IndigoAjah

Man, in book 5 I want to see an explosion of full blown, Cosmeric magical combat, where Vasher decides **** has hit the fan and just starts Awakening EVERYTHING, Azure uses Dayblood to turn Nale into a statue, Szeth gives Taln Nightblood and he goes straight to Braize and uses it to utterly **** up every single Fused on Odium's side, Kelsier/Thadaikar sends some Twinborn to cause havoc, someone starts using White Sands magic, Marsh just turns up and kills TOdium with one punch, it all looks like everything is won for the good guys until Dalinar ends up getting super invested and Connects the entire planet in some way that leads to a repeat of the Surgebinding that destroyed Ashyn, and everyone has to flee the system whilst Moash escapes with the Odium and Cultivation Shards as Empire or something.

Go that big.

Welp, thank This post has been reported for attempting to skirt the rules Harmony decided to get rid of natural born Mistborn 

19 hours ago, ScarecrowBoat716 said:

I'm probably way overthinking this but did we ever find out why Shallan felt her "mother's soul" in her father's safe? I know the Testament-blade was locked in there, but that shouldn't be her mother's soul that she feels. Unless I'm missing something.

That scene makes me think of the gemstone knife that you can use to trap Heralds' souls. So I had the crazy thought that Shallan's mother was a Herald and somehow she actually trapped her mother's soul. Her mother being a Herald would explain why the cryptics are willing to bond her twice.

It's a WoB (well, technically a Word of Peter) that Chanaranach has been seen onscreen in the first two books:

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/310/#e9123

We also don't know anything about the location of Vedel.

So that's two female Heralds, one of which we know has been seen in the books, with their locations unaccounted for.

The one thing that gives me pause is I would assume her soul would eventually evaporate like Jezrien's did, and then Kelek should know that another Herald has entered the Beyond. But I wanted to throw this theory out there to get the community's thoughts.

I'm well prepared to be totally shot down if I'm forgetting some detail that disproves this...

If she died to a mere Shardblade, wouldn't she be in Braize?

4 hours ago, Toaster Retribution said:

There has been a bunch of Chana-hunts over the years. The most popular theory is that she is Liss, the assassin Jasnah employs at the start of WoR. I personally think that she is Vedel, if she is a Herald at all. Another theory that popped up was that she was the prostitute Adolin saved in WoK. I have never seen that theory that she is Shallans mother though. It is interesting, but I doubt that would be the case. Partially because Shallans mother seems to be affiliated with the Skybreakers, and thus presumably known to Nale. And Nale might be insane, but I doubt that he would leave Chana/another Herald trapped in a safe in Lin Davars home. 

Furthermore, Heralds are physical manifestations of cognitive shadows. I don't know if they can have children. 

If this was the case, Jasnah would have recognized Challan based on Hoids drawings. And we would also have to explain why Challan appeared as a ten year old girl, when her real appearance seems to be somewhere in the 25-35 range based on the art that we have. 

Regarding Nale: given he can only kill Radiants if they've broken the Law, maybe Chana was never going to kill Shallan but to make her kill Chana in self-defence so that Nale had his excuse to kill her? 

Doesn't explain why he wouldn't then come to finish the job though 

I think 4 things stood out re Kal's mental health in RoW as particularly good things: the helpful actions of Adolin and Shallan

The way Kal still struggles to self-love and accept others caring about him even when we see lots of evidence that they do - which is very real (though some, most unhelpfully his father, really don't get it)

The way Kal uses his experience to help others, which is heartwarming

And the way Syl feels upset she can't quite understand Kal, and the heartbreaking way she makes herself feel her worst memories to try to empathise with him (which I'm not convinced is a good thing).

I liked the balance of understand Vs sympathise in this book. Both are helpful, but as Adolin showed and Syl has time after time, you don't need to understand what someone is going through to support them through it

On 13/12/2020 at 8:30 AM, Oltux72 said:

If that were the issue they could just live in Shadesmar.

Well, OK, anything can happen. Kaladin is going to marry Cultivation and their babies will be half dragons and fly around the valley. And Oroden will bond the Nightwatcher and become the third Bondsmith.

You know this is going to be what Sanderson writes now

On 02/12/2020 at 2:37 AM, Subvisual Haze said:

It can't be unintentional that Kaladin is completely without (non-Syl) relationship prospects 4 books into this series.  Nor can it be a coincidence that the childlike and carefree nature of Syl has been corrupted by Kaladin's sadbrains and knowledge/dwelling on the inevitability of death/loss.

It might just be, and I have to applaud this option, that Kal WON'T get a romantic option.

He's not in the right place for one. He's not ready. Lin knew that. It isn't what he needs right now. Syl offers more of what he needs right now. I don't object to Sylladin as a ship, and I think it could work as they really do seem much closer than any other Nahel couple, and they suit each other in many regards, but Syl offers a lot without adding romance in.

Not every major character NEEDS a romantic arc, certainly not in-narrative. Sex isn't the focus of the entire universe. Other types of love are important too, and much like say Elsa in Frozen, focus on non-romantic love can be refreshing.

Kal would get "You Will Be Found" from Dear Evan Hansen

I think it's gonna be a book on one of two things really:

1) a book on the Recreance, long lost

Or

2) a Shin book about the transfer from Ashyn to Roshar or the like

Or maybe

3) about the Ghostbloods

1) would be something like

Knights of Woe

Knights of Waived Ties/Trust

Etc

2) would be

Knights Of Wandering 

Kin of a World Torn

3) Kindred of Worldly Truths?

1 hour ago, Ruin's Scariest Koloss said:

None of the Skybreakers besides Szeth are loyal to Dalinar. The Dustbringers have made it clear they're not part of his chain of command. That's ~20% of all Radiants right there that are not obedient to the Kholins. Plus the Reachers are reluctant to bond any humans, and the one that we know of bonded Venli, who again is not really loyal to anyone except herself.

Can you explain how Kaladin's role is passive? It seemed to me that his role in RoW was one of the biggest. He got more screen time than just about anyone (besides maybe Navani) and made a lot of important moves. He is critical to defending Urithuru. Not to mention he absolutely wrecks the Pursuer twice, which apparently has never happened in any previous desolation.

I think it's because Kal is either always reacting or following orders, except in his best bit where he invents mental health medicine. But then, he's a soldier, in the end in a war that's what he's gonna be doing.

1 hour ago, Gisaku75 said:

The only decision the emperor made was to fully support Dalinar . And in reality in almost the whole civilized world the people have deposed the nobility that ruled by divine right, replacing it with democracy. It did not happen by courtesy of the kings but thanks to the people's uprisings. Spren should bond with people who embody certain ideals regardless of race and class, in this book it seems that only the Kholin and their underlings are worthy, a little too comfortable. In reality, being the son or relative of a great man does not at all mean being equally skilled. On balance both Navani and Jasnah can be considered the smartest only because most people are kept in ignorance. It is totally unrealistic that a nation like Azis, with a high schooling rate, does not even have a scientist on par with Navani.

Who says they don't?

13 hours ago, IndigoAjah said:

Despite the awesome moment of "Journey over Destination, you bastard", I agree with this. It's coerced, for sure, and seemingly irreversible too, though I don't think it's coerced by Navani as such. I don't blame either Navani or The Sibling for giving in to it to survive. I hope it's portrayed as a morally dubious decision, and maybe even painted in comparison to Navani's first marriage, also a dubious marriage of convenience, albeit somewhat more autonomous.

 

 

Thw other thing is that I really don't think Navani NEEDED to Bond the Sibling in terms of arc and growth. She had a great arc anyway. 

13 hours ago, MyrmidonOfAchilles said:

The problem for me with Navani bonding the Sibling is that it seems entirely focused around Navani's journey of finding her own self-worth and railroads the Sibling into validating that journey at the expense of their very real issues about how Navani treats spren and with a heavy dose of coercement in that the Sibling has been tortured throughout the story and will be killed if they don't bond someone.

I know some people don't comparing spren bonds to romantic relationships, but I'm going to do so anyways. Imagine that you are a veterinarian, you spend your time taking care of animals and advocating for their safety. One day you learn that I am running a dogfighting ring in which I am capturing and abusing dogs, you naturally hate this and with no other form of recourse you begin sending me threatening messages hoping that I'll stop. One night you are attacked by a serial killer who begins hunting you down and in the process giving you several terrible wounds, all the while you feel your inevitable death closing in. I, a man who you hate deeply, offer to save you if you date me. You say no. I say that I've been overcoming abuse from an ex and now realize that I have self-worth and that as a result you should date me. I give you no clear assurances that I'll stop dogfighting but remind you that you're going to die. You give in and we fight off the serial killer.

This is Stockholm Syndrome and a hefty case of a Leonine contract at best.

Like I get it. Navani is an incredibly brave woman and a genius scholar who was gaslighted terribly by an absolute piece of crem and that her refinding her confidence is inspiring and a wonderful character arc. It just feels like it's kneecapping the Sibling's agency as a way to sort of crown Navani's accomplishments, and dashed my hopes that we'd either get a Singer Bondsmith as a way of truly bridging the divide between the two sides as it shows even the greatest of roles are open to Singers or that a man like Dabbid who is mentally handicapped and overlooked and ignored almost completely like he isn't even a person can in spite of that become one

Instead Dabbid is relegated back to the shadows having served his purpose as "weird guy who gets to helps Kaladin and the Sibling," Rlain finds only more proof that all the spren of Honor and Cultivation really are just anti-singer racists and that the only way he could get a spren is if a corrupted one bonds him, and yet another Kholin gets to be Radiant and make a Bondsmith power couple. Joy.

Despite the awesome moment of "Journey over Destination, you bastard", I agree with this. It's coerced, for sure, and seemingly irreversible too, though I don't think it's coerced by Navani as such. I don't blame either Navani or The Sibling for giving in to it to survive. I hope it's portrayed as a morally dubious decision, and maybe even painted in comparison to Navani's first marriage, also a dubious marriage of convenience, albeit somewhat more autonomous.

1 hour ago, Alatar said:

Very good point. It also seems that new Vessels are much more dynamic and independent of their Shard's Intent, see what happened with Scadrial!

So, do you think we'll see Dalinar going out and Uniting Ambition, Devotion and Dominion so that someone takes them?

I don't think Dalinar will end up with Honor's Shard to be honest. 

A common cold could still wreak havoc!

Has Wit ever given a character in Stormlight Archive a coin permanently? I have a feeling he has...

3 hours ago, Alatar said:

The Raboniel - Navani plot is brilliant. Of course, it's up to what everybody likes or dislikes, because this is not a plot about battles or strategies or overcoming ones failures (well, that is a bit) but a duel of the minds, Navani trying to outthink Raboniel, who in turn tries to manipulate Navani. And that's done brilliantly. Raboniel's intentions and motivations are pretty clear in the end: she's a scientist, a very reputed one, and those have sometimes a god complex, they think that with sufficient study and resources you can do anything. And the Fused have all the time in the world, as they're immortal. She tries to control the mental decay by having her daughter and herself together, hoping that Connection to anchor their minds. She fails. I can imagine her thrushing and hurting about it. But millenia have passed, she's now detached, controls her feelings completely to achieve her goal of ending the war. When Navani first asks about the other Fused and she tells her she's her daughter, she says that coldly. But when she finally gives her release she unleashes her grief. She's tired, she just wants everything to end, so that she can die and rest. That's the motivation.

The intentions are also clear: she wants to end the war once and for all and release the Fused (or, at least, herself and her daughter) to true death. She wants to end the war with a victory for the singers but she would take a victory for the humans because, as she says in the end, it's better than the war going on. She herself has lost the spark of invention and recognizes in Navani someone who has it, so she manipulates her to push her to work, with hints and prodding, subtle things. She's a master schemer and beats Navani at everything, that's why Navani's efforts seem childish, because she's a child when compared to Raboniel, who also has a deeper knowledge about everything, including spren and the Tower.

For me, this is the best written plot in the book and Raboniel is the best written character (presented as a mad scientist, then seen as a fearsome schemer, then giving respect to Navani, you don't know if she's for real or another manipulation, at the end you see her pain and sacrifice). But I also love schemes and backstabbing

 

Now, for the book in general, what I think its worst flaw is that it's predictable. We have several WOW moments and reveals and turning points, like Taravangian, Restares, Testament (at least for me), Ishar and Raboniel, of course, but the main plots go as most people thought: Kaladin overcomes depression and swears the 4th Ideal which is more or less what was expected, Shallan starts reintegrating personas, Adolin starts healing Maya and gets the honorspren to act...It's all fairly predictable.

Is predictability bad?

I'm not sure it is. Much better than unforeshadowed unpredictable plot twists which are just pure bad writing. Plus in this day and age, everything is predictable. We analyse these stories thoroughly. If an author has written them well, some of us are gonna guess the major plot details each time. They would have done the same with every book series ever written, had the internet been around at the time they were written. If we don't want stories to be predictable, should we not stop trying to predict them?

Personally I thoroughly disagree but I can see where people's disappointment with the book comes from and you're entitled to your opinion.

2 hours ago, The Traveller said:

I think that dawnsingers had some sort of binding with spren and access to surges but it was something different from nahel bond. It may be possible that they did not form singular bonds but forged friendships with spren. Which were less binding and probably did not need oaths. 
Most hint for this we get in the chapter “song of stones” where Venli is shown a sort of vision where ancient ones are shaping the stone using rhythms. I am not sure if stormlight was important to this system. 
So if there were singers who reshaped stone and there must be singers who flew or who healed etc etc 
It may be that what these singers used to do, singing rhythms of Roshar and attracting spren and working magic is what is referred to as “old magic”

Regarding Leshwi I am also interested to know that being cut off by odium and devoid of constant feeding of void light directly from odium, how are these heavenly ones going to survive? Will she keep her surge? 

Luckily the chump has a giant storm to refill the light in gems etc! 

But Navani can sort her out regarding that one, I think.

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

In 10 days?

Probably. It's his weird crusade and 10 days in book time is a long time.

The actual attainment of an ideal doesn't take long once a character has the right revelation

It's demonstrably not Pattern she uses to kill Tyn

44 minutes ago, Smye said:

I don't think so... we know that in approximately 1153 (3 years prior to Shallan's birth), Nale began his crusade to stop other Orders from returning, killing budding Radiants (excepting those who would fit as Skybreakers, of course). This would strongly suggest the 'new' Radiants began showing up sooner than Shallan.

Good point.

Man, Shallan is probably very "lucky" she killed her mother and her Spren then, I forgot Nale was around 

6 hours ago, Ookla the Disproportionate said:

I mean...calling established and very real mental illnesses ‘cringe’ is honestly super tacky but whatever floats your goat I guess...

This was actually one of the best reveals imo, because there actually are some very subtle but very clear hints in tWoK. A couple times she thinks about how she needs 10 heartbeats to do something, and when the Patternblade was revealed, we all thought it was referring to that, but obviously Living Blades don’t need 10 heartbeats to be summoned. So there were hints that Shallan had a dead shardblade since the very beginning. 

I agree. 

I like but don't love Shallan's chapters, not because of the personalities which I think are interesting but because less interesting stuff happens for me than in other characters', at least since Book 2.

However, the Testament reveal was clearly planned from the start, foreshadowed in every book and artfully done. I don't really understand how anyone could find out about it and think it was just thrown in this book without thinking "Oh my god, that's why that thing happened in WoR...", But then I've seen the same criticism in things like Frozen where the twist was foreshadowed heavily as well.

39 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Nightblood is a devastating melee weapon. Range is not its strength. And it also is not a weapon you can use for long.

Szeth against a Regal bearing Yelig-Nar and a nullifier fabrial for example looks very bad for Szeth.

Not really. He just has to throw it once and NB will do the rest. Wielding NB is by far the least effective way to use it.

2 hours ago, Ailvara said:

I think all of El, Moash, Nale, make sense but would be quite underwhelming and uninteresting. I still wish for Adolin (drama!), but after RoW he seems to be set up for a different arc (BAM release). However, Rodium nearly turned Dalinar, then nearly Kaladin of all people, each in less than one book. So who knows. It'd be actually super cool to see how Todium is a much more masterful and convincing sneaky bastard.

He was working on them for much longer than a book!

36 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

He has no Plate and Odium's champion may carry one of the nullifier fabrials. If he wore a set of dead Plate, he'd be unable to lash.

He still has NB though

52 minutes ago, ShardplateJoe III said:

At this point, I don't think we have time to see Kal in a relationship. We have ten days until the duel of the champions, little time for a serious relationship to grow, and if the duel of the champions happens at the climax of the book (which it almost certainly will, though I may be surprised) we have fifteen years between the events of SA 5 and 6. 

 

Assuming Kal survives SA 5, we will have fast forwarded Kal's life fifteen years, at which point he will probably have been married for about a decade ish.

I'd say the duel is likely to happen quite a lot before the climax of book 5 to be honest.