robardin

Is it, though? Nightblood is described as being "larger than normal" in Warbreaker, which has two reasons - one, it was made for a Returned, and two, it was based on having seen Rosharan (deadspren) Shardblades, which are similarly oversized. But when I went back to see how Azure's sword was described, it's not mentioned as unusually large. The first time it is mentioned is when someone on the Wall Guard is telling Kaladin about how Azure stepped in after their former commander had fallen during riots when the Cult of Moments attempted to seize the city gates. "We were almost overwhelmed, then Azure joined us, holding aloft a gleaming Shardblade." Then, when Highmarshal Azure shows up and is a woman (to Kaladin's surprise), Kaladin thinks of it as a "Shardblade" because he's already been told the Highmarshal had has one. But it's also described as being worn as "a side sword", meaning on the hip, by a woman of slightly below average height - definitely a normal Rosharan Shardblade would be too large/long to be able to do. The first time we see it drawn is after Kaladin helps the Wall Guard fight some Fused who were testing out its defenses, becoming the first one of them to kill a Fused, who avoid fighting Azure with her Blade drawn. He finds her with her characteristic fighting stance that includes wearing her cloak around the forearm (likely Awakening it to help give her additional strength); "Her unsheathed Shardblade glittered, long and silvery." (On the other hand, it does seem like her blade cuts through stone as easily as a normal Shardblade would, as she mentions using it to cut out blocks of it to Soulcast into food in the chamber lined with aluminum panels provided by Hoid.) Later, as Elhokar leads their team to try to take the palace, Adolin summons his Blade and reflects on how "no sheath could hold a weapon like this, and no mortal sword could imitate it - not without growing unusably heavy. You knew a Shardblade when you saw one. That was the point." And yet, Azure's "Shardblade" doesn't qualify under those critieria! (Unless the "when you see it..." bit applies?) Plus, where normal Shardblades feel unusually light for their size, an Awakened sword like Nightblood feels unusually heavy (even accounting for being oversized), due to all the Investiture embedded therein. We don't know how Azure's blade feels compared to Nightblood, but without Nightblood's behavior of absorbing Investiture, it was still likely Awakened with at least 10,000 Breaths, which cound make it unusually heavy. And finally, when Adolin sees Azure fighting with it alongside him and Elhokar (both wielding Shardblades), he notes that her Shardblade wasn't as long as the other two, in addition to how the people she stabbed didn't have their eyes burn out, but instead turned "a strange ashen grey". All this is to say: what is the "magic tell" for her blade that makes all these Rosharans consider it a Shardblade at first sight, if the usual physical cues are absent: super-sized, summoned from mist in ten heartbeats, etc.? Perhaps its "unworldy" "gleaming" and "glittering" is reminiscent of the "magnetic allure" of a Shardblade? Or maybe because Kaladin and the others were all told from the get-go by the Wall Guard that the Highmarshal wieleded a "Shardblade", who would have seen her wielding it and dealing instant death to whoever it stabbed like a Shardblade would, and maybe the the grey skin vs. eyes burning effect is not something a non-Shardbearer would necessarily be first hand aware of as a strange difference. (And later, using it to cut stone.)

Yes, I realize that her sword is akin to a Shardblade if it is (as we all assume) a "Type IV BioChromatically Awakened Entity" like Nightblood was meant to be. The sentient spren in Shadesmar recognize it as such, too, noting with surprise that it did not involve "killing" one of their number. But on Roshar, particularly in Alethkar, there is so much tied into the mystique of Shardblades - ten heartbeats to summon, improbably enormous to wield without their built-in magic, cutting through things like they weren't even there, magnetically drawing one's eyes to them, etc., - that a "sword-plus" that doesn't meet any of those descriptions getting called a "Shardblade" seems a bit odd to me. I mean, it also makes the bearer "automatically of the fourth dahn". I agree that it's clearly a case of "well, it's a magic sword, ergo, Shardblade"... But what's the tell that her blade is "magic" to a non-spren, just by looking at it? Does it give off a "vibe of power"?

Remind me again, what is it about her blade that makes the Rosharans immediately consider it a "Shardblade", given that it has no gemstone, doesn't get dismissed or summoned but is kept in a sheath, doesn't burn people's eyes out but instead turns them gray as they die, and is the size of an ordinary sidesword rather than the usual "oversized", practically two-handed size of a normal deadspren Blade? Though the Fused assaulting Kholinar while she commanded the Wall Guard were also instinctively leery of getting too close to it?

I heard the Pink Floyd classic song "Learning To Fly" again recently, and immediately thought of Kaladin's story arc with Syl in Words of Radiance. A soul in tension, that's learning to fly Condition grounded, but determined to try Can't keep my eyes from the circling skies Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I

I think I've mentioned this in other threads, but Devlin, the informant that Wax talks to at Kelesina's party in The Bands of Mourning sounded very Ghostbloody to me. Right down to commenting about the display tank of octopuses feeding on live fish, "Lady Kelesina imagines herself the predator... Of course, she doesn't see that she's in a cage as well." Specifically, he sounds like Mraize. Since I don't think he is actually Mraize, based on his physical description - "a short, handsome man with a hint of hair on his upper lip and chin", with no mention of the rather noticeable facial scarring that Mraize bears, and Mistborn Era 2 takes place after Storlmight Part 1 - but that still leaves the possibility that he's been talking to Mraize.

But they wouldn't actually operate it as a skaa carpenter's workshop in the middle of Luthadel, eh? A nobleman's Secret Allomantic Dead Zone would probably be like the one Kelsier visits when he discovers the Eleventh Metal.

I think the example of Dalinar operating the Oathgate shows that this description is not quite right. In-world, so far, all they know about the Oathgates creation and functioning is that "The Radiants were the key to reaching Urithiru", as preserved in old books. Shallan realized the portal "keyhole" was meant for Shardblades, but found that "dead" Blades didn't operate them (though they did "mold" to the right shape) while her "live" Patternblade did. And that Jezrien's Honorblade that they (briefly) acquired after Kaladin defeated Szeth also worked to operate it. Oh, that's not quite accurate any more. As of Oathbringer, they've also seen what the Oathgates look like from the Cognitive Realm: two gigantic, sentient spren in black and white (or, if "Enlightened" by Sja-anat, red). So there's something a not-fully-Bladed-but-pulled-into-Physical-realm Stormfather has in common with a live sprenblade and an Honorblade, that a dead sprenblade does not have, that is needed to operate an Oathgate (along with Stormlight).

Ooooh, nice. I was just going to object that skaa Coppercloud Mistings at least could be safe from the Ministry because by definition their Allomancy would be undetectable (piercing a coppercloud with extra-strong Seeking isn't going to detect the burning of copper itself, rather what was "behind" the coppercloud); but as you point out, a two-man strategy could still flush them out if they were creating too large of a cloud. So a location like Clubs' workshop could be verified as a "secret Misting safehouse" if the Ministry ever suspected it as such.

Yeah, swearing/cursing by the Stormfather, or using "storm" and "storming" as imprecations, doesn't imply he's evil to them. As you will already have seen by the end of TWoK, Rosharans also swear by several of the Heralds (usually by a specific body part - "Kelek's breath", "Taln's palms", "Ash's eyes"). Many Rosharans even conflate the Stormfather with the Herald, Jezrien (as is mentioned when they hang up Kaladin to be "judged by the storm" in TWoK: "He says he's letting the Stormfather judge you... Jezerezeh, king of Heralds.") (I'm not sure if that counts as a spoiler as I thought that was always obvious, but I guess I'll be conservative.)

(This is my personal opinion... As if I needed to caveat that...) Brandon Sanderson himself has cited The Wheel of Time as something hugely influential to him, and you can feel some of that come through in his own work in the "multi-volume doorstop fantasy epic" genre that is The Stormlight Archives. Through the first six books, The Wheel of Time was - and of course, still is - amazing ("Lord of Chaos"). The very satisfying conclusion to that book felt like it was about the midpoint of a ten book story arc that would be one of the greatest of all time. And in fact, Robert Jordan said more than once that he envisioned it as exactly that, a ten book arc, the end of which he had "already written". But as the next few books played out, instead of progressing towards that ending, more new side characters, plots, and prophecies got laid on the table faster than they were getting resolved (practically none of them). Books 7-9 definitely "had stuff happen", but they felt rather drawn out. A lot of what happened until the last third or quarter of Book 9, "Winter's Heart", to me felt like could and should have been edited down to a bit more than one book. But the last part of that book did pick up the pace, ending on a major cliffhanger. After a few more years, Book 10 ("Crossroads of Twilight") came out... And it turned out to be largely a retelling of the events of Books 8 and 9 from other characters' POV, many of which had either never had POVs before, or had only been relatively minor. Then, it ended on the SAME cliffhanger as "Winter's Heart", but this time from anothers character's POV! Jordan defended this as a legitimate writer's technique to add depth and scope to a key part of the story, to see it from different POVs, but for fans already frustrated at the lack of progress towards anything resembling an ending, it was infuriating. (Yes, I was one of those fans.) Basically, if I were an editor with the benefit of hindsight, I would wave a wand and say, "hey, RJ, go and redact books 7-10 into just two books, 7 and 8, and now wrap it up in 2 more books like you said would happen!" Shortly after "Crossroads of Twilight" is when he became seriously ill; book 11, "Knife of Dreams", would be the last one he personally wrote. And in a complete flip-flop from books 7-10, Book 11 felt weirdly sped up. In a few cases, things foreshadowed or outright prophecied way back in books 2 and 3 got wrapped up so abruptly and almost trivially that my main feeling wasn't "whoa, so that's what that was all about!", but rather, "What? THAT's what that was all about?" You know the rest. He worked with Brandon Sanderson to go over his notes for how he wanted to end the story, having previously promised he would end it with a 12th and final book even if it turned out to a 1500 page Gargantua of a novel, but Brandon padded it out to three more books. And Jordan's ending was retained verbatim, he had indeed already written it years ago. So, bottom line: should you read it? -- Well, why wouldn't you? The main reason not to START to read it would be that it might never finish, except maybe in a way that was executed less expertly by showrunners and script writers going off of overview notes for material once their plotlines went past the point of published prose, as clearly evidenced by much clumsier dialogue, pacing, implausible speeds of travel, and so on. (I hope that never happens to a work I cherish... Again...) In this case, The Wheel of Time has been finished, and in the opinion of many, Sanderson's task in completing the final three books was well executed. So yes, you may find yourself skim reading through books 7-10. Or not. In my re-reads of the series, which hasn't been for a while, mostly I read through "Lord of Chaos", then essentially go off of chapter summaries of those books to cherry pick which passages to actually re-read. But your first time through, maybe you just plod through, with the benefit of knowing that it's all there for you in the end, versus spending a decade or so waiting for books to come out in 2-3 year windows, only to feel like that could or should have been just two books and 4-5 years of your life.

It may not have been a Blade per se, but it was definitely a Physical manifestation of a living spren (the Stormfather) that the Oathgate drives off of. And the Stormfather was not happy about that. The details of it, though, are officially RAFO territory, as of October 2018: What's interesting is that "dead" spren Blades like Adolin's could not work the Oathgate, but the Honorblades can, which have no spren associated with them at all. And it'll be interesting when (not if) Adolin tries to operate an Oathgate again with his Blade, now that it's a "only mostly dead" spren that acted to save him from a Fused attacking him in the Cognitive Realm, has told Adolin her name (Mayalaran), can be summoned in 7 instead of 10 heartbeats (but not with zero latency), and "brushed his mind" with a warning of incoming danger in the fighting at Thaylen Fields (and, it is hinted, may have helped to heal him slightly with Stormlight after a building collapsed on him).

You don't know what I do for mankind, the Lord Ruler had said. And we didn't, Vin thought. Thank you.

This is true, a nod to the truly (IRL) disabled people out there that disability, even when it is the loss of function formerly possessed, is not inability. However, I think Renarin's inability to heal Rysn's legs does not mean it's in the "Kaladin's slave brands won't go away" context of one's self-identity defining the target model, but more the context of "Renarin couldn't heal Hobber's legs that were healed once Hobber could draw upon Stormlight himself" - something to do with a window of time for external Regrowth to be effective on another person. For all we know, a Truthwatcher or Edgedancer of the Fifth Ideal while "overcharged" with Stormlight could in fact do those things, just not Lift and Renarin, who are of the Third Ideal, on an ordinary supply of spheres.

I guess he's maybe 10-15 years too old for the role now, though with some makeup or lighting effects he could probably still pass for younger... But seeing Tony Jaa do his parkour running and martial combat moves without wires or prop aids in a film like "Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior" (from 2003) makes me think that he is, in fact, using Stormlight.

It would seem there is a difference between external healing, like the Regrowth that Lift and Renarin can perform on others, and the "internal healing" effect of Stormlight (or of someone tapping a Feruchemical goldmind). "Internal" healing seems to be more powerful, probably because it's obviously a stronger attunement on the Spiritual level to be healing oneself instead of someone else - Stormlight can heal severed limbs both mundane (physically lopped off) and spiritual (Shardblade wound), even after so long a gap as Lopen's or Hobber's, while Renarin was not able to heal either Hobber's Shardblade derived or Rysn's traumatic paralysis because "it's been too long". But even "internal magic healing" doesn't work if the person's self-identity includes the wound, like Kaladin's slave brands. At a deep level, he has embraced those brands as part of his identity. That was evidently never true for Lopen's missing arm... And perhaps even more surprisingly, Renarin's nearsightedness. Dalinar comments at the end of Words of Radiance how he'd noticed his son had stopped wearing glasses recently, which he'd thought was an affectation but now realized was Stormlight healing. Yet Renarin was described as wearing spectacles "as usual" pretty much the first time we read about him, in Ch. 12 of The Way of Kings. That said, there is this WoB discussing this very topic, wherein he doesn't draw this distinction between "external" and "internal" healing magics - But that doesn't really refute my theory, as he doesn't address if Rysn has "internalized" her paralysis the way Kaladin has his slave brands. From reading her POVs in Oathbringer, it would seem clear that she has not, so I would think it's more along the lines of how Regrowth can't heal Shardblade severed limbs like Hobber's or Bisig's (unless perhaps applied immediately), but them being able to squire up and draw in Stormlight did.

I dunno, man. Over 20% of people gave it a one-star rating already. I wouldn't get too worked up over it. Is this website hosted in Texas? Because a "Texas Book Depository" presenting wild rumors and speculation of upcoming books as fact would be hilarious.

Wayne murdered her father when she was 2 years old. He does not deny his guilt. He was caught for this crime and sentenced to hang by a Roughs lawman, Jon Deadfinger. Lord Waxillium Ladrian intervened on his behalf, for reasons unknown. Was it because he was a rare and powerful Twinborn, like himself? How would you feel about this turn of events? Yes, he's been paying a weregild - half his earnings - to her family each month. It may have been a condition of his commuted sentence, a self-imposed one, or both. That's the very definition of blood money. It can earn Wayne's re-entrance into free society. It doesn't mean it buys forgiveness. Imagine her remembering not her father at age 2-1/2, but remembering deeply missing her father at age 3-1/2, with the evanotype image the only image to hold onto. Would money buy your forgiveness? Or simply acceptance of the bare minimum of justice? Wax and Wayne have since become legendary heroes of the Roughs. Even more so following Wax's return to Elendel, where she is attending University, after their vanquishing of the equally legendary Miles Hundredlives and foiling the Vanishers. And even Allriandre's friends at University speak of him in excited tones. "They say he rides with the Dawnshot!" It must feel like the world is ready to accept it as a good trade, her father's life for Wayne hooking up with Wax. Just look at what an awesome pair they make, and what they've done! And look, he's not some unfeeling monster, he makes payment, even coming in person! What was your father, anyway? An anonymous bookkeeper in a distant Roughs town? You wouldn't be studying at Elendel University except for Wayne's money, you know! I can easily see why she feels the need to force him to look at her father's picture. Because that's all she ever had of a man she only remembers missing. To make him say, "I killed a better man than me." Because to her, he did. No matter what the rest of the world says. And to tell him he will never be forgiven. Because he won't be, not by her.

Indeed, wasn't there a mention that there were ten original Mistborn or something, kings and leaders of the world who allied with Rashek and founded the major noble houses? I don't know why I have that in the back of my head - an e-book search through the Mistborn Era 1 trilogy didn't find a hit - but I remember thinking at some point there were quite a few missing from a presumed tally of 16 lerasium beads, versus the recorded or legendary count of original Allomancers (excepting TLR).

Adding to this, remember that the Words of Founding are an info dump from Sazed immediately after remaking the world, and before Spook and Friends re-emerge from the storage caverns. The newly Ascended Harmony: knew everything that mortal Sazed did, including everything from his copperminds could see/hear/grok everything on Scadrial in the present time, after the Double Ascension could see "the history of the power", everything that had been done with the powers of Preservation and Ruin (e.g., what Rashek did to move/remake the world) None of those sources of information would have told him about the second bead at the Well, since that would have been something related to what Rashek did with the nuggets after he had de-Slivered from taking the power of the Well. He doesn't get to know everything that Kelsier knew in his head at the time Kelsier took up Preservation, only what Kelsier did (and perhaps, why he did it) while Kelsier was Preservation. Same thing with the conversation about that event that Kelsier had with the shadow of Leras, who recognized "Cephandrius" from Kelsier's account; that was something Ghost Leras knew, separate from the power of Preservation. (Same reason why Hoid's letter to him was so "revelatory", he doesn't know very much at all about any of the other Shards.) I would assume that Sazed knows the "initial count" value of the number of lerasium nuggets that Leras as Preservation (not Rashek) created at some point, nuggets that Rashek "had to get", and which didn't have a "natural condensation" cycle the way that atium beads did at the Pits of Hathsin. I read it as Rashek learning about the nuggets' creation by Leras while Ascended, and how/where to get them; and that Sazed now knows the same thing, while also knowing (from his human history) that Rashek already went and got some number (all?) of them, disbursed at least ten of them to the founders of the major noble houses of the Final Empire to seed Allomancy among them, and that Vin and Elend found one in a small ceramic dish at the Well of Ascension that made Elend into a very strong Mistborn. And no, He can't just "sense" where the lerasium is, if any remains, any more than Ruin could just sense where the atium stash was in Era 1.

The axe took off Elend's head. He clutched the book, that matchless work of art, and held it out. Then he dropped it into the flames. "Almighty, Oh Almighty..." The king ... The king was Dalinar's Tien. This was the man he wanted to be. ... Strength before weakness. ... "You. Will. Not. Have. Him." "Tell me," Wax said, voice cracking and rough from his shouting. "Tell me, kandra." "I killed her," Wax whispered, squeezing his eyes closed. "I killed her again." He looked at Kaladin, then quietly made the Bridge Four salute, wrists tapped together. The spear he held dripped with Elkohar's blood. He closed his eyes, breathing out, listening to a sudden stillness. And within it a simple, quiet voice. A woman's voice, so familar to him. I forgive you.

Okay. Mostly harmless.

Hmm. Alendi observed about him, Those darn kids!

A charismatic Full Feruchemist with leadership skills and perfect recall, working as... a packman? He could, no, should have been DOMINANT!

Okay, I looked for WoBs about atium and turned this one up

I agree, and for a different reason, which makes the arguments stronger together. Szeth's earliest Shin-based thoughts about how "walking on stone" was "profane, not to be trod upon", but Urithiru is an exception: a Shin writer of a book Shallan reads in Ch. 47 of Words of Radiance called it "the connection to all nations, and at times, our only path to the outside world, with its stones unhallowed." When I first read that, I was confused by the ambiguity: was it "the outside world" that has "stones unhallowed" to the Shin, or Urithiru? That is answered later, in I-10. After Szeth fled from his encounter with Kaladin while attacking Dalinar at the "palace" at the warcamps, he goes to Urithiru: So, stones in their Shin homeland are not "cursed", but all other stone on Roshar is, except for Urithiru. Something is holy to them about the stone of Urithiru; something of gods, and spren. And we know that the Shin, in many ways, respect and retain the "original agreement" between humans and Dawnsingers on Roshar, which may include venerating the same things they did. We also know that what the Nightwatcher does is called "The Old Magic" because it predates Surgebinding on Roshar. Whether or not Surgebinding was brought there by humans, the Nightwatcher certainly was not.