aemetha

Can I please just clarify, I used the term sociopathy as an adjective to describe a single instance of his behaviour. At no time did I say he was a sociopath, nor was it my intention to imply that, and I even went so far as to follow up by saying I believe he is not a sociopath. I am just not aware of another adjective that more aptly describes that particular instance of behaviour. I really would prefer if we didn't get hung up on that because it wasn't my intention and as far as I am aware nobody is actually arguing that he is a sociopath.

Scadrial is the closest parallel to Earth. The Scadrian system is nothing like the Sol system. The Scadrian system has no other planets within the habitable zone, while the Rosharan system has three planets in the habitable zone whose climates are described very similarly to Venus, Earth and Mars. To be clear though, I'm not claiming Roshar is any kind of exact approximation of Earth, nor a closer approximation to Earth than is Scadrial. Just comparative climates described, and the interesting coincidence that the civilisation on Ashyn is described living in a way suggested for colonising Venus.

Well, Elantris is chronologically the first published cosmere work. It's literally impossible for it to have crossovers with any other published work. I think what we will see is as the timeline progresses there is increasing potential for crossovers. In this respect you might consider the works that come earlier in the timelines as prequels for the later works, and in fact Warbreaker is a prequel for Stormlight, it just happened to get published before a re-imagined stormlight.

The Arcanum has greatly accelerated our capacity to rapidly destroy the hopes and dreams of sharders expressed in their theories .

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/262-oathbringer-glasgow-signing/#e8807

Survive!

Roshar in general has many parallels with the sol system. Roshar is earth. Temperate climate. There are obvious ecological differences, but generally it sits right at the ideal for human life. Braize is Mars. Described as cold and desolate, and while exiting in the habitable zone, generally unsuitable for human haibitation. Ashyn is Venus. Khriss describes Ashyn as the burning planet. Venus is the hottest planet in the sol system, hotter even than mercury despite its position within the habitable zone. It is believed that Venus may have been habitable at one time, but since then has experienced a runaway greenhouse effect that has resulted in gaseous content at the surface level so dense as to crush any human who tried to live there. Interestingly though, scientists belief that venus could potentially be colonised - in floating cities, held aloft basically because they would be bouyant on the denser atmosphere. Being further out from the intensity of the surface conditions in thinner gaseous content also partly mitigates the heat problem. Which makes you wonder. How much did Brandon draw on the Sol system when designing the Rosharan system? The cataclysm that Ashyn faced, was it deliberate, or was it something akin to what we face on Earth now with climate change? In our case climate change is attributed to the effects of our technology. On Ashyn that could be attributed to the effects of surgebinding. In other words - an unintended side effect.

Right, I agree with that sorry. I took it to suggest a more Scadrial focused implication.

Iyatil is not from Scadrial. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/107-orem-signing-2014/#e1394 I wonder if there is a connection to something that was in fact revealed in the latest books - that there are rules the shards were supposed to abide by regarding not being present on worlds with other shards. I wonder if perhaps given they spend such an effort intelligence gathering and seemingly playing all sides they may have some role in regulating or observing said rules. The 17th shard seem to have some kind of non-interference agenda, and lyatil was once a member of that organisation. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/171-oathbringer-release-party/#e8134 Complete supposition here of course because there really isn't much to go on.

Yes there are several, and they can sort of do that. They cannot change the intent of a shard, but they can interpret the intent differently. The intent is filtered through the vessels point of view or interpretation of the intent. Exactly how profoundly the outcome of this is modified is highly debatable. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8685

I think it is likely that any sapient spren can theoretically be bonded. I think a larger issue in this instance is compatibility of the radiant with the spren. From what has been shown, a necessity for forming the bond is an alignment between the radiants actions and ideals and the idea that the spren represents. These oathgate spren seem to be very rigidly embodying a very specific idea that might be very hard to find a radiant to pair with.

A sliver is a human intelligence that has held a sufficient portion of the power of a shard. There is a threshold of power that must be crossed before an entity can be called a sliver, the returned don't hold enough of that power to qualify. It is not clear what a cognitive shadow actually is (there are competing cosmere philosophies on the subject), except that it is formed of an invested individual. Whether that is a copy, the spirit of them or something else entirely is debateable. The returned are specifically said to be cognitive shadows. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/183-stormlight-three-update-6/#e3895

Iyatil is not from Southern Scardial, she is descended from the culture, but does not herself come from there. There is no evidence that she is aware of hemalurgy. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/59-librarypalooza/#e716

Odium, nor indeed any shard does not gain power from the worship of humans. Their power is the power of investiture which was divided entirely between the shards at the time of the shattering. It neither increases nor decreases according to the same principles of conservation as govern the conservation of energy. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/256-oathbringer-london-signing/#e8702 The interaction of shards with humans is as tools, and the drive of their intent to impose a specific order upon the cosmere, not one necessitated by access to raw power.

Seeing the future is not of Honor, whose doctrine was followed by the Alethi, hence the taboo on it. Odium is better at it than Honor, but Honor also remarks that Cultivation is much better than he is at it. Seeing the future therefore doesn't belong to Odium, he just happens to be quite good at it and Honor quite awful at it.

What is not experiencing remorse over committing a murder if not a lack of moral conscience and social responsibility? I actually don't believe Adolin is a true sociopath though, because he does demonstrate aspects that are inconsistent with it, but that particular instance I quoted is an example of sociopathy as an adjective, rather than him being a sociopath as a noun. The main fault I see with him is he demonstrates a consistent lack of impulse control. I disagree about Dalinar not feeling remorse. Dalinar does feel remorse about the men he murdered, just not those he killed in battle - because that isn't murder, it's war. There is a moral and social responsibility distinction between those acts. Dalinar is a soldier, and the mindset of a soldier clearly differentiates those issues, because without doing so they cannot perform that role and at the same time be functioning members of their own society. I do get where you're coming from. You obviously enjoy Adolins character very much, and that's perfectly understandable, we are all drawn to particular characters that we like. Please understand that I intend this to be constructive, not critical, but I think you may have developed unreasonable expectations prior to the books release. Adolin is not, and never has been a main POV character, and it was clearly stated that this was Dalinar's book. Adolin is not slated to have a book, and while I agree with you, there is a lot of room to explore the character because despite us interpreting him very differently, I think in either case it's interesting to explore. I don't think we will ever get a satisfactory character arc that fully explores his potential, because to do so removes some of the focus from the main POV characters. What I see happening with his development is his being made to be likeable, but flawed and so relate-able, which is what leads me to the conclusion I arrived at in the spoiler of my post above. Again, there's nothing wrong with hoping for what you want to see from this character, but I don't know how realistic it would be to expect it.

I couldn't disagree with this more. Adolin is the only character in the series to demonstrate true sociopathy as far as having no remorse for his crime goes. However vile Sadeas was, Adolin's action was morally wrong. He is far from perfect, he has no self-control and no remorse for the consequences of that. That is not to say that Adolin is not likeable, many deeply disturbed individuals are likeable, but he is certainly not well adjusted or a shining beacon of perfection.

Judging Vivenna's age by the passage of time between Warbreaker and Oathbringer probably won't cut it because time can get funky when world hopping. https://wob.coppermind.net/events/3-firefight-chicago-signing/#e37 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/223-words-of-radiance-seattle-signing/#e6259

This is all just my guesses, but this is my take on the whole situation. Shallan has a fractured personality. Veil identifies with Kaladin Shallan, who is apparently her main identity with perhaps some additional repression thrown in, identifies with Adolin. The love triangle was a plot device intended to demonstrate on Shallan's part a choice to integrate into her main personality, rather than further move toward the alternate personality. At the same time, the device helped to show that Kaladin, who is incredibly stubborn, can soften his feelings for a person. Shallan in many ways embodies all the things he hates. Lighteyed, deceitful, arrogant etc. The plot device showed that he can come to accept a relationship with her as a friend, and the romance angle was a vehicle to explain why he even bothered to learn enough about her for that step. As for the future direction, this is what I think, and this will likely not be pleasant to read for fans of Adolin so if you're feeling particularly sensitive, look away from the spoiler. So, that's my take on the whole situation.

Nice essay and summary @PhineasGage I do have one possible critique. Opposites attract is a thing we say, and there is some truth to it - but only when those opposites are complimentary. In other words, one party has to offer something meaningful to the other outside of conflict. No relationship can practically be maintained based only on physical attraction and conflict. So what do they actually offer each other in this respect? By and large, people choose people for their similarities to themselves. They form social groups on that basis. They form romantic attachments on that basis. Similarity is the single best predictor of a compatible pairing. A prominent psychologist once quipped about how astonishing it is, that in a world of billions of people, so many people find their "one and only" living a short distance from their home - but then, people who live near each other tend to identify with one another.

@PhineasGage would agree with most of that from a literary standpoint yes. Not sure I'm quite ready to get on board with this bit . @SLNC it was indeed intended to be a joke.

Might make for some interesting teen angst. "You were NEVER around when I was growing up!" "You're right, I'm sorry. Next time the world you have to live in is being assaulted by the forces of hatred incarnate, I'll ask them to stop so I can come home and make sure the 10 very expensive tutors we got for you are helping you with your homework!"

Option b here is not a certain cause of an undesirable infant attachment pattern. Infant attachment is dependent on a safe, loving relationship with its primary caregivers. Those primary caregivers do not need to be its parents, so long as it is given the security it needs to properly develop a secure attachment pattern. Shallan and Adolin could quite conceivably hand off a child to a competent and loving nanny and have a child grow to be well adjusted. Of course, that would make it difficult for said child to follow in Mummy's footsteps as a radiant.

Now that is something I could get on board with. That would be a case of depression that went into remission, and while that often does reoccur, it tends to be with an intervening period of several years. The period between episodes that Kaladin experiences is more consistent with bipolar, however Kaladin doesn't experience periods of mania or hypomania so that isn't a valid diagnosis for him. I don't think any of the subsequent periods of depressed mood lasted for long enough to be considered recurrences of a disorder, outside of the weepings of course.

I'm not an expert, but I do study it as a requirement for counselling co-morbid addictions with mental disorders. What I said is my opinion, and I certainly didn't say it to stifle discussion. I am more than happy to debate a dissenting opinion on the subject if you have one. I have perhaps more access to literature on the subject, but that doesn't make my assessment any more valid for a fictional character, nor my interpretation of Brandon's intentions for the character any more correct. My only point I had hoped to make was that it is plausible, in my view, to attribute Kaladin's problems to seasonal affective disorder without an additional assignment of major depressive disorder.