Child of Hodor

On Hoid and Vasher ... Vasher has changed names and appearance over the course of his (second) life. They didn't run into each other during Warbreaker, but maybe they met another time when Vasher looked more like a Returned and had a different name. Hoid might not connect that person with Zahel. 

Sleepless ... I think they are significantly bigger than humans, but not necessarily Chasmfiend size. In Edgedancer, Arclo looks about 70% complete (missing an arm, an eye and a few chunks) when he is talking to Lift in the alley and she observes there are still many thousands of cremlings on the walls around her.

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Thousands upon thousands of cremlings coated the walls each the size of a finger Little beasts of chitin and legs clicking away and making that awful buzz. "The thing about this philosophy is how hard it is to disprove." the old man said. - Edgedancer Ch. 17

Later he reforms his arm and eye yet there are still a ton "swarming" around him on the ground and all over the wall around Wyndle. Seems like there are at least enough for 1.5 Arclo's and that's just what we see he had close by to help him fight off the Skybreakers. It may be all he has it may not be.

He also says not all of him ever sleeps at once. This implies that while part of him is in Arclo form, some are sleeping and we've seen he has part of him scattered around the city spying. 

Arclo bemoans how he can never pull off the impersonation of a human quite right, he always looks off.

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"I've spent thousands of years breeding my hoardlings and still I can't make them quite make them fit together quite right ... anyone who looks closely finds something off." -ED Ch. 17

This is because he's not and never was human or humanoid. There is no reason why his size would be limited to human proportions if his existence is not at all tied to them. He is taking humanoid shape to try to blend in with what most of the sentient life on the planet looks like, but the number and size of his hoardlings wouldn't be tied to that. 

It had to be a 3rd party IP he was working with because otherwise he wouldn't have been contractually forbidden to talk about it. Makes sense that it was Magic. 

I'll read it. 

A lot of Brandon I encountered through Audible first, so usually I have the opposite problem. "Really, that's how it's spelled?" 

Evi is spelled that way, I think, to keep with the Aon-ish naming the Iriali have. Hinting that they were descended from Elantrians (theory not confirmed). Evi, her brother Toh, Iri. Lot of 3 letter words like Aon Dor. 

I always thought the name of Urithiru was inspired by Uluru the rock formation in Australia that has religious significance to Aboriginal Australian. I assumed it is pronounced Ooo at the start not a You. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uluru

Loved it!

Jasnah forever! She's smart, mature and no-nonsense and she is described as very alluring. She is also very funny in a cutting, deadpan way. She loves reading and history. She's great!

I was nodding along with Ian when he talked about Hoid's whimsy and darkness. He is also a character who seems to have a lot of regret that we only get glimpses of which is really cool. I am a sucker for characters who did genuinely terrible things and sought to be better (hello Dalinar!). 

On Frost not always being immortal: are dragon's born or are they made on Yolen? Could Frost have been born a human and been altered into a dragon? Via Dragonsteel, maybe? Would be a Brandon-esque twist, people think it's called that because Dragon's grow it, but Dragonsteel actually makes Dragons. 

Then there is the possibility that Frost acquired a new type of immortality. As Brandon said in this WoB there are several in the Cosmere. 

Side note: I wonder if Frost can't leave Yolen because he can't. Maybe he is a cognitive shadow reincorporated, like Kelsier or the Heralds. There are WoBs stating they can't leave the systems they are in. There is a way to do it, but Kelsier hasn't figured it out.  I think it's more likely that he chooses not to leave, but it's possible that he can't. 

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#50 Nov. 29, 2016

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on which definition of immortal you mean.

Doesn't age, but can be killed by conventional means. (You've seen some of these in the cosmere, but I'll leave you to discuss who.)

Heals from wounds, but still ages. (Knights Radiant with Stormlight are like this.)

Reborn when killed. (The Heralds.)

Doesn't age and can heal, but dependent upon magic to stay this way, and so have distinct weakness to be exploited. (The Lord Ruler, among others.)

Hive beings who are constantly losing individual members, but maintaining a persistent personality spread across all of them, immortal in that as long as too much of the hive isn't wiped out, the personality can persist. (The sleepless.)

Bits of sapient magic, eternal and endless, though the personality can be "destroyed" in specific ways. (Seons. Spren. Nightblood. Cognitive Shadows, like a certain character from Scadrial.)

Shards (Really just a supercharged version of the previous category.)

And then, of course, there's Hoid. I'm not going to say which category, if any, he's in.

Some of these blend together--the Heralds, for example, are technically a variety of cognitive shadow. I'm not saying each of these categories above are distinct, intended to be the end-all definitions. They're off the cuff groupings I made to explain a point: immortality is a theme of the cosmere works--which, at their core, are experiments on what happens when men are given the power of deity.

I could listen to you do 50 more of WoB episodes . 

Aesudan humming was probably a rhythm that Kaladin heard fighting from the Singers or Fused. He'd fought Fused a couple times and he was at the battle of Narak (briefly) could have heard the Stormform Parsh chanting. Aesudan had "bonded" with Yelig-nar before they got there and may have been hearing the Rhythms. 

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"I've done what your father could not. Oh. he found one of the ancient spren, but he could never discover how to bond it. But I, I have solved the riddle." In the dim light of the royal chambers Aesudan's eyes glittered. Then started to glow a deep red. OB Ch. 84

Speaking of Gavilar, it seems like Brandon has all but said it is just Voidlight in those black spheres. I guess they have significance in letting us and eventually the characters know what Gavilar was up to, but Szeth's Chekov's Black Sphere doesn't seem that significant now. The Fused already seem to have plenty of Voidlight, access to what little is in those spheres won't make a difference. 

I'm with @Argent, I thought Amaram was one of the more interesting villains he secretly knew how to read and write that modified glyph language, he had a collection of flutes. His honorable facade wasn't all an act when he frees Taln he is appalled by the conditions of the asylum "I will have words with Dalinar about the way the insane are --". 

Then at the end of OB I was like "Oh, he's just a drooling monster now". Was a letdown, but I guess he's discarded to make way for Moashe to be Kaladin's main antagonist. There is also a WoB that Amaram was originally going to die in WoR, but he was switched for Sadeas. 

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#9 June 2, 2017

Brandon Sanderson

ETA: Szeth originally died permanently in the end of Words of Radiance. I also changed my mind to let Amaram live in the scene with the poison dart. Adolin killed off Sadeas instead.

Pretty much everything Amaram does in OB Sadeas could have done and not missed a beat. Brandon was basically done with Amaram's story in WoR, he was subbing in for Sadeas in OB. 

Wyndle does specifically say Lift metabolizes food into Stormlight in the WoR interlude. I guess he could be wrong. 

On the length of the desolations, I like the idea of it taking longer than like anthousand years although the text and a WoB make it sound like it couldn’t have been many thousands of years. 

in the prelude Kalak thinks he’s been tortured for “Centuries, perhaps millennia”. Granted it would be hard for him to keep track, but his statement makes it sound like the length was over a thousand but not so long that he couldn’t confuse it for hundreds of years. 

Also, there is this WoB where Brandon says the whole Cosmere storyline takes place over about 10,000 years and Roshar is right in the middle of that timeline which makes it hard for the Desolations + 4,500 years to = 7,500 or more years. 

I guess he could have misspoke or something.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/97-idaho-falls-signing/#e2728

6 minutes ago, Jofwu said:

I like Alyssa's Nightblood the best by far. Michael's came across as almost goofy to me. Alyssa's is more childlike.

But I'm confused by the Lightsong comment. Alyssa's Lightsong didn't have the surfer dude Lightsong. That was the other version of the audiobook, by some other guy, from what I understand.

That's what I was saying I didn't remember the name of the first narrator so I just said he. "He really nailed the balance of overflowing positivity and creepiness. But Lightsong ... oh boy.  Surf's up dude!!"

16 hours ago, Yeshaya said:

Eric, I think your rendition of Dalinar might have topped the Warbreaker audiobook's Lightsong voice actor for most.....creative interpretation of the character's voice. Congratulations

I was just thinking of that yesterday. I really loved how he did Nightblood's voice, Michael Kramer, Kate Reading and Alyssa Bresnahan do a fine job, but their Nightblood is not as fun as his. He really nailed the balance of overflowing positivity and creepiness. But Lightsong ... oh boy.  Surf's up dude!!

I think "matched in temperament" was meant as Dalinar and Evi complimented each other. I don't think it's a retcon, the information we get in WoK is consistent with what we see in OB.  In WoK Dalinar is spoken of as having had a bad temper, a fearsome warrior who would challenge anyone to a duel on the spot if they insulted him and Evi is described as very kind. 

That said it is shocking to see how cruel he was to her at times. The most painful flashback in OB that I skip on rereads is not her death, but when she shows up at the warcamp with Adolin and he screams at her "what are you doing here?!".  We knew she died a violent death relatively young, but that she was so unappreciated and unhappy breaks my heart. 

Even if the Dawnshards became the Unmade I think there were 10 Dawnshards. Odium got 9 of them and turned them into the Unmade. Which is why one Dawnshard is different from all the rest. 

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Words of Radiance release party (March 3, 2014)
#5 

Curtis

Could you write something about Dawnshards that we don't/won't know?

Brandon

One Dawnshard is different from all the rest. 

 

1 minute ago, Singer said:

I absolutely agree. The KR are a mix of Honor and Cultivation influence. Honor's stormlight powers the radiants power, I think because of the oaths. I wonder if they could also use Cultivation's power to use their surges or if her power would provide something totally different through different means? I like the idea of Cultivation's investiture being accessed by stone! That would fit really well with the Stone Shaman.

I've thought about it more and think her contribution may be, at least in part, the gemstones and gemhearts. She is the "Mother" of the magic systems and provides the "womb" that holds Honor's "seed" the Stormlight. Radiants need both because they need gems to collect the Stormlight before they can breath it in (except for Lift).

23 hours ago, Singer said:

I think the stormlight = pure Honor investiture makes sense, even if the spren are a mix of Honor and Cultivation. The Nahel bond is an oath between humans and spren that allows use of stormlight. Bonds and oaths are pretty much Honors thing, therefore an oath allows radiants to use his power. Access to Cultivations power is done some other way, no idea what that is though!

I feel like there is some of Cultivation in the way the Radiants work. They don't swear all their Oaths at once. There is a progression of oaths and the further along the progression the greater the power they gain. Progression, or Growth of Character is the core of the KR ideals. The Character part is of Honor the Growth part is of Cultivation. 

Some KR spren like Wyndle are so heavily Cultivation, I feel like she was involved. Plus, there is a painting Shallan recognizes as the "pagan" goddess Cultivation in the giant room Shallan confronts Re-Sephir in, in Urithiru home base of the KR. 

That isn't to say Stormlight isn't pure Honor, I just see a significant Cultivation influence on the KR. 

Wild guess: the Stone and Crem are her access points. There are quite a few references to "spren of stone" in Roshar. The Listeners, Horneaters and Shin all talk about them in their mythologies. The Shin worship the stone which is at least in part because they were told long ago to stay in Shinovar where there is soil to walk on, but there may be more going on (isn't there always  ). 

EDIT: Argent already addressed crem in the thread. Yeah, if I had a choice between using magic powered by inhaling beautiful light that made me glow or powered by a brown paste that seems like a mix of sediment and filth I would choose the light every time. 

16 hours ago, Argent said:

I would've liked this idea, but there is a WoB that says that "[crem and the Purelake] existed on the planet before Cultivation arrived." Now, so did highstorms, and they now carry what we are starting to believe is Honor's Investiture, so it's fully possible that Cultivation pulled a similar thing and crem carries hers. Which, in turn, could play into the Shard poop WoB, as well as crem's beneficial properties for farming. So maybe I do like it after all

1 hour ago, Kidpen said:

A shardcast at a reasonable time? *shock*

Their schedule is like the Highstorms, regular and unpredictable at the same time. Like Highstorms, Shardcasts are also magical!

She was the construction project that expands a two lane road into a four lane highway, the architect that designed the addition to your house. She was the special edition re-release of your favorite movie, the 20th anniversary remaster of a hit album, the DVD extras menu, the new game + play through of a video game. She was the executive who decided that some M&Ms would now have peanuts inside!

Perfect Endowment performance, Grace!

As far as Endowment shaping Edgli's mind, The divine attribute she represents is Blessing. She is the cosmic gift giver! In her letter, she expresses disdain for Hoid refusing the divine power that was offered him (when he had a chance to be one of the vessels). She hates it when someone turns down divine powers offered them. 

Her whole thing seems to be giving the Cosmere a little extra oomph. Colors are more vibrant, Nightblood is more powerful than he should be (I know not confirmed it was her doing). 

The magic system on Nalthis, Awakening, allows humans to do what she does on a micro-scale: giving abilities to things that did not have them before. With Awakening the Breath must be freely given it cannot be stolen (it can be coerced). Also, note the receiver doesn't have the option of refusing the gift of breath once the words are said, much to Denth's dismay. They can re-gift, but they can't be rude and refuse the gift sent to them. 

Gifting, enhancing, blessing is Endowment's deal. She is about enhancing already existing things, not so much about creating new things. She takes what exists and makes it the same, but more so. "You had a chance to be more and refused it" How rude!!!

On Nalthis, everyday is Christmas (or other gift-giving holiday).

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Words of Radiance Epigraphs (Frost Letter to Hoid

Chapter 59 I’ll address this letter to my "old friend," as I have no idea what name you're using currently.

Chapter 60 Have you given up on the gemstone, now that it is dead?

Oathbringer Epigraph Chapter 42: "Cephandrius, bearer of the First Gem,"

 

Could the thing that gave Hoid immortality be the gem whose name he was using as his own in Dragonsteel? Sidenote: could the gem be what he is trying to bring to life again that Frost refers to in The Traveler?

My first reaction when I read that WoB about the weapon not existing in it's current form and being what made Hoid immortal was that the question was too broad. "Magic" guys. They used magic to kill Adonalsium and Hoid is immortal because of magic and magic is different than it was pre-shattering, in other words not in it's original form. 

But, Brandon said it was expended, which is more specific and made me think of the gem. 

Each week I'm like "I hope they have another one, but what could it be about? They've covered so much." then I see the episode title and go "Oh yeaaaahhh". 

I agree with Ian that random people have some they aren't telling anyone about, like Liss, Some probably are buried under crem or underwater. I think there are too many missing for that to account for all of them though. Some group is probably hoarding a bunch of them.

I think that group would have to be a group that doesn't use them much at all or we would know about them by now. 

My best guess is either the Shin or Skybreakers. The Shin are peaceniks and we know they hoard Honorblades. The Skybreakers would have known about the Recreance at the time and may have snatched up as many dead shards as they could either out of practical or sentimental concerns. Bonded Skybreakers already have a blade and can't use the dead blades without hearing screaming, so they would just sit on them. 

If the Skybreakers are hoarding a bunch and Nale has gone over to the Singers then I would expect to see Fused running around with them in book 4.  

I think it is a secondary Spren associated with the Stoneward order. Like the Windrunners have windspren.

I think they are attracting the more simple minded stone spren or similar nature-based spren that form the plate for an order.

mr. T says “Bless a Radiant” it could be like bless a radiant with Plate. He doesn’t exactly say create a radiant. 

On 7/31/2018 at 3:45 AM, Overlord Jebus said:

I'm not sure about this, it's a reducer/amplifier. We've seen these things on their own without the switching between modes.

In regards to where the pain comes from, you know when you get pins and needles when your foot or hand goes numb as feeling is restored? It would be like that. Your normal amount of feeling suddenly becomes the numb and the pain you feel is just your normal sense of touch going absolutely haywire. This is how some poisons/toxins work, they don't do damage, they just send your nervous system into chaos. I imagine that's how the amplifier painrial works. Intense pins and needles across your whole body.

I see what you are saying, the painrial is kind of tricking the body into sending pain signals, maybe that's all it is.

I guess I'm getting what powers this thing? It doesn't work without the spren trapped in there and spren feed off of human emotions/ideas. 

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“We don’t sleep; we don’t eat. I think we might feed off humans, actually. Your emotions. Or you thinking about us, maybe. It all seems very complicated. In Shadesmar, we can think on our own, but if we go to your realm, we need a human bond. Otherwise, we’re practically as mindless as those gloryspren.

”—  Sylphrena on the nature of spren^[9]

 

It seems to harness and channel the spren's natural attraction to and "feeding" off of emotions, in this case pain. Painspren on their own don't absorb physical pain, maybe just they are feeding off of the pain's cognitive aspect. By putting the spren in the gem it connects them to the physical realm and now it now can absorb the physical sensation of pain. 

Spren normally feed off of emotion cognitively, the device makes it more physical/literal. 

On Navani's Painrial: is it doing on a micro-scale what Odium does? It takes their pain and stores it up and can give it back later. 

In OB chapter 118 when Navani adjusts the knobs on her painrial so that it causes pain instead of removes it. It doesn't explicitly say that it needs to be charged up by absorbing pain first, but I think that's what it is doing. Where is the pain sensation coming from if not from what had previously been taken?

I was just doing a reread and this line from Navani defending Dalinar stuck out.

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“My husband wants unity,” Navani said firmly. “Not dominion.”

-OB Page 973

it doesn’t mean much in-world. Navani does not know about Dominion, but Brandon does.

it is interesting that he chose to reference unity and have a character directly compare it to dominion, a known Shard.

I’m not concluding anything, but I found it noteworthy.

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The Well of Ascension Annotations (Sept. 1, 2007)
#19Jan. 5, 2008

Brandon Sanderson

...

I wanted to provide a range of villains for this series. The Lord Ruler was one type of villain–the untouchable god, distant and mysterious. Straff is another: the downright, simple bully with too much power and not enough wisdom. Zane is our third villain–sympathetic, edgy, and possibly more dangerous than either of the two.

 

This WoB made me laugh given the complaints on the podcast. Zane was designed to be "edgy". He is the Poochie of the Cosmere.  

Zane died on the way back to his home planet. 

1 hour ago, MountainKing said:

Perservation kept his promise, that Ruin will get the chance to destroy the world, but he then set it up so that someone could stop Ruin who wasn't in the original promise. Leras couldn't stop Ruin, but if he were to died and someone else took up the shard, then they could stop Ruin.

That makes sense. The new Vessel allowed for a reset, unplug the Shard and plug it back in . 

I was thinking that just by imprisoning Ruin's mind he was breaking his promise. Ruin certainly felt that way. I guess given that the Well of Ascension would automatically unlock itself every 1,000 years unless someone used the power makes it only a temporary impediment for Ruin and doesn't break the promise outright. 

20 hours ago, ccstat said:

I'm shocked that nobody on the podcast or in the comments has mentioned Amaram yet. The way his character was handled in Oathbringer was awful. On a scale from off-putting to rage-inducing, his arc was a solid "Why even have motivations if they are going to totally reverse off-screen?" with an added dose of "Sure, let's melt the brain of this personally meaningful antagonist, then remove him from the series with an unfulfilling fight scene." 

Graaah! 

For the record, I was not on the Amaram hate train prior to OB. I liked his character and wanted too see where he went. Apparently he went to become the level 1 mini-boss and retconned his own life story in the process.

Yeah, I was disappointed with how he went out in Oathbringer. I was expecting more for him to do. Brandon said that Amaram was originally going to die in WoR, but then Brandon decided to kill Sadeas off in WoR instead.  

Brandon was done with Amaram in WoR. He kept him around to swap him in for Torol Sadeas'  as leader of House Sadeas for a book. Amaram didn't have much to do that was unique to him. Moash is being set up as Kaladin's personal antagonist, possibly in the contest of champions. I found Amaram more interesting as a character. 

I don't think he was working for Odium until after WoR. Ialai Sadeas mentions to Adolin and Shallan early in OB that Amaram was caught out in the Everstorm on his way to Urithiru and he needed time to rest up from it. It seems like Amaram may have had a face to face with Odium for the first time there and Odium turned him at that point. Aside from that he was influenced by Odium via the Thrill like Dalinar and so many others. Prior to getting caught in the Everstorm he was trying to return the Heralds and prepare to fight Voidbringers as a member of the Sons of Honor.

I did like his last exchange with Dalinar before he turned into a monster where he admits he can't forgive himself. He couldn't face the guilt and probably gave his pain to Odium. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/132-faqfriday-2017/#1876 From WOB #9:

Brandon Sanderson

ETA: Szeth originally died permanently in the end of Words of Radiance. I also changed my mind to let Amaram live in the scene with the poison dart. Adolin killed off Sadeas instead.