agrabes

@Pathfinder This will be my last post on this topic. I am not approaching this argument from the perspective of a theist, I'm approaching it as someone familiar with the proper way to make arguments about whether or not a god exists. In your argument to disprove the existence of a god, you are starting with the assumption that god does not exist. This is a completely invalid way to look at this topic. Equally invalid is for a theist to start their argument in favor of the existence of god with the assumption that god does exist. In the vegan example you keep going back to, we are not asking a veganwhat kind of meat they might be tempted to eat. We are asking the vegan the question "What do you consider to be meat and why did you decide not to eat it?" If you want to have a debate, you have to start with the assumption that it is equally possible for both positions to be true and the burden is on you to prove that your position is correct and the other position is incorrect. You generally do not do this - you tend to start your argument with the assumption that your position is correct and then use that assumption to prove the other position is incorrect. For example, look at item 3 from your list - it's completely flawed because it starts with the assumption that god does not exist and uses that assumption to prove that Honor is not god. In particular, look at the first and last sentence. You are saying "God does not exist because God does not exist." That is circular logic. To use the idea that god does not exist as a basis for argument, you have to prove that it is correct which you have not. We know that Jasnah believes that god does not exist. In the same way, we know that Dalinar believes god does exist. It's not the topic of this thread, but it's equally valid to ask him why he believes god does exist. If you are trying to discuss the point of whether or not god exists, no one gets to start from the position that their belief is already right. Jasnah is a smart person who makes decisions based on logic. She evaluated many, many religions and philosophies and made the conscious choice to be an atheist. She has almost certainly used logic to decide whether or not she believes god exists. We are trying to understand the logic she used to make that decision and how she applies it to the godlike beings she encounters. I believe that Jasnah's logic is something like this: 1) If there is a god, it must have X properties. 2a) I have logically considered whether a being with X properties can logically exist and have concluded it is not possible. 2b) I have also done extensive research into this topic and have not found evidence of a being that has X properties. 3) Therefore, god does not exist. We want to know what "X" is for Jasnah. You aren't willing to go there and I don't want to push you to go somewhere you don't want to go, this is a topic that can be pretty personal. For me personally, I took a few philosophy classes in college so it is interesting to me to examine these issues and my own beliefs. To truly talk about these issues, you have to question things you believe as fundamentally true (the existence of god, most people fundamentally believe god exists or doesn't as a fundamental truth). But it's not for everyone.

I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make here - we should be looking at this as a Mistborn fighting the way we have seen them fight in the books vs. a Radiant as we have seen them fight in the books. We shouldn't bring in WoBs that discuss theoretical possibilities, because those are just Sanderson humoring the fans with explanations of how the powers work. They aren't "cannon" in the same way as what's written in the books. We shouldn't be looking up the allomantic table of elements and speculating about what alloy combinations might be possible and what they might do because we just have no idea what those might be and how they might be used even if there's a one sentence official explanation of how they work. We can come up with ideas, but until they're written down in the books we don't know how they actually work. I'm saying the setup should be something like this for a fight of Kaladin vs. Vin: Kaladin gets to talk to an experienced mistborn contemporary with Vin for a week to learn all the capabilities of a mistborn as the mistborn themselves know them at that time. Vin gets to talk to Teft or Lopin to learn the abilities of a Windrunner as they know them at that time. They learn the standard tactics used in world to face a mistborn or radiant when you don't have the same powers they do. No one gets to know cosmere secrets - Vin doesn't know what "God metals" are. Nor does she know about any of the special alloys, etc. She only knows what she knows about her own powers. Same for Kaladin. We're not talking about a theoretical maximum power level here, because that's just total speculation on our parts. I don't think you can really speculate on the abilities of the 5th level radiants either and only can extrapolate the living plate from Dalinar's dream sequence and what we know about dead plate. I don't think atium is a good offensive weapon against someone who knows what it is. It can only show you the future, it can't help you close the gap or get in range for an attack. If a wide area attack comes in that you can't dodge in time, it also does you no good. For example, the knife to the eye doesn't prevent the radiant from pulling it out. The knife is in one place and is not controlled by the mistborn. The radiant can grab the knife itself and pull it out so long as they are conscious. There's also no guarantee you could close the gap. An atium misting could almost certainly not get in stabbing range of a Windrunner who knows the power of atium. All the Windrunner has to do is use the power of their plate to outrun the misting. Or simply put their arm in front of their visor for 30-60 seconds until the atium runs out. If no opening exists, you can't exploit it even if you know the future. Atium is a really good weapon against someone who wants to fight you in close combat, or feels they have to fight you in close combat because you'll kill them with ranged attacks if you don't. That power dynamic doesn't exist when fighting other mistborn, and it wouldn't work when fighting a radiant either. The radiant would just stay back and out of range. They would have a lot of trouble hitting the mistborn until the atium runs out. So it would come down to who runs out of atium/stormlight first. If the atium lasts longer than the stormlight, the mistborn wins. If not, they lose. Anyway, sorry dont' mean to be a fun killer or anything like that. To me, bringing in speculation of how things would work based on random WoBs or brief descriptions in tables, etc is not fun. It sort of becomes a "my dad is stronger than your dad" kind of argument. For others, imagining what certain powers might be like is a ton of fun so I should probably just let this thread be and let you all have your fun.

@Pathfinder You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the meaning of theism and atheism, or knowing the accepted definition, you have intentionally chosen a definition that does not align with the accepted one. The definition of atheism is very simple. And no one here is attacking people who personally hold the philosophy of atheism, nor are they attacking Jasnah, nor are they attempting to find a way to disprove her beliefs. We are simply trying to understand her beliefs, with the assumption that her philosophy of atheism is the standard philosophy - i.e. that she believes divine beings do not exist. You are introducing additional elements into the equation. Your personal definition of atheism seems to be that the only being that would count as a god is one that acts according to a morality system that you approve of. If a being that would be otherwise considered divine exists, but does align with your moral beliefs, then that being cannot be a god in your personal view. Respectfully, this belief, while totally valid to hold as a personal philosophy, is not the accepted definition of atheism in modern society. If Ares, God of War, were to appear in Times Square tomorrow and prove that he is real and his history is exactly as described in Greek Mythology, then atheism would be proven false. Your personal philosophy that it is not good to worship Ares would remain intact. They are two separate elements and we are only looking at one of them here. Another element you are introducing is that you are confusing the question of "What would it take to prove that a deity exists?" with the question of "How could a religious person convince someone to convert to their religion?" Those questions are very different, but you are treating them as if they are the same. It is not necessary to follow a religion to believe that its god exists and is a god. Setting aside your personal beliefs and your personal interpretation of Jasnah's character, we would like to look at Jasnah's beliefs relative to the accepted standard definition of atheism. As Debarra helpfully wrote above while citing many authoritative sources, atheism is defined as a belief that theism (the belief that divine beings exist) is false. It is not tied to any form of religion or religious worship or even the idea of religion at all. It is simply a belief that divine beings do not exist. The question we are facing in the cosmere is that there are numerous beings that appear to be divine and Jasnah has direct evidence of some of these beings. Jasnah is an atheist and we must assume she and/or Brandon Sanderson mean this in the standard definition. Therefore, by definition her core belief is that divine beings do not exist. She responded in the book to Shallan's question about this apparent contradiction by saying that she believes these powerful beings are merely powerful, but not divine. That is a fair argument. However, by necessity if Jasnah has identified beings like the Stormfather as not divine, then she must have a definition of what a divine being is. This is the only thing we are asking. What is Jasnah's definition of a divine being? She must have one, or she could not say if something is or is not divine. Her acceptance of any religion is irrelevant to this question. We have also already agreed that it will never be definitively answered whether Jasnah's atheism is "right" or "wrong", so we don't think that there will ever be a moment when a being meeting Jasnah's definition of divine will appear in the cosmere. This is not a "gotcha" moment. The answer may be the one you seem to be putting forward: a divine being according to Jasnah is only one that has a religious faith and morality system built up around it that Jasnah personally agrees with and finds to be good. If that is what you think, then just say that directly. If you don't think that, say what you do think she would define as a divine being. If you don't know or don't think we have enough information to say at this point, that's also fine. But the answer can't be "it's impossible for there to be a divine being, so the question is moot" because that answer is not logically valid. To truly debate this topic, you MUST have a definition of what a god is. Atheists do this often. An example is the argument from evil: 1) If God exists, he must be all powerful, all knowing, and all good. 2) A God that is all powerful, all knowing, and all good would not allow evil to exist. 3) Evil exists. 4) Therefore, God does not exist. This is a stock argument used by atheists when debating the existence of God and it does not work without stating the nature of God. Theists argue against this by challenging the nature of God, or the nature of what is good, or the nature of good relative to evil. I am sure that Jasnah has some similar arguments that she uses herself and I am certain she has a definition of what, to her, would constitute a god. Hate to double post, but I just saw this response. It was a good and meaningful response so I wanted to answer back and keep it separate. I'll answer in two parts: 1) You're right that we've probably wasted more time on this argument than it's worth! And to Jasnah, the existence of god is irrelevant in the sense that she doesn't have a desire to follow any of the religions of Roshar even if they did turn out to be correct. 2) The reason why we discuss it and want to know is because it's an interesting question. Jasnah is an atheist in a world where beings that the vast majority of people would call gods provably exist. If Angels and Demons were provably walking around the Earth today, or if the Greek Pantheon were out partying on a mountaintop that you could climb up to if you wanted to hang with them, the position of an atheist becomes a lot different. Sanderson thought it was interesting enough to at least have a few lines of dialog to address it in tWoK. I think enough has changed in the world now with beings that are much more godlike (the Shards) appearing on screen that it would be interesting to hear Jasnah's opinion on it again. Does she just feel the same way about the shards as she does the spren or the Stormfather? Or does it give her a little bit of pause, like learning of the death of "The Almighty" did for Dalinar? If it's ok for theists to doubt their beliefs and try to re-evaluate in light of new information as has happened in the books, then it's also OK for atheists to do it. It makes even more sense for someone like Jasnah to do so, because she is a person who forms her opinions based on facts and logic. And maybe she learned the shards were real long ago and has already struggled with that issue and formed her conclusion. Maybe she's just a stubborn person like the Vorin orthodox people and isn't willing to examine her own beliefs. If so, then fine. My goal isn't that Jasnah convert to a religious faith during the series, it's that we learn and understand better how she maintains her atheism in the face of direct exposure to beings most people would call gods and how their appearance affected her on a personal level. I honestly think we will see some of this in the "back 5" of Stormlight Archive.

And I think it's perfectly reasonable for Jasnah or anyone else to believe that. I think there are definitely solid and logical arguments you can use to support your position. But you should also recognize that it's a minority view (in the sense that only a small portion of Rosharans would agree with Jasnah that the shards are not gods) and that you are arguing a technicality. To go back to my Greek mythology reference, you could make an argument that Demeter or really the vast majority of that pantheon, should not be considered a god. You could make technical arguments - they aren't that powerful, there are too many of them, they aren't "holy" or sacred because they spend time among the people and act like petulant children, etc. And you might be right, if there was an ultimate arbiter of the facts. But that doesn't change the fact that 90% of the world defines them as gods. It's like a person who insists that a tomato is a fruit. They are technically correct, but practically wrong. No one will put a tomato in a fruit salad. I do understand your point - Jasnah considers the shards to be very powerful beings, but not "Gods". My point is that this is a semantics argument which, for the shards, she is on the losing side. The shards are gods. Insert beings equivalent to the shards into any similar fantasy work and they would be called gods. Insert the shards into any pantheon from any real world (polytheistic) religion and they would blend right in. It's perfectly valid for Jasnah to argue by logic that the shards shouldn't be considered gods, just like it's perfectly valid to say that scientifically a tomato is part of the fruit family by genetics. The only problem is that most people aren't talking about genetics when they say a tomato is a vegetable, they're talking about its properties as a food. I understand your point about anyone picking up a shard. However, it's not right to say that anyone can pick up a shard. At most, 16 people in the cosmere can pick up a shard. Now it's less than that with Harmony's creation and Odium's actions. It's not like you can walk down to the store and pick one up. Opportunities come less than once in a thousand years. And it's not like picking up a shard is the same thing as going to the gym and working out - it's not just a strength increase. Taking a shard fundamentally alters who and what you are. Jasnah did study the organized religions of Roshar and did not believe any of them. At that time, it made perfect sense for her to be an atheist just like any atheist in our real world today. Now, beings that nearly everyone would consider gods have appeared. This is a test of her "faith" (or logic if you prefer) similar to Dalinar's test when he was presented with the fact that "The Almighty" was dead. Just as equally as the fact that Jasnah's lack of religious faith will never be disproved, so too will Dalinar's possession of religious faith never be disproved. Both are undergoing a crisis of faith. Jasnah's response is to assert that though godlike, the shards are not gods. Dalinar's response seems to be that while "The Almighty" and vorinism were not the true faith, that one still exists if he can find it. This is a long winded way to say that atheism vs. theism is a hard discussion to have in regards to a fantasy novel where godlike beings provably exist. I consider the comments from Sanderson regarding this topic to tie back to concepts like "The God Beyond" and the afterlife, which is the context he's made them in. This is bad logic. In order to say that God doesn't exist, there must be a definition of what God is. Otherwise, you could not say that it doesn't exist. For example, I don't believe that ghosts exist. I have a clear definition of what a ghost is. If I did not, it would be meaningless for me to say that I don't believe in ghosts. If a ghost were to appear in front of me, with credible evidence, I would change my beliefs. As has been stated numerous times, Sanderson will not provide a definitive answer on the question of theism vs. atheism in the cosmere so no one expects that to happen in the book series.

For your first part, I do agree with what you're saying there. Yes, there has to be something that (to Jasnah) means X is a god, but Y is not. I don't think we are saying she must go looking for something, but to make that decision she must have some criteria. I do understand and agree that we will never have a situation where Jasnah's beliefs will be either fully validated or invalidated. As for the second part, I will answer that yes you would be a god if you picked up a shard. A "small g" god, a member of a pantheon. No, I would not worship you, but that would not change your status as a god. Cultivation is not all that dissimilar from Persephone or Demeter in the Greek Mythology. No one would dispute that either of those two figures is a god. I don't think it makes sense to say that Demeter is a god, but Cultivation is not. Essentially, what happened is that Sanderson had to create a loophole. In his fictional world, gods exist. He wants to fairly represent the opinion of an atheist in his work. The way he did it was to create two layers of "gods." He has the shards, which would be considered "gods" by most standards, that make physical appearances and have clear evidence of their existence. He also has the "God Beyond" which will never be confirmed or denied. And Jasnah, who is partially right and partially wrong in keeping with Sanderson's goals.

I don't think "looking for something" is meant literally. The entire point of the discussion is that there are beings that exist on Roshar which would be described as a "god" in many real life religions. Jasnah knows of, and even acknowledges the existence of many of these beings. It would be like saying "Zeus is real and I met him yesterday, but I'm still an atheist." If a being exists that is called a god by many people and there is no deception going (i.e. it doesn't turn out that Zeus is just an alien that said he was a god, he is the literal son of Kronos and Rhea and the grandson of the earth and the sky exactly as described by Greek mythology), then it seems difficult for a person to be an atheist. I think the problem comes in the sense that our concept of atheism doesn't really work in the world of a fantasy novel, or with the type of god that exists in religions like Greek Mythology. Today, we would say that an atheist is a person who believes that theism is false, i.e. that deities/gods do not exist. In today's world it means that if you are an atheist you believe equally that the Christian God, Zeus and his pantheon, and the various spirits of Shinto do not exist. If Zeus and the Greek pantheon exist and are considered gods by the majority of the population, but one person says that while Zeus exists and is exactly as described in Greek Mythology he is not a god, I don't know that I would call that person an atheist. That person is a contrarian, disagreeing with the consensus definition of what it means to be a god. In my view, the Shards do qualify as gods within the context of a pantheon religion. In this type of a pantheon setting, to be a god I believe you have to be the personification of a fundamental concept, force, or element. For example - Zeus is the god of thunder. He is thunder in the form of a person and has power over all thunder and lightning. Honor is the god of, well, honor. He is the personification of all things related to oaths and obligations. If you were to get your hands on a Shard, then yes you would become a god in the cosmere by most common definitions. Worthy of worship is a separate item. In a pantheon religion, you generally choose which god or gods you worship. If you believed the Greek Mythology was true, but chose not to worship any god in the pantheon that does not make you an atheist. Jasnah is an atheist in the sense that she believes that the "Almighty" of the Vorin religion is not real, nor are any of the other known religions of Roshar. That was a lot more meaningful before it becomes public knowledge that Vorinism is provably false. I don't believe that she qualifies as an atheist in the literal meaning of the word - a person who does not believe that deities exist. She is a person who feels that the gods who do exist are too human to qualify as gods in her opinion.

I think that's a bit of a stretch to say she has no resentment. There have been threads about this kind of stuff before, but if you look you can kind of see behind the curtain with Shallan and her interactions with Kaladin. She has two feelings about him that she wants to repress, and you see her change after each one is introduced: 1) She realizes that she does have a least a minor attraction to him in early OB but she believes this is wrong because she's engaged to Adolin, 2) She realizes he killed her brother and hates him for it, but also realizes it's not really fair to hate him for it. After she realizes she has at least some minor attraction to Kaladin, she splits off those feelings into Veil. This is when you notice that it's suddenly Veil who has this weird kind of attraction to Kaladin, but not "Shallan" or "Radiant." In WoR, Veil had no attraction to Kaladin. In the main "Shallan" persona, she is still fond of Kaladin and generally friendly to him, but no longer has any romantic attraction to him. After she realizes that Kaladin killed her brother, she initially gets really upset. Then we don't see her for a while and after that she starts in on Kaladin with a lot more mean-spirited "jokes". She's buried those feelings from her conscious mind because she doesn't want to deal with them, but they leak out in a change in her behavior toward him. The whole point of her character is that she refuses to admit many things, even to herself. That makes her interesting to me personally. You can read between the lines of her actions and there's also the expectation that at some point this is all going to come to a head. She released maybe 30% of the steam at the end of OB with her "Shallan Council Meeting" to discuss whether she should marry Adolin, but there's a lot of pressure still there. I think the reason she's struggling so much is because she said her most recent truth without really truly embracing it. My personal theory is that she either has to work through this all and express her emotions in a healthy way or she's going to totally lose herself and get out of control. I think either way would be a fun arc to read - it would be super satisfying for her to actually sit down and have an open, meaningful conversation with Kaladin again like she did in WoR. It would be great for her to talk to Jasnah about how she feels about the power dynamic between them and really express herself. It would be fun for her to just be 100% real and open with Adolin, which she's never done up to this point. If she goes dark, it would also be satisfying to read the scenes where the other characters realize she's lost control and how they have to deal with her now. That they all still love her, but realize she lies to everyone and herself most of all and try to figure out how to help her.

This is the kind of speculation I'm talking about. You can argue that the Mistborn could theoretically have access to all the metals shown in the Mistborn novels, though we've never seen a Mistborn with access to all of them at once. There appear to be in world reasons why you just couldn't have access to all the metals at the same time, so I think it makes more sense to go off a Mistborn using powers the way they have actually been used in the books. I don't necessarily like giving them all metals because it's never been shown that a Mistborn would have access to all metals at once (Vin, Kelsier, and Elend never did), but I would accept that a Mistborn could have a small amount of any metal shown in the books, using it in a way shown in the books or at least described in officially published material. What I won't buy is that a Mistborn could burn a shardblade. It may be that there's even a WoB out there saying that a Mistborn could theoretically burn a shardblade, but let's be realistic. That would require the Mistborn to know that they could burn the shardblade and they wouldn't. It would require them to grind it up into a small piece that could be digested/enter their bloodstream. We've never seen (that I remember) an allomancer burning a metal without swallowing it. All this has to happen on the battlefield, while actively fighting a powerful enemy who knows that they have the ability to burn metals and has the ability to make that metal disappear. So, if the Mistborn starts to prepare the shardblade/shardmetal to be burned, the Radiant would just dismiss it. If we're going in that kind of direction, you had might as well assume the Radiant could draw in all the investure in the allomantic metals like they could with Stormlight, leaving the Mistborn powerless or at least without any reserves beyond what was in their stomach. But we shouldn't go in that direction. It's a fight straight up between two opponents that have prepared for battle with the resources they would normally have on hand and fighting using abilities and methods that have been demonstrated in the books.

As an Italian though, you're probably more familiar than us new worlders with ancient/medieval buildings created with stone masonry. I don't think that it seems reasonable for a "large stone" from the wall of a building to weigh only 6 kg. That's a small stone. Today's typical clay masonry brick weighs about 2 kg (5 lbs) and that is something like 2"x4"x8". So assuming these stones have similar density, you're looking at a stone about of about 192 cubic inches volume or a stone cube that is about 6" (~15 cm) on each side if it weighs 6 kg. I guess we don't know for sure how this wall is made, but that just seems small for one of the largest stones in a wall. I would guess in metric terms a large stone block used for wall construction in a castle is probably something like 50cmx75cmx100cm (~18"x24"x36"), more than 100 times greater in volume and therefore weight. The stone used might be less dense than clay masonry bricks though. Still, 6 kg is a small stone in terms of wall construction. I think even 50 kg is on the small side for a "large" stone, I would guess it's at least 100 kg. I also think a key difference between what happened in those two scenes is the mass, velocity, and number of strikes. In the Szeth assassination case, he is throwing one stone of extremely high mass and with extremely high velocity at one piece of shardplate. In Dalinar's battle, he is being hit with many stones that all likely weigh less than 1 kg. Notice too that his armor is cracked but not destroyed. In the books, it seems to be explained that each section of shardplate can take a number of hard hits before shattering. A thrown rock is a hard enough hit to go to this count. So it's not that one hit from a small rock moving relatively slowly can crack the plate, it's that a lot of hits can eventually crack it. If you look at your math, say you have an arm of 10 kg mass going at 42 m/s, you get 420 kg-m/s. Maybe they put their weight into it and you get something like 40-50 kg involved. That's still much less speed and mass than a large stone. If you look at a 100 kg stone block going at 140 m/s, you get 14,000 kg-m/s. Even assuming a small stone of 6 kg gets you to 840 kg-m/s, double the momentum of the punch at triple maximum human velocity. Remember, the entire mass of the person is not going into the punch unless the Mistborn goes flying in the air, fist first. The only mass that gets involved is the mass that's moving. So at best half the body mass. I guess my point is, it doesn't seem reasonable that a Mistborn could punch through shardplate in one hit. They could probably crack a plate section in one hit and go through it on the second one. I don't think we can do any math to prove this objectively, just what seems to make sense. Yeah, that is a good point. We do know some things about things like the power of living plate from Dalinar's visions, but we do have to speculate a bit. I guess my point is we need to keep speculation to the minimum, or it's just a matter of who can come up with a better story. It was getting pretty out there. I just think people need to remember that the books show us that while powerful, Mistborn have serious limitations. Their powers can only do certain specific things. And the most powerful abilities they have are severely limited due to short supply (atium) or the nature of the ability (duraluminum flares).

Also keep in mind that the value of this exercise gets less and less each time you start adding unusual scenarios. The question isn't "Could a Mistborn defeat anyone given the complete element of surprise?" it's "Who could defeat a Mistborn?" You've got to be comparing this on even footing, otherwise it's worthless. Sure, the Mistborn could get the drop on an unsuspecting Knight Radiant. So could an 80 year old arthritic grandmother. You should compare them on even footing - the Radiant knows as much about a Mistborn as the average knowledgeable person on Scadrial and the Mistborn knows as much about the powers of the Knights Radiant as the average knowledgeable person on Roshar. Neither side has access to special abilities or abilities not yet shown in the books. Theoretical WoB's don't count - those are just Sanderson answering questions fans pose. It doesn't mean that any character will ever do any of the things that he says are theoretically possible, so you shouldn't assume that (for example) a Lightweaver would use a laser in battle. Sanderson has said that it's possible, but it hasn't happened on screen. We don't know if it will become a normal power used by all Lightweavers, or just a secret that one person figures out, or maybe an advanced technique that everyone knows but only a few can successfully use. Until then, we should assume it's just not a tool that can be used. It's sort of like asking "could a US soldier from World War II defeat a German Soldier from World War II?" and then saying "Well, due to their alliance with Imperial Japan you have to assume that the German knows karate and that would provide an advantage." So, Mistborn with reasonable stock of metals and weapons vs. Radiant with shardblade and plate and reasonable stock of stormlight in their body and gems, each knowing each other's abilities agree to fight to the death in an arena. Using Transportation to move to another realm is forbidden. Limited atium is allowed, similar to the amounts Vin had in most fights since atium is commonly used in the first trilogy. I think most orders of Radiants would beat the Mistborn in this situation. The radiant would keep their distance, spreading out hits from coins or other metal across many plates of the armor making it unlikely for the armor to break. The Radiant's initial attacks are all dodged by the Mistborn due to atium, but eventually it runs out. The Radiant's defensive and evasive powers are too great. Think of a Windrunner - all they have to do is make the Mistborn too heavy to take off using steel pushes. There are just too many powers that the Radiants have that are too useful. The Mistborn has duraluminum, but (in line with the books) can only use it once or twice per battle because it burns all their metal at once. So, maybe they use it to push or pull the Radiant's armor or blade, forcing them to dismiss it. After doing that a few times, their duraluminum is expended and the Radiant can resume a normal fight. I think a very good Mistborn could defeat a Radiant if they are able to do things like save their atium or duraluminum for just the right moment and catch the Radiant off guard. But that takes an above average Mistborn and a below average Radiant to work, imo.

I think it's a numbers and will to fight kind of thing. Also, remember that just because people say that humans almost took over the galaxy doesn't mean it's literally true. It could just mean that the humans caused a lot of damage, but were not really a threat to win the war. Who knows if this is right or not, but with their being three "Human Wars" it makes me think of the three "Punic Wars" of ancient history between Rome and Carthage. I think it makes a lot of sense for the wars to be somewhat similar to how those wars played out. 1st Punic War: The Ancient Roman Republic is still just a regional power that doesn't even fully control Italy. Carthage is a republic based in north central Africa, a huge empire that dominates the Mediterranean. Rome gets drawn into a war with Carthage due to various circumstances with Carthage attacking a Roman ally and Rome being bound to respond. The war goes on a long time, but Rome and Carthage eventually decide that there's no point to continue and they settle without too much land changing hands. Carthage's military felt like they should have won the war, particularly Hamilcar Barca, the father of the famous Hannibal. 2nd Punic War: About 20 years later tensions rise between Rome and Carthage over Carthage's holdings in modern day Spain. Hannibal makes his famous crossing of the Alps and runs rampant in mainland Italy for several years, defeating every Roman army that comes to face him. Rome realizes that they can't fight him and take the strategy that they will avoid him in Italy while fighting the rest of Carthage in Africa. Eventually the Romans are successful, defeating Carthage and forcing them to surrender on bad terms. Carthage is no longer allowed to perform any military actions without permission from Rome and have a huge indemnity to pay. 3rd Punic War: About 50 years later, Carthage had paid off their war indemnity early due to their entire work force being focused on the economy. Rome was uncomfortable about this due to the fact that Carthage was not under their thumb the way they wanted. Also, they were jealous/covetous of the rich lands of Carthage. A Roman senator famously ends every speech in the Senate regardless of topic with "And Carthage must be destroyed!" Eventually, Carthage's neighbors to the south start attacking them (suspected to be on orders from Rome). They ask Rome for permission to go to war, but it is denied. They go to Rome asking what can be done for there to be peace, and Rome makes increasingly harsh demands hoping to force Carthage into war. After giving in to several impossible demands, they finally can't accept the last Roman demand which is to destroy the city of Carthage and rebuild it miles inland from the coast of the sea. Carthage is completely and totally destroyed after a long siege and all the people are killed or enslaved by the Romans. Later, Roman historians say that Rome "besmirched her honor" by acting the way they did. How do you go from one power being stronger than the other to being totally destroyed? It just takes time and strategy. Rome defeated Carthage in the 2nd Punic War by enduring the extreme damage Hannibal inflicted on them and then striking back. In the other two wars, it was never a real fight. My guess is that something similar happened in the Skyward universe.

I'll agree with the others and say that you would probably be best served by a break from the Cosmere/Sanderson and come back refreshed. I do think that Oathbringer, while still being a great book, is the weakest of the SA so far. There have been threads here about it over the past few years. Some people loved OB, others didn't. I also shared your dislike of (what I assume are) the Dalinar flashback chapters. They felt too separate from the main story to my taste and I found myself getting impatient reading them. If you look at the flashbacks, I think it makes sense: Kaladin's flashbacks were in the first book, so it was really just our way to meet him. I personally skip most of them on rereads because they bore me. Shallan's flashbacks tied in a lot of overall mysteries of Roshar alongside Shallan's personal backstory/history. I always try to reread the books ahead of the next release and so far I've enjoyed reading all of hers even on rereads. Dalinar's flashbacks are primarily just his backstory. You have only read the first ~20% of the book so I won't provide any spoilers, but especially his early flashbacks dragged for me. They tell an important story for sure, but even though I like Dalinar I didn't really like reading it. I know there are people who loved it though. And be prepared to be frustrated with Shallan in this book. You could almost consider this book to be like her equivalent to Kaladin's time on Bridge 4. It's a huge test for her. It's not as obvious because she's not a slave forced to run into certain death once or twice a week, but it's just as hard for her.

It could also mean that he is more the "figurative" child of Tanavast - that maybe Kaladin is someone who is a lot like Tanavast and holds the same values as he did but is not actually his direct child or descendant. Like in the "child of the 60's" sense of the phrase.

Yeah, that is a good point. And to be fair, I'm not saying that support characters "must" have limited roles. It's just that in a lot of cases if everyone in the story including the secondary and tertiary characters have the same powers as the main characters it reduces the feeling of the main characters being special. It makes the radiants feel that much more powerful if you have a guy like Adolin who on Page 1 of tWoK was one of the most powerful people on Roshar gradually become relatively less and less powerful. It's a good measuring stick for our main characters' progress. I'm a little torn on the whole "secondary characters becoming radiants" issue though. On the one hand, as I mentioned above, having too many people become too powerful takes away our point of reference for how powerful they are. On the other, realistically we need a lot of radiants. The impression we get (this may ultimately prove to be wrong) is that a force of hundreds of radiants is necessary to fight Odium and that the spren themselves recognize this and try to form bonds in times of need to create more radiants. So, we're probably going to have a lot of radiants by the end of SA5. With that in mind, it does make sense for at least some of those new radiants to come from the ranks of our secondary characters. From my perspective though, I think Adolin is more interesting if he's not a radiant. If he basically gets the best "dead" shardblade ever, that makes him unique and unlike the main characters who are all Radiants. It gives him his own space to be good without having to directly compete for greatness with our main heroes.

That's the issue though - I don't think that in the world of the Stormlight Archive the Skybreakers order subscribes to the Natural Law argument you're talking about. There may be some philosophers who've reached that belief, but there's no implication in the books that it is actually a restriction on how the Skybreakers function. In fact, Sanderson has implied the opposite - that the Skybreakers are an order who have significantly differing interpretations of what is right. I think the fact that Nale exists as a 5th Ideal Skybreaker proves that. If his actions and intent were in conflict with the 5th Ideal, he would have broken his oath and lost his power as a Radiant. It comes down to the nature of philosophy - philosophers can argue that the proper way for law and society to be established is on the basis of natural law and that there are certain rights which all people must have by nature. That's a fine argument, as far as it goes. It doesn't mean that it's a law of physics though - people are free to establish human laws that are contrary to what might be considered natural law. Societies built on laws that we would today consider a violation of certain freedoms or that enforce things many of us in western society would consider inequalities today can be long lasting, stable, and good for most of the people living within them. Natural Law is a theory of philosophy, not an actual set of laws and there is debate among philosophers as to what the correct "natural law" is. Don't get me wrong, the philosophy of Natural Law has done a lot of good for us here in the real world. I just don't think that it's solid enough or codified enough to be something that is going to make an appearance in the Stormlight Archive as a hard coded morality ruleset for the Skybreakers.

I don't think there's any implication that it's necessary to agree with your interpretation of the law's purpose in order to reach the 5th Ideal. I don't disagree that your definition of the law's purpose is a good one, but it's not the only one. For example, I believe that someone like the Lord Ruler from Mistborn could achieve the 5th Ideal. He was in favor of extremely strong law and order and was consistent with those laws, but was also in favor of killing good people. If a person sincerely believes in a system of law and order set up to serve a purpose they believe in, then I think that person can achieve the 5th Ideal of the Skybreakers.

I think the reason a lot of people don't want to see Adolin gain powers, or maybe think that he won't, or that he shouldn't is because of his position in the story. He is a side character. It's sort of a rule of the genre that the side characters have two options in terms of power level: be weak but still a relatively important part of the story, or be strong but off doing their own thing independently of the main heroes. I think we are going to see this start to shake out - the Bridge 4 Radiants, Malata, and others are not going to be parts of the story hardly at all while Navani and Dalinar stay on screen. To me, wanting Adolin to become a radiant is a lot like saying "Why can't Alfred become a superhero in his own right to fight alongside Batman?" It just doesn't feel right. What's great about Alfred or other side characters is that they are different from our main heroes. They have strengths that fill in the gaps and weaknesses of the main characters. If Alfred was instead just another "Batman", that would be pretty lame for the story. We already have Robin to fill that role. The story needs an Alfred to be good. It needs our main characters to have someone that is a non-hero to fall back on. Someone who isn't a bad person, but just isn't up to that role of fighting evil on a day to day basis. To me, that is the role of characters like Adolin or Navani. They make what the main heroes do more meaningful by contrast. You see two people who are both super competent in their own ways but just aren't right for the jobs that are done by people like Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, etc. So to pull it back to your superhero analogy, I don't want him to be Hawkeye or Captain America. I want him to be something like James Rhodes/Warmachine - someone who can go out and fight evil if he needs to but it's not his day job. He's out there as a military officer doing the normal fighting stuff in the mundane everyday sense most of the time, coming home at night to the family. Then, when the chips are down he can suit up and provide some help to the heroes. He almost serves as a liaison between the Radiants and the Alethi as someone who's partially both but not fully either.

I think that has some contribution, I think the other major factor is the type of recruits and leadership they were getting. There is a WoB out there saying that Skybreakers can interpret this ideal differently. It's equally valid for a Skybreaker to take a generally good path of upholding justice and fairness and for a Skybreaker to go down the Judge Dredd path so long as they sincerely believe it. So, I don't think it's inconsistent with their mission of killing proto-radiants to be a full fledged 5th Ideal Skybreaker. I think it's just the types of candidates that Nale is bringing in that are generally not of high enough quality. In a lot of the scenes where you see Nale with his acolytes, they just want to kill people. I can't remember whether this was in Edgedancer or one of the interludes, but Nale has to hold them back from just killing people without the proper paperwork. Also Szeth's training scenes indicate that most of the Skybreaker candidates are not exactly great people. I think we're shown these scenes to point out to us that Skybreakers (like the real world police) should normally be a mixed group with some "good cops" and some "bad cops" but Nale has selected primarily only the "bad cop" types. People who want the power to kill and are willing to use the law to justify it after the fact. I think this stops them from advancing far in their oaths. The ideals of the Skybreakers are to uphold the law as their primary value. The current group seems to uphold power and killing as their primary value, with the law a means to an end.

To elaborate I would like to see the Parsh split into 3 factions: 1) Pro-Odium: The Fused's faction. 2) Pro-Human: Rlain's faction - a faction that wants to join in with the humans Radiant Alliance as full members. They forgive the humans for enslaving the parsh at least for the most part and just want to become equal members of the human society. 3) Anti-Odium, Anti-Human: Venli's faction - a faction that doesn't want to be ruled by Odium and the fused and actively fights them, but also hates the humans and does not want to become a part of their fight against Odium. They will fight their own separate war against Odium, not allied to the humans and radiants. I think over the course of SA4 and SA5, they become allies to the Radiants, but not close members of the Radiant/Human group. Sort of like the Soviet Union in WW2, allies by necessity but not friends. I'm not sure if this would actually happen, but it would be fun if it did.

Here are my hopes: More Radiant orders and how they work Consequences and real repentance for Szeth Serious investigations into how to make Urithiru work again Discussion about the economics of Alethkar and Urithiru, food supply, etc Balance of safety of Urithiru vs. the difficulty of supporting a population there without having the ability to grow food. This will probably lead to farms being maintained somewhere else, requiring protection of those farms from the Fused which will probably be iffy at best, taxing or overtaxing the soulcasters, etc More political negotiations: Dalinar/Radiants to Human Nations, Internal Alethkar/Radiants Politics such as Sadeas' murder, Parsh self-determination - choosing whether or not they want to follow the Fused, join the humans, or form their own third Parsh only faction. Rlain forms a pro-human Parsh element, Venli forms a Parsh "independence" element that is opposed to both humans and Odium. The two of them try to negotiate with each other and the humans, while dodging Odium and the Fused. Character progress for Shallan - confronting at least some of the things she tried to run from in OB Information on Shallan's brothers and what the Davar family has been up to Kaladin says the 4th Oath and learns to use shardplate in the middle of the book, only to find that plate alone is not enough for him to do some critical plot related task later in the book, pushing him to strive for the 5th Oath in SA5. Romance plot development for Kaladin Adolin's shardblade becomes the best "dead" blade ever and he may even gain the ability to talk to it, but he never becomes a radiant or truly revives the spren. Rock as the only Bridge 4 member with significant screen time, the others fade into the background so they don't take screen time from other key events and characters Worldhoppers, including Hoid, stay in the background as very minor characters. They should only become part of the main plot when the plot is about them, not steal the spotlight from our Rosharan friends. My preference is that in SA5 the Rosharans/Radiants start to realize that there are people from other worlds among them and try to decide what to do about it. Maybe it's Shallan's big revelation at the end of SA4 that the Ghostbloods include worldhoppers and she reports it to Dalinar who has to decide what to do leading into SA5. Nightblood is returned to Nalthis by Vivenna or stolen by another worldhopper while Szeth is in prison and exits the SA story entirely. He's basically a cheat code right now, not fun to read about.

It is true, Tarah left when Kaladin needed her. But, I also think that we don't know the full story on that - we don't know for sure what she was thinking. Wasn't that a scene that we only have from Kaladin's memories, not a flashback? I think if we saw it from her perspective, we would see that she wanted him to come with her or to really try to stop her from leaving. I think she was trying to drag him out from wallowing in his guilt. I think she could see he was going into a bad place mentally, forgetting everything except his work of being a soldier and wanted to shock him out of it. She wanted to force him to take some agency in his life, to make a change for the better rather than just accept his life as a soldier and his self-imposed mission to make up for his inability to protect his brother. Kaladin just didn't understand that at the time, and probably still can't understand it as of the end of OB.

Probably depends on your definition of love triangle and what you think of Kaladin's "you remind me of my brother" "revelation" at the end of OB. In my view, if two people have romantic interest in the same person and decide to compete for their affection that is a love triangle. That definitely happened in OB. I don't think Shallan/Kaladin was "thing" in the sense that it was a one sided interest from Kaladin, but that doesn't mean it wasn't a love triangle. IMO, it's pretty common for a love triangle plot to have one side of it be unrequited or mostly unrequited. I don't think you could call it an attempt to escape growth from Kaladin's side either, it was an attempt to seek growth, an attempt to let go of his slavish devotion to his men and his work and go after something that he wanted for himself. And he learned something about himself by doing it, so I would say he did achieve growth. It's hard to say much about Shallan's side with how messed up she was mentally during OB when Kaladin was trying to get serious about it. I personally think Kaladin has shown that having a romantic relationship is important to him, or at least having a relationship that brings him joy and is not one that is a burden/responsibility to him. In his mind (and seemingly Syl's) he seems to believe that a romance is the place he can find that, but maybe he'll learn in Book 4 that he can have it from platonic friends. There are hints he might be headed down that path. If you look at the close relationships he has in the book so far (other than with Syl), they are all the type of relationship where he gives more than he gets in return. His closest friends are all in Bridge 4 and while they are friends and make him happy he also sees them first and foremost as an obligation and duty. He is looking for someone who can be on a more level footing with him - where they each support each other. That's what he saw in Shallan, but that didn't work out. Adolin could become that for him, but they aren't close emotionally as of the end of OB. Shallan could become that as a platonic friend, but I have a feeling they will not try to become close friends out of respect for Adolin and Shallan's marriage. So, I could see really any of the primary romance candidates of Laral, Tarrah, or even Rysn as being that person for him. I think before he does get in a relationship though, he has to develop more as a person. I could really see a budding relationship push him toward personal growth and learning to let go and accept that it's OK for him to build relationships in pursuit of his own goals. If he does meet up with Tarrah again, I think that would be an easy way for it to happen. He knows what he did wrong to lose her, it's just a matter of whether or not he is willing to change his ways. So it would come up - hey Kaladin you idiot you can't just live your life for your fellow soldiers and sacrifice everything for others. She's already shown that she is her own woman and would not put up with Kaladin trying to "rescue" her. I think she wanted to rescue him from himself when they first met in the aftermath of his brother's death. We only have Kaladin's memories of their relationship, but I imagine if we saw it from a more neutral eye we would learn there's a lot more to her than we've seen so far. Whether or not they actually get together, I think meeting Tarrah again will be good for Kaladin.

Personally, I think the similarities you are seeing are probably more due to Sanderson's style as an author. He has certain character archetypes that he likes to re-use and certain ways he likes to write certain kinds of scenes. For example, in point 2 you talk about how they have similar mannerisms, but I think that is more likely to be caused by the fact that Sanderson writes scenes of people at ease with their friends in the same general way across his different books. What I think are different about the two is that Spensa is very much a girl who loves being physical, doing things with her hands, hunting, climbing, fighting, etc. She is aggressive and goes directly after what she wants without subtlety. She knows exactly who she is and has no reservations about that and doesn't pretend to be someone else (outside of spy missions). Shallan is different. She is not a physical person, she prefers intellectual exercises like research and art. Shallan is naturally shy and doesn't want to go after her goals directly. She can overcome her shyness and do what needs to be done, but she's not naturally ambitious and aggressive like Spensa. Shallan is also the type of person who feels she needs to put on a face for other people, to the point that she literally split herself into three people because she wanted to be what she thought other people expected of her. You can argue that the influence of society, life experiences, etc have caused them to diverge more than they would have otherwise, but I don't know if that's a meaningful argument. People are who they are based on their life experiences, you can't take that away and try to create some kind of "base" personality. Or, if you can we haven't figured out how yet in science or philosophy. From my perspective, I like both characters, but I don't think you can draw anything from Spensa to see a future Shallan. They are too different. They have each been shaped by their own life experiences. Let's not forget, Spensa's father died when she was young and her whole family was disgraced and pushed down to the lowest rungs of society by what he did in his final hours. She's experienced her own trauma, though it was very different from Shallan's. So it's not like Spensa is a Shallan without trauma. Shallan will always be a little more shy and hesistant, she won't be as ambitious and aggressive as Spensa. She will always love scholarly pursuits and art, while Spensa will never love those things. Spensa loves to fight in deadly combat, Shallan doesn't. They have some similarities, but also plenty of differences.

Yeah, that's fair enough. You could easily be right. I personally would prefer it if it's a mix of both - Heralds are strong but have weakness AND Odium's still playing it close to the chest and not exposing his true powers. To me, the idea of perfect/infinite healing is uninteresting especially if it's a common power. It's ok if there's one character with that ability in a story - then it's an interesting mystery to figure how or even if that character can be defeated. That's a big part of the plot of the first Mistborn book. If it's a standard thing that you have to overcome extreme healing every time you get in a fight, that gets boring at least to my taste.

I would say a slight edge to Skyward. I liked both a lot, but the downside of Starsight to me was that the story changed so abruptly from being about the plucky humans surviving against all odds in an austere environment to Spensa living as a spy in the ritzy alien capital in the blink of an eye. It felt like we didn't get much time at all for her to sort of consolidate her gains from Skyward before she was plunged into the new plot. Maybe if there could have been a few chapters where the (can't remember her name) new alien arrived on Detritus and sort of convinced Spensa to go or something. Then again, what do I know.. I loved both personally.