robardin

Well here's the thing. Do the SoA actually have "someone close to Dallinar" or just think that they do? Or by what definition of "close?" Maybe one of the retinue of one of the other heads of state, who would prefer to see Ialai on the throne of Alethkar? Maybe one who's joined Dalinar's coalition in the Skipover Time, who we don't know who it is yet? I mean, it can't really be someone inside Dalinar's true inner circle, privy to what he plans with Navani, Kaladin, and Jasnah, because that group would also be in on what Shallan and Adolin are doing, which is infiltrating the Sons of Honor. (Unless... They do know, and this "Kholin attack" at the end of Chapter Five is a ruse, and they are actually about to capture Shallan in a Reverse Mole maneuver...? EEEK)

Restares was mentioned by a dying Gavilar as a possible boss for Szeth, as well as being in touch with Amaram regarding taking Kaladin's Shards and later, Amaram is urgently writing to him about Urithiru (by spanreed, both times, using Stormwarden glyphs in a phonetic transliteration). So it sounds like Amaram reported to Restares.

Hehehe. As the saying goes, "it was all in your (her) head". That was Veil complimenting Shallan (the persona who concocted the last minute ruse of having "fabrial schematics") and Radiant (who did the commanding, Dalinar-esque icy staredown thing in refusing to hand over the schematics) in their execution.

Ah, that's true, he could just be an "in-character infiltrator" (as Shallan worries to herself at one point about him breaking character) as a "darkeyed muscly guy who drugs, bags, and hauls people" without needing Lightweaving, just acting ability. Still, whether Red was in the reckoning or not, her casual mental reference to "her Lightweavers" implies that she has multiple Surgebinders under her direction, whether as squires or junior spren-bonded Lightweavers (and I'm guessing it's the former).

Well, in today's released chapters (Chapter 5, to be precise), we see Skar and Drehy both flying around as Windrunners in the one-on-one face-offs with "Heavenly Ones", as well as Lopen. We also see Lyn flying in to check on Kaladin, but as she is wielding an ordinary spear, we don't know if she's bonded a spren but is still of the First or Second Ideal, or still a squire dependent on a Windrunner of at least the Third Ideal to use Stormlight. We see Rock Lashing a spear to fly upwards to Kaladin, so he's still at least a Windrunner squire. Dabbid is mentioned, but as helping Rock with the civilians rather than fighting. One of Vathah's deserter crew, Red, is referred to as "one of her Lightweavers" (the one who had infiltrated the Sons of Honor as a darkeyes and was designated as "the bagger"). It's unknown if that means squire or a Cryptic-bonded one, but I'm guessing a squire like Vathah became in Oathbringer (which would also explain the use of the plural). And now we can still wonder if Gaz is in that number, and if Stormlight would heal his missing eye the way it did Lopen's missing arm, as we've seen from Gaz's POV that he's never "gotten used to that darkness".

Yeah, I was wondering this as well, if Rock was one of the Windrunner squires who had not been able to bond a spren.

Yeah, it was this. I didn't actually catch that detail until a few re-reads later myself (and possibly being tipped to it by someone's offhand comment on this board).

The context and the conditions of the contest has never been specified. Dalinar the Alethi imagines it to be a duel of single combantants, as is done for Shards, but that is far from clear. Plus, I can just see Dalinar defeating Odium's champion, whoever it is and at whatever the contest turns out to be, only to have Odium pull a move like Death in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. Odium: ...Best two out of three. Dalinar: No WAY! Odium: Yes way.

Wait until you read about the Terris twins Tymbl and Wimbyl in The Last Metal!

A Shard of Frustration would be pretty funny. Along with my not-serious theory that the "Shard that just wants to hide and survive" was the Shard of Cowardice. It'd be even funnier if that was another expression of Intent the Shard of Harmony, as we have a WoB that Sazed's expression of the union of Ruin and Preservation could change over enough time, or to have been interpreted differently. So much power... But can't... Do... Anything... Without... Second guessing... Myself.... Aarrrgh!

For all we've seen, it's possible that Lirin would attract an honorspren and become a Windrunner just like Kaladin. He just wouldn't interpret or express the "protecting" in a martial way. At all. It's all set up by the way that Lopen swore the Second Ideal - whatever he did, and I'll assume it wasn't zero, out on the battlefield with Kal's training (training he didn't participate in down in the chasms like Skar, Drehy, and Moash, mind you, due to having one arm), his metier for "protecting of the unprotected" was psychological. I will (heal/care for) those who cannot (heal/care for) themselves. I will (heal/care for) even those I hate (e.g., Roshone), so long as it is right. Not saying it will happen, but just noting that thinking "a Stoneward can't possibly be a pacifist!" is not quite right.

Yeah, I don't think it's burgeoning in the current narrative, but I would agree the foundation is still there. Not just because of a long-ago adolescent mutual attraction, but their temperaments appear to match in intensity and focus. With Kaladin's intense personality and tendency to over-protect, I think that would have been bad for a union with Shallan in the long term - a romantic fling with Veil being about the limit of where that would have ended up (while acknowledging that Veil is an aspect of Shallan's). He's also got a lot of hero-worship going on towards him from the folks in Dalinarland, which I think could also have been a factor in his failed relationship with Lyn. Laral will stand up for herself to Kaladin, Legendary Radiant Stormblessed or not, and whether or not he realizes it, that is something that has to be there for a healthy relationship of equals.

This is not so much a question about Kaladin + Laral (Laradin? Kalaral?), so much as about Laral herself on her own. For all the talk about what Order Lirin or Hesina might best be matched with, it's Laral I've got my eye on as a potential Radiant. What we see of her in singer-controlled Hearthstone early in RoW is pretty interesting. She's as strong willed, determined, and self-possessed as a water carrier as she was as the lady of the manor in Oathbringer when Kaladin first returned to Hearthstone. She's enough of an underground leader type to be in cahoots with Lirin (and evidently, Dalinar and Co.) about using Hearthstone as a staging area to extract the Herdazian general. It's not clear, but it sure seemed like she intentionally used her husband Roshone (who we finally learn has a first name of Toralin!) as an embarrassing distraction, the former citylord turned into a lame, drunken crem-scraper. For his sake I hope he was in on the plan, but I suspect not - that he is no more than as he seemed. It's also interesting how the Fused have allowed humans to continue living and working in communities like Hearthstone, when the Fused have a stated goal of wiping out humankind from Roshar, even with a war still going on for control. And by all we see, they are treated with more dignity than the singers had been as "parshmen" and "parshwomen".

I checked to see how many chapters from RoW had already gone up at Tor, and couldn't not read them. I had felt the pacing was off on my first read of Oathbringer, which only went away after one or two re-reads, and decided it was because I did the weekly "early chapter" thing Dickens-style for a work that wasn't really intended or suited for that. After reading the Prologue and Ch 1-3, I'm not thinking I'll have that problem at all with RoW, though. I think it was more that I'd read the Dallinar flashbacks in the Unfettered collection (I think it was) that they were "early released" in, before reading Oathbringer and instead of reading them in their proper spacing and placing in that work.

Elhokar did not die badly. But word of Aesudan's behavior and actions in Kholinar would be spread from any of the survivors who escaped its fall, not to mention the fact that she was already "acting funny" before the spanreeds stopped working after the Everstorm hit (as the interlude with Pai occurs before, if not very long before, the releasing of the Everstorm).

She already had. Perhaps her sketch of of King Elhokar, as he could have been, should have been - who knows, perhaps as he would have been - could be the basis for a larger oil portrait memorial, as they were not able to recover his body for the traditional Soulcasting. He'd have liked that. It was probably left with his body as well, but with her Memories, Shallan can likely reproduce it again, if need be. (Though that was so personal a moment between the two of them, she'd have to be the one to remember what it meant to him.)

I like the parallels you draw (hey, you could write an 8-10 page paper on this for the right class!), and maybe Nolan had read Mistborn at some point - the movie came out in 2010 but he had been working on it for about 10 years. But these elements aren't that uncommon. And Kelsier's "issue" with his lost wife are very different in basis. Calling Inception a "heist story" is kind of funny. I get what you mean, but the whole point after all is that they're doing a REVERSE heist in Inception! What Ruin does with Spook in Urteau is more like an inception.

As Hoid himself notes, he doesn't think they would know what to do if they actually found him either. "We bring you a message from our leader, Frost: stop it already!" "Yeah I know. He's told me that already, many times. Anything else?" "Um... Come with us?" "No." *awkward silence*

Ah yes, that's right, in my memory the way they got the cube was that Wax scooped it up after it remote-Leeched him (he certainly recognized it for what it was and what it did later). So I would say he intended to remote-Leech Marasi as well, not knowing what her Metalborn power might be and not wanting to risk getting too close to her. It reads like he was guarding the cargo car, for whatever the Set actually wanted from the train was apparently in there. When the train lurched and he dropped the cube, he appeared afraid of Marasi's abilities (and possibly the rifle in her hands) without it, and "got out of Dodge". (He must have been the man with the cane that the escaping bandits threw into the water, then jumped in after him.)

If this is your first question post I look forward to more, you raise a few details I had not noticed or had forgotten about! I did remember that Irich reflected on not finding something he'd hoped to find on the train, but no, we don't know what that may have been. As Karger mentioned, it's possible that what he was looking for was the same thing/person that Suit mentioned to Wax via conference call about the only fatality among the passengers having something interesting/special about him... I assumed that was because that person was also a target (for elimination) by the Set, but it could also have been that he had been a target for acquisition who got killed while resisting, or who chose suicide over capture. (Could also have been a kandra?) As for the smell of formaldehyde involved in the attack on the train, that has also not yet been explained, nor has it come up anywhere else in the Era 2 books so far as I'm aware. It was in the air of the courier car that the robbers targeted. So, either something they used to get into the car, or perhaps something associated with this mystery person of interest (maybe the worldhopper is an animated Lifeless from Nalthis, haha). One thing I did note about that train attack was that Matieu, who Wax addresses as "Captain", was somewhat suspiciously eager to get Wax to help him chase down the escaped robbers, given what we hear later from Suit. He also saluted Wax in a "completely inappropriate" gesture for someone "not in this jurisdiction", which seems like it'd be unnatural for someone of the rank of Captain to do wrong. Or maybe I'm reading too much into that - it could also just be an IRL friend/fan insert as a minor character, acting googly-eyed around the Dawnshot. We see Irich in the middle of the fight where Wax "rescues" Telsin and they get away with Allik in the airship module Wilg, where he was "shouting for soldiers not to damage the ship", but that's the last we see/hear of him directly. He doesn't appear to have been part of the party of the Set that went to the temple for the Battle of the Bands (sorry), as Suit thinks of how Irich would be disappointed when he (later) got the news of the "bands" they had acquired being fake. So he wasn't captured by Wax and was also still alive, as far as Suit knew. When did Irich express particular interest in Marasi?

Well unless Odium did something wrong, Splintering a Shard's power is supposed to make it very difficult to reassemble the Shard back into something that can be Ascension-worthy. In fact, his offhand comment to Dalinar the first time he talks to him suggests he's already decided he didn't Splinter Honor enough. Note that Odium uses the plural, so I wonder where the other "Splinters of Honor" are? The Radiant spren? Or perhaps The Sibling is also a Splinter of Honor? The Stormfather wasn't always a Splinter of Honor, though, was he? I believe there's a WoB that as the spren of the highstorms, he predates the Shattering of Adonalsium.

Definitely that's what really freaked Odium out - when Dalinar did not succumb to The Thrill, as all his future sight had told him would happen. He was so sure of that, he accepted the "contest of champions" thing that (if Mr. T is correct) he is now hampered from direct action to avoid concluding. And indeed, Dalinar did something that "should not have been possible", as even the Stormfather is surprised - he had bonded Bondsmiths before, perhaps a hundred times, and a Bondsmith "renewing spheres" was something that had never happened. To which Dalinar replied they were something new, as the Stormfather now had a Splinter of Honor grafted onto him. Who knows, perhaps that "grafting", like Dalinar's "pruning", came courtesy of Cultivation? No, I don't think Dalinar Ascended, not even temporarily, as happened at the Well of Ascension in Mistborn (no spoilers leaked there with that sentenc, yeah, not with that name?). I think what he did was somehow... Bond the Splintered remnants of Honor in the Stormfather in a way that allowed the Perpendicularity to form. I think it's similar to how Syl described the dead spren Shardblades needing to "sync to a heartbeat" in order to "live a little again" to be able to be dismissed and summoned from mist (crossing the Cognitive/Physical Realm boundary). Tanavast the Vessel of Honor is dead, and Honor the Shard is dead and Splintered... But a large enough piece remains with the Stormfather that a "remnant of Honor" can be synced with.

This. I mean, they wouldn't even take the term as an insult. Their names for ranks, aside from theconventional, what one might call "translation to our world for reader impact" terms like General or Captain, include "companylord" and "battalionlord". Calling a highprince a "warlord" would probably get a positive response.

So in the recent livestream on YouTube, they showed us some examples of the textual changes they were making to The Way of Kings for the 10th Anniversary leatherbound edition. This isn't the first time Brandon has "Pulled A George Lucas" on his previously published Cosmere works; he also tweaked Elantris for the 10th Anniversary Edition, IIRC, including an extra "Hoid With A Skaze" epilogue, and more significantly, changed the ending to the Kaladin vs. Szeth duel in the storm at the end of Words of Radiance. I'm not sure of the timing on that one (how soon after initial publication he made the revision), as I only picked up SA a few months after WoR was released, and have only ever read the revised text, discovering that there had used to be a different version on this board. The types of edits they showed making to TWoK were mostly stylistic and writerly, but in my opinion excellent ones. I take it the revised edition would be available in HC without dropping $100 on the leatherbound version? What about as an e-book (Kindle)? Would those actually get updated automatically upon a re-download? I also got WoR as a Kindle book and as far as I can see, there is no option to download the "original" text; so I would take that to mean that had I bought the Kindle book earlier, and re-downloaded it, I'd get the revised text as a new buyer would, overwriting the earlier one, right?

This. sDNA doesn't quite combine/work like "regular" DNA does for Investiture related stuff, in terms of being dominant/recessive and so on; it seems to be more additive? Because what is being passed down in the sDNA is some degree of... Not quite "Connection" with Preservation, like how Vin could use the mists, but more like "concentration" of Preservation. All native born Scadrians have "pieces of" both Preservation and Ruin in them, being what gave humanity sentience there in the first place, the spark of life; and the more of Preservation one has within oneself, the greater the chance of being an Allomancer. So a "pure noble line" Misting like Straff who fathered lots and lots of children saw some minority proportion of them being Mistings and (only) one being a Mistborn. But pretty much nobody can pull that off after the Catacendre, not even Spook, who apparently fathered quite a few offspring, was himself the last Mistborn known to Scadrian history (as of BoM). Essentially, all Allomancers in the Final Empire were descended from just nine (or was it ten?) original lerasium Mistborn who founded the great noble houses almost a thousand years ago, recipients of nuggets from Rashek as reward for allying with him early on. So I'd say that Elend's children - especially by Vin, who was a Natural Born Mistborn, not to mention one who'd embraced the mists of Preservation before marrying him - would have been extremely likely to have been Allomancers, most likely Mistborn, given that he was also a lerasium Mistborn.