hoser

Voidbinding does seem mysterious. Honor doesn't seem to have a problem trying to see the future and sharing what he sees. The Hierocracy, Sunmaker or both may have been corrupted by Odium. The Hierocracy may have been guided by the same visions that Dalinar was and the Sunmaker may have corrupted the teachings to discredit them. We don't know what the heralds really said. There may be some distinction that we don't understand yet to differentiate acceptable ways to anticipate the future.

Well, I know nothing. And what I think I know about tWoK will almost certainly be proven wrong in WoR . Nevertheless, the evidence suggests to me that Honorblades are a type of Shardblade. Please consider the prelude:This implies that they have the power of other Shardblades and some additional abilities. In the Epilogue, Taln's slices through things like the Radiantblades. I have trouble deciding that two of the three types of Shardblades Brandon has said that we've seen are from different Radiant orders, but are so indistinguishable that the differences are never described in the text. Whereas Szeth's blade, which is very different from the Radiantblades we've seen, is from a third order. Szeth's blade is long and thin, double-sided and conveys a temporary eye color change to the color corresponding to the windrunner abilities he manifests. I believe that it may also be described as unique, but I haven't found the quote. The permanent lightening of the eyes from the Radiantblades is apparently the basis for the Alethi nobility. As for the spear thing, Kaladin is special with a spear, but as a child, he is also special with a staff. The Windrunner blades we've seen have been swords, which seem more useful for fighting Thunderclasts. We may find that Kaladin is also a badass with a sword, if he does get one. Assuming it is not a Radiantblade, I am very curious about the origins of Szeth's blade. Are the Shin manufacturing blades? Is it from the Rosharian prehistory? Could it once have been a voidbringer weapon? Is it a Cultivationblade?

Good catch. So I'm clearly wrong. Maybe the floating guy is demonstrating mad dodging skills. If the guy was touching the sword to lash it during the swing, wouldn't the artist portray the hand trajectory also?

Given your name, I should just let you tell me. To lash the sword, wouldn't he have to touch it? Which he isn't doing either. I assumed that he reverse lashed the ground before floating up. The motion looks like a sweeping 150 degree arc, which is not how I would indicate a person struggling with something that is stuck to the ground. A reverse lashing wouldn't affect the guy as much if he was in contact with the ground, but it would affect the free end of the sword most strongly.

Good catch! I completely ignored those illustrations. In the one on the upper right, the indicated sword trajectory also looks strange. Reverse lashing on the ground perhaps?

I don't think that fits. Dalinar has captured parshmen blades and found nothing noteworthy about them. We know that there are 3 kinds of blades and we have blades that behave in three different ways: Honorblade: dark eyes when bearing, disappear when Herald (or other bearer?) dies Radiantblade: permanently makes eyes light after having been borne, single-edged, artistic designs, appears when bearer dies Szethblade: unique, eyes change color to light blue temporarily only while bearing, long, small, double-edged, possibly grants windrunner abilities If Shallan's blade were an Honorblade, people would likely have known that it was different. If she killed her father while he was bearing it, it might have disappeared. I don't know of any evidence supporting the notion that Szeth's or Shallan's blades are Honorblades. There are blades that behave in three different ways with respect to the eyes. I believe the eye changes indicate spiritweb or spiritual DNA changes. (The link to spirit may also be why shardblades burn out the eyes.) It seems logical to me that the differing eye effects define the three blade types.

I think he does have one or two onscreen "fits". The one I particularly remember is when Navani is doing the huge prayer glyph. There is another apparent "fit" described in chapter 52 after the Recreance vision. They seem to involve trembling legs, sitting down and holding his head.

Excellent! Thank you! Upvote!

Thanks again for the patient response. Yes, the "View Unread Replies" hasn't been updated for over two years, even though that contributor has submitted other mods this year. Unfortunately, even though it is a "free download", It won't let me look at it without a valid customer login. The API documentation is accessible. Would the licensing permit you to download it and let me look at it? I could sign a non-disclosure agreement.

Thanks for the information. I want to be clear in my appreciation for your labors of love. I love the site and am tremendously grateful for your efforts! The "View Unread Replies" feature may not have been updated for a long time, but it worked fine yesterday, so I am not sure why the lack of maintenance is relevant . I'll take your word for the clarity of the lack of desire to update, as I have no visibility on that. I do find it useful myself. Has this feature been spiked as a policy decision? Is there some way for me to attempt to update it and submit it to an administrator for testing? I haven't worked on apache for a long time, but I do have quite a bit of programming experience. I've hung around here for a while and I bear the site nothing but goodwill. Thanks! PS: Multiquote! Way cool!

OK, OK, I didn't know that "View Unread Replies" was no longer a thing. I have no idea how to do the "View New Content" thing, so I won't be finding any problems with that. Still, you might want to catch the exception, but maybe that's just me.

Did something change? Just kidding, I'm sure it's much better. Sometimes when I do the view unread replies thing, I get the following, which leaves me feeling nonplussed: Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'topics is not an object' in /home/prige/public_html/forum/admin/sources/base/ipsRegistry.php:1112 Stack trace: #0 /home/prige/public_html/forum/admin/sources/base/ipsRegistry.php(1210): ipsRegistry::getClass('topics') #1 /home/prige/public_html/forum/admin/applications/forums/modules_public/forums/forums.php(1280): ipsRegistry->__get('topics') #2 /home/prige/public_html/forum/admin/applications/forums/modules_public/forums/forums.php(1346): public_forums_forums_forums->parseTopicData(Array) #3 /home/prige/public_html/forum/admin/applications/forums/modules_public/unreadReplies/view.php(131): public_forums_forums_forums->renderEntry(Array) #4 /home/prige/public_html/forum/admin/sources/base/ipsController.php(306): public_forums_unreadReplies_view->doExecute(Object(ipsRegistry)) #5 /home/prige/public_html/forum/admin/sources/base/ipsController.php(120): ipsCommand->execute(Object(ipsRegistry)) #6 /home/prige/public_html/forum/admin/sources/base/ipsController.php(65): in /home/prige/public_html/forum/admin/sources/base/ipsRegistry.php on line 1112 It could be an internet problem at my end, but sometimes it works fine. Hope this helps

Brandon can fix the "bad" days many ways. I'm sure that he will surprise and delight us! He could give him a disproportionate number of good days, as suggested above, which would be disappointing to me, because I see the Nightwatcher as having her own integrity. He could have his original intelligence be high, and the variance could be around a mean of his original intelligence (so, on the IQ scale (not to suggest that IQ tests are valid) he could be mean 140) and a standard deviation such that he would be intelligent a significant amount of the time. If he is incapacitated a significant amount of the time, it will affect his organization. I am curious to see how Brandon handles it. Decisions, even decisions to defer, will need to be made. On genius days, T will be able to design systems to accommodate and give detailed contingency instructions. Nevertheless, there will be a significant number of days when the organization and T will be effectively led by his #2. Everybody will defer to #2 and #2 will be used to making paramount decisions. This should have an impact on the organization.

Actually, this is a significant problem. He is utterly dependent on having a second in command with intelligence, judgment, authority and trustworthiness. In an average year, assuming that bad days are as likely as good, he will be unable to make important decisions for five days running 15 times (assuming 500 20 hour days/yr). He will be out for 6 days running 8 times. He will be out for 7 days 4 times, 8 days twice and nine days once. If he gives himself math problems that take 20% greater intelligence than average to solve, he will have one good day in three. He will be unavailable for important decisions for 5 days running 40 times/year, 6 days 26 times, 7 days 18 times, 8 days 12 times, 9 days 8 times and even one random time/year, his organization would be leaderless for ~14 days. Effectively, he should not be a leader. He should just act as a figurehead taking orders from the real leader most of the time and act as a consultant on his "good" days.

As far as leading the order goes, I tend to think that it will be Kaladin, if it matters. If Jezrien ends up leading the combined forces of anti-Odium, then the leader of the knights will just be a lieutenant, anyway. I favor Kaladin because leadership is the primary windrunner trait and his inclinations, not gender or level of advancement. I see Jasnah doing independant things, and would rather not bother leading because it would restrict her research activities. I could also imagine an administrative leader, like Dalinar's new role, with Kaladin as more of a field commander.

I don't know. On stupid days, drafting lists of "friendly" other leaders to decide to assassinate on smart days. Or hanging out with fawning ardents while pretending to be kind. Or slowly killing people who trusted your scam by draining their blood. For megalomaniac schemers, the fun never ends. Seriously though, one problem is that pretending to be a kindly stupid person when one is really an evil megalomaniac stupid person seems difficult. For a genuinely stupid person to convincingly imitate an entirely different kind of stupid person probably wouldn't work that well. On "bad" days, he should probably just sit around and drain blood.

Yeah, Shallan is a murderer and a thief, but Shalash refuses to steal stuff when she could easily do so, so Shallan's kleptomania would probably get in the way of Shallan's apprenticing with Shalash. Seriously, I am curious about whether Brandon will start redeeming the renegade Heralds. I have a sneaky hope that Jezrien has had a plan all along, and will be helping out now that the desolation is upon us. There may also be hope for Shalash's redemption, but she does seem pretty crazy right now.

<snarky sarcasm>Besides Shash's prime attribute being creativity and Shallan amazing artistic abilities and the gender thing, which could otherwise complicate apprenticeships. </snarky sarcasm> Yeah, I agree with you about the similar name thing being a potential pain.

I read this as implying that Shallan has at least two apprenticeships. Who could she apprentice with after Jasnah? I think that her second apprenticeship will be with our favorite vandal, the daughter of winds and kings, Baxil's mistress.

Really? I must have missed this. Where does it say this? In our world, insects don't grow during pupation, they just change. No eating means no gain in mass. These things are encased in rock, essentially, so while their gemhearts will be a source of energy, I don't see how they would gain the mass needed to grow.

Interesting What do we know about these things: They crawl onto the plateaus, IIRC, so no flying. Presumably they are about the same volume and mass as the pupae (although they can get bigger after pupation), so they must be pretty big. The Shattered plains haven't been around forever. If they got shattered after the Heralds quit, then they are less than 4500 years old. Evolutionarily, that doesn't seem like very long, even with Cultivation meddling. It seems like there is a significant possibility that they are an adaptation of another Greatshell (that may no longer exist). I got nothing. Maybe Shallan will draw one in SA2.

I like this theory. However, responding simply to a minor point supporting the theory. Is there any supporting evidence for the notion that the suits didn't contain gems when the radiants used them? I've seen speculation that they didn't, to explain why Szeth doesn't use Shardplate, and it may even be true. But I've seen nothing that actually supports the thesis. When I use speculation to support a theory, it seems to introduce a degree of circular logic. In addition, Shardblades might be enough to "run around conquering everyone". I like the theory and do not mean to throw cold water on it, but I don't think the above paragraph actually strengthens the arguments for it. Another point of interest to this theory is that someone asked this question at a recent signing and got RAFO'ed. If the common presumption is that this was a past vision, then the RAFO suggests otherwise.

When I consider what might be the main point, I find this interesting. What does Shardplate provide non-Radiants: speed strength regeneration using stormlight from attached gems adhesion balance protection which drains gems and ultimately explodes stops Shardblades What else stops Shardblades? Shardblades How do Shardblades get stopped (speculation warning)? Investiture. Investiture interferes with most magics. Shardblades are magic, ergo investiture interferes with their magic. So Shardplate is invested (duh, it's magical, so we already knew that). There must be a "permanent" "spell" on it. This being Roshar, that spell is powered by stormlight which must be locked into the Shardplate. When Shardplate breaks, it explodes (with molten metal flying, as I recall). The explosion could be powered by the release of the invested energy. So the Shardplate could lock the energy of investiture within itself without being permanently infused. I think the gems could power infusing the armor (if that's what happens) and Radiants can use them as effective batteries. Questions: How are Shardblades able to block Shardblades indefinitely without exploding? Could they be permanently linked to the spiritual realm, so they can draw stormlight anytime? Would Shardplate work as well if you put the wrong gems in the wrong places?

Neat theory. I beg to differ with the part about the gems being a hack, however (which, given my track record, probably means that your theory is perfect ). I think Szeth is getting his windrunning in a different way (perhaps the sword), and that's why the armor interferes with his lashings. I think the gems have always been a part of the Shardplate and didn't interfere with the Radiant lashings. Consider the scene where Dalinar describes the footgear. He explains that they include the windrunner gems and can adhere inexplicably well (lashings anyone?). The gems seem too integrated to be part of an ignorant hack job. The ideas about Dalinar and Elhokar seem to work whether or not the gems are a hack.

We know the planets predate the breakup of Adalnauseum (joke). Healthy dirt is not really an element, but rather a complex blend of organic, inorganic and living components. The crem might be worse for the dirt than the terrible storms every few days. The crem seems to aggregate to form an impermeable layer that would hide and kill any soil underneath. So the question becomes: "When did the crem start coming down? Maybe the answer depends on whether you think crem has a Shardic origin. While I can imagine a rift to the spiritual realm allowing stormlight to leak into the physical (not sure of the name here) realm, it is harder for me to imagine where the crem comes from. If crem isn't coming out of the ground somehow at the origin, Roshar must be gaining in mass with every highstorm. For crem to be natural, it would have to somehow be continually injected into the sky from the ground. I guess volcanoes could do it, but I haven't seen signs of that yet.