Dlyol

I like the Navani idea and I think her holding the coalition together when Dalinar relapsed was clear foreshadowing but I'm really commenting to say that two Bondsmiths married together would be one hell of a power couple

@Heir of the Void I think @NotBurtReynolds outlines my thinking on this pretty well - these people aren't robots, Radiants are damaged individuals caught in a perfect storm of moral and objective catastrophe. I'd just like to add a couple of points though for completeness sake. One Radiants are bound by Oaths that for some orders although not at all orders would mean they have to be horrified by this. Can you imagine Kaladin or Lift reacting to lobotomising the Singers in the way you outline? The second point is you get how ideological 'justifications' for slavery, if you can call them that without wretching, emerged in our world backwards. Societies didn't have pre-existing arguments for slavery and then gained slaves, they had slaves then sought to justify that to themselves. The 'positive good' argument for slavery emerged in the 1830s because slave owners had slaves and wanted to justify keeping them, they didn't acquire slaves because they believed the argument. As this applies to Roshar we have no idea whether there were slaves prior to the Recreance but we can be fairly confident that there wouldn't exist the requisite ideological framework to justify lobotomising and then enslaving vast numbers of Singers *because it had never happened before* @The-only-game Do we know this?

Yeah sure, how does that relate to my point about the Recreance and the False Desolation?

One of the interesting things about the Ideals system for Knights Radiant is that the in-world and out-of-world reasons for it are remarkably similar. Ishar imposed the system upon the Knights Radiant because he felt (correctly it seems) that without a phased accrual of power mediated by an increasingly strict set of personal moral commitments, without which the magic wouldn't work, Surgebinding had the potential to be vastly too powerful and dangerous. Similarly, although I'm not sure he has said so in so many words, Brandon clearly implemented the Ideals system because it prevents characters becoming too powerful at once and that for every increase in power there is a corresponding limitation of a new Oath that they cannot break (although interpretations can be flexible) and as Sanderson's 2nd law states, 'Limitations > Powers'. (It is also convenient that it links an increase in power directly to the main characters arcs). Brandon clearly considers personal morality to be a part of magic systems as he states about Superman when describing said 2nd Law. With that in mind and also the knowledge that for the Skybreakers at least the final Oath requires one to become the embodiment of the central concept around which the other Oaths hang I thought it would be worth thinking about the organising moral concepts of each order's Ideals. Windrunners Divine Attributes; Protecting, Leading 2nd Ideal - "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves" 3rd Ideal - "I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right" or "I will protect those I hate. Even if the one I hate most is myself" At first blush these seem fairly straightforward, Windrunners organise their moral thinking around protecting others. I suspect, however, that when taken in conjunction with Jezrien's other Divine Attribute of Leading that the actual point of being a Windrunner is a related but slightly different point of being selfless and dedicating oneself to others in ways that as per the Leadership attribute one has to determine for oneself. Skybreakers Divine Attributes; Just, Confident 2nd Ideal - Ideal of Justice 3rd Ideal - Ideal of Dedication 4th Ideal - Ideal of Crusade 5th Ideal - Ideal of Law The simple take on these is that Skybreakers believe in Law above all else but I don't think that's quite right. My sense is that Skybreakers are people who in our world might be Burkean Conservatives, who believe that human ability to determine moral truth for ourselves is inherently limited and so, therefore, it is better to follow external sources of moral authority of which the most obvious and important is the Law but for Szeth is Dalinar Kholin. The Ideal of Crusade is a bit of an odd one out but I feel implicit in the concept of Crusade is the idea of a higher calling external to oneself that might be why Highspren approve of them. This much better explains I think, the core disagreement between Windrunners and Skybreakers than some weird distinction between Protection and Law, they disagree because Windrunners feel the source of morality to endogenous to themselves and so do what they feel is right whereas Skybreakers see it as exogenous and so feel obliged to follow the dictates of that external source of morality. Dustbringers - Unknown Edgedancers Divine Attributes; Loving, Healing 2nd Ideal - "I will remember those who have been forgotten" 3rd Ideal - "I will listen to those who have been ignored" I really like the Edgedancers and I think key to their overall worldview is that first Divine Attribute - Loving. I think this means something roughly analogous to agape in Christian theology in that it implies a general, unconditional love for one's neighbour particularly those who are off societies broader radar. I get a real Sermon On The Mount vibe from their Ideals and I will be quite surprised if their final ideal is not something like 'I am love' where love in this sense means a general deep affection and concern for others. Truthwatchers - Unknown Lightweavers - Truths Elsecallers - Unknown Willshapers - Unknown Stonewards - Unknown Bondsmiths Divine Attributes; Pious, Guiding 2nd Ideal - "I will unite instead of divide. I will bind men together" 3rd Ideal - "I will take responsibility for what I have done. If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man" These Ideals were the other reason I wrote this post. To my mind, there isn't much in the way of obvious similarity between them. One is about how you interact with others, the other how you interact with yourself. One seems like a generalisable promise, one seems like simply the culmination of Dalinar's Oathbringer arc. So here's my theory. These Oaths are all about how you as a Bondsmith interact with the 3 shards of the Rosharan system. The first is just about living according to Honour's intent which is to bind things together. The second is in two parts. The first sentence is about immunising oneself from Odium's chief promise which is to remove all of the pain and guilt and other negative emotions one might feel. The second sentence is about living according to Cultivation's intent, of self-improvement and removing that which is bad in you so that which is good may grow, which is to say to Cultivate oneself. Therefore, the Bondsmiths have a slightly different take on their personal morality than the other orders and one which fits nicely with their Pious attribute which is to align one's morality with the Intents of Honour and Cultivation and run it in contrast to Odium's intent. Well, there we are my theory on the moralities of various Radiant orders as implied by their ideal system. If you think any of its completely wrong-headed or have any relevant evidence to add I'd be delighted to hear and thanks for reading all of this post which became rather longer than planned.

@mosaab It's really not obvious to me that glowing is different from leaking and even if it were this from earlier in that Edgedancer chapter seems to imply that he does leak at least somewhat and that he draws it in from a sphere (although it doesn't conclusively say that) Anyway at the risk of being personal, do you not think you're engaging in quite a lot of motivated reasoning on this given that as you say here you want this theory to be true so that Radiants can be better off in those endless Mistborn vs Radiant threads rather than on its merits

So we have this from WOR And in Edgedancer So he's clearly efficient but not perfect at holding Stormlight and given that he's a Herald and at Fifth Ideal you'd expect him to be more efficient than a regular Radiant at Fifth Ideal

@Tazren Yeah, I think its unlikely that this Stormlight idea is true not least because I'm almost certain we see Nale leak Stormlight in Edgedancer and it would be game breaking as you say. I was just pointing out that the point of the ideals system (both in and out of world) is to create limitations on the magic system located firmly in the moral plane. In theory, although we have seen a fair amount of softness around the edges here, as you progress you get more shiny toys to play with but a much more constrained field of action to exercise them in. That is why the analogy with those other magic systems is a little weak - Allomancy or Breath has no endogenous moral constraints

I don't disagree with this but I think it's worth noting that being at fifth ideal probably imposes significant limits on what you can do from a moral standpoint. Brandon points out that as well as Kryptonite the most significant limitation on Superman, that which makes him interesting, is his strong sense of personal morality. That the only Fifth ideal Radiant we've seen is an insane Herald means we don't have great evidence on this but it seems fairly likely that becoming the essence of a concept; Law for the Skybreakers, one might hypothesise Leadership for the Windrunners or Love/Charity (one is tempted to say agape) for the Edgedancers places fairly rigid restrictions on what you can do. (Also I know that the 1st ideal is a formality and that ideals are about the individual and his/her spren's interpretation but they clearly do impose some limits)

Oh I see sorry I didn't understand this was where your objection was coming from

@aemetha Iyatil is from Silverlight and is of Southern Scadrian heritage so I feel like the broad point that the Ghostbloods are interested in Roshar for Cosmeric reasons is a good one

@bo.montier It seems fairly clear that for the Windrunners at least 4th ideal is required for plate While the specific oath required for plate might vary somewhat between orders it seems likely that for all orders Plate was a consequence of Oaths

Further to this, there's a theory going around (which I think is basically correct) that this was the reason for the Recreance. The False Desolation and the Recreance seem to have happened in a very short time horizon of each other and imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram was what ended the False Desolation. The Radiants, who now know that surgebinding destroyed Ashyn and that Honour is dying, manage to completely lobotomise almost the entire Singer population of Roshar and so confirm that surgebinding is, in fact, something terrible and to be avoided. From there it doesn't seem implausible that they would abandon their oaths especially as they now believe that having imprisoned Ba-Ado-Mishram that forms of power are gone and there isn't really a reason for them anymore.

My theory based largely on certain thematic similarities is that the Skybreakers shattered the plains. It seems improbable that the Stormseat Oathgate was left open because it was forgotten about as Jasnah theorises so it seems likely it was a contingency of some kind. As the Skybreakers not abandoning their oaths seems also to be a sort of contingency and they possess the surge of Division it seems likely to me that they shattered the plains and then didn't seal the gate for the same reason they didn't abandon their oaths

Was the strike team formed solely of Truthwatchers? All we know is that there was a coalition amongst 'scholar Radiants' to work out how to imprison Ba-ado-Mishram in which there was at least one Truthwatcher and that there was a strike team formed to perform this task of which Melishi was a member. Nothing about this implies that the former and the latter groups were the same, indeed the exact quote implies a degree of distance between them to me; Presumably, Melishi was involved in both groups but that was because as we are told several times what he did was 'related to the unique abilities of the Bondsmiths' and that the only things they needed were 'a special prison and Melishi' which says nothing about whether Truthwatchers were required. As far as I can see the involvement of Truthwatchers in this was related rather more to the fact that with a divine attribute like knowledge they probably were disproportionately represented amongst 'scholar Radiants' rather than any especial power they possessed.

On the question of whether Sja-anat managed to corrupt Radiant spren pre-Recreance this quote from in world WOR sure makes it sound like she did and the Radiants responded with extreme prejudice

@CaptainRyan @Cowmanthethird That is all true and is a good spot which I hadn't made but its completely orthogonal to my point that there isn't any evidence that Jasnah would need to dismiss her plate in order to Surgebind in the ways that she was at this moment

@Completeshards We don't actually know that as we see in several of Dalinar's visions radiants using surges including Lashings with plate on. This leads to the interesting question about what is different about Plate post recreance for which there are many theories of which I think the most popular is that Shardplate used to be made of 'cousin' or 'lesser' spren to the Nahel bond, windspren for windrunners, creationspren for lightweavers etc and that these broke in a similar way to the lead spren at the Recreance

In Oathbringer we learnt a couple of interesting new facts about Taln that differentiate him from the other Heralds So we now know that Taln never broke and was never meant to be a Herald in the first place. I have no clear theory as to why this although the former presumably is linked to the later but it does have some interesting potential implications. Were there originally meant to be nine Heralds instead of ten? If there were originally supposed to be ten, who was supposed to be the tenth instead of Taln, as it feels like a waste of a potentially interesting storyline to have the other as some generic human that has no plot meaning? Is the fact that only nine of the heralds ever broke linked to the there being nine Unmade in some way? How did Taln come to be involved in the Oathpact if he was not intended to be a Herald? What was Taln before he was a Herald and was that linked to him being the 'bearer of all agonies'? I don't know the answers to the questions, although for the last I think it would be thematically nice (if cliché) for Taln's lowly background being the source of his incredible will, but I think they are worth discussing and I love to hear people's thoughts

Isn't this a classic example of us assigning magical causes to non-magical events? In novels, characters hear voices of people who aren't physically there at dramatic moments all the time to establish character development. It's possible this has realmatic implications but Occam's razor is just that Dalinar has grown as a person and feels he has earnt Evi's forgiveness so Brandon has him hearing it mentally to indicate that to us.

@Leyrann Yeah that's the WOB I was thinking of

Does the timing for this work? I thought we had a WOB that the SA happens around the middle of the Cosmere sequence, before the final Mistborn era. Especially as one of the letters in Oathbringer is fairly clearly from Harmony

One little wrinkle here is the epigraph to chapter 85 of Oathbringer which I'll put in spoilers

@Rasha I wasn't really making a point about the relative merits of those moral systems but that discussing them is far more profitable in the Cosmere context than is discussing Christian morality. For one thing suggesting that Christian morality can exist without the Fall and the Crucifixion is extremely heretical and the people who are making arguments from their faith on here really should be thinking that through. As for the relative merits of the arguments: I haven't thought through the implications of the Categorical Imperative enough to make an informed judgement although I would like it to be true as it provides a nice basis for rights theory, I think you treat Mill unfairly - the Harm Principle seems like a fairly obvious and good dividing line between public and private spheres and while I disagree with Bentham we know from the study of economics that (certain cognitive biases notwithstanding) utility maximisation is how people actually operate - to my mind its churlish to summarily dismiss the morality system that is the revealed preference of human beings in most situations @Marethyu316 Sure, people want to approach these things from a perspective they find familiar and comfortable but I, as a Christian, think its extremely wrong to do so in this context. Christian morality only makes sense, can only make sense, if two things are true; that we are fallen, sinful creatures and that Christ died to save us from those sins. In the Cosmere, as far as we know, there was no fall and no crucifixion. Not only does that eliminate any foundation for Christian morality but to try to reinstate Christian morality without those events is, in fact, heresy because it argues that the problem of evil is not a result of the fall, it suggests grace and salvation are possible without Christ etc etc.

Without taking sides it feels odd to me that this discussion of whether there can be absolute moral truth is so dependent on the questions about Christian theology given we can be fairly confident Christ does not exist in the Cosmere. It seems to me like it would be more fruitful to look at some moral systems like Kant's categorical imperative or Utilitarianism which do not need to appeal to any particular claims about the divine to establish their claims to absolute moral truth. If Kant or Bentham or Mill are right then they would be right in the Cosmere as well by the nature of their arguments. (I write this as a fairly conventional mainline Christian by the way).

I had an idea a while back about how the growth (as opposed regrowth) element of Progression might be creatively used.