robardin

This is a good way to frame this somewhat frequently raised discussion in a newly focused way! My most live-action-worthy Misborn (Era 1) action scene: Kelsier v. Bendal the Inquisitor. "Character moment" from Era 1: When Vin explodes at Kelsier (and his assembled crew, all Allomancers but for Dockson) for dismissing Elend as being anything other than an enemy to them for being a nobleman: "So are you! ...What do you think this is, Kelsier? The life of a skaa? What do any of you know about skaa? Aristocratic suits, stalking your enemies in the night, full meals and nightcaps around the table with your friends? That’s not the life of a skaa! ... don’t say things about people you don’t know. You’re no skaa — you’re just noblemen without titles.” Ouch. And Kelsier deserved it, and he knew it.

This is something I've wondered about, as well. Especially since Shallan summoned a Blade as a dagger to kill her mother, small enough to be locked away into a strongbox, whereas all the "deadspren" Blades are locked in the "factory default" mode of a sword that would be abnormally large for an adult male wielder. How would a little girl get and bond a Shardknife? Meanwhile, Shallan has a memory of her mother arguing with her father, saying "she's one of them!" before coming at her with a knife. Which absent any explanation, implies her mother expected Lin to understand why and to already be on board with what she and the other man with her had come to do - apparently, to kill Shallan for being a Surgebinder - except that he couldn't bear to follow through with his own daughter, though her mother evidently was. And this is a big hole in her back story, for me, as well as from what Mraize told her in that letter from Oathbringer - something has never added up here. If Heleran later fell in with the Skybreakers, and the motive for Shallan's mother and the other man was to kill her for bonding a spren as part of Nale's mandate, that would mean the Skybreakers already knew about Shallan... and then let her live for another 10+ years? Or, if they only knew there was "a" Surgebinder in the house - who could Lin pass it off as having been? It'd have to be his wife or the other guy, the only two who'd died that day? But that wouldn't make sense if they were also Skybreakers who'd just come to get rid of the Surgebinder! But what if Lin, his wife, and this man were all in the same group before, one we know about, a secretive group that would know about the indicators of Surgebinding, yet were not Skybreakers... The Envisagers. What if Shallan's mother was coming at her with a knife, not to kill her but with a similar motive as Teft's mother seeking self-harm, to "bring out the magic", to trigger Shallan to do something in reaction, the way Teft suddenly threw a punch at Kaladin after realizing he could draw in Stormlight after being hung out in the highstorm? To prove to Lin that Shallan was a Surgebinder, but not expecting a Shardblade? And then Lin Davar had to cover it all up... And perhaps even hiding from Shallan that she'd ever been a Surgebinder, for her own protection? Maybe he had never wanted to get Shallan involved with the Envisagers, based on whatever their plan would have been as the Next Step after rediscovering a Surgebinder. And he worked to make Shallan forget the Blade incident and her spren bond.

Oh whew, that's a relief, I'll go back and unspoiler my reply then. And I didn't say that would be the conclusion of Kal's arc. I originally posted that thought in a discussion of what the Windrunner's Final Ideal might be. I didn't have a specific wording in mind, but I imagined him reaching it while wrestling with an Anguished Moash Scenario, whether at the Contest of Champions or not. First Ideal = the Ideal of Radiance (shared by all Knights Radiant) Second Ideal = I will protect others who need protection (what makes a Windrunner a Windrunner) Third Ideal = ... even when I have issues with/about doing so (must recognize and then overcome one's personal "issues") Fourth Ideal = ... dealing with limitations on who can be protected (The gemstone archive included an entry from a long-ago L3 Windrunner angsting about "I don't think that I can [swear the Fourth Ideal]... Am I not supposed to want to help people?") Fifth Ideal = ... dealing with limitations on who SHOULD be protected? ... or perhaps, protecting even someone who is actively resisting being protected? But that feels just like the Second Ideal. On the other hand, it occurred to me that T-O's sudden insight on how he could be "satisified" with either outcome of the Contest of Champions, combined with this and Odium having wanted first Dalinar and then Kaladin as a "chief pawn in the Cosmere".

Spoilering my reply to this for now, pending a thread relocation (which would be pretty unfair to the OP if they'd intended it to be a "through Oathbringer context discussion only", given the username of "Unite Them"...) [EDIT: turns out the spoiler period is over, so whew, maybe this thread even started there and got merged, I haven't paid such close attention - but I can't seem to "un-spoiler" my earlier text, LOL]

But Odium has to pick someone who's already "his" to name - someone sworn to his service. He can't just send in whoever he wants. Gavinor is what, five years old? Even less? Even if you say he's filled with hate and thus "falling" to Odium, he's filled with (childish) hate for Moash and the people who killed his father: Team Odium. Taravangian saw a way for him "to be satisified regardless of the outcome" of the Contest of Champions, which is not the same thing as selecting an undefeatable Champion. Besides which, Dalinar being unable to kill Gavinor in a battle to the death wouldn't constitute a win for Odium anyway; Gavinor would also have to be able to kill Dalinar to end the Contest, or it'd just be a stalemate. Unless that's the "acceptable alternate outcome" that "Taravodium" foresees? Which would be interesting, but unsatisfying from a dramatic POV, even if the problem of Intent in "falling to Odium" on the part of a 4-5 year old child were overcome.

By the Forgotten Gods! (Ironically, last used by Harmony Himself while Ascending!)

"This is so cool, I won the contest to Hang With Inquisitors! Gee, that's a lot of shish kebab... No hummus? All right, let's see what's on TV! I think SpikeTV is defunct now, but how about Nailed It! on Netflix?" And he was never seen or heard from again.

I didn't say he'd be "redeemed", I said I imagined Kaladin could be presented with a no-win scenario in killing him. (Or rather, from Todium's perspective, a win-win scenario.) "Killing Vyre but saving Moash" doesn't mean Moash is reinstated to Bridge Four to live out a long and happy life. It could be saving him a la reviving "Smeagol" in Gollum in LOTR, to use a standard fantasy example.

We've seen that the Ideals are shaped by the individual Windrunner's hang-ups. I wonder what Teft's or Lopen's might have been or will be in terms of "accepting limits" on their desire to protect for their Fourth... ...But in terms of the Final Ideal of the Windrunners, we can safely say that Kaladin's Final Ideal has to be even harder for him to reach than it was for him to "learn to deal with failures in protecting". So what could that be? Kaladin's barrier to the Fourth Ideal was so strong that it nearly led him to suicide or to falling to Odium to escape the pain of it - which was key to Odium's ploy to gain Kaladin as his Champion in lieu of Dalinar via Moash. And plot-wise, it feels like Kaladin reaching the Fifth Ideal (or dying trying) will be a big component of the climax of SA5. So from a writerly perspective, I suspect Kaladin's Final Ideal will tie in to the climactic ending to the Contest of Champions, whether or not Kaladin is that Champion. We've wondered who Odium's Champion will be: Taravangian is a much more wily Vessel than Rayse, and thinks he sees a way to "win either way". It won't be simply be "the best fighter I can send in", but someone with a built-in advantage. Put that way, it won't be someone he believes Honor's Champion might find impossible to kill (e.g., Gavinor), because that's not "winning either way". It would be someone who, if killed by Honor's Champion, only furthers his goals as well. Dalinar is planning to be his own Champion, but hey, there are still ten days for him to change his mind, so perhaps it will be Kaladin in the end after all. What if the Fifth Ideal is about dealing with the idea of killing someone he's previously sworn to protect (Odium's Champion), in the name of the greater good? I mean the Final Ideal CAN'T actually be that (given how Kaladin reached the Third Ideal), but it could be that Odium will try to make it seem like that's the only two choices on the table. So that if Kaladin does kill his Champion, it would represent Kaladin breaking his oaths and then falling to him, to then become his chief agent in the Cosmere as he'd wanted after Dalinar escaped that fate in Oathbringer. Or else, he gets Dalinar after all. Win/win. In that case, I would guess the "someone Kaladin had sworn to protect" is Moash. Kaladin still thought of him that way even after he killed two innocent villagers and Roshone in Hearthstone, that what Moash had become was something he could/should have prevented - but would any part of him still feel that way after HE'D. KILLED. TEFT? What if he were dealing with a blinded Moash, anguished after Odium abruptly withdraws his emotional void, begging his only and truest friend for forgiveness or release of death for all he's done while admitting he doesn't deserve it? But, Dalinar wouldn't have this kind of hang-up with Moash. For this to work, "Todium" would have to be separately machinating to get Dalinar to send Kaladin to the Contest of Champions. And while I feel like it'd be far too easy an out, depending on how it is written, perhaps Kaladin then finds a version of the Fifth Ideal that enables him to "save" Moash but to "kill" Vyre to fulfill the conditions of the Contest. (Why else go to the specific detail of saying that Moash was "reborn to Odium with a new name" in Oathbringer?)

Not gonna lie, I thought this was a spambot phishing attempt at first because I read the username as "Venmo" LOL Darn this astigmatism!

By the Forgotten Gods, what a powerful story. I'm glad Brandon's work reached you; I'm even more glad that you are being saved. Stay on the course, brother. Strength before weakness!

In addition to lessening or removing the "careful use of the neutral" aha moment from Sazed that "gets him religious" about Vin being the HoA, another knock-on effect of making Rashek->ette into a woman is that it also requires making Alendi into a woman. Otherwise the whole thing about assuming the logbook is the Diary of Pre-Ascension Lord Ruler falls apart. And the group of "packmen" that Alendi hires on to guide him through the Terris Mountains to the Well of Ascension would have to be, if not all women, then at least a gender-mixed group of guides/bearers, lest Rashek/ette stand out and come more quickly to mind as a spiteful usurper. Not saying this is undoable; just pointing out that genderflipping Rashek has more strings attached to it than may first appear (which is not the case with Ham or Marsh), to a degree where I don't think it's a good one. Having a few of the Inquisitors be female is easy enough, though - especially since Mistborn would make the best Inquisitors, and we've already got Shan Elariel and Vin as examples of how there's no reason a woman wouldn't be a highly valued and effective Mistborn in the Final Empire. "Kar", for example (the one who subdued Vin in the throne room).

I like it. (Note that I have not read any of the non-canonical draft Cosmere works like Dragonsteel Prime or The Liar of Partinel, exactly because they're non-canonical.) The only clues we have as to what or where Vax is: - A place mentioned by Khriss in the Ars Arcana of Elantris where "initiation in Investiture" in AonDor is not tied to bloodline (as on Scadrial), nor a Shard's decision (as on Nalthis), nor similar to "Taldain's and Vax's methods" - A place that the just-killed Vessel of Ruin, Ati, thinks he might find himself (in the Cognitive Realm) after being killed by Vin - implying that that was either the place where he Ascended from, or somewhere he frequented in human life. Putting "Vax" in the same context as Scadrial, Nalthis, and Taldain strongly implies that it is the name of a world; however as you note, "Yolen" is also referred to by Khriss in this context, yet may or may not be the name of a planet but could be a distinct enough region or domain on a planet to be considered a separate "world". If Vax was where Ati Ascended to Ruin, does that mean it was the location of the Shattering of Adonalsium? We don't really know much about the Shattering, except that it was done by or via Dawnshards, and that Hoid was "offered" a chance to participate and to receive a Shard but declined (side comment: I always wonder who the "Shardic bench player" given his spot was, and if they hold a grudge about it or are grateful for the opportunity). Is it possible the Shattering didn't have to happen in a single location, but simply at the same time? Like, with the Cosmere equivalent of a Dawnshard Zoom chat or something? Besides, there are only four Dawnshards. Maybe they had to be in one location to effectuate the Shattering, but not the other twelve people who ended up getting Shards? (Or were the four Dawnshard "wielders" at the Shattering not destined for picking up a Shard? Feels like this would be a Brandon question, but I'm sure he'd RAFO it)

That is one of the reasons I loved the original Mistborn trilogy so much. At the conclusion of each book was a twist I could have, but did not see coming! Rashek was The Lord Ruler, not Alendi! IT WAS ALL THERE! ...Vin must be the true Hero of Ages! IT ALL FITS! But Oh noes what did she just do?! ...Vin... Died? Sazed... The fate of the world on his arms... Wait... THE CHAPTER HEADING IN THE FIRST BOOK...?! As for Marsha, not only does it work on a big sis/little bro level, it also makes the eventual turning into an Inquisitor and becoming Ruin's chief agent extra chilling. "You spent the last few years teaching, Sazed, but I spent them killing. Killing so many people..."

You know what else is unfair about Feruchemy? Not only are the Ferring names better than the Misting ones, but there isn't some kind of "soul-cracking penalty" necessary to access the Metalborn ability! Allomancers need to Snap (though in Era 2 it's apparently gotten a lot less brutal than before - with a commensurate reduction in power?), and hemalurgy requires violence, but Feruchemy? Apparently you're born with the power and at some point, just kind of start using it.

And there were other coins like this already being circulated around, as noted by Devlin Airs at Lady Kelesina's party: Are they copies of this same memory (can one duplicate memories in copperminds with Compounding)? If not, what DO they contain? Are they unsealed coppermind coins at all? Was Hoid disbursing them as he was with the one he threw at Wax, since they don't appear to be sourced from the Southern Scadrian airship that the Set were investigating?

I dunno. For someone who was himself Terris and was originally motivated by a desire for the Terris to be "dominant" over the other nations due to their Feruchemy... ...he sure did a heel turn in making it a mission to eliminate Feruchemy and instituting first vicious genocidal operations and then a brutal breeding program on the Terris. Similarly, the reason skaa women were legally required to be, ah, "single use" by noblemen was not out of mere cruelty, but to control the access to Allomancy by the underclass, to keep them as an underclass. If anything, the fact that such interbreeding over hundreds of years happened anyway, and there being so many skaa Allomancers for the Ministry to hunt for (and to harvest for spikes), speaks to how hard it is even for people born and raised to such a "noble" culture to be quite so brutal to someone they've found attractive enough to engage in that manner. For every Straff Venture type person, or Tevidian, there must have been several more "don't ask, don't tell, don't care" type liaisons... Not to mention what we saw with Beldre's noble parents, and probably several times in Cett's ancestry, where a House otherwise on the brink of extinction turned to a skaa source of fertility on the down low. IMO genderbending TLR is a neat idea for artistic purposes, but from a plot POV it would weaken the "aha moment" Sazed has at the end of WoA about how the ancient Terris prophecies about the "Hero of Ages", which Kwaan had declared Alendi to be and then which claim Rashek later usurped, "could equally refer to a woman" (Vin) due to the careful use of a grammatical neutral. If Rachette had been able to claim the title over Alendi, that thought should have occurred to him (and maybe the reader) much sooner. Making the character of Marsh into a woman is my personal favorite, BTW (to "Marsha", LOL... though as a fictional name it could just be retained, as Ham officially is in the serial adaptation Brandon's been working on). Even making "Marsha" a twin sibling to Kelsier.

Just today, someone mentioned wanting to put on some "skaa music" and until it started playing, I more than half thought I was about to hear some kind of Mistborn fanfic thing. ("Ska" not "Skaa", LOL).

I tell you, something does not jibe with what (semi-?) sane Ishar (henceforth referred to just as Ishar, with "Tezim" being the crazy one proclaiming himself the Almighty) says about suddenly seeing clearly, and what we have seen in Heralds apparently regaining sanity for a little while thus far. To be fair, Ishar did say "perhaps" as if he's not sure - even as a Herald who's live for millennia before and after Aharietiam, he's never come through Heraldic insanity before. First he supposes he sudden clarity was due to "another Bondsmith" being sworn, due to the Connection he has with all Bondsmiths, referring to Navani. That would imply he had similar moments when Dalinar earlier swore his Ideals. We've seen that Connection doesn't have to work in proximity, depending on the effect. He also suggests that an Ideal "spoken near me", "when a Radiant touches the Spiritual Realm", could cause him to see "more clearly" once again - suggesting two things: that it's a Spiritual effect (which would mean his Connection to Navani swearing as a Bondsmith may not have required proximity), and that maybe another Radiant order swearing an Ideal would still "touch him" but to a lesser degree and requiring proximity (similar to how Regrowth on someone else works less well than a Radiant healing themself with Stormlight or Regrowth). Some of this rings true. Tken at face value, we've seen "moments of lucidity" from Heralds a few times: Nalan on the rooftop in Yeddaw with the candlest-- (sorry) in Edgedancer Lift had just sworn her Third Ideal Taln and Ash at Thaylen Fields in Oathbringer Dalinar had just sworn his Third Ideal and UNITED the Three Realms He's renewed spheres and formed Perpendicularities since then, without that effect... So maybe that was a super-special time related to swearing an Ideal? Ishar at his Tukari camp on the border with Emul in Rhythm of War Navani had just formed a Bondsmith Nahel bond with the Sibling, far away in Urithiru I don't think that Nalan's comment to Szeth at Thaylen Fields that "I used to be able to feel... I can remember those days, before..." was indicative of "lucidity", as his particular insanity has to do with going numb, and following "letter of the law" interpretations to contradictory conclusions (how can his lucidity include joining the side that he originally swore the Oathpact to fight against that made him the Skybreaker Herald in the first place, before such powers even aligned with highspren?). And he refers to that "feeling stuff and all" in the past tense. I think Nalan is simply more aware of what's happened to him, and doesn't usually feel it's a bad thing. He even says to Lift the first time he meets her (at the Azish palace) that he is "beyond" feeling things as a positive development for a Fifth Ideal Skybreaker. (Which is eerily similar to Moash appreciating not feeling guilt for betraying Kaladin or killing Teft.) So yes, in all three examples, either a Radiant Third Ideal was sworn near them, or an initial bond with a spren of the same Order as the Herald. But we DON'T see evidence of "moments of lucidty" for Ash when Shallan swore her Third Ideal or any of her new Lightweavers form their Nahel bonds; or Jezrien/Ahu when Kaladin swore and/or Windrunners gained their Blades. Maybe they did, and we just didn't see it happen? But Ash has been resident in Urithiru for a while now? But did Nalan act/talk like he did with Lift, while interacting with Szeth? I don't think so. Which brings me back to my second point - other than Taln, even with lucidity restored, aren't the motives of the Heralds still going to be somewhat suspect in that they are only going to be restored to the same crew who foreswore the Oathpact? I strongly suspect Ishar's goal is to "reset" the Oathpact by transferring its obligations away from themselves, at a minimum. It's not going to just be a "reboot" like restarting a computer, but a reboot where the characters are now portrayed by different people.

I myself am rather suspicious that "Meet Me in Shinovar" is a trap, or at least a red herring. (Not to mention that Shinovar is a pretty big place - was the Oathgate of Shinovar the implied location?) Assuming one can trust that "suddenly sane sounding Ishar" was not an act (after all, we'd been warned nearly from Book One of SA in a WoB, "Do not trust anything a Herald says. Ever."), but instead a temporary side effect of Navani leveling up to become the Sibling Bondsmith: The indicator we can maybe trust that this really is a "sane Ishar" is that he addresses Dalinar by name, rather than "Champion of Odium!" as Tezim had been doing. But his moment of sanity due to Navani swearing an Ideal only lasted long enough for him to say a few sentences! Even if done again, would that "short time" be enough for him to do anything useful? Besides, shouldn't he have had this "moment of clarity" thing when Dalinar swore Bondsmith Ideals earlier? (Would it have to be a Bondsmith, for the Connection to Ishar?) What about Ash and Taln having similar lucidity at Thaylen Fields, was that everywhere to all Heralds or just to them as the two who were present (and if so, ... what about Nale, wasn't he also there?). [Pet theory: Ishar DID have moments of lucidity when Dalinar swore his first two Ideals at the Battle of Narak, and then again at Thaylen Fields, and that's when he went to fetch his Honorblade from Shinovar because he'd need it to "reset the Oathpact" except he soon went insane again.] But even if "restored to sanity", we are still talking about nine Heralds who forswore the Oathpact at Aharietiam before sliding into insanity. I am not sure that "resetting the Oathpact" means what Dalinar thinks it would mean. Last thought in this post on Heraldic Insanity: the same most recent set of WoBs from JordanCon you mention also drop that Taln did not, in fact, break, so his mental scrambling is not due to 4,000 years of torture, but some other kind of "Ideal Reversal" magical effect that is making him, along with the other Heralds, exemplify opposite traits to their original virtues ("Once, nothing would have kept him from the battlefield when other men died. Today, he had hidden and whimpered during the fighting.")

Why not? Be sensible. If Odium drove him to do this, influenced him, then really, It wasn't completely his fault. Besides, he was no more than a product of his upbringing, his Vorin culture. All you have to do is accept that it was Odium's fault, and give him -- Ahhh.... Right... But you see, it is easy and seductive to do that, yes? Even Gavilar seemed to have been falling under that influence, who was also a nascent Bondsmith (even as Dalinar came very close to falling to Odium, despite being a Bondsmith of the Second Ideal). So no, it's not an excuse per se, reason to "give him a pass", but I would say is a reason for pity. We cannot say that we ourselves would be any stronger in withstanding an Unmade's influence his place, and he began with the best of intentions - he took on a lot of pain, mistrust, and suspicion onto his shoulders for Shallan's sake, and even under the Unmade's influence, despite all the other evils he ended up doing, he never betrayed that secret.

Is that what happened with that voidspren in Kholinar? I don't remember this being mentioned in RoW... Will comb through later to see if I can catch it, because that would imply they (the KRs) had done more things like Kaladin had done, only to realize it wasn't permanent (and I am not sure how they would know that).

He was clearly under the thumb of an Unmade by then - likely the same Unmade that turned Gavilar into the cold, domineering man we saw in the RoW prologue, with a cold fury, obsessed with being OBEYED and with building some great legacy.

A Windrunner's Surges combined with mega-squiring may make them the most combat-worthy of all the Orders of Radiants, but the Bondsmith powers are "OP" exactly because of what the Stormfather describes them as: the power to bind gods. To literally change the rules of the game. And to give further evidence of that assessment, what we see "Tezim" casually do as a Bondsmith Unchained (possessing the Bondsmith Honorblade, along with millennia of experience using it and no Shard of Honor around to curb its use) is terrifying. And consider what Melishi did, who was evidently bonded with the Sibling of Urithiru and not the Stormfather-as-proxy-Honor: ended the False Desolation in one stroke by stealing the minds of an entire people, yea even unto their children and the generations that followed them (save for the portion that splintered off earlier as The Final Legion, having renounced their Connection to Odium). Yes, it involved capturing and imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram in a perfect gem; but that just means B-A-M is the Unmade analogous to a Bondsmith, or at least somehow became such at that time (not having exhibited that ability before). (My theory is that that "Bondsmith-like upgrade" to B-A-M coincided with however Odium managed to kill Honor despite the whole Oathpact thing going on.)

In Rhythm of War, Raboniel and El (both of who have seen a lot of action, to put it mildly) think they've "finally discovered" a way to kill spren with anti-Voidlight and anti-Stormlight. Raboniel uses anti-Voidlight to kill the Odium-infused portion of her daughter's soul in her gemheart so that she would be released from the Fused cycle of rebirth, and then gives Moash a dagger primed with anti-Stormlight to perma-kill Teft's honorspren Phendorana. (And then once more, we saw El "test" this new technology by perma-killing Lezian.) This is going to be hard for me even to cut and paste, but when Phendorana is killed, it's described as: And when Raboniel uses the anti-Voidlight dagger to free her daughter from being Fused, And at the end, when El does the same to The Defeated One, With all those descriptions of what is this "sprenicidal" technology never having been known before in any previous Desolation, it's easy to forget that this actually was NOT the first time we'd seen this happen in SA! Because back in Oathbringer, when Kaladin finds little Gavinor being tormented by voidspren at the palace in Kholinar: At this point, Kaladin was not all "Rhythm-of-warlike" as he becomes while going HAM in Urithiru with yellowish-red (instead of blue) glowing eyes and howling something that "vibrated with a hundred discordant rhythms". He was just an I-3 Windrunner with a Blade... Right? But he did something even Syl didn't think was possible. Was he already a little bit "RoW-like" at that time already? But the voidspren he killed didn't "burn" at all - it struggled and screamed, but then simply "ripped into a thousand tiny pieces, then faded".