Frustration

I'm afraid I don't see any exaggeration. And later on This is Jasnah intentionally sugar coating what she's saying because one of the individuals she considered assassinating was in the room. She even worries that Taravangian would recreate the paper trails of her assassination plans, implying that she might very well have had assassins watching Fen just as she had watching Aesudan, or at the very least contracts prepared for assassin's to do just that. None of these people were threats to Jasnah physically. Her family owned more Shards and commanded almost all of the radiants. Many were her allies, and at most they were only threats to her political power.

As one of said individuals, I think I should clarify my stance on Jasnah, as it seems I wasn't clear before. I'm not upset that she lost an argument. That happens to everyone, you can be the smartest person in the room, and still lose because of skill, an information disparity or simple luck. My problem with Jasnah is that she's willing to kill both friend and foe alike if they get in her way, and when she's confronted about this behavior she has no response other than: "It's what any queen would do in my situation." This isn't just terrible people anymore like the footpads in WoK, robbers, murderers and rapists who were in the process of attacking again, it's even good people like Fen, on the off chance that they become an inconvenience. I was willing to offer her some leeway when she was planning on assassinating Aesudan in WoR because I thought she might know about Aesudan's dealings with secret societies/the Unmade. Which I could understand, even if I find that slightly extreme, especially for your own sister-in-law. However WaT shows us that not only was this not the case, Aesudan was just a political inconvenience, but she was also willing to kill Fen and and of the other Coalition leaders if they got in the way. This is exactly the kind of actions that we hate and condemn Taravangian for, and I condemn Jasnah for the same reasons. Ah, I think I understand now. You aren't just looking at at the use of one spren or even a group of spren being used for fabrials, you're worried that all of them will be, and there won't be any in the wild anymore. It's not the treatment of the individual spren, it's the potential captivation of a species. Am I a little closer to your worries?

We're in the open cosmere discussions, anyone who wants to avoid spoilers should avoid the forums. Only IotED has to be spoilered

Okay that's an interesting take to me. By chance have you seen the movie Monster Trucks, and how do you feel about said vehicles? For those of you who do not know the plot is about a mechanic who finds a weird monster creature with crazy biology that he uses like an engine for his truck, which can now go way faster, drive up walls, and a whole bunch of other nonsense.

Ah why thank you, that's perfect actually. I love the feeling of making a call perfectly like that. So I'd say that takes about half of the time dilation effect on any way effort out, and makes this a much more even fight than it would be otherwise, but I'll stick with my original analysis

Well they weren't supposed to become deadeyes. As Maya told us in RoW, they expected pain, but not death. They were probably attempting to become something like the Oathless, Shards without surges. I think it would be disingenuous to hold them accountable for something they didn't intend to happen. I think blaming all of the humans for the actions of Ishar(a man clearly not in his right mind) to be analogous to blaming all Austrians for WW2. Navani was an idiot for that I 100% agree, though to be fair the spren-killing was the work of Raboniel, a Rosharan Native, not Navani. So I have some neighbors that have cats. They don't feed the cats, they live outside. These cats have no survival advantages over their feral cousins. Are these neighbors terrible animal abusers? I don't believe so. While cats are living beings, and deserving some level of respect for that, they don't approach the moral value of a human being, and never can. Indeed the ONLY individual who seems to find some objection to fabrials is the Sibling, even as Navani notes in RoW the other Radiant spren take no issue to it. In fact they use gravitation spren to pull their ships, much as we used horses to pull carts. And I don't think Brandon has too much of an issue with it, as he's confirmed that it will be how Rosharan technology progresses. They did lose everything, I don't deny that. I do deny that the reason they lost everything was the sole responsibility of the Humans. What happened to the Singers with the imprisonment of BAM was an accident. One that they were not intending. As we see from the gemstone archive they only wanted to strip the Singers of forms of power/voidlight. And not even all of the humans wanted that, just Melishi and some of his supporters. And to top that off Melishi died doing it, trapped in a phantasmal approximation of his childhood bedroom. He in many ways got the same treatment Misharam did. The only difference is that eventually she got out. Well by the time Ruin and Preservation were having their throwdown 3 other Shards were dead, Mercy was wounded, and Honor and Cultivation were already dealing with Odium. In fact we know that Autonomy briefly passed through Scadrial thousands of years back. It's possible she did help, and that's part of why she feels entitled to the planet. And just listen to Endowment talking about it. Or Autonomy And who knows it's possible Hoid did try just as hard to save Scadrial. He know he's the one who lead the remnants of the Terris to Luthadel in WoA, which was were he spent most of the book, so the only reason the Terri's still exist is because of him. And he might very well have done more if Kelsier hadn't stopped him from meeting with Vin in HoA. The Rosite Aether did indeed help Scadrial when the Set was doing their thing, and if they had had more time they might have sent more of their Aetherbound. And on Sel the two Shards started off fighting each other. And how would he do that? He apologized to Rlain, even let him have a spear before the everstorm came. What more does he need to do in your eyes? I agree that especially in RoW Navani's treatment of the Sibling is poor to say the least. But when Retribution was made and when the Sibling cried out for help Navani was willing to answer, which did end with her stuck in the middle of a crystal sphere. See point about deadeyes above. I don't think you have to worry about an invasion Melaan is on another world, not Scadrial in the epilogue, the only thing is Chouta, but that's no more evidence of a Rosharan migration is than the unkeyed dor is evidence of a Selish migration. That said I do think a deep dive into some of the twisted modalities, especially of Jasnah is very warranted, and deserves a reevaluation from us as the readers in light of WaT. I had always wondered why she was ordering Aseudan's assassination, but had assumed Jasnah knew that she was messing around with Unmade stuff or something along those lines. Apparently not, she was just a political threat.

The answer: less than infinity but greater than any other number. We eventually dubbed it: Mistnumber because writing out 1*10^19000.....*3*(50+) took a lot of effort

I'm so glad this is still brought up every now and again

Okay I didn't actually finish all of this but I had to reply here @Aliroz-The-Confused I reading this do believe that many here have been incredibly unfair to you, as I listened to your points this scene kept popping into my head I think you go a little too far sometimes, but there's a lot of reason to what you say, and I'll try and go through the biggest points here on both sides. I don't know what reaction the Rosharans are supposed to have for other worlds. The vast majority of them will never see one. And the ones that have the option need some reason to want to see them. I for example have no desire to visit Spain. That's just not something that interests me. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of thinking of Spaniards in a way other than to exploit them. As for Shallan there are two things here, the first, and I will repeat it multiple times throughout this post is that yes, Brandon intentionally dials back some of the protagonists negative qualities to make them more likable, and he admits it. You are 100% right about that. On the other hand Shallan doesn't know how important masks are to southern Scadrians, an example I would make is how you wouldn't blame the police for taking a superhero's mask off after they died. I know this is months old, but I just want to say that this is one of the best descriptions of the Rosharan magic systems I have ever seen. That's actually a rather deep and searching analysis. One that the books point out occasionally, but fail to actually confront. Dalinar and his brother placed themselves in power through conquest, but when someone stronger came along they were immediately painted not only as the bad guys, but who are enforcing false claims. No one brings up the legitimacy crisis that this creates. It would appear that the Vorin church lost a significant amount of power during the books, with about half of the ardents following Dalinar, who by working with Jasnah on Oathbringer probably softened a lot of conflict there. Though yes, the part that does not follow Dalinar is not giving her nearly the problem they could. Another set of examples of this WoB. Though I disagree specifically with the desecration of corpses. It's an icky, and unpleasant thing to be sure but I don't see anything any more inherently wrong with it than having cadavers in an anatomy class. I know you're trying to be funny, but that's not a very nice to @Aliroz-The-Confused I know you disagree with his opinions about the books, but we're talking about ink and paper here, we don't need to be disparaging about real people. ^Based I like that he's still alive. It means I can have an even more cathartic victory when he finally get's his face ground against the stone. Okay this one is interesting, because I saw it as Sigil not renouncing the commitments he had made to protect others, including those he hates. Especially true seeing his actions in SLM. I saw that as him sacrificing his Radiance in order to save her life. Now that's an interesting take, and the first point where I will outright disagree. Not on the point that nuance has very little place in fantasy(I'm so tired of "moral ambiguity") but the idea that fantasy should speak to the emotions more than the mind. I find fantasy to be one of the most mentally invigorating experiences I've had. *Claps hands* Based. Plot armor is waaaaaay too think in Stormlight. Of another world, that's difficult. I also can't think of any examples of characters acting for the detriment of another world either. As for humans acting for the benefit of non-humans: 1. Kaladin arguing in favor of the Singers during the planning meeting in Urithiru during Oathbringer 2. Kaladin sparing a Fused who didn't have enough voidlight left to fight in RoW 3. Adolin listening to and eventually succeeding in partially reviving Maya 4. Kaladin and the other Heralds being willing to endure torture again if the mind/vision protection didn't work to save the Spren 5. Navani accepting the trance state to protect the Sibling 6. Renarin and Rlain freeing Mishram Okay that's mostly Kaladin being the best but still. 1. Yes Jasnah is a bad person, based. 2. I'm not sure if I understand the spren or singers argument, and let me explain why. With the Singers: The Singers intentionally only gave the humans a useless swath of land that they didn't want anyway and the humans could barely survive on, or else accept servitude with no way to assimilate with the larger Singer nations or leave Shinovar. I'm not surprised at all that they tried leaving. As for the whole Mishram situation, that was an unintended action that most of the humans themselves didn't want. With the Spren the deadeyes accepted being killed, and went willingly, perhaps even suggesting that course of action. The lesser spren show no more intelligence than horses or dogs, and I see no reason they can't be treated as such. To be fair the Rosharans had been begging for help with the Odium problem for thousands of years and with the exception of Sazed everyone else just shrugged and said: "That's your problem you deal with it". I don't think that gives them a responsibility to deal with it on their own. I honestly saw that as a brilliant 5D move that caught me completely off guard. Well please don't do that, I just got back and was looking forward to your insights. I do indeed contest such a comparison(even if I can't find the post in question). You are loved and appreciated here.

*Returns high-five* How's may favorite fellow anti-ebook gator doing? A non-opaque version of Aluminum, or did you mean something else? A way to detect Illusions would be good, but it looks like the ghost bloods white-sand is all they have.

Two years Yeah but Shallan didn't stab anyone with it, which is kind of the crazy thing. Definitely gives a lightweaver a huge advantage. Imagine what would happen if you managed to get visual contact with a command post and made an illusion of one of the commanders stabbing another. Even if it didn't kill them it would create lots of internal struggle and distrust.

Why thank you my dear friend, but I am here now. Well I'll admit I was not expecting Wind and Truth to go the way it did, but alright. Let's take an analysis. New things in WaT Urithiru is all but untouchable with infinite towerlight and such Substantiation: Making Illusions solid, possibly just a Shallan thing, possibly an Honor is dead thing. Only Windrunner plate can be easily shared Windrunners developed a form of Morse code We saw more division and that it can almost instantly burn through Stone We Saw Elsegates that are just basically portals Focused ones show similar levels of Strength to Duralumin-Pewter, which is crazy We see just how superior Singers are to normal humans, feet immune to Caltrops, armor almost plate, heat-resistant, faster stronger etc It appears that there might only have been three Thnderclasts, but I will say that the art saying that there are three also gave their names. I could just as easily say: "This is a painting of the three Heralds: Ishar, Nale and Taln," and would be correct in so doing, while also not denying the existence of the other seven Heralds. We got confirmation that Windrunner plate can protect while partially unsummoned, for which I feel very vindicated Apparently you can just jump-past ideals and go straight for the fifth Spren can wear shared plate, use sharblades and Unoathed exist These are all unimaginably devastating points that bring Rosharan military might to unquestionably the most powerful shardworld we have seen. Then Retribution happened, and kicked the chair out from under them. No stormlight, almost no fabrials, and I think most devastating of all, no Oathgates. Oathgates were the gold star of Rosharan Logistics, with that special forces, including high oathed radiants of all Orders could get to any location on the continent, in Physical or Cognitive in a matter of hours. It used to be that no matter where they struck on Roshar invaders could expect to encounter the advance elements of Rosharan Resistance before the day was out. Not anymore. So, where does this leave us? Surprisingly this is the first time that an all out war between these two factions becomes possible. I will therefore consider two possibilities: 1. The previous ideas of what an all out war between the two would look like if both sides were bloodlusted(The war will end when one of the parties is dead). 2. What a more realistic conflict between the two would be. In situation 1: This war gets brutal, FAST. No matter who starts it. Due to the time dilation Scadrial has a far easier time than it would otherwise, able to resupply faster, and reposition as needed. I believe it finally gives Scadrial the ability to mount an offensive, though I don't recommend it. The Scardian CR is full of mists, that cause an individual to sink if they aren't floating on something invested. That greatly limits their abilities, as metalminds and hemalurgic spikes are tiny and do not easily carry cargo. Of course they could try just making modified scuba gear and walking, but given the perpendicularity is in a mountain I don't think that's a good idea. Theoretically infrastructure could be created to bridge the gap, and one that fortunately for Scadrial they can spend 10-15 years building in order to ship large groups off world. Getting on to Roshar proves more difficult however, as the only two ways to cross realms currently available are under pretty tight control. Elsegates which only Jasnah could create and she doesn't know how just yet, or Retribution's Perpendicularity which is under Singer control, buried under a crap ton of rock, which they can open or close at will, while also being surrounded by the Shattered plains in all directions, which as the Alethi found out are an absolutely brutal place, and one where the Singers would easily defeat any invaders. Especially with the aid of chasmfiends Roshar invading Scadrial on the other hand could be more interesting. The time dilation does cause problems, but I believe that just like how stormlight used to get heavier the farther away from Roshar you got, that the farther from Roshar you go the less extreme the time dilation would become. An army moving would of course attract attention, but there is little that Scadrial can do about it until they arrive: see Men of Gold and Red in TLM for an example. Getting through the Perpendicularity would be difficult, but Skybreakers, Husked ones and some Focused ones the Skybreakers brought could make a beachhead against whatever(if any) defense has been mounted, while the Heavenly ones begin carrying others, or stealing mercantile vessels to cross. From there the first time the army is likely to meet Resistance would be the Seran mountain range. And it is here they will have their biggest fight. The gap is about 25 miles(40 KM) wide, based on the map. This is the best place, and honestly where Scaridal must hold. Just getting inside the Basin isn't an automatic win, but it does give them a lot of open space, and lets them do a lot of potential damage to the Scadrian economy and infrastructure. And it will be a bloodbath. Google AI search assistant says that between 3-4 hundred soldiers were needed to defend a mile of WW1 trenches, I cannot verify that, and some of the other websites I visited implied higher numbers, but I think that's a good benchmark. That means Scadrial will need to commit between 7,500 to all 10,000 of its soldiers, just on this one battle. If they do not defend the entire line the Rosharan forces just go around them. It's all or nothing and it's right here. Analysis: Both sides suffer enormous casualties. Focused ones, Magnified ones, and Husked ones hit Scadrian lines like monsters straight out of mythology, two of which have strength making even Koloss look weak by comparison. Heavy gunfire hits back, heavy fused bodies resisting greatly, but eventually succumbing to gunshots and grenades(conventional, not Malwish). A couple Thugs, and Iron Ferrings, with obnoxiously large guns, or stationary gun placements serve to stave off the worst of the onslaught, but Husked ones, and Heavenly ones soon make a nightmare even for these. All while conventional Singer Soldiers, Warforms, Direforms, and Stormforms swarm in to aid their leaders. I'd say eventually the Scadrian forces break, as they can't commit enough soldiers to one spot to stop the assault, but they deal enough damage that as the others fall back and regroup the Rosharan forces are sufficiently defeated they have to hold the gap while awaiting reinforcements, lest they be cut off behind enemy lines. A long and brutal war is fought out to a stalemate. The Rosharan forces unable to resupply fast enough to take the basin, with the Scadrian forces unable to push the Rosharan forces off-planet, and it becomes a Scadrian desolation lasting decades before Scadrian technology and military doctrine advanced enough to win decisive victory against the invading army. Casualties on both sides are staggering, economic progress is slowed, and both nations are left exhausted, their resources spent, and populations desolated. Scenario 2: This one is a lot more realistic, but less fun, mostly just masked ones doing a repeat of SoS, much more effective on the Rosharan side as Radiants and Fused are a lot harder for a Kandra to fake, while some heavenly ones with shardblades cut railway lines, burn fields, and generally just make life painful and difficult. Sorry for the Necro, but I desperately wanted this thread.

Happy new year. So there's usually a spoiler stream in January, hopefully by that time they have a new location to source questions from since I don't think they are using Reddit anymore. I guess I might as well put up some questions I would like to see answered, a lot of these can be found on my about me section but I added a few Anyway, anything interesting this month?

It's December time, State of Sanderson and whatnot Also I did a thing I'm a dork I know. Anyway did anything interesting happen this month?

Hi, so as you should all know by now I won't be on the shard for a while, so I put this blog together because it turns out you can have delayed publication on these things. So yeah, I'll try to have at least one for each month I'm gone to remind you all that I exist and what not So yeah, look forward to that.

Yours can't?

That would result in greater clarity, not increased luminosity.

.......................... Sir you just broke my brain. I don't think that's correct, but I find that a very possible theory.

I'm not understanding how pushing a wall suddenly generates extra force, could you please explain that?

If the gem has no bearing on the rate of decay why are cut gems brighter than uncut gems?

I've been thinking about this for a while and it does not work with what we have seen. If decay was the reason the light was created more flawed gemstones would be the brightest, and when a gemstone was shattered it would release a massive burst of light as all of the stormlight inside decayed at once. Neither of which happens.

Wait I'm the top poster in this thread! What!

A number of times I wondered if we were going to get any, perhaps SA 5 will serve that role.