digitalbusker

(remember thrill that the shardbearers feel in battle)

The Thrill is not unique to Shardbearers.

I kinda worry what effect exposure to the Diagram would have on the little guy. He might rupture a fractal or something.

Tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift.

--1pt

damnation it, now I want a t-shirt with "Honor is dead... but I'll see what I can do."

 

Or maybe, just to make it a little more comprehensible: God is dead... but I'll see what I can do.

We have a WoB that says Adolin and Renarin are both Dalinar's legitimate sons. (Though I can't help but notice that he never says anything about them both being Shshsh's sons.... )

 

Well if he said "legitimate" then one or both of them being the son of a different mother would require Dalinar to have been married twice, unless there's a twisty Rosharan customary usage of "legitimate" that includes what we'd historically have called an acknowledged bastard.

Okay, if anybody is the Dos Equis guy, it's... well, it's not Adolin.

 

He once arm-wrestled a chasmfiend... to a draw.

He can parry a shardblade with his bare hands.

He's defeated more Shardbearers since giving up his Blade than most people do in a lifetime.

He doesn't take no for an answer, even from a god.

He is... the most interesting Shardbearer in the world.

"I don't always drink wine, but when I do, I prefer yellow or orange, because intoxication is forbidden to an officer in wartime by the Codes."

"Stay honorable, my friends."

Obligatory quote from the Letter:

Let me first assure you that the element is qutie safe. I have found a good home for it. I protect its safety like I protect my own skin, you might say.

WoK Ch 14: "Payday" epigraph

 

I always assumed that was the Lerasium. The last sentence is certainly consistent with having eaten it, although it could also mean he implanted it and healed around it as a way to hide it.

Don't forget that one of the things Syl mentioned to Kaladin when she was explaining what she remembers of his time in the army was that other soldiers, even some of the lighteyes, looked up to him. I think the spren-attraction has components of both attributes.

My money's on "tries its best to adapt, but runs out of stormlight or hits the limits of its malleability well before it fits the chasmfiend."

Well then, mini fic in the thread. I like! Well... assuming that I'm reading this correctly and this is Friendship!Shalladin and not shippy.

No comment.

It could go either way I suppose, but it works very well as "wow we were so silly back then, it's much better with us just being friends" which... is exactly how I like my Shalllan and Kaladin relationships!

 

(But... you killed Adolin.... *cries*)

I didn't! It was Odium, probably! 

An excerpt from Tomes Unfeasible: Volume III of Book X of The Stormlight Archive.

 

Chapter 134: Endings and Beginnings

Kaladin Stormblessed touched down lightly in the blackened stone crater that marked the site of Odium's long-hoped-for final defeat. He couldn't have articulated what drew him to this terrible place, especially when the whole world was celebrating without him, but he felt it was important to be here. He was surprised to see he was not alone. Shallan stood and turned to face him, tucking something under the boulder she'd been sitting on. Storms, had she been sketching the crater?

"Oh hello, bridgeboy," she called, settling back against the stone.

Kaladin, despite the solemness he'd been feeling moments earlier, found himself chuckling, and he walked over to join her in contemplating the devastation. "I haven't heard that since...." he trailed off, but he saw Shallan wince--of course she had heard the words he hadn't said: since Adolin died. "I..." he was going to say "I'm sorry," but it came out "I miss him, too."

Shallan sighed. "You know, it's barely been a year, but this last year has been so crazy, it feels like--I don't know."

Kaladin turned toward her. "It feels like it's been forever, and it feels like yesterday?"

She straightened up. "Yes! That, exactly. I wish he could have seen this, what we did here, but I know he never doubted the outcome."

Kaladin snorted. "That made one of us, then." Shallan nodded, one corner of her mouth twitching up into a crooked smile. "You realize that by 'us' I mean every human being on Roshar, right? Spren and Listeners too, come to think."

Shallan met his eyes and shook her head resignedly. "What are we going to do, Kaladin?"

Kaladin felt like the conversation had gotten away from him somewhere, so he tossed the question back. "What do you think?"

Shallan was quiet, and Kaladin shivered inwardly as he looked in her eyes and saw, just for a moment, the depth of pain she was carrying. Then, just as she had on that night all those years ago, she smiled anyway. Storms, it was still beautiful. "We," she said, "are going to go share a baywrap and a bottle of wine." She took his arm and began gently but firmly pulling him towards the western edge of the crater, where the sun was just beginning to slip behind the jagged rim.

"You know," Kaladin mused, "I had a huge crush on you back in the day."

Shallan laughed again. "Yes, astonishingly that fact did not escape my attention. I assume I was similarly transparent?"

"Not really. You had me half-convinced you hated me most of the time."

"Well if that's what kept us apart when we were young and stupid, then all to the better. Can you imagine how badly that would have gone?"

Kaladin couldn't remember the last time he'd really laughed. He did so now. "Storms, what a disaster we would have been! Remember when you stole my boots?"

Laughing, they walked together into the sunset.

That's how I hope it ends.

I don't think he became truthless because the KR were coming back. He freaked out when he saw Kaladin using stormlight and said that it was impossible. Suggesting that there should be no possibility of Knight Radiants existing. Unless I read that wrong. It was really fast and I'm waiting to do my second read through

That was "that's impossible" in the Luke Skywalker sense of "I refuse to believe this is true, because it has implications with which I am not comfortable," not "I literally do not believe this is possible based on my understanding of physics."

 

"If this person is a Knight Radiant, then the thing I was punished for saying is true, and I should never have been made Truthless, and all these horrible things I've been doing for the last six-plus years were not my deserved punishment for heresy, but just horrible things I did. I do not wish that to be the case, so: 'That's impossible!'"

I would really love Kaladin to learn how to read, just all "I'm going to ignore social conventions because this is convenient for me." Maybe Sigizil will teach him?

The next Oath will be "I will not needlessly cripple myself to satisfy society's gender norms."

Kandra sex workers: I wouldn't be surprised if the First Contract had some kind of escape clause in case of extreme circumstances, but yeah, it's possible. I tend to think the economic factors would keep it from being too widespread (certainly not on the level where you'd call it a kandra brothel), and if it makes you feel any better, it seems like there's a certain element of choice in which kandras go out on contracts, and maybe even in which kandra takes a specific contract. There's every chance that the kandra hired to replace Lord Whatshisname's favorite mistress picked the job because it doesn't see why humans get so worked up about all this "sex" stuff.

 

Half-kandra: Other people have already pointed out that kandra have enough control over their organs to not have to worry about accidental fertilization. I'll also say that I severely doubt that kandra are capable of producing human-compatible sperm or eggs (though maybe it could salvage and preserve those of the body it's wearing, if it acts fast enough--we're all using the same gametes we made during puberty, after all). I could see, maybe, a kandra with a lot of experience and knowledge of human biology and anatomy serving as a surrogate womb for an implanted pregnancy. That could actually be an interesting occupation for kandra in the modern and future trilogies--sort of like a walking uterine replicator (where my Bujold fans at?).

So the original reason I asked about what we knew about Scadrial's calendar was that I'm going to be running a Mistborn Adventure Game campaign set in the Alloy era, and I always like to be able to include in-world dates. I thought I'd share what I decided on.

 

First off, what we've learned since the thread was started, from the Alloy Chapter 3 Annotation:

There are twelve months, one after each member of the crew, with a few tweaks. (The days of the week have different names too, but we ended up not using any in this book.)

 

And this is what I wound up using:

Months

• Kelsivar
• Maresil
• Vinuarch
• Elenduary
• Tyndwist
• Sazelle
• Brieze
• Hammondust
• Doxil
• Spooktober
• Cladentil
• Marshek

Days of the week

• Vationsday (Preservation's Day)
• Roonsday (Ruin's Day)
• Harmsday (Harmony's Day)
• Sheksday (Rashek's Day)
• Ryversday (Survivor's Day)
• Ireday (Ironeyes's Day)
• Yonday (The God Beyond's Day)

I'd be happy to entertain any better weekday names, or crew-based month names that roll off the tongue better. (Except for Spooktober. Spooktober stays.)

Also: any audiobook people want to clue me in on how to pronounce "Vinuarch"?

Edit: I am absolutely arguing that Heralds must be on Roshar for their gates to work.

"Though I was due for dinner in Veden City that night, I insisted upon visiting Kholinar to speak with Tivbet. The tariffs through Urithiru were growing quite unreasonable. By then, the so-called Radiants had already begun to show their true nature." --Following the firing of the original Palanaeum, only one page of Terxim's autobiography remained, and this is the only line of any use to me.

Way of Kings Ch 46 Epigraph

This passage was apparently written after the Recreance, by someone who lived through it, about events that took place before it. I take this passage as indicating that peacetime (i.e. non-Desolation) use of the Oathgates was a thing, and that it was administered by the Knights Radiant. It's possible, I suppose, that Stormseat's Oathgate alone didn't work because Taln was dead at the time*, but then why did Natanatan get to be a Silver Kingdom? Why let the one kingdom whose Oathgate doesn't work play?

*: I was on the moon, with Steve!

Let's just hope it isn't Amaram.

You just had to go and say it, didn't you. Sigh....

How specifically was the "person who arrived at the warcamps" identified? Does the wording leave room for Taln to swap places with Borden?

I don't advocate this theory, but since this question is rapidly turning into Stormlight's "Who killed Asmodean?" I figure no loony theory is too loony.

How many times did Taln almost give in but not? Oh, we don't know? So this whole conversation is Apples vs Oranges Part n: The Pulpening?

On a more serious note: I used to volunteer at a crisis hotline. Depression and suicidal thoughts are real things that real people really struggle with, and that does not make them weak. If you know someone that you suspect is contemplating suicide, don't be afraid to ask them about it directly, and do encourage them to seek help. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

If you need a break from soundtrack/orchestral but still want to keep the instrumental vibe, you might check out Rodrigo y Gabriela. Acoustic guitars, played very fast. It sounds appropriate for the a rocky landscape, to me.

Because Sadeas is doing things Taravangian likes, and Dalinar is doing things that Taravangian hates?

Because killing another Kholin is a bigger coup than killing somebody else?

 

In some way it's got to boil down to "based on the information available at the time, killing Dalinar seems more likely to promote the desired response." Szeth's killings under Taravangian's direction haven't been assassinations, really, in that the death of the target wasn't the only goal. He's under orders to do it visibly, much as he was when he killed Gavilar. So he's not killing Dalinar because Dalinar's awesome and important, or at least not only that, but because killing Dalinar is supposed to cause some effect.

Back on topic: The first paragraph in the Axies chapter that describes Cusicesh as a spren is not part of a dialogue, nor is it part of Axies' inner monologue. It was the narrator that used the spren description, so unless the narrator is unreliable, then I think that should settle it: Cusicesh is a spren.

"This character believes something that turns out not to be true" isn't exactly the same thing as an unreliable narrator. If, by "unreliable narrator" you mean "limited by the knowledge and assumptions of the current viewpoint character," then all Cosmere books have unreliable narrators.

I too have a problem with the "witty" characters... but it's not that they're too witty. Dialogue in general has never been the strongest element of a Sanderson book, but the way the books, even from the early ones, reward careful reading and pay off foreshadowing in surprising but logical ways was more than enough to get me through the occasional line that rang as too colloquially American to me, or the occasional joke that fell flat for me.

I think if there's a Metallic Arts-related explanation for Lessie's death, it's got to be that Bloody Tan was a Slider. I'm aware that there are problems with this theory, most glaringly that Wax is familiar with speed bubbles from long experience with Wayne and you'd think he'd notice and/or put it together. (Don't come at me with speed bubble bullet deflection--clearly if a speed bubble was involved it was only up long enough to line up Lessie with the incoming shot and dropped before the bullet made contact.)

Even with that flaw, I don't see another reason for Bloody Tan to be stealing bendalloy. Yes, bendalloy's valuable, but Bloody Tan was a psychotic serial killer, not a criminal kingpin. It's possible that he just needed to raise cash to buy embalming supplies, but the fact that the metal is name-dropped specifically as a thing he stole (and early on, when the reader can't be assumed to know that it's expensive) rather than gold or just "money," seems like a strong hint that he was a Slider.

I'd be just as happy with a non-supernatural explanation (e.g. Tan spotted the countdown and was able to time his move precisely), but if the explanation is supernatural, it's got to be the bendalloy.