Q10fanatic

Shallan meeting Kaladin. Shallan meeting the Alethi.Shallan using the Pattern-blade in the caravan.

Oh, that's very interesting! So it appears that Jasnah was first but Shallan has had the bond since she was a child. So maybe Jasnah's mysterious mental illness when she was younger was the first sign of her own nascent bond. This seems to support that theory.

Wait, what is the GB? Nevermind.GB = Ghostbloods.

Just like the topic says. Do we have a definitive timeline on when the modern radiants first started forming nahel bonds? I think Shallan is first but I can't find any clear information about Szeth. Jasnah's bond formed around the time of the assassination of Gavilar. Tien probably a few months before he was conscripted, Kaladin probably a few months after? Lift probably bonded Wyndle around this time, but Wyndle says the Cultivationspren decided to bond people after the other spren started doing it. I haven't found anything definitive on Coppermind or in the WOBs.

This would lend itself really well to the Rlain becomes a Bondsmith theory that floats around every once in a while. I actually really like that theory and I hope it’s correct!

This makes the most sense to me. He went off looking for the missing Listeners. Maybe he finds them and has to leave his former duties as Bridge 4. Assuming he finds them, they are certainly not on Team Odium. They will need someplace to go where they can be safe, since they will be obvious targets by the Fuzed. The Listeners completely undermine the arguments that Odium and Fuzed make to the awakened parshmen, so they represent a serious threat. What is the one place on Roshar that 1: is reasonably safe and 2: has enough space for all of them? Uritihiru. Once in Urithiru, Rlain is going to be too busy keeping the peace and acting as the bridge between the Listeners and the humans. He may even have to formally withdraw from Dalinar's forces or Kaladin's squires. If that happens, it makes sense to leave him off a poster of Bridge 4.

Ah, thank you. I think this made it clear to me. Whenever the number of objects in the physical realm changes, it will eventually be reflected in the cognitive realm but that does not happen instantaneously. And now I want cake.

Yeah, this is all very confusing to me. I think it depends on the subjective perceptions of the viewer. Or, probably the collective perceptions of the people in the physical realm? And the soulcaster's can see more/less depending on the subjective perceptions?

I understand (I think) what Wax is doing in the physical realm, understanding the thing's component parts and then affecting those instead of the whole. When that happens, is the cognitive aspect of the object also split into component parts? I suppose so but I don't think we've seen what happens in Scadrial for sure. (I may be misremembering, I have only read Era 2 once) To use the couch example, if Jasnah looks at the couch in the cognitive realm she will see only a bead for the couch. Then if she looks again, intending to soulcast a cushion, she will see the distinct beads for the cushions and the couch? Or, she finds the single bead of the couch and (somehow) creates a bead for the cushion which is immediately soulcast?

I had forgotten about that! So that would suggest that subjective perception/intent is crucial then. It doesn't matter that there is only one bead at the beginning, Jasnah is able to create a new thing out of a larger whole. So, at the higher skill levels, subjective perception or intent can overcome the objective reality of the cognitive beads not only in terms of what the object is (convincing it to change) but also how many objects there are (convincing one object to become two things, or part of an object to become a new thing). Storms! Soulcasting is strong.

Jasnah soulcast the bread and the jam, she soulcast the men (who have at least two of the ten essences), into one object. She clearly sees them as one whole "bread" or "man attacking me" in the physical realm. Does her perception of them cause her to only see one bead/soul in Shadesmar? Maybe this is my confusion re: Soulcasting. Does the ability to soulcast something depend on some objective cognitive state or does it depend solely on the subjective perceptions of the person doing the soulcasting? What do we think would happen realmatically if Jasnah tried to soulcast a man while the man is holding a shovel? Let's say that the shovel thinks of itself as the man's shovel. It's an old family heirloom and the shovel has its own cognitive bead. It is an otherwise calm situation. Is Jasnah aware of the bead and the human soul as separate? Does that make Jasnah more like to soulcast only one or the other? Or if she only is focused on the man, will that mean that the shovel will remain untouched by the soulcasting? Sorry for all the questions. I don't have a strong grasp of the theory here and I feel like I lack the language to explain what I'm trying to ask.

That flies in the face of everything we learn about the Cognitive and Spiritual realms in The Emperors Soul. Shai had to forge each vein of rock separately precisely because the pieces considered themselves separate from each other, even though they were all part of the wall in her initial cell. In the reverse, Dalinar hears the rocks crying out to become the building even though it has been weeks since the Everstorm broke Thaylen City. That assumes that Jasnah's perception trumps Kabsal's. He still perceived it as jam + antidote. And he had been around the items longer than Jasnah. Not that this could have stopped her from soulcasting it, but I don't understand why she didn't perceive them as separate. I mean, my question applies equally to the poison that was sprinkled onto the bread. There was no mixing of the ingredients there, the bread was just a vehicle for the poison. Assuming that Kabsal has been using the same jar of poison powder this entire time, the poison has existed as a distinct entity for far longer than the bread. Ok, that makes sense to me in principle but it seems like Kabsal would NOT be thinking of these things as one object. He thinks of them as "Bread" and "Poison" and "Jam" and "Antidote" right? This is his whole goal, to get the poison to Jasnah. I suppose this question could also be applied to the men she soulcast in the alley. I think the clothes and weapons were soulcast along with the men. There's just not many examples of the mechanics of soulcasting multiple objects into one thing.

I was rereading TWoK and I noticed something new in the scene at the hospital where Jasnah soulcasts the bread and the jam. When Jasnah and Shallan are talking about it later, Jasnah tells her that she accidentally soulcast the antidote away when she transformed the jam. Similarly, she transformed the bread and the poison that she put in her mouth. But, how can she accidentally soulcast something? Here is what I understand about soulcasting: When you soulcast, you (or your mind) travel partially into Shadesmar You speak with the bead/soul of the object that you want to transform An object develops a soul based on how it is perceived by others over time Objects in the physical realm that are made of multiple parts, but are perceived as one thing, have only a single soul/bead From The Emperor's Soul: Objects that have been put together recently see themselves as distinct objects in Shadesmar and the spiritual realm. Presumably, this means that they have multiple beads/souls. If I am right about the above points, shouldn't Jasnah have realized that there were two cognitively distinct objects that she was soulcasting? The poison and the antidote had only been recently added to the bread and the jam. They had spent the vast majority of their existence as "poison" and "antidote" so they should have their own bead in Shadesmar, right? Even if Jasnah only perceived them as bread and jam at first and can combine them together, she should have had a moment where she perceived separate beads. If that is correct, then I would expect Jasnah to warn Shallan or accuse Kabsal or simply soulcast the poison and antidote but leave the bread and jam. Yet, Jasnah admitted that she accidentally soulcast away the antidote which suggests that she didn't perceive the separate beads. What am I missing here?

I want to see Nightblood take on an Unmade. We know that he can destroy the strongest of the Fused (at least so far) so lets see him move up in the world. Maybe Team Radiant gets another shot at The Heart of the Revel. We've already seen that the Pattern-blade did nothing against that so it could provide a good measuring point.

I mean, Veil sexualizes the storms out of Kaladin later on...

I'm honestly a little confused about Roshar's population growth over the past 4+ millennia. Roshar has seen remarkable technological progress, going from the Bronze Age to turn-of-the-century 1800s/1900s technology in some ways. But, they have had certain advantages that should have led to a massive growth in the human population and I don't think we see that on Roshar. 1. They have not had Desolations in 4,500 years. These were society-crushing events and I'm sure the effect of fighting off a genocidal god is not good for planet-wide population. 2. They have not (ever?) had large-scale sickness due to the relatively high investiture on the planet. I don't remember the specific WOB, but Brandon has said that the "plague" on the Purelake is just the common cold and the Rosharians simply have no frame of reference for a true devastating sickness. Also, they have a lot of basic sanitation/medical knowledge from the Heralds. 3. They have not faced large-scale famine. While the environment is incredibly harsh, it also provides the materials (gemstones) that allow soulcasters to simply create food. They can create so much food that armies don't need supply lines. This means that they also have the ability to support a much larger population than actual food production would suggest. So I would expect there to be absolutely massive population growth, like we've seen in the past 70 years or so on Earth, but I don't think that has happened on Roshar. Fertility doesn't seem to be lower for humans on Roshar, so what is slowing the population growth? Unless cities are regularly getting wiped out in wars of conquest, populations shouldn't be decimated by non-Desolation wars right?

Do we know what type of spren they are using for the half-shards?

I think this might happen accidentally or by someone who is not under Dalinar, maybe a member of the Diagram or the Ghostbloods. That avoids the political backlash deterrent, and furthers the Human vs. Spren dynamic that the Knights Radiant need to overcome.

My guess: Someone notices that stronger spren create stronger fabrials, maybe even Dawnshard-level fabrials. This poses three distinct but related questions: 1. Is it ever acceptable to use a radiant spren/sapient spren in a fabrial? (Personally, I expect we will see someone capture a radiant spren and use the fabrial to prevent disaster somewhere in Book 1 or Book 2 of RoW.) 2. Is it worth the risk to build a Nergaoul fabrial? (My guess is that they find out after the fact that it is NOT worth it) 3. Is it worth the risk to capture a Bondsmith-level spren (i.e. The Sibling) and give up on another bondsmith? (My guess is they ultimately decide against it during the Sanderlanche. This will allow the Sibling to bond a new bondsmith (R'Lain?) which will reveal the secrets of Urithiru and harden their defenses in time to save the tower from being overrun.

I understand those WOBs to be explaining what is going on, but there is nothing indicating that Hoid is explicitly aware of these phenomena or that he has incorporated that knowledge into his long-term plans. Hoid has plans, but they are playing out over millennia. Over the timeline of SA scenes, Hoid is improvising every bit as much as our other characters. He just does this with the benefit of all his extra experience.

I'm genuinely confused by both statements here. What friends have we seen of Hoid's? By far the most interactions we've ever seen between him and other characters are in SA. He told Dalinar he'd let the planet burn to achieve his own goals. They aren't his friends, at best they are friendly allies. He and Shallan have a quasi-mentor/mentee relationship at best. We know that the only other beings from his own time are the Shards and a dragon or two. He has never been shown to have true friendship with them either, although there is a clear familiarity with them. We know that he has been gathering differing magic systems to himself, but I don't think we can take that to mean that he was hanging out with the Kholins to try to attract a spren. Rather, we know that one of his goals is to defeat Rayse and the Kholins are at the head of the fight against Rayse. Any interaction between Hoid and SA characters makes the most sense in that light. We also know that he didn't know why he was in Kholinar specifically until he found the Cryptic. He didn't go there with the immediate intent of rescuing a trapped radiant spren.

Also, if we are just playing "Who had it worse?" with Shallan and Kaladin, then only one of them grew up in a household under the influence of one of the Unmade. I suspect that by the time we are done, we will see just how terrifying this Unmade is/can be to be around. And, we are only 3/10 of the way through the series. I would not expect these characters to have completely different personalities or to have overcome all of their trauma just yet.

You don't see the ability to overcome years of incredible and violent trauma as proof of strength? It's a coping mechanism. If it were perfect, she'd be a Mary Sue. The whole point of her arc in the present is that she is now forced to confront these moments, as an adult and with the support of Pattern (and hopefully Adolin). Her arc is comparable to Dalinar's in OB in that respect. We don't know why or how she was able to progress so quickly as a child. It may be that she is "special" in some way. Pattern has implied that she was selected by the Cryptics, so presumably they had some sort of criteria they were working with. I expect that we will continue to learn about her past in RoW, now that her brothers are with her.

What about the Truthwatcher cobbler? We see a clear example of the use of regrowth, but we also see him ask for the child's story. This is framed through his religion, but it also shows that he could determine whether the boy was being honest about his story. Right? I don't remember that part of the interlude very well.

What does it even mean to "not change" realmatically? Yoour spiritual self already doesn't change, right? Kaladin is good with a spear because he will be good with a spear. So maybe Cultivation took her spiritual self and hardened it?