earthexile

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.

In addition, adding Honor to Taravangian's substance has severely hobbled his capacity for senseless violence and destruction. He's already struggling to balance the desires of Honor against his desires as Odium, they are compatible in many ways but incompatible in others. Dalinar has infected the god of hate with a divine sense of justice, and it's pointed out that Honor has gained a measure of sentience and personality that makes it even more resistant to misuse. The very weakness that ruined Tanavast is a part of Taravangian now, his might depends on keeping promises and playing fair. And we already know, based on what he's done with his own city, that at the end of the day our boy Vargo is an emotional man who would break his word to save people he loves. You can shove a lot of god into the man, but you can't take out the man.

Without the Spiritual Realm quest, Dalinar can't take up Honor, because Mishram stays imprisoned, and Odium doesn't become Retribution, therefore the other Shards continue to ignore the situation. There was no version of participating in the contest of champions that would be an actual victory, because another thousand-plus years of race war isn't victory. Maintaining a disgusting status quo isn't victory. Imagine if Dalinar and Navani had spent those ten days refilling Stormlight for the troops at the battle fronts. Hell, imagine they win. They hold the Shattered Plains, they don't lose nearly as many people at Azimir, perhaps they even keep Thaylenah. They get Alethkar and Herdaz back. Cool. So now half the world is human lands purging singers and half the world is singer land, probably enslaving humans. The Listener nation remains in exile. The Heralds keep going even more insane. Dalinar continues working with a Stormfather who's consciously deceiving him and probably more convinced than ever that it's right to do so. Odium begins the process of creating his Space Conquest Army, and the human nations can either watch in horror or blow the truce and attack, and it probably wouldn't take them long to decide they need to, because they'll be seeing singers get their hands on offworld tech and magic, building spacecraft or whatever, advancing and growing. The only thing that makes sense is to flip the table. This game sucks, we can't really win, and the longer it goes on the more pointless suffering there is.

I'm curious about all the human Radiants who will be living in conquered lands. Warlight is of Honor, so it does seem like they should be able to use it, but it's also apparently only going to be granted on a case-by-case basis to faithful followers of Retribution who lay out their spheres at midnight and pray. The simplest answer is that they'll be able to steal it, but not get it renewed. Meanwhile the Fused, the singer Radiants, and any human Radiants who are loyal to Retribution, will be full powered all the time. Renewing spheres nightly instead of every Highstorm will be a massive net gain in available Light. They could theoretically use their entire supply on a daily basis. I wonder, with the new weather patterns, will there still be something like the Weeping? A couple weeks of no storm?

I think it's about the level of expectation and externality of a promise, versus what Adolin thinks of as an oath. Oaths are a thing of formality, law, religion, cultural tradition, etc. They're meant to be binding and permanent, and upheld by outside forces like those laws, traditions, and supernatural forces like spren and Shards. A promise is something from one person, on behalf of himself, and he decides how much it means. And I can see how he could get to seeing that as a more meaningful version of the same general idea. There's a way to interpret some of Kaladin's character arc where a lot of his development and choices were made either as intentional trades for the power he needed to survive a moment, or as needing not to kill his spren. It got him to good places but it didn't have to. Adolin's a real authentic guy, and he doesn't like crem dung and manipulation, and part of him has to be looking at all these people "getting better" and being handed power in exchange for pledging themselves to supernatural forces and ideologies, and wondering how real any of these changes are, if they're all just trying to level up for the war. So he doesn't want that for himself or with Maya, he doesn't want to make an arcane pact with her. He wants to be a real dude, a real friend, himself no matter what. Within the structure of Oaths, that's a lot harder. A promise is different.

I believe at least some of the Fused, finally triumphant and freed from conflict to share their wisdom and productive capacity with their beloved singers, will undergo a process of healing not unlike what Kaladin and the Heralds hope to accomplish. There was that Husked One who seemed very excited to be farming. Raboniel expressed how much she would prefer to just do science all the time. I think that these burned out, exhausted beings are going to rediscover some joy and vitality by building a singer nation under a supportive God. And they're not going to want to start fighting again.

I think all of the Heralds are likely to be more understanding of a mortal man's troubles and mistakes than the average person. They've all killed a *lot* of people. Maybe tens of thousands each with their own hands and Surges. They know what it means to be drafted. Chana was nearly ready to ice her own daughter for being an up-and-coming threat, surely she'd understand someone killing a fully grown Shardbearer he didn't know on a battlefield.

Valor seems like the most obvious choice, since Dalinar has always acted with valor even when his actions were dark and twisted, and especially at the end when he gave up infinite power for the sake of others having a chance at a better world. His courage is legendary. On the other hand, Reason might approve of someone who learned to read and turn aside from violence in the pursuit of greater knowledge, so that he could make the most intelligent and farsighted choice possible at the crucial moment. The Sunmaker's Gambit is an act of reasoning, of understanding the situation well enough to look forward to distant potential outcomes. And since he committed that act as a divinity, it may have created a powerful Connection to the concept of Reason. My weirdest idea is that the God Beyond claims him. That would explain why he stretched into the Beyond, rather than being obviously protected or yanked away by another Shard. Dalinar is perhaps Roshar's first Prophet of the God Beyond, and may be the way that the recognition and worship of that being, whatever it is, spreads on a whole world.

We've seen the perpendicularity blast away Invested beings, the Fused in Shadesmar when Dalinar first summoned it. It didn't affect the humans and spren, but it drove back the Fused, which suggests to me that it was to do with their Voidlight. When this perpendicularity gets blown up or whatever by Anti-Stormlight, maybe a similar blasting effect would be felt by people with Stormlight in them?

Hey is this the first time Shallan has just straight up iced a guy with her 'illusions?' She can just unleash Radiant as a real lady in real armor with a real blade and kill people? That's insane

We haven't seen group teleportation besides the Oathgates up until now, right? Maybe that effect was a Voidbinding thing? I still don't know what that is, really. Of course if they were feeling really ballsy, there's always the other option. I made this work in a D&D game once. The Ghostbloods didn't teleport away. One of them crafted a Lightweaving that made them invisible, and the unsettling flash of color is the distracting flourish disguising a simple trick. They're still in the room.