Amaror

So one thing we know about Odium and that has sortof irked me for a while is that his ability to kill the other shards comes from the fact that he didn't use his power to create something like many of the other shards did. But that seems contradictory with the fact that voidbinding exists. It's clearly something of Odium since it contains so much hatred that is even overpowers the very soul of the voidbinded individual, as we clearly see with Eshonai. But what if it's just of odium in a very small way? When we look at shard-based magic systems we can see that the shards intention often manifest in the way the system works and/or the way the magic ability is aquired in the first place. We can see this very well in Mistborn: Allomancy is from Preservation because it gives power without taking it. The power comes form the burned metal and no power is extracted from the person using it. Feruchemy is from both Preservation and Ruin because it takes Power from an Individual but at the same time preserves that power without loss and allows to use it some other time. And Hemalurgy is from Ruin because it takes Power from a Person and while it also allows to give that Power to someone else it only does so at a loss and in the process damages also the receiving persons soul. Now if we look at Surgebinding it's very clearly of Honor, with maybe also some Influence of Cultivation in there: The Power comes from binding a spren and a person together. At the same time the person is bound to a set of Ideals because his power grows by following those Ideals and accepting more of them (This is were Cultivation might have a part in it) and he loses his powers and his Bond if the person doesn't follow the Ideals. But if we look at Voidbinding there's not that much of a clear connection to Odium. The obvious connection is that voidbinding certain Spren leads to being overpowered by hatred, but the way the system works itself doesn't show much connection to Odium. In fact, and this is where my Theory actually starts, it seems like Voidbinding might actually be more of Honor. In fact more of Honor than Surgebinding is. Because the way it works is that it, again, binds a Spren and an Individual together, but does so much stronger than the bond used in Surgebinding. It binds them so strongly that the Spren change the persons very body and even their ability to think. Additionally the spren even seem to have the ability to overpower the person they are binded to. So my Theory is: What if Odium basically tricked Honor into creating Voidbinding. Honor could have created Voidbinding initially and Odium could just have perverted it by somehow changing/influencing the Spren that are used in Voidbinding to contain this intense hatred that they give. That would not only take much less power from Odium himself but also weaken Honor himself, making it easier for Odium to kill Honor. And Honor would actually create a tool for Odium in the process. What do you guys think?

Hmm? Why wouldn't you be allowed to watch a Warbreaker series? Is it the nudity? Do your parents not know that you have tons of nudity availible at your fingertips here on the internet anyway? Additionally I think it would be possible to film warbreaker without too much nudity. The only place were that really happens is when siri kneels before susebron and you should be able to film that without showing any of the "bad places" that get you an m-rating. Like just show her with her shift from behind and how she drops it (With the camera high enough to not show her butt). Now everyone is aware that she is nacked, without actually showing what constitutes as explicit nudity. I do agree that Mistborn would most likely make for some great scenes, but I think Warbreaker would have plenty of cool scenes as well. Like Susebron rescuing siri for example.

Thank you. I think the starting novel should be the one that's best adabtable to the screen. Cosmere chronology is after all something that's more in that background of those stories. The novels didn't release in chronological order as well after all.

I can definetly recommend reading the prose version. It's just a very fun read and gives a much greater amount of information about the world and the systems involved. And you don't really notice that it's an unfinished version. There are more grammatical and spelling errors than usual, but other than that I would think it's more than good enough for a full book release.

So movie and tv adaptions of some of Brandon's story have often been "in talk", but nothing has really come of it so far. Nevertheless I think that this is an interesting topic and I just want to share my thoughts on how an adaption like this would look. I will only focuss on his Cosmere-stories here, since I like them the by far the most. 1. Medium: Currently we have two big mediums for screen-adaptions of various stories. The oldest form is the direct book --> movie adaption which can work well, as shown with Lord of the Rings for example, but has it's fair share of problems. More recently we had the Tv-series come up as a way of adapting other mediums to the screen. Examples include Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, both very successfull Adaptions. These have various advantages about movie-adaptions. For one the format allows for a much longer overall screentime allowing for more complexity in the adaption and makes it less likely that parts of the original story have to be cut because of time-constraints. It also allows watchers more time to get familiar with the characters, allowing for a larger ensemble of characters. And last but not least it also has more parallels to how the original stories will normally get experienced. You don't read a thousand-page book in one-go. You pick it up to read a bit here and there over a larger timeframe, similar to a Tv-Series. Overall I think that a Tv-Series is a much better approach to Brandons bigger book stories. I even think his novellas would fit better into this format. Instead of being stretched to a 2-hour movie they could just be made as an additional 1-hour episode of a season. 2. Name and Franchising: A lot of people are currently looking for the "Next Game of Thrones" for a Tv adaption. But Brandons stories in the Cosmere are most often not huge stories similar to GoT, which would make it harder to make a real franchise out of them. The most likely candidate for a "Next Game of Thrones" would be the Stormlight Archives, but those are still a long way away from finished and as fast a writer as Brandon is, I think it is detrimental to the work if a adaption gets started before the original work is finished. What would be interesting however would be to use the Cosmere as the Franchise and have the individual storylines be seperate chapters in the overall work. Similar to how "Doctor Who" has different chapters in it's story of different incarnations of the Doctor, but still tells a continuous storyline. The Name, in my mind, would be something like: "Elantris - Cosmere Stories", followed by "Warbreaker - Cosmere Stories" just as an example. Another option would be to have it reversed like: "Cosmere Stories - Elantris". This would allow more consistency and would most likely be more recognisable after a while. The problem with this is that the word "Cosmere" doesn't sound like fantasy, while words like "Elantris" or "Warbreaker" do. And getting into something new with the wrong expectaction can be really off-putting no matter how good it ultimately turns out to be. 3. The first Story: Another interesting topic is which of Brandons stories should be told first in this format. I have personally two favourites and I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of both of them here: Mistborn: The first Mistborn Trilogy would be a pretty good way to start in my opinion. Allomancy makes for a interesting and at the same time visually impressive magic system. Seeing Vin and Khelsier rush through the Air would be a good spectacle on the screen and would be a definite plus. Additionally we have a lighthearted and fun character in Khelsier, something which is always a good thing to get people invested in a story. There is a reason why so many people love Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones. Another advantage is that Mistborn serves as a pretty good start into the Cosmere itself: The main protagonist is herself unaware of the magic in her world, which means that the viewer can discover it with her and we have her training with Khelsier as an excuse to have some vocal exposition about the system. Instead of having it happen in some characters head like in other stories. Additionally characters like Hoid come up more than once in the story introducing themselves to the viewers and the ultimate conflict also teaches the viewers about how the Cosmere works with Shards and Co. What is a disadvantage for Mistborn in my opinion is the second book, most of all the Zane-Vin-Elend triangle we had there. The main problem with this is is that it could seem very irrational in a visual medium like Tv. Looking at it objectively Elend is the clearly better choice. One of the main reasons why Vin is drawn to Zane is because of her insecurities, which is very hard to portray if you can't explain it in text like you can in a book. Warbreaker: Another possible first story would be Warbreaker in my opinion. It has some of the same advantages that Mistborn has: A visually impressive magic system. A funny, lighthearted character in Lightsong. And one character that learns the magic system during the book allowing for exposition about it. One thing it doesn't have is the thorough introduction to the Cosmere with Shards and everything. But one thing it does have above Mistborn would be that it introduces the "Cosmere Stories" format better. As the story could be wrapped up in a single season, it makes it clear that this format will feature a diverse number of stories with different interesting magic systems coming up all the time. Having Mistborn as the first entry would make many people thing that everything from now on will happen on this world which would be the wrong impression. So these are my, highly rambling, thoughts on the matter. What do you guys think?

Ahh. So Elantris, the city, basically forms an Aon with it's buildings and form. And that Aon is the thing that's responsible for people turning into Elantrians and the increased Strength and co. of Elantrians. Alright, when this was mentioned in the climax I thought that they meant that the city of Elantris was another geographical feature of some Aons you draw in the air. I didn't realize that Elantris was a working Aon on it's own.

So I have basically two questions which I never really got while reading the two Elantris books. 1. How is the political situation in Sel now exactly? In Elantris we are told that basically the whole world belongs to the Fjordel empire now and that Theod and Arelon are the only nations standing in the way of Jaddeth reawakening, which is supposed to happen when the whole world believes in Shu-Derreth. Yet in "Emporer's Soul" we are treated to the Rose Empire which apparently also doesn't have warm relations with Svorden, so it doesn't seem to be part of the Fjordel Empire. What is it now? Are Teod and Arelon that "last Bastion" against Shu-Derreth now or are they just two nations among many that don't belong to the Fjordel Empire? 2. How did Raoden "fix" AonDor exactly? I just really don't get it. I know that the Aons are very much part of the land of Arelon and that the Aons thus need to "draw" the land of Arelon and add certain details to it depending on what effect the Aon should produce. What I don't get is why a line drawn in the Earth fixed AonDor. I thought the Chasm was allready there, why would Raoden need to draw a fake Chasm in the sand in order to make AonDor work properly?

Go to Brandons website and under the tab "About Brandon" choose "Contact Brandon". Afterwards just use that formular to ask politely for a copy of the prose version of White Sand and you should get an email with it afterwards. I did read somewhere that it has taken months for people to receive their copies, but personally I received it just mere minutes after sending my letter. Though it was from Brandons assistant and not Brandon himself. You should keep in mind that it is an unfinished work though. It's still a fantastic read, but it has more spelling mistakes than usual and things like that.

Personally I would say no, despite being a huge Sanderson fan. The price is just too high for the amount of content that is offered here. I do recommend reading the prose version though, it's really really good.

What? We do know that there is magic on the darkside. Baon confirmes that Scythe has some kind of magic power. We don't know exactly what it is or how it works but we know it's there. And it makes sense that skycolors would be part of it. Scythe just seems to be the only one that figured out how to properly use it. As Pathfinder said Sand Masters also didn't view Sand mastery as magic, as it seems to be an ability that most daysiders have but need to train in order for it to be used properly. It makes sense that it would work similar on the darkside. All darksiders have skycolors, which we know they can only use on the darkside, but most just haven't figured out how to train themselves to use it properly. Just Scythe did.

Really? I really liked how Erics story played out. It's just refreshingly different from other novels. Amen, Brother. This novel is really really good and that makes me kind of worried about the graphic novel. The gn format just doesn't really work with Brandon Stories and he allready said that if the graphic novels are a success that they will be the only format for this world. And that all subsequent stories published on this world will be also graphic novels in that case. And I really really don't want that. The prose is just so much better than the graphic novel even in it's unedited state. And I really want more novels in this world, it really is an interesting world, which deserves more than some shallow graphic novels.

Look at the forum description of the prose version: Just search the beginning of the sentence with Ctrl + F in your version of the book and you should find the password without a problem.

As much as it pains me as an avid Sanderson fan I don't think I will buy it. I may get it when it's finished and bundled up for a reasonable price. Paying twice as much money for a third of the story and about a tenth of the overall content of a novel is just not worth it. I really love your work, Brandon, but that is really not worth it. Additionally Brandon said in WoB that if the graphic novel is successfull that that will be the only canon thing they are going to do with White Sand. No Taidar-Novels, only comics. And I really don't like comics. I want my full-blown awesome Novels, Brandon! Additionally the art-style doesn't even look that good. It looks really messy and a bit rushed to be honest. I have seen free webcomics with better art.

From what I understand of Sandersons answer, It's not that the cognitive shadow is an completely independent entity, but rather a part of the shard and just continues to guide the shards actions even though there is no shardholder of said shard. But there currently IS a shardholder of Ruin and that shardholder is Sazed or Harmony. Therefore I don't see why there would be a cognitive shadow of ruin around. The Stormfather is a splinter of Honor and he is currently around because the Shardholder of Honor is dead and the shard was splintered. But Ruin is neither splintered nor does it have no shardholder. Ruin is perfectly complete and "held", so I don't think there is any cognitive shadow of ati still around.

Ah ok that heir thing makes sense. The spoilers were meant for "Secret History"-content since that book is quite new.

I did. And as far as I can remember I read every mistborn book so far, if I overlooked something, say it. Edit: I just reread the passage and indeed: that means there is no reason why he should have helped Vin kill Rashek.

This bothered me for a while about the first Mistborn Novel so I am just going to ask here whether anyone knows the answer. So we know that the Mists are of Preservation and can fuel the Allomancy of Mistborn creating more powerfull effects than Allomancy using metals, represented by Vin killing Rashek. However I don't quite understand why the Mists would help Vin in this situation, because we also know that Rashek was acting in Preservations interest. He was using up the power of the pool of ascension every thousand years in order to keep Ruin contained in his Prison. Why would Preservation help Vin kill the one Person that's basically Preservations main supporter in his fight against Ruin. We all know what happened when Vin took the power herself.

That would be really cool in my opinion. I really do hope that we get a less "evil" antagonist as a shard someday. Ruin, Hatred. These are all such obviously evil and bad intents. It has allready been alluded in Secret History that Preservation having complete control would have been nearly as bad as ruin having control. (I won't mention specifics in order to avoid spoilers, since the book is pretty new). And very similar things could be done with other intents that seem "good" at first. From the right, or the wrong however you see it, perspective even the best intent can be scewed to mean something bad. We actually allready might have something similar to that with the Nightwatcher.

On another question regarding Odium's Intent. Does anyone else feel that it's very ... generic? I mean if we look at the other shards that we know the Intents of we have: Preservation: Wants to preserve others. Ruin: Wants to destroy things. Devotion: Wants people to be devoted Honor: Wants people to be honorable. All of these either want their enact their description upon others, like preservation or ruin, or want other to act according to their description, like honor or devotion. Odium, being essentially hatred stands out, because his intent seems to be to just destroy the other shards. But desctruction was allready ruins thing. He even uses a race that he basically created using his own kind of magic, the voidspren, in order to destroy things. Which is basically the exact same thing that ruin did with his inquisitors and kolloss. I don't know, to me odium feels like a pretty generic "evil god". And considering that he's supposed to be hatred he could have been so much more interesting as a nemesis. If his intent would be to bring others to be hatefull, similar to honor or devotion, he could be an illusive and somewhat sneaky bad guy. Sowing distrust and hatred between allies and friends, getting people to fight each other and destroy each other over petty reasons, then despair seeing what they did in rage. Now he's just another evil god that destroys stuff. Not exactly ground breaking. Disclaimer: I still vastly enjoy Brandon's books, before anyone here feels defensive, and they are among my most favourite books. I was just a bit dissappointed with odium since I think that a shard symbolising hatred could have been much more interesting than what we've got.

Well she has a "Friend" with her when she tries to kill Shallan, so that's most likely the person that initiated her in the cult. I think at one time Shallan mentions something that her mother was talking more and more with her friend and acting less and less like herself or something. It also may be the reason her father contacted the Ghostbloods afterwards.

I think her Mother's "Friend" was most likely part of one of the few billion secret organisations that seem to exist on Roshar. And i think that particular organisation thinks the Voidbringers can only come back if the Radiants come back before that. So in order to keep the Voidbringers from coming back they tried to kill people that showed signs of a nahel bond, aka Shallan.

First of all sorry if this topic has allready been discussed. I am fairly new to this forum and the Stormlight Archives. Ok, so we know that Spren bond people that are broken and at the same time exemplify the values of the Spren. I will mostly talk about the Proto-Radiants Kalading and Shallan here, since we know most about them. We can guess that it was Gavilars death that broke Dalinar and Elhokar, but we don't know it for certain. It could always be that thing with his wife for Dalinar. Anyway the thing with the breaking and the values makes a lot of sense on the surface. Kalading got broken both through Tiens death and his betrayal through Amaram. Additionally he was always dreaming of saving people through fighting. Of protecting people, which is a major part of what makes out the Windrunners. Shallan was broken by the event of killing her Mother. The same event caused Shallan to lie to herself. She burried the memories of that event deep within her and lived a lie, refusing to acknowledge what happened. It makes sense that this would attract a Cryptic since they are attracted to lie and illusions. But when we look deeper it doesn't seem that easy. Kaladin was allready showing some Windrunner abilities in his fight with that one boy from his home village, before he got broken. But it's possible that the bonding happens before and that the Spren are just attracted to values that they like and that the breaking merely allows the bond to strengthen. After all, Kalading expressed his desire to save through fighting way before that. But if we look at Shallan the whole thing makes even less sense. Shallan doesn't only have some small bond before the breaking, she allready spoke the first ideal. She is even capable of using pattern as a shardblade, which required Kaladin to speak three whole ideals. Not only that but before her mothers death she doesn't even represent the values of the Cryptics very much. The memories of the time before that event are all happy and peacefull. No lies, no deception. Nothing that would really attract a Cryptic. And yet she not only attracted pattern but bonded him so far. The whole event that broke her and caused her to live a lie wouldn't have even happened if she hadn't been bonded before. So ... what do you guys think. Am i missing something? Or do we just not know enough about the Nahel Bond to say exactly how and why it happens?

Right. I always mistake the two. Both of them Start with T. Tanavast was the Shardholder and how was the Herald named again? The one that was found by Hoid then brought to the Plains?

I think the Recreance was more of a sacrifice by the Radiants than a Betrayal. From Dalinars Visions and Tavanasts(Was that the Name of the one Herals that died?) Ramblings that most of the time the humans are in a primitive early stage of civilization when the desolations come. We know that this is not the case now, so i think that the time has been a lot longer than usual for the desolation to come. I think that, somehow, the abandoning of their spren and bonds didn't only break their own bonds, but the bonds of the parshendi as well. We allready know that Parshmen are Parshendi without a bonded Spren, so it makes sense that, at some point, the Bond between the Voidbringers and their Spren must have been broken. Maybe the Stormfather thinks that the betrayal of the Spren by the humans is ultimately inevitable, because it's the only way to break the bonds of the Voidbringers and their Spren and thus the only way for the humans to ultimately be victorious.