Nellac

Here's the problem. If you justify anger against a certain race, for any reason, then you just keep adding to the problem. Let's say the dark eyes manage to pull off a massive coup. They create a worldwide coaltition and completely overthrow the light eyes. Let's also imagine they took your approach and hated the light eyes and justified it by how they had been treated. Now they are in power, do you think that animosity will fade? It won't if anything it'll just get stronger and stronger. THey will likely treat the light eyes worse then even they were treated in retribution. Within like three generations Roshar would be in the same social situation, just with dark eyes on top and light eyes underneath. This would cary on until light eyes threw a coup and so on and so forth forever. The only way out of this loop is to disavow racism at every level. Even those who have been oppressed and treated unfairly need to realize that unless they can set that aside for a greater future, the world will be stuck in this spiral. As Kaladin said to Moash, "We need to be better then them", or something similar. Without some group putting aside their hatred and anger and finally living up to the ideal of treating everyone equally, nothing will change but the color of eyes of those in charge. THis is the problem with justifying racism simply because you've been treated badly. P.S. There is a point in one of the books where bridge 4 actuallty has a discussion about this. I can't remember if it's in WoR or tWoK, and I only have audio so if someone else knows where that is and could quote it that would be nice.

This is false on so many levels. Simply because someone isn't part of the "dominant class" doesn't mean that they are relieved of all responsibility for there racist actions towards others. Here's the actual definition of racist. Adjective: showing or feeling discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or believing that a particular race is superior to another. Now, on Roshar this can be applied both to light and dark eyed people. For one, you see everyone see themselves as superior to the parshmen. There are also plenty of examples of light-eyes looking down on the dark-eyes. What we don't often acknowledge is the racism from the dark-eyes towards the light eyes. We see this most in Moash, but other Bridge 4 members show it too. We see Kaladin think things about how spoiled Shallan is simply because she's a light-eyes. At one point we even see Moash use the excuse that the King is a light-eyes so it's not as bad to kill him. All of these things, from light eyes and dark eyes, are racist. Now we can have an argument over if some of it is justified, but just saying you can't be racist towards the dominant class is ridiculous.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the stormfather said that Dalinar making a perpendicularity was a new ability. I believe that since honor is now dead the Spren have more of his power and so can do new and greater things. Also here's the question. If shardplate can just be made without some of a radiants personal abilities needing to be used, why not make more? What not create a giant store if plate that can be passed from generation to generation and used each time a desolation hits. If the plate isn't locked to only a radiant at a certain oath obtaining it, why not give them to as many soldiers as possible? I think the name Willshaper comes from there ability to use cohesion. Now, we haven't seen cohesion used yet, but I think it could do some very interesting things. I agree with the idea that Willshapers are tinkers, but I think of that more with the powers. They mess with their abilities so much that they know them innately. This probably leads to incredible shows of power that make it seem like they can shape the very works into what they will. I believe that in one vision Dalinar sees a radiant use cohesion to change rock into a series of steps. This seems to be shaping things with your will.

Also, on a writing perspective I don't see it happening. I don't have the WOB in front of me, but Brandon says one of his greatest writing errors was how he dealt with Jasnah's death. He felt it was too cheesy to bring her back and he wrote it badly. That being said, I don't see him bringing back anyone else in stormlight

I think we are using the wrong term here. I believe Kaladin is less racist then classist. He doesn't necessarily have a problem with people's eye come so much as their status. This is why he accepts the "tenners" so easily. They are near his same class and so he doesn't have a problem with them. The reason it seems like racism is because he's always saying "light eyes." The thing is, the alethi don't have a term for nobility. This is down in Kaladin and Teft's inability to understand how the horn eaters government works. I think a better analogy for the situation on Roshar would be the nobility and peasants of medieval Europe. Kaladin has a problem with those who are in power, not those with light eyes. The problem is that in Roshar those things entertwine so much that it is hard, even for people on Roshar, to distinguish between the two. Basically, Kaladin hates people in power, but since all the people in power are light eyes, he transfers that anger towards them. Here's another reason why I don't think he's racist. He tries to take Shen in and treat him equally. Now, I know he doesn't always do the best at fulfilling that ideal, but he tries harder then anyone else we see in the book to work with and even treat equally a parshman.

So, I'm reading through the books again and little things keep catching my attention. One is that in WoR while Kaladin is in jail he sees little Spren that look like wires. In an interlude that I think is in twok we see Axis the collection looking for Spren. At the end when he is sent to jail he says something about having another chance to see captivity Spren. I believe this is what Kaladin saw in his cell. Now, the interesting part is why Kaladin saw it when Axis never did. This may be because he is a radiant, buti think there's more to it. I think it is because Kaladin felt trapped. He felt like he was caged and therefore his emotions drew the Spren to him. Now Axis seems to be so carefree I doubt he truly felt captive in prisons. More than likely he just sees it as a slight delay in his quest to see all Spren. This mindset is not enough to draw the Spren.

Is there such a thing? Isn't the point of morality that you are doing the right thing? Can it be possible to do too good of a thing? I understand, but don't agree with, the argument that what Moash did was right, but that doesn't seem to be your rebuttal here. It seems, and you can correct me if I'm misinterpreting it, that you are saying that simply because it's hard to take the high road, we shouldn't be disappointed in those who don't. This doesn't make any sense. We should all try to do the best and most moral thing we can and expect others too as well. Now we can disagree and debate on what is and what isn't moral, but to justify actions by saying it is too highly most to expect people to do it is ridiculous. It's basically an easy it for those who don't want to do the right thing.

So, I'm rereading WoR and something struck me from Lift's chapter. Windle mentions that the reason he believes Lift can turn food straight into stormlight is because she is partially in the cognitive realm. Now that got me thinking. Could an Elsecaller do something similar? They are the one's closest to shadesmar because of their abilities so maybe they can, maybe just temporarily, move part of themselves into the cognitive realm so they can get a similar affect. Perhaps is the Elsecaller's resonance. Just a thought I figured I'd throw out here to see if others have had similar thoughts or could build upon/disprove this theory.

And yet there is someone in the story who had gone through extremely similar, if not worse, circumstances and come out on top and taken the high road. Kaladin not only didn't do anything to the light eyes at first, but actively tried to appease and help them. Him and his father even saved Rashone's life and did what they could for his son. In return, Kaladin lost his brother, the one person who could drive away his depression and brought joy into his life. He then set that aside and still kept fighting for the very light eyes. Then Kaladin risks his life, and the life of most of his men to save Amaram, the very man who broke his promise to protect Tien. After saving Amaram and killing a full on shard-bearer, an act that wouldd put him in the history books forever, Kaladin is then betrayed and all of his men are killed by the very man he saved. He is then made a slave and sent to work as a human shield. He figures it out and uses his leadership and surgebinding to save himself and all of his men, including Moash. He then tries to out the man who ruined his life and is thrown in prison for the trouble. Now there is a point here where he starts to take the low road, but he quickly realizes that this viewpoint is flawed. He then goes out and risks his life to save the very man who had him thrown in jail. He even stands up against his "friend" to do so. He then has to watch Amaram be made into a high prince, one of the most powerful people in the world at that point. He also goes to meet Rashone and is in a position where he could kill him. He has the power to get vengeance on the man who doomed his brother to die in the army, but he decides to be better than that. He takes the higher road and walks away from his desire for revenge. Now he does later get to kill Amaram, but that is in the heat of battle. If Moash hadn't tried to assassinate the king, but had first attacked him during the invasion in Alethkar there would be less reason to be angry because that is just how war goes. Yes, Moash had it rough, but I find it hard to believe it's bad to ask this person to take the high road. Especially when there is a character in the book who has gone through just as hard of times and has taken that very same high road. I think many people who dislike Moash and his choices don't have a problem with his anger and hatred at the King. It is the fact that instead of putting his anger aside for the betterment of himself, Bridge 4, and Alethkar as a hole, as Kaladin does, he let's it rule his life and he turns on the man that he literally took him from the bottom to the top. The man that took him from a slave who would've certainly died, to a highly respected light-eyes that has two priceless weapons. It's not the fact that he's angry that people hate, it is how he deals with that anger and how it affects Kaladin.

That's not what I'm saying at all. I think it's fine you posted that. I was just throwing this out there in case you or anyone else wanted to dive a little deeper into other theories related to this one

This idea has been thrown around a lot and I think it makes a lot of sense. Here's a link to the thread here I shared what I thought would happen with these lesser spren.

I wonder if it is the ability to capture Spren in gems. It's mentioned that they teach this skill to the parshendi, but I don't think we know when it was actually discovered, or I guess rediscovered in the modern age.

I agree with everything you've said, except this statement. Every single member of any of the bridge crews brought to Dalinar's camp owe their lives to Kaladin. Without him they would've all been dead within a month running Bridges for Sadeas. Moash even more so because he would have died weeks before they even left Sadeas' camp if it wasn't for Kaladin's leadership and surgebinding.

I want this to be true so bad. I'm not sure it will, but I really want it to. It would make sense though

Yeah, stupid spell check. I'm using mobile currently

I have no doubt that those people are out there and I think putting someone down for there opinion is terrible. I completely disown those kind of people. Anyways here's a thought that I haven't seen discussed here a ton. If Moash had been patient he could have gained the social and political strength and recognition to get a hearing on this and maybe even get some Justice dealt out. Now, one of the big arguments I hear is that since Moash was just a dark eyed soldier he never could have gotten an actual trial against the king. While that's true at first, let's take a step back and look at some other factors. For one, he is friends with one of the most powerful people on Roshar, Kaladin. He is also one of the personal bodyguards to the king himself. Later on her becomes a loving legend by becoming one of the only dark eyes in living memory to get plate and a blade. All this being said, if he wanted to he could create a huge fuss politically speaking. If he had taken his accusations to Dalinar he could have gotten his backing to go after the real culprit Rashone. Also, I think by taking justice into his own hands, he fails to see the other side. He doesn't even know how the king was manipulated by Rashone or how Dalinar, admittedly poorly, tried to fix the situation. If this thread has proven anything it's that there's always the other side does/thinks that they do and without understanding that you can't make a truly educated decision. Here's the last thing. The question really comes down to, is mutual destruction justified. The idea of an eye for an eye had been around for nearly all of human civilization. But honestly it just makes everything worse. At this point, is Elhokar's soon justified in hunting down Moash when he grows up? By Moash's logic, as I understand it, it would seem so. But by then maybe Moash has a kid. Then are they justified in hunting down Elhokar's son? This path just leads to a spiral of destruction until one group is able to make the difficult to decision to let it go for the good of everyone. That's the biggest problem I have with Moash's choices. He is willing to put aside the good of everyone for revenge. Now, I get exactly why he did it, but I still wish he could've been better than that. That he could've gotten over his rage and helped build a better Roshar. Now I'm not saying this to prove you're wrong, mainly in curious to see your responses. Sorry if I came off a bit aggressive in the last post, but it truly felt like people who dislike Moash were being dismissed as sheep it cowards

Here's a couple of alternative theories 1. As had been started before Brandon clearly wrote the scene in such a way as to make Moash out to be the bad guy. I don't think it's fair to get mad at people because they see something in the way the other is obviously nudging them towards. 2. Here's the bigger reason I think people have a problem with Moash. They feel betrayed. Here's the difference between Moash and the king and Dalinar and all the other light eyes. We first see Moash do great things. He helps save Dalinar and his men on the plateau run. He helps Kaladin keep bridge 4 running. He does all this awesome stuff that pretty much everyone agrees is great, and then he does something that people feel is bad. With Szeth and the other light eyes, we never really saw them so something great before they did something evil so it wasn't as painful. It's like how it would be nice more shocking if your best friend robbed a bank then if it was a random person you'd never met. Now, as to Dalinar. We do know that he has done terrible things in the past, but we don't learn this until we see the man he becomes. Those things are then seen as tragic, but there pain is tempered by the knowledge that he later rights his wrongs. We don't have that with Moash. 3. He cut off a redemption arc. Now, whether you like it or not, it does appear that in OB Elhokar does start to go through a redemption arc. He tries to do what is right and actually seeks the guidance of others in doing so. He even forfeits some of his power to Dalinar and then risks his life to go on a mission to help his people. Now, we're in this moment where this spoiled brat is actually starting to look decent and might actually become a good and useful person and then WHAM. Moment ended by Moash and we'll never know how Elhokar could have turned out. Now, I'm not saying it's a bad thing if you like Moash. Personally, I dislike him for all of the above reasons. But to say it's "convenient" to like him doesn't make sense. The way you say it makes it sound like they're taking the easy way out and not actually looking at the evidence. That's not true. I've looked at the evidence and all the posts on this thread. While I can get where you're coming from, I still don't agree. It's fine if you like Moash and we can go back and forth on our personal grievances with him or the king, but don't disregard those who disagree. We're not doing it just cause it's "cool" we're doing it because we don't think what Moash did was ethical. If you want people to respect your position on this, you also need to respect theirs.

Are you sure about that? In oathbringer it is hinted that Yasnah has something reminiscent of plate. Also, that doesn't really make sense given the state of the radiants. The lightweaver's as an order don't seem to be like the quartermasters of the radiants. Also, what do you define as "encasing"? It could be said that when someone is lashed they are encased in stormlight because it's covering them and making them glow. You could also just use the lashing that sticks things together and completely cover someone with it. One more thing, if lightweavers can just make plate, why don't they make some for the common people as well? If I'm not correct, which is absolutely a possibility, I find it more likely that each order gets their plate differently then the lightweavers make all the plate.

Why them in particular?

What is your source for this statement? We see Shallan having it before third ideal, but she's different because she swore oath and then went back and restarted the process so this could just be a side affect. As for the others, I'm assuming you are talking about Renarin and Malata. We have seen these two use blades, but we don't really know where they are in their oaths so can't say whether they've sworn the third or not.

Spoiler Warning: I use information from all three stormlight books along with a tiny bit from the mistborn series So, I put part of this theory on another thread, but since then I've thought more about it and refined it a bit. In short, Radiants form a "proto-plate" by a combination of their surgebinding and their secondary spren. Bondsmiths then take this and forge it into true Shardplate. So to get deeper into my theory, it was sparked by a quote from one of Dalinar's visons. Oathbringer page 352 "I think something might be wrong with my armor!" Dalinar shouted to him "I can't make my helm retract!" In response, the other Radiant made his vanish. Dalinar caught sight of a puff of Light or mist. Beneath the helm, the man had dark skin and curly black hair. His eyes glowed blue "Retract your helm?" he shouted "You haven't summoned your armor yet; you had to dismiss it so I could Lash you" Oh, Dalinar thought. "I mean earlier. It wouldn't vanish when I wanted it to" "Talk to Harkaylain then, or to your spren" The Windrunner frowned. "Will this be a problem for our mission?" Now the thing that is interesting about this quote is that Dalinar is referred to go to someone else for help with his plate. Many people suggest that plate is a bond with the lesser spren of a given order. For example, windspren for windrunners, gloryspren for Bondsmiths, etc. As interesting a theory as this is, and I don't think it's too far off the mark, it doesn't make sense given the above quote. If the bond a radiant had to their plate was just between them and the spren why would they need someone else's help to fix it? I believe that the man mentioned in the quote, Harkaylain, was a Bondsmith. To take a step back, I don't think Bondsmiths just magically whip plate out of the air. If they could do that, why not give regular people plate as well? I think that before a Radiant can get true Shardplate, they must make what I will dub "proto-plate." This proto-plate would be armor that was made out of a combination of that radiant's particular secondary spren and surges. We have seen something similar to this already on Shallan. Once a radiant had enough control over their proto-plate they could take it to a Bondsmith and create their full plate. So, here's where I think we start to see the literal result of the name Bondsmith. I think these Radiants had the ability to create bonds between people and spren. Now, we've seen Dalinar reach all the way between realms and bring them together, but we also know this is a new ability. I believe that the Bondsmiths of the past could do something similar, but on a much smaller scale. Bondsmiths could take the essence of the lesser spren, which exists mostly in the cognitive realm, and combine it with the Radiant's surges, which comes from their use of investiture, which is from the spiritual realm, and combines them and brings them into the physical realm to create plate. Now, a couple of other things that could help this theory make more sense. One of the major differences between modern plate and shards is the ability to dismiss them. Modern blades can be dismissed just like those the radiants had, but plate can't. I think this is because the plate is more tightly linked to their spiritual signature. As we know, shardblades are dead radiant spren. Now, while these spren have been bonded in the past, they are distinct beings, likely with their own spiritual signature. This means it's not that far off for them to be able to recreate a smaller version of that bond with people, even when their dead. If I'm correct the major difference with Radiant plate is that it contains some of the radiant's investiture. Now we have seen from feruchemy that when investiture comes from a certain person it is permanently linked to them and cannot be used by others. This could explain how no one has found a way to dismiss modern shardplate. They can use the physical item, much like you could wear a feruchemist's bracelet, but they can't actually utilize the underlying abilities. Another idea that I think makes this more likely is the fact that Modern shardplate is seen to be really similar across the board. We even see Dalinar use the gauntlet from Adolin's suit in TWoK. Now, if each order made their plate a different way, or just by their surges and lesser spren, it would seem plate should look very different depending on the order it came from. I propose that the reason they look the same is because they are made of the same material. When you really get down to it spren are just collections of Honor and Cultivations power given sapience. In this way all lesser spren are the same substance, just in different shapes. I would relate this to metal ingots used in forging. Each type of spren is a type of ingot. They are all made of the same material, say iron, but some are circular, others are squares etc. When the Bondsmith forges them together with the radiant's power the shape they were in before doesn't matter, only the material. Since all spren are effectively the same material, it makes sense that all plate would look extremely similar, regardless of the order it came from. I know this is a lot of theorizing, but given the lack of actual information we have on these topics i figured I'd at least give it a shot. I'll be the first to admit I'm no master realmatic scholar so if you have thoughts/ideas on why this would/wouldn't be correct or tweaks that need to be made let me know.

Yeah, that makes sense. That's kind of the point I was trying to get across though. I don't think they would need to take as drastic an effort as cutting someone with a shardblade to create these cracks.

Also, I think we overestimate what is needed for there to be a crack in the soul. Obviously all the main characters have crazy stories and their spirit we've are probably pretty damaged accordingly, but some of the lesser radiants are less likely to have this. We know bridge 4 is also likely to have cracks in their souls, but what about the other people they recruit? The light eyes and messenger women we learn about in oathbringer? None of them seem to have some crazy story, but they have at least become squires which makes me think they also have these soul cracks

So, I skimmed over everything so this might have already been brought up, but remember Dalinar's visions. In one of them he is talking to the other radiant and telling him that his plate isn't working properly. The radiant tells him to go talk to someone, I can't remember the name, when they get back to Urithiru. This makes it seem obvious that there is someone else who has power over radiant plates. Building off of what has been said here's my theory. The radiant creates a "framework" for lack of a better term. This framework is a combination of their surges and their lesser spren. I think this is the only thing we have seen on modern radiants. Once the person has sufficient control over their framework they go to one of the bondsmiths. I think their name is more literal then we often take it. I don't think they just create bonds between people, I think they have some power to bind spren. The Bondsmith can then bind the spren and stormlight to the radiant creating true shardplate. Now, looking at the shard plate normal people have, here's my thoughts. If we look at this as if we are literally forging armor there are some interesting things we can come across. All spren are aspects of honor and cultivations power. They could be said to be made of the same material, just in different shapes. When a Bondsmith forges shardplate perhaps they break the spren back down into this power and then make them into armor. This way all plate is actually the same material. The different spren could be compared to different shaped ingots. Whether you use square, rectangular, or circular ingots, as long as the metal is the same you will end up with the same armor. This compatibility is what let Dalinar use Adolin's gauntlet and why no one sees a difference between sets of modern plate. Of course this is simplifying it quite a bit and there's probably more to it, but I think it fits.

Yeah, I saw the double post, I just didn't know how to get rid of it. Thanks for the advice