kari-no-sugata

Maybe I can bit a bit detached and view them as fictional characters but there hasn't been anything I felt "unforgivable" about characters I liked from the start or even didn't like. Particularly for a long running series, if the characters didn't make mistakes, even big ones, then it would be quite boring... and that's the thing I really can't forgive in a book. I can forgive being stupid. I can't forgive being boring.

I would like to see events set sometime after the Recreance when society was going through a big cultural shift (eg the strong male/female role split). Star could be some scholar or person referenced in some in-world book we've already seen.

Hoid has a few interesting lines in this chapter: Note that this statement is a (mild) expression of surprise. So this could possibly be a direct hint as to what surprised Hoid when he first saw Shallan. Shallan is confused by this odd statement, unsurprisingly. I think Hoid is really making this comment to himself and is more like "I did not expect to find a proto-Radiant here". If that's correct it's interesting that he says "here" rather than "now", which somewhat implies that he would not be surprised to find a proto-Radiant in general even though they're been gone for ~1500 years. It would be interesting to know if Hoid has met Jasnah since she bonded Ivory... or any other proto-Radiants, though from what we currently know, at the time this flashback takes place, Shallan and Jasnah are the only known proto-Radiants. The interesting thing about this discussion of "lies" and how it related to himself is that it seems highly likely that Hoid has figured out that Shallan is not just a proto-Radiant but specifically a Lightweaver. I suspect the various questions he asked were in order to determine that rather than he could tell immediately... though it's also possible that he knew from the start and instead was trying to determine specific aspects of her personality and maturity. Some general thoughts... Personally, I don't think Hoid would be surprised at encountering someone with a high level of Investiture because he should be used to such things. I suspect that he has met Radiants and/or proto-Radiants in the past and to his eyes they look quite different to someone with simply high levels of Investiture due to the spren bond. I suspect the reason why he was surprised to find someone like Shallan in the middle of the country is that most spren would probably search through cities to find potential Radiants, though I'm sure there's other possibilities. So in short the reason why he was surprised is two-fold : encountering proto-Radiants is rare in general at this time and he specifically did not expect one here. I don't know if he's at all surprised about her age - I don't get the impression that he is. I suspect that the metals Hoid burned were to help him talk to Shallan - eg Sooth her fear, Riot her curiosity etc. I don't think Hoid considered his encounter with Shallan to be particularly important at the time. Or at least, he knew he had other more important things to do which is why he leaves quickly and doesn't return.

In my case, I mostly just get irritable. If things get bad enough then I might start swearing a bit - that's rare enough that people around me are quite shocked. If I can't calm down by the evening I try to watch some nice comedy TV program or the like otherwise I just can't sleep. They don't have to directly accuse Adolin of anything. By "malicious whispering" I mean stuff like "we all heard what Adolin said to Sadeas at the Pinnacle but of course he wouldn't do anything". I guess it depends whether his success (at reviving the spren) occurs by itself or whether it occurs just in time to save the day - given Urithiru's isolation any major attack would likely be internal (eg the Ghostbloods or Amaram doing something) and I am expecting something along those lines for the book to end on. I also expect by the end of the book that we'll see one more portal opened (probably by Kaladin or Jasnah from outside). Yeah, I don't think Adolin would be too concerned with punishment etc but rather being forgiven by Dalinar. Role-reversal was one of the big themes of Warbreaker with sisters Vivi and Siri. Could we see something like that? It's certainly possible but for it to happen realistically I think it would probably require him to be permanently put in a fundamentally different situation to any he has experienced before - eg being banished in disgrace. I'm not sure if staying but in disgrace would be big enough, though it's marginal. I think it's more likely that we'll see him change and develop into a more complex character but still pretty similar. In short, maturing into his own person (which is pretty much what you've said elsewhere). I didn't want to suggest others because your argument was too good... but since you insist: we find out later that Adolin doesn't trust Amaram, so it could be that Adolin felt nauseous at the thought of secretly-a-scumbag Amaram quoting from The Way of Kings (not how it reads at the time though) I n a way, that's why I'm hoping to see some strong clashes between Shallan and Dalinar - precisely because it would be difficult. Dalinar does sometimes accept an argument and Shallan has been able to work with difficult and stubborn people. Maybe Shallan will be able to soften Dalinar up enough so that Adolin can convince him with something suitably epic? I had read that interview already and had thought I had covered it well enough by other comments. I think we might see some limited verbal protests by groups in private. I have also amused myself with the idea of Shallan taking a poll amongst various groups to gauge their feelings... Certainly the situation is different enough that our modern world morality would not apply well - I think it's interesting to see the differences and see the effects of those differences though. I agree with everything else you say above. I don't think he'd be the only one to react positively but I think it could well make the biggest difference with him. There's almost certainly some things Shallan can learn from Adolin (independently of their relationship) and the idea did give me a warm fuzzy feeling How would Adolin react to Shallan's past deeds? Hmm... like with how Shallan could react to Adolin killing Sadeas there's multiple possibilities depending on how the information is revealed - I think he would find it hard to conceive of killing his own parents in any situation so if all he finds out is that she did do such a thing (and nothing about the circumstances) then I would not expect him to react to readily accept it. I think it would be more likely for him to doubt that the Shallan he knows could do such a thing and to not believe the information. But this is not at all to suggest that Adolin couldn't understand or believe in her as the simplest way to explain her situation would be "imagine your father was Sadeas"... I wonder if there's any passages about confronting evil... Dalinar is definitely protective of his family but he won't do anything to protect them else he would have killed Sadeas himself already. Dalinar wants to do the right thing but what does he do if what he thinks is "the right thing" is directly in conflict with his desire to protect his family (which would normally be considered "the right thing")? That may be Dalinar's essential conflict for the book. Random thought - maybe instead of reacting decisively to Adolin's actions he instead... becomes paralysed with indecision and maybe instead of other protagonists coming to Dalinar to argue with his decision it is instead he who goes to them to ask for help in deciding what to do. Sounds like how he reflected on his attitude/approach with Navani after nearly dying at end of tWoK. I wonder how it compares with what happened to Pattern for last 6 years. I don't remember him referencing events between her mother's death and being re-summoned. Any Surgebinder perhaps, though there well may be variants between Orders for how well this works. In WoR we see Shallan "push" some Stormlight into Pattern so he can allow her illusions to work remotely. Now, that might only be practical because Shallan and Pattern are bonded but it's an example of intentionally transferring Stormlight itself so it may be possible in other ways. Definitely. But he's still "suspiciously" good - I suspect a (small) supernatural boost, somewhere, somehow. Consider this: much of life on Roshar has adapted to the environment, using Stormlight and spren. It's likely that the humans have adapted too, even if just by some small natural selection. We also know that the heavy amounts of Investure (Stormlight) on the world increases the general health of the population. It probably also makes them a bit stronger. Lighteyes are inherited genetic trait - they're probably the descendants of Radiants. It's possible some are more "attuned" to Stormlight than the general population and some better than other Lighteyes. Or something. I think it could easily be different enough that it would not feel repetitive.

At the end of WoR we see him go exploring to give himself time to think through things. Are you suggesting that that was a particularly bad time for Sadeas to intrude because Adolin's emotions were already frayed? It does seem likely. Hmm, so kinda like saying that he "heats up" (as it were) the more stressed he becomes? Perhaps a common trait for E-types? The I-types we've discussed generally seem to become "colder" under heavy stress. There malicious whispering against Dalinar... Hmm. So you're basically expecting a fair bit of suspense (eg over many days maybe even weeks) between Sadeas being declared dead and Adolin owning up to anyone (even privately) or being officially accused? I have been expecting more like a few days at most... but I guess it depends what kind of pacing the whole thing will take. I agree that Renarin would not ignore Adolin acting strange. I was thinking of it more from the theoretical point of view. I'd be surprised if he did that unless he also disowned Adolin. He might warn Renarin in other scenarios though. We've been discussing ways of "break" Adolin so I have been thinking of isolating him for an extended period. If Renarin if immediately supportive would Adolin really break? Or are you imaging Adolin breaking in the period between the murder and him admitting to it and then after he does that then we see Renarin step in to help him recover? Renarin did enter the 4-on-1 duel to help Adolin... and generally comes across as trying to be helpful and supportive. Regarding Dalinar being away for war ,I believe the unification war lasted 6 years or so. Since it would have all been within Alethkar's borders he would not have been that far away. Since it was a matter of conquering each opposing princedom there would likely have been big gaps of inaction between battles. But who knows - Dalinar and Galivar did spend many months wandering around the unclaimed hills just for a hunt. I don't remember seeing any actual hints either way though about Adolin and Renarin being sort of "home alone". So yeah, speculative for sure but also quite plausible. Ah, excellent. There's other ways to interpret that scene but I won't suggest them Agreed, Dalinar will definitely question himself. Hopefully he will do so in the right way. I really wonder what path Dalinar is going to go down. If he has to become super honourable I don't think I'd like it since it would mean he would be very inflexible. You say "He won't be able to fully accept his acts are worst than everything Sadeas has done" - I would say/hope that he never accepts such a thing. It might be part of what breaks him though. Or alternatively, are you thinking something more like "his situation forces him to pretend to accept it but he never does in his own mind"? I'm quite curious as what the reaction will be from a cultural point of view. Sadeas was not condemned by his peers for his actions against Dalinar at the end of tWoK after all. Adolin's actions would definitely undermine Dalinar's new arguments but by normal/current Alethi standards, what Adolin would be just fine so long as he doesn't get "caught" and the biggest mistake he could possibly make is admitting to his actions. More on this in a bit... I've posted before that I think that it's possible that Dalinar could find himself being one of the few people in his entire house who doesn't applaud Adolin's actions. Worst case scenario is the people of house Kholin rebel against Dalinar! (highly unlikely, but...) I guess with the big gap between posts (almost one month!) some context was lost That first sentence was aimed at Dalinar in the theoretical scenario where he covers up Adolin's actions. But... Since this is a good opportunity, let's go into my thoughts on Adolin's actions: It was not pre-planned but Adolin was sort-of mentally prepared since he had thought about it a fair bit (though not examined the implications really). It was certainly a spur-of-the-moment thing. It was very emotionally driven - he could not endure Sadeas's existence and threats any longer and snapped. Did Sadeas deserve to die? Yes. I don't like capital punishment at all but within the confines of the story it was likely the best available option at that point in time. Sadeas is basically doing Odium's work and is the local face of evil. I've actually done jury service on a murder trial. Seeing the scene from Adolin's point of view I would either vote not guilty or choose a weak option if there was one. But, we wouldn't get that option as jurists in this case so would have to factor in his actions before and after. To my mind, by far the biggest mistake Adolin could make would be to pretend to be innocent - I would be far more likely to be sympathetic if he clearly and quickly admits to it voluntarily. Why? Acting innocent undermines any moral argument you might make because it means you are willing to let someone else be a scapegoat, that you do not willing to take responsibility for your actions, that you don't believe in your own arguments and don't trust your peers. It's really hard to come out and do that though so I would not automatically condemn Adolin if he tries to act innocent for an extended period - it would depend on the situation and his reasoning. Ironically, if Adolin does act innocent he would be going along with the side of Alethi society that I suspect he hates the most. If he does admit to his actions then most of his peers would consider him to be an idiot while I would applaud him and I suspect that Dalinar would be more likely to respect him and listen to his arguments. On a side note, I've written before about how I like the idea of Shallan's final Truth being to admit her past to people she cares about - it would be interesting if Adolin could (unintentionally but leading by example) encourage Shallan to do this. Back in tWoK, Jasnah gets Shallan to examine morality and her actions against the robbers. All the philosophical frameworks she considered would favour Adolin, so far as we saw (depending on how they define intent and unplanned actions). Legally, Adolin is in deep trouble since Highprinces seem to automatically get extra rights and protections in a similar way to kings. Personally, I'm not too bothered by the legal side of things - can make up all sorts of interesting situations but the legal side hasn't been defined at all yet so can be twisted however you like. Regarding Adolin's actions vs "life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination", as always there's a lot of room for interpretation in these words. Killing Sadeas sounds bad but the guy is responsible for the deaths of 10s of thousands of people and is very clearly threatening to do more of the same. The Ideal is not "do not kill ever" either. For "strength before weakness", is what Adolin did a case of someone making a personal sacrifice to do what's right no matter the personal consequences? That's the more noble interpretation though it could easily be undermined by his actions afterwards. As you say the opposite interpretation is someone weak who is controlled by their emotions. Journey before destination is a always tricky one - what's the destination here? It doesn't have to mean Adolin's life in general. If we consider Adolin's "destination" (end-goal) to be neutralising Sadeas and everything he's tried before to be the "journey" then he's okay - he tried pretty much everything reasonable first. While Dalinar going Ultimate Daddy Bear would be cool it could also undermine his character - "might makes right" is what he wants to avoid. I wonder what kind of arguments Dalinar would respond to best? My personal preference would be something along the lines of: Sadeas does not have the inherent right to special protections and the 10s of thousands of slaves he deliberately killed had as much right to live as anyone else - by failing to stand up to him you are encouraging others to do the same. Nice idea and I like those more subtle moments... just one problem - I hope the "will he won't he manage to revive the spren in his Blade" doesn't drag out over multiple books! We have no real idea what the "dead" spren are experiencing. Brandon has described it as an "agony cycle" and personally I suspect they're not really able to feel anything right now - sort of like being in a coma except you can feel pain. I might be entirely wrong. That's what I was saying (I think) - that it wouldn't be possible for a human to revive a dead spren without being able to access Stormlight which requires the return of the spren that can bond with humans. I don't know if it's possible to "use" Stormlight to heal someone else when some is given to you if don't have a spren bond. It's definitely possible to attract multiple spren but yeah I guess it would become messy. I was thinking that he would need the ability to manipulate Stormlight himself to heal the dead spren and that would require (at least) a weak bond to a living spren. Just too confusing I guess. Adolin was able to draw against the current arena champion plus another skilled fighter at the same time. That's really good. That's suspiciously good. Particularly when you consider the hints that Dalinar has been using Stormlight in small ways for a long time (eg partially healing his war wounds) and as soon as Sadeas saw Adolin's true skill he started freaking out since it reminded him of Dalinar's awesome strength as the Blackthorn. Hmm, here's a slightly crazy idea with no real evidence: what if it's possible that Adolin and Dalinar's dead Blades already partially awoke for some reason years ago, enough to give them very limited access to Stormlight? Could easily be something else since Kaladin seems suspiciously good from an early age (before Syl should have shown up), so maybe some people are naturally better at absorbing Stormlight, and that gives them an edge? Yeah, I suspect the gem will help in the early stages but become a hindrance towards the end. My previous suggestion related to this is that Adolin almost succeeds in reviving the spren but seems to have hit a wall - and it's at that moment he's forced to give up the Blade and the gem is broken. It looks like he's lost his chance just when he was about to succeed (drama! sorrow!) but in fact it was just what he needed to do and with the gem based bond broken the Nahel bond can fully form. Hmm, that's quite an interesting "image". I thought the section in WoR where Kaladin is imprisoned worked quite well in showing Kaladin's deteriorating mental state. Adolin was there too but by choice - it would be interesting to see him deal with being forced to be in that situation, like Kaladin. I guess maybe the biggest difference between us is that I'm imaging a relatively simple and focused arc for Adolin reviving his Blade and you're imaging a more detailed, long-term multi-stage process I agree that spren need to choose you, normally. I'm not so sure about Adolin going on a crusade to regain his Blade though. Bit hard to explain but it feels "forced". We could flip it around though and have him go on a quest to atone for his sins so that he can keep his Blade (though that could seem forced too, depending on the setup). We don't even know what the next book is going to focus on either and basically can't really predict the context around him.

He tries once in chapter 17, but is bad at it - Shallan immediately spots it. Going by Pattern, Cryptics are too static and they want to be more dynamic. He seems to be attracted to creative use of lies that lead to positive change or are interesting and useful (in the broad sense). At least for Shallan he doesn't want self-destructive or self-deceptive lies. I suspect he doesn't want plain lies.

It's sometimes interesting to go back and carefully re-read the first chapter from a particular character's POV, since there's often a load of hints about them and also foreshadowing. Kaladin's first POV is a bit unusual, probably because he's so beaten down but does hint at a number of things. In his second POV chapter just a mention of Amaram is enough send Kaladin ranting about wanting to violently kill him, even though he'd just claimed he didn't care about what lead to his situation. That's both hinting at his backstory and foreshadowing book 2. Shallan's first chapter has all sorts of goodies but there's quite a big yet subtle hint in the very first paragraph: she casually thinks how she had dreams of travelling but never expected to and instead to spend her life sequestered in her father's manor then her arranged husband's manor. It's subtle because there's no particular emotions attached except the surprise of freedom. By the end of WoR I very much doubt Shallan would think the same thing - freedom is no longer a surprise but a necessity. Dalinar's very first line is "Unite them", which is basically a shorter version of his eventual Bondsmith Ideal. Adolin's first chapter is kinda: I hate Sadeas, I worry about my father, I think my living legend and beloved father is going senile, damnation that Sadeas, I'm not interested in this hunt at all and would rather be doing other things, I hate what I think Sadeas is planning to do to my father and want to prevent it happening. Adolin's hatred of Sadeas is entirely grounded in his love of Dalinar - it's not that Sadeas has done anything to Adolin as an individual, but someone attacking Dalinar in any shape or form is something Adolin takes very personally (Renarin too but to a lesser extent).

Well, maybe it's just my background as a programmer (I can think in base 16) but it's quite an ordinary number to me Other personality schemes (eg big 5) have more personality types.

I don't know if we'll see an "overridden by guilt" Adolin but given that he's a heart-on-sleeve kinda guy I suspect he would have difficulty hiding his emotions either way. I can certainly see him confessing for one reason or another. It's hard to say just how well he has covered his tracks but my general feeling is that while there may be little immediate direct evidence to connect him to the murder, given how openly he has railed against Sadeas I wouldn't be at all surprised if many people suspect him anyway - Sadeas himself once warned Adolin that he was being too free/public with his threats. One way or another, I suspect that Adolin's role in Sadeas's death will come out quite quickly - probably around chapter 10 of book 3 (and that would include several chapters outside of Urithiru). Renarin is certainly a hard one to predict, both in terms of how he would react and what his powers can do. I would certainly not be surprised if Truthwatchers did have the ability to intentionally see specific past events via the Illumination Surge (and possibly in combination with his spren's natural abilities or the Progression Surge) since Shallan has already done something similar - her drawings of the sailors surviving and Shalash in chapter 30. So far Renarin seems to have rather poor control over his powers though - his future visions were entirely involuntary apperently and my feeling is that he's only recently realised that he's a Radiant. So if he does use his powers to somehow to figure out who killed Sadeas it would probably be somewhat accidental due to it all being very new to him. If Dalinar ordered Renarin to avoid/ignore Adolin because of Sadeas, I wonder what Renarin would do? I could see him complying but feeling highly conflicted and wishing to help solve the situation. I don't think he'd fully side with either Dalinar or Adolin - instead I'm guessing he'll partly agree and partly disagree with both. Or maybe I'll be wrong and he'll very strongly take one side (Adolin would be my guess if he does). We'll learn a lot about Renarin by how he deals with the situation. We can safely say that it would certainly be a complication they really don't need - the world is trending towards destruction after all. One interesting thing for me is that I don't think Brandon is likely to push one answer (or character) to be "correct" - ie that there's multiple options that reasonable people could consider "the best solution". Since he did it in tWoK already I can certainly see Adolin getting into a shouting match with Dalinar - though I don't remember any indication that Adolin hates the in-world Way of Kings book. Do you think he does or do you mean you think Adolin could say such a thing unintentionally due to his frustrations? I don't see Adolin "cowering" before Dalinar in any situation though - resigned, yes, regret at the effect on others, yes, but not cowering. I don't see Adolin changing his views simply because Dalinar is disappointed with him since Adolin has been wanting to do something about Sadeas for a long time. I think Adolin will stand up for what he believes is right and that it's part of what will break him - the conflict between his beliefs and the effect his actions have on those near and dear to him. I don't know if it'll become a major factor in the novel but I expect that Adolin will get a lot of moral support from the Kholin soldiers. I see it as somewhat going against both "strength before weakness" and "journey before destination". What happened with Sadeas is not a private matter that only affects the Kholins or Highprinces and hiding the truth with a private arrangement could have serious long term consequences - it reeks of "cover up". Dalinar has also vowed to bind people together - bit hard to do that properly if certain members of society get treated fundamentally differently to others. Dalinar could easily come across as being a hypocrite and if he does do a private deal then I would bet that Ialai would expose it in order to undermine Dalinar's moral standing. This is I think the crux of Dalinar's dilemma: part of him will be fiercely protective of Adolin and part of him will want to make an example of Adolin. It may be that another part of him would want to see everyone treated equally and fairly - I've sometimes wondered if the Ideals of Bondsmiths may be about "equality". It's quite interesting how even though we have been able to come to agreement about a lot of things about Adolin we seem to have highly divergent viewpoints on this. Unsurprisingly, predicting the future (as it were) is quite difficult when there's no obvious solution and few solid facts Regarding learn the name of his Shardblade... this is actually something I've wondered about occurring early on rather than late on and it being a small part of what leads him down the path to success. For example, I've imagined scenes of him asking Shallan if she could do anything to figure out the name of the Blade/spren - I think we'll see Shallan investigating Soulcasting a lot in the next book and her stepping into Shadesmar while holding Adolin's Shardblade could be one approach to learning more about Shadesmar. But that's highly speculative (and yes there I go again imagining Shallan doing all sorts of things...) The following is a longer version of my current vision of how Adolin could break and also revive his blade... I don't think Brandon has changed his view on how hard it is to revive a "dead" Blade and even if Adolin does achieve this in the next book I'm not expecting anyone to replicate the feat any time soon. It'll probably take the right person in the right place at the right time - maybe something more like the historical chance a darkeyes gets to win Blade or Plate. If that is the case then even in the second half of the series we might not see anyone else replicating it. Or maybe it won't be quite that hard and we'll see a few other examples. But that's speculation for things we won't be seeing for a long time... Pattern speculates that “Perhaps if their knights still lived, something could be done [to restore the dead spren]”. He don't comment on the possibility of reviving/restoring them without their knights but since he already said that they tried and failed to restore the dead ones by themselves the implication is that "maybe if their original knight still lived it could be possible but without it is pretty much impossible". Either way, the feeling I get is that Pattern (and others) would be very surprised if Adolin succeeded - he might be the first person in the history of Roshar to accomplish it. Why not before? Probably because before the Recreance knights betraying and killing their spren were very rare and the resulting Blade would not have been "used". Since the Recreance and until just recently there's been plenty of Blades but I think it's highly likely that some access to Stormlight would be required which means a spren bond, even if a weak one. So, what combination of circumstances is required? Firstly, I think the human needs to "match" the spren from the Blade very closely. I suspect that not only would Adolin need to be suitable to joining the Edgedancers but that his personality would have to be very similar to the original Knight. We know (but have not yet seen in-world) that not all Knights for the same Order will say the exact same Oaths - though they would be conceptually very similar. Hmm, something that just occurred to me: the Knights from the Recreance would likely have been using the Dawnchant or similar rather than the modern tongue, so would Adolin need to learn Dawnchant somehow!? (In Dalinar's visions he never spoke anything that modern people could understand) Or would it be enough to simply be "equivalent"? Ponder... Anyway, let's just say that Adolin will likely need to be close enough in personality to the original Knight that the spren could feel that it is the same person (I don't think looks would matter because the spren would probably not be able to "see" the physical realm until it revives). But consider this - as Knights progress through their Oaths they develop and change. So Adolin would need to match a Knight who had already gone through that process but without having done so himself - I don't think Adolin would be able to revive his Blade if he had a proper bond with another spren, though he would probably need a weak enough bond (ie no Oaths spoken) to get some limited access to Stormlight. Alternatively, it may be possible to access Stormlight via the dead spren before it revives but if that was possible it would mean it was possible to revive the spren at any time since the Recreance which seems less likely to me. So far, I've just discussed the "circumstances" that could be required to revive a Blade and not the "process". To summarise these circumstances: I think Adolin would need to be "broken" enough to from a Nahel bond, to actually have attracted a living spren but not yet spoken any Oaths with it and that he would need to very strongly match the personality of the original Knight. (btw, I think Adolin shows supernatural skill at duelling so has possibly had a preliminary Nahel bond for some time but maybe hasn't been "broken" enough for it to develop further). That seems like the right kind of balance of difficulty and luck required. I'm not so sure about the "process". Would repeatedly summoning and banishing the Blade help? Or make things worse? Does the added gem that allows summoning help or make things worse? Because of the gem Adolin already has a weak "bond" to the Blade - does he somehow need to strengthen that into a Nahel bond? It takes a week to form that weak gem based bond, so I think it would take longer to strengthen that bond enough to revive the spren. I'm pretty sure Stormlight would be needed at some point near the end of the process to heal the spren (Would it help that Edgedancers get Regrowth? Maybe). I would expect that as Adolin gets closer to succeeding he would start to hear his Blade screaming and he would have to ignore/embrace that and press on. So in what kind of situation is all this going to happen? My "image" of such a situation is of Adolin being stuck in a room (basically imprisoned) for weeks on end, where he feels that every he cares about has turned their back on him. He feels increasingly alone and isolated. Yet he still has his Shardblade, the only "friend" he has left. Why does he not escape? Because he promised he would not and does not want to lose what little remains of his honour. I see his mental state deteriorating to the point that we worry about his sanity. I see him shunning the outside world and getting obsessed with his sword. Is this remotely typical of Adolin? No. But I see this happening as part of him breaking. Maybe there's ways to achieve the same thing that seem rather more in keeping with his personality but I think Adolin deteriorating and showing atypical behaviour would be good "proof" of his breaking. Just to be clear, I'm expecting this to be a short term change and he will revert to something close to his original self once things are settled. The concept I'm sketching above is more like "Adolin breaks and revives the spren in his sword while at it" rather than them being two separate events. This feels necessary to me because I think Adolin would probably have to strongly focus on his sword for an extended period - he's not the type of person to take an academic approach and solve the "puzzle" a piece at a time in his spare time. Also, given that his sword has been in an "agony cycle" for 1500 years or so I think it could help if Adolin goes through something similar as part of the process. It could be the opposite though and he needs to be in a healthy state of mind to have a chance of reviving the spren. For the above, I've tried to focus just on Adolin rather than the "big picture". We can return to that later...

Sorry to hear that Maxal. I have another post for this thread I started working on some time ago but never finished. I'll see if I can finish it off, since you may be more interested in replying to that post rather than re-writing a previous post

Ah, right. Monotonous. Yes. Brandon has sometimes used the example of a particular character from "Lost" as a "how not to do it". I haven't seen the show so can't comment but apparently in the first season there's a guy who's son gets kidnapped and afterwards the only thing the guy ever goes on about is his son and it's gets tedious and monotonous very quickly. At least Kaladin is not depressed at the end of WoR (and he's actually fine most of the time at the start until Amaram turns up). Unfortunately, he's back to be being depressed in the early non-canonical scene Brandon released for book 3 (though given the situation I don't blame him for that). In Rand's case, it was very hard for him to avoid killing women so I'm not surprised his situation got worse. Huh? Lose her to Kaladin!? Conflict of fears. Good way to put it. We don't see Adolin later ask Shallan about her reaction. She told him it's "not important" so I could see him deciding not to press the issue. But it definitely is important and they'll need to talk about it eventually. Shallan also told Kaladin that where she got her Shardblade from wasn't important either, hehe. On a side note: Shallan's quietly rebelled against being "exiled" to a carriage on the trip towards the center of the Plains - it's clearly an instinctive and automatic reaction. Hmm. I have this strange idea to compare it to marriage: in Japan there's 3 "types" of marriage - "love" marriages where people just meet randomly, fully arranged marriages where the parents decide and the children don't have much say and what they call an "omiai" which is kinda half-way in-between, where there is an formally arranged meeting but it's officially up to the couple whether they want to take it forwards (some "omiai" are really fully arranged marriages in disguise though). So for spren, "love marriage" = "in the wild", "omiai" = "going to Urithiru in hope of finding someone suitable", and "arranged marriage" is kinda like what happened with Lift and Wyndle. Elhokhar could be an example of a failed bond (never progressed to first stage). While I very much am a geek, I get excited and curious thinking about future directions for characters. I do get curious about magic systems, background etc but I don't tend to get too excited. Well... if you really want such a scene but also want to fit it into the narrative structure of the series so far, I'd suggest a scene where Shallan confesses her love and just before or after also admits to some deep secret. Kaladin seems to get rather special-effects heavy scenes when he makes an oath but Dalinar and Shallan don't (or haven't yet) - which means there doesn't have to be an immediate visual cue when a Radiant goes up a level (though maybe the "final" level will be special). So... we get a scene where Shallan says two separate things and then demonstrates that she's gone up a Radiant level - you can then choose your preferred option as to what was the cause of the power-up! btw... I wasn't suggesting Pattern could "ruin" things in general. I was more thinking that he would make certain tropes more difficult to sustain - eg if he vibrates or otherwise makes a comment every time someone denies being in love when they really are then it would make being in denial much harder. I guess you're more worried about him being a mood killer though, which certainly seems plausible, particularly since Adolin can get bashful at times (Shallan is much more used to Pattern). At least Pattern can keep quiet on request. Right, stuff like her drawings but on a grander (long term) scale. She is able to sneak in little things into her life often enough but yeah, she could do with some nice dream to aspire to once she has time. Back in tWoK there is this section from chapter 33: I wouldn't be at all surprised if she writes a book or three in the 10-15 year break between the two halves of SA. (I also have this funny idea of her writing erotic novels under a pseudonym during times when she's away from Adolin for a while, eg due to travel or whatever. Some nice safe outlet...) Considering how much multi-tasking Shallan is already doing, I'm certainly not worried about her being able to juggle multiple priorities on multiple levels. My current feeling is that she will spend quite a bit of time feeling wistful for a simpler life with few responsibilities while making her life more complex and taking on (or at least not avoiding) new responsibilities. If she really does get fed up I think she could simply walk away from it all but I don't think she's that likely to in practice (unless someone important to her dies). I would not be at all surprised if she gets offered the throne of Jah Keved when Taravangian dies (or similar), for example. Would she accept? I could see her agree to it quite reluctantly, probably using the argument that at least she knows she'd be bad at it but at least she wouldn't have to endure the other alternatives screwing things up. I've had fun thinking of how what kind of queen she would make (probably a very unusual one). It's against Vorin tradition yes, but I wonder just how much that is going to change with the Almighty being dead and all (I wonder if that will become a big issue in the story). No, they don't need to get married but I personally support older characters being able to have the same kinds of character arcs and resolutions as younger characters. I agree it would be a downer if the first half ends without some clear long term pairings for the younger generation. For Adolin, it's more like he needs stability... and hey, we can always have more than one Alethi wedding. Incidentally, my current expectation is for Kaladin to be single at the start of the second half... with a similar reputation to what Adolin has now Actually, the more I think about it, the more confident I am that Jasnah could have figured it out in time... though only due to being better prepared. She had investigated the Oathgate in Kholinar after all (I suspect it was deliberately disabled) and in general had a lot more time to gather information and prepare solutions in advance compared to Shallan. Problem 1 is simply the location of Stormseat - but it's basically the middle of a very big circle. Problem 2 is the location of the Oathgate within Stormseat - Shallan was having trouble figuring out the scale of the ancient maps she had, but if Jasnah already had figured that out, locating the dais would likely have been relatively simple. Problem 3 is activating it - no technical reason why Jasnah could not, I believe. Going by a time-line I found, Shallan had about 70 days between drawing/summoning Pattern at the beginning and day 0 of the countdown. It takes approximately 30 days until she can reliably do Lightweaving. It would be interesting to know how much having a spren helps and also how much of a difference it makes that Shallan already had childhood experience and started with already quite a strong bond. If we compare things to Mistborn, having 2 Surges (and Shallan is just using 1) is simpler than all the Mistborn powers, though more complex than a Misting. For Radiants, I think Brandon deliberately made them simple enough so that "wilders" can figure them out without a master. The Surges don't seem that hard to activate - Kaladin has trouble early on because he doesn't even know what to do and has a very weak bond (I suspect the first Oath doesn't do too much). With a master to teach them, I suspect they would have improved 10x faster, probably even more early on. That being said, Shallan does have a "block" in that her Lightweaving is strongly dependant on her drawings even though it shouldn't be. One thing I'd like to see, even if it's a minor thing, is if Shallan can teach Renarin, since they both share the Lightweaving Surge, Shallan's "block" notwithstanding. Well, maybe Wit will hang around a bit... Jasnah talks about seeking records at the end... I doubt she'll be doing something boring like go back to Kharbranth. The 3 most obvious options I can think of is Urithiru, Shinovar and the Vorin Holy Conclave in Jah Keved. But yes, I think Jasnah bumping into Kaladin in Kholinar is quite plausible and would be more than a bit interesting

I could write a long version of this if there's interest but here's what I think: I think of Shardblades as "magical metal" rather than something "living" - I don't see it as a physical manifestation of a spren itself but something by a spren. Putting it another way, it is possible to make something of the same "material" artificially and is not something tied to Roshar. I think of Shardplate as a complex magical device with multiple features. I think the Shardplates we see took a long time to make and a lot longer to develop. I think it's made in stages: first the individual sections are Soulcast one by one, then those sections are magically bound together and various extra features added, eg, force enhancement, auto-adjustment, self-repair, translucent faceplate etc. I think of Shardplate, the Oathgates and Soulcasters (the devices) as different applications of the same technology. Note that all 3 require infused gems while "dead" Shardblades only need a gem to summon and otherwise work fine without. PS Anyone know if Shardblades get heavier/lighter as they become bigger/smaller (eg when Pattern shrunk when Shallan was cutting out the "cubby")? I suspect the weight stays the same.

Probably so that these two chapters match up (quotes taken from original release): Chapter 10: Father carried Shallan over the body of a woman in white. Chapter 88: Shallan walked to the other corpse, the one facedown in the beautiful dress of blue and gold.

I don't know if I would have given up on the series but I did stop reading forums and stuff because I didn't want to read so much complaining. In some ways I wanted to defend the series but I decided to ignore that stuff and just try to enjoy the books when I was reading them and otherwise put them out of my mind. Yeah, Rand builds up nicely at first but then starts going darker and darker. That was the main point of his overall story but it was quite painful at times. I don't think I liked Egwene in the first book, was pretty impressed with her in the second but she was more of a mixed bag for me overall though she had some nice high points near the end. Perrin was same for me - peaked when he saved the Two Rivers. I always liked (but never adored) Min. Aviendha was interesting, exotic and spiky early on but she rather faded into the background after "leaving" Rand. I don't think I ever enjoyed Elayne much. Agreed. I really hope we get to see some significant aspects of historical Roshar. I expect we will when the books cover flashbacks of two of the Heralds. Hopefully Brandon will write some short stories too. I find the cultural changes after the Recreance to be fascinating and would like to see some scenes. I'd also particularly like to see what things were like when the first spren bonded Surgebinders started appearing, early in Roshar's history. I remember when originally reading "The Hero of Ages" feeling quite depressed at how bleak things were. I read it in one sitting but it was still quite painful at times. But the ending was amazing - probably the most satisfying ending I've ever read for an epic fantasy series. Kaladin's story in WoR is a bit like that but I didn't find it so satisfying in the end - though the mid-air mid-storm duel was amazing and felt similarly cinematic to HoA's set piece fight. The way I see it, Kaladin's successes in tWoK and failures in WoR are flip-sides of the same thing: the strength of his emotions. I might be wrong but I see similar parallels with the other characters (in that their main strengths and weaknesses are flip-sides of the same thing). I think as Kaladin progresses as a Radiant he will find a better and better balance and learn to channel his emotions effectively more of the time. Dalinar certainly thinks that Kaladin will become a fine leader once he gets the hang of his emotions. Your sketch of what Kaladin could get up to in the next book is quite similar to mine though I think the situation will be quite bleak "on the ground". I'm really curious about you saying "Adolin's jest" - Shallan definitely takes Adolin's words seriously here and I don't see a way to interpret them otherwise. I don't see how it could be a "jest" so can you expand a bit by what you mean? Let me try a different approach to what I'm arguing: if we consider Adolin's tone and way of speaking with Shallan prior to this, I would say he is being polite, gentle etc. He uses a reasonable amount of sentence softening, asks Shallan for her opinion, phrases requests/suggestions clearly as such and so on. He is displaying emotions clearly but more like a soft breeze. It's not weak or wishy-washy, but refined, I guess he would say. To Shallan this is probably quite soothing. In comparison, Shallan's father is pretty much on the other end of the scale: he uses demanding language or blunt orders, openly threatens etc. In addition, his emotions are displayed forcibly and menacingly - more like a storm. Everything is pretty much "do what I say" and "your opinion doesn't count". If we then look at how Adolin is speaking in this part of the scene: he's using no sentence softening, he's not asking Shallan for her opinion, he's not phrasing it as a request or suggestion and he's speaking fiercely. He's certainly not ordering Shallan but he comes across as being very insistent. He is certainly not like her father but just briefly, he is close enough to be a reminder. Back in tWoK, the second time Shallan meets with Jasnah, Shallan leaves the room in tears and has to sit down and compose herself. Shallan is stronger now but those memories of her father are still painful. To re-iterate, I'm not faulting Adolin here though I do think he's making some small and simple mistakes (I've done similar things a few times). In a sense, it's more of a "presentation" issue - he's being over-eager. I don't think Shallan has any problem at all with his desire to protect her - she's not rejecting that! But if you take what he says literally and combine that with his enthusiasm it suddenly sounds threatening to someone with Shallan's experiences. I'm very sure this came across differently to what he intended - I'm not sure what he would have actually done in practice if Shallan had just smiled and nodded but I would expect the majority of people to be okay with it in the circumstances. It's just unfortunate for him that Shallan is very particular about personal liberty. Us readers know a lot more about both of them but the characters themselves don't. Adolin can't see into Shallan's mind and know how she would react to certain things or why. Likewise for Shallan - she can't see into Adolin's mind and know exactly what he would and wouldn't do, though I think part of the reason why Shallan recovers reasonably quickly is she knows this is atypical for Adolin . To me, both characters are being true to their own feelings here and don't understand each other well enough yet, which is why I describe this scene as being a case of conflicting desires. I think there would have always been a lot of variety in how bonds form. I suspect that spren do have some skills to find suitable candidates "in the wild" - Shallan is in the middle of nowhere but Pattern still found her. I'm quite uneasy with the idea that there might have been formal methods to "crack" people though, even if prospective candidates had a rough idea of what was coming. It would be interesting to know how often Nahel bonds only partially formed and never got to the first Oath and how many got from the first Oath to full Radiant. From what I've seen, it feels to me that the spren have a more trial-and-error approach. Yeah, it's all rather curious... which is why it's a bit frustrating that we never saw further into Shallan's past. Based on the available hints to date, what you suggest above is quite similar to my own imaginings of what seems most likely. It just doesn't seem likely to have a strong enough impact for Shallan's last "truth" though which is why I started imagining other possibilities. Shallan currently looks set to be the first to become a full Radiant so it should be a strong scene. Hehe, well, it certainly can be fun to imagine various possibilities even if you know they're probably implausible within the rules of the story I haven't imagined something like that but I have thought of the possibility of how having Pattern around could subvert the rom-com type archetype where someone is in denial (or love-triangle scenario)... as in, he makes it impossible. I wouldn't say Shallan has always been following the path drawn for her. For example, the plan to become Jasnah's ward was all her own idea. At the end of tWoK Shallan made the decision confront a hostile Jasnah to join her cause for real. In WoR while deciding to continue Jasnah's work does seem like following someone else's path, Shallan consciously made the decision to keep going and since she very much does it her own way it's more like she's targeting the same destination via her own particular path. But anyway... I think I see what you're getting at... though I don't think she'll be settling down to a particular type of life or career any time soon - she's still young. Shallan seems to have quite a range of skills and possible things she can do, more than most characters. I expect her to apprentice to Navani in book 3 and Hoid eventually with maybe others on the way. I don't expect her to have properly settled down by the end of the first half of the Stormlight Achieve though we'll probably see some strong hints. When the action starts up in the second half I'm expecting her to be in quite a settled situation (ie married with children), assuming she survived the first half of course. I'm sure Jasnah could have solved it, just not how Shallan solved it - it's certainly not a problem that only Shallan could have solved. The main question is whether she could have solved it in time because she would have probably used more methodical methods (which I think is why the other scholars aren't able to contribute too much in the final part - it's not a situation that they're used to). On the other hand she would likely have been better prepared for it. Regarding Shallan being "slightly too perfect": it's kinda odd because I know what you're getting at but the deeper I've looked into it the more mistakes I see her making or the longer it takes for her to realise something than I initially thought. For example, she doesn't figure out how to make her Lightweaving work reliably until chapter 47 - she has a lot of failures along the way. She's able to make it work before that but she couldn't be sure in advance that it would in fact work. I think the reason why we don't notice the mistakes so much is that most of the time those mistakes are not immediately or obviously an issue and Shallan herself tends not to dwell on them - she doesn't seem too bothered about making mistakes unless they impact someone else. I wonder how often they did that during previous Desolations. There's all sorts of ways it could be useful... but we've yet to see any actual indication of historical Lightweavers doing such things. Sometimes I wonder how pre-Recreance Radiants would view the new ones. I suspect Kaladin is probably using his skills in familiar ways to the old Radiants. With Shallan, I wouldn't be surprised if the old Lightweavers would either be shocked or amused at most of what Shallan is doing. For Lift, I'm expecting a lot of face-palming Brandon has recently stated that he's currently torn between Dalinar, Szeth and Eshonai being the flashback character for book 3 - he's pretty certain about those being the flashback characters for the next 3 books. He said he's going to write the flashback sequences for those 3 and then decide who is most suitable for the next book. I'm pretty sure Brandon has confirmed that the flashback character will not necessarily coincide with the focus Radiant order. He's also stated that ones of the flashback characters (for the series as a whole) will be dead at the time of the book (Eshonai, I suspect). Regarding Szeth in the next book, I don't know how big a part he will play. It may take him some time to get all the way back to Shinovar. Will he get his revenge in book 3 or will it carry over into book 4? Incidentally, I've sometimes wondered if Jasnah is heading for Shinovar too - it's not necessarily the case that she's heading for Urithiru. It's hard to say where Szeth is going longer term. Having Nightblood would likely make forming a spren bond very difficult, for example.

I've had some thoughts on this kicking around based on the following sets of quotes: Back in tWoK in the Baxil interlude we have this: We know that his mistress is Shalash who used to have the Honorblade with Surges for Illumination and Transformation (ie same as Lightweavers). We know from Pattern that the Illumination Surge can manipulate sound - the above quote is very likely suggesting that Shalash has supernaturally good hearing. She would still have a bond of sorts to her Honorblade so it could come from there but there's two other possibilities: that she gained it instantly as part of something related to her nature as a Herald and that she gained it over time after centuries of Surgebinding - it could be that all the Heralds are Surgebinding "savants", for example. There's also this from Lift's interlude: Darkness (ie Nalan) could sense something in Lift - probably her Stormlight/Investure returning but maybe he could sense her emotions instead. Such an ability doesn't seem related to any Surge though it's hard to be certain. It could be a Herald specific ability or it could be an ability that develops over time. Again from the Lift interlude: Some have assumed that Nalan is doing this with an Honorblade but if he is then he's being very subtle about it. it could be that instead of using (say) 0.1-1% of the power of an Honorblade he is using 100% of his inherent abilities - ie he has gained the ability to do minor Surgebinding without an Honorblade. If we compare what he's doing here to proto-Radiants who have yet to swear any Oaths then he's at a similar level. PS On a different subject: Thanks for the reply. Good to know.

Question for anyone with ebook version - have you seen any updates ever? I've never seen ebook updates for all of Brandon's books I have as ebooks but I've seen like 3 for "Rising Steam". I dunno if it's because I have the UK ebook version and we don't get updates in this case or that there's just never been any.

If not for Mat and Nynaeve I don't know if I'd have continued reading the series. Low points were getting quite low... The way I see it, in tWoK it's obvious early on that Kaladin can't go any lower and so the only way is up. It's obvious he's doing the right thing so it's easy to cheer him on. In WoR, though things start out okay it slowly goes downhill and instead of cheering him on we're hoping that he'll change course. I don't find his situation to be any more or any less contrived that in tWoK it's just that he's heading in a disagreeable direction so as readers we want to reject it. I thought all his problems were foreshadowed both in tWoK and early in WoR - I was not surprised to see Kaladin go in a bad direction based on the early part of the book. I agree that the guy needs a break though. So far, I don't think he's gotten even a single week where he's basically content (let alone happy). I think this is highly likely. I don't think Kaladin is over being depressed (particularly given how bad the global situation is) but I think he is probably over his biggest issues (maybe Shallan is too) and so it's time to shift the focus a bit. I think it's fine to say it's a symbol to readers but I checked the flashbacks and couldn't find any indication of Shallan attaching any emotions to the necklace at all. I think if we had seen scenes through Adolin's viewpoint prior to him finding out that Shallan is alive I would expect to see what you say above. And more. I would also expect a lot of very dark thoughts aimed at Sadeas... which is exactly why we don't get such a scene as it would have blatantly telegraphed his last scene in the book. And yet... do his feelings of guilt and shame give him any right to make demands of Shallan? No. Does it give him the right to make assumptions about how she feels? No. Does it give him the right to insist on controlling her safety the way he wants? No. Do his feelings mean she should simply accept them and suppress her own? No. Is he actually doing any of that? No... but he's getting close. Close enough that it triggers a bad response from Shallan because it's uncomfortably close to some of the abuse she suffered for years and years - she shivers from the mere thought of it! I'm not trying to fault either of them. Adolin is expressing his emotions strongly and clearly. Nothing wrong with that in many cases but in this case he's being a bit too aggressive for Shallan. It would certainly have helped if he knew more about her, particularly her past, but she hasn't been telling. He learns a bit here and adjusts his expectations. I very much doubt Shallan wanted to react the way she did. I think this would be a good example of where having a very good memory can have downsides - it's harder to get over trauma. You say that it "may have been understandable given her past" - I would say it can only be understood by her past. To Shallan, personal freedom has become very precious and she is very protective of it. Yes, Adolin doesn't act like he's about to lock her up but he does say "We’ll have to make it so that you aren’t ever in that kind of position again" (emphasis added). Well, from a practical point of view, how are you going to achieve that? Easiest way would be to lock her up! There's no reasonable way to achieve those stated goals and still allow Shallan to have the freedom she needs. So I see this scene as being a case of conflicting desires. Going back to Shallan being self-aware enough, I would say the following part of that scene indicates it: "She breathed in and out, calming herself. She reached out and took him by the hand" and this is followed up by "Shallan raised his hand and wove his fingers between her own." She deliberately acts to calm herself. She helps Adolin calm down too and wants him to understand. In the end, does Adolin have an issue with her reaction? No. (Or at least, not that I can see) I agree. Since you say "of sorts" do you mean that it's not a test that is given by the spren just one that is observed by them? In which case I also agree. When Pattern is talking about Shallan merely cracking instead of breaking, the way he is talking about how human minds break it reads like Shallan would normally have been expected to break from her situation. Shallan resists. She fights back. She doesn't give up though she gets very close to it at one point (when she becomes the "perfect daughter"). Within this context, I'd say that it's giving up that breaks people for real. At the end of WoR, I think Shallan is one step from becoming a full Radiant. Putting it another way, there's only one more "Truth" to come. Does it have to be the biggest, deepest, darkest truth of all? Nope, I don't think the bond works that way but it's more like what we expect of a story. Certainly fighting parents can ruin any child but compared to the other secrets in Shallan's past it seems a bit tame - it would probably not feel dramatic enough and so be a bit of a let down. So, I see two options: the first is that there is in fact some deep secret further in Shallan's past, something she would genuinely struggle to admit even to herself (fighting between parents doesn't seem hard to admit compared to killing your parents). The second is that rather than the last "Truth" be about what she can admit to herself it's about what she can admit to others, in particular people she cares about. I prefer the second option but the following creepy idea is an example for the first option: I have had the thought for a long time that maybe Shallan had another sibling and that sibling died and Shallan blamed herself. My recent idea was to take the concept to another level: Shallan had an identical twin sister yet they were quite different in personality and Shallan was always being criticised by her mother and her sister always being praised. One day, the twin dies in an accident that nobody else but Shallan sees. Shallan is not to blame at all but she lies about who died - she's so desperate to be loved that she pretends to be the sister who was always praised and that it's the "bad" girl who died. So in fact, "Shallan" is not Shallan's true name but a name she stole. Creepy huh? I should add that there's absolutely not the slightest bit of evidence for this in the text (or any Word of Brandon). From her own point of view, I don't see Shallan ever putting herself at the top (and I'm pretty sure Brandon has no interest in unbeatable characters). I would also say that right now, Shallan believes in Jasnah more than Jasnah believes in herself. I would say that that is a large part of what lead Shallan to success with Urithiru - she never worries about the possibility of Jasnah being wrong and instead spends most of the book catching up to where Jasnah had already gotten to. It gives her a different perspective to the other scholars and also means that doubts don't hold her back. Fortunately for her, Jasnah was indeed correct. In later books we might see a "repeat" but instead Jasnah is wrong and Shallan fails spectacularly. Shallan has a tendency not to think things through to the very end. Longer term I expect to see a variety of smarts: remember the two aged ardents in tWoK - one was good at theory and the other at experimentation. Some characters will be better at certain things than others and there will be nobody who is above everyone else. For example, Jasnah seems the type to question every assumption, even assumptions most scholars don't even realise are assumptions, and because of that will analyse things nobody else thinks are worth bothering with. I think she's also good at "root cause analysis" or otherwise digging down to the true underlying details. Putting it another way, she's good at "deep" problems and doing "deep" analysis (probably often using a "top down" approach). I see Shallan taking a more "bottom up" or more intuitive approach. There's also more than research - there's communicating that research and also coming up with solutions. I can definitely see Dalinar and Adolin in those roles. For historical Lightweavers, it doesn't feel like spying was a typical role for them. Maybe it was and they just kept it secret of course and this will be revealed in time. However, the new Radiants don't have the old Radiants traditions or expectations - they can simply focus on what works. More like "Radiants Rebooted". I can certainly see Shallan picking up a variety of skills rather than being a specialist. Kaladin and Shallan aren't going to be the "flashback character" again so book 3 is definitely going to have a major focus on some other character. Hard to be certain about much more than that but from what Brandon has said in various interviews I'm expecting a consistent wide cast of characters but with varying emphasis between them.

Yep. She was also raised by her single parent father who was a ranger or something. Nynaeve is a character who grew on me quite a lot as the series progressed. All the Radiants at least will need something big enough to break them... though as we discussed already that doesn't have to be as bad as what Kaladin or Shallan have faced. So I expect a lot of troubled pasts but not necessarily so many miserable presents. I would note that most of Kaladin's real problems in book 2 were self-inflicted. Hopefully he won't be doing that so much in the next book. I was just looking through some interviews and in one Brandon talks about wanting to do a very wide variety of "knights" including those who don't at all match the image of "knights" (eg Lift). In the scenario above, I would be quite surprised if the necklace would be an issue in terms of reminding Shallan about her father since she doesn't have a bad reaction to just any reminder - seems to be only things that directly relate to his abuse, ie abuse of authority, direct threats to people she cares about, coercion, violent anger. For example, when Jasnah initially raises the causal with Adolin, Shallan has a positive reaction even though being married off by her father is one of her first lines in the entire series. It was presented as a choice to Shallan - if Jasnah had "ordered" Shallan instead then I'm guessing we'd see a very different reaction. I don't remember Shallan feeling that the necklace was a symbol of anything - it was given in a casual way and he didn't refer to it afterwards that I remember. That being said, if something makes Shallan recall a specific scene of her father being abusive then she could have a bad reaction to something innocuous - I have wondered before if Shallan's supernaturally good memory could have downsides. So, it would be possible but would probably require extremely bad luck in most cases. Generally, I would not expect an incidental reminder of her father to trigger a bad reaction. Also, Shallan is generally self-aware enough to notice that she's having an unreasonable reaction and is not too prideful to admit to faults - so just because her initial reaction is bad it doesn't mean she'll persist with it or make it worse by herself. The much bigger potential problem with your necklace scenario above is Shallan being reminded of her mother. During book 2, if Adolin had just incidentally mentioned the keepsake he has from his dead mother that alone could have caused Shallan to freeze. I have no idea how much Shallan progressed right at the end of the book and I don't know what painful memories are lurking in her past and how well she is currently able to deal with them. But it's certainly possible that instead of freezing that Shallan has a bad reaction instead. Side thought: I don't know what initially caused Shallan to "break" enough to bond Pattern as a child. For a sensitive child like Shallan a bad relationship with her mother could be more than enough. There's other possibilities of course but that is the only one hinted at so far, that I can see. (I had a pretty creepy idea a few weeks ago...) I don't wish Shallan to be the deposit of all skills either... but... it's not hard for me to imagine her doing all sorts of fun things! I've had much much crazier ideas for her than this (sorry!!!) To be clear, in my example I was thinking of Shallan being more of an advisor rather than general. For small-scale combat I think Shallan will do fine providing some improvised support, like with Kaladin in the chasms, but what about large scale combat? Against voidbringers she would be highly vulnerable to attack and she wouldn't fit well into a normal command structure. There's certainly ways around this: if she can go mostly invisible while wearing Shardplate she would be much safer - if she could do that and provide tactical support at a distance then she could assist the front line troops (and fellow Radiants) from a safe distance. She's certainly brave enough to try such things but what if it isn't practical? I definitely don't see her simply looking on from afar and pining away while people she cares about are in real danger. She'd definitely want to do something and she has a good brain. Of course, she could do a bit of both - for example, be part of a team of people who develop battle plans and also participate as well. I remember an old interview with Brandon, from just after tWoK was released, where he talks about the different viewpoint characters in the book and how things with Kaladin are very dark and Dalinar isn't much better... but over here there's Shallan with a very different tone and readers can chose to focus on which one they prefer. Something like that. Maybe I can find it sometime. For sure, Shallan's story in tWoK isn't all blossoms and cake... but it's certainly lighter than Kaladin's story. Shallan's backstory in WoR however... I suspect that Shallan has become more J over time though I can't really justify it. Was Shallan I or E as a child...? I can most easily imagine her as a weak I and a strong F becoming a strong I and medium F over time.

I read it that it's the outside world that has unhallowed stones not Urithiru - that Urithiru is the "path" to the "outside world" and not actually part of the "outside world".

The special memory abilities of the Lightweavers do not come from their Surges but the particular spren they bond (Cryptics) http://www.tor.com/blogs/2015/01/words-of-radiance-reread-chapter-23 Specifically this WoB:

The characters' pasts do help a lot. If we compare to the Wheel of Time, there's not much we as readers need to know about their pasts for most of the main characters - yes they each have their own distinct personality and quirks but they haven't been "seasoned" by events. It'll be interesting to see how Brandon's plans for having one flash-back character per book work out but it does allow for more interesting characters, I think. Shallan's past does help our understanding of her a lot though it would have been quite depressing to see "live", probably. On the other hand, maybe this partly explains why we don't have so many major characters from more "normal" backgrounds yet - bit harder to have a complex and interesting past as a peasant. But looks like there might be more in the pipeline. On Roshar, the Radiants (ie main magic system available to people) are considered bad/cursed/evil etc so it's interesting to see the various ways people react to it - unsurprisingly, it's not all good. Kaladin thinks he's cursed, Dalinar thinks he's going mad, Renarin thinks he's cursed and is going mad, Jasnah is quite surprised at first but is more worried about long term implications, Lift think she's awesome but that her spren is a voidbringer. We haven't seen Shallan's original reaction but it seems likely that her mother considered her to be possessed by evil and sent for an exorcist, or something along those lines. For "curious" I meant in general sense. I seem to remember him taking apart a clock when younger, for example. And a firework when a bit older Wanting to know what's in a certain letter. Things like that. Oops, didn't manage to phrase that right. Instead of "not that dependable but trustworthy" lets say "capricious but trustworthy"... or... that it's hard to predict how they're going to react to things but once they decide to do something you can rely on them to see it through. Ie some days they react badly to something you had expected them to like and some days they're not that bothered about something you expected them to get angry about yet there's never the sense that they would just give up when the going gets tough. Well, culturally she has had little chance to gain such skills to date. It's hard to say if she would ever will. There's one or two tiny hints that maybe she might like to try if she got the chance but that might just be her sense of curiosity kicking in. I think there's some skills related to combat in general that would be useful for her to pick up but she doesn't feel like someone who would become a "soldier" unless events really forced her. Oddly, I think there's a better chance for her to become a war strategist (to come up with plans/ideas for combat), though again there would be a big cultural barrier and doesn't seem like a path Shallan would naturally go down - there's various ways I could see it happening and since Shallan is likely going to be in lots of meetings where war/combat is discussed maybe she could get curious or would simply study it in order to understand and contribute. I don't know if Shallan will ever go down such a route but it would be quite amusing to see Forced love story, heh. An interesting situation where both of them are given a future prediction that they both totally believe will come true even if they don't like it or it seems impossible. An interesting concept at least. It's been a long time since I last re-read the earlier books but I'd be surprised if Mat had many fans until book 3, since in books 1-2 he was rather messed up by a certain cursed dagger. Starting from book 3 I think I generally looked forwards to his chapters since he is fun and interesting character and makes quite a big contrast to the other main viewpoint characters (something Shallan does too) even if I probably wouldn't like him so much if I met him in person. I certainly agree that he improves a lot once he stops running away and ends up forming the Band. I remember after The Way of Kings came out Brandon talked about the emotional contrast in the main viewpoint characters and in a sense Shallan's was there to help lighten the overall story - I wouldn't be surprised if Robert Jordan had a similar intent for Mat's viewpoint (though whether he intended that from the beginning or not I don't know). Certainly the difference in background makes a big divergence in how the characters developed. I find Mat's general view of himself to be more like "only normal/sane guy in a world gone mad" and his "unreliable narrator" aspect generally stems from that. I don't remember him being forced to live with painful choices/actions until book 5 while Shallan had to go through much more painful situations as a child which had a huge impact on her - Shallan has quite a negative view of herself. In terms of personality, this is perhaps the biggest difference between them. From an author's point of view, "re-using" characters is probably a bit different to readers, because they're much more used to playing around with the various attributes, setting and history of characters (and also age and gender). So... if we take Mat, make him female, put him on Roshar and give him Shallan's background, I wonder what he would be like? Obviously putting him in Shallan's setting would make him a more like Shallan overall, but what about from a MBTI point of view? We don't see what Shallan was like before her mother's death but it seems likely to me that her experiences made her more introverted than she would have been otherwise. I'm curious to hear any other suggestions of how Shallan's past affected her MBTI. Anyway... this isn't to argue that we can transform Mat into Shallan simply by changing the background and setting. Shallan certainly has attributes that neither of the two characters she's partly based on has - eg, skills art and scholarship and various personality quirks. I don't think it occurred to me at all until I re-read WoR. PS Forgot to mention one other thing they have in common: gambling. Obviously Shallan doesn't do 'real' gambling but like Mat she has a tendency to take risks, even with her own life.

I would note that windspren actually can bind things. From WoR "Middlefest" chapter there is this line: This is not to say this invalidates your theory, just that certain things are less absolute. btw, I tend to think of honorspren as windspren who were "uplifted" by their interaction with humans. So, windspren can bind things as a minor side-effect while in honorspren this developed into their primary feature, hence "bindspren".

Some older stuff I never got time to reply to... Hmm, though you posted in this old topic from when Brandon visited London did you not see my reply in it? The "Liar of Partinel" book fragment I'm referring to can be found on the downloads from this page: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/691-verified-locations-for-unreleased-bookschapters-and-sample-chapters-of-published-books/ Specifically: http://www.brandonsanderson.com/drafts/warbreaker/LiarPt12.doc Not that we see much of her in the fragment above but Yunmi is a short-ish "bubbly" red-head with a symbiotic entity a little bit like Pattern... and seems to have experienced some quite painful events in her past. I wasn't surprised that Shallan has a bit of Mat in her origins as a character, since I'd noticed a number of similarities, though this could have been a co-incidence. This is not to say that they are similar overall or that because Mat does certain things then we should expect Shallan to do them too - just that they have some shared attributes. To me, the most noticeable thing was Shallan's promise to the deserters to get them clemency: she's very serious about completing her promise. Unlike in WoT we don't have other characters to confirm this, rather we have to look at Shallan's behaviour. Some other things they both have: a curious, mischievous, optimistic nature - though to different degrees and in different ways. Tendency for their mouth to get them into trouble... and out, often by being "economical with the truth". Has own particular approach to life though can be quite flexible in partially adapting to new situations. Does not respond well to orders and generally does not show automatic respect to their "betters". Notably unreliable narrator, though in quite different ways. Not the most dependable but somehow trustworthy. Can give impression of being a lightweight or shallow but is actually quite bit more complex and tends to be underestimated. Rarely aggressive and prefers to avoid combat. I'm sure I could list quite a number of differences too of course! Actually, though we only see her a bit, Yunmi's personality feels closer to Shallan than Mat's... though both seem more extrovert than her... and both have combat training while Shallan is more of a "the pen is mightier than the sword" type (and I hope she stays that way). It's also hard comparing characters between series since they change over time - Mat isn't particularly interesting when we first meet him while Shallan has already been through a great deal.

Thanks! Looks like my guess of 1500 years wasn't too bad. I figured that the "modern" area followed on almost directly from the Recreance (I remember there being one or two hints in the text but it's hard to say how much to trust them). After the Recreance I figure there was a few hundred years of upheaval (including the modern Vorin split of male/female roles) before things stabilise and the modern calendar (year 0 of 1163) begins. This also means there was approx 3000 years between the Last Desolation and the Recreance. So if you got a theory that Radiants by themselves can cause Desolations it has to be really really indirect...

Hmm, interesting. I hadn't thought of the story going down those lines. I realise I also forgot to mention my implicit assumptions in my "how to break Adolin" post. I don't see Adolin surrendering easily. He's certainly capable of standing up to his father and going by how he thinks of Sadeas through the books he believes he's justified: Seems to me like he would view his actions as something like "morally right but illegal". I don't think he'd necessarily fight the "illegal" part but would fight the morals of it. I don't think someone who gave up too easily would be cut out to be a Radiant either. Going back to Dalinar, he's not the top authority when it comes legal matters - though he could theoretically reach a "plea bargain" with Adolin and present it to the king to rubber stamp, if Elhokar refuses then Dalinar has few legal options. Sure he could disinherit Adolin still. More importantly, simply coming to a private arrangement seems to be against the ideals he's just signed up to. Also, if Adolin is going to resurrect the spren in his Blade then I don't see that being possible if he loses it early. What I could see happening is something like this: after many weeks, Adolin eventually wins the moral argument and then loses the legal argument and during this time he has been making progress in waking up his Blade and just when it looks like he might be close to a breakthrough (at least to the readers) he's forced to given up his Blade. So he's forced to break the weak normal Shardbearer bond and the gem in the pommel is broken for good measure. Heartbreaking. Later... the Blade mysteriously vanishes from where it was stored and it turns out that Adolin has a new and improved bond with his Blade I think it would be possible imprison Adolin in such a way that it's acceptable to all - ie if he tries to escape then he automatically gets a death sentence. It's a shame that by itself a healthy imagination isn't enough to become a Lightweaver - so far, they seem to have the most open-ended Surges (make stuff, fake stuff) which makes them highly suited for people with good imagination and problem solving skills. I've had all sorts of interesting ideas though I don't know where the real limits are. I have way too much fun thinking of all the things Shallan could possibly do...