Q10fanatic

First, is this canon? Or, will it be canon?

Second, my heart just broke for Lift. I was not expecting that revelation at the end. So sweet but so tragic.

Third, is the wrap a sign of body dysmorphia? I'm interpreting that as a makeshift binder.

So, we know that there were some guards in Kholinar that were able to resist the Heart of the Revel. I know that's not exactly the same but it is some evidence of the non-invested being able to resist an Unmade's psychic influence.

Overwhelming bloodlust is also generally a net negative for fighting forces. At the extreme end, we see what happens in Veden (?) where all of the kingdom's military might wipes itself out to no purpose, allowing Mr. T to come in. That's a clear example. But we can see that example and also apply that at a lower level of conflict. You can't have one of your flanks get overwhelmed by the Thrill and charge unexpectedly, you lose almost all of your tactical advantage in battle.

The Alethi say that the Thrill is the reason they win, the reason that they tend to win their battles. I actually think that their training is sufficient to protect them in the heat of battle and they are able to overwhelm their foes with the combination of superior training, superior gear/shards, and the overwhelming battlelust. If they only had the Thrill, they'd lose more often than not to the more disciplined foe. This is basically what happened at Thaylen Fields.

As other's have already mentioned, Kaladin has shown a real aptitude for medical practice and applies his knowledge in real-life situations. He has also shown the ability to take what he has been trained in (spear, bridge, medicine) and innovate new solutions. That shows an impressive amount of creativity and quick-thinking.

One other thing to consider, Kaladin is maybe the only person who is Shallan's equal at banter/wittiness. As someone who is NOT witty, this is almost as magical as surgebinding to me. Shallan's wit is one of her defining character traits and something that people have remarked over for her entire life. It is considered a mark of intelligence. In the same way,  we can take Kaladin's ability to match Shallan in banter as a mark of his own intelligence.

2 hours ago, agrabes said:

All I'm trying to say here is that there is a lot of information we as readers don't know and there is also a lot of information the characters in the story don't know that makes it a huge stretch to say "This is just like Western European Colonialism and the enslavement of Africans in the real world."  There are a lot of reasons given in the book to think otherwise.  I personally see the Parshmen issue as only vaguely similar to real world slavery due to all the real and meaningful differences between the two.  I think that Sanderson intentionally made reference to real world events and concepts, but made the story of his books different enough that he could tell his own story and examine "What if?" scenarios.  I don't think he wants to simply retell the story of slavery in the US or speculate about how the long lasting damage it caused should be handled politically.  I want to be clear that I don't support the perpetrators or seek to minimize the lasting impacts of slavery in the US, but I do have a different opinion on the plot of SA.  With that, I'll bow out of this discussion since it's getting a little too close to current real world sensitive topics.

This is a fair criticism. We certainly have a lot of known-unknowns at this point and I shouldn't overstate my case. I think we may be closer to agreement than disagreement anyways. I certainly expect any "social commentary" aspects of SA books to remain on a meta-level rather than any 1:1 comparisons but I do think it is fair to make comparisons between the two.

The two that always get me are:

"You cannot have my pain!"

and 

"I will protect those I hate, even if the one I hate most is myself."

10 minutes ago, Karger said:

Yes.  Do exactly as Nale does.

Unless you swore to follow Dalinar Kholin instead. Then do exactly as the Blackthorn does.

4 hours ago, agrabes said:

1) It's not racism, because the Parshmen are not a race of humans.  Therefore, it cannot be racism.  The Parshmen are a different species.  I realize this is kind of a semantics argument, but I think it's an important distinction.

2) It's not chattel slavery as we know it in the real world, because the Parshmen were not of human level intelligence during the time of they were used as slaves.  The closest equivalent would be if we suddenly discovered a wild herd of horses that had human level intelligence.  Then, we found out that humans had intentionally kept the dumbest horses as captive beasts of burden and tried to kill all the intelligent ones.  That would create a similar moral challenge to what the Alethi faced when they discovered the Parshendi.  Was using horses all that time equivalent to chattel slavery?  Is it slavery if we keep doing it now that we know how we got them?  I'm not going to say the Alethi responded well to the discovery of the Parshendi - they didn't.  But, it's not a 1:1 for chattel slavery.  The literal chattel slavery experienced by Kaladin and all the Bridge Crews is a 1:1 comparison to real world chattel slavery.

1. This strikes me as a distinction without a difference. Unless you are arguing that you think Brandon intends us to believe speciesm is morally superior to racism, these are one group of sentient beings enslaving another group of sentient beings. I believe has Brandon has even indicated that sentience is the key characteristic. Not whether someone is technically human.

2. The Singers were feared and respected enemies able to wage a hundreds-of-years campaign against humanity. Within a short time (1 generation? less?) that entire race was enslaved based almost entirely on the fact that they could no longer resist. They were bred by humans. Their families were separated by humans. They were injured on the job and (presumably) occasionally worked to death by humans. Also, the awakened parshmen in Alethkar told Kal that he remembered his wife being taken away but was unable to voice his objection or fight back. They were alert the entire time. 

Even your own argument shows how terrible things were for the parshmen. You say that the humans should be excused because they didn't know that the parsh had sentience, but that was a key argument used to justify chattel slavery in the U.S. and the colonies before that. Brandon has engineered this storyline to be a direct, intentional callback to those historical real-world arguments. If there are (slight) differences between them, it is only because Brandon is giving his audience a little bit of emotional distance so that we can process this in a more detached manner.

Book 3 exposed us to the reality of the colonialist history of Roshar. Historically, slavery (in the American sense) proceeded from colonialism and the conquest of Africa and the Americas. I believe Brandon wants us to wrestle with this. I expect the planet-wide mistreatment of the parsh to be a huge theme in Book 4, since we will have a larger Listener influence in this book. How can the humans begin to make amends? Will they even try? These are relevant issues in the modern world, which is part of what makes this series so good. 

I have to say, there aren't many places on the internet where people could discuss what counts as racism for 3+ pages and keep it this civil. It's a testament to this community.

18 hours ago, Karnage said:

The arms race that follows will challenge the very core of the Radiant ideals, and potentially reveal the secrets of the ancient tower that was once the heart of their strength"

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.)

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 (the sibling) and give up on another bondsmith or Urithiru? (My guess is they decide against it, leading to the Sanderlanche at the beginning of Book 5).

1 hour ago, teknopathetic said:

The effect might work like Cadmium bubbles (slowing down time for people inside the area). I am not sure if that ability is cognitive or spiritual, though. 

I'd forgotten about the time bubbles in Era 2. That's a good point.

So, does anyone have a clear understanding of how Time interacts with Realmatic aspects of the cosmere? We know that the Physical realm and Cognitive realms both feel time pass in a recognizable fashion to the humans. Time doesn't matter in the Spiritual realm, right? Or its all times and all places? There is some kind of Spiritual mumbo jumbo with Time. 

So does that mean that the Heart of the Revel is affecting people on a Spiritual level? Or does he have sufficient investiture to slow down time over a large radius simply because he's an unmade? That doesn't make sense to me, we haven't seen time dilation outside of world hopping before now, have we?

15 minutes ago, Kelsier'sGodComplex said:

Do we know why he can see spren in the first place?

I don't think we know for sure. Rock has been very secretive about his backstory. There's been speculation that this was a gift/boon that he received after swimming in the shardpool at the Horneater Peaks.

I'm not sure if I like the idea of Dawnshards as Surge-multipliers. To me, that sounds suspiciously close to the angreal/sa'angreal from WoT.

I wonder if this is a title granted to Windrunners, due to their relationship with honorspren? Or, maybe to the head of the Windrunners?

An arms race, huh? As we leave Oathbringer, we know that Vasher, Navani, Nightsblood, Nergaoul-in-sphere, Jasnah, et al will be in Urithiru. We also know that Azhure will be heading there eventually and that Venli has officially joined the good guys (so might make an appearance by the end of the book?). I can only imagine what the most technologically and realmatically advanced people on the planet could come up with!

Edit: Also, did the title change? I thought it had been confirmed as Rhythm of War?

I just want to point out that there are, so far as we know, only two people alive who are descended from one of the victims at the Rift: Adolin and Renarin. It is entirely possible that Brandon will explore this question of forgiveness in the next book. I hope that he does since this should shatter his sons' perceptions about him. They will have to see come to terms with what he did and they will do so as their mother's children.

It is also still a practice in certain eastern African countries, and in some regions of Pakistan and India.

I don't see how Nale could be involved with Szeth's assassination on Gavilar. That seems to be clearly against the law, and we haven't seen Nale break the law at any point (regardless of whatever "Become the Law" actually means).

My idea is that Shallan's portraits of others are somewhat equivalent to Jasnah's traditional soul-casting. Both drawing on the surge of Transformation, but one is Physical while the other is Spiritual. For that theory to be correct, I think Shallan would need to be using stormlight at some point in her process. So, Progression wouldn't really be needed because Transformation is the useful Surge.

Here is a relevant WOB from a thread I started a couple months ago. 

WoB below

Questioner

My first question is about Shallan and whether what she does with her drawings and the deserters in Words of Radiance, kind of changing them, is at all similar to what Shai does in The Emperor's Soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Umm, that's a good question. There are similarities, but only so much that The Emperor's Soul is cosmere and is relying on the same foundation of magic. But good question. Are you getting at me saying you've seen somebody do it before?

Questioner

I talked to Alice.

Brandon Sanderson

So you have seen what she does before, but that is not what I was pointing at. It's someth-- No one is going to expect it.

Footnote: This is a follow-up to this exchange.
Firefight Seattle Public Library signing (Jan. 7, 2015)

14 minutes ago, Karger said:

What about Ash?  She destroys art to try and destroy Heraldic worship

Also, Taln. He is locked in a Rosharan madhouse because he's unable to interact with people (end of Oathbringer being the obvious exception).

I think it is entirely possible that one or more of the Heralds could have been confused by the events of the False Desolation. We know that some of the Heralds have maintained contact with each other but there is no indication that they all meet regularly or stay up to date on the goings on of Roshar.

So, I see this as Gavilar learning how to get Spren off of Roshar. Could these ambassadors from the west be the people that Hoid needs to speak with to learn how to go off world with a Nahel bonded radiant spren?

2 hours ago, rjl said:

3. This comment that could imply a past involvement with highspren? Chapter 90 of Oathbringer (bottom page 867 in the hardback) 

I always took this to be a comment about Szeth's already-proven expertise in Gravitation and his proven ability to follow "the law". He wouldn't need much (any) time at the 2nd Ideal level because he is already good enough with that surge and had (in Nale's eyes) already shown that he "will put the law before all else" which is the 2nd Ideal per the Coppermind.

5 hours ago, rjl said:

Did Szeth bond a spren at a very young age but suppress/forget it later? Possibly when he was made Truthless? Could this in fact be what he was made Truthless for?

I've always thought this is what happened. Further, I think when he accepted being Truthless that this caused him to sever the bond. I hope that this gets addressed in his own flashbacks.

19 hours ago, Karger said:

All shards are bound by the oaths they make even Odium.

Yes, but they are affected in different ways. Honor is bound by the literal words of his oaths. Odium explained to Dalinar that he is governed by the intent behind the agreement and that he could not take advantage of a loophole in the way that Honor (theoretically) could.

Similarly, we know that Ruin was trapped by his agreement with Preservation but we also know that this was more of a loophole or a trick; Ruin was surprised when the agreement trapped him.

I think this shows that the Shards can be affected by their agreements with each other (I don't want to say "bound" or "oaths" since those have Honor-specific meanings) but that the mechanisms that affect each Shard change. I think the differences in the mechanisms reflect the differences in the Shards' Intents.

As far as Shards applying their intents to themselves goes, I think Honor being bound by the specific words of an agreement is a perfect example of applying his Intent to himself. I also think Preservation did his absolute best to Preserve himself during Mistborn Era 1, he just was overwhelmed by Ruin. That's not a failure to apply his own Intent, its that he lost the power struggle with another Shard.