Rainier

When it comes to determining the sex of non-human creatures, it's not always easy, but there are known examples that we can use for comparison. The one that leaps to mind is sexing chicks, which, despite the name, is the process of separating the males from the females among newly hatched chicks. It's not quite the same, since you're actually staring at their genitals to make the determination, but it's not as simple or easy as you might think. What I'm actually getting at is the common reports of intuition being critical to the process. You could be taught to tell the difference, but it was by immediate reinforcement, not articulating the differences aloud. I doubt Brandon is thinking of chicken sexing when he's considering how humans interact with singers, but he's clearly made many distinctions. Maybe some humans could tell the sex of parshmen at a glance, intuitively, but the skill is underdeveloped. The Fused, on the other hand, are not like either the parshmen or Parshendi. They're the same body, hollowed out of the person who inhabited it, filled back up with an immortal malevolent spirit. The voidlight/stormlight process changes the physical form, so it stands to reason that the body conforms to the mind when it reincarnates and bestows whatever evident power comes with. It's closer to the upload consciousness sci-fi seen in Altered Carbon (and many more), except you need to kill someone and haunt their corpse, instead of growing one in a vat for yourself.

No, me neither, and I hope it stays that way. I agree with you that it currently seems more applicable to Shallan than to Kaladin. If Kaladin were written like Fitz, I don't think we'd be having this conversation. I love Sanderson, but his characters have never been among his strengths. Don't get me wrong. I love Kaladin. He is easily my favorite character in these books, and it was his story that made me fall in love with the series. I have no problems with him having depression. His near-suicide where Syl brings him the poison leaf to cheer him up was a fantastic scene and made him relatable to me while still carrying the emotional weight it needed. But he was never just depressed, and his depression was never the whole or even the most important part of his character. But that scene where he's about to give up hope isn't there to make a point about depression, it's there to serve his character. It needs to be there so when he does have hope, when he's offered the chance to escape, we're rooting for him to take it, which is what we need to be doing so when he goes back for Dalinar on the Tower we feel that moment with the appropriate impact. What gets me annoyed is the difference between, here's Kaladin, our main character, he's a former soldier now slave battling his depression, to, here's Kaladin, our Main Character With Clinical Depression. There's a flanderization that's happening as this single aspect of his character is reinforced. If I were reading this as a complete book, I'd spend a few minutes reading chapter 10, then a few minutes on 11, then a few minutes on 12, and so on. Instead, a whole week spent on a single chapter makes you focus on only those things that happen in that chapter, and makes it harder to string the narrative segments into a coherent whole. So yes, in chapter 10, it feels like we're getting Kaladin, our Main Character With Depression, because you can't make every scene serve every purpose. This scene is serving one purpose. There are other scenes which serve other aspects of his character, but right now, and for the last four days, we can't move on from Kaladin Is Depressed because there's not yet more story to move on to. Being forced to wait has its advantages and disadvantages.

This is probably also why it gets so tedious. I don't care what Brandon has to say about depression. I care about fantastical power armor and giant magical swords and demi-gods fighting other demi-gods. It's nice that he's doing something a little more realistic instead of succumbing to seterotypes, but it has become the cart before the horse. I care about Kaladin's depression because he's a mythical Knight Radiant. I don't care about the Knight Radiants because I love Kal and identify with his depression. It's a matter of whether this aspect is serving the greater story, or if the story is serving this narrow aspect. The latter is the source of the complaints you're hearing, that the story itself is being hijacked by the DSM, instead of the DSM being used to flesh out the story.

This is exactly what we're saying. Brush up on the Ten Essences, and notice that Protecting and Leading are associated with Jezrien. I would expect the second and third oaths of each order to be based on one of these two attributes, and the fourth and fifth oaths to be based on the other. So I expect Dalinar's future oaths to be more about guiding, since his first two were more about piety (I will unite is basically a prayer). You also see this in the Skybreakers. Their second and third oaths are about Justice, but their fourth and fifth are about Confidence (pick some cause to pledge yourself to, confident in your application of Justice). Since we've seen Edgedancer oaths, we can compare them, too. This first few are about Love, but they haven't yet been about Healing. I would expect Lift will have to say the words about healing others, in addition to not forgetting them. And so on. When we're looking for patterns, let's use all the patterns we already have. I've been beating this drum, too. I don't think the fourth or fifth oaths are going to be about protecting at all, since two and three have that aspect covered. The other divine attribute of the Windrunners, besides protecting, is Leading, and I expect Kaladin to have to swear oaths that make him a leader more than a bodyguard. If he swears two more oaths about different ways to protect people, I'll be very disappointed. "I will let others die in my place."

I'll have three orange whips. *Insert Kaladin jamming out on Hoid's flute while dancing*

Makes sense, thank you. That reemphasizes that Ghostbloods must mean something, and we still don't really know what.

One thing you're forgetting: the Knights did not exist when the Oathpact was created. It was through the Desolations that humans eventually discovered that they could mimic what the Heralds were doing, and everything about the Knights is done in imitation of the Heralds. We get Nale explaining this, how he's the only Herald who is also a Knight Radiant of his order. We also get Taln calling Radiants Ishar's Knights. So I suppose what you're arguing is that this was the case for nine of the orders, but not for Bondsmiths. That Bondsmiths were somehow innate or inherent to Honor, which is what allowed for the Oathpact in the first place. Something like Honor > Innate/Inherent Bondsmith (Tanavast) > Heralds > Knights would do it.

So, somewhat like the Ire from Sel, a group of Invested individuals, living the Cognitive realm and doing who knows what? I could see it, yes. We know that humans came from Ashyn, and destroyed it. I doubt that was through what I would call conventional space travel (rocket goes boom), but rather through surges, which means through Shadesmar. My question, why Ghostbloods? Ire doesn't mean anything that I know of, and the Set is a name designed to be vague, but Seventeenth Shard makes sense (we are equal to the other 16 shards, but extra). Sons of Honor makes sense (restore Honor/Honor's children, return the Oathpact/Heralds). What the heck do ghosts, or blood, have to do with anything? If we're looking for meaning in their symbolism, we should at least question what they call themselves, too.

An officer must be ready to give orders that cause losses, but accepting losses isn't leadership? What kind of sense does that make? Kaladin needs to be OK with sending men to their deaths. He is not OK with sending men to their deaths, and carries each death with him, weighing him down. He needs to learn that his impulse to protect is preventing him from realizing his potential to lead. You're supposed to want to protect people, but you have to learn to let them risk their lives, and die, because as the leader you need to value the goals of the organization over the lives of any individual member. Whether it's a desolation or not, the transition from bodyguard to general is not an easy one, but that's the path we're going with Kaladin. That;s what the gemstone archive was hinting at, that leaders are not about protecting everyone, they're about making necessary sacrifices to achieve the goals you're striving for.

To be fair, we're talking about a book where Intent is very very important, and ideas can become sentient. If she believes something, especially given her powers to alter reality and create illusions, then she could possibly make it real just by the belief. I think this is shown directly when she confronts Re-sephir. She specifically says (internally) that she hates the part of her that's witty and diverting (mask-Shallan), and a different part of her came forth at that time. Maybe it's this Formless, but it sure wasn't Radiant or Shallan, so either Formless, Veil, or fifth personality (god no...). This is the simplest statement of why she needs to reconcile all three at once that I've seen. She can't do the things she needs to while split into parts, because she needs aspects of all three at the same time to do so. Nicely put. That seems to be the most parsimonious explanation, agreed.

I've been mulling this part over, myself. It seems like yes, she wouldn't be as bad if she was just a regular person. Her lightweaving can exacerbate her delusions by making them more real than they actually are. Something like, the reason she's a fake is because she believes she is a fake, and has therefore made herself into a fake. I haven't really tied it all together, or tied it to anything else, but the idea that she brought this on herself because of unintended consequences of her powers is a compelling one, to me.

Or, to put it another way, she smiles anyway. Specifically, she created Shallan a year and a half before the events of WoR, and narratively, she creates Shallan immediately after she shows the vision of the broken child. The next chapter, the flashback, starts with "Shallan became the perfect daughter." Brandon comes out and tells us that she's fake, that Shallan was created to serve a purpose, just like Veil and Radiant. If you re-read the flashbacks in WoR, she definitely changed her personality. That was the whole point, wasn't it? She had to become someone else to protect herself, her brothers, and her stepmother. She became a perfect daughter. The person she became still answered to Shallan, but that doesn't mean she didn't change. She changed greatly, which is exactly what the flashback chapters are meant to show us. This was the first alter, and Brandon showed us the very moment she was created. Yes, you're right here, you're just not starting far enough back. She started this after her mother died, and her father started to go off the rails. She partitioned her 'perfect daughter' aspect into a persona, named Shallan, which is most of what we see throughout WoK. It takes her as far as it can, which is when she creates Veil, which, again, takes her as far as it can, before she needs Radiant. All three partitions were created when the existing person was insufficient for the tasks at hand, first when she killed her mother, next when she was separated from Jasnah and completely alone, and finally when she was expected to lead others and publicly embody the Knights Radiant.

That's still protecting, not leading. Try, "I will let others die in my place." That jives with the epigraph where the Windrunner was wondering, isn't he supposed to protect people. Seeing the other oaths, there's a clause I'm missing, but I'm guessing the fourth oath is going to have to do with letting people die. For this, he needs to learn from his father. Lirin knows the value in accepting and moving on from death, as aptly demonstrated by Roshone Younger. I see lots of theories about Lirin but I think his next role is to help Kaladin say the fourth oath, by allowing him to accept the deaths of others.

You can't think about what will happen to Shallan without also considering what will happen to Pattern. If Shallan has a regression in her mental health, that would likely be reflected in Pattern, since Shallan's particular troubles are the lies she tells herself, and the lies she lives. Those lies will kill Pattern, as for Cryptics it is akin to breaking oaths. Similarly, while Shallan might keep her spare personae around for posterity or comfort, I think she's going to have to admit that they aren't real and never were, that all of the things she push away were done by or happened to her, and only her. That's the truth she's building towards, and it's the truth she's currently shying away from. Not much more than a gut feeling, but given what we saw from Kaladin and Syl in WoR, and the epigraph about some Lightweavers never reaching the level of self-awareness required to progress through all five levels. That would make me think that Pattern is fine, even if Shallan never fixes anything, but there's a difference between speaking an oath and going back on it, and never speaking the oath in the first place. Similarly, because Shallan has progressed and regressed, if she can't get to the same level again, Pattern will suffer. There can't just be one example of a human failing to live up to their end of the bond. There are simply too many spren, and too many Radiants, for this theme to show up once and only once, with only one bonded pair. I expect Shallan and Pattern to be the second pair to suffer some deterioration of their bond.

I'm starting to think it was an unmitigated mistake to have Kelsier clinging on. No, Thaidakar is not Kelsier. He can be his own mysterious figure without shoehorning him into whichever other books we want. If he is someone we know from elsewhere, my bet is going to be Yesteel. There are a couple of reasons why I expect to hear from Yesteel again in Stormlight, but no particular reason why he would be Thaidakar, or a Ghostblood. However, we know Vasher and Vivenna are both on Roshar. We don't know how much time has passed since the Pahn Kahl rebellion, but we do know that Yesteel opposes Vasher, we know Vivenna is hunting Vasher and has an Awakened blade (Mk.II). We know Yesteel knows how to Awaken metal. I think Vivenna sought out and learned form Yesteel when Vasher refused to teach her, which is how she created her own blade. Once again, absolutely no reason to think Yesteel is Thaidakar, but we know at least two other people form Naltis are on Roshar, and they're the two people who might have some beef with him, so it's at least plausible.

Or, hear me out here, skip those chapters. Skim, at best. You'll miss some foreshadowing, but so be it. Of course he considers them separate people, they treat him as if they were three separate people. For his purposes, they are separate. It's easier than wondering why your wife goes cold and stiffens up from time to time. It still probably hurts, but at least you can salve it by participating in the lie that it's not actually your wife. Also, my title was, for a moment, Torturer of Heralds, with 666 reputation. Alas, it seems to have gone just as quickly as it appeared. One person, actually. There's just one person bonded to Pattern, one person who can summon a shardblade, one person who has sworn the oaths and spoken the truths. And there's one person who Adolin married, who sometimes thinks she's someone else.

I'm just here to gloat. Navani, creator of great suffering? Of course, I called it based on the flavor text on Amazon! She's creating weapons of war using spren, and they don't like it. Who sent the message? I'm thinking someone in Silverlight, possibly one of the spren themselves. If not them, then I'd guess Malata, who besides being attached to the Diagram hasn't revealed her loyalties. Also, who would want to distrust the Honorspren? Who are their rivals? I know the cryptics are set up as their opposite, but I'm not certain that makes sense for the actions we're seeing now. As for the other.... I've been saying this since WoR, so it's nice to get some confirmation in black and white.

Which is doubly dumb because the Honorblade isn't bonded to the man's hand, it's bonded to his soul! That's why it dropped when Kaladin killed Szeth, but shouldn't have dropped when Szeth got his arm chopped off (spiritually). Argh! As for Kaladin's oaths, I don't think oath 4 or 5 are going to have more to do with protecting, because that's only one of the two divine attributes for the Windrunners. There's only four oaths, and he hasn't sworn anything about leading, just protecting. I expect 4+5 to have to do with accepting leadership, which means letting other people put themselves in danger on your behalf. I don't expect four oaths all in a row on how to protect people, and I expect all other Radiant oaths to balance between their two Divine Attributes.

In my book, he kills him dead with a shardblade, and burns his eyes out. I haven't forgiven Brandon for the awkward ret-con, and since I've only ever read or owned an edition of the book in which Kaladin kills Szeth with Syl, I consider that canon. Unfortunately, I when the leatherbound WoR comes out, I suspect they'll use the ret-con, not the original, which is a mess just waiting to happen. Yeah, I'm picking up those signals as well, first from the fight with Sigzil, then when Renarin has to save him from Moash/Odium/depression. "I can't protect others without being protected myself" sounds awkward, but is closer to the point. The only problem is, this doesn't really apply to his circumstance in OB when he fails to say the words. There's nobody there to protect him. Adolin and Shallan are the ones he needs to protect, as well as Dalinar in another realm, but there's no indication that this oath would fit in that circumstance.

She's going to enslave spren for fabrials of war, and the Radiant-spren aren't going to like it. That's my take on it, at least. Maybe she'll even find a way to trap the Radiant-spren into a fabrial, which would really set them off.

I'm with you on this one. I don't read that as egging him on to suicide. I read it as encouraging him to join with Odium. Shallan has to cope with her lowest point, and also somehow avoid doing to Pattern what Kaladin did to Syl. My favorite abstract mathematical concept is at high risk for as long as she keeps pretending she's three people. It seemed...too easy. "Pattern, find a pattern." "OK, found one." "Great! We're done here, mystery solved, good work everyone!"

One of these is not like the others. Lopen and Gaz bonded spren, Rysn did not. I would say that explains as much as it needs to.

Except within the work we absolutely do have the capability to grow one back. This is fantasy. Let it be fantastical. Maybe not in the real world, but we're not talking about the real world, are we? We're talking about fiction. This is a bunch of nonsense. You can try to simply define away everything you don't like, but that doesn't change the reality around you. Most people are normal, some people are not. Most people are not normal in some way, but that doesn't make them less normal in other ways. The people who are abnormal in significant ways will continue to be abnormal in significant ways even when you put them next to others who are abnormal in less significant ways. Of course not, because you oppose the very idea of normality as some kind of postmodern deconstruction of...what exactly? What is the big deal with saying this is normal, that is not, when it's so obvious that one person per brain is normal, and three people per brain is not? Yes, she's been so thoroughly plot-armored that any tension from her is gone. Her DID cannot meaningfully interact with the story being told and simultaneously be an accurate and respectful portrayal. One purpose is going to be sacrificed to serve the other, and like you said, I'm afraid we're going to end up with a fantasy DSM instead of a fantasy story.

Go ahead and finish your thought, because you've left it half-formed. Why is my disagreement the reason why it needs to happen? [removed by moderator] Most of us are born with two legs. Some small few are not. Some others lose all or parts of one or both. Maybe with prosthetics the legless can achieve mobility, but there's still a difference. Two legs is normal, less than two legs is not. No matter how well you get around, in the eyes of the majority you'll still have less than two legs, and thus not normal. I want Shallan to be cured. Actually cured, as in no more multiple personalities, no more confusion and forgetfulness and black-outs. The same way Lopen regrew his arm, or Renarin healed his vision, I want to see Shallan cured of her ailment so she can live less crippled by it. I want to see her shed her handicap, the same way I want Kaladin to shed his depression and Dalinar to shed his alcoholism. Shallan's multiple personalities should serve the story, and not the other way around. For this upcoming book, it means leading her in a downward spiral as she loses control.

Ialai - i a L a i The capitalized I (i) throws me, too. I pronounce her name as ee-All-ee (ee-Yall-ee, maybe). I've also pronounced it Eye-a-lie. Not sure what the proper way should be, as I read the books, not listen to them.