earthexile

I do think it would interfere with their Surges. It seems noteworthy to me that Unoathed Plate does not bear glyphs like Radiant Plate does, and I think it's specifically because the person and spren do not share a bond. The Radiants we've seen usually have a glyph of their order on their Plate, and Kaladin's has a Bridge Four glyph. The spren they're assembled from have a Connection to the being they're armoring, which is reflected in the form they take. They display the heraldry of their leader, sort of. Unoathed armor spren are just themselves, so this doesn't happen. And since there isn't this Connection, and man and spren have entirely separate Identities, I think their Surges would be blocked. Edit: I had another thought the second I pressed the button. While it would make sense to use whatever tools/allies are available, in most cases you would get a greater overall benefit from arming normals with the Unoathed spren, because even Squires of Radiants have access to supernatural healing. Protecting their bodies is inherently less important than it is for everyone else. If I am planning a big battle, I want as many normal guys in Plate as possible before I start putting it on guys who can grow their legs back. Now if I'm putting together a strike team and I just want a squadron of the most invincible fighters I can outfit, it makes a whole bunch of sense to send Unoathed spren with Radiants. If nothing else they're backup sets of Plate for when the Radiant's spren need a break.

I don't know the system well enough to really say, but I wonder if "I have arrived at this point in the day without being dealt injury" is too general to be useful as a mass-produced battlefield medkit.

What we see the Unoathed spren do is appear as Blades and the helms of Plate. When the Unoathed put on the helm, the rest of the suit appears from nowhere like a summoned Blade. The Plate does not need Stormlight infusions to function, and has a glow that standard Plate does not, but it's pointed out that they do not bear symbols like Radiant Plate. This has to mean something, because the symbols aren't as simple as being the relevant Radiant orders. When Kaladin manifests his Plate it bears a Bridge Four glyph. Something about the knight's personal loyalty and beliefs goes into the symbol that appears. And yet it only happens on Radiant Plate, because we can assume that men like Adolin and Yanagawn and the other Unoathed have things that matter to them and symbols they might bear, for example Alethkar or the Azish Empire. The Unoathed Plate also does things standard Plate does not do, like verbally warn Adolin of incoming attacks. So the overall impression that I get is that the Unoathed Plate is alive and vibrant the way Radiant Plate is, but because it's not built on a mystical bond between spren and man, it is not transformed into a declaration of the wearer's identity. It is the spren showing themselves as themselves. (As armor) I think this is the same reason we don't see the Unoathed Blades transforming.

I imagine Edgedancers and Windrunners getting along beautifully, their oaths and powers are wonderfully complementary. They have a shared dedication to the helpless, the desire to preserve life and make it better for others. Together they make an absolutely ideal rescue operation; spren who can scout invisibly, warriors who can get anywhere, healers who can slip through an active war zone, Gravitation and Abrasion to surpass any obstacle, Regrowth to aid the wounded. They are both Orders who strive to look out for everyone, even the enemy, and people with that special, reckless compassion can understand each other.

It occurs to me that Dalinar's Perpendicularity did something like Renarin's strange Illumination, showing Rayse/Odium something unbearable about his own choices and existence. All things are present in the Spiritual, time is not a factor, and Dalinar has some kind of Connection to some sacred force that seems to transcend the Shards. Rayse may have felt the presence of his God in that moment, the being he murdered, the being he never thought he'd have to look in the eye again.

Perhaps that's why the pattern emerges in evolution, like with axehounds. When a creature is treated as humanity's favored companion, given the love of family despite being something completely different from a human, it begins to more resemble God. People think a lot of things about Dogs that remind me of a lot of thoughts about God. Dogs are seen as purely loving and sweet, innocent, never truly at fault when they misbehave, because we're the ones responsible for how things are. Utterly precious. You can really look in their eyes and see something that is not like yourself, but still awake, feeling, looking back at you with a loving mind. If there's divinity anywhere, it's in that sort of bond, across kinds. A spark of the oneness of all things that is ultimate truth.

By reaching towards the impossible, an Ideal, the dog was able to transform himself and the people around him. He was never to become a dragon, just as a man is never going to live perfectly and make perfect choices. It's the reach that makes us grow, not the goal. It doesn't matter that the goal can't be reached. It would be very funny if, down the line, we ever meet an incredibly Invested dog, running a planet like a dragon would.

It's just too bad the nice stone carving can't show he's still got his own brown eyes. That made him so happy. King of the Heralds, a darkeyed spearman.

I suppose it's probably much easier to be armor than a weapon. Armor protects, glorifies, strengthens. Weapons destroy. If you know what you're being used for, being a weapon for some random person seems like it'd be much worse than being armor.

One of the things we're shown about these taboos is that they're most heavily enforced on the higher classes, probably just because they have more eyes on them. And likely also because they pay a lot for their Ardents and devotaries, and operate with Vorinism's blessing. Science, education, craftsmanship, battle training, you need a good batch of Ardents if you want your people to learn and prosper. You can't afford to be on their bad side. Some tavern keeper can. Ialai's name raises eyebrows because she's a Highprince's wife, but Laral is from such a low-end rural Lighteyes family that some of the adults think there's a reasonable chance she'd marry Kaladin.

Progression and Transportation could have a really interesting combined effect- Jasnah can launch her Soulcastings as a ranged attack, or cause it to spread through multiple targets if they're touching. If Transportation offered that same boost to Progression, you could heal frontline guys from a safer distance, or even cast healing through a whole formation at once. It would take crazy amounts of Light of course, but that's a given with any big effect.

Harmony is the only Shard we know of who created a set of scriptures and clear instructions for His people, that's pretty cool. And a Pathian would be most likely to appreciate it. I don't think it fits with the "perform" idea though.

We see in Starling's interaction with the cthulhu entity that it responds strangely to a lack of fear. It's possible that Cakoban's Investiture and his determination to protect the people were enough to gain some kind of influence over the Not-Yet-Dakwara. The entities miss being 'alive' and the connections they once felt, but maybe that means if you started treating one like a god, depending on it, needing it to be there for you, it might find that experience satisfying. It might even decide you're pretty cool, and crush invaders for you. It's found an arrangement that no longer torments it, and it will resist further change. Autonomy's influence might be behind that, if a Shard can influence anti-Investiture entities at all. Lots of weird clues. I'll be puzzling over this for awhile.

I will get my thoughts in order over time, but one of my favorite things about this story is the radically different context it puts Autonomy into. When we experienced that force in the Mistborn series, it manifested as this gross fascist power structure. But from the standpoint of First of the Sun, Autonomy means "This is our planet and these are our birds and you can't just take from us." And that's pretty cool. I can see this world becoming fabulously wealthy and influential, while also completely preserving the natural world and oceans, and it's very cool to imagine. They could build the majority of their trade infrastructure out of imported materials on the Shadesmar side, and make the Physical side into magical hyper-resorts for the richest people in the galaxy. Only instead of being colony stuff like in our world, it'll be the Eelakin cashing the checks.

I know he's probably a kind of traumatized that we can't even comprehend because no living mind has ever endured more than a century of torture, let alone thousands of years, but still- he really doesn't seem upset about how it all went down. When he saw what he'd accomplished he was thrilled, and he has offered forgiveness to the Heralds. On the other hand, if someone warped my soul to make me into someone who wouldn't consider quitting, maybe I couldn't consider being pissed at them either.

If they're living in flying cities, we can assume they're technologically advanced people, or at least the Cosmere equivalent who can accomplish such things with magics. They'd be high up in their own atmosphere, and Roshar is farther out from the sun than Ashyn. Good situation for astronomy. Supposing they've got anything like telescopes, maybe they've known about Rosharan cities existing for thousands of years. This could be especially interesting because we know the great Rosharan cities are built along sacred geometries, and from space might resemble glowing glyphs.

Talenelat standing for the broken in the infirmary might be my favorite moment in the story so far. There is such a superheroic, divine mystique around this guy and I love it. The man who would burn for four thousand years and be grateful that his friends believed he was the strongest. Full of joy for the accomplishment. Forgiveness for the betrayal because he didn't feel betrayed, he was put in a position to endure what his loved ones could not and he embraced it. He is so great and terrible and good that he makes all the other Heralds feel like slime. And that's all before he stands up.

Szeth at that point is at his psychological breaking point, it's the lowest and most crazed that we ever see him. He wants to die but he's not allowed, so the only thing that seems to make him feel hopeful is when he's fighting a Shardbearer who might be able to take him out. Adolin is the best fighter with no superpowers out there. He's a golden opportunity, in a way. And I think there's a part of him that's just like Adolin, and it's still there when Szeth is healthy and thinking clearly- he loves the dance. He enjoys the way it feels to push himself and move to the limit of his abilities. He doesn't feel good about the fact that it feels good, but it does.

I don't think so, or at least they never mention it, even in their POV sections. At least not as far as I remember. They seem to perceive Ashyn as utterly lost and a complete failure of their civilization. Even Kalak, who we know was conspiring to find a way to leave Roshar, didn't bring it up as an option. If he knew there were cities of survivors there, I'm certain he would have wanted to go. It would mean that the destruction was not total, and that there was some reason for hope even there. In fact I suspect that discovering the perseverance of Ashyn's people will contribute to the spiritual healing of the Heralds under Kaladin.

I would guess at the No Afterlife option, first because that's how I hope my own reality works, and second because of 'conservation of Investiture.' If souls and identities and such are made of Investiture, it makes sense to me that the overall distribution of energy would eventually become a problem as more and more energy moved to permanently existing as individual beings. Nature seems to abhor such imbalance, and we also know that beings in the Cosmere inevitably suffer as an effect of their lengthened lives. Instead, perhaps every last wisp of a person must eventually dissolve back into the All, so that energy can find new expressions.

That's why I use the example of something as straightforward and seemingly objective as the temperature at which water boils. If something that basic can be subject to interpretation and change, the Truths that can be found within persons, or a people, or all people, will be that much more so.

It seems almost inevitable to me that the pursuit of Truth must lead to the discovery that there is almost nothing that's just plain True, independently of context. Is it true that water boils at one hundred degrees? Yes, but on the other hand, that's under certain conditions and what even is a degree anyway? We made those up. So okay, an amount of energy makes water undergo an amount of change. But there are multiple gods influencing the behavior of physics, after all, so who's to say whether water would behave this way if the gods were different, or absent? Maybe even the concept of boiling is a subjective choice made by a flawed mind. "I see now that nothing is truly the Truth" would be a hard pill for a lot of people to swallow. And an important step for people to make, if they were for example an interracial couple trying to heal an ancient race war where everyone's got every reason to keep fighting.

I can't help but think Rosharan Space Age warfare is going to lean heavily into the 'magical,' if that term applies when everything on every side is Investiture-based. Less flying in spacecraft, more stepping directly from world to world by portals and such. Fused and Radiants have the weapons, armor, and Surges to remain significant on the battlefield even when the tanks and machine guns start showing up. Have fun holding a battleship together in the void of space against a pack of Skybreakers, right? I suppose I can imagine Rosharan troops being issued Investiture-powered infantry weapons, and we've already seen the beginning of flying vehicles. I suspect though that Retribution will prefer a campaign of sudden, overwhelming force at critical positions, rather than trying to fully occupy multiple worlds.

Szeth could not have held the 5th Ideal, for he had become his own lawmaker, and was finally able to tell his spren to buzz off. If a man is to make his own choices and follow his own heart, he can't move forward in a relationship that he doesn't want. And Kaladin couldn't do any cool Surgebinder spear fighting, because he'd realized how little his capacity for violence could actually help the situation. Besides, we'll get to enjoy superpowered Herald Kaladin in the future. I've seen people saying that Odium's victory was somehow a contrivance, but Dalinar more or less spells it out- there's no victory in perpetuating a race war for another thousand years. There's no victory in smashing gods together while the world turns to ash. There's no victory in submitting to Odium's rule. So the only sensible thing to do was flip the table, end the game, reshape the entire situation into one where Taravangian is playing defense against the universe instead of dominating Roshar for another fifty generations unhindered. You can not defeat hate and darkness and ancient grudges with more violence. That, more than anything, seems to be the whole point of the story. You can become the Best At Killing, but if the enemy is hate itself, what use is that? Understanding, empathy, truly deciding to listen to those who hate you instead of meeting them blade-for-blade, these are how you actually make anything better for anyone. Sure, you have to pick up that spear and stab people when they're trying to stab you first, but that's not progress towards your goal. Just another of the tragedies you'd rather never happened.

I could imagine a being like Valor claiming Dalinar's soul solely for the purpose of letting him pass on unmolested. The man sacrificed his life rather than betray his principles, in a way that both created a mighty enemy and ensured that a great war for the galaxy would kick off. I bet Valor digs that kind of thing. Although it would be real cool if Dalinar did return as Valor's champion. We can only imagine what kind of insane battle magic Valor can offer, Dalinar the Einherjar has a nice ring to it.