Ashspren

Alright everyone, here's how this is going to work... Competitors: I will release the matchups on Monday by noon EDT, and competitors will have until the following Friday by noon to write and post their roast. (Note: all times are in EDT.) Everyone: I'll post the Google Form for people to vote on winners Friday evenings, and everyone (including the audience!) will have until the following Monday by 9am to submit their vote. The winners of each matchup will move onto the next round. Hopefully, having everyone post when they're ready within the week will keep things from stalling too much. (Also, thank you to Archer for helping me out with this!) To kick things off, we'll release the matchups a little earlier this week. Competitors, you have until Friday 7/10 at 12pm EDT to post your roast! As a reminder, your roast can be as long or as short as you want it to be. Your goal is to verbally eviscerate the character you've been matched up with, acting as the character you have selected. As always, good flow and rhyming are very encouraged. Our first round matchups are: Nomad vs. Szeth ( @AonEne vs. @Frustration ) Wayne vs. Kaladin ( @Ascended Grubberfly vs. @Stardust ) Frost vs. Nightblood ( @Mystic vs. @GG0z ) Wax vs. Sadeas ( @Ink and Embers vs. @Archer ) Happy roasting to everyone, and best of luck!

Okay awesome, thanks everyone! Looks like this is our completed roster. Will kick things off in the next couple days-- excited to get started!

Sure, we've been rethinking the structure a bit to make sure things don't go stagnant. I'll kick things off later this week and explain new timings/rules. @Ascended Grubberfly @GG0z @Ink and Embers please pick your characters by EOD Sunday (July 5).

Yes of course! Just let me know when you pick a character. Also @Shatter, are you joining as Hoid?

Nope, you can use him as a character if you want! The audience is the judge via google forms.

Great, thanks gang! So we currently have: @Myst as Frost @Stardust as Kaladin @Ascended Grubberfly as Wayne @Archer as Torol Sadeas @Frustration as Szeth @GG0z as Nightblood @AonEne as Nomad @Ink and Embers as Wax Looking forward to it! Feel free to tag people/reach out to see if anyone else wants to participate. While a full 16 would be great (and very Cosmere relevant), we can also make it work with 8.

@Archer @Stardust @Frustration @Hoid Slayer @TwinStorm@KaladinsSenseOfHumourSpren @SpartanBrigade Finally have some free time and caught up with all the Cosmere books— if we want to do another rap battle tournament, I’m down to moderate (or co-moderate with Archer if he wants to stay in that role). Let me know and we can try to find a full set of people!

Hoping and praying that this is on-screen instead, or at least in a fun little short story. We would be robbed otherwise.

Gotcha, missed that part. Thank you so much!

During Chapter 104, Tanavast mentions that Odium’s power has been ripped and fragmented after his fight with Ambition. It’s later noted that a rift in the Spiritual Realm is created as a result. However, these effects aren’t observed after he splinters Devotion and Dominion. Was there a significant difference in the method used to perform the splintering? Or did this just have to do with the Intent of the different Shards and their desire to fight back? Also, could trapping the Shard remnants in the Cognitive Realm have mitigated any propagating effects?

Just popped back in for the first time in a while and completely forgot about this meme lol, crying over the inevitable death of my husband honored to have the gift of prophecy.

Does anyone have examples of books/series that have never been completed? This could include examples such as Game of Thrones, The Name of the Wind, etc. Also, if anyone knows stats on how many books get cancelled before the series is finished, or any other relevant information on this topic, that would be great. Working on a research project about writing and the publishing world. Thank you so much!

Oooh, this reminds me of the book Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. Essentially, the magic system boils down to colloquialisms and common phrases. (For example, if you wanted to clean something, you would use "clean as a whistle" or "spick and span." My personal favorite is probably "these are not the droids you're looking for" to hide something.) I've been wanting one of the Cosmere books to tackle something similar to this for a while now––I think it would play into a lot of really cool themes regarding Intent, too. Maybe something will happen with one of the Shards we don't know that well yet, like Whimsy, which sort of implies a lack of Intent. Something like that could be super interesting...

Kaladin has basically been the protagonist of the entire first arc. That said, it’s improbable that he’ll have as much of the spotlight in the second arc as well. I’m going to do my best to explain my theories for all of the viable paths I see moving forward... [Open the spoilers to see my ideas and details about how each one of these scenarios could go down. The pros/cons are super general and just my surface-level opinions.] Option 1: Swearing the Fifth Ideal in Book 5 Pros: It makes a lot of sense! Kaladin is alive and happy, we have a main character who's made it to the Fifth Ideal, and the future Radiants have an example to follow and a person to advise them. Cons: It's predictable, for the most part, and lacks some spice. Option 2: Swearing the Fifth Ideal and Dying Right After Pros: It’s fun and quirky and different. Also, we wouldn’t have to worry about his level of involvement being too high or too low in the second arc. Cons: It just doesn’t seem likely. If swearing the 5th is the indicator that his character arc is over, it kinda seems weird to kill him off immediately after. Option 3: Stuck in the Fourth Ideal Pros: Kaladin gets a major wrench thrown in his plans, which would allow us to know him better outside of the fight. There’s also the added bonus of a sort of parallel character development to that which we’ve seen so far. Further, it’s just a nice change of pace from Kaladin’s current progression, and it’s also something we haven’t seen before in the series. Everything is so fast-paced. Kaladin could be the first to face stagnation. Cons: As much as I love the idea, I’m not sure if it’s entirely likely. From the what we’ve seen in the first 4 books, it looks like Kaladin is progressing pretty steadily toward finishing his character development in the first arc. (There are probably more cons to this, but I’m self-aware enough to admit my own bias.) Option 4: Kaladin Dies Before He Can Swear the Fifth Ideal Pros: It’s new, it’s different, and it has shock value. It also makes the transition of protagonists pretty seamless. Cons: It’s unlikely, given that every character is given a satisfying end to their arc. Also, it’s sad. If you stuck it through to the end, then let me know what you think! If I got any canon information wrong, feel free to correct me––it’s been a while since I’ve reread any of the books, and I wrote this all in a sleep-deprived haze, lol. Definitely looking forward to reading any debate/discussion on this.

I know everyone on here has a bunch of ideas about the important details: the inner workings of the Cosmere, Realmatic Theory, critical uses of Investiture, and more. But I'm curious... What theories/headcanons do you have that are largely unimportant to the overall storyline, or that are just for fun?

@Ishar and I were discussing who the third Bondsmith might be, and he presented an interesting idea: What if there is no Bondsmith? With the anti-light, what if Odium's first move is to kill the Nightwatcher, eliminating the third Bondsmith spren? Whether or not this will actually happen is worth discussing, but this also poses another question. We know that lots of people have boons from the Nightwatcher, including Lift, Dalinar, and Taravangian. What would happen to these people––and to Roshar in general––if Odium kills the Nightwatcher? Just curious to see what everyone thinks!

The one @Chinkoln linked is also good, but I used https://perchance.org/incorrect-quote-generator. Have fun

I'm using an "Incorrect Quotes Generator" for Spensa and Jorgen, and I'm not disappointed... these are gold.

I'll keep this one short: has anyone else noticed the similarities between the names Jorgen Weight and Jason Write? I feel like there's probably a connection in there somewhere, but it could just be a coincidence. Also, I haven't had the chance to reread "Defending Elysium," and do a full character study on Jason yet, so I could totally be grasping at straws.

She's confirmed asexual, but not aromantic. From a WoB:

I was thinking of Greek mythology while writing my initial post. There’s a really weird dynamic there—a power differential where Jasnah relies on Hoid more than the reverse, or some variation in how much the relationship means to each person. Hoid gives me the vibes of a trickster god of some sort—like Norse mythology’s Loki. I think the Norse pantheon is actually a pretty good comparison for Hoid in general—powerful and immortal in terms of age, but they can still die (like Baldr). Either way, I’m going off-topic. Moral of the story: differences in mortality or lack thereof aren’t great for a relationship. Oh, I really like this idea. Have we ever seen either of them genuinely upset and angry? I think that could bring some sort of passion out of both characters. Regardless, I would be very excited to see this as a scene in an upcoming book.

Hi all, a quick question for everyone. As we know, Hoid and Jasnah are now romantically involved. I'm not going to lie––I was definitely a bit surprised here. My personal theories had been that Hoid was carrying a torch for someone from his past and that Jasnah didn't want a romantic interest, but here we are. I would usually never complain about a well-balanced intellectual relationship between some of the most beloved characters in the series, but I'm a bit concerned for these two. First of all, Hoid and Jasnah are both incredibly ambitious individuals. They both have their own agendas and, while they may line up at the moment, I'm not sure how much longer that will last. We know Hoid has to have some sort of end goal, but is it even something that we would consider "good" and not "evil"? We can't tell. He's been working to achieve something for thousands of years, so I think it's unlikely that he would stop for a single romantic interest, unless his relationship with Jasnah develops pretty seriously over the course of the series. Also, Jasnah has a very strong set of convictions and morals. She probably wouldn't change her entire mindset around just to accommodate any sort of emotional intimacy with Hoid, even if she enjoys it. In my opinion, while they both like being in a romantic relationship, they're both using each other for something. Hoid requires a social standing and access to resources (and an incentive not to kill him, even when he's being... himself), which Jasnah can provide him. Jasnah, on the other hand, is a scholar at heart. She wants knowledge about the Cosmere and its workings, and who better to aid her than the worldhopping, quick-witted menace himself? Another point of concern for me stems from the language that they use. Hoid tells Jasnah that he loves her for her paranoia, out of all of her qualities. I thought this was a little bit suspicious. It definitely doesn't seem romantic; if anything, it seems like he's seeking protection from something. Jasnah's paranoia could be keeping them both alive, sure, but a constant state of stress is not something that someone wishes on a partner. This seems especially unbalanced when we take into account the fact that his presence seems to put Jasnah at ease. At the very least, they seem to have some... minor communication issues. A third thing could be Jasnah's asexuality. Hoid doesn't seem to be completely considerate of that, hoping that his kisses and touch can spark something in her, when that's just not how it works. Jasnah does participate in physical intimacy for his pleasure, but I still think he should be more understanding about her preferences. To be honest, I'm kind of rooting for them. Hoid and Jasnah would make an unstoppable power couple, and I genuinely believe that they like one another and that they could actually fall in love. They just need to have a serious talk about what they want from each other, how far their relationship will go (unofficial lovers? marriage? plenty of possibilities), and their personal plans for both the near and far future. And if they decide that they can't speak about those things, well... that kind of speaks for itself. For future Stormlight books, I would love to see one's reaction when the other is in serious danger (it might be a bit difficult to find a circumstance that could kill Hoid, but Nightblood's on Roshar, so anything is possible). With any strong relationship––especially romantic ones––a reaction in that situation says a lot about the personalities of and dynamic between the two characters. And, I know between now and the next Stormlight book, I'm definitely going to be looking through everything Cosmere with a fine-toothed comb for mentions of Hoid and his end goals. Hoid and Jasnah are both already so interesting as individuals, so there's obviously a lot to analyze when considering them together. Thoughts? Opinions? P.S. I almost considered doing an astrology-esque analysis of Radiant order compatibility. Are a Lightweaver and an Elsecaller as meant to be as an Aries and a Libra? Or are they completely doomed, like a Taurus and a Leo? (I'm sorry if these relate to your life in any way––just picked the first ones off of Google. ) If anyone has actually done a zodiac-style analysis of the Radiants, I would love to see it. If not... well then. I guess I have a new project on my hands?

This is really interesting to me—it would also provide a deeper layer to Pattern communicating with Hoid through the seon. If Pattern is using Chana’s soul to communicate, does this imply that the Cryptics still have an interest in the Davar family, beyond just Shallan’s Radiant status? Also, if Chana’s soul is serving a similar function to a seon, I’m wondering how much of their Intents must line up. Is there something about Chana’s character or her Radiant order (the Dustbringers) that makes her particularly linked to Devotion?