cantabile21

Me too. Have an upvote! And i agree with you that too many books toss in sex just because. i've read a few that really didn't need the pages upon pages of textual porn - the story by itself was compelling enough. Rather spoiled the thing for me. (And for the record i don't think sex is bad.)

Hmmm... i'm thinking that for Books 6-10, the flashbacks might cover more ground on the 10-year time skip between Books 5 and 6. So characters like Lift and Renarin would have grown up some, and their flashbacks would have more scope for character development than they would at this point in time. But i do agree that Ash and Taln would be really interesting, to see history from the Heralds' point of view and how it all came to this. And while i don't care for Szeth that much, i am very curious about his backstory, and it would be cool to see mysterious Shinovar and its people and culture, if through his eyes. Eshonai's flashbacks would also similarly give us a better understanding of Listener society and how they had survived hidden for thousands of years and kept their culture.

And it will be doubly poignant when we get her flashbacks in the next book, to see how she lived her life and made the choices she did, knowing that ultimately she would die and that her death would be final. Her journey has already ended. i was also never convinced that Jasnah was dead. She just seemed unkillable to me, though i wondered how she had managed to fake her death so convincingly.

Adolin throwing his Blade comes to mind...

Hmmm... that makes sense!

Yes, i'm very interested to see how the Jasnah and the Vorin church will deal with each other, and what kind of spiritual upheaval that might inspire. i agree with Calderis, Vorinism is screwed. i think that organised religion in Roshar needs a complete overhaul, now that the Knights Radiant are back, some of the Heralds have been found, and new information about the spiritual realm is being revealed.

Which is what makes him real. It was distasteful, but it wasn't premeditated, and Adolin was definitely not as blase about it as he said to Dalinar. He knew that killing Sadeas was dirty work that needed to be done, by him in particular, and he would have happily killed him on the duelling grounds as originally planned. But since it happened the way it did, he definitely felt guilty and dishonourable about how he actually did it in the end. And those feelings were a large part of Adolin's journey in OB, the internal struggles between the confident, cheerful and noble facade that he presented to the world, versus the worthless, hapless, helpless thing that he came to see inside.

My personal favourite character is Adolin, i simply love him, flaws and all. Really enjoyed watching him grow up from the first book to the third, and also with all those flashbacks to his childhood, even if they're from Dalinar's point of view. But since we're voting for the best Kholin, i would have to say Jasnah. She. Kicks. chull.

Interesting that you mention Adolin trying to bow out. Even before Adolin and Shallan actually met in person, the news of just the causal betrothal had already made its way through the grapevine of the Alethi ruling classes. Dalinar's rationale for agreeing to the arrangement and going public with it was that he wanted Adolin to be seen as unavailable and no longer an avenue for other prominent families to gain political favour via marriage. We aren't shown what Adolin thought as he made the painful decision to step back, but knowing Adolin, thoughts of disappointing his family and his father especially would definitely have crossed his mind. It wasn't just face his family would lose, but also the prestige of having the first known Knight Radiant marry into the family, the Brightness Radiant who had found the way to Urithiru and saved them all, so to speak. And yet he followed through, at the end of what had already been a very painful day. So now that the marriage has actually happened, i hope we would be shown a 'real marriage' like you said, and more. Besides the ordinary struggles of two people learning to build a life together, Adolin and Shallan actually have many other problems just waiting to explode in their lives, what with the nonsense with the Ghostbloods, the arrival of Shallan's problematic brothers, Shallan's various personas and secrets, Adolin's ascension to highprince and his struggles with that while in the enormous shadow of his father who will continue to loom over him, and all this against the backdrop of the ongoing war... yep, i think we're in for plenty of drama. i too hope that it would be more a journey of a couple working through their very many problems and learning and choosing to stay together through it all.

Yup, i can see that happening too.

Hehe, well i said it's a crazy theory. Heh! i think spren actually can affect the physical realm, like Syl is able to do little tricks like stick things together, though i admit that Maya using Regrowth on her own to revive a dead Adolin is rather more advanced than that. That said, i've only ever read the Stormlight series and have no idea how death and the final journey of the soul works in the Cosmere, so this is just me and my imagination and my sense of the dramatic. (Other fantasy series have used this device to resurrect a freshly dead character - as the soul leaves the body and starts making its final journey to wherever they're supposed to go after death, something or someone intervenes and prevents it from crossing the final threshold. The soul then gets sent back into the body and the character lives again.) Anyway, back to this world. As it stands, Maya's bond with Adolin is already pretty amazing, with her being a deadeye and all. She told him her name. She can't speak, but yet she's able to look out for Adolin and warn him of danger as he fights, much like how Syl looks out for Kaladin. She actually physically intervened when Adolin was in real danger of being killed in Shadesmar. She could appear as a Shardblade before the requisite ten heartbeats because she could sense Adolin's desperation, and she could 'see' that Adolin was again in real danger of getting killed. So, i guess we could say she is already well on the road to recovery and revival, and Adolin is therefore well on his way to Knighthood!

Yeah he does... thanks for pointing that out. Though i think the rather casual way he mentioned it is his way of acknowledging to his wife-to-be that he feels overwhelmed and unworthy of her, but does not begin to reveal the depth of his feelings on the matter. But because Adolin is Adolin, i would actually feel strange to see him get all emo and launch into an extended aria about his feelings, if you know what i mean. Heh. And i agree with you about how torn up he is about losing Sureblood, feelings that are again shown to us through his actions and words rather stated in the narrative. i really felt for him in that scene with Gallant, and even more so when Renarin shows up and he goes into his encourager mode for his brother. RShara, you have just made my day!!! Thanks so much for sharing! Though i do have a somewhat crazy theory regarding Adolin and Maya's revival. You know how the dead Radiant spren are supposed to have had their souls or essence ripped out as the original Radiant broke the bond? i'm thinking that when Adolin gets into yet another fight that he simply cannot win and gets all cut up to the point of death, he chooses, he chooses, to sacrifice himself to heal Maya, to let her take his life essence and become whole again, to bond with someone else more worthy - in his eyes - and continue fighting for the good of the world. And because he would then naturally use Maya herself to do the deed, his life force does go into her and restores her completely. And Maya's first act as a fully restored, sentient Radiant spren is to revive her human partner, the man who gave him his life so she could live again. Okay, not too sure how this works, but yeah, you may go ahead.

Erm... this is where i reveal my noobness... but what's that? cue nervous laughter

Ooh... i like the idea of Rlain, to represent the singers and listeners. i think that in the very end, the original inhabitants of the world and the human invaders need to learn to accept each other and co-exist peacefully, and not see the other side as an enemy to be exterminated. And i'm also thinking of Kadash, to represent the ardentia and organised religion in general. The different faiths need to terms with how they had all differently deviated from the spiritual truths and ideals as taught by the Heralds, and then come together to completely revamp how they teach and serve the people with their spiritual needs, in line with the new information and answers they would have gotten by the end of the whole series. Yeah, i'm looking really far down the road...

Okay this may sound way out, but i'm thinking that Shallan has not yet gained control over Veil and Radiant, and since Shallan has already been given her next assignment by the Ghostbloods, she will find it hard to relinquish the Veil persona. Even though Shallan plans to tell Adolin about her involvement with the Ghostbloods, it would not be out of character for her to keep delaying that moment until... never? Until everything blows up in her face? Until Adolin has to rescue her from some escapade or other? Until she gives in to the temptation to take a little detour on her clandestine work as Veil and flirt with Kaladin, who after all has no idea who Veil really is? Shallan seems to have the most trouble controlling her personas when she is exceptionally troubled, and after the honeymoon phase is over, a marriage is work. A commitment. (i say this as a married woman.) Every marriage comes with issues big and small, even arranged ones like Shallan and Adolin's. And when you take into account the stressful circumstances they're in, with both Shallan and Adolin dealing with their own personal issues on top of learning to live as a married couple, i definitely see trouble for them down the road. Hopefully not to the point where the marriage breaks apart, but there will be definitely stress and fights as they try to work through it and work out their marriage.

Thanks Calderis!!

Adolin acts positive all the time too and that is also a front. As the favoured son of the Blackthorn and the heir of the Kholin princedom, he has always been expected to act strong, be just and moral, and to be a leader. For the most part most of this comes naturally to him, but there is also this undercurrent of Adolin feeling inadequate and unworthy and in the shadow of his father whom he could never hope to match. His self esteem has always been rooted in his identity and his skill with the sword, but now that the world has completely shifted, the things about himself that he took pride in just don't seem to matter anymore... and therefore Adolin himself doesn't matter anymore. He doesn't say so in so many words, but it's there, in his introspective moments that don't last long because he then consciously chooses not to dwell on it, and instead gets up and tries to makes himself useful in what small ways he can, even though everyone around him is wielding Stormlight and changing the world.

Not sure if it has been said elsewhere, but when Adolin summons Maya during the final battle and expects to hear her screaming but instead gets silence... My first thought was that now that they're out of Shadesmar, the relationship between Adolin and Maya has been reverted to the usual one between a human Shardbearer and the dead spren who had been bonded to someone else. But in my second reading of OB - i'm about halfway through - i noticed that Dalinar still hears the sword Oathbringer screaming, though not as loudly as expected. And the Stormfather explains that it's because Oathbringer remembers his former bond with Dalinar and does not hate him as much as he hates other people. And that brings to my mind, what if Maya's silence when being summoned is not because Adolin can't hear her outside of Shadesmar, but is because she simply isn't screaming? She has already come out of her zombie state - for lack of a better term - to protect him on her own, she has tried to communicate with him even though she can't speak, and she has somehow managed to tell him her name. i would think that for a high spren looking to bond with a human, telling the human his or her name is a significant moment. So i'm thinking, perhaps Maya has already started the bonding process with Adolin, and therefore has no reason to scream when summoned now. After all she has already been with Adolin for several years as his Shardblade, and presumably can sense his respect for her as a being and partner in his calling as a duelist and not a tool, his dependence on her as a part of himself - he teaches Shallan that the Blade is a part of yourself - and also his attempts to look into her wellbeing even in Shadesmar and his discomfort at seeing her locked up even if it was for her own safety. She has already come to care for him, to look out for him, to partner with him. So yup, i'm totally looking forward to watching their progress as they continue to cement their bond with each other. And perhaps Adolin reviving a 'veteran' spren who had actually fought and died and been through the Recreance would open up totally new possibilities for us to discover and explore. Whee!

Shallan will definitely relapse and her different personas are going to cause a lot of problems in their marriage. Adolin is already concerned and worried even before the marriage, but goes through with it because he probably thinks he can help her that way, keep her stable. But the stress of dealing with all that, on top of the stress of being normal while his nearest and dearest are all superheroes, constantly needing to be healed during fights, feeling like he's holding everyone back, will push Adolin to the brink and hopefully something exciting will come out of that. We already see hints of Adolin feeling useless and wishing he could do more from the end of WoR, and all through OB as well, just that it's not in his nature to get all emo about it all day, unlike some others. He just gets up and finds something to do, whether it's going to check on Gallant, performing a warm-up kata or dealing with the aftermath of a chaotic battle.

i see Adolin getting completely beat up in a future battle with the Fused, and with his dying breath he asks Maya to take his life so that she can be whole again and bond with someone else more than worthy - in his mind at least - than he. But then Maya still chooses to bond with him anyway, and hauls him back into the world of the living to become a full Knight Radiant.