Mulk

For the record: I am a Christian minister and believe there is such a higher being. I also agree with you 100% or nearly so with regard to the Cosmere - we don't know if such a standard was set or if it was, if it is still extant given Adonalsium's current state. My point was merely that humans voting on the standard does not make it absolute. Humans are not absolute, not in the Cosmere and not in our world. If such a thing exists, it exists independent of our feelings about it. Feelings are a perfectly terrible basis for right and wrong anyway as they view everything from the lens of self. I don't really want to argue real world religion in such a thread as this as I don't think this is the appropriate place for it, so I'll just say I disagree with you at most points except that we have no consensus on who is right.

That's not how absolute morality works. If a being exists who created all of this (and in this pretend universe we have a WoB that there is), then what that being has to say about morality is the absolute standard if he/she/it/they wants it to be. Humans may not know it or agree with it, but that does not mean it doesn't exist. If the God Beyond or Adonalsium had anything to say about morality, then what they say is the standard by which the Cosmere will be judged, and it doesn't matter of a cretin like Sadeas or a paragon of virtue says yes or no. We just as readers don't know where this stands or if they made any such decree.

If Regrowth works on the inanimate (and off the top of my head I can't recall seeing that) it will be because it can link an object to its former cognitive state; if stick had burned, regrowth would have to be able to link stick's ashes somehow back to what it had been before. I don't see how that's possible, but then again, Brandon hasn't said it's impossible. The only thing I see in the text indicating that it might be is that Kaladin's image of himself affects the fact that his slave brands aren't healed by Stormlight. If stick's sense of self and what it is is enough to rebuff ordinary attempts to soulcast it, then perhaps it is enough to let the shape and substance of what it was linger for a time after it perishes and allow it to be restored.

Re-Shephir doesn't appear to be intelligent as we would say. Not fully sentient or self-aware or whatever. In such a case, fear would be a huge motivator to flee, because they don't have the mental faculties to come up with a way around that fear. It's easy to imagine an animal that is trying to drive off rather than to kill who then recognizes one of the ones attacking it as one that harmed it in the greatest way possible and then fleeing mindlessly as a result. It's the same reasoning for why Odium would agree to a champion fight - he fears pain. He'd win any fight between him and a non-shard but he doesn't want anymore pain. Re-Spephir fears the pain or imprisonment enough to run from a fight it could otherwise win.

Yes, but the most popular theory is he'll be a Bondsmith. Are Bondsmiths one who could? I don't know. Maybe? This whole argument reflects one of the only real problems I have with the way Brandon has set things up. Journey before Destination is very difficult to read as anything other than meaning the way you get somewhere and what you do on the way is at least as important as where you are going. It also fits with the whole Honor theme. I can read a Machiavellian as being able to do Life before Death and Strength before weakness, and if he'd left it at that I'd be just fine.

Kaladin's likely a better warrior than Amaram, which kinda puts the lie to what Amaram says. He's wrong, but he's convinced he is right. Lots of bad things have happened over history out of the same combination and I expect more of that here. Someone earlier pondered why on Roshar the Stormfather chose Gavilar. IF we look at who is available out of all of the powerful humans we have seen...they aren't much to work with. Taravangian is, as Stark says, the opposite of a Radiant. Journey before Destination is inherently the opposite of the Ends Justify the Means. We've seen what Amaram and Sadeas are/were. Dalinar was a hotheaded, rampaging murderdemon. As the Stormfather seems to have been predisposed to pick an Alethi (the whole preserving the arts of War and all that, perhaps?) I can't come up with anyone better. Maybe it was because Gavilar was on a course of unification even if it was brutal? Maybe because he had a sensation that Gavliar was one who would begin to change with the knowledge he had to give? Maybe it was just a wing and a prayer, that someone had to have the visions or there would have been no one ready when the time came? I don't know. We'll have to wait and see. I'd assume this is because of his spren and his abilities - he sees, as he puts it. He knows things others do not know. It makes sense given what little we know of him and his abilities.

I wonder if the reason Urithiru is thought of as protected is that stormlight gemstone pillar thing. If once that thing is fully loaded up with stormlight it grants some sort of immunity or creates a shield from the Unmade and/or the Voidspren.

I have to say that I laughed out loud when Dalinar figured out his new plan of attack on convincing the monarchs. Cackled, even. Was really good to see Teft and the gang again. What a crew they are and I love how Renarin fits in. Pattern "Stupidity. Very Interesting." I need to think a little longer on the rest of it. I'm glad the whole copycat thing isn't going to linger out though.

ah, okay, I never saw that movie. Just the movie based on the musical and the musical itself. And it is amazing and well worth the time.

Did you hear the one-armed Herdazian battalion isn't going to battle? They've been disarmed. A one-armed Herdazian was watching a bunch of kids play ball when it bounced way off the field. Rather than kick it back, he picked it up and ran it back over. When asked why, he said I gotta hand it to ya. A Herdazian lost his arm in combat and had to quit his day job. He wasn't handy anymore.

Correct. Tienanmen Square massacre occurred in June of 1989, I'd just finished my freshman year in high school. The musical came out in...late 1987 I think? I've been there since then. Most Chinese don't know what happened that day, it was and still is pretty well suppressed.

awesome, Sunchicken. Personally, I've seen one Barn Owl and two Burrowing Owls. Heard a couple more but never got eyes on them.

If I use a bookmark, it's on a hardcover where I just flip in the dustcover on the page I am on. Most of time though, I don't even bother with that. Not because I'm always going to remember where I am. IT's that I have three cats and two small children and I often times come back and find my book either on the floor or elsewhere, obviously flipped through...and the bookmark wouldn't have mattered.

I agree you probably wouldn't want to give the Parshendi to a player as they'd have correspondingly less to do. The only way I can think of making it work is juggling of forms, growing of food (the Parshendi do this in some manner using stormlight/gemstones) possible discovery of stormform as something that could happen and they probably have a bonus chance to find chasmfiends pupating faster, but then the point of the game wouldn't be game combat and chasmfiend stuff, but pointed at the Battle of Narak/Stormseat and you'd want to title it as such. That would more probably be a two-player game though and would merit its own discussion thread. Alternately, what if the Parshendi are a game event unto themselves? Encounters with them normally would be linked to Chasmfiend events. Adjust the probability tables some either by replacing some of the 2d8 stuff above, or else bump it up to a 2d10, 2d12 or some such. I've mapped those out but I think you could make it work with a d20 or 3 or 4d6 or some such too.

it was Hugh Jackman in the movie as Valjean Liam Neeson can't sing anything like that. It's a hell of a story in any case. I was in high school when the musical made it big. I've seen it three times, and it blows me away each time. We performed a medley of songs from it the same year Tienanmen Square happened and let me tell you, that felt kinda spooky...

I'd guess given their size the chasmfields can probably scale the walls and lurk under the plateau edges but up above the water lines.

worth it if you get the chance Got to see them three years ago. Would love to again

Honestly, gonna read it till I'm done. Which will probably take me till 4-5 am if I'm lucky. I'm incapable of setting a good book down once I get going in it, so if I spend more than like an hour in it I'm in it till it's done.

It takes time, Steeldancer. It takes time. There is no get over it quick fix if you really cared. It'll get better but it will take time. brohugs.

Love me some Piano Guys. You had a chance to see them live?

WoTMania, then Dragonmount when it absorbed WoTMania. I haven't been back in some time though.

Upvote That's pretty much exactly what my reaction is. I just didn't post it that way, in part because I kinda worried individual people (no idea who, just someone) would interpret it as a shot at them. My first website of this sort was dedicated to Wheel of Time, and it was the same sort of attitude there - theories based on all forms of minutiae, and like 1% would turn out right and that led to an absurd amount of crowing. It was hilarious and annoying at once. I free admit I roll my eyes a lot at stuff I read here, but there's also a lot of things that make me laugh and a lot of others that make me think and reread.

Tarion, that's true on a fractional scale but may not be true on a raw numbers scale. Do we know how many people actually live on Roshar? 60 million died in WWII, roughly, maybe as high as 80 million. I've got trouble believing the scale for the population of Roshar is anything like that large. IN any case, still bad. I agree acting on your beliefs is moral only if your beliefs are themselves moral. And I think Amaram isn't being moral even if his beliefs were correct. You see, for practiced shardbearers he could have left the man Kaladin chose to receive his shards alive and had him trained. The effect would have been the same overall, in terms of numbers of shards available. Amaram wanted the shards for himself so he could play the hero; basically it was jealousy and only his nagging conscience made him leave Kaladin alive so he could at least lie to himself that he'd been merciful. And I've no real patience with the innocence argument. He knows he does harsh/bad things for "the greater good" but he has redefined the greater good in his mind to mean that it is 1) the greater good he defines; and 2) the greater good he enacts, to excuse his greed for the shards.

In the Cosmere, I'd guess the brain isn't actually the storehouse for all of that information and personality and experience, it's the soul. Somehow, the brain interfaces with the soul and if that gets damaged then the information can't cross. So the soul is undamaged but the linkage from who you are to your physical self is damaged. The soul can't leave as you're not dead, and being dead is what severs the connection.

clearly, it is an off-branded toaster cackling madly in the shadows...