Egomere

Hello everyone! I'm BACK! well it's been a few years since lurking and posting last but I got my email saying my copy is has been shipped so I figured I'd head on over and get hyped!

damnation.... when did this topic get unlocked? I haven't been checking it because I thought it was clamped - now I have about 20 pages to read to catch up... good job I only have a few hours of work the next day or two.

When you actually start to swear using Cosmere swears... in real life... and when you start making up Nalthis colour swears....

by the rusting storms I go way for a day and come back to 5 more pages. I'm not even going to try and reply to everyone far too much. but @AubreyWrites I think tumbleweed sounds would have been better so FTFY. And yes the having to wait three years to actually find out if the storyarc is completed or not is going to torment me. I think that's one of the biggest issues - we got teased and foreshadowed about the relationship and Shallan's character growth and development only to see it fizzle into what feels like BS penchant for arranged marriages are great regardless... I will say again - it's not that Shallan ends up with Adolin - I'll admit I find his character just too bland (great hair, smile, everyone loves him and never seems to have to deal with consequences of his actions; Sadeas anyone?) rather than with Kaladin, it's just how the choice was made just felt far too rushed, and kind of trite, with some potentially great scenes being ignored completely. (Helaran, flight to oathgate etc...) Which I feel wont ever be addressed now because if Book 4 does have a year time sink then they will never come up (because if they were they would have already happened Now. And now Shallan's character feels so 'gah' in how she regressed - and I do think a bit of time with Kaladin to work through her brothers death and more 'pure' Shallan scholar (on the boat talking about the spren) could have helped her come to terms and make a proper accurate choice (tbh I think she still may have picked Adolin) but it would have been at least a choice I could have deemed healthy rather than this terrible, looks like she's going to kill Pattern and shatter herself choice. Then to have wait 3 years to find out whether that was the genuine (unsatisfying end) or just BS leading into some super mega awesome Shallan healing... (but hopefully self-healing not Adolin healing hands....) just 'gah' again. oh and rust, storms and I guess I should volunteer to be galley cook / bosun or something on the SS Shallan (far from land)...

Hard to decide who my fav. character actually is - I like so many and for different reasons Kaladin because he's the man. (But he's only Stormblessed with Syl - without Syl he's interesting but meh.) Lift just because... Jasnah has definately grown on me. Dalinar's moment on Unity was awesome. Most Tragic character moment was definately Elhokar holding his son trying to state the first Ideal only to be roflstomped by Moash... (Storms I now hate that rusting bastard). Venli looks to be becoming an interesting character and gives me hope for her book (complete with Eshonai flashbacks).

Well whoever said nice guys finish last... but so far Adolin hasn't really seemed to have any character growth - we have discovered MORE of his character, movtivations and the ilk so his character has been developed - but nothing that has happened to actually progress his character beyond what he already has been. He's like the most stable, nicest person most charmy charming person ever written that just wanders through life getting everything he wants, not to mention the fact that the murder he committed gets disregarded, everyone seems to love him and nothing seems to faze him (although that maybe due to his slower thought process - by the time he realises it should have he's already killed / befriended or ignored it). Would it be cruel to want him to get sent to Braize (although he'd probably still come back with perfect hair) just to see if he finally progresses from Mr Nicest Guy to Mr Nicest Guy with some issues...

You mean shardblades which cut right through flesh and blood and stone can be defeated by a roll of aluminum foil... hmmm.... I've never been quite certain on what the bladeguards actually are tbh... maybe some really malleable form of acrylic (or a Roshar equivilent)....

He spiked cookies onto them? or cookies that were baked into spikes... which he then spiked them with... or did the cookies contain bloodied metal fragments which passed into system whilst being eaten? ....

Does Shallan know Wit as Hoid or just Wit? I still think it was a subconcious conversation between Shallan and herself as 'Wit' but I'm open to the idea that it was Odium using a voice she new subconsiously to project. And as someone mentioned about Unmade being reminiscent of hemalurgical constructs - it could be - definately very skeptical - but I can understand the comparison; Like Ruin could only communicate with a spiked person - and then only influence depending on how severally spiked - Odium could be aware of his unmade at all times and communicate but only to a certain degree (depending on the 'spikeage') - he had alot more control over Neraghoul as the thrill (and steel inquisitor control for ruin) but maybe Sja-anat is more like Ruin and Vin (heavy influence whilst wearing the earing) but little at others time (when Odium's not focusing on her - and even then she could still hide things from him... Can understand the idea just not sure how much I want to buy into it with the tiny amount of info we know about the unmade and Odius Odium.

Hatred can come in many forms and for many reasons. (Cold calculating hatred, hatred inflammed by passion blah blah) And on to this it is quite possible that because Rayse was never a nice person BEFORE he picked the shard up and so the two working together (Rayse as Shardholder to God's Divine Hatred) might mean that the 'personality' control of the two is more aligned than we have seen before - as well as being stronger - as in he has retained alot of 'human' characteristics. In the balance. Similar possibly to Harmony is still Sazed (but due to the shards being mirrors to each other Ruin vs Preservation he doesn't have the power to act for one - only balanced. Rayse as Hatred has no conflicting shard to counterbalance him (if it could because Rayse still wants power - hence why he splintered shards rather than pick them up like Sazed) we have only really seen weakened and splintered shards so far elsewhere - just remants of power so we have no real idea what a Single Shardholder is like.

Then now for my second trick........... moving on whilst I prepare said trick. Yes yes yes to the top line. It also conviniently ignores the attraction Shallan had to Kaladin before Veil could even be counted as a genuine seperate personality - In WoR Veil is very much just a mask / personna Shallan wears in order to be able to move free and interact with the Ghostbloods. It's not really until the end of WoR and throughout OB that she starts becoming a... well 'fully formed and 'functional' personality. But as to the 'fall in line' I think it was definately in the 30 seconds between Veil and Radiant eyeing up Kaladin at the end of the battle and kissing Adolin - proably with some off page occurance in the week before the marriage. When else could it have been - it's not like as you mentioned she was persuading Veil to accept Adolin beforehand. Haven't got the page hand to quote - but someone's probably already mentioned it so *shrug* so: But Damnation she does repress quickly - although I think it's definately going to come back and sucker punch her sometime because if anyone can recall when the three of them are hanging out one night Kaladin gets confused by Shallan's actions - whilst she's chatting to Adolin in Shallan personna it's stated that she gives Kaladin some really leery looks at the same time (explained by Veil seeping through). So despite everything during the battle (which really did solidify the three personalities) I'm really not sure how much control 'Shallan' actually has over them - I really don't see them behaving like might have done with whichever one was needed at the time - as we've seen 'seepage' of one into another (or maybe not seepage but 'alignment') happen both quickly and unregarded. And it's now this interactions that's either going to completely Break Shallan as a functional human and knight Radiant - or quite possibly as others have posited that result in Pattern's near spren death to mirror Kaladin's treatment of Syl. The problem is that whilst Kaladin was able to fix himself (even at that stage), if Shallan hasn't come to terms with her three personalities Pattern by the time of Pattern's ... erm what should we even call it when a spren is almost killed by a radiant backtracking?... well anyway whatever it is... he's definately going to be dead sooner rather than later because of Shallan dysfunction and failure to recognise / admit hard truths about Who She Really is and Who she wants to be. probably going to edit this as that seems very rambly to me but *shrug*

Yaep. And How we were forced to pick them apart and anaylse them - I always felt at that age that too much indepth analyse of either prose or poetry ended up taking away from the intrinsic value of reading something that you interpreted and related to in some personnal manner as well... not disrepectful but taking away the beauty and emotional feels of the work. - I mean too much analyse about what x meant exactly by y relating to political pressure in the 1800's or whatever just felt like why the hell can;t someone read it and just enjoy it... and now look at me...

True but I just think that if Odium could 'jump' into Unmade like that to hold converstions with people 'connected' to them why can't he do it with Sja-anat to tell she's lying about what she did with the Oathgate trap and sending them to Shadesmar - as well as how she wants to be free rather than work for him anymore. I mean that is if we accept what she says on face value and not part of yet another ploy of the void. edit : Although it could be due to the 'personalities' of each unmade. Like Neragoul and some of the other Unmade seem rather... simple / focussed and Sja-anat might have some more autonomy... Hmmm will think some more.

This thread just get better and better. I'm just gonna let @SLNC @FuzzyWordsmith @Harbour and @PhineasGage carry on the good work. And the thought that it was Odium in the Ashertham mindmeld is horrifying. Hadn't thought of it like that before... I'm not entirely sure I agree with it - I accept it could be a possibility but I feel it was more of a weird Memory conversation Shallan had with Wit rather than a genuine conversation happening at that time with telepathy. (has there been any evidence of telepathy like that before? If yes I really need to re-read the entire series rather than just OB again... Yaep it was - unfortunately it felt like there was way to many things that happened off scene after the Thay. City battle. It's also one of reasons I dislike 'time-skips' with series - because it feels like too much would have happened in the missed time that we don't learn about (or alternatively in this case it could be static white noise where nothing interesting happens - so like whats the point of the skip in the first place?) And yet she seems to feel that she took his advice to heart at the time of their conversation in Khor. Only to turn around and throw it all away for a complete lack of personnal growth - which is ofc what everyone's upset about. Kinda looking forward to the trainwreck I suspect she's going to become later on in a horribly perverse fashion.

This thread has really gone places and I have great thanks and respect for people posting here because there have been some fantastic posts that have put into wordds how I feel only in terms alot lot better than I could have expressed myself. Unfortunately I think everything really boils down to us having to wait three years for book 4 to see if anything is waiting for us down the line. But due to the wonderful carthartic coping method of getting involved in the thread I don't feel half as bad about OB now as I did when first finishing it so Yey! I will second that request because damnation if it's 3 years per SA book by the time the last one is released I'm going to be Over 50 which is damnation scary...