SwordNimiForPresident

In what way did Rashek accept his death? He fought to the end and then tried to talk Vin out of killing him.

There's a big difference between my favorite and the best. Best goes to Taravangian (because Hoid is excluded). In a handful of interludes he gives us more background on the Cosmere than the entire rest of the series. My favorite is Wax, because I enjoy reading him the most. He has some of the most powerful scenes IMO. An example would be the climax fight scene in Alloy of Law when he tells Harmony that he should help people, and Harmony responds "I did, I sent them you". Another standout would be when he dies in Bands of Morning and goes on a walk with Sazed. As for edit 3. Kelsier is an interesting character because he is kind of an antihero. His motivations are easy to sympathize with but his methods are grisly. For me personally, most characters beat Kaladin. He is easily one of my least favorite main characters in the entire Cosmere. I find him to be overwhelmingly whiny. Reading his PoV is basically just listening to him say "whoa is me, no one has ever had it this bad" for three chapters, and then he finally does something cool for one chapter. Rinse, repeat. He has gotten better in the later books thankfully, but I definitely read Stormlight in spite of him, not because of him. Actually the only thing that really kept me engaged with Stormlight for the first three books was Dalinar.

I almost wish he wouldn't answer questions outside of his books, there's like a million pages of WoB's that I can't bothered to read because they aren't canon.

I must have missed it somewhere. Where did we learn that Rosharans are more invested?

The extra power they gain is finishing their character arc.

I wonder how big of a deal Roshar's lack of exposure to outside diseases would be. The common cold was apparently new at the time of TWoK, what if you introduced something a bit more spicy like small pox?

He also implied during the torture scene in the interludes that he had enough Breath to just wait for Axindweth to die of old age.

It seems an awful lot like Feruchemy to me. Nale and Ishar both seemed to use speed at some point, and Kalak said that Hoid told him he could store his memories in Investiture. I'm fairly confident Taln also used speed and possibly strength when he killed all the Fused at Azir. It definitely makes the Heralds far more powerful than I thought they were in earlier books.

Kaladin: You don’t actually have a chull down there, do you? Syl: Wanna see? Yea, I rest my case. This is way to thirsty for anything other than Syladin.

That's the nice thing about these forums, someone else already has and will pretty much always quote it to you.

In chapter 5 Kelek tells Shallan that bonding two Spren used to be impossible. With the idea of a double bond in mind it occurred to me that Dalinar can make Stormlight, Navani can make Towerlight, and Lift can make Lifelight. Lift is also capable of physically interacting with her Spren, and can see into the Cognitive realm. I think she may be bonded to the Nightwatcher and Wyndle. Anyone see any obvious holes, and/or supporting evidence?

I couldn't agree more. I've been wondering the same thing since we saw the Spren in Ishar's tent at the end of RoW. The fact that they appear to have functional biology makes me think this theory has legs.

I never meant to imply that men and women couldn't have platonic relationships. My point was that it is not uncommon for a platonic relationship to evolve into a romantic one. I would even argue that those are the best relationships because both parties already share a bond and are simply adding another layer to it. I also don't understand why it is damaging just to men, as both parties would need to develop feelings in order for the relationship to transform into a romance. Furthermore, in this specific example it is Syl that is hypothetically developing feelings, and so it simply isn't an example of what you're concerned about. I'm curious if you would have the same problem with this relationship if their genders were swapped, or if they both presented as male or female? Finally, as you point out, Syl is not a human or in fact a woman. Given her nature, I would argue that she is closer to a self aware LLM than she is to a person. If anything, this potential ship is an example of an AI becoming self aware and falling in love with it's creator.

You've said that a platonic relationship has value, but I'm still not sure on your reasoning for why. What makes it more or less valuable than any other relationship? I would imagine that it's a common trope because it is common in real life. I don't understand how it is damaging to men. And yes, all of the books that I read are for entertainment. If you're talking about mandatory reading materials, at best, I skimmed them. I don't read books for a moral or for a lesson in life, I read them solely for enjoyment. If you are referring to academic texts, I don't see the relevance to our current conversation. Thank you, and apologies.

What value does any of it have beyond entertainment? Generally speaking people like a sense of catharsis at the conclusion of a story. Wrapping up with a satisfying romantic conclusion usually delivers this. Yumi would be a good example of that actually.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but what differentiates Yumi from the other Cosmere romances? To me it is less complex than a lot of others. It's a "Freaky Friday" where the two characters fall in love. Also the bath scenes. Compared to Vin and Elend or Shalan and Adolin, it seems very straight forward. It's more of a Siri and Susebron to me. Also, I don't see Kal and Syl as one person. They may share a bond, but in my opinion they are still individuals with their own wants and motives.

I think you misunderstand me. I wasn't implying that their entire relationship was based on a romance arc. I think that this is something new that only started developing in RoW. I also want to add that, in my opinion, the best romances start as friendships. There's something cheap to me about a relationship that starts because someone likes someone else's chull. I didn't start picking up a vibe til RoW. Syl was acting different, probably because of Kaladin advancing his oaths and drawing her more into the PR. The at the end when we see Ishar's lab another piece fell into place. Now, with her behavior in the first two chapters, I'm pretty much convinced. Guess we will see where it goes. If you can't love your self, how the hell you gonna love someone else? Also, I'm struggling to think of a Cosmere novel that doesn't have a romance.

Is it just me, or is Syl trying to put the moves on Kaladin? Staying full sized, wearing proper women’s clothing from his culture, doing an awful lot of touching. Seems to me like somebody has a crush and wants to get noticed.

I surely did, thank you.

@Trusk'our I’m not conflating intellect and humbleness. It is certainly possible to be dumb and humble. Ive actually never considered Vin to be particularly intelligent either. She’s certainly not dumb, but I’ve always considered her to be more instinctive than intelligent. She has a look before you leap mentality that nearly destroyed the world. Luckily that was part of Preservations plan so it all worked out. Sazed wouldn’t have made the same mistakes because he immediately recognized that he didn’t know what to do. Rather than just doing any random thing, he paused and considered what his options were.

I was trying to figure out what the deal was with Canticle's interaction with it's sun, when suddenly Rick and Morty gave me the clue I needed. For those of you who haven't watched the show, there is an episode where a lightsaber is dropped perfectly vertical and starts to burrow its way into the earths core. My theory then is this: Someone dropped Nightblood perfectly vertically and it sank all the way into the planet's core. The Investiture from the Sun is being pulled into the planet by Nightblood, which is the only reason the entire planet hasn't been consumed yet.

It's an interesting theory. The biggest problem I see is, can Honor be picked up? My understanding is that Odium's objective in shattering the others Shards is to make sure no one else can challenge him. That would mean making sure that they couldn't be taken back up in the future. Personally I think all three of the Shards on Roshar will end up splintered and the Bondsmiths will be the closest things to Vessels that the planet has.

@alder24 Your response is giving off hostile vibes. I'm out.

No, he should have just let them die. The planet was no longer habitable non Invested humans. Torturing them and their descendants for 1000 years is just sadistic. Why would there be inbreeding? There wouldn't likely be future generations beyond the second or third given that the probability of a Fullborn child from later generations would be increasingly small. I certainly did not forget those things. Nothing you say will convince me that it was a good idea, so I'll agree to disagree. There would be no need to modify other than giving them Lerasium beads. A Fullborn could survive in almost any environment so long as they have access to metals. There isn't any power to grab. There are no people to rule. There are no resources to horde (other than metal I guess? but that seems fairly abundant). The fact that these things are against Rashek's nature, in my opinion, point to him being a small minded buffoon. An intelligent person would have tried to figure out how to make the best future for as many as they could, not horded power and knowledge for themselves so they could lord over everyone else. Thanks, I missed that on my first read of your post. I generally don't keep up on WoB's because I prefer to get info organically from the books, so that's the first I've heard of that. I mean if you think what he did was good, then we will never find a middle ground on that issue. He is the worst. Full stop. An incompetent idiot at best, a greedy sadist at worst. Why would someone need to be in control? There's only a few hundred people in the entire society at most. Everyone would have absolute knowledge that Ruin exists. They would know that Hemalurgy is a tool Ruin can use against them and they would have basically not need for it since everyone has all of the powers anyway. The on;y real questions they would need to address as a society would be who is using the Well when it fills back up.

That's another point I should have made I guess. If he had made it common knowledge that there was an evil force being held prisoner that needed to be contained, then even in the event of his death Ruin could have been kept locked away. He basically decided that if he wasn't around the whole world could get stuffed.