Aminar

I suspect if the secondary Spren Theory of Plate is true Dalinar will get Plate. He just can't have a blade because it leaves the Stormfather Vulnerable. Which does raise some interesting thoughts on the siblings Slumbering... Be funny if that was Oathbringer waiting to be awakened.

The real one looks like a box. Navani drew a bunch of engineering designs. They likely include notes on the gem lattice and a bunch kf other fascinating information. In book we'll get one or the other and Navani's notes seem a lot cooler than the very utilitarian floating box with fans on its back.

I guess I'd rather see Navani's fanciful designs.

I feel like this one is better left to the individual imagination. We know it's pretty utilitarian. Outside of the emotional significance of the bridge it likely looks like a floating box.

I think it's even in the root of Adonalsium's name that he isn't a god. The name clearly has roots in Adonis. Roots that, if I remember right, were also part of Elantris's original version. I suspect he was some kind of ideal very powerful man, more of a Jesus figure than a god.

Lots happened. But not a lot of importance to the plot happened. It would just be a big action grind. And while that sounds awesome, it isn't. Not on the scope of a Stormlight book.

It's just weird. Like, we've never seen it as part of the ecosystem. And it's mentioned a lot but subtly. It feels like foreshadowing. I agree, it's unlikely to be Odium. I'd guess it's foreshadowing for the Honor's power coalescing in Dalinar coming up in the next book if anything. Like, him bringing the Perpendicularity into being triggering the process. It could also be an unmade manifesting though.

Life in and of itself is miraculous. The universe should not exist. Why would it? Where did it come from? Why would it happen? How did it begin? And how did it line up in such a way where life is possible? Yet we have atheism here too. And in many ways its far more rational than religion. Jasnah denies that there is an all powerful creator worthy of worship. And she's right. The almighty was not an all powerful creator deserving of worship. He was both once human with all the flaws that come with that, one of 3 such entities in that solar system, sharply limited, and not deserving of worship. He wasn't benevolent. He wasn't the creator of the cosmere. He was rigidly bound to be honorable. Nothing about that made him worthy of worship or praise. He was just powerful and in his way tried to help. He failed. He died. Shards are not gods.

I'm not saying we shouldn't talk about them. I'm saying they shouldn't be used for entertainment if its not going to be executed perfectly. It's important to have discussions. It's not ok to use mental illness to entertain others of it cannot be portrayed accurately. The bigger problem is DID has been used badly in hundreds of places. For entertainment. And it's wildly misrepresented. It's why I brought up a writer with DID who wrote from their experience. Because he's using his experience he cannot be wrong. His experience can be different from others but its personal. It's a case study and that background gives it context. Brandon writing about something he doesn't have, that is amorphous and largely unexplained, while real, is not going to benefit him or people with DID. He didn't treat it with enough care going in, so he'd be better of writing out of the skid rather than steering in, much like he did with Legion. He made it clear the condition wasn't real and that let him run with his creativity. Here his creativity is misrepresenting reality in people who've been misrepresented enough. And it's an easy steer out. DID is rare. Childhood trauma, which is related to DID is not. I've worked with hundreds of kids with Trauma over the last 12 years. I've met zero with DID or who've developed it since. Like I said. I'm disappointed. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I get that the subject matter is interesting and needs to be spoken about. I think if Brandon started the story now fresh he could do it justice. But I'm disappointed because he's already flubbed it to the point it's irrecoverably wrong.

The DSM is one of the most controversial documents in existence. There will always be debate about what's inside it. DID is one of the most controversial points within that book. I'm not denying its existence, I'm saying using something so controversial(and rare) is a great way to end up wildly inaccurate no matter how much research you do. It's safer for the series integrity, Brandon's career, and people with DID to not use it given how often it has been misused and misrepresented. It would be more beneficial to use her as a case of childhood trauma and PTSD where the diagnostics are more agreed upon and there are vastly more sufferers who could use their experience represented in a healthy way. The rest of it is up for debate, but Shallan's passing of personalities is too controlled and too artificial to be DID. We shouldn't have seen her controlling their creation on screen and she should have been suffering losses of time in the early parts of her symptomatic period at minimum. It's a subconscious s process from every description I've read. Amnesia and multiple personalities as separate entities do not comprise DID. She has trauma induced amnesia. She consciously made some personalities to help her think through situations. It's badly done and won't be representational of anybodies experience and will actively mislead people into thinking they do understand. It's violating the harm principle.

Honestly that part's pretty accurate or at least believable for Childhood Trauma. Traumatic memories will start to resurface years or decades later as the mind matures. It's one of many reasons sexual abuse of minors can be hard to prosecute/doesn't get pursued. Some people won't remember until long after all evidence is gone, their abuser is an entirely different person, and depending on region, the statute of limitations is up.

DID is not a good disorder to try to tackle without a great deal of knowledge. I'll admit to being incredibly disappointed Brandon's going this route. The first reason is because there's a great deal of discussion about the existence of DID in the mental health world. It's existence is constantly debated, which means no amount of research is going to give reliable answers as to what the condition looks like. I don't have a personal stake in that side of things. I just think it muddies the waters and leaves the series very vulnerable to aging badly. The second is that what Shallan has is nothing like the diagnostic criteria of DID. Two or more distinct identities or personality states are present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self. Amnesia must occur, defined as gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events. The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder. The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices. The symptoms cannot be due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (such as blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or a general medical condition (such as complex partial seizures). The important part there is #2. Shallan is not exhibiting a loss of memory of what she does in her other guises. This creates a misinformed perspective on the condition. This kind of Hollywoodization of the condition will always bother me. I'd much rather he explain that it's a function of her Radiance interacting with her Trauma than to try to use a real life disorder and then misrepresent it. I get that DID is a fascinating idea. Shallan's burying of her memories is a function of PTSD but in DID the gaps in memory have to be an ongoing thing. She has to be losing time to her other identities, not swapping between them like a person playing D&D getting into character. If you want a work of fiction written by someone with DID about their experience I recommend Catskinner's Book by Misha Collins. It's self published but it's by a person with the diagnosis and thus comes with the weight of a case study.

I'm wondering if it isn't more Stormlight addiction. Stormlight is described as very Stimulanty. And we saw Kaladin suck in just a little Stormlight to essentially feel normal. Like Coffee in the morning for a caffeine addict. Many of whom suffer from sleep issues brought about by late day Stimulant use. And addiction doesn't need a physical vector. People get addicted to Video Games. To Gambling. It holds that you could get addicted to Stormlight and in doing so exacerbate other mental struggles, lose sleep, and need the "drug" to feel normal. We've seen that in Teft. It wouldn't surprise me to see it in Kaladin here.

I'm not sure Aerodynamics would increase the speed much. They'd reduce drag and make the work easier on the Chulls, but however fast they're moving it's going to be roughly a proportion of the speed the Chulls are walking. 5 knots is just under 6 MPH(5.754) which is probably double a Chull's walking speed or so from the way they're described. At that speed air drag is largely unimportant. It's not unimportant. Just, not really a factor in speed so much as effort. The real factor here is, can you mechanize the movement to take advantage of pullys and levers and wheels for way more speed. Then aerodynamics might matter. But so long as its just linear chull motion with a multiplier of some kind, it's not going to be all that fast.

Gavilar's words are a classic abuser tactic. You're worthless. You do nothing. Without me you'd have nothing. It's all a way for him to keep control over her. He knows her insecurities. He knows how to twist her. And we can see the contrast in how Dalinar sees her. Dalinar sees the the real her and says so. He builds her up and loves her for it. Gavilar saw the real her and needed to destroy it because of his own insecurities. His need to be the most important person around. Which is understandable in the leader of a nation where strength is everything and he knows just how fragile his hold actually is. Especially when he feels betrayed by his wife's love of his brother but needs them both too much to do anything about it. But it still makes him an abusive monster.

I am disappointed in everyone for not having said a thing on this. There's something weird in the sample chapters that literally nobody seems to have mentioned(so far as I can tell there's one mention of mist in this entire subforum and it's about cultivation). Kaladin and Dalinar both mentioned Fog hiding their flight. Fog that's been present for what seems to be weeks of flight for The Fourth Bridge. That's odd. I mean, weeks of flight is odd enough in a world with Highstorms and Everstorms. I imagine it gets hard to breathe up above them if you're not infused. But people have been managing. But to have weeks of groundcover. I don't remember the Weeping being misty and they're not discussing a light drizzle over everything so I doubt it's that. We've only seen that on one other Shardworld. And it meant something important. It meant a Shard was dying. Is something happening to Cultivation? Is Honor's power drawing back together? Either way, something is up with Roshar's weather.

Yep. I've been saying this since Jasnah started talking about her breakdowns. The way both her and Navani talked about Gavilar suggested he was just not a kind man. It was very similar to the way kids who've come forward to me about abusive parents start those conversations. Hesitant and subtle, looking to have you notice, but not sure if you'll care enough to dig deeper.

Yeah. The search for Radiance is the search for self improvement. Elsecallers just have a more inwardly bent version than others. It even holds that Radiants have light eyes and that the caste system is based on that. I suspect it was founded initially to try to entice the Spren back after the recreance. Later records were tweaked to rewrite Vorinism into something older and bigger.

My wife gets a little frustrated when my two little brothers and I get together. Lots of Sanderson talk, arguments about physics, and playing of board games. She likes 0 of these things.

I still think that's his actual Third Ideal. The timing on everything is so off that I think Brandon's pulling a fast one. Like... Why would the "These words are accpeted" come so late.

I suspect Dalinar will move through them fastest. He's the oldest of the radiants we see often, and has probably the least change left in him. His progression kind of needs to be the fastest. Shallan will likely take a lot longer.

It means someone doesn't want to date or have sex. We all have dozens of friends like that. Most of us have them across the gender spectrum. We hang out with them. Play games with them. Give gifts to them. Some are as close as family. But no candle-light dinners or sexual contact. Brandon's Writing Excuses Podcast touched on this a couple weeks ago if you want a more in depth look.

Skybreakers are about finding a way to remove personal judgement from the discussion of right or wrong. Follow a man. Follow a set of laws. Follow an ideology. You could literally have a Skybreaker swear to follow WWJD(What Would Jesus Do). I'm not sure how it would pan out, but it's an external guide.

We haven't even seen him swear the first Oath yet. I can't see the Oath not being sworn at least partially on screen. Think about the way Teft was handled.

Women don't dress up for sex. They dress up to show they speak the language of fashion. Jasnah has to speak that language well because she's defying custom. In order to be respected while a heretic she has to be perfect at pretty much everything else. It has nothing to do with her sexuality or lack thereof. The rest of your point is bad stereotyping.