Yezrien

Well, the entire map should be a flat plane. Shadesmar is flat because that’s how people perceive reality. Inhabited continents form large lakes, like the Rosharan Shadesmar. If you started with the star map from Arcanum Unbounded, then replaced each named star system with a shrunken map of that world (with the land drawn as water), I think that would be a good place to start. If I understand it correctly, Roshar might be in between Nalthis and Taldain, but it should be possible to walk from Nalthis to Taldain without passing through Roshar. It’s on the way, but you can walk around it.

As for the Urithiru megafabrial, it might have something to do with Urithiru’s ability to be agriculturally self-sufficient. Perhaps it controls the local temperature, and uses something like progression to enhance crop yields. It might also enhance the city’s defenses in some unpredictably awesome way.

There probably is just the one continuous storm, but there would still have to be some kind of Origin. The highstorm is very powerful when it hits eastern Roshar and Alethkar, but it weakens as it travels westward, especially when it passes over mountains. By the time it hits Shinovar, it doesn’t even resemble a highstorm anymore. Before it circles around to Alethkar again, it has to be restored and recharged by something. So even if the origin isn’t the literal origin of highstorms, it could be the origin of the highstorm’s power.

That makes sense. “Disconnecting” might be the best word for it. Or “Dissociating,” or “Decentralizing,” or “Disjointing.” Whatever you call it, I think the a main symptom is that the Shard can no longer take a new vessel, at least until it’s been repaired or gained sentience. That’s the difference between what’s happened to Honor and what happened to Preservation.

There’s another possibility that’s worth mentioning, even if it’s not the most interesting. What does it usually mean when a man on Roshar is driven to irrational violence by magic? Nergaoul. Maybe Balat and his father were suffering from a very minor form of the Thrill. Maybe he’ll be cured now.

So true. But in practice, the lack of overt sexuality just means that most characters are never confirmed for straight. It opens the door to speculation, hence this thread. And in the case of young men, like Kaladin and Adolin, the lack of obvious opposite-sex lust makes it look like they can’t be straight.

Now that we understand what splinters are, “splintering” seems horribly misnamed. We really need a better word for what Odium does to other Shards.

@kenod, I agree. In the grand tradition of "big dumb objects" in science fiction, I'd like to see a giant moon-sized space ship shaped like an Aon, with an an Aon-encrusted power core that carries a piece of the Dor in some kind of cognitive bubble. But I think a lot of the space travel will just be a more high-tech version of the current worldhopping. People will find more ways to to get in and out of the cognitive realm, and drive to other planets in huge investiture-powered cognitive trucks. Or a railroad! Forget transwarp conduits. Forget mass relays. We can have the Trans-Shadesmar Railroad!

Funny you should use the word "cocktail," because I was just thinking that "Adolin" sounds like a cocktail of adderall and ritalin.

He's not my favorite character, but he doesn't bother me. I have to go with "generally positive." I think the widespread Adolin-love is subconscious backlash against Dalinar, Kaladin, and Shallan. Collectively we love them, but their traumas and mental illnesses tend to drag the series down into a very dark, moody place. Adolin, the happy, well-adjusted, confident prince, was a refreshing counterpoint. Until the murder, that is. For a lot of Oathbringer he was in an emotional nosedive, which might be why other lighthearted characters, like Lopen and Lift, got to step into the spotlight now and then.

Slight Oathbringer spoilers. Nothing people hadn't figured out beforehand, but still technically a spoiler.

Yes, but that's warrior Dalinar. For the collected series, I imagine Bondsmith Dalinar. No plate, no blade, no salute to a worthy foe. Just a man alone, staring down the stormclouds.

But the problem is that the innocents are soldiers on both sides. He can't protect innocents without killing innocents. He could lay down his arms and preach pacifism, I suppose. That's a very noble choice, but I don't see it saving many lives. It's (kind of) like Lincoln said: he can protect some of the people all the time, and all the people some of the time. But if he tries to protect everyone all the time, he'll end up protecting no one. It's painful, but he'll be paralyzed until he can accept it.

To be clear, filling the nicrosilmind does not permanently make you a Thug. If you charged it for three days, then removed the spike, you could use allomantic pewter for three days, but that's it. If you used nicrosil compounding, you could get a lot more than three days, and perhaps a power boost as well, but it's still technically a finite supply. I'm pretty sure that's how nicrosil works. If you are given an ability via hemalurgy, I don't think there's anything you can do (that we know of) to alter the spike, or the power inside it. If the spike is removed from you and given to someone else, they will not receive anything from you. They will receive the same power that you received, albeit slightly weaker because the spikes degrade. And if your hypothetical twinborn self wishes to throw people to the moon, you must also find a way to worldhop. Scadrial, unfortunately, has no moon.

I don't think my imagination ever made a firm decision. When I imagine her talking to Kelsier about it in TFE, it's in the right ear, but when I picture Marsh ripping it out in HoA, it's in the left. The latter scene is more important, so i picked left.

I think we're getting into Shyamalan territory. True, anything we'd never expect will indeed make a shocking twist. (Maybe Alrianne will be the next villain!) But the best twists aren't necessarily the most shocking ones. They're the ones make perfect sense in hindsight, and make you kick yourself for not figuring it out. But I'm not saying this theory is completely implausible. I just don't think the "huge twist" factor is the strongest evidence. Brandon has gone out of his way to tell us that a lot of our assumptions about Cultivation might be wrong: despite appearances, she is neither helpless nor entirely benevolent. Her worldview is as warped as any Shard's, and her long-term goals are impossible to guess. She's the enemy of our enemy (Odium), but that does not necessarily make her our friend.

If I recall, there are two relevant WoBs on this subject. One says that 9 is an important number on Braize, and the other says that the number of unmade (which is 9) is "fixed." But these two facts aren't necessarily responsible for one another. The number of unmade might only be "fixed" because Odium has lost the ability to create more. Maybe there were once ten, and he lost one, which became the Sibling. The WoBs are clear that there are nine, but they don't say there were always nine.

Pun intended?

I loved Bands. It combines the quick, tight plotting of the Era 2 books with the more epic feel and subject matter of Era 1. It opened up cosmere questions, revealed tons of hidden Scadrian worldbuilding, and it actually sold me on Steris and the romance. When I finished it, I thought it was Brandon's best book to date. In many ways, I still do. But in other ways, I enjoyed Oathbringer more. As I've said in other threads, Oathbringer suffers a little from being the third book in a massive ten-book series. It has some structural weaknesses, and it feels a bit unfocused because there are so many plotlines. But the sheer epicness of the Stormlight saga wins me over every time. The flaws of Oathbringer as a novel are nothing compare to the achievements of Oathbringer as a chapter of the Stormlight Archive. Tl;dr: Bands is a more skillful novel, but Oathbringer is more fun.

I think White Sand's biggest flaw was that it was written at the beginning of Brandon's career. He's gotten so much better since Elantris. If this new graphic novel is a completely new writing project, without loyalty to old trunk novels, I predict it'll be a huge improvement.

Very interesting. Especially this part: Neverending exploration. I love that. And I think it opens up a lot of good low-level conflicts. Since you're doing colonialism, you can get a lot of drama out of soldiers who sympathize with the people they conquer, and start to question the doctrine of infinite imperialism. There are some unfortunate cliches down that road, but it's still a story worth telling. You could also deal with the problems that come with an impossibly enormous empire. Even with steam power, a world that size is going to have problems. What happens when the empire is so vast that it takes years to travel from the homeland to the outer provinces? That will create a huge cultural gap between parts of the empire, and some horribly awkward inequalities. If it's impractical to send troops from the homeland to the frontier, then the empire's defense and expansion are handled exclusively by soldiers from the outer empire. They do all the fighting, but the nobles back in England/Prussia reap all the booty. That's a recipe for unrest. How does the empire deal with that? Assuming this is an ocean world with tons and tons of continents, the widespread colonialism will invite piracy on an incredible scale. Pirates are always interesting. If the government is really like 18th century Britain, then you've got a parliament of nobles holding as much power as the king, and a population that will soon be demanding real democracy. I'm not sure how that'll affect colonial soldiers, but I'm sure they'll have opinions about it. History of Rome isn't quite as good as Hardcore History (nothing is), but it has a particular focus on the difficulties of managing and expanding a huge multicultural empire. (The early episodes are preoccupied with Rome's founding mythology, but the long saga of empire-building gets underway pretty quickly.) Also, Frog Mongols?

I think the problem is that common soldiers don't make high-level decisions. They fight the battles, but they're disconnected from the war. I think you need to find a way to get your soldier closer to the power centers. For instance, if the soldier grew up in the area where his unit is presently campaigning, the general might call him in to consult on strategy. If he proves himself useful in that conversation, he might become the general's aide, or part of his personal guard. Then he'd be privy to all the important conversations, and he'd be exposed to the politics that generals have to deal with. Eventually the general will have to report to the emperor in person, and then your soldier gets to visit the imperial court and get drawn into the intrigues. Another solution is to create a situation where the soldier has to take charge and start directing things himself. Maybe his unit gets cut off from reinforcements and their commander is killed, so someone from the ranks has to step up and become the leader. It really depends on the kind of story you want to tell. As for podcasts, check out Hardcore History and The History of Rome. They're both great history podcasts, and they both focus a lot of the story on military history. Only the most recent Hardcore episodes are available for free, but the older ones are pretty cheap on itunes. I highly recommend them Just out of curiosity, what kind of empire are you writing about? Is it inspired by any particular historical empire? (cultural contexts can be very helpful for building good character conflicts.)

I like it. I haven't read Malazan yet, but I don't think the similarities to Stormlight are too egregious. Tons of settings use gems in their magic systems, so I wouldn't worry about that. I have several follow-up questions, which I hope you'll find helpful. 1. What exactly can you do with the magic? Narrow it down. Lay out specific functions and rules. This is where you really set your magic system apart from others. (You don't have to have all the answers right away, but I'd like to know more about these other planes and dimensions.) 2. What are the dragons like? Are they intelligent? How do they feel about being killed for their blood? If they are captured and raised on a dragon farm, does this affect the potency of their blood? If dragons are hunted to the brink of extinction, do the few remaining ones have extra magic in their blood? 3. Is there a way to use the dragon blood directly, without absorbing its power into gems? What obstacles prevent this, and what powers might be unlocked if those obstacles could be overcome?

"Wax" and "wane" just mean shrink and grow (respectively), or strengthen and weaken. They don't have to refer to the moon. I think the real joke is that they're opposites, like an allomantic metal and its alloy, one pushing and one pulling.

The bad guy could be a religious fanatic who wants to "cure" homosexuality with a focused emotional allomancy regime. Once it's proven that his methods don't work, he resorts to a more direct means of altering people: hemalurgy! Actually, this might be too dark and disturbing for Brandon's techno thriller. This is horror material. I just don't know if the gay club scene is Brandon's idea of fun. I think he's more likely to use a queer protagonist if the queerness ties directly into the plot. If the villain is a homophobe, a gay hero has a personal stake in the fight.