robardin

Ah, that's why I was confused - I had conflicting memories of the Stormfather's nature. The Stormfather himself describes himself as "the memory [of the Almighty], now that he is gone", which I thought was a description of his genesis, rather than a grafted-on thing or the result of a merger.

Scanning all the replies I see most of what I took away has already been said: I'm thinking Jasnah is the writer of the chapter headings, but it's so obvious that she would be the "heretic" who'd hung between the Physical Realm and Shadesmar (even using the term "Shadesmar" which only Jasnah had seemed to know, teaching it to Shallan)... That she's probably not. Dalinar is the "first in millenia", not the first ever, to bond the Stormfather. OK. But isn't the Stormfather a Splinter of Honor? As in, before Odium killed Honor, there was no Stormfather; or that Honor created a mega-spren early on? The Stormfather said to Navani: "You have broken oaths before". Who does not deny it. Is this something I've forgotten, or a new tidbit? Seems like nobody else knows, so this must be new, though Dalinar and others didn't exactly pick up on it, so perhaps it's not something secret to Navani but simply not yet revealed to us, the readers. So Kaladin still considers Moash his "friend", and is trying not to think about his betrayal. Even after Moash knowingly tried to kill him with priceless Shards Kaladin bequeathed on him. Of course, Kaladin would be glad to punch Roshone for reasons completely his own, but that he said "this is for Moash" while doing it was pretty telling. Even more, I wonder where Elhokar's path is leading to now. He's weak and ineffectual but not stupid: he can see that Dalinar has pretty much officially sidelined him. For someone who's sworn "to unite instead of divide", Dalinar is doing some pretty controversial and divisive things: openly seizing power from Elhokar, marrying his sister-in-law in defiance of the ardentia, and talking openly of what the ardents have called "blasphemous" in saying his visions proclaim that the Almighty is dead, and by the Almighty's own admission, which is like a twofold blasphemy right there.

I voted for LOTR because 13 year old me swore undying loyalty to Middle-Earth, and I will not betray that oath. But yeah, I assume (and see) that Stormlight will easily win this poll, considering you put it in the Stormlight Archive sub-forum of a Brandon Sanderson fansite Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber deserves an entry on any list of this sort, IMHO.

I hadn't looked at this thread before, and upon visiting it for the first time, am surprised to find that: it is (legitimately) active within the past few weeks, despite "The Way of Kings" being the first book and published back in 2011 that the "Ars Arcana" section at the back of the book is, in fact, read out loud in the audiobook version that this thread is not, in fact, entitled "The Way of Knigs Typo List" (the "L" in "List" should be capitalized, lose the dangling colon, and "Knigs" is mismispelled!)

That sounds a little threatening (LOL)

In-world, I have never fully gotten over the arthropodic nature of most of the fauna on Roshar. I mean, I get why it's like that (adaptations to highstorms), but I feel like Hoid the Worldhopper Extraordinaire when he made the comment about having to alter a story involving a "bunny" to "a disgusting crab thing with seventeen legs" for Kaladin's benefit. *shudder* Real-world, my main problem is that I'm turning 47 years old later this year. I REALLY like Stormlight, and it distresses me to consider that it's far from impossible that I'll never get to finish it.

Hmm, I see your point. The "golden light" that Dalinar saw at the end that showed him the "dark figure in black Shardplate" with red eyes and casting nine shadows, that the Stormfather did not know about. Just as the Stormfather did not send the vision Dalinar had in Urithiru after bonding the Stormfather, of his happy childhood. Seems more to be something of Cultivation than Odium, but it does suggest that Dalinar is getting touched by more than just Honor.

This is a replay of one the visions Dalinar has already experienced in "The Way of Kings", so you know exactly what it is. The visions come from Honor by way of the Stormfather. Unless you think the Stormfather (and Syl) was lying about what he is (a Splinter of Honor). The visions were sent from the past, by Honor, at the time of his Splintering, to recruit a Bondsmith (we don't know if other Bondsmiths would see the same visions) to Keep Up The Fight Without Me. The new twist is that he's basically zooming and freezing on the corner details of the vision on replay, and has learned that the nature of Odium's destruction of Kholinar comes not from the Everstorm but from forces led by some kind of champion in black Shardplate and glowing red eyes with "nine shadows" associated with him (The Unmade?), and that Dalinar feels something terribly familiar when he looks into the eyes of that champion. I don't think it's meant to be literally personal recognition of someone from Dalinar's life and times - more like realizing what The Thrill was all along - but that's just my interpretation.

And then in a "Darth Gollum" kind of twist, he has a last minute change of heart and destroys himself in the final conflict. Odium was ultimately undefeatable, except by his own Champion! (I assume that isn't how it will actually play out; I trust Sanderson not to be building up this humongous 10-megabook story arc towards a mashup like that :))

Well, I don't think that the "familiarity" that Dalinar felt when looking into the eyes of Odium's champion was rooted in a physical recognition. After all, this is a "recorded message" that Honor made long ago, Dalinar had to dig into the corner details of it to see this in the first place, and by his own account, Honor wasn't particularly good (for a Shard) at seeing the future, so it's kind of a stretch to think it would be so detailed as to depict a specific person of Dalinar's time. I think that the familiarity was Dalinar seeing The Thrill or something closely akin to it in those eyes, something he was well familiar with in his past. But I also think the Champion he saw will be an elevation or possession of someone living, like what happened to Eshonai and the other Listeners, or Szeth when he bonded with an Honorblade - but bonded with something of Odium.

Regarding the "familiarity" Dalinar sensed when seeing the vision of Odium's champion... Elhokar? It's widely assumed that the "shadows" he saw in mirrors "that went away when [Kaladin] appeared" are some kind of Cyptic, like the ones that Shallan sees, but perhaps they're actually something of the Unmade, playing on his paranoia and insecurity. What better way to finally measure up to Dalinar and Kaladin than to become a Champion of equal or greater stature? It's also widely assumed that Odium's intent is to destroy Roshar, but what if Elhokar is told - and truly believes - that if Odium prevails in whatever contest the Oathpact specifies he'll just leave Roshar alone, with all Desolations done with, and Elhokar would be the "Champion who brought peace"?

With music, of course, like the British Invasion of our so-called "real" world.

Not just "like trash" - as Shards. Both Blade and Plate (presumably resulting from an Ideal beyond the Third). We've seen from Syl's (temporary) "death" when Kaladin went off his Ideal Path that spren-death can mean the spren is consigned to a diminished, dormant existence in the Cognitive Realm. But what happened in Dalinar's vision is that the KRs summoned their spren as Shardblades and THEN walked away from their oaths, apparently locking them in Blade form, such that anybody could just pick them up and use them "without the checks a spren requires" (i.e., binding the wielder to a set of Ideals). With the later creation of the hilt gem fabrials a non-Radiant can force a kind of bond with the dead spren to be able to summon/dismiss the Blade (which takes a week's time, and lighten's ones eyes), but upon the wielder's death, the Blade falls once more into the Physical Realm, for anybody to wield. So it seems to me that whatever mass decision was behind the Recreance also involved intentionally creating a large number of "un-sprenned Shards" in the world. They knew that would happen, and chose to do the Recreance in a way that made it happen. In Kaladin's case when he killed Syl, he had only yet reached the Second Ideal, so perhaps it is somehow part and parcel of the Third Ideal and beyond that an oathbroken bond would result in a Physical Shard. But the way Dalinar's vision plays out, the Knights assemble (in Plate) outside of a garrisoned keep, without their Shardblades out; then once assembled, they summon their Blades en masse, driving them point-first into the ground, followed by removing and abandoning their Plate as well. They could've done it in a big cave and then blocked it off, or something like that, but the way it was done, it seems a distinct gesture not just of "I renounce my Ideals", but also "these superweapons are now up for grabs for you soldiers to use".

That vision always made me wonder about the creation of the "dead" Shardblades. I think it was Navani who mentioned how they only later figured out how to make the gemstone fabrials to allow people to form bonds to the dead spren to the point of being able to summon and dismiss the Blades. And if the person bonded to a Blade dies, the Blade just appears in the Physical Realm as a free agent. So for some time all Shardblades were just unbonded, ready to wield but undismissable superweapons. We also saw from Shallan's summoning of Pattern as a Blade and then "lending" it to a non-KR Kaladin in the chasms that there is no reason even a living Shardblade cannot be wielded by someone other than the KR the spren is bonded to; just that to create the Blade in Physical Realm in the first place requires someone who has reached the Third Ideal. From Dalinar's vision of the Recreance, it seems they are all Blades summoned by KRs who then immediately abandoned their oaths, thus "killing" their spren while locking them in physical form. Which means they collectively made the very specific choice to create this pool of "superweapons with no spren checks on them" in the world. They could all have just abandoned their oaths as Kaladin did, killing their spren in the Cognitive Realm. So the Recreance wasn't "just" a mass, coordinated oathbreaking of 9 out of 10 orders of KRs. It also involved the decision to leave these weapons in existence, and mostly in the hands of one group of people (the proto-Alethi).

"I represent that thing you've never been able to kill... I am hope." Hopespren?

You fool! When a sentient, sheathed sword asks if you want to destroy some evil... YOU SAY YES!

I definitely used to daydream about summoning and dismissing giant magic swords that could cut through anything. Like, since I was 10 years old. Which was quite a while ago. BRANDON YOU OWE ME, LOL

He straight up tells Vivenna that "those are my secrets" when she asks him the same thing at the very end: But notice that Denth, another of the Five Scholars, could also suppress his visible Returnedness and not appear to need a weekly supply of Breath, so it's probably something they figured out together. Why they would keep it to themselves is an interesting thing to consider.

But some magical aspects of Breath can be equivalenced on other worlds by the local forms of Investiture - as seen in Stormlight Chronicles, where Vasher, as Zahel on Roshar, is able to feed off of Stormlight. So does that mean he could touch Kaladin and say something like "my light become yours"? Probably not, now that I think of it. I seem to recall a WoB saying that Vashel (or maybe Zasher?) has attempted to Awaken things on Roshar, presumably with Stormlight, to no good effect.

I wonder if the "kinder, gentler" Snapping mechanism is also responsible for the lessening of Allomantic power since the Catacendre? I know that Allomantic strength diluted over generations from the original Mistborn who were created via direct ingestion of lerasium beads (of which number Elend is essentially a throwback, but "died without issue", as they say of childless kings and Emperors) - but after about 1,000 years, you'd think that Kelsier, Vin, Ham, Breeze, etc., strength of Allomancy would represent a "maximum dilution" type of level. Which is what Sazed twiddled Spook to be, too. The fact that we have a WoB that Allomancy is even further weakened in Wax/Wayne's Era might be linked to the change in Snapping, then. Less damage required = less power can get through. Would that imply that if someone WERE to "Snap it Old School" in Era 2, that they'd have larger cracks and would be a more powerful Allomancer?! Or did Sazed change the mechanism to be something like "birth trauma", so that Allomancers were basically born operational? And how would the people have learned of this change, and stopped beating their kids? If He communicated it to the Pathians, it'd be specifically and widely known then, right?

"Cephandrius Shrugged". Might make a good title for a book, even.

Riffing on this one, even though Shallan is a Radiant and in good with both Navani and Dalinar, until her betrothal to Adolin becomes an actual marriage she is still considered a semi-Kholin.

Hmm. Your enthusiasm is infectious. But your username makes me worry about that.

If so, that leads to an interesting conclusion: any kandra could just create a human child all by itself, with a little training and effort. And repeat as desired.

Courtesy of my wife's steady hand Oh, and if you noticed one of the ten is now missing, I guess Nalan got to him/her in between photos. Or one of my kids.