cometaryorbit

She at least acts that way; I think that may be as much her belief that her actions should be based on reason/shouldn't be swayed by emotion as an actual lack of empathy, though. Yeah, exactly - she has the intellectual arrogance which is very common to a lot of genuinely very smart people. And it's important that she did change her mind on Renarin once she saw what was actually happening. If Renarin really had been working on Odium's side she probably would have had to kill him. At this point there was no real authority able to put him on trial, Alethkar was missing its king and Renarin is too high status to be subject to ordinary courts I'd think. We can perhaps blame her for jumping to that conclusion but I'm not sure that's fair -- the situation really did look bad. And again, she realized in time what was really happening. I think that's pretty much guaranteed. It's clear from the scene in OB with her and Ivory that she doesn't see herself as the hyper rational person everyone else sees, & that she has a deep fear of losing her sanity -- I think the latter is part of why she focuses so much on acting from reason rather than emotion. (Though having to constantly defend her beliefs, both academically and against the local religion, probably is also a big part of it.)

Right, part of what I was thinking was that "only so much land to go around" wouldn't have applied in Scadrial a century plus ago-- most of the land wouldn't have been used until very recently. You are right about the reasons for migration to urban areas more recently, but I don't think that really started until post WWI and became more so post WWII -- after "modern conveniences" and the technology to have those megafarms both existed -- a level of technology Elendel hasn't hit yet, much less at the beginning of their industrial revolution. I think it makes more sense to assume that they were never 80%+ farmers like late 18th century US, that the crazy productivity of the land let them have lots of people doing other jobs even right after the Catacendre, and they probably built back to the ~1800ish level pretty fast. Harmony does complain about their slow advancement in SoS so perhaps it's not as parallel to our Industrial Revolution's timeline as I was thinking. *The Basin is most of a circle maybe 450-500 miles in diameter so 225-250 miles in radius and about 150,000-200,000 square miles for the whole circle; but it's not 100% land, so it's probably something like 120,000-160,000 square miles. Given the extreme productivity of the land, when the population was only a couple million (say 200 years post Catacendre) it must have been mostly uncultivated.

It's interesting to me that Honor's vision does suggest the destruction of Roshar. Did Odium's plans change since Honor's death, or is the vision misleading? Not necessarily false - the nothingness in the vision after the destruction of Kholinar (I think) could be symbolic of Odiums victory as he is "the Void" -- but at least misleading. But yeah, Ruin is basically entropy, his destruction is more "the world wearing out and falling apart" - ash killing crops, earthquakes and lava as the world begins to literally fall apart. Ruin uses koloss armies but they're not really the prime threat in HoA. Odium is hate/fury perhaps conflict in general.

Windspren are linked to Adhesion, both by making things stick together and since it is the Surge of atmospheric pressure. Creationspren seem to tie to Illumination and maybe a bit of Transformation. Flamespren or rotspren could be related to Division, lifespren to Progression, gravitationspren to Gravitation. Is there a travel spren for Transportation (Willshapers perhaps)? A stone spren for Cohesion and/or Tension (Stonewards)?

Final Empire tech is weird/uneven. In the cities tech was 1800ish without gunpowder, yeah, and the canal system is similar. But did your average plantation skaa really make heavy use of draft animals, harvesting equipment, etc.? I got the picture of a much more hand tool dependent agriculture, especially from the description of dealing with ash problems in farming in HoA. It sounds like they were carrying the ash away with people not ox/mule carts. In an environment where fields of crops just grow on their own, as we see in BoM ch 17, farming and gathering wouldn't be as strictly distinct as they are on Earth IMO. Given the very Edenic way the Basin is described, I kind of doubt there was bad water or (easy to mistake for edible) poisonous plants close to where people emerged. Lions exist in the Roughs, not sure we have evidence of any animals dangerous to humans in the Basin. Basin weather seems super mild, doubt hypothermia was a problem. -- The urban origin of the survivors probably is the key here, yeah. Though the Terris were pretty well represented and mostly rural, and two of the caverns were in smaller towns (Vetitan and one other). Hmm, I really don't see Spook as starting out as autocratic, organize-everyone-to-survive as you suggest. The end of Secret History gives me the idea he's a bit embarrassed to be given special treatment with his "mansion". And I'm still not convinced there was ever any risk/concern about *survival* post emergence. Sure they could easily have failed to rebuild their technology-- but I think a low tech culture there would not be at any risk of extinction.

This thread is only in this forum because Virtuosity is mentioned. We know one of the Dawnshards is Change, and another has something to do with binding. Hoid's Dawnshard, its aftereffects preventing him from harming anyone or eating meat, is likely something like "Protect" or "Remain (the same)". The 4 Shards under "Change" are likely: 1. Ruin - (entropy) 2. Cultivation (controlled/directed growth) 3. Whimsy (change for the sake of change/undirected change) 4. Odium (whose core intent, from RoW, I think is conflict, or conflict for conflict's sake perhaps, rather than simply hate). Under "Protect/Remain" (Hoid's) would be: 5. Preservation-- stasis, remaining the same 6. Valor -- risking oneself to protect 7. Autonomy-- separation or protection from external influences 8. Mercy -- protection from punishment or the bad effects of one's actions The ones associated with "Bind" would be: 9. Devotion - unity through love 10. Dominion- unity through force/compulsion/power 11. Honor- oaths/bonds 12. Perhaps Ambition, depending on what Ambition's precise intent is (is it more about increasing one's influence over others, which would fit this quadrant? Or more about self improvement, which wouldn't fit?) The 3 remaining known Shards are: 13. Virtuosity (artistic creativity) 14. Endowment (giving a part of oneself) 15. Invention (technological creativity perhaps?) That IMO suggests that the last Dawnshard is something like "Create" or "Bestow". -- To get very speculative, the use of the Dawnshards as weapons against Adonalsium might have involved using Change to make the unity of Adonalsium changeable/fragile; Create/Bestow to Bestow separate Intents on the parts; Bind to Bind them to sixteen Vessels, ripping Adonalsium apart; and Remain/Protect to stabilize the new Shards.

Its following legitimacy rather than simple biological inheritance could maybe have been a condition of that original grant (Endowment?) of Investiture, assuming that it was indeed a conscious granting of a portion of Divine Breath rather than just a side effect of weird Spiritual DNA heredity things.

Yeah it might be another version of the same thing- the soul/spiritweb becoming infused & transformed by the "outside" Investiture. But I think the symptoms at least would be different -- maybe more like the Intent warping effect seen for Shards, on a smaller scale. That Intent effect is apparently different than the Fused/Herald insanity -- it seems that the Fused/Herald insanity is due to many rebirths (the Stormfather says "each rebirth further injures their minds") and soul damage (as @Treamaynequoted above), likely due to torture in the case of the Heralds (the Stormfather refers to their souls being "worn thin").

I think Dalinar's swirling gloryspren is meant to imply they're going to be his Shardplate spren, yeah. Skybreakers might have gravitationspren? Flamespren or decayspren would both fit the Dustbringers, but flamespren might be more likely since their Radiant spren type are called ashspren. @Weltall is probably right about lifespren for Edgedancers- their Radiant spren is cultivationspren. No idea about Truthwatchers, Willshapers, or Stonewards.

Yeah. The "need to be broken" thing may be partially in world belief that may not be 100% true in all cases, but for Jasnah it seems that she had some kind of childhood mental issue which has driven her focus on logic/reason above all. And that focus does drive her arrogance, because most people don't think that way, so she sees herself as superior to them. She believes that she's not as rational as she should be, so what about all those other people that don't even try? But that doesn't mean her intelligence and reason aren't really very exceptional. Ivory, who ought to know, does describe her as far more rational than other humans. And she does display an ability to think outside her expectations & context -- eg making the Parshmen/Voidbringers connection when nobody else could even imagine them as a threat, pushing to abolish slavery & dueling, etc. And I think given what she knew at that point, killing the Heralds to send them back to Braize wasn't an unreasonable suggestion. It now looks like that wouldn't have worked, but from what the Stormfather had just told them, it sounded like it would have. And it's not like Moash had that much trouble killing Jezrien... most of the Heralds aren't that functional now. (Ishar and Nale, though, yeah would not be easy...)

I think part of what really turned Moash into a full villain is that he continued on his vengeance after the larger external threat of Odium became obvious, and indeed turned to Odium to achieve that vengeance, and also after it became irrelevant. His original intent against Elhokar was arguably justified, depending on your political/moral philosophy about when it's justified to revolt against a bad government/monarch... at that time, also, Odium wasn't known to anybody except Dalinar as a current threat. But now that threat is obvious, and anyway Elhokar is dead and Jasnah is beginning to put through major reforms, including abolishing slavery, with an eye to weakening/balancing the power of the Alethi monarchy. I think there's a parallel to the Fused pursuing their war after it's lost its initial purpose- now they're basically parasites enslaving and even stealing the bodies of the singers, not fighting for their freedom in any real sense.

Maybe but it sounded to me more like he was thinking of him as being defined by his relationship to Dalinar now... Your interpretation would be a lot more sensible.

Yeah I guess what really bothers me is "the king is Dalinar's Tien" thing. So Elhokar should continue to live & rule because his death would make Dalinar feel that he'd failed to protect him? I mean I am all for not assassinating people but that is a really weak justification for his continued rule. Maybe that's just Kaladin's mindset but...

One big difference between what old Dalinar did and what Moash did is that Dalinar didn't really *betray*. As bloody as his actions were, and as guilty as he feels, they're probably not actually against Alethi war customs. The Blackthorn was after all pretty admired. The difference is not so significant to us, in our post World Wars environment, but in a world without anything like our international law and with a strongly oath based society its significant to the characters. -- Yeah Elhokar is interesting. I don't approve of assassinating him, but I do feel like the narrative/Kaladin in OB gives him too much of a free pass. He's the monarch, this stuff IS his fault. Even the things that aren't directly his fault kind of are his fault anyway, that's what being the ultimate authority means. It's arguable (from a strong pro-democracy perspective) that killing him was excusable since there's no legal means to remove a bad king & the likely regent for Gavinor would have been Dalinar who obviously would rule better. In one sense his meaning well isn't relevant; he IS a bad king and everyone in the kingdom (except Sadeas lol) would be better off if Dalinar was in charge. But still... assassinating him seems wrong. Not just because it's dishonorable/murderous but also there was real hope of him becoming a better king.

I think Fused and Heralds probably don't get human-style savantism because they're not human enough -- they're Cognitive Shadows, their spiritwebs are already totally infused with Odium's or Honor's Investiture.

I got the impression that the old Dawnsinger Stoneshaping was more like "talking to the stones", working with spren present in the environment rather than the permanent Nahel bond to a single powerful spren.

I am speaking of a time before anyone had machinery or railways - at or just before the beginning of the industrial revolution not the current ~1910 tech. Once an industrial type economy and infrastructure exists everything you say make sense. It's getting to that point. At the very beginning, sure, labor was very limited. The Basin is so lush & mild though that I can't see them being "close to the edge" for more than maybe a year-- what threats would there be? Not starvation, not hostile weather, not external enemies... probably not much infectious disease... -- But I suppose I am making an assumption which may well be wrong- that since Elendel is based on ~1910 New York therefore 150-200 years ago the situation would have been like 18th century America, most people being farmers and the cities being a small part of the population. It's possible that the extreme lushness of the Basin let them urbanize right at the beginning. Maybe they were never 80%+ farmers even a few years in. I guess the hereditary nature of Allomancy and its historical association with nobility (4 years or so wouldn't be enough to remove the idea) might push towards centralization under the noble houses too.

I think it's at least implied that Dawnshards plural were available to humans on Roshar in ancient times. But Honor says that they are now "without the Dawnshards" so they must have been made inert or inaccessible in some way. One was clearly inert in the mural on Aimia... maybe one was stolen and taken to Braize? Or swiped by Hoid? Although I guess his Dawnshard time was on Yolen?

Hmm. Yeah that seems very plausible. But it does raise the question of the "divisibility" of Divine Breath and regular Breath.

1. Ba-ado-Mishram is absolutely a contender, just we don't know enough. I'd argue that the Stormfather is likely more Invested though since he's got part of a Splintered Shard and Odium is whole. 3. I agree anyone with the same powers *could* equal or exceed him in time, Ishar just has way more knowledge and practice than Dalinar or Navani (or presumably past Radiant Bondsmiths with only one lifetime to work with). 4. Yeah Wulfden might rule a larger population, who knows. TLR ruled for a thousand years though. Those two might be arguable either way depending on the Fjorden population.

Susebron has a ton of Investiture, but the Stormfather I think is a significant chunk of a Shard, probably orders of magnitude more Invested. Susebron is definitely a contender for most Invested being with a Physical Realm body, however, although Rysn might compete too (she can't really use it now though).

Copper/bronze are supposed to be much more subtle in effect and disadvantages, to the point that a Seeker at least can become savant without knowing it, so I'd expect the disadvantages to remain subtle - post spike removal they'd be basically a normal person.

Yeah; I think spiritweb damage would remain but the actual power in the spike would be gone. Spook became a tin savant and his senses were hyperenhanced when burning tin, dulled/lessened when not burning tin. So if someone with an a-Tin spike became a savant then lost the spike they would presumably have permanently dulled/lessened senses.

But again how is a monopoly possible? The Basin's land is still not 100% used; a century ish ago when industrialization began it must have been largely - probably mostly - wild & unused. That "attitudes set" argument works both ways though - if attitudes were that set why did they get a government so different from what it appears Spook's original intent was? Especially as his reign was so long. Re rivers: maybe, but I still think you are understanding what the Basin is like. What we see in BoM ch 17 is specifically rather poor land for the basin... IE the worst land in the Basin for farming is probably better than Earth's best

I don't think Hoid actually holds/is a Dawnshard in any of his "on page" appearances, though he did a long time ago. Once we get Dragonsteel and see that version of Hoid he might qualify.