Ansalem

For those speculating about Renarin's future sight:

Seeing the future isn't actually tied to Odium as Vorinism teaches, at least not directly. They're right that it's dangerous and shouldn't be trusted, but they're wrong about why. It's a power that exists across the Cosmere and it's tied to the Spiritual Realm itself. Any Shard of Adonalsium could potentially grant access to it. All of the Shards can use it themselves (some better than others) but none of them actually have any power over it as far as I'm aware.

As an aside, it's the reason Hoid always knows where he's supposed to be. He uses a power called Fortune. It's unclear whether all future sight is Fortune or not.

The point I'm getting at with all of this is that Renarin has some connection to the Spiritual Realm that other Truthwatchers don't have. In fact, other than Dalinar, Renarin seems to be the closest to it out of all the Radiants we know about.

I suspect he'll be the key to Navani figuring out how to activate Urithiru and possibly waking the Sibling. She needs to ask him what he sees when Dalinar opens the Perpendicularity instead of Rushu or other scholars.

2 hours ago, Aminar said:

All of Kaladin's oaths are about wanting to do a thing. He will protect those who cannot protect themselves. The whole point of the oaths is to bind yourself to aspirations. To gain power by wanting to change the world so that you can do so. It's entirely the opposite of doing the work to earn power. It's swearing to do the work and being given tools to make you better at doing it in return. 

And having it violently ripped away pretty much immediately upon failure. Actually, Kaladin almost lost Syl for failing an oath he hadn't even sworn yet. Well, I guess that's not exactly accurate, but the other way of looking at it is that he was failing oaths not directly related to the Bond because he accidentally put himself in a catch-22.

Even with how seemingly easy it is to gain the powers it's much easier to lose them. And it isn't actually that easy to get them anyway, as was shown with the Lopen at the end of OB. Just saying the words isn't enough, and swearing the oath is a huge risk all on its own because each new oath creates more avenues for failure.

Plus there's the fact that each time a Radiant swears an oath they get an instant burst of power, so unless Skybreakers are special in this one specific way it seems pretty clear they get their Plate immediately upon swearing to their Crusade.

55 minutes ago, GudThymes said:

Even dead plate resists the surges, we see this in the original prologue where Szeth fights Gavilar. Living plate also does affect the surges, however, it does not affect the ability for a Windrunner to lash themselves. I imagine that every other surge (including adhesion) would be blocked by plate.

Presumably living plate, as far as Investiture is concerned, is a part of the Radiant themselves. So their Surges will work the same for them with or without it but someone else's plate would resist it. Living plate would also presumably be more resistant than dead plate because it's more Invested. By which I mean living plate is a manifestation of either the Radiant's or Spren Investiture while dead plate has to be Invested by an external source making it less efficient. Though it still seems to be remarkably resistant either way so the difference might never come up.

Most of that is assumption admittedly, but I think it makes the most sense given what is known about Investiture as a whole.

2 minutes ago, Innovation said:

They are Cognitive Shadows, I believe. We see Cognitive Shadows worshiped a lot in the Cosmere. 

Yeah, you're right. I was literally just reading the WoB that said that for a completely different reason when you said that.

Weird things happen sometimes. lol

23 hours ago, Firespir said:

I might have not articulated my point very well here. What I wanted to say was that in their core they are humans, in the sense that anyone could become like them given the circumstances which is not very heavenly. Sure they are very powerful and ancient and all of that but given their current state they don't exactly sparkle divine. 

The same can be said for Honor, Odium, and all other "Gods" in the Cosmere. Anyone can become Odium given the circumstance Rayse was in when he became Odium. I want to avoid other series spoilers just in case so no details, but we have seen that happen onscreen more than once in the Cosmere where a normal person becomes a God.

The Heralds are more like Splinters although I'm not sure if they technically count as such. And it shouldn't be that difficult to prove they're at least immortal, if not specifically that they're Heralds. Just don't let them eat for a month or 10. See if they ever sleep. Things like that.

If Jasnah cares to prove it, she should be able to devise a way without too much trouble. She might not bother though since she personally already knows for certain they're the real Heralds.

And I'm pretty sure the Stormfather can just tell people. Pretty much everyone on Roshar would just take his word for it.

2 hours ago, Nicrosil said:

Something also interesting to note is that the Fused we've seen using Surges only use one Surge. We've only seen them fly, with Gravitation and become awesome with Abrasion. Then there are the Fused who just seemed stronger than normal and have a lot of carapace... are there Fused who don't use Surges, or did those Fused just have a form with lots of carapace that happened to not use their Surges? Or are they an order equivalent and their strength/carapace is an application of a Surge we don't know yet?

Personally, I believe the Fused who were growing and using their carapace in strange ways were using the Surge of Progression. Their carapace doesn't just do that, it's a Surge. It may also be used for muscle growth, but that's less evident.

51 minutes ago, DracostarA said:

Just an interesting observation, Cusicesh is said to cycle through a number of different faces, perhaps a link to 'The Faceless'?

More like The Faceful. 

11 minutes ago, Gloom Spren said:

This is something I've been wondering too. Does this mean Lift is old? 

Cultivation said it had been centuries since she spoke with a human. And the Stormfather's reaction at their first meeting seems to support it. 

The more likely explanation is that Dalinar visited before Lift did. The next more likely explanation is that Lift wasn't visited by Cultivation but only the Nightwatcher.

Lift being centuries old is incredibly unlikely.

15 minutes ago, maxal said:

I really do not buy she is dead. The comet spren is obviously a Radiant spren and she likely already has a Nahel bond. Mind, I am not saying it isn't twisted, but I never once thought she was dead while I was reading the chapter. I have no idea how Brandon is going to pull this one up without having readers deal with another "fake death", but I am utterly convinced she is not dead.

She is supposed to have viewpoints and we are supposed to see her in OB. She can't be dead.

I kind of agree, but also for a different reason. It just seems odd to me that they would choose an important character death as their audio preview chapter.

"Kind of" agree because I'm not utterly convinced she is not dead, just mostly convinced. 

Not that it makes a lot of difference to me since it's the interlude after part 1, but what about people who only listen to the sample chapter and didn't read the whole pre-release first? Imagine a couple years down the line, someone is looking for an audiobook and they listen to the sample chapter on Amazon or wherever, is this what they're going to hear? Just seems weird to pick that one. Granted it is part 3 of a series, so probably not going to be a very common occurrence, but still.

Guess we'll find out tomorrow(ish).

2 hours ago, DeployParachute said:

Well, this has gotta be what Brandon meant when he said that a character having a flashback book in the future was no guarantee of their survival to said book.  Interesting revelations here.  Makes me wonder at what being "Fused" means for the Listener, as clearly I think neither Venli or her once-mate are.  I gotta imagine that it is very unlike what we see between a proto-radiant and their spren.  Can't wait to find out more.

On a side note, I was pondering making Oathbringer the first book that I would listen to on audio, just so I could enjoy it on my commute.  But after having listened to this sample, I just can't get on board with the medium.  I'm sure the voice talent was doing wonderfully as far as these things go, but I could not get over the switching between voices of the same person.  Took me right out of it.  It's just not for me.  I'm glad that they released this sample, though, so that I could figure that out before dropping money on it.  to each their own.

Audio definitely isn't for everyone, but you might still enjoy Graphic Audio if you've never tried that. Who knows when Oathbringer will be done by GA, but the first two are pretty great in my opinion. It doesn't suffer from the problem you mention, though it does suffer from others of course.

Strangely enough, I used to hate audiobooks, but now it's my preferred medium. I'm not really sure what changed. Although I actually read along with it anyway, most of the time. Especially for SA because of the art and epigraphs.

1 hour ago, axcellence said:

Enough?  GRRM’s A Dance With Dragons is 49 hours.

Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire is 27.5 hours.

A wise man’s fears (Kingkiller) is 42 hours.

55 hours, for someone who listens on the commute or while exercising, is huge.

I know, that's why it's weird.

4 hours ago, Ammanas said:

Speaking of the Oathbringer audiobook it looks like the official length is 55 hours and two minutes. Longer than Words of Radiance  (48 hrs 15 min) and Way of Kings (45 hrs 37 min).

Somehow, when you break it down into time like that it doesn't seem like enough. Although, that is like 2-3 seasons if it were a show.

What I'm most anticipating are the things I don't see coming.

Oh, and all the other things too of course.

12 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

The instructions Szeth is given by Taravangian are in the "warrior's script of his homeland." Szeth can read, and most likely write in that script. Szeth does not appear to be from a culture where books are a feminine art. He also isn't an anomaly, given warrior's script.
Taravangian can both read and write in Alethi Women's Script, and possibly write in Shin warrior's script too. Shin is certainly an anomaly, and Women's Script was self taught(I believe).
Amaram can write in Stormwarden Script, but that's actually cheating.

I don't see why "anomaly" came up, but I might be misremembering the epigraphs. Why is the anomaly argument relevant?

Szeth can also write the Alethi Women's Script. When he killed Gavilar, he wrote Gavilar's last words to Dalinar. Everyone assumed Gavilar learned to write in the late part of his life and wrote it himself, which means it must have been written in Alethi. If it had been written in Shin, no one would have thought Gavilar wrote it, they would have suspected the Shin assassin. It would have sparked discussion and speculation by the Alethi instead of people just assuming Gavilar wrote it, think it's odd, then move on.

So, Szeth can read and write in at least two languages.

I'm going to be listening to the audiobook (and reading along for most of it of course), so I'll start from the beginning. Plus, I tend to forget things if too much time passes and it'll be a couple months since I read the beginning when I get to read the rest, so I basically have to start over anyway. That's a lot of time to pass when I normally read a book in a day or two, or about a week listening.

I'm going to read it many times anyway, and that would be a problem if starting over bothered me.

1 minute ago, Aleksiel said:

Szeth wasn't a member of a secret organization and those murders were intended to be flashy. Iyalati has managed quite well to stay out of the spotlight in the war camps, she blends when she needs to. I stand by my point - Malata doesn't act like a person one would want in their secret organization.

What reason does Vargo have to include Malata in the Diagram? Why even bother to tell her? If she was a diagramist, it would have been an excellent opportunity to gain Dalinar's trust to infiltrate his close circle and deflect him in the wrong direction when the time comes without Vargo's direct involvement, who claims to just have met her in another country, but that chance is now gone and she would need to do some damage control to gain Dalinar's trust. She blew the chance to get on Dalinar's good side from the start, a diagramist or a semi decent member of secret society would have had a strategy in mind to achieve the best possible result, not just wander around smiling like an idiot.

As I said, I do not expect Malata to be anything more than too pleased with her new powers or something similar. An outline way to throw us in the wrong direction, a red herring.

I never said she should be involved in the Diagram. I'm saying your reason that she shouldn't be doesn't make sense. She isn't remotely as suspicious as you say she is, not to a person living in their world. To us she is but that's because we know what's going on in the world and we know the private thoughts of the characters. So far only Dalinar has noticed anything of concern and as far as I can tell he doesn't really have much reason. But even if he did, Dalinar is a special case and we haven't seen anyone else's opinion of Malata at all.

Just now, Aleksiel said:

Why include her in the Diagram at all? Why not simply manipulate her? You do not want members that arise suspicion less someone decides to investigate and ruin your plans. Just like a good assassin won't stand out, a semi decent member of a secret organization should make people who just met her wonder what she's hiding. So in my opinion the fact she creates a feeling of distrust towards her and her motives excludes her from being one of Vargo's initiated diagramists.

I think her behavior and the suspicion from other characters will end up a red herring.

So far as we know, she only made one person slightly suspicious. Everyone else will very likely see it the way Navani did, "if she's a Radiant, she can't be bad right?"

Also, I would say Brandon disagrees with your assessment about assassins and secret organization members standing out. Szeth is super obvious. Iyatil would be the most suspicious person in any room.

Compared to Iyatil, what's so suspicious about Malata that Iyatil makes sense for a secret organization but Malata doesn't? One of them is a little smiley, the other one has a freaking mask fused to their face.

What I'm saying is, if I saw Malata, I wouldn't be the least bit suspicious of her behavior.

4 minutes ago, IllNsickly said:

It's like Stephen King said. Audio is the perfect format for seeing the whole story, because it eliminates the tendency for your brain to gloss over parts of the story. 

I agree completely with Mr King. I always listen nowadays. When I read I can't stop my eyes from skipping ahead. Anytime there's a " my eyes shoot straight to it. I try to refocus but they just keep going back. So now I read along with a narrator and I don't miss anything. No more skipping paragraphs and reading each page in the wrong order.

8 hours ago, Varion said:

I actually agree with you Ansalem, even if I didn't express it well in my post. Malata taken on her own is not doing anything overly suspicious. My point was more meta. Sanderson was very deliberately trying to make the reader suspicious of Malata, using her association with Taravangian to prejudice our expectations. Then the ambiguous smile, Dalinar's reaction, and the little reminder that Dustbringers had a bad reputation, all confirmed those expectations. Which is, as I said in my first post, itself very suspicious. 

In this way, people are actually reading exactly what's written for them. Is this misdirection from Sanderson? We really don't know yet. It's hard to imagine a scenario where we (and I mean we as readers cheering for Dalinar) shouldn't be suspicious of Malata, at least initially.

Although, we also need to acknowledge that Dalinar, who does not have any of those contextual clues, who is generally a good judge of character, and who tends to err on the side of being over-trusting, was clearly suspicious. He didn't like the way she smiled, and he immediately began to wonder whether she may in fact have an Honorblade in disguise. So she was obviously acting suspiciously enough to put Dalinar on guard. 

As for the Taravangian Bondsmith theory, I can see the different dots there, but the connections between them are still pretty tenuous. I'll keep reading with interest. 

 

I'm not disagreeing with your points. Of course we as readers have lots of reason to be suspicious of her. But I clearly didn't phrase my question properly.

People were saying that she is acting so suspiciously that they would never include her in their secret organization. So my question is actually what reason does Taravangian have to be suspicious of her? What about her behavior would keep him from including her in the Diagram? Why would he expect her to give them away just because she's smiley?

17 minutes ago, Blacksmithki said:

In my mind, she's just smiling because her Spren suggested what you just said.

Well, it would follow the pattern. 

Well, these days I listen to audiobooks instead of reading. So on the one hand it'll be a different experience the second time through.

But on the other hand audiobooks take way longer to go through, so I'll be on the stuff I've already read forrreevverr before I get to the new stuff.

But on the other other hand, I also intend to listen to the Graphic Audio when that gets made. It better get made.

5 minutes ago, Asrael said:

Am I the only one who thinks she might just have the hots for Dalinar? Virtual King of Alethkar? Leader of the new Knights Radiant? The legendary Blackthorn? Perhaps the most powerful man in the world?

At least some of Brandon's characters have to be stereotypes some of the time 

Nope. Literally right after posting I thought about saying "for all you know, she's smiling at Dalinar cause she thinks he's handsome". But I didn't. Now I did, though, so yay?

46 minutes ago, Varion said:

That's an interesting idea, but what reasons do you have for it? Have I missed a discussion of this elsewhere on the boards? Taravangian may have the same higher goal as Dalinar (to save Roshar from Odium) but his methods are much different. Dalinar is focused on uniting people, and upholding oaths -- which fits with what little we know about the Bondsmiths. Taravangian, by contrast, is a chess player, manipulating pieces on the board to setup long term strategies. He only unites people when it suits his needs, and being held by oaths would only restrict his options. I'm not sure what Order would suit Taravangian more, but I don't see him as a Bondsmith. 

Well, it isn't my theory it's just one I've seen thrown around as a potential a lot. But there are a couple things. First, his goal isn't just to save Roshar from Odium, it's very specifically to unite Roshar ("you must become king of everything"). He's following Gavliar's mandate to "unite them", which we know Gavilar was having the visions from the Stormfather before Dalinar was. So his goal isn't just the same from the high view, it's exactly the same goal. He inherited it from Gavilar who is confirmed to have been on the path to becoming a Bondsmith. Second, the Bondsmith spren are unique. That is to say, they are all different from each other. The spren of the other orders are (as Syl put it) essentially the same individual, there's very little difference between one honorspren and another. But there is only one Stormfather. We know there are meant to be exactly 3 Bondsmiths so 3 Bondsmith spren, so it makes sense to assume their spren will have very different views from each other on what can count as uniting. There is some speculation that the Nightwatcher might be one of the Bondsmith spren (if for no other reason than she's the only other spren as powerful as the Stormfather that we know about so far), and Taravangian is pretty strongly tied to her. She's essentially the cause of the Diagram. She very well may have given him his curse/boon just so that he would create the Diagram in order to unite Roshar against the Desolation.

So if Taravangian is going to be a Radiant at all, it's almost certainly Bondsmith.

46 minutes ago, Varion said:

She's suspicious for a few reasons:

1: She's with Taravangian. We know his plans, and they are not friendly;
2: Her creepy smile suggests she knows something Dalinar doesn't, and given that she's with Taravangian, the obvious conclusion we are to make as readers is that she knows about the diagram, or at the very least, is in on some plan to kill/overthrow Dalinar;
3: We can also safely assume that Taravangian, the meticulous genius, wouldn't deliver a radiant to Dalinar unless he was 100% certain that she was under his control, and safe to play a central part of his plans;
4: Even though Dalinar trusts Taravangian, he's still suspicious of Malata;
5: Dustbringers historically had a suspicious reputation.

Therefore, Malata is suspicious. Very obviously suspicious. I mean, Sanderson is hitting us over the head with how suspicious she is. Which is, you have to admit, a bit suspicious. 

1. People are saying she's suspicious and therefore wouldn't be allowed into a secret society, and they are saying this in reference to the Diagram. As in, her being with Taravangian can't be why she's suspicious for any reason other than meta knowledge. This has nothing to do with her behavior and doesn't add any evidence that Taravangian wouldn't allow her to be in on the Diagram because she's, what, with him?

2. That's reading an awful lot into Dalinar saying he doesn't like how she smiles. Remember, this is from his point of view. He's the only one who's noted anything odd about her behavior and we've seen her extremely briefly. Take a step back away from Dalinar's mind and view the scenes again. She's just smiling and looking at a mural. Just because Dalinar doesn't like it doesn't make it creepy, doesn't mean she holds some secret knowledge or agenda, and it doesn't make her suspicious. Dalinar himself didn't say anything more than he doesn't like it, we don't even know why he doesn't like it. But I'm not arguing Dalinar doesn't find her suspicious, I'm saying I disagree with his reasoning.

3. Again, people are saying that she's suspicious and therefore can't be in on the Diagram. Taravangian can't be the one making her suspicious if her suspiciousness is cause for him not including her.

4. Think I covered most of this already. Dalinar's view is Dalinar's view. Why should it be the reader's view? It isn't mine. You just said yourself Dalinar isn't a terribly great judge of character. He trusts Taravangian, one of the least trustworthy people we know of. He can be wrong.

5. And Edgedancers were historically graceful and elegant. Then there's Lift. I judge a person based on that person alone. And literally the only things I know about Malata so far is that she smiles a lot and she claims to be a Dustbringer. I know nothing else about her. Also, Dalinar doesn't know that. Shallan might, but we haven't heard her opinion of Malata yet.

I will say that her being with Taravangian does obviously make her suspicious, but it's also beside the point. If Taravangian's connection is what makes her suspicious, it's only to the reader who has meta knowledge of the story and nothing at all to do with what we've actually seen from her, and it can't be cause for her not being included in his secret society because then no one would be. A little odd if the head of a secret society won't let you in because you're associated with them.

So the only suspiciousness we can see is irrelevant to the discussion and would apply to literally anyone who arrived with Taravangian (except Jasnah I guess).

But everyone's saying she's acting suspicious. What specifically about her behavior is suspicious? The only thing there is is her smiling. People smile. Or is it the way she was looking at a Dustbringer mural? I don't get it.

In my opinion, people are reading what isn't written.

4 hours ago, Shanderton said:

My only issue with this is the first ideal which all Radiants share, in particular 'Journey before Destination'. I believe it even says in the book "killing one innocent isn't worth saving 5", although that may be Kaladin's interpretation. 

I just can't see how radiant ideals can align with the Diagram. Maybe I've missed something though! 

I would say the first ideal is wide open to interpretation and is probably not actually binding like the others. Besides, Shallan has murdered people in cold blood. That would seem to go against the first ideal, but not only did it not cost her her Radiancy, acknowledging the fact counts as one of her oaths.

There is also reason to believe Taravangian might become one of the Bondsmiths himself.

And could someone tell me why everyone's saying Malata is super suspicious? What's so suspicious about smiling? How is being smiley too suspicious for a secret society to ever let her in yet Iyatil is perfectly reasonable? Nothing suspicious about her at all...

1 minute ago, Wreith said:

it means "make a Truthless to use"
make to use is actually proper grammar because you weren't supposed to end a sentence with a prepositional phrase.

It can be read either way. Could simply be an oddly phrased way to say "can we conspire to use a Truthless". Taravangian was frantic and deranged at the time. He couldn't even be bothered to space his words, after all.

Either way that wasn't my primary point.