Oltux72

14 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

From the start I thought that if they lost Urithiru that was it, they would lose the war.

From a military view point you were right.

14 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

Now I would prefer a million times over to have lost Urithiru rather than to have changed Rayse to Taravangian.

Debatable. You can negotiate reasonably with Taravangian.

14 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

T is one of the most disgusting, selfish and petty characters in the whole Cosmere. Why? Because:

A man quietly preparing for execution, forbidding any attempts to rescue him after having rescued his home town is selfish? That looks like an indefensible statement to me.

14 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

1. He pretends to be good

No, he doesn't. He pretends to be loyal, nothing else.He is about as clear to Navani and Dalinar about his attitude as a man can be,

14 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

2. He fools millions, including very smart and good people (main characters, not just the masses) that he has a good core. In this book the main characters knew T was a traiter from the start and Dalinar still didn't kill him, convinced there was good in T. 

Dalinar's failure.

14 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

3. He actually believes himself that what he is doing is good, failing to realize that journey before destination is the most important Oath of all, and not for the KR but for any sentient being

He hasn't sworn that oath. He is saving his home town and - in his belief - mankind as such.

14 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

 The only way to know you are doing the right thing is when your mind and heart are aligned. T did every single action against his heart. What is worse? A person who doesn't care he is doing something wrong, or someone who knows they are doing something wrong and does it anyway? The second by far. 

And if Odium had won?

1 hour ago, kaellok said:

I'm sure that there's a lot of people that lived hard, resentful lives filled with terrible childhoods on Roshar if they are required to have children to be considered a family. 

That is a given for any number of reasons. Life in preindustrial times was hard. Many of the people are even slaves or serfs. People there do not care that much about happiness. Survival is the issue.

1 hour ago, kaellok said:

Children can be the point and even expected, in no way am I saying anything against that; I'm literally saying that having children tends to exacerbate preexisting problems and issues in relationships, while also causing new ones.

Rosharans usually do not have relationships. They have marriages. Yes, they do have love. But Laral is instructive for how their marriages function.

1 hour ago, kaellok said:

  Anyone thinking of having children to somehow make themselves feel whole or better is going to be stacking the odds in favor of that child having an awful, awful childhood.  That's something that doesn't depend on society, culture or time period.  If Adolin somehow feels he needs children in order to be complete (which isn't something that I've seen even vaguely hinted at anywhere in the book other than a line or three across 4000+ pages about he might need an heir someday), then I hope that Shallan can maybe suggest he take part in Kaladin's new Mental Health Initiative to find out what's really going on and get that addressed instead.

Shallan is an aristocrat marrying an heir of a princely family. She understands her duty. Looking at this from a modern western perspective is uselessly anachronistic.

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

We actually don’t know that Nightblood is from Nalthis in SA. No one has said it.

Right. But Azure and her Blade have been confirmed. And she has admitted that she can make more.

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

It’s the fact that Hoid brought him up TWICE. Plus the fact that a Herald thought he’d killed another Herald. Oh, and Shallan’s whole plot has somewhat revolves around his organization - as has her entire life. Yes, I’d expect her to meet the leader.

Well, we expect more Ghostbloody stuff. Their leader? I must yield to the majority attitude here.

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I do want to learn more about the sand, and I expect it to be discussed in KoW.

Yes, this about plot, pacing and expectation. If you have someone’s entire plot revolve around a mysterious organization led by an even more mysterious leader, you expect to meet the leader before the story’s end. Brandon is building expectations here, and Shallan and Adolin seem to be being set up for Cosmere exploration.

Shallan, no - she is trapped as a Radiant. Adolin - yes.

Though that may also be an issue.

On 20.11.2020 at 11:33 PM, Leuthie said:

I'm against Kelsier being the leader simply because this is supposedly a universe spanning story and a select few characters keep leading things. I get that everyone is interested in Roshar, and asking the Heralds how to deal with being a cognitive shadow is a worthy goal,

Right there is an issue. If you just want information, why not simply ask? Kalak wants this problem to be solved.

If you need a guinea pig, do you really use an untested sampling method?

On 20.11.2020 at 11:33 PM, Leuthie said:

but wouldn't Nalthis (a place where the resident Shard consistently creates cognitive shadows) be a better place to send huge resources to if you're trying to solve cognitive shadow problems?

Indeed.

On 20.11.2020 at 11:33 PM, Leuthie said:

Isn't Kelsier already planning a coup of Scadrial?

Then why didn't he just keep ruling in the South?

29 minutes ago, Czernobog said:

Chapter 64:

Exactly. All information implicating Kelsier is coming from Hoid.
We learn that Thaidakar is a Cognitive Shadow via a Seon. Who has been to Sel and can look however he wants?

9 hours ago, Harrycrapper said:

They knew that Kelek had knowledge of what Gavilar was doing. They likely didn't want to experiment on him(or it wasn't their primary goal at least), they wanted his knowledge on Gavilar's experiments.

This is true, but turns the Ghostbloods into foolish morons.

Kalak wants to get away. He would be overjoyed to cooperate. You send him a Seon and he would know that you are not talking crap. But no, you want an irreplacable asset to ram a dagger into his back. What is wrong with you? If you were Iyatil and Mraize suggested that to you, you'd ask him to explain and then most likely slit his throat. And then resign. You'd know that you have lost it.
That is wildly inconsistent with the level of competence the Ghostbloods have been displaying. We must rule that out.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Investiture isn't supposed to be able to leave it, so it shouldn't have mattered that his influx of it was capped. But maybe someone sabotaged the stone - or cutting Jezrien off from the Oathpact allowed him to choose death, as he had been unable to before. 

The raw Investiture may still be there. The pattern that was Jezrien is gone.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Do the Ghostbloods want BAM as a portable source of voidlight?

Do you build a nuclear reactor just to heat your swimming pool? It would work. Every Regal can produce voidlight.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Do they think that she could allow them to manipulate Connections of Rosharan investiture so that it can be easily transported?

You have Connector ferings, if you are from Scadrial. Even compounders.

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Why didn't they just try to trade information with Kalak - he wants to get out of Rosharan system as badly as Thaidakar wants off Scadrial, why not pool resources instead of hunting him down? This whole operation seems severely bungled to me. I hope that Mraize gets his come-uppance not from the heroes, but from his superiors.

Right, that would be a monumental blunder. But not just from Mraize. This operation needed:

• a Seon
• Shallan
• a god metal
• a strange kind of fabrial
• a weapons test

And here the demands get outrageous. You cannot just send this thing and hope and pray (to whom?) that it work. Even if you have traded or captured this dagger from Odium's forces you cannot know whether you have been duped or acquired damaged goods or are lacking the proper operating procedures. You have to test. Just imagine you got Shallan into Lasting Integrity, she stabbed him and he just screamed: Ouch!. Stop this, you stupid girl. Guards! - or, worse by far - just died and went to Damnation
And it gets worse. Whom do you test on? Kelsier, a Returned or a Fused. No of these options is good. If Mraize can just sign off on them, the Ghostbloods need to change their operating procedures quickly.

Something is fishy here.

56 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

This. This is EXACTLY what I think is going to happen. Mraize completely messed up.

I suspect this whole thing was a test for him - and he just failed. Badly.

That goes higher up tthan just Mraize. There is some deep deception going on here. If I am paranoid enough, I would go and check the god metal in that dagger extremely thoroughly. Want to bet that it is Cultivationium? We are maybe two layers of secrets away from understanding.

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

First off: I accidentally discovered a WoB that indicated that SA was supposed to overlap MB era 3 originally. And he’s been vague on the timelines because he had to move W&W to the time gap and Era 3 even further due to things going on in the background. I think we now can guess at what those ‘background’ things are. And with those ‘background things’ hitting the forefront, this timeline needs to be fixed.

OK.

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

If I was reading this as a stand-alone, I would not expect the first half to end with a major antagonist from a major character’s plot going unseen on page. I’d expect at least one appearance, probably near the end. Possibly because SHALLAN travels to Scadrial.

She cannot. Mraize also explains that Shallan is trapped in the Rosharan system. Radiant says that a prison of three planets is large enough. So the plot is tight.

I must admit that I thought that we were talking plot issues here, though you never stated it. Are we discussing strictly plot, or more literary issues of pacing and meeting expectrations?

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

As long as Thaidakar was almost entirely in the background, I expected him to be a mystery revealed near the end of the first half, to be expanded upon in the second. But with as often as he’s been brought up in this book - and by whom - it would feel really weird to me if we didn’t meet him.

Well, this book has dropped names without end. And that is where I find myself out of objectivity. I know who Kelsier is. And I cannot switch that off. The sheer number of names and concepts dropped on a reader is huge. And I find myself unable to say whether to a reader limited to the Stormlight Archive it would be more urgent to get to see

• who is this Thaidakar guy
• lets find this Nalthis place where they can make Shard Blades that we keep hearing from since Oathbringer
• an alien Spren! - they must have alien Surges! Priority A1+
• measuring sand - a world of advanced Investiture technologies. We can finally understand what we are doing,
• We have learned that obscuring Odium's future sight is even more imporrtant than we thought. We need to capture this Riino fellow and duplicate his device.

I am afraid this is a difficult matter, so this will be long.

24 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

No, I think he intended to write TLM first BEFORE this reveal, but ran out of time.

Reasonable.

24 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Now he has to write TLM, where Kell will almost certainly show up, with us knowing much more of what the Survivor’s up to than we did.

Right. But we would eventually learn it, wouldn't we? Thaidakar really hasn't done anything except order Kalak to be knifed. The basic order of TLM and SA5 has not been changed. You are merely saying that Brandon switched from

TLM -> RoW -> SA 5 to
RoW -> TLM -> Sa 5, right?

24 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Before this Brandon could be a lot more fluid with that appearance, because he could be more fluid on whether to drop the Thaidakar reveal in book 4 or 5. By putting it here, he has to be careful that nothing said, done or shown contradicts SA events involving that character.

Well, no. That would suck the same, only later. TLM and SA 5 have to be consistent, no matter what order books are written.

24 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Also, he may have made the decision to put the reveal here because he’s changed the role Thaidakar and the GBs are going to play in book 5. The way this book ends indicates that something will go down with them in the next book. Wit certainly thought it was important enough to warn Jasnah about.

Shallan has broken up with the Ghostbloods, yes. So the Ghostbloods will retaliate.

24 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Per WoB, Kell is not supposed to appear in SA.

He won't. He cannot. We are told that he cannot leave home. Shallan is told that. She will expect revenge and so will the readers, but not immediately in person.

24 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

After this book, if I was a SA only reader, I’d be shocked if Thaidakar didn’t show up in the final book. Pretend you don’t know who Thaidakar is.

I'd expect him to send assassins. I know that he cannot come. I also know that he is on another planet. Travel between planets is done at a speed determined by pack animals or walking speed. Unless you wanted another time jump, I should not expect anybody from any place outside the Rosharan system, not for months.

Are you saying that an average reader will not notice those clues needed to do the calculations?

24 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

You’ve never read Mistborn. Of COURSE you expect this mysterious man to show up.

After being told that he cannot leave home and that being the reason for Shallan's mission in the first place?

3 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

As I noted previously: Brandon has to nail down exactly when W&W takes place so as to avoid SA timeline conflicts. That’s the most likely source of the aforementioned issue.

While that is vertainly true, why is it new and conditional on Rhythm of War? Or are you saying that Brandon decided only when writing Rhythm of War who Thaidakar is?

1 hour ago, ftl said:

But the bits with Hoid looking down at the coin could indicate that he's figured out that his memories have been messed with, and in fact the whole prelude about lying to people by making them think you've lived a thousand lives (and the bits about the coin tricks) could indicate that Hoid knew his Breath-memories were a red herring, and were a successful ruse.

It does not end there. The memory alteration may not be the true attack. Taravangian may place a memory bomb to hide that he needed to copy the memories. And he may genuinely care for the answer to the question whom the coaltion expect him to send and he had to ask the question to be sure that Hoid considered the question and remembered the answer.

On 21.11.2020 at 6:43 AM, IntentAwesome said:

In a recent live stream, Brandon said that something he did in Rhythm of War would be a headache for himself and Karen. The mosT obvious headache would be squeezing 1200 pages of plot into just 10 days.

Well, Brandon and the people at Dragonsteel are hardly idiots. The conclusion that time would be short if the duell is supposed to be at the end of SA 5 is blindingly obvious. And changing the ten into a 50 or 81 and give some numerological hint about 9 * 9 would have been simple and without consequences. If you have to prepare for combat the fate of a planet hinges upon even a hundred days would feel short.
In fact the obvious problem may exist. He has spoiled that SA 5 won't end with the duell. But why would that bother Karen?

So I doubt it is that. It has to be something either hard to do without or something seemingly inconsequential. For example killing Teft. If he had plans for him in SA 5, well, that's it. But somebody had to die.

22 hours ago, ftl said:

...but then ROdium went and got himself killed. And now TOdium doesn't want to play to "limit his losses" - he wants to win.

Yes. But that plot twist must be old. In fact it most likely ancient. We now know why Nightblood has been on Roshar. We know why Cultivation changed Taravangian.. This feels like a very basic plot point.

22 hours ago, ftl said:

So the Radiants are going to actually have to push for the whole victory instead of getting the easier way out with a Champion.

No. They can. They do not need to. They now have a multitude of options. They just do not know that.

3 hours ago, kaellok said:

10,000% agree with the bolded part.  Infinity% disagree with the italicized.  You can have family without children; you can have children without having family.  People should not have children in order to make a family, they should make a family in order to have children. 

I am afraid I will have to point out that the definition of family is highly a variable cultural feature. Adolin is a member of a preindustrial warrior culture. They happen to be monogamous. But that they see a family without children as complete is quite unlikely. And his views are relevant discussing his needs.

45 minutes ago, Prymalfire said:

We have no reason to think Vorinism holds sway over any of the Heralds. They predate it, and Ishar in particular considers himself God, he wouldn't care about any prohibitions.

But the arrow of causalty can run the other way. Vorinism bans foretelling the future bevause the Heralds hate it.

17 hours ago, Use the Falchion said:

As my Jasnadin ship sinks in the flames of her relationship with Wit (ruining TWO potential ships I had for the Alethi Queen),

I doubt it will last. As you said, she is the Alethi Queen. Hoid, however, is the bearer of the First Gem and so on. Both of them are guided ultimately by duty over personal interests. Jasnah likely even more than Hoid. If Roshar and her family clash with Hoid's plans, she will pick the former.

1 minute ago, Jescape said:

Does anyone else think that the way Ishar fought was very similar to the way that people burning Atium do? Given that I doubt he has Atium, could he be using fortune somehow?

For one thing, a few thousand years of experience and a body magically designed to be a fighting machine helps.

We can speculate that you, if you strengthen your bonds to somebody else hard enough, you will learn something from them. Using Fortune would seem to be as un-Vorin as you can get.

9 hours ago, IcaroRibeiro said:

I also don't like the Pursuer

What a pointless character. Sometimes I feel Kaladin is favorite Sanderson character and he feels he need to always give a plot of many chapters and significance to him. I thought Adolin was going to be the pointless POV of this book, but honestly Kaladin is by far the character with the weakest storyline in the series in both Oathbringer and Rhythm of War

True. Unless you needed a trigger for Kaladin's little decapitation trip. Which was cool. But there is the mystery of his eyes. We may just have seen preparation for book#5.

9 hours ago, IcaroRibeiro said:

Sanderson now set him up for an even more stupid plot (helping Ishar mental healthy? Wtf). I also don't like the prospect of him joining Szeth in his pilgrimage, just doesn't make any sense for me.

We will have to see. Rhythm of War cannot be fully understood as an independent book.

Just now, Innovation said:

I agree. She has access to connection. Probably a Ferring but she could be a full Feruchemist. 

Indeed. But if she can manipulate Connection, you cannot draw conclusions from her relation to Gavilar. She can cause him to like and trust her by Feruchemy.

26 minutes ago, Clarity-Art said:

Harmony describes Trell's influence as a red mist surrounding Scandrial. Axindweth could be part of a precursor organization to the Set on Scandrial, or she could be something entirely different, as you stated.

(Scadrial)

26 minutes ago, Clarity-Art said:

Either way, she’s up to no good.

No, I am sorry, but you cannot reduce the Stormlight Archive, very few things in the Cosmere indeed, into a simple good versus evil. People do not worldhop just to be evil. They need to have a motivation. She doesn't even have a mustache to twirl and adore her own eviltude.

1 hour ago, Clarity-Art said:

Because Axindweth occupied a position close to Gavilar, as shown in Venli and Eshonai's flashbacks, I believe she must've been part of the Sons of Honor.

Given whom we know Restares to e, that is highly problematic.

1 hour ago, Clarity-Art said:

Even if she wasn't a part of the Sons of Honor, her interactions with Gavilar indicate a kind of familiarity that no average attendant could reach.

She is a Feruchemist.

1 hour ago, Clarity-Art said:

The man who discovered her in the palace, the steward Gereh, is also Terris and a Feruchemist. I think he could easily be an agent of Harmony, or associated with an organization of the Terris that's dedicated to preserving secrets. My personal theory is that he's associated with the Worldbringers, who have ties to the Rosharan Worldsingers through Hoid. It would be plausible for individuals in both groups to be Cosmere aware, given that Hoid played a part along the way. 

There is a large number of suggestions. The problem is that I mostly have negative comments.

Kalak being Restares means that the Sons of Honor are a sham. Why would Kalak have a voidspren delivered? Furthermore, how come the Sons of Honor all of a sudden are worldhoppers?
Now, assuming her to be a Ghostblood also is highly problematic. A Ghostblood suddenly fleeing off-world for a minor issue? That makes very little sense. They have safe houses on Roshar aplenty.
Trell (assuming Trell is not Odium) is also problematic. What is in for him? Why do Odium's dirty work?

I must conclude that she is a member of a group not known to us.

2 hours ago, Czernobog said:

Raboniel referred to the metal as such. Unreliable narrator seems unlikely in this case, to me. 

Their dagger. That tells us nothing about the Ghostblood's dagger.

1 hour ago, Harrycrapper said:

I haven't seen it said here so I figure I'll point it out. The Ghostbloods wanted to capture Kelek to interrogate him. They never said that they'd bring him off world to have Kelsier talk to him. They wanted to interrogate him to figure out how Gavilar was moving Voidlight/Voidspren off Braize as we saw in the prologue, that's the secret they're after. I know he hadn't yet figured out how to get a Herald/spren/Investiture out of the system, but Gaviliar seemed to think he was on track to figuring that out.

Still. Kelsier has a body. Why Kalak? Why not just kidnap a Fused?

2 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

 No, the rules were quite explicit " to the death " if Dalinar forfeits  He has create a circumstance not covered within the contract not a loss but not a win. 

Like killing your opponent with a suicide attack. You are both dead. The duell is over. But there is no winner.

7 minutes ago, Jasha said:

 My theory is that Cultivation, in addition to preparing Taravangian to take up Odium (confirmed) and Dalinar to take up Honor (suspected), is also preparing Lift to be her own successor.

Then she should have attacked Odium at the moment he got transferred. And if she wanted to retire, why replace a damaged, stupid vessel with a brilliant one for her successor to deal with and fail from?

An ardent caring for its lord's people are supposed to be where the people are and the need for him is greatest. So chances are he was working in a field hospital in Emul.

This scene has many implications, but let's center on one. What did he pay with?

• It is valuable
• It is rare
• Raboniel recognised it
• It is small enough to fit into a bag
• It clincked

Based on who paid and what he soiled his pants with, I am going to say: aethers

What do you think?

On 20.11.2020 at 0:09 AM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

For all we know, he has. It may not have worked, or he may need someone more like himself.

I hope for his sake that he is not locked up in a gem stone. And even so, how would they get that gem to him? The Ghostbloods know that Stormlight won't work. The likeliest outcome of doing this to a Herald or Fused in a gem is you standing somewhere between the worlds and pulling on a gem that won't budge.

7 minutes ago, Isilel said:

 Kalak thinks that it was the Ghostbloods who killed Jezrien, but we know that it was Moash at the behest of the Fused. So, how did the Ghostbloods get the rare raysium dagger?

Are we sure it was Raysium? In fact, it would be odd for Odium only specifically to have a metal with those properties. If I had to guess I would suspect to Ghostbloods' dagger to be made with Atium.

7 minutes ago, Isilel said:

For that matter, can it be that the Ghostbloods were the ones who designed the knives and shared this technology with the Fused in exchange for getting trapped Herald souls, which they promised to take off-world, i.e. "somewhere safe" per Raboniel?

When Mraize and Raboniel negotiated it really did not sound like an existing friendly relationship.

7 minutes ago, Isilel said:

I kinda wonder about this. It is up to Sanderson, of course, but the Heralds did channel enormous amounts of investiture in the past, due to inefficency of the Honorblades and their direct tap to Honor, and if that was not enough to make them properly persistent cognitive shadows without the Oathpact,

Channeling does not work. You have to hold it.

4 hours ago, Seloun said:

An interesting passage from TWoK:

(emphasis mine)

Probably a coincidence, but the wording is suspiciously similar to what Rayse!Odium uses. So not sending a champion (or being delayed) is definitely a reason for forfeiture; perhaps Taravangian has a plan for starting something that would require Dalinar to be somewhere else (forcing a different champion, or forfeit).

True, but wouldn't Dalinar designate a second in line? He is a military officer with decades of campaigning behind him.

We have three clues

• what we know about the agreement itself
• Taravangian asking Hoid, whom he expects Odium to nominate
• Odium running an urgent test on Lezian

11 hours ago, kaellok said:

Ulim is a spren of Odium.  Ulim absolutely tricks many of the Listeners into sacrificing themselves so that they Fused can be born.  Words like "You'll have a form of power" that are technically true, but violate the Intent egregiously.

Yes, the problem is not tricking your enemy, but breaking your word about your own actions resulting from an agreement

13 hours ago, Q10fanatic said:

Dalinar should just pick a Sleepless. Can't be killed, can just shove an army of bugs at Odium's champion until they fall off the edge of Urithiru.

.We may speculate that the weapons test El ran was part of a crash project to find anti-Investiture designed for exactly that eventuality.

19 hours ago, Jaconis said:

This doesn’t fit with the rest of the context when the loophole is discussed, which is that it sets up a situation that, win or lose, you win. This would be better though. Guaranteed win for Odium. 

Right, so I think the best clue was - I think - Taravangian's question to Odium. It tells us two things.

1. He is expecting the duell to at least get very close to starting - it would be pointless to ask that question if he were concentrating on finding a way to pressure Dalinar into calling the whole thing off days before the tournament or wanted to kill Dalinar in the next few days
2. I think we can safely assume that Taravangian does not need Hoid's sincere advise. He wants to know which enemy they are preparing against. That seems to indicate that he does not believe that Dalinar will give battle in person.

Based on that I think he is speculating on a draw based on both champions dieing and is working on setting up weapons for several adversaries. But I admit that this is based on very thin ice. I would bet only a trivial amount of money on it.