KOOZ

There is a lot of discussion concerning the Heralds, and, specifically, their madness - from their thereabouts, to detailed theories, queries old and new. A lot of thought went into these, and, imho, little new particularly profound can be added at this stage. And yet, I thought I'd share this: as I was thinking about the Heralds, and looking for a simple, intuitive, maybe even emotional way to restate their "madness" it suddendly boiled down to this: Nalan - a failure of justice. Ishar - a failure to provide wise councel Jezrien - a failure to inspire Shalash - a failure to create art/beauty Vedel - a failure to heal* This has pretty much been suggested and stated in theories elsewhere, backed up by lots of evidence and educated speculation; and yet, for me, the brevity of statement highlights the quintessential issue of corruption of ideals at the heart of what the Heralds stand for and what often happens in life anyway - Nale formally observing justice, yet effectively breaking it's spirit; Ishar, instead of giving rise to new, more prodound philosophies helping understand the nature of the universe becomes effectively a demagogue, dividing the populace, cultivating zealots and hatred; Jezrien - the antithesis of what an inspiring leader should be doing - hiding and induling in centuries long escapism through drinkning; Shalash - the beauty in the art overwhelmingly requires creation, she only brings destruction; Vedel - pretty much breaking the Hippocratic Oath. From that I suspect that Paliah is hiding in the Palanaeum, hindering spread of knowledge and, quite likely, contributing to its destruction. Talenel (uncorrpupted?) still pretty much embodies dependability for me - giving humanity 4.5 thousand years of relative peace (so... Bronze Age for us, Pyramid of Gize being built). Regarding Kalak, if that's him in words' of radiance interlude then unsure, nervous and questioning, second-guessing, neatly sums him up (failure of perseverance?). *Regarding Vedel and Battar, I was rather surpised when in Oathbringer Taravangian mentioned that they think Dova is Battah'Elin - frankly, I was expecting Vedel due to the healing angle. Unless I missed a WoB, Taravagian's for now is an educated guess only... though if it is, indeed, Battar, then to me it can be summed up as "failure to use knowledge responsibly" (killing people, getting the Diagram off the ground, resulting in numerous leaders dead, chaos and war in Roashar arising before a Desolation - a reckless plan...). As I said, this brings little new informationwise to the table, but I hope that for some, like for me, this simple restatement might help focus thoughts by encompassing most of the Heralds' errant behaviour.

Interesting; so you're suggesting that Moelach, at the end of the day, is a propaganda tool? And maybe an agent provocateur in so far as weeding out those in the know (such as Mr T and co) as they have morales flexible enough take advantage of it (thus indicating that they are happy to accept a course of action condemned by Vornism) , and thus become focus for Odium's recruitment agents (such as Ulim and co)? I've also wondered where the malice in what Moelach does lies - my line of reasoning was close to what's been expressed so far re misdirection - forcing people to expend resources in analyzing limited, and likely vetted, glimpses of the future. I have not considered the factor of future sight interference - this idea certainly has merit! It could also explain some of the hidden malicious intent, because, so far, although the messages may be mildly unsettling (the Unmade watch people die, etc), some of the messages seem quite benign or indicate events of great import, but for Radiant's (e.g. I've seen one interpretation of the Death Rattle where Kaladin and Shallan return from the chasms, for instance) - thus it is not clear how that could be bad for people not on Odium's side (at the time of collection, Mr T was still trying to save humanity). Of course, there is also the obvious evil of killing people for the sake of collecting said Rattles (a la Mr T); and yet, and yet... I see rather limited benefits to Moelach for the time being. Of course, I agree that not all of the Unmade are likely be focused on purely military aspects of the campaign (Re-Shephir, Yelig-nar, Sja-anat, to an extent, come to mind), Ashertmarn being a prime example of indirect influence (being more of a major distraction), I still feel that we're missing some important aspect of what Moelach can do, imho.

There has been a lot of discussion concerning Sja-anat's abilities to corrupt spren, and not only lesser spren, but radiant spren as well. Interestingly enough, I have not seen really much discussion regarding whether she is a potentially trustworthy entity. And I am curious what your gut feelings are! On the one hand, we have, ostensibly, Sja-anat warning Shallan not to use the Oathgate when they're fleeing Kholinar: she claims that it is a trap, that she was compelled to (somehow) corrupt the Oathgate spren, and that Ashertmarn fled on purpose, she then says that the Oathgate will not work as expected, and she'll try not to kill them, which she ostensibly does, as Shallan and co end up in Shadesmar. Sja-anat also asks Shallan to verify her plea with "her son"; and that she's no longer of Odium, but "of me". So, on the surface of it, it looks like she's sincere- after all, Shallan and co survive, whilst what may be her corrupted son, Glys, (please give other interpretations here, folks, I've not seen any yet) produced together with Renarin and lot of goodness, imho. And yet, and yet - a couple of points stand out: 1). Ashertmarn is supposed to be pretty mindless... dumb. So, to me, being bait in a trap,then fleeing on purpose, somehow indicates a higher degree of self awareness than I expected. Was there really a trap by Ashertmarn there? Or is Sja-anat controlling him by virtue of being more self-aware and, likely, important (consider the attitude and relationship Syl and her aunt have with windspren). 2). The oathgate spren are much larger than the lesser spren, are powerful, and are self-aware. If I understand correctly, before, Sja-anat, should not have been able to do what she did. Could it be that she knew that the Oathgate spren will malfunction, but will not kill those who seek transportation, and so she sets up a lie to get into the Radiant's good graces and be a spy - by claiming they should have been killed, she plays to the limitations of her control over Oathgate spren, and makes it seem like she countered Odium's wishes? Also, who is the son? Renarin? Someone else? Is she being vague on purpose? To counter this, I think two points (apart from wishing to believe in better natures of entities, especially with the likes of Moash running around...) could be raised: - Shallan found that Re-Shephir's nature was also changing, she's no longer a mindless killer, but it trying to understand the "creatures" it kills; then there is a general feeling that things are much muddier than they used to be - Venli, Jezrien's murder, Glys being prime examples (this kind of is point two - assuming that Sja-anat was asking the Radiants speak to Renarin and Glys, those two turned out to be just fine, thank you very much). - I suspect that, like with Dalinar and other entities changing their nature, Cultivation's hand might be behind this, carefully enabling change from the shadows (interesting point to make, given that Cultivation is all about change, would it not make sense that she would be all for "changing" Odium's Vessel, eh? It's been millenia, after all!), and I would guess her desire is to survive and lessen Odium's influence on Roshar, at the end of the day Anyhow, would love to hear your take on this. Personally, I do not feel paranoid enough to suspect Sja-anat of carefully positioning herself (at her own or Odium's behest) to corrupt the living lights out of Radiant spren at the centre of their power. (Yet she does mention something along the lines that "you will not give my children a home. Not yet." OB, p.820, UK KIndle ed. Which makes me think that she's planning to share her Enlightenment with Radiant spren.) PS Here is a thread discussing the possibility of Cultivation's influence on Sja-anat.

Cheers! I'm glad that the logic makes sense and you've come to similar conclusions! Adding onto the thoughts above, considering Shallan's art and her interactions with the other Unmade (namely, Re-Shephir), it would seem to be, given her nature as a Lightweaver, that she's much better placed to see the essence of the Unmade, as it were. Where others saw the Midnight Mother as someone generating entities like the Midnight Essence to fight and kill, she looked at Re-Shephir's centre, saw the killer, and saw the change - the desire to understand that which it kills (like Dalinar with the Thrill); yet in her art, when she draws Urithiru, what we see is an amorphous mess - pretty much the quintessence of Re-Shpehir, the malleable identity ready to take forms at Re-Shephir's command. Interestingly, the drawing I was referring to earlier seems to be that of Nergaoul - it is violent, it is unpleasant, it is inherently wrong (like the ones with Re-Shephir), yet I do not see any humans there - only horses, horses in pain. Thus I posit that Nergaoul's essence that Shallan reflects are the Ryshadium in pain/torment/overcome by oduim.

I've also noticed the colour red being unusual in Nergaoul - just yesterday I posted my take on why it's the case here (won't copy-paste -too long a post!). I'm curious - why have you included Sel specifically in your selection? Is it because of the situation with the shards there, seons,or IRE related stuff?

I remember seeing somewhere that the war between Emul and Tukar has been going on for some time,but not extremely long. In fact, from Words of Radiance, we have: This is a very specific time for a lot of agents on Roshar to get active: around that time Szeth got sold into slavery for suspecting a desolation is at hand (or that is my understanding), the Parshendi met humans, Gavilar was thinking of bringing old Parshendi gods back, lots of Heralds were there at Gavilar's killing, Venli is likely associating with Ulim, both Taravangian and Dalinar seek the Nightwatcher... and Ishar goes to war. I assume Nale starts or escalates the murders of proto-Radiants at this stage as well.

The Unmade are of current interest to me, and giving many topics springing up here and around this aspect, thought to add a couple of thoughts on the Thrill. Unlike the descriptions of Re-Shephir, Sja-anat or Ashertmarn, that were predominantly black masses of various shapes, or Yelign-nar, that is consumed by the "victim" and then manifests in form of some carapace, red eyes and a black wind, the Thrill is a red mist... black is not mentioned at all. Given that red is supposed to be Investiture of one Shard being misused by another, as per a recent WoB, it makes sense then that something along similar lines is going on here - when asked about the Thrill at a recent signing, the answer was "kind of". Per Sja-anat: "We were made, then unmade." (p.815 UK Kindle). So, how did this process occur, what initial material was used? Whilst little can be said of the other Unmade for the time being, the predominance or red colour and the visuals from the battle of Thaylen City are quite instructive: Then there is Shallan's art, where it is likely that what she drew, as well as described in text, sounds very much like her interpretation of Nergaoul. Dalinar summarizes the Thrill, as a spren, thusly: This is probably obvious (this ties very nicely with this thread on the Ryshadium and their origins), but it got me thinking how Nergaoul was made - as mentioned at the very least here, Unmade might be fused essences of multiple entities - could it be that they started out as a herd of Ryshadium, say, captured as they were going to the Beyond (say, slain in battle?), or their bond with the spren somehow exploited, then they were "fused" together (for lack of a better term), then corrupted? The Ryshadium have been seen in Dalinar's flashbacks running around battles; elsewhere we see them in the first two books as quite willing participants in battles - they are not afraid of fights. The Ryshadium are quite intelligent for animals and have a symbiotic relationship [with spren] as well as being slightly Invested, and the Ryshadium will go to the Beyond. They are accompanied by music-spren when they run (something likely to be of Honor or Cultivation, than Odium), and are very specific in choosing their riders (judging by the fact the very nice and honourable Adolin got chosen by a Ryshadium, and that Dalinar only got picked after his "pruning" by Cultivation, and then becoming very focused on being honourable and such), hence I posit that they're likely associated with Honor, as well as battle. This then gives Odium or Sja-anat (we do not know in which order the Unmade were created) something to corrupt - a symbiotic relationship with a non-Odium spren, capturing the Cognitive Shadow along the way, and turning the mist red,. The animal origin, even if said animal is smart, makes Nergaoul semi-intelligent. Consider the Thrill's reactions to Dalinar in the last part of OB - to me, at least, it sounds like a reaction of a dog, or a horse, to it's owner: The Ryshadium's association with battle likely could explain why their memories are of men fighting and being part of the battle (especially if the process involved capture of their... spren and Cognitive Shadows... when they were dying mid battle). Alternatively, the men and violence is something that Nergaoul learned by observation over the millennia. The bit about the music spren is also interesting (though this may be something else) - if the Ryshadium hear the Rhythms, almost certainly, Nergaoul seems to be generating them or something similar, this might be the leftover or direct result of that past: What do y'all think? Anything noteworthy to add to the above, or is it all pretty much as you thought all along?

Well, I postulated the connection here, but this is rather recent - I have not seen any WoB's confirming or denying the link for now. Regarding Dai-Gonarthis, considering the quote by Jezrien in OB, he mentions a couple of Unmade by name, including Dai-Gonarthis. Also, we have the Death Rattle (here) which mentions that "The Black Fisher holds my sorrow and consumes it" - which is very reminiscent of what Odium offered to do for Dalinar. Regarding the Mythica, I think it is only realistic that Hessi was unable to find all answers given that most Unmade have multiple names and some have not, apparently, been seen for millennia or hundreds of years at the very least (e.g. the bit with the Dustmother being mixed with the Nightwatcher). Having more or less concrete information on seven of nine Unmade is already an incredibly impressive feat, imho. Another point that was raised is whether the Unmade are potentially made from multiple entities being fused together then corrupted or some such process.

Regarding the power creep, I posit that this is more a question of balance and the increasing stakes and more powerful pieces being brought in on both sides. Expanding upon the ideas expressed here, among others: From the other side we have: -the Fused; yes, they can be countered and killed, yet they had tens, if not hundreds of years of experience of actual fighting and using the surges, plus, they cannot die... they'll always (well, for the time being) be resurrected to fight another day (given the Everstorm and some willing Parsh); and they know the terrain really well - they fought this conflict several times before, and this time they ostensibly have even more advantages with the Everstorm -the Parsh, which may account for a significant percentage of overall humanoid population on Roshar, are being actively brainwashed to join on side of Odium; the Parsh can do odiumforms as well, and that number will only be increasing -some western countries joined the Parsh; the human coalition is by no means united, lands and populations of key founding partners are severely weakened and depleted (Jah Keved, Thaylen, Alethar) or even conquered; political machinations at odds with unification goals are found within (Mr T...,tsk) -the Unmade are starting to exert their influence - loss of Kholinar and,effectively, most of Alethar being one big result there; they can corrupt Oathgates thus limiting travel through Urithiru (though, hopefully, Sja-anat might add a few wrinkles here); likely some issued with spanreeds are their doing too (though I do not think we get an explanation for that yet?); besieging Roshar via Shadesmar - seems like no person going through Cultivation's perpendicularity is safe -Odium's forces have ability to kill Heralds now permanently (cf Moash) and it looks like instead of Dalinar there is another proto-champion rising in their ranks; they also get an Honourblade to boot -one of the Heralds switched sides, and he's also a KR! And he has a lot of recent experience killing protoradiants, and took almost his entire order with him... -Radiants cannot all be trusted (Malata, looking at your quirky smile there) -Odium himself takes to the field, intruding on Stormfather's visions, thud voiding this method of communication of safety So, in light of all that, I am not at all sure that the KRs as they were, just starting to explore their powers, would have survived the increasingly crafty enemies had their powers not been augmented. With Honor dead and Cultivation being less directly confrontational, we need Dalinar to do what he did, otherwise all the assembled KRs would have ran out of Stormlight (Szeth included - Nightblood would not have allowed him to do much). Also, we're otherwise effectively having a Shard vs Puny Human scenario here... even worse than the Kelsier and TLR meeting in terms of power disparity. To conclude - so far, I am happy with the power-up balance Brandon does in his works - he clearly works from a limits on abilities perspective and has smart antagonists who also evolve along the way. Thus, I am not particularly worries that this will become an issue soon.

That's my thinking too - taking some powerful spren or entities, then the mixing of various Shards' influences could also explain why they have such complicated and unique effects on other entities on Roshar. Aye-aye! That's what I was trying to say here, though a little less clearly: Could it be that some of Odiumspren, the ones that are the most mindless, the equivalent of the most common spren least self-aware Honour and Cultivation spren, have remained in Roshar? And being completely unrelated to giving surges or otherwise being aware enough, like Ulim, to act as agents of Odium, they remained and are simply considered "normal" - so there is no need for Sja-anat to corrupt them in the first place? Cheers! I hope Chemoarish turns out to fit the bill! Oh that's very interesting - actually, come to think of it, Sja-anat's behaviour is strange - she ostensibly wants to change teams, and then there was Shallan's interaction with Re-Shephir, where she saw that the spren's awareness and modus operandi were changing - less a mindless killer, more interested in trying to comprehend human nature... both are traits of change, evolution...Cultivation's hand? Regarding Dai-Gonarthis - I've seen elsewhere and finally remembered the quote from Jezrien from one of Dalinar's flashbacks - he is mentioned by his other name (and from the Death Rattle I think it is fair to assume that he is the Black Fisher?). In that case, looking at the Death Rattle more closely, it does look like a localized effect - him consuming a sorrow of a specific individual, which, for now, fits the expected pattern (self-aware, power effect localized and selective). Finally, tying this up with the lovely thread discussing the potentially Unmade nature of Cusicesh, does that fit the bill? Hard to say, as we understand little of Cusicesh's effects on people, it seems like an area effect, with people feeling drained (but so did Bridge Thirteen, was it, folks at Dalinar's wedding with the Stormfather's presence) - so we'll have to wait and see. Though, my gut feeling is that it is something else. Mmm, surely nimi sounds cute and harmless, and Nightblood, in sheath, would be happy to be associated with a nimi? And then strike it if it's evil? PS What a wall of text! Many random thoughts, look forward to hearing your take on all this!

Cheers! Mmm, I agree that the sample is very small indeed - I think that Nalthis essay that Brandon said might be coming would help a lot with that - if there are no asteroid belts, this become a bit more interesting; if there is, then, likely, it was just a cool feature. For the bit about Scardial, that's an interesting point! We have from Arcanum Unbound:

This is quite interesting and ties in with something I was planning to raise: From Arcanum Unbounded we have on the Rosharan system: from this WoB we see that this essays were written before Sixth of the Dusk but is a little more vague about the timing of when they were written. I take it circa Mistborn Era 2 and SA would not be a bad guess. Still, the wording of both got me thinking about post-SA possibilities for Odium and its Vessel: Odium the Shard could be: -Shattered -Merged -Relocated to another planet within the system (Ashyn, Roshar itself) -Move out of the System -Remain as is -"Diminished" (inspired by Ambition's fate -"mortally wounded", losing lots of investiture, fleeing the system - so, losing a hole chunk of Investiture,but not necessarily fatal to the Vessel). Odium Vessel combinations could be: -Vesseless (unlikely) -human/Parsh (wouldn't that be a twist!)... spren, could that occur - the whole "Investiture becoming self-aware" (had Dor not been stuffed into the Cognitive Realm, could the skaze and seons somehow merge/transfrom and form a new Vessel)? -more than one entity fusing to become a Vessel (based on some thoughts re fusing multiple entities for making of Unamde here) - could that occur with two people Ascending simultaneously? Or, how about, a Knight Radiant bonded to a spren - what happens then (pretty much what follows next with the Dalinar situation)? Re Vessel Candidates (do not fancy any of them particularly...): -there is, of course, Taravangian - the cold hate version -Venli or Rlain? The representatives of the Listeners culture on both sides of the divide, managing to channel the Intent into something less destructive and more meaningful and helping break millenia-old cycle of hatred -Dalinar could become the Honourable Odium, but... too obvious? -not going to happen, but would be interesting to consider -what would have happened had Evi become the Vessel? (At least initially, before, like with Ati, the Intent overpowering the Vessel.) To answer the actual question - I think that the stakes have been upped quite a lot in this Desolation, status quo is destroyed, and I think this should have Cosmere wide implications, including changing of the Vessel, at the very least (I think this scenario is not Sandaresque enough, so surely a couple of additional twists must follow).

Been meaning to ask this for a while - from a cursory search I have not found WoBs on this and did not see any relevant topics when occaisonally perusing the forums, so the question is thus: Based on the drawings of the various planetary systems provided in AU (see the art), is there any correlation between a Shard being Shattered within the system and presence of asteroid belts? We have 6 systems: in both the Taldain and the Scadrian systems, the Shards are whole (as far as we know) and they lack asteroid belts; in the Selish and Roshar systems, we have Shards being Shattered in-system and we have asteroid belts. In the Threnodite systm, Ambition was mortally wounded, but killed/died elsewhere - and there are no asteroid belts. Finally, the odd-ball - the Drominad System - asteroid belt present... we also know that the perpendicularity there is extremely dangerous, and that, likely, unplesant events unfolded there - could it be that one of the Shards got Shattered there? (Or Adolnasium, unlikely as that is?) (There were also comet belts in the Scadrian and Selish systems - could it be they indicate Shards changing Vessels? Would be neat to get a hint about the fate of Sel that way; however, I feel we have too little info and datapoints to speculate ont this particular point.)

Something small I noticed while perusing the page with information on the Unmade. As we finally get all the nine names* of the Unmade, I noticed the following correlation (albeit, not ideal) with Unmade names versus their degree or awareness and, to a certain effect, power effects. This could be nothing major, but seems like an interesting little quirk: the more "-" there are in the name of the Unmade, the more self aware it is, and the more selective is its power (the latter is even less clear on that). For brevity and clarity of argument, please find the link to coppermind's article on the Unmade here and the Epigraphs, specifically Hessi's Mythica, here. We have the "three great Mindless Spren", per Hessi: Ashertmarn, Moelach, Nergaoul. All three are supposed to exhibit limited self-awareness; all three have a "area/regional effect" with, potentially, no Friend/Foe distintcion: Mythica specifically notes that Nergaul, the Thrill, affects everyone on both sides of the battle. I wonder if Death Rattles are applied randomly to anyone on both sides of the conflict (e.g. would the Parshendi also get Death Rattles, or humans allied to Odium? We clearly have evidence that Death Rattles also come upon those who are, or in proximity to those who are, directly or indirectly opposing Odium - e.g. Mr T's efforts, Bridge Four deaths). I am a bit hazy on the battle for Kholinar, but I believe Ashertmarn was affecting everyone within the palace, including the followers of the Cult (those who remember it better, could you kindly verify if that's the case?). [Chemoarish] - at the moment, unclear. Could be that she is a lesser Mindless Spren; as far as I know, no specific information is given, barring indications that she is often confused with the Nightwatcher and that the lore is varied, as per Mythica. Then we have the next rank of 4 with the self-aware spren: Yalig-nar, Sja-anat, Re-shephir, (Dai-gonarthis). Of the three we met, there is clearly a certain self awareness, especially in the case of Sja-anat. Their effects/powers are highly selective (in terms of affecting entities in their locale), if somewhat more localized: Yalig-nar effectively creates a supersolider, Sja-anat corrupts spren (in Kholinar only some of the spren were corrupted, I got the impression this is sometihng that is not done wholesale, but selective), Re-shehir selects how many midnight essences and the like are created, who they mirror, what numbers are produced and what they do - a bit like a carrier. Finally, we have the apparent leader of the Odium interests on Roshar, not only self-aware, but "keen on mind, a highprincess" (Mythica): Ba-Ado-Mishram. Self aware, leader of the forces, almost a royal among the Unmade. Likely has a selective global effect - based on the perfect gem library, somehow was feeding odiumlight to the Parsh on Roshar. Voila. I wonder what the significance is, if any? Could it be two or three entities were fused into one to produce the more self-aware entities with more selective actions? For now, I see two deviations due to lack of information - is Dai-gonarthis an Unmade, self-aware, with a selective power? And, more importantly, the name of Chemoarish does not fit the descirptions so far - in Mythica only three great Mindless Unmade are mentioned. But, assuming this name correlating with awareness and power relationship holds true, let's do a Mendeleev and make some predictions: it will be not very self aware and should have some variation on a regional effect that equally affects entities in a given area without selectivity based on Shard alignment. Notably, given what is mentioned in the Mythica regarding varied lore and confusion with Nightwatcher, it seems to me that the power is likely a little less monolithic and more varied, and manifests itself in ways that cannot be easily percieved to be epic / in-your-face (so, likely a more subtle, and varied power). Would be interesting to see what your take on it is, good forumers. *Based on assumption that any reserarch dealing with a collection of myths and partial sources spread over a timeline going through multiple centuries and even potentially millenia, the Mythica cannot get everything accurately, so uncertainty with respect to the identity of just 1/9 Unmade is impressive and is to be expected. Yet it mentioning Dai-Gonarthis makes it a reasonable educated guess, especially if this is coupled with the Death Rattle (link), making it a reasonable basis for allowing Dai-Gonarthis to remain in the Unmade set, until such time as more info is obtained/deduced.

I was pondering the somewhat underwhelming response quite a few readers had to the final showdown with the Big Bad in Calamity and got curious as to why so few people felt satisfied or were buying into the premise of the resolution of the main conflict in the trilogy. What struck me as interesting is that, ultimately, Brandon Sanderson has developed a Pavlov's Reflex in his readers via keeping to the form in his stories where the protagonists/antagonists are faced with a being exhibiting ostensibly deific power (or it's avatars/placeholders) and then one way or another said deities are shown to be fallible, and may be ticked, contained or otherwise destroyed (alternatively, said events occur prior to beginning of the main narrative). There is also an element of small to large scale physical/magical confrontation coupled into the resolution, but more on that later in the post in the Calamity thread. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I cannot find a major Sanderson Cosmere work that does not follow that rule in the overall story arc - i.e. humanizing beings thought to be Godlike, or showing them to be fallible and showing that it is possible to oppose their desires. Consider the following works and part of the nature of the conflict (spoilered for brevity): As such, it seems that we've been conditioned to expect that mortals with inferior power can overcome such beings. Specifically, a common theme of power transference can be observed - it is possible to obtain and lose godlike powers (in the context of the narrative, relatively speaking) for mere humans. This then enables some form of confrontation with another deific being. The fact that the final conflict in Calamity was more (uhh, stretching it, here, but let's call it) philosophical in nature is something that seems to break the mould and, to me, reminds me more of the Wheel of Time confrontation of to the point where in one of the blogposts, BS wrote that he had to redo the dialogue as it sounded more like a philosophical discussion at the end of the world, rather than a confrontation. And yet, in worlds where deities exist and are vastly superior to any other forces of nature present (and let's exclude worlds where there is a pantheon of gods, like in the Malazan world), the entire concept with battling them and somehow destroying them whilst being on equal footing is not considered conventional (e.g. in Wheel of Time, ). Thus, the reader then may expect to see the protagonists beseeching, persuading or otherwise somehow establishing a dialogue of unequals which avoids power-based confrontation entirely. Would that, my fellow forumers, explain to an extent the feeling of dissatisfaction, I wonder? Also, what do you generally think of the high mobility on the power ladder in the Cosmere? Do you like the fact that pretty much no entity in the Cosmere is "unkillable"? In a way, for me, it is nice that precedent is established for power transference: this then allows for unpredictability in terms of character arcs, and there are no constant personages present (save Hoid, but then, who knows what will happen to him in the end?).