hoser

It's a neat idea! Of the forty-one sections, we have two or three already. I expect we will get some more in the remaining 9 books. The parts we have are pretty short, so it would be less than 100 pages long unless our samples are unrepresentatively short. By the end it will also be somewhat redundant. That said, I definitely want to read it just for the snark that the Alethi women would have written in in the undertext (or whatever they call it)!

Foghorn Leghorn. Is that where that is from? Does he still exist or are we both old? I liked using "violent agreement" too (oxymoronic malapropism). Well, I know nothing. My interpretation of what Brandon is trying to tell us is that high level radiants have extremely light eyes. I think the backstory is that some combination of the 5 oaths and advanced use of the blades and plate makes more extensive changes to the SDNA which is shown by the extremely light eyes. YMMV

I resemble that first remark. In chapter 28, Adolin discusses witnessing a Shardbearer being taken down by a lighteyed archer. So Shardbearers do fall. Why did Brandon have him fall to a lighteyes? It does seem suspicious. Maybe Elwynn is on to something . The rest of this is probably violent agreement... If lighteyes and darkeyes always existed and radiantblades made no difference, then: Why did it start to make a difference? Why does Brandon make such a big thing of it? It would be a huge non-sequitur. Brandon doesn't need to make the books bigger. Why does Brandon make a point that the Radiants' eyes were so light that they were almost white in the Feverstone Keep vision? As for the aside: I don't think so for three reasons: If beginning Radiants automatically got Blades and Plate, then Kaladin would have them already. If advanced Radiants get Blades and Plate, then they already have a relationship with a spren of a workable type and nobody's eyes would change color. The eye color change is really an effect of changes to the SDNA. If Kaladin becomes a Radiant with Blade and Plate, his SDNA will undergo the same changes as the others and lighten. The question I have is: If Kaladin continues to refuse a Blade, but becomes a five-oath windrunner, will his eyes lighten anyway? Hopefully less confusing ... It comes out much better in martian. Edited: add information about Chapter 28.

Hmm. Oops. It seems like I missed something. Sorry. You are saying: 1. We have not actually seen a darkeye pick up a radiantblade and their eyes lightened. And you are suggesting: 2a. When a darkeyes picks up a radiantblade, their eye will not change color. or 2b. When a darkeyes picks up a radiantblade, their eye will change color temporarily, because all radiantblades work like Szeth's. or 2c. When a darkeyes picks up a radiantblade we have no idea what will happen, because it has been so long since it last happened and the whole idea of the eyes changing is probably propaganda. or 2d. Something else entirely, and I should stick to martian, because I just suck at english.

Umm. Lighteyes exist? Dalinar's eyes don't darken or change color when he sends his blade back (I think to the spiritual plane). There is theory suggesting that the eye color change relates to an SDNA change that could explain the link that allows one to retrieve the blades. The retrieval part still works. When Amaram took up the blade that Kaladin won, the gem on the blade is described as flashing, which seems to correspond to establishing the link. Is there some evidence that this works differently now? There is speculation that Odium has corrupted Shardblades somehow, but the only evidence I'm aware of in support is Syl's antipathy. If Odium did change the blades, I would think he would want to be subtle about it and not change something obvious if it could be avoided. I believe the current lighteyes include the descendents of those who picked up the weapons from Feverstone Keep (and maybe elsewhere). I wonder whether they also include the descendants of the Radiants. There is obviously alot of experience from that time forward. People have also won blades over time moving forward. If it had changed, it would have been noteworthy. Also, radiantblades are not described as changing peoples eye color, just lightening it. In particular, they are not described as changing it to the color associated with certain other radiant abilities that Szeth just happens to be able to use. If radiantblades changed eye color, whenever a hereditary lighteyes picked up a sword that was different than the one his ancester had used, wouldn't their eye color change unless the two swords changed the eyes to the same color? I think we would have seen it with Amaram when he picked up the sword Kaladin won. It seems like there is much more evidence than just rumor and legend. People know how this works, and are using these swords everyday. I think Brandon is hanging this Chekhovian cannon in plain sight.

One reference is at the end of Kaladin's highstorm stormriding dream (chapter 46), the storm voice says "CHILD OF TANAVAST. CHILD OF HONOR. CHILD OF ONE LONG SINCE DEPARTED."

Intense! Only a pedantic fool would complain about the hair not being black.

I agree with Windrunner about the woman being a Stoneward. It's very interesting that we have only seen these two orders, and always together. I think Jasnah explains about soulcasters that fabrials were made that mimicked Radiant abilities. For reasons that we will hopefully eventually learn, the Radiants only turned over Shardblades, Shardplate and Soulcasters. Some (at least I) believe that in addition to this fabrial that does Regrowth, there are Oathgates that recreate a Radiant teleportation ability and possibly others. In this thread, there is a fair amount of discussion about the orders and their semi-unique abilities. The analysis there assigns Regrowth (or life, with regrowth's relationship to life being like a lashing is to the windrunner gravity surge) to order 4 (secondary attribute healing) and one other. The idea that only some fabrials were turned over when the Knights recreanted (not a real word, I don't think) would support the idea that there might be more blades and plate. There are a number of Radiant abilities that may be general across all orders. Brandon has said that there are pairs of abilities shared between neighboring orders. We've seen that Pressure, Gravity and Soulcasting are specific to certain orders. I think that Travel and Regrowth will fall in that category also. Other knights (or non-knights) can do these abilities with a fabrial. Brandon has said that each order may have a special ability (for Windrunners, maybe Stormriding) also. Abilities that may be general could be infusing, detection and communication. Note that the Stonewards and Windrunners can both infuse, even though their orders are not adjacent.

Welcome! I agree that he must be referring to the coming desolation. To me, that is a vital quote to understanding Szeth. The other quote that is interesting is: I read this as saying that he believes in Voidbringers, but the Stone Shaman don't. Further, he is being punished for something he has done that relates to the Voidbringers. So he did something, and believed in it enough to risk the Truthless punishment. But now he seems resigned to playing out his sordid role. What if he saw the chance to make a difference again? Could that be a path to redemption for him?

Ten is a special number for Roshar, and as I read the Prelude, the Honorblades are clearly tied to the Oathpact. They are described as unique, precious and more powerful than the Radiantblades. The Heralds seem to be Honor's representatives. Honor is gone, splintered, Tanavast presumably dead, and not likely to be creating more Honorblades. If he had created more Honorblades, why would they not have been used? If they had been, and others with the power of the Heralds were running around, wouldn't there be legends of the eleventh and twelth heralds? If Odium created super Shardblades, I don't think they would be Honorblades, by definition. The Honorblade sticking around at the end of the book proves to me that the Herald didn't die, he just passed out.

If you dredge through some of the ancient threads, you'll find that some people think that he is extraordinary partly due to having started the same process of connecting with a spren that Kaladin is further along on. He doesn't know the spren yet , and the bond is not as developed, but some people (me, at least) are fairly certain that he will become a Knight Radiant.

As I recall, the stormlight came from the gems in the "soulcaster" in her safepouch, which is why she thouight she'd accidentally used it.

IIRC, feeding the glove only regrows the rest if the remainder isn't fed.

Love this! Snap uprate!

I must be missing something (happens a lot) . The problem I see is that the application of stormlight will happen in the future relative to the plate. In the Miles analogies, it is his state at the moment of bisection that determines where the soul goes. With the armor, at some indeterminate time in the future, one or more of the pieces will get stormlight applied. If the soul has to pick at the moment of splitting, it can't tell which part will have stormlight applied later. Does this make sense? So there must be multiple souls, a soul that jumps from piece to distant piece or a non-soul element that maintains a connection across distance like a spanreed or ... As I see it, with Miles, only one piece regrows right away because the capability is innate. The other pieces are dead immediately. With the plate, the stormlight being applied later determines which part regrows. If there were a unique soul that had to choose at the moment of splitting and could only travel within the integral portion, I don't see how the plate thing could work. I guess all the pieces of the plate could be linked to the cognitive or spiritual realm through the investiture and the soul could jump through the link across physical distance depending on the relative size of the pieces and whether they are getting stormlight ... but now I'm BSing wildly. Stopping now.

Actually, I don't understand. If Shardplate has a singular soul that makes a choice at the time of bisection to go to the larger part, then Dalinar's gauntlet would never be able to regrow the rest. So there must be something else going on here, or the soul splits. Another implication is that if you have damaged armor, you need to keep it together while exposing it to stormlight, otherwise all but one piece will degrade and the remaining piece will try to regrow all the others.

The pieces of the Shardplate are never cut by the Shardblade. Each individual piece seems to explode when stressed to the breaking point. The armor seems to be permanently invested, which allows it to resist the Shardblade in the first place. It's investment seems to cause the destruction of the piece rather than allowing it to be cut. Interesting follow-up question: If you exploded every piece of the armor, then chose the biggest chunk of shrapnel, would it regrow? Basically, when a piece explodes, does it lose it's investment? Maybe the explosion is the release of the energy of investiture. The father secretly creates small amounts of valuable materials at various sites on the Davar properties to induce investment, then carries a fake soulcaster to explain the Soulcasting that no-one knows he's doing . <snarky sarcasm>Very subtle</snarky sarcasm> Actually, I think that there are many things that I completely misunderstand in these books. I resist this theory because I don't think that Davar Senior is supposed to be magical. Soulcasting personally like Jasnah and Shallan seems like something that will turn out to be special. Likewise I resist the notion that all Soulcasters are fake because that would mean a continuously operating set of magical practitioners in the ardentia since the Hierocracy. If the ardentia had been surgebinding like this, they could have discovered the other forms of surgebinding. If the ardentia had surgebinders, they would not be chattel. The fact that the ardentia does Soulcasting in secrecy is suspicious. OTOH, Jasnah does it openly and people still think she uses the fake Soulcaster. Edited: combine posts to avoid doubleposting.

Maybe not all magical objects have the healing capability, just as not all people can heal like Miles. Armor inherently will need repair if used, but it wouldn't be essential in Soulcasters. So, if it could heal, the larger part would regrow the smaller, but it can't regrow. But why doesn't it work? Apparently the gems can be freely replaced. Does there need to be a magical process to reinvest the "soul" into the whole thing? I think it couldn't be repaired because it was cut by a Shardblade, and we know that Shardblades are hard on souls. This might be an alternate explanation for why it didn't regrow if Soulcasters are supposed to be able to heal.

Prized fantasy, written work created work writing for fantastic prizes.

It seems intuitive that hatred is more self and future-oriented than honor. Honor seems very other and present-oriented. It makes sense that Honor would want people to interact with. It also makes sense that Odium would want to destroy those same people. I can see the Oathpact as a sort of proxy war setup to avoid the Shards coming directly in conflict. I can imagine Odium having a long game of letting Honor weaken himself by overcommitting to the world, then killing him when he's weak. The desolations would then be just a convenient mechanism to induce Honor to overcommit. The mystery to me is why Honor would be surprised that Odium came for him. The only unlikely scenario that I can imagine is the the Purelaker mythology is true and that Rayse and Tanavast were brothers. I can't wait to find out how wrong I am when we learn what is really going on.

There are the Voidbringers, Odium's supposed counterparts to the heralds. Are the Voidbringers servants of Cultivation then? Do the Voidbringers not do voidbinding? Are the Desolations a struggle between Honor and Cultivation? I thought I had it figured out: Honor and maybe Cultivation fight against Odium's Desolations. Honor has the Radiants doing surgebinding and the Heralds. Odium has the Voidbringers doing voidbinding, Midnight Essence, other essences, thunderclasts, possession magic (part of voidbinding?) maybe being used on chasmfiends and maybe Parshendi. Head slowly exploding ... How would it work if voidbinding was a Cultivation system? Edited: wording tweaks

There are references to something called Proving Day. I assume there were some contests to choose the Heralds. Once chosen, they could get a kit: languages, swords, unspecified other powers, returning from death to fight desolations, immortality and the right to be tortured. Hoid has been around since before the shattering, has some precognition, has used Shadesmar effectively to travel. Why should everybody have Hoid's abilities? These 17th Sharders have figured some stuff out, but may not know a lot of the tricks. When Shallan went to Shadesmar, she had no idea what was going on. It didn't come with a manual.

Well, the question seems to me to be whether they are enunciating words or speaking mind to mind, as Syl does to Kaladin. I think the budding Radiants will be doing mind-to-mind communication eventually, and the Heralds might be able to do it. If they can, it raises the question of why they don't do it in the Prologue. If they are using their mouths to enunciate sound waves, wouldn't they have to be in one language at a time? If they can't magically tell what language a person speaks, they would have to just pick a language based on previous speech, or informed guesswork.

I think this is brilliant. The phenomenon was needed, since being gone for 500 or 4500 or however many years, the language would change. When the Heralds come they don't have time to take years learning to communicate. When Taln was last here, maybe the language was Dawnsinging. I wonder if this means that the Heralds can speak any language without explicitly learning it. It would sure be useful if they are to lead the resistance to the Desolations.

I think that bridge four have already made some very important choices that could endear them to honorable spren. When Kaladin asked them to go on a suicide mission to try to save Dalinar's army, they could have objected or refused. When he went down to a flood of arrows, they could have bailed, but they went ahead without him. The Teft who once refused to share any of his food with the wounded, told Kaladin to stay and then went to push the bridge across to near certain death. I think these are very important choices that could easily start attracting spren. The fact that the team didn't even need to debate them makes them stronger choices. While it may be that more important and individual choices will need to be made later on to build the Nahel bond, I believe some members of Bridge Four will have a radiant destiny. They have started down the path. Arguably, Moash, by vocally objecting to what Kaladin was trying to do, was protecting and leading from the beginning. Teft and Rock have also made altruistic choices that could make them stand out to spren. If I were an honorspren wandering the world vaguely, nostalgically looking to recreate the Nahel bond, I might linger around the Shattered Plains looking for honorable actions. The actions of Bridge Four in the Tower fight would have certainly caught my eye.