Vissy

4 hours ago, BitBitio said:

Why is this such a touchy subject? I mean, I'm crazy about Sanderson, but this shipping has gone wayyyyy too far. I'm not taking sides because I'm on my own side, but come on guys, it's a love triangle, and we're letting it ruin our day! 

Look, Brandon wrote what he wrote and we can't change that. Arguing between Shalladin and Shadolin isn't going to change what Brandon writes. So, I'm leaving it like this: Shallan and Adolin are now married. And, well, to you Shalladiners, Brandon might not change it. And Shadoliners, I'm not on your side just because I believe that they will stay together, but, I do believe that Brandon is leaving the triangle as it is. They have more important things to focus on, like the Dawnshards. 

SKA is indeed done. Now it is SA. Stormlight Archive. And the heroes have bigger problems to deal with now.

Don't attack me.

There's always one... 

1 hour ago, cantabile21 said:

Okay this may sound way out, but i'm thinking that Shallan has not yet gained control over Veil and Radiant, and since Shallan has already been given her next assignment by the Ghostbloods, she will find it hard to relinquish the Veil persona. Even though Shallan plans to tell Adolin about her involvement with the Ghostbloods, it would not be out of character for her to keep delaying that moment until... never? Until everything blows up in her face? Until Adolin has to rescue her from some escapade or other? Until she gives in to the temptation to take a little detour on her clandestine work as Veil and flirt with Kaladin, who after all has no idea who Veil really is? 

Shallan seems to have the most trouble controlling her personas when she is exceptionally troubled, and after the honeymoon phase is over, a marriage is work. A commitment. (i say this as a married woman.) Every marriage comes with issues big and small, even arranged ones like Shallan and Adolin's. And when you take into account the stressful circumstances they're in, with both Shallan and Adolin dealing with their own personal issues on top of learning to live as a married couple, i definitely see trouble for them down the road. Hopefully not to the point where the marriage breaks apart, but there will be definitely stress and fights as they try to work through it and work out their marriage. 

Now combine this with Kaladin potentially reuniting with Tarah. Oh the juicy relationship drama...

5 hours ago, The Harlem Worldhoppers said:

Due to his heroic nature I've seen a large proportion of the community predict that Kaladin will die at the end of book 5. I personally think that this expectation is precisely why Kaladin will survive the first arc. Imagine the kind of survivors guilt Kaladin would go through if his friends died while he survived the Sanderstorm to conclude the first arc. I could definitely imagine Brandon taking Kaladin's story in this direction. Do you have any thoughts in this regard?

Personally, I don't like that at all. It'd basically be Kaladin back to square one all over again. I'd much rather prefer to see Kal grow into a happier and more positive person, with a better self-esteem and a controlled hero complex. The kind of person who could weather even the loss of many friends. The current Kal would fall into irreversible depression. 

I'm not sure if I subscribe to the use of "cheating" here. If it is cheating to flirt and go out with someone who is not your partner by arranged marriage then that's a problematic viewpoint all on its own, and I never felt like reading the books that Shallan and Adolin's relationship had entered the stage where cheating was even a thing until the very end of OB. Whether or not Shallan made a choice to stick with Adolin, that doesn't really matter when she's compartmentalized the feelings she needs to deal with onto other personas that she lies to herself about and considers separate from herself. I'd be more convinced of what @Calderis says if this was a mentally stable person - someone whose decisions you can actually trust in to be the products of her whole, sane mental faculties - and not a woman inflicted with what is essentially severe PTSD and who actively suppresses her own feelings and desires. 

Shardblades are incredibly light, to the point where you can swing them without getting tired pretty much for as long as you can swing your unburdened arm. They are also long weapons, which means you can swing them without any real danger of being hit by the corpses unless you specifically try to run towards them and hit them. Also consider that Jasnah never wandered into the thick of the battle, she stayed in the outskirts of the battle where there wasn't as great a chaos. And when she did fight, she had others watching out for her so that she did not get stranded and cut off. Jasnah is not stupid; she knows that charging alone into a battle, even if one was a Radiant, could end up in trouble. She didn't do that, she stayed with her allies and dispatched small groups of enemies efficiently. It is not hard to kill people when all it takes is literally just waving your arm at them. 

Yeah that's a good point. In the end, though, Amaram didn't really understand Dalinar. He modeled himself after a fictitious man.

8 hours ago, goody153 said:

@Draigon I can't think of a word that encompasses more similar what i think about Jasnah other than "Mary Sue" currently so yea i'm using that word as of now for convenience of the idea that i'd like to convey. 

Anyways like @Toaster Retribution says it's not like i think Jasnah is really the "Mary Sue" or the "awesome idealized self-insert character" but her lack of glaring flaws that convincingly affect her or that she is simply too good at things that truly matter when you would assume she should not be that good at that aspect.

One issue of her overall Mary Sue quality that i could specifically cite is during the battle at Thaylen City where while her ownage through soulcasting was absolutely totally reasonable since she is basically the longest Radiant of Team Dalinar(which i also suspect that she is the Radiant who already earned Shardplate), she's a practiced soulcaster, Dalinar boosting everybody through Honor's Perpedicularity and that elsecallers being the best interms of soulcasting(correct me if i'm wrong with this one since i remember this being stated but not sure if it was from ).

So the problem with that one scene where she sweeps a clump of Odium corrupted Sadeas troops with one hand using a Shardblade in a single fluid motion. Now that itself doesn't sound unreasonable if that was Adolin, Szeth, Dalinar or the other good/trained swordform shardblade wielders. The problem was that it was Jasnah who did it somebody who doesn't have the proper shardblade training(nobody knows she has a shardblade or was she willing to reveal to somebody who trains her), the very showcase of natural aptitude for physical combat(she is not Kaladin or Szeth) and the extreme lack of experience of physical confrontations which does really affects your actual fights through(mindset, judgment of distance in combat, range of weapons, reaction time etc that there could be an entire different about this)

She literally did something that only a shardblade wielder who has experienced dueling/battle alot would do, somebody who's has the mindset of somebody already used to physical confrontation(this matters BIGTIME there's a distinct confidence and mindset for those who are already attuned to facing physical confrontations and those who don't which separates Shallan/Navani from Adolin/Dalinar/Kaladin) which doesn't make sense with her character and most importantly she did it against soldiers trained their entire lives without getting a single spear wound in response without being Kaladin/Szeth levels of training/confidence/proficiency.

Stormlight doesn't grant you competence or skills so stormlight can never be a reason for it.

That was the clearest very uncharacteristically mary sue action she has done that made me raise my eyebrows the first time i've read it even when all i felt about reading that parts of Oathbringer was just absolute hype. 

Don't get me wrong but i don't think of her as the "perfect" or a "bad" character it's more like abit "unbalanced" would be more appropriate as to how competent she is from her lack of convincing flaws. 

Sanderson has created some really incredibly competent characters that well really awesome as well. Those characters are Kelsier, Dalinar and Kaladin. Infact they are actually extreme levels of competent at what they do or competent at many aspects but they have very convincing flaws and clear failures that makes them much more feasible as characters. Simply because they're quite balanced as character they're showcased as somebody complex rather than a "Mary Sue".

Jasnah is basically Elend/Shallan unflawed as of the moment but we may not have to worry about that since her flashback book is not yet there and Stormlight has 7 more books to showcase her. I have confidence about Sanderson regarding this matter.

I mean if he could turn Lord Ruler into an incredibly complex character in posthumous fashion when he first portrayed him as the basic Lord Tyrant we are all familiar with or if he could turn Taln from "just interesting" into "WHAT AN AMAZING PERSON" in like a couple of lines. Jasnah should be in the good hands.

TLDR: Jasnah needs more relevant faults that convincingly affects her and showcase the aspects she hasn't been as not good at to become a awesomely competent and complex character like Kaladin/Dalinar/Kelsier and not closer to Mary Sue characters like Kirito(from a popular anime SAO or just any basic Mary Sue characters that are plentiful from that form of media).

I've had the same thoughts about Jasnah but you put them more competently than I could manage. Yes this is exactly what I think is the problem with Jasnah's characterization in Stormlight. This is a bit of a recurring theme with Sanderson characters to be fair; a lot of his characters showcase natural aptitude for combat or for any task that the plot demands really, when the plot demands it of them. I think this may just be a corollary effect of Sanderson's difficulties with portraying characters as people instead of as plot vessels. Adolin occasionally suffers from this same effect at times, too, except with him it manifests as not so much natural aptitude but as a lack of weaknesses where he has been stated to have some. 

A war between the three realms would be... a total disaster of a plotline. I'm sorry. 

Amaram treated Jasnah like a piece of meat, and he refused to take the hint offered to him on a silver platter that she just wasn't interested. Guy was a total loser. 

10 minutes ago, elinox said:

True, but you can have all of those, just as secondary themes in good fantasy. It's when one of those things gets out of control and then takes over the story when I dislike it. A little romance, like with Shallan and Adolin, is sweet and nice. But heaps of it, to the point where the main plot gets lost, like in the movie Ready Player One, makes me roll my eyes in annoyance.

A dash of romance, a pinch of humor, and a healthy heaping of action and adventure makes for good fantasy. 

That's good, then - a well-written romantic subplot does not distract from the main plot whatsoever. Unfortunately, the romantic subplot related to Adolin, Shallan and Kaladin in OB was so poorly written (or deliberately planned) as to cause a great deal more of discussion than it would have had Sanderson written it more conclusively

There was a theory floated around by @Yata and @Calderis about how Kelsier got his body back, and I find it really convincing as well. It's really simple - when worldhoppers enter the Cognitive physically, essentially the only difference between them and a Cognitive Shadow is that the latter lack a Connection to the Physical Realm. Kelsier hemalurgically stole somebody's Connection to the Physical Realm, stamped himself with it and then simply stepped out of the nearest Perpendicularity. So he's got his own body, just not the original one.

As for where Kelsier currently is, I doubt he's worldhopping. Leaving Scadrial is tough for people like him, especially if Sazed doesn't want him to leave. Personally, I think he's in North Scadrial plotting something big. Hence why Hoid gave Wax that coin with Kelsier's memories.

Here's the theory:

3 hours ago, Calderis said:

The dagger, in my opinion, ripped the investiture that bound Jezrien to the Oathpact out of his soul, which forced him to go beyond. The power keeping him bound to life was removed, and placed into the gemstone.

I don't think it is akin to hemalurgy, though I understand why it's viewed as such. I think stabbing him anywhere would have latched onto the power suffusing him and stripped it away. 

If that's true, then could that same power that allowed for the Oathpact to happen be transferred to someone else via that dagger? Like, by stabbing them ala the Blinding Knife?

I think they'd have great chemistry. Not quite an OTP for me, but in the right circumstances I'd say these two would be a match made in heaven.

To all aspiring Fifth Oath Skybreakers - scaring people in the night and calling yourself Batman is not the way to achieve it.

Keep in mind that Shallan's deterioration has halted by the end of Oathbringer. It's unlikely that she's going to get any worse in Book 4 (discounting any possible temporary collapses, followed by great strides forward, that might be a part of her character arc). 

I'd prefer to eventually see Jasnah in a relationship, if only because it would be cute.

"Veil" is still going to be making eyes at Kaladin, I'm sure of that. Adolin won't be bothered by it anymore, because he knows the "real" Shallan now. Or what he sees as the core of her personality, anyway. I have no doubt that there's going to be more Adolin / Shallan / Kaladin drama in Book 4, but I don't think it's going to affect Adolin that drastically if it indeed does happen.

Well, it's a plotline that pretty much everyone can see coming as evidenced here. But there is one very strong and overriding reason for why Adolin cannot become Odium's Champion. He just has no reason to. Everyone he cares about is against Odium. Everyone he loves and everyone he has ever done anything for is against Odium. Standing with Odium would mean betraying them all. Unless Adolin collapses completely, like drunk Dalinar but 10x worse, he will never fall. The most that will come out of this, in my own opinion, is Odium trying to tempt Adolin through some means and Adolin ending up growing as a person from that ordeal and completely rejecting Big O. 

I suspect that it's going to become apparently clear even to the Basin people who the Sovereign was, if they actually traveled to the South and had a few candid conversations with the people who knew of the Sovereign, presumably the Southern ruling elite. They might even know where the Sovereign went. I mean, Kelsier really can't hide his identity all that well. 

18 minutes ago, goody153 said:

The man beside the main protagonist. That's his role and has been so far. He's the normal guy(as normal as it would ever get) with the good guys which appreciated so that we don't get too desynthesized with the Radiants allure. 

Not every character close to the main ones has to have some pivotal role or some change of heart into the enemy side since Stormlight is gonna look like a soap opera that way instead of a epic high fantasy. 

If there was ever gonna be a Odium's champion even the less likely ones(Moash/Mr. T) are more likely than Adolin as the champion of Odium. 

I'm entirely serious about him becoming Lift's squire - I see that as a possibility. 

Yeah, Adolin won't be a king. It does lead the question open, though... if Adolin won't become King, what kind of a role is he going to fill in the future? Lift's squire or something?

I don't necessarily see them ending up together. If they do, both would have to change as people, which isn't impossible of course - character development is a thing - but it would take some steps before a romance. Insofar as what OP said, I'm of two minds. I think that Jasnah is clearly interested in Kaladin, though that interest could mean many things. It could mean that she is interested in him because she wants to be sure that he isn't a threat to her family with his brash attitude, or because his attitude and bearing is very different from how she imagines darkeyes to be. It could be anything. However, Jasnah never smiles without genuine emotion. This was confirmed by Dalinar in the chapter that was directly before the one where Kaladin and Jasnah had their little (I have to say, strangely cuddling-centered) word spar. 

In short, I think Jasnah does like Kaladin, based on what little she knows about him. He's saved her family more times than one after all. 

Bands of Mourning and Secret History both hold the top spot for me. Though I have to say that personally the original trilogy and most of the second hasn't aged well. I've only found myself able to re-read Bands of Mourning and Secret History. 

The winner? Why, that's obvious.

Kaladin the budget maker.

"I cannot save all of the money, but I will save every last bit of it that I can."