Jofwu

This simply strikes me as good evidence that Testament DIDN'T catch up to Shallan in Kharbranth. I agree it seems odd that Jasnah never remarked on the gaggle of Cryptics around Shallan, but we don't get much insight into Jasnah's thoughts at the time, and maybe she simply didn't see it as remarkable. I think it's a stretch to assume much about whether Jasnah did or didn't see Testament. Testament doesn't even need to be part of the picture here. We KNOW there were several Cryptics crawling around Kharbranth because Shallan sketched them. Meanwhile, the text suggests Jasnah Soulcasted on a fairly regular basis I think. So what conclusions can we draw from that? None really. Maybe they just weren't around a lot, and on the few occasions they were she just didn't look around to see them. Maybe she caught a glimpse of them and just didn't think much of them. Maybe she saw them and just didn't know what they were.

Eylita. But if you're going down this crazy path there's no end to it, so she's not much of an obstacle. "The books are all just a giant Lightweaving by Shallan."

Small updates to the timeline published tonight: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zq5bJoKE83ggDCjH43i1hZi0CIpB2iAx7v37zQPVFK0/edit#gid=856252766 Changelog: Added crude spoiler filter for References sheet. (So if you set the book filter on the Timeline sheet it will hide the events here as well. But note that it's not discriminatory about where sources come from, so people picky about spoilers should not rely on this.) Updated Instructions sheet. Fixed bug with calculation on multi-interval events. These are generally events which don't have a clear date... but I know they happen before one thing and after another. Rather than setting some manual value to place it between the two, I reference both events and have my database put it in the middle of the two. That way, if one of them gets altered later the dependent event will shift accordingly. My placement of the date previously took some of the error ranges into account, but I ran into an odd case where lopsided error and a small difference between the two referenced events was causing the "middle" event to be placed before the first. Whoops. It now just averages the two reference dates and lets the error fill in as needed on either side. Fixed discrepancy with Dalinar and Taravangian's visits to the Valley. This is a tricky one, and the most interesting change I've made. The previous version had some weird issues regarding these events. It involves RoW spoilers: Fixed Cord's birthday. I had placed her a bit older according to a Dawnshard quote, but someone noted that Oathbringer sneakily puts her as about 16. Added Gift's birthday. Someone else noted that Gift and Cord are twins, so knowing one birthday also gives the other's. Removed an event placing the Dawnshard finale in early 1175. Dawnshard happens late in 1174, so I think this is a very clear error. Probably a consequence of Dawnshard being written after RoW. I've added to the typo thread in case Dragonsteel missed it: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/93207-rhythm-of-war-typo-thread/?do=findComment&comment=1198400 Removed a duplicate event from RoW. Interlude I-2 was showing up twice, on separate dates. I worked through the references I had and picked the better ones to leave just one event. Aaaaaand... probably some other small stuff that I forgot to make a record of.

RoW chapter 9 says: But Dawnshard happened at the end of the previous year by my reckoning. (DS chapter 7 puts the Battle of Thaylen Field 6 months prior, which puts that chapter around the beginning of month 9.) That chapter is also noted as the halfway point of their voyage. If we assume the battle was closer to 6.5 months prior (so we're middle of month 9) and they didn't reach Aimia until the new year it would mean their full voyage took 3 months, which seems excessive and doesn't fit well with other references. Dragonsteel may already be aware of this... I assume it's an issue of Dawnshard being written and revised after RoW. But I haven't seen it updated yet, so wanted to make a note of it.

These are the two references I can recall off the top of my head. I searched "decay" and didn't find any others, but it's possible they talk about it in different terms somewhere and I'm forgetting. That first is the main one I was going off of. "More resistance you felt in moving them" sounds very much like extra force is required. The second however... I'm not sure what to make of it. Pens become heavier? I tried to work it through just in the vertical direction. If the "receiving" pen is #1, the forces on it include its weight and the normal force from the table surface. (plus the "tension" from the other) The "transmitting" pen is the same, with an additional applied force from the person writing. (either up or down, depending on whether they're pressing it into the paper or lifting it. Of course, I'm sure the forces involved in writing with a pen are very dynamic, so I'm not sure how practical all this is. Anyways, all I end up with is that the sum of the weights equals sum of normal forces plus applied force from writer. (negative writing force being downward) Too many unknowns it feels like? What Navani is saying is that the normal force is greater when distance is greater, so I guess there ought to be some kind of additional force? Or else the tension force is greater than it normally would be (in some instances?)? It sounds like Brandon is saying that lifting a mass via paired gems takes more force at greater distance. So for example, if we have paired gems each attached to a 10 pound weight... In close proximity, lifting one weight requires lifting 20 pounds. At great distance, lifting one weight requires lifting more than 20 pounds, with the extra apparent weight being the "resistance you felt." And with the second quote it's saying that if we put the weights on scales, they would each read greater than 10 pounds. This doesn't jive with my notion of how the decay works like a friction force because two masses at rest have no tension in the pulley rope. It's almost like.... there's some extra force being applied to the rope. Like we have some person pulling the rope in the central portion of your "Conjoiner" diagram upward with constant force, making both gems heavier. But that makes no sense at all, because why would it pull that direction? If we turn the whole thing sideways, obviously our gems don't start sliding on one horizontal direction because there's a "resistance force" tugging them one way. Not sure what to make of the second passage.

Gravity isn't really the problem though; I just used it there as the force out of convenience.I wasn't particularly clear about this on my post I guess, but F1 and F2 are just a catch-all for forces acting on each gem, whether that be weight, an applied force, air drag, friction, whatever. And again, this is all constrained to one-dimension. So basically, what I did there (and most of the examples) was to use a case where we're interested in the vertical dimension and no forces except weight, so that F1=m1*g and F2=m2*g. Weight is just an easy force to use. We can take a horizontal case where weight isn't in the direction of interest if we want. Or just put the whole thing in deep space where there's no gravity to even consider. Anyways... You run into the same problem if we look at movement in a horizontal direction in any case where the ratio F1/F2 = m1/m2. Intuition says that F1/m1 = F2/m2 = a in such a case, so the conjoiners are accelerating together at the same rate and there's no differential that requires force to be transferred between the gems. Just like if we have two weights rigidly connected and in freefall, there's no stress in their connection. But that equation I ran into suggests there IS a "tension in the rope" (so to speak) when m1 isn't equal to m2. So I must be not thinking something through there... Yeah, no problem with that. Especially for a simple conjoiner. I just liked the pulley metaphor to help illustrate what's going on and to clarify how the situation with different gem ratios works out. And it helps avoid a mistake which I think you're making here, by giving a way to think through the problem carefully. You've saying the weight of each is applied to the other, which would indeed make them fall faster. I don't think there's any evidence in the books to suggest this happens though. If you work through it as a pulley problem you find that the force applied from 1 on 2 and vice versa should be zero. (which... is actually I think making me realize what I was doing wrong with that one issue...) So there's a difference in philosophy here. Consider a case without weight where the gems have the same mass m=m1+m2 and I apply a force F to m1 only. The way your math works there, you're applying F1 to both gems in full. So that means a1 = F/m and a2 = F/m. For a constant F applied for a duration of T the change in velocity of each (v1 and v2, respectively) is v1 = v2 = F/m*T. Change in kinetic energy (mv^2/2) then is KE1 = KE2 = F^2 * T^2 / (2m). So with a force F applied for a duration of T we have added an energy of F^2 * T^2 / m... But if we apply that same force to m1 when the gems aren't paired, we only add half of that. Same impulse. Twice as much energy. We just created energy. A more simple point to highlight the issue is that we've applied F to two masses but the person pushing only felt a reaction of F rather than 2F. We're violating Newton's second law. (equal, opposite reactions) To be fair, that's not outside the bounds of the rules for the cosmere. Investiture lets us break rules, so it COULD work that way. I don't think that's Brandon's intent however. I guess we would need something more explicit from the books on the matter to prove it. Quoting myself and circling back to say some more on these thoughts, for my own sake... I guess the issue I had here is that I wanted to say the decay is a function of the "tension force" but then tried to take it as the difference between F1 and F2. The tension force also depends on the masses and accelerations... Doesn't help me get unstuck here though, because acceleration is the unknown we're really solving for. I feel like I must be headed into some kind of differential equation that I can't quite put my finger on...

Hey physics nerds. I've been toying with the equations of motion for paired gems (conjoiners and reversers). I'm happy with what I've got so far, but I'm interested in digging for thoughts on the decay factor that comes with distance.... But first let me back up and explain where I'm at. Using Pulleys I think the easiest way to think of paired fabrials is by comparing them to pulley systems. For a simple conjoiner, it's easiest to just think of them as rigidly connected, but the metaphor doesn't work for reversers. Pulleys are also a great way to account for the mechanical advantage discovery that Navani makes in RoW chapter 84. And I think friction is a good way to think of the decay they experience over greater distances. Two major caveats though. The metaphor only works for one dimension at a time, though that's not a big deal. And we have to pretend we can force our ropes in both directions. (can be pushed and pulled) Simple Equation Without the mechanical advantage discovery Navani makes and ignoring friction, we have the following equation: (m1 + m2) a = F1 + R F2 This is simply the equation of motion for a simple pulley, with one addition: that R factor. More on that in a second. The idea here is that F1 and F2 are the sum of all forces acting on the gems. (excluding the force being shared between the paired gems -- that is essentially the tension in our pulley system's rope) The masses m1 and m2 are the masses attached to each gem, plus the mass of the gem itself. If we've attached something fairly heavy to one and not the other, you can effectively say the mass of the lone gem is zero. So all this equation is saying is that the acceleration of the system is the sum of forces on the system divided by the total mass of the system. F=ma. We need to note that the accelerations of 1 and 2 aren't necessarily the same. I'm using a = a1 = R a2. In other words, the equation above is really for the acceleration of a1. If we want to know the acceleration of the other gem we need to substitute a = R a2. This R factor I've added is really just a convenience to account for the difference between conjoiners and reversers. Rather than deal with separate coordinate systems for each, I'm just using this one equation with R=1 for conjoiners and R=-1 for reversers. In other words, with a reverser the accelerations are in opposite diretions of one another and F2 acts opposite of F1 rather than with it. (F1 and F2 are in the same direction--whatever direction we want to label the positive direction.) Simple Examples Let's say we've got a pair of reversers with the same mass floating in the air. Their weights balance each other out just as if they were two masses hanging from a pulley. We have (m1 + m2) a = F1 - F2 where F1 and 2 are their equal weights, m1*g and m2*g. The net force of F1-F2=0 so we have a=0. Note that if we give one a push up or down (and ignore wind resistance) they will move at constant velocity in opposite directions. Point being, this isn't a scale that tries to balance back out. Just two weights balancing each other out. What if the second is twice the mass of the first? (m1 + 2*m1) a = m1*g - 2*m1*g using down as positive direction, which is 3*m1*a = -m1*g. Solving for a we get a = -g/3. So the first gem moves up into the air at 1/3 g. The second moves down at 1/3 g. What if the second is much heavier than the first, such that the mass/weight of the first is negligible? (m2) a = -m2*g so we are left with a = -g. The first gem, basically weightless, flies upward at 1g while the second gem falls at 1g as if it weren't paired. Makes sense, right? With a two equal masses conjoined, they just fall freely. (m1 + m2) a = m1*g + m2*g = (m1 + m2) g, which is just a=g and for conjoiners we have a=a1=a2. Mechanical Advantage In RoW chapter 84 Navani is able to use Raboniel's dagger to transfer the spren of a paired gem into a different, larger gem. When she moves the larger gem, the other moves three times as far. We see this same phenomenon with a pulley system that gives a mechanical advantage of 3. If Navani moves the smaller gem 30 centimeters, the larger gem will only move 10 centimeters, and vice versa. There's some force multiplication that happens here. Moving the smaller gem requires less force, though it doesn't move the other as far. Moving the larger gem is the opposite. It causes the smaller gem to move further, but it requires more force. When you work through the math, the equation above becomes this: (m1 + m2/G^2) a = F1 + R F2/G The G factor here is the mechnical advantage ratio. Usually we would use MA for this, but I felt that might be confusing alongside the m's and a's of mass and acceleration. I've been using gamma in my notes and don't have it on this keyboard, so you get G. Also note that this gives us a different acceleration relationship. Now we have a = a1 = R G a2. In other words, the smaller gem accelerates G times faster than the larger. Navani isn't clear on what ratio produces this observed ratio of 3, though I'm guessing the larger gem in her accidental experiment was 3 times larger by mass? Something like that. More Examples So let's say we have a reverser where m1 is basically negligible, a gem ratio of 2, and both only under the influence of their own weight. We have (m2/2^2) a = -m2*g/2. Which gives a = -2g. For the larger gem we have a2 = a/(RG) = g. In other words, the large gem/mass falls at a normal 1g, while the smaller, effectively weightless, gem moves upward at 2g. Note that if the small gem is half the weight of the larger gem they balance out in this situation. The force-half of the equation becomes (m2/2)*g - (m2*g)/2 = 0. You can use this discovery in two different ways. Let's talk about how they apply to the Fourth Bridge. Two options. One thing you can do with this discovery is reduce the number of chulls required. If you use the chulls to pull the small gems and attach the larger gems to the Fourth Bridge, they can get more force with their pulling. But the downside is they have to walk further to make the Fourth Bridge move the same distance. On the other hand, if you attach the large gems to the chulls and the small gems to the Fourth Bridge, your chulls don't have to walk as far... but they have to pull harder. I'm guessing the second will be what they do with the Fourth Bridge. Most of the time the ship should be moving at some constant cruising velocity. So they'll have a harder time getting the thing accelerated up to that speed... But once they're there, they just need to maintain that speed, which shouldn't take as much effort. And in the meantime, the Fourth Bridge will be moving 2 chull steps (or whatever the ratio is) for every chull step. It would be interesting to work out the math on all of this, but I haven't tried yet. Distance Decay So now we come to the distance decay. Navani notes that there's some amount of decay which occurs over greater distances. The further the paired gems are apart, the more resistance you experience. This is essentially like the friction you see in a pulley system. When you work out the math, this essentially just becomes an extra force on the system. In a real pulley system you have different friction amounts in each pulley, but I'm basically collapsing the sum of those into one value: Ff. (m1 + m2/G^2) a = F1 + R F2/G - Ff I'm... probably not handling the sign on this well. It's resisting movement so we're basically assuming here that a > 0. Otherwise, the sign on Ff flips. Now... we don't really have enough information from the books to figure a correct equation for this value... But I'm trying to think it through and figure some idea of what form it might take. We know that it's a function of the distance between the two gems, but it can't JUST be that because I think spanreeds wouldn't work that way. Think about it. If the Fourth Bridge experiences a notable amount of decay from Urithiru/Shattered Plains to Hearthstone and if we just have Ff as a function of distance, then a spanreed over the same distance would experience that same resisting force. That just doesn't really make sense. I don't think it makes sense for the masses to be involved. Thinking back to the pulley metaphor, the friction between a rope and pulley is going to depend on how much tension is in the rope. More force being transferred through the rope means it's pulling harder on the pulley, and that harder normal force leads to more friction. So perhaps it should be a function of F1 - R F2/G? Note the negative sign there. For a conjoiner, that gives us the difference between forces. So, for example, two reversers (G=1) floating in the air give m1*g + m2*g. If you're looking at a simple pulley that's the total forcing tugging on the pulley. The full weight of one is countering the other, so the full weight of each is carried by the rope. More friction. Change that to conjoiners and it's a little odd though. You get m1*g - m2*g = (m1 - m2)*g which... suggests the amount of friction depends on how comparable the masses are? I would think two falling conjoined gems just basically fall under their own weights, together, and so there's no transfer of force between them. No tension in the rope. So something doesn't seem right here. My brain is getting mushy. Feedback appreciated. If you have no ideas, hopefully you at least enjoyed the explanation of the rest!

HoA Chapter 19 epigraph: Black ash wouldn't have accomplished the goal of cooling the planet as far as I know. Would have blocked sunlight from reaching the ground, but only because the ash particles are absorbing the energy themselves rather than reflecting it away. Meaning the energy goes into the atmosphere and spreads to the rest of the planet from there. So yeah, I think we can assume it was Ruin's influence.

I remembered to pull this up on my desktop and try it out. Built-in graphics on laptop aren't up to snuff. I'm a little confused by the way it dumps me into a room right off the bat with no tutorial on controls. It would be nice if there was at least some kind of keybinding graphic included with the download? It took me several times of running around the room and getting killed by the guard who comes in before I figured I just needed to run away. I'm also really struggling with launching myself up with a coin. It usually takes me several tries to get it in the first place. You have to pull out the coin, jump, then drop it, and then Push? The tutorial wasn't helping me figure this out, and even after I thought I had it, it seemed like it wasn't working every time. For a type of movement that would surely happen a lot in the game, I kind of wish it were more streamlined? Like hold the button to drop the coin and then hold down the steelpush mouse button and it automatically knows you want to drop the coin and start Pushing. Standing still while doing this sends you straight up while moving in a direction gives some forward movement? I'm sure I'll have more thoughts if I can ever get on top of the wall tower. Did I see there was controller support planned at some point? That would be nice.

It seems the Cryptics were willing to keep throwing spren at her until one stuck in order to counter this influence... Which ultimately leaves us with the same question, just instead of wondering why the Cryptics wanted to bond her in particular so badly, we have to wonder what about this minor household attracted an Unmade's attention to the degree the Cryptics felt they needed to step in and stop it as their first action (that we know of) in preparation for the coming Desolation. Really good thoughts here. Shallan's mother seems to have been involved with the Skybreakers. Then in RoW Shallan has the weird memory of seeing the Seon box somewhere before, which has me wondering if her father was involved with the Ghostbloods deeper than we may have previously thought as well. Between these mysterious activities, it doesn't particularly surprise me that an Unmade would have been around. Also possible that it's just dumb luck. Maybe the Unmade just happened to be there, and all the mysterious stuff going on was caused by its influence. Anyways, I really like this idea about them bonding Shallan to help her deal with it. This all makes me wonder if they saw Shallan resisting the Unmade's influence (with "lies", so particularly attractive to them) and that was the indicator to them that she was a good option. A human strong enough to put up resistance to the influence of an Unmade at a young age surely must seem like a good candidate? This is highly speculative of course, but it's an interesting idea that works well for why they might have chosen her.

I'm deeply skeptical of that. I doubt a Shardblade can kill a Herald, for one. And she really can't be dead regardless. Jezrien's death was the first of the ten to DIE. I guess you could mean a more mundane sort of death, that would "normally" send her off to Braize... Or she just faked it. All that seems weird though. Nale didn't personally come after Shallan, but the Skybreakers in general seem to have. Her mother was apparently working with them. The other guy who was there, trying to kill Shallan alongside her mother, was a confirmed Skybreaker. Not a terrible theory, but it's pretty tin-foil-hat-y to me.

I've been meaning to come check back up on this topic... Going to do a few replies below, after saying something of my own that I wanted to add... Inspired by this new WoB: This is pretty intriguing... I take it to mean that "I killed my spren" IS a truth in some sense. At the very least it is... some kind of step toward restoration, right? It's not just words that have no meaningful relation to her advancement as a Radiant. I'm struggling to make much of it beyond that though. When we thought Shallan originally killed Pattern, the general assumption was that she had to swear new truths to restore their bond, right? This whole thing about "reconstructing old oaths" is weird though. At face value, I'd think it means that she needs to basically re-accept truths that she had already accepted in the past. But "killed my father," "killed my mother," and "killed my spren" (that third being explicitly noted here as a "reconstruction step") are all things she couldn't really have expressed in the past. They all happened at the end of her bond with Testament. Best I can guess is... maybe in the past she spoke truths that were simply related to her father, mother, and/or spren? So now she's just saying updated truths involving those relationships? I dunno, that's weird. I will say that I could EASILY see "I'm terrified" as a truth she spoke as a child and then re-swore in TWoK. This WoB feels somewhat problematic to my theory, the way I think about it, simply for the way it suggests all of her advancement in the books boils down to restoring something she lost. This doesn't really make sense to me with Pattern being a totally new bond. Some people have argued she killed Testament AND regressed with Pattern at a young age, and that would kind of work well with what Brandon's saying here. But that doesn't make sense to me for WAY too many reasons in the book. So I guess I'm just overthinking the stuff here about what "reconstructing" means. Yeah! I should have included that in my post. I think most of us have generally taken that WoB to imply that she needed to acknowledge her bond (such as by starting to summon her Shardblade) before she could use a Surge like she did. Everything indicates that Testament is the Blade she intended to summon here, so this suggests it's her Testament bond involved with Soulcasting there. I think it's more likely the bond with Pattern began in TWoK, but I don't think we have undeniable evidence for any particular timeline on this. I DO think he was present at the time Testament was broken, and I think it's entirely possible he was interested in bonding her at that point. But forming a Radiant bond is a two-way street. Shallan shut down her bond with Testament pretty hard. I'm extremely skeptical Pattern could have essentially forced a bond on her during that time. It wasn't until TWoK that Shallan became open to that (again). These have all been questions for many years now. Only difference now is that we know the bond was with Testament rather than Pattern. To address them though... 1) Brandon has confirmed that you needn't be "broken" for a Radaint bond. It helps, but it isn't required. Also, the timing given in RoW suggests that Shallan formed her bond with Testament when she was 9 years old, not 4-5. (She killed her mother at 11.) As for whether Shallan was "broken" at the time, we'll have to RAFO. I could see her being legitimately broken at a young age though. Heck, for all we know her parents were both abusive. 2) I don't think we can really answer the question of "Why would Cryptics do X." They're WEIRD. 3) Again, can't answer this without know more about BOTH Shallan's past AND why Cryptics think the way they do. That said, I don't think we have to assume all Lightweaver truths have to be Deep Dark Terrible Secrets. I imagine most Lightweavers have rather mundane truths about self-awareness. We've simply seen some dramatic truths from Shallan during the books because ever since she killed her mother her lift has been particularly dramatic.

Spanreeds are a relatively recent invention, so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for this to be "an old general's trick"? --- I think there may be an issue with Dalinar's timeline visiting Cultivation, but it involves some minor RoW details so I'm going to put all this in a spoiler block:

Absolutely! Not sure when I'll get around to it, but I'll definitely share detailed thoughts when I get into it.

There were only 15 responses in the last 24 hours the survey was up, which is less than 3% of responses. Leaving it for another day would have yielded less. I don't think any additional data would have any significance. The investment question really just proves the expectation that the data is skewed I think. Only 2% marked less than 4 on investment. If we're interested in feedback from people who put 3 or less, the survey is pretty useless because two dozen answers isn't much more helpful than a dozen. If we're interested in feedback from people who put 4 or less, another dozen isn't going to change the results any meaningful amount. For example, 1-3's put 8 votes towards Mistborn as best starter, with 1 vote for all the others. Too few responses to have much statistical significance I think, and another day wouldn't have done anything to really help that. It IS really interesting to filter out the level 5 investment responses. Need to add filters for that on all the charts... For example, if you cut out the level 5 investment responses, "importance of minor connections" shifts from a peak at 4 to a peak at 3. "Importance of cosmere reading order" shifts lower as well, though not quite as strongly.

Not the Elantrians themselves--I think the Seons are the better comparison. The Seons bonded to a "broken" Elantrian (how do we not have a term for them??) all exhibit the following: Their minds aren't entirely there. Same for deadeyes. They're sapient beings that seem to have lost their intelligence. The Aon symbols at their center appear broken up. Similarly, the deadeyes show visible signs of not looking right. They loosely follow around the human they are bonded to. Just as deadeyes follow the human they are bonded to in Shadesmar. Might be some other things not coming to mind? My general suspicion is that it's a Connection issue. Elantrians were "broken" because the chasm disrupted their Connection to the Dor. And those effects seem to extend to the Seon they are deeply Connected to with a bond. So how does that relate to the spren? BAM was Connected to the singers and we saw that her capture damaged their Connection. The mechanics behind that are a bit of a mystery though... In any case, perhaps this Unmade was Connected to all spren on Roshar as well, (maybe dating back to before she was even Unmade) so her imprisonment broken their Connection too? But then why did it only affect them after Radiants broke oaths? Could guess that their bond with a stable human served as a lifeline for them, but it's still kind of weird. And what about the spren who weren't bonded? Is it possible that they were ALL (every last one of them??) bonded at the time of the Recreance? I feel like there's a lot of mysteries to be unraveled here, but I'm trying to work through my reread before getting in the weeds of this theorizing. XD

Alright. Survey responses were slowing to a trickle so I've closed up the survey and cleaned up the results. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14rRUB9Kz3vhm2vC135KFaZX-Pc1vdG1VimINetVD7cQ/edit#gid=300905021 See the "Charts" tab to view results. Haven't had time to really process the results myself. If anyone makes a interesting observation feel free to share.

Now that's a crazy idea that I like.

Adding a link to the results at the top of the post. Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14rRUB9Kz3vhm2vC135KFaZX-Pc1vdG1VimINetVD7cQ/edit?usp=sharing Some of it will need to be sorted out after I close the survey, but I've set up as much as I can.

Hey people, I'm interested in your Cosmere reading order opinions! Got a minute for a quick survey? https://forms.gle/xt6b9Vkus9tgqLFn9 Results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14rRUB9Kz3vhm2vC135KFaZX-Pc1vdG1VimINetVD7cQ/edit?usp=sharing

I don't think I agree, or else don't quite follow your point. What makes you think his actions weren't necessary? Why do you think that he was wrong? Utilitarians can't predict the future. If I've got one person with enough food for 10 and nine people who are starving, the Utilitarian thing to do is distribute the food. If the person with food refuses to give it away and the other nine are starving to death, the Utilitarian thing to do is kill them and take their food so that it can be distributed. Now let's so I do this, but it turns out the food wasn't cooked well, and everybody gets sick and dies. That doesn't mean I'm a bad Utilitarian because I couldn't see the future to know my decision had a flaw in it. It just means I made a mistake. If there was a way to save the world without Taravangian doing the things he did, I don't think he loses Utilitarian cred just because he didn't foresee those possibilities. Or because he didn't think those possibilities were worth the risk they come with.

I really dislike the general theory that Odium's champion will be a child (Gavinor or whoever). More generally, I hate the theory that Odium's champion will be "someone Dalinar refuses to kill". People seem to like this for a few reasons... It certainly puts Dalinar in a difficult situation, and it's always fun to watch characters squirm. There's the epigraph about the suckling child that everyone wants dead. And most significantly I'd say is that it's a logical culmination of Dalinar and Taravangian's philosophies. Taravangian is willing to sully himself morally for the sake of the world while Dalinar thinks ends don't justify the means--so sure, if Taravangian wants to road block Dalinar he can put him in a no-win moral dilemma. I hate it. Why? It just sounds dumb. I try to imagine this battle of champions, presumably one of the biggest moments of the book 1-5 arc, where Dalinar walks out to see someone he can't kill. Taravangian says, "lol, now what are you going to do?" And Dalinar just falls down crying that he can't do it so I guess Odium wins? Seems wildly anti-climactic. Okay, let's go deeper than "sounds dumb". The main problem with this, to me, is a meta argument that I don't think many readers will be able to sympathize with Dalinar. Very few people hold to a moral philosophy so rigid that they would agree with Dalinar's decision. You have the choice between "not killing this person" (who willingly went along with the idea of being Odium's champion by the way) and saving the world. What percentage of readers would actually pick option A? It's a very extreme minority. So we've reached the most emotionally intense moment of the first 5 books, and 99% of readers are totally unable to sympathize with the protagonist's decision? And Dalinar making such a decision is a terrible direction for his character, I think. Taravangian follows EXTREME Utilitarian logic, right? But Utilitarianism isn't a terrible ethical framework in and of itself. It's Taravangian's extremism and the specific decisions that he's willing to make which are controversial and troubling. Dalinar follows a more deontological ethical framework. (the idea that certain actions are inherently right and wrong--ends don't justify the means) "Journey before destination" is a wonderful philosophy, but taking deontological ethics to an EXTREME is really no less problematic than what Taravangian is doing. Dalinar is our protagonist. (The one Brandon named his own son after.) I really don't want to see the culmination of Dalinar's character arc be about him deciding that his arbitrarily selected moral framework matters more than the survival of many people that he loves. Of course, I can't see Brandon doing this because he's NOT this extreme. Dalinar doesn't like killing, but he's the leader in the Coalition's war effort. He absolutely recognizes that it's needed sometimes. I just can't believe that ANYBODY would freeze Dalinar up so much that he needs to make such an exception... It absolutely undermines ALL of Dalinar's development in Oathbringer because there's no logical way to write such a moment as any sort of victory for Dalinar. You can sort of squint and figure that it could be a moral victory for Dalinar in the midst of defeat, right? "Dalinar chose not to yield on what's morally right, even in the face of defeat." But there's no logical way for Dalinar to make such a decision! Remember, if Dalinar loses then he becomes a Fused and has to serve Odium. You can't tell me that serving Odium in his greater cosmere war doesn't involve killing a bunch of innocent people. Dalinar isn't being given the option to "kill this kid or lose". He's being given the option to "kill this kid... or else I get to order you to kill a thousand more innocents." This is the clear and logical outcome of serving Odium. More war. More death. Surely Dalinar realizes that.... if nothing else, the reader will. So... how can he CHOOSE the latter? He can't. It's against his moral framework even if Brandon (foolishly, imo) were to make him an extremist. So Dalinar can't make a decision here. The only way he goes down this path is if, amidst his internal struggle, he simply melts into a pile of mush and let's himself be killed. Remember "you cannot have my pain"? Well, toss that moment in the garbage I guess because he wasn't strong enough to fight back here. There's probably more... but I've ranted enough. No judgement on people who like this whole idea. There's certainly not a whole lot of evidence against the possibility, in the books. I just think it doesn't make for a particularly logical, enjoyable story or character progression.