Necessary Eagle

I don't know why the pictures came out all different sizes. maybe because i was too lazy to open the original files and just copied them from my reddit thread.

One thing this book does differently than the others is that it adds some moral nuance to the concepts of oaths and honor. This is brought up along the course of the book with Szeth, Sigzil, and Adolin, and culminates in Dalinar breaking his oaths to void the contest of champions.

I've been trying to figure out if this set-up works for me, and (at least for now) I think it's a mixed bag.

Note: I am specifically talking about how these moments affect how the Dalinar climax lands, not their own merits or plot necessarily.

I think Adolin and Szeth do work, because they set up the theme of questioning the rigid oath-based system that we've become used to, but they're different enough to make Dalinar's decision surprising and novel. Szeth keeps his Fifth Ideal by breaking his bond with Aux. Adolin broods on the meaning of "oaths", and creates an informal alternative to the Nahel bond based on trying your best.

Sigzil, though, is a bit too on the nose. He even uses the same "I renounce my oaths" wording that Dalinar does, and to me it undercuts the shock of Dalinar's moment a bit.

You do need someone carrying the theme in the middle of the book, I think, and Szeth and Adolin's scenes are too close to the end. But if Sigzil has to be the one to do it, it should have been at a slightly different angle.

9 hours ago, Cocoa said:

Lift's aviar somehow doesn't die of old age during the timeskip.

It's an aviar, even regular, un-Invested parrots can live decades.

Quote

Chana: on Braize, dead since Shallan killed her a few years earlier, but soon to break.

I think that night actually was when Chana was killed.

Aside from Preservation, none other other Shards are jumping out at me as being obviously Exist-aligned. Like, the Change lineup I'm confident on at least three of the four, but thus one's being difficult.

12 hours ago, Cocoa said:

To be fair, all we know is that he was disbelieving at the possibility that it was Kal in the storm. That could be anything from "but he was dead, his eyes were burned out!" to "but the Heralds are bound to Roshar!" to "but he should be dead of old age!" to "but this is a backwater planet hundreds of lightyears from home, how is he here?!"

This.

Where did it say she was pregnant? I missed have missed that part.

3 minutes ago, Irish Spern said:

Can someone explain why or how the sun was shining over Azimir at the end of the book?

Retribution spread out the Everstorm to cover everywhere he owned. Which is pretty much everywhere except Azimir and (i think) the Shattered Plains.

So there's still at least one unknown Dawnshard floating around on Roshar, right? The epigraphs and visions in previous books refer to them in the plural, and no one knew that Hoid had Exist, even had he been on Roshar during the times in question.

44 minutes ago, Kardenal_13 said:

Since that WoB is from 2 years ago I would think that until someone asks it again or gets some other confirmation we should take "At this point in continuity" to mean Rhythm of War. Since we see Sigzil and Aux leaving Roshar at the end of the book I don't see why another pair couldn't use the same method (obvious nobody will be using Hoid's).

Since the question was about The Lost Metal, I believe "this time" is the Era 2, which we already knew takes place during the time skip.

Sig and Aux left Roshar on the same caravan, but they weren't bonded yet. So Sig becoming a Skybreaker on another planet or in the depths of the CR wouldn't be what squirrelly ol' Brandon was negating.

Judging by this WoB, Radiants who become Radiants while on the planet Roshar are still stuck on Roshar. Though given the time dilation going on, "no one at this point has figured out how to do it" doesn't mean much, from their perspective it's probably only been days or weeks since the crem hit the fan.

I'm asking specifically about point 2.

22 minutes ago, Kardenal_13 said:

2. Power needs to learn what exactly?

Part of Dalinar's plan was for the power of Honor to change it'a definition of what Honor is, hopefully from oaths to somerhing aproximating what we generally use Honorable to mean AKA good. If he succeeds in this I imagine rhar Honot will eventually abandon Taravangian, but it's a century/millenia spanning plan, not a near future plan. IMO some of the Powers reaction to Taravangian as Retribution are very early signs of this.

Yes, but why on Roshar would he think being part of Retribution will be a good influence?

20 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

No. It would be cool, but Taravangian has surely noticed that Hoid does not pop up as a ghost in Shadesmar.

He didn't notice that Dalinar popped up as a ghost in Shadesmar until he went looking for him.

Am I supposed to be confused at this point about what Dalinar was trying to do with Baby Honor?

He determines that new power needs to grow as a "person" and learn to be good as well as honorable, so he sends the power off to... become part of Retribution? How is that supposed to make Honor better?

Edit: to clarify, I understand the part of the plan that gives Honor to Odium to make him too dangerous to ignore. That's explicit text. My question is about the part where he's trying to influence the young Honor to change, somehow, by the time Retribution is dealt with.

I hope eventual canon Jerick has a better reason for running away from a contest that ostensibly would improve the lives of his entire caste than Prime!Jerick. Worst part of DSP by far (though the whole Shattered Plains 1.0 arc was cringe)

I hope Szeth is still around in the back half to meet up with Kaladin again.

"What are you doing here? You're dead!"

"I know things got pretty confusing at the end there, but-"

"No, I *literally* saw your corpse. Your eyes were burned out. I helped bury you with my one remaining hand. You'd better have an explanation for this, Stormblessed."

On 11/11/2024 at 6:01 PM, Isilel said:

 

Eh, some Vedens also have it. To look like a Horneater one needs to have an appropriately large frame, noticeably larger than that of an average Alethi - nobody is mistaking Shallan for one, for example. But maybe Chana qualifies, we'll see.

Remember, it's Rlain speaking. He's probably better at telling humans apart than most listeners, but I'd give him a pass if he got a few things mixed up.

In retrospect, I should have posted this in the Cosmere spoilers section, but did anyone else do a double take at

Cause I was checking Arcanum to see if any juicy WoBs had dropped at FanX, and, well, looks like we have a whole new interlude. Or possibly half a new interlude. Haven't seen anyone talking about it.

2 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

Classic Sanderson joke of Szeth saying he hungers for something and Nightblood says "pancakes?". That feels out of place that's a Lift, Lopen or Wayne joke.  Nightblood jokes are like him trying to eat Lift and then saying "oh I would never do that" when she mentions it later. 

I think it's just that Lift has been hanging out around sword-nimi. So he's using her as a point of reference. She says there should be snacks, she's always talking about eating pancakes...

2 hours ago, Child of Hodor said:

Classic Sanderson joke of Szeth saying he hungers for something and Nightblood says "pancakes?". That feels out of place that's a Lift, Lopen or Wayne joke.  Nightblood jokes are like him trying to eat Lift and then saying "oh I would never do that" when she mentions it later. 

I think it's just that Lift has been hanging out around sword-nimi. So he's using her as a point of reference. She says there should be snacks, she's always talking about eating pancakes...

I'm rereading RoW, and I got up to the chapter with this map:

Am I overthinking this, or is Nazh's annotation our earliest reference to the Grand Knell?

On 7/3/2023 at 5:44 AM, Oltux72 said:

Komashi is in the same star system as a planet of some notoriety. Why were they officially uncontacted?

Possibly whatever happened to make UTol a household name happened after the events of YatNP, maybe even as a result of the contact with Komashi.