heridfel

Indeed! I'm not quite as close as you, but as close as you are, that's no surprise.

I believe that someone asked whether Dalinar's wife was still alive and got a RAFO, so it's possible that she is in a broken state. The main question I'd have is how that would relate to Dalinar's blessing/curse from the Nightwatcher. It seems unlikely that Dalinar's forgetfulness is the blessing if she's still alive - maybe his wife was dying, and he wished for her to be healed? I don't know whether that fits the structure of other Old Magic blessings, but she may have been healed of one problem and broken in a different fashion, while Dalinar's curse is to forget the woman that he tried to save.

It looks like it comes for free as part of the promotional material. If it's like Free RPG Day, then any store that is listed as participating on the website will at least have some copies to give away. The closest place to me is opening that very day, so it'll likely be a madhouse. I still intend to go.

My real-world analogy is noble gas compounds. Most of the time, noble gases won't combine chemically with other elements. But if you work it right, it's possible to game the system. Since we've seen that the spren which form nahel bonds are tied to cognitive concepts like honor and deception, I'm thinking that if you come up with the proper cognitive concept, you might be able to make a spren which could form a Nahel bond that conveys surges other than those granted by the Honorblades. Maybe a doublethinkspren or schadenfreudespren might exist which could do this, but no one's encountered it yet. Heck, we see from Axies the Collector that captivityspren aren't well-documented, and captivity isn't exactly uncommon on Roshar. I always found it ironic that Kaladin spotted them when he didn't want to, and Axies can't spot them when he does want to...

WoB. (Yes, it was mine. Yes, I'm glad I didn't get a RAFO.) http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/52928-calamity-tour-austin-tx-feb-25-2016/#entry409692

Hopefully, you remember Sixth of the Dusk from Sixth of the Dusk. I like that Brandon has included little bits about names in the Stormlight Archive. Besides "The Lopen" and Rock in WoK, I remember that someone's inner monologue (maybe Shallan's?) noted that Kaladin sounded like a lighteyes' name. There was also a bit about Nohadon being symmetric by way of the "h" being written with a mark over the glyph, and symmetry being a sign of honor/respect. I also like that the character going by "Warbreaker the Peaceful" has no idea what that name means. That makes all of us, WB.

I agree that we should expect to see some names which are unique within a given story, and that Bridge Four has a good reason for a lot of unique names. Bridge Four also gives us "The Lopen", which hangs a lampshade on the whole unique name phenomenon, as well as Rock, where we have an honest-to-goodness nickname (something else that isn't often seen in a lot of novels). But there's a distinction to be drawn between "some first names are unique" and "every first name is unique". I was a little curious about your second question. I'm not dedicated enough to go through the entirety of WoK or WoR, but in the first 100 pages of WoK, I counted 28 named characters. I wouldn't be surprised if that ratio (approximately one new named character every four pages) holds fairly steady, especially since I hadn't even gotten to the first Dalinar viewpoint by then, and Kaladin and Shallan both have limited opportunities to interact with people early on. Anyway, I reckon I derailed the thread more than enough anyway. We should probably make a new thread if we want to discuss this further.

I've always found it somewhat silly that in many fantasy novels, no two characters share a first name. In my office of ~12 people, four of us are named James. I understand that it makes it easier for the readers to distinguish between the various characters since we don't have other visual cues to help, but people name their kids after other people. I wouldn't be surprised if Vin and Kelsier were common names on Scadrial in some of the cultures that arose after the events of the first trilogy.

To add to this, if the besieged city has Soulcasters which can produce food and water, it's nearly impossible to cut off the supply lines. There's also the challenge of being the victim of your own success. So you destroyed the walls which encircle a town or city - unless those are on the lee side of the city, you've now opened a hole to let the highstorms inside. The town probably won't do too well on its own after that, which cuts down on its value quite a bit.

I mostly agree with your speculation, but I think we have had a hint in the beginning of WoR, when Jasnah and Shallan are discussing spren. Shallan: "...Really, you can divide spren into two general groups. Those that respond to emotions and those that respond to forces like fire or wind pressure." Jasnah: "...I suspect, personally, that these groupings of spren - emotion spren versus nature spren - are where the ideas of mankind's primeval 'gods' came from." Windspren are clearly nature spren by this categorization, while honorspren are emotion spren. We've seen that when the Radiants aren't following the requirements of the Nahel bond, their spren regress. Syl becomes more like a windspren, and Pattern acts in a way that's described as imbecilic. I think that the spren which can form Nahel bonds are emotion spren which "evolved" from a particular nature spren. That evolution into emotion spren gives them the ability to bond with those of an appropriate emotional state, and their ancestry gives them power over the appropriate surges. Pattern's lack of acknowledgement of a "cousin" could be because his spren are high-class and don't like to consider their lower-class relations. Now here's my wild speculation: the "base" spren for the Dustbringers is rotspren. Perhaps the "evolved" form is freedomspren?

Here's what I asked: Q: There are different kinds of spren that bond with people and it appears they’re based on a concept. Is it possible to have a concept which would make a Nahel bond that gives two Surges that don’t align to one of the Radiant orders? A: Um, uh...this is a theoretical possibility that has not happened. Now I'm wondering what sort of concept of a spren might correspond to Progression and Transportation. Edit: I finally listened to the recording provided by Megalodon and found where my question was asked (just over halfway in, at 1:33). I didn't realize how hoarse I was at the time, which explains why the transcription had so many question marks in it. I managed to figure out the words I used to get that answer and updated the transcription as well.

I'm coming to San Antonio next week for work, and my flight back is on Friday. That means I'll miss that signing (boo!), but if anyone from San Antonio intends to drive up to Austin, I'd prefer to share a ride to getting a cross-city cab.

We know that there are sources of Investiture other than the highstorms on Roshar thanks to Lift. Her gift (turning food into Light) means that the Old Magic can be another source. Since stormform is all void-bringy, I'd say it's coming straight from wherever the Heralds go between desolations.

I think the main reason is meta - if she were no longer troubled by the Darkness, then there's no reason that she would want to avoid using her powers. If there's no reason for her to avoid using her powers, we don't get "David leads the Reckoners to victory"; instead, we have "Megan learns to use her powers and does whatever she wants." That's a very boring story. I do think that Calamity retcons a couple things from the previous novels, and not for the better. We had found that gifters weren't as affected by the Darkness when they gave their power away. It was implied that was why the Professor and Edmund were two of the less psychotic Epics. In this novel, overcoming your fears (to save others) is what overcomes the Darkness. That's why we had to find out that Edmund was afraid of dogs, etc., etc., when he otherwise has no impact whatsoever on the story. It's also less satisfying if fears are sometimes given by Calamity, rather than amplified by him. Brandon Sanderson has always been a fan of balancing power with flaws - it's basically a rule of the Cosmere stories - but Edmund's fear of dogs falls flat compared to the Professor's fear of failure or Steelheart's fear of being perceived as weak.

I went with Roshar/Nalthis for Surgebinding and the passive effects of the Heightenings (presuming that I reached the Fifth Heightening). The nice thing about Breath is that it's always self-sustaining, unlike Feruchemy or Allomancy, and doesn't rely nearly as much on location as AonDor healing. We also know it can do some other stuff not listed in the Ars Arcanum, and it appears that also doesn't use up the Breath. Surgebinding, well... personality-wise, I'm not sure whether Windrunner or Willshaper would be a better fit for me. Maybe once we see something more about the Willshapers than "adventurous, love of novelty, frustrating", I could better judge. Of course, any surgebinding also means the capacity for self-healing as long as I'm on Roshar.

I see Kaladin's view of Renarin differently. The slender limbs and delicate hands that never saw hard labor are a boyish quality which make Renarin seem younger than he is. Renarin wants to be a soldier and live up to his own ideals (as well as his society's ideals), but his family has strongly discouraged him. Now, take that sentence, and replace "Renarin" with "Kaladin". There are some strong parallels there. Kaladin had a few doubts about whether his bond with Syl was responsible for all of his skill with a spear. It wouldn't surprise me if he sees Renarin's lack of skill and wonders if that would have been him without the bond, which would make him even more sympathetic towards Renarin. Renarin also approached him to request to be made part of the guards of Bridge 4. This is the highest-ranking lighteyes that has ever deliberately put himself under Kaladin (as opposed to being ordered to do so by other lighteyes). Even if it did unnerve Kaladin, that action shows a great deal of humility (and a visible contrast to Adolin, who is deliberately showy and whom Kaladin dislikes for most of the book). Their other major interaction is during training, where Renarin displays an obedient attitude very much like Kaladin's. Overall, I'm sympathetic towards Renarin. In his religion, warriors are valued the most. If you aren't a warrior, and you're very good at what you do, then you get to keep doing it in the Tranquiline Halls. But if you don't enjoy what you're very good at, that sounds more like torture than a reward. Add on the stress of being a Radiant who can see the future when that's also against your religion (and the future looks a lot like doom)... yeesh. To answer the original question posed in the topic, I think that Shallan's portions in The Way of Kings should have been integrated more into the narrative arc at the Shattered Plains. To me, her portions of that book (and by extension, Jasnah's) are world-building and exposition rather than a story. I've re-read The Way of Kings a few times where I skip over her chapters entirely, and the book still holds up. I can't see the same being true for skipping Dalinar's or Kaladin's chapters.