dionysus

It is fairly easy to learn calculus once someone is teaching you the way. But it took 1 or really 2 extraordinary individuals to build on the math that came before and frame the rules of Calculus. If those individuals don't make those discoveries, society could have waited generations before someone else made the leap. Now you learn calculus in High School and College.

As you get higher in math the less people that can fully master the concepts.

I see it the same for Radiants. The person who is first has to be exceptional, but if the guide for how to do it already exists a lot more people can do it. And at the higher levels, everyone will have to be exceptional. Just like you have to be pretty mathematically inclined to be able to fully understand linear algebra, partial differential equations, and beyond.

There is a vast moral difference between trying to save what you can from destruction versus helping the destruction along so as to be able to negotiate with it to save your family and city.

The Diagram was helping Odium's ultimate goals though with the twist of making it beneficial for Odium to negotiate with them instead of just destroy them. The Diagram was actively working against the possible future where Odium loses, because Mr. T saw that outcome as so unlikely as to not be worth pursuing.

On 12/4/2020 at 11:10 PM, Raven Wilder said:

If you look at all the Shards' Intents (the urge to destory, the urge to preserve, the urge to be autonomous, the urge to be merciful, etc.) they don't really add up to a complete, psychologically complex person. You'd need way more than 16 Shards to cover all the aspects that make someone who they are ... unless you divide them into 15 Shards that each embody one of their main characteristics, and then another Shard that covers a whole bunch of a minor, miscellaneous characteristics.

There may not be a Shard called Curiosity, but that doesn't mean Adonalsium couldn't be curious. Or be bored, even if there's not a Shard called Boredom. So while Honor and Ambition and Devotion and all the rest make up the bulk of who Adonalsium was, maybe that still left a bunch of other Intents, none of them prominent enough to be a Shard in its own right, but who could be pooled together into an amalgam Shard. That might result in a Shard with no clear direction, one that can switch from embodying Pride to embodying Sorrow or Humor or Delusion or Reproduction at a moment's notice. Such an erratic Shard could justifiably be called Whimsy.

I think the shard names are the dominant intent but it doesnt mean that is the sum total of everything they are. To use your example, perhaps all the shards have a bit of curiosity in them, but not enough for it to be a dominant intent in them. Or maybe Ambition and Invention have a bunch of curiosity in them, but Preservation and Honor have none.

What I am saying is I don't think you need to shove all these abstract concepts that are left over from the other Shards into whimsy. Instead it is more like a bunch of concepts that are connected to each other come together to form a Shardic intent. I see it as Adonalsium could have been shattered in an infinite number of ways, with an infinite number of outcomes in shardic intent. We could have had a Curiosity shard, but then that would preclude Invention because Invention needs curiosity as a component.

My primary proof of this is Odium, Devotion, and Mercy. Odium is basically emotion and passion but with the scales tipped towards hatred and little if no weighting towards love or mercy. Just like it is kind of innacurate to call Odium Odium, it would also be inaccurate to call him Emotion because he clearly favors certain emotions. He has got lust, and jealousy, hatred, laughter, etc. etc. Why doesn't he seem to have more positive emotions? Because those emotions are in Devotion and Mercy and not part of his shard.

Rayse acknowledges that shards have to abide by the intent of their agreements, and can't use legal chicanery to circumvent them. So I doubt options like picking unkillable champions will happen, or more likely you think they are unkillable but the nature of being a "champion" will not be so simple. I suspect the twist instead will be that Dalinar winning will not be the victory everyone thinks it is, or that Dalinar losing will truly leave them with no options.

I think a nice reveal happened in the blurbs at the beginning of the chapters, chapter 34. "Since we are all essentially infinite, he needs no more power." I believe that merging shards does not grant one more power, but it unshackles the vessel from some of the restrictions imposed on him by his shard's intent. Except in a certain someone's case, where the opposite natures of the intents shackle him even more.

I think this might relate to the duel of champions and its aftermath in that I think we have enough evidence to conclude that shards have infinite power but also massive restrictions on how they can use it (some seem to date all the way back to the original shattering). I have seen evidence of 3 limitations imposed on shards: 1. they cannot do things directly against the shardic intent, 2. there appears to be binding agreements that bind all shards, despite changes in vessel, that date to the original shattering (ie t they can only directly impact people who place themselves by their own choices into their power or opposed to their power.), and 3. they are bound by agreements they make after the shattering.

What if the aftermath of the duel is that some of these restrictions fall away, for both Honor's side and Odium's side. In essence it is the conclusion of pacts made in the past. Now obviously, Dalinar and Odium will have to abide by what they agreed would happen for the winner and loser. But remember Dalinar is not working with full knowledge of what the old pact even had in it. I suspect Dalinar's lack of knowledge of the terms of the original pact will have huge implications.

I definitely agree with the consensus on what is holding him back, but I want to work in leadership as well. When I try to put all my thoughts on what the 4th ideal should be on paper I end up with a paragraph, which is not good writing. The best, most succinct statement I can come up with is something like this, "I will honor those who fall, by protecting those that need it and leading those that do not (need protection.)" But it doesn't capture what my full thoughts are.

On 9/8/2020 at 11:26 PM, Eluvianii said:

Also, about the sphere with wings. Yeah, it is really strange that the Windrunners just dismissed it but I'm even more surprised about Navani dismissing it. She sees this really efficient way of making things fly and just goes "Welp, failure. Anyway, how's my flying table doing?" 

Let me give you a mechanical engineers perspective on this. Wings work because they provide an upward force that counteracts gravity's downward force. Windrunner powers work by literally changing the direction of gravity. There is no downward force to counteract under a horizontal gravitation lashing, so wings are actually a detriment. As you would now need to change the direction of lashing to oppose the force of the wings in order to maintain horizontal flight.

So in the context of windrunner powers it makes perfect sense to dismiss wings as bad ideas.

In other contexts wings could actually help. I am not 100% clear on how the huge ship works, but it is not altering the direction of gravity but instead mimicing the movements of paired fabrials right? And the force needed to move it is mathematically linked to the force needed to move the paired fabrial at the other end. So at speed wings could help reduce the force needed to keep the ship in the air.

On the subject of brilliance, it is very hard for an author to write a character better at something than he is. Brandon has talked before about how writing Shallan's and Wit's quips as one of the most difficult things about writing Stormlight. I also do not find Shallan as brilliant as her in-world reactions imply, but I also just recommend a healthy dosage of suspension of disbelief when reading any smart character. Funny enough, I find Wit to be much better but I think it is just a screen time thing. Wit is unknown and we don't see inside his head. For me, Shallan is just too flawed a character for me to enjoy reading. I like Brandon's rubric of 2 positive traits and one negative trait to create a sympathetic character but with dramatic tension. Shallan is like 1 positive trait and 5 negative traits.

If this was a Robert Jordan or David Eddings book, the presence of that combative and sarcastic banter would guarantee future romance. But with Sanderson I think we need to see some common ground and mutual vulnerability as well before it ends up at romance. Mistborn Era 2 Spoilers: 

Dalinar has elements of 3 investitures in him. Not just Honor. He is probably the greatest acolyte of the Thrill, Cultivation directly put investiture in him because the NIghtwatcher wasn't strong enough, and now he is bonded directly to the largest remnant of Honor. I don't think we are heading down the path of him just being Honor again.

Right now I see him more following the path of Hoid, unifying investiture of many shards such as to remain a complete person without one aspect dominating. As he is not a worldhopper, he will be limited to the three on Roshar.

And I agree we won't see a Mistborn solution because it has been done before. I think all Dalinar will amount to is some type of franken half-shard. As powerful as a sliver, but not on the level of a full shard.

Edit. Changed splinter to sliver.

How about, "I will lead others to protect what is right, even if it means they will die."

It encompasses a leadership ideal, which we haven't seen yet in the oaths. It also fits narratively with Kal needing to let go of his "failures" and move past the deaths of others he feels responsible for. The weakness of it is it doesn't address the crisis he has in Kholinar. It wouldn't help him decide how to choose a side (or a third path.)

On 11/14/2017 at 8:55 AM, Salkara said:

My personal theory is that he needs greater Connection to Maya in order to revive her. If only he were a duralumin compounder, it would be a cake walk.

If only he was related to a splinter of a shard that seems to be all about Connections...if only.

8 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

I actually went ahead and made a thread on it.

WoB (second WoB) seems to imply to me that the Vessel does, to a certain extent, get to direct the Shard even after a long time.

Thanks. 

Here is the one I was thinking of.

And those were all way back, in the history. So, we know that the Shards' personalities overrides the Vessel's personality over time?

Brandon Sanderson

Strongly influence, and depending on the individual, override.

I'll move that other discussion over here.

This is Dalinar's description of Odium, and you and I believe that Odium cannot lie about this vision.

"Burning. Overwhelming. Power. It as the scream of a thousand warriors on the battlefield. It was the moment of most sensual touch and ecstasy. It was the sorrow of loss, the joy of victory. And it was hatred. Deep, pulsing hatred with a pressure to turn all things molten. It was the heat of a thousand suns, it was the lives of all men wrapped up in one, defined by everything they felt."

Not any positive emotions balancing out the emphasis given to hatred other than joy of victory and lust. Odium is clearly more than just hatred, and Passion is a better name for him. But I see no evidence that all emotions or even some forms of passion are part of his intent.

Also, I am not sure what part of Honor could temper the negative in Passion, especially post OB understanding of Honor. I think the goodness we see in Honor is more from Tanavast than the shard's intent.

18 minutes ago, Ryshadium said:

Very good point. Though Odium seems to think that his intent is more about passion and emotion vs pure hate. If Rayse was already kind of a jerk, could that have affected how he managed the Shard’s intent? In other words, would a different Shardholder of Odium have been as hateful as Rayse was? If there’s flexibility there, uniting the three could provide balance as someone noted above.

All that being said, I’m not sure I event believe this, but it’s an interesting thing to think about, especially in regard to the Cosmere as a whole. 

I actually remarked the same thing on page 2 of this thread about Odiums intent. When Dalinar gets to see Odium, he notes it is about emotion. This is what Dalinar sees. "Burning. Overwhelming. Power. It as the scream of a thousand warriors on the battlefield. It was the moment of most sensual touch and ecstasy. It was the sorrow of loss, the joy of victory. And it was hatred. Deep, pulsing hatred with a pressure to turn all things molten. It was the heat of a thousand suns, it was the lives of all men wrapped up in one, defined by everything they felt."

Notice the emphasis on Power and Hatred. Hatred is the only emotion to get multiple lines dedicated to it. I posit that Odium is more than just hatred, but hatred is dominant. Also, other than joy and ecstasy, there is no mention of positive emotions like love, compassion, etc.

18 minutes ago, Leyrann said:

The thing is, Odium is more than just hate. That's the big Cosmere twist we've seen in this book. We assumed it was hate (which honestly was what we were told in-universe), but that was because the Shard's intent is filtered through Rayse's personality, which wasn't the nicest. Additionally, even when we still assumed that Odium was pure hate, people already theorized that an Honor+Odium shard would be "Justice", as someone who hates those who are dishonorable. Knowing that the Shard's Intent is not simply hate but rather Passion, however, and simply interpreted in a bad way because of who is holding it, it may not be as destructive as it looks to us. I would argue that someone like Dalinar, who is pretty strong-willed (let's be real...) and also holding Honor and Cultivation would be able to interpret Passion in a good way.

EDIT: From the First Letter, on Rayse: "Rayse, on the other hand, was among the most loathsome, crafty, and dangerous indivisuals I had ever met."

I can't argue against the idea that Odium might be just all emotions equally but Rayse focuses on hatred, though I think after such a long time Rayse's original personality would exist less and less according to WoB?

I actually find the combination of Honor and Odium to be scary. In this book the Stormfather mentions, I think a couple of times, that Honor was more about bonds than what is right and wrong especially near the end. I personally think that Honor's focus on morality came more from Tanavast than from the shard, just like you posit that the dominance of hatred comes from Rayse, not the shard. We also see this in the contradictory oaths different KR orders swear. It would be pretty frightening for humans to break an oath in a world governed by Odium+Honor shard.

53 minutes ago, Ryshadium said:

I don’t post here often, but read regularly, and enjoy all the amazing insights regular posters have.

Is Dalinar’s quest to “unite them” possibly about uniting the three Shards on Roshar? Or was it about uniting the Three Realms?

A mission to unite the Shards would be rather interesting to follow...

 

I honestly don't think so. The final shard would still be unbalanced and hateful. In this book we learn Honor is more about bonds than moral code, and Cultivation is pruning and growth through experience. You would need a shard more directly opposed to Odium, something like Peace, Love, Calmness, or even Logic. So combining all three would not temper Odium like (Mistborn Spoilers): 

In fact, I think that would make Odium's threat to the Cosmere worse as the shard would be so powerful.

1. Aimian sighting of that cremling Kaladin flicks with his finger in Kholinar. They were just having important discussions too.

2. I also concur with others that there is no way that is the sole reason for the Recreance. We have been told on several occasions, by heralds even, that without Honor to regulate the surges they are extremely dangerous. I think this is world ending levels of danger and we don't know the full story on that. Our main characters basically shrug off the revelation of the long-ago guilt of humanity, and I think that is a normal reaction. So my theory is that you had a combination of 1) revelation humanity is not historically the good guys, 2) revelation that your existence does in fact endanger Existence, and 3) Honor, according to the Stormfather, was in the process of being splintered and was raving and adding to the Radiants confusion.

3. The name of Odium definitely does not encompass all he is. He seems to be all emotion but with a particular focus on hatred. Also the feeding or absorbing of emotion, is that just how he entices people are is that inherent to his shard?

4. Love the spren in Shadesmar. So bizarre. Can you imagine a movie made of this book?

So if Kindle delivers at midnight eastern time, that means I get my book at 10PM tonight because I live in mountain time! Awesome. No sleep tonight.

1 hour ago, Steeldancer said:

How the heck did the Bondsmiths discussed in that one epigraph DO THIS??? An entire Species, their Spiritweb changed? Thats... such a demonstration of power. How did they even get the investiture to do that????

No idea but we do have one other piece of evidence of a similar magnitude of power, the Shattered Plains themselves.

A dark and plausible theory. I for one hope this does not come to pass. Brandon has done enough torturing of his protagonists already! I hope it is simply that he still had some stormlight in him when Navani said her name and thus he temporarily or permanently healed his Connection to his old wife.

2 minutes ago, Stark said:

 

Much better than one of the Unmade doing it.  The Unmade are spren.  They have no physical form unless bound.  They may be influencing the murders, but they are physically incapable of doing the deed themselves.  People screaming 'The Unmade did it' need to flesh out that theory a lot more before I am willing to buy into it.

 

Well, in one of Dalinar's visions a voidspren inhabits rock, rips it from the ground, and animates it. So some spren at least can directly interact with the physical realm without a bond.

Crazy theory time. The secret that unmade the Radiants is what the Bondsmith's did to the parshmen, tearing up their souls. Now, how this unmade the Radiants is that they were unwilling to undo it because they thought it did in fact prevent future desolations. This violates most orders oaths in someway. Though as to why it would be a problem for Lightweavers I have no idea. No way Windrunners could reconcile it with the oaths that we know.

6 hours ago, Dragos said:

 

I'm the only one who does not like Adolin's attitude in this chapters?

What I mean is that he just  killed  a Highprince a few days ago and now he is having a date with his girlfrend without any worries. He makes jokes, laughs, makes promises for the future, he even brings his girlfriend notes to help him catch "the murderer". To take responsibility for what he did not even crosses his mind.

 We had enough chapters with Adolin in them, and we did not see any moment when he was worried about the effects of the crime on those around him : his father, his brother, his girlfriend who barely became radiant, his cousin, the king, all in very instable situations right now, all in a lot of trouble if his murder is discovered. 

Sadeas was a evil person, he deserves to die, we as readers know that, because we have "a god-like perspective"- we know a lot of the thinghs he did, but pople in that world dont (they probably suspect some things, they've heard rumors or they can use their brains to understand what's going on- but there's no proof). That murder, if discovered, will be seen as the way Dalinar has escaped his greatest rival, killing him "in a dark alley" without being seen by anyone, while preaching to other "unity" and respect for "the codes" (.will destroy what dalinar is trying to accomplish).

Adolin does not understand that? He does not care? I was expecting to see Adolin full of worries, depressed, trying to find a solution, a way to fix things- maybe recognizing the crime and facing the consequences, but but there's no sign of it. Instead he laughs and makes jokes with his girlfriend. And no, it is not his way to deal with what he did, is just normal Adolin.

It seems very wrong to me

 

This is my first post Sory for my English.

Sadeas deserved to die. Even without the readers knowledge, it is common knowledge in the Kholin camp that Sadeas backstabbed them and tried to destroy an entire army of allies, led by people who were his former friends, just so he could accumulate power for himself. Also, highprinces are more like kings bowing to a high king. They are above almost any law, and it seems like though Elhokar may have some power to punish a highprince this power has never been used and everyone is fearful that if the king exerts too much power Alethkar will fracture again.

On top of that, Adolin is used to dealing out death. He is a shardbearer who has killed hundreds of Parshendi and at least tens if not hundreds of humans. And what he does is a slaughter, not a fight between equal opponents. He has had years to get used to killing people. Personally, I think this is why he focuses on dueling, at least there it is between two semi-equal opponents. I think it is perfectly in character to not worry about the murder from that angle.

Finally, Adolin has been trained to be a highprince from birth, in essence a king. He knows how to put on an act and hide his true feelings. The people who know him best do say he is a bad liar, but that is a limited group of people and they catch some things but not all.

I am personally glad that Adolin is introspective in that scene with the ryshadium, but is continuing on with his normal duties and interactions.

I am in the camp of unintentional bad guy. I have espoused the theory several times that his boon was both great intelligence and great empathy and his bane was that they do not occur at the same time. My main evidence of this is that we know that intelligent Mr. T would have ordered that all stupid people not breed, and he was stopped because his people would have revolted. So intelligence must be tempered with other attributes like empathy to be truly successful. (On a side note, selective breeding is exactly what we have done in the real world to create different dog breeds and cow breeds, superior strains of crops, etc. It is a big part of cultivation...)

Vague Mistborn original trilogy ending spoiler follows.

.

5 hours ago, Calderis said:

The intent of Honor is about codes, and bonds and keeping your word. It about maintaining decisions you've made in the past.

Cultivation on the other hand, is all about pre-planning. Laying out a goal and working towards that by manipulating the environment and events to achieve that goal.

I don't see Odium, a Shard who's intent is literally acting on and inspiring hatred, being better at foresight than Cultivation. I just don't. 

I don't see that there is evidence that the intent of the shard has anything to do with the strength of various powers. Not to go into specific spoilers, but lots of powers associated with different shardworlds share seemingly no connection to the intent of the shard on that world. White Sands seems like a good starting point. I personally believe that you can't ignore the fact that these shards are held by sentients of various affinities and abilities, and thus they will naturally have their strengths and weaknesses. Just like I am good at engineering but terrible at making music. Give me a guitar but it doesn't mean I can play Stairway to Heaven.

19 minutes ago, FeatherWriter said:

That chapter is Shallan's POV and I don't think that's insignificant in terms of the way Renarin is portrayed in it. To pull a quote from a good friend of mine regarding Renarin's so-called "creepiness" in this chapter: "Renarin is socially awkward in a way that makes him hard to read, Shallan is defensive and deeply traumatized and paranoid."

(I'm trying to be good but I gotta defend my fave, y'all. I gotta. He's my boy.)

Something I am coming to appreciate more and more in SA is that we have a bunch of unreliable narrators. A lot of authors have the narrators exposition inevitably be true especially when it comes to impressions of people, but that is not the case here. Kaladin is particularly unreliable, but all the protagonists' viewpoints are affected by their biases.