Alderant

The people who stand to fall the most from this are Dalinar and Shallan. Dalinar, of course, is now public enemy # 1 for Odium. He stands in Honor's shoes. I could easily see taking Adolin out being a plot device for Odium to attempt to crush Dalinar, and the ramifications of that blowing back on Shallan and Kaladin. But since that's so easily apparent, that's probably not the route Brandon will take...

To be honest...I'm still sorting through my thoughts on this. I think this thread is a help in that endeavor. I seem to be one of a very few that understands the gravity of what she's doing. The whole "He knows who I am" part felt REALLY forced to me, but admittedly at the time I was going on the third day of listening to a 55 hour book and was too consumed with everything else going on in the book that I wasn't considering the possibility that Brandon was setting something up with Shallan's arc here... I am going to reread Oathbringer soon, and I will have a more concise and thought out view on all of this then. Now that I know what's going on, I'll be able to pay more attention to some of these things...but to be honest the thing I was really analyzing in my first read was Dalinar's arc, haha. Honestly, I hope this doesn't happen either. I don't think Brandon would go the route you propose, e.g. "who is Mom today". I do think that were it to happen, though, we might have something like Shallan's emotions going haywire, revealing things she wanted to keep secret, etc. From that standpoint I think it would be a powerful conflict generation. I doubt he'll take that route, though, because I think there are better avenues for him to resolve Shallan's mental disasters. I do think, however, that Shallan and Adolin are in for a rough ride. Her brothers are finally in Urithiru, and they know the real Shallan. She's still got everything going on with the Ghostbloods. And I think Adolin dying might now be on the table. I never really thought he would kill off Adolin, but he took Elhokar out in a pretty drastic way, and I found it pretty blindsiding when it occurred. As has been noted, the plot now has much more to gain through the ramification of Adolin's death, than through keeping him alive. But after I reread Oathbringer I am going to get around to that Shallan analysis post. So keep me informed on topics you want addressed.

Oh...there's plenty. The story of Fleet, for one. The Wandersail. Wit telling Dalinar he would watch the world die. As I said, the KR's first oath. There's others, but those are the ones that immediately come to mind. I'd have to go back and reread to find the others.

Okay...so I'm not going to pretend I read this whole thing. I read the summary, and glanced through the discussion on the 81st page. I have had to take some time and distance from the Stormlight Archive in recent months. Oathbringer was an emotionally damaging book for me to read. That said, I agree with a large part of the summary--As I said in my "I'm back" post, I was largely dissatisfied with how Shallan's arc went in Oathbringer. The so-called "resolution" at the end seemed forced and rushed to me, and it left me feeling sour. However, I also feel that had Brandon pursued a "Shalladin" relationship in this book it would have been a disservice. Kaladin was emotionally unavailable in this book. He started high, but he crashed in this book. Adolin, on the other hand, was emotionally there for Shallan, but as has been stated, Adolin enabled and actually seems to unintentionally support Shallan's identity crisis. I don't have a lot to add to what has already been said, but I mentioned ad nauseum prior to OB's release that what Shallan is doing is dangerous. Veil and Radiant are not separate people from Shallan--they are still her. For her to splice them like that and for Adolin to acknowledge that they are different people is kind of like feeding the lie. It's counter intuitive and counter-productive to her mental health. It's like telling a person with depression "You know what? You're right, you are a terrible person." Add to this, presumably Shallan and Adolin are going to be intimate now that they are married. Intimacy has a chance of leading to pregnancy. If Shallan were to get pregnant, with all of the hormones and emotional instability that comes with it, how would that affect her already fragile mental state? I want to thank you all for this thread though. I think you nailed down what's been troubling me about this part of Oathbringer.

You are correct. Thank you for the clarification.

@Calderis I hope it's not over! It can't be over. The resolution just felt too forced to be authentic to me. So I guess...I really hope you're right?

Kind of a skeptical comment, but I don't think the Stormlight Archive will end with Roshar intact. There have been numerous foreshadowings throughout the three books that our heroes will ultimately fail and Roshar will be destroyed. Even the driving slogan of the Knights Radiant "Life before Death. Strength before Weakness. Journey before Destination" seems to imply that it doesn't matter how badly it ends, so long as the journey there was good. Plus I have a hard time imagining that Odium, one of the Big Bads in the Cosmere, will exit the stage before our big world-hopping space opera extravaganza. I just have this feeling he'll be a player in that.

Okay, that's fair. I see where you're coming from. Though I would argue that Kaladin's issues in OB do, in fact, stem from his own mental state, though more as a byproduct of self-delusion than his own internal flaws, which he largely got over in WoR. One edit though--Syl didn't die in WoR. She just...almost died, and he did end up saving the King despite his hatred. And I agree on the Shallan point. Absolutely regressed. I just think that the nature of her arc was progressive, while Kal's was regressive.

In the Hero of Ages it was exactly 16%. Nuorden (the former obligator) researches this at Vin's insistence and discovers that exactly 16% of the army that hadn't been exposed to the mists fell sick.

It's still a valuable skill to have. That's why authors always have editors.

Ehh...it wasn't a bad theory, just incomplete. Don't sweat it too much. Some of us are a little too invested in the Cosmere, lol. And then there's those of us who mostly react with our own thoughts rather than put out theories of our own for fear of the inevitable chewing up...

Eh...I could see that with Shallan but I wouldn't call Kaladin's arc in WoR a regression. He progresses quite a lot in that book, more so I would argue than even in WoK. OB for him is definitely a regression, however. And Shallan's arc in OB is largely progressive as well. What frustrated me was

You know...I could swear I put this in there but you're exactly right. That is definitely where it should be. Can I get an admin's help with that? I'm not sure if moving it is something I can do. I will spoiler....until it's moved. Thanks for catching that @Lord Mistborn Skybreaker

I got to say, just read through this and thank you for the polite and respectful discussion. Religion is a touchy topic and its nice to see people being respectful of a religion that is often disrespected, especially by Christians. One thing I want to hit on that wasn't mentioned: At the end of Hero of Ages, Sazed takes the information of all the religions of his copperminds and realizes that there is truth in every religion, and uses that knowledge to recreate the world as it was before Rashik messed it up. This is a belief that is a basic tenet of LDS faith--that after the death of Christ and his apostles there was a mass apostasy, where the pure doctrines and beliefs that Christ had taught eventually became corrupted by the plethora of social philosophies and other religions present around them. While there were many well-meaning men who tried to return the doctrine to what it was during Christ's day, LDS followers believe that the authority of God was lost and without that authority men were left to their own devices to worship. Much like we see with the arguments over the Survivorist faith in Hero of Ages and between that book and Alloy of Law. The reason I took the time to explain this above paragraph is that one of the basic LDS tenets is that while the Priesthood (the authority I mentioned) was gone, the truth still remained. It got buried and crowded in a lot of philosophy, mysticism, and introduction of other cultures and religions, but it still existed. All religions have truth in them, but we believe that there was eventually a Restoration of truth at the hands of Joseph Smith, which is why LDS preach that we have the "fullness of truth," and why we revere him as a prophet. This was one of the points that made the Ascension at the end of HoA so profound for me. And as for becoming gods...well, that's something we generally classify as "deep doctrine", which is a subcategory of doctrine that is not clearly understood and has been subjected to a lot of speculation and theory, but has only cursory mentions in scripture. That said, we do believe in something called "eternal progression," which means that if you're faithful and keep your covenants, you can one day inherit "all that the father has." We generally interpret this to mean that we can potentially become gods, and that all of us on this earth are gods and goddesses in embryo, so to speak. Finally, to reference one thing not mentioned yet: The "golden plates" is actually a misnomer. They were brass. But the important thing here is that in the Book of Mormon, the plates were used to have a lasting record. Metal lasts a lot longer than wood or paper, so you're right that that's not a coincidence. In the Book of Mormon, those metal plates contained both spiritual and mundane things. What you call the "Book of Mormon proper" was actually a compilation of records created by a man named Mormon, and finished by his son Moroni after he died. It's very much like the Bible in that regard. Well done, though @MPHRD. I applaud you being so respectful and not sensationalizing some of the more radical points of our religion. As has been said, this has been, from what I see, a very respectful and thoughtful thread. Have a cookie.

I think you're misunderstanding something here. There are several aspects to the Shards. There is the entity that possesses the Shard, there is the Intent of the Shard, and there is the Power of the Shard. In Ruin's case, the entity is Ati. Ati, we know from other sources, was once a gentle man, but because of the intent of Ruin, he was twisted and changed to suit that Intent. The power you are referring to (Harmony not being two complete shards, because Ruin wasn't complete at the Ascension) was indeed a part of Ruin, but it was, to my understanding, his investiture coalescing on Scadrial, much like Preservation's did at the well. It was the difference between Ruin and Preservation being equal, and Ruin finally gaining the upper hand, but it was burned away, so it didn't exist in its tangible, obtainable form. Harmony didn't absorb Ruin's mind--That would have been Ati, who died at the hands of Vin, who hadn't held Preservation long enough to be changed by its Intent. What Sazed absorbed was the Shard itself, just like he did with Preservation's Shard. The two Shards have merged together (thanks for the WoB @RShara) and we DO know that they are working in conjuction with each other and are used equally powerfully by Sazed. Any excess power of Ruin in Scadrial would just be part of Sazed because Sazed and the Ruin Shard are now the same. Where Sazed struggles is not on a power level, like you're implying here, but rather on a cognitive one. Ruin and Preservation are opposites. One pulls to keep everything the same, the other pushes to destroy. Sazed says to Wax in one of the books that he IS both, that he sees the need for both. This is the effect of two Intents working diametrically on him. We do know, however, that as of now Ruin and Preservation are both the same. As for being disciplined with copperminds...remember that the mind expands under the Shard's influence. His capabilities expanded with the possession of the Shards.

DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT READ OATHBRINGER. I PUT IT IN THE WRONG BOARD BY MISTAKE.

Thoughts: Chapter 31 was one of the most intense chapters we've seen yet, I think. Kal's defending the humans was particularly poignant. Chapter 32 made me want to scream. Brandon keeps throwing things at the beginning that I expected later in the book. I thought for sure that Part 2 was going to have some Jasnah scenes of her journey from the end of WoR to Urithiru, but no, she appears in the last few words of Part 1. (Facepalm). I think I'm going to go silent on here until after I've read Oathbringer. To avoid potentially putting my foot in my mouth and because the last 32 chapters have made me realize I really have to finish the Wheel of Time (second read-through) and go back through WoK and WoR before I tackle OB.

I'm sure you didn't mean that to come off as abrasive as it sounded... What we are talking about here is wholly separate from simply differentiating "roles" like we might do around friends and family--changes that are so minute within us we don't need to internally differentiate them, which I assume is what you're referring to. What Shallan is doing is magnitudes more detailed and complicated than what you imply by your oversimplification here. And real people do internally differentiate their roles when those roles are as dynamic as Shallan's. Subvisual Haze mentioned specifically method-acting, which is somewhat akin to what Shallan is doing, though hers comes from a different place and for a different purpose. She has multiple personas she assumes, each a fully fleshed out identity with its own history that is separate in Shallan's mind from her own. Adding an identity (name) to that persona is a very practical and real-world method of differentiating which "role" she is assuming in a situation like this. Regardless of the fact that Shallan is a fictional character, what she goes through is reflective of real-world trauma and psychological breakdowns, as the most recent chapters have indicated. Hence my remark that "This and that are a little different."

I can get behind that!

@Fifth of Daybreak At least you have the courtesy to admit it! Yes, I have, but not in a long time. Is this legitimately forcing, however? Jasnah has a very determined and strong will--and is much more practiced with Soulcasting than Shallan. Note the language here: She says "you will change". And the rope changes, which tells me that, though her methods were forceful, she still had to convince the rope to change before it became smoke. She couldn't just force feed it stormlight and make it change, or she wouldn't have bothered with the tiny argument she had with the rope.

What I want to know is: I think its a question with vital importance to the Cosmere.

I do not envy that...the only time I take long drives is to visit family, or on family vacations, or to visit the temple...Longest I usually drive is 30 min. away.

Do it. And then let me know what he says, lol. (Probably an RAFO). Chicago's wayyy too far away for me to get there and he never comes near where I live (I drove 2 hours to meet him for a BoM signing, and it was the closest one by a looong shot. It helps to be the one interpreting, rather than the one explaining.... And cool! Looking forward to it!

Agreed. Amazing how that works! It's also what @Gigalemesh was referencing when he was talking about Shallan going crazy, I think.

Sorry for the double post, but @Leyrann's post came in just after I hit "submit". Interesting! I'm not very knowledgeable about quantum physics (it kind of makes my head spin), but I will definitely look at it. Let me see if I understand your point, then: So you're basically saying that unless a cognition is actively telling an Identity to do something, the Identity reverts to what is "normal"? So...I can subscribe to the idea that the surges are at work and combining in a weird way to produce more realistic personas, but if the surges were all that were responsible for what is going on (which is what I keep seeing emphasized, Shallan is changing people through "transformation"), then Shallan should not be experiencing a mental crisis. All of these things should be temporary and have no lasting effects. Also, the change on the deserters (if it happened) should have ended the moment her stormlight ran out, and they should have gone back to being antagonistic. But they didn't. My point is that the foundation, the source of the changes is not the magic system. These men wanted to change. This is reflected quite clearly in their dialogue. Yes, there may have been some magical augmentation to the situation that aided in the result, but what keeps getting described results in the aforementioned problem with the Stick in WoR. The magic system alone cannot affect a change on an object that doesn't want to change. The boat did not change until Shallan convinced it to. The Stick would not, maybe even could not, change. If what has been proposed holds true, then the stick should have become fire simply because Shallan wanted it to, and she had the stormlight to do so. I can't subscribe to the idea that Shallan's usage of stormlight in the case of the deserters caused a change in them without them wanting to change first. The same holds true with Shallan--she wants to change who she is. Who she is normally causes a lot of pain, so she is creating and fleeing to these personas in order to avoid it. This isn't some unknown magical ability suddenly imposing a separate personality on her, this is Shallan seeking to avoid her problems and utilizing her abilities to make a lie that's believable even to herself. The magic system is the method, not the problem. And yes, Pattern frequently talks in metaphors and figurative speech, and we know from Kaladin's conversations with Syl that spren look at the physical world differently than we do. But that's a tangent.