Bigmikey357

@Karger I see your point. The letter was meant to obfuscate the truth while still providing seemingly rock solid information. And I agree for the most part. The line I disagree with is "a minion like your brother Helaran." I do not doubt his mother's relationship with them. Thing is, if he is a Skybreaker then how come he doesn't know the truth about Lin, even a partial one? He could still believe that Lin killed his mom, but to protect his sister. But no, he still believes the official party line up until he died. Also, the Davar household has been under GB surveillance for quite some time. By this point they know nearly everything she knows. They know the lies they can get away with and the times where they have to hit as close to the truth as possible. As far as Jasnah's investigation skills, sure she's better than Shallan. Navani too. But this would require Shallan actually speaking of her involvement and I'm not sure she would. And Jasnah doesn't really know much of the Skybreakers either. She'll know Ghostbloods, maybe Sons of Honor, but not enough of the Skybreakers to form intelligent suppositions. Navani should know even less. More about Sons of Honor than GB but less overall information than her daughter. If you think about it, that's another reason to pin Helaran on the Skybreakers. Even in the unlikely event that Shallan tells Jasnah, they put Helaran in the group to which they know the least about, the hardest one to verify. In a sense they have to take that particular lie at face value because they have no way to gain that information otherwise. I mostly agree with the rest of your analysis. I've come to the same conclusions on many of your points. My thing is if I deal in information, it's just as important to know what my target knows as it is to have the information they seek, obstensively so as not to expose myself. I think the GB feel they hold all the cards in that respect. Remember also that Shallan is not a client but a recruit. Any lies they tell a recruit won't reflect on their reputation. The lies are there to intrigue her, draw her into the organization to the point where she finds it nearly impossible to escape short of death. I even believe that some lies have been placed intentionally, sort of as a test of her competence in a different area. In a sense they're building a more complete picture of her capabilities. Like, if she can't see through this or that lie then she probably can't be used for this or that type of mission.

@Karger Why would Lin have to know anything other than his small part in the organization? He was a desperate man too as I recall, his reputation in shambles, his fortunes nearly depleted. He gets handed a get outta jail free card and you think he's trying to delve deeper into that gift horse? We as readers know the difference between a dead blade and a living one. For someone not well versed they aren't gonna be much different. Sure a side by side comparison would show differences, but many people have never seen a Shardblade at all, living or dead. Upon seeing a live one, someone could assume that they all glow with ambient light. Then look at the battlefield conditions. Maybe they would not have noticed the glow, like Kaladin during the 4 vs. 1 duel. As far as the verification of Helaran's status, how indeed would Shallan verify the statement? She knows 1 Skybreaker, one terribly new to the Order and thus not privy to its secrets. She's not likely to meet another one in the know, they are going to the enemy camp. Would she be able to learn it from the Ghostbloods when she's still new and not fully trusted? Not terribly likely. I'm sure they won't lay down their records where an enterprising Lightweaver with a photographic memory can get to them. By the time she'd reach a point where such records become available to her she'll be in too deep to extricate herself. The only other entity she could verify the information with are the Highspren, and I'm not sure how involved they get with the affairs of their human counterparts. Or maybe you trust Shallan's investigative prowess. I for one do not. She doesn't know enough and doesn't have the requisite experience. A back 5 Shallan would easily be able to parse truth from lies. Current Shallan? Not so much. I will say this though. Whether the Ghostbloods or Skybreakers ended up employing Helaran, either one would have been stupid to employ a man of such instability, especially without proper supervision. It's a bit more understandable for the Ghostbloods, they have a habit of giving their agents a degree of independence that is strange to countenance in a supposed secret organization. See Kabsal's attempt on Jasnah for a reason why I think this way. But for an organization as seemingly structured as the Skybreakers Helaran's actions would be a serious problem. Even if he had been successful in his effort he'd have been severely punished. Personally I don't think he was worth the recruiting effort by either one, yet I'd judge the Ghostbloods most likely to make the attempt. They also have a habit of embracing unstable people, Shallan and Iyatil being prime examples.

I may have dipped into hyperbole with the "half-trained" crack, possibly out of frustration. Even still, as the only possessor of Shards on the field buddy should not have lost. That he did lose implies that he's not all that good. Legalities aside, the GB must work under constraints as well, as all secret societies that wish to remain secret. Whatever we believe about Amaram, he's a much harder target than the Davar household or even Jasnah. The Davars are a minor house in the backwaters of Jah Kaved, disgraced by having a presumed murderer at its head. Taking them out would not make a ripple. Jasnah was high profile but nearly always traveled alone and commonly was out of contact with her family for months at a time. If the GB prefer to take out targets with the least amount of witnesses then they have plenty of opportunities. Amaram by contrast has an army, always near at hand. And as a man who knows he has a target on his back I assume he takes his security rather seriously. As far as the loss of a powerful tool, I believe the GB figured that as long as Amaram held the Shards they had a reasonable chance of getting them back. That may have been a miscalculation but a reasonable mistake to make. A couple points on this. One, it's entirely possible that Helaran didn't know who he was working for. Give a guy weapons that are almost literally worth a kingdom and many people aren't asking many questions. Two, were I a GB agent looking to recruit Helaran the last thing I'd want to reveal is that hated family connection. Lin was required to know who he worked with/for so the implied threat would stick in case of betrayal. Helaran did not necessarily need to know who his bosses were in order to carry out his missions. If he's being used as a higher level thug/enforcer then he's fine as long as the checks keep coming in.

What does that matter if they have this huge stockpile of dead plate some have speculated they possess. Dead plate doesn't scream or glow or anything like that. As far as the blade, as long as it's not changing shape it looks indistinguishable from a dead blade, at least for anyone who doesn't know the difference. A full Radiant with likely years of training and Stormlight autoheal has a higher chance of completing a mission like the one Helaran apparently concocted. There's almost zero chance unenhanced Kaladin takes out such a one. Incapacitate maybe but not kill. There will be targets a Skybreaker will have a hard time getting legal justification to kill and thus advance their goals. Jasnah for example. And yet, despite not necessarily knowing what their strategy would be I doubt Helaran charging in with Shards on a battlefield would have been the preferred method. I mean, what happens when that person doesn't engage in activities where extralegal actions take place regularly? Like Jasnah for instance. Why is it so far-fetched to believe that GB weren't completely honest with Shallan about Helaran's employment? We know they have an agenda. We know they wanted Amaram dead. We know they collect and use objects and artifacts of great power. We know they infiltrate organizations and kill people. We know they were interested in Amaram's research. By contrast the only thing we have to go on that Helaran was a Skybreaker associate or acolyte is the word of untrustworthy spies. He doesn't act like a Skybreaker and his methods run counter to everything we've seen of the Skybreakers and to a limited extent of Radiance in general. I guess we'll get the answers soon.

If Amaram were really important enough to prompt action by the Skybreakers, why would they send some half-trained dude with dead Shards against him instead of a true Radiant?Skybreakers perfer to fly, true, but any trusted party could do what Helaran did and maintain secrecy. As many have pointed out, a battlefield killing isn't illegal so there's no risk to the bond. If his research is so allfire dangerous then why would I use an inferior tool when I have access to better ones? The woman who trained Szeth for example could have done him with much less noise and fuss. Helaran's method smacks of a person with no access to or knowledge of better tools. But consider if this was a Ghostblood operation? That killing Amaram was a primary goal but creating chaos on the field was secondary? Or even vice versa, and Helaran was sent in as a decoy for some other objective? I can see Mraize pulling off that sort of misdirection tactic. Look how easily he snares Ash? It would totally make sense, send the flashy Shardbearer at the head of the army, throwing their camp into chaos, someone sneaks in and recovers something else. If Helaran kills the target then great. But even if he fails the GB have completed their work.

On the contrary, Adolin is the best on the planet, therefore worthy of a test of this nature. Helaran is not special. Look, we have possibly argued this point into the ground. The bottom line for me is that it stretches probability beyond the breaking point that Helaran was a Skybreaker recruit, that they operate in such a reckless manner, that the Ghostbloods and Mraize in particular were being truthful in their letter on this point. I can accept that you don't agree. So, just to facilitate conversation, what exactly do you feel is going on with this situation?

The better options available are the same ones a spren uses to find their bondmate. I would call that better than sending a raw recruit into a crucible with no training at all. If you think someone will be at all useful to your cause it's not wise to immediately throw them into the deep end. That should be especially true for an organization that prizes the law as highly as the Skybreakers do. The Thaylen vault is designed to repel Shardbearers. Not just rogue Shardbearers, Shardbearers period. However in practical terms the design is to stop them when they are accompanied by an army. No military strategist on Roshar would believe one guy with Shards would be stupid enough to rush the vault on their own. The established military doctrine is that a Shardbearer cannot hold ground. As far as one Shardbearer performing vigilante justice or settling personal scores, remember how a Shardblade kills. You think a bunch of corpses with burnt out eyes aren't going to attract notice? Why do you think the assassin Jasnah hires cuts the eyes from her victims? And even she's notorious. And while it is true that we know little of Helaran, the way he bumbled on the battlefield and the way he failed indicates to me that he wasn't all that special to begin with. The only indication that he may have been special is that he was recruited in the first place. But recruits do not always work out. Anyone who has seen a professional sports draft could tell you that. So if the Skybreakers were the ones to employ Helaran then one of these things are true. Either he was special in some way or the way he was handled was standard practice. If he's special he certainly didn't look like it. His plan was stupid and he failed in any case despite his superior weaponry. Adolin for example chops pre-Radiant Kaladin to pieces and buries his Shardblade in Amaram's chest. If it's standard practice then the Skybreakers could not possibly have stayed secret for so long. Simpler by far to say either Helaran didn't know who he was really working for or Mraize was lying.

Even if that were true (and it's not a method I'd use with better options available) Helaran is not that great a catch, not someone I'd risk so much on. He's noble but from a minor house, someone not in line for greater responsibility in Jah Kaved. His family was not rich or well placed, and was beset by misfortune. For Nale one human is pretty much like any other unless they can alter the history of a world. I can see someone going out on a limb for Szeth, a human weapon unparalleled in modern Roshar. But Helaran? Nothing I've read indicates to me that he was special. But let's just say for the sake of argument that the Skybreakers policy is to give a candidate a set of Shards to test potential candidates for their Order. Do you really think Helaran was the only guy tested in this fashion? He couldn't be, there's gonna be others. So, how many? A quarter of the candidates? Half? All of them? Keep in mind that Shards are weapons of mass destruction in a world without Radiants. Wouldn't we have heard of this before? Legends of a rogue Shardbearer or something? Word would get out one way or another. Even if you use a conservative estimate, say 1/3 of all new age Skybreakers get the Helaran treatment, word would get out. Shards are too flashy and too rare post Recreance for casual use not to be remarked upon. Even in Alethkar where they have more than their fair share of Shards, seeing someone sporting Blade and Plate is a rare occurrence. How could the Skybreakers keep that secret for over 2000 years?

The specific warning was for Shallan not to kill Amaram because he was someone else's prey. Presumably Iyatal since she tried to dart him in Taln's cell. If the training is effective then there's no need to gather that type of subjective evidence. As I continue to mention, the Skybreakers never lost faith with their spren. Spren live in the Cognitive Realm, are closer to the Spiritual Realm. And spren are attracted to their bondmate candidates. It's gonna be hard for any potential Radiant to hide what they are in the Cognitive Realm and there will be indications. Why would anyone give up Shards to test a potential candidate when they have access to a being that can look directly into a person's soul? Or see the type of spren they draw? Or get a life record straight from the Spiritual Realm? Much surer than giving a random dude a set of Shards and letting him run off with no supervision.

I can think of a few people more important than Amaram if they want to use an evil card on someone. How about the guy Amaram takes orders from? Restates could get it, and with more justification. Gavilar would have been a prime candidate if the listeners had failed. King T if they figured his plans out is another more worthy candidate. As far as deterring Amaram, all they'd have to do is what Odium did. Show the guy a Herald. They conveniently have one on hand. And if he was impressed with nearly catatonic Taln, how much more impressed would he be with Nale? That they did not shows me that they didn't find his organization to be a threat; after all they were way off track. As for testing methods for Radiance, they have Highspren, meaning some conversation with the Cognitive Realm. If they found Ym, an unimportant shoemaker on the back end of nowhere, they can find anyone. The Ghostbloods cannot boast a testing method that good. What they can do is find some Shards for the guy and point him at an enemy, see what he'd do. Lastly, the Ghostbloods have already shown in the narrative that they wanted Amaram to sleep with the fishes. The why isn't clear but the intent to murder was. He just slipped away.

Sorry, not buying it. They're a bunch of flying lawyers, I'm sure that they could find a loophole to exploit if they really wanted to. Plus, Amaram doesn't know anything, he moves in circles with people in the know but he doesn't know enough to harm anything or to bring about his stated goals. If he knew enough then he'd have different goals. Are the Skybreakers ruthless enough to use someone like Helaran as cannon fodder? Sure. But it doesn't really fit their methods imo. Easier to deter him then to send assassins to perform an illegal act and risk the approval of their spren. The scenario laid out, if you replaced Skybreakers with Ghostbloods it sounds much more plausible. Maybe with them being a secret society they'd have to engage in such activities from time to time, but I wouldn't waste my evil card on Amaram were I them.

Helaran is not powerful. The shards are. The Soulcaster is. The Aviar is too when it comes down to it. She knows from an independent source that the Ghostbloods attempted to kill Jasnah, thought for a while that they succeeded. The Winds Pleasure plus Tyn's spanreed. I got that they travel in pairs from Edgedancer, from Lift interlude in WoK. And again what exactly would the Skybreakers beef with Amaram be? The only motive I can see is that he's trying to bring the Desolations but he was by no means a leader in the Sons of Honor. Maybe highly placed but not integral to their operations. If he's not a budding Radiant and he's not committing crimes in his country then Skybreakers have little interest. He wasn't looking for Radiants either, he believed that their powers were mythical. Otherwise he wouldn't have accepted the position Dalinar tried to appoint him to. Finally I cannot see the Skybreakers treating a recruit like how Helaran operates. Giving him Shards and letting him become a vigilante across the countryside is like giving someone who hasn't completed basic training te nuclear codes. They really don't need to test a recruit for temperament that way, they have spren to access character. Can you see any spren being attracted by anything that cremhole has ever done? I can accept that Helaran might have thought he worked for the Skybreakers, he knew as little about them as most people on Roshar. But I don't see him as actually being one or the Order accepting him on even a contract basis. And I would not be so quick to believe anything a GB says in any case.

What is it that you trust? Your own observations or what the Ghostbloods have written to someone they wish to recruit? I trust my observations. Two books and a novella showing us the Skybreakers, their methods and their mission. They all tell me that Helaran does not fit the Skybreakers, not in temperament nor in the mission he's asked to perform. How is cutting down a bunch of innocents on a battlefield along the way to a target just? Where was his mentor? If Amaram isn't a budding Radiant what would be the Skybreakers beef with him? And do the Skybreakers look like the sort of organization that accepts people who go off half cocked? If I were to pick a Skybreaker in secret, my choice would have been Redin, not Helaran. As to why I think that the Ghostbloods are the most likely candidates to have secured Helaran's services lies in what little clues we've seen of their methods. They've been known to use freelance labor to achieve their goals. Tyn wasn't a Ghostblood but was trusted to take out an enemy operative. They use powerful tools. Luesh with the Soulcaster. Mraize with his Aviar. They're more likely to both have powerful tools and to put those tools to use. They gather information but will not always let the tools know everything. They're unscrupulous. As to why they'd lie to Shallan? Well a couple reasons. They are already responsible for going up against one of her allies in Jasnah. Do they really want to tell her that they gave Helaran the Shards and sent him on a mission that got him killed? Besides, by now they know most everything about her and so knows what lies are safe to tell her. We know the Skybreakers, Shallan does not, or not yet anyway. Also, she expects them to lie to her and they'd be foolish not to. They're courting, not married.

I tend to believe that Helaran was not a Skybreaker, although it's entirely possible that he believed that he was working for them. My reasoning for this is twofold. One, he never displays any characteristics we associate with the Skybreakers we've met so far, and from what we've been shown of their recruiting methods they don't really fit either. Two, his mission, killing Amaram, is all wrong. Amaram has as far as we know never broken an Alethi law, he was not informed of his crimes by the supposed officer, said officer carried weapons even a secret Radiant would never use and he wasn't deployed with a fellow officer. None of this fits how a Skybreaker would operate. The method does however fit either the Diagram or the Ghostbloods. Next, remember Shallan was chasing Jasnah from location to location for nearly 6 months. Kabsal has no way of knowing when or even if Jasnah was going to Kabranth, much less if Jasnah would even accept Shallan as a ward. It's much more likely that he saw an opportunity for advancement by taking out an enemy agent on his own initiative and failed. I mean what's the harm? Jasnah already knew they were out to get her. Three, I think the soulcaster was broken during the fight between Lin and Balat, just as advertised. I think it's possible that Luesh was an apprentice GB but not a full member, that he was reporting on Lin, that he had a babsk in close proximity to monitor the situation. Who that would be I have no idea. Here's how I suspect everything went down. There's a secret war going on in the background, multifaceted due to the staggering amount of secret organizations on Roshar, all seeking to gain primacy to achieve their goals. Shallan's childhood wasn't nearly as idyllic as she remembers, even before her mother died by her hand. Shallan's mom was either a Skybreaker informant or a member of another organization that abhor Radiants. Since every organization does what it can to keep eyes on enemy agents it came to the Ghostbloods attention that a spy from another organization died under suspicious circumstances. They think Helaran is the most likely candidate and recruits him under a false flag once they determine that he wasn't the Radiant. He seems useful and competent so they keep him in the toolbox but they still don't know how Shallan's mom actually died. Plus anyone monitoring the Davar household and is aware of the signs knows something dark is going on there. Closer investigation is required. They send Luesh to Lin, offering a deal he's in poor condition to refuse. Shallan becomes a person of interest who rises in priority upon her performance on the Shattered Plains, those notes taken back when the Davar household was under active investigation getting dusted off and used to recruit. This is my headcanon until I get more information.

As a person of color living in the US, I tend to bow out on conversations like these because it's a very emotionally charged subject. That being said, I personally believe that any group can be racist towards any other group. Racism can be found to a greater or lesser degree among nearly all people. However if one belongs to the dominant group then they are both in the position to deny the groups they find lesser opportunities to be better and less effected by the opinions of those not in power. I can have a negative opinion about Warren Buffett because of his race; it might hurt his feelings. If he happened to hate black people he has the potential to set my prospects and my family's prospects back for generations.

In addition to all the arguments above, Dalinar is no longer an Alethi Highprince anyway. The legal document in question only applies to Alethkar and has nothing to do with how the Radiants conduct their business. Even if the document was meant to be enforceable for any position Dalinar will ever achieve there is no conceivable way for Adolin to depose his father for leadership of the Knights Radiant. Do you see the Stormfather breaking his bond to Dalinar in favor of Adolin, or one of the other Megaspren picking him up? If Adolin does join the Knights, it will most likely be as an Edgedancer. Edgedancers will not run the KR. Lastly, even if every obstacle was cleared and Adolin somehow became a Bondsmith and de facto leader of the Knights Radiant, I cannot see a scenario where anyone would follow him.

One low-key indication of Kaladin's intelligence? He talks like a girl.

But you cannot regrow limbs or internal organs or the like with pewter.

If one had F-Pewter as well as A-Pewter they could store all of those different attributes. But of course that's Compounding. But storing an attribute one receives from A-Pewter into anything other than a Pewtermind doesn't work Realmatically. The power isn't compatible. I agree that one would be able to store more F-Gold health while burning A-Pewter, possibly much more, but the pewter healing isn't the same as F-Gold healing based on the source of the health. A Thug healing is a purely Physical Realm thing. That means it must work only through the body's processes. Faster than an unenhanced human but one isn't regrowing limbs or surviving disemboweling. They can even die of bloodloss if untreated. F-Gold healing comes from the Spiritual Realm and so from the outside it looks like its accelerating the body's natural processes what it's actually doing is resetting the body back to its Spiritual blueprint.

Considering Era 2 and the proposed financial backer of this institute, some considerations of Twinborn should be included. Also what is proposed only takes into account two quadrants of the chart. No time experimentation with Bendalloy/ Chromium? No Aluminum/ Duraluminum experiments? And I'm sure one of those aspiring geniuses are going to be looking towards Mistborn stuff.

Maybe there wasn't enough power applied to the system to initiate the start up sequence or to override protect mode. I tend to like the idea of an array that funnels massive amounts of power into the Oathgate system. Makes as much sense as anything else being proposed. My only issue with this is with the opening of other Oathgates we should have seen some indications of increased functionality in Urithiru. There are currently 3 open Oathgates, Jah Kaved, Stormseat and Thaylen City. That should have jarred at least a little more functionality from our capitol city. If it takes all ten then the Radiants are screwed, but the purpose of an array is so that no single node can doom the entire system.

Spren did take the initiative as far as bonding humans were concerned. They even found a way to copy Honorblades using their own Physical Realm bodies as a medium. But Ishar was said to force organization upon the Oath binding process. So maybe instead of men being the impetus to incorporating the Divine attributes into progression Oaths the spren instead used what attracted them to certain people to form those attributes. This could still be accomplished by observation of the humans they preferred to bestow a bond upon. Regardless of the origin however it seems to me that those attributes became an integral part of the Oaths.

That doesn't invalidate my point

That's a good point. They may not have been created specifically as Nahel spren. But the possibility still exists that they could have been coopted into the system as our Bondsmith spren obviously were.

Something that may bear relevance to the discussion, the spren that make up the Nahel Bond are old but may not have existed prior to the creation of the Knights Radiant. Stormfather and Nightwatcher were present before the arrival of Honor and Cultivation in system, the cousin spren of the KR obviously existed as sapient life inhabited Roshar, but the 9 spren that specifically grant the bond and make up the Orders may not have existed before Ishar made his ultimatum. What if Ishar goes to Honor with his idea to regulate the surgebinders and Honor says cool, we can do that. He takes some Windspren and elevates a few to become Honorspren, creationspren to Cryptics, lifespren to Cultivationspren and ect. He or he and Cultivation build in a mandate as to the type of people they can bond with and the conditions by which the bond mate can gain more power. These conditions were initially somewhat nebulous but over the years became codified. Humans are great at pattern recognition so the humans involved noticed what the pattern was and put it into words as guiding principles for future generations. Men get regulated by oaths, the spren get regulated by the pre existing Megaspren SF/NW. The Sibling is created by the same process as the other Orders spren. If it happened that way then these concepts that drive the KR progression, these Divine attributes, could have been built in when the spren were born. It wouldn't matter then who came up with the concepts. Could be a cultural perception of what the Heralds were, it could have been Ishar in an act of positive PR, it could have been an agreement between Honor and Cultivation on what these Divine attributes should be. However the concepts entered the system, once there they became self perpetuating.