Kon-Tiki

So, I wonder.

Humans are less an invasive predator, as is normally associated with invasive species, and more an invasive food source, particularly for emotionspren and some of the odder, less easy to classify spren like musicspren or creationspren. I've also suspected for some time that the advent of humans caused non-Odious but still new kinds of spren to appear. Would humans, being able to draw any kind of spren at pretty much any given moment, based only on mood, be drawing spren from across Roshar in a sort of migratory way, making it harder for singers to change forms when they wanted? Possibly. Hadn't thought about it. Seems like a cool theory.

I agree that Stormlight isn't really colonial literature in the sense that humanity weren't really colonists so much as refugees. I have, however, seen it compellingly argued that Stormlight is excellent post-colonial literature, without having a true colonial history. It deals with a lot of the same problems as post-colonialism, only the problems are caused by a source other than actual colonialism. 

There's a reason that revolution and industrialism are linked, historically. Changing the game in economic terms (and therefore in terms of who has power) is always going to be disruptive to society, for a lot of the reasons listed in the OP, especially in the later stages of industrialization when the promise of it (cool stuff more readily available) doesn't quite pan out due to wealth concentration.

That said, the Desolation makes this sort of moot. It forces technology development to be more or less solely oriented towards military ends for survival reasons. It also -- and I undertstand how brutal this is -- just straight up eliminates a lot of those disenfranchised 95% (to use the OP's number) who don't get to participate in industrialization or who would otherwise be taken advantage of under the new system. Additionally, the Desolation is also forcing a whole lot of social and economic changes that might normally require violent revolution. Just look at Bridge Four. Kaladin doesn't have to fight the Alethi to justify his place in society. In a lot of ways I think he's going to sort of skip the "new money" phase. There might be some friction there later, but I think that'll be fairly minor where, if there were no Desolation, it could be the story. All of this is to say that I think the Desolation and the pressure it is and will put on society will do the work of revolution in its place.

On the other hand, it very well could be that the back half deals with this more directly. I've joked on the Discord server before that the back half could feature a Jasnah as Iron Man vs Kaladin as Captain America Marvel Civil War style conflict, and that could very well be built around how to address issues caused not only by the Desolation but by industrialization and the economic reshuffling it causes (if indeed you can really disentangle that from the Desolations and their aftermath).

I don't think I said anything anyone else hasn't already said here, no worries

1) The Vorin religious structure is hardly a secret society, and the secret society trying to build the Vorin church up is the Sons of Honor, at least on the surface level and to many of its members, including at least Amaram.

2) That they're threatened by Dalinar and his Radiants and the Desolation and what that means is undeniable. They have the further shock of the Heralds' lie in their future, too. That there are those among them willing to do really dumb things in a vain attempt to preserve their own importance and power, I think, is to be expected. That some of this will happen secretly? Absolutely.

3) I think faking out that Shallan's mother's friend was a Skybreaker when really he was associated with the Vorins (and would therefore probably be more of a Son of Honor than anything?) to be a not very interesting twist. And the Skybreakers are sufficiently and clearly motivated to kill young Shallan, while I don't think the Vorins or the Sons of Honor would be.

For what its worth, Sadeas' strategy was also relatively new. Slavers were just copping wise to Sadeas' new strategy, and the other non-Kholin highprinces start adapting it over the course of The Way of Kings. It isn't as if Sadeas had been feeding slaves to the Parshendi meat grinder for six years, at least not at the feverish pitch that he was while Kaladin was a slave. And even then, the monetary cost didn't seem to be the issue; running out of potential slaves was. Kaladin notes that a lot of his bridgemen were made bridgemen for fairly innocuous crimes and were therefore more soldierly and less criminal than might otherwise be expected of that particular caste. The long term issues of the strategy weren't given enough time to really mature, it doesn't look like

Saying "everything has a spren" is to my mind the Rosharan overuse of the word. To Rosharans, any Cognitive entity is a spren, to include Cognitive Shadows like the Fused and the Heralds, as well as the beads. I think that's a definition that's overbroad and more confusing than useful, so I don't use it. As for whether the Everstorm has a spren, I'm in the "The Everstormmother is Ba-Ado-Mishram" camp, personally.

If Odium isn't controlling it, however, the Everstorm actually more regular than the highstorm. It hits every ~9 days and moves at about 1/3 the speed of the highstorm.

Helaran trying to kill someone actively trying to bring about a Desolation is outside the limits of the Skybreakers for you?

Skybreakers wear the clothes of whatever passes for local law enforcement in a given place, and the only real law in Alethkar is Shards. Helaran being given Shards and pointed at someone the Skybreakers would probably have known was a Son of Honor (a non-Shardbearer at that, commanding a fairly pointless border dispute) is well within the kind of test the Skybreakers would have devised

I haven't seen it mentioned, but I thought it was understood that the Soulcaster was stabbed by Balat:

Quote

Balat grabbed his sword. Still on one knee, he struck with a lunge. Shallan screamed, and the sword made a strange clang as it barely missed Father, stabbing through his coat and out the back, connecting with something metallic.

The "something metallic" should be the Soulcaster

It looks too risky now, but I think in 15-20 years it'll look a lot less so

Alethi lighteyes do. I don't know if that stigma applies in darkeyed culture

I am and have always been of the opinion that adapting any book series before its completed is a bad idea. Game of Thrones is the most recent and obvious example of why this can be a disaster, and that show managed to fall into pretty much every conceivable pitfall once the writers ran out of source material. That said, I don't think we're going to see the end of Stormlight before at least 2035. Brandon has put out three Stormlight books since 2010, and will probably put out another next year, plus a break to put out MB era 3 and Elantris sequels.

However

I think this is a good thing. The modern fantasy adaptations are the vanguard of this kind of TV development. Rather than have kinks common to fantasy stories worked out on Stormlight, I'd prefer filmmakers work out the issues with adapting fantasy on series I care less about. Big budget TV is still a relatively new phenomenon, and I'd love to see that scene mature before trying to tackle something as truly out there as Stormlight is.

I don't know that Rlain gets overlooked because he's different. I think the Parshendi still have some capital-I Identity issues

3 minutes ago, Config2 said:

Thing is, there is a one year gap. If we are told that he has been spending ever free moment hanging out with Gavinor, than we will just have to take that as fact. They could have a connection that is established off-screen, and then built during SA4. I think it would be a nice dimension for Kaladin, he can seem a little shallow at times. As for "his own people" it takes him all of 30 seconds to build those same connections everywhere he goes. It takes him a couple of weeks in Kholinar, and a couple with the Parshmen. He is wildly prolific in making close, almost familial bonds with people, and having that relation to someone who is not a brother in arms would be new. Plus having them close sets up some cool stuff in the back 5. 

I'm saying if we came back after a one year gap and Brandon had done this, I'd be baffled. Its without precedent for any of the characters involved and has no setup at all. It'd be weird.

Honestly even if Kaladin ends up stopping in to say hi to Gavinor between missions or whatever I'd be completely perplexed. It'd come off as a military dad who doesn't have custody rights stopping in every once in a while between deployments or whatever and would be super awkward. He has no relation to this child. Kaladin has his own people to look after already. Its weird.

I'm with Pathfinder on this one. If Kaladin is going to pick a child to protect, its going to be Oroden, not Gavinor. Kaladin playing dad to Gavinor strains the bounds of credulity.

7 hours ago, agrabes said:

Is that right though?  I don't recall Kaladin being made captain of Jasnah's guard, just like he was not captain of Elhokar's guard.  He was captain of Dalinar's guard and sometimes assigned to protect Elhokar.  With the changing roles of the Alethi government vs. the Knights Radiant, I got the strong impression Kaladin was no longer pulling regular guard duty as of early/mid Oathbringer.  I could be totally off on this, but I seriously don't remember any implication that Kaladin would be regularly guarding Jasnah.  Not that it couldn't happen, just that there's no reason we should expect that it does.

Bridge Four got pulled off guard duty, as did the bridge crew that became Teft's squires. Windrunners are scouts/cavalry, not bodyguards.

Personally, I think the usage of "divine" in divine hatred is quantitative, not qualitative. I don't think we know enough about Adonalsium as a person to be able to say he was divine in a holy way. All we really know is Adonalsium was the biggest baddest power on the block, and Odium as a Shard is going to reflect Adonalsium's hatred/anger/whatever. That hatred had context, yes, and even a "vessel" more capable of steering it than I think our Shards do, but that doesn't necessarily make it a holy/righteous type of hatred.

Isn't naginata-Glys exactly that?

1) I'm not sure the Unmade's approach to the Surges is going to be the same as a Voidbinder's approach to the Surges, in the same way that fabrials can have wildly different expressions of the Surges than the Radiants do, despite all of them coming primarily from HxC's filter.

2) I map the Unmade to Surges differently than you do, I think Moelach ties to Illumination, since I think Renarin's futuresight is his expression of the same Surge, and I bump Midnight Mother over to Transformation. I actually give Sja-Anat to Progression.

3) I think you're barking up the wrong tree with the Dawnshards, personally. Sja-anat specifically says that she was "Made, and then Unmade", so I'm disinclined to think that Odium made them with his unholy hands directly. I'm not the only one who thinks this, but I tend to think that the Unmade were part of a "class" of ad hoc superspren with the Sibling and that Odium corrupted nine of them. (To that end, I think forming a proper Nahel bond with an Unmade would yield a Bondsmith)

Quote

Questioner

Can the Unmade be bonded?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow, plausible... Yes, or possible, I should say.

Words of Radiance Philadelphia signing (March 21, 2014)

[For what it's worth, I think the "plausible" is a more honest answer than the "possible"]

I think that's all I have for now, I'm always glad when posts like this go up

Honestly I think Rlain goes Windrunner just as soon as he and an honorspren figure out its possible

I'm pretty sure the only reason Rlain isn't a Squire at this point is because he (and everyone around him) thinks its impossible

I think we'll see Jakamov sometime later as a "hey here's how the Alethi as a culture has changed" sort of role (and probably in passing), because he very much seemed to be a way to differentiate Adolin from the average Alethi upper crust. I don't think he wants to repeat what he did with Elend's friends, and the Alethi highprince game just isn't going to be nearly as relevant moving forward

There is a finite number of available Soulcasters on Roshar. Gemstones are a fairly renewable resource on Roshar. One of those becomes the limiting factor.

Gemstones have never been the limiting factor either. Soulcasters have been, which seem to be somewhat rare, claimed by religion, and shrouded (somewhat deliberately) in mystery such that many people assume it takes significant special training to use one.