Aleph-Naught

I had been arguing about this with a couple of folks for awhile: Link: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/188-general-reddit-2015/#e3922 I was (and apparently am not the only one) under the impression that this implied that humans existed on Roshar prior to the shattering and that they interbred with parshmen before the shattering as well; after arguing about it I finally asked Brandon and this was his reply: I'm not sure what would be the best way to correct that footnote.

No, because Rayse wants to be be as "pure" as possible and not co-mingle with another intent: That being said, now that Harmony is in the mix and Dalinar was able to screw up his plans, I think Rayse would grab up another shard if his back were against the wall, maybe even go back and snatch up Ambition (I assume that his experience with splintering shards may give him a particular insight into reforming them as well).

I understand the frustration, and sort of identify with it. I mollify myself by thinking of it as analogous to a scientific discovery/process: the initial, originating, part is arduous/tedious/difficult but once you have realized what's going on, the ability to replicate things or streamline them becomes way easier.

If I had to guess, I wouldn't say it was their violation of the pact that put them close to the top of the hit list but the intent of Skai's shard. Going after Ambition first makes a whole lot of sense and I can see Dominion being a good follow-up; it worked out for Rayse that there was a 2 for 1 deal on splintering shards at Sel that day.

I feel like I enjoy Marvel more; I'm more entertained and the super powers/heroes in Marvel just seem.. cooler (this is a badly articulation of what I feel). But..! D.C. comics are the ones I am always remembering/thinking back on. For example, the John Ostrander run of "The Spectre" from the mid-90s is really, really, good. ..I gotta go with D.C.

There's a lot of speculation about what "being broken" entails. But I honestly view it as akin to something like, "reasonable suspicion" in the law, i.e. a laughably low bar to pass. I can imagine numerous reasons why Adolin is, most likely, broken enough for a Nahel bond; maybe some or most would view it as a trifling detail or event but we're not here to compete in the pain olympics/judge what pain qualifies as being bad enough to "break" someone. This seems especially important in the cosmere because of the role identity plays. Maybe all Adolin needs to do is see himself as broken (like how Kaladin's scar won't heal because he views it as part of who he is) and that's enough. It would be interesting to see if that became some source of contention in the books, e.g. Adolin gets bonded but some people resent it because they can't comprehend what is broken about him; even in the various strains of human misery there can be bizarre social stratification.

I dunno. He seemed threatening enough to me. Folks have already mentioned the potential locks he has on his power since the Oathpact is still, barely, in place. What occurs to me is that, should he end up getting free (and I see no reason why, in a book series with 7 volumes remaining, that wouldn't be an inevitability), there's nothing really stopping him from reforming a shard (since he has some decent experience in shattering them, seems like he'd be able to reverse engineer the process fairly easily), or kill another shard to increase his power. Yes, Rayse doesn't want to dilute the intent of the shard he has right now but I don't see him as Pythagoras refusing to cross a field of beans - he'll do what he has to, particularly because I think there are some shards out there that would probably have a minimal diluting effect; to be honest I am puzzled he didn't take up Ambition instead of splintering it.

The main reason I don't buy that "Odium" is a shard that only embodies hatred (rather than a more abstract notion such as passionate feeling) is that it's too narrow and would seem to require more shards than are available to account for the dizzying array of possible emotions (will there be a shard that bears Adonalsium's divine love? His divine loneliness?). So why does everyone call him Odium? I speculated elsewhere that it's simply propaganda. Rayse is an enemy, you don't want to paint your enemy in anything but a negative light so that you can more easily sway people to ally against him. A shard of pure divine hatred? Yeah, that seems bad, he might need to/should probably be stopped. A shard of nebulous intense feelings that can include hatred, but may also account for joy, lust, etc.? Ehh, that's a bit harder of a sell as an ultimate evil. When Frost, Syl, et al. talk about him it's never definitive enough for me. Frost says, "he bears god's divine hatred," that is nebulous enough that it could mean it's he bears this thing in addition to other things; "the one who hates", can also be ambiguous. If either of them said something more like, "he bears only god's divine hatred," or "the one who can only hate," then I'd say, "okay, yeah, dude's the shard of hatred."

That was the most ribald language I had ever seen (or remember) Brandon use, I was gleefully scandalized by it!

I was expecting (hoping) for Brandon to drop the Rosharan equivalent of kintsugi into that exchange, maybe next time!

I think this lacks the incredibly important context of the time that has passed since the last desolation; Taln is ecstatic at the technological progress that has happened.

Contrary to what Neil Gaiman claims, George R.R. Martin is, in fact, our slontze; so is Patrick Rothfuss.

I'm with you on this. My educational background and future career is incredibly taxing, emotionally/mentally, so I usually avoid movies that try to be deeply philosophical, etc. in lieu of the escapism of things like giant robots and rust getting blown up; I am 100% unashamed of my love for "Man of Steel". When I think of the Star Wars prequels I think the actors would be close to the bottom of the list of things to be blameworthy (a lot of 'em are only as good as the material they're given and the direction they receive - both of which Lucas was profoundly lacking by that point in time), but I can't help but see Hayden Christensen and think, "y'know what? After seeing those first two Spider-Man movies, I really think James Franco would've been a fantastic choice for the role of Anakin."

In that case, Kreia from Knights of the Old Republic II (I would argue that Kreia is the best Star Wars character ever written), and Kain from The Legacy of Kain series.

The silver lining is that (if I'm remembering correctly), all of Szeth's flashback material has already been written so maybe that'll shorten the time between books four and five a tiny bit.

This is how I interpreted it as well; he bears god's divine hatred, in addition to many other emotions a person can have. Odium could be the name he was given simply for propaganda purposes - when you're able to tar your enemy as an evil, all-hating, shard, it's much easier to get people to align against it.

8/10 for many of the same reasons as everyone else. I was genuinely surprised at the exposition dump about the oathpact so, relatively, early in the book. It seemed like there was going to be more to some characters but then they're (as far as I know) seemingly abandoned. Rlain's absence after his chapter just felt.. off.. to me, but something that really drove me nuts was Aesudan's transformation with Yelig-Nar that is completely waved away later when Odium gives Yelig-Nar to Amaram. I understand that some of these things (another example given was Shallan/Kaladin's trip) have to be put into the background to, perhaps, keep things focused and prevent the series from ballooning into more than 10 volumes - or that we'll get these events in a short story/novella ala "Edgedancer" - but it was super jarring to me.

I think people rely on Occam's razor a bit too much. Elliot Sober, a well-known, philosopher of science has called for it to be abandoned ("Explanation in Biology: Let's Razor Ockham's Razor." Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement, 1990, 27:73-93.); maybe, outside of the scientific field, it still has a decent narrative purpose but I really prefer it when Occam's razor doesn't work; this is rather concisely and dramatically put in the HBO remake of Westworld: Apologies for the digression. I'm super excited at the possibility of Adolin reviving Maya and becoming an Edgedancer because his dueling skills matched with those surges would make him frighteningly dangerous as hinted at in Words Of Radiance.

Count me in!

I was incredibly curious about this as well, how each person ended up with their shard. I asked Mr. Sanderson: "...after the shattering did the people taking up the shards know which intent they were getting? I'm trying to reconcile why Ati, an allegedly kind and generous man, would willingly take up Ruin. It has left me with a lot of amusing mental images of the 16 drawing straws and Ati being last and getting stuck with Ruin, or this mad dash where the 16 eventual shard holders are picking up shards and maybe discarding them for others in the hopes of getting the one they want." Not surprisingly, I was RAFO'ed - I imagine we won't find this out until the very end of the Cosmere books or we have enough info. to make a tentative inference.

Something that interested me in reading Shadows of Self is that Harmony tells Wax very specific information about how technological advancement was supposed to go, saying something along the lines of they should've had the radio a century ago and have no interest in aviation which he finds troubling. Ruin may not have been as adept at seeing the future as Preservation but I am thinking that holding both Ruin and Preservation has given Sazed a more complete view of how the future can or will unfold than Odium or other shards - his worry about the people's disinterest in aviation made me think he's already a bit aware of the events that may unfold in the third Mistborn trilogy and is trying to push the people of Scadrial towards that.