dionysus

To add to the discussion, I bet some of the orders were not even primarily martial though they would have a martial role when needed. Like Edgedancers would be focused on charity to the poor and forgotten. Others would be educators and researchers, artists, whatever lines up well with their primary and secondary attributes.

Ok, don't have a book with me but I specifically remember Kaladin being outclassed in the storm fight. He then thinks he should just surrender to his instincts and stop overthinking the fight and he gets significantly better at maneuvering with the gravity surge and he also starts having Syl morph more instead of staying in one shape. So my theory behind this is that since he is in a symbiotic relationship with Syl, he is tapping into her innate knowledge of flying and the surges as well as her past history with a Radiant.

It really explains his fixation on obedience. He knew the hatred and disobedience from others was unjustified, and he got frustrated that even when he was acting with the best intentions all the fruits of his labors would be spoiled by this taint. Can you imagine having every endeavor end up sabotaged because people believed you did something you didn't actually do.

Also in the final battle Kaladin and Szeth have ridiculously fast healing rates. They are healing faster than a storm that is tossing around plateaus like frisbees can hurt them. Kaladin's healing may even be getting better as he advances. I don't remember him being able to heal like that in WoK. If Jasnah is far along I believe stormlight easily explains her survival. I wouldn't be surprised if the only way to kill Kaladin right now is to cut off his head.

To add to the discussion of whether Nalan is really pursuing justice, it must be pointed out that almost every concept of justice acknowledges the role of intent. In the case of causing a death, most criminal justice system broadly distinguishe between accidents, negligent accidents, self-defense, passion driver murder, and pre-meditated murder. For stuff like unforeseen accidents, there is no punishment. Negligent accidents, there are small punishments, and so on. If Lift actually is bringing about a desolation by surgebinding, a just system would not meet out her punishment as the same as for one who intended to bring about a desolation.

His slavery is part of his past and his identity. Even if he comes to complete peace about his past, I do not think they will heal. For them to heal I would think he would have to do something unhealthy, like repress his past or deny the parts of his personality influenced by those events.

Here is the link to the recording. http://soundcloud.com/dionysus23/brandon-sanderson-incubator

Well I was there as well and didn't get any good answers. I did get a nice RAFO sticker though. I used up most of my time chatting about epic fantasy in general so I only got one question in. How many hidden Herald's in Words of Radiance? Answer: (Paraphrased) RAFO, actually not a RAFO but I am not going to answer because I have never counted and don't want to give you the wrong number. So Peter, Brandon would have answered if he knew so maybe just maybe pretty please you could answer! Also, the person in front of me at the signing told Brandon that Lift was here favorite character. Response: (Paraphrased) I really enjoyed putting Lift in the interludes and she is going to be a big part of later books. You will be happy. I personally think this means she might be a protagonist in the 2nd 5. I have a pretty decent recording of the reading, which was 2 chapters from the world of the disease magic system. I could send to 17th shard if this one hasn't been obtained before. Finally, I listened in to someone else's conversation as I was there alone and I am pretty sure they mentioned 17th shard a couple of times. I almost butted into the conversation but ultimately didn't. So if the guy talking to the couple where the girl was wearing a bridge 4 t-shirt is here, I was sitting nearby.

Because the only other Radiant we have seen make it to the second oath is Dalinar and the Stormfather went out of his way to say don't expect much in the way of help from him. Not saying you are wrong, just that we don't have much evidence from other radiants. Edit. Forgot about Lift, she did receive a power-up I believe to let her use regrowth but nothing like the explosion of light and force Kaladin gets.

Because the only other Radiant we have seen make it to the second oath is Dalinar and the Stormfather went out of his way to say don't expect much in the way of help from him. Not saying you are wrong, just that we don't have much evidence from other radiants.

I feel embarassed I proposed basically the same thing but a few days later cause I didn't see this thread. I wholeheartedly agree. I also posit that Bondsmiths can if they want act as gatekeepers to other's nahel bonds. This would explain why it was considered almost rebellious for there to be too many of them, along with the fact that there are only a few spren with that kind of authority. The evidence of the gatekeeping roll comes from Lift's interlude in that we know that Wyndle was told to bond Lift by a group called the Ring. So Nahel bonding can be somewhat influenced at a minimum by outside forces.

I admit to a bit of wishful thinking here, but I do not think this is the beginning of a journey towards Adolin going bad. We have been heavily exposed to Honor's morality system in both Dalinar and Kaladin's viewpoints, but that is just the morality system of their orders and Honor. Other orders and other "gods" have different versions of morality. We are starting to see that through Shallan. I personally hope that Adolin represents a middle road of the absolutes represented by Kaladin and Dalinar on one end (Journey before Destination) and people like Amaram and Taravangian on the other extreme (Ends justify any means). 5 books with absolutely no nuance in morality could get tedious. I hope Adolin, Shallan, and Jasnah continue to provide that nuance.

Thinking about it some more there is actually another flaw. The destruction of people of below average intelligence would be a net negative to society. In fact, from a purely economic standpoint, you would have to be almost completely handicapped to offer no benefit to society or a criminal.

So Dalinar bonded the Stormfather. Quite awesome of him. But more importantly is the following quote. "But as for the Bondsmiths, they had members only three, which number was not uncommon for them; nor did they seek to increase this by great bounds....Their spren was understood to be specific, and to persuade them to grow to the magnitude of other orders was seen as seditions. Words of Radiance, Chapter 16, page 14." I propose that a bondsmith must bond with a spren that has authority in the spren world, like the Stormfather's authority over Honorspren. So the limitation to only a few bondsmiths is a result of their only being a few spren that are splinters of that magnitude. So since the Stormfather is already taken, for a new bondsmith to arise he/she would have to bond with someone like the Nightwatcher, or that spren in the Axies interlude. As to why it would be seditious to have many Bondsmiths, I propose that each Bondsmith was related to a specific type of spren: Honorspren, Cultivationspren, or ?Adonalsiumspren". The bondsmith would then have some influence over the formation of bonds, through the authority of their spren, and thus influence on who became a radiant. Syl had to defy the Stormfather after all. To have two Honor Bondsmiths would create division. Evidence of the ability for Spren to be "forced" against their choosing comes from Lift's interlude and how the Ring gave him to Lift.

I'll take a stab at it. I qualified my statement of hubris in talking about his overestimation of what he can personally do. He has been incredibly accurate in understanding hidden truths about the world (Shin have honorblades, surgebinders returning, powerful voidspren, etc.) and in political manipulation. It is not arrogant when it is the truth. But when it comes to his own immediate effect on the world when he takes direct personal action, he seems to suffer from hubris. And the primary evidence of this is the discussion point at hand. He thinks just because he himself can make some speeches, he can overturn human nature. Edit. Alternatively, if he was as smart as when he wrote the Diagram it would not be hubris. But he just doesn't realize how far away from that level of brilliance he is even on his smartest days. That would be hubris.

I saw the same thing as the OP. Lack of empathy by itself does not explain not understanding a basic need of human nature, which is to survive no matter what. I personally feel that it undermines the characterization of Taravangian, but since it exists in the book I will try to explain it in universe. Taravangian has an overwhelming self-confidence and hubris when he is at his highest intelligence, this blinds him to obvious truths about his own limitations. He probably knows that humans will not choose to kill themselves, but his hubris on his own abilities makes him think that he can do anything, even the illogical and impossible. When I say it undermines Taravangian, I mean that it undermines his threat to our protagonists. He has such a obvious flaw it reduces the tension his character should have in the plot. Appeal to his hubris and beat him.

I am thinking maybe: "How many Herald's did we see in WoR?" Or "Would holding Nightblood make Hoid feel nauseous?" I like this suggestion. Or mabe "Do Bondsmiths always bond with the Stormfather?" I am thinking of that chapter heading from Words of Radiance about there only being 3 bondsmiths at the time. Is this a stupid one? Also no guarantees I will even be able to ask a question. I haven't been to a Murder by the Book event before.

When I read about the woman ghostblood who wears a mask I immediately thought she was a herald. I even thought she was Shalash, but I don't think the mistress in the WoK interlude wore a mask.

Most of my favorites have been listed multiple times. But one in particular that hasn't that often is Sadeas and Adolin at the end. I know it doesn't confirm with Journey Before Destination, but if ever there was an ends justify the means moment it was then and Adolin executed it perfectly. Adolin is a very sympathetic and great character in WoR. (In fact I think he got the best character development of anyone except Shallan.) I think his character could be a good way to introduce a little nuance into the black and white morality system created by Honor we got going. So far the books have portrayed everyone who is a journey before destination as purely good, and everyone who has been ends justify the means as the avatar of evil.

I will be at Murder by the Book as well. Ticket number 47 which I think puts me in the first or second signing group Truthless. I am also open to suggestions on what to ask. I was thinking about going with a wildcard and asking him to right any hint he wants in the book when he signs it. I believe this is how a 17th sharder got the hint that Renarin sees a spren.

For me the obvious interpretation is that the quote is a from Taln, but there are other possibilities.

You reminded me of something I forgot, they are held up by their clothes. "When Kaladin dubiously stepped back, the Herdazian remained there, stuck to the stone by his uniform, which bunched up under his armpits." This would definitely not be a gravity effect (unless the gravity only affected the clothes and was ridiculously strong.) So yea pressure it is! But pressure not applied to the person's body like I was picturing but only to the clothes in contact with the wall. By the way as I said above just the force exerted by atmospheric pressure is huge. We just don't notice it because it is balanced by our internal pressure of our bodies and the pressure acts uniformly across all surfaces of our body. But if Kaladin can create vacuums, he could literally level a building in seconds. The roofs of houses are ripped off in tornadoes with very little pressure differention inside vs. outside the house. Roshar is built of stone which is only really strong in compression. Kaladin could put a vacuum on one side of a wall and the natural atmospheric pressure on the other side of the wall would destroy it instantly. If Brandon wants to go there, this would be a ridiculous overpowered ability. People think the dustbringers are going to powerful, if Kaladin can create vacuums then you could just make peoples heads explode as the blood rushes out of their noses, eyes, and ears.

It has lots of implications. If we were to draw a free body diagram of an object held to a vertical wall by air pressure, there would have to be a force from the air pressure on the non-stuck side of the object to force it to push against the vertical wall of sufficient strength that the friction force counteracting gravity is high enough to prevent it from sliding down. This is really hard to talk about without drawings. Since gravity would still be acting on the body, the normal force required to get a high enough friction force to oppose the gravity would have to be in excess of gravity. Friction force = normal force * friction factor and friction factors are normally between .1 and .6. Since friction force is opposing gravitational force in our scenario, and the normal force is the force imparted by air pressure, and using the best case scenario of a friction factor of .6, we can substitute to find Gravitational Force = -(air pressure force) *.6. Solving that for Air pressure force we get Air Pressure Force = -(gravitational force*1.66667) Therefore the people stuck to the walls should have felt the extra compression on their bodies from being pushed on by a force higher than gravity. As described in the book and WoBs ignored, the some of the windrunning surges are much easier explained by simply changing the direction of gravity. But like I said a physicist can pick apart any of these surges and its effects so we just need to suspend disbelief. Also air pressure is extremely strong if we are talking about the ability to make a true vacuum. A 1 ft x 1 ft flat plate can hold up 2000 lbs for example if the other side is in a vacuum.

Air pressure cannot pull. In fact the pulling sensation we feel when having our skins exposed to a vacuum is the internal pressure of our bodies pushing on our skin from the inside. In space, for example, your blood vessels would burst in your eyes and your lungs would collapse because the internal pressure of your body is not balanced by the normal atmospheric pressure outside of your body and in your lungs. A vacuum is in essence the absence of molecules in a gaseous state. Molecules in a gaseous state have kinetic energy, and the impact of those molecules against other surfaces causes pressure. A lack of molecules means there is a lack of energy and the lack of energy cannot exert a force. That being said holding these surges to real world physics simply doesn't work. So just suspend disbelief.

I think the Parshmen can mate, they just aren't driven to it constantly like if they were in mateform. Just like a parshendi in warrior form can still create art, they just aren't good at it.