kari-no-sugata

Regarding the auto saved content (and restoring it).... it does work. I have a post I've been working on for 2 days. I'll do a bit at home, make sure it's saved, restore it at work, edit it a bit, restore at home, etc.

Hehehe Would be fun to see more down to earth uses of Surgebinding.

Seems kinda wasted on him though. Palona, however would be much more interesting - I think she would be a good candidate. Best evidence? She gets her own chapter title

Heh, I was just about to say Rushu too (though I don't have a crush on her)

Shallan responsible? Definitely. To the degree that she can be quite self-sacrificing at times. I always get surprised when I see people say that Shallan blames Pattern for her parents death as I see no evidence for this and plenty to the contrary. Simple example: after her second meeting with the Ghostbloods ("Veil's Lesson") Shallan finds that her coach driver got murdered by them. She immediately feels responsible and brushes off Pattern's comment that she didn't kill him. This is also why she is a bit depressed the next day and wants Adolin to take her to the menagerie. Shallan distracted? Oh yes But taking personal growth over responsibilities? Don't think I can agree with that - got any particular examples in mind? She does distract herself when she should be paying more attention but I don't remember a case where that caused real harm to her goals. If you're thinking of her time with Tyn I'd be willing to argue it. She can certainly plan for herself - I wonder if she can make good plans for groups too? She seems to be pretty good at coming up with ideas and then evaluating those ideas from multiple angles too and I suspect she is good at multi-tasking. Unsurprisingly, she still makes numerous mistakes though generally small or easily handled ones. I like feeling that I'm prepared too, if it's not something I'm used to. Shallan generally feels she's poorly educated and lacking in experience but I think her background (largely teaching herself and trying to solve real world problems) has given her some useful and rare skills for someone her age and I feel she has the academic equivalent of "street smarts" - a good example being her first meeting with Jasnah in tWoK when Jasnah asked her how she would estimate the weight of the boulder. Rather than regurgitate the academic model answer Shallan gave a simple practical answer that I don't think Jasnah had even considered based on her reaction and praise. "What if you need to poop?" I wonder if she'd be much different in this aspect if she had some proper friends/peers at home...

Thanks... but what problem with timing do you see? I think Taln might have been back for some time. I suspect that it's his return that prompted various things 6-7 years ago - Szeth's observations that lead to him becoming Truthless, Jasnah and Shallan's spren bonding and probably the Stormfather sending visions to people including Galivar. We certainly don't know all the mechanics of how Heralds leave/return to Roshar though - if he returned shortly before we see him turn up at the end of tWoK then somehow his return was predicted many years in advance. Seems simpler if he actually did return 6-7 years ago and everything since then has been a slow response to that.

From what Brandon has said, while the Stormlight Archive is a Cosmere book he's writing with the assumption that readers have not necessarily read any of the other Cosmere books - there may be "Easter eggs" and subtle stuff in the background but not things the plot depends upon. Nightblood may be the only overt case of off-world magic and Nightblood is unique and self-contained anyway. So, long story short, I think it would be much more productive to look for in-world solutions. For example, if the Taln we see is not the real Taln then maybe some Herald found the real Taln when he returned (the new Desolation is due to Taln's return), felt guilty and took Taln to the Nightwatcher to get him cured... and got cursed with Taln's "identity".

Going back to an earlier post: I would be interested to see you expand some more on your analysis of Shallan. Personally, I think I understand her reasonably well but am not especially confident about it - need to read between the lines quite a lot more with Shallan. For example, Shallan's wit: she's in particularly fine form during the scenes down in the chasms with Kaladin, which quite a few people seem to find annoying. I think her wit going into overdrive there is mostly because she's nervous/worried - about the impending highstorm, the chasmfiend and Kaladin. Can call it a coping mechanism though I think it's a bit more complicated than that. However, in the final part of WoR Shallan's wit is almost entirely absent - here, I think she's getting stressed out being due to the heavy official responsibility she has of finding and opening the Oathgate to save the 30,000 strong army (Brandon has confirmed she was stressed there but not the exact cause IIRC). It might seem strange that she reacts so differently to different types of stress but there is an area where I react similarly to Shallan - some kinds of pressure I can kinda shrug off but others I don't even though the relative importance can be the other way around. In the old D&D style alignment terminology I tend to think of Shallan as being "chaotic good", though relatively mild - pro-active but not selfish, relishes freedom and doesn't like being confined (even if the intentions are good). Pretty similar to Hoid in a number of ways - he's practically the patron saint of Lightweavers anyway. If we consider the letter writers in the epigraphs of tWoK and WoR (probably Hoid and Frost though I don't think this has been 100% confirmed), they have very different philosophies and I suspect that Shallan would strongly agree with Hoid's stance and Dalinar would strongly agree with Frost's stance - I'm hoping to see a strong clash of philosophies between Shallan and Dalinar in the next book. I think an interesting example of Shallan's "chaotic good"-ness is when she takes the slaves from Tvlakv: I feel she did this mainly because she sympathised with the slaves and was increasingly disdainful of Tvlakv. If she really needed slaves for herself she wouldn't have immediately offered them the chance to run away - instead she offers them a job and a golden opportunity for them to earn their freedom gently. I suspect she would have simply bought them if she had sufficient funds. I don't think she wanted to ruin Tvlakv though - she probably paid massively over the true value for the wagon and didn't seem to mind much.

Hmm, I'll pick Khriss from White Sand then

The way I read it, Brandon didn't confirm the theory or even say it was along the right lines.

Brandon has before said (something like) while some would agree with Adolin's actions some would disagree strongly and many here figured that Dalinar would be someone who would disagree. I think we can be more confident now that Dalinar is not going to be a happy bunny. Though I'm interested in what's going to happen to Adolin, I'm also curious to what this is going to mean for Dalinar's development - is his reaction here going to be consistent with Bondsmiths or is this a blind spot he has personally that he's going to have to resolve to progress?

It was a lot more than just her hair though - it was pretty much everything about her. Certainly Shallan sells herself short, not just in terms of looks but pretty much everything... though what I was trying to say was more like this: Shallan's assessment of what attributes are considered "ideal" beauty in Alethkar (and how she fails to match that ideal) is entirely correct as best as I can tell. Yet Adolin, who supposedly goes along with social expectations, still finds her extremely attractive immediately. It's not just that he finds her attractive in spite of social conventions but that her not following social conventions of beauty makes her even more attractive - or at least, that's how it reads to me. Going back to my feeling that Adolin is attracted to the new/exotic in general I'll withdraw it for now: I've re-read nearly all of his scenes from tWoK and WoR and there's little real evidence. Indeed. Adolin himself says he prefers to have a wide circle of "friends" and we see in his first date with Shallan that though he's friendly and relaxed he's still a bit reserved - Shallan finds some of his reactions rather "scripted"... until she drives a truck chasamfiend through his comforting expectations. Hmm, how about this: short version, Adolin needed someone who was a "breath of fresh air" and Shallan was the right person in the right place at the right time. Long version, in tWoK Adolin is agitating against Dalinar and wants to follow modern Alethi convention more but by the time we get into WoR he's starting to side with Dalinar more and more and is agitating against Alethi convention. There's this particular quote shortly before he sees Shallan: Maybe if she'd turned up 6 months earlier he would have been less impressed with her "outsider" ways.

Hi Maxal, awesome summary of Adolin / ESFJ. If that's all typical of ESFJ then I have no problem with Adolin being called ESFJ - however, the other summaries of ESFJ didn't feel like Adolin to me. I still think Adolin is attracted to the new/exotic though. I'm sure there was other examples but the main one I remember is when he first sees Shallan for the first time: Shallan sees herself as being a poor fit to the normal standards of beauty (too short, too skinny, wrong hair colour, has freckles, dresses too simply) yet that is exactly what Adolin finds attractive: All his other reactions to her seem to confirm this: Shallan initially tried to be what she guessed Adolin would expect then realised that just "being herself" worked best.

Nothing is certain until the books are written but it currently looks unlikely Adolin will get a book. Maybe between Dalinar and Renarin's books we'll get enough on Adolin. It's a very interesting idea and not something I had considered. It would be very interesting to know what selection criteria Tanavast gave to the Stormfather (for Bondsmiths). I think it's highly likely that Galivar was also getting the same visions and my impression is that he was generally changing for the better.

Surprise surprise I'm INTJ? Nope. Well, was "moderate" in all 4 categories. I see myself being more like Jasnah much of the time but have more of Shallan's creative/curious/chaotic side. Regarding your analysis of the other SA characters, I'm not sure about Dalinar and Adolin (rest feel spot on). I suspect that Galivar was more of a ESTJ - Dalinar might have been more like an ISFP when younger but forced himself to adapt to cope with the stress. That said, I agree with a lot of your analysis on him. The analysis of Adolin seems off to me - I see him as someone who is highly attracted to the new or exotic and his problem with girlfriends is not because he's bad at courting (he isn't) but because he gets entranced by the next girl to turn up and it's developed into a jinx over time. I suspect he would make a good "critic" of the arts - his personal interest in fashion is actually against social norms (being fashionable is fine but being personally interested and engaged to the extent of being the local expert is unusual).

There's lots of theories and speculation but what lead you to make your comment? That I'm aware of this is the only WoB that covers some Orders having squires and others not: If it was tied to a particular Surge then just two orders would have Squires and the other 8 would have none, which is very different to "some orders do not have them". From a story telling point of view it looks quite natural for Shallan's men to become Squires (seems a bit of a waste otherwise)

Any particular reason why you think she can't have squires? I could see it being uncommon for Lightweavers but if the squire bond comes from trust/belief in their Radiant or the like then I'd say her men have a good chance of becoming squires as they're becoming increasingly loyal and devoted to her.

Can we keep things a bit more on topic please? Thanks in advance... Regarding the various "passive" abilities each order might get from their spren, I have the following thoughts: Lightweavers: certainly "memory" skills are a common trait and basically confirmed. I think there's a good chance that Shallan"s "coldness of clarity" mental state comes from Pattern too, at least in part - she kinda goes into a trance too when drawing and seems to find that quite mentally stimulating. The hardest one to guess is the "farsight" ability we see her do once when drawing (Yalb and Shalash) - I have a feeling it's from the Illumination Surge. Windrunners: number of squires seems like a good bet - I wouldn't be surprised if Honorspren give Windrunners an innate ability to gather people around them. We've seen Kaladin mentally ride with the highstorms too, which seems unique to him (ie the Windrunners). I suspect Kaladin might get an innate sense of belonging in the air and this is where his "The wind is mine. The sky is mine." comment to Szeth comes from. Elsecallers: maybe some kind of sense of location? Not enough information, really. Skybreakers: detecting criminals? (the in-world WoR says not but it could be wrong or edited during the Hierocracy). Truthwatchers: I think it's quite likely that Renarin's visions of the future come from his spren rather than Surges - since he has no control over them. Pattern and Syl both behave differently during highstorms. Bondsmiths: do their uber haxor powers (that we have no idea actually are) come from a Surge or from the Stormfather? I seem to remember Brandon saying that one of the Surges is like the "god metals" - ie a "god Surge". It's possibly it could be a combination of both that Surge and the spren bond. Another thought I had is that since the Stormfather is the one spreading Stormlight all over the place, is it possible that Bondsmiths could somehow get Stormlight directly through their bond?

Yeah, he was surprised she needed to draw. If this was in the Wheel of Time, we'd think of all the current Radiants as "wilders" in that they're self-trained and can have blocks or limitations as a result (and also abilities that horrify or shame "normal" channellers). Shallan is self-trained in general (to a large degree) and some parts of her skills might be a bit unbalanced as a result - she may be so used to visualising and drawing things out that it's hard for her to do something similar without drawing it out. I suspect that Shallan did not have this limitation as a child and that she will be able to perform useful Lightweaving in future without needing to use drawings first - it's not like she can't activate her Lightweaving without drawings but that they're very weak if she tries. In the long term maybe her current limitation will turn out to be a strength and she'll be able to easily do certain things that historical Lightweavers would have struggled with. Regarding Shallan's "transformation" of the deserters I've sometimes wondered if it's a useful to compare it to Rioting/Soothing. Might be sort-of right but technically quite different. It would be interesting to know what about them she actually affected - it's not like they were all affected (Vathah and his underlings weren't) so it was subtle. I sometimes wonder if the Lightweavers' overall "purpose" is to bring hope - if so this would be a good example.

The Stormlight Archive certainly isn't for readers wanting to be spoon-fed familiar comfortable tropes. Shallan: I bet Odium shat himself when he heard a teenage artist/scholar is planning to thwart him! Pen beats sword, right? My first romantic interest tried to kill me. Kaladin: I thought this was "epic fantasy", who signed me up for "heroic fantasy" with a side job in nursing? I seem to be lacking in romantic interests too. Dalinar: I'm a 50-something warlord going through a mid-life crisis and have just been tapped by God to save the world. I even have a proper romantic interest, so there. Adolin: I'm Prince Charming from the 1980s but nobody seems to notice. I overdosed on romantic interests. Renarin: I'm wearing a polo-neck and reading classic French books on identity but I always wanted to be... a lumberjack! Er, soldier I mean. Did someone mention romantic interests? Rather more seriously... Now that we got Renarin's "big reveal" (or "big confirmation" for those who were paying attention) at the end of WoR, I'll be quite disappointed if we don't get (at least) several chapters from his POV in book 3. It's rather overdue.

This post is the result of a thought process that kicked off after reading: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2015/01/words-of-radiance-reread-chapter-23 Specifically this WoB: This isn't at all surprising to me, but it's great to have confirmation. Though Shallan's ability to take Memories is obvious there's more to it than that - she can release those Memories either by drawing it out or mentally letting it go. I think it's highly likely that her mapping ability is similarly related. And so on... but it not a result of Surges so would likely be related to Pattern's innate abilities - he certainly has a good memory. I'm sure there'll be lots more speculation of what Syl gives Kaladin. But here's the thing: having a really good memory can have downsides. Remember how in tWoK the deaths of the robbers that Jasnah killed were "burned into her" - she couldn't release those memories. There's also a line earlier in the book with "memories attacked her", referring to her father's death - it had been 6 months for her at the time but she's still really struggling with just the memory of it. The most extreme example is her mother's death - even for most of WoR just thinking about it can cause Shallan to have a mental shutdown. When she was younger those mental shutdowns could last hours apparently. It's sometimes said that "time heals all wounds" but in Shallan's case it takes a lot longer. Somewhat speculatively, consider it this way: Shallan has trouble dealing with her painful memories not just because they're very painful but because she remembers them vividly due to her connection to Pattern. Just to be clear: I'm not blaming Pattern for anything. I'm just trying to think through the implications and personally, I really dislike the theory that spren are actively seeking cause humans pain

Random thought... Back in the distance past when the first spren started bonding with humans to create the first such Surgebinders (eventually leading to the Knights Radiant), they were apparently trying to mimic the Heralds / Honorblades. I have a mental image of spren going "ooh, that's cool, I wanna try!" though I have no idea how appropriate that is. Now, try applying the Stormfather to that mental image. It just doesn't work! Taking a more general approach, I find it hard to imagine the Stormfather wanting to bond humans - what would he get out of it? I can see two options: Honor commanded him to (like showing the visions) or it was something he decided to do to protect the normal spren. The general impression I get is that Honor compelled him.

When don't know exactly how long the Knights have around for (a long time before the "Last Desolation" at least) or when Honor "died" but based on Dalinar's visions, Honor was still alive at the Recreance. I wouldn't be surprised if the Knights existed for many thousands of years before Honor's death.

Those that survive the first half at least. I think the rough plan was for there to be an in-world gap of about 10 years between the two halves. Some minor/side characters in the first half will be major characters in the second half, eg Lift. Of course, nothing is certain until the books in question are written.

I think there's a WoB where it's confirmed that that was a vision of Ash/Shalash (Baxil's mistress) who we see in tWoK going about breaking statues etc. I've sometimes wondered if the person Shallan's mother brought over was the Vorin equivalent of an exorcist. It didn't work though. IIRC Snapping was more about inflicting intense pain (torture effectively) on the subject while what the Envisagers were doing were voluntarily going into life-or-death situations in the hope of attracting a spren.