Elegy

Maybe relevant, because the purpose mentioned might be connected to this:

This is a theoretical question that will most probably never be answered. Time line changes won't happen in the cosmere, as far as I recall. That doesn't mean they couldn't ever happen/other realities don't exist, but it won't be part of the narrative. (On a side-note, I think it's good that way, since time line changes devalue the decisions of the characters, but that's a whole other topic.)

Or possibly Honor's death. The "silence above" might mean Braize or Ashyn (more probably the latter since it's commonly associated with silence i.e. The Silence Divine), but I don't know why either of them would be illuminated by Honor. Maybe Braize via the heralds.

As much as I disapprove of any form of Stormlight adaptation (if it's done, animated is the way, but adult animation is near impossible to market in the west), if it was done, they would have to overthrow most of the structure, leave out most of the interludes and relocate the important informations to other places. The whole story and the structure of the books are made for the literary medium and would not work as well in another context. So I wouldn't worry about where to put the interludes - it would need a completely different approach anyway. In general, I'd really like the episodes to be split between the main arcs. For Way of Kings, for example, there would be episodes for Shallan's arc (approximately a fourth of them), and episodes that change between Kaladin and Dalinar (since both of these character's stories influence each other from very early on). Lift's interlude (which would be necessary in one way or another) would make a perfect episode. Devoting an entire episode to one arc is a way of emphasize the arc's specific feeling - so you'd stay in Kharbranth for an episode instead of switching between different atmospheres. I think that's an underestimated way of doing it.

The German translation for the Well of Ascension as a place is "Quelle der Erhebung", which is kinda fine as a book title I think. The actual title is one of the dumbest things ever. I also have an issue with Heyne's title for "Hero of Ages", "Herrscher des Lichts", which - meaning "Ruler of Light" - implies that the Hero of Ages is something inherently good and represents light, while it's obviously a term for someone who brings balance and, er, Harmony, so not necessarily light. The new edition (by Piper, I think) has it fixed as "Held Aller Zeiten". I don't think they bothered with the WoA's title though. Reasons: Completely unknown.

This was during the signing before the event, so it's paraphrased. Q: "The second letter in this one [Oathbringer], was it written by Patji?" A: "Yes."

The date of the year is printed on the AoL newspaper page on the top left:

341 years.

Brandon has said that there will be half an hour of signing before the start of the event in Bonn (so 19:30 to 20:00), and it won't require tickets. So there's a chance to get your books signed and be off at 20:00 when the reading starts. I might be able to make it after all (my problem was the return trip). Getting there alone will take longer than I'll actually be there, but well.

I found a dusty compilation of fantasy short stories while clearing out my bookshelf and decided to delve into some of them. The first was Moorcock's "Kings in Darkness" (which I disliked), the second LeGuin's "Dragonfly" (which I liked a lot, although the ending felt rushed). I also finally started reading Asimov's Foundation books. The first one was good diplomatic sci fi with an ingenious premise, but the second puts it to shame. Great stuff! On to the third one now.

There's this weird little paraphrased WOB on it. Don't know how trustworthy: It is a striking similarity though.

Star Wars Episode II - Attack of the Clones:

Yes, it was originally planned as a trilogy. This is what he said about this: More recently, he said this: Contrary to what one might think, the "Lord Mastrell" novel that's always listed as one of the first books he wrote is not a sequel but more like a second half of the original book:

Like I said, there's that one information in Oathbringer that makes it very unlikely. I let go of theories once they seem unreasonably unlikely. I don't like the thought of being stubborn about these things. But I still like the idea and think that it was more or less backed by one possible interpretation of that line, at that time.

It's more of a general Cosmere idea, but I suspected it to be hinted at in a Stormlight book, so I guess it works: Based on "Three of sixteen ruled, but now the Broken One reigns", I thought there were three Shards that (maybe elected by the others) had some politically/hierarchically higher position than the others, and I guessed those would be Honor, Ambition and Dominion, since all of their Intents basically portray different aspects of rulership. Odium specifically hunted them (and killing Aona was just a by-product of attacking Sel for Dominion) to dethrone them, in which he succeeded (but was trapped in the system, so it didn't earn him much). I believed that from Arcanum Unbouded until Oathbringer, when it was revealed that the Shards aren't officially allowed to meet, so it didn't make sense for three of them to rule over the rest in one way or another. Now it seems very clear that the three of the sixteen refered to are the three Shards Invested in Roshar.

Let's join the club of people who would have liked to go but couldn't ... Ah, well. There's always two German releases of each Stormlight book, so double the chance he'll come again. Heyne's sales policy has its pros after all! Concerning the translations, I think Siefener did a good job with Mistborn, Elantris and Warbreaker. I only looked into the first Stormlight book's translation, but that one doesn't convince me as much. "Wüstwerdung"? Why not "Verwüstung", it rolls off the tongue much better. There's a lot of other cases of that kind in that book. Maybe there's just too many in-world terms that are hard to translate, but even then a lot of them are handled rather clumsy. Like the Shards in general. I can get behind "Ehr" for Honor, but "Bewahr"? I don't even know how things like Autonomy and Devotion would turn out. But, like I said, I respect Siefer's work, especially with the non-Stormlight Cosmere works. Shadows of Self, on the other hand, took just a look into it for me to want to throw it straight through Thalia. They didn't even translate "Lord Ruler". Why throw English terms into a fantasy book? Why break the consistency in the middle of a series (they changed translator after Alloy of Law, which was translated by Siefener)? Furthermore, the language doesn't have any flow to it and sounds like she translated one sentence at a time without any attention to the tone. It doesn't read like an adult book at all. I'll stick to the originals for the rest of forever, although I am aware that translating a piece of art is always a hard task, so no bad feelings.

The Diagram is not made by Cultivation but made by Taravangian while using powers that were granted to him via Cultivation. I don't think everything Smartaravangian sees as the right thing to do would be approved by Cultivation. After all, it's not her thing to make people do exactly what she wants them to, but to give them the chance to reach that by their own will and make their own decision for it. That said, I do think that Cultivation's plans are incredibly shaky. Dalinar's decision against Odium was a huge gamble, so I do think that there are many things that could go wrong with her plans. I think that might be because straight manipulation is against her Intent. Just like Preservation can't kill anyone, Cultivation might not be able to force people into doing something, so she has to give them a choice, because otherwise, she refuses their growth. Taravangian probably chose the wrong thing. She wants to cultivate him as well, she wants him to grow - in what way exactly obviously isn't certain yet, but I see several possibilities: She might challenge him to choose against utilitarism and for idealism (a strong theme with the Knights Radiant, after all), or she might challenge him to always make his own decisions instead of following the orders of another version of him. Cultivation needs autonomy and independence, and Taravangian as of now is very dependent on the Diagram e.g. what his former self said. So I believe that Taravangian, as of yet, refused to grow. It's comparable to how Dalinar losing his memories could have been used by Odium to make him his, but Dalinar's own decision prevented that from happening, so it helped him grow as a person. And Taravangian hasn't done that yet and always decided to do the wrong thing. So, for Cultivation it seems to be important that a person can also fail. Which, again, makes her plans very risky, but she might not be able to do it any other way.

Yeah, that's certainly how it's meant. It wouldn't make any sense for two Shards to settle on a vast vacant planet.

I wonder where the humans on Sel came from if the Shards were already dead before they inhabited the planet ... This is probably the case. Maybe not from the start, but I imagine the Skaze had a huge impact on what Shu-Dereth came to represent over the centuries. After all, the Fjordell Empire insists on dominating the continent.

That is certainly a way to do it, but still harder than killing a living person. You'd have to use a hemalurgic spike and hit the right spot with it (like the sides or the aorta). With a regular person ... well, all people do in medivial wars is spiking people and they die. So yeah.

That would be an eternity of torture for both of them, heheh. Kelsier is not a Shadow anymore though. That said:

Brandon said that Kelsier could have been the antagonist in a different story, yes, but he wouldn't have been like Rashek, he would have been like a certain guy from Warbreaker. Kelsier is not a dictator who uses koloss and inquisitors to oppress people for 1000 years. Of course he's a maniac in his own way, but at least he is able to feel remorse over the deaths of some people, and yes, those are only a selected group, but hey, they exist (like in FE chp. 25 where Vin has to stop him from throwing his life away by trying to help his dying army). He has people he cares about, and I don't think the same can be said about Rashek. That guy has told himself that everything he does is justified to save Scadrial, but there isn't one person he would feel bad killing - at least I wouldn't know who that would be. In my opinion, they are both very different characters, since Rashek doesn't seem to have any kind of emotion left, he's just used to destroying things, while Kelsier is a very emotion driven character and destructive for that reason in turn. Of course, they are similar in the sense that they both have been (albeit opposed) destructive forces on Scadrial and both have done things to serve Ruin without knowing it (Rashek providing a whole hemalurgic army for Ruin to control, thanks a lot, and Kelsier overthrowing the Empire, the latter being the more excusable thing to do, in my opinion). They are different persons, but have done things that have similar ramifications, which is the reason for the ongoing parallels that Secret History points to. (Like Kelsier saying "almost", when he's asked if he is Lord Ruler). I'm not saying they should not be compared, the books obviously encourage the reader to do that. But their personalities are different. Thinking of it, Rashek seems to have been more like Marsh pre-Empire. Also: Secret History provides several examples. His hatred of the nobility is not touched upon there though, so that's probably true.

I checked back and it is indeed more vague than I thought, but him not being close to Preservation's Intent was also a reason: Seems to be more complicated. I guess there are things he couldn't do because of him being a Cognitive Shadow and things he couldn't do because of him being Kelsier.

The primary reason why Kelsier couldn't hold Preservation was because he had too much of Ruin in him (that's what Leras himself states). We don't know much about how Connections work and all that Spiritual Realm stuff, but I imagine that it is necessary for a person to be Connected to a Shard's Intent to a certain extent for them to make proper use of it. And that's the reason why that didn't work out. That said, of course we don't know what would have happened if he had been more of a fit for it. Leras doesn't mention any other problem with the possiblity of Kelsier holding the Shard, so I don't think the difference is severe enough to be worth a mention in that context. Although, of course, it's only his mind holding it, while the Shard exists on all three realms. I imagine it being like Ruin's situation in Hero of Ages: He has full control over his power, but the power is limited due to him not having the atium, e.g. the Shard's body. It seems plausible that a purely cognitive vessel would lack contact to the Shard's physical aspects and therefore couldn't use all of its power. If this is true, it would probably be up to debate whether or not it could be called "fully" holding a Shard. It would depend on whether Ati "fully" held Ruin without access to the atium. With all that said, I certainly hope a herald could hold a Shard without too much of a disadvantage, because Taln holding Honor is still one of the most beautiful things that could happen in the cosmere, in my opinion.

I honestly don't think they'll ever happen. Brandon is important enough to be entitled to have a word in adaptions of his works (at least it seems he always made sure he did up till now) and he has a pretty strict quality standard. So he'll presumably hinder anything less than satifying from happening. And it will be crazy hard to do anything satisfying. His stories aren't made for the pacing of visual mediums. Too much information. I'm not saying that it's impossible to make a convincing adaptation, but it would take a miracle and a lot of courage and alterations for it to happen. So I don't have high hopes, or any at all. And it's good that way. I don't need an adaptation. The books are great the way they are and I don't see a need for adaptations. There's certainly a market, but that should not be the only reason to do it. Which brings me to the next point: God no, not Disney. Even if it happens, that would be the worst. I would sign petitions from keeping them from doing it. It would become the next money piling apperatus. It would ache my heart to see that happen to the Cosmere.