Aethling

1. Elhokar has the innate ability to soulcast like Jasnah and Shallan. He talks about seeing shadow people like Shallan sees. 2. The Shattered Plains look much like a halted version of what happens in Dalinar's last vision. 3. Continent where everything takes places is in the southern hemisphere of the planet. One of the characters specifically states that it gets warmer the farther north you go. That makes me wonder what is happening on the northern half of the planet. We already know that Sanderson has used the northern/southern stuff before, even most recently. 4. Probably highly baseless, but I got the feeling that Odium is a supershard. One of the chapter headings talks about carrying the burden of 9. It could also be talking about Taln, but if you start with 16 shards and subtract the ones we know exist and the ones we know are shattered excluding Odium, you get 9. 5. Hoid seems to be spending most of his time on Roshar. Elhokar states that he has left and returned before. I wonder how often that would correspond with the events in Elantris, Mistborn, and Warbreaker. 6. The death voices are from more than one entity. Just a few of my observations during reading. Most probably wrong, but interesting to think about.

I just finished my reread. I still can't find anything that points to her being anything other than a woman that came to camp to be around the king's court. I may have lost count, but she is only on screne around three times. She is a Brightlord's daughter, and that itself gives her reason enough to be there. Google books search shows 9 mentions, but most of those are during the spanreed scene. 1. she was there when Dalinar spoke with Jasnah over the spanreeds. 2. she was at Adolin's side right before his duel. 3. Navani mentions her as a way to get rid of Adolin to flirt with Dalinar.

Well, that is what HE called it. The small ars arcanum at the end refers to it like that also, but Sanderson's books have a history of having ars arcanums that are incomplete or misleading. There are several references throughout the book that histories exist from the time of the radiants. he may have simply read a book and learned that. Renarin makes a reference to them. Jasnah is using some of them for her research. Even the ardents know more about the era than they let others know. There may be much truth in the theory, unfortunately one book isn't enough to answer many questions.

Even non-violent societies train some forms of martial arts. The fact that his art is weaponless wouldn't distance him from anyone else. Shallan and Kaladin drew upon their powers before they even had a clue they existed. Szeth just has more experience using the powers. He may have had someone like Teft to explain somethings to him, but that does not mean full scale training. If you think that Jasnah discovered her abilities the same way that Shallan did, you have 3 of 4 people in the story that discovered their abilities by accident. It is not such a stretch to say Szeth came across his in the same way. Szeth is older than Kaladin and Shallan. I haven't seen anything that would put him in relation to Jasnah, but I would guess he is younger than she is. He has at least 6 years of experience on Kaladin though. Kaladin was still in his village when the Gavilar was killed. He was with the army for a few weeks shy of 4 years, and he has been with a slave for roughly a year. Throw in that they were already fighting on the Plains before Kaladin joined Ammaram, and that is a huge experience gap. By his actions, I would guess that he became truthless by using a weapon to kill someone in defense of others. That is purely speculation though. The Blade is part of his punishment. If he were to give it up, it would lower his shame somewhat, thus they made it where he cannot give it up voluntarily. Now, you may have a point saying the Stone Shamans are the decendants of an order of the Knights, and that Urithru is in Shin lands. There is one blurb that states it was in the west close to Honor.

Vin snapped during labor. Pretext to Epilogue of HOA states that explicitly. Pewter may actually put more of a risk for the baby. Someone on pewter wouldn't notice the small things women notice during their pregnancy. Hits to the abdomen. Pewter drags. Imagine a baby born with the symptoms of a pewter drag. Let's not forget the emotional aspect. It would be hard to do fine gradations of soothing or rioting if your own emotions are so messed up. There would be nothing preventing a pregnant woman from using allomancy, but I expect there would be side effects much like modern babies born to alcholics and drug users.

Very interesting question. One of the best recently. I doubt they would want to risk it if they really cared about the baby. The weight gain would be a real issue. The hormonal changes would probably be a bigger one, though. Plus, throw in the maternal instinct and they probably would not want to risk doing any fighting. Pewter is far more toxic than modern alcohol, but no sane woman these days would be drinking during her pregnancy.

I like the idea of aluminum coatings. The main problem I can see is that the technology probably does not exist to do so even at the time of Alloy. Also, the point about wear on a gun is a VERY good one. My semi-auto shows wear on the slide and barrel components with just normal practice shooting. A layer of aluminum would have worn off extremely quickly. Revolvers are a different creature, but even they tend to show wear from casual use.

After roughly 130 pages of Eon, I have a few observations. 1. The setting is fairly well established. 2. Even if you did not know the author, you could tell she is female just because the lead character has spent most of the book so far complaining about PMS cramps. I cannot fathom any male writer carrying on about that subject for that long. 3. The idea of a shemale character who is crippled has all kinds of potential. By shemale, I mean a female pretending to be male, like Yentl. 4. The story is engrossing, but so far it has not been something I would not put aside to read something else. Actually, I am considering that now. Afterall, it HAS been a while since I read TWOK.

If the second one is good, I might go back and hit the other trilogy. If you are looking for an ugly character, the central female in River Kings' Road is described by everyone in the book as ugly or homely. Even she has no pretentions that she is even remotely pretty, but then she has a baby, so someone didn't think she was TOO ugly.

I liked it. Color based magic system the way he did it was pretty nice. I will definately pick up the second volume when it comes out. That is usually how I judge the worth of a series. If the book isn't interesting enough to make you want to pick up further volumes, it usually does not rate very high to me. Personally, I think it is already pretty obvious exactly what the blinding knife is. If you like rather clean fantasy, you will probably like this one tons. The language isn't all that bad. The one sex scene is from memory and is not graphic at all. The stage where everything is taking place was fairly well set by the first book.

I highly doubt it is possible to "transfer" the divine breath. Everything we have shows that it would be used up and dissipate instantly.

You are probably right about the women. Those are probably the only two that it could be anyway. Avi does not have a color as she is not AS. Elayne is about to pop. There is no way he would let her risk it by going in there. Min has no power usable in that situation. Not to mention that he wouldn't trust anyother AS to go with him. The other cover has me concerned though. Supposedly, it was a funeral pyre for Rand. I got into the series very late, but for those that have been reading for 20+ years, the hero dying would be a major disappointment. Sanderson does have a fairly good history of killing off the main hero though, but it should be tempered some by Jordan's wishes (well, there is probably no way that Harriet would allow him to die unless Jordan had it explicitly stated).

Awakening should be negative because it takes a non-renewable power from someone and gives it to another. You do not have to pierce them with a spike and they do not die, but Sanderson has stated there are serious negative consequences for giving up your breath. Of course, I may be misremembering the way he classified them himself.

Also, the idea of the noble/skaa marriage being exempt would be against canon too. He banned that from the very beginning. That is the reason he set them up as two different races. Also, the LR did not fight any pre-well battles. That was another man entirely. Even before the LR arose, that man had largely taken control. The best setting would be in like the first 50 or so years after the well during the transition. Not much has come out about that period, so it would be hard to "break canon" except for stuff like noble/skaa marriage. It would probably be fun working with the first generation when they were still young and before they grew old and largely out of touch.

That they are power players in the universe is only typical since they are what those books are about. Don't forget about Breeze and his little powderpuff. You also have the relationship between the girl and the chay'san expert in Elantris. It is made pretty clear that she set out to land him. Siri is the only one that I can state from Warbreaker because that is really the only clean cut relationship shown. I don't count Lightsong and his strumpet. You see the same thing in Eddings, which I feel is a lot like Sanderson. Ce'Nedra didn't set out to land Garion, but Taiba certainly did Relg in the first series. Velvet chases Silk across two continents to land him in the second series. Jordan has it also. Look at Nyn going after her Lan. Nothing short of the Darkone was going to stop her from getting his bond. You also have Elayne going after Rand to a lesser extent. I don't count Min or Avi due to other circumstances. Since Sanderson is finishing those up, you definately have some influence. There are several of the same type of relationships in Rothfuss's works. I can't really think of one from Goodkind, but Denna going after Richard is a far, far stretch. Chima has Raisa going after two different guys. You are correct that WoK is just getting started. That is why I am saying it is too early to read too much into the relationship. Sanderson does have a history of putting clean male/female relationships into his works with basically no ulterior motives.

This is probably just one of the cases people read too much into something. I believe that it is firmly what it is set up to be. A young woman trying to land herself a quality young man. Sanderson has used this type of thing in his books before, plus, they are about the right age for it in the books. You will find a relationship like this in Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker (Siri sets about to actually nab the king on her own). It also happens at least twice in WoK. Once even involving Kaladin.

Actually, in the article, Whelan stated he has never read any of the books. The scene was chosen for him.

I will probably start my reread sometime in July or August this year just to make sure. There are a couple more books I really want coming out this year, so I will probably have a few breaks in there, but that is usually good on such a long series. The old cover art has me worried though. They said it was a funeral pyre for Rand, but I hope it isn't really that.

Lifeless out of a Returned is very possible. Sanderson had one in the original.

Was it just me, or did Sounds almost like they have some WoT fans as writers.

Well, it does seem to make a bit of sense to me that the blades would be of Odium. For the reason I mentioned above. As for the plate, I am willing to stretch and say that they are Honor and Cultivation working together to combat something developed by Odium. Blades are used almost exclusively for killing. All of the blades we have seen so far have been timed to heartbeats. When a person is in a battle or bloodrage, the pulse tends to speed up, allowing the blade to be retrieved more quickly. Hatred and killing tend to go fairly well together. Afterall, even today, we do not symbolize our enemies as fluffy bunnies before we send in troops. Syl as an Honor spren expresses her distaste of the blades. Since she is a sentient creature with an honorable intent, she would dislike anything that ran against honor, which hatred usually does. Plate armor has always been a primarily defensive innovation. It is meant to give the persons protection against aggression or even hatred in battle. When I think of an honorable knight from the middle ages, I almost always see someone dressed in full armor. Sure, they do have their swords, but that is almost always sort of an appendage to the armor. The shardplate specifically has qualities of honor and cultivation. Honor from above, cultivation from the fact that gems are used to replenish their power or rejuvenate the entire suits. Isn't it Dalinar that states that shardplate can be grown from the smallest fragment if enough gems are used to power the regrowth? For purposes of Cultivation, that is little different than throwing fertilizer into a field of squash, or watering a crop of potatoes or wheat. Also, look at the definitions of the words recreant and recreance. Most of the definitions have the basic meaning of coward or cowardice, but one of the submeanings is Apostate and Apostacy. An Apostate is someone that completely abandons his loyalties. Them just showing up and abandoning their equipment definately applies. To spin this, I would postulate that the war they were fighting was actually for the benefit of Odium who likes death and hatred. When they discovered this, they abandoned the war because they did not want to support such a belief. This would by definition by a sort of Apostacy. Even in modern usage, Apostate and Traitor have very negative connotations. Because all most people would have seen was their last line of defense leaving them to fend for themselves, the feeling that they were abandoning their loyalties would have pervaded just out of misinformation about their act. YES, all the above is pure speculation. The only people that know for sure if anything any of us have said is right are Brandon and possibly Peter. Considering only 1:10 books have been written so far, I am not 100% positive that even Brandon knows exactly how everything is going to turn out in the next few books or to the end.

I wonder if anyone has given any real consideration to the blades being of Odium and the plate possibly being of Honor. Swords and daggers are generally used to kill whereas plate is used for defense. That could explain the heartbeat limitation and the fact that Syl as an honor spren doesn't like the blades. It is stated in the book that it takes a fixed number of beats, not time. Truly enraged acts usually occur with a highly elevated pulse. Syl being an honor spren (though I still believe that spren themselves are of cultivations) would have a hatred of anything doing with Odium.

I do not doubt that the shards have coopted the highstorm, but some are saying they created them. Why go so far to say that?

I think people are reading too much into the Highstorms. From the descriptions and the pictures we have, they are basically a high powered hurricane. For anyone that has lived through a category three or better, the description pretty much matches what you experienced. The cover of the book looks remarkably like a stormwall seen coming at you. The only odd thing about them is their regularity. Honor or Cultivation may have coopted a strong natural force, but it is a stretch to say that an event that occurs naturally on our planet and others in our solar system could be solely the result of Shards acting independently. After all, it would be a stretch, but you couldd link Vo's shiprwreck to a hurricane if you really wanted to do so. Possibly Lightsong's deed as well. Almost everything that people are using to say that the Spren are a result of Honor could just as easily be used to say that they are a representation of Cultivation, possibly with more effect. The magic system stuff, that I will leave you guys to argue over, I haven't managed to reread it with that much attention since it is such a long book.

It is explained in the text or chapter heading. He controlled the fertility of the nobles to keep down the chance of a rival coming into being. Skaa are supposed to be the work force, so they needed to be able to reproduce fairly often, but they were not supposed to be able to use any of the magics. The interbreeding was designed to keep the magic out of a segment that produced more offspring, thus increasing the chances of a rival arising.