aemetha

This one is for @RShara Shallan plodded through the alien landscape of Shadesmar. It was difficult for her to judge exactly how long she'd been in Shadesmar, it felt like a day, but who could even say if time flowed the same in this place. Jasnah had explained that Shadesmar was a realm of the collective thoughts of sapient beings made manifest. Did that mean if enough people thought time worked differently it changed in this place? Shallan was supposed to learn the secrets of this place, it was an essential aspect of her surge of transformation. Perhaps it was the blood from one of her earliest uses of it, but the very thought of taming shadesmar filled her with dread. Storms, what were the implications of that? I think it's bad, and its thought made manifest, did I just make this place more dangerous to myself? thought Shallan. Shallan was relieved when a small campfire became visible in the distance. The sooner this expedition was over, the better. She was supposed to be a newlywed for storms sake, and this was a far cry from the comfort of her husbands bed. As she drew closer to the campfire she was able to make out an assemblage of people in animated conversation around it. It was a very odd collection of individuals. Shallan had met people from all corners of Roshar since becoming a Radiant and taking up residence with the powerful of her world, but the clothing these people wore was quite bizarre in many cases, and of a style she had not seen before. A tall blonde woman in an elegant dress of an unknown cut stepped forward confidently as Shallan approached the assemblage. "Shallan Davar I presume? Welcome, you're the last to arrive. We'll be able to get started after the introductions. I must say, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, I've heard a lot about you." began the woman. "My name is Sarene. Princess Sarene actually, but then you're a Princess too now aren't you as are many of us, and I think we should dispense with the honorifics if we actually mean to get anything done here today. My colleague here is called Shai," she said, indicating a smaller, dark haired woman dressed in trousers and a loose shirt wearing spectacles. "or at least she is when she isn't pretending to be someone else. We're from Sel." continued Sarene. Shallan cast her eye over the rest of the group. Certainly a very odd group of people. Wait. Shallan recognised one of the members of the group, perhaps she hadn't noticed right away because she was feeling really quite overwhelmed. "We've met" said Shalash. "Don't even think about reaching for that sketching pad!" she continued in a no nonsense tone. Shallan immediately put any thought of doing so from her mind, there was no way she intended to confront the herald of her order of Knights Radiant. A second woman in the group drew her attention as well. There was a familiarity about her that Shallan had trouble placing. Like the others, this woman was elegantly dressed in a distinctly alien way, and as Shallan observed her she was shocked to see her hair change colour! "Welcome Shallan, my name is Siri." the woman said as she approached and embraced Shallan as though they weren't meeting for the first time. "I believe you know my sister? Tell me, is she still as full of herself as she used to be? You'll be able to tell, if she still behaves as if she has a second sword firmly lodged up her backside then she hasn't changed.". Shallan found herself smiling, this was a woman after her own heart, and her description of lady Azure wasn't far from Shallan's recollection. "This here is Shashara." she said indicating the woman standing next to her. Shashara was impossibly tall and beautiful, and her face was painted with a scowl that was almost physically painful. "Don't mind her. She's my sisters boyfriends wife who he killed. Yeah, it's confusing. Some kind of cosmeric shadowy ghosty thing. I'm not the best person to ask about that." Another woman approached Shallan and reached out to embrace her as she had seen Siri do, before seeming to change her mind mid embrace and instead try to shake Shallan's hand. The indecision didn't go well, the outcome had been that the woman had walked up to Shallan and grabbed her by the breast! The woman was clearly mortified at what she had done, and began fishing around in her handbag and pulled out a small notebook. "Oh dear." she said "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. This wasn't on the list. How did that happen? What do I do? Apologise. I must apologise!" The woman looked up at Shallan, smoothed out her odd stiff backed and high necked dress and composed herself. "I apologise your highness. I'm not very good with people I'm afraid. My husband usually helps with these types of matters, but they said this was something my attributes were required for and he would just get in the way. My name is Steris, and I'm from Scadrial." An imposing woman stepped forward next, standing next to a small man with a meek expression. Odd thought Shallan. He seems to be the only man that was invited here. "Now that the introductions have been taken care of, I think it's time to move on to the business at hand. I am the Supreme Supervisor of the Silverlight Sodality for the Sensible and Sustainable Subsistence of S, and my friend here has approached us with a request." the woman said. "Go ahead Tom." "Ladieth" began Tom. "We need to dithcuth the exthethive uthe in the cothmere of the letter eth."

Yes, this would be the opposite of explicit . /end pedantry More seriously, the problem with it being implied, and with no evidence of the end result of any implicit consequences is that it's entirely a matter of interpretation. The disagreement in the other thread shows just how wide the range of interpretations of Adolin's portrayal really is. I don't think it's particularly unreasonable to view Adolin as not experiencing consequences, certainly not by comparison to Kaladin.

Kaladin ruminates constantly on his perceived failures, and is miserable as a consequence of it. I don't really see consequences for a radiant as meaningful if they are purely physical. Lose an arm? No worries, it'll grow back. Died? That's okay, here comes Renarin. Psychological consequences hammer them though. In that respect Kaladin and Adolin are very different. Kaladin is miserable, Adolin seems reasonably content with his lot in life. They are both guilty of similar lapses in judgement and impusivity, but Kaladin bears consequences for it that Adolin is not portrayed as experiencing. Whether that is a matter of Adolin being immune to consequences as some argue, or if it is a symptom of something else as argued by others has been debated extensively and has never been resolved through debate. Whichever side you fall on in that argument, Kaladin explicitly experiences consequences of his actions and Adolin explicitly doesn't.

There's a lot we don't know about what Lift can do, here's a summary of what we do know. The basics: Lift can convert glucose into stormlight. The more carbohydrates in the food, the better she can convert it. Bread is better than sausages for example. Lift exists partly in the cognitive realm. This allows her to do some wierd stuff, like touching Wyndle as if he were more substantive in the physical realm than he is, and walking into the visions of Dalinar from the stormfather. Lift cannot breath in stormlight as other radiants do. Lifts method of gaining stormlight has some advantages and disadvantages: She cannot immediately access stormlight, it takes about 5 minutes for the fastest food to convert to stormlight, which is an accelerated metabolism. Lift has some limited capacity to store stormlight, which is much longer than what other radiants can. Other radiants can hold their stormlight for approximately the equivalent length of time a person can hold their breath. Lift can keep her stormlight in her for up to half a day. Much of the specifics of how Lift gains stormlight is discussed here: Fun fact: Lift is the illigitimate love child of Cultivation and a previously unseen shard called Rambunctious (not really, I made that bit up).

The concept of intelligence as a single attribute is considered dated. In fact, the IQ test which was widely employed for purposes it was not intended, originally had a very simple purpose - to identify children who should be allocated to special schools for the intellectually impaired in order to maximise their chances for success and not disadvantage other children with more normal IQ scores. Since then it has been used extensively to attempt to predict a bunch of things it shouldn't be used to predict, including whether the POTUS is smarter than the SOS . Modern theories of intelligence include multi-factor models of intelligence such as Gardners theory of multiple intelligence's. In that model there are 8 different kinds of intelligence (linguistic, logical, musical, spatial, kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic) with the possibility of a 9th (spiritual/existential). They may be more predictive of a wider range of outcomes than the more simplistic IQ tests that predate them. In this model for example, Jasnah would likely be highly intelligent on the logical and spiritual/existential (yes, I know, that seems a first glance a mistake. It's not, have a think about it) attributes, but sorely lacking on the interpersonal attribute, with others falling variously in between. So, basically what I'm saying is you shouldn't really expect any character to always be right, because that would imply they have perfect intelligence in every attribute. It's entirely possible to be a genius at certain aspects and dumb as a stump at others, and I think Jasnah, with her lack of empathy is a good example of this. Just because we have developed a process of valuing the logical aspects of intelligence from the earliest measures, and through the importance of that particular measure in schooling, does not make it predictive of success in all endeavours. I like to think Jasnah scores high enough on the intrapersonal attribute to agree with me on this .

I was considering writing a story for the one year gap thread about how the Silverlight Sodality for the Sensible and Sustainable Subsistence of S had called a meeting in Shadesmar for specific shards, slivers, splinters, shadows, spren and other societies to discuss a complaint by a lisp sufferer advocacy group.

@Yata yes, I know. I transposed Splinter and Sliver. @RShara had already corrected me by that point though so there seemed little benefit in trying to hide my ineptitude. We have come to the conclusion that Brandon needs to be more conservative with his use of S words as there is likely to be a cosmere wide shortage of S's soon.

Warbreaker is my favourite cosmere tale. Some of the characters there, who also pop up in Stormlight are just brilliant. It's a story full of consequences for decisions taken, which is something I really liked about it. Some would also argue it is an inspiring tale about a never ending battle to destroy evil . Anyway, just saying, if it was my list, I'd bump warbreaker to the top of it.

I would definitely recommend picking up a copy of Warbreaker and Arcanum Unbounded then. They both have major implications for the Stormlight Archives. Secret history, which is in Arcanum Unbounded gives a lot of explanation on the nature of shards and cognitive shadows etc. Warbreaker is the prequel to the Stormlight Archives, so you can expect a lot of cross over appearances. Arcanum Unbounded also includes Edgedanger, which is an actual part of Stormlight Archive, just a novella rather than a novel.

Have you read mistborn: secret history and Warbreaker?

Ah, okay. That sounds right. Curious though, does that mean said investiture is no longer associated with a particular shard?

Well, the rules aren't the same, because a shardholder isn't a single entity. There is the shard, and there is the vessel. The rules are the same for vessels, we've seen vessels pass to the beyond. Vessels are also heavily invested, so the option to become a cognitive shadow is obviously viable for them - but that rule is the same for anyone else sufficiently invested. The shard itself doesn't go to the beyond, because it is investiture, and only one thing in the cosmere (that we've seen) can kill investiture. The shard doesn't have a mind though, the shard has only an intent. It will seek an intelligence to guide it, unless it is splintered, in which case it is no longer a single entity for a single intelligence to take up.

Oops. I swear I spend more time looking at the definitions than typing when I discuss these, and I still got it wrong.

The stormfather is a cognitive shadow of the almighty, because the almighty is dead. Before the almighty died the stormfather was a splinter of the almighty. The splinter and the cognitive shadow merged to create a new thing. The same applies to the Heralds, they have all died and so are cognitive shadows, but not cognitive shadows of the almighty, cognitive shadows of the people they were when they were alive. You can't have a cognitive shadow of an entity that isn't dead. You can have invested people though, which is how you get cognitive shadows normally anyway. The more invested a person is, the more they are able to resist the pull of the beyond and find a way to anchor themselves. In the case of the Heralds is seems like Honor took care of that detail for the Heralds.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/33-arcanum-unbounded-san-francisco-signing/#e2745 He plays with ten because the magic system predates his arrival. There are ten surges and he has no control over that. The 9-centric nature of Braize reflects the fact that he invested Braize, while he hasn't up to now invested the rest of the system. There are 9 unmade, because those are his own creation. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/47-firefight-portland-signing/#e678 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/175/#e8381 So, here we have a couple of the many WoB's on numbers and shards. Note that some shards do have numbers associated with them, but most don't. This would make sense if Honor is one of the ones that do, and Cultivation is one that doesn't. The number 10 is important to Roshar, but there's a chicken/egg scenario in there. Was it important before Honor arrived? Did Honor choose it because of the connection to ten? The number can be important to both the system and the shard without mutual exclusivity. The second one here is also particularly important, no ambiguity in the response at all, a flat yes with Honor being 10 and Odium being 9 a part of that question. Now I won't pretend that it isn't possible that mistakes were made somewhere, but it seems there is pretty strong evidence for the association of 9 with Odium and 10 with Honor.

Unfortunately events conspired to thwart her as she was about to say her fourth truth - "I want my mommy".

I think the stonewards may fit in the soldier category, possibly better than windrunners. We haven't seen much of them, but what we have seen indicates it is the case. They are said to most closely match their herald.

I don't believe in them either. I do however believe in false trails. This one smells kind of like that to me.

Speculating on the age of a worldhopper is always going to be extremely difficult if we aren't explicitly told how old they are. You can't even measure the time between books because of worldhopper time shenanigans. If they move forward through time, can it be said they lived those years? I've been wondering if this is what the criminal she is chasing stole since she mentioned it (Nightblood seems too obvious to me). Regardless, I don't think we can take it for granted that she doesn't have 2000 breaths because she hangs out with a guy who has a definite talent for acquiring more breaths.

Well, that muddies the waters. I think there is a distinction between the type of splinter a spren is and a cognitive shadow though. A spren is an embodiment of an idea that has developed an identity. A cognitive shadow is a human intelligence that includes many ideas with far fewer restrictions on its behaviour (aside from the limitations of moving to other worlds) as per what we've seen with a certain other persons cognitive shadow. Human intelligence is much more flexible than a spren. Splinter may be a wider category of entities now, but there is a definite difference in how they can behave.

Yes, I understand that. I am basing this list off the ten individuals who were implied to be representing the ten orders in the battle. Taln and Ash as far as we know haven't joined orders, but there is reason to suspect they will join orders (Taln his own, Ash possibly a different one). Regardless, they were included in the observation Dalinar made.

I agree with Brandon's rather unsatisfactory answer on the subject. Splinter and Sliver don't really apply to him. To be a splinter he must have already been a human intelligence, but he really wasn't - he's something new as a result of a merging of a sliver (in the form of a cognitive shadow) and a splinter. Since you can't be both a sliver and a splinter, he has to be something else entirely. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/81-shadows-of-self-newcastle-uk-signing/#e5723

Right. People on Roshar call all entities of investiture spren. There is a distinction though. The spirits of the ancient singers are not splinters as are the spren, they are cognitive shadows. The singers are adapted to form symbiotic bonds with splinters, not with cognitive shadows. So with the forms of power - facilitated by splinters - the person retains their mind and identity. With the fused, they aren't splinters so such a symbiotic relationship isn't possible. Instead the original inhabitant of the body is cast out and replaced by the cognitive shadow. People can't become splinters, it is a requirement that they never have been a living being, so Eshonai can only become a cognitive shadow (and with great difficulty without the intervention of a shard, see mistborn: secret history) and so cannot coexist in a symbiotic relationship designed for splinters.

This was my interpretation too. The forms of power is where the minds and spirit are retained but infused with Odium's investiture. The fused replace the original completely. Unless we have a confirmation that it is otherwise, I think it's most reasonable to accept the explanation of the Emissary on this one, if for no other reason than they described correctly the process in which a dead person goes beyond.