agrabes

Well, I'm glad to hear your opinion on this one - could easily be that I'm reading it wrong. I just don't see it that way. For example in TWoK - Hoid/Wit is putting on a show - he's acting as the King's Wit and as such his role is to be kind of a jerk to all the nobles. We as the audience (and also all the in world characters) know that. And Sanderson makes a point that the good and wise characters don't find him annoying, but those who are immature at that point in the story (Adolin) or who are bad people (Sadeas & Co) really hate him. And then, when he's not playing as The King's Wit, he's shown as being kind to Kaladin. I actually really liked Hoid as he was written in TWoK, but lately he's gotten on my nerves. He's also built up among the fans as this super cool character, the one who's in all the cosmere stories. You see it a ton on this board, people hyped up about Hoid. You also have to imagine he's a bit of a darling for Sanderson - the character he inserted in his first books that tied everything together as one huge cosmere shared world series. That's my reading of it though. I like yours better, so maybe I'll try to think of it that way next time I read through the books.

For me - it bothered me because it breaks immersion in the world and because Hoid's voice when he's just being "him" is annoying. Hoid has this way of being cocky that is very annoying to me. I think it's because we're supposed to think as an audience that Hoid is cool, funny, and sophisticated because the writing is never skeptical of him (if that makes sense), but he comes across to me as full of himself. The reason to add "unnecessary sci-fi words" is to separate the world of the story from the real world. The Cosmere is supposed to be a world with no ties to the real world - it's not something like The Expanse or The Lord of the Rings which are (from the perspective of the story) events that are part of the real world. So, it doesn't make sense to include cultural references to our real world and it feels really out of place. It's the same reason that in Mistborn Era 2 Tarcsel invented "incandescent light" and not "the light bulb", or why people have "guns" and "rifles" but not "Colt .45's" or "Remington 1873 Repeating Rifles." It makes sense that the same kinds of things are going to exist in a fantasy world as the real world, but there are neutral ways of referring to them to say "yeah, this is pretty much that, but it's not exactly the same as what we have and this world has its own history of how they invented it." Basically the "unnecessary sci-fi words" are normal practice for Sanderson, so it feels bad he didn't use them here. Also, Sanderson's style of "whimsy" is mostly like nails on a chalkboard to me. I can barely tolerate Lift. Wayne and Lopen are not tolerable in 85% of their on screen time. I have a hard time explaining exactly why all this bothers me. I think it's because it feels like fanservice and also kind of like breaking the fourth wall - or at least knocking on it. Basically, it's taking the kinds of jokes and memes that SFF fans make about SFF characters, but giving those lines to the characters themselves. I think the intent is to make it feel like a putting up a flag and having the characters recognize that the scenarios in their world are sometimes a bit ridiculous. Some authors can pull this off really well and make it feel natural, others can't. And it is a matter of taste too. Sanderson's way of doing it is not to my taste, but other authors can do similar things without weirding me out. The example that comes to mind is Jim Butcher - for me he can get away with characters bumping up against breaking the fourth wall because of his style of writing, but Sanderson can't. At least not for me - I know there are plenty of people who enjoy Sanderson's humor and I'm not trying to say people who like it are bad or something. But it is just not for me.

Yes, good point. I did enjoy Hoid telling his stories to Kaladin and Shallan. I think it's that in those stories, he (Hoid) is tailoring them to serve a purpose with a character in the main story so he's either mean or kind based on what the person needs to hear at the time, while in this book it's more of the raw, unfiltered Hoid since he's not tailoring it to an audience. If anything, he is breaking the fourth wall and tailoring it to Sanderson superfans (for example, where he confirms that steel is used to "push" spores). Yes, Mistborn Era 3 will be set with 1980's level technology, so when it comes to that point we'll expect to see computers and relatively modern technology. We might or might not see laptops. It's not basic words like programming that bother me, but specific ones that refer to our in world culture. For example, if you look at SciFi unless it's meant to be based in a future version of the real world you aren't going to see them use the word "laptop" or "tablet". They will have some other device that fulfills a similar function, but "laptop" is a term specific to our current culture. Same with socks and sandals being bad fashion - specific to our culture. However, they will use basic terms like "computer" or "programming" because those are generic descriptive words. We are meant to think they have a computer in Star Wars, but we aren't meant to think it's a Dell laptop with software that was programmed in C++ or Java because those things weren't invented a long time ago in a galaxy far away. They generally use the term "datapad" for tablet/laptop in Star Wars. Even in Mistborn Era 2 - they invent light bulbs but don't call them light bulbs because that wouldn't make sense. I don't think Sanderson will generally continue this 4th wall breaking style, I think it's specific to Hoid's voice and what he wanted to do with this specific story.

i don't think it said that the Kandra "went their own way" - it said they got weirder when they were no longer forced to always be in human form. Seems like what happened at the end of Era 1. They're all pretty weird in Era 2 and say very similar kinds of things to what Ulaam says in this story. Sazed already mostly lets them do what they want in Era 2. Separately My Thoughts About the Book: I really like the overall story. It was great worldbuilding and I really liked the character of Tress and her positive outlook on the world. I did not like that it was told through Hoid's voice. Something always feels off when Sanderson tries "whimsical" as he put it in the postscript. I think he lays it on a little too thick. Or maybe, it being a full length novel it was just too much. Didn't really like the whole modern day cultural references being thrown in either - laptops, socks & sandals, etc. I know that eventually the Cosmere is going to be modern day or even future tech, but didn't expect it to just be a copy of our own culture. Overall I liked the book and I'm happy we got it as a "bonus." Totally appreciate that Sanderson was writing this to work on developing his writing so the writing style doesn't have to be to my taste. I also think it shows the kind of cool things he can come up with when he's not feeling constrained to complete a multi-decade epic story that's being told over multiple series. If we could only cut out the Hoid narrator, this would easily be one of my top 5 Sanderson books. Even with that, it's still good.

I think this is a good point and it's something that's also been at the back of my mind - why would a native Rosharan sign up for an organization that has a goal to "Protect Scadrial"? If Kelsier or Iyatil came to a Rosharan and said "please take power from your planet so that my planet can be more powerful, in return I'll tell you a few secrets and you can be part of our cool club" would they really agree to that? Why would they do it? Maybe if they knew people on Scadrial or had some reason to believe the Scadrians were in a really bad situation and needed humanitarian aid, but that also doesn't make any sense. Based on everything we know as readers, the Scadrians are better off than the Rosharans, especially at the time of SA1-4. Even if the Ghostbloods were totally open with all members everywhere and said their number one motivation is to protect Scadrial, that would not make sense. There must be another motivation for the Ghostbloods on other worlds, especially when it comes down to sending power offworld. I could understand them joining because of the allure of being in a secret organization, but not participating in the part where they reduce their own strength to help out a planet they've never been to that is in less danger than they are.

The difference in the two branches, at least in my view, is that on Roshar the Ghostbloods are definitely "bad" aligned. They aren't aligned with Odium, but they are a criminal organization. They are essentially the mafia. They use underhanded tactics to coerce people into doing what they want - we are given the main example of how they treat Shallan. They kidnap her family to force her to do what they want. They are also more advanced and widespread in Roshar. The implication in Roshar is that they have huge numbers of members, have infiltrated essentially every facet of society, and can reach out and pretty much do whatever they want to anyone. They mostly succeed in killing a main character who is one of the most powerful people in the world. Compare that to the Scadrian Ghostbloods and the difference is significant. They are willing to use underhanded tactics, but only in relatively minor ways. They're willing to walk away and let people die in order to reduce the risk to themselves, but they were willing to take on additional risk to help Marasi without too much prodding even though they didn't really have to in order to accomplish their mission. The Rosharan Ghostbloods would have said no way and left Marasi on her own. You also get the feeling that they would not kidnap people or assassinate people to achieve their goals. They would lie and steal and keep things a secret, but it also feels like they would try not to hit any one person too hard that they couldn't recover from it, etc. Most of the Ghostbloods we se on Scadrial also seem to be good people who want to do good things. They also seem to be less powerful and less ever-present in Scadrial society. While some of them probably have the individual power to win or at least be competitive in a one on one fight with Wax or Wayne, as an organization they feel less powerful. It doesn't feel like the Scadrian Ghostbloods could just walk in and kill an important leader. If the goal of all the Ghostbloods is to import power to Scadrial, and if they've been doing this for hundreds of years at the time of TLM, the Scadrian Ghostbloods should feel extremely powerful. But they don't - their reserves allow them to sort of go toe to toe with our heroes and the main bad guys for a little while, but if they're really the focus of a Cosmere wide group funnelling power they should be basically untouchable. This makes sense at least as far as it goes with the difference in Scadrial-Roshar Ghostbloods. If Kelsier was there directly supervising, he'd keep the Rosharan Ghostbloods in line and prevent the worst of their excesses. He would have no qualms with allowing bad people in the Ghostbloods (as we see in TLM) and isn't all that bothered by what the Rosharan ones were doing (otherwise he'd make a change in their leadership), but at least when he's directly involved he's not going to allow certain things to happen. He's the kind of leader who leads by force of personality rather than creating good procedures, good lasting culture, etc. As far as the Kelsier/Ghostblood ideology mismatch - I agree there is a mismatch. I think the most likely cause is that Kelsier is lying about the true motivations behind the Ghostbloods. I think he does want to protect Scadrial, but as a secondary goal. His primary goal is personal power - maybe due to a combination of egomania and trauma from being hurt by an extremely powerful being like TLR. He wants to become so powerful no one can hurt him again. It's a lot easier to recruit people when you are saying "Let's save Roshar from powerful predatory beings" rather than "Make me powerful so I don't have to hurt again." I don't think he co-opted an existing movement. I think a lot of the WoB's about his involvement are Sanderson's way of answering questions while not spoiling the plot for people, like you said. But, I could definitely see your view being right as well.

I would also argue that not only was Sazed busy, we shouldn't assume he had perfect knowledge or understanding of how to use his powers especially at first. I think the WoB about how TLR could have made himself immortal if he'd thought to do it applies to Sazed equally. We shouldn't assume that even the Shard Vessels have perfect knowledge, at least at first. But I think even with time, we shouldn't assume they know everything about everything.

I think if you're going to have this debate and prove one side or the other would win in a general battle you should assume both sides are on equal footing. Imagine both sides topped up all their gear as they would knowing they were going into a battle and neither side has the ability to resupply. Each side only is allowed to use powers as shown and understood by the characters so far in published books. Neither side has extensive pre-knowledge of the other's capabilities and exact strengths and weaknesses, they only know they are facing a dangerous enemy with unknown magical abilities. We don't let them have knowledge of each other because then each poster thinks they can make their side more clever than the other. The "forces of evil" are not allowed to join, but rival powers are - for example Odium and Autonomy's forces are not allowed, but Southern Continent, Shin, etc are allowed. Dalinar's recharge ability is assumed to be cut off because it makes it unfair - no unlimited resupply. Ghostbloods are not part of it, because this is not a battle for the existence of Scadrial and they would not go march to war based on the command of the military leaders of Scadrial. We have an encounter battle and see who wins. In that context - here's what I think. Rosharan Forces - Knights Radiant, Shardbearers (Full Set, Plate Only, Blade Only), Regular Soldiers with Medieval Weapons. Flying platforms and horses are the means of transport. Scadrian Forces - Wax as Mistborn, Various Mistings and Ferrings, Kandra, Koloss, Regular soldiers armed with Pistols, Repeater Rifles, Gattling Guns, and Cannons. A small number Harmonium-Bavadinium bombs are available. Early era automobiles and airships are the means of transport. What happens: The forces encounter each other - Scadrian forces quickly defeat everyone who is not a Radiant or wearing shardplate due to steel pushing abilities and superior weaponry. In a rage, windrunners and skybreakers with help from shardbearers clear the majority of the Scadrians. Shardblades slice through the Scadrian formations like butter. Here or there the blades hit an aluminum weapon and are deflected, but in the moment it makes no difference. The Scadrian leaders notice this and take note of it for later. Scadrian magic and weaponry can't penetrate the shardplate and though some allomantic abilities could technically defeat the plate, the Scadrians haven't yet had time to figure out how it can be done. The initial encounter and ensuing chaos kill all the mundane troops on both sides. Most of the magic users without defensive abilities (speed, time manipulation, armor, extreme healing) are also dead or out of action. Wax and a core troop of the metalborn are left vs. the Radiants and Shardbearers. The battle rages for hours, with the Rosharans holding a slight edge due to their superior defensive capabilities. The Scadrians don't use their H-B bombs, holding it back for the maximum tactical surprise impact. The Radiants without plate, non-Radiant shardbearers, and metalborn gradually are defeated as their Stormlight and Metals run out. This leaves the Scadrians outnumbered and in trouble. Wax realizes there's only one thing left to do - he takes the H-B bombs to the heart of the Rosharan formation and detonates them - utterly destroying the Rosharans and sacrificing himself in the process. The power of the bomb is so great it overwhelms the shardplate and the Radiants, drained of stormlight at the end of a long battle, can't heal through it either. Result: Pyrrhic victory for Scadrial due to their H-B bomb.

Hmm, I hadn't seen that WoB before. It's fairly recent too. That said though - he says they are "a bit removed" but not that they are a rogue element. We see in RoW that Kelsier is in contact with them regularly enough and I don't remember him ever expressing that he was unhappy with how the Ghostbloods operate on Roshar even if he's not able to give them real time instructions. He's not there to directly observe, but he still has his chosen leaders there. It's also implied the Ghostbloods have a presence on many worlds, so it seems strange that we should expect the Roshar branch is significantly worse than the others. So, I think at best you could say Kelsier is getting the wool pulled over his eyes by a bad subordinate leader and at worst he's willing to turn a blind eye to bad behavior as long as it gets results.

Quick warning note - this post assumes you have read both Lost Metal and RoW. As I was reading the sections of LM that feature the Ghostbloods, I was really struck by the idea that the Ghostbloods we see in the Stormlight Archive seem different than the Ghostbloods of Mistborn Era 2, in terms of ideology, mission, and capabilities. Based on the timelines we have of the Cosmere, we know that the general chronological order of events in the Cosmere is Mistborn Era 1, SA 1-5, Mistborn Era 2, SA 6-10, Mistborn Era 3. The Ghostbloods Shallan encounters seem to be much more ruthless and self-centered than the ones Marasi deals with. The Rosharan branch also appears to be much more established and extensive. Based on the timeline we have, which says Shallan is meeting the Ghostbloods before Marasi, this doesn't make sense to me. I have a few thoughts on why this might be the case and I thought I would put them out there to see what others think: Theory 1: Kelsier's Manipulation - Kelsier is being intentionally deceptive about his true goals and motivations to the Ghostbloods who are on Scadrial. He portrays his goals to be about defending Scadrial from dangerous forces in Cosmere that are out to get them, but in reality his goals are about achieving personal power and authority. While on Scadrial, Kelsier is dealing with the watchful eye of Harmony. He knows that Harmony would crack down on him if he were to directly challenge or rival Harmony for power and control of Scadrial so he puts on a kind face with any dealings that are directly to do with Scadrial. He tells his followers there that they are serving a noble goal and puts a limit on the worst of his own ambitions in anything he does. This results in a better culture of people in the Ghostbloods on Scadrial. Offworld, Kelsier lays his ambitions bare. He tells his offworld agents, particularly ones he can trust to work and lead autonomously, to gain power through whatever means necessary and supply it to him. This leads to the nasty behavior of the Ghostbloods on Roshar. It also explains why most of the Ghostbloods, despite being an organization that is meant to "protect Scadrial" are operating more intensively off Scadrial than they are on Scadrial. If they were really working to protect Scadrial as their primary purpose, they would have been working harder to share knowledge there and advance their technology, magic, etc. Theory 2: Timelines are Off - Sanderson has said the timelines are a bit flexible and haven't yet been set in stone. He will adjust things such that SA1-5 come after Era 3. This would make sense - Kelsier may start the Ghostbloods as an idealistic group seeking to gain power and knowledge with a true intent of making Scadrial a better place. During LM, they are still in the idealistic phase. Sure, they are willing to overlook the greater good for their own mission to some extent, but are still made up of good people who want to help others as we see with Marasi's experience. In SA1-5, they've lost that idealism. Maybe Kelsier gets burned by Harmony after trying to help the Scadrians "too much". By the time Shallan meets the Ghostbloods, they've been transformed into a group that cares only about power and secrets and don't mind murdering people to keep them. Theory 3: Marasi's Experience is Unique - Due to the unique circumstances of Marasi's experience (Scadrial in existential threat from Autonomy), the Scadrian Ghostbloods are unusually nice and open to Marasi. Had they not felt the need to cooperate in order to save Scadrial and themselves, they would have been much more secretive and Marasi's experience would have been a lot more like Shallan's. Anyway, just a few thoughts that crossed my mind. I personally think the first one is most likely to be true. Let me know how you all see things.

Agreed - I think Sazed does have a long term plan that he is keeping secret from everyone, but in especially Kelsier. He knows Kelsier would essentially usurp Harmony's position as "leader/god" of Scadrial if he could and so he does what he can to avoid that fate. I think we can see this because he very clearly set up the red vial in advance to make Wayne a Mistborn. He knew what was going to happen and set things up for success according to his own plans, passing on as little knowledge as possible to people not directly in his control (AKA everyone but Kandra). I didn't get that impression - didn't Kelsier say that he sometimes saw the shadow, but not always? I think the scene was meant to say this is the "good" and fully in control Harmony/Sazed because there's no shadow, and even this version is skeptical of Kelsier and wants to keep him at arm's length. I think if it was meant to say the shadow had taken control, Kelsier would have made an observation that something seemed different about Sazed/Harmony, that he seemed darker, etc.

I agree that the gap has to be shorter. Based on the conversations between Harmony and Kelsier, they see the threat from Autonomy coming in a timescale of decades rather than centuries. I think Era 3 is going to be centered around fending off that threat. So, I would say maybe 50-100 years.

Jumping into this a bit late - I was disappointed but not completely surprised in Gavilar's status in the SA5 prologue. I think this was heavily foreshadowed in the Navani prologue. I'm a little disappointed because I feel like the fact that Gavilar was actually a pretty bad guy who was selfish and could never have really achieved anything is a bit of a tired trope. When Sanderson was originally plotting this out back in the 00's it would have subverted the way most fantasy would have handled things. In 2002 mainstream fantasy Gavilar would have been a philosopher king who conquered the world by the power of his wisdom who died by an evil betrayer, so it would have been interesting for him to turn out to be kind of a crappy guy. In 2022 we expect there to be a reveal that Gavilar is rotten on the inside. For me, it fell flat. I think what bothers me about it is that it doesn't feel very "Sanderson." Sanderson's biggest themes have always been about seeing the best in people, even if others doubt them. It's about how you should give people a chance even if they seem bad, because they can't change if you don't give them a chance. It felt right for Sadeas to be punished because he'd been built up from day one as a bad guy and he was given a chance to redeem himself, which he chose not to take. This Gavilar plot from ROW and the SA5 prologue feels like it's about taking a guy who seems to us like he has definitely done some good and some bad in his life and telling us "Hey - this guy is a terrible person you all need to hate if you want to be a decent person." It feels bad. I do think Sanderson intended us to slowly piece together that we'd been seeing Gavilar through Dalinar's rose colored glasses and he was never quite as noble as Dalinar thought. I don't mind the concept, it just feels off for some reason. I think maybe it would have been better if we saw Dalinar figure it out first and then had it confirmed in the Gavilar POV prologue? I didn't come to like Sanderson because his writing showed people getting what was coming to them - I liked Sanderson because his stories were about people overcoming bad circumstances and lifting themselves up. He very rarely cast people as irredeemable or purely bad. I would have rather seen that at heart Gavilar was doing all these things for what he thought was a good reason and not just selfishness and lust for power. Or maybe a moment of reflection at the end where he thinks to himself that he lost his way and regretted the person he had become late in his life.

Not a huge fan of this news personally. I'm not particularly a fan of Wells and have avoided Intentionally Blank because of that. That said, I don't need to read any books he co-authors. Or, maybe I'll come around someday.

I personally think Kelsier gets too positive of a rep in fandom. I think Sanderson has been pretty clear that Kelsier is an egomaniacal person who only did things we would consider "good" to bring glorification to himself and serve his own personal desires. The easy comparison is The Lord Ruler, who is a great foil for Kelsier. While Kelsier did good things for bad motives, The Lord Ruler did bad things for good motives. Kelsier was clever enough to understand that the best way to achieve his personal revenge and glorification was to build up a popular uprising around himself. He was not particularly motivated by improving the life of the skaa (though he did say that he was) because he frequently took actions which made life worse for them. On the other hand, The Lord Ruler was dumb and thought that the only way he could save the world was to lock it down and use draconian policies to force people to act in the way he wanted. He was not a good person either because he allowed and even encouraged evil things. I think what we'll see from Kelsier in future cosmere books is to make it even more clear that Kelsier is only out for himself. We'll see clearly on screen that everything he has done is for his own personal advancement. I don't think he'll necessarily be a villain - we'll see him as a neutral third party in context of whatever the great struggle of the cosmere turns out to be. He will at times be at odds with our heroes whenever their interests come in conflict with his. We've already been seeing this so far from "Thaidakar" in SA4.

I think you are getting caught up too much in the word "nation." I'm not going to argue on the changing and/or varying meaning of nation because frankly I just don't know enough about it to make a compelling argument. All I'll say is that assuming your definition is technically correct, it's still not the way most people think of the word. In plain language there was no nation of "Germany" prior to Bismarck - only various small central European states populated by ethnic Germans. At a base level - the point we are talking about here is the government of the Alethi Princedoms prior to being unified by Gavilar. Whether you want to call them nations, city-states, principalities, or any other name, what is clear is that they were not sub-units of a larger governmental unit with one centralized ruling structure. They were also not individual governments that were nominally subordinate to a single ruler even if in practice that ruler generally had little practical control. They were 10 separate governmental units who operated autonomously from each other. Sometimes they chose to ally, other times they chose to be enemies. The form of government both before and after unification was monarchy/aristocracy. A hereditary autocratic ruler, with subordinate leaders holding power granted by hereditary titles whose high status are also drawn from genetic ties to the ruling family and/or "royal" decree elevating their status if they don't have blood ties. Now if you were to go back to the Heirocracy, things change again but that's something else.

I think there is some truth to @Child of Hodor's point. It's probably a little pessimistic to say all is lost and/or Sanderson will never be on track for another book release again, etc. But, unlike the equivalent time during the lead up to RoW, we're not seeing updates from Sanderson talking about being excited to work on SA5. We're not seeing him make progress on the book like we did in 2019 for RoW, though he was at only 29% by this time in 2019 so it's not like he was halfway done with the book. Obviously, he's busy with Hollywood stuff and that's great. And even aside from the time he spends on that, for all we know he could have been working along and run into issues with the writing that required him to work on things that don't move the progress bar, etc. I'm not doubting his work ethic, or his desire and passion for writing at all. I'm not trying to say he's making a bad use of his time, or anything like that. I thought the SA5 prologue was great and some of the better writing he's done lately. Just, you can tell a difference in his communication to the community about SA5 during the year he planned to spend writing it vs. how he interacted with the community in 2019 while writing RoW. He seems less excited about it and it seems like it's not as much of a focus for him. I think he should do exactly what he wants to do and come back to Stormlight when he's refreshed and ready to go like he was last time around. I'd rather he take his time and make it great and write what he is passionate about vs. rushing it because he feels guilty about not being able to reach his writing goals and letting down the fans.

Like your ideas, even if I don't think they're likely it would be an interesting story! Here are my predictions: 1) Dalinar chooses to be his own champion, as expected. A big part of the drama for the first 2/3 of the book is in who will become Odium's champion. 2) Adolin/Shallan plotline is largely focused on Ba-Ado-Mishram, but also in the interaction with the Ghostbloods. Their plotline will be the one that looks outward into the Cosmere. They will arrive only just in time for the Contest of Champions. Their plot will keep them (or return them?) to the Cognitive Realm. 3) Kaladin and Szeth go to Shinovar and we will get some kind of revelation as to what the Shin have been up to. Szeth makes progress and swears the 5th Ideal. 4) Kaladin attempts to "heal" Ishar of his madness. This fails - teaching Kaladin that not every problem can be solved and that in some cases it's better not to try because he can't literally do everything and save everyone all the time. Ishar continues his insanity but does not pose a threat to the immediate issue - the contest of champions - so Kaladin and Szeth leave. Kaladin starts to better learn what it means to be a leader, especially a higher level leader (he has to trust his subordinates to make good decisions without his direct guidance and generally shouldn't enter the battle directly himself) which allows him to swear his 5th Ideal, which gains him additonal powers to "buff" allies in some way. 5) Nale is selected as Odium's champion. He defeats and kills Dalinar in a straight up battle, leading to Dalinar becoming a fused. Nale decides independently from Odium that he is now obligated to purge Roshar of humans since he sided with the Singers and he begins a violent crusade which doesn't violate Odium's deal since Nale is acting on his own. This happens at about the 2/3 point in the book. 5.5) One of Nale's first acts is to punish Adolin for his murder of Sadeas. He sees Dalinar/Jasnah's lack of action on that crime as particularly loathsome, a perversion of justice to let his son go without punishment. He tries to kill Adolin, but Adolin escapes into the cognitive realm and becomes a worldhopper, knowing Nale can't follow. 6) Since this is Szeth's book - he is the one who faces down with Nale in a battle of 5th Ideal Skybreakers to determine what is truly required by the law. Kaladin helps by buffing Szeth. 7) Simultaneous with the Nale/Szeth battle, Moash arrives and has a final showdown with Kaladin. Kaladin has to fight at a disadvantage because he's committed a lot of his power to help Szeth. 8) Szeth defeats Nale. As Nale is dying, he tells Szeth that this is what he brought him back to life to do - to stop him from becoming too hard hearted and dogmatic. Nale dies for real (somehow). 9) Kaladin defeats Moash despite being without a lot of his powers. He spares Moash, who escapes and is set up as one of the big bads for the back 5 of Stormlight. I'll be surprised if any of this actually happens, but figured I'd throw my thoughts out there.

I'll just add that in terms of urbanization, even in the west there were a lot of factors. For example in the early years of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, a lot of the reason you saw people migrate to the cities was that there was only so much land to go around. If a family has 5 or 10 children, which would have been common for those days especially in a farming family, if you're the youngest kid will you have any land to farm? You can farm with your parents and siblings, but you don't get a life of your own. Granted, you might be a serf or peasant who works common land for the local nobility so the concept of your own private land doesn't even exist. But the point being, you can't just start your own farm on your own land because land is passed down through generations. So you need to do something else to earn a living. And for many people, they did various odd jobs like weaving and sewing and making furniture, etc (the OG cottage industry). But as industrial production began, it was so much cheaper than these locally hand crafted goods that people could no longer earn a living. And the large rural population could no longer support itself on the land available, so many people left the farms to go in search of a job in the cities. They had no choice, it was starve or take a terrible factory job. I think in terms of Scadrial, I see it going very similar to the US today. Rural areas are dying out. Family farms are gobbled up by megafarms (which might still be run by a family, but with many employees as well) as the younger generation moves toward more urban areas for job opportunities and to find a romantic partner, etc. I grew up on a family farm and it's something I've experienced firsthand. In Scadrial, I'm sure that as technology improved there were fewer people necessary to run the farms and the rural youth got more and more connected with the urban life and started to want the perks that come with it. It seems simple to me.

I think by the in world standards, either could be considered honorable. It's clear from Nale's reactions and the fact that Szeth has a high spren that his actions were considered honorable by the ethics of the Skybreakers. It's also clear that Kaladin is presenting what would be honorable by the ethics of the Windrunners. By my personal standards, knowingly murdering people was not honorable regardless of the law. You can follow the law and still be dishonorable. If he could say he was accomplishing a greater good by killing (or allowing to die) a few particular individuals, then I think what he did could have been honorable. But that's actually the opposite of what happened. He killed these people believing that he was not serving a greater good - aside from when he killed Gavilar he was just following orders from either petty criminals or a man he believed to be evil in Taravangian. He knew that what he did would cause overall harm to society, touching off wars and chaos. You can't even argue that Taravangian's plan was actually moral (which I think is at least a real debate) and therefore Szeth's actions were honorable in serving it because Szeth did not agree with Taravangian's plan and probably didn't even know all the details.

I'm a bit late to the party, so I'm sure these theories have already been thoroughly discredited. But, I loved this prologue. It made Gavilar's actions and attitude toward the people in his life not sympathetic but understandable. He's not just an evil caricature that we are supposed to feel good about hating, he's a person with motives and reasons that make sense to him and could be justified in a certain twisted way within the messed up confines of his own mind, but to outside observers it's clear he's crossed into doing really bad things. Makes him feel like a person. In terms of the StormFather, I think there is definitely something different with him during this prologue. My theory while I was reading it was that we know the original Stormfather was merged with the remnants of the Honor shard. So, could it be that at this time that remnant had partial control of the Stormfather spren? Sort of a two minds occupying one "body" situation where sometimes the Honor cognitive shadow has control, other times it's the Stormfather spren's "mind"? This would explain why at times the goal is to restore the Oathpact at all costs, including lying, while at other times the goal seems to be more in line with the Stormfather we see in the series interacting with Dalinar who is just looking for a good Bondsmith candidate and not looking for new Heralds. Honor's shadow could be considering that the most honorable thing is to honor the Oathpact, justifying things like lying, etc. Then, with the mystery Herald's death, something snaps in the Shadow and it either dies or loses enough power that it can't take control anymore. I do also like the idea that sometimes Ishar or some other unknown person is impersonating the Stormfather sometimes too, but haven't read enough of the thread to see if there's a lot of evidence against that by now.

Thanks - Excellent post! I do remember reading that first WoB at some point. And really, I think as far as that one goes, he actually nailed that feeling. Amaram (to me) does come across as a politician playing realpolitik in tWoK and WoR - someone who carefully weighs doing things that are morally good for everyone on a scale vs. things that gain personal power or power for his country but might be immoral to the "out" group and will do whichever one he thinks gains more value for his citizens. That can be extremely upsetting to people like Kaladin who want to see their politicians value moral character above all. It bothered me less, because I saw it in that context - Amaram had a job to do. And the unfortunate reality is that in real life especially in war time you have to play realpolitik. Amaram didn't have to do what he did, he could have chosen better. And clearly, he knew that he chose the immoral option. But, he knew it would weaken him forever as a politician and that would have negative impacts on his career and by extension the people he ruled. Being ruthless and amoral in the context of his job is something that makes him a bad person, but not an evil monster in my book. Up until OB, we never saw him do anything immoral outside the context of either advancing his career or his religious mission. That's just how I saw Amaram though, others definitely saw him differently. I think it's clear Sanderson had a different vision of Amaram in his head at least during the time he was writing OB. Anyway, appreciate you taking the time to reference those.

I think I'd heard that before and I don't dispute it. Sanderson has said he considers Amaram to have always been evil to the core and only putting on a nice face. So really the question to me is: Did he originally intend that from the beginning and just write Amaram too sympathetically in tWoK and WoR that gave some of us the wrong impression or did he change his mind at some point during the writing? Because Sanderson does introduce those bad behaviors in the RoW prologue, so I think it's clear Sanderson's current intent at least since writing OB is that Amaram was always bad.

The difference is that early in the story he sometimes did bad things but felt bad about it, but most of the time he didn't do bad things because he genuinely didn't want to do bad things. He was portrayed that way in tWoK and WoR and it made him interesting - that there were rational arguments to be made that he did the right thing in the big picture. It was an interesting commentary about the challenges of leadership and how someone can trick themself into going astray. It sounds like you don't see it way and that's fine. Starting in OB, his character was retconned to have always been doing bad things and always having bad motivations. That made him boring and lame and a massive letdown as a character. At the end of OB, we do get the part where he says he lost control of himself after realizing he had been wrong all along about his plan to cause the desolation to bring back the Heralds and went to Odium. And you can say then that his uncharacteristic behavior in OB makes sense in that context. That much is fine, though a little disappointing. If he had just changed how he behaved starting in OB after he gets a full dose of Odium, I don't think you'd see a significant number of people feeling like his character got the shaft in OB. It's the part where the rest of his character is retconned to having always been rotten and evil in all aspects of his life that is lame.

He was a nuanced character throughout all of tWoK and WoR. He was shown as someone who genuinely wanted to, and often did, help people. He had sincere beliefs about what he should do to make the world a better place. In the pivotal scene in Kaladin's flashbacks he is shown as struggling significantly with the moral weight of the decision he makes, being convinced by others who were probably under Odium's influence to do what they tell him is noble and he initially thinks would be just giving in to his base instincts. He even chooses to spare Kaladin's life, knowing that it could get him into trouble. In tWoK he was very clearly a nuanced character. Throughout WoR, you also see him struggling with the idea of how highly Dalinar thinks of him. He doesn't really think he's worthy. All the way up through the end of WoR, he's portrayed as a character who has goals that are noble, but is willing to cross some (but not all) moral lines to achieve them. He still has honor, in his own way. He again commits some immoral acts, but only for what he sees as a higher moral purpose. Then OB comes along. He's immediately accused of at minimum repetitive sexual harassment (with worse implied) and the tone of the writing says we as readers are expected to believe the claims are accurate. Nothing in the way he had behaved up to that point suggested he had done anything like that. And after that, his character changes completely from morally gray semi-protagonist to mustache twirling evil antagonist. He does get a small line or two at the end of OB about why he changed. And I get it - there's just not room in the book for a good and realistic character arc for Amaram to make his character changes feel earned. At least there is some attempt to explain why and even if it was not satisfying for me personally, it does help.