Bunyod

The king wouldn't really have been able to give Szeth to the parshendi because the king only recently aquired Szeth in the first place.

It is naive to think that the king all of a sudden recently found out about Szeth's cunning skills. The guys who captured Szeth's stone were VERY intimately familiar with him. And those guys worked for King of Kharbranth. Therefore one can assume that the same king was behind the ordering of Gavilar's death.

Roshar isn't really a wasteland where it's nearly impossible to grow crops. It's a stable, vibrant ecosystem that has completely integrated the Highstorms into its verdant landscapes. The Shattered Plains are more somewhat-sparse grassland than scoured wasteland, it's just that the plants hide whenever anyone walks by.

Despite appearances, Roshar seems to have as much plant and animal life as Earth in comparable biomes.

You may be right. Actually you are quite right, methinks. However, in Stormlight 2 we need to have more specific information on this topic.

Welcome again Bunyod! It's good to have some international posters in the forums. What did you get your degree in? Anyway you had some really excellent questions in the Stormlight thread!

Wow Joe, I think you just made me cry a little bit, haha. 2030 is so far away. Did you factor in the interim period between 1-5 and 6-10 plot arcs? Brandon wants to write the Mistborn 2 Trilogy there, since there is a small gap in time between those two arcs. So that's three more years at least.

Thanks Joe and Windrunner,

I got my degree in Business Administration. If you really like that thread, please don't be greedy and press the green "+" sign below it

As for time frame of 2030... That surely is something. Actually, if it takes 3 years per book, it'll be 2040 Lmao.

You mention the Parshendi not attacking the Alethi army. Something odd is going on there, which we've noticed around the forums. The Parshendi are often more honorable then the Alethi. They only bring only as many armies as the Alethi do, they are easier on injured soldiers, and they never follow retreating Alethi troops to harass them back to the war camps.

Szeth is a special case. I get the sense that he doesn't agree with his punishment, but is too honorable to disobey. Szeth cannot do anything stupid or allow himself to be killed. I believe whatever oath he has sworn requires him to do his utmost that he survive, and not be fool-hardy. For example he certainly he could have attacked the King of Jah Keved without his Shardblade, but doing so would increase his likelihood of dying, which contradicts his oath, so he is obligated to use his blade. That is why he begs for an equal opponent, so he can lose a fair fight. My only question having to do with Szeth is about his oathstone. Is there a magical bond that compels Szeth to follow the commands of it's holder, or is he just honor bound to do so?

Also welcome to the forums! Once you read the other cosmere books you'll be hooked for life, if you're not already.

Thanks!

Yes, there are definitely strange things going on in Shattered Plains.

- Parshendies' refusal to say the reason behind Gavilar's murder,

- Parshendies' strange honorable tactics of battle,

- Parshendies' strange use of their shardblades,

There should be a huge reason for all these things. And only Stormlight 2 may give us clue.

P.S.Possible theory:

Alethkar has a border with shattered plains. And yet only 6 years ago Gavilar discovered the parshendy. What if Odium through King of Kharbranth (his pet project) created these Parshendy (just recently in large numbers) with some magic and now the king of Kharbranth commands Parshendi. And they do whatever king (through Odium's commands) says.

1) Odium discovered that Gavilar was up to something,

2) King of Kharbranth gave Szeth to Parshendi with specific command to kill Gavilar,

3) Odium waits to regain his full strength and therefore Parshendi are silent,

4) As soon as Odium regains his strength Parshedni will turn into Voidbringers and attack Roshar.

EDIT-

]Your point about the number of Parshendi warriors is interesting, but there have been theories that suggest that the reason they don't let people touch their dead is that they might be able to regenerate.

Also, there aren't contingents of Soulcasters within each war camp on the Shattered Plains. Elhokar owns all Soulcasters and charges for the Highprinces to use them. This is the Alethi War Tax (in effect).

Good points.

My thought process about soulcasters was that, without many soulcasters, Roshar with its weather problems will not be able to provide enough food for its population.

Those aren't really Brandon's books, he just wrote them.

wow, really?

As for Szeth he is forbidden to take his own life, otherwise he would.

But nothing stopped him from letting himself be killed in order to stop his massacres.

I won't post any spoilers if I can avoid it so first thing's first, have you read any of Brandons other works?

ps. Try not to make double posts, just edit your previous post if you want to add anything

I've read The Gathering Storms and Towers of Midnight. The Wheel of time books.

And just finished reading Mistborn 1. If by spoiler you mean Hoid exists in each of Sanderson's books I know about it. And I know that all of Sanderson's fantasy Worlds exist in one universe - Cosmere.

Hello all!

I'm new here. From far away country - Uzbekistan. Currently working in China. Got my degree in USA. Lived 3 years in Thailand. So that's a lot of geography for one person.

Love fantasy. Can't wait to get Memory of Light. Hate waiting though therefore, here is my question:

When do you think the last book of Stormlight Archives will be published? ;-)

P.S. I wonder, is there a profession for people with great fantasy world building abilities and poor writing skills?

One thing which is of great interest to me is the logic behind Szeth's actions. He seems to be a person who contradicts himself greatly. We know that he does not like killings as he worked for some farmers for 6 years and kept low profile. However, when given chances to stop his killings (after he killed Galivar/after his master was killed by thugs), he refused to act on it properly and end his life.

Szeth is He who takes away not adds -> He killed plenty of people and does not Like it at all -> The best way to end taking away a lot of lives is to end his life -> And he didn't use his chance to do that.

Therefore, he contradicts himself greatly.

EDIT-

One theory which unites the Wheel of Time and The Way of Kings:Book 1 of WOT makes us think of Baalzamon as the Main Evil guy - the dark one, which was proven wrong in later books as we found out that Baalzamon was an ordinar Ishamael.<br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); "><br style="color: rgb(28, 40, 55); font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px; background-color: rgb(250, 251, 252); ">Book 1 of Stormlight Archives makes us think that "Almighty" is dead. I hope that it will be proven wrong in later books and we'll find out that "Almighty of the First Book" was one of the Heralds.

EDIT 2-

Is there a theory here which assumes Wit=One of the Heralds? If there is one, please let me know, I'd like to take a look at it.

Thanks for your answers.

Here is one more thing to look at:

Every World has Good vs Evil. And as such, every culture has an idea who's good and who's evil. However, it is strange that Alethkar people know that there is Almighty, but they have no idea who's Odium. And the book 1 does not give any alternative for Odium, i.e. people do not know who is their Evil N1.

Or did I miss some mentioning of that?

Hi all,

This is my first post here. Thought I'd share my opinions on The Way of Kings which need to be addressed in Stormlight 2.

If you think, I made a mistake in my perceptions please correct me.

1) IMHO, Stormlight 2 needs to give us reasons why Jah Keved didn't use a perfect opportunity to strike and conquer Alethkar. Think about it. Jah Keved had these advantages:

- Time. 6 years Alethkar's main army was gone.

- Power. Jah Keved has the same amount of shards as Alethkar

- Internal instability of Alethkar. Alethkar's remaining armies are fighting with each other.

Therefore, in order not to perceive Jah Keved's nobility as idiots, Stormlight 2 needs to give some serious explanation as to why Jah Keved didn't attack Alethkar.

2) Kaladin, during his flight within the storm sees that almost everywhere in Roshar there are wars. We know that Roshar's weather makes it very challenging for agricultural crops to grow. More wars -> more soldiers -> less farmers. Therefore, Stormlight 2 needs to give us more FOOD soulcasters. My perception (I may be wrong) from Stormlight 1 was that soulcasters were very rare items.

3) Dalinar is a great general. If we need to continue to think about him as a great general, Stormlight 2 needs to give us a reason why didn't he take away all the shards from high princes when he was conquering them with his elder brother. As the easiest way to unite Alethkar was to get all the shardblades in 1 army.

4) Alethkar has around 150 thousands of troops in Shattered Plains. The first book states that each week high princes fight mini wars on chasms. So, reading through the casualty reports in the book, we may assume that at least 1000 Parshendi dies each week. 1000*55*6years=330 thousands. So we may assume that during these 6 years 330 000 Parshendies died. Ok, let's take half of it. Let's assume that 165 000 Parshendies died. Even this number is too huge. First, where Parshendi gets food for this kind of number of soldiers. Second, Parshendies are great warriors and they have an ability to jump chasms. If they had this kind of huge army, why didn't they use their advantage to jump the chasms and destroyed the Alethkarian Army? Therefore, Stormlight 2 needs to give us some more explanation.

Thanks in advance,