robardin

So Lift converts food into Investiture rather than glucose. A better question seems to be, can she NOT do so? Like, does her body actually live on food any more, or is she completely Investiture driven, but with a human digestive system that has been Macgyvered into an Investiture engine? What if she's become sort of like a bipedal Nightblood, someone who subsists completely on Investiture, except that she eats food to do it? And can she draw on Investiture by sucking in Stormlight from a sphere the way "normal" Surgebinders do? That would be akin to the "what happens to Nightblood in a highstorm" question.

Meaning, with as few as one spike and Ruin/Harmony can spy on him and whisper to him, and at some point, enough spikes would enable direct "interference". Right? A Marsh-style pin cushion of a Hemlurgically enhanced pawn of Ruin would be pretty powerful on Sel. He (or she) could be spiked to collect all the Dor based powers. Heck, just send Marsh himself. Two spikes for each power, eh, the man had like 22 spikes, what's a few more? They don't have to be giant railroad spike sized thingies, that was just for intimidation, just a sliver of metal would do the trick.

I believe that's basically how most Worldhopping is meant to be done in the Cosmere, no? Traveling in the Cognitive Realm from and to the Physical Realm via Shardpool singularities?

I think this is a winning concept! And that the requirement that neither spanreed's holder be moving while they operate has something to do with drawing on Connection based magic in Cognitive Realm, similar to how the mechanics of AonDor on Sel have a spatial component due to the Shardic power being "crammed" into the CR instead of where it usually is in the Spiritual Realm.

Hey, he's written this book paced for reading as a novel. It's on you (meaning, "us"), not him, for reading these narrow bandwidth, time released dribs and drabs of preview passages over three months! If you can't deal with it, just wait until November 14th. (I didn't think so. Otherwise why are you here in this thread?) I'm pretty sure Kal's father meant the request to "find out more from the highprince's administrators" (that would mean reaching Sadeas' warcamp on the Shattered Plains) as a delay tactic. Never imagining the type of response they're going to get if they actually do so! As for the spanreed thing, as far as I recall, most of them have been used in a personal capacity rather than official. They pair on a one-to-one basis, so important people like Dalinar have multiple spanreeds to other important people. There isn't a central "Dalinar Station" you can just up and spanreed to arbitrarily, you have to either have been given a paired spanreed from Dalinar, or sent him one yourself that someone on his end monitors. I'd think even knowing who had spanreed connections to who else is considered sensitive or private information. The spanreeds work by simultaneous transcription, so you can't use someone else's spanreed connection "securely" while passing a message along. Whoever controls the spanreed on the other end WILL read your message. Hence the use of code we saw Tyn using with the Ghostbloods, which was done via a "public" spanreed relay service. Those were operators out of Tashikk who place chains of spanreeds with points at various important locations, including each of the Alethi warcamps and surely in Kholinar, but Hearthstone is not going to be important enough to have such a node, I think. So to do the inquiry via spanreed at all would involve sending a human messenger to the nearest Big City (maybe even all the way to Kholinar) to get one sent via relay to Amaram/Sadeas' camp, and then awaiting the reply. Roshone may have a spanreed connection back to someone in Kholinar, but it'd be to someone specific with whom he wanted to maintain direct contact. I doubt he'd approve using it to request relaying a spanreed message of at least two more hops (each incurring cost or imposing on someone) just to ask, hey, what's the deal with this Kaladin guy and the slave brands? Especially after he got punched in the face. Speaking of which, I sure hope Kaladin has some kind of official writ about "having Dalinar's blessing". I don't think that's been mentioned in the text, has it? We're just assuming he's got something like that? If not, he's gonna be cornered into summoning Syl as a Shardblade to avoid immediate repercussions from that punch. Given how sensitive Kaladin is about the whole lighteyes/darkeyes thing, I'm sure he'd actually much prefer it if, in his role as a grubby-looking darkeyes with multiple brands on his head (without revealing himself as a Glassy-eyed Radiant Shardwielder), he could pull out something signed by the Dalinar, the Highprince of War or the king himself that proclaimed him equal in ranking to the Fourth Dahn.

This was my first reaction as well, but then again, if the alternative is to be faced with having to kill them without exception AFTER they Go Voidbringer, wouldn't it be better to kill them in embryo? Unless they had a means or a plan to turn them back into parshmen. As to the latter, there is indication that there is - if the world's parshmen do indeed have their origins in "de-escalated" Voidbringers from the previous Desolation. And then as Elena pointed out, there was an insurmountable logistical problem of communicating and convincing everybody with parshmen in all of Roshar of the need to do so in the time they had before the Everstorm swept the world.

But Warbreaker was written (published) in 2009, The Way of Kings in 2010, and Words of Radiance in 2014. Nightblood (never named such in the Stormlight Archive, as yet) only appears at the very end of Words of Radiance, though we do see Zahel (and hints that he is Vasher) earlier in the book. So you mean Brandon already had the idea of putting Vasher/Nightblood as Nalthians on Roshar while writing Way of Kings, then shuffled them to Stormlight 2, then detoured to write and publish their particular backstory ahead of Stormlight 1? I read the annotations for Warbreaker and don't remember this coming up... But I read that before starting on Stormlight Archive. Maybe I need to go back and re-read them!

Yeah, if AonDor is greatly limited even on Sel simply by being too far away from Elantris, I can't imagine it working very well on another planet! But as for Warbreaker being an exercise to create Nightblood's backstory in terms of dropping it into SA (into Nalan's and then Szeth's hands)... Really?! I never read or heard that. It certainly reads like a fully-fleshed story within a larger arc, as opposed to (IMHO) "The Alloy of Law", which very much read like a short story or "writing exercise" that spiraled out.

Funny. I keep reading people questioning if Taln is really Taln (a doubt actually raised by Sanderson himself!), and having flashbacks to years spent in Wheel of Time fandom on similar topics. Hey, that's it! TALN IS DEMANDRED!

I don't fault Moash for being initially hostile to Kaladin's overtures - everybody in Bridge Four was. Even in the "kata demo" scene I mentioned, Sigzil was right there with Moash ridiculing the "lordling with airs". And his refusal to hero-worship Kaladin is one of the things that made Kaladin value him as a friend, that he was honest with him. It's Moash's betrayal at the end of Words of Radiance of Kaladin's friendship, of his command, of his trust, and of his very life, that seal the book. That's not just "dissent" or "being independent". He literally owes Kaladin everything that he is, from being alive at all, to having fighting skills, to having Shards. I suspect he may have a redemptive arc, and would welcome it if that happened, but as of right now in the story, he's scummier than Amaram.

I meant that the events at The Rift, as depicted in "The Thrill", are from 34 years ago, in terms of building a timeline of events in Dalinar's past that are coming up now. I got cut off and prematurely posted there, I was going to go back and put in the "28 years ago" count for him meeting his wife, to bracket when he might have visited the Nightwatcher.

Haha, you made me look Per a quick re-read of the lastest Oathbringer update (Ch. 4-6), her "name" really is Shshshsh. Calling her Shshsh is a rather rude familiarity, if you ask me! On a more serious note, I don't think his boon necessarily had anything to do with her at all. Though obviously his visit happened after her death (people would surely have noticed he "forgot" his wife as a living woman), the only thing we really know about it is the timing, assuming Dalinar's summary of "the Roshone affair" happening while he was "away at the time" (and Gavilar was at the Shattered Plains, leaving Elhokar in charge) refers to his trip to the Nightwatcher, as is widely assumed. "The Roshone affair" happened at least seven years prior to the ending of "The Way of Kings", as Kaladin's flashback to when Roshone first came to his town was "SEVEN YEARS AGO". If what terrible thing that happened at "the Rift" that Kadash refers to is what was depicted as happening in a location of the same name in "The Thrill" from Unfettered II,

For what it's worth, Moash was reluctant to do it (or he could have killed Kaladin very easily - he even says, "I should have made it quick from the beginning" as his intended last words to Kaladin, and certainly seems to regret it later while escaping with Graves, on a personal level (regarding himself as a "traitor twice over"). I do wonder if he will somehow get rehabilitated. That would be quite a writing exercise for Brandon, but for all the hate that Shallan gets from some people, what she managed to do to (or for) Bluth with a sketch of him "not as he was, but as he once might have been, could have been" is one of my favorite scenes from "The Way of Kings". I would actually greatly enjoy a well-done execution of a Moash turnaround like that.

And the first ever to be GIFTED a FULL SET. Probably the first person ever to be so gifted, other than an heir or relative of someone who already had a full set.

Thanks. Not sure how to upvote you for this (so I just upvoted your last post), but I just noticed your signature:

I think it shows that Kaladin still has hope for Moash; at least, that he still considers Moash a friend, at some deeper level, despite Moash trying to kill him. I've never been big on Moash. He was one of the most resistant to Kaladin's initial efforts to inspire Bridge Four, first changing his attitude after seeing Kaladin's astounding kata performance with the spear moments after deriding him as "probably never held a spear in his life", primarily to learn spearman skills himself. And he was the only member of Bridge Four not to get a tattoo on the forehead, even though all the other non-slave (and thus untattooed) bridgemen did so out of solidarity (Teft and Rock, and a few others). He originally joined the army to pursue a dream of being trained in spear fighting and becoming the first darkeyes in a generation to win a Shard, but was consigned to the all-but-death-sentence of Bridge Four. He survived, was trained, rose to be Bridge Four's second in command, and even became a full Shardbearer, all thanks to the man he swore would be "his captain", forever. Then moved to kill him. With the very Shards he got from him! At least Roshone's evil acts were borne of petty greed, and mostly within the law. Even Amaram, as Kaladin realized with a shock when Dalinar forced him to confess, was sincerely motivated by ideals of Lesser Evil Done For The Greater Good. Moash's betrayal was far more personal and less idealistic: the betrayal of a man to whom he owed everything possible, with lethal intent, in the name of personal vengeance, even after Kaladin promised him justice against "the true person responsible" in Roshone. To some extent, it seems that Kaladin was trying to lay some blame on Roshone for Moash's betrayal in the early chapters we've seen. I don't think that holds water at all, and eventually Kaladin may realize that. He's as low in my regard as, say, Gaz was at the end of The Way of Kings. Hmm. So maybe Shallan needs to show Moash a sketch of himself with his Bridge Four tattoo, this time on the forehead?

If you find Lift annoying, I suppose you found (or would find) Spook's Eastern street cant annoying in Mistborn. Well, notting the not on the pleasing of all. I rather like the potential for an A-S-K love triangle. To me, it drives home how in the middle of this epic Final Desolation thing engulfing Roshar, and the larger threat that Odium appears to pose to the entire Cosmere (presumably only if he "wins" there), and how we have these brave and broken heroes on the front lines, that they're also still people, and not just plot vehicles for doing some righteous stabbing at the culminating action points of the story. As for my vote on an "overhyped" character, I'll just come out and say it: Hoid. It's because he's TOO interesting. He's (so far) a background character to the central SA story, who knows a lot but is prone to giving information in infuriatingly oblique ways, and often referencing off-world images or using powers gained from elsewhere in the Cosmere. I suppose I'll find out in time, but I don't see what some of his infuriating appearances on Roshar contributed to the SA story arc, though I guess I'll discover how they fit into HIS story arc that spans multiple Cosmere threads. Like when he appeared on the carriage roof when Adolin, Shallan, and Kaladin go to the menagerie. He asks Kaladin if he's lost the flute he gave him, implies that he knows Kaladin is a Windrunner, teases Adolin a bit, gets surprised by a hug from Shallan, then disappears again. WHAA? What just happened, and why? However, I can't help but find myself looking for Hoid appearances, parsing his comments and actions for insight into what he might be up to, wondering why his "spidey sense" led him to that particular place and point in time, and what the "big picture" of what's going on with the Cosmere and its worldhopping factions might be. That is something of a distraction in enjoying the Stormlight Archive for what it is on its own.

More random thoughts: Kaladin couldn't have outright killed Roshone - he got Syl killed for just being an accessory to murder. As Syl put it, "You're not supposed to be a Skybreaker", to mete out justice directly. She didn't even like him thinking about revenging on Amaram, who did actual, before-his-eyes murdering of his friends, whereas everything Roshone did to Kaladin and his family was technically within his legal rights. And ultimately based on a true charge of theft. (Maybe that's part of why he punched him "for Moash", as his getting Moash's grandparents arrested and incarcerated was on completely false charges.) The pacing seems different because you're reading it in relatively short installments. There are going to be 12 weeks of these "serialized" chapters, apparently three each Tuesday (1-3, 4-6, and so on) until the official release date in November, and in total, those 12 weeks will encompass about 1/4 to 1/3 of the full book. So Prologue aside, we've seen 2 of 12 previews of (at best) 1/3 of the full book, or 1/18th of the entire novel. So comments like "so, no Sadeas blowback" or "Shallan's gone underground!" is way premature. Had we been reading this as a full novel in our hands, we'd probably have blown through the past three weeks' worth of Oathbringer - Prologue, Chapters 1-3, and 4-6 - in what, an hour or so of reading? Maybe 90 minutes if savoring it? (Personally, I tend to do that only on a second pass re-read - the first pass through a long-awaited book is a gluttonous binge.)

No way that doesn't become a big deal, IMHO. It's just that we've only had a few brief POVs so far to deal with it, one of which focused on Dalinar's marriage to Navani, which is yet another bombshell in the making. Don't forget that Sadeas' men were VERY upset (and who is Sadeas' heir?), and Dalinar's efforts to unify all the Highprinces can only be hampered by the outright murder of one of their number, especially one who was last seen as working against him, and if it becomes clear that the murderer was Dalinar's own son and heir. Everyone will assume he acted under Dalinar's orders, or at least blessing; to dispel that would require a visibly harsh punishment. Otherwise it will look exactly like what Elhokar said: that Dalinar is, once again, simply deciding to take what he desires, without regard to the opposition. His sister-in-law as wife over the entire ardentia, his nephew's authority as king, another Highprince's life... Not good "optics". And very, very difficult to juggle with "I will bring men together". Sadeas' wife Ialai was a pretty smart woman, in deep with his plans and with her own network of operatives, so she will be quite dangerous.

Hopefully Kaladin puts all the things together he's seen that is telling him exactly how far out of the center of events Hearthstone is - from Roshone's out of style clothes to the surprising lack of Voidbringers in the area - not to just proclaim and demonstrate himself a Radiant. Remember, Vorinism officially considers the Knights Radiant as an evil and fallen group. It might be considered even more of an ill omen than him returning all shashed up. It really comes down to what, exactly, the wording is in the writs that he carries from Dalinar and the king. (That's Elhokar, *cough*). I'd be surprised if it named him a Radiant, for that reason, but we'll find out.

Yeah, I just remembered where I'd read "The Rift" before in the context of Dalinar: from the Dalinar POVs in the Unfettered II anthology. If we're supposed to spoiler that even in this thread, which is already a spoilered sub-forum,

Yep. After Mistborn 1, I am through trying to read into the author and context of the chapter heading texts, just gonna sit back, take the easy bait, and enjoy the ride. IT'S JASNAH UNTIL I GET THAT OMG MOMENT

That was also supposed to illustrate the brutality of Sadeas' camp; and even then, bridgemen were not (technically) slaves. Slaves like Kaladin could be sent into a bridge crew, but so could ordinary but unfortunate soldiers, like Moash. Neither Leyten nor Moash were branded.

Yeah I wouldn't say that the "two lines" that we see Roshone say to Kaladin raises my opinion of him in any way. He likely both knew Tien's fate and remembered Kaladin's reason for signing up in the army in the first place - so saying "I see they didn't teach you to keep yourself in the army" is both a dig at Kaladin's slave brand, and a reminder of his failure to save Tien's life. And that he supposes Kaladin got enslaved and... enshashed? for "hitting a lighteyes" is, even for a lighteyes, an amazingly arrogant thing to say. "Hitting", not even "injuring", a lighteyes, warrants slavery and a shash label? There's gotta be a verb for that. (I'm picturing Foghorn Leghorn saying, "I say, I mean, I say, suh! Ah demands shashtifaction!")

Hmm. I like it. Does that mean enjoying both ASoIaF and Stormlight Archive is a kind of Equivalent Exchange?