aemetha

It would seem unlikely. We have confirmation that Odium wasn't a party to the original oathpact. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1080#15

While I am inclined to agree, isn't this section for theorising? What you've posted here is an absolute certainty .

He doesn't cut off his hand, the shardblade passes through his hand and it becomes deadened. So he doesn't actually regrow a hand, he restores the connection to it with his stormlight healing.

I don't think Dalinar would intervene even if he could. Even at the end Dalinar seems to have relegated Amaram to the role of duplicitous ratbag rather than dangerously manipulative schemer. Dalinars honour made him investigate, but his lighteyes experience and obsession with uniting makes him underestimate the threat of Amaram. Or maybe he's right and Amaram will trip and fall down a hole somewhere and become a non-issue. I also don't think it's really in Dalinars power to muster enough support to see someone else take the princedom. In any other princedom from what we're told it would devolve into factional anarchy, but Amaram is the ideal of a perfect lighteyes highprince in Sadeas. It wouldn't be a simply case of upsetting a balance, you'd have to turn a substantial amount of the population from their chosen champion. Think about how Trumps supporters stick by him when the entire rest of the US and in fact the world is renouncing him, it's not a completely anomalous comparison. People believe what they want to believe because they want to, and if you confront them with something too inconsistent with what they want to believe they simply reject it.

You could make an argument that Amaram is doing that though, what he presents publicly just isn't the code of honour he follows. His code of honour is to do whatever it takes to advance the goals of the Sons of Honor, and return the desolations. That he feels remorse for what he feels are immoral acts that he performs only makes his adherence to his code more telling, much the same way that Szeth holds to his code despite his moral abhorrence of the acts he must perform. For a real life parallel, the Assassins (the historical ones, not the caricature from a popular video game) comes to mind. They would infiltrate for months or even years the society of their target, presenting to the outside world as being a compliant part of the codes of that society. When it came time to perform their act, they would strike at their target, taking care not to do so indiscriminately and using a blade, and then they would just stand and wait to be captured so that is was known their target died by the hand of the Assassins. That's pretty strict adherence to their code, but their code isn't what is presented to the outside world at all times by necessity. I'm not sure at this point if that is completely what is happening with Amaram, I don't think we've really seen enough of his thought processes to determine that. I don't think his non-adherence to an outwardly presented code of conduct necessarily disqualifies him as being honourable to an internal code of conduct though.

@Contessa in that case, please accept my apologies. It was said flippantly and not a little cynically out of expediency. I can see how it was poorly communicated, it would have been better if I had just posted my follow up in the first place. I guess this is what my lecturers mean when they keep telling us "explain yourself" .

There, I fixed that for you

No, you're right about it not being everyone. That's why I said generally. I should probably have noted as well that impulsivity isn't only a trait of teenage girls, teenage boys are also prone to impulsivity. Teenagers in general are prone to impulsivity and it is posited to be an important developmental phase. Physical brain development is not completed until the early to mid twenties, and that obviously has some behavioural influence. The manifestation of impulsivity does differ broadly however (though it is far from a one gender always does this and the other gender always does that). Erikson's theory of psychosocial development defines the key development milestone of teens to be one of identity versus identity confusion - finding ones place in the wider psychosocial context. The developmental milestone of the young adulthood (20-30) stage on the other hand is intimacy versus isolation, and this is where people learn to establish committed enduring relationships. Now it is true that people don't move through the stages of developmental models at the same rate, but it can still be said to generally follow the stages of the models. As far as girls versus boys specifically goes from an evolutionary perspective, it has been observed that different sexual strategies are employed by the different genders. Women seek to force mates with sufficient resources into committed relationships in return to sexual access. Men on the other hand have two quite distinctly observed strategies for short and long term mates, with the short term being seeking to spread their seed as widely as possible in order to maximise their opportunity to continue their genetic line. With longer term partners however they tend to remain committed in exchange for resources, sexual availability and assurety that their genetic line is preserved through monogamy. These observations occur across cultures, and women have been noted to prefer attributes such as intelligence and ability to provide (those we associate with love, and lend themselves toward raising offspring) while men have been noted to prefer attributes such as youth and physical fitness (those we associate with lust, and lend themselves toward creating offspring), so when you combine the differing evolutionary drives, with tendency towards impulsiveness, and not yet having developmentally achieved a competency in commitment, young women tend to find infatuation easily, and young men tend to compete (fight) easily, generally. A case can be argued that historically men and women entered into committed relationships at younger ages, but consider also that doesn't mean that young people were any less impulsive or developing any faster, we are simply more tolerant (and have a greater understanding) in modern society of the impetuousness of youth. Now none of that is to say men and women should not be treated equally, but we should also not attempt to hide from gender differences out of a fear of straying into the realms of mysogeny. It's perfectly okay to celebrate the differences between men and women as long as we afford the same rights in both intent, words and action to the genders. So I stand by my initial comments, I don't believe Shallan is mature enough to not become infatuated with Kalladin in the moment, and I don't believe that means she is invariably destined to become involved in a love triangle because of an infatuation.

I'm not convinced there will be a love triangle. I think we're overlooking the fact that Shallan is a teenage girl. They generally fall in love with anyone who looks at them for more than three seconds and has "dreamy eyes", which lasts all of the ten days it takes for someone else with "zomg look at his abs" to come along". Infatuation is not love. I can see Adolin going the distance with her because they've actually developed something beyond a passing fancy, but what happened with Kaladin strikes me at this point as a momentary urge that may not ever go anywhere.

That's not cynicism, that's realism. Psychologists have showed time and time again that peoples rating of their own abilities and attributes across the board is inflated. If we were to trust peoples self-image everyone would be above average, and I'm quite sure such a phenomenon would make the universe explode. I really like Abercrombies characters personally. I think context matters a great deal. They are self-interested in environments where self-interest is rewarded more than reciprocal altruism. I particularly like the portrayal of Logen Ninefingers / The Bloody Nine. It strikes me as quite a classic case of dissociative identity disorder where are second personality is manifested to deal with trauma that the first personality isn't capable of dealing with - with a dose of fantasy thrown in in the form of strength and endurance that might be seen as magical.

I think you just created Scadrials first drug epidemic.

Consider the perspective of who is making the comment. They are watching him, a soldier, in an army. Describing him as 'the soldier' in that context is a bit like describing a drop of water in an ocean. It makes sense for an observer to describe him by what makes him stand out from his fellow soldiers, and his use of his surgeon skills on the battlefield is something that stands out and is commented on. I don't see him switching orders, making commitments to the herald of another order or attracting another spren, the potential for conflict is too great and after having almost killed Syl learning the importance of the oaths I just don't see him risking a conflicting bond/commitment.

Autonomy is a virtue? Are you sure, or are you influenced by a culture that defines it as virtuous where other cultures value communalism in much the same way? Do the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many? I don't think really any shard of Adonalsium can be viewed as virtuous or villainous, they are all simply necessary. Even the least palatable of shards is necessary, for without Odium what motivates a person to cease tolerating the intolerable when other methods have failed? I think the moral is that all absolutism is ultimately dysfunctional.

I think odium will choose a champion and it will be... Edgedancer spoilers

Relief. What the heralds endured is quite analogous to the christian belief in hell. They fought and were tortured and fought and were tortured eternally. I don't think at that point they cared if they were alive at the next desolation, they just wanted it to be over. I've always had the impression they felt resigned to him continuing the oathpact regardless of their decision from the way he is described. I imagine they were glad they didn't have to face him and hoped they wouldn't have to. I don't know if they did or didn't at the time. I think it has become obvious to them now that their attempt to break the oathpact did not work, so it's not really something we can draw conclusions about comparing the time they made the decision to what is apparent now. WoB on the status of the oathpact:

^^ Exactly, the passage describes the outcome of a boon. "Got a heap of good cloth; sold to keep us from staving during the lurnip famine a few decades ago.". It doesn't say what was asked for, nor does it say if the boon relates to the magical manifestation of cloth, the means to acquire cloth or the means to sell cloth for a good price. It makes far more sense given what we've seen for the boon to be a neurological effect that resulted in the desired outcome than the spontaneous manifestation of cloth.

How about you re-read it and quote the passage. That passage is a second hand account, and two parts with no indication whether the first or second part of the passage is the boon. Furthermore, we have a WoB that the boons are neurological in nature, of which a "heap of good cloth" most certainly is not. http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=977#187 So I would say my explanation is a better fit to the evidence than your suggestion that the cloth is emphatically the only possible interpretation. Edit: re-reading that passage there is some equivocating in that WoB, he says the boons are limited, not necessarily neurological. I still maintain that my explanation is equally as plausible as the alternative though.

I don't think the cloth was the boon in the second hand account at all. I think acquiring or selling the cloth was, and that is something easily influenced by psychology or neurology.

I disagree. Elhokar is a product of his environment. By our standards he is a self-absorbed, mean, unconcerned, careless bully. Contextually he is exactly what he is supposed to be morally. He looks out for number one in a society that emphasises that so strongly that conflict is not just accepted, it is expected. This society has elevated individualism to the level of a virtue. These adjectives have meaning for us because we as a society have established norms that they deviate from. It's clear from Kaladins chapters that Elhokars actions don't really deviate from the norms of that world, rather the actions of certain other lighteyes (Wistiow, Amaram initially, Dalinar) deviate in the other direction. A person is not evil because they do not choose to be the embodiment of good. Elhokar has no real power, and chose out of fear to not try to change that. As you say it gives him reasons to have issues, but it doesn't make him a mean bully in the context of that world, it just makes him unwilling to try to change the world.

@WhiteLeeopard and @CalderisI don't disagree with either of you there. I more meant to suggest I don't attribute it to carelessness. The way I see it in the situation Elhokar finds himself in, is you can react generally in one of two ways. You can stop trying and simply let things continue in the manner they always have (which seems largely to have been his approach) or you can try and change the situation. I don't think that's quite the same thing as not caring or carelessness though. I think he cares, he simply doesn't have the confidence to take the second option, and so defaults to the first. It's not a good excuse, and it's certainly not something admirable or absolving of wrongdoing, but it does give me a little hope for the characters future. I think of it like this, Elhokar is concerned with how he looks, because he attributes his continued existence to not rocking the boat. It's cowardly for sure, though not particularly unrelatable. To put it in the context of the earlier analogy, I can care for people and still murder a person to look good, if I think the consequences of not looking good may be fatal for me. It would make me a coward and a murderer by our standards absolutely, but I can certainly understand the motivation. I would have never stopped caring for others, I just cared more about myself. Of course I'd never actually do that, because cowardly people don't get to eat Darkness' lunch ;).

This strikes me as an application of the fundamental attribution error. You attribute his carelessness internally to his own thoughts and feelings. I'm not sure I would characterise it internally, but rather externally. Elhokar seems careless, but in truth he strikes me as rather more powerless. He's a king, yes, but he has no real power. The high princes are largely divided and independent, only present in a "unified" kingdom because Elhokar has given them no reason not to be. If he were to actually wield any power the kingdom would fall apart in short order. Only Dalinar and Sadeas had any real ability to wield power, because they could enforce it. Consider also that so much of Alethi society is dictated by tradition. Elhokar doesn't loan his shards out because he wants to, he does it because he has to, it's expected. Lighteyes get exiled instead of executed, because that's how things are done. Adolin must fight his duel severely handicapped because despite it being clear to all parties what the intent of the agreement was, tradition dictates it still be followed to the letter. No, I would say Elhokar cares, probably more than we see, but he is powerless and terrified because he's adrift on a raging river with no way to reach the shore.

I think it's unlikely that any new shardworlds will be dishardic based on what Khris says in AU about dishardic worlds being unusual. If half the shards invest dishardic worlds, and one invests no world at all, then in terms of the number of total shards more are invested in dishardic worlds than single shard worlds. Of course one can always look at that from the perspective of the total number of shard invested worlds, which would be 7 single to 4 dishardic in that scenario, but that still wouldn't really qualify dishardic worlds as notably unusual. So I think the remaining shards we encounter will invest single shardic worlds (except the origin story of course). I could see a scenario in the far future series where shards divest and converge however... Harmony averted his gaze from Scadrial momentarily. Movement. Ominous movement. Now? After having been denied understanding for so long? Why did they hunt him now?

Nonsense. It's quite apparent that the ghostbloods are Hoids lackeys employed to visit the violence upon his foes that he himself is incapable of . On a more serious note though, the one main thing that we do have a very good idication about regarding the ghostbloods would seem to suggest they are unlikely to want to bind themselves to the Rosharan system. For that reason I think they (and the 17th shard) are unlikely to want to become radiants.

50% Truthwatcher 39% Elsecaller 22% Bondsmith 18% Lightweaver 13% Skybreaker

It was only cliche because Syl likes cliche, and liking cliche is most certainly not cliche ;). This is most certainly my favourite scene so far...