Blackwarder

On 2/19/2024 at 12:00 AM, Immortal Platypus said:

I actually loved SM's ending. I feel like we never get sad endings from Brandon, and I was happy to see it. I felt like the entire book was kinda built upon the idea that Sigzil's life was sad, so I loved that the ending matched the theme.

To me, it felt like Brandon was setting in his office, tapping his pen, and thinking “hmmmmmmmmm, I finished abusing Kaladin, who should I emotionally abuse next?”

On 25/08/2023 at 6:15 PM, alder24 said:

What is her boon? How would it make her impervious to Shard's influence? She is changing and growing up. And I doubt a boon and curse is enough to resist the full power of the Shard. Taravangian certainly seemed to be extremely intelligent when he took the Shard, and that was on his day of passion - I think that proves boon and curse stops working after Ascension.

She asked to still remain herself when all else is changing. In her mind it meant staying a little girl but we know that isn’t the case.

I’m thinking that what cultivation did was strengthen her spiritual web in such way that she can’t be influenced by outside forces, including shards. I also think that she didn’t received a boon and curse from the nightwatcher, she received something directly from cultivation, same as what happened to Dalinar and Taravangian.

I agree that there are ways for someone who isn’t fully compatible with a shard to bond it, but it doesn’t mean that it would be a good match just look at Kelsier and preservation. I don’t believe that Jasnah is a good candidate for the shard of pure hatred or passion, OTOH an Edgedancer who can’t be easily influenced but the shard would be a huge game changer. Enough so we will have to change the shards name.

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

Because by the time of WoK Parshendi had lost all of their Shards and Eshonai was their only Shardbearer. I doubt she participated in every plateau run. Secondly it would exposed their Shardbearer to enemy attacks - as soon as Alethi would have spotted Eshonai, they would have thrown everything to get to her - and that include several Shardbearers which would quickly smashed through Parshendi lines and get to her to take her Shards. Losing last Shards would be a huge blow for Parshendi. In most battles they had to fight for access to chrysalis first, and that was challenging. Instead of risking their only Shardbearer, and with that any chances for survival of their people, Eshonai was in reserves, ready to jump in in case their forces got surrounded and were in dire need of help.

And that was a war of attrition, I don't think that Parshendi knew why Alethi wanted gemstones, they just reacted to their hunts for chrysalis, and thought Alethi hunted for gemstones because of their greed. By Parshendi tactics, killing as many humans as possible would exhaust their numbers and morale and eventually bring them to peace talks, which was a successful tactic, as Dalinar was willing to do everything to end the war, and willing to negotiate.

But despite all risks, Parshendi were using Eshonai to extract gemhearts, WoR ch 26:

 

That’s still doesn’t make any sense, if the Parshendi manage to reach the chrysalis before the Alethi forces it takes minutes to harvest the gemheart using a blade. Take the tower for example, it should be a prime candidate for shardblade harvesting due to its proximity to narak and yet when Dalinar and Sadeas reach it the Parshendi are still hitting the chrysalis with hammers.

Every time they do so, every time they enter into an extended fight with an Alethi force with shardbearers they stand to lose a disproportionate number of troops, they don’t have the numbers to go to a battle of attrition with the Alethi forces. And considering their mobility advantage it perplexing that they don’t have a shardbearer with every strike force that is bound to reach the plateau before the Alethi forces to quickly cutout the gemheart and get out of dodge instead of having pitched battles with the humans.

Just now, Aeoliae said:

There could be an ulterior motive here for long drawn conflicts but as for the shard bearer thing: What if the shardbearer goes down? or you lose the shardblade? Considering the Parshendi have like 1 shardblade this would be a really bad thing to waste on something that doesn't really matter. 

That why you bring the army with you, hold the Alethi forces for 15 minutes max, than disengage and retreat. And that’s assuming the two forces reach the plateau at the same time, if the Parshendi reach the plateau significantly before the Alethi they would be long gone by the time the Alethi forces will be ready to assault.

5 minutes ago, Aeoliae said:

The parshendi didn't have as many shardblades as the alethi, and losing a set of shards to a puny battle was pointless to the parshendi - they didn't want to lose their shards. Thats it. Only reason.

That doesn’t make sense, harvesting a gemheart from a chrysalis using a shardblades would take minutes, even if the Alethi forces manage to reach the plateau just after the Parshendi the Parshendi will need to hold them off for a fraction of the time they are depicted doing so in the book if they use a shardblade. No need to suffer the casualties they did or endangering their shards.

Taravangian needed to be pure emotion for the shard of odium to embrace it, I doubt that Jasnah will be able to become odium.

My personal theory is that Lift will be the next ascendant shard holder and due to her boon would be able to remain impervious to the shard influance making her the ultimate odium.

Basically the title.

I’m on my Nth reading of WoK and this has always bothered me, do we have any WoB on the subject? Or something in the books that I missed?
It seems silly for them to simply accept pitched battles instead of simply using a shardblades to harvest the gemheart and quickly retreat.

On 20/07/2023 at 11:01 PM, Chalke219 said:

Since secret project 4 is about a worldhopper, and I think its long overdue that we see somebody go through the process, wouldn't it be a great way to tie all the secret projects together to have Nomad visit the world's from secret projects 1 + 3? 

 

Is this something you'd like to see or prefer it be separate? 

Seriously mate? Couldn’t you put a spoiler warning for secret project 4? 

13 hours ago, alder24 said:

I wouldn't call Wayne a Sword. Wax is personification of Ruin, he brings balance by killing. Wayne on the other hand always restrained himself from killing, mostly never used a gun, used only canes when fighting, he even stoped Wax from killing the last group of guards on top of the Tower in Bilming, and his final act was to safe, protect and preserve city of Elendel. Wayne is not a Sword, he's a Shield of Harmony. He brings balance by preserving. Both Sword and Shield allows Harmony to act as he wants without struggling with his opposing intents.

Wax & Wayn, Ruin & Preservation, I think the duality is a theme that will be a core aspect of Scadrial from era 2 onward.

Wayn is to Preservation what Wax is to Ruin, only it was unintentional, I wonder if it’s because Wayn have more of Preservation than a normal person and if so why?

I think the problem is that we got our timeline wrong, it’s clear that Scadrial is is heading way faster towards the 1980’s equivalent than we thought, I believe era 3 will be 3-4 decades down the road, probably with Marasi as governor, possibly opening at Wax’s funeral.

I would love for the protagonist to be Wayne Ladrian, younger son of Dawnshot himself and a member of an anti-allomencer swat team.

Hi guys, anyone knows how I update my shipping address for the secret projects?

Iirc, the current timeline put mistborn era 3 in a 1980’s setting and after stormlight 10. By the end of TLM the basin tech level is somewhere between WWI and WWII.

I predict that era 3 will be 3-4 decades in the future, will feature governor Marasi Colms as a supporting character, and the drained bands of mourning would still be a mystery and a big plot arch.

Thoughts?

On 08/11/2022 at 10:47 AM, Isilel said:

Given all the stuff that Wayne heals from without being a Gold Twinborn, I'd say that a Bloodmaker with decent health stores definitely could swallow harmonium in oil suspension and survive the process. 

Excellent point about stomach acid, @Bzhydack - but IMHO it would still be far too dangerous for anyone but a Gold Ferring, because what if a flake of it touches tissue before arriving in the stomach?

They really should have experimented on Wayne, eh?

That’s what you have biodegradable pill capsules for, just suspend the harmonium nugget in natural oil and warp it in a little case and you have a perfectly safe harmonium delivery system. Gives an all new meaning for popping pills.

That’s assuming that the stomach acids do indeed makes the harmonium safe, otherwise you will end up with little bits of person all over the room… edit: which comes to think about it also give a new meaning to popping pills.

On 26/10/2022 at 3:52 AM, Friendshipspren said:

Khriss is black and has dreadlocks. She's never any glamor to change her appearance 

She is?!? 
I always pictured her as Indian.

I think it is Khris.

Wax met her on the previous book, maybe she is the mysterious stranger from off world.

I think Lirin will become the third Bondsmith.

I’ve written about why I think so in the past.

Tried to copy it all to here but I’m on my phone.

Dude. Seriously. The first question is the equivalent of “who’s your favorite child?” 
how are supposed to answer that?

4 hours ago, Bort said:

Oh, and I almost forgot my own personal theory about where Kaladin will end up in the back five. @Blackwarder's post reminded me with his 5th Ideal...

I think he'll be leading Alethkar, alongside Jasnah, as King and Queen.

I think that ship has sailed (pun intended)

4 hours ago, Bort said:

Storms... Now that would be playing the really long game. It would be awesome!!!

Or, instead of Adonalsium, imagine someone being able to hold Odium without being corrupted by it, and indeed, holding it to the standards of an Edgedancer, one of the Radiant orders most suited to caring.

We know Shards can corrupt their vessels with their Intent... Can vessels corrupt the Shards too?

I also though about that but I don’t really want to see Taravabgian go.

You forgot about Lifts’ request, she asked to always remain herself, even when everything else is changing around her.

She meant to never age and remain 10, but Cultivation usualy takes the request and twist it to her own ends (as seen with Dalinar and Taravangian). My theory is that Cultivation changed Lifts’ spirit web to not change by external sources - essentially Lift is the ultimate shard holder, the shard won’t be able to change her spirit web.

I think that Lift will end up reforging Adonalsium.

I think that Kaladins’ 5th ideal will be “I will lead you, I will show you how to protect”.

I don’t think that Kaladin story is ending once he swear the 5th ideal, I think that he have a bigger role ahead of him shaping Roshar for the future. His second arc will probably resemble Dalinar political arc trying to lead the various orders and/or free nations.

We also know that Brandon likes to push the magical-tech in his stories forward, I don’t think that the 5th ideal is necessarily the end for this new generation of KR.

8 hours ago, Legui01010 said:

 

This might actually be it. I forgot that the Windrunners also represent Leadership. My proposal of Ideal might even be a little selfish, considering that each Radiant's journey is one of improvement and self care, but this one is really possible and makes a whole lot of sense, specially if you part from the 4th Ideal, acceptance that you cannot protect everyone, so how do you improve upon it? What is the next step? What better way to show leadership and improvement than showing others to protect themselves.

Exactly, ive been trying to reconcile Windrunners Leadership trait with their oaths for years now, and I admit that the 4th ideal threw me off a bit, but En-priestess point about the Alethi warcodes being related to Windrunner just made it all klick.

I’m not thrilled with the actual wording though, need a bit of work.

I like the basic idea behind this, I don’t think that writing a book is part of it though.

“I will protect those who can not protect themselves” - 2nd Windrunner ideal.

”I will protect even those who I hate as long as it’s right” - 3rd Windrunner ideal (Kaladin version)

”I except that I cannot protect everyone“ - 4th Windrunner ideal.

“I will show others how to protect themselves” - possible 5th Windrunner ideal.

Which is something Kaladin have been doing all on his own already. And in this context the Alethi war codes could be a remnant of some 5th ideal Windrunner/s.

Damn, I just realized that it’s also “A Wisdom of Lirin” like the rest of the oaths:

Quote

“And his father’s voice seemed to whisper a reply. Somebody has to start, son. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right. If nobody starts, then others cannot follow.”

Excerpt From
The Way of Kings
Brandon Sanderson

I think we are on to something here.

6 hours ago, robardin said:

Exactly - it would be well beyond the scope of a "Young Adult" novel (and thus out of line with the first two books)

I think Evershore had the biggest jaw-drop moment for me in the entire series.

Sure, in true Sanderson style, there WERE hints and foundational groundwork descriptions about Detritus: its relatively small size, its lack of surface water, and the "platforms" surrounding it (the entire planet) that indicated the ancient human creators had imbued it with a LOT of protections and offensive firepower, including linking up to form a shield between them... And when it was revealed how taynixes powered the really OP stuff, and hey, the planet "just happens" to have internal caverns full of them and their food sources, and then they found they could teleport the platforms with the taynix to BAM come to help in the defense of another planet... And is also the source of the DDF's graviton "GravCaps" flying tech...

Maybe it SHOULD have crossed my mind about, well, maybe the ENTIRE PLANET is a flying fortress - a Life Star, if you will, as opposed to a Death Star, or at least a fortified ark.

But it didn't.

Ever read the Dahak series by David Weber? The premise is that the moon is actually a moon sized battleoid with a super AI at the helm.

Now all I think about is connecting Mbot to Detritus as an anti-delver weapon.

10 hours ago, fallenalexiel said:

Alright, I might say something here that might be pretty polarizing, but I feel if all of these novellas were somehow mixed in with Cytonic that the book would have been much better for it. I enjoyed Cytonic for what it was. However, if we had the high stakes of each of these novellas intermixed with the deeper dive into the Nowhere, I think it would have been a better read.

Absolutely. I truly think that releasing it all in the same volume with interposed chapters would make for a great read, I know I would recommend future new readers to read cytonic last chapter after evershore, knowing the end of evershore was coming was a bit of a letdown. It’s a mark of how talented are Brandon and Janci both that the end was still thrilling but I would have liked to be surprised.