist on Roshar but the one between spren and Radiants is unique, as far as I'm aware. It may be that only that bond is a Nahel bond and lesser bonds are not Nahel bonds. Only the Radiant spren have Oaths that we know of and it's the betrayal of these Oaths that causes the spren to "die" and get stuck as a screaming Shardblade. With "living" Shardblades, they are directly tied to the Radiant they have a bond with and can temporarily manifest in the Physical Realm as a result of that bond. If it was possible to summon and dismiss Shardplate then a similar bond would be required. But is it really practical to form a permanent bond with 100s/1000s of "minor" spren? I don't think so. So, if Shardplate is made from 100s/1000s of minor spren then I don't think it would be possible to summon/dismiss it like Shardblades and instead it would be permanently manifested in the Physical Realm. It would then not depend on any Oaths, so a Radiant breaking their Oaths would not fundamentally alter their Shardplate. Which would also mean that they would never scream. There wouldn't be any animosity towards the Shardplates by spren since their current form would be unrelated to the Recreance. In the "Starfalls" chapter in tWoK we see the example of the Radiant's helm being not around at one point then suddenly it's there. If it had been summoned then it would have been wet, but it wasn't wet. If my thinking above is correct then maybe the overall Shardplate is simply shifting shape. It's effectively magical metal anyway (can regrow itself etc) so this seems plausible to me. As for how to make Shardplate, I've have no real idea. I suspect it's a lot more complicated than "gather lots of spren and wish really hard", as it were. It might well require the Transformation Surge, for example.

Yes, Jasnah is definitely a lot more emotional than she lets on. However, I don't think she's trying to "look attractive", and is more like "power dressing" - see her comments to Shallan about the illusion of perception. This is just a guess but I think Jasnah is bad at "relationships" in general (with family, friends, colleagues, let alone lovers) and also she is well aware of this. So to large degree she doesn't encourage close relationships with others and isn't seeking such things either. I suspect she was quite surprised with how well things went with Shallan for most of tWoK. PS On this board, WoR does not need spoiler warnings.

How about some crack ships: Shallan x Szeth Lift x Renarin Kaladin x Iyatil Dalinar x Palona Adolin x Rysn

I'm sure my opinion will change over time as more info is released but my impression of the Heralds is that they're "heros who broke". They probably endured more than any person can reasonably be expected to endure - making them heros. But they still broke and betrayed one of their own and walked away from it all in failure.

While I am certainly interested in seeing who Shallan will end up with I'm also rather interested in what kind of "job" she will end up with, long term. Assuming she survives of course. She could become anything from a wandering artist/researcher to a Queen (most obvious option being of her homeland). On a different note but related to the posts above, I do hope to see Shallan and Lift interact in the next book - it should be quite fun! (They would likely be able to meet if they can open the appropriate Oathgate). Getting back to Kaladin (maybe someone should start an equivalent thread for him?), my feeling from how things are in the books and various comments Brandon has made is that Kaladin's real romance won't occur until the 2nd half of the series (though maybe I'm over-interpreting things). So, assuming she grows up mentally and physically, then Lift could be a possibility.

Going back to the OP a bit, in a sense all the spren are "cruel" in that they aren't simply giving out magic power on demand for no compensation. I'm pretty sure that they have no other option - if the human they're bonded to doesn't uphold their end of the bargain then the spren can't provide the magic. And equally, if the human does uphold their end of the bargain then the spren can't not provide the magic.

Glad you liked it We don't know what Shallan was like when she originally bonded Pattern but he does say this: However, I'm not sure if this is the only way that spren (or Cryptics) find potential partners. It feels to me like things were a bit different before the Recreance and when Urithiru was active. Not completely different but I get the feeling that there were additional methods that were used. Just to be clear: in your previous post you suggested that Malchin was already self-aware and that was his problem. Have you changed your opinion here? I'm not so sure how much we should extrapolate from the current situation back to how things were before the Recreance. With many more Radiants, the average quality/suitability of bonding partners was probably a lot lower (the good candidates would have been taken already). So maybe spren sometimes tried to force a bond and it didn't work out at all. Maybe there was competition between spren for high profile candidates? This is just speculation. But yes, I agree with your overview: a successful Lightweaver candidate will need to be cracked (partially broken), have multiple large delusions to overcome and the strength of will to overcome them. They're pretty much literally "You don't have to be crazy to work here but it helps". Putting it another way, assuming this is all correct, then a successful Lightweaver candidate has to have mental issues at the time. We know the person's spiritweb needs to be cracked for a spren to be able to form a bond but it would be interesting to know if such cracks would heal naturally if the person got over whatever had cracked them. If the cracks persist even if the person mentally recovers then the other Orders wouldn't need candidates who currently have mental issues (past or present issues would both work). At the least, the Lightweavers are the only Order to directly require candidates to overcome their mental issues to progress (their delusional issues at least), though I can imagine candidates from other Orders benefiting indirectly to some degree, so long as they are successful. It will be interesting to see the long term effects on Shallan (and all the Radiants). We can probably assume she will become increasingly sensitive to "lies" in general. She's already quite sensitive to them - she worries about her lies and questions herself on several occasions. Maybe we'll see her more consciously shift modes between "being honest" and "putting on an act"...?

The original Star Wars trilogy was another exception. I can think of others too. Yeah, they're generally the exception when clear romance is a present since the main character's love interest tends to be automatically elevated to "lead" status. For complex series with a large cast there's no need to do this though. More variety is good!

Perhaps. I've debated with myself about that one. I wondered about what would happen to someone who bonded with a Cryptic who was already self-aware (having no internal lies would imply this) but that quote specifically has "a threshold of self-awareness that Malchin could never attain". So in this scenario, Malchin is far from being as self-aware as proper Lightweavers. So why is he stymied? Option 1 would be that although he has opportunities to grow as a Lightweaver, he isn't able to take them due his personality or strength of will or whatever. Option 2 would be what you suggest here, but that would strongly imply that there's a very big difference between everyday self-awareness and what Lightweavers become. Option 3 would be that he's not particularly self-aware and has a bunch of small internal lies about himself but those small lies are too small individually and admitting to those lies isn't enough for him to advance as a Lightweaver (this is under the assumption that speaking a few small Truths isn't equivalent to speaking one big Truth). Option 2 is basically the "local maxima" problem - imagine you're trying to climb a mountain and you're part way up on an outcropping. The rest of the mountain looms above you but to get there first you have to climb down a bit. In the case of a spren bond it would likely dissipate in this scenario before you could start climbing up the mountain proper. Regarding Option 3, in tWoK we saw Shallan speaking smaller Truths ("I'm afraid") and bigger ones and they both had an effect. But that wasn't with Pattern. So she's making a short-term bond with a second Cryptic, I believe. So it's not really about her advancing as a Lightweaver but resurrecting her bond with Pattern. My guess is that for a Lightweaver to advance it's not about the total amount of self-awareness gained but the single act of admitting to a deep hidden truth (it's all or nothing).

Well, certainly I've seen many love triangles where the person in the middle hides from their real feelings. If she was ever in such a situation, Shallan wouldn't be able to do that without it harming Pattern. It would apply just as much to any type of relationship as well of course - it's the act of being dishonest with yourself that would be damaging, not the nature of the problem.

After Shallan killed her mother she completely shut away the memory (or at least as much as possible) which pretty much killed Pattern. That's quite an extreme case though. I would say that Lightweavers basically have to be very honest with themselves. Lying to others isn't a problem but lying to yourself is. Fooling yourself is. Deceiving yourself is. etc. Refusing to admit your mistakes, denial of reality, running away from your feelings etc. I'm not sure where exactly the dividing lines are. For example, I'm sure Shallan would fear the reaction from others if she told them everything - would getting over that fear and confessing everything be enough for her to progress? I have no idea. However, the less you want to admit something the more damaging it is it seems - but is there a difference between not wanting to admit something to others and not wanting to admit it to yourself? It could be argued that being open with others about such things would be the ultimate acceptance. Depending upon the specifics, something like a love triangle could even be damaging to Shallan's bond... so long as it includes a degree of self-deception. I would guess this also applies to hopes and aspirations as well. Desires too. I suspect Lightweavers might struggle with moderation (self-denial of enjoyment) for example since they wouldn't be able to pretend to themselves that they don't enjoy certain things. On the flip side, if they got addicted to something then refusing to admit that would weaken the bond. "Just one more won't hurt" would probably harm the bond too. So long as Lightweavers face themselves honestly they can probably do whatever they like without it weakening the bond. That might sound "too simple" but doing that all the time for everything is hard and the more complex and difficult the circumstances you're in the harder it would be. The easiest person to fool is always yourself.

That wasn't actually Pattern, it was another Cryptic. Almost certainly at least. I presume the other Cryptics around Shallan were there to help "reboot" her bond with Pattern. There's a line in WoR where Shallan thinks that the voice she heard previously probably wasn't Pattern's. I'm not sure if Brandon has ever confirmed this though. Yep, it's about connecting the cognitive mind of the person with the spren, rather than the general concept of truth. I would guess that the underlying nature of the bond is the same for all Radiant types but the difference is in how they advance/progress. Brandon used to use the term "contract magic" a few years ago to describe the magic system. For most Radiants it's based on a direct series of Oaths. Essentially a promise to do something. Failure to do so can result in the bond weakening, as we saw with Kaladin in WoR. I would guess that each time someone "progresses" as a Radiant that the spren becomes more deeply embedded in the person's spiritweb. Rather than being a gradual thing, it seems like progression is much more of a step-change. So, essentially you have Radiants making a commitment of some kind and they get a particular set of powers in return. The stronger the commitments the more power they get, up to a limit. The Lightweavers are a special case in that rather than following a set sequence of Oaths (conceptually at least, if not exactly the same word for word within each Order) they have a more open concept of avoiding self-deception (of not lying to yourself). What I find curious is what this would mean to someone who has the right stuff to be a Lightweaver (in terms of personality and being "broken" enough) but doesn't have any major self-deceptions - would they immediately go to full strength or would they be stuck at their minimum level? I suspect it's the latter. So if Shallan has nothing major left that she is deceiving herself about then she won't be able to progress any further, would be my guess. I would also guess that if she starts deceiving herself about something new then the bond would weaken.

There's many aspects to effective communication and one of them is to make the scope of your argument clear. In my previous post I started off with a little side note to try to help give some balance and make the scope of my arguments clearer, since I felt I had gone a bit too far over the course of previous posts. So yes, I agree... though it can be hard sometimes "Love triangle" can mean quite different things to different people. Based on the comments I've seen, I'd say most readers aren't remotely interested in seeing anything remotely like what's been shown in certain more romance focused series that shall remain nameless. I don't think there's any real expectation that Brandon would do a "real" love triangle but since we don't specifically know what he's going to do people can get anxious during the long wait, no matter how much they trust him. If we rate different examples of love triangles as to how serious they are on a 10 point scale, say... then what we saw in WoR between Shallan, Adolin and Kaladin could be rated as say a 1 or 2 depending on personal interpretation. I don't think many people would rate it as a 0 (absolutely nothing remotely even hinting of a love triangle). If the next book raises the potential a bit more during the main part of the story only to cool down a significant degree by the end then I don't think I would have a big problem with that. What I'd least like to see is this potential love triangle carrying over even more into the 4th book than what we have now - I'd prefer to see it mostly resolved (and maybe have other couples to discuss instead). Regarding discussion in general, I think constructive criticism should always be welcomed. To a large degree, the main reason why I post here is the hope that others will provide insights that I might not have thought of or correct misunderstandings or misinterpretations. It also gives me motivation to analyse the books more closely (I often re-read parts while writing posts). Since any discussion about potential future developments depends on what has happened to date, and the various interpretations of those happenings, I think it adds to the discussion to have constructive criticism. But yes it's nice to have more straightforwardly positive or aspirational posts as well. For a bit of fun, and as an example of how expectations can change between books, here's my rough recollection of a possible scenario I had thought of in which romance could develop between Kaladin and Shallan, prior to WoR being released. I had thought about various ideas in which Shallan could legally make money, once she reaches the warcamps. One seemingly obvious idea is that she could work part time on administrative work, like how Lighteyed ladies often do. And look, here's Kaladin with a lot of people to manage but with nobody to help him with the paperwork. So I had the idea that Shallan would end up working alongside Kaladin and that things could develop from there. The Shallan we saw in tWoK was quite a "shrinking Violet" much of the time - angry/shouting people made her very nervous. So in my imagination I wondered how they would interact and my expectation was that Kaladin would be liable to treat Shallan like a "normal" Lighteyed lady and shout at her occasionally (I had even considered that he might have already driven off one previous admin, partially because he's worried about them finding too much about him). With how Shallan used to be, if Kaladin had shouted at her, she wouldn't have shouted back and instead would have looked obviously afraid and might have even run away. Which would leave Kaladin feeling awkward, leading him to reflect on his behaviour and moderate his attitude, at least towards Shallan. Over time they would learn more about each others capabilities and things could develop from there. It's funny how wrong you can be sometimes I certainly hadn't expected Shallan to come out from her self-imposed shell quite so much. PS Please come out of your cave more often. The more the merrier!